Mayhem

by Matthew Thompson

  Tomorrow we’re having a big barbecue here with lots of crooks coming and catching up and it would be best if Jockey had the use of a car to get himself home and then get back tomorrow for lunch.

  ‘I can give you my vehicle,’ I say. Only problem is that it’s just a cheap one under a bodgy name and I noticed when picking it up that one of the indicators is hanging out – it’s loose and I need to screw it in.

  ‘Listen, I’ll give you the car but I need to tidy it up. Or do you want the panel van?’ I ask, showing him the Ford XF stolen from over Preston way that I’ve put aside for the Armaguard robbery. It’s the most appropriate vehicle for the task. ‘It’s nice, neat, clean, full tank of juice; it’s not from the area. Even has the keys in it. And it’s a couple days old – they’re not going to be looking for it.’

  ‘Yeah, I’ll take the panel van.’

  ‘There you go – there’s a car.’ And I give him some clothes, some runners, some magazines, and all that sort of stuff. ‘I’ll catch up with you tomorrow,’ I told him.

  ‘Yeah, no worries,’ says Jockey. He wants to get going before it gets dark so we head in and eat a bloody fine Italian dinner from the caretaker and then I see me mate off, watching him trundle carefully away – quite a slow driver, the old Jimmy Smith, as we sometimes call him. Anyway, I’ll see him tomorrow.

  Rob’s rolling some really monumental bloody joints. Roxy’s watching something again – she’ll probably fall asleep with it on. I know I’m pretty wiped out. Just one of those days.

  ‘See ya, boss,’ says Rob, breaking me out of a semi-snooze.

  When he’s gone I strip off ’cos it’s hot, get comfortable on a couch, and let sleep do its thing.

  What the fuck? Squeak from the flywire door? Black silhouette, two metres away. In full war-mode I launch at the target, knocking the balaclava man off balance and wrestling for control of his pump-action shotgun: a furious fucking struggle as a mob of gunned-up shadows jam up behind him thrashing about to get through the doorway and join the mayhem and everyone’s yelling and roaring as they work to get in at me but I bristle and expand with total driving survival rage, ramming the cunt back through the doorway into all of them and then spin and bolt for the laundry exit but I’m lifted off my feet by an oncoming wave of yet more of them pouring in from that rear door and I’m airborne, flying backwards until getting absolutely fucking slammed into walls and furniture as they swarm me and I’m planted on the floor under a screaming rage of boots and gun butts and grunts that light the world in crystal patterns of pain as they hammer me until I’m blanking out. Now they step off for a handcuffing and the weapon and accomplice questions and then identify themselves as police and rah-rah-rah-rah-rah about this, that and the other, none of which I really respond to beyond mumbling while releasing the build-up of blood in my mouth as I tilt over, trying to slow the cabin’s unhinged spin.

  Now that the Special Operations Group has its how-do-you-do’s out of the way, the coppers start asking the only question that really matters to ’em before any other officers or services get on-site.

  ‘Where’s the money?’

  ‘Don’t know what you’re talking about.’

  Roxy. What are they doing to her? That’s all I wanna know. Can’t hear nothing of her: just police radios and sniggers about putting a few rounds through me. Roxy, baby, what’re they doing to you?

  ‘Where’s the money?’

  Don’t ask about Roxy. Play no cards. Show nothing. Give nothing. Prepare for pain. Nothing matters. Prepare for damage. Nothing matters.

  ‘Scum,’ says the black mask. ‘I’ll ask once more.’ He kicks me in the face. ‘Hey, scum.’ He kicks me in the face again. ‘I think my colleagues would have a few questions, too.’

  The crystals flash again and my heart is heaving and I can’t get enough air and I’m bleeding, and it must be from the scalp ’cos there’s so much pooling and smearing and splattering, or maybe it’s just my nose and mouth, or both, or everything, I don’t know, I’m swelling and breaking and twitching, and when have I ever done anything like this in my line of work you fucking cunts; you’re just cunts; you’re just cunts; you’re just cunts; just cunts; just cunts; just cunts; cunts, cunts, cunts, cunts, cunts.

