‘Ohh, you cunt. I’ll kill you. I’ll fuckin kill you.’ Despite being on the end of a ferocious beating, the enraged man kept coming at Les, his lacerated face twisted into a mask of tortured anger.
Les ducked under another flurry of punches, grabbed the bloke round the knees then picked him up and body-slammed him hard onto the wooden floor, amost breaking his back.
‘Aaarrgh! You cunt,’ hollered the bloke, throwing punches from the floor. ‘I’ll kill you. I’ll fuckin kill you.’
By now, Norton’s blood was up. Feeling the bones crunching through his Doc Martens, he kicked all the bloke’s ribs in along one side, then kicked him several times in the head. He jumped on him, jumped on him again, kicked all his other ribs in, kicked him in the kidneys then stomped on his head, grinding the bloke’s face into the floor.
‘Ohhhh, you cunt,’ came a pitiful wail. ‘I’ll kill you. Fuckin kill you.’ Slipping and sliding in his own blood, the bloke made an agonised attempt to get to his knees. ‘You cunt,’ he panted. ‘You’ll get nothing. I’ll kill you. I’ll fuckin kill you.’
‘Jesus Christ!’ railed Norton. ‘What are you? A fuckin replicant?’
‘Fuck you,’ the bloke cursed.
‘Yeah, and fuck you too.’ Les stepped back and gave the bloke a solid kick in the ribs followed by another in the head that dropped him flat on his face.
‘Aaarrghh, you cunt. I’ll kill you. I swear to God. I’ll fuckin kill you.’
Les was about to break one of the bloke’s arms, when the front of the house was washed with light and a car pulled up in the driveway. Doors slammed and two men appeared in the doorway dressed much like Les. One had a mop of tight brown curls, the other’s hair was dyed white and cut close to his scalp. The curly-haired man looked at Les, then noticed the bloke he’d been fighting lying on the floor covered in blood, still cursing Les and punching the air.
‘Shit. That’s Micah,’ yelled the bloke with the curly hair. ‘Get the cunt, Zack.’
‘You go for his throat, Brett,’ his mate yelled back, slamming the door shut behind him.
The two men charged straight at Les, who stepped back to ride the shock. At the same time, Micah managed to push himself to his knees and the two men tripped over his broken, battered body, tumbling clumsily into Les instead of tackling him. Behind a flailing tangle of arms and legs, Les was pushed backwards through the partially open door at the end of the hallway into a dimly lit room, knocking over a Laminex table behind him and everything on it. Managing to stay on his feet in the melee, Les had a moment or two to set himself before Brett scrambled up first, ready for another go.
Stepping back a little, Les pivoted and Brett walked straight into a right cross that sent him crashing over the nearest table, scattering the contents noisily across the room. Turning quickly to his left, Les just had time to move back as Zack swung a right front kick at his head. Norton stepped around the kick and caught Zack behind the knee with the crook of his right arm, smashed him in the face with a left backfist then slammed his left knee into Zack’s back. Zack howled with pain, then howled again as Les swept him off his feet and he came down hard on his spine onto a heavy iron pot lying on the floor. Not wasting any time, Les stomped a Doc Martens into Zack’s balls, then booted him in the solar plexus before kicking him in the temple, knocking him out cold.
Brett was still groggy. But he got to his feet and came at Les throwing wild punches from all angles. Les went underneath and doubled him up with four solid combination punches that made him gasp with pain. Almost in one movement, Les grabbed Brett by his mop of curly hair, held his head down and smashed his knee up into Brett’s face, spreading his nose across his cheekbones. Still holding Brett’s hair, Les let him fall towards the floor then spun his face around and pounded it with short rights till Brett’s eyes rolled back and he went still. Hearing noises coming from the hallway, Les dropped Brett and stared apprehensively through the open door.
Micah was crawling aimlessly around the floor in circles, covered in blood and still cursing Les. ‘Get out of here, you cunt,’ he rasped. ‘I’ll fuckin kill you. I’ll kill you.’
Noticing the heavy iron pot lying on the floor, Les picked it up and flung it at Micah’s head, splitting it open. ‘Ohh, shut the fuck up.’
‘Ahhhrghhh. You rotten, fuckin cunt,’ Micah howled painfully as the iron pot bounced off his bloodied head and clattered across the hallway. ‘I’ll kill you. I’ll dead set fuckin kill you. You cunt.’
