No Angel (24 page)

THE PARTY STARTED
at one in the afternoon. Timmy and Pops showed up early. JJ and I hung back. We’d be fashionably late.

Timmy called to check in around two. He said, “The guys are on edge, but ready. There’s a lot of boozing but not much drugging—except for Vicodin. They’re popping them like Pez candies.”

I said, “Figures.”

“Yeah. They’re anxious. There’s a lot of shop talk too. Doug and Hank have some shit they wanna sell today. Some other guy wants to sell us a full-auto. Billy told Pops he wants to sell him a couple shotguns, ASAP.”

I said, “Jesus, we’re like Guns-R-Us.”

Timmy laughed and said, “Yep.” I told him I’d sign some cash out of our safe before we headed over. He said, “Good. We’ll probably need it.”

We hung up. I called Slats and let him know the situation. He told me there’d been no reports of Mongol activity in Laughlin.

JJ and I got to the bar around five. The mood was strange. The guys were serious but mellow, zonked by massive quantities of alcohol and painkillers.

JJ broke off to talk to the girls. I went to talk to Timmy, Smitty, and Joby. We said hello and gave each other hugs. Joby, a nondrinker, was not dulled by booze. Smitty was distant but serious looking. This was his party in his town, and he didn’t want anything to break bad, but if it did, he’d be ready.

Joby spouted the usual invective against his Mongol enemies. For the time being, they remained imaginary, as did the violence he would unleash upon them. Smitty leaned close and said, “So far, so good.”

“That’s good news,” I said.

Joby closed his eyes and shook his head forcefully. “Fuck that. I want those fuckers to show!” Then he nodded to someone over my shoulder and excused himself. Once he was out of earshot, Smitty asked, “You remember those silencers you showed me?”

“Sure do.”

“You change your mind about selling them?”

“They’re already sold, Smit. Sorry,” I lied.

“Well, you getting more?”

“Not at the moment. What’s up?”

“Can you put me in touch with your guy? I’d love to get one of those for my Ruger.”

I told Smitty I’d look into it. He said good.

JJ did a few deals, got some Vicodin, and bought a little Baggie of meth from Dolly. JJ told me later that Lydia kept telling her how impressed everyone was with me and the Solos, and how happy she was, personally, that I had such a solid girlfriend in JJ. JJ told me she’d blushed when Lydia told her that, that she was actually flattered. Lydia’s words gave JJ confidence, and like a good undercover, JJ flipped that confidence back onto Lydia in the form of credibility.

JJ was getting accepted far more quickly than I could’ve ever imagined.

JJ became our drug clearinghouse for the evening. They were all small quantities, but she needed to make an evidence drop. It looked unlikely, but we had to assume we’d still have an altercation with the Mongols, which meant we’d be dealing with law enforcement first-responders who wouldn’t know about our undercover status. We didn’t want to be carrying anything if we got arrested.

I told Doug and Hank to meet us at my place around nine if they wanted to do their gun deal. This was the pretense we used to dip out for a little while.

We went to a Circle K. I stood at the counter and bought a pack of cigarettes while JJ walked down an aisle decorated with shiny bags of snacks. The task force agent Buddha was fingering a bag of Fritos when JJ brushed up against him, pushing a bag of evidence into his back pocket.

We paid and left. Then we drove to Verano Circle, met with Doug and Hank, and did the deal. They were a little unsure of dealing with JJ in the room, but I said if they couldn’t deal with her, then they couldn’t deal with me. Since they were on the cash end of a decent transaction for three semiauto pistols, they couldn’t disagree. They asked for $1,600. I had JJ inspect the weapons, which she did and nodded with the slightest hint of wariness, and I said $1,500, no more. They said that was good too.

I said good news, thanks for keeping the store open. They asked if they could crash at our place that night, and I said by all means, absolutely. I let them know Eric Clauss would be sleeping over again too. They were cool with that. We all went back to the Inferno in the Mercury.

The night dragged on. Some guys started to do meth, others passed out. At one point I asked Smitty why they were letting their guard down. He said, with equal parts of relief and regret, “Those faggots ain’t coming.”

We left just past midnight. JJ was packed double with me. Doug, Hank, and Eric rode solo. Timmy and Pops drove the Merc. I told them that if we didn’t show up at home that night not to come looking for us—we were either out partying or had been arrested.

