Between the Devlin and the Deep Blue Seas Read online

  ‘Shit! I hadn’t really thought,’ replied Norton.

  ‘We must know before the weekend,’ said Grigor. ‘On Sunday we take our families to Tasmania. My brother and I we go trout fishing.’

  Christ! What a couple of nice blokes. Blow up a block of flats, too bad if almost a dozen people get killed — that wasn’t their concern. Then go off trout fishing as if nothing had happened. Shit! Just what have I got myself into? Les had to think for a moment.

  ‘How about I ring you tomorrow afternoon?’

  ‘Two-thirty at the restaurant?’ said Vaclav.

  ‘Okay,’ agreed Les. ‘Two-thirty tomorrow. I should know by then.’

  Grigor slapped Les on the back and laughed. ‘Then it is done.’ He and Vaclav once again shook hands with Les to cement the deal. ‘We go now and organise things. Give us a minute or two before you yourself leave.’

  ‘Okay. Well, thanks, Grigor. And you too, Vaclav.’

  ‘It is our pleasure. We hear from you tomorrow.’

  They got back in the Mercedes. Les watched them leave then after a minute or two headed for Bondi himself. As he drove past the Royal he snatched a glance at the old block of flats in the rearview mirror. Jesus, just what have I got myself into here? he thought.

  The ramifications of what he was about to do and the chain of events he was going to set in motion now began to weigh on Norton’s mind. It had all more or less started out as a bit of a lark. Bum down the old block of flats, collect the insurance then have a drink and a laugh and a joke about it afterwards. The people that happened to live in the flats had scarcely entered his mind; except in rancour. If this thing went wrong eleven people could die, and he was now dealing with ruthless, hardcore men to whom killing meant little more than changing their socks. As Grigor quite succinctly put it, ‘that is not our concern’.

  If this thing soured, Les would be left to well and truly carry the can. He couldn’t shelf Grigor and his brother. Forget about the honour and family bullshit; if it came to saving their own necks they would kill him with no more feeling than if they were swatting a fly. There’d be a police investigation and if the insurance company smelled a rat and he got convicted the wash up was he’d get life imprisonment and go down as one of the most notorious mass murderers in Australian history. It would be the Whisky Au Go Go all over again. It wasn’t too late to pull out, but then it would be back to square one with that dead albatross in Randwick around his neck again and Grigor and his brother thinking he was just another flip with big ideas who possibly knew a little bit too much about them for his own good. Shit! Norton was suddenly beginning to find himself stuck between a rock and a hard place.

  This all weighed heavily on Norton’s mind, even when he was down the beach in the afternoon, trying to enjoy a swim and a perv. It took the edge right off his appetite, which was why he didn’t bother cooking any dinner at home that night. Warren noticed this when he arrived from work and made his disapproval known. ‘Sandwiches! Fuckin’ sandwiches. You expect me to come home after working my cunt out all day and eat rotten, fuckin’ roast beef sandwiches. You got to be fuckin’ kidding, haven’t you?’

  Seated at the kitchen table, Norton looked up impassively from a can of orange and mango mineral water he was sipping.

  ‘You don’t like sandwiches, Warren?’ he said slowly.

  ‘I...’ Warren was about to say something but changed his mind. ‘Fair dinkum, what would be the good of me saying anything. You’d only come out with some smartarse Stryne remark like, “Gamgeddapizza”, or “Donfuggineadem”, or “Stiggeminyerarseyagund”. So rather than put up with the thrust and parry of your brilliant, Queensland, verbal repartee, I’ll eat the fuckin’ sandwiches.’

  ‘Good idea, Warren.’

  Warren went across to the sink and put the kettle on to make a pot of tea. ‘In fact, to tell you the truth, it’s too bloody hot to eat.’

  ‘That’s precisely what I thought.’

  ‘In fact, when I come to think about it, we do have a tendency to overindulge ourselves at times.’

  ‘Yes, quite correct, Warren. And although it may not have occurred to you, you are developing quite a noticeable bay window. You’re beginning to look like a little pepper pot.’

  Warren patted his paunch with both hands. ‘Yeah, you’re right. In fact now that I’m back off the piss, I might start running with you in the mornings.’

