Cheaters

by JR Carroll

  About Cheaters

  Big risks, big reward. But no-one ever said that cheating was easy...

  Danny Gold has the Midas touch on the roulette tables. Soon he’s making big bucks washing cash for businessman-turned-porn-movie-maker Sigmund Barry, with all the fringe benefits.

  Robert Curlewis lived the good life – until booze and smack took hold. When a fellow desperado, Florence, witnesses the vicious slaying of a young gambler in Melbourne’s Chinatown, Robert is no longer wasting his life, he’s trying to hold onto it.

  Throw in a wild card, a rogue Kiwi commando running his own agenda, and you have a full deck of players with one thing in common. They are all CHEATERS.

  Contents

  About Cheaters

  Prologue

  1

  2

  3

  4

  5

  6

  7

  8

  9

  10

  11

  12

  13

  14

  15

  16

  17

  18

  19

  20

  21

  22

  23

  24

  25

  26

  27

  28

  Epilogue

  About JR Carroll

  Also by JR Carroll

  Copyright

  Prologue

  The time was a quarter to five, just after the last race in Melbourne, and the crowd in the TAB – a busy inner-suburban agency – had thinned out a bit when the two men in the sheer stocking masks came in, screaming and waving their guns around like stark raving maniacs. This was during the Spring Racing Carnival, halfway between the Caulfield and Melbourne Cups – W. S. Cox Plate day at Moonee Valley. Hefty amounts of used, untraceable currency were there to be scammed or hijacked by brave, enterprising or desperate thieves at this time of year in the nation’s gambling and festival headquarters. Millions were invested in a single race, on and off course, and fleets of armoured trucks had to work overtime ferrying the cash flow back and forth. Armoured trucks were rich pickings, but they involved high-risk levels, and required some brains, cool heads and organisation. A TAB, on the other hand, was just sitting there, its cash drawers full of readies waiting to be hit by any screw-up with a smack habit and a gun – or a knife, a brick, or a needle, anything at hand.

  There were a dozen or so customers still in the agency: a handful of diehards trying to cut the day’s losses on the ‘get-out stakes’ at Randwick or Eagle Farm, a big-punting smallgoods van driver in shorts who frequently pulled in here during his runs, a few screen-gazers wondering what might have been if only they’d got that last trifecta, a desperate checking discarded tickets on the floor, others just lingering with nowhere else to be, a couple lining up to collect: correct weight had just been announced at the Valley. Habitual losers, stiffs mostly, punting away their pensions or unemployment benefits.

  The first bandit was shouting confusing instructions for everyone to get down on the floor, now. The second man was simultaneously yelling, freeze, you fuckers, with the result that no-one was quite sure what to do. Some went down, some froze, others became rattled trying to follow one order, then changing their minds. The first bandit, who was apparently in charge, threw a red, white and blue striped plastic shopping bag over the top of the glass screen. Then he walked straight up to a man of about sixty wearing thick glasses who was just standing there with his arms folded across his chest and a stunned look on his face as if he were just witnessing some street theatre. The bandit smashed him over the head with the stock of his sawn-off shotgun. That did the trick. The man instantly – silently – dropped to his knees, cradling his head, which was bleeding profusely. The bandit, insanely yelling I mean business, you dead fuck! See? whacked him again, harder than the first time, until he was flat out on his back with blood pumping from his severely fractured skull. The same bandit was now screaming for the woman who ran the place to get the fuckin’ money, bitch, fill the fuckin’ bag, while his accomplice, also wielding a sawn-off shotgun, was pushing and shoving terrified customers, male and female, young and old, onto the floor and keeping a sharp eye out for anyone else unlucky enough to be venturing into the establishment at this juncture. That was all in the first twenty seconds.