It was a joke. We all laughed.

On the way home, on a dark side street deliberately taken to avoid a confrontation, we were pulled over for a traffic stop.

The Angels were used to these, and JJ and I pretended to be. They knew what to expect from a cop. In a way, it’s a point of honor and pride to be continually jacked by police, even though, to a man, they bitch about it incessantly.

But something strange happened that night. Something none of them had ever seen before.

Typically, when a mixed-club group of bikers is stopped, and Hells Angels are among those present, they get the most thorough attention. Everyone knows the Angels are the ones to be wary of, and that given an inch they
will
take a mile. They must be attended to first.

But they weren’t.

The cops yelled and the cherry lights flashed. An officer approached JJ and me from behind. When he got about ten feet from us, he racked a shell into the chamber of his shotgun. JJ’s legs pinched me hard.

We didn’t move.

I didn’t appreciate the sound of that shotgun. Maybe they’d been waiting all night for the Mongols just as we’d been, and since they hadn’t come, they took this opportunity to vent some steam.

Over the bullhorn a young, angry voice said, “Bird, do not let go of your handlebars until ordered to do so. Do you understand?” I nodded yes. I held the bars with a death grip. JJ was on me like a backpack.

The Angels were told to remain on their bikes.

I was ordered off the bike by a young, stout officer. JJ and I were separated. They led me behind their vehicles.

Hands on your head.

Lock those fingers.

Cross your ankles.

Sit.

The cuffs went on one wrist at a time.

The young cop said, “You gotta take your jacket off.”

I jangled my cuffs. “How’m I supposed to do that?”

He breathed, “Shit.”

“Besides, I wouldn’t take it off for you even if I could.” I knew this was stupid, but I also knew it would play well with the Angels, who were being lined up a few feet away.

The young cop grabbed my arm and hauled me up. “Shut up. We’re gonna take your picture.”

“Good. I ain’t saying cheese.”

He tightened my cuffs. They hurt.

He took my guns and handed them off. Another cop started snapping a camera as I got turned around—front, side, back. I was wearing my goatee in two long braids that night, and the cop with the camera said, “You look like a fucking catfish.”

As they did this, they positioned JJ so I could see them frisking her. She wasn’t wearing a bra and they weren’t shy about where they put their hands. They frisked her again. She took it in stride. I was very angry but there was nothing I could do.

When they were done taking pictures, I was led to the curb and told to kneel. I was led at the barrel of a loaded and charged shotgun.

Don’t move, we gotta talk to your little girlfriend. We gotta talk to your buddies.

JJ was taken to a marked unit and ducked into the backseat. The guys were cuffed and lined up curbside. No one but me had to kneel. No one but me had a gun drawn on them. The Angels couldn’t believe it, but as far as these cops were concerned, I was more dangerous than they were.

A cop came up to JJ and asked her through the rolled-down window of the cruiser what she was doing hanging out with a guy like me. She didn’t look at him. She asked, “What, as opposed to a guy like you?” That was the end of that conversation.

She listened to the rap sheets come over the radio. She was clean. I had a few minor, and fabricated, priors. Clauss had some minor stuff too, and Watkins had an outstanding warrant for a traffic violation. That wouldn’t wash well with the fact that they’d caught him carrying a concealed bowie knife. He was placed in a marked unit and bound to spend the night in jail. It was Dam’s sheet that scared JJ. There was a bunch of drug stuff, including a felony conviction for cocaine trafficking. But the kicker was that he’d been arrested for severely assaulting a police officer. JJ prayed that he wouldn’t get motivated to go at it again.

Meanwhile, Officer Shotgun talked to me. He wanted to know where I lived, why was I still in Bullhead, hadn’t I heard they’d been looking into me? He said, “You gotta move on, Bird, you gotta get the fuck out of my town.”

I said, “You can arrest me or lecture me, but I won’t take both, so make up your mind. If you’re gonna cut me loose, I’m all ears. But if you’re shitcanning me, shut up and take me downtown,’ cause I ain’t interested.”

He didn’t like that. He put his boot in between my shoulder blades and pushed me to the ground. Since I was cuffed I caught the pavement with my cheek. He kneeled, leaned in close, and whispered into my ear: “Motherfucker, if I ever see you in this town again I will fucking bury you in the desert where no one will ever fucking find you.”

