Les Norton and Billy Dunne hadn’t been at work outside the Kelly Club for half an hour before Norton realised there was something else on his workmate’s mind than the weather. It was a very ordinary Saturday night in late March: cool, with drizzly rain and a light southerly wisping up Kelly Street. Not a night to get enthused over even for the end of another working week. But Les knew Billy Dunne almost inside out now and there was definitely something on the ex-boxer’s mind other than a shitty Saturday night in Sydney. They stepped back with a smile and a greeting to let a well-dressed party of four punters into the club, then Norton scuffed idly at something on the footpath with the toe of his R.M. Williams before speaking.
‘Are you okay, Billy?’ he asked.
Billy Dunne shrugged indifferently and appeared to look away. ‘Yeah,’ he nodded. ‘I’m all right.’
Norton smiled. ‘Yeah. But there’s something on your mind, isn’t there?’
Billy looked at Norton and sort of returned his smile; but Billy’s had a tinge of weariness about it. ‘Yeah, I s’pose you’re right, Les. It’s that bloody Johnny Rayburn again.’
‘Oh! Fuckin’ him,’ spat Norton.
Rayburn was a complete and utter no-good egg and a psychopath who’d been down from Brisbane a bit over six months. A brown-haired, good-looking sort of bloke, he was super-fit from doing three years in Boggo Road for armed assault and had got out with a mean streak in him wider than the Great Dividing Range. In the relatively short time since Rayburn had arrived in Sydney, he’d established quite a reputation for himself with a gun and a razor, his fists and boots. He was making most of his money standing over the hookers around the Cross and the Eastern Suburbs and different gamblers. He’d beaten a few of the girls up pretty badly and there’d been a couple of killings that were almost certainly down to him. But no one was prepared to give any evidence so the cops couldn’t get anything on him and no one was game to say too much to him at all because Rayburn was the type of dropkick that wouldn’t hesitate to put a bullet in you, kick you half to death or run a razor down the side of your face. Price put the word out for him not to come anywhere near the Kelly Club, to leave his punters alone, and told the boys to bar him. But he came up one night with some wombat he’d teamed up with for a bit of a show of strength out the front. Les and Billy had to cop a certain amount of shit from him and it was all Billy could do to stop Les from putting one on Rayburn’s Gilbeys there and then, tough and all as he was. Billy really had to put overtime on Norton, because even if Les had sorted Rayburn out, he would have just bided his time and shot Norton in the back of the head one night. Rayburn and his mate eventually drifted off, but it left a very crappy taste in both their mouths, especially Norton’s, and Billy hoped Les and Rayburn never crossed paths somewhere. Billy would have put his house on Les, but his workmate was too good a bloke to finish up with a bullet in the back from some creep who really wasn’t worth two bob.
‘So what’s the prick done now?’ said Norton tightly.
Billy sucked some air in through his teeth and looked uncomfortable.
‘He bashed up one of Lyndy’s girlfriends.’
‘Your missus?’
‘Yeah. You know Sharon Chesher?’ Les nodded. ‘He broke her jaw and knocked out three of her teeth. Gave her a kicking as well.’
‘Nice bloke.’
‘Okay, Sharon’s a working girl. But she’s an old friend of Lyndy’s and she’s not a smacky.’ Billy looked directly at Les. ‘Anyway, we ain’t actually pillars of society ourselves, are we?’
‘I never ever said we were.’
‘But there was no need to do that to her.’ Billy made a kind of futile gesture with his hands. ‘So Lyndy’s asked me if there was something we could do.’
Norton thought for a moment as another two punters stepped into the club. ‘Why don’t we have a word with Price after work? He always knows the best way to sort these things out.’
‘Yeah,’ nodded Billy. ‘I think you’re right.’ He sighed and shook his head. ‘Christ! It’s a cunt of a spot to be in.’
Norton gave his workmate a wink. ‘Leave it till after we knock off.’
