SAMMY Stromboli sat in a flat in West Melbourne. He had become addicted to heroin and was waiting for his new friend and adviser, Alfonse Cologne, to visit him. Big Al used Sammy as a ‘taster’. Every time Al collected a fresh shipment of smack from Gilbert or Micky Wong or Boris, Sammy would try it out. He had originally hated Alfonse but the heroin had turned Alfonse from an enemy into a friend. Sammy had rejected his whole family for the love of heroin and, by extension, of Alfonse.
A tall, blonde girl danced slowly in front of Sammy. She looked like a long-legged, high fashion catwalk model, but one that was smacked out. She had what they call heroin chic. She was wanton and lewd – ‘lascivo’, as the Italians say. Yet her hips and tits were wide and lavish and she had the eyes and mouth ‘Di La Lapilli’, or ashes from a volcano. Her name was Mandy and she looked all of 18 or 19 years old. She was, however, a tender 14 years old and had been addicted to heroin for 12 months. This was thanks to her ‘Uncle’ Alfonse who was, in fact, no blood relation at all. Her mother had married Mushie Peas and a few people knew that in reality she was the baby daughter of Ray Kindergarten. Had Alfonse known this he might not have been so keen to slide a heroin needle into her arm.
For an Italian to understand the complexity of inter-relations between the old Australian criminal families, would be as difficult as an Aussie trying to guess who was related to whom in Italy – even if the Aussie was born in Italy. Alfonse was and would always remain outside of the ‘inside’. He was ‘Lucido’ as the Scarchi Sicilians put it – meaning ‘shoe polish’, a slang expression meaning ‘all looks and no guts.’ Alfonse was in many ways simply a ‘Giornaliero’ – in Sicilian slang this meant a journeyman. He was not really a crime boss or Mafia Don. He was simply a lover of ‘Cattiveria’ or wickedness. He was a power junkie and, with drugs and violence, backed by the shadow of the mafia myth, he exerted power over the weak within the criminal world. Having Sammy Stromboli hooked on smack, Alfonse could control the thinking of the whole Stromboli clan, as Sammy was the favourite son of Frank Stromboli and grandson of old Poppa Nicolo Stromboli. To control Sammy was to have influence over the Stromboli family and their restaurants and nightclub interests in Lygon and King Streets.
As for Mandy, Sammy’s junkie girlfriend, she would be useful in one of the parlours in Carlton. Alfonse owned most of them. At least, that’s the way Al saw it.
‘Ah, Australia,’ thought Alfonse. ‘What a wonderful country!’
Alfonse entered the flat and was greeted with smiles all round as he pulled out an ounce of pure china white heroin from the pocket of his $2000 Italian sports coat. He was in a hurry. His BMW sports car was parked outside with the engine running and Carlo Muratore at the wheel. Muratore was part of the old Victoria Market mafia clans of the late Domenico ‘The Pope’ Italiano, Vincenzo Muratore and Vincenzo Agillette – three Calabrian clans who sometimes had to be pulled into line by the Sicilians, who allowed the Calabrian, Milano and Roman show-offs to play gangsters and swagger about like movie stars. Providing they took the risks and made the money, they would receive the Sicilian blessing.
Alfonse stank of his favourite poofy after-shave and expensive cologne. It was said that at night you could smell Alfonse coming down a dark alley in Carlton from a distance of 60 yards, especially if a good breeze was blowing towards you.
Alfonse tossed the ounce bag on the coffee table and said, ‘let me know what ya think, Sammy’ before turning to leave. Mandy ran to the kitchen to grab a fit and a spoon. Alfonse averted his head as he opened the door and muttered, ‘Junkie dogs, I hate them’. Shrugging his shoulders, he closed the door behind him. ‘Well’, he mused, ‘you need manure to grow a rose.’
Alfonse was off to Santino’s restaurant for a glass or two of Shiraz and a nice plate of chicken lasagna with salad. He had a meeting with Mad Charlie, Hacker Harris’s old mate-turned-traitor. He, like Charlie, didn’t completely trust anyone who had anything to do with Harris, regardless of how long ago contact might have been. Shane Goodfellow, Gilbert and Gonzo wanted to see him.
Goodfellow had turned from one of Melbourne’s top blood and guts street fighters into a junkie, and Gilbert owed his loyalty to Boris the Black Diamond. However, Harris had almost killed Goodfellow in H Division, Pentridge in 1979.
