Chopper Unchopped (129 page)

What it all meant to the Kid was that 18 grand going missing was chicken shit.

When he got back to the Telford Club he found Russian Suzi upstairs in the big bedroom giving Coco Joeliene a fast and furious rogering with a huge buzzing vibrator. Johnny stood in the doorway of the bedroom in amazed silence until the two girls noticed him and, like naughty children caught out, covered themselves and hid the battery-operated monster away. Johnny The Kid didn’t say a word. He just walked in and gave each girl a heavy gift wrapped parcel and went back into the lounge room and poured himself a drink. After about a minute he could hear excited noises as the two girls tried on their gold chains and came running into the lounge room in their dressing gowns with their gold chains around their necks. Both girls had tears in their eyes. Then Johnny showed them his watch and Russian Suzi squealed when she saw his bandaged hand. He took off his jacket and shirt and removed the thin bandage, soaked in blood and ink, and showed off his arm-length spider’s web tattoo, and his neck tattoo and his big gold chain.

They were all like excited children. Neither Russian Suzi nor Coco Joeliene had ever really been in love – true emotional mental and physical love with any man. But both girls agreed that they truly loved this cute skinny kid. They couldn’t stop the tears as they admired the expensive gold chains hanging around their necks. It wasn’t the junkie gold – they’d seen plenty of that in their time – but the sentiment that had prompted the Kid to act the way he did. It was the thought that counted.

A strange, unique and lasting emotional bond had formed between these three lost souls. They had become a little gang of three. Their own little family. It was something they had and only they could understand.

‘HOW big do ya reckon her tits are?’ asked Hankster the Gangster. Michelle Bennett was mixing up a full gram of heroin in a large spoon. She was in much consternation, and the Hankster’s questions were annoying her.

‘Whose tits?’ she snapped, her voice as jagged as broken glass.

‘Spooky’s tits,’ said Hank. ‘The big nigger chick.’

‘Why do ya wanna know that for?’ asked Michelle, a bit jealous at Hank’s interest.

‘I was just wondering,’ said Hank. ‘How big do ya reckon?’

Michelle thought. ‘I reckon at least 120 centimetres,’ she said.

‘What’s bloody 120 centimetres?’ asked Hankster. ‘What’s that in the old money?’

Michelle thought again. ‘Oh, about 48 inches,’ she said.

‘Shit,’ said Hank, ‘I’d slip her on like a wet soapy sock.’

Michelle put the needle into the spoon and sucked up a small quarter. Hank couldn’t take much more. She would use the rest.

‘Yeah,’ said Hank. ‘I’m gonna sneak a go at that black moll one night and wop a bit of the Hankster right up her. Ha ha ha.’

‘But I thought I was your girl?’ said Michelle.

Hank laughed. ‘You, ya slut,’ he snorted. ‘You’re anyone’s girl. Hey, Michelle, how many brothers you got?’

Michelle looked at Hank with hurt in her eyes.

‘Four real brothers, three step-brothers,’ she answered, bottom lip trembling. She knew what was coming.

‘Yeah,’ sneered Hank, looking to wound the best way he knew. ‘And which one of them hasn’t been up ya? Ha ha.’

He nearly fell over laughing. Michelle protested. ‘What can I do? I’ve been getting bashed and upended since I was 12 years old. That don’t mean I like it.’

Hank laughed. ‘Oh yeah, what about ya bloody cousins. There’s about a dozen of them and they spend more time up you than a tampon. Ha ha.’

Michelle was now in tears.

‘Yeah well,’ she sobbed, ‘I don’t know. It’s just the way it is.’

Hank snapped, ‘You’re a slut moll, what are ya? Go on, say it.’

Michelle sobbed, ‘I’m a slut moll.’

Hank held out his arm and grated, ‘And don’t forget it, slag. If I tell you to jump, you say “how high”, okay?’

Michelle nodded as she sucked all the heroin up out of the spoon and into the needle.

‘Hold your arm, baby,’ she said to Hank. The big thug gunman held his arm to pump a vein up and Michelle tapped the needle with her finger and found a vein in his arm and sunk the needle in and pushed the plunger. All the way.

The liquid disappeared up into the vein. Hank said, ‘Oh yeah,’ and dropped back onto the bed and breathed in, then out, deeply. And didn’t breathe again.

