A STORY FOR FRIDA

It must now over twenty years since Red got Harry to promise that if anything happened to her, he would tell ‘The Dreaded Norwegian Woman’ her story. When Red passed on Harry twice attempted to keep this promise, even to the extent of ‘hitchhiking’ from Australia to Sweden. However, the woman could not be contacted; there are simply too many people in place to stop mortals speaking to her. Such a shame as Harry would be equally important in the big picture of life, just, until now, kept hidden in the wings.
As it appears that this promise can now never be kept, Harry has permitted this story to be published in this fan site, so that if, by chance, the site is ever found by someone with the power to break down walls, Frida can at least read something of what her doppelganger was like. It was written for book two of the ducks, a publication that now will probably not get into print.

Barry West

NOVEMBER 1975: RED AND THE BENT COPPERS

Anna was a very unusual woman, for a start she was the double for a female singer in the pop group ABBA, something that would send her into a rage when mistaken for the ‘Dreaded Norwegian Woman’. To make matter worse Anna had a Scandinavian accent so people didn’t believe she wasn’t Frida, even when she was (loudly) telling them so. Anna was also, at the time, gay but I don’t believe it was meant to be that way, I think she had experienced some very bad times with men and this had pushed her in that direction. I guess our relationship and unofficial marriage rather confirms this. Because of her flaming red hair (genuine, not out of a bottle) she had soon acquired the nickname of ‘Red’, OK a bit predictable but we never professed to be intelligent or original.

I missed this little episode as, with Taff in tow, I had gone to Hong Kong to arrange for some very good false passports for the lads and myself. With all our moving about it was getting a bit tricky, soon somebody was going to start asking questions that we couldn’t answer. I had got Max (our boss) to see if we could get passports in Australia but evidently the quality wasn’t as good as those produced in Honkers. Up there it was almost like taking a shopping cart around, once you knew where to go there was an absolute smorgasbord of fake document producers. You needed letters of introduction and these Max supplied. That meant that we got accepted by the fringe of the underworld fraternity - not exactly bad guys but not good ones either. I guess that this conjures up images of dark streets and shadowy figures huddled in doorways and speaking in bad guy tongue, nothing could be further from the truth. We attended family BBQs, played Frisbee with the children of the bad guys and even went to church on the Sunday. Each fake was AU$12,000 and we bought 16, (in mixed nationalities), of them, a couple for each team member.

So, while Taff and I were running around Hong Kong playing spy, Morbid and the lads were back at the Grotto looking after the day to day routine of things. For those that haven’t read The Mucky Ducks I should explain that ‘The Grotto’ was our Sydney HQ. It was mainly one large barn like affair with a tin roof and situated in a ‘beachside’ suburb but as to just where I will still keep a secret. When you entered there was just a large space filled with all sorts of nautical and dive gear, racks of ‘stuff’ and work benches perpetually covered with gear under repair or upgrade. This ended at a wall that separated the working area to a smaller space that held cabinets for ‘special’ gear that wasn’t for any eyes but our own, a shower and toilet and a small galley.

It was 9 pm Friday night and most of the lads had left for day. Morbid was placing tags on some recharged scuba tanks, Cyclops was lounging in my chair and helping himself to a beer or six and Red was in the back room stowing away some new camera and recording gear, she was still quite new to the Ducks and to this time had not shown any of the natural cunning that later rose to the surface.
The garage type roll down door at the front of the building was over three quarters of the way to the ground; it was usually left that way when clearing up. The grotto wasn’t air conditioned; only being cooled by large fly blown ceiling fans that created flickering shadows then the grotto was lit by the ceiling strip lights. Leaving the door partly open allowed the air to circulate.
In a way it was a sort of alarm that night as the fat copper struggling to bend over low enough to get under the door made more noise than a steam engine struggling up an incline. He had a younger constable with him who easily slipped under the thing but there again he hadn’t yet got his VIP card to Hamburger Heaven and Donut King.

The large puffing copper was a sergeant with many years under his belt, along with about an extra 30 kilos; the younger guy looked just out of cadetship or whatever it’s called in the police. Puffy, looked around the place, supremely confident in his ability to intimidate via his uniform, Cyclops said that you could see him weighing up the place, the value of the gear etc, he had evidently spend a lot of time in training himself to ‘look the part’. Morbid noticed that from under the door you could just see the wheels and bumper of their police car; no lights had shone into the room so they had evidently arrived with lights off, which was not at all friendly.

Puffy oozed himself over to where Cyclops was still sitting enjoying a beer.
"Evening", said Puffy.
*Evening constable", Cyclops replied ignoring the rank.
"Sergeant".
"Then good evening to you sergeant is there something we can do for you"? Puffy lounged against the wall. "What is this place"? he stuck a cigarette in his mouth and lit it ignoring the ‘No Smoking - Fuel Storage Area’ sign beside him. "It says outside that this is a towing service but y’know I have never seen a tow truck". Cyclops grinned.
"They come from our other depot; this is just a service and repair place".
"Arr", Puffy thought about this statement for a second or two. "Then why all the scuba stuff, boat gear and outboard motors, they don’t belong in a repair shop for a towing service"?
Morbid wandered over "It depends on what you are towing", he said "Perhaps we tow broken down boats as well as cars".
"Perhaps you do", Puffy eyed him off "Who the hell are you?". Morbid locked onto his eyes, I’m the manager - I run this place". Puffy pushed away from the wall and throw his cigarette onto the always clean floor. "Well Mr. Manager", he said grinding it into the cement. "I don’t like this place at all, it stinks of being f******* rotten and I think you are a f***** bunch of no goods". He rested his right hand on the grip of his revolver; I guess it was another intimidation thing that he had worked into his script. "I’ve been watching this place and it aint no towing service - I think it’s a racket and I think I will need to put in a report to have this place done over". Morbid just looked at him for a few seconds then said. "And I guess a few dollars in your pocket will make sure you don’t make that report". Puffy laughed.
"More than a few dollars, lets say $2000 for a start, I have to pay my partner". He pointed to the young constable who was not looking at all happy with things. He appeared a good kid; the shame was that he had been put alongside this rotten bastard.
"We don’t have $2000 here", explained Morbid.
"No, I guess not but you will have by this time tomorrow".
"Why should we"? Morbid softly challenged. "This is a legitimate company engaged in legitimate work, we have nothing to hide". Cyclops gave him a very small aside look but said nothing.
"Well it’s up to you, $2000 in notes by this time tomorrow or else ..." he let the sentence trail off.

