Chopper Unchopped (169 page)

As the two sat in the early afternoon sunlight a man walked toward Simone. Joey recognised him and glanced away, deadpan. It was Bruno Dietrich and Joey had something in his pocket for Bruno that was quite different from the thing he had in his pocket for Simone. One was .22 calibre; the other was rather bigger.

But any plans Joey had right then went out the window when Simone smiled and greeted Dietrich with a warm hello.

THE first thing any Sicilian criminal is taught is that there is no such thing as a coincidence, and the lesson wasn’t lost on Joey. He meets Simone Tao on a plane to Rome then he meets her again at the Rosati Cafe in the Piazza Del Popolo. Now Simone is waiting for the same man his uncle wants hit.

Joey mightn’t have been a heavy thinker, but he was fast. He decided to kill them both. Meanwhile, Simone was introducing Rocco the bricklayer to her friend Bruno the banker.

“German, hey?” said Joey, all smiles.

“No, Swiss” said Bruno. “Swiss German.”

“How many Jews can ya fit in a Volkswagen?” asked Joey.

“I don’t know,” replied Bruno, looking ill-at-ease.

“Ha, ha” laughed Joey. “Two in the front and 5,999,998 in the fucking ash tray. Ha, ha, ha.”

Simone burst out laughing and Joey smiled. Bruno Dietrich put on a thin false smile and Joey knew his Uncle Hector was right. He’s a Swiss Jew. He had the right man. They chatted and drank coffee.

THE hot sun belted down on the Piazza Del Popolo but inside the church of Santa Maria Del Popolo it was quiet and cool. A few rubbernecks wandered quietly about inside and an old priest was posing next to a statue of the Madonna for some Dutch tourists with a camera. Bruno Dietrich, Simone Tao and Joey Gravano walked in quietly. Bruno seemed excited.

“They have a hidden secret tunnel that leads to an underground crypt,” he said. “I discovered it two years ago. Hardly anyone knows about it.”

Bruno Dietrich was meant to be transferring money from a numbered account in Switzerland to an account with the Royal Hong Kong Trading Company. Simone Tao had been sent to make sure the Royal Hong Kong Trading Company was well represented. If Dietrich needed to be encouraged via the bedroom she would not only do the business with the contracts and transfers but act as the Royal Hong Kong Trading Company’s high grade hooker. If the client wanted it that way she was ready, but she hadn’t prepared herself for a guided tour of some ancient underground grave.

Simone didn’t like graveyards and funerals. For that matter, in spite of her Catholic mother, she felt out of place in a church. Especially dressed in a pair of short pants that left little to the imagination, especially the imagination of the priest, whose eyes started bulging when he looked her way.

“For God’s sake, I don’t like graves” she said. “Don’t worry,” replied Bruno soothingly. “It’s quite safe, all solid marble and granite. It won’t cave in. It’s of wonderful historical interest.”

Joey smiled and took her hand. “It’s okay, cheeky chops, I’m with ya. It’s only an old grave, no ghosts,” he said. Not yet, he thought to himself. But there soon will be.

Bruno led the way to a side door and a staircase going down, then pushed at a painted wall that opened and the three walked through. Bruno turned on an electric light.

Joey grunted. “What all secret chambers need. Electricity.”

Bruno didn’t miss the sarcasm, and bit back.

“I said few people knew. I didn’t say it was totally unknown.”

He wouldn’t have been so cheeky if he’d known what was really going on. As Bruno led the way down another narrow stairway to the level below Joey pulled out one of the things in his pocket: a neat .22 calibre magnum revolver. He produced a silencer and screwed it on the threaded end of the short barrel.

It’s not like in the movies. Silencers don’t make a spitting noise. When they’re fitted to any gun, from a .22 calibre to a .44, they all make the same sound, like a high-powered air rifle going off, or the sharp clap of two hands smacked together. Not all that silent at all, but a hundred times quieter than any gun not fitted with a silencer.

