Jerry Langton Three-Book Bundle

by Jerry Langton

  That winter, Josée drove Kane, who only had a motorcycle license, from bar to bar on the South Shore in her ancient Hyundai Pony. She and their son Benjamin waited outside shivering because the Pony’s heater didn’t work very well—while Kane did his business inside. Then he would guide them to the next small-town bar. Ever gregarious, Kane soon developed his own network. He bought drugs directly from Lambert and sold them in bars situated between the ones his boss had already cultivated. His take jumped from $700 to $3,000 a week very quickly. But drug sales are a dangerous game built on fear-based respect, and many dealers didn’t fear or respect the slight 21-year-old who arrived with his wife and baby in a beat-up old Pony. Although he nominally worked for Lambert, the point-of-sale dealers knew Kane couldn’t call in the Condors’ muscle, and they started stringing him along on their debts and haggling over previously set prices. Some even refused to pay altogether. Kane knew it was time to get tough.

  First, he approached a Condor who owned a South Shore gym and bought steroids and weights from him. In months, the pills and workout routine transformed the scrawny punk into a thickly muscled tough who was prone to bouts of hysteric violence. Any questions about payments were answered with a punch or kick from the newly strong Kane; and debts started clearing up rapidly. The Condors helped him achieve the second half of his transformation when they drove him to the Kahnawake Mohawk territory and made some introductions. Kane left with the first of many handguns. He immediately started to carry his gun on his rounds and made a point of showing it to his business associates. He even shoved it into the mouth of one reluctant debtor, emulating something he’d seen on TV, before getting paid. Astutely recognizing another revenue stream, Kane started selling handguns and submachine guns he acquired from the Mohawks to bikers and other underworld types.

  By the spring of 1992, Kane had gained a great deal of respect on the South Shore. In just a few short years, he’d evolved from skinny, unemployed thread-maker to a feared and successful drug and arms dealer who had the muscle and will to back up his promises. It was time, the Condors decided, to put him to the test. One of their dealers had been turfed from the Bar Delphis in St-Luc. Since the dealer was also a member, the Condors weren’t just losing revenue; they were losing face in the community. They decided to blow up the bar, and they wanted Kane to do it for them. No problem. On the night of May 2, the empty Bar Delphis exploded and burned to the ground. Its owner, Réal “Tintin” Dupont, understood the message and left the area (he later emerged as a member of the Rock Machine). For his part, Kane gained respect, experience and a contact at the Canadian Armed Forces base in Valcartier who sold him 4.5 kg of C4 plastic explosive—enough to bring down a large apartment building—for $5,000.

  A few days later, Kane and Josée started living apart. He reasoned that she could get a bigger welfare payment as a single mother (she was also working under the table as superintendent of her building in exchange for a rent-free apartment) and that his business might be too dangerous for her and Benjamin to be too close to him. He moved into a house in nearby L’Acadie with two Condors and a career criminal named Robert Grimard. In July, Kane took two new friends, local street punks Martin Giroux and Eric Baker, back to the house for a few beers and some pot. After they got good and stoned, Kane took the two skinny 19-year-olds to a closet under the stairs to show off his pride and joy. When Kane pulled out the hockey bag, Baker later told police, they thought it would be full of drugs. They were shocked to see it was full of guns, which they recognized immediately as both illegal and highly desirable. As stupid as it may sound to anyone who isn’t a 19-year-old criminal, they decided there and then to steal them. Two days later, the boys watched the house. When they were sure nobody was home, they broke in through a back window and made off with the hockey bag.

  Compounding their predicament, they immediately drove to the seedy bars of St-Jean, deep in the heart of Condors territory, and tried to sell their booty. Their intended customers, all of whom immediately realized that the guns were Kane’s, laughed at the boys and told them to get lost for their own good. Realizing that they weren’t going to sell any of the guns, Giroux and Baker raced back to the house in L’Acadie, planning to return the bag to the closet in hopes that Kane would never find out about the theft. But Kane, Grimard and two Condors had been tipped off and were already inside the house, waiting for the boys. They grabbed Giroux, but Baker managed to elude them by running through a cornfield. They beat Giroux until he was a bloody pulp and told him that he’d suffer a lot more if he didn’t help them find Baker.

