‘I don’t want to see the media!’ Robert shouts.
‘Why not?’ says Troy.
‘Because I’m scared!’ says Robert. ‘It scares the crap out of me!’
‘All right, if you don’t want to see the media, I’ll put a blindfold on you or a police officer will cover your face using a towel. Okay?’ says Troy. ‘I’ll just stand here at the doorway and guard your cell but don’t panic.’ He walks to the doorway and stands, but Robert is worried about the media circus, so he puts his head in his hands and says to himself, ‘What am I going to do now?’
Ten minutes later at the police station in the conference room, Inspector Mack Young, Professor Jerry Bowie and Detective Sergeant Nick Baxter are on stage and a group of people from the media are in the audience as they’re going to cover a story about the results of the DNA test of the mysterious coat and bring Robert Taylor to the public.
Mack is addressing the people from the media and says to them, ‘Good morning, everybody.’
‘Good morning, Inspector,’ says all of the media people.
‘Today is the announcement of the result of the DNA test of the mysterious coat and bringing Robert Taylor into the public eye and I like to welcome you to this special moment because it’s such a beauty,’ says Mack. ‘In just fifteen minutes, Professor Jerry Bowie will announce the result of the DNA test of the mysterious coat and at half past ten, a police officer will bring Robert Taylor in a restraining chair to the public and show him to all of you people. Any questions?’
‘Inspector Young, is Robert Taylor going to be all right today?’ says a reporter.
‘I don’t know but I wonder what his behaviour would be like because Dr Airhardt thinks Robert’s personality is arrogant, aggressive, deviant and his behaviour is crazy, inappropriate, and very bad,’ says Mack.
‘What’s going to happen if Robert goes crazy and escapes before or after the announcement of the DNA test?’ says another reporter.
‘Well, if Robert goes nuts and escapes, we’ll bring lots of police officers and a task force to track him down around St Kilda and other suburbs before it’s too late, any more questions?’ says Mack.
While Mack is being questioned by the media, the door opens and Dr Airhardt enters. He walks to the stage, enters the stage, stands next to Detective Sergeant Nick Baxter and says to him in a whisper, ‘Good morning, Sergeant.’
‘Oh, morning, Doctor,’ whispers Nick.
‘Sorry, I’m a bit late. I opened my office at Barclay Street an hour ago and before ten o’clock, my receptionist told me there’s another meeting from the police today and then, my assistant Leo took over my duty, so I left the office and I ran because I was in hurry!’ says Dr Airhardt.
‘That’s okay, Doctor,’ says Nick, ‘There will be plenty of time before the announcement but I’m not sure if Robert has got a deadline to face the day.’
‘Yes, he’s facing against the media,’ says Dr Airhardt. ‘He’s just a shy person.’
‘Okay, all right,’ says Nick. ‘We’ll talk about it later after the announcement and showing Robert Taylor to the public.’
‘Yes, Sergeant,’ says Dr Airhardt, so he and Nick stand to attention with hands clasped as Mack continues to talk to the media about both Robert Taylor and the mysterious coat.
Another ten minutes later at the Duke of York Hotel, Mr Pluck is sitting on a chair as he interviews two security guards sitting on chairs in his office. He says to them, ‘Gentlemen, if Robert Taylor comes to the Duke of York Hotel, my staff members, friend and I will leave the hotel and find a safe place, so I want you two to look after the hotel patrons when we’re gone.’
‘Yes, Mr Pluck,’ says a security guard.
‘How about a bulletproof vest or shiny armour?’ says another security guard.
‘Why?’ says Mr Pluck.
‘Because we’re worried about the anti-social behaviour of criminals when they lose their cool and have a bad temper,’ says another security guard.
‘Okay, why don’t you two go outside and stand at the front door of the Duke of York Hotel right now,’ says Mr Pluck.
‘Yes, Mr Pluck,’ says the first security guard.
‘Me too,’ says the other security guard.
At 10.13 in the police station, there’s a room which has the restraining chairs – an auditorium that is used for dangerous criminals such as murderers. There’s also a police specialist in uniform standing on the front desk and reading a racing guide lift-out from a newspaper. Beside him is a radio but someone knocks on the door and a police specialist says, ‘Come in.’