‘The enemy of my enemies is my friend’, Big Al thought to himself.
‘The politics of it all. I love it.’
Later that night, at the Pasta Rustica, with Goodfellow, Gilbert and Gonzo knocking over large plates of baby lamb and bottles of Rosso Vino red wine, the waiter whispered in Big Al’s ear. ‘Jesus Christ on a fucking bike,’ said Alfonse.
Noticing that Al had turned pale Gilbert asked, ‘What’s up?’
‘Sammy Stromboli and Mandy have been taken to the Western General Hospital and pronounced dead on arrival,’ he answered. He looked stunned.
‘How come?’ asked Gonzo.
‘Smack overdose’, replied Alfonse.
Goodfellow went silent. He knew who Mandy Peas really was and knew the significance of a whisper in Big Al’s ear. If this overdose had anything to do with Al, thought Shane, the Kindergartens had better not put any of this shit together or there would be a lot of dead people.
Al paid the bill from a wad of hundred dollar notes thick enough to choke an elephant, and walked out. It was clear he was not a happy man. He didn’t care less about Mandy. But what the hell was he going to tell Poppa Stromboli?
*
The man who plants the seed gets to chop the tree. – Mad Charlie
HACKER Harris and old Poppa Dardo, the Albanian crime boss, sat in the lounge room of Poppa Nicolo Stromboli’s home in West Footscray. Sammy’s father, Frank, was also in attendance. Alfonse had been trying to cut himself a little Albanian influence by supplying one of old man Dardo’s son’s with heroin. Old Poppa Dardo and Poppa Stromboli had known each other since they had arrived in Australia on the same ship in 1957. Italy had become a second home or first port of call for Albanians escaping the Communist regime in Albania.
Harris had just shot one of Alfonse Cologne’s top drug movers in the western suburbs (and right hand man of Gilbert Bazooka) in the stomach for daring to raise his voice in anger to one of Poppa Dardo’s sons. Hacker’s friendship with the Strombolis went back to Thomastown in the early 1960s, where the family lived in with relatives before upgrading the accommodation to West Footscray.
‘This a fucking cocksucker,’ snarled Poppa Stromboli. ‘Di Inzabella say Alfonse OK. He’s a good boy. Please I beg you, no touch. No touch.’
Bottles of ‘grappa’ and large slices of aglio gorgonzola (garlic cheese) and affuicatao salmone (smoked salmon) were in plentiful supply with sliced cetriolo and cipolle (cucumber and onions). Large plates of hot salami, gnocchi with a strong tomato butter and garlic sauce remained virtually untouched. The only man eating was Hacker Harris, whose consumption of the fare with such gusto prompted Old Poppa Stromboli to stop crying and laugh loudly.
‘Buon appetito. Enjoy, enjoy!’ he said.
At this Hacker stopped eating and patted his stomach. ‘Non posso mangiare, Poppa. Sono a dieta.’ (‘I cannot eat, Poppa. I’m on a diet’) he said to the old man.
The sadness in the room was broken with laughter.
‘Maybe a little connoli?’ asked Poppa Stromboli.
‘No’, replied Hacker. ‘I don’t want to be a porko grando.’
Everyone laughed. Then the tone turned serious again.
‘Sammy, stupido boy. Fucking junkie. But Alfonse he swear to me he take a da good care of Sammy. Now he is in da grave. Mamma mia. Holy Madonna. Someone gonna pay for this. De Inzabella, he say it’s not the fault of Alfonse. Fucking Calabrian Milano dogs. Someone is going to pay for this,’ cursed Poppa Dardo.
He looked at Hacker and gave a sly wink. Another part of the jigsaw that would paint the picture of Cologne’s death had been found.
*
‘WHAT was the first movie Marilyn Monroe ever did?’, asked Hacker Harris. Bobby Kindergarten and Charlie Mackenzie sat in silence.
Then Benny David piped up, ‘Scudda Hoo, Scudda Hay in 1948.’
Harris was impressed and handed over $100.
Sitting at the bar of the Builders Arms Hotel in Fitzroy in the midst of a raging gang war the Marilyn Monroe movie trivia quiz was hardly what one would expect. But men who shoot other men for a living tend to chat about the most offbeat nonsense.
