Deep Cover (8 page)

"Party?"

"Yeah, we planned it as soon as we heard about you guys."

"Always
down to party, Doc," Iron Man added. "Specially after a big score."

"What
do you say, Doc?" asked Monk again.

"Let's
go."

We took the blue Ford van.

"Smoke?"
Monk asked as he offered me a cigarette, keeping his left hand on the steering wheel.

"Thanks."

"You looking to join the club, Doc?"

"No
one's asked me so far, Monk."

"Somebody
will, Doc. You can be sure of that." He cracked a half-smile, the other side of his mouth sporting the cigarette. "Ain't no way Iron Man would show you around like he did today if he wasn't sure you'd be in."

My
reputation as a member of the Satan's Saints must have had a bigger impact on these guys than I had imagined. Still, it seemed too simple. Nobody becomes a Henchman that easy.

"I
might consider it," I said, knowing full well that this response would surprise him. After all, The Henchmen are considered to be the outlaw's outlaw. The elite of the biker scene. You're either a Henchmen, a wannabe, a mortal enemy, or an outsider. I smiled and gave him a look that said
What
do
you
think
,
stupid
? He nodded in silent acknowledgment. Monk wasn't much of a talker. In fact, it was his habitual long periods of silence that had earned him his name.

He
had joined the club ten years ago when The Henchmen had absorbed his old club, The Warlords. The Warlords had over forty members then. Only twelve had the mettle to become Henchmen. The others just drifted away from the outlaw scene. Monk liked to think, to philosophize. He believed in reincarnation, and was certain that all The Henchmen had been Greek or Roman warriors in a past life.

Monk
parked the van in front of Mike's. "Let's go," he said gleefully, "the fresh brew is waiting." As we walked into the bar my thoughts drifted.
How
,
during
an
all
-
night
party
,
am
I
going
to
check
in
with
Base
I
?
They
must
be
shitting
by
now
.
Five
corpses
left
by
the
docks
,
and
no
call
from
the
man
inside
. Deep
inside
,
and
getting
deeper
by
the
minute
.

"Hey,
Monk!" shouted Sam from behind the bar. "What's happening?"

"Give
me a couple of kegs, Sam."

"Party
tonight, boys?"

"Yeah.
You know us, Sam. Life's a party, right, Doc?"

"You
know it," I said, as I gave Monk the high-five. Sam brought up two kegs from the basement. He must have been pushing sixty, but he handled those kegs effortlessly. He was rock-hard, although the tattoos on his huge arms were fading with age. That and his white hair were the only things old about Sam.

Monk
told me that even some of The Henchmen wouldn't have wanted to take Sam on. He'd been a middle-weight contender back in 1957, fighting out of Los Angeles. The story goes that Sam beat the shit out of two members of The Outcasts when he was in Arizona one summer. Apparently the two bikers got in an argument with Sam while they were drinking in a local tavern. Sam put both of them in the hospital that night. From the looks of him, I didn't doubt the story.

"You
hungry?" asked Monk, as he placed the kegs in the back of the van. "How about grabbing a slice of pizza before going back?"

"I
need to call my parole officer first," I said. "I'm two days late in checking in, and he's a real prick about shit like that." I had to take the chance. There was no telling when I would get a chance to call again. Henchmen parties often lasted three days or more. If Monk didn't buy that parole officer line, it was all over for the operation.

I
started walking toward the pay phone near the entrance to Mike's. Tension was building in my gut. "I'll go with you," he said. I couldn't read him. Why did he want to come with me? Had I blown it? Or was I just being paranoid?

No
sooner had I picked up the receiver than Monk grabbed my shoulder and spun me around. He reached inside his jacket.
Should
I
move
on
him
? was my immediate thought. He pulled out a quarter. "It's on me, man. I know how those fuckin' ballbusters can.

"Thanks,
Monk," I said, letting out the air I had stored in my lungs. This wasn't going to be easy. With Monk standing right there I couldn't talk freely. I punched in the numbers rapidly, too fast for him to memorize all the digits.

"Base
One."
Thank
God
,
I
thought. It was Leverick. Of all the people involved in the case, I felt the most comfortable with him. After all, he'd trained me for this assignment. He knew me better than anyone else.

"This
is Randall," I said.

"What?
Martin, is that you? Are you all right?"

"Yeah,
yeah, sorry, man. I forgot," I said, knowing a parole officer's first question would be why I hadn't called. I looked at Monk and rolled my eyes in disgust. Monk snickered.

"You're
not alone, are you?" said Leverick

"Right,
I looked for work. Nobody's hiring, man, what can I tell ya?" Again I looked toward Monk, this time motioning with my hand near my crotch to further mock my fake PO. Monk started laughing.

"Okay,
Martin. I guess you're all right. We received word of what happened with the Mexicans. Did they try to rip you off?"

"Yes.
I'll call on time from now on." I placed the receiver near my buttocks.

Monk
was weak with laughter.

"All
right, Martin. Try to call within the next two days and give me an update. I'll let the rest of the crew know you're well."