Apart from the lousy weather the night went over fairly smoothly. The only bit of bother was a big, drunken Tongan who wanted to get in. As he swaggered up to the door, Norton sank a left rip into his solar plexus that just about crushed his sternum, a short right that broke his jaw and another left that spread his lips all over his face like minced steak. As he hit the deck, Billy kicked him in the forehead for good luck. Then they dragged him to the lane just up from the club and left him there with a metal garbage bin jammed over his head and shoulders. He was still snoring and bleeding there peacefully when they checked on him around three after they got the last punter out and closed the place up for an after-work drink in Price’s office.
The boys had picked up their wages and Les was on his third bottle of Eumundi Lager, Billy was into another bourbon, Price and George Brennan were drinking Dimple Haigh and Eddie, in his customary black leather jacket, black Reeboks and black jeans, was seated in the corner sipping a Crown Lager when Billy told Price what was on his mind. The silvery-haired casino owner picked absently at the cuffs of his light-blue suit while he and the others listened intently. When Billy had finished, Price looked thoughtful for a moment, then a kind of smile formed on his face.
‘You know, it’s funny you should bring this up, Billy,’ he said. ‘But me and Eddie were just talking about him earlier.’
‘You were?’ Billy looked surprised.
‘Yeah.’ Price took a good sip of his Scotch. ‘I had a meeting with some of the other casino owners yesterday. Rayburn’s been drawing a lot of heat round the Cross lately, with his killings and bashings and whatever. Heat we can well do without. The papers are starting to run with it; which means the politicians and the wallopers’ll have to look like they’re doing something.’ Price took another sip of Scotch. ‘So we’re going to knock him. And I got elected to do the job.’
Immediately all eyes turned to Eddie Salita, quietly sipping his beer in the corner. He put his drink down, folded his arms and returned the stares.
‘Well, what are you all looking at me for?’ he demanded.
‘Ohh, what do you mean, what are we all looking at you for?’ guffawed Norton. ‘Why do you think we’re all looking at you?’
Eddie shook his head. ‘Jesus! You’re fuckin’ good.’
‘Yeah,’ grinned Norton. ‘And you’re not real bad yourself, either.’
Eddie rubbed his hands together and flashed his devilish white smile followed by a sinister little laugh that anybody familiar with him knew he let go when he had something up his sleeve. ‘Heh, heh, heh! To tell you the truth, I’m gonna do it tomorrow night.’
‘Jesus! So soon?’ said Billy Dunne.
‘The sooner we put this cheeseburger out of his misery,’ said George Brennan, ‘the better for all concerned.’
Price Galese nodded in agreement.
‘I was just going to make him disappear,’ said Eddie, ‘but we’ve decided to make a bit of an example of this rooster so if any other mugs come into town trying the same caper, they’ll know what to expect.’
‘Yeah?’ said Les. ‘What are you going to do, Eddie? Cut his head off and leave it on a sharpened pole in the middle of Martin Place?’
‘Actually,’ grinned Eddie, ‘that’s where you come in, big Les. I’m gonna need you for about an hour tomorrow night.’
‘Ohh Christ!’ groaned Norton, wishing he’d never opened his mouth. ‘Why?’
The grin never left Eddie Salita’s face. ‘Because you’re one of the nicest blokes going around, Les. That’s why.’
‘That’s right,’ agreed George Brennan. ‘Anyway, what are you doing tomorrow? It’s gonna be a cunt of a day.’
Norton got to his feet and lumbered to the fridge for another Eumundi. ‘Why fuckin’ me?’ he grumbled, shaking his big, red head. ‘And on me day off, too.’
‘Because, like Eddie said,’ smiled Price, ‘you’re one of the nicest blokes going around.’ He handed Les his empty glass. ‘I’ll have another Scotch and soda while you’re up, old mate.’
George Brennan wasn’t wrong in what he said about the weather. It was still cold and raining when Les surfaced around 11.30 the following morning. Warren was seated in the kitchen reading the Sunday papers, a plunger full of steaming hot coffee in front of him; he was in his shave coat and hadn’t been up much longer than Norton. Les said g’day, poured himself a coffee and sat down opposite his flatmate.
