‘That’s why Eddie was supposed to be here last night,’ said Lonnie. ‘To give me a hand to sort these dills out. Which is why I had the shits when you walked into the office.’
‘Oh great,’ said Les. ‘Now I’m stuck here.’
Lonnie shook his head. ‘You’re not stuck here, Les. You can leave any time you want. But I need my car. And it’s a long walk back to Nimbin.’
Les stared bitterly at Lonnie. ‘I don’t fuckin believe it.’
Lonnie topped Norton’s mug up. ‘Bring your coffee out onto the verandah and I’ll explain a few things to you.’
‘Yeah, all right,’ scowled Les.
Les added a little milk to his coffee then followed Lonnie out to the front verandah. There was a pinewood table and chairs in the middle and it commanded a beautiful view over the surrounding hills and valleys. Lonnie leaned against the railing with his coffee and Les joined him.
‘You see, Les,’ began Lonnie. ‘I don’t own this house. I’ve got it on a ten-year lease.’
‘A ten-year lease?’ said Les.
‘Yeah,’ replied Lonnie. ‘I was in hospital getting a hernia cut out. And the old bloke I was sharing the room with, Hugh, was a digger who’d fought in Korea. And we got to be mates. He’s the owner and he was getting a new knee before he went into a nursing home. Anyway, while he was full of morphine and that, he started rambling on about this farm he owned near Nimbin. And how he’d have to let it go because he couldn’t handle the stairs and the hills and it was too far away for him to be living on his own. He didn’t want to sell it. But he had to.’
‘He wasn’t married?’ asked Les.
Lonnie shook his head. ‘His wife died five years ago. And he’d fallen out with his family. Anyway. To make a long story short.’ Lonnie tapped the side of his head. ‘Hugh was a bit radio ga-ga. So I talked him into leasing the place to me, option to buy.’
‘How much is the rent?’ asked Les.
‘Three twenty a month,’ said Lonnie. ‘Which gets sent to Hugh at the nursing home in Southport.’
‘Fair enough,’ agreed Les. ‘But why would you want to lease an old joint like this out in the middle of nowhere? You got a bar in town. Couldn’t you get a granny flat or something built onto it?’
Lonnie pointed around the side of the house. ‘You see that mountain at the back?’
Les looked where Lonnie was pointing. Back behind the house was a steep mountain range and between the trees leading up to it, Les could make out a wide, overgrown track with a rusting rail line running along the middle, missing a number of sleepers.
‘Yeah, I see it,’ nodded Les. ‘What’s with the old railway line?’
‘Those tracks lead to an old tin mine on the left. And a gold mine on the right.’
‘A gold mine?’
‘That’s right,’ nodded Lonnie. ‘The old bloke said the tin and gold ran out years ago. But my brother Sam in Brisbane is a geologist. We snuck up here and had a look. The tin’s gone. But there’s a reef in the old mine they missed with at least ten million dollars’ worth of gold in it.’
‘Ten million dollars,’ said Les. ‘Holy shit!’
‘Poor old Hugh’s none the wiser,’ shrugged Lonnie. ‘So me and Sam are going to get it out.’
Les sipped his coffee and stared at Lonnie for a moment. ‘Lonnie,’ he said, easily, ‘I’m going to go out on a limb here, but has that shithole of a bar you’re running got anything to do with the gold mine?’
Lonnie nodded slowly. ‘Very perceptive, Les,’ he acknowledged. ‘I send all the gold to India through various contacts on the airlines. Then wash the money through the bar. As far as the Taxation Department will know, that shithole of a bar’s going to be turning over more money than Jupiter’s Casino. By the time they smell a rat, the Double L Ranch will get hit by Jewish lightning. Then it’ll be goodbye Nimbin, hello Whitsunday Passage. And please remove your shoes when you board my yacht.’
‘In other words, you’re going to wash ten million bucks through the bar, burn it down, and spend the rest of your life sailing round the Barrier Reef.’
‘My brother’s got to get his whack first,’ said Lonnie.
Les shook his head. ‘Well I’ll be buggered.’
‘The only thing stopping me is these fuckin clowns lobbing here this morning wanting to kill me.’
‘So who are these dills?’ asked Les. ‘Where are they from? And how do they know what’s going on?’
‘They’re from Stanthorpe,’ replied Lonnie.
