The Big Whatever (19 page)

There was much excited talk amongst the Moratorium crowd about the bombing. No one knew what it meant: had a breakaway direct action group set the charge? Or was it the cops or ASIO, as a way of discrediting the Moratorium? None of the robberies had made the news yet, but they soon would. Fuck me, would they.

So it was all very jolly and comradely on the march. The others smoked a sly joint, and were getting merrier each step of the way. The crowd stopped at the top of Bourke Street, and the speeches started. All very inspiring and We Shall Overcome. Even old Mel was a bit moved. Some very stirring revolutionary shit, my friends.

We slipped away mid-afternoon, took separate paths back to our motel hideout. The idea was to leave that night for the bush, a cabin in the Dandenongs. Stan and Jimmy would meet up with Vic and his people, and with the other robbery gangs, over the next few weeks and do the final whack-up of the proceeds: an equal share for everyone, regardless of their part. All very fair and honourable.

Now, my alert young readers, I hear your question, and I will answer it fully and frankly. How, you're wondering, was your intrepid but sensitive correspondent coping with all this shootery, rippery and robbery? To tell the truth, I'd felt better. The heroin had long since stopped being an efficacious antidote to the goey, and the latter was having a dramatic effect on my imagination. That's right, the creeping tree-coppers had started to reappear, along with things of an airborne nature. Telecommunications were compromised, I believed. Certain voices were heard from time to time. Vic spotting the two actual rozzers outside my flat had reignited my whatever the fuck you call them. All right, let's not mince words: my
hallucinations
. I had caught a dose of the Big P, as we'd taken to calling it. But dig, my sceptical young ones, the things I saw were as real to me as anything was ever real – and to this day I'm not sure how much we were actually being staked out, and how much I was a watcher of imaginary watchers (Whoa, a little zen-type paradoxical carry-on for you seekers there).

So the Moratorium march had been a tough gig for me, oscillating between revolutionary elation and florid paranoia. Every time some longhaired peacenik or -nikette made eyeball contact, I jumped out of my skin. Stan had
to physically restrain me from throttling a gentle Quaker proffering a leaflet – I thought he was aiming a roscoe at me. Office workers leaning out of upstairs windows? CIA informants. Which is how we got to the unhappy state of affairs foreshadowed at the beginning of this chapter. Me pacing up and down, strung out, strung in, strung sideways and strung upside fucking down.

The girls came in from the other room – god knows what they'd been up to, but I could guess (easy there, my little perverts!), and we all had a hit of the Captain's smack. Then we settled down to watch the evening news on telly. Cocoa, anyone?

The Moratorium march was the big news. History in the making. Doc Jim. Linking of arms, singing of folk songs and such. Meanwhile in Canberra, Prime Minister Gorton smiled for the cameras. Premier Bolte thought they were just rabble and commos. Renarda. Then the story we were waiting for: the daring robbery of the ANZ Bank. Plenty of hard-earneds had been removed, the newsreader said. Shots had been fired. The heroic bank clerk who'd given chase had been shot for his pains. The injury was not that serious, apparently, and he was in stable condition (which was more than could be said for the gazabo who'd plugged him).

Across town, the newsreader said, there'd been a robbery at Sunshine Pipefitters Ltd: the payroll had been liberated by a band of heavily armed men. Serious dollars hoisted. Then the failed hold-up of Colonial Building Society. Two men arrested. Could they all be linked? Police had no comment.

Then the bomb blast on the King's Bridge. Cops were saying it was some kind of malfunction of unknown cause, possible a gas main. Which augured badly, because by now they
must
have known it was a set-up. Which meant Russell Street had an angle.

Jimmy stood up, glanced around the room. “I'll make the call now,” he said to no one in particular. The others
remained slumped around the room watching the television. I continued pacing up and down.

He came back ten minutes later, very serious. Stan looked at him. Jimmy gave a slow shake of the head.

Cathy, onto it. “What?”

“Craig wants two-thirds.”

“Of our rip?”

“Of
everything
. Our rip, Sunshine Pipefitters.”

