“It’s important to know what you are in this world,” I said to Debbie. “That way you’re never disappointed.”
* * *
One blustery morning in June, I sat in my office, cracked my knuckles, and listened to the phone ring, again and again. Leave a message. If I don’t pick up the first time, don’t keep calling. I finally snatched the receiver.
“Uh … okay…” Click.
The phone rang again. I placed the caller on hold and piped in compositions by Rossini, Bellini, Verdi, and Puccini. I liked opera; someone always got stabbed. In college, I once interned for an attorney who said classical music soothed his clients. Pink office walls probably had the same effect.
After another hour of many ignored calls, I finally picked up, ready to explode.
“I’m getting a fortune.” Pinkie, one of the whores who’d worked for me, sounded breathless on the other end.
We sat at a small table in the corner of the bar she now worked. Harsh daylight highlighted her pale, sunken cheeks, bottle-bleached curls, and skimpy tank. Creases framed sparkling ice blue eyes. Though she spoke, I heard only chatter. Key words pinged in my head: “bike wreck”; “settlement”; “personal injury lawsuit”; “torn rotator cuff.”
“Be careful not to blow the money.” My mouth felt dry.
“I want to start a business.” She reeked of alcohol. “But I need a partner.”
“What kind of business?” My fingers tingled at the sound of money.
“Crystals.”
She elaborated with a cloth napkin. “Bandannas decorated with Swarovski crystals.”
* * *
I hired a company to produce the merchandise, expanded the business to include T-shirts, and arranged for Pinkie to participate in trade shows to sell and market the products.
“Why am I fielding calls for orders?” I barked at Pinkie later. I heard glasses clinking in the background.
She slurred her words. “I have a day job, you know.”
Yeah, me too.
“This isn’t working out so well,” I said. “No one’s going to waste a hundred bucks on fancy bandannas that could blow off their skull at high speed.”
20
THE FALL
After the bandanna-Swarovski crystal debacle, I turned my marketing attention to the COC. And in time, I designed patches (“Confederation of Clubs”) for members, set up run sheets, planned an all-club ride, and established a scholarship fund for any person going to school, be it trade school, college, or junior college. After all, the Hells Angels annually donated money to Toys for Tots—why shouldn’t the COC give to charitable causes?
“It’s not like we don’t have a heart.” I lit my fifth cigarette in an hour.
“I love hearing you speak.” Gypse, my vice chairman and a member of Brothers Rising, shook my hand at the end of a presentation. He choked up, said he had ridden two hours “for the poetry.” The high was like a drug, gazing into a crowd of hundreds as I spoke—unscripted, “from the heart,” sometimes four hours at a stretch with no breaks.
“Good speech, Boss.” Mr. Happy sucked back cans of Red Bull as he drove me home. Meetings began at noon, and by the time they ended and attendees said their goodbyes it was nearly dark. Fleetingly, I wondered if politicians experienced this same combination of exhilaration and fatigue.
I recovered in my bedroom. Debbie brought me steaming bowls of chicken soup. I stacked soggy carrot slivers along the edges. My computer screen lit up with Civilization III, the strategy video game that involved building an empire from the ground up. The objectives were to construct and improve cities, train military and nonmilitary units, improve terrain, research technologies, and make war (or peace) with neighboring civilizations.
I wanted to build an MC world.
* * *
But first, I had to set up a “regime,” (just like Michael Corleone did in The Godfather), a Spanish coalition to encompass the ten Chicago Hispanic clubs, who preferred to be called “associations” so that they could circumvent motorcycle club rules. There were too many to monitor; I needed help.
I nominated Coyote, the wiry Boss of Twisted Image, to “get the clubs together,” and instructed him, “Tell them Big Pete wants to meet.”
In a different world Coyote would have been director of marketing; he scheduled several gatherings with the various clubs, served up decent food, and before ever introducing me created buzz about “a legend”: “Big Pete wants to work with you”; “Big Pete wants to form an alliance”; “You’ll be working with Big Pete.”
