Under and Alone (27 page)

Andy Hipp lived less than two miles from Domingo. I took a deep breath as we stopped a couple of houses away. Domingo tested the two-way radios and handed me one to hold. As Domingo walked up to Hipp’s door, I turned to Bucket Head. “What the fuck do we do if we hear a gunshot coming from inside the house?”

Bucket Head didn’t hesitate. “What do you think, Billy? We go in and shoot everybody.”

The two-way radio in my palm crackled.

“Okay, guys,” Domingo said, “come on in.”

We loaded into Bucket Head’s pickup and backed down the driveway. Domingo and Andy Hipp were standing outside by the garage door. We escorted Hipp inside his garage, out of sight of anyone passing by. It was a perfect place for an execution.

Domingo and Rancid raised their shirts to show the gun butts in their waistbands. They backed Hipp against the wall. I put my hand on my own gun and held my breath, hoping that Hipp had enough sense not to buck any Mongols. Domingo told Hipp that he was being held responsible for his brother’s transgressions against the club, that he would have to come up with a thousand dollars immediately or we would take possession of his motorcycle. Hipp’s voice trembled as he begged Domingo not to take his bike. He said that he had some money in his savings account and that he would have it for Domingo by tomorrow. Domingo said that we’d be taking anything that we felt was worth taking from Hipp’s house, and that it would count toward what the Hipp family owed the Mongols. Hipp begged Domingo not to take any of the tools he needed for his job as a mechanic.

We loaded the pickup truck with electric tools, a Craftsman toolbox, several car jacks, and anything else in the garage that caught Domingo or the other Mongols’ fancy. Domingo made it clear that we would be back tomorrow for his bike or the thousand dollars cash.

As we carted away his belongings, I watched Hipp begging, practically in tears. I felt my jaw tighten as I glanced around the garage. But I kept telling myself that they would all pay in due time. When the investigation had run its course, they’d all be hearing the sound of the prison gate slamming shut behind them.

Domingo and Rocky were making both my life as a Mongol and my job as an ATF agent nearly unbearable with their violent and erratic behavior. It was difficult for me to break away from Domingo’s orbit for even one night; he always expected me to be partying shoulder-to-shoulder with him. If I said I wanted to leave the party early, Domingo ragged on me and coerced me into staying out until sunrise.

During one standard Saturday-night jam at The Place, I resolved to leave around midnight and to spend some time with my kids in the morning. Domingo could scream till he was blue in the face, but I was giving all day Sunday to my sons. He was sitting near the jukebox with his wife, Terry, and I extended my hand.

“Where the hell do you think you’re going, brother?”

“I’m outta here, Pres. I got one bitchin’ chick waiting for me.” It was the only excuse a Mongol would find acceptable on a Saturday night.

“Yeah, okay, Billy, go get ’em.”

Not long after I’d fired up my Softail Springer, a young couple made the mistake of wandering into The Place. They’d never been there before, and didn’t know the 1 percenter protocol. The guy was on the big side and looked like he’d seen a few street fights. His girlfriend was in good shape, young and pretty, and unfortunately, Rocky quickly became infatuated with the way she moved. He didn’t care that she was with another man. He walked up to her and introduced himself. He flirted with her and pointedly did not say a word to her boyfriend.

“Back off,” the insulted boyfriend said finally.

Everybody in The Place knew that you didn’t talk to Mongols like that. Rocky invited the newcomer to settle it outside. But once outside, it didn’t take Rocky long to realize that he had bitten off more than he could chew. Although Rocky landed a blow or two, the boyfriend was bigger and stronger. The fight went to the ground, and Rocky, now on the bottom, was taking one serious ass whipping.

Domingo caught sight of Rocky getting pounded into the concrete and flew right into action, kicking the guy in the face with his steel-toed boot. The guy wasn’t able to recover before Rocky joined Domingo with another boot to the head. Rocky bent down and began delivering blows to his face and head as Domingo kicked him in the back, chest, and stomach. They kicked and stomped until their victim lay completely motionless, barely breathing.

This still wasn’t good enough for Rocky. He reached into his pocket and pulled a knife. By this time, several people had walked out of The Place, including the guy’s girlfriend. She was terrified and started screaming.

