Extract

Prologue

Those intending to embark on a career in the underworld would do well to sit down and watch an old James Cagney movie, The Roaring Twenties. Make the time, because the one thing you have now is time, and later you won't. Call it a training film, or maybe even a prophecy, but it may give you a foretaste of what is to come in this life. The moral is not that crime doesn't pay - it pays well, extraordinarily well if you get it right - but that eventually Death takes its whack.

For the first few reels of The Roaring Twenties, it's all going well for Cagney's Eddie Bartlett. He's knocking off his enemies in fine style and driving big, shiny cars. He has friends in high places, who think it's cool to be seen with Eddie. His pockets are full of cash, and the odd policeman too. He's got the lovely Panama on his arm; a squad of pug-faced retainers enforces his will and whim. But the final reel brings the inevitable shoot-out and demise. Alone and gut-shot, Eddie staggers to a church, seeking sanctuary and salvation, but collapses on the steps. Panama catches up to him and cradles Eddie's head on her suitably ample bosom. The -credits are about to roll on Eddie when a cop steps from stage right, to ask, 'Who is this guy?'

Panama: 'This is Eddie Bartlett.'

Cop: 'Well, how are you hooked up with him?'

Panama: 'I could never figure it out.'

Cop: 'What was his business?'

Panama: 'He used to be a big shot.'

Carl Anthony Williams was a big shot too. For a brief moment, he was atop the foetid dung heap of the Melbourne underworld. Standing on the corpses of his enemies (and some of his friends), he thought the view was marvellous until he sank into the ooze with the rest of them. His is a tale of glamour, but in the true sense of the word. Glamour is a false and empty concept, a creation of the world of advertising and Hollywood. It's a face made attractive with make-up, a triumph of style over substance. So if by writing his story I have 'glamourised' crime or Carl Williams then I do not apologise. A society that worships glamour and hollow celebrity is fertile ground for people like him.

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