You Wouldn't Be Dead for Quids (5 page)

He took the bills out of the glove box and sped off in the direction of the gas company. He didn't bother to lock the car. He would only be a minute or two.

There was hardly anyone in the gas company office so he was in and out pretty smartly, but in the power company it was a different story, the queue was about a mile long and the cash register was playing up. Oh well, he thought, I'm here now I may as well wait. He suffered in silence, eventually getting to the counter. A team of spaced-out New Zealanders held him up the last few minutes. They couldn't believe that just because they hadn't paid their light bill for two months the company would turn the power off. Another minute and Norton would have booted the lot of them right in the arse, but he finally got his bill paid and darted out the door. He grabbed a 40
delicious apple
off a barrow out the front, paid the bloke and trotted back to his car.

He jumped in, threw the receipts in the glove box and went to start the engine when he noticed something. His boots weren't on the front seat where he'd left them. Frowning, he ran his hands down the sides and under the front seat; they weren't there. He swivelled round quickly and checked the back seat and floor; nothing.

Norton was starting to feel a little uneasy now. He jumped out of the car and opened the boot. Maybe he'd put them in there and forgot. A wild search revealed nothing. He looked under the car then back inside, thoroughly. They weren't there. He jumped out shaking with rage and had another look in the boot but they were gone, vanished, disappeared, stolen.

Norton's chest was heaving and his dark brown eyes flashed murderously as he slammed the lid of the boot down, buckling the lock.

‘You rotten, fuckin' thieving cunts,' he screamed out at the top of his voice and drove his massive fist straight through the rear window of his car, sending a shower of glass splinters all over Oxford Street. He stormed round to the other side of the car and tore the aerial off and flung it down the street. ‘You stinkin' thieving Sydney cunts,' he raved. ‘My fuckin' good boots, you cunts!'

The air was starting to turn blue now as Norton stormed round to the other side of the car and leant against it, his chest heaving and his hands shaking with fury as he drummed his fingers on the roof watching the people who had started to gather round. He didn't say anything, he just stood there glaring at them, finally he stood back and with a roar of exasperation he gave the driver's side door a kick that shook the whole car.

A stoned-out hippie was standing in the small crowd watching Norton. ‘Are you all right, man?' he giggled. He looked like a cross between a Buddhist monk and an Apache Indian.

‘Am I all right?' fumed Norton. ‘Yeah, I'm all right.' He walked round and took the hippie by the throat, ‘I never felt better in my life.' He tore the love beads from round the terrified hippie's neck and stuffed them in his mouth then ground his jaws together. ‘You cunts reckon you can live off the universe,' he hissed. ‘Try eating these.' The beads crumbled in the hippie's
mouth and spilt out over his chin. Les was going to belt him but decided against it and just speared him into the crowd.

Wild-eyed, he stormed back to his car, got in and slammed the door violently behind him. He sat there for a moment or two still shaking with rage and not quite believing this could happen to him. Finally he started the car, revved the engine till it seemed as if the pistons would go through the block, then stormed straight out into the Saturday morning traffic. Every time he changed gears it sounded like somebody trying to run a piece of stainless steel through a circular saw.

Fortunately it was a bit quiet at the Kelly Club that night and just as fortunately there was no trouble. If anyone had of just given Les so much as a dirty look he would have torn their lungs out. Even Billy Dunne, who was used to Les's normally taciturn nature, was slightly puzzled by Les's increased surliness, but apart from Les grunting ‘some cunts pinched me boots' early in the night, they were the only words he uttered all evening. Billy, being a bit of a wag, was dying to stir Les up or at least get him to release a bit more information, but Les's face was showing about as much kindness as the Sultan of Turkey so he thought it might be best just to let sleeping dogs lie, or in Norton's case sleeping gorillas.

