"£100." "Who do you want shot?" "Big Jim Devine." "I wanna get her right where she breathes." "Jim and I are married... for life." "You'll never know what that is." "You'll die alone." "And you'll die sooner than you think." "For a decade, Tilly Devine and Kate Leigh had battled it out to be the queen of the underworld." "And now Razorhurst was about to explode one last decisive time." "Hello, Kate." "Life on the coast getting a bit dull for you, was it?" "Back to play with the big girls?" "I never left the field." "You just took your eye off the ball." "While you've been playing tit for tat with Tilly Devine," "I've been expanding my horizons." "The Fifty-Fifty Club?" "Huh, you've been sold a pub, Phil." "Keep it." "You might wanna drop by, see what I've done with the old joint, if you're not too rushed off your feet here." "You're not gonna go, are ya?" "You said it weren't fancy." "I'd have worn stockings without holes." "It's amazing what you can achieve with a bit of spit and polish, isn't it?" "You trying to impress me?" "Well, I don't have to try." "You're here." "Lovely voice." "And ain't she gorgeous!" "Yeah." "I need a drink." "I wouldn't spend too much of your hard-earned here, Phil." "I could have you shut down in a bee's dick." "See, you don't have many friends left in this town." "Speaking of friends, you see Edmond over there?" "Bigwig in the city branch of the Bank of New South Wales." "Roland, Randolf- they're brothers." "Roland's a barrister, Randolf's a solicitor." "And Old Nijinsky over there - that's Justice Barnes from the Supreme Court." "I made some new friends, befits my new status." "You put three bullets in my chest, Kate." "I could crush your penny-a-pint, sly fucking grog shops in an eye-blink, but I wanna do you slowly and watch you wither until you're nothing but a beggar in the street... and I'm gonna enjoy every minute of it." "I was around long before you and I ain't going nowhere." "Come on." "Let's get out of here." "Your whisky's shit, mate." "Ohh!" "You might wanna get yourself a new singer there, Kate." "That old one..." "Ooh, she's a bit off-key." "You missed your chance, Calletti." "Yeah, and I missed your heart by how much?" "Hadn't you better get back to your grapes and grapefruit?" "Grapes aren't even in season." "Fruit's in my past now, Frank." "Yeah?" "Yeah." "Come back and see me in a year and you'll still just be a hired hand doing what Big Jim tells you to do." "I don't work for Jim Devine no more." "You kiss his arse for free now, do you, mate?" "Nah, I hate the prick, and the fact is I'm planning on shooting Jim Devine the first chance I get, then I'm gonna cut the ears off his damnable corpse and I'm gonna pin them to the wall in Stanley Street." "Come on." "I just saw Frank Green." "Lucky you." "He was looking very flash." "New clobber, new watch." "He was boasting that he was gonna kill Jim." "Oh, dear." "Is this your doing, Kate?" "You got your claws into Frank, bought him off, poisoned his mind against me?" "Well, if I had, that would mean that I was using a bloke who you turned into a killer to kill your hubby." "And wouldn't that be ironic?" "Frank wants to shoot me?" "I heard him say so myself." "He'll just be joshing." "Frank looks up to me." "He thinks the sun shines out my bumhole." "Nice work, mate." "He's not joshing, Jim." "I think he's switched sides." "I think Kate Leigh's bought him." "This is all your bloody fault." "My fault?" "First thing in the morning, it's Kate Leigh." "Last thing at night, it's Kate Leigh." "I said years ago you were making a rod for our backs with all your feuding, but you wouldn't listen and now Leigh's sicked Frank on me." "Oh, quit your fucking whingeing!" "If Frank's seen you for the weakling you really are, then who's to blame him, hey?" "I'm not the one that squibbed shooting Barney Dalton." "Oh!" "Weakling, huh?" "Well, how weak's that, then, huh?" "Oh..." "Ohh!" "What?" "!" "Um, excuse me, Frank." "What?" "Tilly - she wonders if your arm might be on the mend." "Well, it's just been