Chopper Unchopped (224 page)

‘I don’t know about that,’ said Harris out of fairness. ‘But I do know Stromboli was and that Sammy was getting his gear from Alfonse.’

‘That’s good enough for me,’ said Ray.

‘What goes around comes around,’ said Kindergarten, crying.

Hacker nodded and put his arm around Ray’s shoulder in a gesture of comfort, smiling to himself.

He had found one more nail to drive into the Calabrian coffin.

‘Do you remember O.Henry’s stories?’ asked Hacker gently.

Gilbert Bazooka shook his head. ‘No, never heard of him.’

Harris told the O.Henry yarn about a young married couple in the year of 1905. They were very poor but deeply in love with each other. The wife had long hair all the way down to her waist and the husband had a pocket watch his great grandfather had given his grandfather and from him it had passed to the grandson. It was Christmas and both the wife and husband, so much in love, wanted to surprise each other with a gift of value. So the wife sold her lovely hair to a wig maker. With the money she bought her husband a platinum chain for his pocket watch. Meanwhile, her husband sold his pocket watch to buy his wife a silver Spanish comb for her beautiful hair.

Gilbert looked puzzled. ‘What are you trying to say, Hacker,’ he asked.

‘I’m not saying anything mate,’ said Hacker. ‘It’s just that while you’re busy doing something for someone else behind that person’s back, you forget that maybe they are doing something as well. Good or bad, for better or worse, both can come out the loser.’

‘What are you trying to say?’ asked Gilbert again.

‘Easy,’ replied Hacker. ‘If you don’t surprise me, I won’t surprise you.’

Gilbert still looked puzzled as Hacker walked away.

‘Forget Alfonse, mate. He’s not Father Christmas. Walk away and forget about doing anything behind anyone’s back. Least of all, mine. Okay, mate!’

Gilbert nodded but as Harris walked away he thought: ‘Bloody O.Henry. Harris talks in riddles but he gets his point across.’

In the midst of life, we are in death. – Anon

LORRAINE Kindergarten sat in the bar of the Tower Hotel in Collingwood with Hacker Harris. They were talking football. Lorraine was doing most of it.

‘1902. That was the first Premiership Collingwood ever won,’ she said. ‘Followed by 1903, 1910, 1911, 1919, 1927, 1928, 1929, 1930, 1935, 1936, 1953, 1958 and 1959.’

‘Bullshit,’ said Hacker. ‘They never won 1959.’

‘Well, who did then?’ asked Lorraine.

‘I don’t know and I don’t care. But it wasn’t Collingwood. Okay?’ replied Hacker.

‘Collingwood Brownlow Medallists,’ continued Lorraine without drawing breath ‘were Coventry, 1927, then Collier in 1929, another Collier in 1930, Whelan in 1939, Fothergill a year later, Thompson in 1972 and Moore in 1979.’ Harris sat in silence, chewing over for a moment. ‘For a chick from Footscray, you sure know a lot about Collingwood, Lorrie,’ he said at last.

Hacker always called Lorraine Kindergarten ‘Lorrie’. Lorraine was a tough knockabout semi-criminal chick from a fully criminal family. Tall, long legs, big boobed and with golden long hair, she worked as a dancer and a stripper. That is when she wasn’t driving the get away a car for bank robberies and jewellers shop smash and grabs.

Lorraine laughed. ‘O che sciabura d’essere sneza cogillioni.’

‘What?’, asked Hacker.

‘Oh what a misfortune to be without testicles,’ Lorraine giggled. ‘Voltaire said that.’

Lorraine was a strange chick. She travelled the world and had seen and done it all. She had once worked at the Kit Kat Ranch on Kit Kat Road, east of Carson City in Lyon County near Reno in Nevada. She had gone to America for a holiday in 1979 and married an Italian American, Carmine Caprice. Her luck started to go downhill from that point on. Within three months she was working at the Kit Kat Ranch. This establishment was the oldest cathouse in Lyon County. The brothel is, or was, open 24 hours a day and the girls worked in 14-hour shifts. They did this for three consecutive weeks before having a week’s break. The club had between 40 and 50 ladies working around the clock on different shifts. If you were to drive east on Highway 50 from Carson City about 6.5 miles (or approximately one mile past the Green Lyon County sign) you would see, on the right hand side of the road, Sam’s Saloon. Next to it you would see a billboard announcing the three brothels on Kit Kat Road. By turning right on Kit Kat Road and continuing for a mile you would reach Kit Kat Ranch. It was the first house on the left. A cupid pink exterior that made it hard to miss. Lorraine didn’t need to divorce her husband when she got sick of him. He was shot dead in New York City by an off-duty policeman. The reason for the shooting remained a mystery. However, the policeman in question had not long before then taken a holiday to Nevada, and the lovely Lorraine still smiles slyly whenever she mentions her husband and his untimely demise. She returned from America three years later with enough cash to buy three massage parlours outright and lease another four. She had done the hard yards at the Kit Kat Ranch and was now a lady of personal wealth, not to mention a bit of local power as a result of her wealth. She paid Hacker a grand a week, not for protection, but for the friendship. If she ever found herself in trouble, however, she knew she could call on Hacker Harris and his crew.