  ‘Where’s the money?’

  Think you can fucking break me? Think I give a fuck what you do to me, man? Didn’t see you in H Division at seventeen, you faggot piece of fuck. All you can do is throw people places you couldn’t fucking handle. Or get your army together to torture one captured solja. I’m a fucking solja. I’m a fucking solja. Reveal nothing. Say nothing. Who cares about the fucking money or any fucking things, man. I don’t give a fuck about things, about stuff – all I need is my pride and I’ll lose it all if I say a fucking word to you. That’s why I’m staunch, man. That’s why I’m hardcore. That’s why –

  ‘Wha –’ Have to catch my breath. ‘Money. What money?’

  A cold circle presses into the back of my head. Can’t see what’s going on ’cos my eyes are swelling shut and anyway I’m facedown in a red sea. Dad. You helped me fly at Parramatta. Live or die, it doesn’t matter. Dad. The gun cocks.

  ‘He was armed and raised the weapon in a threatening manner,’ says someone. ‘So you’re a fucking hero for shooting this criminal scum. Saved an officer. Let’s do it. We’ve got a throwdown to stick in his dead hand.’

  ‘Get it ready because this, this disgusting specimen of criminal filth is going to be removed in a body bag unless he explains in the next fifteen seconds exactly where we’ll find the 140 G from Doncaster. Check your watches boys.’

  The metal circle grinds into my scalp. Normally I appreciate the smell of a well maintained handgun, a suggestive steely tang with a hint of grease, but all I can smell is blood. ‘Fuck off.’ He kicks me in the face.

  No one shoots me, though.

  ‘Get his hand on the table.’

  They haul me across the floor and spread my hand on a tabletop.

  ‘Have a look, scum.’ With clear revulsion at touching something so rancid, someone grips my head and twists it towards what they want me to see: a cop who’s flipped his pumpaction around and is jigging it up and down as if he’s preparing for a big downward thrust with the butt.

  Oh.

  White light. Voices fade, drowned by my own howl along a tunnel of hypercompressed agony. After time I lose altitude and look at the semi-severed end of my finger.

  The police are furious. ‘You fuckin’ fool, Binse! Where’s the money!’

  *

  Bit of gauze and bandaging and I’m deemed fit for questioning at the St Kilda police complex.

  They start quizzing me about the Ford Falcon, the panel van. I’m being cheeky: ‘Fuck, I don’t know what you’re talking about.’

  They go, ‘Listen, the Ford was seen at the property.’

  I’m thinking to myself, ‘Yeah?’ I goes, ‘Seen at the property, was it? You done a search of the property – you find it?’

  ‘Nuh.’ Then one of them says it was involved in a police shooting.

  I go: ‘Police shooting? Really? Well it’s got nothing to do with me. It’s not on the property. I don’t know what you’re talking about.’ Then they start mentioning his name and I’m going, oh fuck, this doesn’t sound good, you know: the vehicle, him. When they said his name I go, ‘I don’t know him.’

  Then they said, ‘Do you know Jimmy Smith?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Do you know James Smith?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Do you know Jockey Smith?’

  ‘No, I don’t know him either. I don’t know who you’re talking about.’

  ‘Oh, you don’t know who we’re talking about and you don’t know nothing about the car.’ They say something to each other and one of them storms out of the interview room, comes back and throws the fucking Age newspaper on the desk in front of me. ‘You don’t know what we’re talking about, hey fuckhead? Read that.’ The front page is splashed with the pho
to of a body on the road draped with a blanket. Jockey’s last stand, they’re calling it.

  It’s got to be bodgy, right – doctored up or something.

  I break down and cry. Lost for words and lost in time.

  ‘So you don’t know him, hey?’

  I just sat and cried.

  *

  We’d been lagged, it turned out. Informants had tipped police off about the Armaguard plot and my location, and on Saturday they were sitting off us all day, sitting off me in particular. They had a forward observation post to keep eyes on the prize and monitor comings and goings.