‘I know where that is,’ said Les. ‘I grew up in Dirranbandi.’
‘There’s the old bloke’s three sons. Three cousins. And three mates. The sons always knew about the old abandoned gold mine. Now they’ve put two and two together. And figured a city slicker who shared a room in hospital with their old man hasn’t taken out a ten-year lease on his rundown farm and opened up a bar in broke-arse Nimbin for the country air. They know what’s going on.’
‘Yeah. It sure looks that way,’ agreed Les.
‘So if I disappear, the lease is dissolved, their father’s in a home, and they automatically take over the farm. Along with the gold mine.’
‘And how do you know they’ll be arriving here this morning?’
‘My brother Sam’s got a mate in Stanthorpe who’s had dealings with these arseholes. He knows every move they make.’
‘Right,’ nodded Les.
‘The rotten fuckin thing is, Les,’ said Lonnie, ‘me and Eddie would have had these cunts on toast.’
‘You would?’
A smile flickered in Lonnie’s eyes. ‘Have you ever read a book, Les, called The Art of War by Sun Tzu?’
Les shook his head. ‘No. Can’t say I have, Lonnie.’
‘He was a Chinese philosopher. And two thousand years ago, he wrote a brilliant text for victory on the battlefield, which was translated into English by several different writers.’
‘And?’
‘He said, if you know the enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles. He also said, all warfare is based on deception.’
Suddenly Les felt all his wooziness had disappeared along with any desire to eat. He felt energised, wanting to talk and interested in what Lonnie had to say.
‘Go on, Lonnie,’ smiled Les. ‘Keep talking. This is getting good.’
‘Okay,’ said Lonnie. ‘Well, I know my enemy. And they’re nothing but a bunch of inbred fuckin yobbos. And I know myself. I was a damn good soldier. So was Eddie.’
‘Nothing wrong with Eddie,’ enthused Les. ‘Got balls of steel. Go anywhere. Do anything. I’ve been there with him at times.’
‘I know,’ said Lonnie. ‘And as for deception, I’m telling you, Les, I’ve got these pricks deceived like you wouldn’t believe. They won’t know what hit them.’
Les fidgeted around alongside the railing and emphasised his words with short quick hand gestures. ‘Lonnie,’ he said. ‘I’m going to go out on a limb here again. But when you brought me home last night, would the thought possibly have been at the back of your mind of substituting me for Eddie? Seeing as our mutual friend stuffed up his ankle and couldn’t make it.’
‘Yes,’ answered Lonnie.
‘I thought so,’ Norton smiled thinly.
‘But like I said, Les, you don’t have to stay. You can leave any time you want. Or go hide up in the bush somewhere till it’s all over. Then hitchhike back to Nimbin. However…’
‘However,’ cut in Les. ‘There’s always a fuckin however. What’s the however this time—mate?’
‘If you stay and help me,’ said Lonnie, ‘I’ll give you quarter of a million dollars.’
‘Quarter of a million dollars?’ Norton’s eyes lit up. ‘Shit! That’s a lot of chops, Lonnie.’
‘That’s what I was going to give Eddie. Not right now. When I start getting the gold out and the money washed. But that shouldn’t be more than a few months down the track.’
‘A quarter of a million d
ollars in just a few months’ time,’ Les said quietly. ‘I could look at that as a kind of…holiday pay.’
‘Except this holiday pay is tax free—mate.’
‘A quarter of a million dollars, tax free.’ Les stared at Lonnie and had a quick think. Very quick. ‘All right, Lonnie,’ he replied. ‘You got me. What’s the plan?’
Lonnie grinned and took Norton’s hand. ‘Good on you, Les,’ he said, pumping it vigorously. ‘I was hoping you’d come round.’ Lonnie rubbed his hands together with glee. ‘Okay,’ he smiled. ‘Here’s the first part of the deception. These dills don’t know the bar closes at twelve. They think it’s open till three and I’ll get home after four half-pissed and get to bed about five. Then when they get here, I’ll still be in bed snoring my head off. But no. Uncle Lonnie will be up and about organising his welcoming committee.’
‘Aha!’ exclaimed Les.
‘Now. The second part of the deception.’ Lonnie pointed towards the driveway coming in. ‘You see the gate about half a click down there, amongst the trees?’
Les could just make it out beneath all the branches. ‘Yeah. Hey. I remember now. You got out of the car last night and opened it.’
