Davo's Little Something (37 page)

‘Yeah. They'd know something—that's for bloody sure.'

‘Right. Well let's finish these and go and have a word with them.'

Detective Blackburn nodded and smiled. ‘I'll get my handbag.'

There didn't appear to be anyone in the little dress shop underneath the Gay Press office when the two detectives pulled up out the front shortly after. Upon entering, they saw a thinnish man in his late twenties with a red crewcut sorting through a stack of cheap shoes on the floor. Hearing the door open he looked up, immediately noticed they were police and got to his feet.

‘Yes, can I help you?' he said unsmilingly.

Detective Middleton showed his badge. ‘Is the newspaper still upstairs?'

The redhaired shop assistant nodded: still unsmiling.

‘We'd like to see the editor.'

‘Just wait here a second and I'll go and get him.' The man
disappeared through a doorway in the corner and returned a few moments later. ‘He'll be straight down,' he said, and returned to whatever he was doing among the shoes.

Before long a medium-built man wearing green trousers and a matching green shirt and shoes appeared at the bottom of the stairs. He was about thirty with styled fair hair, a neatly trimmed blond moustache and deep expressive brown eyes. He could have been classed as quite handsome, in a Robert Redford sort of way.

‘I'm James Nesbitt, the editor,' he said, walking towards the two detectives. ‘What can I do for you?' He was cool, a little reserved: he didn't bother to offer his hand and neither did the two detectives.

‘I'm Detective Middleton and this is Detective Blackburn. We'd like to ask you a few questions.'

Nesbitt nodded his head, still unsmiling. ‘Come upstairs to the office.'

The two detectives followed Nesbitt up a narrow dingy grey carpeted set of stairs to a small landing. They filed past a cluttered-looking room on the right, where through the half closed door they could see a coffee machine and hear someone shuffling around, then went through another grey door, with the latest cover of the gay magazine
Outrageous
pinned on it, into a larger room which was the main office.

‘Just take a seat and I'll be with you in a moment.' Nesbitt sat down behind a desk-cum-table built out into the middle of the room and picked up a ringing phone. The two detectives pulled up a couple of wire-backed garden-type chairs and got out their notebooks; Detective Blackburn raised his eyes at his partner and gazed around the room.

As far as offices went it would scarcely have suited the managing director of General Motors Holden. The grey threadbare feltex covering the floor was matched by dull, grey paint on the walls, around which were spread several chipped grey lockers and tables with lamps and phones on them. Squeezed in among these was a battered airconditioner which didn't work. A number of paper racks leant crookedly up against the sombre-coloured walls and an old fireplace filled with more racks was set into another wall. A barely discernible glow came
from the bulbs in an old chrome ceiling light with the main light coming from a fly-specked uncurtained window overlooking Crown Street. Several posters depicting plays and gay events and a photo of Rock Hudson, or which someone had pencilled an earring in one of his ears, were tacked around the walls and an anthropomorphic-looking stuffed puppy sat forlornly on one of the lockers in the corner.

Detective Blackburn glanced through a stack of magazines on a table in front of them while they waited for Nesbitt to get off the phone.
Babylonia
,
Tarzan Boy
,
The Body Politic
. He picked up a copy of
Outrageous
and flicked through it finally coming to the classified ads. He went through them, then snorted a chuckle and tapped his partner on the arm as he ran his finger along one: it read:

 

Melbourne. Young puppy just 19, needs new home. Strict master required to correct my disobedience. Can be a little devil at times but willing to submit to ALL never before dared fantasies. Does anyone have kennel space free. Reply N.535.

 

Detective Middleton shook his head slowly then made a quiet barking sound at his partner. ‘Woof—woof,' he said, as Nesbitt continued to talk on the phone.

Detective Blackburn made a clawing gesture with his right hand. ‘Miaowww,' he purred.

No sooner had Nesbitt got off one phone than another rang then another. ‘Rodney,' he called out. A few seconds later an elfin-faced man with little pixieish ears and what dark hair he had cut almost to his scalp appeared in the doorway. ‘Rodney. Could you take these calls in the other room.' Rodney didn't say anything, he just nodded his head, gave the two detectives a bit of a sour look and disappeared back into the other room.

