Under and Alone (11 page)

Plus, I didn’t have any solid evidence against Domingo or Rocky or Rancid, and therefore, I told myself, they had no reason to kill me even if they did find out who I really was.

Of course, that was the logical analysis, and didn’t take into account the irrational, hotheaded, and often psychotic behavior I knew that members of the Mongols were capable of.

I kept up the ritual for the next couple of weeks: I’d get myself good and psyched up, ride into Tujunga on my hog, hang out with the Mongols, buy beer for them, and shoot pool. We would ride to an event or another bar, and Rocky, my designated mentor, would teach me some more time-honored Mongol tradition. I checked the guys’ faces and demeanor each time I met with them. I tried to catch any tiny nuances or tics that might signal that I was in trouble.

Then, one lazy midmorning, I was hanging out at my UC pad when I got an unsettling call from Rocky. “Hey, Billy,” he said. “Why don’t you come on over.”

It wasn’t a request; it was a command. But it didn’t sound like Rocky. His voice was distant, suspicious, spacy.

“What’s goin’ on, Rock?”

In a long, drawn-out way, completely out of character, he said: “Just come on over here, dude. We’re gonna go and pick up your colors. We gotta go see Bobby Loco first. Then we’re going to Luna’s place and pick up your colors. So come on over.”

I didn’t know quite what to say. I knew that Bobby Loco was the Mongol who was in charge of checking out the background information in my application. Luna was the Mongols’ national secretary-treasurer, a very high ranking officer within the organization. Both men were patched in with the Mother Chapter, which was down in Commerce. Bobby Loco and Leno Luna were old-timers—veterans from the days of the original war with the Hells Angels—and as hard-core as they come.

As a prospect, you are entitled to wear the rudimentary colors of the club; you are allowed to wear the leather vest with
PROSPECT
on the front and a lower rocker that reads
CALIFORNIA
on the back. Eventually, having proven yourself by engaging in criminal activities like hauling drugs and guns, and after a unanimous vote by the chapter membership, you can earn the right to a center patch of the club’s official logo. But you could never wear the coveted top rocker—the
MONGOLS
patch—until you were a full-fledged member of the club. When Rocky mentioned getting my colors, I was taken aback; I knew I wasn’t scheduled to be picking up any colors and figured Domingo would have mentioned it to me if I had. As Rocky droned on in his spaced-out voice, I began to fear that what I’d really be picking up was a bullet in the back of my head.

Still, I couldn’t stall Rocky without raising suspicions. I told him to hang in there; I’d be over in a bit.

“Get on the stick,” he said, then abruptly hung up.

I dialed Ciccone right away. “John, I just got a call from Rocky.”

“Yeah, what’s up with Big Rock?”

“Some weird shit. He’s acting really strange. He says he wants me to come over—says we’re gonna go pick up my colors. It doesn’t sound right to me. It sounds like they may have found out something. I don’t like it, John. I don’t like this shit at all.”

John respected my intuition and knew that the call under these circumstances would be up to me. I went back over the last couple of days in my mind, looking for something that might have given me away. I couldn’t think of anything. Neither could John. We kept bouncing scenarios past each other on the phone: What little mistake might I have made? Ciccone was thinking a bit more clearly than I was. “Billy, it might not be anything at all,” he said. “We just don’t know.”

We hadn’t gotten any phone calls from any of our background people; we knew the Mongols were looking at me hard—but so far, so good. The club’s private investigator, Jan Tucker, had so far turned up only what we’d wanted him to turn up. He’d run a credit check and turned up my UC credit report. He contacted my supposed relatives with some questions and was satisfied. He contacted school officials in North Carolina who were played by ATF agents. He contacted my supposed avionics company and verified my employment there. The one hitch was when he ran my driver’s history with the California Department of Motor Vehicles and, even though my bike and my UC car were registered to Billy St. John, it didn’t list a motorcycle endorsement under that name. (The endorsement, meaning I could legally ride a bike, rather than just drive a car, was on my real driver’s license.) Luckily, the Mongols figured it to be a typical DMV fuckup.

I wasn’t sure what was up with Rocky today, but something was. I didn’t have to go see him. I could tell John that this was the end of the road—the case would be over, but I’d still be alive. No one could fault me. The UC always has the last word in these situations. I’d been through some tight places, a lot tighter than this, and come out alive. I could do it.

