Mayhem

by Matthew Thompson

  On Friday the 16th of February, 1991, Chris and I left from Chris’ house at St Albans and went to Melbourne Airport. At Melbourne Airport we met Kevin Miles and his girlfriend.

  We went to a restaurant and then to a bar at the airport.

  Kevin had the tickets for the plane. It was a bit of a rough flight.

  We went to a hotel that had a casino in it but we couldn’t get into it for some reason.

  We eventually booked into the Launceston International Hotel. The hotel was luxurious – something I couldn’t afford.

  When we booked in Chris asked to be booked in under my name.

  We went out to a nightclub and stayed for about two hours and then we all walked back to the hotel.

  Kevin and his girlfriend went to their room and Chris and I went to ours. We ended up having an argument over something fairly petty and I just blew up.

  I rang my mum at home and asked her to organise me a flight home. I went to the airport but it was closed so I went back to the room and slept on and off until about 7.00 to 7.30 am.

  We argued again and he said that I might as well stay and he offered to pay for another room.

  I told him to fuck off and I flew home that Saturday morning.

  Since the Tasmanian trip I have only seen Chris on two occasions only for a short time and one of those times was when he was in hospital after a motorcycle accident.

  39. ALONG COMES ROXY

  1991: METRO VIP

  Amidst interstate jetsetting, bank jobs and associated headaches in 1991, Chris was a man about town. Here he describes meeting Roxy, a woman he would love, who would be his Bonnie to her Clyde, and who would betray him.

  CHRIS:

  We met at the Metro VIP nightclub in Melbourne in 1991. She was in a group of girls that come from the same area and I was in a group of boys that come from the same area. They all knew each other except Roxy [name changed], who was new to the girls’ group, and me, who was new to the boys’ group. We left because there were undercover coppers tailing one of the blokes that I was with, Steve Barci, who I later bumped into at St Vincent’s ’cos he got shot by the coppers.

  At the nightclub they were hounding him; they were sitting off him, and I said to the bloke, ‘What the fuck?’ ’Cos I picked up that they were coppers. I was there with a mate called Smiles, and I thought, ‘Fuck these cunts.’

  What drew my attention was one of them was wearing an old cardigan with a younger bloke next to him. They were drinking at the bar and kept looking over, and I said, ‘Smiles, what about these cunts?’

  The younger bloke picked up a bag that had a little bit of residue of coke in there and he’s sniffing it. I said to Smiles, ‘Look at ’em.’

  He said, ‘They’re coppers.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘They’re coppers, man.’

  ‘I thought they were a bit suss.’

  ‘They’re tailing Steve.’

  I go, ‘What?’

  ‘Yeah, they’re fucking tailing Steve for the armoured van.’

  That was a job he did before the airport project. He hadn’t been charged at that point. I go, ‘What the fuck?’ and he introduces me to him! And I’m doing jobs myself! ‘I’m fucking out of here. Fuck this shit.’

  One of the sheilas, Roxy, stood out ’cos she was cheeky, she had attitude, she was cocky, she was cute, she was good lookin’. She goes, ‘Oh, my name’s Roxy.’

  ‘Oh yeah.’

  ‘I’m a thief!’

  Who introduces themself as a thief? The attitude! And she was flying. We were all flying. I had ecstasy. She was on trips.

  So what’s happened is I’m leaving, and I say, ‘They’re coppers over there.’

  She goes, ‘Yeah?’

  ‘I’m fucking going. I don’t need to be here. I don’t want them to see me. I’m gonna go.’

  ‘I’ll come with you, too.’

  We end up going to another nightclub and then to a motel.

  She was the closest I got to a Bonnie and Clyde thing. She was the driver on a couple of robberies. Roxy was full-on: had a lot of balls. Just an average driver, though, not a rally driver or nothing. She drove because she was female and if they’re looking for two males then they’re not looking for a couple. So she was just a decoy, really.

