Outlaw MC

by Dwayne Clayden

  The Soldiers had chosen a good spot. No residences, so no nosey neighbors. Whatever noise the bikers made would combine with the clang of rail cars, the cries of the cattle, and the constant drone of semis.

  Near the clubhouse, they split into two groups. Zerr, Nichols, Knight and K-9, headed to the back. Brad, Steele, Ames and Devlin took a position across from the clubhouse. Old cars, bike frames, and years of junk filled the yard. Finding a place for concealment wasn’t a challenge. Brad found a location between two industrial dumpsters that provided cover and concealment, gave them a good view of the front door, and quick access to the clubhouse.

  Within minutes Brad regretted his choice. The wind came from the south, the direction of the feedlot. The smell of hundreds, if not thousands of cattle shitting, blew right at them. Too late he realized the dumpsters were filled with animal parts from the meat-packing plant behind them, the pungent smell of rotting cows mixed with the feedlot stink. For the first thirty minutes, he gagged, on the verge of vomiting.

  He glanced at Devlin, Ames and Steele, sure they were struggling too, but none showed it. Lying on the ground around the dumpster with nothing but your thoughts was bad. You were sure you could identify the individual odors. Worse was the constant sound of small creatures digging in the dumpsters, and occasionally crawling over them. It wasn’t that he was scared of the rodents, or feral cats or skunks, it was just that rodents gave him the creeps. He’d rather face the bikers than whatever was crawling around.

  Shortly after midnight, the Harleys arrived—a dozen by 0100 hours. The bikers headed inside, weaving and cursing. Lights came on throughout the upper level, and country music blared out the open windows. Occasionally bikers came outside to smoke, piss, and tell jokes.

  Joints ached, and patience wore thin. The hardest part of a raid was the waiting. It was something you accepted but didn’t get used to. Better places to be come to mind—like a warm bed.

  At 0130 hours, cabs dropped off hookers dressed in skimpy outfits. A few more hookers arrived on the back of Harleys. The sounds of a big, happy party filled the night.

  At 0200 hours, it seemed most club members had arrived—no sense waiting any longer.

  Brad quietly radioed dispatch to send a couple of police wagons and assign cruisers around the perimeter in case someone decided to run.

  At 0215, dispatch told Brad the district cruisers were in place, and the police wagons waited a few blocks away. Brad keyed his radio and gave the order to move in. “Execute.” He received two clicks in acknowledgment.

  With warrant in hand, Brad’s team rushed to the front door. Steele placed a small charge on the steel front door. Zerr’s team would do the same on the rear door.

  Within seconds, the charges blew the doors open and they stormed the clubhouse.

  Zerr’s team secured the warehouse.

  Brad’s team sprinted to the second level, taking the stairs two at a time. Surprisingly, they met no resistance on the stairs. He stepped through an open doorway into a large room. He stopped so quickly that Devlin bumped into him, knocking Brad forward. Steele bumped into Devlin and Ames pushed them all into the room.

  Brad stood, frozen to the spot, mouth open. Bikers and hookers sat four to a table, the hookers wearing summer dresses, the bikers collared shirts, jeans, and their vests. Each table had crib boards and the players held cards. Bottles of Coke and Sprite sat on the tables. Bowls of chips and Cheezies flanked the pop. Johnny Cash played from a turntable in the corner. The card players smiled.

  “Can I help you, Officer?” one biker asked as he stood. He was at least six foot five and two hundred and sixty pounds. He had long stringy hair and a bushy beard. The letters ‘SS’ were tattooed on his forehead. Over his button-down shirt, he wore a Satan’s Soldiers vest with a patch that said Sgt. at Arms.

  Devlin pushed past Brad and jabbed the patch. “What’s your name, Mr. Sergeant at Arms?”

  “Roddy White … sir.” He peered down at Devlin and grinned.

  “Search warrant.” Devlin waved the paper in White’s face. “Everyone stay where you are. Keep your hands on the table.” Devlin pointed to a chair. “You can sit down, big fella.”

  “Certainly, Officer. Can I offer you some cranberry punch? It’s very refreshing.” White sat and picked up his cards. “Do you mind if we finish our games? This is our weekly tournament. There’s twenty-five dollars to the winning team.”

