Davo's Little Something Page 27

  He followed Premiers Lane along under the huge rock and sandstone wall, topped with the cyclone-wire of the ABC carpark on his right and what looked like the backs of small loading docks for the buildings on William Street on his left. He walked up a hundred metres or so and stopped under the overhanging bough of a tree that jutted out of the wall. Next to the tree were some stringy brown vines which in the dismal glow of the streetlights looked like someone had taken several handfuls of blackened mud and flung them against the sandstone. Ahead in the distance he could see the red neon sign of the Hyatt building and the huge red flashing Coca-Cola sign underneath that topped The Cross like some great gaudy beacon. The lane he was following however, appeared to go well away from the Cross and looked like it would take him right out of his way. This is no good he thought. So after pausing under the tree another second or two he turned around and retraced his steps, figuring he’d go down the stairs and walk up William Street after all.

  Normally Davo didn’t put the gloves on until he was ready to attack but for some reason he slipped his hands into them and tightened them up as he was walking along. He didn’t quite know why, maybe he just liked the feel of them.

  Halfway back along the lane he stopped to look at some eye-catching graffiti, which even in the murky, yellow street light was still colourful and garish. Bush Couture, was the main word he finally made out, sprayed on the wall. Wonder what the bloody hell that means he shrugged as he moved on.

  He’d only gone a few metres when a movement and voices at the top of the stairs leading down to William Street caught his attention. Suddenly four skinheads burst noisily out into Forbes Street; even in the gloom and at that distance Davo could easily make out the silhouettes of the close-cropped skulls, the boots and rolled-up jeans. They stopped momentarily at the top of the stairs and spotted Davo on his own. One, who was possibly the leader of the gang, tapped another one on the arm then said something to the others and they all started running towards him.

  This was a new turn of events for Davo and took him a little by surprise; not only had he not had time to set himself up properly but also there were four this time. However, he still had his uncanny reflexes in his favour, he was calm and he knew exactly what he had to do. He moved closer to the sandstone wall to get what little light there was at his back and to make sure they couldn’t get behind him. He knew his initial punches didn’t have to be all that hard, just as long as he could land them, the stopping power of the gloves would be enough to stun them momentarily. With adrenalin screaming through his system he shaped up next to the wall, grim-faced and ready for the fight of his life.

  Screaming and yelling like wild animals the four skinheads charged into him. Davo stood his ground and hit the first one flush in the face with a sizzling straight left that filled the skin’s eyes with water, his nose with blood and dumped him straight on his backside. A short right bang on the point of the jaw dropped his mate next to him, his mouth open with pain, wondering what on earth had hit him. Davo was punching more with speed than with power but they were still landing like thunderbolts. By this time though the other two had got through and were raining punches and kicks on Davo. He crouched slightly catching most of the blows on his arms and shoulders, a few landed on the top of his head, which he hardly felt, and a few kicks caught him under the ribs, which didn’t hurt all that much either.

  Sighting an opening between a pair of jeans-clad legs, Davo stiffened his fingers and slammed the side of his right hand straight up into the skinhead’s balls who let out a scream of agony and slumped to the roadway clutching at his groin. This now left only one, who was grunting and swearing as he still kept punching at Davo; but the curses were of desperate fear rather than anger as he saw his mates being systematically dropped around him like flies.

  Davo sprang up from his crouch, brushed the last skinhead’s punches aside like they were falling leaves and stood there facing him, his mouth twisted into a grin of complete and insane diabolical cruelty. The skinhead looked at Davo in the halflight like he was some kind of werewolf ready to rip his throat out: his face was a mask of terror and Davo could see him swallow with fear. He dropped his hands and tried to run around behind Davo, but Davo knew what he was going to do and caught him with a bone crunching left hook on the way through. It flung him back against the sandstone wall where Davo quickly moved in and methodically pounded him with both fists as he slid down the moss-covered rocks now glistening with flecks of blood. He fell to Davo’s waist level where Davo gave him the ‘coup de grace’, a short right behind the ear which spun his head around and broke his neck.

