by JR Carroll
A piercing scream filled the night air.
He got out of the Subaru and edged forward, staying under cover of the shrubbery.
When he came alongside the BMW, he opened the driver’s door, causing the interior light to come on. The keys were in the ignition. He took the keys and quickly—silently—shut the door.
Then, for better or worse, he tossed the keys into the bush.
It was now 9.22 pm.
25
For a time after he’d been unceremoniously ejected from the Angels, Cornstalk licked his wounds, holed up in a motel room drinking beer and Beam all day and half the night, on a downward spiral. To tempt fate, bring on the furies, he’d ride his hog flat out in the dead of night when he was completely ripped, but cops were never around when you needed them.
Not without good reason, Cornstalk thought himself hard done by, considering the volume of business he had brought to the table during the period of his membership. But he accepted it was all over. He avoided the Golden Lion and other Hells Angels haunts and had no contact with any members of the club, except Stav, with whom he had an occasional drink. Their friendship was still intact, but otherwise he was now a pariah; a true outcast and a lone wolf. Which was what he’d been a lot of the time anyhow.
After a year of the doldrums Cornstalk decided to start up his own outfit. They couldn’t stop him from doing that. It was to be called the Black Mamba Motorcycle Club: BMMC. He cast his net far and wide through his biker and criminal associations to find a loyal band of hard cases; within six months he had seven crazed mercenaries he was fond of calling Cornstalk’s Commandos. Stav—aka the Canuck—had by this time also been expelled from the Angels for conduct unbecoming: he’d slashed his sergeant-at-arms in the throat with a Bowie knife during a drunken disagreement about Stav’s alleged acquaintance with a police officer. How was Stav to know the roughneck he regaled with stories of Montreal’s biker turf wars was an undercover cop, part of a task force trying to infiltrate and shut down outlaw gangs in NSW. He filed a report on his conversation with Stav, which was duly leaked to a gang leader via a corrupt cop.
Stav was fingered as a cop informant. That was how the fight with the sergeant-at-arms started.
Cornstalk first encountered Christo, the martial arts nut, back in mid-2002. This rival biker, a brave but stupid man by the name of Dingo, had knocked off a truckload of malt Scotch from a depot; Cornstalk relieved him of it while the heist was still in progress. Christo—real name Sammy Paxinos—was riding shotgun for Dingo. From the start, Cornstalk thought Sammy had the right stuff: he was young, a good fighter with a ton of dash. Strictly speaking he didn’t qualify for membership as he wasn’t a biker, but Cornstalk was prepared to waive the condition even though it seemed ridiculous to be running a motorcycle club in which the members did not own a hog or even have a licence to ride one.
By the start of 2003 Cornstalk had eleven followers. These misfits all pledged undying loyalty to him and to a set of rules he had personally drawn up, including one that barred ‘screwing around with another member’s woman without full knowledge and consent of said member’. So that they were always available at short notice, members were also not allowed to hold down day jobs ‘without the express permission of the President’. Also, ‘No member shall have friends or family in the police force, or have any association with law enforcement agencies.’ The club’s motto was: ‘Live Free, Die Free’; its insignia consisted of a circular crest depicting a coiled snake, head raised, forked tongue spitting poison.
Unlike most other criminal bikie gangs, Black Mamba MC did not bother with the sham of presenting itself as nothing more sinister than a group of motorcycle enthusiasts. Through word of mouth in underworld and biker circles, Cornstalk made it known that they were open for business—any illegal enterprise that would turn a dollar. One of their first jobs was working security at a big gangland wedding; this gave them inroads into other similar jobs. Soon a contract killing came their way—$150 000 for eliminating a grass in a big drug case in Sydney. Then a mild-mannered public servant wanted his sister-in-law bumped off; when Cornstalk asked what the story was he said that the sister-in-law was a mad Christian who was trying to undermine his marriage by persuading her sister that she was going to burn in hell if she didn’t divorce her husband, who was an atheist. The agreed fee was $85 000, with half paid in advance.