‘OK’, said Benny. ‘What was the seventh movie Marilyn ever made?’
‘All About Eve, 1950,’ replied Hacker with a smirk.
Benny David handed the $100 back.
‘I’ve got one none of you can answer,’ said Alfonse as he walked in.
‘What was the last movie Marilyn ever made?’ With that, he landed a smashing right hand punch to Benny David’s jaw, knocking him out cold. The three men Alfonse was with proceeded to engage Mackenzie in fisticuffs. Punches flew in all directions while Harris and Cologne were locked in rock and roll in a long overdue street fight. Alfonse swung fast and wild, aiming at Harris’s head. This was a mistake, as Harris had a head like a mallet, able to withstand pain like few others. Harris was a strong, slow puncher who liked to move in close and then grab hold. Once he grabbed hold there was no letting go. With his face covered in blood, Harris picked Alfonse up and physically tossed him through the hotel door, following through with kicks when Al fell into the gutter.
Local police were called, along with an ambulance, but none of the combatants needed either, and insisted it had been a friendly bit of fun with each man covered in his own blood.
As Alfonse and his companions walked away, Harris yelled: ‘Something’s Got To Give, 1962, and it was the last movie she ever made and she never finished it. You will never live to finish yours either, maggot. I’ll outlive the fuckin’ lot of you!’
Alfonse had guts and, in his own way, was as brave as a lion. Any man, however, strong enough to stand a 30-punch onslaught to the face, then pick Alfonse up and hurl him through a pub door into the gutter wasn’t going down easily. Alfonse had based his entire reputation on nightclub brawling and had never been physically lifted off the ground and hurled like a rag doll out a door in his life. More’s the pity. If he had he may not have believed he was unbeatable. Over-confidence led to his death as much as the plots of his friends and enemies. Gunplay was the only way to go with Harris – but not face to face. Harris might be slow with his fists but his reputation with a handgun was almost Wild West stuff. Harris would have to be got from behind and at night. As Alfonse walked away, he decided to kill Hacker Harris. But how?
He made his play two nights later. As Hacker walked alone down the darkness of Forest Street, Collingwood, a 1977 Ford LTD drove by. Three shots rang out from a .38 calibre revolver, missing him by inches. When slugs speed past the human head, you can actually hear a whistling noise. Harris didn’t see Alfonse, but he blamed him for it. The game was set for a battle royal.
The following day Hacker went to see Mad Charlie Hajalic in Caulfield. He told him of his plans for war.
‘Leave me out of it, Hacker,’ said his old friend. ‘I’m involved with Alfonse and there is a lot of money at stake. A war would fuck us all up.’
‘It wouldn’t fuck me up,’ said Hacker, poker-faced.
‘Well, it would fuck me up, all right,’ Charlie said shortly. ‘I’m a business man involved in crime, not some insane mental case. If you want war, you’re one out, alone. No one will back you. You’ll lose, mate. I’m telling ya. Alfonse and his crew are too strong. Ya can’t win.’
Hacker walked out of Charlie’s house a bit despondent but all the more hell bent on the idea that, win, lose or draw, there was going to be a war …
*
HACKER quietly sang to himself as he put the blowtorch to Eddie Decarlo’s feet. Eddie screamed as the flame hit his toes. Torturing smack dealers for their money was smelly but a good earner. And when the smack and cash came out of Alfonse’s pocket, it did indeed tickle Hacker’s sense of comedy. While Hacker tortured Eddie in the cellar of a Port Melbourne hotel, Benny David and Vincent Gorr were ransacking his home in Footscray. They had located $60,000 in cash and drug gold.
Of course, the story of the so-called ‘toe-cutting’ job and robbery on Decarlo and then the total disappearance of Decarlo didn’t take long to reach Alfonse’s ears.
Big Al went into hiding whenever he heard Harris was in town. Harris would vanish, then reappear. He was virtually impossible to kill because he couldn’t be pinned down to any habit or routine. His address was a mystery. Harris had become a physical and psychological shadow. He could find anyone but no-one seemed to be able to find him. Gang war was all that Harris knew about and the criminal businessmen he was fighting had lost or forgotten the art of warfare. Drug money, wealth and criminal political power was their cup of tea. Blood and guts street combat after dark and the tactics and strategy involved was a stranger to them.
