The Dark Side of Paradise

By Ross Dean

We have all been there, reading a newspaper, listening to the radio, watching television. There was a murder today at, wherever? Some criminal was blasted to death in a blaze of gunfire. A man was shot in his driveway this evening. Some person has gone missing. Another kid dies of a drug overdose. The police are again investigating pedophilia on the internet. This is the todays news.

We look. We listen. We see.
But do we care?

In some cases people will exhibit apprehension. Or in the case of the criminal, mumble good riddance, and as long as its not our kid using, we turn to the next page. Listen to the next item if its radio or, change channels on the TV.

Whatever!

That is generally all we think, until you find yourself staring at the results of a gangland hit spread all over a kitchen bench and the victim is an acquaintance.

Then you find out, things about him you could never imagine. You begin to discover, what horrific things happen to ordinary people, in the place you call home. Its then you have to make a decision. Do you continue to ignore these issues or, do you try to make a difference? Well, do you?

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris AU
• Release date: Sep 29, 2012
• ISBN: 9781479720774

Book preview

THE DARK SIDE

OF

PARADISE

Ross Dean

Copyright © 2012 by Ross Dean.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to any actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

To order additional copies of this book, contact:

Xlibris Corporation

1-800-618-969

www.xlibris.com.au

[e-mail]

502275

CONTENTS

FORWARD

CHAPTER 1

CHAPTER 2

CHAPTER 3

CHAPTER 4

CHAPTER 5

CHAPTER 6

CHAPTER 7

CHAPTER 8

CHAPTER 9

CHAPTER 10

CHAPTER 11

CHAPTER 12

CHAPTER 13

CHAPTER 14

CHAPTER 15

CHAPTER 16

CHAPTER 17

CHAPTER 18

CHAPTER 19

CHAPTER 20

CHAPTER 21

CHAPTER 22

Our lives begin to end, the day we become silent about things that matter to us.

Dr Martin Luther King Jr.

FORWARD

Have you ever noticed how small insignificant things sometimes affect us disproportionately? Generally these are unplanned and unexpected. What I was about to walk into, was one of those events. In reality however it was neither small, nor insignificant, but it was certainly unexpected!

On reflection, I should have taken notice of the feeling in the pit of my stomach when the door was closed. But what could be less significant than a closed door? Well in most houses, normally not much. However in this house nothing was ever really normal. Even though, I had never known that door to be closed… ever. As a matter of fact it was bloody odd, as most doors being open, was normal in this house. It was a characteristic of the owner. Rain hail or shine, anyone home or not, doors were open. That was the way it was.

As it was I dismissed those feelings, why shouldn’t I? After all, I was there for a party, in a house where the abnormal was more normal than the normal. So I pushed the door open, even though now, my neck hairs were prickling up. What disturbed me so? It was just a closed door. Stepping inside I notice a faint smell. It was not an unknown odor, perhaps more uncommon and its sweet sickliness permeated the air. Hesitating, I glanced around the living room. Nothing seemed out of the ordinary, so I continued, towards the dining-kitchen area. Like so many modern houses, the lower floor was just one very large room, divided by columns and benches. It was as I passed an entertainment cabinet, which doubled as a wall divider, I noticed the body slumped, no sagging, on a whicker bar stool. Its torso was face downward on the kitchen bench.

This might sound strange, but on seeing the body I was at first relieved. Morons I thought for a moment, as it appeared that Johnny, or Adam, or perhaps both were up to another of their stupid jokes. Was this the prelude to the party I’d been invited to. Walking closer, I noticed a gory mess splattered across the kitchen bench. Stupid bastards I thought again, half laughing to myself. Johnny and Adam always tried to exceed one another with bizarre practical jokes. Or joining forces, to play one on unsuspecting friends, it was part of life, whenever Johnny visited Adam, which was often these days.