  “Keep your fucking hands on the table. No, you can’t finish the games.” Devlin shook his head.

  “Steele, Ames, keep your eyes on them.” Brad checked the soda machine—it held a selection of soda, no beer.

  Brad and Devlin headed to the back bedrooms—beds neatly made, night tables clean with lamps.

  In one room, Brad stripped off the bedding, pulled pillows out of their cases and tossed the mattress against the wall. Nothing. He flung a pillow over his shoulder.

  Brad opened the night table drawer and reached to the back.

  Snap!

  “Son of a bitch.” Brad withdrew his gloved hand, a rat trap locked onto his fingers. The bikers laughed from the other room. Other than the trap, the only other thing the drawer contained was a bible.

  Devlin emptied the closet. A pile of clothes lay at his feet. “Nothing illegal. Not even a joint.”

  “We’re getting screwed over big time,” Brad said. “They were tipped off. We aren’t gonna find a thing.”

  “No shit,” Devlin said. “This place has never been this clean.”

  In the large room, Devlin found boxes labeled “toys” in a corner. He opened a couple of boxes and pulled out stuffed animals and puzzles. “What’s with all the fuckin’ toys?”

  “They’re for the Christmas toy drive,” White replied. “You know, for the kids that don’t got nothin’.”

  The bikers and hookers broke into laughter.

  Devlin muttered under his breath and shook his head.

  Brad radioed for uniform cops to come to the second level and keep an eye on the bikers.

  When the street cops arrived, Brad’s team headed down to the warehouse.

  Garelli and Neiko were working their way around the warehouse. Neiko stopped at several empty pallets and sat, whimpering excitedly, indicating that there had been drugs there recently. Brad flipped the pallets over. Nothing.

  Neiko sniffed around open boxes of tins of coffee. Neiko made no indication of drugs or guns.

  Brad picked up a tin. He used his utility knife to open the can, and poured the contents onto the floor. Neiko padded over, sniffed the coffee and walked away. No drugs. Brad grabbed other containers. All factory sealed. He tossed a tin on the floor and kicked it across the warehouse. The less they found, the more pissed he got.

  Neiko sniffed around two freezers. Brad and Steele emptied the contents. They contained meat but no weapons.

  The warehouse was almost spotless.

  Was Lenny wrong? No drugs. No beer. No guns.

  Brad and Devlin met outside.

  “How’d they know?” Brad asked. “Who tipped them off?”

  “Had to be Lenny, yanking our chain.” Devlin lit a smoke.

  “No, Lenny was shitting bricks,” Brad said. “Lenny is too stupid to lie that well and too smart to send us on a wild goose chase. He wants out of this. Besides, we hid him away.”

  Steele emerged through the remains of the front door holding two guns.

  Fucking pellet guns.

  “Police scanner,” Steele said. “Found it in a locker in a utility room. Guns were in another locker. They say it’s for killing gophers.”

  Brad took one pellet gun and looked down the barrel. Dusty. “Having the scanner isn’t illegal. Nearly every kid around Calgary has a pellet gun. We can’t charge them with anything.”

  “We could get city bylaw to check for building violations,” Devlin said.

  “Might as well tell the bikers we’re giving them a timeout and go sit in the corner.”

  It was close to 0500 ho
urs Saturday morning when Brad and Devlin stormed out of the elevator on the third floor of police headquarters. They sprinted down the hall to the holding cells.

  Devlin yelled at the guard to open the last cell.

  Lenny was sound asleep. Devlin lifted the thin mattress and flipped Lenny onto the floor. He curled into a ball, expecting an assault to follow. Devlin jerked Lenny to his feet and threw him against the wall.

  “Lenny, you lying fuck,” Devlin said. “Who’d you talk to?”

  Lenny brought his hands up to cover his face. “No one. I talked to no one ’cept you.”

  “That’s bullshit. Who’d you talk to?” Devlin grabbed him by the shirt and slammed him into the wall.

  “No one, I swear … ’cept my lawyer.”

  “What the hell?” Devlin stopped before he slammed Lenny again. “You have a lawyer?”

  “I didn’t call one. I didn’t even ask for one. This guy shows up Friday after dinner. Says he’s my lawyer. I told him I couldn’t afford a lawyer. He said someone already took care of it.”

