Gods of Mischief (39 page)

And now she had fifteen minutes. Fifteen short minutes to leave her life behind and start over with a man she no longer knew.

This imposter.

This motherfucking snitch.

Without a word Jenna drifted like a zombie without direction into the hallway. The female deputy corralled her and led her toward the nursery.

“Do you have kids?” I heard Jenna say. Her voice cracking. Sad and lost. “I don't know what to take. What would you take?”

“Anything you'll need for the baby,” replied the deputy. “Take enough clothes for a week. Anything else we'll get to you later.”

“We have a dog,” said Jenna wearily. “We have birds and a rabbit. I think we have a cat. I just want to lie down. I want to lie down and sleep.”

Together they packed the portable crib, a changing table, the stroller and the car seat, along with all the baby clothes from the shower the week before. Then they hauled it out to the minivan and loaded it inside. Last to go was little Sierra, wrapped in a blanket and half asleep. Still wearing her VOL pajamas and a pair of flip-flops, Jenna carried her daughter to the van and strapped her into the car seat.

“I haven't brushed my teeth,” was the last thing Jenna said to the deputy.

“No time,” came the reply.

Jenna tucked her pregnant belly behind the wheel of the Caravan while I climbed into my truck just ahead of her. We had two black and whites and two undercover escorts as the parade began to roll, headed across town to round up Old Joe.

When the escort arrived at Shooter's place, my buddy was waiting outside the trailer with his bag packed and ready. He walked to my truck, slung the bag into the cab and climbed in after it.

“Think I was going to leave you behind?” I grinned at him.

“Well, the thought did cross my mind,” said Joe. “But I'm sure glad to see you.”

With Joe now aboard, the procession began rolling again. But doing an about-face in the cul-de-sac at the end of Shooter's street created a clusterfuck. The cops didn't know which way to turn. Eventually they got it straightened out, though, and the circus rolled out of town at last.

We headed north on Highway 79 toward the range of hills known as Lambs Canyon. The undercover cars soon dropped off, and three more county cruisers joined the parade through Beaumont, the town where John and I had met for all those Friday meetings at the Little Luau Hawaiian BBQ.

Guess no more chicken katsu.

It was about 7:00 a.m. and the sun was rising over the mountains when our five-car escort fell away and a California Highway Patrol cruiser led us onto the interstate. At that hour the I-10 heading west toward Los Angeles should have been bumper to bumper with morning commuters. But every lane was empty. There wasn't a vehicle in sight. Just my truck, Jenna's minivan and the Highway Patrol.

It was fuckin' weird, man.

The trooper stayed in front of us for a mile, then turned off as a
second CHP cruiser picked us up. Like clockwork, the same thing happened a mile later. This relay continued all the way down the I-10, the Highway Patrol passing us off like a baton from trooper to trooper.

As I'm driving along the interstate my cell phone is blowing up with voice mails and text messages from the Hemet Vagos. At first the messages voiced concern; “Are you alright, George? Did they get you too?” But at some point the Vagos had figured things out and the messages turned nasty. Now it was “Where the fuck are you, George?” and “We know you did this, you motherfucking rat.” I even got a voice mail from my ex-girlfriend Christie, who warned, “They'll get you for this, George. You're gonna die.”

At that point I stopped reading and listening.

Then came a number on caller ID that I recognized. It was Jenna ringing from the minivan.

“I need to talk to you,” she said the moment I picked up.

“I promise I'll tell you everything when we get to where we're going.”

“Where's that? Sierra keeps asking.”

“I don't know, Jenna. Let's just get to where we're going and we'll talk then.”

From the I-10 we turned onto the I-5 and went into the San Fernando Valley, where we pulled into a Walmart so Jenna could buy herself some clothes and ditch the pajamas. Then our escort led us west again to a Simi Valley motel that ATF had booked. There we waited for Charles to show up with the room keys.

If I thought the night of the takedown was hell for me, it had been nothing compared to what my fellow CI had been through in the High Desert. As I'd been fidgeting at church in JB's garage, Charles had been on his way over to Tramp's place, having been summoned to an urgent meeting by his lordship. Charles hadn't had a clue what that meeting was about, but with the takedown just hours away, he'd feared the worst.

When he arrived in Hesperia, there were several Vagos chapter officers
waiting inside Tramp's house. As it turned out, they weren't there for an ambush. Apparently one of the Victorville patches was splitting from Psycho to form a chapter of his own called Death Valley, and he wanted to take Quick Draw, aka Charles, with him. In order to do that, Charles was required to pay Tramp a change of chapter fee.

Gotta hand it to Tramp, man. That ol' rascal sure knew how to keep food on the table and a slot machine fed.

Anyway, Charles had paid the fee and gotten out of there alive in fifteen minutes—about ten times longer than it was taking him to bring me the fucking motel room key. I wanted that dude to hurry his ass up because Jenna was peppering me with questions in the parking lot—questions she had every right to ask but that I preferred answering in private. When she realized she wasn't getting anywhere with me, she took her frustrations out on Old Joe, who was in my truck minding his own business.

She flung open the door and demanded, “Did you know?”

“Know what?” said Joe coyly.

“Cut the shit, Joey cakes. You know what I'm talking about.”

Joe nodded and said contritely, “Yeah, I knew.”

Wrong answer.

“You fucking knew all this time and you didn't tell me? How could you sit there in my house and let me think George hooked up with someone else and I'm driving around at night looking for him and—what the fuck, Joe—all those times I asked what was going on and you never said a thing?”

“I couldn't tell you, Jenna,” he said quietly. “I'm sorry, but I just couldn't.”

