Chopper Unchopped (81 page)

FOR well over 12 months I have had a chap named Ian Hill ringing and wanting to come and see me about the death of Christopher Dale Flannery, the idiot they called Mr Rent-A-Kill who went on the missing list in Sydney in May, 1985.

In a previous book I said that I had been told that he had been killed and his body put through a tree shredder in country Victoria.

Mr Hill is working on the inquest into Flannery’s death. There has been more work put into the death of this no-account hood and contract killer than into the death of Harold Holt.

It is typical of Sydney gangster-obsessed bullshit that so much time and effort be spent on so little. We know what happened to Chris – he got offed and a good thing, too.

Everyone with a barrow to push has jumped on board the Flannery hearse. Brain-dead crims are jumping up and trying to give evidence. Many of them are looking for the cushy life in witness protection or so they can get their ugly heads on telly.

There have been sightings of Flannery having dinner with Elvis Presley. My only knowledge of Flannery was passed on to me by two good crooks who are now both dead. I have no intention of joining the circus in Sydney about the death of a contract killer. I didn’t like the nitwit when he was alive and I have no intention of carrying on about him now that he is dead.

Anyrate, I really know what happened to Harry Holt. He couldn’t swim too well. Ha ha.

THE Flannery business became totally bloody ludicrous when I was served (on September 9, 1994) with a rather unique form of summons to appear as a witness at the inquest into his death … at ten o’clock in the forenoon at Risdon Prison, if you don’t mind.

This application was made by the same Ian David Hill, solicitor for the State Coroner. It would appear quite unique in that ‘the mountain is coming to Muhammad’. That is, the buggers weren’t too keen on the idea of moving me to New South Wales, so they’ve got themselves a nice little trip to Tassie.

I see myself entering into the world of high farce, although the legal chaps in NSW in charge of the whole Flannery debacle take it all very seriously, in keeping with their NSW gangster fixation.

While this might not be a first in legal history, it’s certainly the first summons of this type I’ve heard of. Hence my use of the word ‘ludicrous’. After this business I never again want to hear the word ‘Flannery’.

The inquest hearing was held on September 13. And God, what a day it was. I spent half of it being questioned by a Mr Peter Johnston, the senior counsel investigating the Flannery debacle, with junior counsel Mr Rick Hensley faithfully assisting the rather serious Mr Johnston, and Mr Ian Hill standing by operating the tape-recording equipment.

All was well until they dug out a photostat copy of a very old personal address book cum diary that I’d kept along with others from 1970 to 1987, and the ghosts from Christmases past all came back to haunt me. A lot of the names in it belonged to people who are now dead. Some of them were would-be targets and people to keep an eye on, and there were general comic remarks and odd thoughts.

The names, addresses and phone numbers of every one from Abe Saffron to Andrew Peacock were in that book. A lot of them I didn’t know, but for one reason or another, way back when, I had occasion to jot down personal details of police, crooks, bookies, mice and millionaires. A sort of toecutter’s memory notebook. In the hands of suspicious and paranoid investigators it must have looked quite odd: phone numbers and addresses and personal details of old gang leaders and drug dealers, old girlfriends and Masonic Lodge contacts, Italians and police, politicians and poofters and blue-eyed pussy cats … the whole rambling lot of flapdoodle that a young psycho toecutter might wish to jot down and hold onto for a rainy day.

There was gossip I’d heard, names of the dead and who I thought might have done it, contracts put to me re this one and that one and not taken up, phone numbers of girls I knew from when I was 15 to 30. But even though I knew it was harmless there were remarks re Flannery and friends and contacts of the dear departed, and phone numbers and addresses relating to them, and names of Mr Bigs and Mr Not So Bigs from various ethnic backgrounds, overseas phone numbers and names and numbers in code. It was a blast from my highly insane past, and some of it must have looked suspicious.

The notebook was one of four that I kept. The other three I know have been destroyed. However, I’d not only forgotten all about the fourth but I also remember wondering to myself whatever happened to that fourth book. It makes me not guilty of anything – just sort of guilty of everything. And, naturally, it seemed of great interest to the gentlemen investigating the Flannery fiasco.

Johnston, Hensley and Hill were all very correct and businesslike and serious, in between trying to maintain a straight face at my tone of conversation. Rick Hensley let the side down now and again with a display of silent laughter. Johnston and Hill did their best to maintain that cold, professional, no-nonsense stiff upper lip, although I did detect a touch of amusement in them, despite their best efforts to repress it.

I really hope I’ve heard the last of Flannery, Harold Holt and Azaria Chamberlain … can we please just wave them all goodbye?