They finished work about three that morning. Les grunted good night, jumped in his battered car with the glass splinters still all over the back seat and headed towards Bondi and home. He hadn't eaten all day and by now his stomach was starting to sound like a concrete mixer, so he decided to duck in and get a couple of steak sandwiches on the way home.

Down the bottom of Bondi Road near the Royal Hotel there's a group of three take-away food shops, the three are grouped fairly close together and the locals call it the Devil's Triangle. They're all run by a lot of shifty-looking Lebanese but you can get a decent steak sandwich there and the coffee's always good.

Norton pulled up outside the Devil's Triangle still wearing his tuxedo and bow-tie, went in to the closest food shop and ordered two steak sandwiches, with plenty of onions, to take away.

He leaned casually against the counter, his big hands in his pockets, facing towards the few people seated around the restaurant. It was after three in the morning and fairly quiet, most of the people were just sitting there sipping coffee, a couple
of local surfies were laughing and playing a pinball machine near the kitchen at the back, and sitting in a cubicle, opposite where Les was standing, were three soapy bikies and their scruffy frump of a girlfriend. It was very cold and quiet, and it would have stayed that way only Bikie Number One, probably half full of beer and thinking he'd found an easy mark, decided to poke shit at Norton's tuxedo.

He elbowed his way out of the cubicle and sidled up next to Les. He was about six foot three and looked like a sallow, pimply faced version of Clint Eastwood with matted, greasy, long black hair. He had on fairly standard bikie gear, filthy denim jeans tucked into an equally filthy pair of calf-length boots, a battered leather jacket with a Levi jacket, minus the sleeves thrown over the top, and a grease-stained, red scarf tied round his forehead. He probably hadn't had a bath since the Battle of Hastings and when he opened his mouth, it reminded you of an oyster lease at low tide. He eyed Les up and down for a moment then turned to his mates still seated at the cubicle.

‘Well, what d'you reckon it is?' he said.

‘I dunno,' replied Bikie Number Two. ‘Is it a penguin?'

‘Nah, it's not a penguin,' said Bikie Number One. ‘Penguins are never this ugly.'

‘Maybe it's an ugly penguin and it's been kicked out of Taronga Park, for bein' too ugly.'

‘Oh, why dontcha leave the poor thing alone,' said the scruffy girlfriend, ‘you might get ugly yourself one day and get washed up on Bondi.' She threw back her head and roared laughing. She had a mean, vicious face and her smile revealed a mouthful of crooked yellow teeth, covered in enough blackfish bait to catch a school of niggers.

In the meantime, Bikie Number Two had got up from the cubicle and moved over to Les's left side. He was a bit shorter than his mate but dressed pretty much the same, only he had a mop of curly blond hair that looked like wood shavings, a dirty blue beanie was perched unevenly on his head and through the wood shavings a couple of earrings glinted in each ear. His T-shirt had risen up and an expanse of hairy white stomach flopped out over his filthy jeans.

Norton was still standing there staring quietly at the floor. He hadn't said anything but he'd taken his hands out of his pockets
and folded his arms across his chest, and his eyebrows were starting to twitch, noticeably.

‘Ow yer goin', penguin?' said Bikie Number Two. ‘Haven't seen ya down the south pole lately.'

‘Yeah, next time you're down there, give my love to Santa will ya,' chorused Bikie Number One.

‘Hey, waddyer reckon that is hangin' round his neck?'

‘I dunno, maybe it's a propeller.'

‘Well why don't you give it a wind, see if the penguin's head takes off?'

‘Yeah, why not?'

Bikie Number One reached over to grab Norton's bow-tie. That was the last thing he remembered doing. After what had happened to Norton that morning this was all he needed and the half inch fuse to the pile of dynamite inside Les had just burnt out.

Like a cobra striking, Norton spun round and let go an awesome left uppercut under Bikie Number One's chin, which lifted him completely up off the floor and flipped him backwards over the counter. He crashed down on the other side in a mess of tabouli, falafal and kebabs, his jaw shattered like a light bulb and a gash running the entire length of his chin, the white bone showing through the blood running over his chest and on to the floor.