But I digress.

‘I lent $25,000 to Alfonse,’ said Lorraine, ‘and I’ve got the feeling I’m gonna get lashed.’

Hacker shook his head. ‘That wog. Borrows money from everyone. What was it for?’ asked Hacker.

‘Smack,’ replied Lorraine.

‘Serves you right,’ said Hacker. ‘I bet Alfonse told you the gear was seized on a drug raid and the money’s gone.’

‘Yeah,’ answered Lorraine, suddenly looking interested as Hacker did his crystal ball gazing. She’d seen plenty of balls, but precious few crystal ones.

Hacker shook his head again. ‘You’re smart enough to turn your pussy into a million dollars and dumb enough to fall for that bullshit. You’ll never get ya dough back,’ said Hacker. ‘That turd’ he continued, ‘owes half of Melbourne money. He invests it, makes his profit, then lashes and lies his way out of the debt. He’s been doing it all his life.’

Lorrie put her hand right on Hacker’s lap and gave him a gentle squeeze. ‘Da you reckon you can help me Hacker? I’ll write the 25 grand off as a bad loss but Al reckons he will bottle my face if I don’t come up with two grand a week protection.’

Hacker smiled. ‘Just tell him you can’t afford two grand coz you’re already paying me three a week. Tell him that if he has a problem to come and see me.’

‘Okay,’ replied Lorraine and gave him an extra big squeeze as she flashed a wide sexy smile. ‘You look like a man who desperately needs to have the top knocked off it. Come on mate. Let’s get out of here.’

Hacker Harris and Lorraine Kindergarten got up and walked out.

Three days later Lorraine Kindergarten was found dead from a heroin overdose. Lorraine had never used heroin in her life. It was concluded someone must have felt that if they couldn’t have a slice, they would simply get rid of the pie. Nothing could be proven. Alfonse couldn’t be linked to Lorraine’s death. He even went to her funeral. Hacker never went to funerals. He considered it bad luck. However, in one week, Alfonse had moved in on Lorraine’s empire, cutting Harris completely out. Another battle won, but the war still raged.

MILAN – or Milano, as the Dagos call it – is the capital of the region of Lombardy. It is the second largest city in Italy and regarded as one of Europe’s finest and most dynamic places. It measures 182 square kilometres and is a city of action, work and money, some of it legitimate.

Sitting in the sunshine on the Piazza Delia Scala, three Milano men, Johnny, Michael and Frank Gangitano sat, quietly drinking aniseed cordial, otherwise known as Sambuca. On the table were side plates of mussels, octopus and oysters. There was also a large plate of pepperoni salad. The three brothers were in the transport business and ran trucks from Milan to Calabria.

‘What news of our paisans?’ asked Johnny.

Michael laughed like a hyena. ‘Young Alfonse, he wants to be the big boss. He has all them skippy hillbillies thinking he is Mafiosi.’ The three men roared with laughter. They thought Al was more Jerry Lewis than Dean Martin.

‘That shifty Calabrese. He will either outsmart us all or maybe outsmart himself,’ Frankie said.

‘He sent us the money for three new trucks. He wants a slice of our pie in return for our blessing to run powder from Rome to the south.’

‘Three trucks?’ said Johnny. ‘Tell the pig to make it six trucks and the blessing is his. But what about the men in Naples and Palermo?’

Michael sighed. ‘Alfonse tells us not to worry. He reckons they don’t matter.’

‘Ya know what,’ said Frank, ‘I think we will get six trucks and Big Al will get a funeral. He’s a smart boy but a stupid man.’

Johnny nodded. ‘Ah well,’ he said drily, ‘If Alfonse wants to be in the movies, let him. Maybe one day he will learn that life isn’t a motion picture. Ha! Ha!’

MEANWHILE, back in Australia, Hacker Harris was walking out of Bojangles Night Club on lower St Kilda Esplanade.

Shane Goodfellow, Graeme Jenson, Frankie Valastro and Ronnie Burgess sat in a car outside. You didn’t have to be a brain surgeon to know that Alfonse had given the order for Harris to be killed. If you couldn’t work that out you would have needed a brain surgeon, or worse, an undertaker.

