Chopper Unchopped (152 page)

Molly agreed to do it the easy way and was shown to a hot soapy tub of water and given high heels to wear and a black silk dressing gown, then steak, eggs and mushrooms and a chance to sleep. Molly thrived in the whore house, so much she put on weight and started to grow. She was very well developed and quite a nymphomaniac and much in demand. She had also become trusted, and it was her job to go over to the little house in Easey Street and knock on the door. Johnny Reeves himself would answer. Johnny was always such a gentleman and never tried to touch the girl sexually. Molly would hand Johnny 50 quid. The Kitten Club paid him a regular weekly sling from the whores, grog and gambling. Johnny would always offer the girl a cup of tea and a biscuit and have one of his men drive her home again to Cromwell Street. A lot of Johnny’s men were all hands in the car, but Mister Reeves himself was a gentleman at all times.

However, late in 1938, Molly MacInerny claimed she was waylaid on the way to Easey Street by a policeman and that the copper, a plain clothes detective, relieved her of the 50 quid. Johnny Reeves questioned the girl and was convinced she had been waylaid by Wild Bill Holliday, a renegade Detective Sergeant from the Russell Street vice squad.

Wild Bill Holliday and his crew worked for Inspector Kevin Kelly and Billy “The Kid” Westlock, one of old Taffy Westlock’s wayward sons. Billy the Kid had risen to the rank of Detective Chief Inspector and had turned the vice squad into a gold mine, so Johnny Reeves dismissed the loss as all part of the risk of the business he was in.

Big Shirley was not so forgiving. She stripped Molly naked and locked her in the cellar with McSwiggin. Upstairs, the gangsters and whores listened in terror and fascination to the sounds in the dark below.

There were insane growls and grunts as the blind monster reacted to the smell of soft female flesh and perfurme. Molly screamed in terror as she ran around the cellar to get away from the monster. The stench, the darkness, the rats and the knowledge that she was locked in and all alone with a crazed animal sent Molly into a state of shock.

McSwiggin caught her, but instead of attacking and killing her he smelt her skin and held her. The feel of another human being and the smell of perfume softened him, but not for long. Aroused by the feel of naked female flesh, he raped her over and over again, in a frenzy lasting hours, before the trap door creaked open and men came down to whip the beast back and rescue the girl.

Molly MacInerny never spoke another word from that moment on. She had a glazed look in her eye and sat, rocking back and forth, moaning and whimpering like a frightened baby.

In the end Big Shirl had her removed from the Kitten Club and taken to a mental hospital, and although she’d lost a whore, she counted it a good investment. After that little episode, the threat of being tossed in the cellar was enough to terrify any whore in Collingwood.

Even after McSwiggin died, which wasn’t long after the Molly MacInerny business, the legend of the cellar lived on. Big Shirl knew when she was on a good thing. She replaced McSwiggin with a bulldog, and the sounds of the dog’s snarling and growling convinced people that some foul beast still dwelled in the cellar below.

BY 1939 Johnny Reeves had married Bubbles O’Shaughnessy, a ravishing local beauty and the eldest of the O’Shaughnessy sisters. Johnny was joining the army and wanted to hand control of the Collingwood criminal empire over to his cousin Regan, with Busy O’Brien acting as his adviser.

Eoin Featherstone and Padraic O’Shaughnessy and the Van Gogh brothers would rally round as the inner circle. Johnny wanted to be a family man and to serve his country as he had in the first world war.

Regan, meanwhile, felt concerned over his brother Kalan’s lack of female companionship. Regan had littered Collingwood with bastard children, but Kalan showed no interest whatsoever. Which is why Regan and Johnny Reeves took Kalan along to the Kitten Club one Friday night. The girls, on Big Shirl’s orders, were on display in the lounge. Waiting for business to come their way, so to speak.

They were all there this night. Tracey and Rhonda O’Connell, Megan O’Shaughnessy, Donna McCormack, Mabel McKeon, Lucy O’Day and, of course, Betty Brown. They were decked out in their finest high heels and underthings, except for Betty, who simply wore high heels and a silk dressing gown, cut short a few inches below her bottom, with her long legs on full display.

When Johnny, Regan and Kalan Reeves came in, every girl was anxious to impress. Especially Betty, who saw Johnny Reeves as sitting just to the right hand side of God.

When Kalan was asked to take his pick, every girl in the joint began to smile and pout and wiggle about. Betty undid her dressing gown and opened it to display a body that was always picked first over any other girl. Betty was doing things to herself that would make a rapist blush, but Kalan ignored her and the others. Instead, he turned his eye to Big Shirl and smiled. The big woman’s eyes opened wide in surprise and delight.