  While the manageress was stuffing the bag with the day’s takings, being abused for her tardiness and protesting that she was going as fast as she possibly could, the leader, who was really flying high, right off the airwaves, kicked a customer who was crouching instead of lying on the floor. He was ready to blast anyone and everyone in the place for no reason except that he had the means and the madness to do it. Then he turned his attention to an elderly man with a Katmandu tote bag slung over his shoulder who had been waiting to collect or place a bet, and who was not on his knees. He was unmoving and unmoved, calmly watching the bandits perform their mad act. The crazy bandit shoved him in the chest, but the old fellow was surprisingly strong and stood his ground. Get down, the bandit screamed, down, you old cunt, or you’re fuckin’ dead! You hear me, or are you fuckin’ deaf? He then noticed the old guy was wearing a nice watch. In fact, he was very well dressed for being in such a cruddy dump in this neck of the woods.

  The bandit demanded the watch. Wordlessly the old man removed it from his wrist and handed it over. Then the bandit demanded his wallet. Old bastards like this usually carried lots of cash, because they don’t trust banks. The manageress was still filling the bag. The accomplice was nervously keeping nit, saying, C’mon, c’mon, swivelling his head this way and that, spinning out on adrenalin. Give us your fuckin’ wallet! the bandit repeated when the old man hadn’t made a move to obey him. He placed the shotgun under the man’s nose and pressed it into his skin, his gloved finger curling around the trigger. Both hammers were already pulled right back. Now do it, prick, he snarled, spitting saliva through the stocking mask.

  The old man didn’t say anything, but held his palm out placatingly, put his bag down and then slowly moved his hand to the inside pocket of his well-cut sports jacket. The barrels of the shottie were still pressed into his upper lip. Then, while he was removing his hand from inside the jacket, he pushed the shotgun to one side with his other hand. It was a gesture so casual and so confident the bandit was momentarily nonplussed. Who did this fuckin’ jerk think he was, fucking with him? Then the old man’s hand reappeared from inside the jacket. But it did not contain a wallet. Instead, it was holding the biggest handgun the bandit had ever seen. The old man put it on him, between his bug eyes, gave him time to register what it was and what was about to happen, cocked the revolver and shot the startled face right off him. The impact and trauma were massive, sending the victim reeling into the wall, then down it, leaving a thick trail of gore and brain matter. The manageress immediately went into hysterics, grasped her head in both hands and bolted out the back. The accomplice at the door seeing, but not believing, what had transpired, said, Shit! Then he was out the door and sprinting down the street, tossing his weapon away as he ran.

  The old man retrieved his watch from the dead bandit’s hand, picked up his tote bag, stepped over the man’s twitching legs, walked briskly out onto the footpath, brought his gun hand up, took careful aim and fired once at his target’s main mass. The fleeing bandit spasmed violently, clutched at his back and stumbled forward. He made an attempt to get up, found he couldn’t, so started trying to crawl along the footpath instead. He was evidently crippled and in serious pain. The old man walked up to him, put the gun against the back of his stockinged head and blew the whole thing away.

  He reholstered the gun, then walked down a side street until he reached a silver Eunos. Using his remote to unlock it h
e got in, pulled off the latex old man’s mask, threw it and the tote bag on the seat beside him and swore viciously.

  ‘Fucking cunts!’ he said, starting the car. ‘Fucking amateurs! Of all the joints to knock off in this town, and they have to pick mine! Fuck ’em!’ And he punched the roof so hard he put a dent in it.

  The man drove away, being careful not to break any road laws, and in two hours had packed a bag, dumped the piece – an ex-British Army Webley-Vickers .45 calibre – and was in the departure lounge at the airport, waiting to be called for his Gold Coast flight.

  1

  Twelve months later

  The Sacramento Bar in St Kilda, a flea-bitten old neighbourhood pub that some entrepreneur with an eye for the main chance had snapped up for a song, restored garishly and set up as a ‘men’s gallery’, was in full swing around midnight. This was the kind of venue that had all the surface glitz – the flashing lights, the topless-bottomless girls, the repetitive, computer-generated music, the Californian decor, the exotic high-priced cocktails – and none of the ambience that would draw any crowd other than reptiles. This suited the management fine. Reptiles were a boom market. They were cashed up, they drank a lot, they smoked drugs, they drove fast, they didn’t give a fuck. They were just right for the Sacramento Bar, which paid scant attention to the laws governing possession, use and trafficking of illegal chemicals on the premises, or indeed to any other laws. Patrons made frequent trips to the toilets or the courtyard out the back, past the sweet-smelling jasmine vine, in order to shoot up, smoke some reefer, take happy pills, do deals. Whatever, it was all going down at the Sacramento. It was a sort of open-air drug