I
hung up the phone and joined Monk in a belly laugh. We walked across the street to a pizza joint with our arms on each other's shoulders, laughing all the way at the Establishment that tried so unsuccessfully to control us. I thought again about Roger Wolfe. He must have been nearing seventy when he'd told me about one of his undercover assignments. At fifteen, I thought that was the greatest life a guy could have. He told about a time when he was working an illegal still in a small town outside of Jackson, Mississippi. "Sometimes you do some backslapping and drinking with your targets and you almost have a good time," he said. "But you can't ever forget why you're there. You're the greatest actor in the world, playing the most important role of his life. A role where if you forget your lines, you can get killed."

Once
inside, Monk and I ordered four slices of pizza and two Cokes. Tony Marinaro, one of the last of the old store owners left in the downtown area, brought the food to our table. Marinaro was the type determined not to let crime, filth, and the general deterioration of the neighborhood drive him out.

"Enjoy,
boys," he said with a thick Italian accent. "If you need anything else you ask, okay, boys?"

"Sure,
Tony. Thanks," replied Monk.

"You've
been coming here a long time?" I asked Monk.

"Shit,
yeah. I think I was about eight years old when I first came into Tony's. Every Saturday I ran here when he opened at noon and ordered two slices and a Coke. The whole thing came to about forty cents. A lot has changed since then, Doc." Monk pointed out the window.

"See
that karate school across the street?"

I
nodded.

"That
used to be a bakery. And that Gospel church next door used to be a movie theater. It's funny, you know. No matter where our chapters have their clubhouses, they always seem to be on the edge or in the middle of the worst fuckin' neighborhoods. I don't know if the raunch is attracted to us or if we're attracted to it."

"It
seems to me that the real estate is cheap," I said jokingly. I knew full well why all the Henchmen chapters were in the middle of the worst neighborhoods. The drug trade. As one of their main sources of income, the manufacture and distribution of meth-amphetamine and its many derivatives thrived in the lower-class neighborhoods. Also, no middle- or upper-class street would tolerate a Henchmen clubhouse on it. The desperate existence of the poor areas of town makes possible things most of us see only in the movies and on television.

Monk
and I were the only customers in Tony's, until six black men crossed the street from the karate school. They were all in their early twenties. Wise guys, who obviously studied the arts to be better able to intimidate people. Three of them wore stockings on their heads that resembled flesh-toned hair nets. They entered the pizzeria in an unruly manner. Pushing each other, throwing kicks and punches through the air. Monk acted as if he didn't notice the group. He kept eating his pizza and shaking his head up and down, like he was listening to music that only he could hear.

"Let's
have a pie, old man," the tallest of the punks ordered.

"Yeah,
wiff anchovies," added one of his buddies. "And make it snappy, happy."

"Ten
minutes, boys. You relax, okay?" said Tony.

"No,
you
fucking relax, Jack," said another guy, this one now sitting at the table next to ours, who acted as if he hadn't heard the last remark. Most of them were now kicking their workout bags around the store like footballs. I looked to Monk in order to gauge his reaction to the intrusion. He kept eating as if the punks didn't exist. Tony came out from behind the counter and started to sweep the floor. One of the men grabbed the broom from Tony and motioned it toward his head.

"Boys,
now stop this!" pleaded Tony.

"Eat
shit, cracker," said the punk, as he swiped Tony on the side of the head with the broom.

"Get
out! Get out now, or I'll call the police!" said the flustered old man.

"You
ain't gonna call shit, peckerwood," said the man sitting at the table next to us, while the tallest of the group positioned himself between Tony and the entrance to the counter. Monk looked up for the first time since the men had entered the store.

"Split!
Now
! You fuckin' cocksuckers!" shouted Monk.

The
tall one pushed Tony aside and walked up to Monk, stuck his finger in Monk's chest, and said, "Shut the fuck up, white boy. How da fuck you two dickface mothafuckas gonna make us split?" For a second everything became silent. The rowdies stopped playfighting and making noise. Every one—myself, Tony, and the rest of the punks—had their eyes on Monk and the man pressing his finger against the Henchman's chest.

Then
came the distinctive crack of a snapped finger bone as Monk grabbed it and bent it back with vicious speed. A look of shock appeared on the tall one's face. As he stared at his mutilated hand in disbelief, Monk hammered an elbow strike which must have broken his jaw. The punk immediately dropped to the floor. Monk jumped on the table and leaped at the two men now approaching us. He knocked them off their feet. One of the others caught me with a straight kick to the stomach. As I doubled over I grabbed the top of the table, spun around, and caught my assailant across the side of his face with the table base. His face distorted terribly. Blood, saliva, and teeth spurted from his mouth as he fell to the floor. Before I could get my bearings, I found myself being choked from behind with the broom handle. I grabbed at the handle to lessen the pressure on my Adam's apple, just as one of the stockinged heads came leaping toward me with a flying kick aimed at my face. He was met with my foot in his groin as he leaped through the air. The three of us fell to the floor. I grabbed the broom and drove the end of the handle into the solar plexus of my attacker, leaving him and the ill-fated leaper squirming in pain on the floor.

Monk
was giving the last two a final pummeling against the counter while Tony frantically telephoned the police. "We're done, Monk! Let's get the fuck out of here!" I implored.

"Not
yet," Monk insisted. He walked over to the unconscious finger-pointer. The one who was the obvious ringleader of the group. Monk opened his fly and began to urinate on the head of the motionless body. This was a battle ritual for many bikers—like a cannibal warrior eating the flesh of his fallen foe.