You Wouldn't Be Dead for Quids

 

 

 

 

Robert G. Barrett was raised in Bondi where he has worked mainly as a butcher. After thirty years he moved to Terrigal on the Central Coast of New South Wales. Robert has appeared in a number of films and TV commercials but prefers to concentrate on a career as a writer.

 

 

Also by Robert G. Barrett in Pan

YOU WOULDN'T BE DEAD FOR QUIDS THE REAL THING THE BOYS FROM BINJIWUNYAWUNYA THE GODSON BETWEEN THE DEVLIN AND THE DEEP BLUE SEAS DAVO'S LITTLE SOMETHING WHITE SHOES, WHITE LINES AND BLACKIE AND DE FUN DON'T DONE MELE KALIKIMAKA MR WALKER THE DAY OF THE GECKO RIDER ON THE STORM AND OTHER BITS AND BARRETT GUNS 'N' ROSÉ

This is a work of fiction and all characters in this book are a creation of the author's imagination.

First published 1985 by Waratah Press First published 1986 in Pan by Pan Macmillan Publishers Australia This edition published by Pan Macmillan Australia Pty Ltd 1 Market Street, Sydney

Reprinted 1987, 1988, 1989 (twice), 1990, 1991, 1992 (twice), 1993, 1994, 1996, 1998 (twice), 1999, 2000, 2001 (twice), 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006, 2008, 2009

Copyright © Robert G. Barrett 1985

The moral right of the author has been asserted.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted by any person or entity (including Google, Amazon or similar organisations), in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, scanning or by any information storage and retrieval system, without prior permission in writing from the publisher.

National Library of Australia cataloguing-in-publication data:

Barrett, Robert G.

You wouldn't be dead for quids.

ISBN 978 0 330 27163 9

EBOOK ISBN 978 1 743 54906 3

I. Title

A823. 3

Typeset by Post Pre-press Group Printed in Australia by McPherson's Printing Group

 

You Wouldn't Be Dead for Quids

A Fortnight in Beirut

Grungle

Bowen Lager

Definitely Not a Drop Kick

Fishin' for Red Bream

 

I would like to thank Ross and Helen at Coffs Harbour for giving me encouragement. Phil Abraham at
Australian Penthouse
for giving my stories a go. And the English master at Terrigal High, Mr James Tritten, for the invaluable help with my English.

 

This is dedicated to the late Paul Turner, one of the best blokes I ever met — sadly only too briefly.

 

The Publisher would like to acknowledge that the author is giving 10% of his royalty earnings to Greenpeace, an organisation which he deeply respects.

 

 

 

You don't have to look hard to find a lot of tough men around Sydney town, especially in the Balmain, Inner City and Eastern Suburbs area. They might be wharfies, truckies, meatworkers, ex-boxers, footballers; they might be anything you like that go towards making up the ranks of what are regarded as hard men, A lot of hard men usually end up working as bouncers somewhere, like a pub or disco, but if they're really good and they've got a bit of brains to go with the brawn there's a good chance they'll finish up on the door of an illegal casino; and while a lot of people say there's nothing too prestigious about being a bouncer, to work on the door of an illegal gambling casino is about as prestigious as you can get in the bouncing rort.

The reason is the huge amounts of money involved. In the 70s when Sydney was a real toddlin' town, the casinos were all run by very rich, very powerful men who had generally been old villains and hard boys themselves in their day. They could soon sort out a sheep from a goat and with millions of dollars in cash going through their hands, cash that had to be minded and collected, they wouldn't employ a lot of cream puffs and would-be's to do it for them. They could afford to pay enormous slings to the police and politicians to keep the casinos' operating, so they got the best protection there was in that department. Being able to pay the best wages for their heavies they only got the best men available in that department also; and the best of these was a big, red-headed ex-Queensland meatworker named Les Norton.

Actually Norton wasn't really all that big. He didn't have a great bull chest and he was just a shade under six feet. But he had good broad shoulders and a wide, powerful trunk that sometimes, especially in a tuxedo, gave him the appearance of being as wide as he was tall. However, he did have exceptionally long, thick sinewy arms covered in bristly red hairs and at the end of them dangled two massive gnarled hands, the fingers literally like Fijian bananas, the knuckles like fifty cent coins. And when he closed those two massive paws to form a fist, they looked like a couple of those Darling Downs hams you see hanging up in butcher shops around Christmas.

As far as looks go Les wasn't ugly, but he was no Robert Redford either. His scrubby red hair topped a pair of dark, brooding eyes set in a wide square face, and with his lantern jaw and the mandatory broken nose of a bouncer Les looked pretty much exactly what he was. His one outstanding feature was a pair of immensely bushy eyebrows, that caused the owner of the casino where Les worked to nickname him Yosemite Sam after a character in the Bugs Bunny show on TV. And whenever Les was about to go into action with his fists those big bushy eyebrows would bristle like the hairs on a dog's back.

As far as fighting went, Les wasn't a really scientific fighter and for all Les knew the Marquis of Queensberry could have been a hotel in Parramatta. Whenever Les went off it was anything goes, and somehow or other, possibly through his huge shoulders and those enormous bony fists, he used to develop this terrifying punching power that could literally fracture skulls and shatter jaws and ribs. It didn't take long for the word to get around the traps that if you wanted a shirt full of broken ribs and you fancied eating your meals through a straw for a few weeks, just go up and put a bit of shit on Les Norton, and Norton was afraid of no one and nothing. Except, funnily enough, dead bodies; even for an ex-meatworker he had an abhorrence of death. Photos in magazines . . . cemeteries . . . he couldn't even walk past a funeral parlour without getting an uneasy feeling in his stomach, but hardly anyone knew this.