“Fuck him.”

Stan turned to her and said, “It's not just him. It's the whole Armed Rob Squad.”

He stood up, got his pistol from his bag, put it on the table. Jimmy went to the bedroom, came out with three guns and put them on the table with Stan's. They set about carefully checking them.

“They're not coming
here
, are they?” I said.

“We meet Craig in an hour. To talk.” Stan didn't look up.

An hour later we're in a back street in Footscray. Yes,
we
. Meaning yours truly. Tooled up, dagger between my bared teeth, ready for rough stuff. Vic too, and a couple of his trusties. And two blokes from the payroll robbery. Our gang. Ready for some OK Corral–type action.

Why was I there? In truth, dear ones, I was making up the numbers. One more desperado with nothing to lose. Denise was back at the motel, minding the loot. Cathy was right there with us. And she was
heavy
.

Stan and Jimmy were up front, next to their car. Vic, me, Cathy, the other roughnecks, were scattered further down the street. Dig, the lads were expecting to meet Craig and another envoy from the Armed Robbery Squad. We were meant to be visible. The cops would see us, the reasoning went, and instantly be persuaded not to try anything flash. We'd negotiate a split, go our separate ways. Nothing unpleasant. Farewell, and give my regards to your mum.

It didn't go down that way. I told you I was – well, cards
on the table, I was in a fucking state. Couldn't tell my arse from my elbow. My vision had gone weirdly, radically double, like two entirely separate views had been superimposed in my brain. And everything was kind of shaking and crawling. I was hearing things too – muffled voices. I was, in a word, agitated.

We heard a car coming around the corner. Craig was at the wheel. He waved to Stan. We're all mates. Going to sort this out, no worries.

But I saw it differently. For the fifteen minutes we'd been waiting, some very weird shit had been going on in my head. Thoughts, feelings . . . fuck it, visions and epiphanies. Voices, murmurs. So I knew – I mean I really knew, no question, as much as I'd ever known anything, that this was a trap.

There was Craig, walking towards Stan and Jimmy. Smiling, saying something. And there was me, blazing away. Second airing of my .38 in one day. Craig went down. Stan and Jimmy were frozen, staring at me.

“It's a trap. Barry is here. We've got to split.”

Jimmy stared at me for a second longer, then nudged Stan. “Quick,” he said. Then shouting at the rest of us, “Out now!”

We ran to our cars. Right on cue, another two cars came screaming around the corner behind us. A yellow Charger and a light blue Holden. We were already in our cars, moving. And shooting. The drivers of the Charger and the Holden hit their brakes, unsure what was happening. We drove past the latecomers and down the street, jumping kerbs, shooting like crazy.

I looked back when we got to the end of the street. Craig was on the deck, not moving. Their cars were doing three-point turns, trying to get on our tails. A split-second pause. Psycho Barry behind the wheel of the Charger, looking me right in the eye.

BRINGING IN THE SHEAVES

Back at the motel an hour later. Vic and the Boy Wonder there now. Television on, radio in the other room. The violent gunfight in Footscray was all over the airwaves. The gang believed responsible for the Moratorium Day robberies had been cornered, had shot their way out, seriously injuring a detective sergeant from the Armed Robbery Squad.

I turned to Cathy. “I thought your mate Craig's brilliant plan involved running Barry out of town? I don't recall any talk of him joining up with Barry in order to fuck us.”

No answer.

Old police photos of Jimmy and Stan flashed on the screen, the announcer saying the robbers were considered extremely dangerous and should not be approached, but that members of the public were asked to look out for them.

“We've got to get out,” Jimmy said. He was throwing things in his bag while he spoke. “What we'll do,” he said to the room at large, “each crew will hold on to what they've got for now. The final whack-up will have to wait till we can all meet up.
Not
in Melbourne.”

He dug into his bag, counted out a big wad of money and handed it to Vic. “In the meantime, this is for your mob, on account.” Because Vic and co. hadn't actually robbed anyone, being involved as they were in creating explosive mayhem. So that little payment in advance was fully kosher.