  Just as quickly Davo turned on the others. One was unconscious; he dispensed with him with several punches to the temple and a couple of slashes across the larynx. The one he’d decked with the straight-left was crawling around on his hands and knees. Davo watched him for a second then walked over and kicked him straight across the side of the face Thai style with his instep and with all his might. He could feel the shudder run up his leg as the skinhead moved nearly a metre across the alley and his head flew back snapping his neck with an audible crack. Just to be on the safe side, Davo smashed him in the temples while he lay on the ground.

  The remaining skin could more or less see what was going on out of his tear-filled eyes but vomiting and just about paralysed with pain where Davo had almost crushed his balls he had to lie there unable to get away.

  ‘Ohh please mate . . . please,’ he sobbed, between retching up bile. ‘Please . . . don’t. Please.’

  The sight of his whimpering only intensified Davo’s hatred and spite. It was alright when they ran over to give him a bashing, he knew how much mercy he would have got, now this thing was begging for pity. He didn’t say anything but his vicious cruel mind was thinking he wanted to do something special to this one.

  On the opposite side of the lane, in one of the small loading docks, he noticed what looked like a concertina-type folding iron fence, about two metres high with the tops of the iron pickets sharpened almost like spearheads. With a sadistic chuckle he picked the moaning sobbing skinhead up by the collar of his Levi jacket and the back of his studded belt. Pausing for a moment to get a solid grip, he raised him off the ground, balanced him on his chest, then ran across the alley and impaled him under the chin on one of the pointed iron pickets. The skin let out a muffled blood-choked scream as Davo gripped his jacket and dragged down on it with all his weight, forcing the spike up through the roof of his mouth and into his brain. Before his jaws were clamped together he had time for two or three little muffled screams of agony then he died. He didn’t even grunt as Davo smashed his gloved fist into his back breaking his spine in several places.

  With a happy grin on his face and his hands on his hips, Davo stepped back to admire his handiwork, hanging there with blood pouring out of him like a hog in a slaughterhouse. Satisfied, he had a last look at the other dead skinheads sprawled around the lane then checking to make sure there were no people around—there weren’t, which surprised him after all the screaming and noise—he walked back to his utility. At least I haven’t got far to walk back to my car tonight, he casually mused, as if what he’d just done was no more than deliver a few parcels of meat or something. He removed the gloves while he was driving along and thirty-five minutes later he was back in his loungeroom, sipping coffee and listening to Steely Dan harmonising My Old School on 2MMM.

  Davo wasn’t his usual jubilant self at first. He sat there on the lounge thoughtfully stroking his chin and gazing into his coffee while he went over the events of the past two nights. Luck had definitely been on his side again. Of course his uncanny fighting ability and the power of the gloves had come in to it but nonetheless those four hoods had caught him by surprise: he wasn’t expecting to get rushed like that. Also, on Friday night he’d almost missed one of the skins he threw a punch at. If he’d missed altogether and they’d managed to get a couple of lucky ones in or had a piece of pipe or a knife or something, it could have be
en a different story altogether. He’d definitely be a lot more careful next time.

  He peered thoughtfully into his coffee while the music played in the background and eventually he started to smile, then he started to laugh, and once he started laughing he couldn’t stop.

  *

  The Sunday papers gave the Friday night killings in Hyde Park a good spread on page 3. The only thing that stopped them making headlines was a major airline disaster involving the US military and Lufthansa. But Monday’s papers really went to town on Saturday night’s murders; especially the skinhead getting impaled on the fence. The morning papers gave it the full treatment and the evening ones made a ten-course meal out of it. Headlines in both papers with a special double page report in The Sun titled Savage Sydney. Gang Terror in Suburbs. As Ferocious as Scenes from any Mad Max Movie. Etc etc. Which Davo savoured as he cut them all out and added them to the steadily mounting pile in the drawer. The papers said it all related to drug deals, mainly speed and heroin, between the skinheads, punks and other gangs that frequented the Kings Cross-Darlinghurst area. The skinhead who got impaled on the fence was left there as a warning to others as to what they could expect. Davo almost cracked up when he read this. Not only was his luck holding, but the papers were actually helping, almost hiding him. He couldn’t believe his good fortune.

