No Angel (40 page)

Bobby: “Teddy’ll get you his sawed-off.”

Joby: “Good. I want the shit that sprays a wide pattern.”

Bobby: “I wish I were going with you. I’ve been on plenty of these things before—I’d be good.”

Joby: “Teddy knows what he’s doing. Can’t send everyone. There’d be no one to protect the area. This happens, and they’ll be looking for revenge. Before long we’ll be seeing those motherfuckers in Arizona too. We gotta stay strong down here.”

Bobby: “I know, but I still wish I was goin’.”

Joby: “We’ll probably all die.”

Bobby: “Or go to jail.”

Joby: “I’ll take death. But he’s right, you know.” He addressed us. “Expect to kill tonight. Expect to shoot. Expect to die, go to jail, or skip country.”

I thought sarcastically, This is great. We’re going to have to kill for these guys before we get a chance to do it on our own terms.

We finished lunch and went back to the clubhouse. I needed to get away from them to call Slats, but they were jacked up and I couldn’t get away for even a second.

Teddy and Bobby looked on as Joby loaded the Jeep with the shotgun, a box of shells, a sap, an ax handle, and three or four knives. Teddy looked distraught. He signaled to us to huddle around him.

He spoke, contemplating the ground. “I’m not happy about this, but this is what we do. I’m proud of ya and I’m proud of the Hells Angels. Ya be there for them, and they’ll be there for ya. Do what ya gotta do, but I want y’all to come back alive.” He gave each of us a big hug.

Bobby hugged us too. As he finished with me he grabbed my shoulders and said, “Remember, Bird—a Hells Angel may not always be right, but he is always your brother.”

Teddy spoke again. “Half of what’s mine is yours. Don’t forget that either.”

Their words made sense. Even though I’d sworn an oath to fight guys like these, I’d bought into some of their credo. I knew that any of these guys, and more than a few others across the state, would gladly take a bullet for me. In that instant I believed in some of what the Hells Angels stood for. I was genuinely touched.

We left. I drove. Timmy and Pops rode in the back of the Jeep while Joby made frantic calls to Mesa Angels Ghost and Trigger. He wanted to get a handle on the situation. It sounded like it was definitely happening. I smoked a relay of cigarettes, never pausing to breathe the fresh desert air we passed through. I watched the road, thinking only of Slats. I looked at the gas gauge. We had a quarter tank. Just before Kingman I pulled off to refill. We got out and stretched. Pops filled her up. I went to the can.

As soon as I was out of sight, I opened up my phone. The line rang. Slats answered.

“It’s Bird. Listen, we’re in deep. We’re going to Vegas to knock down Banditos at some coalition meeting—
tonight
. We’ve got a fucking arsenal in the car and we’ve been told in no uncertain terms that we’re expected to use it. You gotta call Gayland and fix us up.”

He asked why I hadn’t called sooner. I said I’d been with them all day, I had no airspace. I said I had to go, and told him to call back when he’d spoken to Gayland and tell me what’s what. I said I’d make it sound like I was talking to Dale. He said OK.

Fifteen minutes later my phone rang. We were passing through Golden Valley in Kingman, headed to BHC and into Nevada via Laughlin, because Joby didn’t want to risk a vehicle inspection if we crossed the Hoover Dam. It was Slats. He said he was on his way to Vegas, but that we had a good jump on him. He said Gayland was taking care of it—there wouldn’t be a Bandito within twenty miles of the meeting. He said that Gayland knew where it was taking place and not to worry. Just go up and do what they expected us to do.

We got there. The lodge’s parking lot was littered with bikes and Angels. Joby called a huddle with me, Timmy, Pops, Ghost, Trigger, Sockem, and a Vegas member named Phil Daskalos. Joby launched into a speech: “All right. If the Banditos show, we’re gonna ambush ’em. Don’t let any of them get off their bikes. Do whatever you have to, understand? Do not let them off their bikes.” He paused and swiped his hand through his long gray mullet. He looked each of us in the eye. “Listen, if you don’t have the stomach for this, then go home now. Come back and try again in a couple years when your balls drop. If you can do it, this is the shit that heroes and legends are made of. We will not fail each other. We are Hells Angels.” I wouldn’t have been shocked if he’d put his hand in the middle of our circle and we started to chant “Eight-One, Eight-One, Eight-One!”

