‘Yeah, for sure. We’ll see you down Gales anyway.’
‘All right boys, see you Monday. Goodnight fellahs. Thanks.’
‘See you Price. See you Eddie.’
The window hissed up, Eddie tooted the horn and the big beige Rolls-Royce cruised regally off along Kelly Street; the rear, amber blinker seemed to be winking a jaunty goodnight to them as it melded in with the other traffic.
As it drew out of sight Billy slapped Norton on the back. ‘Righto mate,’ he said happily. ‘Let’s hit the Drake.’
‘Yeah. Let’s get up there and get it over with,’ replied Les a little reluctantly. ‘Who wants to go home to a nice warm bed anyway?’ With Billy leading the way, like a dog straining on a leash, they headed for the Mandrake Room.
After the relative quietness of Kelly Street Norton was slightly surprised to find that although it was almost 4am on a rotten wet night, when they turned into Macleay Street the sleazy, pitiless black heart of Kings Cross was still beating strongly.
Packs of trouble-seeking yobbos from the Western Suburbs swarmed contemptuously along the footpaths past scruffy, leather-clad bikie gangs standing idly in doorways, watching the passers-by but mainly keeping an eye on their chrome drenched motor bikes parked neatly at the side of the road. Huge Maori pimps would drive past in equally huge American cars, looking morosely out the windows and keeping an eye on their main sources of income. Heroin addicted hookers wearing crutch-tight shorts, high-heeled shoes and skimpy tank tops were propped up in doorways like so many broken dolls — their faces the same texture as sheets of wet newspaper, their eyes cold and lifeless like sharks. By the time they reached McDonalds Billy and Les had been approached at least a dozen or more times with the slurred words. ‘Hello mister. Looking for a girl?’ The boys would smile as kindly as they could and shake their heads.
The touts-cum-bouncers standing in the doorways of the strip-clubs would break off their raucous speil when they spotted the boys, wave, give a big hello and watch with admiration as they walked past, wondering what the two hardest men in the Cross were doing walking down Macleay Street at such an odd hour.
As they crossed Macleay Street they had to walk around six young drunks who were savagely kicking at the doors of a taxi because the driver had refused to pick them up. A paddy-wagon driven by three trepidatious but hard-faced policemen cruised past ignoring the whole thing.
The tawdry neon lights, the car fumes, the noise, the prurient looks on the faces of the late-night voyeurs, had Norton feeling slightly disgusted and decidedly ill at ease and wishing he’d gone home to bed. Billy on the other hand was keener than a greyhound that had just been given a kill.
The solid wooden door of the Mandrake Room was closed when they got there. A small group of exotically dressed people were standing outside and to the left; four were handing around a joint about the same size as a corn-cob, the other two were sniffing something from a piece of aluminium foil through a rolled up $20 bill.
Billy was about to knock on the door when it flew open inwardly and out on to the footpath, scattering the group standing there enjoying their smoke and snort, burst big Danny McCormack, the bouncer, holding some bloke firmly in a headlock. The bloke’s three mates were behind him, all arguing violently with Danny. Once outside he let the bloke in the headlock go and they all stood there in a seething, pushing, aggressive mob; all abusing each other at the top of their voices. Les and Billy leant unobtrusively against the wall near the half-open door and silently watched the proceedings — bemused smiles starting to appear on their faces.
‘Think you’re pretty fuckin’ tough don’t you? You big prick,’ roared the bloke Danny had released from the headlock. He stood there rubbing his neck and glaring murderously at Big Danny.
‘What do you expect, you flip?’ replied the big, amiable bouncer. ‘The waitress won’t serve you cause you’re pissed so you throw a drink over her. You’re lucky I don’t break your neck.’
‘You break my neck, you fat turd,’ bellowed the drunk Danny had just thrown out. ‘That’ll be the fuckin’ day.’ He was out of the headlock now, his mates were with him, Danny was on his own and he was all fired up with drink and dutch courage so he decided to have a go at the bouncer. ‘I might just break yours, you arse.’
He lurched towards Danny and threw a big slow right and a left. Danny blocked them fairly easily and was just about to tap him on the chin when one of the drunk’s mates jumped on his back pinning his arms, the first drunk moved in to throw another punch as Danny tried frantically to dislodge the one on his back; the other two moved in a bit closer for the kill also. With his arms pinned and faced by four belligerent drunks Big Danny McCormack suddenly found himself in quite a bit of hot water. Seeing this, Les and Billy moved away from the wall.