A SHORT postscript relating to my meeting with the legal team from NSW of Johnston, Hensley and Hill – a small point of common courtesy and old-fashioned good manners.

It was not the first inquest into someone’s death at which I’ve had to appear. And, over the years, I’ve been introduced to some very senior counsel and some very senior police in Victoria and Tasmania, and without exception each and every one has politely introduced themselves with the extended hand. In other words, when men meet in Aussie land, hands are shaken. I’ve shaken hands with politicians, judges, high-ranking prosecutors and top policemen. It is a common Aussie form of polite, old-fashioned basic courtesy and civil good manners.

However, when being introduced to the legal team of Johnston, Hensley and Hill no such common, decent courtesy was extended to me. It was a cool, businesslike case of ‘thank you Mr Read … please sit down’. And when it was over, it was just ‘thank you and goodbye’, with no handshake.

In my opinion, this is the height of bad manners, discourtesy and downright rudeness, and is typical of the la-di-da ‘we come from NSW’ snob attitude.

After all, I’m just Chopper Read the crook. But I’m one crook who has shaken hands with more heavyweights in all walks of life than most uppity NSW lawyers will get to meet in a lifetime. I hate discourtesy.

THE news in July that my old Dad had been taken to hospital with a suspected cancer gave me a shock that brought back floods of sentimental memories. Dad has been in many ways my saving grace, the voice of reason injecting a note of common sense into situations I was involved in, resulting in lives being saved instead of taken.

Some of these situations are so far-fetched that if I told a donkey he would kick me in the head for telling lies.

Such as the plot to kill probably the most famous Australian Catholic of the past 50 years, Mr Bob Santamaria, the leader of the National Civic Council.

It all went back to the fact that my dad was a master mason in the Masonic Lodge and also a member of the Orange Lodge. Well, he was until he and about 3000 other masons baled out of the lodge in the late 1960s and early '70s because of internal upheaval in the fraternity.

For a short time many years ago I myself was affiliated with a renegade group of outlawed freemasons known as the Black Chapter Masons or Orange Masons – the ‘Brethren of the Black Chapter Antient Charge 6.4, sublime sons of Hiram Abriff'.

My old comrade in arms Vincent Villeroy was a member of the same outlawed order. I won't go into the political details of the Black Chapter, but they were against the mainstream Freemasons, namely the Blue Lodge Masons, allowing Catholics to enter their ranks. All of this is a bit meaningless now, because the craft or masonic lodge of today is a piss-poor shadow of what it once stood for.

But in 1974 it was still a big deal. It was that year old Roy H., Vincent Villeroy and a handful of other brothers of the Black Chapter let me in on a madcap plot to kill B.A. Santamaria. This plot to kill took place in the bar of the Tower Hotel in Collingwood and involved some dozen or more crazy old Orange drum bangers who'd left the Freemasons. Cash was raised and a plan was put together with the idea that Santamaria's murder would be blamed on members of the Australian Communist Party. Ha ha.

And it would have happened – except that my old Dad put the knocker on it with a passionate verbal tirade about political assassination being un-Australian, and forbidding me from having any role in it. My withdrawal meant that Vincent Villeroy baled out, followed by old Roy, and the whole insane plot died a natural death because we were the only ones with the guts and guns to do the job.

While men like Bob Santamaria are remembered by history, men like my dad are forgotten. Yet Santamaria owes his life to my old Dad.

And if anybody doubts this, it reminds me of another yarn which might pull them up and make them think.

HAVE you ever noticed how old tunes get caught in your head and sort of become your favorite song. Mine has always been Frankie Lane singing
High Noon
… ‘Do not forsake me darlin' on this our wedding day'.

Dave the Jew would often sing a sad old song. I don't know the name of it, but it went ‘And the chapel bells were ringing in the little country town, and the little congregation prayed for little Jimmy Brown'.

Old Bruno C., who we called ‘Poppa', would burst into song with
Ave Maria
, like some out of tune Placido Domingo. Bruno was a good old Sicilian pirate, and Dave the Jew was a bonny buccaneer, but like myself neither of them could hold a note. Vincent Villeroy, on the other hand, had a beautiful singing voice, with his strong Northern Irish accent.

Anyway, one night Dave the Jew, Poppa, Vincent Villeroy and myself were parked in Vincent's old Pontiac in the street, and old Poppa said to Vincent, ‘Hey, Vinnie, sing us a song. You gotta da beautiful-a voice.' So Vinnie started singing his favorite song and – this is no joke – it was
Thank You For Just Being You
by Lionel Rose, the former world bantamweight champion. It was a god-awful song, but when Vincent sang it, it would bring a tear to a glass eye. But when he finished, the Jew passed a sarcastic remark that any man who held Lionel Rose up as a great singing talent had his tastebuds in his arse, and was not guilty of heavyweight musical appreciation.