‘So,’ said Norton, reaching across for one of the papers, ‘how’s the wild, wonderful, wacky world of advertising going?’
‘Not bad,’ answered Warren, not bothering to look up from his paper. ‘How’s the big, bad, beautiful world of bouncing?’
‘Good,’ replied Les. ‘I meet new people every night and get to bash them up.’
‘Yes,’ nodded Warren. ‘One could say you and your friend Billy have done for the tourist industry around Kings Cross what Pol Pot did for inner city housing in Cambodia.’
‘Yes,’ agreed Norton, trying his best not to come in. ‘And one could also say that between you and that Singleton bloke, you’ve done for advertising what myxomatosis has done for rabbits.’
‘A fair comment,’ conceded Warren, still not bothering to look up from his paper. ‘And have you noticed something, Les?’
‘No. What’s that, Warren?’
‘There’s more rabbits round now than there ever was.’
Norton shook his head and opened the Sun-Herald. ‘There’s just no winning with you, is there, Woz?’
‘Not for a big, red-headed goose from Queensland, there’s not.’
Warren finally looked up from his paper and half-smiled. ‘Don’t be too long with the comics, will you?’
While Les and Warren were getting their Sunday morning banter and breakfast together, Eddie Salita was letting himself in the front door of the Tamarama Surf Club. He’d made a couple of phone calls to different people earlier; now there was someone he had to see who was a member of the small surf club perched on the rocks between Bondi and Bronte. It was still raining and miserable and the patrol had given up the ghost. What clubbies were around were huddled around a two-way radio in an alcove overlooking the beach, discussing whether to bring the late Sunday arvo drink forward to around 1.30. A couple of them looked up when Eddie seemed to appear out of nowhere and quietly tapped the oldest of them on the shoulder — a dark-haired bloke about the same build as Eddie, only an inch or two taller.
‘Eddie,’ he blinked, when he turned around, ‘how are you, mate?’
‘Good, Jimmy,’ replied Eddie, deciding to leave out any comments about the weather and get straight past the point. ‘Is that sweet what I rang you about earlier?’
‘Good as gold,’ replied the older clubbie. ‘No worries at all.’
Eddie had known Jimmy Gower for years. Jimmy drove a taxi part-time and sold shoes and shirts around the pubs and that from the back of a Holden station wagon. It had racks in the back for the shirts and maybe a jacket or two and a small compartment on roof racks on the top with a sliding door where he kept the shoes. Eddie told Jimmy his wife’s sister was starting up a dress shop and could he borrow the station wagon to move a few clothes and things that night. Jimmy, rather than take a punt on his old mate Eddie Salita blowing both his knees off, was only too willing to oblige.
‘I thought I may as well get the keys off you now,’ said Eddie, ‘because we mightn’t be moving the gear till later on tonight. And it’d save me disturbing you if you’re in bed or watching TV.’
‘Sweet as a nut,’ replied Jimmy Gower, handing Eddie the keys. ‘You know where I live?’
Eddie nodded in the direction of a block of home units halfway up Delview Street a little less than a kilometre from the surf club. ‘Just up the hill there.’
‘That’s right,’ nodded Jimmy.
Warren and Les had managed to get their breakfast and sarcasm together, plus scrambled eggs and more coffee, and were both reading the Sunday papers while they figured out who was going to get out of doing the washing-up when Eddie knocked on the front door around 1.15. He was still wearing more or less the same clothes as the night before and Les grimaced slightly as he peered out over him at the rain still tumbling down.
‘Jesus! It’s still a prick of a day, Ed.’
‘Hasn’t stopped all fuckin’ morning,’ replied the little hitman, brushing some water from the sleeves of his black leather jacket. He followed Les into the kitchen where Warren was still sipping a coffee while he read the paper.
‘Hello, Woz. How’s things?’
Warren looked up from what he was reading and smiled. ‘Hello, Eddie,’ he said, a little cautiously. ‘How are you?’
‘Good.’ Eddie nodded toward the plunger sitting on the kitchen table. ‘That coffee still hot?’
‘Sure is,’ replied Warren. ‘You want a cup?’
