Chopper Unchopped (134 page)

Melanie had been in tears, swearing to wait for the Kid with undying love, and Coco believed she would.

It was all over. There was nothing left for her in Australia.

‘Where we going again?’ asked Archie.

‘Montego Bay, baby. Montego Bay. Now you gotta promise to be a good kid, no go getting yaself full of piss and bad manners. I’m gonna introduce you to the man I’m going to marry. He won’t mind you coming along. He said he’d buy me another pet. I’ll just get him to buy me you, okay baby?’

Archie smiled. ‘I’ll be on my best behavior, Coco.’

‘Just keep ya sticky fingers in ya pockets and ya fly zipped up,’ said Coco.

As they drove through the dusty streets Archie was looking out the window. Then he turned and with a curious puzzled expression he said, ‘Hey, Coco, can I ask a question?’

‘What’s that, baby?’ she said.

The puzzled expression stayed on the young lad’s face. ‘Did Snowy Cutmore really come from Collingwood?’

IT was 1956. Russian tanks had invaded Hungary to put down a revolution. British troops went in to sort out the shit fight over the Suez Canal. Rocky Marciano hung up his gloves after proving to the world he was the greatest heavyweight boxer to that date after taking the crown from Jersey Joe Walcott in 1952.

In Melbourne, Frank Sinatra’s latest movie had just hit town, the 1955 classic ‘Johnny Concho’. It was the year a no-hoper horse named Evening Peal won the Melbourne Cup. And, of course, it was the year of the Melbourne Olympic Games, the 16th games of the modern era. The Duke of Edinburgh was in town, the Russian runner Vladimir Kuts was winning heaps, the Olympic great of past games, Czechoslovakian Emile Zatopek, was on a downhill slide, and two NSW coppers, Merv Wood and Murray Riley, won bronze in the double sculls rowing. They, too, were on a downhill slide. Wood won Gold in the single sculls in London in 1948 and silver in Helsinki in 1952, but his cop career ended in controversy.

Betty Cuthbert and Shirley Strickland were winning everything, and Brigid O’Shaughnessy was watching it all on her TV set. The only TV set in all of Easey Street.

Hell, if it comes to that, it was the only TV set in all of Collingwood, full stop. Brigid was a big, tall girl of 24, with long legs and curves in all the right places. She did her best to look and act just like her Hollywood B Grade movie star heroine, Jayne Mansfield. Brigid really did look like Jayne Mansfield, with her gorgeous pouting face, bleached blonde hair, narrow waist and swinging hips. Her extra large set of jugs set the whole fantasy off very nicely, if you don’t mind and she certainly didn’t. Brigid did look the part and acted it as well. Most of the prostitutes in Collingwood modelled themselves on Hollywood film stars – although the one that looked like John Wayne didn’t get all that much work, especially before the pubs shut.

Brigid’s 20-year-old sister, Colleen, looked like Shelley Winters. Carol Pepper looked like Kim Novak, Bonny Brown did her best to copy Marilyn Monroe. Young Kay Kelly, who was only 14 years old but big for her age, looked like Grace Kelly. Rayleen Bennett did a fantastic Marlene Dietrich. Val Taylor, a vivacious 15-year-old looked for all the world like Googie Withers. It was fair to say that Jenny Phillips and Cathy Reeves both looked like Betty Grable – and that’s only the whores who lived in Easey Street.

The Olympics had done one good thing for the local prostitution industry. The prices had gone from 10 bob a time to a straight pound. Yes, a quid a pop, that’s inflation for you. But for Brigid O’Shaughnessy, who was already charging two pound a time, it meant putting her price up to three quid. She handled six to nine mugs a night after the pubs shut at six o’clock. That’s why she could afford a brand new television set as well as the 1954 Pontiac she drove. Now she could twiddle the knobs for a change.

Brigid and the rest of the girls in Easey Street never had to fear the police or the standover men who robbed the rest of the whores in Melbourne. The Vice Squad from Russell Street Headquarters was headed by big Bluey Westlock, an old third-generation copper. He and his right hand man Bull Kelly, a second-generation policeman, both took their slings out in trade. At least there was no problems with tax, that way.

As for the crims, thugs and gangsters, Easey Street was ruled by a tough teenage kid and his gang. Young Roy Reeves was not only the leader of the toughest street gang in Collingwood but he was also Brigid’s nephew. The last bloke to try it on with a girl from Easey Street was Desmond Costello, and young Ripper Roy had shot him dead in Fitzroy the previous year. It was his first murder and it took the young tough with the Gary Cooper looks from a nobody to a local legend in less than twelve months.

One killing did that in those innocent days.

IT was Sunday night, Brigid’s one night off. She sat watching her new TV set with a large glass of Gilbey’s gin and lemon in her hand. It was her seventh drink for the evening and she was feeling the effect, and loving it. She wore a white pure silk dressing gown and a pair of white high-heeled slippers. She had the TV turned down and just sat looking at the black and white picture.

