Chopper Unchopped (92 page)

‘THEY came on in the same old way and we stopped them in the same old way,’ said Mickey Van Gogh with a sly laugh.

Lord Byron looked up at his big, mad mate and asked ‘Who is it that it is that we stopped, Mickey?’

‘I was quoting Wellington.’

‘Wellington who?’ asked Byron.

Byron Brown was probably the dumbest kid in Collingwood, but he was also Mickey Van Gogh’s best friend. Stupid questions were tolerated.

‘Gee, you’re a dumb bugger, Brownie’ snapped Fatty Phillips. ‘I don’t know how you put up with him and his silly bloody questions, Mickey.’

Fatty was a treacherous little fat crawler, always trying to put the simple-minded Lord Byron down in a never-ending attempt to suck up to his hero, Mickey, leader of the toughest teenage gang in Collingwood.

But his words fell on deaf ears (which is better than falling on no ears, but that’s another story). Although Lord Byron was a bit slow in the old brain box his loyalty to Mickey in the field of street and schoolyard combat was total and without question.

The fourth and fifth members of the gang walked along in silence. The Pepper brothers didn’t say much at the best of times, in spite of the fact that the twin 14-year-olds had already made history. They were the youngest boys to beat a murder charge in the state’s history. They were considered the most vicious double act in Collingwood, which was strange, because they seemed such a quiet pair. Almost humble. Leon and Deon Pepper were strange, all right. If they didn’t want to talk, then none of the others were going to try to make them.

The five teenagers walked along the street, until they reached a part of town they didn’t know much about. Mickey had taken them from Collingwood to Richmond, but he seemed to know what he was up to, which gave the others a certain confidence.

‘Jesus,’ whispered Fatty, ‘look at all the bloody gooks. Shit, I’ve never seen so many slopes in my whole bloody life.’

‘Don’t worry about the Viets,’ said Mickey. ‘We haven’t come here for friggin’ Viets.’

‘What is it that it is that we are here for on business anyway? asked poor, silly Lord Byron.

‘Just shut up and you’ll all find out,’ growled Mickey. ‘And stop talking in that stupid cartoon voice.’

‘What is it, that it is, that I’m talking in, my Mickey?’ asked Byron innocently.

Mickey Van Gogh stopped and turned toward his little mate.

‘If you don’t stop talking in that cartoon voice, you can bloody well walk home on your own, Byron, and I bloody well mean it.’

‘I’m sorry,’ said Lord Byron.

‘I like Victor and Hugo too,’ Mickey snapped. ‘But you’re getting on my bloody nerves.’

Victor and Hugo was an afternoon cartoon on the ABC that all the boys loved watching, and Lord Byron loved to talk in the classic Hugo fashion, which was very funny – up to a point. But 11.30 at night in the middle of Richmond wasn’t the time or place. It was getting on Mickey’s nerves, which was not a good place to be getting.

‘Sorry, my Mickey,’ said Byron. ‘I can’t help it. I’ll just shut up, okay?’

‘Okay,’ muttered Mickey, scowling.

The group marched in silence …

Then Lord Byron muttered under his breath ‘and that’s what I think anyway’.

The boys pissed themselves laughing. It was hard to be crook on little Byron too long.

WHEN they got to the bottom of the Richmond railway station, Mickey said, ‘Hang on, there he is.’ He pointed to a tall, thickset tattooed thug of a bloke, about 25 years old, standing on the street talking to three slopes from the ‘Sun Yee On’ gang.

They weren’t Viets. They were Chinese blokes, about the same age as the tattooed Aussie.

‘Jesus,’ whispered Fatty. ‘It’s Normie Cotton. We haven’t come here to fight Normie Cotton, have we Mickey?’

Mickey paused just long enough for effect. ‘Certainly not,’ he said with an evil look. ‘We have come here to shoot Normie Cotton.’ With that, he produced a sawn-off, single barrel .410 shotgun and checked to see it was loaded. Leon and Deon produced a gun each, sawn-off .22 rifles, semi-automatic jobs with 10-shot clips.

Fatty was shitting himself.

‘What is that it is that we are going to do, my Mickey?’ asked Byron.

‘Here ya go,’ said Mickey. He handed Byron and Fatty a knife each. ‘Give the chows a few in the neck with these and me and the twins will blast big Normie with these. Right, let’s go.’

‘I don’t like this,’ Fatty said.

Mickey looked at him as if he’d stood in a dog turd.

‘You’re either with us or against us, Fatty.’ He spoke softly, but Fatty heard every word.

‘I’m with you,’ said Fatty quickly. ‘I just don’t like it, that’s all.’

Mickey ignored him. ‘Let’s rock and roll,’ he said.