‘Reckon,’ said Eddie, moving toward the table. ‘It’s colder than a well-digger’s arse outside.’
Eddie poured himself a coffee and had a bit of a chitchat with Warren for a minute or two before finally catching Norton’s eye and nodding toward the loungeroom. Once out of earshot from Norton’s flatmate, Eddie got straight down to business.
‘Righto, Les. Here’s what I want you to do. You know Delview Street behind Tamarama Surf Club?’ Norton nodded as Eddie handed him a set of car keys. ‘I want you to pick up a white Holden station wagon there at 10.30 tonight. It belongs to Jimmy Gower, the cabbie.’ Norton nodded again as Eddie told him the address and the licence plate number. ‘Now, you know the Sandringham Hotel in King Street, Newtown?’
Norton had to think for a second. ‘Yeah. I’ve driven past it a few times.’
‘There’s a second-hand clothes shop opposite. Pull up there at eleven o’clock. You’ll see a sheila in a blue raincoat. Just stop about five metres in front of her with the engine still running and the lights off.’
‘Where will you be?’
‘Don’t worry about me. You won’t even see me.’ Eddie looked straight into Norton’s eyes. ‘All you’ll be doing is sort of running interference.’
‘Running interference.’ Les shrugged. ‘Okay, if you say so.’
‘Now,’ continued Eddie, still looking directly at Les, ‘you’ll see Rayburn come up and start talking to the sheila. When he falls over you just drive off.’
‘I drive off.’
‘That’s right. Not at a hundred miles an hour. Just cruise up to the next set of lights. Turn left and head back to Bondi.’
Eddie took a sip of coffee. ‘And when you’ve gone about five clicks, wind the passenger-side window down.’
‘Yeah. Then what?’
‘That’s it,’ smiled Eddie. ‘Drive back to Bondi slowly and sedately. Just like Grandma Duck.’
‘And where will you be all the time?’
‘Don’t worry about me,’ repeated Eddie. ‘Like I said, you won’t even see me.’ Eddie looked at his watch and finished his coffee. ‘Well, I’d better get going. Now you know exactly what to do, Les?’
‘Yeah,’ nodded Norton. ‘Come on, I’ll see you to the door.’
Les opened the front door and let Eddie out. As he did he grimaced at the chill in the air and the rain now coming down harder than ever.
‘Christ! Look at that.’
Eddie zipped up his leather jacket, looked at Norton, smiled and rubbed his hands together. ‘Heh, heh, heh! Good night for a murder, ain’t it.’ Then he was gone.
Knowing they’d both be sitting there all day if they waited for the other to do it, Les and Warren finally did the washing-up together, then spent the rest of the afternoon watching TV and roaming round the house trying not to get in each other’s way. Around six, Warren got stuck into a hash-joint and a bottle of Jack Daniel’s and was starting to roar when the movie came on at 8.30. Despite Warren’s urgings, Norton declined to have a drink. As the hours ticked by and the rain continued to beat down, he could still see the look on Eddie’s face and hear his voice saying, ‘Good night for a murder.’
The old Clint Eastwood movie wasn’t too bad and Les would have liked to have seen the end of it. But a little after ten, just as Clint stopped to reload his .457 Magnum after blasting another half-dozen villains all over San Francisco, he went into his bedroom and got changed into a pair of jeans, gym boots and a dark blue windcheater.
‘I’m going down the road to get a pizza, Woz,’ he said, standing in the loungeroom. Warren looked at Les through a drunken haze and cocked an ear to the roof. ‘On a night like this? You’re kidding.’
‘I know. But I didn’t feel like eating earlier. And now I’m starving.’
Warren turned back to the TV and shuddered.
‘You’re off your head.’
Norton shrugged a reply. ‘Probably. But I’m that hungry I’d eat the crutch out of a rag doll. And there’s fuck-all in the fridge.’
Warren was about to say something when Les cut him off. ‘You want anything while I’m out?’
‘Yeah,’ hiccupped Warren. ‘Get us another large bottle of Coke.’
‘I shouldn’t be too long.’ Norton jiggled his car keys and headed for the front door.