a few weeks since we seen you, hey, and..." "And she wants me, does she?" "Yeah, she's short-staffed on muscle." "Wen, you ten Tiny there's more than one sheila around here who wants me." "Why didn't you just bring him like I told you to, you useless ninny'?" "!" "I tried." "Be fair, Percy." "Hello, Guido." "You got a minute?" "That's quite a push you've put together." "That takes a bit of clout." "You spotted my talents at long last, have you, Tilly?" "We've never had much in common, have we, Guido?" "We've sort of moved in different circles." "Well, we got something in common now " "Frank Green." "What about him?" "Well, he's pinched your girl and blacked your eye more times than I've had rumpy-pumpy." "I reckon a man of your new stature would be wanting him dead." "And so do I." "Tilly, of course, had heard that Phil Jeffs was back." "And Tilly was never one to look a gift-horse in the chompers." "It's a nice place, Phil." "Fairly classy." "But to my mind, you're lacking a certain je ne sais quoi." "And what might that be?" "A little addition to your entertainments." "It'd knock that slut's shabby saloon right out of the park." "Tilly and Phil entered into a business arrangement." "Tilly would provide the Fifty-Fifty with her prettiest girls, offering private time to Phil's customers." "Phil's cut wasn't huge, but having his club offer girls - as well as grog and gambling and cocaine - was a flanking manoeuvre in his war on Kate." "Phil Jeffs is running the Fifty-Fifty." "The place is a den of iniquity - booze, gambling, snow." "And now Tilly Devine's in on it, supplying the club with her girls." "And you expect me to do your dirty work?" "I'm wasting my time." "Where's Bill Mackay?" "I wanna speak to the boss." "Superintendent Mackay has got security for the bridge opening to supervise." "You're stuck with me, I'm afraid." "Well, then I'm wasting my breath as well." "I hear you've commissioned another murder." "You tell that little savage Frank Green I'm watching him." "As much as I'd like to see him take out Jim Devine, see the whole bang lot of you go out in a hail of bullets," "I actually believe the law's worth upholding." "Hmph, you sounded just like Bill Mackay then." "A poor man's version." "Forgive me for talking your business, but if I was gonna shoot someone," "I wouldn't be all over Darlinghurst, talking it up." "It's called spooking the competition." "It's called being a loose-lipped, loudmouthed galah." "You don't speak to me like that!" "I'll speak how I fucking want." "That's my money you're spending on yourself and your tart." "I want Jim Devine dead." "You can make it look like a robbery, a break-in." "I don't care." "I want him dead." "As soon as I get my arm strength back." "That wing of yours isn't just an excuse, is it, Frankie?" "You got the guts to kill Big Jim or don't ya?" "I got the guts alright, but I'm a professional and if I'm gonna do this right," "I need to be able to hold a gun, to throw a punch and take on any of Jim's mates who wanna have a..." "Oh, fuck." "Oh, I'm sorry." "They moved the bloody stage!" "Mona, come on." "For God's sake!" "As if I haven't got enough troubles of my own." "Just drinking beer..." "Stop it." "Stop it!" "I'm throwing myself into my performance!" "Stop it!" "Stop!" "I'm sorry, Kate." "I'm sorry I'm so useless." "I'm sorry." "Why have you stopped playing?" "Come clean this mess up!" "I'm sorry, Maysie." "What are you staring at?" "Hey, Shoo!" "Get out!" "Go on." "Get!" "How many times are you gonna do this for me?" "For as long as you keep doing this to yourself." "I am gonna give up the booze, Katie." "This time for sure." "Hey, do you remember when we first met?" "Mm." "Yeah." "You were singing for your supper on Bayswater Road." "God." "Oh, your voice was so sweet," "I thought I'd died and gone to heaven." "That was a long time ago." "Not that long." "Go on." "Give us a verse." "Ugh..." "Go on." "Oh, Kate, I don't want to." "Please?" "Please!" "Ohh." "You need a new singer, Katie." "I can't do this any more." "No." "I