Under and Alone (19 page)

The request was a bit strange, but I knew better than to challenge a patch. I slipped my colors off, turned them inside out, then held them up for Evel to see. Before I could react, he snatched my colors from my hand, then started yelling at me like a maniac. “I got your colors, Prospect! What the fuck’s up with that?”

I didn’t know how to react.

Evel threw my colors back in my face. “You
never
let anyone take your colors, Prospect. Never!” He turned and walked out.

Domingo stormed across the bar to me. He looked pissed. “Billy, did Evel get your colors?”

I was taken aback. “Yeah . . . but he set me up, Domingo. He told me to take ’em off, then he snatched ’em from me.”

Domingo stared, angry and thick-necked as a pit pull. “Billy, don’t ever let anyone get your colors, you son of a bitch.” He turned and walked out.

Everything was going straight to hell. Here I thought Evel liked me. There was no reason for him to make me look bad, especially in front of the national president. Rocky came in now and gave me the same treatment as Domingo. “Billy, did you let Evel get your colors?” he asked.

“Yeah, Rock, but I mean, he set me up.”

Rocky looked very disappointed in me. “Look, man, Domingo wants to see you out back.”

Out back? I didn’t dare ask what was going on. Several other patrons had overheard and seen what had happened with me and Evel. Despite the happy clinking of beer bottles and the hard rock blasting from the jukebox, the atmosphere in the bar was now tense, as if something terrible was about to go down. I turned and walked out. Rocky walked close behind me as if he was escorting me.

All the Mongols had now assembled behind The Place. It was dark outside and everyone was quiet as I walked up. Little Dave, the national president, looked at me and said sharply: “Get in the circle and face your president, Prospect.”

What the hell had I stepped into? My supposed offense, letting Evel snatch my colors, didn’t seem egregious enough for all this drama. I couldn’t make sense of it. Still, I had my colors on now, and they damn sure weren’t going to shoot me with my colors on.

Domingo leaned in and gave me another direct command. “Take your colors off, Prospect.”

What kind of setup was this? Did I dare take my colors off again and have Domingo, or one of the other patches, snatch it from me? Slowly I took my colors off, but clenched them tightly in my hand. Domingo got right in my face now but didn’t make a grab for my colors. “You never let anybody get your colors, Billy. Never. Why was Evel able to get your colors, Billy? Why?”

“He set me up, Domingo. He said he wanted to see the inside of them, so I took ’em off for him. He set me up—”

Evel had jumped up and was hollering in my face. “You better watch what you say, Prospect!”

“Come on, Evel,” I said. “What’s this all about?”

“This is all about you letting somebody snatch your colors,” Domingo snarled.

I thought that maybe I had embarrassed Domingo in front of the national president. Maybe it was all about some perceived act of disrespect and they were getting ready to sentence me to an ass-whipping back here.

But then Domingo’s face softened a bit. “Well, anyway, ain’t nobody in the SFV Chapter ever got their full patch without fuckin’ up along the way. I guess tonight was your fuckup, Billy. You wanna lose that center patch, Billy?”

Okay, losing my center patch was better than getting shot. But then I thought about prospecting for another month or two, running my ass ragged trying to keep a bunch of crank-and-beer-fueled Mongols happy and fully satisfied. “Hell no! I worked my fuckin’ ass off for this.”

“No, don’t feel bad, Billy,” Domingo said. “Everybody seems to lose their center before they get their top.”

“No way, Domingo. Come on, I was set up.”

“You wanna keep that center patch, Billy?”

“Shit, yeah, I wanna keep it.”

Suddenly, Domingo reached under his colors as if drawing a gun. “If you wanna keep that center,” he said, “then sew
this
on.” He pulled out a Mongol top rocker and threw it to me.

A massive cheer swept through from the crowd of Mongols.

Beer cans were raised, shaken, sprayed open, and dumped on my head. I was screaming, along with the rest of the Mongols: “Yeah! Yeah! Yeah! Yeah!”

