“He’s in the cellar. Behind the hotel. Locked in.”
“Keys.”
Wally handed over the keys, and Vladimir and Curtains went to look. Supervised by Magnoon, Crispin and Stavros were made to start ferrying the bags and boxes from the office and into the A.S.S. Land Rover. Dugong Heartache stood in the middle of the room, holding his beer in one hand and his gun in the other, smiling.
“You know,” he said to Asia, “you’re a real looker. Maybe if you was to be nice to me an’ the boys, it might go a little easier for ya.”
Asia didn’t answer. Dugong shrugged and took a swallow of his beer. Vladimir and Curtains came back.
“Nada. But the door’s been unscrewed from the inside.”
Dugong looked at Wally, who was as surprised as he was.
“He must have got out. We left him locked in.”
“Well, now we have a problem, see, because…WHAT THE FUCK?”
Wally followed Dugong’s eyes to the opposite corner of the room and smiled. Gaspart Descourt had dropped his gun, dropped his trousers, bent Loretta over a barstool, and was rogering her with such vigor that his prosthetic leg had fallen off.
“You frog-eating asswipe, what the fuck do you think you’re…?”
Magnoon Piastre sprinted across the room, rugby-tackled Rita, ripped off her underwear, and began climbing into her as if he were trying to stab her to death with his dick, all the while braying like a sunstruck mule.
“What the fuck is going on here? Has everybody gone completely fucking nuts? Vladimir…?”
Vladimir wasn’t listening. Vladimir was too busy driving his throbbing member into Marilyn’s recess. The force and rapidity of his strokes were shunting her across the floor like a giant mop, and he was shuffling forward frantically trying to stay in situ.
Dugong was about to yell when something bumped him in the back, and he swung round, gun poised at the ready, only to drop it to his side in amazement as he saw Curtains wheelbarrowing Jenny across the room, with her legs on his shoulders and his wang embedded in her at an angle that appeared almost impossible, not to mention downright painful. Even more amazing was the sight that greeted him in the window. Crispin had been transformed from a whining suet pudding into two hundred and fifty pounds of humping machine, and had Booby Flowers bent over the windowsill, sticking it to him with a force that was threatening to bring the wall down. And Booby was loving it, which was the only non-surprising aspect of the whole scenario.
Dugong turned around in absolute confusion, pointing his gun at everybody in turn, feeling he ought to shoot somebody but not knowing quite who to shoot. When he saw Sandra slinking across the floor towards him, he decided she would be as good as anyone, and he leveled the weapon at her chest. But then a funny thing happened. He couldn’t pull the trigger. It seemed to be stuck, and not only that, but the gun was getting hot. So hot, in fact, that he was compelled to drop it. And then he himself began to get hot. So hot that he had to take his clothes off. So hot that Sandra also had to take her clothes off. And then this kind of orange mist descended over his eyes, and he looked down and was startled to see this enormous orange snake staring at him, until he realized it was his pecker, only twice as big as it had ever been before. A sound came out of his throat that he did not recognize, and the next thing he was sliding on his ass towards Sandra like a buck naked hockey player. He neatly kicked her ankles out from under her and as she came down skillfully caught her and impaled her on his sword, and commenced to bang the living shit out of her.
Asia, recognizing the symptoms, turned to look at the grinning Wally.
“Why, you sly old goat. You slipped them a Machine Gun Jelly mickey.”
“Too fucken right, sheila. Now let’s get all these people out of ’ere smartish. Stavros, yer useless prick, don’t jus’ stand there like a fucken stunned mullet. ’Elp me get these people out.”
Just then, they heard the sound of an engine starting up and revving, and loud music playing. All three ran outside and saw the A.S.S. Land Rover pulling away, and a black hand extended out of the driver’s seat window, flipping them the bird.
“Monsoon! Wally, he’s getting away with the money!” Asia screamed.
“The fucken dirty bastard,” Stavros commented.
“Don’t worry about that drongo. ’Elp me with these people.”
Asia looked at Wally, then at Stavros, then at the receding red lights of the Land Rover. Wally and Stavros were already on their way inside when she looked back. Taking a last long look at the fast-disappearing car, she followed.