Vincent turned around and said, ‘What would you know about musical appreciation, ya little kike nutcase?'

Dave pulled out his trusty Scott Webley .38 calibre revolver and pointed it at Vincent's head, and Vincent said, ‘Ahh, go on and pull the trigger, ya crazy little kike nutter.'

‘No-one calls me a kike!' yells Dave. Vincent just starts to sing
Thank You For Just Being You
and Dave starts up with ‘And the chapel bells were ringing in the little country town, and the little congregation prayed for little Jimmy Brown'.

Poppa and me got out of the car, and left Dave holding a pistol at Vincent's head and both of them singing different songs at the top of their voices at 1am.

As Poppa and I walked along the road trying to hail a taxi, he said to me, ‘Chopper, that Jew boy he-a gonna kill us all-a one-a day, or get us all-a killed – and he can't bloody sing either.' Ha ha.

And you know where we were parked that night?

Across the road from 1207 Burke Road in Kew. Bob Santamaria's house.

THE biggest thing I miss in jail – apart from sex, guns and Irish whisky – is gambling. Roulette in particular. But in my sentimental daydreams I always return to the racetrack, where the rich and famous mix freely with the vulgar multitude. Gee, I've had some laughs on racetracks. I got to see some of the greatest horses in racing history run, and I've got to meet some of racing's legends, like Mr R.W. Trinder, the owner of Piping Lane, the winner of the 1972 Melbourne Cup. And Old Tommy Woodcock, Phar Lap's strapper – and trainer for a short time before the Yanks killed the great horse in New Mexico. Old Tommy was a wonderful old bloke but prone to tears whenever the name of the great Phar Lap was mentioned. And on meeting Tommy how could you avoid asking some small question in relation to the greatest horse who ever ran a race?

I shook hands with Sir Henry Bolte at the 1971 Caulfield Cup after Mick Mallyon had just ridden Gay Icarus to victory. On a racetrack, when everyone is full of piss and good will, everyone seems to be everyone's mate. Especially since I was in the company of one of the most feared old ‘gunnies' in Melbourne, Horatio Morris.

I stood in the betting ring at the 1974 Melbourne Cup with Vincent Villeroy and Dave the Jew and I told this la-di-da old toff to whack all his dough on Leilani on the nose. Leilani had just won the Caulfield Cup. The old toff took my advice. He introduced himself as Henry. He turned out to be Sir Henry Winneke, the Governor of Victoria. I mean, you meet every bugger at the racetrack. Incidentally, he did his dough. She ran second.

Seeing as I've mentioned Leilani winning the Caulfield Cup, I will tell a little tale about her owner, the Liberal politician Andrew Peacock, and his then wife.

We were all a bit pissed off – me and the Jew, Vincent Villeroy and our crew – as we had put a packet on Turfcutter to win, and the bloody thing came in third. Anyway, over a few drinks, we thought it would be a good idea to pinch the Caulfield Cup. Ha ha.

Evidently, Andrew Peacock's wife Susan was running rampant throughout every fashionable nightclub in Toorak and South Yarra dancing on table tops and drinking champagne out of the Caulfield Cup – a habit she got quite a name for later when her next husband's horse Beldale Ball won the Melbourne Cup in 1980.

Anyway, me and the Jew and Vincent drove to Monomeath Avenue, Canterbury – number 30 to be exact – where Peacock was living at that time, and waited at a discreet distance for Susan to return home. We got sick of waiting by about 3am, so then we waited outside a fashionable restaurant in Toorak Road, South Yarra. Again we missed out. By this time we had sobered up. We had no intention of harming Susan. We were just going to do a friendly snatch-and-grab on the Caulfield Cup.

Oh well. Just one more two-bob, nitwit plan down the drain. But I must admit I've had some great times on racetracks. They are the best places on earth, next to brothels and casinos. I suspect it will be some time before I see another Caulfield Cup, more's the pity.

MY mind keeps turning to the 1970s. At my very first Melbourne Cup Dave the Jew won $1500 on Baghdad Note, after I had lost my life savings of $1100 at the Caulfield Cup the week before, when Dave had won $1200 on Beer Street. He had uncanny luck for a so-called non-punter.

I remember Horatio Morris introduced me, Dave the Jew, and Cowboy Johnny Harris to the great Sammy Lee of Les Girls fame. He owned the Ritz Hotel in St Kilda and owned nightclubs all over Sydney, and was a one-time partner of that well-known Sydney nightclub owner and gambling identity Mr Perce Galea.