“Big Pete” recruited an entourage to perpetuate this larger-than-life persona. Bodyguards held car doors open for me, walked two paces behind as a sign of respect. Crowds formed along busy sidewalks, and strangers tittered, “That’s him—that’s Big Pete.” But soon, the show got a little ridiculous and I grew concerned that my fake entourage might actually telegraph my movements to any watchful Feds.
I cut back. This was, after all, my show, and it wasn’t real. I was perpetuating an illusion. Meanwhile, Coyote convinced the ten Hispanic clubs to pledge their allegiance to the Outlaws. They became part of my phantom army and made regular appearances at Outlaw clubhouses, just in case the Angels had spies. I wanted them to see we were huge.
In many ways I felt forced to fight the Angels without the Outlaws. Santa’s “hands off” policy made it nearly impossible to rally reliable soldiers. The COC became my proxy.
With Coyote’s help, I expanded. More and more clubs wanted to join. I recruited over six hundred members, a small army.
Coyote arranged the meetings, ordering members to show up by dusk. He rattled off addresses of holes in the wall, dive bars frequented by shines and the Ole Skool Road Playerz. It was clear I didn’t belong, but by the time I made my entrance, Coyote had deified me into some kind of god. I was ushered onto a makeshift stage and given a beer—and silent, undivided attention.
* * *
“Why do they call you The Professor?” I asked the Boss of the Ole Skool Road Playerz.
He wore a leather cowboy hat, tinted gold sunglasses, leather knuckle gloves, a cropped beard, and a leather vest embroidered with the club’s motto, “We do not go along to get along.”
“I teach law classes at a community college.”
“Are you a lawyer?” He could’ve passed for one, and it might be handy to have someone familiar with statutes of limitations.
“No.” The Professor chuckled. He removed his glasses, wiped a lens on his vest. “I lead political debates.”
I did too. We were kindred spirits.
“You want to slap ‘Support your Local Outlaw’ patches on shines’ vests?” Bastardo was having trouble processing my proposal, as if he thought that somehow I didn’t realize the significance of the gesture … that shines would actually have to support the Outlaws.
“Yes,” I said.
“You do realize The Outlaws are mostly white supremacists?”
* * *
“We don’t want shines in our clubhouse,” Santa put his foot down. I was certain he never quite realized how ridiculous he sounded.
“They’ll be part of the COC.”
“I don’t care.”
“We’re fighting discrimination against patch-holders.” I said, pointing out the obvious.
“I get that. But not them.”
“Look here, we can’t be a club about nondiscrimination and discriminate.”
“We’ll just have to make an exception.”
“What are we doing here?”
Santa whined, “If we let shines into the COC, then they’ll want to come to the clubhouses and to the parties and…”
I shook my head. “This isn’t about color, it’s about money.”
Santa still didn’t get it.
“Who do you think makes up our juries?” I asked him. “The Outlaws need allies. At some point they’ll need to defend against allegations of hate crimes.”
“So you want to buy their support?”
“I wouldn’t put it that way.”
“What way then?”
“It’s a two-way street. We can help each other.”
But not every shine appreciated my concept of solidarity. Shortly after distributing the support patches to the Ole Skool Road Playerz, I met resistance one night as I drove home from Church. The North Side clubhouse bordered several rough black neighborhoods, and my route took me through the edge of their turf. My wheels slid to a stop on a patch of ice at the intersection.
A cluster of shines huddled on the corner, their long coats flapping in the wind. The tallest of the group waved me down; he approached my car, flashed open his coat, and displayed his .22. A shot to the head or neck would probably have killed me. I could have gunned the engine, flattened the fucker right there on the pavement and left his remains for the street crawlers, but this was politics.
Better to send a message.
I retrieved my .40-caliber Glock from the armrest next to me. As one of the few who could still legally carry, I’m sure I surprised him. My windows fogged from cold. The tall one traced a frosty circle with his finger and drew a line through the center. I shined my Maglite in his face. Threatening violence was always more powerful than pulling the trigger.
I rolled down the window and said, “There can only be one rooster in the henhouse. Cock-a-doodle-do.”
“I don’t think he got the message,” Bastardo said as he woke me up from a dead sleep the next morning.
“What’s the matter?”
