by JR Carroll
‘Get her!’ Sammy told Zed. He was still grappling with Frankie.
For a moment Zed didn’t move. He didn’t seem to have any idea. The woman continued screaming. Then she turned and ran towards the back of the house.
Zed took off after her.
He grabbed her as she tried to open the back door and pulled her back inside. She was screaming something terrible.
‘Shut her up!’ Sammy yelled. He was choking Frankie with such force—more than he realised—that Frankie’s eyes were rolling around, losing focus, and his knees were turning to rubber. Sammy loosened his iron-like grip a couple of notches and Frankie started abusing Sammy, spraying his face with the blood from his nose.
‘You fucker!’ he yelled. ‘Get the fuck out of my house! You filthy fucking scum! You’ll wish you—’
Sammy punched him in the stomach just to shut him up. Frankie would’ve doubled over with the pain except that Sammy still had him by the throat.
Zed had his work cut out dragging the woman back from the door. He gave her a couple of slaps across the face, nothing too severe, but enough to get her attention. She collapsed then, and the screaming subsided into gasps and sobs.
She was trembling violently. Hyperventilating.
Mayhem.
‘Calm down,’ Zed told her. ‘Nothing’s gonna happen to you! Nothin’.’
Jesus Christ.
‘Zed!’ Sammy called. ‘Get her in here—now!’
Zed was discovering how difficult it was to drag along someone who didn’t want to be dragged. Her feet were scraping the floor and she was pretty much a dead weight.
‘Get her a chair. Sit her down!’ Sammy instructed.
Zed found one and pushed her onto it. Tears were streaming down her face. ‘Don’t hurt me,’ she pleaded. ‘Please! I’m—I’m pregnant.’
Holy shit, Sammy thought. Just what we need.
‘Now listen, bitch,’ he told her. ‘You just sit there, nice and quiet, and you’ll be fine. Both you and your baby.’
‘You bastards!’ Frankie spluttered. ‘Keep your hands off her! Leave her alone!’
Sammy produced his butterfly knife and put the point of the blade on Frankie’s chin.
‘See this, arsehole?’ he said. ‘See it?’
Frankie nodded. He’d gone rigid.
The woman snuffled and sobbed in the chair.
‘Now listen, Frank,’ Sammy said in a cool, controlled voice, ‘here’s the deal. You’re gonna show me where the money is. And just to make sure you do it right, I’m gonna give this knife to my friend here. You fuck up, and the bitch gets it in the neck. Understand?’
‘What money?’ Frank said. His eyes were fixed on the blade at his chin as he spoke.
Sammy dug it in a little. Frankie flinched. A spot of blood popped out, dribbling down Frankie’s chin and onto his throat.
‘You know what money,’ Sammy told him. ‘Don’t play stupid games, Frank. Let’s go.’
Sammy handed the knife to Zed, standing over the woman. He didn’t seem to know what to do with it—stared at it in his open palm like it might jump up and bite him on the face.
‘Don’t hurt her!’ Frank said. ‘You can see she’s pregnant, goddamn you!’
‘So show us the money,’ Sammy said. ‘Whatever happens to her, it’s all up to you, mate.’
Sammy couldn’t believe how under control he was. However, he doubted Zed would have the guts to use the knife on the woman, especially since she was so obviously with child. But there was no shadow of a doubt in his own mind that he could use it on Frank if he had to.
He shoved Frank’s right arm up his back until he yelled with the pain. Sammy knew how far he could push it without actually breaking the guy’s arm, but he was tempted to snap it all the same—just to hear it go crack.
In the end it wasn’t necessary. Frank saw reason, led Sammy to a bedroom where bundles of cash were hidden—not very well—inside a wardrobe, along with a plastic bag containing several hundred ecstasy tablets.
Sammy’s eyes popped. ‘Zed! Get in here!’
He arrived in a flash. They stared good and hard at the prize. How much cash Sammy couldn’t estimate, but it was a lot. Thousands. Tens of thousands. More than they could stuff in their pockets.
They got some plastic bin bags from the kitchen, stuffed them with the cash and drugs. Zed worked while Sammy held the knife to Frank’s throat.