My recorder was going. I thought, Not good, dude. Not good for you. I knew this guy desperately wanted me out of his town and I knew he wasn’t using approved methods. I wanted to tell him what I was, but I couldn’t. It would be months until he learned how close he’d come to ruining his career that night.

They took Hank, but they had nothing on us. They cut us loose.

As they wound down their show, puffing out their chests, taking the cuffs off, giving us our guns back, telling us to go home and mind our business, a dark, late-model Mercury Cougar crept by. I saw Pops rubbernecking at us in the passenger window, smiling.

JJ saw him, climbed behind me on my bike, and said quietly, “What a jerk.”

DECEMBER 2002

TIMMY, JJ, AND
I stayed up late that night, smoking cigs on the back porch while Hank and Eric crashed inside. It had been a hell of a day for all of us, but for JJ especially. She’d learned a lot. Mainly, she’d learned that she’d be keeping any drugs in her boot from then on, since it was the one place the cops didn’t bother checking. Timmy laughed at how I’d gotten stomped by the local police, and said he was happy he hadn’t missed it. I smiled and told him to go fuck himself in the ear.

The next day, JJ flew home to visit her family for a couple weeks. She’d put in for the time before she’d come over with us, so it was fine, but we were sorry to see her go. I told her we didn’t need her around too much because we’d all be away for the holidays soon enough. I told her things would be slow for a while, so take the time to chill. She said she would.

The end of 2002 had delivered Black Biscuit to an operational crossroads. Most of the hours we logged in December were spent discussing the direction of the case and planning our next steps, not hanging out with the Angels (we explained our absence to them with the white lie that we were traveling on club business, spending time in Mexico and SoCal, and that my Vegas connection, Big Lou, had invited me out to Miami to lounge around on his yacht and pinch some South Beach ass).

As we took stock of our progress, we drew up a list of case positives and case negatives so we could analyze our positions and objectives.

The main positive was that we’d been hugely successful in a short period of time. We’d gotten in quicker and deeper than we’d thought possible in a mere six months. The downside to this was that things were blurred. We’d moved so quickly from one day to the next—sometimes covering the length of the state in a single day, over three hundred miles, always in role—that it was hard to tell what we were doing. We were drunk on danger and adrenaline.

This led us to the main negative: We were running in place. We didn’t need to do any more gun deals with Doug or Hank. We didn’t need Bad Bob to broker any more petty drug buys. We didn’t need more evidence that Smitty acted like a local gangster, or that Dennis, while no longer cooking, clearly had a fluid and consistent source of meth. I was sick of these minor deals, Slats was sick of processing them and presenting them to the suits. He wanted dealers, not users. The case was supposed to be bigger—it
was
bigger—we just hadn’t figured out how to crack it.

Our frustration led to the beginning of a division within the task force. Slats felt that we weren’t leaving our comfort zone enough, and I felt that it was too early to branch out. He wanted us to be aggressive with everyone, while I wanted to solidify my positions so I could do exactly that later on. It was nothing major, just a small crack in the wall that began to dribble water. Not surprisingly, I stood tall on one side of the divide, while Slats held firm to the other.

I wanted to pursue the Angels’ offers of membership. How often had a group of cops been given this opportunity? Not often at all. I felt we’d never get the true dirt on them as outsiders, that they could profess to trust us as Solos till they were blue in the face, but it would never matter because we weren’t Hells Angels. If we wanted to take a swing at these guys—and there was no argument that that was what we all wanted—then this was the only way. My answer to breaking out of the comfort zone was to become a Hells Angel, to give ourselves over to our adversary. I knew I was right.

Slats wanted us to remain Solos. He didn’t care about becoming Hells Angels. If we were to fold into their organization, our operation would become tied to the whims of the club and our sponsors. Instead of buying guns, we’d be pulling guard duty and opening beers. As Solos, we could do whatever we wanted, whenever we wanted, wherever we wanted. He felt that they’d ultimately deal with us out of naked greed. The Solos also provided them with the illusion of a scapegoat: We were a separate party on which blame could conveniently be pinned. Slats’s answer to breaking out of the comfort zone was to be brasher, push harder, and ask for bigger deals. Slats is expert in the criminal mindset, and he might have been right, too.