‘Hey Danny,’ called out Billy. ‘The door’s open, all right if we go in for a drink?’
Big Danny quickly looked up at the sound of Billy’s voice. When he saw the pair of them standing there it was like the cavalry arriving just in the nick of time for Danny and a look of relief shone across his face brighter than the sun coming up over the ocean.
‘Ohh, Billy am I ever glad to see you?’ he grunted. ‘And you too Les.’
‘Yeah, nice to see you too, Danny,’ said Norton casually as if nothing was going on. ‘We’re only going to have a couple,’ said Norton as he and Billy moved slowly towards the door. ‘We won’t be staying long. Okay?’
Big Danny pulled his chin in as the first drunk threw another couple of punches which bounced off the top of his skull, hurting his assailant’s hands more than it hurt Danny’s big head.
‘Yeah, sweet Les. But do you reckon you could do us a bit of a favour?’ Danny pulled his chin in again as another flurry of punches bounced off the top of his skull and grunted audibly as one of the other drunks punched him in the ribs.
‘Yeah sure Danny,’ said Les turning back from the door. ‘What is it mate?’
‘Do you reckon you could just get this prick off my back?’
Norton turned to Billy and winked. ‘What do you reckon. We give him a hand?’
‘I don’t know,’ said Billy shaking his head slowly. ‘You do it once and they expect it all the bloody time.’
‘Well I wish youse’d make up your fuckin’ minds,’ wailed Danny, grunting again as another assortment of punches landed on his head and ribs. ‘Cause I’m startin’ to get in a bit of trouble over here.’
‘Oh all right,’ said Norton. ‘But only because you’re an old mate.’
Casually, effortlessly Norton strolled over to the unsuspecting drunk clinging to Danny’s back and slammed a short but crushing right up under his floating rib. The drunk gasped with pain as he felt several of his ribs crack and his kidneys were squashed violently against his spine. He quickly slid down Danny’s back and lay on the footpath holding his ribs, trying desperately to get some air into his ruptured lungs. He had a look on his face like someone had just given him a large spoonful of strychnine.
At the same time Billy crossed round behind Les and smacked the drunk that was pummelling Danny’s ribs with a crisp left hook that split his mouth open from just under his nose to almost half way down his chin. He gave a yelp and fell on to the footpath next to his mate, blood bubbling out of his lips and through his fingers as he tried to hold together what was left of his mouth.
Now that his arms were free Danny was able to get a decent punch into the bloke he’d thrown out of the Mandrake Room in the first place and with a big smile on his face he did just that — a big loping straight right with all 16 stone of overweight wharf labourer-cum-part time bouncer behind it. ‘Headlock’ was standing there blinking and wondering what to do now that the odds had just been evened up dramatically when it bulldozed him right between the eyes, pulverising his nose and slamming him up against a parked car where he went down like the Titanic. Most blokes who had just been four-outed would probably start putting the boot in for a bit of a square-up once they g
ot on top but Big Danny wasn’t like that. He just did his jacket up, adjusted his bow-tie and left the bloke lying there, bleeding steadily between the gutter and a parked car.
This left the last drunk, a skinny, fair-haired young bloke wearing glasses and his older brother’s brown leather jacket, standing there on his own facing three very tough, very mean bouncers who weren’t at all rapt in the idea of having their night’s work made any harder for them. The young bloke’s eyes were bulging out under his glasses like two hard boiled eggs and understandably enough he was shitting blue lights.
‘Ohh, C-C-Christ,’ he stammered. ‘I’m n-not looking for any t-t-trouble. I was t-t-trying to b-break it up. F-f-fair dinkum.’
Which was fairly true. The poor young bloke wasn’t much over five feet tall and about as wide across the chest as a sparrow is between the eyes. He hadn’t thrown a punch and did make a half-hearted attempt to stop the fight.
Billy winked at Les and with his fists held up in front of him in a professional fighter’s stance and an absolutely diabolical look on his face he advanced towards the visibly trembling young bloke. ‘Pig’s fuckin’ arse you tried to stop it,’ he snarled ‘you’re the ringleader, you’re an animal and I’m gonna whup you boy and stomp all over your head.’ Billy was doing his best not to crack up laughing as he moved malevolently towards the by now almost petrified young bloke.