He had no trouble find Jimmy’s car; in the glow of the nearest streetlight the white station wagon seemed to take on a yellowish tinge as the rain spattered across the roof and the small shoe compartment bolted to it. A low rumble filled the air and hung over the buildings and rooftops as if the echoes were reluctant to fade away into the darkness. Jesus! what a prick of a night, Norton cursed to himself as he clambered in behind the wheel and started the motor. He gave the engine a couple of gentle revs, checked his watch and peered out through the click-clack of the windscreen wipers. If I take my time, I should be at that shop right on eleven, he thought.
He slipped the car into drive and eased off into one of the worst Sunday nights he could remember since he moved to Sydney.
There was hardly any traffic; anybody with half a brain was either inside watching TV or in bed doing what nights like this were made for. Norton shook his head as he drove past Bondi Junction and thought about the barmaid from Rose Bay who had rung him earlier wanting to know what he was doing that evening. By now his adrenalin was beginning to pump and, despite himself, Les could feel the tension rising inside him. The music coming from the car radio wasn’t doing much for him either; it was as if all the disc jockeys’ moods that night seemed to match the miserable weather and every time a flash of lightning would stitch across the skyline, the accompanying static would grate on his already-twitchy nerves. There was a cassette half poking out of the car-stereo in the dash. Les pulled it out and held it up to what little light there was in the car.
‘Hello,’ he smiled to himself. ‘LA Woman. I didn’t know Jimmy Gower was an old Doors fan.’ He pushed it in and continued into the night.
Most of one side had finished and the cool xylophone and ironic sound effects of ‘Riders on the Storm’ had cut in when Les turned off Cleveland Street into City Road and past the university. Somehow the music seemed to blend in with the night and Les could feel some of the tension leaving him until he started crooning along with the lyrics. They didn’t help to ease the situation.
‘Shit,’ Les said out loud. More lightning flashed and another chill ran up his spine; and it positively wasn’t the weather.
The Sandringham Hotel loomed up in the gloom sooner than Les expected. He saw the shop opposite and slowed down, while Jim Morrison kept singing.
Yeah, that’s me all right, thought Les. An actor out alone and no bone. He stopped the car and turned off the lights. Now where’s this sheila?
With the ticking of the engine almost smothered by the rain, Les sat peering through the windscreen into the night. Although he’d also switched the wipers off he could still make out the second-hand clothes shop from the glow of a streetlight a little further down. Suddenly the girl in the blue raincoat seemed to materialise out of the shop doorway and Norton felt the hairs on his neck bristle. She moved to the middle of the footpath and stood there almost as if she was trying to make herself conspicuous. Then she took out a cigarette, lit it, drew back her head and the hand holding the cigarette and blew a cloud of smoke up into the air that soon disappeared into the inky mist. Ohh, what the fuck is this, thought Les. An old Marlene Dietrich movie? What happens next? Erich Von Stroheim walks up in a Nazi uniform? Piss off, Eddie. What is this shit? Despite the tension and possible danger, Les couldn’t help but somehow feel a sense of absurdity.
Just as mysteriously as the girl came into view, so did another figure; stockier, taller, shorter hair with a determined swagger and dressed not unlike Les. Norton immediately recognised Johnny Rayburn and his lip curled.
The girl appeared a little startled as Rayburn walked up and began talking to her. The brief conversation swiftly turned into a heated argument. Norton jolted forward as Rayburn gave the girl a vicious backhander that sent her spinning against the shop window and the cigarette off into the night in a shower of sparks. This was followed by a clout round the ears and Norton heard the girl scream as Rayburn grabbed her by the hair, twisted her head almost off her shoulders and spat in her face. He then speared her against the shop window, stepped back and reached into the back pocket of his jeans. Even in the rain-soaked blackness of the night, there was no mistaking the razor in Rayburn’s hand.
