Guns 'n' Rose

by Robert G. Barrett

  ‘Jimmy, is it me? Am I seeing things? Or have we just entered the twilight zone?’

  ‘Fuck the signs,’ said Jimmy, sweating over the map. ‘Keep going. It’s just up ahead.’

  ‘Righto.’

  They went about another kilometre past one more sign saying STOP, BRIDGE UP. And sure enough. The bridge was up. Les hit the brakes again in front of a huge mound of dirt, stacks of old timber and more prime-movers. There was nothing around but bush, darkness and floating dust caught in the beams from the headlights.

  ‘Well,’ said Les, slipping the T-bar into neutral, ‘it’s not as if there weren’t any signs telling us. Would you agree, Jimmy?’

  ‘Fuck! Shit!’ Jimmy looked at the map and jerked a thumb behind him. ‘Back that way.’

  ‘Back that way, massah. Yes, massah. Ah’s doin’ mah best, massah.’ Les hooked his finger into the wheel and spun the Berlina round. ‘Please don’t whip these tired old bones no mo’, massah. Ah begs yo’, massah.’

  ‘For Christ’s sake, just drive the car, will you, Les,’ said Jimmy, shining the torch on his watch.

  ‘Yes, suh, massah. That’s what ah’s tryin’ to do, massah. Ah swear, massah.’

  A sign appeared saying Avondale and somehow Jimmy finally got his shit together; yet Les was sorry in a way. Even though he’d been wasting his time, driving round and round in circles out in the middle of nowhere in the dark, he was getting a funny kick out of watching Jimmy squirm for a change. Jimmy told him to go left and Les came to a V-shaped brick wall with a gate in the middle and a sign saying Avondale Seventh Day Adventists College. Jimmy told him to go left at the gate and another sign saying Cooranbong Aerodrome. Les followed a wide, dusty driveway with a clump of trees in the middle. In the dark he could make out a house on the left, a row of trees further to the right with the college on the other side and in the middle a low, white wooden railing. Behind the railing about half-a-dozen or so light planes were parked in a paddock. Jimmy said to go a bit further to where one railing was missing, open the boot and leave the parking lights on. Les did as he was told and as he flipped the boot catch from inside the glove box Jimmy got out so Les thought he might do the same and stretch his legs. It was quite dark with no one around and at the back of the car Les could make Jimmy out in the tail lights squinting at his watch. Behind him the mainly white planes took on a ghostly sheen in the moonlight.

  Les was about to do his jacket up and ask Jimmy just what it was they were waiting for when a low rumbling came from behind the planes. The rumbling got closer, then turned into a muffled, revving roar and two motorbikes with blue tape over the headlights came out of the aerodrome and stopped behind the car. One was a Harley-Davidson, the other an old Indian with a side-car. The Harley stayed back a bit and Les managed to make out a tall man with a Pancho Villa moustache in all black leather with a snug black helmet. Sitting behind the handlebars on the Indian was a barrel-chested man with a blue bandana round his head, wearing a white T-shirt, jeans, biker boots and a thick, black leather vest. Sitting in the side-car wearing the same tracksuit was Louise, the girl Les met at the flat where Jimmy picked up his bag. Resting on her lap was a wooden crate that came to just under her chin. The driver got off, walked round and took the crate by two rope handles at the end, then came over. It was a metre long by about half a metre wide and about the same depth. As the bloke got closer, Les could see he had a couple of teeth missing on the bottom and his Tshirt read Mighty Thunderbirds across the front.

  ‘Christ, Jimmy. Where the fuck have you been?’ he said in a deep, rasping kind of voice.

  ‘The bridge was up,’ said Jimmy.

  ‘The bridge was up? That’s miles down there at fuckin’ Stockton Creek. There’s eight million bloody signs.’

  ‘Signs?’ said Les. ‘I didn’t see any signs. Did you see any signs, Jimmy?’

  ‘Just put the fuckin’ things in the boot, will you, Peirce,’ pleaded Jimmy. ‘And we can all go home.’

  The bloke in the bandana placed the wooden crate in the boot. Les managed to get a fairly good look at it before Jimmy closed the lid and handed the bloke an envelope, Jimmy didn’t bother to introduce Les and he didn’t wave to or acknowledge the others. Les gave the girl in the side-car half a nod and got half a nod in return.