Michelle whispered, ‘At least my cousins don’t call me names, ya bastard.’ It was no use abusing him. He was gone.

Michelle went into the lounge room of the parlor and spoke to her sisters Tashliene, Samantha and Angela. ‘I think the Hankster is dead. What should we do?’

‘Check his pockets,’ said Angela, quick as a flash. ‘And search his car. Clean out all his money first.’ A NSW copper had taught her that, and there were no better teachers anywhere, apart from St Kilda. They used to turn on the lights and sirens to be first to reach a body. Angela had been a quick learner when it came to matters of currency.

‘Hang on,’ said Tashliene, ‘I want the prick’s jewellery.’

‘Nah, fuck you,’ said Samantha, the smooth one. ‘We whack what he’s got up even between us.’

‘No,’ said Michelle. ‘I mean, should we tell someone?’

‘Tell who?’ said Angela.

‘Tell Suzi,’ said Michelle.

‘Oh yeah, great,’ said Angela. ‘And we all end up dead too. Just dump the dog.’

‘He wasn’t a dog,’ said Tashliene.

‘Oh yeah, he used to make me bark like a dog whenever he got up me,’ said Angela.

‘I didn’t know he was screwing you,’ said Michelle, a strange look on her face.

Tashliene and Samantha looked at Michelle. ‘He was plonking all of us and he used to pull that bark like a dog bitch trick on Yolanda as well,’ Samantha said. ‘What?’ said Michelle.

‘The big Spanish moll. Well, she is a dog.’

‘Whatever,’ said Angela. ‘Let’s take what he’s got and ring the boys and get him dumped some place in Carlton.’

‘He’s got a half pound of smack hidden in his car somewhere,’ said Yolanda as she walked into the room. ‘If we are gonna do it let’s do it right.’

Michelle looked at the Spanish whore with the big boobs. ‘How long you been listening in, ya sly slag?’ she hissed.

HANKSTER the Gangster was found in Canning Street, Carlton. The girls had shot him in the chest with his own shotgun to make it look like murder. Poor Hankster, gunned down in the line of duty. All wore black at his funeral and cried the loudest. Michelle Bennett even fainted and nearly fell into the open grave with grief. It was a beautiful touch.

That night after the funeral Michelle was unable to service clients and the parlor the Bennett sisters ran was closed as a sign of respect. They sat inside at the kitchen table cutting half a pound of pure heroin up into three pound then into lots of three grams. ‘God,’ said Angela, ‘This is hard work.’

‘Yeah,’ said Michelle. ‘And if Yolanda had told me about the half pound before, I would have killed him sooner. Ha ha ha.’

No criminal venture or enterprise can last the distance without force of arms.

– Ripper Roy Reeves, 1973

IT was a lesson the Rabbit Kisser was learning the hard way. She was trying to carry out a blood war and hold together a multi-million dollar drug and sex empire at the same time. But when she killed Johnny Go Go she blew away half her force of arms and nearly all her drug connections. She had killed the major part of her own power base and her vanishing act allowed the various Collingwood criminal families to seize control of her empire in return for their physical help in her war with the wogs. She accepted this as fair payment and compensation. Her baby was safe and sound with a $1 million in trust for him, and she had another two million and a massive armory of weapons hidden in a secret underground cellar under the floor of the Telford Social Club in Victoria Street, Abbotsford.

The Caballero Club had been Johnny Go Go’s and as far as Karen was concerned it could die with him. She was all alone. She didn’t see Guzzinburg as part of her crew. He was expensive hired help.

Young Johnny McCall was a cute kid on his way up and a vicious little killer and his love for her and his loyalty touched her even if he did tickle the kitty when he had to collect money for her. So what. He was a good kid. You can’t expect thieves to back you up without losing a little petty cash along the way. The little bugger had touched her pocket for about forty thousand in the past month and bloody Russian Suzi had run financial riot. There was an easy $100,000 missing at her end but what of it? The war was everything. The money was only the grease that kept the wheel moving.

