by Peter Doyle
“I didn’t think,” I said. “Those bikey blokes were obviously arseholes. And Drew, a useless piece of work. Not that I endorse homicide.”
Alex shook his head slowly. “The bikeys complained to my uncle. He pays them to keep an eye on that pub of his at Botany.”
“Oh fuck.”
“Yeah. And then it was really on. My uncle made good, so that put you and Cathy in his sights.”
“What do I have to do?”
“You were supposed to die. Today. There never really was any other plan.”
“How about I pay you back? Double?”
He shrugged, without much enthusiasm. “I can put it to the old man. Wouldn’t hope for too much, though. For chrissake, give me some more of that fucking goey.”
“You said you hated speed.”
“I do. Give it here.”
Alex left a few hours later. Then I paced. The outlaw-type shenanigans was something I’d made up on the fly, but the more I talked it up, the more convinced I had become that it was my best way out. I had no objections to robbery per se. Hadn’t Johnny and I once cut a dashing swathe through Sydney’s underworld, robbing evildoers, defending our swag from bent coppers, fascist thugs and assorted villains? Johnny? You out there? You remember, right?
No, my dears, stealing from the wicked was no crime in Mel Parker’s book. Property being theft and what have you. But running into a bank waving firearms about – goodness, there must be an easier way.
On the other hand, your armed robbery is quick. Bang. You make a noisy entrance. Hands up, you cunts. Give us the money. In the bag there. Thank you. Goodbye. In and out. If you get away clean, that’s it. Your work is done. Let’s have a party.
And didn’t I have a direct line to my very own band of bold bank robbers? Oh yeah, I know, I’d shitbagged armed rob to Denise. And, yeah, Denise was in way over her head there. But Stan and Jimmy were seasoned crims. And Cathy – holy Jesus shit, she handled a gun with more panache than anyone I’d ever seen.
There were problems, admittedly. The mysterious cop-like bloke I’d seen visiting the robbers, and the strange offhandedness I was digging from that whole crew – which by now I was getting a pretty good idea about. Not to mention Denise’s naiveté. But nothing’s perfect in this world, right, my little jaundiced ones?
Anyway, my musings didn’t have much bearing on how things turned out. Fuck me if Fate hadn’t chosen just a little while before to stick its fickle finger right up my date. Yeah, that’s right – after a lifetime of strumming ukuleles, pawing pianos and flailing at guitars, dressing up variously as a cowboy, gypsy, beatnik, juvenile delinquent, beach-bum, lounge lizard or whatever the fuck, suddenly it had all come to fruition. Kind of. Up to a point. But as old Carl Jung once said: Beware the gifts of the gods, ’cause they mean to fuck you up if they can. So gather round me, earnest young seekers and listen closely. It happened like this.
First, let us wind the clock back to the previous winter. We – that is, Bobby Boyd and the Oracles, recently (sorrowfully) renamed “Oracle” – had been playing our busy round of dances and discos and one-off events. Like I told you, the inner-city crowd had long since stopped dancing, except for a little free-form hippie arm-waving. It was the pot, dig? And the acid.
But the suburbs still floated on an ocean of beer. Beer and hot cars, brawls out the front, sex out the back. Just like always.
And then it changed. One week it was booze and knuckles. Next week it was peace and love. Knowing looks and nods, secret knowledge. Everyone was in the club. The suburbs had discovered marijuana.
The penny dropped at a dance in West Heidelberg, which used to be one of the rougher places in Melbourne, a hard-bitten Housing Commission burb, to which I always took a shiv and an iron bar, at the very least. This one week it was suddenly different. Smiles, nods, much digging of the music.
A bunch of kids came up to me during a break and invited me out back for a puff. And they had good gear. A blond girl told me she was reading Meher Baba. Another was into some Buddhist, Cuckoo’s Nest, On the Road kind of thing. Yet another wanted to talk about William Burroughs and the Incredible String Band.
Back in Melbourne the next day, Bobby Boyd and I knocked out a song about all this. Him strumming chords, me tapping out words on my Olympia portable.