NORMIE Cotton looked up from his conversation. ‘Hello, young Mickey,’ he said sarcastically. ‘You’re a bit out of your way, aren’t you? I think you and your little mates should get back to Collingwood before you all get bent over and rooted up the arse.’

Normie burst out laughing at his own comedy, and the three Chinese joined in, keen to share the joke. Normie stood there with his big gob open, laughing his head off. It was too much for Mickey to resist. He produced the .410 from under his coat, stuck it in Normie’s open mouth and pulled the trigger.

Normie’s laughter died at once. So did Normie. His brains made a shocking mess on the footpath. As Mickey reloaded Leon and Deon pumped a few shots into the body. This was plain wasteful. Normie Cotton was as dead as vaudeville before he hit the pavement. The three Chinese stood like zombies, which was very convenient for Fatty and Lord Byron, who went to war on them with stabs and slashes. The slopes started to scream and shriek, but they were too late. Leon put a single shot into the chest of each Chinese. Deon followed up with a shot into their stomachs. That was the thing about the twins. They always worked well together.

Mickey reached forward and pushed the .410’s barrel into the left eyeball of Normie Cotton’s corpse and pulled the trigger.

The Chinese were lying on the footpath, screaming and moaning. ‘Aren’t them dogs dead yet?’ Mickey yelled. ‘Jesus, Byron. Kill the maggots.’

Lord Byron pushed the blade of his knife into the right eyeball of one of the chows and pushed it right in until the blade hit the brain.

‘That’s the ticket, Byron.’

As Byron moved toward the second chow, Fatty bent over and cut the throat of the third Chinese.

‘Let’s go,’ said Mickey, and started to walk away. He yelled back at Byron: ‘Come on, stop pissing about.’

‘My knife’s stuck,’ said Byron. ‘It’s inside his head. I can’t get it out.’

‘Leave it!’ yelled Mickey. ‘Hurry up’.

THEY were a few blocks away when Lord Byron caught his breath. Something was worrying him. ‘What about finger prints, Mickey?’

‘You’re bloody 14 years old,’ Mickey answered. ‘Have you ever had your finger prints taken?’

‘Nah, never,’ said Byron.

‘Then don’t worry about it, mate.’

‘Yeah, but Mickey, I might get them taken one day, if the jacks ever pinch me on something.’

‘Yeah well,’ said Mickey, ‘worry about that when it happens. As for now, you’re sweet.’

Fatty was a nervous wreck. ‘I’ve never killed no-one ever before,’ he whimpered.

‘None of us have,’ said Mickey.

They looked at the twins. Mickey said, ‘That don’t count. That was self defence.’

‘Look,’ said Byron, ‘it’s starting to rain.’

‘Great,’ Mickey said. ‘Tonight rain is our best friend. It will wash away all our mistakes. Ahh, I love it.’ He turned his blood-splattered face up to the sky and let the raindrops run over him.

Then they all did.

Anybody driving past in Richmond that night would have seen a strange sight. Five teenagers walking along the empty streets singing ‘Raindrops Keep Fallin’ on My Head’, and laughing like loonies. The whole thing had gone like clockwork. A Clockwork Orange.

RAYCHELL Brown was a well-developed 17-year-old. A tall, long-legged, big tits moll who had been cracking it since she was 13. She’d moved up from hawking the fork around the streets and Housing Commission flats to being a table dancer at a King Street club.

Raychell was Lord Byron’s big sister. She pulled in about two to three grand cash a week dancing and doing the business with any mug who’d pay the fare, and there were plenty. She was a dirty girl, but she was also loyal and loving to her family and friends. Most of her money went on her family, and she also handed over a regular cash sling of two or three hundred a week to Mickey Van Gogh’s mother, who was unemployed. And she helped out Mrs Pepper, Leon and Deon’s mother. The boys owed Raychell a lot, which was why big Normie Cotton had made a very bad mistake by standing over young Raychell for her hard-earned dough.

As Raychell had said herself, free sex was one thing, money quite another. ‘Shit,’ she had told Mickey, ‘no-one misses a slice off a cut loaf; it’s not as if I’m a virgin. I gobble the goodies for a living. Getting plonked by the big bastard once or twice a week as a good will freebie I can cop. I’ve swallowed the evidence for half the coppers in Collingwood free of charge. Big deal. But when they try putting their hand in my purse I jack up. Normie Cotton’s standing over me and most of the other girls at the club, with his bloody slope mates. Christ, he’s selling enough smack to sink a friggin’ ship. He’s got half the slopes in Melbourne backing him up. What does the big dog need with my money as well, for God’s sake?’

Mickey had promised to look after it. Raychell had been doubtful. But when the morning papers hit the streets, with Normie and three gooks all over the front page, all dead as maggots, she had this funny feeling that it wasn’t a coincidence.

