THE murder of Melbourne underworld identity Alphonse Gangitano in the laundry of his home in Templestowe on 16 January, 1998, prompted me to write this. However, I stress that this is a yarn.
Mick and Al were big men – six foot and built like heavyweight boxers. Mick had once been a Victorian champion, but on his way to the Australian title realised that a heavy right cross couldn’t overcome a glass jaw, so he gave the game away gracefully. However, he maintained his easy-going, gentle-natured, kindly manner, unlike his best friend Al, who had the attitude of a junkyard dog who’d been sniffing petrol.
The two shared a single dream – to pull the Italian crime families of Melbourne together and create what they both saw on American movies and television as ‘the Mafia’. Yes, the Mafia in Australia. The fact that there was already a Mafia in Melbourne, a true Sicilian Mafia, didn’t seem to enter the heads of these two Calabrian tough guys. Such are the childish dreams of young men – dreams of criminal glory, power and wealth. Such dreams are the product of pure fantasy. But men who are strong and determined enough can sometimes turn fantasy into reality.
Mick Conforte and Big Al Cologne were two such men. Like Walt Disney, they turned their dreams into reality and it made them both rich at the turnstile. Crime is no different than anything else. A man has a dream and will either achieve it or fail. The difference being that, with crime, to fail usually means to die trying. There are no golden parachutes, superannuation schemes or preferential share options for gunmen.
‘Such is life,’ as old Ned said.
*
If you put all the magistrates and judges in this country nose to bum in one long line, I wonder if they would get a clearer view of their responsibilities? – Ronnie Barker
THE time is early 1974. The place is Johnny’s Green Room in the inner Melbourne suburb of Carlton. Johnny’s is a gathering place for old-time Aussie crooks, knockabouts, street fighters, gunmen, prostitutes, molls, madmen and up-and-coming, would-be Mafia dreamboat kids who think they can live out their own Godfather movie in Melbourne, Australia.
Outwardly it is a coffee bar and pool hall, but after dark it is a gathering point for the gutter trash and heavy cash trash of Melbourne’s supper club criminal world. It was also the first time a 16-year-old schoolboy named Al Cologne, a posh dago from a well-to-do family who’d attended De La Salle, Marcellin and Taylors College, came into contact with a 19-year-old hood from the wrong side of town. Hacker Harris was the classic psychopath – happy, smiling, a natural comic and joke teller, yarn spinner and liar with family connections and friendships from Thomastown to Collingwood.
Harris was strong as a bull, but was considered a dumb ox of a kid … a loud mouth lair whose wild comic yarns ran between fact and fiction until the listener could no longer tell the difference. There was only one point on which Harris never told a lie. That was his almost magical ability to make firearms appear out of nowhere with a wave of his drinking hand. In 1974, the young 16-year-old Alfonse Cologne had never seen a real handgun. He was about to try to sell a replica .45 calibre to a madman who was carrying a sawn-off shotgun.
The whole thing was so childish and the brawl that followed so predictable. The only sad thing in the whole affair was that Al Cologne had paid $300 for the .45-calibre replica, on the firm understanding that it was real. He tried to sell it on to Harris, still thinking it was real.
What followed the wild brawl that erupted was even stranger than Cologne’s stupidity: Harris accepted Cologne’s story of being conned and then gave Cologne his first true-blue firearm free of charge. It was a double barrel sawn-off hammer action 1938 shotgun. A classic cut-down masterpiece with a pistol grip and a box of solid load shells. In one fell swoop young Al Cologne was no longer just a kid with a dream, but an armed kid with a dream. So the story begins …
*
H DIVISION of Pentridge Prison was then the toughest, bloodiest, hardiest division in the most blood-soaked prison in Australia.
Hacker Harris, Jimmy Lochrie, Danny Johnson and a handful of hand-picked psychopaths were in the middle of a prison gang war that began in 1975. Harris headed up a prison gang nicknamed ‘The Raincoat Men’ because when it rained they never got wet due to the fact that Harris had secured the backing of the Governor of Security.