  Roxy was a professional shoplifter at the time, and she used to make a stack. Three grand a week in cash. She was working with another bloke. They had a lead-lined bag to get the goods past the detectors. He’d carry it while she looked around and bang, she’d slip in the clothes or whatever they were taking. All designer label stuff, all boutique stuff, all brand new and everybody wants it. They’d get a third of the retail price.

  I was actually in love with Roxy.

  40. LAGGERS BEWARE

  21 MAY 1991: BACK TO MRC

  CHRIS:

  My latest spell of custody starts in Pentridge’s D Division hospital to treat my torture and bashing injuries, and then I’m off to the Melbourne Remand Centre where it’s made clear that they haven’t forgotten about the toaster incident.

  Here in the MRC, I catch up with the junkie who lagged Kevin and me. He’s big-noting himself about ‘his weapon’, showing everyone the bank security photo.

  His body language tells me how nervous he is in my company.

  He overdoses twice in a week. One time he turns blue and has to be revived, later telling prison officers that I’m somehow to blame.

  Apparently as a result of his drug use, the junkie is moved to Pentridge, but he can’t escape the rumours of his role in my legal matters.

  He is severely bashed. The prison officers have inmates line up for him to identify everyone involved in the yard attack. He lags them and then goes into protection, from where I have never heard of him emerging.

  41. HONOUR AMONG THIEVES

  CODE AND PRINCIPLES

  From a 2012 letter that Chris wrote to Matthew Johnson, the prison gang leader who beat Carl Williams to death with a metal bar from an exercise bike.

  CHRIS:

  Honour among thieves is something enjoyed by all those who share, respect and practise the Code.

  They live by it and they enjoy it.

  Those who fail to meet the Code and to abide by it; those who don’t respect the values of the Code; those who shun it; those who breach the rules, THOSE WHO LAG, do not live in the world of Honour.

  Those who shun the values of the Code and DO NOT live in the world of Honour cannot expect Honour to be given in return.

  No double standards; you are either staunch or you’re not.

  So don’t cry foul when people apply their acts in return. Accept it.

  Karma, I say, is now done unto you.

  Note: sex crimes are no crime of honour and cannot be respected. A sex offender, a sex predator, belongs in the bone yard.

  42. INTERNAL AFFAIRS

  1991: COUSIN MARKO IN QUEENSLAND

  It’s hard to know what to say about the circumstances surrounding Chris getting bail in September. Without being defamatory.

  Interested parties might want to ask Internal Affairs for an off-the-record briefing. Ask them for their honest opinions about the two Armed Robbery Squad detectives that they filmed picking up a stash of cash from the St Albans house of Steve Pecotic, where Chris lived when legally at liberty. This unorthodox pick-up of hitherto unrecovered stick-up proceeds takes place before the police stop well short of ‘strenuously opposing bail’, as they say.

  Chris alleges a number of things about them, including that one of them suggested that they come to a mutually beneficial arrangement concerning hold-ups.

  Going to Internal Affairs doesn’t exactly endear him to the Armed Robbery Squad – dangerous people for outlaws like Chris to be coming up against at the best of times.

  Initially, he settles down into a quiet life with Roxy. Here’s how he describes it.

  CHRIS:

  I am bailed and back on the street. The Armed Robbery Squad is raided, including their ho
mes. They are not happy with me at all. They want me dead.

  No way am I going to do any armed robberies now. So me and Roxy start to shoplift professionally to generate easy earnings to live on. It’s what she did before and we make a few grand a week. Less risk and we live comfortably.

  *

  As part of the Internal Affairs investigation that led to charges against the detectives, a couple of IA cops went up to Queensland for a chat with Chris’ cousin, Marko [name changed], nephew of Steve, who is now ailing from heart failure. Internal Affairs were interested in a chat with Marko because he had visited his relatives in Melbourne during some of the time in question and loaned money to Chris to help towards his bail.

  The point of printing the following transcript excerpts is not to delve into the corruption allegations, but rather for what they reveal about Steve Pecotic and Chris’ broader family, as well as about the enthusiastic and inclusive nature of Chris’ approach to romance. And about that wild colonial lass, Roxy.