‘Sorry about that,' said Nesbitt. ‘But some days in here the phone just never seems to stop ringing.'

‘That's okay,' said Detective Blackburn, tossing the magazine he'd been glancing through back with the others.

There was a pause for a few seconds as the two detectives summed Nesbitt up and the fairhaired editor did the same to them. ‘Anyway, what can I do for you?' he finally said.

Detective Middleton continued to stare at him for a moment. ‘Well, I think it's pretty bloody obvious why we're here.'

‘The Midnight Rambler murders.'

‘If you want to refer to them as such,' replied Detective Middleton, nodding his head with displeasure. ‘But forget about all that sensationalism crap in the papers. We know it has to be one of your lot that's doing it. And, Nesbitt—you've got to know something.'

Nesbitt leant back and closed his eyes as a bit of a chuckle went through him.

‘There was a seventeen-year-old girl butchered on Saturday night,' cut in Detective Blackburn tersely. ‘Maybe if you think it's that funny we can take you down the morgue and show you what's left of her face.'

The fairhaired editor laced his hands across his waist and shook his head as he smiled softly at the two detectives. ‘You're so convinced it's one of—our lot. Aren't you?'

‘Well who else could it be,' said Detective Middleton, raising his voice slightly. ‘The victims, all skinheads. The area it's all happening in, Oxford Street and round the Cross. And they're not just being killed Nesbitt—they're being mutilated almost beyond recognition. These are revenge killings, Nesbitt. And you know it.'

‘Of course, nothing like that ever happens to us—does it?'

‘That's not the point in this instance,' said Detective Blackburn. ‘Fair enough, you've had your share of trouble—assaults and killings—but this is different. There's a nut out there running around slaughtering people. And I don't give a stuff whether they're skinheads or what they bloody are.'

‘And it's definitely one of us eh?'

‘Well of course it bloody is,' said Detective Middleton. ‘Look, Nesbitt. Don't try to patronise us. And don't take us for a couple of dills either.'

‘Oh I wouldn't dream of it.' Nesbitt smiled a mirthless smile. ‘Look, I honestly don't believe this. You guys know where we're coming from, and violence, especially on this scale, has never been part of our scene.'

‘Yeah?' said Detective Blackburn. ‘Well it wasn't all that long ago, just after that hairdresser got killed—what was his name?
St Peters. One of your gay mates got up on TV and said you were all taking karate lessons or something. And you're gonna try and tell me this isn't the result. Don't give us the shits.'

‘Oh God, that was Peter Glover. He said that just as a bluff. We had to do something at the time.' Nesbitt looked from one detective to the other. ‘We certainly weren't getting much help from the police then, if I remember right.'

The three of them sat there, if not quite arguing, at least talking heatedly with Middleton and Blackburn taking down a few notes here and there; but after almost half an hour of fairly constant questioning they didn't seem to be getting anywhere. Nesbitt was smooth, polite enough and co-operative; if he was holding something back it certainly didn't seem like it. If anything, it appeared he wanted to see the killer caught himself. At first it was a bit of fun to see the skinheads getting some of their own back but now it had gone too far and was beginning to cast a bad light on the gay community and could only lead to more trouble in the future. Finally Detective Middleton snapped closed his notebook and put it back inside his coat pocket; despite the gay editor's co-operation he still wasn't firmly convinced.

‘Okay, Nesbitt,' he said slowly and deliberately. ‘This doesn't seem to be getting us anywhere. But I'll just leave you with one thought.' Both he and Detective Blackburn got to their feet and stared grimly at Nesbitt still sitting there almost expressionless. ‘When we finally find this ratbag, and if we do find he's one of your lot and you know about it, I'm coming back here, Nesbitt. And I'm going to charge you with harbouring a fugitive. Withholding evidence. Giving false information to the police. And how about this one. Conspiracy to murder. That's got to be worth fifteen with ten on the bottom. And I'll tell you what—pretty boy. Those old lags out at Long Bay'd just love to get their hands on you.'

Nesbitt stared evenly back at the two detectives and a slight flicker of a smile crinkled the corners of his eyes.

‘How do you know I might not love it out there myself?'

Detective Middleton caught his partner's eye. ‘Come on, Ray.'