Melbourne had approximately 5000 whores, and about 1000 had been controlled by her. The wogs controlled another 1000. The rest ran free range, like wild chooks. Karen controlled all the smack and speed from Collingwood to Abbotsford, Clifton Hill, and Victoria Park. And she was pushing into Carlton and parts of Brunswick and North Melbourne. Karen had $127,000 in cash on her and two .38 calibre automatic hand guns, loaded, and six spare clips. She had a pound of pure meth amphetamine for party use in the back of her 1986 model Porsche 911 Carrera Turbo. She felt safe here in South Yarra with Guzzinburg. She had her police scanner and her mobile phone. To hell with the brothels, massage parlors and escort services and the speed drug factory and the smack connections. If she lost it all who cared?

She put a full gram of near pure speed into the spoon and mixed it with water. Yeah, she thought savagely, killing Johnny Go Go might have been a tactical error. But it was him or the baby.

Which reminded her of the fear that was never far from her thoughts. If anything happened to her, what of baby Micky? Muriel Hill and young Melanie Wells won’t be much protection, she thought. Russian Suzi would be there, but the bloody Hankster had got himself killed.

Some members of the family would remain loyal. What about The Kid? He was getting close to Russian Suzi and Coco Joeliene. He’d keep an eye on the baby. He was loyal and he could only get bigger with time.

Ideas welled and spun into Karen’s head as she put the needle into her arm. Yeah, The Kid. I’d do well to invest a bit in him for the future, she thought. He was a stone killer now, on his way up. When young Micky grows up he will need a friend if his mum’s not around.

With these dagos, every father has a son and every son a brother and every brother a cousin and every cousin an uncle and every uncle a brother who’s got a son with a brother, who’s got a cousin with an uncle, it’s never ending.

Killing these Sicilians is like mowing the lawn: a few rainy days, a bit of sunshine and a month later you’re knee deep in dagos all over again. Jesus, and I thought the Collingwood clans were inter-related, Karen mused. No wonder these dagos all looked alike. They’ve spent the last 2000 years interbreeding. That’s what the Bennett clan will end up like if they aren’t careful. Karen smiled at her own comic thoughts. Then she wondered about the meeting Guzzinburg had set up. He had arranged to meet with the Turks at Queen Victoria Market. A Jew with Turkish criminal connections – it has to be fair dinkum because it seemed too far fetched to be a lie.

The story was that the Turks wanted to side with her against Carlton – something to do with a 10-pound heroin rip-off and the Ilhann Brothers getting whacked by two of the Corsetti clan last year.

If she allowed the Turks in she’d have a whole new heroin connection and the Turks had the best connections next to the Chinese. The Sicilians were really only middle men in the smack caper. The Turks and Chinese had direct access to the supply. So a meeting with Abdul The Camel and his sons might be a good idea.

She couldn’t help wondering. A little healthy paranoia went with the territory in her line of business. Jesus, she played sink the sausage with that cold-blooded Jew Guzzinburg every night. If he was out to betray her, he could kill her any time.

Karen headed for a shower. She had a lot to consider. Yeah, she’d set up Kid McCall and the two girls, and swear them to loyalty about baby Micky first. At least little Micky would grow up with some sort of family and crew of friends to watch over him. A man without a crew in Melbourne was a man totally alone. It was Johnny McCall’s birthday soon. Kill two birds with one stone, she thought …

Downstairs, Aaron Guzzinburg picked up the phone.

‘It’s on for Sunday morning, 2 am. Just me and the Rabbit Kisser. Yeah, yeah, okay. No problems. Yeah, I understand. And this squares us up, okay? Yeah, I know, it’s not personal. Business is business. We both get what we want. Okay, see ya.’ And he hung up.

He could hear Karen, upstairs in the shower. She was singing.

‘Born Free, as free as the wind blows
,

As free as the grass grows
,

Born free to follow your heart
…’

IT was no ordinary Saturday morning for Johnny ‘The Kid’ McCall. It was his birthday, and he was as proud as a boy with a broken arm. Russian Suzi had spent the past week teaching him to drive a car. By the end of it all, her poor White Mazda RX7 was fit for the junk heap, but he had finally got the hang of the driving caper.

Karen had come out of hiding and taken Johnny to Lennox Street, Richmond, to show him her baby son and introduce him to Muriel Hill and Melanie Wells. Afterwards, she had made him swear an oath not to reveal what she was going to show him. Then she had taken him to a secret trapdoor that led to a cellar underneath the Telford Club.

Johnny had never seen such a collection of arms and ammo. It made the nuffies from Gympie look like peacenik hippies. There was also more money in that cellar than the average crim would see in a dozen life times.