I grabbed the Mongol top rocker and waved it like a precious flag. A genuine sense of pride welled up inside of me. I was being pulled back and forth, hugged and backslapped, as the beer ran down me, drenching my hair and clothes, streaming in my eyes until I was blind. I wanted that patch for real—Jesus, I had
made
it! I wanted Ciccone there. I wanted Koz, Carr, Pratt, and Harden, all my ATF brethren, there to see that I’d made it: I was a fully patched-in member of the most violent outlaw motorcycle gang in America!

Shit, I was grinning and howling as I reached up to wipe the beer away, except that now the liquid I was half drowning in didn’t feel like beer at all. It was thick as molasses and sticking in my hair and beard. Squinting through the foam and syrupy mess, I saw one Mongol holding a can over my head. There were baptizing me in a mix of Budweiser and fifty-weight motor oil. Everybody was laughing and whooping it up. Domingo handed me a full-patch T-shirt, black and white, with the fierce-looking Mongol logo.

“Here ya go, Billy. I’ve been saving this for you.”

I wiped my eyes so I could see more clearly. I’d actually made it. I’d done what I never thought we would really be able to do.

I was a Mongol. I was an ATF agent. Well, what the hell was I?

We all walked back to the front of The Place. Carrena met me, giving me a hug and congratulations. She handed me a towel, laughing at me as I went to work trying to wipe my face. “It’s gonna take a while to clean you up,” she said.

I reached into my jeans and pulled out a wad of cash, bought rounds for the whole house, high-fiving, backslapping, doing the Mongol handshake everywhere I walked. Stinky was putting on a show just for me, pulling up her dress every few minutes to show off the fact that she wasn’t wearing a bra or panties.

I let out a wild cheer. I wasn’t a lowly hang-around or prospect anymore. I was a full-patch Mongol! A 1 percenter! An outlaw biker! No one could touch me now. I put on my full-patch T-shirt and walked outside, hoping Ciccone would see me in it through his binoculars from his parked Pontiac. I knew he’d be beside himself with pride. No more prospecting. Tonight I’d fire up my hog and ride home a full-fledged outlaw.

At about two in the morning it was time to close the bar and go home. The national president happened to live south of L.A., not far from me, and he and I would be rolling out together. Stinky had started home a couple of minutes before Little Dave and I fired up our bikes. She had walked up the street to the point where she was right beside Ciccone’s car when she heard Little Dave and me racing up the hill. Then she turned, bent down, and grabbed the bottom of her dress, pulling it up over her shoulders to expose her completely nude body to Little Dave, me, and the most appreciative backup ATF agent in the country.

Little Dave and I rode to the split in the 2 and 134 freeways, where I broke off and headed east. I was doing ninety miles per hour and feeling sky-high. Red Dog didn’t matter now. Nothing else mattered. I’d fucking done it. I was a Mongol.

10

Becoming a full patch was like breaking out of a dark corridor into a field of sunlight. So many things were possible now. I would still have to answer to Domingo, my chapter president, and to all the national officers, but my peer status in the gang opened investigative directions and opportunities we’d never thought possible.

For months Rocky had been telling me about a machine gun that he had at his place. I really wanted to buy that gun from him. Since he was the chapter’s sergeant at arms, Rocky had a lot of guns at his disposal, some his own, some the property of the chapter. I’d seen him with a variety of semiautomatics and revolvers, as well as a sawed-off shotgun, an assault rifle, and a machine gun. While I was a prospect and under such heavy scrutiny, I wouldn’t have dared offer to buy those guns. Even a dim bulb like Rocky would have seen that as a red flag. But now that I was a patched member of the club, I felt I could pull it off.

Rocky had been out of work for a while, and most of the money he made selling drugs went to fueling his (and his wife, Vicky’s) drug habit. He and I were riding in my wired Mustang when he brought up the subject of selling off a few of his guns.

I told Rocky that I wanted the sawed-off shotgun for myself and that I had a friend named Bob who would probably buy everything else. Bob was actually a confidential informant for ATF. As with a lot of CIs, there were times when I think he wasn’t sure whose side he wanted to be on. But he had made a couple of other good cases for ATF, and I felt he could help me out.

