Mayhem

by Matthew Thompson

  She was seeing one person while I was in. She told me later, and I knew that person so I was a bit disappointed that he would go near her. Even though we weren’t in a relationship I was disappointed he’d fuck her. There’s plenty of sheilas to fuck. Really, at the end of the day, you don’t have to fuck the mother of my child.

  *

  Next day I take my daughter to Highpoint West. I’ve got some funds on me, probably about eight grand that I’ve collected. I take her to Toys-R-Us to buy her stuff, do some shopping: a bit of a treat for her, ya know? A bit of a shopping spree with her, ya know?

  Fucking you wouldn’t believe it: I get pulled over.

  The car is not even in fucking my name. These are not normal coppers. They’re not in normal uniform. Tactical Response Group coppers in commando gear in a four-wheel drive decide to pull me over.

  Random they say. Random. What the fuck random. Please: Tactical Response Group don’t pull over randoms. Especially with a kid in the baby seat in the back. You know what I’m saying?

  I think, ‘What the fuck’s going on?’ I was happy spending time with my daughter, showering her with gifts, the whole back seat’s full of fucking toys, and now I’m saying to myself, ‘What the fuck?’ I am dirty, man. If she wasn’t in the car I might not have pulled over. And the car isn’t even registered in my name.

  Their first words are, ‘You got any weapons in the car?’

  And they don’t even know who I fucking am. Haven’t even asked for my name. ‘Got any weapons in the car?’

  ‘No. Why would you say that?’

  Now they ask me for my details. I know it’s a targeted search: they know exactly who I fucking am. Normal coppers don’t pull me over unless it’s by chance. Every time they have dealings with me, it’s always SOG – they send in the heavy artillery to make an arrest. And these guys are just one level below that. If they had sent in the SOG it would have been too obvious so they send in the Tactical Response Group. And they’re still kitted up in their overalls. They’re not uniform, man. I just think, ‘What the fuck? This is so fucked up.’ I’ve only been out one day and someone’s suggested I’m tooled up and then spearing them in, hoping I’ll be arrested with a fucking weapon and sent back to jail.

  This is how fucked-up it is. This is why I decide to stay away from Smiles. He’s prepared to maybe suggest I have issues that are far greater than they really are, hoping that I’ll be in possession of a weapon, okay, and get pinched the very next day. Knowing that I had just got fucking four years for a weapon. I get out and within 24 hours I’m pulled over looking for a fucking weapon. Lucky I didn’t have a weapon, huh. Otherwise, I would have been back in jail and who would have been looking after my daughter? She was in the car with me at the time.

  I was supposed to collect a lot of money yesterday and it didn’t arrive. Things just start falling into place. I’ve gotta back off from Smiles and his gang. Now I’m deadset, ‘I can’t trust these fellas.’

  Who the fuck do I trust?

  So I just stay away from them. I’ve had suspicions about Smiles for many years. Daylesford. Jockey Smith’s inquest didn’t identify the informants but there were two informants involved. Okay? Two people that lagged me. The coppers weren’t after Jockey, they were after me. They were sitting off, they let him go. I’ve got the transcripts from Jockey Smith’s coroner’s inquest – all the evidence and stuff. They don’t identify who it is but it’s not hard to work out because there was less than five fucking people who knew I was there. We had different projects happening, and when I say ‘projects’, I mean work – robberies – planned. One group would be focused on this one and another group focused on that one. Both weren’t aware of the other – they weren’t working in tandem. Understand?

  So when the police started disclosing certain things about certain things it made it a lot easier working out who the fuck it was.

  Smiles knew when I escaped from St Vincent’s: he was in touch with Roxy. He used to send her up some money from time to time, so he had her phone number. Within 48 hours of me arriving in Sydney someone rings that number and asks for Erica. When anybody talked to Roxy they call her Roxy, which was her middle name. Erica was her Christian name and only coppers call her Erica. It was a male voice and the other sheila who lived there with her picked up the phone and said, ‘No, there’s no Erica here.’