We started with the line “The Phantom’s shooting dope!”, which led us to “Boofhead’s dealing coke!” and then “Superman is stoned off of his dial.” On it went, for many verses. “Clark Kent just robbed a bank,” we wrote, “Mandrake’s got a shank.” And so on. We had Ginger Meggs on the nod, Dagwood fiddling the books, old Dick Tracy taking orders from the mob, Batman and Robin . . . that’s right, you guessed it.
Bobby had backed away from the space-cadet hippie thing by now; he was looking and sounding more John Lennon-John Sebastian-Grateful Dead these days. He sang this new song Dylan-style, spitting out the lines, all on one note, kind of an “It’s All Right, Ma” rip, but with a funk beat.
In one hour, zap, we had our song. This was the one that had gone over so well at Denise’s house party in December.
The ditty had its first truly public airing at a weekend music festival just before Christmas. It was one of those half-arsed Woodstock-type get-togethers which had suddenly become the big thing. You know the drill: you get a horde of hippies and psychos hopped up on grass and flagon wine, feed them kebabs and macrobiotic food. You claim to have booked some renowned international rock act, who for some reason always cancels at the last minute, but the punters don’t find out until they’ve already handed over their hard-earneds and are sitting in a paddock somewhere.
So there we were. John Lennon hadn’t shown up. Big fucking surprise, huh? Billy Thorpe was supposed to play, but he’d cancelled too. So we were put on stage at ten o’clock on the Saturday night. Perfect timing. It was a warm night, but camp fires were burning. Hash and grass and wood smoke wafted out of the crowd. The lushes were nicely lit up, but not yet drunk and ugly. Bobby went to the microphone and just stood there. He was good with the patter and people knew that. So he’s standing looking out at the crowd, while the rest of us are poised, waiting to be counted in. The crowd is silent, patient, expecting something funny.
“Batman’s shooting dope . . .” Bobby shouted, then paused. The crowd cheered. “Boofhead’s dealing coke!” More cheers. “And Superman is stoned off of his diiiiiiiaaaaaaaaaaaalllllll!” Then the old “One, two, three, FOUR!!!” and away we went.
It was the hit of the festival. We did encores. Later a bloke from the ABC approached us, arranged for us to go into the studio the next week and film the song for broadcast. We had that effer properly recorded within a week, were on TV with it a week later, and bingo – by New Year we were the fastest rising act in the business. Got an album recorded quick smart: Deeply Disturbed, it was called.
So that’s how Alex had found me. Saw me on the idiot box.
SOMEBODY DONE HOODOOED THE HOODOO MAN
It wasn’t that hard to muscle in on the robbery caper. The day after my visit from Alex and the self-lacerating fruitcake, I went to see Stan and Jimmy. Didn’t tell them too much, just said I wanted in. They were surprised, but cool with it. I had come through all right on the Mornington Peninsula getaway. So I was to be wheelman on an upcoming job. Out of town. Fat little post office in the boondocks. Cathy and Denise weren’t part of it. Just us. This was one for the boys.
It went like this: we drove up first thing on pension day. Plenty of money there waiting. We timed it for right on the knocker, nine a.m. Door opened, oldies wandered in. And we bold Knights of the High Toby barrelled in behind them. Well, Stan and Jimmy did. Me, I waited in the car, right outside the door. After a little bit of dramatic carry-on, the tellers handed over the bread. No heroes – this was the post office, after all. No one was hurt. Less than a minute later the boys were back, and I was driving off, taking it slow. We switched cars around the corner, less than two hundred yards away, and motored off again. I dr
opped the boys at a rented fishos’ cottage down by the river, then took the second car back into town, left it near the railway station. Stan followed me in a third car, a clean one which we’d parked back at the cottage. He picked me up, we returned to the cottage.
We spent the next three days fishing, playing cards, relaxing, then drove calmly out of the area. By then the heat was off. Cops might’ve assumed we’d left by train days ago, or that we’d somehow dodged the roadblocks and driven back to Melbourne, the nearest big city. By the time we mosied down the highway, there were no cops around.
Sounds easy, muchachos, right? Truth is, I was shitting bricks. At least in the lead-up I was. Right through the careful setting-up of getaway cars, hideouts and such – rising fucking panic. When we did our practice run, I was all a shit and a shiver. Kangarooed the car, then stalled it. Nearer the job got, the worse I got.