can't." "Oh, that's bullshit." "No, look at the Fifty-Fifty club, that gorgeous girl..." "Ohh." "You need someone like her, someone young, modern." "You must be pissed 'cause that's the biggest load of bull's roar I ever heard." "You could sing that smiling coconut off the stage in any country." "Hey." "I need you, Mona." "You know that." "But, sweetheart, I need you to be at your best." "I know." "I'll try, Katie." "I promise." "I didn't like her tone." "I'll tell you that for free." "When are you going to kill Jim?" "As soon as this..." "stops giving me gip." "I've been thinking." "Jim knows I'm after him." "What if I front him, say that if he pays me the money I'm owed, I won't knock him?" "That way, I get dosh from him and Tilly as well as Kate." "But you will still kill him?" "Yeah." "Why?" "Because I wanna watch." "I've never seen anyone die before." "I wanna see what it's like to face that darkness and that emptiness." "I wanna see what it's like taking your very last breath." "Guido Calletti wanted to become Australia's Al Capone, but he was a very busy man." "Not only had he agreed to kill Frank for Tilly, he was also planning to take over Kate's cocaine trade." "The trouble was he still hadn't figured out how she got her supplies from the wharf" "Guido, hello." "Where have you and your littley been this time of night?" "Oh, she can't sleep." "Big pram!" "My ma bought it for me." "Five guineas." "Five guineas?" "Jesus, what a devoted grandma that Kate Leigh is, hey?" "Oh, she's a regular doll." "Can I have a hold?" "Uhh..." "Oh, the princess of Darlinghurst, hey?" "Who's a little princess?" "What's this poppet's future, hey, Percy?" "You gonna grow up to be a big important lady like your grandma?" "Or is there something else in store for you?" "I should get her back to bed." "I ain't finished." "3rd of May." "Yep." "Actually, their's was 390." "Yeah, yeah." "What's the matter?" "I bumped into Guido Calletti." "Well, did he hurt youse?" "Nah." "He picked up Charlotte, though." "See, my bet is Kate uses that pram to move her snow." "Kate would sell that sprog to white slavers if there was a quid in it." "Yeah, well, Eileen never went nowhere near the docks tonight, so..." "What the hell's he up to?" "Since when does a saloon serve tea?" "Shh!" "Understand?" "Grab the boys." "Meet in the usual spot." "Yes, everything was going swimmingly for Aussie Al Capone." "Too bad he'd forgotten about the Consorting Squad." "Oh, go!" "Get off, you pig!" "We weren't doing nothing!" "didn't make the consorting laws, mate." "Ohh!" "Now, here's how I see this, Guido." "You shouldn't have raised a hand to my property." "You shouldn't have raised a hand to my people." "You shouldn't have raised anything other than your hat to me and mine." "And you shouldn't have gone near my daughter or granddaughter." "There will be a hundred police stationed along the entry streets." "The north and the south?" "Aye, north and south ends." "Every man is drilled." "Every man is ready for trouble." "Then there won't be any." "There won't be any." "We need this to go well, Bill." "I do, you do, God knows the people do." "I don't want ratbags of any colour spoiling their day." "There won't be any trouble, Mr Premier." "We got plenty of stock in?" "Plenty of fizz?" "Pink as well for the ladies." "Oh, you put the call out, didn't you?" "It's gonna be a big night tonight." "Been shouting myself hoarse up and down the streets." "Party at Katie's!" "What a picture-bloody-perfect day." "Come on, Premier!" "Over to you!" "This is John Harper announcing the Paramount Sound News." "This is Saturday, 19 March 1932- the official opening of the Sydney Harbour Bridge" "The arrival of the Premier of New South Wales, the Honorable J.D. Lang." "It was a moment the whole country had been anticipating for over a decade, but the ceremony didn't go quite according to plan." "The New Guardsman Francis De Groot, appalled that a Labor premier was doing the honors and not the King, pipped Lang at the post." "Luckily, none other