Ray Kindergarten sat holding a photo of his baby daughter, Mandy. The same girl that was Mushie Peas’ drug addict stepdaughter. Mushie had disowned her despite the fact that he himself did big amphetamine business with Gilbert, Gonzo and Alfonse.
Hacker Harris sat next to Ray.
‘It’s not right, Hacker. She was only a fuckin’ kid,’ he swore. Tears were running down Ray’s face. Hacker looked at the schoolgirl in the photo. He had met her once when she was being pushed in a pram. She was sucking on her dummy at the time. Little did Hacker think all those years before that little baby Mandy would grow up into a teenage junkie whore who spent her nights sucking on bigger dummies to pay for her heroin habit.
‘Drugs,’ thought Harris, not for the first time. ‘They are fucking the whole country up.’
‘They reckon Big Al was plonking her,’ cried Ray.
‘I don’t know about that,’ said Harris out of fairness. ‘But I do know Stromboli was and that Sammy was getting his gear from Alfonse.’
‘That’s good enough for me,’ said Ray.
‘What goes around comes around,’ said Kindergarten, crying.
Hacker nodded and put his arm around Ray’s shoulder in a gesture of comfort, smiling to himself.
He had found one more nail to drive into the Calabrian coffin.
‘Do you remember O.Henry’s stories?’ asked Hacker gently.
Gilbert Bazooka shook his head. ‘No, never heard of him.’
Harris told the O.Henry yarn about a young married couple in the year of 1905. They were very poor but deeply in love with each other. The wife had long hair all the way down to her waist and the husband had a pocket watch his great grandfather had given his grandfather and from him it had passed to the grandson. It was Christmas and both the wife and husband, so much in love, wanted to surprise each other with a gift of value. So the wife sold her lovely hair to a wig maker. With the money she bought her husband a platinum chain for his pocket watch. Meanwhile, her husband sold his pocket watch to buy his wife a silver Spanish comb for her beautiful hair.
Gilbert looked puzzled. ‘What are you trying to say, Hacker,’ he asked.
‘I’m not saying anything mate,’ said Hacker. ‘It’s just that while you’re busy doing something for someone else behind that person’s back, you forget that maybe they are doing something as well. Good or bad, for better or worse, both can come out the loser.’
‘What are you trying to say?’ asked Gilbert again.
‘Easy,’ replied Hacker. ‘If you don’t surprise me, I won’t surprise you.’
Gilbert still looked puzzled as Hacker walked away.
‘Forget Alfonse, mate. He’s not Father Christmas. Walk away and forget about doing anything behind anyone’s back. Least of all, mine. Okay, mate!’
Gilbert nodded but as Harris walked away he thought: ‘Bloody O.Henry. Harris talks in riddles but he gets his point across.’
*
In the midst of life, we are in death. – Anon
LORRAINE Kindergarten sat in the bar of the Tower Hotel in Collingwood with Hacker Harris. They were talking football. Lorraine was doing most of it.
‘1902. That was the first Premiership Collingwood ever won,’ she said. ‘Followed by 1903, 1910, 1911, 1919, 1927, 1928, 1929, 1930, 1935, 1936, 1953, 1958 and 1959.’
‘Bullshit,’ said Hacker. ‘They never won 1959.’
‘Well, who did then?’ asked Lorraine.
‘I don’t know and I don’t care. But it wasn’t Collingwood. Okay?’ replied Hacker.
‘Collingwood Brownlow Medallists,’ continued Lorraine without drawing breath ‘were Coventry, 1927, then Collier in 1929, another Collier in 1930, Whelan in 1939, Fothergill a year later, Thompson in 1972 and Moore in 1979.’ Harris sat in silence, chewing over for a moment. ‘For a chick from Footscray, you sure know a lot about Collingwood, Lorrie,’ he said at last.
Hacker always called Lorraine Kindergarten ‘Lorrie’. Lorraine was a tough knockabout semi-criminal chick from a fully criminal family. Tall, long legs, big boobed and with golden long hair, she worked as a dancer and a stripper. That is when she wasn’t driving the get away a car for bank robberies and jewellers shop smash and grabs.
Lorraine laughed. ‘O che sciabura d’essere sneza cogillioni.’
‘What?’, asked Hacker.