  Five days later, in the town of La Prairie, Baker was thrown into the backseat of Grimard’s car next to Giroux. Oddly, officers from the Sûreté du Québec who had been tailing Grimard that day saw the incident but lost the car as it weaved through the town and got on the highway, and they gave up the chase. The boys were taken to an abandoned quarry just outside Napierville, where Giroux was released. Kane took out a handgun and, with one shot, put holes in both of Baker’s legs. Another car showed up and two Condors, Louis David and Richard Proulx, and an associate named Daniel Audet came out. David announced his presence by twisting Baker’s right arm until it fractured. After about two hours of torture—including being cut with a stick, having his face urinated on and then pushed into a fire, having a bullet graze his skull and having cars speed at him only to brake at the last second, with Kane threatening to kill him all the while—Baker was surprised that he was still alive when Kane and his men drove off. Not sure if it was another trick, but unwilling to die alone in a giant pit, Baker crawled away in a random direction using his unbroken arm. He later estimated that it took him more than an hour before he arrived at a nearby farmhouse. Although Baker begged him not to call the cops, the farmer was talking to the SQ as soon as the boy was in his house. Baker was promised police protection if he’d testify against whoever tortured him. He agreed.

  Kane, Grimard, David, Proulx and Audet were arrested. A search of Grimard’s house netted the SQ the guns and bomb-making equipment, but Kane’s C4, drugs and drug paraphernalia were safely stashed in Josée’s apartment. While the kidnappers and torturers were in jail, their lawyers made a deal with prosecutors: they’d plead guilty to all charges as long as the attempted murder charge was dropped. Kane, who was identified as the leader of the group, got the worst sentence, two years less a day plus three years probation. Just before he left for prison, Kane learned Josée was pregnant again.

  Inside Montreal’s notorious Bordeaux prison Kane met someone who changed his life. Every prison has at least some inmates like Tamara, men who behave with excessive, stylized femininity and exchange sex and other favors for protection and companionship. And Tamara himself attached to Kane, who began to realize he liked sex with men as much as with women.

  Things changed on the outside, too. Josée gave birth to a daughter, Nathalie, and the Condors ceased to exist. Seeking to consolidate operations on the South Shore, Stadnick decided to have the Evil Ones absorb the best of the Condors and force the others into retirement. Pat Lambert was welcome to join, but decided instead to operate his drug sales and stripper booking/escort agency independently. When he was released from prison, Kane was approached by the Evil Ones to be a hangaround, but he chose to stick with Lambert. In return, Lambert introduced Kane to David Carroll, who immediately liked him, and Carroll introduced him to Stadnick. The biker chieftain was impressed by Kane’s physique and his resumé—he was an expert biker who’d sold drugs and guns with visible success, he’d blown up a bar, gone to Bordeaux and not told on anyone. Rather than slowly working his way through the Evil Ones’ ranks, Kane became a Hells Angels prospect almost as soon as he showed up.

  And he was Stadnick’s first choice to be in charge of the Hells Angels’ puppet gang in Ontario. He even named it—the Demon Keepers—using his own initials. The plan was simple and decidedly corporate: the Demon Keepers would move into Ontario towns and offer high-quality drugs at lower prices than existing gangs
, with better delivery. Kane worked hard to get things ready and on January 29, 1994, at a party in Sorel to inaugurate the new gang, he showed off his hand-designed colors.

  With an eye to expanding, the Demon Keepers set up shop in Ottawa, Cornwall (at the narrow part of the St. Lawrence across the river from where Quebec and New York State meet) and Toronto, the richest drug market in Canada. There were significant problems from the start. Instead of an easily defended industrial or commercial space, Kane chose a luxurious third-floor apartment in the trendy Yonge- Eglinton area of Toronto to be the Demon Keepers’ headquarters, a move local police found hilarious.