Jenna vented on the phone to her father next. She wanted to go home to Daddy, but he wouldn't allow it. Going to Nana's place was out of the question too. Bill told his daughter she was safest in my company. And the man was right too, because for months after the takedown, Bill and his wife would hear the rumble of Harley-Davidsons cruising past their home.

Not long after Jenna hung up with her dad, Charles pulled into the parking lot with the room keys.

“Who is he?” Jenna wanted to know.

“The other guy,” I told her as I moved toward the car.

“Hey, bro, that was some crazy shit, man,” I greeted Charles as he stepped from the car.

We hugged and shook hands and swapped stories until Jenna complained she had to pee. So we retired to our rooms, Charles a few doors down and Old Joe in the same room with us. There were no complaints from Jenna this time. I think at that point the girl was beyond caring.

I asked Joe to take Sierra for a walk while Jenna and I talked. No sooner had I pressed the door shut than my fiancée asked the million-dollar question.

“Okay. Why?”

I sat her on the bed and related my story from David's disappearance to the meeting in Bee Canyon with John Carr.

“Uncle John?” she asked.

“Yeah. Uncle John.”

“He's a fuckin' cop.” She said it matter-of-factly, finally able to make sense of it all. “I thought maybe you were gay. I wish that was it. At least I could deal with that.”

She met my eyes with sudden intensity.

“You lied to me, George. The person I thought I was in love with was a lie. And it wasn't just a big lie. It was a life lie.”

“If I'd told you the truth, what would you have done?”

Jenna didn't respond. She didn't have to. We both knew the answer to that. I stood from the bed and walked into the bathroom with my shaving kit.

“I went to high school with some of those people,” she said behind me. “Some of them were good people. They didn't do anything wrong.”

“If they didn't do anything wrong, they wouldn't have been arrested.”

“And what about you?” she said.

“What about me?”

“You think you're some kind of angel? What gives you the fuckin' right? You're lucky no one ever went undercover on your ass.”

I stripped down and said nothing.

“And how come I'm not locked up, huh?” Jenna continued. “I've sold pills, I've sold weed. I've transported across the border. I should've been busted too, shouldn't I? Fuck, George. You should hear the messages the girls left me.”

She was quiet a long moment, then said listlessly, “I can't hang out with my friends anymore.”

“They weren't friends, they were pill users,” I told her. “They used to talk shit about you all the time.”

I ran the shower.

“They were friends, George. They were friends and they'll get married and have kids and I'll never see them or have my kids play with theirs.” She paused a moment. “Things will never be the same. Things will never be even close to the same.”

She laid on her side and curled up against her pregnant belly.

We didn't speak again that day. I took a shower, then shaved off my beard and moustache, rediscovering my chin for the first time in fourteen years. I didn't recognize the man in the mirror, and that was the whole idea. I was preparing to say good-bye to George Rowe. Course I still had the 22 behind one ear and Green Nation splashed across the back of my head. But I'd deal with those tattoos later.

Jenna didn't bother opening her eyes when I collapsed in bed facing her. Either she couldn't bear to look at me or the girl was as exhausted as I was. Pure adrenaline had kept me going for the past thirty-seven hours. Now, all of a sudden, I had nowhere to go and not a damn thing to do: no trees to trim, no club runs to go on, no church meetings to
attend, no guns to buy. I felt like I'd just finished a monthlong meth jag and now it was time to crash.

I rubbed Jenna's swollen belly until I drifted off into a deep sleep. You could have run a locomotive through that motel room and I would have snored right through it.

Finally, it was over.

Operation 22 Green was history.

VAGOS MOTORCYCLE CLUB TARGETED IN SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA CRIME SWEEP
*

The Associated Press

March 10, 2006

Rancho Cucamonga, Calif.
—Twenty-five leaders and associates of the Vagos motorcycle club were arrested following one of the largest coordinated law enforcement probes ever conducted in Southern California, authorities said.

Thursday's operation involved 700 personnel from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives and local police and sheriff's departments.

“The Vagos are a ruthless criminal biker gang that virtually held our communities hostage” by dealing in “guns, drugs and death,” said John Torres, a special agent in charge with the ATF.

“Operation 22 Green,” as it was called, targeted Vagos associates in five Southern California counties. Green is the club's chosen color and 22 corresponds to V, the 22nd letter of the alphabet. More than 80 search and arrest warrants were issued and 25 people were taken into custody Thursday on federal or state charges that included firearms and drug violations. Another five people already were in custody.

Arrestees Thursday included seven chapter presidents, one vice president, one secretary, one treasurer and seven sergeants at arms. The vice president, Ryan Matteson, 29, was arrested for investigation of murder in connection with a home invasion robbery in Lucerne Valley where three people were robbed and one was killed, authorities said.

In a statement, Torres said investigators seized 95 illegal firearms, some illegal drugs, $6,000 in cash and two stolen motorcycles. San Bernardino County District Attorney Michael A. Ramos said the sweep effectively “dismantled” the club, which he estimated has several hundred members. Torres said he anticipated that many of those arrested will have their cases incorporated into a federal racketeering case against the club.

An e-mail message seeking comment from the club was not immediately returned. However, leaders in the past have said that Vagos is a social club, not a criminal enterprise, and frequently have complained of being subjected to witch-hunts.

“It's about riding motorcycles together. Spending time as a family, a pack, a club, a tribe,” James Cross, 34, former president of the Placer County Vagos told the
Sacramento Bee
in comments published Wednesday. “The club frowns on criminal activity,” said Cross, who is one of three people accused of conspiring to kill a fellow member.