  Devlin shoved Lenny. “You believed that?”

  “Why not? He said he’d help me, and it wouldn’t cost me nothin’.”

  “Oh, jeez,” Brad said. “Tell me you kept your mouth shut, please —”

  “Well, he’s my lawyer. He said whatever I told him was in confidence. I needed someone else to know our deal. I gotta get out of here.”

  Brad groaned. “What’s the lawyer’s name?”

  “Johnny Macdonald, I think. Here’s his card.”

  Brad read the card. “John A. Macdonald—Lawyer” Nothing to indicate where the card had been printed.

  “Yeah, that’s it. When do I go to Vancouver?”

  “You stupid shit.” Devlin paced around the cell. “You aren’t going to Vancouver. You’re going to jail.”

  “But I told you about the warehouse,” Lenny whined. “I told you about the drugs and guns. You got that stuff, right? You arrested the bikers, right?”

  “No,” Brad said. “They were playing crib. There were no drugs, no booze—not so much as a beer. They knew we were coming.”

  “No, not from me.”

  Brad grabbed Lenny by the arms. “Your lawyer, you moron. John A. Macdonald was our first prime minister.”

  “My lawyer’s the prime minister?”

  Brad rolled his eyes. “No, you idiot.”

  “That’s not the lawyer’s real name?”

  “The Soldiers hired him,” Brad said. “We got nothing. The deal is off. You go to court on Monday. I hope your lawyer shows.”

  Brad followed Devlin to the hallway and slammed the door.

  “Someone found out Lenny was here,” Brad said. “He’s a shithead, but we gotta beef up the protection. Put him in isolation until Monday.”

  Chapter Ten

  The sun was up by the time Brad got home. He tried to sleep, tossing and turning, going from one nasty dream to another. The first dream was of White, sneering. The hookers, dressed for a Saturday night sock-hop, laughed. Then Brad’s team changed from tactical gear to 1920s police gear, looking like the Keystone Cops.

  He awoke with a start, rolled over, and pulled up the blanket. Once he was asleep, the next dream played. He was walking on the sidewalk in a friendly neighborhood. Laughing kids played in their yards. Others cycled up and down the street. The colors were vivid greens and reds. He could smell the sweet, freshly cut grass, and the tantalizing fragrance from the lilac bushes. A front door opened, and he was drawn to it. Then he was in the house, walking down a long hallway, following the sound of a crying baby. As he reached the bedroom door, other screams joined the baby’s cries. He reached for his gun as he entered the bedroom. A man and a woman knelt on the floor, begging for their lives. Then their heads exploded. Blood, bone, and tissue splattered over him. He wiped away the blood and stared at his hand.

  Brad awoke nose to nose with Lobo, who looked curiously at him. Then Lobo licked his face.

  Brad swung his legs over the edge of the bed and wiped his hand across his face. He was relieved it was only sweat and slobber. He rubbed Lobo’s ears. “Sorry, buddy. Thanks for waking me up, good timing.” Brad glanced at the clock. 1130 hours. “What do you say to a run?”

  Lobo bounced up and down on his front paws, tail wagging.

  Brad changed into a T-shirt and shorts. They jogged down Forty-Eighth Avenue to Bowness Park. Inside the park, they headed west, following the circuit they ran at least four times a week.

  Lobo ran happily at his side, frequently stopping to sniff and pee, then sprinting past and repeating. In the park, Lobo went on full squirrel alert. They followed the lagoon as it wound in and out of tall evergreens.

  Running opened Brad’s mind and allowed him to think creatively. He could look down on problems from 10,000 feet, see the dots, then connect them. Today his subconscious was trying to tell him something. But what? No doubt the bikers were tipped off. Who told them? The phantom lawyer? That was one possibility. But how did he know Lenny was in jail? Not many people knew. They’d needed a search warrant, so maybe someone in the court system? But Lenny’s name wasn’t in the court documents. Still, there hadn’t been much time between getting the warrant and the raid.

  Brad turned back east and followed the Bow River. Lobo looked longingly at the fast-flowing water. “Not yet.”

  Lobo whimpered but kept running.