  Any other time, Norton would have burst out laughing and bombarded Warren with sarcastic remarks. His expression didn’t change. ‘What time would you like me to wake you up? Six-thirty? The last time I did, you told me to get fucked and threw a book at me.’

  Warren thought for a moment. ‘Yeah, we might leave it till Thursday. Give me another day or so to adjust.’

  ‘I think that’s another good idea Warren.’

  Norton was still very quiet watching TV that night, so much so that Warren remarked on it. But Les replied that he was just feeling a bit tired from too much sun.

  ‘If you ask me, the landlord’s getting a bit of male menopause,’ guffawed Warren.

  ‘It’s my prostate, Warren,’ nodded Les. ‘I probably need surgery.’

  ‘Yeah that’d be right, too, you pissy, smelly, dribbly old thing. Fancy having to share a place with you, you fuckin’ old sheila. No wonder they gave you the arse from the Kelly Club.’

  Whatever Norton’s mental or physical condition, it wasn’t helped at all when the movie came on. Steve McQueen in The Towering Inferno. Warren was coming up with some choice one-liners about the acting and the special effects, but for some reason Les just couldn’t see the funny side of it.

  When he went to bed later on, he couldn’t get to sleep, either and spent the best part of an hour staring at the ceiling. Once he dozed off he slept all right though.

  Wednesday dawned a perfect, early summer’s day; warm and sunny with just the lightest northerly wind to clear the air. Les was up around seven. He didn’t bother to wake Warren before he had a coffee then went for a run and a swim at North Bondi. Warren was up and ready to go to work when Les arrived back home. Warren agreed it was a great day; too good to have to go to fuckin’ work. With various things on his mind Les wasn’t in the mood for any verbal jousting with his flatmate, so he just said he’d see Warren when he got home, have a nice day and stop complaining — at least he had a job to go to, unlike the poor, unfortunate landlord.

  After he showered and got into a clean pair of jeans and a T-shirt and had some breakfast, Norton had a good think over another cup of coffee. He was seriously thinking of pulling out of this deal with Grigor and his brother; being stuck with the old block of flats was a pain in the arse all right, but the thought of murdering eleven people and spending the rest of his life in prison didn’t appeal to him at all. However, he was in a little deep now and had called in one of his markers with the Ciotsa brothers, who would definitely think he was half-full of shit and who would also definitely not be too keen on his knowing so much about their business.

  Still, there were more pressing things on hand at the immediate present; the meeting with the bikies and the extraction of seventy-five thousand dollars for something that was theirs in the first place.

  Norton was toying with the idea of ringing Eddie for a bit of back-up and tossing a few grand his way. But the less people who knew what he was up to, even his closest friends, the better.

  He drummed his fingers on the kitchen table, then finished his coffee and went out to the toolshed in the backyard. It didn’t take Les long to find what he was looking for; a marking-pen, a Stanley knife, a roll of Durex-tape and about half a metre of black conduit pipe. He dropped the various articles into an overnight bag, locked up the house then drove over to Blue Seas Apartments stopping on the way to get a large cardboard carton from the front of a supermarket in Clovelly Road.

  Les parked his car down from the flats and was happy to see there was no one around when he walked through the foyer with his overnight bag and a carton. He
ran quickly up the stairs and let himself into flat five. A quick look in the litter-strewn kitchen confirmed that the kitchen window gave a clear view of the garage on the opposite corner.

  Smiling to himself, Norton flattened out the cardboard carton in the lounge room, then drew the outline of someone’s head and shoulders on it with a marking pen. Satisfied that it looked enough like a person, even down to the tousled hair, he cut out the shape with a Stanley knife and taped it to the kitchen window with Durextape. There was a kind of metal winder with a small handle that allowed you to open and close the window; Les opened it out a few inches and poked the piece of conduit out about a foot or so. With pieces of cardboard behind it, he got the conduit at the angle he required, then secured that in place with Durex-tape also.

  Happy enough with that, Les dropped the Stanley knife into the overnight-bag, locked up the flat, then went down to the garage opposite to survey his handiwork from that distance. With the curtains billowing slightly around it in the breeze, the cardboard cutout could pass for someone standing at the window and from that distance, the piece of conduit did look like the barrel of a gun. Oh well, thought Norton, not much I can do now but wait. He bought an orange juice at the garage and sipped it while he waited a few metres down from the corner.