  ‘You sure about that?’

  ‘Yeah, no Erica here.’ She knew there was something wrong because she never introduces herself as Erica at all. She introduces herself to everybody as Roxy.

  She thought it was strange, and that caused me to leave that place because I knew it was compromised. The only person who had that phone number in Melbourne was fucking Smiles. You know? And then from one place I went with her to another: she said I know someone – he’s sweet – Bill. He was a fence; he used to buy stolen stuff off her. Shifty cunt, a bit dodgy an’ that, so we went to him. He ended up giving me up, too.

  Roxy went into witness protection later, ended up testifying against me and just lied for the coppers in Sydney. You know like I’m not saying I didn’t do both of the robberies but there was no evidence: there was only evidence of the weapons and some images. They found me in possession of the weapons fucking nine months later. Big fucking deal. So I bought the weapons. ‘Yeah, I come into possession of the weapons: 100 per cent. Ballistic experts will tell you that this is weapon is one of its kind identified in New South Wales in thirteen years.’ ’Cos it wasn’t just a run-of-the-mill weapon; it was a modified semi-automatic assault rifle. So they knew straight away.

  But the coppers needed to put that weapon in my possession at the time: come in Roxy.

  Her evidence was at odds with the facts. She had to create a role, so they made up that she was a driver in one of the robberies. She was never a driver at all. They made up a role for her to support and corroborate me being in possession of the weapons. She said that she was there when the panel van was stolen and all this sort of stuff; she described the back of the panel van. It was a carpenter’s fucking whatever – someone that worked in the tool trade. He had cabinets all through the back, built cabinets where he had all his tools. They said to her I had tools in the back and when I cross-examined her about the tools and asked if there was a cabinet she goes: ‘No, there was no cabinet, just tools on the floor.’

  ‘You sure about that?’

  ‘100 per cent.’

  ‘You wouldn’t lie?’

  ‘No.’

  She even got the days and location wrong. She fucked right up. Her evidence was inconsistent but the jury was so tarnished and tainted by the evidence already coming out about me: my name BADNE$$; that I was an escapee; that I was involved in another robbery; robberies all the time; money, guns – all this shit. So polluted, so tainted, so prejudicial, and this was all allowed in. What the fuck was my barrister doing? I go, ‘What the fuck are you doing, man?’

  Legal Aid – fuck me; you’d expect better.

  Everything Roxy said was a lie and she was so bad at lying but the way that trial went after three days I sacked my counsel because I reckoned I could do better on my own. After that I said, ‘If I’m going to get sentenced, I’m going to get sentenced by my own hand. Fuck off. See ya later.’

  The judge wasn’t prepared to give me a retrial. I had to proceed. I was representing myself in shackles. The squad would arrive, all surrounding me, so prejudicial, and you could hear the fucking jiggling. This is how ridiculous it was. I said, ‘Your Honour, this is not prejudicial? Of course I’m going to be convicted!’

  And he’d go, ‘I can’t hear a thing.’

  Later there were issues with some of the fucking evidence so we had to replay some of the tapes, the transcripts, and what do you hear in the background: ching-ching-ching.

  I said, ‘Your Honour, what’s that? I can hear fucking chains.’

  And the jury could fucking hear it and see it themselves. Everything that occurred in those proceedings was desi
gned. It was deliberate. I had no fair hearing whatsoever. I knew I was fucked.

  At the end of it I said to him, ‘I wasn’t sentenced on the evidence ’cos there was no fucking evidence. You know that and I know that. I was sentenced on what was said, what was introduced, all the prejudicial stuff.’ He accepted that and in deterring me from appealing against the conviction he ended up giving me six with a [minimum of] four. Now I could have got that just for the weapons. That was a pretty good outcome. As much as I wanted to appeal, I decided against it because it was a fair sentence.

  Court is about who lies the best.