The electric record player blared out the sound of Brigid’s favorite singer and music man, the King of American bluegrass music, Bill Monroe and his mandolin. She was looking at a record by Earl Scruggs and Lester Flatt, pondering whether to put it on next. Or maybe she’d listen to Hank Snow or Leon Payne singing, ‘I Love You Because’. Or maybe Bing Crosby or Frank Sinatra, or maybe Tommy Dorsey’s Band or what about that new bloke, what was his name again? Elvis Presley.

Brigid laughed to herself. Elvis Presley. Shit, she thought. Ya won’t get too far with a name like that. Sounds like a real duffer. But he did sing nice. His voice did something to her. I might get some more of his records if I can find any. But for now Hank Snow singing ‘I Don’t Hurt Any More’ would do very nicely, thank you.

Bang, bang, bang.

Brigid’s head shot up. ‘God,’ she said to herself. ‘Who’s that?’

She looked at the clock on the mantlepiece. It was 7.30 pm.

‘Who the hell is that, at this hour?’ she grumbled.

Brigid got up and put her cute .22 calibre handgun into the pocket of her silk dressing gown and held it as she walked down the gloomy hallway of her little single-fronted, two bedroom house to open the door.

She turned the outside light on first. The flyscreen door was shut, but offered little protection. She peered through it at the shadowy figure on the verandah.

‘God,’ she snapped, sounding relieved and annoyed at the same time. ‘It’s you, Roy. What the hell are you doing? You gave me a fright. Sunday’s my night off. Bloody hell, I’m a bit pissed. I’m sorry, darlin’, come in.’

‘Hi ya, Auntie Bee,’ said Roy, using the pet name he’d always called her. He pulled the old flyscreen door open and gave the big blonde a kiss on the cheek. She was still holding her pistol in one hand and her glass of gin in the other. Suddenly, she giggled.

‘Sorry, darlin’, I was in dreamland.’

‘Oh great,’ said Roy, hearing the music playing as he walked down the hallway. ‘Bill Monroe, I love Bill Monroe,’ he added. ‘He’s the best.’

‘Do ya want a drink, Roy?’ Brigid asked.

‘Ya got a beer?

Brigid went into the kitchen and opened her fridge. It was brand spanking new. Most people around Collingwood still had ice chests. She had everything, Roy thought to himself.

‘Shit, a fancy electric fridge,’ he said.

Brigid pulled out a Richmond Bitter and handed it to him. The kid ripped the cap off the bottle with his teeth and swallowed. He was not Rex Harrison for ‘My Fair Lady.’

‘I wish you wouldn’t do that, Roy,’ said Brigid.

‘What?’

‘Take the cap off with ya teeth,’ she said. ‘It sets my nerves on edge watching you do that. Anyway, sit down.’ Roy sat and fixed his eyes on the TV set.

‘It’s bloody amazing, isn’t it,’ he said dreamily. ‘What they can do now days. Bloody fantastic.’

Brigid sat beside him on the couch.

‘Yeah,’ she said, ‘I can’t get over it.’

‘How the hell did ya get one, Auntie Bee?’ asked Roy.

‘Ya gotta order ’em a year in advance. I heard they cost a mint, then ya got to get the bit of wire thing set up on the roof.’

Brigid thought for a moment. She’d screwed not only the bloke who owned the shop but the two who delivered it and fitted the aerial, and it had still cost her nine pounds to get it all fitted in time for the bloody Olympics. But she didn’t want to share this info with young Roy.

‘Oh you know Roy, a bit of cash and a bit of luck.’

Ripper Roy snuck a sideways glance at his Auntie Bee’s enormous set of tits and smiled. Roy thought she might have been using rhyming slang, but what rhymed with cash? He had a fair idea how she got the TV set, the same way she got the flash car. A bit of cash and a bit of hanky panky. The mugs would fall in love after the first knee trembler and she’d soon get her money back. Her trick was to bung on the dumb blonde, cute and pouty Jayne Mansfield routine – worked every time.

Some things never change.

‘Oh, I’ve only got two pound. Oh, and I really wanted that watch, could you hold it for me.’ Big smile. She had a way of wiggling and jiggling about when she talked to men, even when she stood still, and she always spoke to the manager or owner of the shop. She had screwed most of the shopkeepers in Smith Street, Collingwood, and the married ones spoiled her rotten for the sex, but most of all for her silence.

Roy had polished off his bottle of beer and they both sat watching the box. The record had finished and the arm with the needle in it came up and back and rested all on its own. Roy was amazed.

‘Jeez,’ he said. ‘That’s a fancy gizmo. How much did that cost?’

Brigid smacked Roy on the leg and said, ‘Don’t always be asking the price of things, Roy. It’s bad manners.’

‘Sorry, Auntie Bee,’ he said.

Brigid looked at the electric radiogram record player.

‘Anyway,’ she said. ‘It was a gift.’

Roy burst out laughing.

‘I bet it was,’ he roared.

‘What are you trying to suggest?’ said Brigid.

She was finishing off her eighth gin, and getting a little bit elephant’s.