Inside it was like the end-of-shooting party at a Fellini film. Things were being done to people in attitudes and positions that defied belief. Jimmy and Bruce came bounding in, and stood open-mouthed in total astonishment. Asia, knowing what an enervating evening the girls had already had, looked on sympathetically as they were being reamed from anus to Venus and back.
“Jimmy, Bruce, tip these two poofters out of the window, will ya. We gotta get ‘em into the fucken freezer,” Wally said.
“Ya what?”
“Ya got to take ’em down the fucken basement and lock ’em in the freezer, mate.”
“What the…?”
“I ain’t got time ter fucken explain now, yer pair a drongos. Get a fucken move on, willya?”
Shaking their heads, Jimmy and Bruce approached the problem. Crispin was lost to the world and grunting like a bear with its dick stuck in a beehive, while Booby was sounding like a trumpet in a maternity ward. They decided it was a simple question of mechanics, and grabbing one of Crispin’s legs apiece they upended him, tipping him over the windowsill with Booby still attached. The pair crashed to the ground under the window. Booby, perhaps fortunately, was knocked unconscious in the fall, but Crispin continued to whale away.
Bruce tried tapping him on the shoulder, but Crispin rogered on regardless. Jimmy tried tapping him on the back of the head with a three-foot hardwood log, which got his attention. They unplugged Crispin, who was, unbelieveably, still air thrusting even though he was knocked spark out, and Bruce lugged Booby down into the cellar while Jimmy went for a wheelbarrow. Between the two of them they managed to load Crispin, carefully avoiding his still-waving wand, and wheeled him down the ramp. They stashed the two of them against a crate of frozen emu burgers and levered the door closed.
The few remaining customers were gawking like rubberneckers at a train crash, the trauma of having been kidnapped by a gang of gun-wielding paraplegics completely forgotten. Aided by Bruce and Jimmy, Stavros shepherded them out into the night.
Asia looked for Wally and saw his woolly head appear from behind the bar. He was holding a transistor radio. Asia looked at him in blank incomprehension. The entire room was reenacting the rape of the Sabine women, and Wally wanted to listen to the radio.
“Wally, what are you doing?”
“Listenin’ to me favorite program.”
Wally clicked the switch, and turned the volume up full, just in time to hear a smooth voice say, “…and if you’re on the roads, cobbers, watch out for roos. And now a very special request for me mates down at the Big Blue Billabong Hotel, Wally and Stavros. I love this one, and I know you do, too. It’s from Sergeant Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band, and it’s ‘A Day in the Life.’”
I saw the news today, oh boy…
“Okay, boys!” Wally shouted.
Jimmy rushed forward and grabbed Sandra’s legs, pulling her off Dugong Heartache and out of the door. Dugong stared about in confusion while his dick continued to twitch like a diviner’s wand. Then he spotted something across the room.
A crowd of people stood and stared…
Bruce got Magnoon Piastre in a full nelson and lifted him bodily off Rita, who slid out from under him and dived out of the nearest window. When Bruce released him Magnoon immediately attempted to dive out of the window after her, but in mid-flight someone grabbed his ankles and he stalled and came down, cracking his chin on the windowsill and knocki
ng himself stupid. As he struggled to rise something hit him on the back of the head, knocking him flat again, and he felt himself being pressed down. Before he could react, Dugong Heartache was aboard him, pumping away and banging Magnoon’s head into the floorboards in time with his thrusts.
The English army had just won the war…
Wally was battling to pry Jenny loose from Curtains Calhoun, who had by this time done at least fifty laps of the floor and was foaming at the mouth. Stavros came to her aid, body-slamming Curtains to the ground and then wrist-locking him while Wally wrenched her free and helped her to the door. As soon as he was released Curtains wailed like an alley cat with a boot up its ass, and pounced.
Woke up, got out of bed, dragged a comb across my head…
Loretta stood up with Gaspart Descourt still desperately clinging to her and humping away in a frenzy. Despite her strength she could not dislodge him, so reaching down she picked up his false leg from the floor and began clubbing him around the back of the head. At the third impact it registered, and he released his hold and slid to the floor, but as she started to walk away he grabbed her ankle. As she turned round to stab Gaspart with her stiletto heel, Curtains landed on his back, got him in a chokehold, and began nailing him to the floor. Still he refused to release Loretta’s ankle, and she made for the door dragging both of them behind her. Only when Jimmy jumped on his wrist did he finally let go.