  A bigger problem than Kane’s taste in clubhouse was his staff. Culled from puppet gangs on the South Shore, the Demon Keepers were recruited for their size and toughness, not their intellect. Years later, Kane would describe the men at his disposal as “no-talent imbeciles.” Worse than their stupidity was their inability to speak English, their lack of underworld contacts and understanding of the Ontario drug culture. Under Kane’s direction, the Demon Keepers approached bikers, toughs, strippers, bouncers, bartenders and other potential customers from Ottawa to Niagara Falls. But their awkward, unsubtle style and their broken English were met with little but confusion and scorn. With virtually no sales, they did very little but keep an eye on local Outlaws and plot to kill them, although no shots were fired. The only success Kane had was to find an office where Lambert could import fresh Quebec strippers to more lucrative gigs in Toronto. Looking for help, Kane repeatedly called Carroll, but he was always too drunk or hungover to be of much help. Frustrated, he resorted to calling Stadnick, who was busy taking care of business in Winnipeg and Montreal. The exasperated, distracted president told him he wasn’t being aggressive enough and suggested that the Demon Keepers start wearing their colors more prominently. That idea backfired almost immediately. Within two weeks, 11 of the 18 Toronto Demon Keepers were arrested on minor infractions. The Toronto police, who’d been tipped off by the SQ and OPP that the Demon Keepers were representing the Hells Angels, made them a deal—no charges if they would get out of Ontario and stay out. All of them took it. Despite the difficulty, Kane soldiered on, although he told police later that he often wondered if Stadnick had set him up to fail.

  On the afternoon of April 1, 1994—April Fool’s Day—Denis Cournoyer, the Demon Keepers’ second in command, dropped by the Sorel headquarters to pick up Kane. They could hardly have been more inconspicuous in Cournoyer’s 1992 Chevrolet Corsica, but they were tailed by the SQ as they drove down Autoroute 20 at exactly the speed limit. They stopped in Montreal to pick up another Demon Keeper, Michel Scheffer, at his girlfriend’s place, and then drove towards Ontario. But, thanks to an informant embedded within the new gang, the SQ knew where they were going and alerted the OPP. When Kane and Cournoyer crossed the border into Ontario where Autoroute 20 becomes Highway 401, the OPP, who were waiting on Roy’s Road, took over the chase. A series of unmarked cars followed the Corsica to Belleville and down the Front Street exit to the parking lot of a Wendy’s fast food restaurant patronized mainly by truckers and travelers on the 401.

  Kane, Cournoyer and Scheffer planned to meet more Demon Keepers there, drive to Toronto and reinforce the chapter. Cournoyer was told to look for a yellow Mustang, which would contain his gang members. They were there, and so were the OPP. At 10:05, Cournoyer parked the Corsica next to the Mustang and opened the door. Before he was out the car, he heard it. “Freeze! You’re under arrest!” His English wasn’t very good, but he knew what was up. His first thought was to get back into the Corsica and speed away, but the OPP had blocked both cars. Kane, Cournoyer, Scheffer and the Demon Keepers in the Mustang surrendered without incident. In fact, the OPP was so proud of how easy the bust was, they used footage of it in instructional and promotional videos. An intensive search of the Mustang revealed nothing, and its occupants were free to go.

  The guys in the Corsica would have to stick around. The police found a .357 Magnum under Kane’s seat and a green Hefty bag with a nickel-plated .32 under the back seat, where Scheffer was sitting. In the trunk, they uncovered three jackets with Demon Keepers colors, a hunting rifle, ammunition for all three guns and gloves with lead sewn into the fingers. Kane tensed up when he saw Dillon, the OPP’s German Shepherd, arrive. Within seconds, Dillon found a gram of hash between the front seats.

  Kane, Cournoyer and Scheffer were locked up. A couple of simple computer checks put things in perspective for the police. Cournoyer and Scheffer had relatively clean records but the torture session at the quarry showed up on Kane’s, and the OPP correctly determined that he was the boss. Worse yet, the Magnum showed up as stolen, and since it was under his seat, the police linked it to Kane. The three accused were allowed to confer with Peter Girard, a Belleville criminal lawyer. Since Kane’s record meant that he’d end up behind bars no matter what, he’d take the bulk of the blame; and since Cournoyer was one of the few bikers under Hells Angels’ control who knew how to make PCP and crystal meth, he’d be portrayed as an unwitting driver. The OPP accepted their terms. Cournoyer was released, Scheffer got two months on a restricted weapons charge and Kane was sentenced to four months for possession of a restricted weapon and another four (to be served concurrently) for possession of stolen property. The gram of hash was forgiven.