They had some photos taken together and hung them in frames on the walls. Karen had given him a white 1987 Ford Mustang Dominator car, and she gave Russian Suzi a 1991 Chevrolet Corvette and the ownership papers to the H.R. Telford Social Club.

Karen also owned a vacant shop across the street with a two-bedroom flat above it. She gave the ownership papers to Suzi with the understanding that although, legally, Suzi now owned both buildings, in fact they belonged equally to Johnny The Kid and Coco Joeliene. There was also a list of names marked for death – to be carried out if anything happened to her.

Karen had been in a happy mood when she took Kid McCall around and made all these arrangements. But it was as if she had lived too long and wanted to rest. She had been tapped on the shoulder by the bony hand of death, and she knew it was getting impatient. It was as if she was settling her affairs before she went. You can’t live a life like Karen and expect to end up in an old people’s home knitting socks for the grandkids.

Karen had always been matter-of-fact when it came to death. She had seen so much and ordered so many that to her it was no big deal.

She had paid a visit on members of the Van Gogh and Reeves families with expensive gifts and secret instructions. There were tears as they waved her goodbye. It was a bit like planning a long trip, except there’s no return ticket from Hell. She did her best to smile, but the air was heavy with sadness. In the underworld, people who are marked have an air about them, almost a smell.

Karen had spent her whole life racing headlong towards the grave at 1000 miles per hour, without a care. But, now the time had almost come, Russian Suzi could sense that Karen’s flame was spluttering and was nearly out. She was using three full grams of speed a day and was growing more and more insane. One night they found silly Kerry Griffin and Chinese Lee Lee working Fitzroy Street, St Kilda, on a Thursday. Both were smacked out of their brains and totally lost. Karen insisted they stay in the spare room at the Telford Club.

Spanish Yolanda had been found wandering the streets of Collingwood, homeless and terrified. The Bennetts had bashed her and turfed her out. She had an interesting tale to tell.

So it was Russian Suzi, Coco Joeliene and Kid McCall in one bedroom and Kerry Griffin, Chinese Lee Lee and Spanish Yolanda in the other. Neither Russian Suzi nor Kid McCall used heroin, but the rest of the girls loved it and it was needles up arms and tongue kissing all day and night. Unlike the others, Coco Joeliene was very strong and, heroin or not, she was on deck mentally at all times, even if she did have this stoned, dead-eye look. Suzi wanted to spend some cash and get the shop across the road renovated and secure and poshed up – into a real Mink-de-ville, la de dah set-up, so she could turn it into a brothel. As Kerry, Lee Lee and Yolanda were only cluttering the place up, they could live and work across the street.

Yolanda was still a stunning, dark-eyed, olive-skinned beauty with a pouty face like a Spanish doll. She would take it any way she was told to, a passive and submissive young lady with a meek personality. But Russian Suzi didn’t trust her one bit.

Lee Lee was a brain-dead imbecile. She didn’t have much of a brain to begin with and the scag had killed that long ago. The only asset she still had she sat on. Still, she was too stupid to backdoor anyone so she could be trusted.

Kerry was so out of it she had trouble remembering her own name, but each of the girls had something in common: long legs, curvy bodies and big boobs. And they were sex machines, so putting them to work was not only a must but a kindness. It was all they knew. They had got plenty of practice since their early teens. Coco Joeliene asked Kid McCall if he wanted her to work in the brothel.

‘Of course not,’ he said. ‘Don’t be silly. I love you, Coco.’

The big Jamaican girl cried. She was so in love and so happy. Kid McCall was the only guy she had ever met who didn’t want to whore her.

The Kid put it this way to Suzi and Coco, ‘You’re management now. I don’t sell my arse, and you don’t sell yours. Ya might have to kill a few now and again, but you certainly won’t have to root ’em. Okay?’

KID McCall got out of bed and went to take a shower. He could hear Coco Joeliene in the kitchen cooking him breakfast. The Kid and Suzi ate a lot. Suzi was in the garage pumping weights. She had turned it into her own personal gym. ‘The bloody cars can park outside in the rain,’ said Suzi. ‘If they rust, we get new ones.’

