No Angel (29 page)

I paused to stomp out a cigarette and lit another. I asked, “What about prospecting, Joby? You know me. I can’t spend a year being someone’s step-and-fetch bitch.”

He shook his head. “Don’t worry. I’m talking to people, Sonny’s helping me out. You guys are gonna be fast-patched. We don’t have to teach you guys shit, you know the drill up, down, and inside out. Two-day hangarounds, ninety-day prospects. You’ll have club duties, but they’ll be light. No questions about business—we understand you guys travel a lot to make your living and that’s fine by us. Telling you, Bird, one day you’ll just wake up and you’ll be Eighty-Oned.”

“It sounds real good, Joby.” It really did. “Thank you for thinking of us, dude, it means a lot.”

“So that’s a yes?”

“That’s a strong maybe. I’m sorry, I can’t just say yes. I been a Solo for a long time and I gotta talk to my boys before I say anything either way.”

“I understand.”

“I won’t string you along, all right? You got my word.”

“All right.”

I thought it was a great pitch and one hell of an earnest Valentine. I finished smoking in silence, thinking this must be what a popular freshman feels like during rush week. I went back inside. Joby had a high bounce in his step, like there was a pebble in his boot. He nodded at Teddy as he walked up to the bar. Teddy didn’t move. He just wheezed.

LATE FEBRUARY 2003

ON FEBRUARY TWENTY-EIGHTH
my cell rang. Timmy, JJ, Pops, and I were hanging out at the Phoenix UC house on Romley Road.

“Yeah, Bird.”

“Get the fuck out of the house right now!” It was Slats. He sounded scared.

Slats never sounded scared.

I twirled my finger through the air like a little tornado. Everyone got up, grabbed their weapons, and ran outside. I followed, pressing the phone to my ear.

“What’s up?”

“Don’t have time. Get to the Patch right now. Watch your asses.”

“We’re already out the door. We’ll see you in fifteen.”

We piled into the Cougar. I turned the engine on and peeled out.

We drove in circles a little to make sure we weren’t being followed. We pulled into the Patch’s office park and went around back. The bay doors were open and we pulled in. They closed behind us.

Slats paced. He spat into a can. I lit a smoke. Slats said, “C’mon.”

As we made our way to the conference room he told us what was going on.

“DEA’s got a snitch associated with the Phoenix charter. His handler called up half an hour ago and told me that Chico put together a hit squad and they were on the way to Romley to smoke you guys.” He was talking about Robert “Chico” Mora, the Phoenix Angel that Mesa Mike had warned me of over a year ago.

I asked, “Why the fuck’s Chico wanna smoke us?”

“That asshole in Tijuana—Alberto?—apparently he’s been talking about you.” I’d heard a little bit of this. Our receptions in Mexico had been generally warm and easygoing, but there were always guys who rocked the boat. This Alberto was the Solos’ vice president. He’d always given us the cold shoulder. I assumed he’d had some bad blood with Rudy that went back years, and was never going to give us the benefit of the doubt. We chose to ignore it, hoping it would stay in Mexico.

It hadn’t.

Slats said Alberto was complaining that we’d muscled our way into the club, had never prospected, and weren’t legit. He spoke the truth. Somehow this had gotten back to Chico.

We didn’t know what to do. SOP in a situation like that was to pull the operatives. Mortal and imminent danger was not tolerated or risked. If there was a slight but verifiable chance any of us would be killed, then that was that. Cricket and Slats thought the case was dead. They started to discuss whom they could arrest with what we had.

But I wasn’t so sure we couldn’t get out of it. We had plenty of evidence that corroborated our Solo Angeles backstory, it was just a matter of getting it to the right guy as soon as possible.

That’s when my phone rang again.

“Yeah, Bird.” Everyone in the room was stone silent.

“Bird. It’s Bob.” His voice sounded deeper, more serious.

“What’s up, Bob?”

“We need to talk.”

“What about?”

He cut to it. “You’re a real Solo, right?”

“What the fuck you talking about, Bob?”

“I know you’re really a Solo.” He sounded convinced in an unconvincing way.

“Fucking right I am. What’s going on?”

“We need to talk. It is very urgent.”

“OK.”

“Be alone.”

“OK.”

We agreed to meet at a sports bar on Baseline, a place we’d never been to.

In one hour.