‘Take a free copy of the latest
Outrageous
with you,' smiled Nesbitt as the two detectives got to the door. ‘There's some really good reading in this month's issue.'

The two detectives ignored Nesbitt's sarcasm and headed for the stairs and the car.

‘Well, what do you reckon now, Ray,' said Detective Middleton, drumming his hands a little irritably on the steering wheel before he started the car. ‘Do you think Nesbitt was holding anything back?'

‘Not really,' replied Detective Blackburn. ‘If anything he seemed more co-operative.'

‘Yeah. And that's what I don't like.'

‘You think it mightn't be a gay doing this after all?'

‘No. I still think it is. But. . .'

‘Yeah—but.' Detective Blackburn cleared his throat and spat out the window. ‘You know this thing's getting weirder as it goes along. And I've got this gut feeling about something.'

Detective Middleton stared at his partner. ‘How do you mean?'

‘I think we know who it is already—or we've come across him somewhere. But we just can't see the forest for the fuckin' trees.'

‘Yeah. I think I know what you mean,' sighed his partner. ‘I think we'd better get everything we've got, and anything else we can find, anything, and run it back through the computer again. Something's got to cross reference somewhere. And I'm also going to see about setting up some heavily armed decoys.'

Detective Blackburn nodded his head glumly, realising it was going to be a long day; and an even longer night.

‘In the meantime' said Detective Middleton, starting the car, ‘No-Names is just down the road. Do you feel like spaghetti?'

Blackburn patted his stomach. ‘The wife's got me on a bloody diet. But I wouldn't mind a schnitzel.'

Detective Middleton eased the Commodore out into the traffic and they headed for Woolloomooloo.

According to the newspaper clippings piling up in the kitchen drawer and the others in the garage Davo had now killed over twenty people; including the girl. Not a bad score he mused, as he skipped furiously away in the garage the following Wednesday morning; while in the background The Uncanny X-Men's—How Do You Get Your Kicks thumped steadily along
on the ghetto blaster in driving accompaniment to the whirling leather rope. And to think it all started off with just two skinheads in that lane behind the little hotel on a Thursday night. When would it end? Who knows he shrugged, as he spun the rope twice over his head and did ten doublers in a row. Who knows?

For instead of getting satisfaction out of all the mayhem and death he'd caused all it seemed to do was increase his bloodlust and all he seemed to live for now was going out and killing people. Not just anybody though. But those things hanging around the Cross and Oxford Street. The skins and the punks and the rude-boys and any members of any other Sydney tribes he might happen to come across in a darkened alley one night. Maybe, when he finally found a certain gingerhaired skin with little red and white swastikas painted all over his boots he might possibly stop. But in the meantime—he'd give them bloody Oi. And he did just that, the following Friday and Saturday night.

Friday night's effort wasn't so much a hunt or a kill as a straight out pitiful slaughter. They weren't even really skinheads, just a couple of eighteen-year-old half-baked rude boys in little pork-pie hats coming back to the Cross to score a bit of speed, after a Strange Tennants gig at the Vulcan Hotel. The two unfortunate youths didn't know what hit them and they didn't stand a chance when Davo jumped them from behind in a laneway off Kellett Street and methodically pounded both their heads in. Davo might have managed to salvage some satisfaction out of it but it was nothing more than a brutal sickening shame; the two kids meant no one any harm at all. Saturday night's killings however, made headlines in almost every State in Australia and put the Midnight Rambler Murders into yet another whole new perspective.

Davo parked his car in Forbes Street, just off William and not far down from the centre of Kings Cross, deciding to walk up from there. It had been raining a little earlier, which was probably why there weren't all that many people around, and there was still an inky sheen on the streets reflecting the gaudy neon lights of the Cross and the headlights of the passing cars as Davo strode briskly up towards Victoria Street. He stopped briefly outside the Kings Cross Hotel on the corner from where
further down the street he could see the Piccadilly Hotel and Arthurs; there still didn't appear to be a great deal of people around so he crossed over, deciding to walk a bit further along on the opposite side. As he passed the Victoria Street entrance to Kings Cross Railway Station he found another narrow laneway—Earl Street—it was dingy, appeared to be deserted and full of shadows to hide in; this looks promising he thought and began to follow it.