‘That’s right. Now you see the old Kingswood behind the Colorado?’
‘Yeah.’
‘I’m going to park it nose-first in front of the gate, unlocked and with the keys in the ignition. But with a flat battery. When they stop to open the gate and one of them goes to move the car and finds it won’t start, the rest will get out to push it. That’s when we’ll jump them. And get them in a crossfire.’
‘A crossfire?’ said Les.
‘Yes.’ Lonnie pointed to the gate again. ‘You see how the ground slopes up on the right into steep hills. And on the left it levels out towards the main road.’
‘I do,’ nodded Les.
‘Well, I’ll be up on the hillside firing down. You’ll be on the level ground firing across. That way we get them in a crossfire without any risk of shooting each other.’
‘Is that one of Sun Tzu’s philosophies?’ asked Les.
Lonnie shook his head. ‘No. Even though he wrote the six rules of terrain. And preceding your adversary. It’s just the natural thing to do under the circumstances.’
‘Cool.’
‘Then when our little shindig’s over, we put the bodies in their cars. I’ve rigged the old tin mine with explosives. We drive the cars into the mine. I press the button. And boom. Out of sight. Out of mind. Nobody will find them in a hundred years.’
‘Sounds good,’ said Les. ‘But they’re going to be armed up. And it won’t take all nine of them to push a car out the road. Some are going to be standing round with guns.’
‘Of course,’ agreed Lonnie. ‘Bolt action rifles. They won’t take a chance of driving here in two cars full of automatic weapons. If they happen to get pulled over, they’ll just want to look like a bunch of fun-loving weekend sports shooters, out to kill something.’
‘Fair enough,’ agreed Les. ‘But guns are guns. They can still put horrible big holes in you.’
‘Which is where the next part of the deception arises,’ grinned Lonnie. ‘Come back to the kitchen, Les. I got something to show you.’
‘Righto,’ said Les, emptying the last of his coffee over the railing.
Norton followed Lonnie to the kitchen and sat down while Lonnie went to the spare room. The bar owner returned a few minutes later carrying a bulky ammunition case with Russian writing on the side and a smaller one with Chinese writing on it. He placed the cases side by side on the table and opened the bigger one. Packed into the black foam rubber lining were two submachine guns, a pair of silencers and four drum magazines. Lonnie took one of the machine guns out, clicked a drum magazine into the feed lip, checked the safety and handed it to Les.
‘What do you think of that, Les?’ beamed Lonnie, taking a seat at the table.
Les cradled the submachine gun in his arms and examined it. It had a stove pipe barrel with a thread at the end, a wooden stock, not much in the way of sights and a long trigger guard behind the drum magazine. There were no scratches on the metal or nicks in the stock and it looked brand new.
‘I’ve seen these before,’ said Les. ‘It’s a burp gun. The Chinese used them during the Korean war.’
‘The old PPSh–41,’ smiled Lonnie. ‘Designed by Georgiy Shpagin. Blowback action and a hinged receiver for easy maintenance. Very good, Les. But have you noticed anything just a little different?’
Les moved the gun around and sighted the window above the sink. ‘It’s very light. And it seems…kind of small somehow.’
‘Right on, grasshopper,’ smiled Lonnie. ‘The original PPSh–41 fires 7.62mm ammo at 900 rpm. Effective range 120m. This little sucker fires plain old garden variety .22 ammo at 180 rpm. Effective range 75m. But,’ said Lonnie, poking a finger in the air for emphasis, ‘I got five thousand rounds of teflon-tipped bullets. Stop you dead in your tracks, pussycat.’
Les handed the weapon back to Lonnie. ‘So where did you get the fuckin things? I know a little bit about guns. But I’ve never seen anything like this.’
‘I got them and the bullets made in Pakistan. At a town called Quetta. Just across the Afghanistan border from Kandahar.’
‘They cost much?’
Lonnie shook his head. ‘Not really. I had the blueprints for the old PPSh–41. And I just got the gunmaker to knock me up four versions to fire .22s. Along with a few bullets.’
‘How did you get them into Australia?’ asked Les.
‘Contacts,’ winked Lonnie. He removed a silencer from the ammunition box and stood up. ‘Come on out the backyard, I’ll show you something.’
‘Okay.’ Les rose from the table and excitedly followed Lonnie down the stairs at the rear of the kitchen.