Time to get out. Sammy closed the knife and put it in his back pocket.
‘Right, we’re off,’ he told Frank. ‘See? You didn’t get hurt much. Nothin’ to it, was there?’
Frank looked at Sammy as if he wanted very badly to stick a red-hot poker in his eye.
‘Don’t call anyone,’ Sammy told him at the front door. ‘I hear you’ve made a phone call, I’ll come back and stitch up your girlfriend with this’—he brandished the butterfly knife again—'pregnant or not. You got that, Frank?’
In reply Frank threw a punch at Sammy’s head. It caught Sammy by surprise—he didn’t think Frank had it in him. The blow connected with the side of Sammy’s face, putting him off balance. Frank immediately followed up with a flurry of punches, some connecting, some not; then he grabbed Sammy in a headlock and tried to choke him. By Christ, the guy could fight. Sammy dropped the bag of cash and drugs. He shook Frank loose and slashed him across the arm. Frank shrieked and reeled backwards as blood shot from his forearm, close to his wrist. Sammy stepped up and plunged the blade into Frank’s chest. It stuck in there; he had to use all his strength to pull it out again.
Frank was shrieking with the shock and pain. The woman was going nuts.
Sammy stabbed Frank a few more times in his chest and stomach. There was blood everywhere by now. Sammy was in some sort of dreamland as he continued to stab Frank furiously: chest, stomach, arms, face, neck—wherever he could.
‘Sick it to him, Sammy! Stick it to him good!’ he heard Zed yelling. But Sammy didn’t need to be urged on—he was in a world of his own. In his frenzied consciousness there was absolutely no reason to stop stabbing Frank until he was dead, or even beyond that point.
The next few minutes were a bit of a blur as they ran from the house, into Zed’s car and took off in a cloud of blue smoke.
In all the excitement, Sammy forgot about swiping the Camaro.
He realised he was drenched with blood. Christ, it was all over him. His T-shirt was soaked through.
They drove fast to Zed’s place, where Sammy had a shower and changed into some of Zed’s clothes. After that they counted the cash. Then they took off again to a Blacktown nightclub, taking with them wads of hundred-dollar notes and some of the pills. They’d already taken one each before hitting the road.
At the nightclub they began throwing their money around, buying expensive drinks for girls in the hope of picking up a couple. Finally, they left with two drunk skanks at around 5.30am. Zed didn’t really have a destination in mind as he sped along the wrong side of the road, back towards Mount Druitt, playing chicken with oncoming traffic. The girls were wetting themselves, hysterically demanding to be let out of the car. But Zed wasn’t stopping.
Finally he was pulled over by police about halfway to Mount Druitt. After a breath test and a search of both men and the car, which uncovered drugs and a large amount of cash, they were chauffeured to a cop shop where Sammy pulled off his shirt and began threatening the cops.
‘Take off your hats and badges,’ he challenged. ‘I’ll smash the lot of you!’
In response several police held him down while two others beat the tripe out of him with fists, boots and batons. By the time he was thrown into a cell he had both eyes blackened, a couple broken ribs, broken teeth, bruising all over his body. He spat blood and drifted in and out of consciousness throughout the night.
Zed didn’t escape unscathed either. He was punched about the head and kicked in the groin so hard he couldn’t walk for a month, so intense was the pain.
Police searched Zed’s crib
and found all the remaining cash, some thirty thousand dollars, and the bag of ecstasy tablets. There was also a pile of bloodied clothing in the laundry. Sammy and Zed were now officially in deep shit. Then a neighbour of the stabbing victim placed Zed’s car at the scene, which closed the circle. Police knew about the drug dealer who’d been ripped off and stabbed and were currently investigating the matter. Now, fortuitously, the two offenders had delivered themselves into police hands. The cops thought it was hilarious.
PAIR IN VIOLENT, DRUNK RAMPAGE
Two Mount Druitt men are still in custody today following a wild night in Sydney’s southwest.
Police allege the pair was driving on the wrong side of the Great Western Highway, between Blacktown and Mount Druitt, in the early hours of yesterday morning after spending most of the night drinking at a Blacktown night spot.