  Barely two months after their inception, Stadnick disbanded the Demon Keepers, telling all but three of them to get lost and stay lost. His bold, but poorly executed, plan was an abject failure and he wanted to put what had become a humiliating chapter in Hells Angels history behind him. Stadnick also sent a message to Kane in Quinte Correctional Centre that the Hells Angels held no grudge against him and that he was welcome at Sorel when he was freed.

  What happened next is a matter of disagreement. The RCMP claim that Kane called Interpol’s Ottawa office, and they transferred his call to them. Other officers maintain that Kane asked a prison guard at Quinte to get him in touch with the RCMP. Either way, Kane agreed to become what the RCMP call an “agent-source”—a paid informant—embedded within the Hells Angels. He’d have plenty to talk about.

  When Kane got out of prison, he visited Sorel to feel out his standing. He spoke with Carroll, who’d been his strongest supporter in the past. Drunk again, he seemed genuinely happy to see Kane, but advised him that his best course of action would be to join the Evil Ones as a prospect and work his way up the ladder. Disappointed, Kane cautiously approached Stadnick. Although Stadnick had little time for Kane, he didn’t seem angry over the Demon Keepers fiasco, just distracted. He’d stepped down from the office of national president on June 30 for a secret project with Boucher and neither appeared interested in anything else.

  Stadnick’s replacement as national president, Robert “Ti-Maigre” Richard, didn’t exactly strike Kane as someone he could get close to. Like many bikers, Richard’s nickname was a joke. “Ti-Maigre,” which is often translated as “Tiny” in English, is actually closer to “Li’l Skinny,” hardly an accurate description of the 300-pound mammoth. A veteran sergeant-at-arms for the Sorel chapter, Richard is said by many to have been an instrumental player in the Lennoxville Massacre, despite his acquittal.

  A quiet man who emanated strength and malice, he was unapproachable by all but the most courageous. One young biker managed to penetrate Richard’s tough exterior and become not only his protégé, but his trusted friend: Scott Steinert was a tall, handsome American who, even police admitted, could be utterly charming. He was so charming that, under Richard’s massive influence, Steinert became a Sorel prospect without having to apprentice in a puppet gang or even serve as a hangaround. Life as a prospect for him was easy, as many full-patch members treated him with undue respect for fear of angering the volatile Richard.

  Kane immediately attached himself to the rising star and the two became good friends very quickly, with Steinert serving as godfather at the christening of Guillaume, the son Josée gave birth to while Kane was in Quinte. What impressed
Kane most was Steinert’s plan to start his own puppet gang in the Belleville/Kingston area, which would import drugs from the United States across the St. Lawrence and sell them to the huge prison population in the area. It couldn’t happen until he was a full-patch member, but Kane was sure that wouldn’t take long and that Steinert—aggressive, confident and bilingual—could succeed where Stadnick had failed. Kane considered him to be the future of the club, and an alliance would allow him the flexibility to choose his loyalty—to the Hells Angels or the RCMP—whenever he wanted.

  One reason Stadnick and Boucher were too busy for the presidency and Kane was that they smelled blood. With the Outlaws virtually extirpated from Quebec, the only gang that stood in the way of the Hells Angels’ total domination of the province was the rapidly growing Rock Machine. With 51 full-patch members and many associates in the Montreal underworld, the Rock Machine was beginning to represent a serious threat. But when founders Salvatore and Giovanni Cazzetta both went to prison in separate drug-smuggling incidents that year, Boucher tried to convince Stadnick that it was the time to strike. Without their leaders, he argued, the Rock Machine would fall apart under even a small amount of pressure. After much thought, Stadnick agreed.

  With that decision Stadnick launched a plan that would change Canadian organized crime forever and give him power far beyond what he held as national president of the Hells Angels. He would create an elite super-gang that was almost impervious to prosecution. He would also unleash a gang war that would take the lives of almost 200 people, including an 11-year-old boy, and imperil the very government of Quebec.