andrewmozart's blog: "AM"

EMMA

I hate this job sometimes.  It’s the dirty bits that piss me off.  Here’s a lovely Saturday morning and instead of relaxing with the paper listening to the jets sailing into Mascot, I’m cleaning out this fucking gun.  Look, look at me; filthy hair, a dirty face and sweat dripping in rivers onto my Kat T shirt. My shorts are soaked with oil and I’ll probably get some skin disease. Good job I didn’t choose the Trussardi’s.

I love this gun almost as much as I do Little Masha.  When I took this job on I thought I’d just have to wipe it down from time to time. Like Mr Sheen ads on TV.

Well you can imagine my horror when the Rev told me that this wasn’t a service institution and if I wanted to fire it I had to clean it! Well nobody said anything like that to me until my husband went “urgh” when I drove the carving knife into his heart. Can you imagine what all this cleaning does to my nails, darling?

A little Chablis and a rollie I think.  I know what you’re saying, it’s bad for me and it’s too early.  My dears, it’s my life and if you want to save it, come and clean this fucking thing yourself and I’ll go and have a nice bath.

AndrewMozart would describe me as “willowy and elegant with cool, appraising eyes.” I certainly don’t feel like that now but when you’re a writer you can say anything you want and there’s nothing I can do about it.  I admit I did my tedious and vicious husband, dissected him into parcel sized pieces and posted him. Of course I wore rubber gloves. Come to think of it I used them on him even when he was alive!

In retrospect I should have shoved him into a concrete pour like they did to the poor Giarrusso Brothers so I could have sobbed tearfully, “I wonder where my poor hubby is?” Why didn’t someone tell me the partner is always the first suspect? Thank you very much, Andrew.

I did all the things that tough girls do in the nick and got good behaviour and was out in five, completely “cured” they said. I’d stashed Derek’s assets away neatly before I did him and they’d accumulated nicely while I was otherwise employed.  I came out fit and fantastic, bought a place in Neutral Bay for C.A.S.H and became bored shitless within days.  Then I heard that the Rev needed a refined person for his organisation.

I met him in the Annandale pub just across the road from the house here and I had to laugh, he was dressed as a priest complete with bible, rimless glasses and an amiable smile.  Boy, talk about appearances being misleading, he’s the most vicious person I’ve ever met.  But always polite, I must say, which is how it should be.

It’s a nice day here in Annandale.  Our house is a three storey red brick pile of Victorian rubble that Marty bought for cash when we were in the RPA and I’m sitting with my glass in one corner of the garden and looking at all the landscaping I’ve done. I share this house with the other socio’s and generally speaking we have a lovely time together. Perhaps that’s not quite true; the only true head cases in this place are Christine and I.  Lethal was one of us too but was hit in the head and body by six 9mm bullets last year. The others are relatively normal depending on how you define “normal.”

I’ll just have a little top up and another rollie while I complete the story.  It seemed that the Rev was some sort of vigilante, clearing out bozos on behalf of the NSW Polis. He needed some more firepower and his mate Trev recommended little me.  So the long and short of it was that I agreed to join this bunch comprising The Rev, Martin, Christine and Lethal.  Monica came later.  But at the time it was like being invited to the Eurovision Song Contest; little talent but the need to sing for my supper.  

Before I knew it, we were taking out crims at an alarming rate.  Little Masha was in her element and I was going through .303’s like they were going out of style, as you can imagine my dear.  We had a pretty good run until we had that nasty run-in with the Russians from St. Ives and Lethal copped it there and the Rev took two in the chest himself in the Toyota. Chris and I got shot up at the house while Mart and Monica took the rest out with the big Brownings.

So I’m enjoying this lovely day waiting for the Rev to come round and provide some muscle to get the bloody barrels off this thing. I wave at the low flying aircraft and sometimes they’re so close I imagine they’re waving back.

The Rev says he’ll be over in a sec. I don’t know how he spends his time but he wanders in a few minutes after my call with a gentle smile for me as usual.  As I mentioned before, the same expression can be a death sentence for someone else. He’s pretty tall and muscular and if you crossed him he would strangle you with the same expression. Freaky.

“My God, Emma, you’re filthy,” he said grinning. “We’d better get this done otherwise you won’t be ready for this afternoon.”  Christ, I’d forgotten, the Big Barbie’s today!  Everyone who’s anyone from under a rock will be here at 4.00pm. We knocked the job over in two hours and though  I’m pretty tough I could never have got those barrels off their flanges on my own.  Each one is four feet long and weighs a ton.

By twelve, we had her shining and back in the Toyota.  I thanked the Rev and locked her up in the garage. Now for that bath, a fabulous outfit and a glass of the champers.  When Mart bought this place he made sure we all had space to be completely alone if we so wished.  My suite is on the first floor overlooking the garden.  If I didn’t have this apartment I don’t know what I’d have done.

I’ve decorated it my way and it’s an amalgam of lovely dark and polished timbers, loads of pictures in gold frames and William Morris wallpaper.  I have European Empire taste you see and it’s what I’m happiest with. I spent a fortune on my bathroom.  It’s black marble throughout with a green granite tub in the middle, a million towels and a bookcase.  But I didn’t have much time for literature today as there’s only three and a half hours to create a sensation.

When we first got together, Lethal, Chris and I always had an unspoken competition as to who could outdo each other in the “arrival” stakes.  Chris has it all over me with the tits and hair and Lethal was so Chinese and sexy she’d draw all eyes to her.  I’m pretty good, but I really had to work hard to be ‘numero uno’ with those two around.  On one occasion I was so desperate I bought a 1957 Pink Cadillac Convertible to enhance my entrance.  Then I fell in love with “The Boat,” as I call it and it is another of the loves of my life.  Certainly one of the biggest anyway, eighteen and a half feet long and six foot wide. I had Maurice put the 454 engine in it. Parking’s a bugger though.

I managed to divest myself of the various noxious substances clinging to me and after an hour and a half’s work looked respectable enough for the Big Barbie.  There was no need to make an entrance today as we were at home; entrances need applause from strangers but we knew everybody coming today. White is always good on me.  It accentuates my height and looking in the mirror, I looked suave and tanned.  The tan comes from an airbrush of course.  Getting a proper tan in Annandale is hazardous considering the incoming passenger aircraft dump a kerosene haze all over the garden.

I got into the garden at half past three, which was pretty good timing, just before all the smiling, meeting and greeting starts and it’s nice to have a glass of champagne and a chat with the others.