Mayhem

by Matthew Thompson

  One night after spending the day at Frankston Beach and having a barbecue with Kylie, my child and the dogs in the picnic area just off the beach, I’m returning to the motel.

  A few mixed alcohol cans from the drive-through bottle-o at the motel gets me a bit drunk and I drive to my foe’s place. He’s home.

  I am pretty pissed and get the urge to confront him on the spot, but there’s a big chance it will turn out ugly and I don’t want my car seen in the area – which it’s likely to be, given that he’s in a tiny little court. So I decide to return later this evening.

  Back at the motel, I gather car stealing implements and start looking around the local area for a vehicle to steal. Spotting a suitable car, I park a distance away, leave my keys in the ignition – which you can’t see because of my illegal limousine-style tinting, and get to work. However, either I’m out of practice or it’s harder than it was back in the day and before I crack it the fucking owner disturbs me in the act and I have to leg it.

  My Land Rover is up the other end of street so the police have no right to search it, but they go ahead and conduct an improper search – so there goes my pistol, silencer and a laser sight.

  *

  Word of the drama – including a description of my car – might have made its way to my foe. A few good smokes of the ice are needed to get calm, get clear. Ice is good for that. I need a bit more.

  EARLY FEBRUARY 2012

  If Gavin enters the zone around Kylie’s flat or my daughter’s school I need to know so I return to his home and place a GPS tracking device under his blue Holden ute.

  *

  It’s evening when I check in and the device reveals Gavin on the grid just a short distance from Kylie’s. Extreme panic mode now. His bail conditions include a curfew – he’s not even supposed to be out at all.

  I have a pipe, tool up, and go to the Ascotvale location to sit off him. He’s doing something in an abode there. What’s your fucking game, Gav?

  He must have a local associate, and I sit off the address on a number of occasions waiting for him.

  The tracker is useless now – batteries only last a few days. But it’s given me this – this fucking extremely alarming knowledge – that he has an associate, a position, an outpost right here near my little girl and Kylie.

  11 FEBRUARY 2012

  ‘Adam’s dead, mate. Someone’s shot him.’

  Twice in the head and once in the body, as it turns out. In his own apartment.

  I work through another point of ice and get me head together. Adam’s been executed. What did he say first? What did he know to say? I can’t stop thinking about how once I met him in the underground car park of Kylie’s units. He might have said where she lives. Before getting fucking two bullets through his brain.

  *

  I’m white hot now. Not with the cops but with Capable – that being Gavin’s street name. Toby, Adam, me. It’s no secret he’s gunning for me.

  *

  Silvia hits the roller doors when I phone and give the word. Then I just drive straight into the garage and she lowers them. We do some pipes and have a fuck. She’s fucking dynamite in the sack. But I can’t relax. I keep having visions of us here fucking, fucking or fucking smoking or fucking just sitting and having a fucking chat when the gunmen come – when they move in for the kill. So I work my way around the house, studying every fucking vantage point, every angle from every window and door, every point to be barricaded or used to decamp. I have visions. I know it’s coming.

  ‘You gonna teach me Croatian?’ I ask Silvia, running a hand over the curves of her arse-cheeks. ‘If I get through all this I want to go to the old country.’

  ‘Not going to fucking talk to you in any language if you keep staying with that slut Kylie.’

  *

  What the fuck? Look who’s here – the drooling psycho that slashed me to bits on Gavin’s command in the Banksia yard.

  I’m stunned.

  We stare at each other as he drives out of the underground car park. He sees my motorbike or more alarmingly its allotted car space identifying Kylie’s unit number.

  Turns out the psycho’s living in one of the rear units.

  He knows I have a baby girl, as he was in on those circles of talking in the yard when Kylie became a mother. Just weeks before he attempted to murder me.

  *

  Lost in panic, I rent a series of cars and vans, parking them with eyes on Kylie’s flat, smoking ice to stay alert and keep a close watch.

  If he comes anywhere near them, he’s dead. But he’s already near them. He’s in his flat fucking probably running razor blades up and down his old fella waiting for the call from Gavin.