Norton’s blood boiled. Ohh, no way, he fumed to himself. No fuckin’ way. Despite what Eddie had told him, Les made a grab for the door as Rayburn stopped and turned in the direction of the station wagon. Then a tiny red dot, not much bigger than a sequin but quite distinct, appeared on the bridge of his nose. Rayburn continued to stare in the direction of the car for a moment and the next thing his head disappeared. Norton blinked as if he couldn’t believe his eyes. One minute Rayburn was standing there with a head; a split second later he wasn’t. There was no explosion, no scream, no sound at all. It just vanished in a huge spray of blood, hair, powdered bone and brain matter that was immediately absorbed into the mist wisping up and down King Street. The headless corpse seemed to stand there for a second like some ghastly apparition frozen in time, then it collapsed — knees first — in the direction it had been looking. The arms splayed out in front, the razor clattered across the footpath, and from the jagged stump where the head had been, purple-black blood gushed over the footpath into the gutter to be quickly washed away in the swiftly flowing stormwater. Norton still couldn’t believe his eyes.
The girl could, and she didn’t need to be told twice. She made an amazing recovery and immediately legged it past the station wagon without so much as a glance at the decapitated remains of Johnny Rayburn oozing what was left of his life onto the rain-soaked Newtown street. Norton remembered what Eddie had told him and decided this was as good a time as any to hit the toe himself.
Despite the jangling of his nerves and the urge in his stomach, he got the car into drive and cruised up to the next set of lights as Eddie had instructed him. It was only when he reached them that he realised he’d forgotten to turn the headlights on. The lights had barely turned green when Norton switched his lights on and took the corner like Burt Reynolds in Smokey and the Bandit.
The station wagon fishtailed round the corner in the wet and Les was five kilometres in the direction of Bondi before he knew where he was. Then he remembered what else Eddie had told him and with his heart still pounding he slowed down just past the Bat and Ball Hotel and wound the passenger side down. The window hadn’t been down ten seconds when a blue overnight bag landed on the seat next to Les. A few seconds later a pair of wiry hands appeared in the window followed by the arms, torso and legs of Eddie Salita which seemed to wiggle and slither and turn around before sitting up on the front seat alongside Les.
‘Jesus fuckin’ Christ!’ said Eddie, winding the window back up. ‘You couldn’t drive any faster, could you, you fuckin’ big wombat?’
Norton’s heart was still racing and his eyes looked like the giant squid in 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea. ‘Where the fuck did you come from?’ he said.
Eddie jabbed an index finger toward the roof. ‘Up there in the David Jones shoe department. It’s been lovely, I can tell you. Sliding around in amongst 10,000 pairs of cheap Korean running shoes. While you’re driving like a maniac!’
Norton looked at the little hitman casually wiping rainwater from his face and blinked. The shoe compartment. That was the last thing he expected. But then a wiry little guy like Eddie would fit in there without too much trouble. However, it did nothing for Norton’s nerves. In fact, if anything the sudden appearance of Eddie from out of nowhere made them worse.
‘Jesus Christ, Eddie!’ Les said accusingly. ‘What happened back there?’
‘What do you mean?’ answered Eddie, almost indifferently.
‘Just what I said. Jesus! I’ve never seen nothing like that in my life. Where’s Rayburn’s fuckin’ head?’
Eddie gave a sinister little chuckle. ‘Buggered if I know,’ he shrugged. ‘But I bet it ain’t sitting in Martin Place on the end of a pole.’
Norton shook his head in horror as the outskirts of Centennial Park loomed in the darkness on his right. ‘What did you bloody use on him? The Hyde Park cannon?’
‘No. This.’
Eddie unzipped the overnight bag and took out what looked the biggest hand gun Les had ever seen. It resembled a US Army 45, only it was stainless steel with a black handle. There was a silencer screwed to the end of the barrel and above the rear sighting area was a black, metal cylinder attached to the left-hand side of the gun.
‘What’s bloody that?’ asked Les.
‘That,’ answered Eddie, cradling the weapon and trying not to show his contempt for Norton’s ignorance of modern-day weapons technology, ‘is a Sig Sauer P-220 .45. With an attached suppressor.’
‘And what’s that thing on top?’
‘The thing on top is a Diode FA-4 Laser Sighting System.’