The H Division screws had to be seen to be believed. They were mindless, violent thugs who relished blood, a far cry from screws of the modern era. The modern-day lot would not be physically tough enough to pour a cup of tea for the jaw breakers that worked in H Division Pentridge during the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s.
Jimmy Lochrie asked Hacker a question. ‘Have you ever looked into a mirror and seen your clear reflection, then reached out to touch it only to realise that there was no mirror there at all?’
Hacker Harris stared at his friend and thought for a moment, before answering. ‘No Jim, I haven’t.’
‘Well, I have,’ replied Jim.
Jimmy Lochrie was quite insane and a conversation with him often fluttered off into the shadow of the valley of rubber-room magic.
Hacker looked at Jim and said, ‘I’ve been thinking of cutting my left hand off, mate, and getting one of them stainless steel pirate’s hooks, like the old Captain Hook.’
Jim nodded, as if it was the most sensible thing he’d heard all day. Maybe it was. Then he topped Hacker’s little brainwave with one of his own. ‘Vincent Van Gogh had the right idea,’ he said slowly. ‘He couldn’t paint for shit, but because he cut his ear off he wrote himself into the pages of history.’
Hacker nodded. ‘Yeah, you’re right there, mate,’ he said. ‘The world is full of one-handed men, but there ain’t no buggers I ever heard of in the Melbourne criminal world with no ears.’
‘Yeah’, said Jim, ‘food for thought. Food for thought.’
‘Anyway,’ replied Hacker, ‘enough of this shit … who’s got the tomahawk?’
‘I have,’ said Danny.
‘Well, give it here. We’ll give it a mocka in the shower yard after lunch’.
Jimmy smiled.
Danny looked worried.
Hacker Harris just looked blank. For him, the Raincoat War was a war he started, backed by a gang he’d created, against enemies he hand-picked. It was a war he knew he couldn’t lose.
Harris was a young man with a dream, too. An insane dream – to not only become the most feared criminal in Melbourne, but the most hated – and nothing or no-one would prevent Hacker Harris from reaching out and touching this dream.
The old saying, ‘Beware of what you wish for because it might come true’, had not yet filtered through to the mind of the young psychopath. So, too, does another story begin.
*
MICKY D’Andrea, Joe Gatto, Bobby MacNamara and Johnny Moore sat in silence as D’Andrea’s wife took the phone call from Geoff ‘Mumbles’ Kindergarten. Micky D’Andrea never spoke on telephones and, as a result, his wife Vicki spent a lot of her time taking phone messages …
‘Bowling ball?’, said Vicki, ‘I don’t understand.’ Then she went silent and began to cry.
‘Dead?’ she whimpered. ‘How? What? But who’d do that? And why?’
‘What’s going on? asked Micky.
‘It’s Alfonse,’ cried Vicki. ‘The cocksuckers killed him.’
Micky hung his head like a man who had received sad news.
He had already heard the news before, but didn’t say anything. Joe Gatto did the same. Johnny Moore and Bobby MacNamara, however, screamed in anger, outrage and shock. They couldn’t believe it. At once Moore rang the silent home phone number of his friend and hero, Alfonse Cologne. A policeman answered and explained that Mrs Cologne had been given medication by the family doctor and couldn’t come to the phone.
‘By the way, Johnny’ said the cop, ‘We want to talk to you.’
Johnny Moore hung up. The unbelievable had happened. The death of a legend is always more unbelievable than it is sad. The whole thing was totally mind-numbing. Someone must have switched off the security system. It had to be a friend who was the last to see him alive.
‘God,’ said Johnny, ‘if Al’s gone we’re all fucked.’
Joe Gatto looked into the eyes of Micky D’Andrea and spoke softly in Italian. D’Andrea nodded.
‘What’s going on?’ yelled Moore.
D’Andrea looked at Moore and replied, ‘Some of us are fucked Johnny, some of us aren’t. Let’s just wait and see.’
‘Wait and see be fucked!’ yelled Moore, ‘we gotta hit back!’