‘Good.’ Les ignored him and gazed around the faintly lit room. Besides those that had been knocked over, Les could make out another three tables stacked with gas rings, woks, pots, glass beakers, glass bowls, plastic trays, a set of scales, a pill press and other items, all being cooled by electric fans. The walls were covered with sheets of blue plastic and stacked against the walls were black drums with HAZCHEM markings on the sides; piled next to the drums were plastic bags of white powder and an assortment of other things. Fumes from a pot boiling on one of the tables caught in Norton’s throat and eyes and Les didn’t need a degree in chemistry to know he was standing in a drug lab. Stacked near a door in the corner were three brown plastic garden chairs and sitting on the top one was a green leather bag with an eagle on the side. Well, I’ll be buggered, smiled Les. There’s Bodene’s bag. Unreal. I’ll put it inside a plastic one to make sure nothing falls out, then hit the toe.
Les picked up an empty plastic bag from a pile on a table, and was about to walk across to the stacked chairs, when the door in the corner opened and a skinny, sallow-faced man with dark hair pulled back in a ponytail walked into the room. He was wearing a black T-shirt under a pair of khaki overalls, and cradled in a pair of heavily tattooed arms was a pump-action shotgun. The man spotted Les through the gloom and brought the barrel up.
For a brief moment Norton froze, then his adrenalin kicked in and he dropped the plastic bag and made a frantic leap to the right a split second before the bloke pulled the trigger and blasted a hole in the wall next to the hallway. The man swung the shotgun around and fired again, missing Les, but blowing a burner and the pot boiling on top of it across the room.
His eyes darting around the room, Les noticed a glass container half full of fuming liquid sitting on a table next to a whirling fan. Before Ponytail could pull the trigger again, Les snatched it up and threw the contents in Ponytail’s face, making him scream, drop the shotgun and start tearing wildly at his eyes. Les flung the glass container aside, then picked the shotgun up by the barrel and swung the butt around, straight across Ponytail’s face, smashing his fingers and all his front teeth. Ponytail fell back against the wall and Les clubbed him over the head with the shotgun, then kept clubbing him until Ponytail slumped to the floor, covered in blood.
Les lowered the shotgun and gave Ponytail a light kick in the ribs. He didn’t move. Les gave him another, and again he didn’t move. Les suddenly noticed the blood and hair all over the gun butt. Shit. I hope I haven’t killed him, he thought. Ahh, fuck it. Too bad if I have. Les dumped the shotgun in the man’s lap then picked up the plastic bag from where he’d dropped it and slipped the green bag inside, feeling the film script and the little books of cartoons as he did. He had a last look around then stepped into the hallway.
Micah was still crawling painfully around the bloodied floor muttering to himself. Les stepped around him and as he did, Micah made a desperate grab for Norton’s leg and tried to bite him.
‘I’ll kill you, you cunt,’ he spluttered through his torn and broken mouth. ‘I’ll fuckin kill you.’
‘Ohh, why don’t you get fucked.’ Not feeling the best after almost getting blasted with a shotgun, Les stepped back and kicked Micah hard in the mouth, smashing several more teeth. ‘Now shut the fuck up, you pain in the arse,’ ordered Les, before kicking Micah in the face again.
‘Ohhrrghhh. You gunt,’ mumbled Micah, trying desperately to raise his battered and bleeding head. ‘I’ll gill you. I’ll gill you. Grrhhggh. Ahgrrhh. O
hhhrrhh,’ he garbled in frustration.
‘Ohh, go fuck yourself.’
Les opened the front door and started to leave when he noticed a flicker of blue flame in the loungeroom. He meant to stop. But before Les knew it, he’d stepped outside onto the verandah and closed the door behind him. A worried look appeared on Norton’s face. Shit. I hope the place isn’t about to catch on fire. Noticing a silver Ford parked in the carport, Les walked over to have a look down the side passage when the sound of a dull explosion came from inside the house, and the room at the end of the hallway burst into flames. Les ran back to the front door when there was a louder explosion followed by another that blew the side windows out.
‘Oh shit!’ exclaimed Les. He was about to kick the door in when a ball of fire framed in the stained glass at the top, came roaring up the hallway. Les stepped back and shook his head. ‘Sorry fellahs,’ he said. ‘You’re on your own.’