As a prospect, I didn’t carry a gun. I didn’t wear a wire—that could have been suicidal given the constant scrutiny I was under. I never wanted too many agents following me around because they could do more harm than good. But this time, I’d put it all on the line. I’d go in armed. I’d wear a wire. I’d get the best backup the L.A. Division had to offer. If it was a setup, I’d be ready for it. I’d take the Mongols on in their own backyard.

I told Ciccone that besides Carr, Koz, and Hardin, I wanted Chuck Pratt and Mike Dawkins there. Pratt and Dawkins were both proven gunfighters and good friends of mine. I had no doubt they would all risk their lives to save mine. Ciccone would roll by Rocky’s place on surveillance, and if he saw any of the known Mongol gunslingers there—Red Dog, Woody, Diablo, or Lucifer—we’d call it off. If it looked like no one other than Rocky was there, I would go in. If I was met with a gun, I’d shoot first and ask questions after my backup entered and cleaned up. Ciccone agreed. I even thought about wearing a vest. But that would clearly give me away. I had to calm down. I had to take the risk and make the best of it. The plan was set. I knew what I had to do.

I picked up my five-shot revolver, wondering if five shots would be enough today. I tucked the gun in the pocket of my jacket where I’d have my hand when I walked into Rocky’s place. I thought back to undercover deals that had turned into shoot-outs. I’d seen more than my share of that kind of action, and I had listened to tapes of undercover deals that had gone bad where cops had been shot and you could hear them breathe their last breath. It weighed heavy on me as I fired up and rolled out to meet Ciccone.

John had rallied the troops. Everybody that I wanted was there on backup—guys I had put my life on the line for, guys I trusted, guys who would make this op easier. Ciccone told me they were gathering near Rocky’s place and putting together their plan. I felt better as I taped the wire to my leg.

The backup team had checked out the target location. There were no other cars or bikes at Rocky’s place. Ciccone and I both understood that we were about to roll the dice on the biggest stakes so far in this investigation.

I climbed on my fire and hit the starter. Soon I rolled up in front of Rocky’s place and backed my bike to the curb. Everything looked normal. I glanced down the street and saw the ATF van with my backup team sitting at the ready. Mustering my composure, I walked to Rocky’s door, took a deep breath, reached in my pocket, and gripped my revolver. With my left hand I knocked on the door. I could hear footsteps inside. As I had been trained in the ATF National Academy, I got into a modified Weaver stance, turning sideways, feet shoulder width apart, left foot slightly forward for balance, making my body a more narrow target. Adrenaline pumped through me and fired my heart into overdrive. The door began to creak open as I tightened up on my revolver.

It was Vicky, Rocky’s wife.
Plan B—plan B—plan B.
She smiled and opened the door.

I smiled back. I knew that Rocky wouldn’t be planning a murder in front of her. What the hell was going on?

Rocky came stumbling from the back bedroom, more disheveled than usual, eyes glassy and unfocused. He was stoned out of his mind. He’d been up all night juicing and God knows what else. No wonder he’d been talking like he was pumped full of sodium pentothal. He walked toward me and gave me a big clumsy hug.

“We’re gonna go get your patch. I talked with Mother last night and arranged it all,” he said, referring to leadership in the Mongols’ Mother Chapter. “Luna keeps all the colors, and he lives down in Commerce. We gotta go down there and pick it up. But we gotta go see Bobby Loco first, bro. He’s handling your background check now . . .”

From an investigative standpoint, the most valuable aspect of prospecting was the vantage it gave me on Mongol drug-dealing activity. On July 4, 1998, I got my first order from Rocky to pick up an eight ball (one eighth of an ounce) of meth and deliver it to one of his clients. I ended up making several other drug transactions for Rocky that day. Shortly thereafter at an official Mongol meeting the question came up about using prospects to mule drugs for the gang. It was okayed by the club hierarchy and I was positioned to be the full-time drug hauler for the Mongols. That summer I did three more drug runs and one gun run for the club, before Domingo put a stop to it. He said he didn’t like the idea that his only prospect was going to be the fall guy for the entire club in the event of a police bust, and he put the kibosh on my days as a drug mule. (From then on, the SFV Mongols tended to rely on their ol’ ladies or other hang-arounds to carry out drug-muling duties.)