  A few minutes after ten-thirty, a blue 1967 Ford with a noisy exhaust system and fatties came up Soudan Street and pulled up on the garage corner. Les recognised Mick sitting in the front but not the one driving, nor the two men in the back. But they were big and mean-looking and wearing much the same gear as Mick had on now and when Les first met him on Sunday. But unlike Mick, they didn’t have two black eyes, bruised and swollen features and a number of stitches around their foreheads and lips.

  Slowly and carefully Mick walked up to Les. ‘You got those papers?’ he said. He was unsmiling and decidedly unfriendly.

  There was the hint of a smile flickering around Norton’s eyes and that was about all. His adrenalin was pumping slowly but steadily. He nodded his head slowly but didn’t say anything.

  ‘The money’s on the front seat of the car. Come over and get it.’ Mick’s voice was easy and steady but absolutely dripping with treachery.

  ‘Mick,’ replied Norton, ‘before we do anything, take a look up at the kitchen window of that flat you wrecked.’ The tall bikie looked up and Les noticed him stiffen. That mate of mine from Sunday’s up there with an M-16 on rock ’n’ roll and eighty rounds of armour piercing. Now I don’t know what you and your mates have got in mind and you might get me. But when the ambulance gets here, I guarantee that all they’ll find inside that old blue Henry is steak and kidney and crumbed brains.’ Norton made a gesture like a small salute to the window. Mick looked up also just as the curtains billowed around the piece of conduit and if you didn’t know, you’d almost swear the figure nodded back. ‘So go and tell your mates what’s going on. I’ll wait right here.’

  Mick walked back to the Ford and stuck his head in the window. There was a brief confab and a movement and twisting of bodies. Maybe it was the cut-out in the window, maybe it was Norton’s casual, confident manner, but the next thing Mick was walking back, holding a white, plastic shopping bag.

  ‘You’re a real smart cunt, aren’t you?’ he said.

  ‘Ohh, I dunno,’ drawled Les. ‘But I don’t think I’d have to have much brains to be smarter than you or your mates. Mind if I have a look?’ Mick opened the bag and Les didn’t have to count it too thoroughly to know there was seventy-five thousand dollars in there. ‘Yep. That looks okay.’ He handed Mick the papers and dropped the money into the overnight bag. ‘There you go, mate. Get that into you and you’ll have your money back in no time.’ Despite the drama Norton couldn’t help but grin. Then you’ll be just like that bloke in the song: “Motor bikin’, motor bikin’, Zoomin’ down the Hume Highway, lookin’ like a streak of lightnin’”.’

  Mick took the papers, gave Les one last filthy look then turned to walk away. As he did, he turned back. ‘Hey, just out of curiosity, where was the thing? We turned that fuckin’joint inside out.’

  ‘Underneath the welcome mat,’ smiled Norton.

  Mick’s jaw almost hit the footpath. ‘What!!!?’

  ‘Underneath the welcome mat outside the door. We went round to clean the place up. The first thing I did was sweep round out the front, and there it was.’

  ‘Ohh, Jesus!!’ Mick screwed his face up, shook his head in disbelief and walked back to the blue Ford. He looked like he’d shrunk by a foot.

  The motor roared into life, and the car moved off down Perouse Road. As it did, Norton waved towards the kitchen window again, held the bag up and pointed inside; he was almost certain they’d be looking out the back window and in the rear-vision mirror. Once the car was out of sight, Les took a deep breath and let it out again. Some of the butterflies had settled down but there were still a few doing rumbas in his stomach. Well, I don’t know about anything else, but after that I deserve a drink.

  He walked up to the Royal, ordered a schooner of White Old, then found an empty table in the shade out the front.

  The combination of the heat and his nerves meant that Les polished off the schooner pretty smartly, so he got another one. About a third of the way through that he started to settle down a bit. Naturally he was elated but he found that the beer plus the adrenalin that was still squirting around in his system kicked the old Norton grey matter into top gear. Seventy-five thousand dollars was a good earn in anyone’s book — but robbing those bikies so smoothly with his only backup being a cardboard carton and a piece of pipe — that was something else. Luck had been on his side though; if he’d walked over to the car, he would have either got a knife in his throat or a shotgun blast straight in the face. Sure, luck had something to do with it. Plus a little something else. Norton looked up at the sky, winked and smiled a silent thanks.