  He worried about Annie. By all accounts, she was living with her mom, attending school and was seen in the neighborhood. Was she there the night her mother was killed? Probably. Nosey Mrs. Gable gave the best information. She’d been right about everything else, so no reason to doubt her. What happened to Annie? No trace of her anywhere. That meant the Jokers have her. A cold shudder raced up his back as he imagined the hell she must be going through.

  Without any evidence, they couldn’t go into the Jokers’ clubhouse to find her. Not yet, anyway. Besides, would the Jokers be stupid enough to have her there? Maybe she’s in a whorehouse—feeding her drugs to get her addicted. Then they’d trick her out as a young hooker. She’d draw the interest of a lot of men. The Jokers would receive a nice income from her. In a couple of years, she’d be killed or die of an overdose and the bikers would look for another pretty young girl. Where is she? I need to find her before she’s damaged for life.

  They reached the east end of the park on the banks of the river. Lobo ran around Brad, whimpering and bouncing. Brad picked up a rock and tossed it into the shallow water. Lobo raced after the rock and dove into the water. After diving a few times searching, he surfaced and swam back to shore. It looked like the same rock. Brad tossed it into the river again. Lobo would do this for hours if he let him. Fifteen minutes would be enough.

  As he threw the rock and Lobo fetched, Brad thought about Thompson’s words, “Maggie’s back.” Maggie Gray. Just thinking about her brought back a flood of happy memories. They’d come here often with Lobo. His work situation, the danger, and the secrecy drove a wedge between them. That Maggie couldn’t get a job as a paramedic in Calgary sealed their fate. They’d drifted apart as they followed their dreams, Maggie for a paramedic job, Brad for the tactical unit. He’d thought about Maggie the first year, then put all his focus on work and avoided thinking about her.

  Lobo dropped the rock at Brad’s feet. “Hey buddy, Maggie’s back.” Lobo cocked his head to the side.

  Chapter Eleven

  Satan’s Soldiers’ Clubhouse

  Monday Afternoon

  Dale Hehn parked his hog at the side door of the Satan’s Soldiers’ clubhouse. Workers were repairing the damage to the door caused by the cops. Stupid cops. The big show of force and what did they get? Fuck all, that’s what. By the time the Soldiers got word of the raid, they’d had less than two hours to sanitize the clubhouse. That’s what President Jacques Perrault called it. Sanitize. Why use a common word when a fancy one will do? But they’d sanitized, except for the pellet guns. It was funny thinking back to the excitement
of the cops at finding pellet guns.

  Hehn stopped for a smoke. He had time before the meeting. Something big was happening. It was unusual for Perrault to call a meeting in the middle of the week. Something to do with the cops? Maybe the Gypsy Jokers? He’d find out soon enough.

  After the botched raid by the cops, Hehn spent three days taking inventory of all the stuff they’d moved out. There’d been no time to keep track of what was tossed into pickups and vans before the cops arrived. Perrault insisted they needed to list all the stuff as it came back. It fell to Hehn, secretary-treasurer, to track it. A few pounds of BC grass and maybe a quarter pound of cocaine were missing. The grass wasn’t an issue, but the loss of cocaine had Perrault throwing a fit.

  Hehn wandered closer to the workers and watched as they slid a new door frame and door into place—made of thick steel and a lot heavier than the one they were replacing. If the cops came again, it wouldn’t be easy to get through this door. Hehn could still see the stunned looks on the cops’ faces when they entered the clubhouse and saw the card game in progress. He tossed the cigarette to the ground, slipped past the workers, and headed upstairs.

  At the top of the stairs, he turned into the meeting room. No tables set up for crib this time. The tables were pushed together for the meeting. Most guys stood in groups, talking and drinking beer. About half the seats at the tables were filled. The church bingo atmosphere they’d created the night the cops raided was long gone. Things were back to normal. Guys were drinking beer, swearing and telling dirty jokes. That’s more like it.

  Hehn stopped at the pop machine and grabbed a beer. He took a seat next to Vice President Angel Morales.

  “Hey, Morales, how you doing?” Hehn asked.

  “Real good. Lots of action over the past few days. I like that.”

  Hehn took a swig of his beer. Morales was a wildcard. He had connections with drug suppliers in Mexico. He came across relaxed and casual but he had a short temper and settled scores with a knife.