I remained the SFV Chapter’s only prospect until Buster showed up. I have no idea where he came from; I just remember being glad that he was around to take some of the heat off of me. Buster was in his mid-twenties, a bit on the raggedy side with long black hair. No tattoos or tough-guy presence, but he did ride a Harley that needed a little TLC, which fit right in with the busted-up bikes owned by most of the Mongols in our chapter.

Domingo had brought Buster in and planned to sponsor him the way he was sponsoring me. The first big test for Buster would be Domingo’s wedding and reception. The wedding was planned for a Saturday, and the prospects’ duties would start early that day. There would be a shitload of Mongols there. Which meant a shitload of prospecting to do.

Domingo’s wedding was held at the residence of a Mongols associate named Randall. He was a successful businessman but also a bit of a renegade. He had just enough sense to run a business but not enough to know better than to hang out with the Mongols. And the Mongols enjoyed the guy because he always had enough cocaine to share. He lived just outside Tujunga in a sprawling ranch-style home on top of a large hill. It had a separate party house with a full bar, a pool table, a dance area, and a swimming pool. The driveway up the hill was approximately a quarter mile long—a quarter mile that I would become intimately familiar with before the night was out.

By nine in the morning I was running around Tujunga picking up crap for the wedding, carrying tables and chairs and setting up beer stands. I was glad to see Buster, since it would be convenient having another prospect around to share the workload and the abuse.

When evening arrived I checked my Mongol ditty bag to be sure I had anything and everything a Mongol might hound me for: matches, cigarettes, needle and thread, aspirin, breath mints and gum, rolling papers, condoms, a knife, a comb. I was as ready as I could be for whatever they might throw my way. I wondered if Buster had his shit together.

At approximately six the first Mongols arrived, and before long Buster and I were running our asses off. Then the peace was shattered, along with my nerves, by the appearance of Red Dog. Now I had to start ducking and dodging. He tracked me down in short order and made sure I knew that he was going to make my night as hellish as he could.

Soon I was assigned to guard duty at the bottom of the hill. My orders from Domingo were: “No one except Mongols gets in without permission.” He passed me a small snub-nosed .38, and I hustled down the hill. At the bottom, I found Rocky and Buster. Buster was also given a gun and instructed to use it if anyone, including the cops, tried to crash the party. I knew that I wasn’t going to shoot anyone. By the expression on Buster’s face, I didn’t think he was going to shoot anyone either. He looked like he didn’t know what to do with the gun. He finally stuck it in his waistband underneath his prospect patch.

It didn’t take long for the Mongols to realize that their only two prospects were standing guard at the bottom of the hill, leaving fifty or sixty of them without slave service. I could hear the call from a quarter mile away: “Prospect!”

I told Buster to hang in, and I hustled back up the hill. Out of breath when I got there, I was directed to the main house, where all the Mongol bigwigs were hanging out. When I walked in, I saw the national officers with presidents from several chapters and a few regular-looking folks I had never seen before. A large silver platter holding lines of cocaine was being passed around. Red Dog had his face buried in it the moment I walked in. Domingo walked up to me and pointed out the two people who were obviously not Mongols.

“Billy, that’s our attorney. And you know who the other guy is, right?” Domingo stood shaking his head at my ignorance. “The other guy is our private investigator.”

My heart felt like it had burst. So this was Jan Tucker who’d been doing background checks on me for the past few months? Had they called me in to let me know that Tucker had found out who I really was? Did I just walk into a fucking Mongol ambush?

Red Dog passed the coke platter and caught a glimpse of me out of the corner of his eye. I knew some snide-assed comment or command would follow, and I got ready. The next thing I heard from him was: “What the fuck you standing around for, Prospect? Go get us some beer!”

That suited me. I wanted to be as far away from Red Dog as I could get. I turned and left the house, making my way toward one of the stashes of beer. All I could hear was simultaneous barks of “Prospect!” “Prospect!” “Prospect!”

I ran my ass off for a couple more hours before I heard Domingo ordering: “Prospect, go down the hill and take guard duty for a while. Send Buster up.”