A day out from the job, Jimmy the Thug got cold feet. We were staying at a cabin in the Dandenongs, halfway between the job and Melbourne. It was morning. Stan was frying eggs and bacon. I hadn’t slept for two nights. Which was nothing unusual. Jimmy came into the kitchen, took a glance at me, shook his head.
“Can’t do it with him like this,” he said, nodding my way.
“I’m absolutely a hundred percent fine,” I said.
Stan turned around, looked at me.
“I’ll drop some Mandrax, get a little shut-eye. I’ll be right then.”
“It’s more than that,” he said.
They ate their breakfast. I stuck with coffee. My hands were shaking so much it slopped out of the cup. Stan finished up, left the room, came back with a cap of white powder, a teaspoon and a fit. Cooked up right there on the table. Loaded the fit, and held it out to me. Didn’t say anything.
I looked at him. I didn’t say no, didn’t say yes. Now, my little dumbsaints, I was no stranger to the narcotic class of drugs. I’d had the odd sniff here and there over the years – pills on occasion, when someone had visited a chemist’s after hours, gifts from lovely ladies in the psychiatric nursing profession and so on. But the strong opiates had never done much for me.
A couple of seconds passed. Stan said, “It’s up to you.”
“I figured you lot were into the gear,” I said. “That’s why you’ve been so, whatever, laid back. Right?”
Stan still said nothing. So, I picked up the fit. Bang, I whacked that shit. Tasted it back of my throat. My hands stopped shaking. I felt calm. I felt alert. The speed buzz didn’t go away, but somehow the skag cleansed and refined it. I’ll spare you any description beyond that, my little subterraneans – I never read a believable account of a smack stone, and I won’t try now.
We went ahead and did the robbery. I was right there, all present and correct. In the pocket. On the wavelength. And everything went perfectly. Had another taste after the job. And another one after that, for reasons that now elude me.
A week after getting back to Melbourne I met up with Cathy in a Carlton pub. Dig, my young pistoleros, Cathy and I hadn’t so much as mentioned the Sydney shootery since she’d reappeared. Water under the bridge. Too complicated. Too scary. Whatever. But she needed to be told of recent shit. All I had to do was tell her. Like that. Easy. Cathy, a couple of killers would like a word with you. Just letting you know.
Mid afternoon. Cathy was in the ladies lounge, sitting at a table on her own. She glanced at me as I sat down. “You’re pinned,” she said.
“The last one on the bus, it seems.”
“And you’re working hot with Stan and Jimmy?”
“Yeah, that too. But I have a reason, a good reason. So listen to me.”
“Yeah?”
“There’s trouble.”
She waited.
“Sydney trouble.”
She nodded, still waiting.
“The Greek. He came by. With a heavy. To square up.”
“What did you do?”
“Spun them a yarn. Bought some time.”
“What yarn?”
“I said there was a job in the offing. A big one. They hold fire and they’ll get a cut, I said. Square up for Sydney plus a bit more for their trouble.”
“There’s other trouble. Melbourne trouble,” she said, pulling a folded Daily Earth News – a hippie rag out of Carlton – from her shoulder bag. She passed it over. “Second page.”
I opened it up. There at the top was Denise’s photo of Cathy at the service station on Mornington, holding the gun. Blown up big, but with a black bar across Cathy’s eyes. The headline next to it said, “Fall Among Thieves – My Night with the Hippie Robbers.” It was by Clive the Fop.
“Uncool as hell. But that’s a great shot of you.”
“That was Denise’s idea. She’s a fool. And Clive’s an idiot. She passed that photo to him. I’m dumping them. You should too.”
Then Cathy bit her nail and looked away, thoughtful. Or preoccupied.
Something else not right.
“Hang on,” I said. “At this stage, you should be plying me with questions about the Greek and his mate.”
She looked at me, waiting.
“You know all about it.”
Nothing. Meant yes.
“You’ve seen them already?”
“Two nights ago. I saw Alex at the T. F. Much.”
“You talk to him?”
“Yeah.” Cathy looked at the door. She sat up straight, suddenly looked bright and on it. “Anyway, I want you to meet someone. Now keep a cool head, Mel.” At that she stood up and smiled big, ready for a greeting. I turned around to see who was on the receiving end.