  *

  ‘I have to relocate you both,’ I tell Kylie. ‘You’se are in extreme danger.’

  *

  But how. I need cash. Fucking cash. I need to get them out of here. His associates are everywhere here. I can’t sleep, I can’t eat, I can’t do anything but focus on the solution, on evacuation, on getting the means to place my family in a safe and secure location.

  *

  It’s been almost twenty years since I robbed a bank. They’re totally different now. Modernised. I’d be lucky to get ten grand. And I don’t want to put tellers through that anymore. In my trial in NSW I saw how fucking traumatised those women were. I don’t want to terrorise soft targets. I’m a different person now. I’m in my 40s. I’m a fucking dad. A dad who has to take whatever measures are necessary for the protection of his child. Even if the thought of them makes me sick. I don’t want to do this. And big earning armed hold-ups are very rare these days so I’ll be a fucking prime suspect. I want to throw up.

  If I do it, no more exposing women behind counters to this conduct; it will only be men, and not civilians, not easy prey, but uniformed armed guards – men trained and equipped with firearms who have chosen to place themselves in the arena.

  I’ll hit an Armaguard pick-up. Sure to be a large sum which is to be left to my daughter in the event of my death – an event likely to come very soon given all the people hunting me.

  But this is to secure her future, not mine. I have none beyond carrying out the mission.

  *

  Every Saturday and Sunday there’s a huge outdoor market in Laverton: fourteen acres or some crazy shit like that. Fucking thousands of people go. It’s actually not far from Barry’s place – Dad’s old place – or where Mum’s at. In fact, Mum goes sometimes, I think, probably to buy orchids for her collection. Anyway, a stack of punters would stop in afterwards at the pub next to the market for a drink, something to eat, or for a bit of a flutter on the pokies – the Westside Hotel, that’s it. It’s even a bit of a motel; that place would have to rake it in big time over the weekend.

  So if I hit the Monday morning cash pick-up, I’ll clear a couple hundred G’s easy, I reckon.

  Well, not that easy. I really haven’t got the stomach for this shit anymore. Fucking nearly twenty years since I last did a hold-up and here I go again. Fuck me.

  BACK ON THE JOB 12 MARCH 2012

  CHRIS:

  Time, man: my old master – everyone’s master. My resting heart rate’s around 40 bpm but sitting here on a folding chair in a narrow gap between the Westside car-park fence and a giant market shed, waiting for prime-time, it lifts to a good one-per-second – something handy to tune me in to the clockwork of robbery.

  I’ve drilled a series of holes through the fence so I don’t have to expose myself until I strike. It’s a quiet morning at the pub, as you’d expect, with not a lot of activity in the car park. What a beautiful, sunny autumn day. Be great to be kicking back with my daughter, soaking up the rays as I push her on some swings or we take Runty for a walk at the beach. Be great if I wasn’t me and I wasn’t once more cloaking my identity and gripping the stock of a 12 gauge, and if that armoured Mercedes Sprinter van now pulling in with two armed men aboard was an ice cream truck instead, but this is happening and my ladder’s in position.
I observe the pair of Armaguard officers, one looking a bit old – about 60, poor bastard, step out and walk into the hotel to collect my money. The flow is on: they’ll do the fucking chittychat small talk with the staff and one’ll sign for the proceeds while the other supposedly looks out for bandits and this’ll all take a few minutes while I crouch here eye-spying through the hole, all coiled and ready to pounce, my old soul knowing exactly what to do at every stage, my outlaw muscle memory all wound up and ready to pounce, even as the new me feels sick, sick, sick and lost, lost, lost, but I override the feeling when they emerge with the old bloke holding the cash consignment bag.

  I let ’em take a dozen steps. ‘Hey, fuckhead,’ I shout, now up a mini ladder, my torso above the six foot fence, the weapon trained squarely on the moneyman. ‘Give me the bag!’

  But they just stand there. They look at me and each other and at me again – wasting time, the dickheads; someone in the office will be calling the police right now. The younger one gestures to his mate. He’s sayin’ some shit to him. What the fuck?