than Superintendent Bill Mackay was there to ask him nicely to cease and desist." "The ribbon was retied and Jack Lang eventually got his big moment." "The bridge everyone had waited so long for was finally open." "Sydney Harbour Bridge was more than just a thoroughfare." "In the middle of the Great Depression, it was a symbol that the nation - less than four decades old - was growing up." "How did that idiot get through?" "!" "No-one noticed an extra horseman in the honour guard." "But you managed to get him locked up at last?" "He's being brought here as we speak." "Throw the fucking book at him - assault with a deadly weapon, attempted murder, treason." "I want him hung, drawn and quartered." "You know, Mr Premier, I don't think that's such a good idea." "I don't think you're in any position to offer such advice, Bill." "The New Guard want to appear victimized." "They want you acting like a tyrant." "De Groot would love nothing better than for us to make him a martyr." "The man waved a bloody sword at my face." "I won't just do nothing!" "I'm not suggesting we do nothing." "It should never have been Lang cutting that ribbon." "Where was the King?" "The Governor-General?" "Do you feel your message is appreciated by the people of Sydney?" "Well, it's certainly not appreciated by Premier Lang and his communist buddies." "Huh!" "Ahh!" "And what trumped-up charges are you bringing against me, Superintendent?" "None." "Mr De Groot won't be staying with us." "I deem this man to be insane." "What's this?" "I'm perfectly sane." "You're silly and childish." "Thinks by waving a sabre in the air, he officially opened the bridge." "I did!" "I opened it for the decent and loyal citizens of New South Wales." "You're not fit to go into the cells." "Take this man to the mental ward for a proper examination." "Francis De Groot was eventually charged with the single of fence of damaging government property - one blue ribbon - and fined a week's wages." "J' Mary had a little lamb" "Oh, what?" "I saw your husband there last night at my knocking shop." "There's children here." "Oh, shut up, sister." "Go suck an egg." "om" "Want me to add damaging police property to obscene language and resist arrest?" "Why don't you come in here and see how your kidneys take to being frozen solid?" "I can provide you with a blanket." "Full of vermin and lice?" "No, thanks." "Oi!" "I want to make a phone call." "I can make one on your behalf to a lawyer or next of kin." "Next of kin will be fine." "Call my husband and tell him to bring my fucking fur." "No, Mr Devine, I don't know whether she meant her silver fox or her Russian sable." "Just bring her a coat so I don't have to listen to her complain." "So that's what marriage means - a man bringing your coat when you're cold." "Also it means a lot of black eyes and heartbreak for Tilly, from what I hear." "At least she's not alone." "Special Sergeant Armfield?" "Mm?" "Today's my last day." "I'm getting married." "But you..." "Right. uh..." "Well..." "I'll be sad to lose an officer so soon after you joined us... but I'm sure marriage will be... will be good for you." "Told her yet?" "Hm." "Congratulations to both of you." "Thanks, Lillian." "I'm sorry." "I realise I'm gonna probably make your job a lot harder, snaffling away one of your new recruits." "But when it feels right, you gotta seize the opportunity." "Tilly." "I brought you the white marabou... although it might show the dirt." "Thanks." "Are they keeping you in overnight?" "Do you need anything else?" "Tiny." "What?" "Nothing." "Can't live with 'em." "Can't shoot 'em." "Are you married, mate?" "Er, yeah. 42 years." "Never a cross word, hey?" "I've seen you round." "You're a cabbie, right?" "Yeah." "Did you serve at all, mate?" "Boer War." "Too old for the last one." "Belgium. 