Just before Rocky started to stab the guy, Domingo grabbed him, saying there were too many witnesses. Some sense returned to Rocky, and he put the knife away. He reached into the guy’s pants and took his wallet and money.

Meanwhile, the victim’s girlfriend had run to the pay phone and called the police. As Rocky tucked away the money and wallet, he heard the sounds of police sirens approaching.

Rocky and Domingo ran back inside The Place and searched out hiding places as the cops pulled up in front. The beaten man lay motionless on the pavement. His lungs, punctured by broken ribs, began to fill with blood. The police called for an ambulance and backup units for what they thought was about to become a murder scene. The victim’s girlfriend told the police that Mongols had committed the crime, and gave them a description of the two bikers.

In the confusion, Domingo and Rocky escaped from The Place. Backup units moved in and a manhunt ensued. The paramedics quickly assessed the victim’s condition and undertook the painful procedure of administering a chest tube. They worked on him for almost an hour before he was stable enough to transport. It would be more than a week before doctors were certain that he would recover from the beating.

Although there were several eyewitnesses, only one, besides the victim’s girlfriend, stepped forward, and she could only identify Rocky. The eyewitness went by the name of Ray Gun. Ray Gun was a big guy, an indigenous Tujunga barroom brawler, who knew better than to try to intervene against the Mongols. But as he stood at the crime scene, watching the paramedics desperately working to save the victim’s life, Ray Gun had a crisis of conscience. He listened to the victim’s girlfriend begging her boyfriend not to die. It affected Ray Gun to the point that he stepped forward and volunteered to give the police a complete statement of what had happened. He identified Rocky and Domingo as the perpetrators of the assault, giving the police their descriptions and telling them where they lived.

In so doing, Ray Gun guaranteed himself a place on the Mongols’ most-wanted list.

Rocky knew he couldn’t go home. He ran to his dad’s place, where he hid out for the next couple of weeks. Domingo had no place to hide and was confident no one on The Rock would give him up. But if the victim died, Domingo decided he would go on the lam in Mexico and hang out with the Mongols chapter there. If it looked like he was going down for attempted murder or strong-armed robbery, he would flee to Georgia and hang with Crazy Craig and the Mongols there.

At about four o’clock in the morning Domingo and Terry were awakened by a knock on the front door. “Police! Open up!”

Domingo was still fully dressed. He quietly opened the back door as the police pounded away at the front. Terry was confronted by several cops demanding to speak to Domingo. “He’s not home. What do you want to talk with him about?”

“We just want to talk to him,” one of the officers told her.

Terry told them that Domingo didn’t come home last night and that she didn’t know where he was. They wanted to look in the house, and Terry stood aside as they rushed in with guns drawn. They went from room to room and were satisfied that Domingo was in fact not in the house. They told Terry that when she spoke with Domingo, she should tell him to turn himself in.

“Turn himself in for what?” she demanded.

“Just tell him we need to talk to him.”

At five o’clock that morning I was asleep in my real home in Upland when my cell phone rang. It was Terry. “Billy, where are you?”

She was frantic, almost in tears, saying the police were after Domingo and that he had been banging on the door of my UC apartment in Diamond Bar trying to get in touch with me. I told Terry that I was at the Chino Airport, only a few miles from my pad. She said that Domingo was at the service station just around the corner and that he needed to hook up with me. I told her I’d get in my car and meet with him in just a few minutes.

Hanging up the phone, I jumped out of bed and threw on my clothes. I gathered up all my Mongol paraphernalia and ran out the door. As I raced toward Diamond Bar, I put in a call to Ciccone. “Dude, something’s up. I’m on my way to the UC pad. Domingo’s waiting for me. Terry called and said that the cops were looking for Domingo. Hate to do it to you, Johnny, but you better get up and head my way.”

“Okay, I’ll roll with you.”

When I hung up, it hit me hard: My kids were expecting to see me at eight
A.M.,
which was three hours away. Hopefully this bullshit with Domingo wasn’t going to take long. I rolled into Diamond Bar in record time, managing somehow to avoid drawing the attention of any cops. Domingo was waiting for me at the service station.

“Where the hell have you been, Billy?” he said angrily.

“Hey, Pres, I had to drop off that equipment at Chino this morning at oh-dark-thirty. What got you up so early this morning?”

