Under and Alone (9 page)

It’s easy to say that women who are caught up in the biker lifestyle are victims of a dehumanizing codependent relationship. But if you’re around them long enough, you quickly see that for many of these women, being “property” of the gang is the one thing that gives their lives meaning. Almost all are there by choice; they’re only too happy to put on that
PROPERTY
patch. For all the sexual abuse and beatings they’re subjected to, there’s also a sense of belonging, a sense of power. While they are wearing that patch, they are untouchable to the world at large. No one can make trouble for them without bringing down the fury of the whole Mongol Nation.

Hanging out in The Place in the spring of 1998, I quickly saw the kind of women who were only too happy to put their bodies at the gang’s disposal. One night around twelve, I was wiped out and heading toward the door when one of the Tujunga regulars tapped me on the shoulder. “Better hang out, Billy. Tonight’s nude-pool night.”

He pointed at a Tujunga barfly. I watched as the young woman sauntered around the pool table. She looked to be in her late twenties and had a great body, but she was rough, to say the least. She carried herself like a man and shot a game of pool like one, too.

I quickly learned just what nude-pool night entailed. This girl would play games of pool with the guys for money. If she lost, rather than pay the money, she would just start taking off clothes, a variation on strip poker. She ended up either with a pocket full of money or, to the applause of the boys, shooting naked. The boys weren’t applauding her—they were applauding the guy beating her out of her clothes. She would win a dollar, then lose her blouse. Then she’d win a dollar and lose her pants. She might end up winning ten bucks but have no pockets to put it in.

By the time she was down to her tennis shoes, Rocky walked in. I bought him a beer and we settled in for the show. It didn’t take long to realize that the girl enjoyed putting on the show as much as the Tujunga boys enjoyed watching it. She’d line up her shot, bending over the table, making sure that everyone in The Place got a shot of their own. As she bent over in dramatic fashion she made sure that her nipples rubbed against the green felt of the well-worn pool table. Not content to be the floor show, she invited audience participation.

The Place, being a small, crowded joint to begin with, didn’t afford pool players enough room for spectators to be kept at a respectable distance. But nothing respectable was going on here tonight. While making her shots (and providing onlookers theirs), she moved her hips to the music that blared from the jukebox. I heard a loud roar from the crowd and looked closer. I saw that one patron had buried his neck between her legs. The neck of his Budweiser bottle, that is. As she moved around the table, it was a beer bottle here, a finger there, it didn’t matter—any kind of penetration was okay with her.

The fact that she was someone’s daughter, perhaps a sister, maybe even a mother, gnawed at my conscience. But as with many of the people I met during the investigation, the woman really was a willing participant in her own exploitation, and there was little I could do besides wishing that one day she might save herself from herself.

Women were often the catalyst for some of the gang’s worst acts of violence. Making trouble for a Mongol’s woman, even unintentionally, could have the most violent consequences. I witnessed this early on with a guy called John O. I first heard about John O during the Memorial Day run; several Mongols were standing around casually talking about a fight that had broken out at The Place. Fights at The Place were pretty common, but this sounded like more than just another amateur one-rounder.

John O, a Tujunga barroom slugger, had gotten into a brawl with another local. In an effort to bring the misunderstanding to an early conclusion, he picked up a cue stick to clobber his opponent. But he ended up back-stroking a girl standing behind him, breaking her jaw. Ordinarily this wouldn’t be any big deal at The Place. But the girl with the broken jaw was the ol’ lady of a Mongol who was now away doing prison time. Big problem for John O.

Domingo could have ordered the SFV Chapter to dole out a Mongol boot thumping, but John O was given an alternative. Domingo decreed that he could pay the medical bills and any other expenses incurred by the Mongol’s girlfriend. He could also pay the Mongols for pain and suffering, until the Mongols decided things were even. This sounded like a reasonable settlement to John O.

Just a few days after the Memorial Day run, I met John O myself at The Place. He was of average height, with long blond hair falling halfway down his back. He obviously took a lot of pride in that hair; it made him look like the lead singer in some eighties heavy-metal band. He stepped up to me at the bar, asking if I’d seen Rocky or any of the other Mongols. I told him that Domingo would be swinging by in a little while to meet me for a beer.