Police have linked the two men, whose names have not yet been released, to a violent home invasion in Colyton earlier in the night, in which a man was brutally stabbed and his pregnant wife severely traumatised.
It is believed the pair made off with a large amount of cash and drugs from the premises. However, a suspicious neighbour who had heard screams coming from the house was able to provide police with a full description, including the registration number, of the vehicle used in the robbery.
Police were later able to match that description with the car apprehended on the Great Western Highway. A police spokesman said that most of the cash and drugs, along with bloodied clothes, had been recovered from a Mount Druitt address where one of the men lives.
The stabbing victim was air-lifted to St Vincent’s Hospital in Sydney, where his condition is described as critical.
The pair will face court later this morning, charged with a range of serious offences.
The fallout wasn’t great for Sammy. Zed was convicted of a raft of traffic offences and for his lesser part in the robbery. He scored three and a half years, two of which were suspended. But police really went to town on Sammy because of his belligerent attitude. He was done for aggravated burglary, attempted murder, recklessly endangering life, false imprisonment, armed robbery, possession of a trafficable quantity of a controlled substance and resisting arrest, as well as a few other offences thrown in for good measure.
He was sentenced to seven years and four months at Long Bay Correctional Facility. With time served and good behaviour, he’d be eligible for parole in four years and nine months.
He was twenty-one years old.
12
Friday, 7.53pm
Tim had his hand on the door knob and had begun to turn it when a little voice kicked in: Danger, beware: sabre-toothed tigers out there. He opened it a crack, a bit more than that, glimpsed a tall figure standing there, face obscured, head ringed by the outside light. Maybe someone else behind him; Tim wasn’t sure.
‘Yes?’ he said.
‘Special delivery package for one Tim Fontaine,’ the man answered. ‘You Mr Fontaine?’
Tim was used to FedEx deliveries in his business life; they were a normal, everyday occurrence, but out here?
‘Depends,’ Tim said. ‘What’s it about?’
‘Guess,’ the man said. Tim saw his hand come out from behind his back; a weapon in it, he thought. He didn’t wait to find out. It all happened in a flash as he slammed the door hard in the man’s face even as he tried to shove a foot inside. Then Tim jumped to one side as a barrage of bullets ripped through the solid timber door amid ear-shattering screams from Amy, who was standing at the table. He heard a shattering of glass and swivelled to see she had dropped her wine glass on the floor.
‘Amy! Get down!’ he yelled. She seemed to be rooted to the spot, unable to move. He rushed to her side and pulled her to the dining room with him as more shots tore through the door. He gripped her wrist as splinters flew and the room began to smell of gunsmoke.
‘What is going on?’ she screamed. Through her wrist he could feel her trembling. They were standing pressed against the wall.
‘I don’t know!’ he said. ‘Some guy with a gun—I don’t know! Shit!’
‘Mr Fontaine!’ a voice called from outside. ‘Come on, now. I have to deliver this package!’
‘Leave it there and fuck off!’ Tim shouted back, realising at once the absurdity of his riposte.
The man outside laughed—two men laughed; maybe three. Fuck. ‘Can’t do that, Mr Fontaine,’ came the answer. ‘Against company regulations. You have to sign for it, see. As evidence. I could lose my job.’
More laughter from outside. But at least they weren’t shooting—for the moment.
Tim said nothing in return. His mind was working fast. Thoughts collided, became chaotic as fear swamped his rational mind. He put an arm around Amy; her shoulders were shivering.
He looked at her scared face, then at the door, splinters of timber sticking out of it.
He had to get his shit together. This was suddenly a bad place.
‘You OK?’ he said, almost a whisper.
Amy gave a nod in return. But she wouldn’t look at him.
The man outside was yelling: ‘Give it up, mate. You can’t win this one.’
‘Who is he?’ Amy said.
‘I don’t know. No idea. Some rough-looking bastard, middle-aged, bikie gear.’
‘Bikie?’ she said. ‘What the bloody hell—’
‘No idea.’ He was trying to think of any connection he’d had with bikies. If he had bikies after him for some reason, they were in deep shit.