  The stocky bloke in the bandana put the envelope in his vest and patted it down. ‘You know about tomorrow,’ he said.

  Jimmy nodded. ‘Yeah.’

  ‘You going?’

  Jimmy shrugged. ‘Maybe.’

  ‘I think you’d be better off if you didn’t.’

  ‘Yeah, well, you know me. I like the band and I like old bikes.’

  ‘Suit yourself.’ The bloke had a quick look around, something like a fox sniffing the wind. ‘Anyway, I’m gonna fuck off. I don’t want to be hanging around any more than I have to.’

  ‘Fair enough. I’ll give you a ring.’ Jimmy smiled and for a moment its infectiousness was caught in the tail lights. ‘But don’t worry, everything’ll be cool—including all that other shit. I’m telling you.’

  ‘Yeah. Well, you just take care of yourself, Jimmy.’ The bloke turned to leave, then stopped. ‘Hey, Jimmy, you haven’t seen that fuckin’ CD of ours have you? The Headhunters.’

  Jimmy shook his head. ‘No. I thought you had it.’

  ‘Fuck!’ The bloke shook his head also. ‘They’ve stopped making the thing, you know.’ The bloke shook his head again then got back on the old Indian and they rumbled off the same way they came. Les watched them disappear, then he and Jimmy got in the car and they drove back out past the school.

  Jimmy managed to find the right road out this time and somehow he was also able to find a freeway heading south. Ironically, ‘Louise’ by The Night Hawks was going round for the second time and Les was wondering why they didn’t come this way in the first place. He was also starting to wonder what was in the wooden box. It was solidly built pine, roughly smoothed over, with some kind of clumsy, thick military-type stencilling on the sides that could have been anything. German. Italian. French. Yugoslavian. Whatever. With the two rope handles on the side, Les knew an ammunition crate when he saw one. On one hand, it was none of Norton’s business to ask what was in it. On the other hand, Les had helped pick it up and if he didn’t say something he’d be classed as stupidonumero-uno or Jimmy might think he was getting ideas about stealing it.

  ‘Well, Jimmy,’ said Les after he’d just gone round an old, green Torana. ‘I’ve got to ask you—what’s in the crate? Though if you don’t want to tell me, I suppose that’s cool.’

  Jimmy took a deep breath, then exhaled. ‘Les, I’ve seen you in action, and what’s in that crate wouldn’t interest you in the least. It would go straight over your Queensland head. Believe me.’

  ‘Okay, but say you were to tell me anyway?’

  Jimmy looked at Les for a moment. Norton’s voice was steady. But Jimmy seemed to detect an undertone that even though he didn’t have to tell him, if Les wanted to find out, all he had to do was pull over and smash the top off the crate to find out. And there wasn’t a great deal Jimmy could do about it.

  ‘All right. What if I was to tell you it was—bottles of wine?’

  Les nodded slowly. ‘I’d say, fair enough, Jimmy. What kind of wine?’

  ‘What kind of wine?’

  ‘Yeah. What colour? Red or white?’

  Jimmy looked curiously at Norton for a moment. ‘How about red? Red wine. That do you?’

  ‘Okay. Red wine it is.’Yeah. And I know when some cunt’s pulling my rope, too, thought Les. ‘So what would you have with this wine, Jimmy?’

  ‘Have with it? What the fuck are you talking about?’

  ‘Well, you being a food gourmet and all that—what would you have with this fine red wine?’

  Jimmy looked at Les for a moment then seemed to smile at some private joke. ‘Spaghetti.’

  ‘Spaghetti?’ Les couldn’t quite believe what he’d just heard.

  �
�Yeah. I’d take it down the No Names in Darlinghurst and have it with spaghetti. That’s what I’d do.’

  ‘That’ll do me, Jimmy,’ nodded Les. ‘I believe you 100 per cent.’

  ‘Good. Now why don’t we leave it at that.’

  ‘Suits me.’