  When I brought Jockey in, they had no idea who they were looking at. So when I gave him the XF van they’ve seen that vehicle leave and they knew it was stolen but they let it go. They didn’t know who it was and they weren’t looking for him. Little did they know, he was just as hot as me if not hotter.

  He left at about eight o’clock, just on sunset. He’s going through the town of Creswick; he’s not really familiar with it; he’s doing about twenty k’s under the limit – it’s a 100 k limit on the freeway there – and it drew the attention of the local copper who was by himself in a marked vehicle. It’s Saturday night too, so maybe he’s thought, ‘Oh, he’s had a few drinks; I’ll pull the car over.’ But first he rung the rego through and it was fucking stolen.

  Now the coppers watching me hear this and think, ‘Fuck, is he tuned in?’ They didn’t want to intercept the vehicle just in case he alerted me and it interfered with their arrest. They were worried that I had a scanner, which I did but I wasn’t listening to it at the time because I was preoccupied with Rob, who would ultimately be revealed as a fucking police informer. Rob was setting me up, making sure I was stoned, had some pot, had some smoke, this and that. He was the last one to leave the property.

  And he baited the dogs. There was no way in the world they would have kept quiet. There was a chihuahua, a little yapper, if leaves rustled he’d start going off his head; there was a fucking German shepherd chained up. I was the only person to let that dog off the chain in its three years. That dog was stupid. It was just a guard dog, and that’s what they treated it like – just a guard dog. I don’t think they even gave it a name. If anyone come down the drive it would start barking. It was like a warning signal to them. Plus, Roxy had her dog, Meg, and that was with her. They didn’t get to Roxy’s dog because she left the lounge room and went to the log cabin and Meg went with her.

  *

  The police interview me over my last State Bank raid, saying, ‘Sign here, fuckhead.’

  But they have nothing on me – except, it turns out, Roxy was seen and identified. They also know she’s been involved in other robberies and witnesses have even placed her at Parramatta.

  I refuse to confess.

  They tell me to consider my position over the next 48 hours. If I then cop it sweet, Roxy won’t be done for the bank job. If I hold out, then she will be charged with armed robbery and almost certainly spend a few years as a guest of Her Majesty.

  The police give Roxy and I some us-time in the interview room. We make a deal: she will walk and I’ll keep the funds from the robbery. The rationale being that I expect to be in for a very long time, whereas she has her freedom back and can move on.

  I love her but she is a party girl, good for a good time, nothing more nothing less, and I don’t expect her to wait ten years for me.

  She has been living the high life as shared by me. At my side, she’s spent over a 100 G’s and owns a nice BMW that I bought her. When I was arrested at the airport about to fly out, she was in control of some twenty G’s.

  Spending by and on Roxy sent the funds plummeting, which was why I came back here to rob.

  But she’s fun. Real fun.

  I’m not going to give the police my decision now. I’ll use the full 48 hours. What’s the rush?

  BEDSIDE REMAND HEARING

  Chris returns to St Augustine’s ward at St Vincent’s Hospital where he is transferred on 6 December due to his injuries.

  Hello.

  Where’d I go?

  Been three months.

  Nearly to the day.

  Since I went away.

  With a pistol.

  And the will to.

  Leave.

  Now I’m back.

  Whack.

  What a dud.

  Thud.

  I kind of wish I was in the same bed as last time; you’ll recall that spring-loaded week and a half that started with a stabbing and ended with the Last Supper.

  If I was in my old bed, the one that I discharged myself from three months ago, and I was staring at the same dreary patch of ceiling, then for sure what’s gone down would have to be some fucked up dream, and tomorrow Dad would come in and tool me up and I could start my run over.

  But no.

  I’m freshly hospitalised for injuries sustained when ‘resisting arrest’. I need microsurgery to remake part of my finger and treatment for multiple head wounds, a broken nose, broken ribs, black eyes and severe bruising to much of my upper body.

  Barrels, butts and boots. And another weapon: sound – the click-click-click-click of SOG officers cocking their handguns and pointing them at the back of my head.

  Only after a couple of them pulled their triggers and I wasn’t dead did I realise they must have unloaded, and this was just an inconsequential mock execution.