  Internal Affairs: You don’t mind if I smoke, do you?

  Marko: No, you’re right. I’ll get an ashtray. I don’t smoke, everybody else does. Filthy habit. What happened, like years ago, the old man was bashing the mother and it was a shit fight and I sort of felt sorry for the kids and I went down there and I started working with Steve and then him and his mate were both gambling real bad and I was fitting aluminium windows with them and I wasn’t even getting fuckin’ paid. I was nineteen years old – I wanted to go out, you know. Get meself a bit of pussy or something, and I was working my arse out and they’d just piss off, go to the TAB and leave me on the job.

  I sort of took a disliking to Chris because I had a Falcon GT and I caught the little bastard jumping up and down on the roof once. He was bad when he was fucking young, and he denied it. I sort of put up with it for a while. I still used to take him out and give him money, tell him that his old man give it to him but Steve never gave him a cent in their fuckin’ lives, you know. And then his mother was telling me how he only used to go and see the old man to raid the ashtray in the car and that sort of fuckin’ hit me home, you know. Fuck that, you know. That’s just a sly little bastard. He’s been a sly little bastard all his life.

  I never fell out with Steve. Steve’s got a good heart, you know, but he just hasn’t got a fuckin’ brain.

  Internal Affairs: He’s got a crook heart now, hasn’t he?

  Marko: You know what I mean. He’s a kind-hearted person. He’ll do anything for you. But he just hasn’t got a fuckin’ brain. Like he believes things Chris tells him, and I told Steve time and time again, ‘It’s an act of terrorism, mate.’ I’ll be in anything, I don’t care, I’m not fuckin’ straight, but to go and put a gun in some fuckin’ innocent people’s head, to me that’s as good as an act of terrorism.

  Internal Affairs: That’s a fairly apt description.

  Marko: I don’t go for that shit.

  I read that statement, you know. Apparently some kid’s shit their pants in the fuckin’ bank, 14-year-old kid, because a gun was pointing at him. If somebody done that to my kid I’d fuckin’ blow him away.

  You know I rode in a bike club for years. I’ve got two mates that fuckin’ done an armed robbery. I said to them, ‘It doesn’t take no fuckin’ guts. You want to talk? Fuckin’ not women and kids, fuckin’ innocent bloody people – hit someone else that’s got a bloody gun.’ But anyhow so then I sort of just got married. I went to Europe and I got married and I just sort of kept right away from it and then this year, or last Christmas, me mother went down there. Grandma was getting sick so you know, one thing led to another, she went down and then Steve laid the sob story on her how Chris is just in and out of jail and this and that and he’s just going to go nowhere you know, he really needs to get away from that company and he’s always taking the rap for his mates.

  Internal Affairs: So you spent most of the time in the

  Remand Centre when you went down and took your wife and the kids down?

  Marko: Like I said I never took them shopping or anywhere while we were down there. The whole 13 days. Because by the time I got up in the morning, like I used to get up at 7, I’d drive over and pick Steve up, right; by the time he scratches his bum and read the paper and had breakfast and that, then we drove to the Remand Centre. Got processed there, had an hour visit whatever it was. I drove him back, the day was gone. I never took the kids into the city, never took them to the zoo, never took them nowhere. Most of the time I was at the Remand Centre.

  Internal Affairs: What car did you bring back?

  Marko: The white Fairmont of Chris.

  Internal Affairs: Why did you bring that back?

  Marko: Because he owed me money. I could not see him getting out for 15 years. That was going through my mind – armed robbery: 15 years. I read the brief and said to his old man, ‘Fuck it, right. They were my savings; it’s part of the child endowment money. I’m going to go and get that car.’ They kept hiding the car and I went around six o’clock one morning.

  Internal Affairs: Who’s they?

  Marko: Oh that Roxy and this other fuckin’ hippy looking clown, wears all them fuckin’ tigers and shit on his bloody nightgowns. I had to fuckin’ drag him out of bed at six o’clock in the morning and took the car.