  ‘Throw me the fucking bag!’ But still the old bastard stands there like a stunned mullet. ‘Throw it over here!’ Frustration swells like a fucking head injury and if this was a bank I’d be at full monster with the shotgun in his face and my voice drowning every other fucking sound in his life. But this distance, and this yelling from behind a fence, makes it hard to exert absolute control. ‘Throw it here! Throw the fuckin’ money over the fence!’

  Finally the bloke hoiks the bag, but it’s half-arsed, my payday flopping down a metre or two from the fence. ‘Fuckhead!’ I shout. Useless cunt coulda put some grunt into it. ‘Get on the fuckin’ ground!’ I wave the gun and the young bloke’s down to the ground while the old fella flaps about, but now he’s gone forehead to the bitumen, too. Up and over, I grab the cash bag and stride at them. ‘Want to be a fuckin’ hero?’ I say, looking the pair over. ‘I’ll have that piece,’ I say, unclipping the geezer’s holster and removing the .38. Probably hitting half a minute now. ‘Fuck it, I’ll have both,’ I mutter, stepping over to the young fella. ‘Give me your fuckin’ gun.’

  All done. Back over the fence, I jump onto a motorbike and ride to a van parked on the other side of the market.

  It’s gone well enough: north of 200 grand in a drama-free operation that was over in about 35 seconds. Twenty years ago I would have cracked a fat, like that time as a pumped up young fella when I rode the train out of Noble Park, grinning at all the sheilas while on the seat beside me sat a mere ten per cent of this earn.

  But now there’s no pleasure – 100 per cent the opposite. Everything’s changed from twenty years ago.

  I want to get clear of here but I don’t want to be stopped in the van with the fucking bike in the back. Panic and a kind of grief hit as I roll and shove and drop the motorbike into a creek on the north side of the market. It barely goes a metre from the creek bank. What the fuck, you know, how can I be doing this shit again? Nausea hits big time and I lean over the water and wait. Here it comes: I spew into the creek. Got to get the fuck outta here. Back in the van and off.

  Fuck! Fucking forgot the pump-action is strapped to the bike! What the fuck is wrong with me. How fucking sloppy can anyone get? If they mention finding the bike on the news, I’ll know it’s too late. If they don’t, I’ll return tomorrow and retrieve the weapon.

  19 MARCH 2012

  CHRIS:

  There’s no pleasure in the robbery – 100 per cent the opposite. Everything’s changed from twenty years ago.

  I want to get clear of here but I don’t want to be stopped in the van with the fucking bike in the back. Panic and a kind of grief hit as I roll and shove and drop the motorbike into a creek on the north side of the market. It barely goes a metre from the creek bank. What the fuck, you know, how can I be doing this shit again. Nausea hits big time and I lean over the water and wait. Here it comes: I spew into the creek. Got to get the fuck outta here.

  *

  Fuck! Fucking forgot the pump-action is strapped to the bike! What the fuck is wrong with me. How fucking sloppy can anyone get? If they mention finding the bike on the news, I’ll know it’s too late. If they don’t I’ll return tomorrow and retrieve the weapon.

  20 MARCH 2012

  Kylie flies back in from Sydney. ‘It’s too dangerous in that flat,’ I tell her. ‘You two have to move out ASAP.’ I’ll pay a cash bond and six months rent in advance, I say. She just has to find a place.

  We head to Highpoint to shop for Charlize and get me some new runners. I’d disposed of everything worn in yesterday’s job.

  I try to get back into the Laverton Market to get that shotty but the caretaker stops me. ‘You’ll have to leave, mate,’ he says. ‘No one’s allowed on-site.’

  Next day I grab fifteen grand and ask a mate to come to a car sale, where I buy an unregistered white Ford Transit van and a white Challenger. The Ford is going to be my home; to start with I pick up a bedpan and futon.

  *

  Within days we’re going to real estate agencies. Because Kylie’s a single mother on Centrelink benefits, doesn’t have any work history (that’s not cash-in-hand), and all that sort of stuff, she goes to the bottom of the barrel.

  I attend with her, too, and it’s difficult: there is a shortage of rental properties.