A tall, thickset bloke in ill-fitting flairs was striding towards us. The palooka I’d seen outside Stan’s digs. The copper. The fucking copper. Right here, grinning at Cathy.
“Craig. Hi, darl.” When he got to our table she stood up and gave him a peck. “Craig, this is Mel Parker.”
We shook. My hand grip was weak, meant to convey indifference. His was a bone-crusher, meant to convey he was a complete arsehole.
I was playing it cool but I was wired. Fight, flight, freak? The hell was the crazy bitch up to?
The copper gave me the lingering stare. Meant to remind you of every time you’d ever got in the shit, since you were three years old, give you that squirmy feeling again. I was having none of it. I stood up. Cathy grabbed my hand, called out “Craig!” – and waited until the copper looked at her. She said nothing more, just gave him the look, and fuck me if he didn’t lower his eyes like a chastened schoolboy.
Then back to me. “Sit down, Mel. Craig’s with us.” Pause, then to him. “Aren’t you, sweetie?” He grinned, shrugged.
“Get us a gin and tonic, will you, Craig?” she said, and off he trotted.
I sat down again.
Out of earshot, Cathy said, quickly, “You know him, then?”
“I saw him outside Stan’s the other day.”
“He’s covering for us at Russell Street. We need him.”
“Who’s he with?”
“Armed Robbery Squad.”
“Jesus, Cathy, you crazy fucking idiot. They’re assassins, every one of them.”
“Well, he’s our assassin.”
She let that sit there, while I caught up with her twisted but – I had to admit – in its own way brilliant thinking.
The cop came back.
“So,” he said. “Cathy tells me you got a visit from Barry.”
I shrugged.
“A very bad man is our Barry.”
“Tsk, tsk.”
The cop’s superior little smile faded. He turned to Cathy. “Your mate going to play the smart prick?”
“Don’t worry about it, Craig. Just tell us what you know.”
“All right.” Turning to me, “Barry is a first division Sydney maggot.” He paused, looked from Cathy to me, back to Cathy. He leaned forward, dropped his voice. “Kiddies, you know?” He straightened up. “Barry’s presence in Melbourne isn’t appreciated. By anyone.” Significant s
tress on the last word. Meant Russell Street, I supposed. “Barry will be made aware of that shortly.” Another meaningful pause. “What you need to do is let me know if you see him or hear from him again. Or tell Cathy. Without delay.”
“Oh yeah,” I said. “And what good does that do us?”
“That’s obvious, isn’t it?”
Cathy said to me: “I told you. Craig’s on our side, Mel.”
I stood up. “Your side maybe, not mine,” and with that parting riposte, I fucked off.
You think me hasty? Well pay attention, young hooligans, I happen to know a bit about dealings with the morally flexible elements of the constabulary, and this much is true: you deal with crooked coppers only when you need to. A payment here or there, to get a certain matter overlooked, or see a vital piece of evidence go missing – sure. When there’s no other way. But up front, let’s all be chums, and venture forth to have some spiffing Famous Five–type adventures together? Fuck that shit. A bent copper will rat on anyone and everyone. Plus, they’re coppers. We’re on one side, they’re on the other. They’ve already proven their bad faith by becoming coppers in the first place. This is Australia, after all.
So I was out of there. No one came running after me.
I stopped into a record shop in Lygon Street and bought a Daily Earth News, read it when I got home. The Fop hadn’t given all that much away. Wrote about how he had managed to crack an interview with a gang of robbers. But they were not like your regular members of the criminal classes. This gang was “political,” he said, against the war in Vietnam, opposed to conscription, in favour of the legalization of grass. They listened to Hendrix and Dylan. He had one of them – one of us – quoting Bob, in fact, to the effect that to live outside the law you must be honest. Maybe Stan had said that, more likely Denise, but most likely Clive just whacked it in because it sounded cool. This was some sorry journalistic carry-on, my young seekers, and you can take that from a cat who has earned a dollar or two over the years as a penny-a-liner. I even spotted right away that the Fop had lifted his style from Hunter Thompson’s book on the Hells Angels, which had been doing the rounds that year.