Darlinghurst Road (2 page)

There was never any temptation to steal
because I was part of The Life and even if there was, you don’t
crap in your own nest. Had I have stolen then yes, there may have
been consequences but only if I stayed around to face them. It had
happened before and unlike in the movies, no one was really too
worried by a few grand taking a walk. For men like Harold, it was
simply part of doing business around The Cross and little more than
a minor annoyance. Obviously, it was different if the theft was
some sort of personal dig directed at someone but it was very
difficult to make things personal with people who honestly didn’t
care if you lived or died so long as you kept making money for
them.

The Shadow

We called him The Shadow because he would
appear out of nowhere. One moment he would be sitting on his stool
near the door and the next, he would be standing beside you. A big
man, heavy-built and with a shaved head, he had tattoos covering,
what appeared to be, every inch of his body including his face.
When trouble would start, seeing that tattooed face coming at you
must have been a pretty intimidating sight to a trouble-maker. The
Shadow really didn't have to say much, the visual usually did the
job and he would walk up to them with an angry look and say just
one word: “LEAVE!” One of his favorite expressions was “listen, you
need to settle down and be a good boy because if you don't be a
good boy... you're going to be a very fucking sore boy!”

It wasn't all about appearances with The
Shadow though, his job was security and if it came down to a
problem with a drunken sailor or some smart guy with an aggressive
streak then he was the man you wanted on the door. The Shadow was a
serious heavyweight who could crack skulls every time he threw a
punch and once he started, it was only over when his opponent was
unconscious.

One night, a girl screamed and The Shadow
appeared at her door. She was on the bed holding her face and went
to get up when the guy punched her in the face a second time. As
she slumped back on the bed, her attacker pulled a knife and said
to The Shadow with menace, “get out of my fucking way or I'll kill
you.” The man had two friends with him and they both came running
when they heard the drama.

Bolstered by the arrival of his backup and
looking to fight his way out, the guy threw a punch at the tattooed
face and it was on. The Shadow took them apart one at a time and by
the time he got to the third man, the guy was so scared he
literally wet himself. As it ran down his leg he begged: “Please,
let me go, I didn't do anything, please.” The Shadow said “listen
fucker, if your friends knew how to fight, I'd be on the ground and
you'd be right beside them kicking the shit out of me, you and your
buddies came in here looking for a fight so don't cry about it now
you got one.” The big tattooed fist slammed into his face and split
it open like a watermelon.

Lenny And His
Folks

Lenny was another bouncer at Mandys and a
real nice guy. The Shadow had been working as a heavy in strip
clubs and brothels for most of his adult life but Lenny was a
country boy who had ended up in Sydney, drifting into the job at
Mandys more because he was broke than for any other reason.

Lenny couldn't bring himself to tell his
parents where he worked and made up all sorts of fiction to pacify
them when they would ask about his life in the big city. It came to
an end one day when his parents decided to make the trip to Sydney
for a visit. It was easy lying on paper or in the occasional phone
call but once they were there in person, it was a different story.
Lenny took a week off, booked into a hotel and told them that,
unfortunately, he was in the process of moving house and because of
a mix up with the dates, he had a week to wait before he could move
in.

They bought the story and Lenny showed them
the town, carefully avoiding his real home of Kings Cross. It was
not long after they returned to their little country town that
Lenny quit. His reason was that if, by some chance the place was
raided and he was arrested, it would break his Mother's heart. The
chances of that were slim of course because Mandy was protected but
at the end of the day, he had to look after his own interests and
that meant moving on.

Sharon: A Small Battle In A
Much Larger War

Drugs are as much a part of The Cross as the
prostitution and just as easily obtainable. Mandy fought a constant
battle to keep the drugs outside the door but it was The Cross and
there are some things that you just can't fight. It wouldn't take
long for Mandy to figure out if a girl was using and it was
something that she just wouldn't tolerate.