  *

  Anyway, this is the thing: Smiles and his mates have been running around with coppers for years. I know that because he’s introduced me to off-duty coppers, and I said, ‘Please leave me alone, mate. I don’t want to know this shit – I’m going.’ So I was wary of him before, and more so now. I used to catch up with him; I used to get some finances off him, but after this, ‘Nah, fuck off. See ya later.’

  *

  I’m not even collecting Centrelink benefits. I tried but found it too daunting. I was so confused by the forms and what to lodge and had so much difficulty that I’m just avoiding it.

  Kylie suggests I go on a disability pension, and then she can become my carer, and be paid for this role in looking after me, as I was a real case. I find this idea hard to cope with; I’m insecure and lack confidence within myself. I’ve become so dependant upon her and I feel as if I can trust no one.

  Even though I’m not in a relationship with Kylie at all, I remain vigilant and on sentry duty, sleeping when I get a chance on her couch. I need to be in a position to defend them in the event that my foe finds this location.

  Plus, it gives me quality time reading bedtime stories to my daughter and waking her up in the morning with pillow fights – although she’s not a morning person at all.

  I keep Runty by my side with the balcony door open next to the couch. His breed is bred for security and he barks at the first hint of movement. I take my dog everywhere with me, and some of me mates end up howling because they come too close to me and he nips them right in front of me and I don’t even see it. Runty is like a cobra, man – he’s that quick. I’m talking to a person and he fucking nips them. He doesn’t growl. He’s not aggressive. It’s a little nip like, ‘Just fuck off.’ Just a warning sort of thing, you know. And that’s enough for them to fucking back off. With a hole in their jeans. I have to laugh.

  As I say to everybody, even Kylie, even Silvia, even the other girls I see, all the females in my life, I always say to them, in front of my daughter: ‘There’s only two things in my heart: number one is my daughter; number two is my dog. Nothing else matters to me.’

  I didn’t realise but some of the sheilas spew later, like, ‘What the fuck? A dog comes before me?’

  But that’s how I am. I’m inseparable with my dog – my dog’s spent time in lock-up – the pound – too: that’s how close I am with him. Everybody will tell you: there’s me and him. I buy a Peugeot with a sunroof, immaculate condition, beautiful condition inside and out, and you know what? I buy that car for my dog. It’s my dog’s car. Leather interior, black carpet – he moults and, mate, I don’t give a fuck. I love hanging out with my dog.

  So, rarely does he leave my side; he’s also my protection, no weapons needed.

  I start wearing a bulletproof vest that the police returned to my mother back in 1994.

  MID OCTOBER 2011

  I’m dipping into the money given to me for a place to live.

  My Land Rover has serious mechanical problems costing me over four G’s to fix, and I’m finding it hard to get a toe in the door with real estate agents, and I don’t think I want to be on my own.

  But the main thing is I can’t move to another location away from the possible threat posed at Kylie’s flat. I can’t leave them alone at the mercy of my foes.

  One reason I’m so geed up is that it’s not an unknown occurrence for people associated with my foe to strike at females and even children in order to get at their enemies. And some of these persons have depraved and sadistic sexual appetites, once infamously chaining a woman to a bed for days of brutal sodomising and years later she still needs heavy medication to numb it out.

  So no way am I leaving my post.

  *

  Gavin’s not the only bloke who’s feeling ill-disposed towards me. A totally separate group of men wielding iron bars bash me senseless. I sustain head trauma, black eyes and a broken nose. But I tell the police nothing.

  *

  There’s a bloke I have coffee with every week or two named Toby Mitchell. He’s a bit of a hard cunt: sargeant-at-arms in the Bandidos and all that, while I fly solo, you know – I’ve never been one for gangs. But we get on all right and catch up.

  Toby knows Gavin and he knows that Gavin’s dirty on me; he says he can have a chat with him and see how this might be de-escalated. How everyone might stand down from this fucking tension.

  Within a week – before we can catch up on his chat – Toby is shot five times in broad daylight outside Doherty’s Gym in Brunswick, his two would-be assassins fucking spraying lead near innocent kids in a shopping centre car park.