  Later that Monday morning, Detectives Middleton and Blackburn were called in to see Divisional Inspector Burgess again. This time the Divisional Inspector wasn’t puffing on his pipe and he wasn’t looking anywhere near as pompous or turgid as usual; if anything he looked worried and a little shrunken. Ray and Greg had been chuckling to themselves walking up the stairs to his office. They were almost certain the reason they’d been called back was because Burgess had got a rev up from his superiors in the force.

  ‘Now this doesn’t mean that I agree with your theory about just one person being responsible for these killings,’ growled the Divisional Inspector, after he’d gone through the pros and cons of what the two detectives had come up with and the fresh files on his desk. ‘It’s just that that coroner. What’s his bloody name again?’

  ‘Joyce. Dr Oswald Joyce,’ said Detective Blackburn.

  ‘Yeah, right. Joyce. Well evidently Joyce plays golf with someone who’s got an ear to the Assistant Commissioner and he started talking along those lines something like what’s in your reports. Now they want the case followed up along those lines.’ The Divisional Inspector clamped his jaws together tightly and stared unhappily at the reports on his desk then back up at the two expressionless detectives. ‘Anyway. I’m putting you both in charge of this investigation. Just in case there could possibly be something in it.’

  The two detectives shuffled slightly in their seats, looked at each other briefly but didn’t say anything. Divisional Inspector Burgess could almost read their minds as he stared at them sourly.

  ‘However, I might add, better still, I might emphasise, that under no circumstances will you issue any statements to the press along the lines of your investigation. In fact I don’t want you giving out any statements at all. Any press reports, TV, radio or otherwise will come from me. Is that understood?’

  ‘Yes sir. Clear as a bell sir,’ chorused the two detectives.

  Divisional Inspector Burgess sucked in a breath and almost snorted it out through his nose. ‘Alright then. That will be all,’ he said abruptly.

  The two detectives picked up their reports and filed out of the room leaving Divisional Inspector Burgess scowling at the closed door behind them.

  Which was how the press got the report that the killings were gangland vendettas amongst the skinheads, punks and their ilk that hung around Kings Cross and the inner city area. However, decent honest citizens need have no worries as foot and vehicle patrols would be increased and already several suspects had been detained and were being questioned. Arrests could be expected soon. And these few incidents were really just the excuse the police were looking for to clamp down on the gangs once and for all. For a pipe smoking, ex-digger contemplating his retirement after thirty years in the force it was quite a fine piece of rhetoric.

  However, one person firmly convinced that this was bullshit and with the scent of one hell of a good story planted firmly in his nostrils was Joe Davenport of the Sunday Telegraph. Davenport, a tenacious journalist and Vietnam warcorrespondent, was one of those knockabout newspapermen who had moles, informants and mates everywhere. It was one of his moles in the Coroner’s Court who had overheard Dr Joyce discussing his theory on the skinhead killings with one of his colleagues and had got straight on the phone to Davenport. That Wednesday afternoon he was sitting with his cronies from the Sunday Telegraph in their watering hole, The Evening Star, having their customary after-work drink or twenty and quietly telling one of the younger reporters, Ray McNeill, what the lab assistant had said to him over the phone. While the other journalists were talking among themselves, McNeill was staring at Davenport slack-jawed.

  ‘Jesus, Joe,’ he said, shaking his head. ‘If what that bloke says is right, that’s the story of the year.’ He stared again at the slightly balding, slightly greyhaired journalist, whose full round face showed all the marks of years of boozing and late nights following up stories and wars. But right now Davenport’s plumpish face was grinning like the proverbial cat that just ate all the cream. McNeill shook his head once more. ‘Yeah, Joe. The story of the bloody year.’