That policy made for a high turnover
considering how common drugs were in the business but Mandy didn't
seem to mind. Mandys was not a high class escort agency, it was a
low end brothel in a back street of Kings Cross that catered to
drunken sailors and assorted other late night bargain hunters. The
girls that worked in this environment were mainly street walkers
who had decided to move up in the world, probably not realizing at
first, just how slightly they were actually moving up. That was the
reason why it was so hard to keep out the drugs; when the street
girls came in, the drugs did too.

Sharon was an addict who managed to keep it
hidden long enough to overdose. One of the other girls found her
sitting on the toilet, she was still alive and Mandy was furious.
Lenny was told to drive her to the hospital and leave her there
which he presumably did. Several days later, another girl was found
injecting in the same bathroom. Some people have the worst possible
timing and only a few hours after that last incident, Sharon's
dealer came looking for her. The Shadow was working that night and
Mandy had the guy thrown out pretty hard with a warning not to come
back. As I recall, he didn’t return to argue.

Barbara And Sunny

Barbara was in her late forties and nature
had endowed her in the style of Dolly Parton so she used them to
her advantage. She worked for one of the night clubs that ran girls
along the Darlinghurst Road strip and she always seemed sad to me
but she could light up when business was involved. She’d been at it
since her teens and breasts aside, she knew that it was nearly
over. Barbara charged less and gave more because she had to.

Sunny was her name and in many ways, it also
reflected her nature. Jaded at nineteen but still full of life,
Sunny was a pretty blond with a lovely disposition. She was one of
those people who are just happy to be alive and enjoying her day no
matter how good or bad it might have been.

We often shared a late night coffee at an old
pizza place down at the end of Darlinghurst Road and just as often
would end up at her place or mine. Ours was a simple kind of
relationship, two lonely people laughing, crying and occasionally
sleeping together. The relationship continued for a time, not
serious, more than casual. Were we in love? I don’t think we knew
the meaning of the word if I’m to be honest but there was something
very special about bathing in each other’s light after the dark
nights around the gloom of The Cross.

Unlike Barb who did her thing in a room above
a strip club with absolute security knowing that a scream would
bring the bouncers followed by a violent expulsion of the clown in
question; Sunny worked alone. Barb knew how the game was played.
Half to the house but the troublemakers end up in the back alley
and not all over her.

Sunny was a country girl and perhaps that’s
why we hit it off. With some good, natural instincts and the
knowledge acquired from her two years as a prostitute she mostly
got it right.

One Friday in April, a long weekend, she made
a serious error in judgment by going out to a house in Newtown with
three men. They picked her up at her usual spot and offered her a
good payday for entertaining the three of them. She went. They
raped her. They beat her. As a result of being raped with some
object that she couldn’t see, she spent a week in hospital. The
first day to stop the bleeding from that and the rest to recover
from the beating, three teeth missing and a scar on her cheek from
somebody’s ring. I tried to help her emotionally but although the
thought was there, the skills were not.

Around the middle of May, Sunny left Sydney
headed for a different life I’m not sure where. We didn’t keep in
touch. I guess that, like The Cross, I was somehow associated with
the pain. At least we said our goodbyes, we did have that and on my
end at least, some wonderful memories of better times.

It could have been worse for her had she have
stayed in Sydney and turned to something to dull the pain like so
many other street workers had. Heroin use was almost a job
requirement for the overwhelming majority of women who worked The
Cross but to the best of my knowledge, neither Barb nor Sunny ever
used.

The Domino Effect

Every person who inhabits that sort of world
invariably has a use-by-date and ours was in September that year.
Harold was nearly eighty and having some Al Capone style troubles
with the law. He’d survived for half a century doing things the old
way but he was not big enough nor well enough to go beyond the
Kings Cross Police district and the local government. A state
election was looming and there was pressure to clean up The
Cross.

Several incidents occurred close together
including a Kings Cross detective shooting a notorious drug dealer
in an alley under very dubious circumstances. The media began to
take an interest and organized crime was making headlines.