The door opens and a police officer enters, walks to the front desk and says to the police specialist, ‘Do you have a restraining chair?’
The police specialist stops reading his racing lift-out and says, ‘Yep, I’ll get it for you. I’m on my way.’ He walks to a restraining chair and gives it to him. ‘Here you go, mate, just take it.’
‘Thank you,’ says the police officer. He is excited to have the restraining chair as he’s getting ready to take Robert Taylor downstairs.
CHAPTER 33
T
wo minutes later at the conference room of the police station, it’s quarter past ten, and the big moment is arriving, so Inspector Mack Young takes a deep breath and says to the media, ‘And now it’s time for the announcement of the results of the forensic tests about the mysterious coat. Here is Professor Jerry Bowie from the forensic squad to announce the results.’
Professor Jerry Bowie coughs. He has in his hand an envelope.
He opens the envelope and reads the results from a piece of paper in a loud voice. ‘I am announcing that forensic tests show that the owner of the mysterious coat is … Robert Taylor!’
In Robert’s cell, he is shocked to hear the announcement of his name, and says to himself, ‘What? Me!’ Then, he gets angry and frowns, shouting to himself, ‘That’s it! I’m going crazy!’
He stands up and runs quickly to Constable Troy Williamson at the doorway. He takes the baton out of Troy’s holster and hits Troy’s head hard and Troy shouts loudly, ‘Oh!’ Then he collapses onto the floor of the doorway.
Robert puts the baton on the floor, takes the gun out from Troy’s other holster and exits, leaving Troy lying down. Robert says to himself, ‘Gotta run and hide.’
He runs to the police station’s kitchen, and when he enters the kitchen, he runs to the oven, takes a tea towel from the sink. He then covers his face and head and holds it on his head. He exits from the kitchen and runs to find an exit door of the police station. When he runs to the exit door of the police station, he removes the tea towel from his face and head and sees that the reception room is empty. He throws the tea towel to the floor, runs out the exit door and shuts the door quietly as he escapes from police custody and the media. He feels like he is going to start a killing rampage because he’s going berserk.
Outside of the police station, Robert stops running because he’s not sure which way he is going to escape. There’s a man walking past him, so Robert runs to the man and shouts, ‘Oie!’
‘What?’ says the man who is a businessman wearing a suit.
‘Can you tell me which way I should go to escape?’ says Robert.
‘I’m sorry, I can’t help you,’ says the man.
‘Crap!’ says Robert, so he runs and looks for a place to hide.
At twenty past ten, Robert is still running but he stops when he sees a homeless man with a hat next to him with lots of coins in it. The man is sitting on the footpath outside of the National Gallery of Victoria in Southbank, Melbourne. The homeless man, who is his late forties and wears tattered clothes, asks Robert in a rasping voice, ‘Do you have coins?’
‘No!’ Robert shouts loudly, and he points Troy’s gun at the homeless man, pulls the trigger and fires at him. People scream and run and one of them screams, ‘Run for your life! It’s a madman from hell!’ A homeless man lies on the footpath, dead.
Robert takes lots of coi
ns from the dead homeless man’s hat, and puts them in the pockets of his unwashed jeans. Then, Robert sees a car driving on a road nearby, so he runs, jumps and lands on the road near the car. He points at the car with Troy’s gun, and the car driver – who is twenty-five years old wearing a T-shirt and jeans – is shocked, and shouts loudly, ‘Yikes!’ He put his foot on the brake to stop, but Robert pulls the trigger of the gun and fired at the driver’s head. The car window smashes, and the driver dies.
Robert now puts Troy’s gun in the pocket of his unwashed jeans, runs to one of the car doors, opens the door, undoes the seat belt, grabs the dead driver’s body out of the car and throws him onto the road. The dead driver’s body crashes on the road, so Robert runs to the driver’s body, takes the driver’s wallet out of the pocket of his jeans, opens the wallet and steals his money. He puts the stolen money into another pocket of his unwashed jeans and throws the wallet in the air. He runs and gets into the dead driver’s car, shuts the door and drives the car faster doing a burnout while doing a U-turn, and drives to St Kilda as he continues his escape.