“Oh, Mr Reeves, you’ve made the right choice,” purred Shirley. And with that the big woman and the shy Irishman vanished into Shirl’s bedroom. The next morning Shirley was cooking breakfast for the Irishman, and fussing about like a schoolgirl. There was a very good reason for this. In the slums of North Dublin city the local girls and whores called Kalan “Donkey Dick Reeves”, much to the poor lad’s embarrassment. It explained why Big Shirley had a look of love on her face when Kalan sat down for his bacon and eggs.

Within days Betty Brown was turfed out of Big Shirl’s bedroom and Kalan was moved in. Betty had never in her life ever suffered sexual rejection from anyone – except, of course, for Johnny Reeves. But he was a great gentleman and she would never dare try to suggest such things to Mister Reeves. He treated Betty with great politeness and kindness and respect and she hero-worshipped the great man.

Kalan, however, seemed a different kettle of fish. To Betty, he was only Johnny Reeves’s ne’er do well cousin. How dare he reject her and pick fat Shirl instead. Betty was finding it all a bit hard to cope with.

Betty had taken Molly’s place in relation to the weekly payments to Johnny Reeves. So, once a week, she would put on her Sunday best and walk over to Easey Street. Often, she would take her cousin Martha Brown with her. Martha worked in a fish and chip shop in Hoddle Street and, in spite of looking like a lady of the night, she was a respectable girl.

Betty figured that with a good girl like Martha that rat Wild Bill Holliday wouldn’t waylay her. (Martha’s elder brother was a priest, Father Peter John Brown, a good and Godly man and the only male member of the Brown clan who hadn’t paid a visit to the Kitten Club to see how Betty was doing, ask her for a quid and expect a free knee trembler before waving goodbye). For safekeeping, Betty gave Martha the fifty quid to hold and told her that if they were waylaid she would deal with the police and Martha was to make her way to Easey Street.

It was a good plan and, as fate would have it, it worked. When Wild Bill Holliday pulled up alongside the two young ladies as they walked along Cromwell Street, it was Betty that he ordered into the car, allowing Martha to continue on to Easey Street to report the news and deliver the money.

“C’mon, Betty. Jump in, there’s a good girl,” Wild Bill Holliday said, with an evil grin.

Betty opened the car door and got in and Wild Bill gunned the big 1938 Plymouth down the road.

“Well now, Princess, so you’re the new runner. Poor old Molly. I heard on the grapevine what happened to her. Bloody hell.” He shook his head, then his sympathy evaporated. “Well now, I think ya best hand the dough over,” he said.

“I don’t have it,” said Betty. “Mr Reeves sends one of his men over for it each week since you got Molly last time.”

“Foul gossip and slander,” said Holliday. “Who said I got Molly?” When Betty told him that Molly had said it herself, he was most indignant. “It’s all lies,” he said.

The big Plymouth turned into a dark laneway and pulled up.

“I’m afraid I’m going to have to search you, my girl,” he said. He proceeded to pat the girl down. Then he undid the buttons on her dress and dived a big hand down her front.

Betty giggled and wiggled about.

“That tickles,” she said. The other hand ran up her leg and into her panties and Betty automatically opened her legs. Wild Bill stopped his prodding about.

“Well, it seems ya got nothing. I’m damned if I’m leaving empty handed,” he said. And with that he got out and opened the back door to the car. “Jump in the back, my girl, and get that dress off quick smart.”

This was a pay off Betty fully understood. In a flash she was lying on the back seat of the car with her legs spread, one foot up near the back window, the other draped over the back of the front seat. Wild Bill undid his pants and mounted the girl and huffed and puffed away for a good several minutes, then collapsed.

“Well,” said Wild Bill. “It’s not fifty quid but I reckon I could settle for that once a week.”

Betty didn’t know why she said it, but the words tumbled out. “If Big Shirl wasn’t about Johnny Reeves would put me in charge of the club and you’d get me more than once a week, and I reckon with me in charge there would be a good 25 to 30 quid a week in it for you.”

Wild Bill Holliday was taken back at this, but Betty continued.

“Johnny Reeves goes in the army soon. The only time he will be back in Collingwood is when he gets leave. His idiot cousins are taking over, Kalan and Regan. You could move in on the lot, with me as a friend,” she said.

Wild Bill laughed. “The bloody Van Goghs would cut my head off. I’m not interested in taking over Collingwood, but I wouldn’t mind a nice slice of the Kitten Club.”