‘Oh what a misfortune to be without testicles,’ Lorraine giggled. ‘Voltaire said that.’
Lorraine was a strange chick. She travelled the world and had seen and done it all. She had once worked at the Kit Kat Ranch on Kit Kat Road, east of Carson City in Lyon County near Reno in Nevada. She had gone to America for a holiday in 1979 and married an Italian American, Carmine Caprice. Her luck started to go downhill from that point on. Within three months she was working at the Kit Kat Ranch. This establishment was the oldest cathouse in Lyon County. The brothel is, or was, open 24 hours a day and the girls worked in 14-hour shifts. They did this for three consecutive weeks before having a week’s break. The club had between 40 and 50 ladies working around the clock on different shifts. If you were to drive east on Highway 50 from Carson City about 6.5 miles (or approximately one mile past the Green Lyon County sign) you would see, on the right hand side of the road, Sam’s Saloon. Next to it you would see a billboard announcing the three brothels on Kit Kat Road. By turning right on Kit Kat Road and continuing for a mile you would reach Kit Kat Ranch. It was the first house on the left. A cupid pink exterior that made it hard to miss. Lorraine didn’t need to divorce her husband when she got sick of him. He was shot dead in New York City by an off-duty policeman. The reason for the shooting remained a mystery. However, the policeman in question had not long before then taken a holiday to Nevada, and the lovely Lorraine still smiles slyly whenever she mentions her husband and his untimely demise. She returned from America three years later with enough cash to buy three massage parlours outright and lease another four. She had done the hard yards at the Kit Kat Ranch and was now a lady of personal wealth, not to mention a bit of local power as a result of her wealth. She paid Hacker a grand a week, not for protection, but for the friendship. If she ever found herself in trouble, however, she knew she could call on Hacker Harris and his crew.
But I digress.
‘I lent $25,000 to Alfonse,’ said Lorraine, ‘and I’ve got the feeling I’m gonna get lashed.’
Hacker shook his head. ‘That wog. Borrows money from everyone. What was it for?’ asked Hacker.
‘Smack,’ replied Lorraine.
‘Serves you right,’ said Hacker. ‘I bet Alfonse told you the gear was seized on a drug raid and the money’s gone.’
‘Yeah,’ answered Lorraine, suddenly looking interested as Hacker did his crystal ball gazing. She’d seen plenty of balls, but precious few crystal ones.
Hacker shook his head again. ‘You’re smart enough to turn your pussy into a million dollars and dumb enough to fall for that bullshit. You’ll never get ya dough back,’ said Hacker. ‘That turd’ he continued, ‘owes half of Melbourne money. He invests it, makes his profit, then lashes and lies his way out of the debt. He’s been doing it all his life.’
Lorrie put her hand right on Hacker’s lap and gave him a gentle squeeze. ‘Da you reckon you can help me Hacker? I’ll write the 25 grand off as a bad loss but Al reckons he will bottle my face if I don’t come up with two grand a week protection.’
Hacker smiled. ‘Just tell him you can’t afford two grand coz you’re already paying me three a week. Tell him that if he has a problem to come and see me.’
‘Okay,’ replied Lorraine and gave him an extra big squeeze as she flashed a wide sexy smile. ‘You look like a man who desperately needs to have the top knocked off it. Come on mate. Let’s get out of here.’
Hacker Harris and Lorraine Kindergarten got up and walked out.
Three days later Lorraine Kindergarten was found dead from a heroin overdose. Lorraine had never used heroin in her life. It was concluded someone must have felt that if they couldn’t have a slice, they would simply get rid of the pie. Nothing could be proven. Alfonse couldn’t be linked to Lorraine’s death. He even went to her funeral. Hacker never went to funerals. He considered it bad luck. However, in one week, Alfonse had moved in on Lorraine’s empire, cutting Harris completely out. Another battle won, but the war still raged.
*
MILAN – or Milano, as the Dagos call it – is the capital of the region of Lombardy. It is the second largest city in Italy and regarded as one of Europe’s finest and most dynamic places. It measures 182 square kilometres and is a city of action, work and money, some of it legitimate.
Sitting in the sunshine on the Piazza Delia Scala, three Milano men, Johnny, Michael and Frank Gangitano sat, quietly drinking aniseed cordial, otherwise known as Sambuca. On the table were side plates of mussels, octopus and oysters. There was also a large plate of pepperoni salad. The three brothers were in the transport business and ran trucks from Milan to Calabria.