‘Fair enough,’ thought McCall, as he passed the second bedroom. The door was a bit open and he looked in and said good morning to Kerry, Lee Lee and Yolanda. The three girls were all up and proceeding to have their first blast of smack for the morning. Greedy pigs, he thought. Junkies. The sooner we put them to work the better. They were nice girls but Suzi was right. They cluttered the place up.

Johnny went into the kitchen and kissed Coco good morning, then headed to the shower and turned the water on. The shower always steamed up the bathroom. He soaped himself up and the door opened and big Kerry walked in and lifted the toilet lid and vomited into it then rinsed her mouth out with mouth wash. She was a good girl like that. On the way out she pulled back the shower curtain and said, ‘How ya going, Johnny?’

Her eyes dropped to the kid’s dick. She reached her hand over and grabbed it. ‘Wow,’ she said. Her eyes grew bigger as he did. She started to rub soap all over it and with a lather she proceeded to get the boy to stand to attention.

‘Wow,’ she repeated in an excited whisper. ‘Look at it. Is it real?’

Silly question, really, you don’t get one of those in a show bag.

Just then Yolanda and Lee Lee both walked in. One vomited into the toilet then flushed it, and one into the sink. They gargled. It was a routine after a blast of heroin. Not good for the teeth but good for the waist line. They joined Kerry for a look at Johnny McCall. It was like a freak show.

‘Bloody hell,’ they whispered.

Then Kerry took out her false teeth and bent down and engulfed the lad and to the Kid’s surprise she nearly deep throated his full length on the first go. Then she choked and gagged and went back to it. After about 30 to 40 seconds she was engulfing the full lot. Kerry was a mental case but a sword swallower of quite uncommon experience. It was a skill like anything else.

Then Coco yelled, ‘Breakfast ready, baby’ and Johnny pushed Kerry’s head away. Kerry had a real gleam in her eye and Lee Lee and Yolanda looked as if they wanted to go next. But The Kid felt guilty, as if he had betrayed Russian Suzi and Coco Joeliene and he knew he’d have to confess what had just taken place.

He got out of the shower, dried himself and wrapped a large towel around himself and went into the kitchen and sat down. Coco Joeliene was serving a massive helping of ham and eggs to Suzi, who had just finished her workout. He told her what had just taken place, like a guilty little kid.

Coco picked up a large carving knife and went to walk out of the kitchen, but Suzi said, ‘Leave it, let me handle it. We don’t want any blood. This is our home.’

The Jamaican put the knife away. The Kid felt a bit frightened without his gun, which was in the bedroom. Both Coco or Suzi would beat him in a fight and he thought for a moment that Coco would use the knife on him.

Suzi gave him a savage look then called out sweetly, ‘Kerry, wanna cup of coffee honey?’

The big, shaggy-haired hooker walked into the kitchen. Coco poured a hot cup for her and she sat down and said, ‘Thanks’. She gave Johnny a look like the cat who had just swallowed the cream, or nearly had.

Suzi said, ‘You look a bit rough this morning. Did you sleep okay, Kerry?’

‘Yeah,’ said Kerry. ‘I’m okay.’

‘You look like you could use a nice massage, baby,’ said Suzi.

‘Ohh yeah,’ purred Kerry. She was still as horny as hell from the unfinished work in the shower.

Russian Suzi got up and walked behind Kerry who was sitting with her elbows on the table drinking coffee and Suzi began to rub her hands into Kerry’s neck and shoulders.

‘Ohh yeah,’ said Kerry. ‘That’s nice.’

Then Suzi said, ‘Your neck’s a bit tight honey. Hang on, let me click it for you.’

She put one hand gently on the girl’s head and the other under her jaw. The twisting motion was so fast it took the Kid and Coco completely by surprise. Kerry’s neck went snap, deep down her spine and she went limp.

‘Oh my madness,’ said Suzi. ‘She’s fallen asleep.’

Then Suzi picked up Kerry’s dead body and heaved it over her shoulder like a sack of spuds, walked out and opened the back door and vanished down the back stairs to the garage. Kid McCall reminded himself not to ever let Russian Suzi anywhere near his neck. Lee Lee and Yolanda were lying in bed in their room watching TV. They were totally stoned.

‘Poor Kerry,’ thought Kid McCall. He didn’t know much about females but he had just learnt a big heap that morning. Coco Joeliene and Russian Suzi considered McCall to be their bloke and had a simple solution for any girl who thought different.