‘Hit who?’ asked Gatto softly. ‘Hit the wind, hit the rain? We can only hit an enemy we can see. Come on.’
‘So who do we hit?’ Moore continued, frustrated and frightened. He began to cry.
‘Hacker Harris – we’ll kill him.’
‘But he’s in jail,’ said Gatto patiently, as if he was talking to a retarded child.
Young Johnny Moore had once bashed the wife of ‘Mumbles’’ best mate, Brian Carl Hanlon, and Alfonse had protected Moore from Hanlon’s revenge. Suddenly, a wave of past sins and old scores were flooding into the paranoid, speed-ravaged mind of young Johnny Moore.
Workman, what about his crew? And Harris, that old no-eared mental case. The Albanians … shit, the whole world was caving in on Young Johnny. He went to the bathroom and rolled up his shirtsleeves. A good blast of speed would clear his head. That’s what he needed.
‘Why? Why?’ he muttered as he slid the needle into his arm and pushed the plunger.
Who? Why? None of it made any sense. Suddenly, Johnny felt very frightened and paranoid.
‘Alphonso,’ he cried as he looked into the bathroom mirror, tears in his eyes. ‘I love you mate – goodbye.’
*
A NEWSPAPER reporter named Ray Jackson was visiting Hacker Harris in prison. Old Hacker was due for release on 12 February, 1998, and Ray thought he could get a scoop.
Hacker had become a legend simply by living up to his motto ‘the man who wins the game is the man who lives the longest’. Having survived 23 years in various prisons in two different states and several gang wars, both in and out of prison, Hacker had achieved his boyhood dream. He had become the most feared and by far the most hated man in the Melbourne criminal world.
Hacker had never lost his scallywag sense of comic fun and still spun wild yarns that ran from fact to fiction. As he had always said: ‘Bullshit baffles brains. Tell a thousand men a different story each and no one will ever know what you’re really up to.’
Ray had also done some stories on another Melbourne underworld criminal legend, Alfonse Cologne, and thought it would be good to get the two enemies of more than 20 years together for a photo session and television interview. When this was put to him, the old no-eared madman just smiled and replied, ‘Al will not live that long. Now remember this, because when it happens, and it will happen, I want you to remember that I told you first: Alphonso will be dead before I get out of jail. Believe me. I will live longer than him. The grave that dago suck is going into has already been dug.’
Ray Jackson could not believe this. After all, Hacker was a famous leg puller, joke teller and yarn spinner. Then again, old Hacker had two natural gifts: getting hold of guns and predicting the death of others.
Ray Jackson left wondering if he had just been handed the criminal inside tip of the year or whether he was the victim of the psychopath’s black sense of humour. With Hacker, one could never be quite sure, as many a true word was said in jest and Harris was a great player of psychological mind games. The two men parted company with one man smiling at a ‘joke’ he knew would come true and the other deeply puzzled.
*
ALFONSE Cologne was standing in the laundry of his $500,000 fortress of a home in Templestowe. Geoff ‘Mumbles’ Kindergarten had just left – he said he had to pop out for a packet of smokes.
‘Back in ten minutes,’ said Geoff. But ten minutes turned into something approaching 40 or 45 minutes. For some reason the security alarm system had been turned off.
Three men walked into the back of the house. Big Al looked up to see his old friend and partner, Big Mick Conforte, with another long-time friend, Mad Charlie Hajalic, in the company of a third man, a short thickset man he had known for years. But a man he didn’t want in his home for all that.
Alfonse was not yet in fear – he was just surprised at this unexpected and uninvited visit. ‘Hey,’ he said, frowning.
The short, thickset man replied, ‘Jesus wants ya for a sunbeam, pretty boy,’ and with that pulled out his snub nose .38 and sent a volley of shots into the big man’s body.
Alfonse staggered and fell with a look of surprise. Just then a fourth man entered the laundry yelling ‘Fuck it all – not the bloody body, the fucking head!’