‘You’ve had your fun.’ I started to sing out, but it gagged in my throat. I turned searching the room, there was no movement, no sound, no laughter. There was nothing. The house was void of the usual idiotic practice that normally happened, when those not so young boys played jokes. Also there was that odor, stronger now and mixed with an unpleasant stench.

My mind started questioning what it was seeing. That doesn’t look like fake blood, or at least not like they’d used for their sick jokes before. Then it gelled, it smelt like my blood, your blood, human blood. It was then I really began to have doubts.

Is this really a joke?

I edged closer, half expecting the body to jump up laughing. But the closer I went, the more uncertain I was, until uncertainty left and one thing become very clear. This was no joke. Certainly not for the body on the stool, as the head or what remained of it had exploded. Brain, blackening blood and a sort of watery ooze covered the bench. Tentatively I looked closer, dragging my eyes from the stomach wrenching gore. A portion of a tattoo was visible on the right arm. I eased the shirt sleeve back, the tattoo was unmistakable, it was Johnny, or more precisely, ‘John V Sprague.’ I don’t know what the ‘V’ stood for, it didn’t matter now.

Johnny Sprague, the bloke dead at the kitchen bench, had been a funny bloke at times. He had other traits as well, playboy, inventor, bad businessman. But I was to discover, he had more unsavory side as well. Johnny had led two lives it seemed. What seemed to be an average, if a bit weird bloke had as well been a ‘friend,’ to some very sleazy people? However to me, he had been someone, somewhat surprisingly I had liked.

After the initial shock, I realised it was the end of his humor and the end of him. Johnny had, as Shakespeare so eloquently put it, ‘shuffled off this mortal coile.’ In fact and more correctly, he had been blown from it.

There were many things I did not realise, on that once beautiful day. Finding Johnny dead was just the beginning of a crazy merry-go-round. Before long, I would be drawn into conflict with some of the most fearsome people you could imagine. Some had been part of Johnny’s life, well past life now. There were people whom I had never conceived in my wildest dreams; I’d ever be involved with. Some were linked to the Gold Coasts ‘Russian Mafia’. Several were ‘biker gang members.’ The rest, putting it succinctly, were nothing less than ‘depraved bastards.’ As stated, many were people Johnny had associated with in his other life. However it was the ones whom he had been indebted to, who were by far the worst.

Johnny’s so called friends. Friend’s hell, with some of the friends he had, you sure never needed enemies!

Then there was me and, I was certainly no super hero. Hell, I’d never even vaguely thought of myself as a James Bond, or any such hero type. The truth was I was just an average bloke, who was trying to survive in what at times seems to be an increasingly shitty world. A world that had just become, a whole lot shittier!

My name is Richard, Richard James Stone. But I’m known as Rick.

CHAPTER 1

As regrettable an occasion as it was, finding Johnny dead, I considered it was not as unfortunate for me, as it was for him. At least my brains were still in my head and surprisingly enough, some at least were still functioning. Well in a reasonable fashion. Some who knew me well might even say amazingly. Ever since a messy divorce, then selling off my construction company, I have given myself somewhat of a hiding, metaphorically speaking that is. Being a bit lonely and for the first time in my life not really working, I’d seriously endeavored to find out where ‘Jack’ really lived? As well as that exercise, I’d also spent many nights studying the health benefits of various bottles of liquefied grape.

You see, as I had no longer a need to work, I had decided to assist the Australian economy, through my personal support of the Australian wine industry. I’m not sure of the number of brain cells that survived this onslaught, but suffice to say, I believed the deceased little buggers, died happy. However, you could not say that about Johnny’s spread across the kitchen bench. Little did I realise, how much Johnny’s murder was to change my life. That is, his murder and the people who had influenced and befriended this strange complex little man.

‘Strange thing about life I thought, death has a definite way of changing it.’

Johnny’s death was not only to change mine, but a myriad of peoples. These are the ones you will meet as this story unfolds, for it is they who made up the fabric of life and the many deaths which followed.