Les walked smartly back to his car, opened the front door and threw the bag on the passenger seat just as a violent explosion racked the house, blowing away the guttering and sending a hail of roof tiles clattering onto the houses either side and into the street. Les got behind the wheel, started the car and drove off, not turning the lights on till he reached Warners Avenue. By the time he got there, a quick glance in the rear-vision mirror showed the house completely engulfed in bright red flames that lit up the street and sent showers of sparks spiralling into the night sky.
Les returned home via Old South Head Road and came down O’Brien Street past Menny’s pizza shop. He hooked into Cox Avenue, then pulled up in front of Chez Norton, grabbed the plastic bag, locked the car and hurried inside.
‘Holy fuckin shit!’ exclaimed Les, switching on the lights and tossing the bag onto a chair in the loungeroom. ‘And I said I couldn’t get into too much trouble looking for a film script? I’m lucky I’m alive.’ His eyes zeroed in on the liquor cabinet. ‘Where’s a bloody glass?’
Les poured himself a giant, enormous, Jack Daniel’s and Coke then bolted down half in one go. His eyes spun and his cheeks reddened, then he hoofed down some more.
‘Oh yeah,’ exclaimed Les.
Les had another mouthful then left the rest on the kitchen table and went into the bathroom to check himself out. He had a fat lip, some bark missing and a mouse under his right eye. But that was about all. However, he was spattered with blood and there were globs of it stuck to his Doc Martens. Les stripped off completely and threw all his clothes in the washing machine, added a liberal dose of Dynamo plus a good splash of disinfectant, then switched the machine on the extra heavy cycle. He finished his drink and, while his clothes were going round, hosed off his Doc Martens and left them out in the backyard to dry. After a long hot shower Les changed into a clean white T-shirt and a pair of loose-fitting grey shorts and, feeling better, poured himself another delicious then went into the loungeroom and sat down to inspect his find. I might have almost got killed, smiled Les, but I’ve survived. And now I’m fifty thousand in front. Maybe more if I string things out a little. Les winked towards the night sky. Thanks, boss. Les had a sip on his delicious, put it aside and removed the leather handbag from the plastic one.
‘What?’
It wasn’t an eagle on the side of the bag. It was a bat. And when Les opened the bag, instead of finding a film script, he found a black, bound ledger. What he thought were little books of cartoons turned out to be plastic bags full of little white pills. Les pushed the plastic on one bag up against the pills, and stamped on each pill was the outline of a bat. He opened the black bound ledger. Written down the first page was a list of initials and numbers, starting with JB—200. BK—500. JD—500. MW—1000. TN—1000.
‘Oh bugger it.’
Les dropped the ledger on the coffee table, stared at the green bag and its contents and cursed his luck. This is what they were cooking up in there. No wonder that ratbag attacked me when I mentioned green bag. He was wired up to the gills on speed and thought I was some heavy come round to rip off their dope. The bat’s their brand name or whatever and the ledger’s full of dealers and amounts. What a cock-up. Thanks to bloody Irish John, I stumbled onto a team of meth cooks and nearly got my head blown off over a bag of rotten fuckin Lou Reed. Les stared sourly at the green bag. Right. Well I know where all this is going.
Les took the bags of pills out of the green bag then carried them into the bathroom and tipped the lot down the toilet. It took more than one go. But before long, Les had flushed a fortune in speed through Bondi’s sewerage system. After that, he got a pair of heavy duty scissors and cut the green bag up on the kitchen table along with the clear plastic ones, then compressed everything into a plastic shopping bag. Next, Les ripped all the pages out of the ledger with numbers and intials on them, tore them up and pushed them into the plastic shopping bag as well. Leaving the bag on the kitchen table, Les got a Wettex, some Spray and Wipe and a torch, then went outside and had a good look around the front of the car. There were a few smears of blood on the steering wheel and brake pedal, but that was all. Les cleaned everything off then stuffed the Wettex into the plastic bag with everything else. Satisfied, he went into his room and put on a pair of trainers for a quick stroll down to the coffee shop on the corner.
Leaving the house, Les knew he wasn’t being over cautious. If someone took his number as he drove off and the police were able to connect him to four deaths in a drug lab, he’d be in very deep shit. And from a callous perspective, the unexpected fire was a good thing. It destroyed any evidence of him being there. As for Irish John and Jacko, if they did mention anything to him, he would simply say, yes, he drove round there. But the place had burnt down. What a bummer. Say no more. Say no more.