“Well,” said Betty. “Big Shirl and Kalan Reeves. I’ll leave it to you, but believe me, once that fat slag and her shitpot new boyfriend are out of the way, I’m in. And if I’m in, you’re in, Mr Holliday.”

“Call me Bill,” said Holliday. “Leave it with me, my darling. I’ll need to take correct advice on this.”

“Between us,” warned Betty.

Holliday smiled and grabbed hold of one large, ripe breast and squeezed it. “Between us my darling. Between us, indeed.” As Betty walked back to Cromwell Street she began to sing her favourite song. “Beautiful Dreamer, wake unto me, star light and dew drops are waiting for thee. Sounds of the rude world heard in the day, lulled by the moon light have all passed away. Beautiful Dreamer … ha ha ha,” she laughed to herself.

“Betty, Betty, Betty, you mad cow. What have you done?” she said to herself with a giggle.

COLLINGWOOD, 1997. “There is a spy in the camp” said Preston Phillips.

“Stella was a mistake. It’s still going on. We are losing people all over the place. It’s non-bloody stop.”

Pat O’Shaughnessy, Greg Featherstone, Sean Maloney, Sonny Carroll and Geoff Twane sat and listened. They were in the lounge of Coco’s Restaurant, a brothel run by the Collingwood Crew in Victoria Street, Abbotsford.

Sonia Vonchek sat and listened. She had been hired by Phillips as a driver and bodyguard. She had an honest face, a real good girl face, and a highly dishonest body, a real bad girl body. She was a karate instructor and licensed to carry a handgun. She was a hundred per cent dinky di female private investigator and security guard. She had a set of legs on her that any stripper would die for, and in a pair of tight jeans she had the best arse in Collingwood.

Preston Phillips used to point out his driver’s swinging hips and porno queen bum whenever she walked in front of him or was required to bend over to pick something up. Phillips was paying the young woman two grand a week to drive him about. He had become paranoid and no longer carried a gun.

The tall long-legged bombshell brunette had been recruited from NSW, as Preston felt that only someone from out of town could be totally trusted. He didn’t want a bloke watching over him or someone tainted by Collingwood criminal politics. Sonia sat and listened to Phillips talk to his crew of paranoids. She was a cash and carry girl. She would shoot anyone in self defence who tried to do harm to Phillips and kick the neck out of anyone who so much as spilt their drink on him.

But she was beginning to reconsider her two grand a week. She hadn’t realised she would be working for a Collingwood heroin king who made $20,000 a day in speed and dope alone – and that was confetti compared to the serious cash the Collingwood crew pulled in. Something else bothered her.

She didn’t trust these speed-ravaged psychopath mental cases. Sonia felt like a square peg in a round hole, and they talked as if she wasn’t even in the room. What if they ever got paranoid about her? She put her right hand against the small of her back and felt the butt of her .38 calibre slimline automatic.

“I’m tellin ya,” said Preston. “I’m starting to wonder about people. I’ve got my eye on someone. In fact, I’m looking at two people and, if I have to, I’ll put ’em both off. This shit is freaking me. That Fitzpatrick bullshit – who put them on to Gene?” he grated.

“He got Westlock before he went,” said Featherstone.

Geoff Twane spat on the floor. “Westlock got out of hospital two bloody days ago. He didn’t get him good enough.”

“It’s as if someone wants all the old school tie gotten rid of,” said Pat O’Shaughnessy. “Everything is being aimed at the old guard, at the heart and lungs of the old crew.”

Preston Phillips got up. “C’mon Sonia, let’s go,” he barked. With that the long-legged doll moved like a cat out the front door and checked the street with her hand on the butt of her .38 and his eyes on hers.

Phillips was using a mint condition 1961 E Type Jaguar this particular day. Sonia opened the passenger’s door of the sleek beast. Preston got in, then she slid behind the wheel, started the car and took off. “Get over to Cromwell Street, Sonia” he said.

THE brothel in Cromwell Street was still in operation except for a large office, loungeroom with a private bathroom, shower, spa and kitchen. Amy Jo and Hector The Cannibal used this area as general headquarters. Amy Jo had taken control of the brothel, sacked Tessa Kinsella and Sandie Toy and filled the brothel with non-drug using professional whores recruited from the Gold Coast. They were all big, wicked-looking, beach girls, with no interest, involvement or connections in Collingwood criminal politics. The only thing they knew about Collingwood was that the footy team played in black and white jumpers, and not all of them knew that much.