“The fuckin’ cops,” he said. “Let’s go to your place and I’ll tell you all about it.”

There was no handshake, no hug, just one serious meet. I knew some bad shit must have happened the night before. I rolled to the UC pad, followed closely by Domingo. As we parked, I couldn’t help but notice that Domingo was behaving in a way I’d never seen before. He was visibly unnerved. I grabbed my keys. On my key ring was a standard car-door security device that in reality controlled the audio-video surveillance equipment in my pad. As we walked in, I hit the remote recording button that turned it all on. Domingo started to talk.

“Billy, me and Rocky beat up a dude at The Place last night, and I think he might have died.” He tried to blame the whole thing on Rocky.

“Rocky was getting his ass beat, and I had to jump in and save him, Billy. I guess we beat the guy a bit too much. Then that dumb-ass Rocky took the guy’s wallet and money. Man, I gotta find a place to hide out till I figure out what I’m gonna do.”

“Hey, Domingo,” I heard myself say, “you know you can stay here as long as you want.”

He said he was going to call Terry and have her bring over some clothes and things and he’d stay with me until he decided what to do.

“Cool,” I said.

Good thinking, Queen. With Domingo living right on top of me, the UC pad had suddenly turned into an indefinite 24/7 operation. That meant absolutely no downtime. I’d be in full Mongol mode every waking—every sleeping—moment. I walked around my pad making sure there was nothing there that would give me away. Domingo had been up almost all night and was starting to fade. I told him to lie on the couch and try to get some sleep. He did, as I sat back and I regretted missing another outing with my kids. There was no way I could even risk calling them to explain my absence. I sat and wondered how much more of my personal life was going to be permanently swallowed up by the investigation.

Domingo stayed at my pad less than a week. He found out that the victim hadn’t died and that the police hadn’t been back to his house since that night. What he didn’t know was that they had gotten his next-door neighbor to watch for his return. He was home only two days before his place was raided and he was under arrest for assault with a deadly weapon and strong-armed robbery.

While Domingo was hiding out with me, Rocky and his girlfriend had stolen her grandparents’ car and run away to Colorado to hide out with the Mongol chapter there. Rocky managed to stay on the lam for several months before he was ultimately tracked down and arrested.

The police report of the assault and robbery clearly listed the name of the eyewitness to the incident. The Mongols are more criminally resourceful than they might appear to outsiders; as I’d seen firsthand during this investigation, the club has its own private eyes and attorneys on the payroll, as well as employees of local police departments and the California Highway Patrol providing them with confidential information. Domingo made bail and was back on the streets of the San Fernando Valley. It didn’t take long for the police report of the assault to end up in his hands. Nor did it take long for him to start trying to locate the witness whose name was on that report—Ray Gun.

It was a Saturday night and I was planning to just stop by The Place, have a couple of beers, say hello to the boys, and call it an early night. But somewhere around nine that evening, The Kid and Conan from the RivCo Chapter showed up. Conan had gotten out of prison only a few months earlier but was working hard on a return ticket by selling drugs. He had made use of his time in prison working out, and it showed. He had an intimidating physique and a more intimidating stare.

The Kid, Carrena’s ol’ man, was another constant headache. I dreaded his coming around because he almost always pushed me to do drugs with him.

But tonight everybody seemed satisfied to drink beer. Somewhere around ten, The Kid, Carrena, and Conan made the suggestion that we all go to the Sundowner for another round.

We rolled into the Sundowner lot and parked in the rear as usual. There were a few cars and no bikes. It had the makings of a trouble-free night. But as soon as we settled in at the bar, Carrena spotted Ray Gun across the room. The Kid, as a chapter president, wielded more power in the club than I did, and he took charge of the situation. He began laying out plans for how we were going to handle Ray Gun. His options ran from murdering him to just beating him senseless.

I told The Kid that it should be Domingo’s call. Conan insisted on beating the shit out of him at the very least. By this time, Ray Gun, standing at the far side of the bar with his girlfriend, realized he was in for some trouble. He tried to make his way to the door, but Conan got there first and blocked his escape. Ray Gun’s girlfriend shuffled quickly to the bathroom. The Kid sent Carrena to catch her to make sure she didn’t call the police on her cell phone. The Kid, Conan, and I converged on Ray Gun.