Foremost in this list of players is the now indisputably dead, Johnny Sprague. I will leave more of him for later, as it’s certain he’s not going too far at the moment.

Johnny’s best friend was Adam, Adam Milano. Adam’s one of those people you might know. He believed he was someone special. In reality he was ‘up him-self.’ Nevertheless you had to like him. But no matter how much anyone liked him, Adam liked himself more. I used to take the piss out of him. Particularly when he was pissed, by stating he was the only person who could ride the tunnel of love on his own and be completely satisfied!

It must have been his Italian heritage. The conceited bastard honestly believed he was another Dean Martin. I teased him saying he was crap. He’d laughed and carry on singing. Despite his faults, the truth was, Adam was a really likable bloke. At one hundred and eighty centimeters tall, jet black hair, slightly graying at the temples with a few smile lines around the dark brown eyes, his heritage still showed. I guess the best way to describe him would be good looking and elegant. Adam wore clothes with style, he always looked neat. On the other hand, I could dress to kill and in an hour’s time I would look like I had been run over by a bus, several times.

Adam was a lady and man’s man. He liked both you see. Though now in his fifty’s, he was still a pretty fit and from my knowledge, he experienced no shortage of suitors, from either sex. Or if Adam himself was any guide, there was yet another sexual gender hanging round. Whatever, or whichever, all seemed eager to please. Johnny had reckoned, Adam would root a black snake, if someone held its head. I had to admit he was a pretty kinky prick. One thing was certain though; Adam would be in anything, either in business, or bed. He’d often said he’d rather have a fuck than a feed and I was damn sure in his business dealings, honesty was not always the best policy. All this aside, I still liked him, but I never did business with him, or at least not after the first time.

Now you could never find anyone so diametrically opposed to Adam, as the next character in our chronicle. He was indisputably, the other side of the coin. Describing him is not easy. I’ll start by simply saying, he was a fat ugly prick. Although by no means does that do his appearance, the injustice it deserves. Anyway I’ll try harder as I go along. The big fat prick was known, perhaps unsurprising if you know Australian humor, as ‘Little Boy Louis’. Now to say the very least, he was one strange bastard. Trying to understand his guttural accent was hard enough, but as far as I was concerned, the slimy arse-hole was stark raving mad. On the surface he’d professed to be your friend. But in reality, he was the most deceptive bastard I had ever met. I doubt if he even knew what the words truth or friend meant. Well there was one person he was close too, his ‘brother in law,’ another low life, his name, Armstrong, Ivan Armstrong.

I was to find out, to my and many other people’s terror, they were just as insane and just as rotten as each other.

At the end of the day, Little Boy Louis was a conniving grotesque fat lying snake. (I told you I’d get better) I’ll wager the bastard had more twists than a Californian turnpike. Little Boy Louis, was the name which he was known by to everyone. His real name, no one appeared to know. It was said that his mother had even forgotten. Maybe she just wanted to? Little Boy Louis was the only name he answered to. The fat prick was an enigma though, he had women everywhere.

Women, he had them laid on, beautiful women. Why or how I do not know, for he was bloody ugly. Bloody ugly and obscenely fat, if he’d been a Yank, they’d say he was ‘Coyote ugly’. Louis stood 195cm tall and weighed in at One Hundred & Eighty Kilograms. His pig eyes, or what you saw of them, were cold blue. They looked like tiny spheres in his fat bald head and they never stopped moving. His tongue was the same. Snake like it darted in and out constantly, it was probably spit as well. What a slimy bastard, if I hadn’t known it was impossible. I’d have sworn he was a cross between a goanna and a cane toad. Interestingly though, while Louis had none of the visual attributes of Adam Milano, he had the gift of the gab as well. I recon the bastard could sweet talk a camel into believing it was Phar Lap. The thing I did not know initially, was how much, I could come to hate him.

Then, there were the malicious people, people like Oliver Stiles.