  We are going to so many places but, mate, at one stage they are bidding for them – there was a dozen or twenty before us and they are all qualified, with partners, and they’re professionals. We aren’t getting anywhere.

  So now what happens is, when I give Kylie the money it’s in front of my daughter, and I say to Charlize, ‘There’s $5000 – that’s for you. You find a place, not Mummy. You go and have a look. If you like the place you tell Mummy, okay? Not Mummy pick it: it’s you, it’s your choice, it’s for you.’

  During Kylie’s hunt for a rental, I stay in the van on the street with the back seats removed. With a camping bed and picnic chair, I sit up late watching the flat: keeping them secure.

  Until I feel that it is just too dangerous for anyone to be there. They have to stay with relatives until everything is fixed.

  *

  The car-hire place has been raided. They’ve seized the van I used and all records relating to me. The tip-off must have come from the caretaker.

  The police are gonna be all over me. I’m going to avoid staying at Kylie’s or going to my daughter’s school. Got these vans now and they’re not in my name, so they’ll give me a little breathing space. And smoking space: gotta stay alert and on top of things.

  *

  I’m spending. I’m blowing it. I’m giving it to a lot of people. I don’t give a fuck. Within two days I find out the coppers are onto me, so I have a short window. I’m living on borrowed time. I dunno – I’m just going crazy with the money, giving it to people here, there, everywhere. And the ice, too: I am on a binge.

  *

  I split the cash, placing 140 G’s in a black bag in the bushes of a paddock next to Silvia’s place and the remainder in nearby bushland.

  My daughter comes to stay with me at Silvia’s for the Easter weekend, and we have an egg hunt on Sunday. As well as hiding eggs around the backyard, I’ve placed bundles of $50 notes.

  My daughter and I have a wonderful time squashing six boxes of red grapes in Silvia’s bath tub, making wine that will last from today, Easter Sunday 2012, to when she is old enough to drink. We also use boxloads of sultanas. When she comes of age, she will be able to raise a glass and recall her dad, who will no doubt be long dead by then.

  Afterwards, I call Kylie’s mum, Ursula, and give her a blast. I don’t trust her at all.

  *

  I should buy my daughter a rural property – maybe a hobby farm – but Kylie says she has a flat to inspect tomorrow, so I give her five grand and tell her to say that she can pay months in advance.

  Then I hear she’s big-noting to everyone about the money like she’s in some kind of underworld family so
the next day I demand it back, saying I’ll give it to the agent myself.

  But it’s $200 short. No fucking surprise; I know exactly what that went on.

  Days later I go to her flat to check on them, she’s cleared out, vanished. What the fuck. And this week I’ve planned to take my daughter hot air ballooning as a late birthday present.

  It’s because she’s jealous of Silvia. She’s made up some lies to get crisis accommodation at a women’s shelter.

  Crisis? I’m taking care of the situation; I’m taking care of security. I’m tooled up and I’ve been sitting off the flat and watching; I’m endeavouring to locate secure accommodation. There’s no fucking crisis.

  Kylie gets other people to tell me that she wants space to sort things out and will see me in a few weeks.

  I’m crushed; I’m crazy; I’m lost – dead inside; my heart torn out. Kylie told me I should bond with our daughter and I have and we’re real close and yet now Kylie divides us.

  Pure evil, this is.

  *

  An associate whose mate is seeing Kylie’s mum asks me out for coffee, and tells me that I’ll see my daughter in a few weeks.

  The one reason I can accept is that if I can’t find my daughter then neither can my foes. But I love being a daddy to my child, and her being taken away kills me inside.

  In Silvia’s garage I cry like a little baby, and I’m so ashamed that I have to turn my back. I don’t want her to see me like this.

  I can’t even look at her and want to be alone with Runty. Me and Runty sleep on the dog bedding in the garage.

  Silvia finds us in the foetal position and gets a doona and joins us, remaining in a vigil to support me in this time of extreme despair and heartache.

  I am prepared to die for my daughter. I am guilty of being a loving and caring dad to my only child. I am trying the best I know.