Norton remembered seeing something like it on TV once. He shuddered slightly as he also remembered the tiny red dot appearing on Rayburn’s nose, before his head was sprayed all over King Street.
‘I got it about a month ago. I’ve been sighting it in on those rats under Bronte Cemetery. I’ve been breaking my neck to see how it works properly. And Rayburn came along just at the right time.’
Eddie thumbed a catch and removed a magazine of bullets from the handle. ‘Of course, I bodgied things up a bit,’ he said, holding one of the bullets up to Les. ‘The old exploding round trick, Ninety-nine. Drill a hole in the top, add a few drops of mercury, bit of ground-up glass. Seal it with candle wax —’ Eddie pointed a finger at Les, then made like he was squeezing a trigger, ‘— and pow! Bob’s your uncle.’
Norton couldn’t help but give Eddie a look of distaste. ‘You’re off your fuckin’ head.’
Eddie returned Norton’s look with a sinister chuckle. ‘I don’t know that I’m off my head. But I know one bloke that’s definitely off his.’
Somehow Les failed to see the humour in Eddie’s joke. ‘Anyway, you lied to me, Eddie. You pissed right in my pocket and fed me a whole lot of shit.’
‘No, I didn’t. All I said was, don’t worry about me. You won’t even see me. And you didn’t — right?’
Norton heaved a sigh of exasperation. ‘Anyway, that’s it for me. No more. Ever. Find yourself another fuckin’ stooge.’
‘Okay,’ shrugged Eddie. ‘If that’s the way you feel. But I got something for you.’ He put the gun back in the bag, then pulled out a bulky manila envelope and handed it to Les.
‘What’s that?’
‘That’s the five grand that sheila was supposed to give Rayburn. It’s yours.’
Norton looked at the envelope like it was poison. ‘No, stick it in your arse. I don’t want it.’
‘Okay. Please yourself.’ Eddie left the money sitting on top of the overnight bag. He unzipped his leather jacket slightly, then leaned back against the upholstery and smiled over at Norton.
‘It’s a pity you’ve lost your bottle, Les. I might have had something else for you. I know where there’s three million dollars worth of gold Krugerrands sitting near a river in Laos about ten clicks in from the Vietnam border. The CIA left it behind during the war and I’m the only bloke who knows where it is.’ Eddie continued to smile at Les. ‘I’m going to get it back one day. All I need is one good bloke. A third of that would have been yours.’
‘I don’t give a fuck if there’s 50 million dollars sitting there. I’m not in the slightest bit interested.’
‘Fair enough.’
Apart from the click-clack of the windscreen-wipers and the incessant drumming of the rain on the roof, they drove through Bondi Junction in silence. This left Norton to ponder on the night’s events. It couldn’t have gone over much easier. But it was still a horror show and something Les would see in his mind’s eye for the rest of his days. And there would be more to come yet. The killing wouldn’t make the morning papers, but it would sure as hell make the afternoon editions and be on TV. There was very little chance of the police proving anything; even if they were all that interested. Rayburn had made plenty of enemies and he was much better out of the way for all concerned. And Eddie had certainly made an example of him like he said, for any other mugs that might have come along trying to pull the same caper. But he couldn’t have done it without Les. The Queenslander had earned his keep. His eyes kept flicking back to the five grand still sitting on top of the overnight bag. In the end it was much too good to resist.
‘Fuck you,’ he said to Eddie. ‘I’m taking that five grand. I earned it.’ Les picked up the envelope and stuffed it in the inside of his jacket.
‘That’s better,’ chuckled Eddie, and gave Les a friendly punch on the shoulder.
They went a little further, then pulled up for a set of lights at the top of Bondi Road. While they waited for the lights to change, Norton stroked his chin thoughtfully as he stared out of the windscreen. He turned to Eddie Salita.
‘How far in from the Vietnam border did you say that box of gold was?’
Eddie rubbed his hands together and grinned at Norton. ‘Heh, heh, heh!’ It was that sinister little laugh that anybody familiar with him knew he let go when he had something up his sleeve.