Stiles Empire was vast. There was little if anything illegal he was not involved in. Extortion, drugs, brothels, people smuggling any illegal subject you could think of, he was involved. He was a very cleaver man, but with a touch of ‘Genghis Khan’ thrown into the mix. Despotic mixed liberally with an overly large dose of insanity was an apt way to describe him. Evil in its purest form, Stiles didn’t like to hurt people. He loved to hurt people. Hitler would have stood in awe of his immorality.

Stiles, was connected to every criminal organization on the Gold Coast. The Russians, Biker Gangs, the Japanese, Lebanese gangs! In effect, he’d infiltrated and now influenced every criminal element. It was not unusual to hear the term Godfather, when his name was mentioned. His ambitions however did not stop in that region. He was highly connected in most Australian Cities and more recently in various Asian countries.

The first time I set eyes on Stiles, it was from a distance. First thoughts, a pretty ordinary looking bloke, but as you got closer you could see something in his eyes. They were narrow piercing hazel colored slits, in a slightly pockmarked face. Those features were accentuated by thin cruel lips. In reality, he looked like his heart must have been, cold and mean. He was a bit shorter than average, about one hundred and fifty centimeters, stocky in build, looked reasonably fit, not much extra weight with wavy graying hair. However, regardless of what he looked like, he had the persona of a Piranha.

There is an old saying. ‘Their right hand does not know what their left hand is doing.’ In Stile’s case, I doubted if the left side of his brain knew, what the right side was thinking, he trusted no one, perhaps not even himself. To sum Stiles up, it’s like this. Cruel ruthless and very much feared and by far, the most powerful criminal on the Gold Coast, if not Australia, indeed, like a giant squid his foul tentacles where firmly grasping hold of an ever expanding criminal empire.

CHAPTER 2

Having been involved in the building industry, it was no secret to me, or indeed anyone who read the local papers, that crime on the Gold Coast had, had a distinct East European aspect to it. The dominant influence had been what was known as the ‘Russian Mafia’. Some areas had prospered dramatically from major infusions of ‘black money’. The results of black market profiteering in post communist Russia. It is fair to say however, Russians were not the only nationality involved in these transactions. As there are reportedly peoples from many of the old communist bloc countries, involved in these ventures. Now Stiles was domineering even these groups on the Gold Coast. The place I call home, along with half a million other Australians. It is where many Australians aspire to live and where many people throughout the world, would love to live. It has everything sun, surf and beautiful people. Unfortunately, it also has some of the most antisocial bastards ever to have been born living here.

Finding Johnny’s body, was about to turn my world upside down. Upside down, inside out and thrown in a cesspool, is perhaps a better description. I was to be cast into mire so decadent, most of the people involved could only be described as the shit of the world. I was to encounter people involved in every rotten aspect of criminal life, pornography, prostitution, kidnapping, drugs, money laundering and money lending. Fencing stolen property, re-birthing stolen vehicles, gun running, manufacturing illegal CD’s and DVD’s. But none of those crimes were anywhere as despicable, as the worst, child pornography. Anything that made money illegally, it’s for sure those arse-holes were into it. Now my world was about to collide with their world. All those things and most of those people, were about to become my problem and I theirs.

CHAPTER 3

I’d met Johnny through Adam Milano, about a year ago as I remember. My first impression, he’s a bit strange. Then again, most of Adam’s friends were. Which probably included me? However mentally, Johnny was verging on genius level. He was eccentric, yes, but clever. Although commonsense wise, perhaps he was not so smart. As it had recently been revealed by Adam, that Johnny had one very stupid belief. He thought he could play funny buggers with people like Stiles and not get hurt. Now even an average idiot like me knew, that there are people who when you borrow money from, you pay them back. You didn’t have to be Einstein to know, Stiles was one of them and I believed I was looking at the proof, with Johnny’s brains spread across Adam’s kitchen.