Vic looked at him for a few seconds, then turned to me. “What'll you do?”

“Shoot through. With this lot.”

Vic said, “All right. How are you for goey?”

“Could use an ounce or two. Want some hammer?”

Bags of powder were duly swapped. Then everyone present had a hit. Most opted for a cocktail.

We got in our cars. Me in my old Holden with Cathy and Stan. Jimmy and Denise in a VW. There were two other
robbers' cars parked nearby. Not wise for us to be all together, but there you go.

Stan was herding everyone along. No more tactics or strategy, now it was simply, run.

So this was it. Leaving Melbourne. My flat full of stuff. Hammond organ, tape recorder, guitar, amp. Too bad. The rest I didn't care about – clothes, a few books, some records.

As we pulled out of the motel car park, the proprietor eyed us through the plastic curtain. Hello, I thought, he'll be on the blower before we've gone a hundred yards. But we got out of Melbourne without incident. Drove almost to Wadonga – the Dandenong hideout plan had been abandoned – and found a shack in the hills where Stan had spent time as a kid.

We broke the padlock on the door and settled in. Guns at the ready. Lit a fire on the wood stove and Stan cooked steak and eggs for all.

After we'd eaten and partaken of drugs, Jimmy leaned back and closed his eyes.

“So, Mel, how did you know it was a trap back there?”

“Fucked if I could tell you. Just did.”

Jimmy nodded. “I've seen that happen before. Lucky for us.” He smiled at me. “I
knew
you were worth having along. Any more thoughts like that, let us know, eh?”

Next morning I went into town to get supplies. In the newsagent, the
Sun
headline: HIPPIE GANG CRIME WAVE. A large grainy image of Cathy on the steps of the bank, holding her sawn-off in the air. Smaller inset pictures of Stan and Jimmy. Top of the next page a photo of Denise. Next to her, a smaller pic of Cathy, the one from last year outside the Esso service station. She was referred to as “a former striptease artist.” Bottom of the page, there's me, right there. Melvin John Parker, legendary Kerouacian hipster, recently known to have tickled the ivories with the pop group Oracle. Now a card-carrying member of the Hippie Gang.

The first three pages were given over entirely to the story. A publicity photo of Oracle. High school photos of Denise. More police photos of Stan and Jimmy. Also a piece by the Fop: “Inside the Hippie Gang.”

I paid for the paper and shuffled out of the newsagent. As I got in the car, I could see the shopkeeper peering out at me.

Back at the cabin, Stan had got the ancient television working. Snowy picture, but right there on the screen, shaky footage of people with their hands in the air. Fuck me if it wasn't the inside of a bank. There was a cut, then we were watching Cathy on the steps of the bank. Making revolutionary gestures. A couple of figures darting behind her – Stan and Jimmy. Then a shadowy blur appeared behind the glass. Then the glass explodes and the camera goes spazz.

Stan said to me. “Denise left a film canister in the motel room. The police found it.”

Denise said, “Sorry.”

I held up the newspaper.

Cathy grabbed it out of my hand, started reading avidly.

“‘Former stripper.' How do you like that? Of all the things they could have said.”

But I could see she was pleased as punch.

The others crowded around to read the stories. One would read aloud this or that bit, then someone else. Denise loved being referred to as ‘the heiress revolutionary.' Even Jimmy was tickled: “Jimmy ‘the Thug',” he read, “is a lifelong petty criminal who has recently turned to armed robbery. He is considered by police to be extremely dangerous.” Yuk, yuk, yuk.

Denise read a bit that said, “The gang are known to be drug users, addicted to cannabis and harder drugs. The gang members are also believers in ‘free love'.”

They were all in stitches.

Cathy seized on a paragraph on page three. “Melvin
Parker was described by a source in the entertainment industry,” she declaimed, “as ‘a half-baked beatnik and failed variety entertainer.' The source went on to say, ‘He's tried every gimmick possible. Singing cowboy, Hawaiian entertainer and trad jazzer. He's even posed as a rock musician!'”