They cased the target’s home and daily routine for a couple weeks, and then Cornstalk came to the conclusion that murdering civilians, especially females, wasn’t his caper. Some surviving shred of conscience told him he was crossing an important line. This change of heart came about largely because she had young kids that she drove to and from school each day—seeing them reminded Cornstalk of Rory, who he had not seen since the split with Sandy. In the end he just couldn’t do it. He told the public servant the job was off, but declined to give back the cash paid upfront. That was an unrefundable deposit; the client would just have to cop the loss, find someone else to do the job.
Cornstalk felt the absence of his son acutely at times, especially when he was on the drink. Life was a bit hollow then. He retained a lawyer to try to gain access to Rory, but there were obstacles: for a start, Sandy had apparently moved interstate, no one knew where exactly; and his brief, before lodging papers with the Family Court, checked Cornstalk’s criminal record.
‘You certainly wouldn’t get custody or part custody with that history,’ the lawyer told him.
‘I’m not after custody,’ Cornstalk said. ‘I just want to see my son—weekend access, something like that.’
But the lawyer still had his doubts. Given Cornstalk’s lifestyle and associates, no judge would look sympathetically at his case, especially if Sandy decided to play hardball and provide the court with all the grisly details of Cornstalk’s biker activities.
‘Child’s welfare comes first,’ the lawyer said.
Cornstalk sacked him and refused to pay his bill. He retained another lawyer, went back to scratch. The new lawyer began optimistically, but in the end it was the same result. It was always the same story with lawyers.
Cornstalk had come to realise early in his career that the main source of his income had to be drugs, especially the recreational variety. There seemed to be no limit to the demand for party pills at nightclubs, rave parties and rock festivals. He did well enough ripping off other dealers and selling the product, but there was a lot more to be made from manufacturing your own. He’d already established links with Sydney gangsters who ran most of the stuff, and along the way he’d developed an uneasy but workable relationship with a detective who was in on the business up to his eyebrows.
At a pub one night, this bent cop told Cornstalk he knew where there was a pill press, hidden in a garage operated by a Lebanese family in Lakemba. The house was vacant most of the time; the Lebs didn’t stay there except when they were working on a batch of product. The cop seemed to be suggesting that Cornstalk and his associates could lift it without too much trouble. Once he had that in his possession all he needed were precursor chemicals, some lab gear and a competent cook, and he could go into business himself, independently of all the other dirtbags scrambling for a slice of the biz. Naturally there’d be a drink in it for the cop. Cornstalk was ever-mindful of his rule about not fraternising with the enemy, but this was business. Not that he could trust this bastard. But he figured it was worth a shot—the rewards were enormous.
One night Cornstalk and a crew drove out to Lakemba to check out the garage in question. It was a heavily fortified corrugated iron job. The padlocks on the door were made of hardened steel that the boltcutters could not cut through. But the cop was right—the house was empty. They came back several nights later, hauling a trailer. Instead of trying to cut the locks, Cornstalk used the oxy-acetylene to remove a large section from the side of the garage. It took four of them to drag out the pill press, which was heavier and more cumbersome than Cornstalk had anticipated. They got it onto the trailer an
d covered it with a tarpaulin. That was the last the Lebanese saw of their pill press.
Using information obtained from the bent cop, they scored a truckload of pseudoephedrine tablets from a pharmaceutical warehouse where the security was slack, or paid off. They took everything they could carry away.
By this time Cornstalk had bought a stone house, a hundred-and-fifty-year-old gold miner’s cottage, outside Captains Flat. All he needed now was a cook. The ever-reliable cop gave him a list of possible candidates. He set about interviewing them. The first on the list was in stir awaiting trial and the second was dying of AIDS; Cornstalk had no choice but to employ the third candidate, who was an Asian university student. Cornstalk didn’t have much time for slopes, didn’t connect with or trust them, but this one seemed OK. And he knew his subject: he was studying to be an industrial chemist.