‘What news of our paisans?’ asked Johnny.
Michael laughed like a hyena. ‘Young Alfonse, he wants to be the big boss. He has all them skippy hillbillies thinking he is Mafiosi.’ The three men roared with laughter. They thought Al was more Jerry Lewis than Dean Martin.
‘That shifty Calabrese. He will either outsmart us all or maybe outsmart himself,’ Frankie said.
‘He sent us the money for three new trucks. He wants a slice of our pie in return for our blessing to run powder from Rome to the south.’
‘Three trucks?’ said Johnny. ‘Tell the pig to make it six trucks and the blessing is his. But what about the men in Naples and Palermo?’
Michael sighed. ‘Alfonse tells us not to worry. He reckons they don’t matter.’
‘Ya know what,’ said Frank, ‘I think we will get six trucks and Big Al will get a funeral. He’s a smart boy but a stupid man.’
Johnny nodded. ‘Ah well,’ he said drily, ‘If Alfonse wants to be in the movies, let him. Maybe one day he will learn that life isn’t a motion picture. Ha! Ha!’
*
MEANWHILE, back in Australia, Hacker Harris was walking out of Bojangles Night Club on lower St Kilda Esplanade.
Shane Goodfellow, Graeme Jenson, Frankie Valastro and Ronnie Burgess sat in a car outside. You didn’t have to be a brain surgeon to know that Alfonse had given the order for Harris to be killed. If you couldn’t work that out you would have needed a brain surgeon, or worse, an undertaker.
*
Cheque books don’t win gang wars.
You need dash, not cash. – Chopper Read.
KILLING a madman wasn’t as simple as it sounded. A Turkish hanger-on attached to Goodfellow’s crew conned Harris outside and Tony Mavric was hiding in the bushes with a shotgun. A shot rang out. The Turk hit the footpath, dead as a doornail with a .410 shotgun blast through the right eyeball. Goodfellow’s wife jumped into the car while Tony Mavric sat in the bushes shitting his pants.
‘He’s fucking mad. He shot the Turk point blank, then pulled his dick out and pissed into the bushes all over Tony. The bloke’s a fucking maniac,’ exploded Goodfellow.
As the car sped away, Goodfellow knew he was in trouble. Alfonse was the only one who could protect him now.
Two weeks later, Harris was arrested for murder and, on Alfonse’s advice and instructions, Goodfellow made a full statement to the homicide squad. Also on instructions, he agreed to go Crown Witness against Harris. At last Alfonse had rid himself of his worst and most hated enemy. Or so he thought.
*
It is when power is wedded to chronic fear that it becomes formidable.
– Eric Hoffer (1954)
THE years between 1987 and 1991 were for Alfonse Cologne the best years. He rose in wealth and power. Harris was in Pentridge Prison where, many would say, a mental case like him belonged. Alfonse was controlling one third of all heroin and methamphetamine sales in Melbourne nightclubs.
The new legal sex industry with its brothels, lap dancing clubs, strip joints and Australian-financed porn films was growing. But the one criminal industry he couldn’t gouge a foothold into was the illegal arms market. Hacker Harris and his crew had that sewn up. There wasn’t big money involved but Harris and his hillbilly Aussie connections seemed to control this market. It seemed odd to Alfonse that even the guns he and his crew owned all came from people who bought guns from Hacker’s people. But, he mused, this was Australia – a very Irish place indeed. To shoot your enemies you had to first buy your guns from them, as well as your ammo. Even in Ireland, this state of affairs would have seemed a little bit comical.
Melbourne is like that. A mix of Chicago-style gangsters, New York-style Mafia and an old tradition of feudal loyalty to local crime lords with traditional criminal clans and families dating back to the days of John Wren and Squizzy Taylor. It has a criminal sub-culture unlike any city in Australia, all within the sub-culture of the wider Australian criminal world. It is almost like East End London, with its inter-criminal family network and South London violence. Many so-called and would-be Godfathers and crime lords from other nationalities have come and gone – like rising comets that become falling stars. But the old ways, traditions and criminal culture remains. When the blood starts flowing the Aussie, English, Irish, and Scottish clans will all side with one another against any common foe. Melbourne is unique in Australia in that its criminal culture places the payback, vendetta and revenge along with its associated feuds and wars higher than anything, even money.