We broke and were assigned positions. Joby sent Pops and Phil across the street, while he took Timmy and me to a street-side corner of the lot. Trigger, Ghost, and Sockem went to the opposite side of the lot.

We waited. I smoked like Philip Morris was going out of business. We waited some more. At eight fifteen the meeting broke, the guys got on their bikes, and a column of Hells Angels departed the location. It was over. There were no Banditos. Gayland had done us another favor.

The group of would-be defenders met at a 76 gas station around eight thirty. We shook hands, glad to have bucked up and even gladder to have not gotten in a shoot-out. Joby said these things happen, better to be prepared than to be shown up or worse. Pops introduced me to Phil. They’d gotten to talking guns while waiting. Phil was very eager to talk to me, said he was the “West Coast hook for HAMC iron.” Said he had all kinds of shit—hand grenades, C4 plastic explosive, Mac-10s, remote-control bombs, silencers. I gave Phil a card and told him to give me a call.

We went back to Skull Valley.

In the Jeep, Joby told us over and over how proud of us he was. We dropped him off at his girlfriend’s house in Kingman, giving each other big hugs, saying we’d see each other the next day.

I called Slats when we got back in the Jeep. He asked if I wanted to talk to Gayland. I did.

Gayland asked, “How was Vegas?”

“Awesome. Won on craps and got twelve free lap dances. What happened to our friends?”

“We knocked some down. Lockup’s hosting a Bandito slumber party tonight. We’ll let ’em go in the morning. Otherwise it’s pretty quiet around here. I think Slats wants to take me out to dinner. He’s been making eyes at me all night.”

I laughed. I said thanks and told him to tell Slats thanks too. I said, “You saved our ass. Again.”

SLATS COULD’VE SHUT
everything down after that. Evidently the Angels weren’t going to be shy about putting us in dangerous situations, and given enough opportunities, it was only a matter of time until something bad happened because we weren’t in a position of control.

But Slats let us ride a little longer.

I took this as encouragement to go ahead with my plan. Letting us go to Vegas meant that Slats, no matter what he said, was prepared to take part in potentially nasty situations. In a way I felt vindicated.

The Skull Valley boys were also happy. When we pulled up to the clubhouse that night, we found Teddy and Bobby waiting up like nervous parents. They hugged us hard. Teddy tried to smile, but was out of practice. He repeated that he hadn’t liked sending us, but that as Hells Angels we all had to chase ghosts. He told us to go home and get some rest.

After that night, the Skull Valley crew lightened up a little. They still ordered us around, but they made it more obvious that they were just busting our balls. Teddy would wax for five minutes about how he liked his fried chicken: old-style, not overcooked, original recipe, not that extra-crispy shit. He’d give us a little extra money for going out to get it. They started to really respect and like us.

At church one day, bored, I doodled on some paper plates. I drew stick figures of the guys, their names below their feet. Little bubbles above their heads said things like “I Love Bird” (Bobby) or “Go to McDonald’s” (Teddy). I was engrossed and didn’t notice that Teddy had walked up to me. When I finally noticed him staring at my bad drawings, hissing through his tubes, it was too late.

“What the
fuck
is that?”

I thought the “You think this is funny, like this is some fucking game?” lecture was coming. I exhaled like a guilty school kid and said, “Art?”

He made a desperate sound like a small cough, but not one of his emphysemic ones. It got a little louder. He was laughing. I’d never heard him laugh. I don’t think anyone in that room had. He took the drawings out of my hands and held them up for everyone to see. They laughed too. We followed their lead. Rudy opened beers and handed them out. Timmy started telling stupid jokes and Teddy thumbtacked my art to the wall. We all felt good, we all felt like human beings. I realized that these guys weren’t all bad—and was reminded that I wasn’t all good.

The week after Vegas I was busy on all fronts. We went on two runs, did an intimidation of the Americans MC with Joby, set up a large guns-and-explosives deal with Phil from Vegas, and bought a scoped Browning rifle from Joby and some drugs and a pistol from Rudy. We ran up and down the state, from Mesa to Skull Valley to Bullhead to Tucson and back. In Bullhead, Smitty was still worried about getting the Mohave Valley charter started up, but, on the plus side, he said he’d been keeping tabs on us and that we were going to be “rock stars.”

Damn right.