Six months passed before the first batch hit the streets of Kings Cross. There were technical glitches—always glitches. Then business flowed, and along with it came rivers of money. Cornstalk was raking in so much cash he needed a calculator with extra zeros on it to keep track. The only problem was what to do with it, since he couldn’t put it in the bank. Some he put in a safe deposit box; the rest he concealed in his home—under the floorboards, inside a safe hidden inside a brick wall, in an air vent—all wrapped in plastic. Two hundred thousand dollars he wrapped in plastic and stuffed into PVC pipes, which he sealed at both ends and buried in his backyard. The more wealth he accumulated, the more he realised how difficult life was being an outsider. He wanted to invest in gold bars, but you had to provide too much information to the government: company details, bank accounts, tax file numbers. Cornstalk was finding that being an outlaw had its downside: you couldn’t use society’s facilities if you operated away from the mainstream.
At a clandestinely arranged meeting with his mate the cop—midnight, in a supermarket car park—Cornstalk handed over a brick of banknotes. The cop was more than pleased, especially after he counted it when he got home. But then he arranged a second meeting, a week later at a pub, and told Cornstalk he’d need to pony up a second brick for his colleagues who were in on the scam too. Cornstalk didn’t believe him about the colleagues—the cop, typical fucking cop, was greedy. But the cop was calm and measured about the whole deal. He inspired confidence. When Cornstalk asked him what the chances were of a bust, the cop laughed out loud and said, ‘Zilch. I’m running the show.’
Cornstalk said, ‘Yeah, but who’s running you?’
‘No one’s fucking running me,’ the cop said. ‘I’m the untouchable. Eliot Ness, they call me.’ The cop was impressed by his own joke—so much so that he nearly choked on his can of VB from laughing so much. Then on a more serious note he issued a warning.
‘It’s not the cops you have to worry about,’ he said. ‘It’s the Lebanese. Word is they’re coming after you. I’d expect a visit soon. Won’t be a social call like this, neither. No beer and a steak sandwich—it’ll be a stinger up your arse.’
Cornstalk decided to get in first—a pre-emptive strike. He got together a small team from Cornstalk’s Commandos and rode out to the Lebs’ crib in the dead of night. Apparently two brothers lived in this cheap wooden hutch in Granville. They blasted the bedroom windows with double-aught shotgun shells and followed up with a steady fusillade of petrol bombs that soon had the place going in a ferocious firestorm. They could hear screams but didn’t stick around to see if anyone got out. As they rode back to base they passed numerous fire trucks and cop cars going the other way at speed.
‘Mission accomplished,’ Cornstalk said to himself as he rode on, careful not to exceed the speed limit.
The papers reported that two men received third-degree burns in the incident, on top of which three dogs were incinerated. Police appealed for witnesses to come forward. Cornstalk had visits from detectives who questioned him over and over, but got nothing in return. His experience dealing with cops, going back to his teenage years, stood him in good stead. The soldiers, too, remained staunch. Everybody’s lips were sealed. Cops could suspect what they liked, but finding the evidence, along with reliable witnesses, was always going to be a big ask. Who wanted to risk their own place being firebombed for the sake of a couple of drug-dealing Lebs?
For a time after that, Cornstalk’s relationship with the Lebanese criminal community was troubled. The two brothers vowed revenge once they got out of hospital, but nothing much came of it except a couple of half-hearted efforts. Seemed that these two weren’t too popular with the rest of the Leb underworld due to tribal infighting, so when Cornstalk fronted up with a hundred kilos of party pills next time around to test the climate, the clan chiefs were prepared to overlook the past and do business. It was a good fit: they had a first-rate distribution network from white supremacists in Maroubra to hicks in the Blue Mountains, and Cornstalk had quality product coming out of his ears. Plus, these Lebs had access to weapons—not just handguns and submachine guns, but military hardware including grenades, mines and rocket launchers, much of it imported from war zones.