Murder was never thrilling or mysterious. It was all very simple. The finger pulled the trigger, the bullet left the barrel and a small spot appeared in the back of Bruno’s skull. He fell forward down the stairs. Joey pushed Simone forward and she stumbled down and fell on the body of the now dead Bruno. She put her hands together as if in prayer, then began to beg.

“Please, please don’t kill me, I won’t say anything, I don’t know what’s going on, I don’t know nothing. Please, Rocco.”

“My name’s Joey,” he said coldly.

She knew the moment he’d pulled the trigger that who he said he was on the plane when they first met was correct. Bricklayers didn’t tend to shoot Swiss bankers.

“Why shouldn’t I finish you?”

Simone decided not to insult Joey with the promise of sexual heaven. A head job might get you out of a parking ticket in Italy, but it didn’t carry much weight with mafia hit men.

“The Chinese have a saying,” said Simone quietly. “In return for a life you win a life.” Joey looked puzzled.

Simone continued, “If you give me my life today I will then give you my life. I will become yours to command with blind loyalty and obedience. I will owe my life to you, and it is a debt that I will spend the rest of my life repaying.”

In chess terms she had just placed him in check. A clever move: She had turned her own death into a matter of negotiation. A smart and level-headed lady.

Simone was nearly pooing her shorts in fear, but she could see Joey thinking about the old Chinese saying she had just invented, and she reminded herself that this particular Sicilian wasn’t all that bright. Thank God.

Then Joey put the gun away and said, “Get up, China.”

“You’re letting me go?” she asked.

“Yeah, why not?” said Joey. “You speak English, but you don’t speak Italian. Italian police speak little English if at all and no fucking Chinese whatsoever. Think about it. A Chinese girl with your looks trying to report the murder of a German Swiss Jew carried out by the nephew of Hector Aspanu … by the time you find an Italian policeman in Rome who speaks English, let alone Chinese, I’ll have made a phone call and not only will Bruno here vanish but you’ll find two fat bags of pure heroin in your hotel room when the police take you back there. You with me so far, babe?” It wasn’t really a question.

Joey was right: she was hardly a position to report she had just witnessed a mafia execution, even if she was by nature or personality given to reporting things to police. Joey went up the stairs and Simone followed her new best friend like a little girl lost and found again. Extreme fear followed by extreme gratitude will do that. It’s the Stockholm Syndrome. Ask Patty Hearst.

LONDON, 1992. Joey Gravano roared laughing at his own joke, as usual. This time it was the old Cornflakes gag. Raquelle Jackson and Leon Little Wolf sat with him in London’s famous Paul Raymond’s Review Bar, a nightclub and striptease palace.

Raquelle “Action” Johnson was an Aussie film maker who said she was doing a documentary on London’s night life. In fact, she was secretly planning to expose mafia involvement in London’s club land, which was full of drugs and prostitution.

Leon Little Wolf was an American who had invested heavily in London’s club scene. He was flattered by the fact Miss Johnson wanted to include him in her documentary, and feeling quite happy about things. Raquelle wasn’t quite so happy. She was dubious about the thug from Carlton, Melbourne, via Sicily, who had introduced himself as Rocco the bricklayer.

Raquelle knew the Melbourne crime scene and Rocco the bricklayer looked to her a hell of a lot like Aussie Joe Gravano, a person of interest to the authorities in more than one murder investigation and at least one Royal Commission she could think of. She recalled the name and the face popping up several times during the Trimbole investigation. Despite her uneasy feelings, she knew her documentary could be a winner if she could get a bit of secret footage of Gravano and Little Wolf together. Which is why she burst out laughing at the corny cornflakes joke as if she’d never heard it before. She knew that the Aussie Joe she’d heard of had only two social interests: playing chess and telling stupid jokes. She wondered if she could con him into a game of chess. She’d let him win, of course.

It was at this point that a big blonde stripper walked up to their table wearing a high-cut thong bikini bottom, a pair of stiletto heels, a wide smile and nothing else.