‘Jesus Christ,’ said the newcomer, a blue-eyed man, ‘If you want a job done, do it yourself,’ and grabbed the gun from the short, thick-set Albanian. He pumped three shots into Big Al’s head. The four men then turned and ran. They jumped into a 1987 Ford LTD driven by a fifth man.
‘Hey, let me out round the corner,’ yelled Conforte. ‘No one said anything about killing anyone. We was supposed to talk. All we was supposed to do was talk.’
Charlie turned to Conforte. ‘Shut up, ya weak prick. You knew what the go was. It’s too late to start crying now.’
*
THE LTD pulled up and Conforte clambered out and disappeared. ‘Let me off further up the road,’ said Charlie. ‘Big Mick is waiting for me.’
‘Which Mick?’ asked Rod Attard, the driver of the LTD. ‘Not the brain-dead body builder. Jesus, don’t tell him nothing.’
‘Nah,’ said Charlie. ‘It will all fall back on ‘Mumbles’. I can’t believe he went for all this. The old apple cucumber. Fuck, when will they learn?’
As Charlie left the car, the Albanian spoke to him in Yugoslav. ‘If you love your mother, you’ll take this secret to your grave.’
Charlie nodded. He didn’t need to be told twice.
‘Well,’ said Rod, ‘we have just killed a hundred birds with a single stone. We evened up a hundred scores and a nice getting out of jail pressie for Hacker.’
‘Poppa Dardo’s dying wish granted,’ he continued, ‘… and Charlie and Conforte left to mop up the gravy. The Black Diamond and Gilbert Bazooka get their revenue and half the drug informers in Melbourne lose their biggest protector. The rest of the boys can pull it all back together.’
The blue-eyed man said nothing in reply. He had only one reason and this had nothing to do with power struggles, money, crime or blood feuds. He was just doing an old friend a favour. The blue-eyed man smiled. The Apple Cucumber, a psychological tactic the Texan invented and Hacker Harris perfected. It was to use a friend of the target to get close enough to kill.
Poor Kindergarten. Oh well, ya can’t bury an Italian omelette without shooting and stooging a few eggs. Ha ha.
*
HACKER Harris was out of Pentridge and going for a birthday drink at the Dover Hotel just a stone’s throw from the Russell Street police station. He entered the hotel with two lifelong friends, a Jew named Benny David, and an Italian from Mallazzo, Sicily, named Sammy Stromboli. Little Sammy was carrying a large bag containing an original World War II British-made 9mm Sten machine gun, a carbine Mark 1. A classic and most rare model. He planned to sell the weapon to Alfonse Cologne for $1000. Hacker Harris didn’t want it as he already had a dozen 9mm M44 sub-machine guns, all fitted with 36-round box magazines. He even had 71 round drum magazines.
Hacker Harris boasted the largest collection of arms and ammo in Melbourne. He wouldn’t pay $1000 for a worn-out Sten gun, famous for jamming after the third shot and therefore not safe in the hands of the untrained. There was a slight trick to using the Sten, namely that it was damn near impossible to get ammo for it in 1977. Hacker knew that the 50 rounds the Sten came with were all there ever would be. This being a secret he didn’t share with his friend Stromboli or Alfonse Cologne, the mug about to pay a grand for it.
The three men walked up the stairs to the lounge dance area of the pub and greeted Big Al Cologne, Tony Mavric, Big Mick Conforte and Ronnie Burgess with smiles and handshakes. Al Cologne and Harris pretended friendship, but secretly distrusted each other. When Cologne and Conforte saw the little Sicilian, Stromboli, they became so polite it was embarrassing.
Both Cologne and Conforte claimed Sicilian family connections. However, they were in fact Calabrians by way of Milan. Neither of them could even speak Italian to a full-blood Sicilian. Stromboli was part of an old Melbourne Sicilian clan with connections to the Monza and Caprice families. Yet little Sammy never needed to mention the word Mafia. The Mafia word was only used by men who came from mainland Italy and used the fact they were Italian as a reason to bluff their enemies.
In Sammy’s opinion, Big Al was ‘a prezzo Fisso’ a scarchi (Sicilian slang) expression for a menu, meaning a man who is easy to read.