Allegations were made in a newspaper that
corruption in the State Police rose to the highest level. These
were only whispers at the time but would be proven correct in later
years as investigations continued after the fact. For me, there was
no need for speculation as I was present in the background once to
witness the State Commissioner of Police being passed a large roll
of money under a table in a hotel bar. As the exchange took place
under the table, he took a sip from his glass and the conversation
never stopped; it was like watching a beautifully choreographed
ballet. Others at the table would not have seen it but I just
happened to have a line of sight from where I was standing at the
bar. I had no idea about what I had just witnessed until I picked
up a copy of the Daily Mirror a few days later, saw his picture in
an unrelated item and put two and two together as they say. By that
time in my life, nothing surprised me so it was forgotten as easily
as putting down the newspaper.

As the demands increased on the government to
move on organized crime, Harold found himself under investigation
for tax evasion. On the agenda was thirty years of dodgy book
keeping and they were digging deep. He eventually beat the odds by
lining up well paid doctors to claim that he had gone senile. In
short: he simply forgot where the money went.

They had very little in the way of actual
documentation to back up the charges and no one of any significance
to stand up to testify so the case fell apart. Millions of family
money was thrown in all directions but there was a lot at stake.
The feds wanted an example behind bars before a critical state
election for their party but in their haste, they underestimated
their enemy. Ultimately, it was over. Warnings were issued from the
judge; a hefty fine was levied for failing to keep proper books and
life returned to whatever passes for normal.

Fallout from the case began a few months
later when, after the dust had settled, Marc took a more active
role in the business. Money was moved from the blatantly illegal
operations to the borderline legitimate ones like the sex shops.
Selling X-rated movies and sex toys was still technically illegal
but as vice goes, it was considered to be the lesser of two social
evils. Mandys was one of the early casualties and so yet another
chapter in the history of the grand old girl called Kings Cross
came to an end.

It was done without fanfare or a dignified
funeral. Mandy called us all together and told the staff it was
over. Sunday would be the last night. She wished us well as she
apologized for the short notice. No explanation was needed for me.
Most of the employees had very little knowledge of the real chain
of power but those of us who knew the story also knew that Mandy
had no say in the closure. We felt more for her than we did for us.
It was an easygoing atmosphere and unlike some of the Asian
brothels, the girls were there to earn a living and were never
under any sort of duress. Mandy tried to keep the place free of
drugs and the girls were generally happy.

The male staff consisted of me and three
bouncers so the girls were her primary concern although Mandy
always went out of her way to help all her staff in times of need.
However, it was over now so time to move on and see what life had
to offer. As I walked out the door of the slightly famous Mandys
for the last time, it seemed almost surreal.

I don’t know about the others but Mandy
looked after me till the end. She slipped me the equivalent of a
month’s pay and kissed me on the cheek as we parted so I was okay
financially. Sunday had come around fast as did Monday. No longer
gainfully employed but still cashed up, I sat around for a week or
two unsure of what to do next.

The Other Side Of
Darlinghurst Road

The Pleasure Palace was a Kings Cross
institution spanning four stores and three decades. Offering many
more additional services than your average adult bookstore, it had
gained a reputation catering to the seedier side of the inner city
population.

All the shops were laid out basically the
same: a regular type of adult store selling pornographic movies,
sex toys and assorted other adult paraphernalia. Upstairs, a gay
cruise lounge consisting of a small movie theater with rooms,
corridors and various dark areas where people could have sex in the
shadows. Downstairs was set up with coin operated movie machines
that looked like a row of telephone booths. Each one had a round
glory hole cut into the wall at waist height that would allow
access to the neighboring booth. Lastly, there was another section
of private rooms that were rented out by the hour ostensibly for
watching an adult movie in private. In practice, these very small
rooms were mostly used by hookers and their clients as a cheap
alternative to a motel.