  market where the buyers and sellers negotiated prices as if they were dealing in fish or vegetables. Weapons were sometimes produced as argument settlers. No-one was controlling it, no-one cared. Cars were routinely vandalised or ripped off from the car park of the Sacramento Bar, and lately some vicious sexual attacks and rapes had occurred in the general vicinity. As a rule the local cops stayed away, working on the time-honoured principle that it was better to have all the reptiles concentrated in the one place, where they couldn’t do much harm except to each other.

  The chief attraction indoors was the pole dancing. This was a simple and cheap form of live entertainment from the management’s point of view because all it required was a brightly lit, raised platform on which a near-naked woman made passionate love to a brass pole – like a fireman’s pole – to the accompaniment of the incessant techno music that pulsed and throbbed from a synthesiser that also made the stage lights flash and change colour. The patrons would sit or stand close to the stage, holding their cocktails or long-necks of Corona beer, whistling, jeering, catcalling, screaming ‘Get it off!’, touching themselves, tossing coins and in general showing their appreciation of the dancer’s talents. Cash on the floor was hers to pick up at the end of her act. In fact it was the bulk of her pay packet.

  On this night the pole dancer was a young, undernourished woman named Donna Pritchard, who was wearing nothing but tassels on her breasts and a red, spangled G-string. Donna was working the crowd as best she could, sliding her thighs and crotch up and down the pole, wrapping a leg around it and fucking it vigorously, her head and one arm flung back, squirming and straining as if she were in the throes of delirious ecstasy, putting her fingers between her legs – inside the G-string – and then sucking them as if they were candy on a stick. As the reptiles slavered, she caressed herself lovingly all over, turning her bare, tattooed tail to the audience and wiggling it invitingly before describing circles high in the air with one of her legs so the punters could see her wares. Towards the end of Donna’s act the G-string, like the tassels, would come off. Then, while the unseen MC revved up the crowd, she would writhe and disport herself in an exaggeratedly erotic manner for a short time, milking the reptiles who, amid high-pitched howls of ‘whoo-whoop’ and ‘whoo-ee’, would shower her with coins and a few crumpled notes, the spinning coins glittering like gold pieces in the harsh lighting. Then, when the patrons had turned away and the lights had gone down, she would hastily collect the proceeds into a plastic bucket, pick up her garments and leave the stage. It was a half-hour routine which she would repeat over and over through the night. The Sacramento was open until 7 a.m. – or for as long as the punters continued throwing their change at her.

  In the ladies’ room, which also served as her dressing-room, Donna put on her skimpy outfit, threw a large Jag T-shirt over it and checked herself in the mirror. The fluoro lights were unforgiving. With ever-deepening dismay, she saw in her reflection a palpable deterioration. Her dark-ringed eyes, which she had plastered with mascara to disguise their condition, seemed to be retreating back into her skull, as if shrinking from a too-awful world. Her cheeks had become so wasted the skin was starting to crease, making her look much older than twenty-two and, at close range, even through the pancake make-up, she could discern countless tiny zits, like flea dirt, specked all over her forehead and nose. Donna felt extremely depressed. If things kept on this way she would probably lose her job and that meant she would have to go back on the streets, hanging around St Kilda corners all night, live bait for deviates and psychopaths. So depressing. The problem was, when you had a two to three hundred dollars a day habit – six or seven hit-ups – the money had to keep coming from somewhere. That was a big whack, fifteen hundred dollars a week, and a heroin addiction did not take weekends off. She could earn up to three hundred dollars a night doing her thing at the Sacramento, but that was only a Friday and Saturday gig. During the week she had to perform similar or worse routines in low, disgusting dives, where the takings were much leaner. Donna was in deep shit, and she knew it. How often she had wished she’d never got started on the filthy stuff, but there was no going back now. The thing was not to think too far ahead. When you were a junkie, there was just the next hit, and the hit after that, then another one. Your thoughts were concentrated on that need and all your money, whatever you could get your hands on, went to support it. It was all that mattered. She had done shameful things in the name of smack, including visiting her parents for the sole purpose of stealing money from her mother’s purse.