THE ENTIRE TEAM
stuffed up with armor and grabbed their long guns. An advance team got to the bar quickly. They took their places and waited. Sat at the bar and did crosswords, feigned watching games on the TVs.

Timmy and Pops were in the surveillance van. Timmy was armed to the teeth. If things broke bad with Bob, I’d likely be fine.

Still, I didn’t have a good feeling about the meeting.

Before leaving the Patch, Slats helped me put together an impromptu package of Solo credentials. Photos and video news footage from the December Toy Run, dues receipts, photos of Pops and Rudy in the Tijuana clubhouse, random flash we’d picked up. We talked dialogue, Slats role-playing Bob, me in role. We’d sell our case to Bob like we’d sell a crime to a prosecutor: physical evidence, historical evidence, and an argument for our position. Breaking character, I asked Slats if he thought Bob was trying to prove to his brothers where his real loyalties lay, if he thought Bob might be taking this opportunity to take me out. We all knew that as I went, so the Solos went. Slats said he wasn’t sure, and if I didn’t want to meet with Bob I didn’t have to. That meant the end of the case. I said fuck that. He said OK then, let’s get out of here.

I drove the Cougar and consumed half a pack of cigarettes. I was openly scared and not proud of it. I called my old buddy Chris Bayless. He talked me down and gave me the old “Jesus Hates a Pussy” speech, finishing just as I pulled into the parking lot.

I went in and walked to the bar. Five minutes later a haggard Bad Bob loped through the door. He looked around as he approached me. He said gravely, “Let’s get a booth.”

We made our way to a quiet corner of the bar and sat down. I put my hands on the table and laced my fingers together. My rings, my rings. They meant something to me. In an instant they reflected all that I’d lied about, all that I’d come to personify, all that I’d risked.

I decided to ignore them, but not before I asked them to protect me.

Bob talked about what was going on. I acted shocked. I didn’t deny the charges that we’d muscled our way in, but I insisted we were legit.

“Your guy’s got it wrong, Bob, I don’t know how else to say it.”

“You understand what you’re saying?”

“Yeah. I don’t mean any disrespect, and I’m not calling them liars, it’s just that they got bad info. We’re legit Solos, Bob. We’ve been doing everything right by you guys—you think it’d be any different with my own damn club?”

“I don’t know shit about your club, Bird—other than you guys.”

“Well, we’re real, man. Believe it, we’re real. Look.” I showed him the photos, I gave him the videotape of the news shows and told him to watch it. I showed him the dues receipts and the flash we’d picked up in Tijuana over the months—T-shirts, stickers, patches. I wrote down Teacher’s number and told him to call him and ask him if we were for real.

“Look, Bird. I want to believe you.” He paused. “I
do
believe you. But I’m in a bad spot. I gotta call Joanie”—John Kallstedt, the Phoenix charter P—“I gotta call Joanie and tell him you’re all right—a guy none of us have known longer than a year—and Chico’s wrong—a guy I’ve known over two decades. How you think that looks?”

I agreed that it didn’t look good, but I insisted, with expletives, that I was telling him the truth.

He said, “Let’s go outside and have a smoke.”

I said, “Yeah, let’s.” My confidence rose a little.

The bar had a big back porch. No one was out there. Bob got out a pack of cigarettes and fumbled with it while pulling out a smoke. When he went to put the pack away, he couldn’t figure out which pocket to put it in—first the outside left breast, then the right, then finally the inside left. I flipped open my Zippo and offered it to him. The tip of his cigarette was shaking as it glowed orange.

Bad Bob was nervous. My confidence went back in the tank.

Fear fell on me like a ten-foot wave. I hadn’t been so scared in years.

Bob stepped to the edge of the porch and ushered me to the corner. I was completely exposed in three directions.

“I hate these kinds of situations, Bird, hate them.”

I fought back a shaking voice and answered hard: “I don’t like them either.”

“These are the kinds of situations where people get hurt. Bad. You know?”

“I know. But listen—”

He waved his hand through the air. I shut up. I thought that he’d just green-lighted some sniper to remove my head or hollow out my chest. I thought, Jay, you’re dead.

“No. Listen, Bird. I know you’re used to fighting for your life—”

“That’s all I do.” He didn’t know how true that statement was.