She walked into her little brother’s bedroom. The Brown family lived in a two-bedroom flat on the seventh floor of the Collingwood Housing Commission flats. Raychell slept in the big bedroom with her mother. Byron got the other bedroom. They had their name down for a three-bedroom unit in Victoria Park and police trouble could mess them up with the Commission, as she kept telling him.

‘What have you and your mad mates been up to, Byron?’ she demanded, dropping the paper on his face.

‘What are you on about, sis?’ grunted Byron, half asleep. He didn’t have the brains to be kept awake by what had happened the night before, and he didn’t know what a guilty conscience was, let alone have one.

Then he looked at the front page and smiled. He couldn’t read real well. But, like the mug in the art gallery, he could look at the pictures, he knew what he liked, and he liked what he saw.

‘Don’t worry, sis,’ he said. ‘No-one saw nothing, and it rained last night. Mickey reckons that the rain will wash away all our sins.’

Raychell sat at the end of the bed and read the paper. She wasn’t happy. She talked fast, half to herself.

‘Shit, shit, shit. Don’t tell mum about this. Don’t tell bloody no-one. Jesus, they don’t call Mickey Van Gogh “mad Mickey” for friggin’ nothing. Bloody hell, he said he’d fix it. Jesus bloody Christ.’

She got up and stalked out.

‘Where you going?’ asked Byron.

‘I’m going to see Mickey,’ she snapped. ‘Bloody hell. He’ll get us all hung.’

MICKEY lived on the sixth floor. Raychell put on her dressing gown and went down the stairs, the newspaper in her hand.

Kay Van Gogh answered the door. Before she had married the late, unlamented Stanley Van Gogh she’d been Kay Kelly, a Catholic Irish whore who’d imagined marriage would bring a better life. It didn’t.

Kay knew what Raychell wanted. ‘He’s in his room asleep,’ she said. ‘Go and wake the scallywag up, I can’t.’

Raychell went into the dim bedroom and flicked on the bedside lamp. The windows were covered in black curtains and the walls and ceiling painted black, with black carpet. The walls were littered with photos of the Collingwood football team. The whole room was like some sort of shrine to the Magpies. Raychell was always fascinated when she went into Mickey’s room.

She went for the pleasant approach. ‘Good ol’ Collingwood forever, ha ha,’ she joked. She sat on the end of Mickey’s bed and whispered ‘Wake up Mickey, wake up.’ She spoke louder. ‘Come on Mick, get with it. Come on, wake up.’ She pulled the blankets back and grabbed the sleeping boy’s dick and dug her long finger nails into the soft skin.

Mickey screamed. Raychell jumped up and stood back.

‘You mad cow, you’ve drawn blood,’ Mickey spluttered. ‘God, look at my dick, you mad moll. What do you want?’

She tossed the morning paper at him. He didn’t give it more than a glance, but he knew what was in it.

‘Yeah, well. So what?’ he grunted.

‘So what?’ said Raychell in mock disbelief. ‘You’ll all get pinched. That’s what.’

‘How’s that?’ said Mickey. ‘No-one knows we did it.’

‘I bloody well hope not,’ she answered.

‘Anyway,’ Mickey said, still wincing from the pain in his private parts. ‘It was all for you. The mongrel went against you. That means he came against us, so now he’s dead. What are you so dirty at?’

‘I’m not dirty’ said Raychell. ‘I’m worried’.

By this time she thought it was safe to sit on the bed. Mickey reached over, stuck his right hand inside her dressing gown and grabbed one of the biggest tits in Collingwood.

‘Well don’t worry Raych, she’s sweet, the dog’s dead, no-one knows, no-one saw nothing, no-one’s gonna say nothing and Normie Cotton and his two-bob slope shitkicker mates won’t be getting up you no more, and won’t be robbing you no more. So be happy. Ha ha.’

Raychell smiled and reached over and grabbed his hurt groin again. This time she didn’t hurt him.

‘I’m sorry if I hurt ya dick, Mickey. Do you want me to kiss it better?’ Mickey couldn’t think of anything in the world he’d like better … A few minutes later his mother yelled: ‘C’mon Mickey! Ya eggs are on da table, hurry up, darlin.’

‘I’m coming, Mum,’ he croaked. ‘I’m coming.’

EIGHTEEN months later the blood-spattered night at the Richmond railway station was just one more unsolved underworld murder mystery in a city with a long history of unsolved murder mysteries. And Mickey Van Gogh’s boyhood gang had changed. It was more hood than boy. Mickey was 17 and looked older, and the whole gang had grown taller, heavier and tougher. Even little Byron was no longer so little.