In other words, you saw Big Al coming and his manner, style, strategy and tactics never changed. As Sammy said, ‘If Al is a Sicilian, I’m a fucking Chinaman and I doubt he is even a Calabrian. He speaks Italian with a Milano accent.
‘Quanto costa,’ said Alfonse in Italian, meaning ‘How much is it?’
‘A thousand,’ grunted Sammy.
‘I’ll give you 500 bucks,’ said Al.
‘I’ll give your mother my dick in her arse,’ answered Sammy and with that promptly walked out, leaving Hacker Harris and Benny David standing in shock. Benny was quickly told by Hacker to rush after the hot-headed little Sicilian and bring him back. Hacker remained drinking with Cologne and his crew.
‘Have you seen Shane Goodfellow?’ asked Cologne.
‘Fuck Goodfellow,’ replied Harris. ‘Next time I see him I’m going to snap his neck. This conversation is giving me the shits. Where’s the dunny?’
With that Harris marched off to the toilet, which was a natural enough reaction to Alfonse Cologne.
The toilet door at the Dover Hotel was made of wood with a little slide bolt to lock it. Hacker locked the door and pulled his pants down and proceeded to punish the porcelain.
Then it happened. The toilet door was kicked open and a hail of punches rained down on Hacker. Blood and pain didn’t bother Harris much, so while he was being punched and kicked in the face, his only concern was to wipe his arse and pull his pants up. One still had to follow the rules of hygiene, even in a fist fight.
It was only then that Hacker returned fire with a volley of punches that sent Cologne running. Kicking the shit out of Hacker Harris as he sat on the toilet was one thing, fighting him toe to toe was quite another.
The three men ran from the pub. Hacker was covered in so much blood that he could no longer see who or what he was punching. He blindly attacked two bouncers who had tried to come to his rescue. The night ended with little Jock Mackenzie, an old Collingwood gunnie, coming to Hacker’s rescue.
After pulling out an old Italian 9mm Glisneti, 1910 model, a self-loading pistol not unlike the 7.65mm German Luger in appearance, Jock gathered up the bleeding and confused Harris and bundled him into a taxi. They headed for the safety of good old Collingwood.
Upon hearing the yarn told by Harris of the attack in the toilet at the hands of dagos, Mackenzie took off into the night, leaving Harris in the safety with friends. Poor old Jock Mackenzie was never seen again.
So begins another story.
*
MACKENZIE was a clan Scot with heavy-duty relatives, all of them armed to the teeth. The Mackenzie motto read: ‘From the lonely shielding of the misty mountains, divide us. A waste of wild seas, yet still the blood is strong. The heart is highland and we in our dreams behold the Hebrides.’
Jock MacKenzie’s death that dark night could not be pinned on Alfonse Cologne.
However, the Mackenzies demanded the revenge of an old Aussie Collingwood criminal family, and they took it as a fact that Al had something to do with it. Which is why Harold Kindergarten, a nephew of old Jock’s, attacked Alfonse in a Footscray nightclub two nights later. He almost beat the big Italian to a pulp and only lay off when the police arrived.
Harold was locked up and it was at this stage that Harold cried out ‘you fuckin dog Alfonse’.
Harold was later to hang himself in the Footscray Police cells. The ‘dog’ remark was soon forgotten, but not the death of the young Kindergarten.
The shovel that was to dig Alfonse’s grave was selected on that night.
*
The secret of reaping the greatest
Fruitfulness and the greatest enjoyment
From life is to live dangerously! – Nietzsche
*
A TWELVE-year-old Hacker Harris sat in silence in the Greensborough Seventh Day Adventist Church on a Saturday morning. The preacher, Pastor Pat Ford, poured fire and brimstone into the congregation.
‘And the Beast will arise and swallow us all to its bowels, lest we heed the warnings of Ellen G. White and the Book of Revelation and run to the hills,’ he thundered.
This was classic Jim Reeves, ‘Gimme that old time religion’ stuff. The Pope and the Catholic Church were supposed to be planning to take over the World. Only guts, guns and God would defeat the Sons of Satan.