Five minutes later at the police station, a police officer carrying a restraining chair against his ribs arrives in the room which contains the cells. He sees Constable Troy Williamson’s body lying down on the floor of the doorway of one of the cells, so he puts down the restraining chair and runs to Troy’s body in the doorway, shakes him and says to him, ‘Mate, are you all right?’
Troy opens his eyes and says to the police officer, ‘I’m okay.’
‘What happened?’ says the police officer.
‘Robert Taylor has escaped,’ says Troy.
The police officer is shocked, and says, ‘Stone the crows! What are we going to do now?’
‘We’ve got to talk to the inspector,’ says Troy. ‘This is a manhunt.’ He stands up from the doorway, and runs to the conference room to speak to Inspector Mack Young. The police officer takes his walkie-talkie out of his pocket and says, ‘We have got a prisoner who has escaped from his cell, and his name is Robert Taylor. We need a group of policemen to search for him in St Kilda, other suburbs and the city’s CBD, over.’
‘Okay,’ the voice says, so the police officer leaves from the doorway as the police are in crisis about the escape of Robert Taylor.
CHAPTER 34
I
n the conference room of the police station, Inspector Mack Young says to the media, ‘We’re going to bring Robert Taylor to the public so …’ But whilst he’s speaking to the media, the door opens and Constable Troy Williamson enters and runs to the stage. Mack stops talking, his face spins round and sees Troy and says to him, ‘What do you want?’
‘May I have a word with you, Inspector?’ says Troy as he whispers in Mack’s ear, but Mack is shocked and says, ‘I have bad news from Constable Troy Williamson. He’s told me that Robert Taylor has escaped from his police cell and he’s on the run!’
All of the media people are shocked. One reporter frowns and says, ‘What! Robert Taylor has escaped! You’re kidding me!’
‘Oh, this is ridiculous, Inspector!’ says another reporter.
‘Yeah, mate, we wanna see Robert!’ says yet another angry reporter.
‘But I have a word for you,’ says Mack. ‘We’re going to launch a manhunt to track Robert down in St Kilda, and we must stop him before he does another crime in this suburb of Melbourne. Thank you and goodbye.’
All of the media people are upset and scream, ‘Arrrgggghhh!’ They boo Inspector Mack Young, his men and Dr Airhardt.
Mack, Troy, Detective Sergeant Nick Baxter, Professor Jerry Bowie and Dr Airhardt leave the stage and run from the police station.
At quarter to eleven in a firearms store at Rodart Street in St Kilda, Robert has Troy’s pistol in his hand. He enters and sees lots of types of weapons. There are pistols, rifles, shotguns, machine guns, and lots of boxes of bullets.
Robert shouts, ‘Hello! Is anybody here?’ There are no people in the store. Robert says to himself, ‘Suckers.’
He puts Troy’s pistol in the pocket of his unwashed jeans, runs to a shelf which has a 9mm semi-automatic high-powered rifle and next to it, a box of bullets. He takes them and puts the 9mm semi-automatic high-powered rifle over his right shoulder, opens a box of bullets and puts the bullets in his right pocket and throws the box into the air. Then, he runs to another shelf which has a shotgun and a box of bullets, and takes them. He puts the shotgun over his left shoulder, opens a box of bullets and puts them in his left pocket and throws the box into the air. He walks to the door to escape but the owner of the firearms store enters after having a morning tea break, sees Robert, points at him and says to him, ‘Hey, hey, hey, stop, thief!’
Robert turns around, points the gun at the owner, pulls the trigger of the gun and fires at him. The owner screams loudly and collapses on the floor and dies. Robert runs to the front of the store, jumps and lands on the floor next to the owner’s dead body. He opens the cash register, steals bank notes and coins, puts them in his pocket and escapes.