  Jimmy folded his arms and stared through the windscreen as if he was thinking about something. Les drove on in silence, passing a sign pointing towards Doyalson. But a number of things were starting to clunk together in Norton’s mind. So, Jimmy, you shifty little bastard. Like all smarties, you think you’re clever, but your big mouth always gives you away. Wine and spaghetti, eh? What’s just across that lake from where we were? Newcastle. And what did that cop I bumped into on Thursday night say? They were after a box of machine guns before some bikies in Newcastle got them. And what was in with the machine guns? A thousand rounds of spaghetti bullets. That’s an ammo crate those bikies have tried to disguise and Jimmy’s doing a scam with them. The little cunt. Now I’m driving round with a box of high-tech machine guns in the boot plus the ammo to go with them. Les felt like kicking Jimmy right in the nuts. He had a quick look at the speedo; right on the dot. It all figures, too. They were supposed to bring them round today at a place you can only get to by seaplane or boat. Which makes more sense than two bikies riding round in broad daylight with them sitting in a side-car. The cops’d pull them over just on the strength of it. Bad luck there were water police all over the place today and it would have been the same story. Which is why Jimmy had me drive into Gosford, too, instead of travelling by limo. Good old Les. You wouldn’t be interested in what’s in that box, Les. It’d go straight over your head. Yeah, like a burst of bullets. As well as kicking Jimmy in the nuts, Les felt like reaching over and grabbing him by the throat as well. Still, thought Norton, it’s early days yet. Be cool. Nothing much is going to happen between here and Terrigal and I’m interested to see how this all pans out. And if it looks like getting the least bit heavy I’m on the toe. I can be packed in five minutes and it ain’t that long a drive back to my joint. Les chuckled mirthlessly to himself. So much for a quiet holiday on the Central Coast, though.

  Before long they were once again approaching the land of a thousand roundabouts.

  ‘So what’s on tomorrow, Jimmy? I couldn’t help but overhear that bloke saying something earlier.’

  ‘Just a band at a hotel near Kincumber and a vintage bike rally. I’m thinking of going. I’ll see how I feel in the morning.’

  ‘Righto.’

  They went on a bit further past more roundabouts. ‘So what do you feel like doing now, Les?’ Jimmy asked.

  ‘Saturday night? I don’t know. I can’t see us getting into the disco or having a drink at the resort.’

  ‘There’s a nice little bar in a restaurant just round from the house. Why don’t we put the car in the garage, go up there and I might shout you one because you’re such a good bloke.’

  ‘Thanks, Jimmy,’ said Les, with an oily smile. ‘I was beginning to think you’d never notice.’

  Nothing dramatic happened on the way back to Terrigal. They struck a bit of Saturday night traffic along the beachfront and the usual crowd in and around the resort plus a couple of cruising police cars, which gave Les a small twinge of apprehension; but he wasn’t drunk or driving too fast. Jimmy told him to take the long way home and on the way he pointed out where they were going for a drink. It was the two-tone brown restaurant called the Silver Conche that Les noticed before; only about five minutes’ walk from the house, if that. Next thing they pulled up in the driveway; Jimmy got out and opened the garage doors, Les drove the Berlina straight in and locked it. Jimmy didn’t say anything about stashing the box of machine guns anywhere, all he said when he got his mobile out of Norton’s bag as they walked inside was there was no need to get changed.

  ‘I might just run a quick razor over my face and put on a clean T-shirt,’ said Les.

  ‘Righto. I’ll see you in the kitchen in about ten minutes.’ Jimmy went down to his bedroom and Les went to his.

  Les put a clean, white Wilderness T-shirt on the bed, then had a quick shave. He was in a better mood now, although finding out what Jimmy’s little scam was had certainly put a different spin on things. And I thought it would be something petty, Norton mused, as he squirted his face with shaving gel. What would a box of machine guns get you? Five years. Maybe ten on the top. And what’s his next move? Meet up with some more bikies, I suppose. Les raised his chin and scraped the razor underneath. I wonder how Jimmy got mixed up with bikies. He just doesn’t seem the type. Money mainly I suppose.

  Les finished cleaning up, put his jacket back on and walked out to the kitchen. Jimmy was idly flicking through the paper on the kitchen table. He glanced up as Norton walked in.

  ‘You ready?’

  ‘Seeing you’re shouting, Jimmy. I sure am.’