It was then my brain started thinking, of me. After all, I was in a house alone, with a dead man. Not just dead, very dead and plainly the guy had been murdered. There was absolutely no doubt about it and as numb as my brain was, I figure out its frigging impossible to blow your brains out and not leave the gun lying around. I was somewhere between shock and disbelief when the phone rang. I nearly went through the ceiling with the unexpected sound, but it jerked me back to reality. What to do answer the phone? Finger prints went through my mind, the police. Who had done this? Are they still around? One side of my brain kept firing questions at the other side. Had any one heard the shot, had they phoned the police? Had they seen me entering Adam’s? Had I seen the killer, had the killer seen me? What was the best thing before sliced bread? I didn’t know! I didn’t know the answer to any of those questions. I’d walked past a few people I hadn’t know coming into the complex. I didn’t know what to do. The bloody phone rang incessantly.

Suddenly I felt angry. I was angry at the phone because it would not stop ringing and was now annoying the shit out of me. I was bloody angry at who had murdered Johnny. I’d liked him, well sort of. This was all weird, one of my purposes of being here tonight, was to try and help him out. If I had of know of the real problems he had, I might have ran the other way.

However instead of running, my mind started assessing the situation. Now memory is an amazing thing really. For out of the blue, standing in Adams house, looking at what had been Johnny, I began to recall things. Like newspaper headlines, TV reports, reports of people disappearing, or turning up dead, (funny saying that, how do you turn up dead?) Don’t know? Well, neither do I. But now a friend of sorts, well he’d turned up dead. I suppose you could say that. Anyhow, it makes a difference to how you feel about things, when it is someone you know involved. Through my life, I’d tried to keep my nose clean and out of trouble. For some reason that escapes me now, I decided to get married, once. That was about the worst trouble, I personally ever needed.

Marriage was when I found out the truth of the statement, ‘the journey is often better than the destination.’ In fact in my case, the journey leading to the church was a lot more enjoyable, than the marriage. I didn’t like it. So we finally divorced. Divorce is not much different to being married really. Except now I get to sleep with different people again, like before I got married. My biggest problem had been, when I discovered my wife was still doing that, whilst we were married. I was angry about that at the time. Now I was angry again, but this was a different anger. Sure I felt like kicking the shit out of the bastard sleeping with my wife. But then he married her. That in its self, would be a fate worse than anything, I could do to him. Well I lived in hope.

I digress again. While there is no doubt Johnny’s murder was the catalyst, which set me off on my path of revenge. There was a more personal factor as well. One I had barred from my conciseness for years. It was an issue I had suffered in silence, in the belief there was nothing I could do about it. But now, with Johnny’s dead body here in front of me, I realised I had to finally do something. My mind’s eye then evoked images of my young brother, eight years younger as a matter of fact. His name was James, James Stone. And here is exactly, what was carved on his head stone.

James Stone

A Life Wasted

James had been forever in strife it seemed. I think he was about ten when he was first brought home by the police. He was just one of those kids trouble followed. But it was drugs, which brought him undone. Firstly, like a thousand other kids his age, it was smoking marijuana, ‘innocent stuff’, he would say. That was his standard rebuff whenever I chastised him, along with. ‘It’s not as bad as bloody cigarettes or alcohol’. Unfortunately that’s not where it ended. For marijuana was only the start. Heroin was soon the drug of choice and of course then, he had to get the money to buy it. Consequently he was soon selling, as well as using. It was only when I received a call from my Dad one day. That I became aware of the real seriousness of the situation. James had been arrested and from that day on it was a roller-coaster ride of drugs, court and jail. I did everything I could to help, money, rehab. I even took him into my home after he got out of prison, but to no avail. My brother was on a downhill slide to hell and that was only halted, or hastened. Depends on what you believe, by his death.

Jim hadn’t hung around my home for long. One day he just upped and disappeared. I knew this was killing mum and dad, but my endeavors to find him were in vain. Then one day I received a phone call, from a hospital in Sydney. It was one of those calls only people used to making them can do, so coldly. It began with an emotionless voice stating, they believed my brother was in their hospital and if I wanted to see him, alive, I had better not take too long.