He turned his attention to the house. Tim had always been security conscious—had to be, both as cop and lawyer. His current home in Canberra was no fortress, but not too far off it: high brick fences, sophisticated alarm system, sensor lights. Here on the farm, which was unoccupied much of the time, he’d been more concerned about ferals or drifters breaking in. So he’d gone to considerable trouble with the door locks, and steel bars on the front windows.
There were two doors to the house—front and back. Both were made from heavy timber, not the cheap, off-the-rack stuff; both were fitted with multiple deadlocks set in steel plating. Since arriving they hadn’t gone out the back, so the security door was still locked.
Only two ways into the house—and only two out.
‘Mr Fontaine!’ the man outside shouted. ‘Come on, now. We need your cooperation.’ He then lowered his voice into a growl: ‘We can do this the easy way, or the hard way. Choice is yours.’
Tim was thinking about the windows. Windows were always a weak spot in any house. No need to smash through a door if you could force a window. These were all of the traditional farmhouse sash type. No large glass panels or floor-to-ceiling sliding doors. The windows all had locks fitted, but most of the frames wouldn’t budge anyway due to warping and numerous coats of paint over the decades. They were stuck fast. The kitchen and dining room windows were double sash, with small quarter panels in the upper half and a single pane below. Tim had never been able to raise or lower them. Plus, they were protected by steel bars set too close together for anyone to squeeze between, even if someone was prepared to smash the panes and try to wriggle through.
But—these were obviously dangerous and determined men. They had at least one gun. They were here on a mission. Maybe they had the tools to lever the bars off, or force them wider apart.
Somebody wants to get in badly enough, they will find a way in. Matter of when, not if.
*
Outside, Cornstalk was reloading his pistol with spare rounds from his pocket.
‘Bastard hurt my foot when he shut the fuckin’ door,’ he said, spinning the cylinder.
‘Not very hospitable of him,’ Stav said. ‘Folks are supposed to be friendly in the country.’
‘Yeah, well … all the old values are gone, mate. World’s turned to shit.’
‘What happens now?’ Christo said—spoiling for action as usual.
‘Go around the back, do a recce,’ Cornstalk said.
Christo stood ther
e.
‘Go on, then!’ Cornstalk said. ‘Christ—I have to do everything myself?’
Christo scurried around the house. In the inky dark he tripped on something—a pile of firewood. ‘Fuck!’ he said, rubbing his shin. When he got around the back, his eyes were accustomed to the dark. He could see boxes of empty wine bottles and stacks of timber on the ground, wrapped in plastic. Looked like they were planning to build an extension or some decking. Never happen, mate, not in this lifetime. He knew there had to be a door here somewhere. He located a set of wooden steps and as soon as he got near it, on came the sensor light. It was mounted way too high for him to reach. He tried the screen door, but it was locked. It was no ordinary security door, either, with its thick steel bars and a solid-looking lock. Behind it the main door was solid too, like the one at the front. It had a checker-steel plate, the type tradesmen’s toolboxes are made from, in which the locking mechanism was housed.
The house was high on stilts at the back because the land sloped downwards, so he couldn’t see through the windows, or get anywhere near them. They were covered with curtains anyway. The only access under the house was via a small door cut out from the horizontal boards around the base of the house. There was a padlock on it, an industrial strength one that looked to be case-hardened steel. So boltcutters, even if they had any, wouldn’t be much use.
No joy, Christo thought. Obviously this was a man who did not want uninvited guests.
He scouted around a bit more. Maybe there’d be a basement or laundry door, an open window, something like that.
Nope.
He continued on, doing a full circuit of the house, until he got back to Cornstalk and Stav.
‘Well?’ Cornstalk said. He had a cigarette in his mouth; Stav was leaning against the wall with the bottle of Beam in his hand.
‘Just this back door arrangement that’s like a set of fuckin’ cell doors. Same as here.’
‘No way in?’
Christo shook his head no. ‘Not that I can see. Under the house is sealed with a case-hardened padlock. Windows too high up to get anywhere near ’em.’