Cheque books don’t win gang wars.
You need dash, not cash.
– Chopper Read.

KILLING a madman wasn’t as simple as it sounded. A Turkish hanger-on attached to Goodfellow’s crew conned Harris outside and Tony Mavric was hiding in the bushes with a shotgun. A shot rang out. The Turk hit the footpath, dead as a doornail with a .410 shotgun blast through the right eyeball. Goodfellow’s wife jumped into the car while Tony Mavric sat in the bushes shitting his pants.

‘He’s fucking mad. He shot the Turk point blank, then pulled his dick out and pissed into the bushes all over Tony. The bloke’s a fucking maniac,’ exploded Goodfellow.

As the car sped away, Goodfellow knew he was in trouble. Alfonse was the only one who could protect him now.

Two weeks later, Harris was arrested for murder and, on Alfonse’s advice and instructions, Goodfellow made a full statement to the homicide squad. Also on instructions, he agreed to go Crown Witness against Harris. At last Alfonse had rid himself of his worst and most hated enemy. Or so he thought.

It is when power is wedded to chronic fear that it becomes formidable.

– Eric Hoffer (1954)

THE years between 1987 and 1991 were for Alfonse Cologne the best years. He rose in wealth and power. Harris was in Pentridge Prison where, many would say, a mental case like him belonged. Alfonse was controlling one third of all heroin and methamphetamine sales in Melbourne nightclubs.

The new legal sex industry with its brothels, lap dancing clubs, strip joints and Australian-financed porn films was growing. But the one criminal industry he couldn’t gouge a foothold into was the illegal arms market. Hacker Harris and his crew had that sewn up. There wasn’t big money involved but Harris and his hillbilly Aussie connections seemed to control this market. It seemed odd to Alfonse that even the guns he and his crew owned all came from people who bought guns from Hacker’s people. But, he mused, this was Australia – a very Irish place indeed. To shoot your enemies you had to first buy your guns from them, as well as your ammo. Even in Ireland, this state of affairs would have seemed a little bit comical.

Melbourne is like that. A mix of Chicago-style gangsters, New York-style Mafia and an old tradition of feudal loyalty to local crime lords with traditional criminal clans and families dating back to the days of John Wren and Squizzy Taylor. It has a criminal sub-culture unlike any city in Australia, all within the sub-culture of the wider Australian criminal world. It is almost like East End London, with its inter-criminal family network and South London violence. Many so-called and would-be Godfathers and crime lords from other nationalities have come and gone – like rising comets that become falling stars. But the old ways, traditions and criminal culture remains. When the blood starts flowing the Aussie, English, Irish, and Scottish clans will all side with one another against any common foe. Melbourne is unique in Australia in that its criminal culture places the payback, vendetta and revenge along with its associated feuds and wars higher than anything, even money.

The Melbourne criminal culture never forgives nor forgets. The attitude of cutting the hand off to punish the offender’s arm, regardless of cost, is ingrained in the old criminal families. A score may be repaid tomorrow, in ten years time or longer. One thing is certain – no old score is ever forgotten. The criminal payback vendetta holds an almost holy place in the minds of the men who live and die there. As one old Irishman said to me: ‘The Dagos invented the vendetta but the Irish make a bigger, bloodier mess.’ Amen to that.

Hacker Harris, being the gun-happy, mental case he was, found himself yet again in prison in 1992 after getting out in 1991. Yet again it was related to a shooting charge. Harris got out of Pentridge Prison in November 1991 to find that Big Al had fled Melbourne along with his de facto wife and two children to Milan, Italy. The two events were not unrelated.

He returned to Melbourne in 1993, only after Harris had been convicted on the shooting charge after losing both State and High Court appeals. Naturally, Al laughed at the rumours he had taken himself and his family to Italy to avoid a blood war with Harris. He claimed he returned only because his father was dying from cancer. He said that the land mines placed in his driveway and discovered in 1991 (suspected to have been placed there on the orders of Harris), had little to do with his move to Italy the same year.

‘That’s a lie, a complete fallacy’ claimed Cologne to the media. ‘The greater the lie, the more people believe it,’ he said, quoting Adolf Hitler. It was a quote Cologne had picked up from Harris himself during the early 1970s. He also picked something else up, resulting in him having to shave his pubic hairs, but that is another story. Al returned to a Harris-free state and a new and legal sex industry. Sex shops, brothels, escort services, adult bookshops, strip clubs, lap dancing clubs and venues provided sexually explicit entertainment – all fully licensed by a grateful, greedy Government keen to get its slice of the tax action. And they called Harris a standover man.