Fifteen minutes later at Barclay Street, there’s a telephone booth and inside there’s an old lady who is calling her daughter but Robert with Troy’s pistol in his hand and two other weapons on his shoulders approaches. He puts Troy’s pistol in the pocket of his unwashed jeans, and takes a bullet from the 9mm semi-automatic high-powered rifle out of his right pocket. Robert puts the bullet on the footpath and takes the 9mm semi-automatic high-powered rifle from his right shoulder and holds it in his hand. Then, he opens the barrel of the top of the same weapon, picks up the bullet from the footpath, puts it on breach and closes the barrel. He is ready to take aim and points it at the old lady inside the telephone booth.
When she hangs up the phone after calling her daughter, Robert pulls the trigger of the 9mm semi-automatic high-powered rifle and fires it at the back of her head.
The window of the telephone booth smashes and the old lady dies. Robert puts the same weapon back over his right shoulder and runs to the telephone booth.
He grabs the old lady’s dead body out of the telephone booth and throws her onto the footpath. Then Robert takes her purse and steals her money. Back in the telephone booth he takes the phonebook from the shelf and points at an ad for the Duke of York Hotel.
He gets the phone number and dials the phone number of the Duke of York Hotel. He’s going to take over this building and take people hostage now.
At the Duke of York Hotel, the barman is serving a drink of beer for a patron at the bar but the phone rings so he walks to his office and picks up the phone and says, ‘Hello, this is the Duke of York Hotel, can I help you?’
‘Hello,’ Robert’s voice says which is creepier than Hannibal Lecter’s.
‘Who is it?’ says the barman.
‘It’s Robert Taylor speaking,’ Robert says.
‘What do you want?’ says the barman. ‘I’m going to call the police.’
‘I’m coming to your workplace and then, I’m going to take over that place and finally, I’m going to take you, your boss, your colleagues and other people hostage,’ Robert says.
‘Is this a joke?’ says the barman.
‘No,’ Robert says, ‘I’m coming to your workplace … now!’
The barman stops frowning and is deeply shocked, hangs up the phone and says to himself, ‘Oh my God!’ He walks out of his office but when he returns to the bar to go back to work, Mr Pluck is standing there.
‘What’s going on here?’ he says.
‘It was a phone call from Robert Taylor,’ says the barman.
‘What’s he talking to you about?’ says Mr Pluck.
‘He told me that he is coming to our place and going to take everyone hostage,’ says the barman.
Mr Pluck is shocked and says, ‘Oh God!’
‘He’s coming to our place now!’ says the barman.
‘Good lord!’ shouts Mr Pluck. ‘We’ve gotta get out of this place!’
He turns around and says to the patr
ons, ‘All right everybody, the pub is closing now.’
‘Oh, strewth!’ says one patron so he sips his drink of beer faster, puts the empty glass on the bar and runs to the exit. Mr Pluck turns around to the barman and says to him, ‘You go and tell the other staff members to leave while I check how Mr Brown, his gang and the other girls are going in the secret room.’ He leaves the bar and walks to the secret room while the barman calls the other staff members to leave the Duke of York Hotel before Robert Taylor gets there.
At a hallway, there’s the door of the secret room and Mr Pluck knocks on the door and says, ‘Mr Brown, are you there?’ The door opens, Tyler and Peter enter and Tyler shuts the door but Mr Pluck says to him, ‘What do you think you’re doing?’
‘Just protecting the backstage from ugly men with the help of my mate, Peter. So that’s about it, Mr Pluck,’ says Tyler.
‘Why?’ says Mr Pluck.
‘Because I don’t want ugly men to pay for up close and personal lap dancing!’ says Peter.
‘Oh, for heaven’s sake!’ says Mr Pluck, ‘All type of men want strippers to do a dance for them but, please, don’t be a mean person.’
‘Come on, Mr Pluck!’ says Peter.
‘Look, the answer is no,’ says Mr Pluck, ‘No more issues about being ugly forever.’ The door opens again and Angelique and four dancers enter. One of the dancers shuts the door while Angelique walks to Tyler, and Mr Pluck says to her, ‘Everything alright today, Angelique?’
‘Not really, Mr Pluck,’ says Angelique.
‘Why?’ says Mr Pluck.
‘Because the girls and I are waiting for the male spectators to come and see us and when I was performing on stage the male audience didn’t see me because the men were not here in the audience, just Tyler and Peter backstage,’ says Angelique.
The Mysterious Coat Page 19