“Hi ya, Rocco” she said in an East End accent.

“How’s it going, Katrina?” said Joey, sticking some twenty pound notes down the front of the stripper’s bikini. At least three, as Raquelle quickly counted. The big blonde girl smiled even wider and, as if she had been through the same routine a hundred times before, she slid in beside Joey and started grappling with his crotch under the table.

God, thought Raquelle, she’s going to do a Monica Lewinsky right here at the table, and she hasn’t even got a cocktail dress to wipe up the mess. Raquelle, a copper’s daughter and a good girl at heart, who preferred her sport to be of the outdoors variety, was horrified at the very idea. But Leon Little Wolf seemed highly delighted.

Raquelle tried to avert her gaze, but in spite of her finer feelings she turned her head ever so slightly to see the stripper making a brave attempt on a thing the size of a hammer handle. That was enough for her. She got up.

“I’m going, Leon,” she said to the American.

Little Wolf, reluctant to pull himself away from what he was watching, decided to be the gentleman. “Hang on, Raquelle,” he said. “I’ll see ya back to the hotel.”

As the American got up to leave, Joey cocked an eye on him, which wasn’t a bad effort considering the advanced stage Katrina had reached in the mouth to south caper.

“Betorelli’s, tomorrow lunch time” Joey said.

“Gotcha,” replied Leon.

Raquelle took a mental note of this as she walked out with Little Wolf, glad to turn her back on the stripper’s little earner.

Raquelle knew enough about London to know that Betorelli’s was a restaurant opposite the stage door of the Royal Opera House. While the rich and famous paid a small fortune to dine at the Savoy Grill in Covent Garden for food that tasted like deep fried trash, Betorelli’s served traditional Italian food. It was a favourite eating place for opera goers and visiting mafia figures and it didn’t cost the earth, unlike most other eateries in London, where customers would be as well off to be robbed with a stocking mask and a shotgun when they got in the door. In fact, many a tourist leaving a London restaurant imagined it might have been cheaper to cop an armed robbery than to eat out. One of the main offenders was Rule’s Restaurant in Covent Garden, a quaint olde worlde joint that served rabbit stew on Royal Doulton to prats in tweed jackets, then charged them like wounded buffalos. The grouse was grouse at Rule’s, all right, but the price tag was enough for the deposit on a small country estate. Even the bloody ashtrays were worth half a week’s wages, which was why so many of them were pinched by stray Aussie customers.

These were among the thoughts that raced through Raquelle’s hyperactive mind as Leon drove her to Blakes Hotel, at 33 Roland Gardens. It wasn’t her hotel. It was Leon who was staying at Blakes; Aussie documentary makers generally stayed at the Abbey House or the Vicarage Hotel, relatively cheap but not bad. Raquelle was booked into the Vicarage but, tonight, in the name of journalistic endeavour, she had resigned herself to Blakes. The fact it was one of the plushest places in town, and one of the most expensive, wasn’t the point. Raquelle knew what was ahead: she knew Mr Little Wolf wanted her to lie back and think of Melbourne while he attempted to tickle her fancy with something she was fairly sure wouldn’t be in the same league as the Sicilian hammer handle she had just seen back at the nightclub.

Raquelle looked at Leon and said, “Sorry, mate. I’ve changed my mind.”

“What’s wrong, baby?” said Leon.

“Nothing,” said Raquelle, and handed him three twenty pound notes. “I want you in my documentary – but ya can get that thing sucked elsewhere.”

She got out of the car and hailed a taxi. Leon looked at the sixty pounds and shrugged, then turned the car around and headed back to the club. He most certainly would do as she suggested. No point wasting 60 quid.

BERTORELLI’S restaurant, next day. Aussie Joe sat at a quiet window table with Leon Little Wolf.

“My friends are worried about the fucking gooks and their fucking heroin,” he said suddenly.

“Jesus, Joey” replied Leon, “you come to London to talk to me about fucking Chinese?”