As it happened, Sammy Lee, a flashily dressed, loud-mouthed, Yankee-accented, pimpy-looking ponce, spoke Yiddish and chatted away to Dave the Jew like a long-lost brother. Very few people ever knew that Sammy Lee, the man who built a nightclub empire, was a Jew boy whose real name was Samuel Levi. It is a small world, because Vincent Villeroy and the late Joe Borg – Vincent was Borg's bodyguard – had once bashed Sammy Lee near to death outside the Latin Quarter nightclub in Pitt Street, Sydney, in 1967.

Joe Borg, the vice king of Sydney, got blown to bits in a car bombing the following year, 1968, and Vincent fled to Melbourne, never to return to NSW. But again I digress, as I have a bad habit of doing.

I met Sammy Lee at the 1971 Melbourne Cup, the one Silver Knight won, and Sammy Lee invited us all to the Ritz Hotel for a party. It was a mistake for Sammy, as it turned out, but my crew had a great time.

Dave the Jew nearly killed a female impersonator after he discovered ‘she' was a he. Then Cowboy Johnny gave Sammy Lee's bodyguard, a middleweight boxer called Angelo, a left hook that broke his jaw. All in drunken jest, of course. To top it off, Vincent walked in with a very drunk Micky Tollis, and when poor Sammy Lee saw Vincent he nearly had a heart attack and fled to the showgirls' dressing room and locked himself in. His bodyguard Angelo had already taken a taxi to the Alfred Hospital to get his busted jaw wired up.

Ahh, the 1970s, they do indeed evoke sentimental memories. Poor old Sammy Lee with his black shirt, black pants, white sports coat and white slip-on shoes. He died in 1975, poor old-di-da Yankee faggot. He wasn't really a bad bloke, the Jew boy who told everyone he was a Russian.

All this brings me to another story that could have ended up with a lime funeral, but didn't.

It happened one day at Moonee Valley. Me, Dave the Jew and Vincent Villeroy stood and watched ‘Eddie the Fireman' Birchley stick 50 thousand bucks on one horse – and win. (This was 1973, the same year Gala Supreme won the Melbourne Cup.) Dave the Jew wanted to kill Eddie Birchley, but me and Vincent wouldn't allow it. Call us sentimental fools, if you like, but ‘The Fireman' was part of racing history. I mean, you had to have some respect. It was a privilege just to watch him in action. His ilk are all gone now.

GIVING up smoking when Dad got sick this year has affected me. The lack of nicotine in my system has sent my mind into outer space and my memory is getting sharper. I seem to have that old edge all over again – a sort of inner rage welling up in me – and I'm recalling old memories from long ago. The art of not letting the inner rage show and maintaining the smiling mask escapes me once in a while, but I try hard.

Many years ago Dave the Jew, Vincent Villeroy and my old Sicilian mate Poppa, now dead, got together with myself to discuss two topics … namely Nappy Ollington, the two-up king of Melbourne, and ‘Tuppence' Moran, who was allegedly mixed up in a big SP bookie ring.

Old Poppa felt that we could all ‘make-a da bigga money if we gott-a ridd-a these two pricks'. His idea of English was-a sort-a like-a that. Ha ha. God bless him.

Back then Nappy Ollington was very friendly with Charlie Wooton, Putty Nose Nicholls, Dougie Sproule, the late Pat Shannon, old Pat Cartwright, ‘Machinegun' Bobby Dix, Brian and Les Kane and young up and comers in the form of ‘Young Al' and another bloke called Mick. Back then, Al and Mick hung around the two-up and sort of acted as bouncers.

Nearly the whole ruling body of the Victorian Federated Ship Painters and Dockers were friends of Nappy Ollington – including Jackie Twist, Joey Turner and the rest. And then you had a list of police and politicians a mile long. And bloody Tuppence Moran had almost as many connections as Nappy.

But there were two men that Nappy and Tuppence didn't have on side, and they were Billy ‘The Texan' Longley and old Poppa. So, as far as I was concerned, to hell with Ollington and Moran. ‘Piss on them both' was Dave the Jew's attitude. In one fell swoop we could make a lot of money and do both Longley and Poppa a kindness.

However, again it wasn't to be. A high-ranking policeman got to hear of things and intervened. And because this policeman was a friend of my father's and a leading Freemason I walked away, and the Jew and Vincent followed me.

I was polite, and I smiled, and I was courteous, and so I agreed to leave it alone. But the rage within me boiled. Life is made up of compromise, give and take, doing a favor to get a favor, and walking away when you want to attack.

And Nappy Ollington and Tuppence Moran are luckier gamblers than they ever knew.