The Melbourne criminal culture never forgives nor forgets. The attitude of cutting the hand off to punish the offender’s arm, regardless of cost, is ingrained in the old criminal families. A score may be repaid tomorrow, in ten years time or longer. One thing is certain – no old score is ever forgotten. The criminal payback vendetta holds an almost holy place in the minds of the men who live and die there. As one old Irishman said to me: ‘The Dagos invented the vendetta but the Irish make a bigger, bloodier mess.’ Amen to that.
Hacker Harris, being the gun-happy, mental case he was, found himself yet again in prison in 1992 after getting out in 1991. Yet again it was related to a shooting charge. Harris got out of Pentridge Prison in November 1991 to find that Big Al had fled Melbourne along with his de facto wife and two children to Milan, Italy. The two events were not unrelated.
He returned to Melbourne in 1993, only after Harris had been convicted on the shooting charge after losing both State and High Court appeals. Naturally, Al laughed at the rumours he had taken himself and his family to Italy to avoid a blood war with Harris. He claimed he returned only because his father was dying from cancer. He said that the land mines placed in his driveway and discovered in 1991 (suspected to have been placed there on the orders of Harris), had little to do with his move to Italy the same year.
‘That’s a lie, a complete fallacy’ claimed Cologne to the media. ‘The greater the lie, the more people believe it,’ he said, quoting Adolf Hitler. It was a quote Cologne had picked up from Harris himself during the early 1970s. He also picked something else up, resulting in him having to shave his pubic hairs, but that is another story. Al returned to a Harris-free state and a new and legal sex industry. Sex shops, brothels, escort services, adult bookshops, strip clubs, lap dancing clubs and venues provided sexually explicit entertainment – all fully licensed by a grateful, greedy Government keen to get its slice of the tax action. And they called Harris a standover man.
As a property developer, Big Al invested widely in all three areas using his shady business and legal contacts as front men, thus protecting himself behind a raft of paper companies. He had found a semi-legal way to push drug money through a legal washing machine, albeit a sleazy one.
He returned to his Saint Alfonse image by donating gifts of toys to the Royal Children’s Hospital. A thousand bucks worth of toys means a million bucks worth of good will, a fact American Mafia worked out decades earlier.
In America the Hells Angels ran a public anti-drugs campaign while making speed to stick in kids’ arms. Work that out. Big Al had cultivated an army of lawyers, business and legal contacts, high flyers, even magistrates and judges. Police in some quarters spoke well of him, despite the fact that he had a nasty habit of bashing innocent young constables he caught off duty in a situation where he had the drop on them. Underneath, his old street habits stayed the same, and his violent streak meant that police were sometimes called, and this resulted in the management of various clubs banning Al from attendance.
He hadn’t lost the plot – rather, the plot was starting to lose him. Older Italians and even Big Al’s closest colleagues just shook their heads at a man who, on the one hand, was so brilliant and, on the other, so spoilt and childish.
Meanwhile, Al would sit in lap dancing clubs with a semi-clad beauty between his legs and a handgun down his belt – or perhaps it was the other way around. Management and club security would stand dumbfounded as Big Al pulled his weapon out – and I don’t mean his .38 – and instruct the dancer in question to loosen her G-string and sit on it, riding him up and down while members of the Cologne crew looked on and laughed. It was taken for granted that when Alfonse and his Lygon Street team walked into any table dancing club, they paid for nothing and if Big Al or any member of his team dropped their zips, the dancer in question would have no choice but to either go down or sit on the offending member.
Al would infiltrate clubs he had no control over, using his friend and sometimes bodyguard, The Dasher. Dasher ran a security firm that supplied bouncers to most of the clubs in Melbourne. Al would see to it that professional call girls and high-class hookers were placed in certain clubs. A quick suck in the right place could take the sting out of certain investigations.
He could also screw up other clubs by using ‘gypsy’ dancers. These were chicks that went in for a week’s work to one club – but did nothing but create trouble, teasing, starting fights, spreading drugs about, offering sex and generally creating a bloody uproar – including robbing clients – before vanishing to another club where the same game would be played. Having its reputation damaged by this would impact on the club. A licence was hard to get and easy to lose, and Al would capitalise on this.
