Gotta make a living, right – one that doesn’t involve jumping counters.
So, having weighed up the lessons learned in prison and what abilities I have, I become a debt collector.
Now I’m working with people who the community might see as not quite so decent: the way this gig operates is that Person A owes a stack to Person B but Person B isn’t really in a position to do what has to be done to collect, so they sell that debt at a markdown to Person C who then hires Person D, being me, to collect as close to the full amount as possible, thereby delivering a payday to Persons C and D.
It’s not what you’d send your kids to university for, but then again I wouldn’t be surprised if the whiz-kids at the banks operate their own version of this.
With a child on the way and all, I’m serious about making a good fist of entrepreneurialism and I print a run of business cards.
My trading name is MAYHEM INCORPORATED, with the company motto: ‘Let’s Get Hectic’. Cheeky, no doubt, but true to my can-do spirit.
Yet someone’s going to be calling in the collectors on me if I keep hitting the drugs this hard. It’s not just pot and some eggies, either. I’m pressing the pedal to the metal with the cocaine. It plugs straight into where I’m at: when I shake my jowls after a good snort it’s like I’m shaking off all the shit pulling at me, all the black shadows coming in, all the pressure, all that fucking need to sort shit out in the most direct way possible. It calms me up to absurd heights, if that makes any sense.
*
You should see my dog, Runty. He’s the fucking best. I tell all the women in my life that.
*
And man do I need a line when a debt recovery comes up that requires dropping in on a bloke who is not the type to get pushed around: Amad ‘Jay’ Malkoun.
Malkoun spends a fair amount of his time at the Spearmint Rhino strip club on King Street in Melbourne; it’s his lair. Sometimes it pays to have the element of surprise and other times it’s best if everybody knows what’s happening in advance. For this mission, it’s best there are no surprises.
Call me old-fashioned but I like chasing that white streak down a mirror. Either that or off a ticklish sheila’s backside.
Duly fired up again, I call the Rhino and spell out to some clown how it’s going to work.
I tool up with my trusty .32, fire up again for the road, fire up a bit more, and fucking hit the club.
It doesn’t go well. No one knows what I’m talking about or will tell me where Jay is, and the fucking massive dumb prick of a bouncer tries to get hostile, tries to engage, so I produce the weapon and point it at both of ’em. ‘Wanna die, cunt?’ I ask the bouncer. ‘Wanna fucking die? I’ll fucking shoot ya.’ The receptionist is practically peeing her panties, and still no one has a fucking clue. ‘Which fuckhead here was I talking to before, hey? What the fuck! Where’s Jay?’ Placing a bullet on the counter, I say this is for Jay and storm out. Only to fucking realise that in no way did I hide my identity and it’s probably all been videoed so I go back in and fucking play it again, Sam, with the poor bastards. Once again I tell the petrified sheila behind the counter that one word to the fucking coppers and I’ll find her – I’ll fucking find her. I’ll shoot her.
Now I’m storming out again. Jesus, what a debacle; what a fucking putrid grub I am. And I’m going to be a father. What the fuck, you know.
What were those fucking songs we used to drive Chopper Read up the wall with a lifetime ago in the yard at Pentridge? Seal’s ‘Crazy’ and Bon Jovi’s ‘Wanted Dead or Alive’.
Well I’m both, yet again. Triple-A fucking dickhead. Snorting fucking blind rhino I am. De-fuckin’-ranged.
Warrants are soon out for my arrest. I’m indeed hot again.
*
‘Hey, Runty,’ I’m saying as I ruffle the fur of my beautiful dog, my Argentine Dogo pup. He’s riding shotgun as we cross the city.
Such a good dog. I love my little furry solja.
Fuck we’re cut off. Here we fucking go. Fucking SOG.