We had the cash from ATF. I was going to meet Rocky, go by his dad’s house, pick up the guns, and meet Bob and another CI named Sergio in the parking lot of Coco’s restaurant.

At six that evening I rolled by Rocky’s place. His kids were playing out front in the fenced yard, which also contained one of the biggest pit bulls I had ever seen. It had taken me months to make friends with that dog just to feel comfortable entering Rocky’s yard. But I never did feel comfortable about seeing Little Rocky, who was only three years old, playing alone with the dog. As a father of two young boys, I found that scary as hell. I could picture the pit locking those powerful jaws onto the little kid’s neck.

I walked past the dog, the kids, a busted-up motorcycle, and all the assorted junk. Vicky answered my knock, telling me to come in. Rocky was getting ready. I was carrying a digital wire that evening to get the deal on tape. The wire was concealed in my leather jacket, and I knew better than to take it off. I had carried a miniature tape recorder in my jacket to Rocky’s place once before. I’d taken the jacket off, laid it on the couch, and gone into Rocky’s bedroom for a few minutes. Sloppy mistake on my part. Vicky, dope fiend that she was, picked up my jacket and started rifling through my pockets, looking for money. I came out from the bedroom and caught her in the act. She just shrugged at me sheepishly. And it was blind luck that she didn’t find my hidden recorder.

That damn sure wasn’t going to happen again. My leather jacket might as well have been riveted to my back; I sat talking with Vicky while she flicked her lighter, sucking hard on her bong. Rocky walked out of the bedroom.

“Hey, brother,” he said, grabbing me with the traditional Mongol handshake and hug. There was such genuine affection in Rocky’s embrace, making this another one of those disorienting moments for me; there was no doubt in my mind that Rocky really loved Billy St. John.

Vicky was ignoring the kids, still sucking furiously on her bubbling bong as Rocky and I left the house. We climbed in my Mustang and headed for Rocky’s dad’s place, only a mile up the road. Rocky was telling me a story about Silent, a Mongol who was featured on
America’s Most Wanted
for a vicious murder. I had seen Silent one time drinking in The Place; true to his name, he sat by himself and didn’t utter a word the whole night.

This was the essence of my split-screen life. I was pretending to be interested in Rocky’s stories about Silent, while all the time I was documenting every detail of our drive for what I knew would ultimately be Rocky’s criminal prosecution for this deal.

Rocky’s dad’s place was a typical low-income Tujunga house. It was locked up and nobody was home.

The guns were hidden inside, Rocky said, but we had no way to get in. So much for our playbook; the whole deal was abruptly put on hold. We headed for The Place to have a beer. I knew that Ciccone would be setting up surveillance for our meeting with Bob and Sergio at Coco’s. There was no way for me to get word to him or Bob. I was trying to play it cool, telling myself that the gun deal would still go down as planned. But I knew Rocky’s patterns too well. I knew that he operated on impulsive opportunity. If he met some girl at The Place that he wanted to have sex with, the buy would be off.

But Rocky must have really needed the gun money. “Let’s go,” he barked after we’d finished one beer apiece. “My old man is supposed to be there.”

On the drive, Rocky asked me if I thought my friend Bob would be interested in buying some dope.

“Sure, Rock. If the price is right, he’ll be into it big-time.”

Rocky asked to see my cell phone and then dialed up his meth connection. “Yo, Richie, I’m looking to buy a few OZs. You good for it?”

Ciccone had recently gotten me a RAT phone, an ordinary cellular phone fitted with a sensitive audio bug that could be used for remotely activated surveillance. When I punched a few buttons in the correct order, Ciccone could dial in and listen to conversations from his backup vehicle. The RAT phone isn’t a recorder but rather a transmitter that works off cell towers; it’s designed to provide an undercover agent with some peace of mind knowing that his backup can hear his “real time” conversations and therefore make a move if things sound like they’re going south. But as with any cellular phone, it didn’t always work well inside buildings or in bad weather, and whole conversations might be lost to static and dead air. (Eventually I simply stopped carrying it.) The risk of one of the guys “borrowing” it at a drunken Mongol free-for-all and later taking it to a tech expert to be examined outweighed any safety value it provided as a surveillance device.