Four thousand holes in Blackburn, Lancashire…
Vladimir had finally shunted Marilyn up against the skirting board, and she was vainly trying to lock her fingers into his close-cropped hair when Asia exploded a bottle onto the back his skull. Marilyn then lifted her thighs abruptly and cracked his head into the wall. Dazed by this double whammy he went limp long enough for Asia to drag him off Marilyn, and holding hands the two girls hightailed it out the door. Vladimir stood up, looking bewildered, pointing his dingus this way and that as if it could tell him the way to go. His eyes fell on the flabby ass of Dugong Heartache, who by now had rendered Magnoon Piastre insensible by banging his head into the floor, but who was still pounding away. Vladimir gave a Cossack war cry and bayonet-charged Dugong.
Now they know how many holes it takes…
Wally stood in the doorway, holding a beer, his customary grin restored to full wattage, watching the bum fight at the Both Ways Corral until the final chords rang out. Then he turned and walked across the veranda to where the others were standing. They stood in silence, waiting, hearing only the banging and squealing and groaning from inside. And then…
BOOM!
No more nuts. Bye-bye balls, auf Wiedersehen wieners, and you can kiss your A.S.S. goodbye.
Chapter 28.
There was always fucking something! It could never just go completely right, could it? A whole continent to cross, and now the radio was fucked. It had been all right a second ago, and then it just went dead. Shit. Oh well. Soon he would be able to buy himself a whole fucking radio station if he wanted one, never mind a fucking radio. He checked his rearview mirror for the fiftieth time. Nothing. Still, he hadn’t expected there would be since he had had the good sense to knobble all the other cars in the parking lot before he set off. Nah, he was home free. The just rewards for talent. Might as well stop and take a leak.
Monsoon pulled over and climbed out. Moths gathered around the headlights as he stood with his dick in his hand and a smile on his face, listening to the satisfying splash. Then Lennox Lewis and Sonny Liston both punched him in the solar plexus at the same time. Whirling fireballs came billowing out of the windows like angry ghosts and carried him into the sky and deposited him in the branches of a eucalyptus tree from where, looking down, he could see the rising column of flame and smoke that had been his dreams.
It was actually quite pretty, really. He heard a scratching sound beside him and looking around saw a koala staring at him, with the light of the fire reflected in its startled eyes.
“What the fuck are you looking at?” he said, just before he passed out.
Sparks began to float into the night sky like electric moths, and the percussive sound of exploding bottles reached Asia and the ladies where they sat in the back of the pickup parked across the road, watching the fire beginning to climb up the shingled roof of the hotel.
Crispin and Booby, both prostrated by their exertions now that the drug had worn off, were completely unable to move and seriously chilled out. The reason they were unable to move and seriously chilled out was because their naked buttocks were frozen to the floor of the deep freeze, where they had been thoughtfully placed so that the lead lining would protect their MGJ-impregnated nuts from the sonic waves.
Wally, Stavros, Jimmy, and Bruce came staggering across the veranda, each carrying something. Wally the cash register, Jimmy and Bruce cases of beer, and Stavros some kind of furry animal with smoke coming from it. They were grimy with soot and smelling of smoke from their fight with the fires started by the explosions, a battle they had lost, compelling them to beat a hasty retreat and concede the Big Blue Billabong Hotel to the flames that were beginning to engulf it.
They set the crates down in a semicircle and sat on them, staring at the orange curtains of fire.
“Ah, well. Saves the bladdy funerals.”
“Ah, yeah. An’ the questions.”
“Too right.”
A series of soft pops and hisses echoed the ones emanating from the fire as Wally opened beers and handed them round. Asia climbed down from the truck and sat with her back against Wally’s knees. The light from the fire illuminated their sweaty and begrimed faces as they gazed at the inferno.
“Here’s to ya,” said Stavros, holding up his bottle.
“Yeah. See ya,” said Wally.
“I ’ope she don’t spread to the bush,” Bruce said.