The fence Les had noticed from the bedroom window ran around the back of the house. There was an old shed on the right and on the left an abandoned chicken coop that still stank of chicken shit. A large galvanised-iron water tank sat on the right of the stairs and beyond the house picturesque mountains and valleys rose and fell into the distance. Scattered around the backyard were a number of watermelons and running alongside the fence were about the same number of big blue pumpkins. Lonnie handed Les the submachine gun while he plucked three fat pumpkins from their vines and sat them on top of the fence posts near the old shed.
‘Hey, this is nice out here,’ said Les, bending down and touching his toes with the submachine gun. ‘I’d love to go for a run around those hills and valleys early in the morning when it’s cool. It’d be fantastic. You’d take off.’
‘How are your sinuses?’ asked Lonnie.
Les sucked a huge, healthy lungful of air in through his nose. ‘Pretty good to tell you the truth. In fact I feel pretty good all round. Those little pills are working a treat.’
‘Excellent,’ smiled Lonnie. He took the machine gun from Les, screwed the suppressor onto the barrel, cocked the weapon and slipped the safety. ‘Now, Les,’ he asked. ‘Would you say the skin of a pumpkin is just a little bit tougher than a human being’s?’
‘Ohh, shit yeah,’ answered Les. ‘I’d much rather punch some bloke in the head than hit a fuckin pumpkin.’
‘Okay. Watch this.’ Lonnie raised the machine gun to his shoulder, sighted in the pumpkin on the fence post to the left and gently squeezed the trigger.
The sound was negligible, no more than someone tapping their hand on a table, followed by a constant whack as the bullets slammed into the pumpkin. The .22s weren’t heavy enough to send the pumpkin flying. Instead, the teflon-tipped bullets simply tore it to pieces. Les watched fascinated as the shell casings arced up in the air to Lonnie’s right and the fat pumpkin was soon whittled down to half its size.
‘Holy shit,’ said Les, sniffing the cordite when Lonnie stopped firing. ‘That bastard of a thing is deadly.’
The smile on Lonnie’s face, behind the thin mist of blue smoke rising from the machine g
un’s barrel, meant business. ‘That was a big, heavy pumpkin,’ he said. ‘Imagine what it would do to your head.’
‘Blow it right off your shoulders,’ said Les.
‘The drum magazine on a PPSh–41 holds seventy-one rounds,’ said Lonnie. ‘The magazine on this holds a hundred and fifty. At three rounds a second, you can fire this all day. And those sneaky little teflon bullets give you a lot of bang for your buck.’
‘Unreal.’
‘It’s all part of the deception, Les,’ smiled Lonnie. ‘There’ll be a bit of blood and guts flying around. But those dopes wanting to kill me don’t know what they’re in for. Here.’ Lonnie handed the submachine gun to Les. ‘Have a shot.’
‘Okay.’ Les took the weapon and checked the safety. He sighted on the next pumpkin, gripped the magazine and squeezed the trigger.
There was virtually no recoil while before Norton’s eyes the pumpkin on the fence post disintegrated. He dropped the machine gun to waist level and blasted the next pumpkin to pieces, putting a few rounds into the fence post while he was at it.
‘Not bad, Les,’ said Lonnie. ‘You’ve really got the hang of it.’
‘You can’t miss,’ replied Les, pointing the barrel down. ‘Plus we’ve fired off a heap of rounds, and there’s petrol left in the tank.’
‘A hundred and fifty rounds per magazine,’ said Lonnie. He took the weapon from Les. ‘All right. Let’s go back to the kitchen. I got something else for you.’
‘Yo de man, Lonnie,’ said Les, trotting up the stairs behind Lonnie. ‘Yo de man, baby.’
Back in the kitchen, Lonnie placed the submachine gun on the table while Les poured himself a large glass of water. Lonnie left Les to drink it and went back to the spare room, returning with a pair of long-sleeved green overalls, a pair of old Nike gym boots and a black bandana.
‘There you go, mate,’ he said, placing everything on the table. ‘We can’t have you crawling around in the shit and dirt wearing your good clothes.’
‘Overalls?’ said Les, examining the clothing.
‘Yeah. When I was getting the bar built I got one of the chippies to do a bit of work on the house. He left them here along with his gym boots. He was about your size. So they should fit.’
High Noon in Nimbin Page 16