  So, he thought, taking his time over schooner number two. I’m seventy-five grand in front. I’ll drop five of that in Billy’s kick when the time comes and tell him all about it over a beer. Despite himself, Les still found his brain was revving at about a hundred miles an hour. His eyes kept drifting over towards the old block of flats and his mind kept returning to something Sandra the artist had said to him in their last conversation. It kept banging around in his head like a loose cannon and suddenly things began to fall into place like pieces of jigsaw puzzle. Yes, he thought, taking another swallow of beer. There just might be a way out of this mess after all...

  It was a beautiful summer’s day and due to an unfortunate accident that had happened to their roadie and driver, five members of a certain all-girl rock ’n’ roll band wouldn’t be playing the Revesby Roundhouse tonight. Norton swallowed the rest of his beer. On a lovely, warm day like this, I think I know just where those girls will be. He picked up the overnight bag and walked across to Blue Seas Apartments. He went into the caretaker’s flat, took five thousand dollars out of the bag, put it in the pocket of his jeans and hid the overnight bag underneath the old night-and-day. Satisfied that no one would find it, even though he knew he wouldn’t be all that long, Norton walked up onto the roof.

  The Heathen Harlots were looking pretty much the same as they did last time Les had seen them up there: the same gear, the same two girls in their banana chairs, the other two playing backgammon and the little blonde one still reading Rock Star. The only difference this time was that the four hippie men were up there, and an old Rolling Stones track, ‘Lean On Me’ was playing on the ghetto blaster.

  Norton wasn’t actually given a royal welcome when he stepped out on the roof, if anything he was given no welcome at all, in fact, his sudden appearance on the roof went over like the proverbial turd in a bowl of punch. Franulka gave him a brief glance over the top of her sunglasses and that was about it. To the others, including the hippies, Les could have been invisible.

  ‘Hello, girls. How are you?’ Apart from music coming from the ghetto blaster, the silence was deafening. ‘Not a
bad day.’If anything, the silence got louder and Norton was beginning to think his coming up on the roof wasn’t such a good idea after all. ‘So, how’s Syd?’

  ‘Ohh, how do you think he is?’ snapped Gwen. ‘He’s got a broken jaw, his neck’s in a brace and his face looks like a Rottweiler’s chewed it.’

  ‘At least he’s out of hospital,’ Isla chipped in sullenly.

  ‘Yeah? Well, have a look at my neck and face,’ replied Les. ‘It’s lucky it’s not me that finished up in the bloody hospital. Or the morgue.’

  ‘Pity you didn’t,’ said Alastrina.

  Norton gave each member of the band an even look. ‘Just how much do you girls know about what happened on Saturday night?’

  ‘Not as much as we’d like to,’ snapped Gwen, exchanging a frosty look with Franulka.

  ‘No. I didn’t think you did.’

  It was becoming obvious now to Les that there was a bit of melodrama in the band. Gwen obviously fancied Syd, who fancied Franulka, who, apart from being aware of his usefulness, didn’t really give a stuff whether he lived or died. The fact that Gwen fancied him was made patently clear by the way she hung back and tried to comfort him when the others were abusing him after they arrived back from Canberra, and the way she screamed and went into a tailspin when she saw him after his fight with Les.

  ‘Anyway, what’s on your mind, Les?’ said Riona. ‘You’ve cost us a gig tonight worth fifteen hundred bucks, plus Syd’s hospital bill. And we’re almost broke as it is. So unless you want to sweep the roof or something, why don’t you just fuck off and leave us alone?’

  Norton stood there nodding his head slowly. The girls continued to ignore him; the hippies avoided his eyes. ‘That’s lovely, isn’t it?’ he said. ‘Just lovely. So I’ve cost you a gig worth a lousy fifteen hundred bucks? Big deal. How would you like one for five thousand bucks? And you don’t have to go any further than the front of these flats.’

  The girls exchanged glances, then Franulka turned down the ghetto blaster and looked at Les from over the top of her sunglasses.