‘Oh, J-J-Jesus mister, d-d-don’t hit me,’ wailed the ashen faced kid vainly holding his trembling hands in front of his face. ‘I’m an ast-ast-asthmatic.’
‘You’ll be more than an asthmatic when he’s through with you,’ thundered Big Danny. ‘You’ll be a bloody paraplegic.’
‘Ohh, God, don’t c-c-cripple me. I’m c-c-crook enough as it is.’
It was this last anguished plea that finally cracked Billy up. With tears in his eyes he spun around and put his hand on Norton’s shoulder for support. ‘Les, take over for me will you,’ he croaked. ‘I can’t go on with this.’
Looking as serious as he could Norton took the terrified young bloke by the collar. ‘Listen soupbones,’ he said. ‘Where are you from?’
‘P-P-Pennant Hills.’
‘Well pick up your fuckin’ mates and get back to fuckin’ Pennant Hills before I put me boot right up your arse. All right?’
‘Sure m-mister, w-we’re on our way. Don’t w-w-worry.’
With Norton’s help ‘Soupbones’ managed to get his badly battered mates to their feet and arm-in-arm the walking wounded staggered painfully off down the darkened street for a very sorrowful trip back to Pennant Hills. It would be quite some time before they ever came back to the Cross and anywhere near the Mandrake Room.
‘Don’t hit me, I’m an asthamatic,’ chortled Big Danny to Billy Dunne as he watched them limp off out of sight. ‘What about that bloke you hit in the mouth? Christ, I hope his mother’s got a sewing machine when he gets home.’
‘He wasn’t too worried about your ribs, Danny,’ replied Billy laconically.
‘Fair enough.’ Danny paused for a moment then his face broke into a curious grin. ‘So what brings you pair of gorillas down to the Drake at this time of the morning. Though I must say I’m sure glad youse did.’
‘Hot pants here’s after a bit of stray snatch,’ said Norton, nodding his head at Billy.
‘Ahh, is that right? Wife gone away Billy?’
‘Something like that,’ answered Billy.
‘Well come inside,’ smiled Big Danny. ‘There’s a fair bit of crumpet floating around the joint tonight and I’ll shout youse a drink anyway. It’s the least I can do for saving my neck.’
‘Ahh that’s all right,’ said Billy. ‘We just got paid.’
‘Pig’s arse it’s all right,’ growled Norton. ‘The ask for the drinks in this dump’s enormous. You’re shouting, Danny.’
Big Danny grinned and ushered the boys through the haphazard entranceway that leads up to the Mandrake Room and in the door, closing it securely behind them.
Inside, the Mandrake Room was packed, everyone was bopping and through the misty, blue cigarette haze it looked like one riproaring party. Danny walked over to the girl sitting high up behind a reception desk made out of red, wooden louvred-doors surrounded by yellowed, dog-eared rock posters.
‘I’m just going to have a drink with Les and Billy. Don’t let any more in . . . just let them out. I’ll be back over in about ten or 15 minutes. Okay.’
‘Righto, Danny,’ replied the girl. She smiled a big hello at Norton and Billy, giving Billy an especially big one.
‘Come on,’ said Danny. ‘There’s a spot down here out of the crowd.’
They followed Danny through a throng of weirdly dressed late niters into a long, crowded room surrounded by pitch-black walls covered in colourful old movie posters. Scattered around the walls were a number of consumptive looking potted palms which although they did add a touch of greenery to the place were obviously suffering badly from lack of sleep and nicotine poisoning.
Billy winked happily at Les as they threaded their way through more swarming groups of outrageously clothed people of both sexes and some possibly in between. The girls were mainly dressed in multi-coloured, very sexy tank-tops, calf length boots and skin-tight, leopard-skin slacks or tiger-skin mini-skirts. Their hair styles resembled anything from sticks of pink fairy-floss to Roman centurions’ helmets. The men mostly had haircuts like US Marines but in a variety of astonishing colours, and wore either coloured overalls or shiny black jump-suits, festooned with zippers and kinky little badges.
‘Good thing we wore our tuxedos,’ said Billy.