John O was visibly scared, and he told me why. He had been paid a visit earlier that day by Rocky, who had explained that John O was late on his payment to the club. Rocky explained this to John O while John O stared back at Rocky down the barrel of a .38-caliber revolver.

A few days later, as we drank together at The Place, for some reason—alcohol, drugs, lack of functioning brain cells—John O’s payment plan collapsed along with what common sense he possessed. After the trauma of Rocky’s threat had worn off, he abruptly decided that he was no longer going to make payments to the Mongols. He must also have decided that he no longer wanted to live, because he made a critical decision to announce to his buddies around The Place that he wasn’t afraid of the Mongols. As a matter of fact, according to John O, the Mongols weren’t
shit
anyway.

After he left the bar, Carrena—who was property of The Kid, president of the Riverside County Chapter—not only informed Rocky and Domingo of John O’s disrespectful attitude but also agreed to participate in his reeducation program. Carrena put in a call to John O and told him that she had a part-time maintenance job for him at The Place. John O needed whatever work he could get, so he agreed to come up to the bar. The SFV Chapter, with behavior-modification tools in hand, was waiting.

By the time his many misconceptions were straightened out, John O’s flowing blond hair had been sliced off and he was on his way to the hospital for a set of sutures and some plaster casts.

I never saw John O around the neighborhood after that. No one else did, either.

But the Mongols SFV Chapter flag—to this day in ATF custody—still bears John O’s bloody hair.

It was Friday night and I was at home putting together the things I’d need for the weekend trip to Porterville with the Mongols. I had just gotten off the phone with my kids. I tried to explain to them that I had to work this weekend and that I wouldn’t get to see them for a few days. It was very hard for them to understand. My youngest son was going to baseball practice and I wanted to be there, but this Porterville run was an opportunity to make serious progress in the investigation—an opportunity I couldn’t afford to pass up. My girlfriend was becoming annoyed that my nights and weekends were now the sole property of the Mongols. She was feeling left out of my life, and I didn’t blame her. My new full-time companion was the investigation.

As I packed, I tried to explain to her how important it was that I seized the opportunities as they presented themselves. She really couldn’t see it from my perspective, and I suppose I couldn’t see things from hers. “Look, I gotta do what I gotta do,” I said, and we didn’t say another word to each other the rest of the night.

I was up early Saturday morning, said a terse good-bye, fired up the bike, and headed for Tujunga. It was a gorgeous Southern California day, and as I breezed down the freeway I found myself looking forward to the run.

I met up with the San Fernando Valley Chapter in front of The Place, and we hit the highway. Porterville is a fourteen-square-mile agricultural community about 165 miles north of Los Angeles. It’s a little less than the halfway point between Los Angeles and San Francisco, at the base of the Sequoia National Park. The campground there was one of the Mongols’ favorite spots for a down-home run.

There was nothing special about it as far as campgrounds go, at least not until 150 outlaw bikers rolled in and took it over. Pulling into the campground, I’d seen a flatbed trailer that had been parked at one end. Domingo grinned, greeted me with a high five, and told me that we were going to have a good time tonight. He left it at that, and I knew better than to ask questions. A little later an uninvited guest came stumbling into the Mongols’ camping area. Just your standard, run-of-the-mill, white-trash drunk who was about to learn a lesson in Mongol respect. He was told that he was in an area that belonged to the Mongols. After he refused to leave promptly, several hulking Mongols administered a severe beating and stomping. Sporting a bruised ego and two newly acquired black eyes, the drunk finally realized it was in his best interest to leave the campground.

As the sun went down and the music and barbecue were fired up, I managed to get back into the groove with the assistance of a few beers. Rocky and I walked around visiting several other chapter campsites. Rocky introduced me as a new hang-around. With reserved enthusiasm, others welcomed me.

Some hours after dark, and after we had eaten, the SFV Chapter guys moved over to the flatbed entertainment area where the rest of the Mongol Nation had assembled. Loudspeakers blared rock music, and lights were trained on the flatbed.