This was a small point in manners he would remember. Sexual misconduct could result in death. His guilty feelings and honesty had caused the death of a lady for little more than an oral party trick. It had nothing to do with love. Kid McCall was 17 years old and matters of the heart still puzzled him. He loved Coco and Suzi and they loved him – but broken necks at breakfast over a bimbo and a blow job was a little too much to take in. He felt ill at ease. Poor, poor Kerry. It was enough to put a young man off his ham and eggs. Well, almost.

Saturday night was to be a big night. The morning’s unpleasantness with Kerry was soon forgotten. Suzi didn’t want Yolanda and Lee Lee around and the two whores were packed off to stay with Danielle Davis, who ran a brothel in Raglan Street, South Melbourne.

Danielle was loyal to Suzi and Karen and would put the two girls to work at once and be grateful for the extra help. The Kid’s birthday night was to be enjoyed by Suzi, Coco and Karen and no outsiders. They were all going out to the Strippers and Whores Ball at Jamie Nazzerone’s nightclub in the city.

The Midnight Machine Night Club was a high class sleaze palace for the rich and famous and their hangers on. The Rocky Horror Show dance contest was first on the card, then the Miss Melbourne Erotica contest.

Both Russian Suzi and Coco Joeliene had entered the erotic dance contest. No-one could out-dance Russian Suzi, with maybe the exception of the Rabbit Kisser herself, but Coco Joeliene would win any contest she entered.

At nearly six feet tall, with a body made by the devil and a set of boobs that bordered on the totally outrageous, she was a natural born killer when it came to the dark art of erotic dancing. The amazing thing was that no plastic surgeon had ever been near her. She didn’t need implants. She could have had two left feet and any male judge would still cheer himself hoarse. As Karen would say to Suzi, ‘She was like a black Raychell Van Gogh.’

There was a bit of girlish comedy over who would win.

‘God Coco,’ said Suzi, ‘they could carry your dead body onto the bloody stage and you’d still win.’

‘No Suzi, you’re the best dancer I ever seen,’ replied Coco.

‘I want you to win,’ said Suzi.

‘No, I want you to win,’ said Coco.

The truth was that each girl was planning to outdo the other and win – all for the sake of the Kid’s entertainment.

Night had fallen and the gang of three were getting dressed to go out. Johnny the Kid put on an Italian-made $3000 double-breasted suit and a pair of handmade $1200 Italian slip-on shoes. He wore a black crewneck cotton T-shirt that stood out against the shiny silver grey suit. He would have looked like a former Prime Minister if he was a tad more sleazy.

‘God, I look like Johnny the Wog,’ complained the Kid.

‘No baby, you look gorgeous,’ said Coco.

The Kid looked in the big wall mirror. The scar across the right side of his face and the spider’s web tattoo covering his left hand did give his angelic little boy face an evil look. He tightened his belt and put his matching pair of chrome plated gold cup .45 automatics into his Burns and Martin clip holsters that fitted snugly on the inside of his pant’s waistband. The big double breasted suit coat covered the hardware nicely.

Next, the Kid stuck a thick roll of hundred dollar bills in his pocket, put on his gold and stainless steel Rolex wristwatch and the solid gold necklace that he’d paid four grand for. He put it under his T-shirt so only the top parts of the chain would show. He didn’t want to be thought of as a show-off. He knew his suit and jewellery were worth more than most people’s whole wardrobe. He was as flash as a rat with a gold tooth. The ‘Je Ne Regrette Rien’ tattoo across his neck was large and thick and added to his sinister young gunnie look. He loved it.

YOU don’t have to be told what Suzi was wearing. Her favorite fashion accessory – the famous white high cut thong G-string. This left little to the imagination, but then again she wasn’t usually dancing for the Mensa social club.

Coco’s panties could have been put together with about three pieces of string, and that’s if they were double stitched. Suzi went for a pair of white leather thigh-high boots with a 10-centimetre heel. Coco wore a pair of white stilettos with 10-centimetre heels and that was it. Less is more was her motto. With their gold chains around their necks, and several pounds of assorted solid gold jewellery, rings, watches, bangles, wrist chains, necklaces, earrings and (for Coco) ankle chains, they looked quite sexually outrageous. The look they cultivated was to wear nothing but dancing knickers, footwear and personal gold jewellery that must have cost a king’s ransom.