When he got to the coffee shop, Les opened their Otto bin and dropped the plastic bag inside, covering it with other rubbish. Convinced his arse was totally covered, Les brushed his hands and after a cursory look around, headed home to settle down in front of the TV with another delicious.
When he picked up the TV guide, Les rolled his eyes in disbelief. The Saturday night movie was Speed, with Keanu Reeves and Sandra Bullock. Yeah, that’d be right. Les couldn’t be bothered checking out Foxtel. So he went to a pile of DVDs Warren had brought home from the advertising agency and chose Walk the Line with Joaquin Phoenix and Reese Witherspoon.
Les enjoyed it immensely and couldn’t believe Joaquin Phoenix did all his own singing. He was great. So was Reese Witherspoon and the bloke who played Jerry Lee Lewis. Les also had to choke back a tear when Johnny Cash proposed to June Carter on stage and she said yes. By golly, sniffed Les, when the movie finished and he put the DVD away. You can’t beat a feel-good movie. I might even buy the soundtrack.
By now Les was bone tired and drained. It’s not every day you beat death by a whisker and have to fight a gang of nutters, after just getting over the flu. He switched off the lights, cleaned his teeth and climbed into bed. Tomorrow he would wake up happy and shiny to another delightful day in beautiful downtown Bondi; and make some more new friends. Les scrunched his head into the pillows, yawned once and nodded off.
Les woke up in reasonably good shape on Sunday morning to find it was cooler and cloudier than Saturday. He climbed out of bed, stretched out a couple of yawns, then went to the bathroom. There was no missing his fat lip and the mouse under his right eye. But compared to what could have happened, it was nothing. After finishing in the bathroom, Les went to the kitchen and put the jug on, then without bothering to get changed, climbed into his trainers and walked down to get the papers.
Back in the kitchen, Les made a pot of tea and decided what he’d have for breakfast. When everything was ready, he sat down relaxed and opened the Telegraph.
A nasty plane crash in Indonesia took up the first two pages. But on page three was a photo and the heading BONDI DRUG LAB EXPLODES IN FLAMES. FOUR BODIES FOUND. Les read avidly over his smoked salmon and scrambled eggs.
The story had come in late, and although the photo w
as dramatic and the journo had managed to beat the story up as best he could, it still didn’t say any more than Les had surmised. A gun was found in the house. A burnt-out car was in the driveway. Police still hadn’t identified the bodies. And despite Bondi Fire Station being just round the corner, the blaze was so intense, firefighters couldn’t save the house and were pleased they managed to contain the fire to the immediate premises. Police said this was typical of the danger drug labs and other clandestine operations of this nature held for the public. Etc., etc., etc. One sentence made Norton laugh out loud over his scrambled eggs. Up until the explosions started, neighbours hadn’t heard anything. Yeah, that’d be right, nodded Les. I almost kicked a screaming speed freak to death in the hallway. I fought two other blokes through a drug lab, knocking shit all over the place. A bloke fires a shotgun at me. Cars pull up. Doors are slammed. Blokes are yelling out at the tops of their voices. And the neighbours don’t hear a thing. If someone had been in there smoking a joint and listening to Pink Floyd’s Dark Side of the Moon, the cops would have been around before the fire alarm rings on track three. Les breezed through the rest of the paper then opened up the sports section.
‘Oh shit,’ chuckled Les. ‘Have a look at this.’
Under the heading FLAMBOYANT CLUB OWNER PULLS OFF MASSIVE BETTING COUP was a photo of Price standing next to the jockey and trainer. He was holding onto Barrow Boy’s bridle and grinning like a rat with a gold tooth.
‘Good on you, mate,’ said Les. ‘Good on you.’ Les read the article and the football results, then got a pair of scissors and cut Price’s article out for his scrapbook. After reading the comics to make sure Torkan had despatched the baddies and got the comely wench, Les opened the Sun-Herald to find the drug lab article and photo was almost identical to the Telegraph’s. Les finished the papers then put them aside and checked his watch. He poured another cup of tea and took it into the loungeroom to watch Sunday.
Les Norton and the Case of the Talking Pie Crust Page 5