4th Tunnellers." "The things we've seen, eh, as soldiers, things no man should have to." "G'day, Jim." "What do you want?" "Let's open with what you owe me - 25 quid, for starters." "I don't owe you a thing." "If anything, you owe me." "Give me that money, Jim, if you want a long and happy life." "You stay-at-home johnnies ain't worth the stink off a digger's shit." "Come on, mate." "It just so happens I'm in need of a bloody taxi." "Uh, yeah..." "I couldn't do it here, alright?" "I need a drink." "Sherry, please." "What are you looking at?" "Do it tonight." "Once you've finished him, you go after Tilly." "Five bob to wait here." "Hey!" "Hey!" "Forget it." "Forget him." "You really gonna do it?" "Blood oath, I am." "Are you really going to watch?" "I really should get going." "My missus will be wondering what I'm up to." "Oh, yeah?" "Good sort, your lady?" "The best." "Mine too." "Best girl in the world." "I'd do anything for her." "You'd think she would have worked that out by now, wouldn't you?" "But, no." "No." "She's just..." "What you gonna do, Frank?" "I'm gonna blow your guts out." "Do it, then, you little brat, 'cause I'm just about jack of all of this anyway." "Go on, Frank." "Do it." "Do it!" "Come on!" "Come on." "My wife gave me that bloody tie pin." "Why didn't you shoot him?" "He was just there." "Stop there, Frank, and give me the bloody tie pin." "I'll stop nothing." "Come out here and don't be a dog." "Watch out, Fred." "He's trying to kill us." "Drive." "Drive!" "Drive." "Drive." "Drive." "I didn't mean to hit him." "I was aiming for the bloody rear." "Frank turned up to kill me." "I just..." "Oh, what happens now, Tilly?" "What happens to us now?" "Hey, what..." "What's going on?" "You're being released?" "Hey, Tilly!" "You're being released, sweetheart?" "Hey, Tilly girl." "We're apples, aren't we, sweetheart?" "Right as rain and peachy?" "When you get bail, I'll send Nugget." "Jim was eventually granted bail, but Tilly somehow forgot to send the car for him." "So he just hung around Darlinghurst, waiting to see what turned up." "Bastard put me off, having a go like that." "He put me off my game." "As soon as he's bailed, I'm gonna go out there again, and I'm gonna put one right between his eyes this time." "You hear me, Nellie?" "Nellie?" "His eyes." "His blood." "Green!" "No." "No." "What do you see him, Nell?" "What's he give you that I don't?" "He almost died for me." "I would die for you, Nell." "I would die." "I would kill him first and then I'd die for you." "Please." "No." "No." "Please don't..." "Don't..." "Jesus, Nell." "Which one of us do you actually want?" "Let's settle this once and for all." "Come on." "Get up." "Stand aside!" "How do we break them up?" "We don't." "Bit of luck they'll kill each other and save us a lot of bother." "They fought for over an hour;" "one of the great stand-up, one-on-one street fights of the era." "Nell, please." "You gotta..." "You gotta..." "Er..." "Let's solve this like civilized people, hey?" "Heads, it's Frank." "Tails, it's Guido." "Tails." "Phil Jeffs was content to bide his time and watch Kate and Tilly battle." "Their war had taken the life of an innocent bystander and that meant the game was oven" "The police commissioner would like a word." "So this is where your feuding's brought us to, an innocent man shot to pieces." "It's a bridge too bloody far and it will not happen again on my watch." "Grog and girls, hey?" "Part of the city, whatever the law says." "So if you, Kate, run your sly grogging, and you, Tilly, run your brothels quietly and cleanly, then I will ensure you do so with a minimum of police harassment." "But the shootings, the slashings, the mayhem stops." "You call off Green." "You call off Calletti." "No more murders as of now." "For good." "See, you have a choice, ladies." "Behave yourselves and we'll all get along fine." "So we have a deal?" "Where are the guns?" "The cops took them all." "What do you want a gun for?" "I'm going to kill Kate Leigh." "Come off the grass, Tilly." "Aha!" "Get the car." "You don't want to be doing this." "Get the fucking car." "Yeah." "Let's settle this." "The cemetery at 8:00, if you've got the guts." "I got the guts." "Go on, then." "I fancy you spending the rest of your life in Long