  Davenport grinned back at his younger workmate and drained the remnants of his fifth can of XXXX. ‘The story of the decade’d be more like it,’ he burped.

  It was Davenport’s shout so he got up to go to the bar returning shortly with a tray of cans and other drinks which he placed on the table for the other journalists to help themselves. He picked up his can of Fourex and resumed his conversation with McNeill.

  ‘Yeah, Ray,’ he said, after a hefty swallow, ‘I’ve a good chance of getting a look at the coroner’s report, and the morgue photos. And if it’s anything like what he said over the phone.’ Davenport slammed his fist into his hand. ‘Bingo! What a fucking story.’

  McNeill couldn’t help but stare at the grizzled journalist with both wonder and admiration. ‘Yeah, Joe,’ he said, shaking his head again. ‘What a bloody story alright.’

  Davo trained all week again as usual and couldn’t wait to go out killing again on Friday and Saturday night. Five skinheads in all.

  He got two on Friday night in a lane off Darley Street, not far from East Sydney Technical College. And three on Saturday night in a lane off Hardie Street, just across from Green Park. Davo was carrying one or two bruises from Saturday night too so this weekend he was out for revenge on top of his revenge.

  The two on Friday night were easy. They were drunk and he got them having a piss; they scarcely knew what hit them. The three on Saturday night he had to take from behind and they were a little more difficult. One even managed to give Davo a kick in the shins so after stunning him with a punch in the solar plexus he held both his arms out and broke them at the elbows, before pounding his head almost to jelly.

  Davo was expecting the headlines in the Saturday papers and he relished them as he read them over and over before cutting them out and placing them in the drawer with the others. Gangs Strike Again. Skinhead Killings Continue. Terror in the Streets. What a hoot this is he laughed, over his muesli and prunes.

  But he wasn’t quite prepared for the headlines that literally screamed out of the Sunday Telegraph the following morning, causing him to splutter coffee all over his poached eggs on toast.

  WHO IS THE MIDNIGHT RAMBLER MURDERER . . . LONE KILLER SUSPECT IN ALLEGED SKINHEAD GANG KILLINGS . . . A special report by Joe Davenport.

  ‘Jesus Christ,’ Davo almost shouted, as he stared at the headlines. ‘How the bloody hell did they find out.’

  He then didn’t just read the article, he devoured it, scarcely able to get the words in quick enough; then almost in a panic he read it again.

  Davenport st
ated that reliable sources in the coroner’s office had forensic proof that it was only one person doing all the killings and that the police were suppressing this information. The killer was a gay who had at one time been assaulted himself and who was now a martial arts expert bent on revenge. The killer had brain damage which the police knew about but were hiding. The killer was a huge man and immensely powerful. That was about it; the rest was just padding to fill up the two pages inside—on gay assaults, skinheads, the Cross, Oxford Street etcetera and a list of all the victims the Midnight Rambler had killed so far and where they came from.

  Davo sucked in a deep breath, snorted it out and starting to feel a little panicky. He rose from the table and went over to the kitchen window to stare grim-faced out across Waverley Oval. So they’re on to me already he thought. How? He stared out the window for a while longer till he started to settle down, then over a fresh cup of coffee he read Davenport’s article again; slower this time and reading in between the lines.

  It was a bit of a beat-up really. All Davenport had to go on was a rumour from the coroner’s office and he’d elaborated from there. He was clever. He’d done his homework and what he’d written made sense but there was still an element of doubt and the police strenuously denied his claims. Davo began to feel a little better. Besides, even if the cops do go on this they’re going to be looking for a monstrous gay with brain damage. And what am I? Just an inoffensive cripple getting round on a walking stick. The last person they’ll come looking for is me. If they ever come at all. But just to be on the safe side he’d have to be extremely careful from now on. Walking stick and shuffling along slowly all the time he was out and extreme care in choosing his victims and his killing grounds.