A lot had changed, even in the few years since he’d been kicked out of the Angels. Instead of names like Dave Hegarty, most of the bikie gangs were now top-heavy with a Middle Eastern presence; names like Omar, Abdullah and Mehmet dominated. Cornstalk had no love of foreigners, but he was astute enough to realise you couldn’t fight everyone in this cut-throat world. The Lebanese were eager and ruthless fighters, they were well connected and there were a lot of them. It made sense to form a sort of unofficial alliance with them, inside the tent pissing out rather than the other way around.
*
A highlight of his career came in 2007. He opened his laptop one morning to find an email from a movie producer asking if he was prepared to discuss participation in an upcoming project. His official title was to be ‘consultant’, for which he’d receive a fee. They were making a movie about an outlaw biker gang, and were looking for someone from the inside to coach their leading man—a famous actor—on how to talk and act like a tough biker, how to sit on his hog, fight dirty and so on. So Cornstalk signed on in the movie business. Even had his photo in the paper, on set with the big-time star and his hundred-watt smile.
He was still active in the enforcement business, however. Calls came in and he and his crew would break legs and stand over people who had failed to repay loans or committed some other offence, didn’t matter what it was. They shot a petty thug on contract and buried him in the sand dunes at Palm Beach one time; on another occasion some poor wretch was waylaid, stabbed to death and set on fire in his car out in the bush.
And then the call came from on old contact. He was representing someone else who wanted this big-noting lawyer done. Cornstalk asked if it was a hospital or cemetery job, and the answer came that the lawyer was not to live. Terms were agreed and the job was set for the coming weekend, Saturday, when the target and his wife would be at their weekender at a place called the Pericoe Valley, not far from Eden. It was an old hippie commune, he was told; the exact location was a spot called Black Pig Bend, which abutted a state forest.
26
The instant Tim realised he was staring down the barrel of a gun, one thought flashed through his brain: I’m a dead man.
But even before that thought had been completed, instinct kicked in. Survival overrides all other imperatives.
He managed to grab the man’s wrist and jerk it to the side just as the gun went off. Tim felt the heat of the bullet zap past his left ear. It slammed into the ceiling, tearing a hole clean through it and the iron roof.
Amy screamed somewhere behind him.
He had both hands on the man’s wrist. The gun went off again, a third and fourth time. All the bullets tore through the ceiling and the roof, out into the night sky.
Tim shoved the man’s wrist against the window frame, lined with jagged glass shards. The man resisted. He had phenomenal strength. It was an arm wrestle Tim couldn’t afford to lose. If he did, he and Amy w
ere dead meat.
The man saw what he was trying to do. Their eyes locked and their arms trembled violently, bursting with effort. The gun edged closer to Tim’s face.
He didn’t seem to have the muscle-power to match his opponent. He was amazingly strong, and determined. Tim felt himself weakening—going under.
He shut his eyes, summoned all his strength, pushed with everything he had against the man’s wrist.
The man seemed to slip, partially lose his balance on the sloping, corrugated iron roof and Tim gained enough advantage to force the man’s gun hand against the glass shards. He leaned all his weight into it.
The man gave a stifled grunt. Blood splashed from his wrist. His hand opened and the gun dropped onto the floor with a solid thump.
Tim placed his right hand on the man’s face and thrust—hard.
The man toppled backwards, overbalanced, swung both arms furiously, gave Tim one last wide-eyed stare—and disappeared from sight. He didn’t make a sound as he tumbled from the roof, until he crashed onto the ground below.
From somewhere in the dark, a man’s voice cried out: ‘Holy shit!’
Tim stood for a few moments, staring out through the shattered window, catching his breath. Felt as if he’d just gone a couple rounds with the Reaper and at least held his own.
It gave him heart. But more rounds lay ahead; he couldn’t win them all.
He checked on Amy. She was sitting on the floor, clutching her hair.
‘You OK?’ he said.