It wasn’t difficult to place under age drinkers and dancers in clubs not controlled by him, then organise for the police and assorted other inspectors to attend on the correct nights. Despite the fact that Big Al had been barred from most establishments, he still roamed freely with his small army of hangers on. The result was brawls, shootouts, stabbings, attacks with pool cues and the blatant sexual abuse of lap dancers too frightened to complain. Alfonse was having a party in a playground.
What angered Alfonse was the influx of top line, Penthouse Pet types – former ballroom and professional dancers who were a threat to his control. They were well-educated, middle-class girls from good homes who were in the new table top dancing industry strictly for the cash. They would take no nonsense and would also lay a formal and legal complaint at the drop of a fly zipper.
Threats of sexual harassment cases and lawsuits from a younger generation of professional dancers who didn’t seem to show any respect for Big Al or his crew were incomprehensible to Cologne. A financial investor in a club didn’t welcome such changes. For example, a doctor’s daughter from Perth who held a degree in economics, and who had taken up lap dancing for the tax-free cash, could earn $4000 to $5000 a week. This type of girl would not tolerate for a moment some would-be Robert De Niro mafia impersonator pulling his ugly member out and yelling: ‘Suck this, slut!’
It was starting to hit Big Al that he was no longer living in the 1970s or even the 1980s. Women’s Liberation was no longer just a word but a way of life. Strippers who didn’t use heroin or speed, strippers with bank accounts and lawyers, were giving his cosy criminal world a culture shock. Maybe violence would remind one and all just who he was. But, of course, it is difficult win respect for violence when you continue to live under the shadow of a mental case like Hacker Harris.
So Big Al began to knock the smaller fish into shape and, for a time, he felt the 1970s and 80s had returned. But, while Harris lived, Cologne would always remain a joke that was enjoyed behind his back.
‘WHEN will this stone be removed from my shoe?’ Cologne complained to Poppa Capiso. Like every other would-be gangster, he’d been watching too many Godfather films.
Poppa Brazzi was an old Sicilian who smiled at Alfonse but secretly didn’t like him. ‘Non capiso’, he replied.
‘Harris,’ said Cologne sulkily, ‘he is a stone in my shoe. When can I have the stone removed?’
Old Poppa Brazzi just smiled. ‘Un bicchierre di grappa’ Alfonse muttered in Italian. The old man nodded and with a wave of his hand, Big Al had a waiter appear with a cold bottle of Sicilian grappa.
‘Grato,’ said Poppa Brazzi.
‘You want something to eat?’ asked Big Al.
The old man thought, ‘In insalata,’ he replied. Again Alfonse waved his hand before speaking.
‘And the stone in my shoe?’ he said again, impatiently.
The old man smiled and said,
‘For a bottle of grappa and a seafood salad, you come to me about Hacker Harris. “Aiuto, Poppa Brazzi”.’ The old man mimicked Alfonse, meaning, ‘Help’. He continued: ‘Calabrese crostata di frutta,’ meaning ‘Calabrian fruit pie,’ an insult directed at Alfonse. ‘And you’re a fucking Milano Calabrese, hey Porko,’ said the old man. ‘I tell you what, Alfonse. You want a stone out of your shoe? Remove it yourself, or take your shoe off. Otherwise I think Harris will cut your feet off. Then you won’t have shoes to put stones into. I can’t help you,’ the old man concluded.
‘Mi spiace,’ he said, meaning that he was sorry. He didn’t sound it.
Alfonse got up and walked away. Brazzi wouldn’t dismiss Big Al so quickly unless, of course, Di Inzabella himself had turned his back on Alfonse. The Monzas and the Caprice family were all linked with the Stromboli clan. The Agillette family, the Italiano clan and the Muratores had all been doing business of late with the Dardo family, who were Albanian. Old Poppa Dardo was a friend of Hacker Harris. The ghost of Sammy Stromboli was coming back to tap Alfonse on the shoulder.
‘Fuck ’em all,’ said Big Al to himself. ‘I’ve got the men, the money and the contacts. I’m tomorrow. They are all yesterday.’ He knew all about talking the talk, did Al. But it wasn’t enough. He had to walk the walk, and that could be bad for your health – particularly with a stone in your shoe.