I jumped on the first flight I could. What I witnessed after being shown into the hospital room was something I will never forget. Jim looked more like someone out of a WW-2 concentration camp, than my brother. Apparently, so the authorities told me, for he could not speak. Somewhere along the line, he had shared a needle with a HIV infected user. Well the hospital had done its best, but he had waited too long to seek help. James died two hours after I arrived and dad just two months after that. Consequently, I already had more reason than most to hate drugs and those who dealt with them, or prospered from them. But until now, like most people, I had done nothing about it.

Now however, standing in the middle of a very bloody kitchen, with Johnny splattered all over it, latent thoughts of revenge welled into my conciseness. Sure I knew he’d been stupid to take drugs. But, some bastard introduced him to them and there was where my hatred focused. The pushers, the growers, the middle men and every other vile piece of shit in that insidious business, the time had come to change. Change from doing nothing. The question was, how and where to start. But I was to discover, I did not have to start or change a thing. With Johnny’s death the change had already started and like an avalanche, there was no stopping it.

Adams home was like a half way house, doors were hardly ever closed, let alone locked. That’s why I was surprised, when I found the front door shut. All and any one was welcome. You either knocked with your elbows, bringing food or booze. Or if you were broke, came in any way. This was Adam’s way. This was Adam. He was strange, conceited, kinky but very open and very friendly. His house was open twenty four hours a day. No one would take any notice of a stranger in the house. That was how most of his friends had met, by being invited to a party by Adam, or by someone who was going to Adam’s. There were no formalities, no fuss, you just came and many stayed long after the music had stopped. Bodies sprawled on the floor where they fell. Some lucky ones found a bed, or wherever in most case. I’d been introduced to him when he was flogging a gimmick, which he stated, would make cars run twice as far on a tank of petrol, than normal. An acquaintance of mine was thinking of investing in it and had asked me to take a look at it. Fact was it wouldn’t make my push bike any more economical. I discovered latter, it was a part Adam pulled out of an old computer, which had died a premature death, by being dropped out a window? People were lining up to invest in it. I suppose it was the frame of mind I was in at the time, as I somehow became his friend, even though I knew he was a conman. I guess that’s what a conman does. Befriends you and cons you.

So, Johnny killer would have no trouble walking in and walking out of Adam’s house. No one would bat an eye lid. The neighbors certainly would not take any notice. With all the coming and goings, they had learnt not to care, or they had given up on Adam’s antics and just minded their own business. Johnny probably would not have glanced up from the paper that he was reading. Even if he had heard his assassin, which was quite unlikely, Johnny was one of those people who became entirely engrossed in what they were doing, reading or otherwise. The only thing he may have known was a millisecond of pain, just before his brain exploded and his face blew apart.

All these thoughts speed through my mind. The phone had stopped, but now a blood curdling scream split the silence. Adam and Melinda, (Adam’s latest girlfriend,) had walked in and she had caught sight of Johnny’s. She was screaming like a banshee, whilst very nearly strangling Adam in her fright. Funny how your mind works at times, because I thought that was somehow appropriate. The last time I had seen Melina, she was also clinging to him, but she had no clothes on then and was alternating her interest between his and Johnny’s dick. I was passing through the lounge room at the time, hastily, as I was being pursued by this amazing Amazon of a sheila. She had started the evening dressed as ‘Cat Woman’. But latter she acted more like ‘Madam Lash’. I had little defense, I had dressed as Tarzan and she’d already stripped of my loincloth. Have you ever had sex with a 192cm tall, very fit woman, who would not take no for an answer? After I was thrown onto a ly-low lounge, I just gave up and went along for the ride. That was until the ly-low gave way and we both ended up in a tub of ice and beer. That stuffed it; I was no use to any one, for a while.

Sorry, where was I. Adam and Melinda had been shopping and I had been so engrossed in my thoughts, I’d