“No, no. Not Chinese,” said Joey. “Vietnamese. They’re all over the place back home.”

“Australia,” said Little Wolf, pretending not to understand. “You’re talking to me as if I should know about what’s going on in Australia.”

“Well,” said Joey. “My Uncle Hector seems to think you get on well with the Wong crew in Sydney.”

Leon stammered, “The Wongs are Chinese.”

“Yeah, but” said Joey drily, “the Viets sell China white smack. In the end, the Chinese control importation and the Viets work for them. We don’t give a shit about fucking New South Wales. Just tell your little fat chow mate that the Viets in Melbourne work with us – or it’s Irish time.”

“What do you mean?” asked Leon.

“Simple,” said Joey. “We kill one Viet dealer Monday night, two Tuesday night, three Wednesday night, four Thursday night, five Friday night. We will turn Footscray into a Vietnamese graveyard.”

“Listen, Joey” said Leon. “I feel very uncomfortable with this conversation. Your uncle has it all wrong. Yes, I know Fat Micky – but knowing an Aussie triad boss socially don’t mean I have any influence, for God’s sake.”

Joey looked around. The place was crowded, but that didn’t worry him much. Shooting a man in a crowded place was as good as a quiet place. The panic and shock means all anyone really remembers is the sound of the gun going off, then it’s all eyes to the victim.

“So you can’t have a word in a Chinese ear for my dear old uncle?” Joey asked sarcastically. “They can do what the hell they like in bloody Cabramatta, but in Melbourne they play by the rules, that’s all we ask.”

Leon put his hands in the air.

“This is insanity, Joey. I’m London-based. I have no influence whatsoever, for God’s sake. Your uncle has fucked up on this one. Please believe me.”

Joey smiled as he drew his .38 police special under the table.

“My uncle is smart enough to know that Little Wolf Ltd invested six million with the Trantronic Australia Holding Company two weeks ago.” Trantronic Australia is a Vietnamese group owned by the China Doll Toy company, Fat Micky’s family firm. Leon went pale, and Joey knew the time had come to stop talking.

“Leon,” he said. “We’ve had our main course; here’s ya fucking dessert.”

He pulled the .38 out and pulled the trigger three times in Leon’s face. The hollow-point ammo shattered inside the American’s skull. A piece of lead spat out Leon’s left ear, by which time he was extremely dead, although his body was twitching like a snake with a broken back. Joey was gone before the corpse hit the floor and the screaming started. He could move fast for a big man.

Raquelle Johnson whispered to her cameraman, “Did ya get it, did ya get it?”

They had filmed the whole murder scene from a van parked a few feet from the window. All she’d wanted was film footage of the Aussie hood in London with the shadowy American, but this was much better. It was worth its weight in film awards.

“Let’s get outta here,” Raquelle yelled to the driver. She couldn’t contain herself. Any more excited and she was going to wet herself. A good exclusive was better than sex.

RAQUELLE sat in the first class section of the British Airways flight from Heathrow to Melbourne. Her cameraman and film crew had somehow got themselves lost and missed the flight home. It was nearly breakfast time and Raquelle was feeling a touch peckish.

An air hostess approached her with a message. “Miss Johnson?” she said inquiringly.

“Yes,” said Raquelle. “I’m sorry, but there’s been a little hiccup with your luggage.”

“What do you mean?” asked Raquelle, suddenly feeling ill-at-ease. The video tape was in her luggage. Why the hell hadn’t she brought it in her hand luggage?

“What’s the problem?” she asked. “Oh, no problem really,” replied the hostess. “We know where it is.”

“Well?” said Raquelle. “Where is it?”

“Yes, well,” said the hostess, embarrassed. “It somehow went from Heathrow to Gatwick Airport and, don’t ask us how, ended up on a charter flight from Gatwick to – believe it or not, Miss Jackson – Palermo, Sicily. But don’t worry. British Airways will compensate you fully if we can’t recover it.”