Young Hacker sat in terrified silence. The Seventh Day Adventists, sometimes called the Christian Jews, believed in a fundamental Old Testament hellfire and brimstone brand of religion that no one outside the Church could understand. Next to the King James Bible in the boot of Young Hacker’s father’s car, was a mint condition German Bergmann 9mm MP 18 sub-machine gun complete with 500 rounds of ammo. Young Hacker was taught Bible and guns from childhood and, as a result of perverted religious teachings, saw Rome as the centre of all evil, the Pope and the Catholic Church as the ‘head’ of the Beast, as revealed in the last book of the Bible, the book of Revelation.
‘Yes, you!’, cried the preacher, pointing at young Hacker.
‘Yes, you, young Michael Brendon. Don’t look away, lad. I’m talking to you!’, screamed the preacher. Michael Brendon Harris, known to all his mates as Hacker, looked at the old preacher in horror and shock.
‘Jesus wants you, son,’ cried the preacher man. ‘What does Jesus want you for?’
‘I don’t know,’ murmured the terrified Hacker.
‘A sunbeam, lad. That’s what Jesus wants you for, Boy. Jesus wants you for a sunbeam.’
*
‘THE point blank M-94 vest is designed for tactical officers who require functional, yet versatile load carrying capabilities. The pockets are compatible with today’s state of the art tactical equipment and are also positioned to ensure maximum convenience for both left and right handed officers. Adjustable retention loops are built in. In addition, an adjustable radio pocket on the back of the vest accommodates virtually any tactical communications equipment. As a completely customised alternative, the M-94 is available with a modular grid system of Velcro and snaps allowing the wearer to determine the placement of pouches and pockets according to the demands of his or her mission.
‘For upgraded protection, class 3 or class 4, hard armour plates can be inserted into the back plate pockets. Design features are heavy duty, military special nylon outer shell, and universal radio carrier, built in front and back hard armour place pockets, Velcro removable identification on front and back for convenient carrying of additional equipment. Extensive upper body protection, including shoulders, adjustable side closure system, three tactical equipment, carrying pockets, canalisation for radio, wire systems or flexible plastic restraints are standard features. Options include nomex, fire retardant, outer shell ballistic collar protection, ballistic groin protector, class 3 and class 4 hard armour plates, cordura carry case and a modular grid system is also available.
‘The standard colours are: black, navy, olive, gray and camouflage.
‘Ballistic material threat level: Kevlar one. Spectra three and Hi-Lite two.
‘This concludes today’s lecture, ladies and gentlemen.’
Detective Inspector ‘Big Jim’ Reeves rose to his feet and turned to Detective Chief Superintendent Charlie Ford. ‘I’ll stick to what I’ve got,’ he said, tapping his shirt, which was tucked in over the top of his concealable body armour vest. ‘A Spectra concealable ballistic vest.’
‘Fuck it,’ said Charlie. ‘Most crooks couldn’t hit the side of a barn with a shovel full of wheat. I’ll go without. By the way, what’s the latest on Alfonse?’
Big Jim smiled and nodded. ‘Tomorrow night, so I’m told. Ha! Ha! Ha!’
‘Well’ said Charlie. ‘Bloody well hope so. Ten fucking years overdue but better late than never. Who’s pulling the trigger?
‘I don’t know,’ said Big Jim. ‘All Mumbles told me was the Dago’s off tomorrow night.’
‘Good,’ said Charlie. ‘He’s had his run. You know what they say … every dog has his day.’
With that, the two old dinosaur cops laughed like pre-historic hyenas and left for the pub where they planned to partake of a mixed grill with the lot and a dozen or so pots as per their general lunch time requirements.
*
BRIAN Carl Hanlon stood at the telephone in Bendigo Prison. With tears in his eyes, he listened to his wife pour out her story of brutal violence and rape at the hands of a punk teenage kid from the western suburbs.