  Deadset, it feels like open season. Feels fucking very grim, very exposed. Especially at Kylie’s flat or when I’m taking my daughter to school or collecting her at the end of the day. I can’t just go away and let my daughter grow up thinking I’m not devoted – that I don’t care and I’m not here for her. And what if they try and snatch her.

  So due to the level of threat, I wear my bulletproof vest when I am going to and from school with her. I’m also carrying a handgun – a silenced pistol I was given for protection which I’ve now taught my daughter to shoot with. I hope it doesn’t come to that but she needs to know for her own safety and to defend others. If I’m down and they’re coming for her then it’s better she knows what to do.

  Gavin gets picked up on firearms charges but there’s still evil vibes spreading everywhere about Toby’s shooting – who did it and why, and who’s lagging about it.

  *

  I meet some associates of Toby’s including a bloke by the name of Adam Khoury who is almost as paranoid as me. Maybe more so. Whenever I see him or hear from him, he’s sweating blood about Gavin and his intentions.

  *

  ‘He got bail, mate,’ someone says over the phone.

  Gavin’s out. Various people are now saying he’s actively searching for my whereabouts.

  I source a cache of weapons and rent a shipping container under a bodgy name.

  *

  The ice is getting a bit of a grip. One of the women close to me has introduced me to smoking the shit. I wasn’t into speed, hadn’t been for years. I done it when I was a kid, went crazy when I was a juvenile and basically fried my brains out and never returned to it. I never wanted to go back near it.

  But because I had to stay up, stay awake, to do countersurveillance I’d go out and source some and what I sourced was really good, really pure. Quality the woman couldn’t believe.

  So what’s happened is I would snort it. She goes: ‘No, no, no, don’t snort it – smoke it.’

  ‘What do you mean smoke it?’ I’d seen people smoke heroin before in the foil, you know.

  ‘I haven’t got a pipe,’ she says.

  ‘What do you mean pipe?’

  ‘Ice pipe.’

  It’s all foreign to me. I’m not into this shit.

  So she goes: ‘Just use a foil.’ She put it in a foil and starts inhaling it through a rolled-up note. So I started having it like that with her. From there I progressed and went to other places where they were smoking the pipe. And then later on I’d be smoking it with her.

  Smoking it dulls everything. It doesn’t give me a rush. Maybe at first the ice does but then it mellows me, relaxes me – the opposite effect of snorting it. I feel like I have ADHD and this is like a medication – mellows me down a little, bala
nces me, settles me.

  And I start hitting it a lot.

  *

  Turns out Gavin has a house in Seaford. I start surveilling it but there’s only limited cover, a little yapper dog across the road, and children constantly in the area, so I abort my plans for a confrontation.

  But pulling back each time, being so passive at this time of lethal threat to my family, makes me feel sick in the pit of my stomach.

  After clearing the inner foliage of a big tree on a corner house opposite Gavin’s, I climb up and perch in the branches dressed in army camouflage. It’s my observation post.

  I also hollow out bushes across from Gavin’s house, lying in wait only for the little yapper to compromise my position. I had no beef with this pooch. I admire him for protecting his turf.

  Meanwhile, Gavin is closing in on me and on Kylie’s address.

  I tell Kylie to pack up what they need: ‘We’re gonna move’, and we spend the Christmas holidays down towards the Mornington Peninsula. A friend has floated me ten grand, and we have fun camping, swimming and stuff.

  Meanwhile, Silvia’s spewing as I took my daughter and Kylie away from the danger, but not her.

  *

  Keeping that ice pipe busy. Keeping calm.

  EARLY JANUARY 2012

  With Gavin living at Seaford, I figure that would be the last place that he’ll look for me, so I make arrangements to book a room at the Seaford motel.

  I pack guns in my black Land Rover, along with all the camping gear, a rubber four-man zodiac with outboard motor and the dogs. Kylie drives the Peugeot with our child in the back and we head off in a two-car convoy.