As we ran around, my mind constantly spun with the specifics of setting up the Mongol murder. Shawn Wood, the task force agent most game with the plan, was in charge of arranging times and places, scouting locations, doing legwork. I told him I planned to plant the seed on the twenty-first, when we’d be doing prospecting duties at a run in Williams, Arizona.

He said, “Good, let’s get this thing done.”

THE WILLIAMS RUN
was easy. We had prospecting duties, but they were low-stress. JJ and Pops sold T-shirts in the booth, and I wandered around with Bobby, acting as his bodyguard.

We came across a group of bikers who called themselves the Wild Pigs. One of their guys walked up to us, his hand extended to Bobby. He wore a big shit-eating smile. He said, “Hey, pleasure to meet you.”

Bobby raised his sunglasses and looked at him intently. He did not offer his hand in return. “Get fucked.”

“Hey, I—”

“You heard me, fuck off. Can you believe these cocksuckers, Bird?” I didn’t lie—I said no, I couldn’t. The Wild Pigs were cops, guys with badges who paraded around on weekends like a One Percenter club. In my mind, as in Bobby’s, they were a fucking abomination.

The guy took his hand back and started to turn when Bobby said, “Wait. I gotta tell you something—you can’t have it both ways, asshole. You can’t pretend to look and act like us until the shit gets nasty and then pull a badge and gun and sit us down on the side of the road. Fuck you. Pick a side.” He turned away in disgust and flipped the Wild Pig off. I followed him. Bobby couldn’t have been more right. It was one thing to be undercover. It was another to be flying two flags at once.

We wandered back to our section—Skull Valley was there, along with a lot of Nomads—and hung around. Having returned to the safety of Hells Angels territory, I was able to leave Bobby to talk with Joby.

I’d decided Joby would be the point Angel for the murder. If I’d asked Teddy or Bobby, they would have wanted to think it over for weeks. I didn’t have weeks. Joby, on the other hand, was like an old piece of leather, a tough guy who wouldn’t think twice about sanctioning the death of a rival. I knew I could count on him.

He was talking with JJ and Pops as I came up to him. I pulled him aside and told him something had been eating at me. I’d heard things about a Mongol in Mexico who was talking shit and not paying a price. I told him I wanted to do something about it, but I wanted his advice. He asked for details—a name, a charter, a location. I told him I thought I could nail down his location, but I didn’t know his name or even what he looked like, all I’d been told was that he was being a real dick, mocking us all over Laughlin, shitting on the Hells Angels in a place where no one could make him shut up. I said he was getting free shots at us. Joby looked from side to side and clenched his jaw. He said, “You did right coming to me. Find out more. We’ll posse up and go smoke that motherfucker.”

I said, “OK. Good. That’s what I thought.”

I LET JOBY
simmer for a couple days. I went to Phoenix and hung out with Danza on the twenty-third. I told him I’d be going hunting soon. He said, “Man, I wish so fucking bad I could come with you. Half these guys don’t have the balls to do what you’re doing—not even half. They want to be accountants and old men, like Sonny wants a warm glass of milk every night before he hits the sack at ten-thirty. Half the time I don’t know why I signed up for this bullshit, Bird. We’re the Hells Angels, we should be partying all the time, naked chicks everywhere, drugs everywhere, like no fucking bullshit, you know?”

I knew where he was coming from. We had a good case, but if the Angels hadn’t been so cautious we would’ve had a hell of a lot better case. I told Danza I wished he could come to Mexico too, but that with Timmy and Pops I had my bases covered. “Still,” he said, “I’d love to see that motherfucking bitch when you pop ’em. You should do it by stabbing him in the head.” He paused, dreaming. “But don’t forget to fuck him in the ass a little before you kill him. You know, let ’em know what you are.” I told him he’d have no doubt who was doing it to him. He said good luck and when we parted he gave me a big hug. He called me his real fucking brother. Again, I was perversely touched. I knew Danza would probably be going back to jail because of me, and society would certainly benefit, but a small part of me wished he weren’t. I knew that if circumstances had been different—if we’d been in a foxhole together or had to parachute out of an airplane over enemy territory—Danza was a guy I’d want at my side.

On the twenty-fourth I called Joby at Skull Valley to make sure Teddy or Bobby wasn’t there. He said, “The boys are down at the Pines and I’m holding down the fort.”

“If it’s OK, I’d like to come over and talk about that guy I mentioned the other day.”