In almost the same movement Les hit the second bikie with the back of his massive right fist fair in the face. He followed this with an explosive left hook that sent him spinning into the nearest cubicle, a rivulet of blood splashed over the two people seated there. The bikie threw his hands over his face in a vain attempt to shield himself but Norton simply punched straight into his hands, smashing all his fingers. He screamed with pain. Les slammed a right into his fat stomach which soon silenced him and doubled him up, then took him by his curly blond hair and, spinning him round, kicked him straight up the backside, sending him skidding into the pinball machine near the kitchen. The two surfies stood back as the blond bikie crashed on the floor next to them in a blubbering pain-wracked heap. They were staring at Les like they were sitting out the back at Bondi and he was a 40 foot wave come up out of nowhere.

Meanwhile, the bikie's moll had jumped up, and grabbing a Coke bottle, smashed it against the counter. Norton spun round
at the sound of breaking glass just as she tried to jab the broken bottle into his face. He grabbed her right hand with his left and shook the jagged bottle out of her hand. As it hit the floor she lashed out and kicked Les in the shin. He cocked back his huge right fist, looked at her and paused momentarily. Being an old Queensland country boy he'd never hit a woman before, but this was the age of women's lib and equality of the sexes so Les did the right thing, he smacked her straight in the mouth, knocking out most of her rotten green teeth, then gave her another one in the eye for good measure.

Bikie Number Three could see by now he wasn't going to have a great deal of luck with Norton in the fisticuffs department so he decided to bolt. He ducked out behind Les. Les made a swing for him but he was just a shade too quick and ran out the front door, with an enraged Norton in hot pursuit. He had a bit of start on Les as he galloped off down Bondi Road in his bikie boots. Les stopped at the front of the shop, and spying a metal garbage tin wrenched the lid off and flung it down the road after the retreating bikie. It spun through the air like a gigantic metal frisbee and with a metallic clang hit the bikie in the back of the head, sending him sprawling head first on to the chewing gum encrusted footpath. As he hit the asphalt Norton zoomed up alongside him and kicked him savagely in the stomach, the bikie gave a scream of pain then doubled up and started to vomit.

Les kicked him again then picked up the heavy metal garbage tin lid and started bashing him over the head with it, good and hard. You could have heard the din five blocks away —it sounded like a team of panel beaters on piece work. Finally, when the bikie was nothing more than a bloody, quivering mess, Les gave a grunt of satisfaction, dropped the battered garbage tin lid, with bits of the bikie's scalp still clinging to it, next to him and walked slowly back to the take-away food bar. Two of the owners and a couple of other people were standing at the front, wide-eyed and incredulous. They stepped back quickly to let Norton inside.

Inside, the food bar looked like a cross between a Burt Reynolds movie and a slaughterhouse. Bikie Number One was still sprawled out behind the counter covered in tabouli, a pool of blood forming round his head, the way he lay there it looked as if
his neck could have been broken. Bikie Number Two lay slumped under the pinball machine like a broken doll moaning with pain and shock, and the bikie moll was squashed beneath the cubicle, out like a light, one eye looked like a lamb's fry, a gory crimson mess where her mouth and teeth had been.

Norton glanced impassively around the carnage in the food bar then noticed that his two steak sandwiches, with extra onion, were still sitting in their brown paper bag on top of the stainless steel food warmer. He walked casually over to the counter checked the prices carefully, written up on the wall behind, and took some money out of his pocket.

‘Two steak sangers with extra onion, three bucks, right?' he said.

The Lebanese behind the counter didn't say anything, he just stood there and nodded his head, a blank expression on his face. Les dropped the three dollars on the counter and picked up his steak sandwiches. He hesitated for a moment then turned and walked down to the two terrified surfies standing next to the pinball machine at the rear of the shop.