‘Look Roy, ya know ya Auntie Bee’s a bit of a scamp, so don’t be a shit stirrer. Who cares what this cost or how I got that, ya know that handgun I gave you last year for ya birthday?’ she said. ‘Do ya think I paid for it. Nah, of course not. Ronnie West, the gunsmith, practically wets his pants whenever I walk past his shop. I spent a quick ten minutes face down over his kitchen table to get you that handgun, so don’t have goes at me,’ she snapped.

Roy was shocked at this outburst. ‘I’m sorry, Auntie Bee.’

‘Yeah, well, so ya should be, ya cheeky little tacker. I’m your auntie. Your mother is my big sister, so treat me with proper respect.’

She poured herself another gin to go with the wounded dignity.

‘I’m sorry,’ said the chastised Roy, who put his arm around his favorite relative and kissed her on the cheek again. For a bloodthirsty killer, he was really a nice boy underneath.

Her mood softened at once.

‘I’m sorry, Roy. I’m a bit drunk. I’m sorry, baby.’

‘Anyway,’ said Roy. ‘It’s about Ronnie West that I come to see ya. I need you to talk to him for me.’

‘What about?’ asked Brigid. ‘Some bloody new gun, I expect. I don’t know Roy, you and ya guns, you’re a real little Audie Murphy, aren’t ya darlin’?,’ she said with a smile and a cuddle.

She stood up and wove her way over to the record player put on a Frank Sinatra disc.

‘Well, go on,’ she said. ‘Tell me about it.’

Roy poured her a large gin. A large gin for Bee was enough to blind the average Indian elephant.

‘Ronnie West has got an Owen submachine gun,’ he said. ‘I offered him ten quid for it, then twenty quid. But he won’t part with it. Jeez, Auntie Bee, with a bloody Owen gun me and my gang could run Collingwood. Bloody hell, I’ve got to get that gun.’

Brigid thought to herself for a moment. Her young nephew and his gang were more feared in the local area than even they realised, but with an Owen gun in Ripper Roy’s young hands her own control over the Collingwood street whores would be secure.

The Murrays and the Bennett Brothers and the rats from Fitzroy and Carlton had been threatening to slash Brigid’s face if they caught her outside Collingwood. If she wanted to build and expand her own power she had to support the up and coming career of her nephew. She knew why Ronnie West was holding out on the sale of the gun to young Roy. West knew Roy would come to Brigid, and in turn Brigid would go and see Ronnie and the randy gunsmith would not only get his twenty quid but he’d get to run rampant over every inch of Brigid’s body for however long it took, which wasn’t long, as Brigid remembered.

Yes, she thought, if there is a machine gun going spare then Roy must have it before it falls into the wrong hands. She took the glass of gin from her nephew and held it up to her mouth and took a large swallow and her dressing gown fell open. She was only wearing panties underneath and her bosoms were on show, but she didn’t move to cover herself.

‘Don’t worry, Roy,’ she said as she swayed to the music, ‘that gun is yours.’

Young Roy looked at his Auntie Bee swaying to the music with her silk dressing gown open at the middle and he flushed red in the face and felt himself swelling in an area that he didn’t want his auntie to know about. Brigid, however, took a certain evil delight in teasing her young nephew and knew what effect her dancing and swaying body was having on the boy. He was only human, after all.

‘I gotta go now,’ said Roy.

All he wanted to do was get out. He felt embarrassed that he could get into such an excited condition over his own auntie. Brigid was lost in a seductive dance routine. Roy stood up to leave and his excited condition was making itself evident. The bulge in his trousers was ridiculous, as Roy had backed up for a second helping when the good lord was handing out the dicky birds.

‘God, Roy,’ giggled Brigid, pointing to his groin. ‘Every time you come to see me of late, you sit on my couch and crack a bone that a dog wouldn’t chew on, then get up and run out the door.’

‘I do not,’ protested Roy, trying to cover his condition with both hands in his pockets.

‘Well what the hell do ya call that thing you’re trying to hide?’ she said, pointing again to the area in question. ‘They haven’t seen a monster like that outside of Loch Ness.’

Brigid was still dancing as Sinatra sung. She had an almost hypnotic effect on the lad. ‘I’m sorry,’ said Roy, almost in tears with embarrassment. ‘I’m sorry Auntie Bee.’ Brigid smiled and walked over to Roy and put her arm around him. ‘Don’t be sorry, darling,’ she cooed. ‘It’s nothing to be ashamed of.’

‘Don’t worry, baby. This will be our little secret. Ya mum will never know.’

A GROUP of big, mean-looking, teenage boys stood across the street from Ronnie West’s gun shop on Johnston Street, Collingwood. Irish Arthur Featherstone, Terry Maloney, Benny Epstein, Mocca Kelly, Bobby McCall, Tommy Pepper, Ray Brown, Normie Bennett, Kenny Taylor, Paul Phillips, Eddy Bradshaw and Micky Twist, all of them were waiting for the head of their street army, Ripper Roy Reeves, and his wet dream in high heels of an auntie, Brigid O’Shaughnessy.