“Nah, mate. We’re lucky. Wind’s in the right direction.”
“Wher’d’ya find Captain Cook?”
“Ah, some fucken dingbat had stuffed ’im down the chimney. One a the blasts musta shifted ’im.”
“Is ’e right?”
“Yeah. No worries. ‘Is fur’s a bit singed, but apart from that ’e’s good as new.”
“That’s a fucken relief.”
They lapsed into silence, drinking beer and watching as the front facing of the building collapsed and the roof came down, sending a sinuous tower of sparks snaking into the darkness.
“There she goes, Wal.”
“Yep.”
“How long d’ya reckon to put her back up?”
“Reckon we should wait ’til the fire goes out first, Stav.”
Asia was finding it difficult to understand their attitude. They were sitting round watching their own hotel burn down, drinking and chatting like it was some bonfire. She half expected one of them to walk over and stick a couple of potatoes into the fire. They appeared to be more concerned about the stuffed koala than the building.
“Didya check the wonga in the register, Wal?”
“Yeah, Stav.”
“Good night?”
“Yeah. Rippa.”
In the distance they could see a faint glow and a thin orange line rising into the air.
“Looks like another fire down the road, Wal.”
“Yeah. Reckon it’s that fucken nong Monsoon. Stupid barstad must’ve ’ad the radio on.”
“D’ya wanna go an’ look?”
“Yeah. Might as well. Soon as I finish me beer.”
The first hint of blue was in the eastern sky as Wally, Stavros, and Asia stood around the blackened shell of the burnt-out Land Rover, feeling the heat on their faces. There was no sign of a body in the front.
“Whaddya reckon happened to the dingbat, Wal?”
“Dunno.”
“Reckon ’e got out?”
“Dunno, mate, but the fucken dingo’s’ll be ’avin their meat well done if ’e didn’t.”
Looking at the faintly glimmering embers, Asia felt sick.
Ashes. Mary Rose in h
ospital. Nigel dead. Maybe Monsoon, too. All those others. Wally’s hotel gone up in flames. And Baby Joe? And for what? For ashes. She began to cry. Wally put his arm around her.
“Don’t waste yer tears on that one, sheila. ’Sides, maybe ’e scarpered?”
“I’m not crying for him, Wally.”
“What then?”
“For everything. For all of this. For all the trouble we’ve caused. And now you’ve lost your hotel on top of everything. It’s all our fault.”
“Don’t be a bleeding clip, sheila. It’s nobody’s fault. Shit ’appens. The hotel was insured, and anyway, Stav could do with a break.”
“Too bladdy right.”
“You’re just being kind, I know. Even if we still had the money, we could put things right, but now that’s gone up in smoke too.”
“No it ’asn’t.”
“But I saw them loading it into this Land Rover.”
“Nah. You mighta seen ’em stickin something in ’ere, but it wasn’t the wonga.”
“I don’t understand.”
“The money is in a safe deposit vault, back in Sydney. You don’t think we’d be fucken stupid enough to be runnin round with ten million fucken dollars in cash, do ya?”
“But I thought…”
“Nah. We knew Monsoon might try something after Bjørn Eggen saw him looking at the case back in the hotel. We put these packets together to pull his pisser. A couple had some Aussie bills in ’em to make it look good.”
“But why didn’t you tell us?”
“Well, Asia. The truth is we weren’t dead sure about Mary Rose, either. We wanted ’er to think we ’ad the wonga with us, to see if she would try anything. That’s why it didn’t look too good when she first went missing.”
“Did Baby Joe know about this?”
“It was ’is fucken idea. Now come on, let’s go an’ see about finding a place to kip that’s still fucken standin.”
Under different circumstances it would have been idyllic. The sun was a low scarlet orb on the horizon, and the distant rock glowed magenta. Jimmy lay against the warm steel of the Holden, looking out over a meadow where the setting sun tinged the tips of the sparse grass blood red, and a small herd of wallabies bent to their grazing. Walkabout was laid across his thighs with his paws in the air, and Jimmy gently stroked the animal’s belly as he regarded the bright sparkle of the distant plane.
Machine Gun Jelly (Big Bamboo Book 1) Page 46