Domingo punched me hard to get my attention, his typical Mongol tactic. He pointed to five or six half-naked girls walking up onto the flatbed. Young, sexy, and in good shape. They moved to the music, taking off what little clothes they had on. Unlike the strippers in regulated exotic dance clubs, these girls didn’t stop at G-strings. When they were stark naked, they recklessly invited Mongols to participate in the show.

Suddenly, I heard Domingo yell to one of the strippers: “Baby, I want you to sit on my bud’s face.”

Domingo was waving a five-dollar bill at the stripper, which was like waving a steak at a hungry tiger. She ran over and snatched the five out of his hand. He turned around, grabbed me by my shirt, literally picked me up and threw me onto the stage, where I landed on my back. With one giant step the nude girl stood over me. I heard a loud cheer go up from the Mongol crowd. In that instant I thought about ATF administration, the U.S. Attorney’s Office, my already pissed-off girlfriend, my by-the-book case agent, and the possibility of an Internal Affairs beef. The roar of the crowd was the stripper’s queue. Shaking and writhing to the music, she bent down on her knees and buried my face in her crotch. As she moved back and forth, I could hear louder cheering from the crowd. After a few seconds she stood up. I took a much-needed breath of air. Domingo pulled me from the stage before I could even stand up. I gathered myself and, like a victorious prizefighter, thrust my fist into the air while still tasting the stripper on my lips.

“Billy!” The Mongols cheered and patted me on the back. Less than a minute went by before the Mongols were again completely fixated on the naked strippers on the stage. I made my way through the crowd looking for a place to spit.

I watched as the Mongols got wilder and more aggressive with the strippers. Inevitably the grabbing and clawing got too much for the girls, who partnered up with their first tricks and the show was over.

When the sun woke me a few hours later, I had a paralyzing headache. Not just an ordinary bad morning-after—this was a world-class hangover.
Holy shit,
I heard myself groaning into the ground,
I’m gonna have to get better just to die.
If this was the pace the investigation was going to take, I wasn’t sure I’d live to see the end.

Around eleven, Domingo got up and announced that we would be going up to Visalia to finish partying with our Cen Cal brothers—the Central California Chapter. Jesus, that was not at all what I wanted to hear. I was seriously hurting.

It must have been around two
P.M.
when the SFV and Cen Cal Chapters headed out for Visalia. There was no way that I could make contact with Ciccone to let him know the change of plan. He would just have to continue his surveillance and follow the pack. I wondered if he was still in the game. It didn’t take long to make that determination. At the first stoplight I came to, I looked in my rearview mirror only to see the whites of Ciccone’s eyes. He was so close that he could have been a chick sitting on the back of my bike. I wondered who else might be noticing him and his ridiculous proximity. I made a mental note to tell him at a later debrief that he needed to work on some of his surveillance techniques. It was early, though; we’d all learn a few things during this investigation.

We rolled into Visalia and went to the residence of the Cen Cal Chapter president. I was dog tired, but so were Rocky and Rancid. We found beds, couches, and floorboards, anything to lie out on and catch some sleep. Only half awake, I observed constant traffic coming in and out of the house. The Cen Cal Chapter president was a pretty prolific cocaine dealer. Another thing that kept me awake was all the talk of gun trafficking that went on until well into the afternoon. I couldn’t act like I was listening too closely, so I lay there with my eyes closed, trying to memorize the various makes of guns the Mongols were discussing for the ATF report I’d have to type up when I got home.

Finally Domingo and the Cen Cal Chapter president decided it was time to hit a few of the local bars. Among the Mongols, showering and teeth brushing weren’t even a consideration. Rocky slapped me on the shoulder. He was good to go. Rancid was altogether another story. Nothing short of a cold bucket of water or Armageddon was going to move him off his lazy, smelly ass. Domingo decided to go with the cold bucket of water, and finally—with a shudder and profane shout—Rancid stirred to life.

I accompanied about a dozen Mongols to a Visalia bar. Domingo began taking some heat about me from the Cen Cal guys. I watched as his demeanor toward me changed. Every little thing I did now became a big problem for Domingo. I went to the bathroom. He questioned me about where I’d been. I went to call my girlfriend. He questioned me about who I’d been talking to. Then he locked me in a mean stare. “I’m keepin’ an eye on you, Billy.”