“I know. That’s all men like us ever do. But what I’m saying is you ain’t never had to fight
us
. Am I right?”

“Yeah. Yeah, you’re right.”

He smoked deeply. He turned and walked to the other end of the porch.

This was it.

Head explodes.

Chest caves in.

Air sucks away.

He walked back.

“I’ma call Joanie. I’ma call Joanie and tell him you’re good.”

Exhale. “Good. Thanks.”

“I’m not doing you any favors, understand?”

“Of course.”

“I’m doing this ’cause I know you ain’t shitting me.”

“I know. I ain’t.”

“But you need to do a couple things for me.”

“Anything.”

“No colors till I say. Your Arizona privileges are hereby revoked.”

I wasn’t happy about that, but I said OK.

“You need to clear this shit up, Bird. Motherfuckers cannot be talking shit about their own like this. Fuck, we take better care of you than your own damn club!”

It was true. I said, “Don’t worry. It’ll go away. And I know you look out for us, Bob. I can’t thank you enough.”

He mumbled, “Fuckin’ motherfuckers.” Bob was insulted that the Solos had insulted me. I was too.

He dialed Joanie and told him to back off. He said he’d bring over the stuff I’d given him—the photos, the tape, everything—and that they’d talk to this Teacher motherfucker.

We went back inside. I paid the tab. We walked to the exit. We shook hands solemnly and parted.

I knew I’d just saved the case. I’d pulled a rabbit and a goose and a snake out of my hat, then fed the rabbit to the snake and watched as the goose laid a golden egg. I’d snowed one of the most influential Hells Angels in the state of Arizona, and it was exhilarating.

I suddenly wasn’t scared. I’d lost all my insecurity.

I was invincible.

I DEBRIEFED WITH
Slats in his car outside the Patch. It was just the two of us. He handed me a beer, opened one for himself, downed it, and opened another.

“That sucked,” he said.

“No shit.”

“No, I mean it wasn’t that good. You sold it better at the Patch.”

I couldn’t believe it. I said, “Frankly, Joe, I couldn’t remember what we said at the Patch. But it worked, didn’t it?”

“We’ll see. You put a Band-Aid on this fucker, we’ll see if it heals.”

“It will. You know Bob’ll make it happen.”

“I fucking hope so.”

“It will.”

He drank half of his beer in two gulps.

“But shit’s gotta be better going forward, Jay. I can’t take this fly-by-night stress anymore. You gotta stay on the program.”

“When the fuck did I go off it, Joe?”

“You go off it every fucking day, Jay. Every damn night we say, ‘Tonight’s the night Dobyns goes off the rez and we end up doing a rescue mission.’ We’re taking fucking bets on it, Jay.”

That was news to me. “The fuck, Joe. One day it’s ‘Get me more,’ the next it’s ‘Ease up’? Which way you want me to go? I’m giving everything I got, Joe, I can’t think of how to give you more. This is the way I operate! You knew that going in! It’s why you hired me!”

“Listen, Jay. I know you’re under a lot of stress, but it’s nothing compared to what I deal with. I hired you, but I can pink-slip you too.”

“Excuse
me?”

He took a deep breath. “The fact is you’re ten percent of this picture. You and JJ and Timmy and Pops. A crucial ten percent, but
only
ten percent. I have to deal with all of your shit, plus all of the evidence, all of the surveillance, all of the tech issues, all of the money, all of the approvals, all of the protocols, and all of the personalities. I have to massage everyone’s balls above me and rub everyone’s backs below me. You may feel like you’re the one at the middle of this thing, but you’re wrong.”

I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. I lit a cigarette. It was like Slats had intercepted a pass intended for me, and now I was playing defense. “Joe, you may be dealing with a hundred percent of this, but you’re not working any harder than I am. You’re not fricking redlining any more than I am. And you get to go home at night and sleep in a bed with your wife, and your kids are sleeping down the hall! You have any idea the last time I spent every night of the week with Gwen and the kids? I can’t count that fucking high! No. Instead, I get to sleep in a shithole undercover house and half the time our marks are crashing in the living room! While you’re sitting there counting money and typing reports, I’m sitting face to face with a guy who, if he finds out who I am, I’m going to get smoked! So I don’t want to hear how fucking hard it is for you.”

I opened the door, got out, and slammed it shut. I threw my empty beer can as far as I could.