‘Yeah. I’d hate to look out of place,’ replied Norton sarcastically, as he moved aside for a tall willowy blonde wearing an orange, ocelot-skin jump-suit and a green Robin Hood hat, complete with a long drooping pheasant plume hanging down the back.
Everybody seemed to be having a good time and were getting into the music from an all-girl band, the Party Tarts, who were on stage thumping out a mean brand of rock ’n roll that had the whole joint jumping.
Their lead singer, a huge red-headed amazon with a hairstyle like Orphan Annie, a pair of sunglasses like the Phantom’s mask jammed on to her sweating face and wearing a dress made out of what looked like old motor-mechanics grease rags was wailing fiendishly into a cracking version of ‘Leader of the Pack’. Behind her a pert little blonde was laying out a riff on a baritone-sax so thick you could almost see the notes coming out of the saxophone and bouncing off the walls — and the crowd were loving it.
‘Shit,’ said Norton nodding towards the stage. ‘What about that sheila singing in the band. Isn’t she a horny big thing.’
‘Yeah,’ replied Danny, ‘she looks like you in drag.’ He laughed and slapped Les on the back. ‘Come on, in here.’ Danny turned into an alcove off the main room to the bar. At the end and above the bar was a blackboard with a wine list written on it in chalk. He positioned the boys there and asked them what they wanted to drink.
‘I’ll have a bourbon and Coke mate,’ said Billy, ‘and make it a double will you? Plenty of ice.’
‘What about you Les?’
‘Just a can of beer Danny. Fourex if they’ve got it. In fact grab a couple will you? It’s bloody hot in here.’
Danny turned and caught one of the barmaids’ eyes. Although it was six-deep at the bar the girl came straight over when she saw who it was for and in less than a minute the boys all had their drinks.
‘Sorry there’s no Fourex, Les,’ said Danny, raising his can of Carlton Draught. ‘But cheers anyway, fellahs, and thanks for the hand outside.’
‘No worries mate,’ said Norton with a wink. ‘Cheers Danny.’
‘Yeah, cheers,’ said Billy.
They all took a healthy pull on their drinks with Danny and Les finishing their first cans in two great swallows.
‘So what’s your story, boys?’ said Danny, letting go with a resonating belch that was audible even over the band and almost shook the leaves off
one of the potted palms standing three metres away. ‘Out after a bit of the old summer cabbage are you?’
‘Possibly,’ replied Billy, peering lecherously around the room.
Big Danny took a decent pull on his second can of beer. ‘Well,’ he said slowly ‘I might just be able to tip you into a little something in that department.’
Billy’s ears pricked up immediately. ‘Yeah?’
‘Yeah. There’s a couple of sheilas sittin’ over there, they’ve been here about an hour. I had a bit of a mag to them on the way in, they said they were down from Brisbane for the weekend. One reckons she’s down to do a TV commercial or something. Said she’s a Meter Maid from Surfers Paradise. Wouldn’t surprise me, she’s a top little sort.’
‘Queensland girls,’ said Les happily.
‘Yeah. That’s the good news. The bad news is only one of them’s any good.’
‘Whereabouts are they sitting?’ asked Billy.
‘Just over there,’ said Danny, nodding straight across from the bar.
Sitting directly opposite them at the end of a low, narrow wooden table with their backs against a wall made of more wooden louvred doors with soft lights shining through the louvres, were two slightly bored looking blondes in their mid-20s.
One was short and petite with a close-cropped, urchin type hairstyle that suited her pixieish, almost boyish face. She was wearing a tight-fitting, low-cut black dress with a long split up the side and from where he was standing up against the bar Billy could see she had nice tight little tits and a fairly good pair of legs and like Big Danny said, was a pretty good little sort. However, like Big Danny also said that was the good news as her girlfriend was a different kettle of fish altogether.
Where one blonde was petite and quite pretty the other was big and lumpy and wouldn’t have looked out of place packing down in a scrum for South Sydney. She had hair like Harpo Marx and so many double chins she probably needed a book-mark to find her collar. The way she was dressed suggested she either lay-byed her clothes off the rack at K-Mart or stole them from the Smith Family. But she had a big, dumb, happy over-made-up face and was doing most of the talking for the two of them, giggling all the time as she’d tap her girlfriend on the arm and enthusiastically point different things out to her all around the room.
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