During the entire exchange the young copper had been trying to keep his distance, the whole thing was not to his liking. Now he was stooping to go under the door.
"Sergeant", he suddenly yelled "The car’s gone". Give Puffy his due he didn’t, at first, panic, that came a few seconds later after he had seen for himself that their very expensive government issue car with all the additional expensive gizmos and flashy things was indeed gone.
"What the f**** ", he swung on Morbid, "Is this your work"? Morbid was innocence itself.
"How could it be, I’m only a couple of feet away from you".
"Anybody else here"?
"No, they’ve all gone for the weekend - but you know what it’s like around here, the place is crawling with villains".
"Struth!". Puffy the younger cop and they vanished under the door, which was then brought to down with a crash by Cyclops.
"Well", Morbid said after a few seconds silence, ‘that was interesting".
"Wadda ya reckon", Cyclops was trying hard not to laugh, "Red"? He went to the dividing door and looked into the back room, it was empty. "Yep, Red".
The two of them sat down at my desk to have a few beers and wait.

It was only about 25 minutes later that Red arrived via the back door. She wandered in and put a police radio onto the table, followed by a police issue shotgun, ticket book or whatever it’s called and around $250 in small notes ‘from the glove box’ she explained.
Morbid was almost ear to ear grinning, there was a story here and what a little story it was.

Red had been in the backroom when the cops arrived and heard Puffy’s opening remarks. Slipping out of the back door she had made her way to the front and got into the police car, which had not only been left open but with the key in the ignition, not that it would have made any difference if it wasn’t, as Red knew how to hot wire a car/truck/boat whatever. She had slipped the car into neutral and let momentum roll it back away from the door and into the road. She had even let the car run backwards about 150 metres down the road before starting the engine and turning around.

"So", Morbid asked, "what did you do with it"? Red sat herself down and poured a small whisky.
"It’s in the car park of the pub" she said. "Well, not actually in or out of the car park it’s stuck halfway".
"What’s it stuck on"? This from Cyclops
"It ran into the heavy cement post on the gate", she told them "Whoever was driving must have been very drunk to do that. The smell of whisky in the car was almost overpowering". From behind her back she produced a half empty whisky bottle. "I didn’t use it all", she explained, that might have been too obvious".
Morbid and Cyclops looked at each other and started to laugh. "Let’s hope the police find it before Puffy does", said Cyclops "Or he will no doubt re rig it and blame it on some poor innocent sucker".
"Oh no", said Red," That won’t happen. I rang the police station and told them I had just seen a police car crash as it was leaving the hotel car park and I thought that one of the policemen must have been hurt as he was so mad he dropped the keys into the bushes".
"I take it that you have put the keys in the said place"? Morbid knew her mind.
"Oh Ja, they will find them exactly where I said".

All in all it must have been an interesting night. Nothing was ever reported in the paper but Puffy vanished from the area. Some said they saw him on the dole queue - I really do hope so. The youngster was evidently not too effected as he was a regular on local patrol and even rose to sergeant; he and Morbid sometimes had a beer together.
Knowing how the police work I can figure that Puffy hadn’t been very popular in ‘the club’ or the police would have closed ranks around him. You don’t get rid of a bent copper with one little stunt unless his fellow head pounders wanted him out. So, apart from being a rotten cop he was also a rotten person and when he suddenly needed friends he found that there was nobody there - that must have been very scary.
Red never ceased to amaze me, she was always quietly showing that she was not only on the ball but three bounces ahead of it. She made the rest of us appear very pedestrian.

One last thing; some of you will be thinking that as the Ducks were villains, we shouldn’t be making any judgments on others that are the same. Well there is a difference; we might have been villains but we were honest ones and didn’t get involved with the innocent, or use intimidation for blackmail purposes - live and let live was our policy.
A bent copper is another thing. They all wear big badges and have flags with fancy mottos that tell the population that they are there to serve and protect etc, etc. This gives them power (granted by the people) but it also binds then to ultimate responsibility in the performance of their work. When a copper goes bad he/she is betraying not only the community but all their brother officers - they have taken the King’s shilling and betrayed the King. That is the highest crime of them all. Pity they have done away with beheading, that used to be the punishment.

Postnote 2007
One thing I very much regret is that the fact that Red became a very fine ship's officer didn't get into the book. She was a natural and could have passed her masters exams standing on her head. Many a time she was in command and stood watches the same as the rest of us. She brought (to my fading memory) ships alongside in Lautoka, Lae, Vila, Honiara plus a few others. Some people can learn seamanship and ship handling, yet never be that good at it; with Red she was extremely good, for her it was as easy as breathing. I think she simply had an affinity with ships, like many of us, she often talked to them.
Harry

(C) 2007 THE MUCKY DUCKS FAN CLUB