  Les locked the house and they began walking. Jimmy was bouncing along in a fairly good sort of mood, so Norton left him to it and they were at the restaurant in no time at all. Les noticed a long, white limo waiting just up from a small parking area next door. There was a step down from the footpath and Jimmy opened the glass door to the restaurant and Les followed him inside.

  The restaurant was tastefully appointed with an absolutely stunning view of Terrigal from the window at the end and across the soft lighting Les could make out about thirty or so punters laughing and drinking as they finished off their night. Just on the right was a small, well-stocked bar set behind a wall of wooden slats that looked into the restaurant. There was a table next to it with the menus and fixed to the wooden slats were all the awards for excellence the restaurant had taken out over the years. There were so many that Les was curious why Jimmy hadn’t dragged him along there first, seeing it was so handy. A dark-haired man going a bit thin on top, wearing a grey check shirt and neat, black trousers smiled when he saw them.

  ‘Hello, Jimmy,’ he said. ‘How are you?’

  ‘Real good, thanks, Harry,’ Jimmy smiled back. ‘We’re just going to have a couple of drinks. Okay?’

  ‘Go for your life. In fact, I wouldn’t mind joining you. It’s been another busy bloody night.’

  A waitress came over and said something to the owner. He muttered a quick ‘excuse me’ to Jimmy then disappeared with her into an alcove between the bar and the kitchen. There were four stools in the bar; Les and Jimmy took the two in the middle and got a smile from a dark-haired girl on the opposite side wearing a crisp white shirt and a black dress.

  ‘Well, what will you have, Les?’ asked Jimmy.

  Les thought for a moment, then what happened earlier in the day seemed to tickle his fancy. ‘I might have a delicious. A JD and Coke.’

  ‘Yeah, me too. Two Jack Daniels and Coke, please.’

  ‘Coming right up.’

  Jimmy dropped a twenty on the bar and the drinks arrived in about a minute.

  ‘Well, Jimmy, here’s to…’ Les clinked Jimmy’s glass. ‘What? You shouted. You propose the toast.’

  Jimmy looked at Les for a second. ‘To … to good old Uncle Price.’

  ‘Yeah, why not,’ agreed Norton. ‘The dear old chap hasn’t shouted us a bad holiday up here so far.’

  ‘I think he can afford it.’

  ‘Can he what.’ Les took a good sip of his drink as did Jimmy. ‘So how did you get mixed up with bikies, Jimmy?’ asked Les, as the bourbon went down.

  ‘Mixed up with bikies? What do you mean?’

  ‘That vest you gave me. What you said round that flat. Those two blokes tonight didn’t look like Mormons handing out The Watch Tower!

  ‘Les, every big bloke you see on a fat bike isn’t necessarily a gang member, if that’s what you’re getting at.’

  ‘Well,’ shrugged Norton, trying not to sound too nosy. ‘I suppose that’s what I was getting at.’

  ‘Peirce used to be in a gang. Wade’s not. They’re just mates of mine I do business with now and again. They’re good bloke
s.’

  ‘Fair enough.’

  ‘To be honest, I try to keep away from the gangs. Most of them are as nutty as fruitcakes, especially when they’re on the piss and cranked up on goey.’ Jimmy took another sip of his drink. ‘You ever had any dealings with bikie gangs, Les?’

  ‘Once, sort of. I actually robbed them and got away with it.’ Les smiled over his drink. ‘Shit! I hope none of them are up here. I don’t think they would have forgotten me in a hurry.’

  ‘There’s three gangs up here. The Red Backs, the Mongeroloids and the Tarheels. They’re all crazy, they all hate each other and they’re all ready to kill each other at the moment over drugs. But the Tarheels are the worst. There wouldn’t be a lower bunch of cunts on the planet than them. They’re animals.’

  Jimmy’s face suddenly went stone hard and Les had a feeling he’d inadvertently touched an odd kind of nerve by mentioning bikies. It might have been a good idea to drop the subject. But Les was still a little curious, especially considering what Jimmy was up to.

  ‘Tarheels. That’s a strange name for a bikie gang. How did they come up with that?’ he asked.

  ‘They stick spikes and nails in the heels of their boots,’ said Jimmy. ‘And when they take off on their bikes, they drag their boots on the road sending showers of sparks everywhere. It looks like their feet are on fire.’