  My survival was probably the least preferred option for many of the police. After all, they’d named the operation to capture me, Dust to Dust.

  Well, fuck them. All their torture and bashing didn’t get them what they wanted. Had the opposite effect: sealed me tight with anger.

  Now the coppers probably have the farm sealed off under the pretext of searching for suspected explosive charges while they’re digging holes like moles on speed in a desperate search for the proceeds. Greedy thievin’ bastards.

  *

  The next day, a bedside hearing takes place before Magistrate Linda Dessau, who notes the obvious injuries, indeed she refers to them at a later court hearing that she presides over. On 8 December, Chris leaves St Vincent’s.

  PENTRIDGE HOSPITAL CHRIS:

  At Pentridge Hospital I have the prison staff notify the police that I want to speak to them, and for the love of my girlfriend I take the fall.

  Within months the prison governor stops her from entering the jail on security reasons, ending what is left of our relationship. And she’d steal the 50-odd G’s left from the robbery – money that I hadn’t given up even with the SOG putting guns to my head and savagely bashing me.

  So now I’m broke and in prison, while she has her freedom and the money and she’s getting tight with my enemies. She even goes to police functions as some kind of trophy for them: BADNE$$’ girl.

  Talk about rubbing it in my face.

  What’s next? Her possible NSW charges done away with in return for giving evidence against me?

  You got it. She also gets witness protection. Plus, she’ll continue to reoffend but be saved on each occasion by agreeing to give evidence against me.

  My mum always said Roxy was no good, and it turns out she was right.

  I think I knew.

  Loved her anyway. Roxy was good company. She was a laugh. She was a good sort. It’s sad that she turned on me. It really is sad.

  ANNETTE:

  When Jockey was shot dead at Creswick and Chris was arrested I wasn’t told anything, really. I had to work things out myself, or guess.

  I couldn’t stand Roxy and Chris knew that, and there was friction because I couldn’t stand her.

  Roxy was totally different to Chris’ other girlfriends – bad in her own way. A very smart-alecky type. She lied a lot, too. They all do.

  I went shopping one day and Chris had the key to my front door. I walk in from shopping and I find Chris and Roxy had been there. The lounge room was filled with all these boxes of expensive joggers. I was so angry; I told them I didn’t want their lifestyle
having anything to do with mine. I am an honest woman, I don’t steal.

  Another time I went shopping, I get home, go in the back garden and I find all these water pipes. I look at them and there were guns in there. Chris had brought them on the ferry from Tasmania. I contacted him and said, ‘Get that bloody shit out of my garden. Now!’

  I just didn’t know what to expect from day to day. Sometimes I just couldn’t cope. It was all too much.

  49. ROXY SAYS

  STATEMENT FROM ROXY IN 1994 ABOUT EVENTS IN 1992:

  I am 28 years of age.

  Chris flew up to Bundaberg with the handgun and money from the armed robbery in Sydney. Chris told me to pick up a BMW which he had put a deposit on some time earlier. He also purchased a Land Rover like a jeep. He purchased the jeep for the property in Bundaberg and put a deposit on the BMW. It was black, a 1977 model and two door.

  I picked up the car the next day from the car yard and drove north towards Brisbane. I had only been driving for about 20 minutes when it overheated and I stopped at a service station.

  I telephoned Chris and told him what had happened. He started yelling at me so I hung up. I ended up getting to Brisbane with the car by following some police from Brisbane. I saw consumer affairs and as a result ended up in Southport again with the vehicle for the repairs to be completed. After a day or two I decided to join Chris in Bundaberg whilst the car was being repaired.

  I joined Chris in Bundaberg on the property that he had purchased, he left a couple of days later. Chris’ property was named Badlands. Whilst he was there I saw Chris with lots of different types of firearms. There were big guns and handguns. The big guns he wrapped up in rags which he had oiled and then put into like an army bag. The ammunition was like in a metal toolbox. He hid these guns and ammunition in a cave on the property. I have since shown this location to the Victorian police and those firearms were missing although the tarp and box were still there. The small handguns Chris left in a biscuit container in the shack on the property.