The offender was a young would-be gangster named Johnny Moore, the spoilt son of old Sixpence Moore, the SP bookie. Moore felt his dad’s old dockie and criminal connections entitled him to run riot in the nightclubs of Melbourne. His new friendship with the Great Alfonse Cologne and his Lygon Street plastic mafia crew had added weight to the young kid’s ambitions.
Brian hung up the phone and returned to his cell to find a phone number.
‘Come on. Where is it? Where is it?’ he muttered over and over. He was shaking with anger at what his wife had told him, and could hardly think straight.
Tony MacNamara and Hacker Harris walked into the cell to see a tearful Hanlon fumbling through his personal belongings.
‘What’s up?’ asked Tony.
‘You got Mumbles’ phone number?’ Brian said, his voice cracking.
‘Nah,’ replied Tony, ‘but I can get it for ya.’
‘Well, get it then,’ said Hanlon. ‘I need to talk to Mumbles urgently.’
‘OK,’ said Tony. He was surprised, but knew better than to intrude too much. There was a long silence. Brian had tears rolling down his cheeks.
‘Stop crying, Brian,’ Tony said after a while. ‘What’s wrong? What’s the matter?’ he asked gently.
That’s when Brian told him.
*
SEVEN days later old Sixpence Moore was forced to pay a cash compensation to members of the Hanlon and Kindergarten families in return for the life of his spoilt brat punk junkie kid.
Honour was preserved, as they say, but nothing was ever forgotten. Alfonse Cologne took the cash from Old Man Moore and handed it to ‘Mumbles’ with Alfonse acting as the go-between. Mumbles in turn handed it over to the Hanlons. What Alfonse was not to know in 1986 was that acting as the go-between and, in doing so, protecting young Moore, would form part of the shadow that would see him to his grave.
*
HACKER Harris was yet again back on the streets of Melbourne. The now not-so-young street fighter, gunman and standover man had earned himself the bloodiest and most violent reputation in Melbourne for gunplay, torture, death and insane comedy. He had the backing of old Tex Longman and Poppa Dardo, the King of the Albanian criminal world in Melbourne. Harris saw himself in the gunslinger light. More a Gary Cooper than an Al Capone. Harris was usually broke but always armed to the teeth. Another gang war for the sheer comedy of it was about to start. Naturally, Hacker turned his undivided attention to the major heroin dealers of Melbourne, most of who called Al Cologne their friend. This suited Cologne, as he could cut himself in for a slice of a hundred different pies. It also suited Harris cos it’s easy to shoot fish if they all swim in the same pond. So the games began.
For Alfonse this was not his ‘cup of tea’. He hadn’t fought his way up the ladder to squabble with a mental case over a $2,000 a week sling, which was all Hacker wanted. ‘So while paying the cash in secret he loudly verbalised his wish to kill Harris. Meanwhile Harris generally left Cologne alone and ran riot among the lesser lights within the Melbourne drug world. Those who didn’t pay up some form of cash tribute were cut up, shot up, burnt out or dead. Alfonse was being pressured to make some sort of stand against the madman who lived in Collingwood. Alfonse had become a glamour gangster and what on earth was he meant to do against Harris. Attack him with his American Express Card? Face, however, had to be saved, so some form of show down had to come. It had been coming for a long, long time.
Cologne had been able to sway a lot of Harris’s old friends over to his side – or so it appeared at the time. The Kindergartens, Monzas, Strombolis and the Caprice Clan, Mad Charlie Hajalic and Rod Attard. It seemed to Harris that the power of drug money had perverted everyone. Alfonse had Boris the Black Diamond, Gilbert Bazooka and half the old dockie families in tow. Even the MacKenzies didn’t want to back Harris against the Lygon Street Mafia. Only the Albanians and Benny David agreed to back Hacker, along with a small crew of armed robbery squad coppers who had a running battle with the major crime squad at the time. The whole thing was getting quite complicated. But, as Harris said, ‘When in doubt – shoot everyone.’
*
‘Ultimately, people like Alfonse are killed by their friends, not their enemies. His mistake was that he could no longer tell the difference.’
– Hacker Harris.