  She had some heroin in her bag to cheer her up now and she reached for the makings even as she headed for a cubicle. She would be crucified if she was caught shooting up on the job, but what the fuck. Everyone else did it. Needles were always being found in the toilets and car park. The whole joint was a shooting gallery. Then, as she was entering the cubicle, the toilet door was flung open and Donna jumped with fright. One man came in, followed by a second.

  ‘Hello there, chicky-bird,’ the first man said breezily.

  ‘Keith,’ Donna said, trying to sound pleased to see him. Keith Morgan smiled. He had darting eyes, a jittery kind of face, shoulders that twitched all the time, as if there was a bug in his clothes, and a mouth that stayed partly open, giving the appearance that he was always poised to speak. He was wearing a smart suit and a grey business shirt from which the tie had been jerked loose. Donna could see he was half-tanked. The second man she did not know. He was a big, beefy guy, like a weightlifter. He was also in a suit, an ill-fitting one in which the arms and shoulders were straining to split the seams of the jacket.

  ‘How’s my little chicky-bird?’ Keith said, grabbing her bag off her and turning it upside-down, shaking it so everything in it clattered onto the tiled floor. Among the lipsticks, make-up and other normal female things there was a disposable needle, a teaspoon, a packet of dope, and a little square of silver foil about the size of a thumb nail.

  ‘You were going to do something naughty then, weren’t you?’ Keith said cheerily. Sometimes he spoke with a sort of English accent, the way he pronounced words like ‘naughty’.

  ‘I was just going to the toilet, Keith,’ Donna said. ‘Please.’

  ‘Pathetic,’ Keith said, and slapped her face sharply. Donna held her cheek and started to cry.

  ‘Here we go,’
Keith said. ‘Look at that. Waterworks. Cuts no mustard with me, love,’ he said and belted her again, sending her corkscrew curls flying. Donna staggered back against the cubicle door, covering her face with her hands. Keith took a step forward and tore the hands away.

  ‘Snivelling wretch,’ he said, blinking at her, keeping his lips apart, nodding slightly as if he had Parkinson’s. ‘You are so naughty, Donna. I don’t know what I’m going to do with you.’

  ‘Leave me alone,’ Donna said, grizzling.

  ‘Not likely,’ Keith said. ‘Not while you owe me five thousand buckaroos.’

  ‘I’ll pay you back,’ Donna said, but the words were laughably ineffectual.

  ‘Pay me back? How are you goin’ to do that, you silly tart. You’re nothing but a fucking junkie. The lowest of the low. The very pits.’

  ‘I’ll give it up,’ she said, and that made both men chuckle.

  ‘Give it up?’ Keith said. ‘I’d like to see that. Wouldn’t you, Ricky?’

  ‘Never gonna happen,’ the muscleman replied.

  ‘Listen, Donna,’ Keith said. ‘You were supposed to sell the shit, not use it. Only morons use it. Don’t you know that? Morons.’ He slapped her again, driving the point home. ‘We had a nice arrangement, but you had to fuck it up, because you’re a silly-little-girl.’ He hit her in time with each of the three words, then again: ‘Silly-little-girl.’ He was becoming quite angry, almost losing it, then he checked himself and straightened his cuffs. Drink made him unpredictable like that. Donna had seen it happen, been on the receiving end too often. Keith was not normally a violent man but sometimes, when he was drunk, he could just snap and go off his tree. But only with women.

  ‘I’ll pay you back,’ she said again. ‘Stop hitting me.’

  ‘Damn right you’ll pay me back,’ Keith said, adjusting his jacket, arms twitching, trying to regain his composure. ‘And I’ll tell you what. You got one week, Donna. I’m not gonna fuck around with you. One week.’