Bay." "Really?" "'Cause I'm partial to seeing you swing." "Come on." "Then where will that leave us?" "Hanged, jailed or shot." "Yeah" "Ready for any one of those blokes to take our place." "And make a bloody mess of it." "We leave the dead here, then?" "Yeah." "You still owe me five bob." "You owe me a fucking dog." "Once upon a time, there were two rival queens who waged war on each other for so long they came to realise that while they couldn't live with each other;" "they couldn't live without each other either" "It all happened getting on for 100 years ago." "What became of them, those colorful citizens of Razorhurst?" "Well, Nellie married Guido, but she left him after only a couple of months." "She went back to prostitution, back to falling in love with bad men who owned hen" "But no-one ever really owned Nellie Cameron." "No-one ever really knew her or knew why in just a few years she would put her head in a gas oven." "After Nellie dumped him," "Guido Calletti went back to the consolation prize of Dulcie Markham... back to declaring he was going to set up the biggest criminal empire Australia had ever seen." "He didn't even see the declaration of World War II." "Back at his fruit and veg barrow to make ends meet, he got into one argument too many and came off second best." "Frank Green's career as a gunman was pretty much at an end." "By World War II, he was reduced to working as a cockatoo for an SP betting shop." "By 1956, he was dead after a quarrel with his lover." "Big Jim Devine was acquitted of taxi driver Fred Moffitt's murder" "But his chronic gambling and violence were wearing out his welcome in Maroubra." "By 1946, Tilly had finally had enough and she divorced him." "Heartbroken, Jim moved to Melbourne where he worked as a pub bouncer and ended his days a lonely old man." "Phil 'The Jew's vow to do Kate slowly came to nothing in the end, when his gangster past caught up with him." "A bullet he'd carried in his gut since 1929 suddenly turned septic and killed him before he was 50." "Kate outlasted him, just as she'd promised." "Eileen Leigh had her fair share of scrapes with the law, including getting done for nicking a fur coat." "But perhaps her daughter was the making of her because she certainly didn't follow in Kate's criminal footsteps." "And what of the faithful retainers," "Bill 'The Octopus' Flanagan, May Seckold, the man known as 'Nugget' whose real name may have been Henry Pierce, and Kate's pal, Mona Woods?" "Who can say?" "One thing's for sure." "They're long dead now." "Vale to them all." "As for the police," "Ray 'The Blizzard' Blissett rose to the rank of superintendent and headed up the Consorting Squad." "He was awarded medals for distinguished service and lived to a ripe old age." "Tom Wickham went on to become chief superintendent of the NSW CIB." "In 1946, he was awarded a King's Medal for distinguished service." "Tom's partner Syd Thompson, left the force under a cloud in the 1950s." "The less said, the better" "Bill Mackay was a great pragmatist and a great reformer" "He almost singlehandedly created the NSW Police Force." "He was also a great boozer." "After a decade as commissioner;" "he died of a heart attack in 1948." "Lillian Armfield went on helping fallen women until she retired in 1949, the year after women officers were finally issued uniforms." "She died alone in her one-room flat aged 86." "So that left just Kate and Tilly." "New generations muscled in on them, laws were passed against them, and the real scourge of all gangsters, the tax man, inevitably came knocking." "Gardez I'eau!" "Neither woman ever recaptured the glory days of the '20s." "Their roaring days were oven" "Kate kicked the bucket at 84 and hundreds came to her funeral to say goodbye." "When poor old Tilly passed away six years later;" "there was barely a soul to shed a team" "But never before or since has the underworld in Sydney, in Australia, or anywhere been so dominated by just two people, and two women at that." "Long live Queen Kate." "Long live Queen Tilly."