  I don’t know what’s wrong with his head. [Lucy] stuck by him and he went and gave her a miss for this bloody lezzo, that’s what she is, she’s a fucken lezzo. Getting all kinky photos taken; that’s what we had a big blue over.

  Internal Affairs: You and him?

  Marko: Well, I showed his mother. He asked me to go and move the photos because he didn’t want the cops to get them because he thought they might make fun of her or something. Anyhow I said to Barry, [let’s] go and get those photos and as we were pulling them out and havin’ a look through ’em, his bloody mother turned up. ‘What are you looking at?’ she said. ‘Bloody look at this shit, you know, have a look at it,’ I said to her. So then she couldn’t wait to tell him. I said, ‘Jesus Christ, the whole family’s fucked … All you’ve done is just caused a big stink.’

  I had a mobile phone; I went and sold it because Chris kept calling me on it from a remand centre. You don’t need that sort of bullshit. You know what I mean? You don’t need it.

  Internal Affairs: What was he talking to you about?

  Marko: He was just abusing me and cursing me out and he said, ‘Oh, how would you like it if you had photos of your wife?’

  I said, ‘If I had photos of my wife? Mate, you’re fucken sick.’ I said, ‘If you respect that woman you wouldn’t have fucken photos of her. Not with another sheila anyway. You just don’t do that sort of shit, you know what I mean? It’s all right when you’re 17, 18, [and] you’ve got some sheila or half a dozen you’re fucking. Some bloke! You know what I mean? You go through all that. But she’s supposed to be your fucken girlfriend.’

  She’s having it off on the fucken couch with another sheila in a motel unit and here he is sitting there fucken snapping away.

  Internal Affairs: Well, there you go.

  Marko: He needs treatment, that fella. He honestly does. He’s fucked.

  [Chris came up here once] I said I don’t want no fucken heat on when you come to my place. I said, ‘This is a small town, right.’ The first night in town he goes and fucken brings a gin home, black gin, you know what I mean. Bony legged fucken black gin. My mates shouting him drinks, fucken drinks all night out in front of everybody, and I put heaps of young sheilas around the place, and their mothers. You know what I mean. No brains. Just a fucken idiot.

  Dickhead threw a stone through a shop window, took an empty till and in the laneway he’s using the car tool box to fuckin’ get into it. Now has that got a brain or what.

  Internal Affairs: Bit ordinary isn’t it?

  Marko: Like you’ve got to get real mad. I said to the sergeant, ‘Are you for real? No one would do that.’ And get caught by two civilians.

  Internal Affairs:
He’s a born loser.

  Marko: I hope you’re not taping me.

  Like I said, I can’t sign a statement against him, you know what I mean. All I can do is fuckin’ punch his head in when I get into him, when I run into him, if I ever get a chance.

  43. BADLANDS

  LATE 1991:

  SYDNEY TO QUEENSLAND AND BACK

  CHRIS:

  After getting bail last month in dubious circumstances, I celebrate turning 23 today by hiring a limousine for a mobile party with a handful of close friends.

  I’ve invited a trio of Italians that I’m mates with: Calibrese blokes from a good family. We call ourselves the amigos.

  So they bring their girls and we get on the road, rolling joints to share and stopping first at the local bottle shop to stock up on Crown Lagers and champagne.

  The limo driver plays reggae as we cruise the area. When we get the munchies I have him drive us to my local Chinese. The owner is locking the door as we arrive, but on straight away recognising me as a regular, he goes back inside and takes our takeaway orders.

  The driver might now live it up with the rest of us, but later he’ll lag, giving a statement to the armed hold-up squad – one that omits to mention his own copious consumption of drugs and drink.

  *

  But high times never last and the death threats start. The Armed Robbery Squad want me dead; I’m sure it’s them. And they do kill people so it seems too dangerous to stay here.

  I flee interstate.

  Meaning, I’ve absconded on bail and am now on the run.

  While a fugitive, I move back and forth between Sydney and a 388-hectare Queensland property that I buy with cash. It’s my base camp: my commando camp where, as a solja at odds with the oppressive state, I train for all possibilities.