She paused. “What would you like for breakfast?” she asked lamely.

Raquelle had lost her appetite. She was stunned. Had she misjudged Aussie Joe? Maybe the dumb Sicilian killer wasn’t the clown he pretended to be.

“What would you like for breakfast?” repeated the air hostess.

Raquelle looked up.

“I said,” repeated the hostess, “what would you like for breakfast?”

Raquelle couldn’t help laughing. “Anything but the fucking Cornflakes, honey. Anything but the Cornflakes.”

MELBOURNE, 1978. Joey sat quietly with Pop Kelly over yet another game of chess. “What happened then, Mr Kelly?” he asked, after a longer than usual silence.

“What?” said Pop Kelly vaguely, trying to concentrate on the game.

“With ya dad?” asked Joey softly.

“Ya mean old Alfred Edgar Kelly, my dear old mad dad,” said Pop, laughing.

“Yeah,” said Joey, then moved his knight and said “check”.

Old Pop quickly moved his king.

“During the ’39-’45 war or the ’14-’18 war? He fought in both,” said Pop.

“The first world war,” said Joey. “The Pommy story.”

“Well,” said Pop. “He turned 18 years old in France, got gassed seven times.”

“Nah,” said Joey. “The Pommy captain.”

“Oh,” laughed Keith Kelly. “Some lah de dah, posh, anyone-for-fucking-tennis captain, Sir something-or-other, DSM, MBE, OBE – rah rah rah – came marching into the trench pissed, in the dead of night, and ordered the lads over the top. One of the chaps took offence at his tone and shot him stone dead, so the boys decided that after that the safest place was over the top so they all went over. Dad carried the body of the dead Pommy with him. They got thirty yards then the shooting started. This was the western front son, dead of night. Mud, guts, blood and pissing down rain. The Aussies took a German trench and machine gun nest.” Then he roared laughing.

“What’s funny?” said Joey.

“The mad British top brass awarded the dead Pommy captain a posthumous Victoria Cross for leading the bloody charge. Ha, ha, ha.”

The old bloke froze as Joey said the fatal words. “Checkmate”.

Pop Kelly packed the chess board away and stood up and held his hand out. Young Joey shook it, without really understanding what was going on.

“This is our last chess game, son” said Pop Kelly.

“Why?” asked Joey.

“Well,” said Pop. “I’ve learnt nothing from beating you all these years, but every time I’ve beaten you, in losing to me you have learnt something. Ya see, son, when ya lose a game of chess, ya learn more than by winning. Slowly but surely, you have learnt and remembered every move and counter move, attack and defence, strategy and tactic. You now know all your teacher knows.”

Then Pop Kelly handed Joey an old book.

“Here ya go”.

“What’s this?” asked Joey.

“It’s a very rare book,” said Mr Kelly, “written by Doctor Emanuel Lasker, who was one of the greatest chess masters in world history. Remember this, son, when you play chess with someone. They are showing you how to think tactically and strategically. Yes, the name of the game is not to win, but to learn. You must lose because the winner learns nothing, and the loser learns. Remember, chess is a lot like life. You might have to lose a thousand battles in order to win the war.”

MELBOURNE, 1989. Long before anyone in the western suburbs ever heard of Quentin Tarantino, there was a game played in Footscray called the fantale game.

Niko Ceka, nicknamed Albanian Nick, sat at a large kitchen table in a small house. His cousin, a Russian Albanian called Fracoz Lepetikha and nicknamed Russian Frankie, sat with him. On the other side of the large wooden table sat Tony Capone, third-ranked member of Melbourne’s Calabrian-controlled crime syndicate.

Tony didn’t seem too pleased, as both his hands had been nailed firmly to the table. He had tears in his eyes but he wasn’t crying. He was a tough hood. However, the mad Albanians in front of him dealt with tough guys for a living and to them Capone was just another punk dago who would soon be crying for his mother, a mother the Albanians might kill at a later date, anyway, just for practice.