“Ghost paid me a visit.”
Ghost was the head shine of Chicago’s shine club, the Wheels of Soul.
“We have a problem. The Hell’s Lovers and Wheels of Soul stole the Ole Skool Road Playerz’ vests last night.”
“What happened?” I called “The Professor.”
“They took our patches.”
I could tell from his tone that he didn’t understand the seriousness of the act. “Why did you let them?”
“We were outnumbered.” He said it matter-of-factly, as if we were discussing his wallet being stolen. But these weren’t just his club’s patches, because frankly I wouldn’t have cared if those had been stolen: These were Outlaw support patches—Outlaw support patches I had given to shines.
“I have to get them back,” I told Debbie.
“How are you going to manage that?” she asked.
I remembered a curious exchange a year earlier at an NCOM convention in Charlotte, North Carolina, when the vice president of the Wheels of Soul gave me his number.
“In case you ever need to call Preacher Mon,” he said, grinning.
Never could I have imagined needing a shine for anything, but I’d kept his contact information nonetheless.
I called in my favor.
“I’ve got a fucking problem,” I said as I paced the confines of my room. “Your boys out here stole my property.”
I told Preacher Mon the story.
He listened thoughtfully and said, “I’ll get back to you.”
“Don’t forget me.” When I hung up I felt a little light-headed. If the fucker didn’t call me back … I was fucked, I was so fucked. Colors were worth killing for … even dying for … and if the Outlaws found out their patches were gone …
Two hours later, my phone lit up with a Philadelphia area code.
“This is Dirty Harry,” the National Boss of the Wheels of Soul introduced himself.
“Well, Dirty Harry, I’m the Regional Boss of the Chicago Outlaws. You’re new to this city. You’ll either be welcomed or obliterated.” Stress made me sound a little like a Star Trek alien.
“What’s the problem?”
“The problem”—I took a deep breath—“is that Wheels of Soul have Outlaw patches.”
“Let me get back to you.”
“Don’t forget me.”
Ghost called me next. “Do you know who I am?”
“Do you know who I am?” I could feel my face get hot.
“I’m friends with Mark from the jewelry store.” Ghost said.
It took me a minute to register that his “Mark” was actually Mr. Happy.
“Well you’re talking to Mark’s boss.”
Ghost coughed. Silence followed, and for a minute I actually thought he had hung up.
“Hey man, I’m sorry, I didn’t realize you were him. The Big Pete.”
“Shut up. I want my property back.”
“Where do you want to meet and who are you bringing with you?
“No one. Meet me at noon in the middle of the parking lot of the Illinois Harley.”
It felt like a high noon showdown in some weird spaghetti western. I arrived early, parked askew in the middle of the empty lot, and waited for Ghost. He pulled up a few minutes later in his Escalade with an entourage of six thugs.
“I’ve got your shit.”
“I know.” I popped open the trunk. “Throw the vests in there.”
Ghost looked a little bewildered. “That’s it?”
“I’m not shaking hands.”
“You didn’t bring anyone with you?”
“What for?”
Ghost snapped his fingers, and his puppets tossed the vests in my trunk.
I drove to the Ole Skool Road Playerz’ clubhouse. “No one gives up his patches,” I said to The Professor. “You should be willing to die for them.”
He nodded, and his oversized glasses slid down the bridge of his nose.
“You want your patches back?”
“Definitely.”
“It’ll cost you.”
“How much?”
“Two thousand dollars.”
He nodded. “Sounds reasonable.”
“I’ve got them in the trunk.”
“My patches are in the trunk of your Cadillac?”
I popped open the trunk to show him. “Get the money.”
“I will.” The Professor grinned.
“Meet me in the middle of the parking lot of the Illinois Harley, tomorrow, noon.”
For the second time in two days I arrived early to an empty parking lot and waited for shines.
“I’ve got the money,” The Professor said as he rode up with his entourage of six gangsters.
“I know.”
“You want to count it?”
“Definitely.” I took my time—licked my fingers and made a production of separating each bill. And then handed him $1,000 back.
“I don’t understand.”
“If you lose these patches again, it will cost you ten thousand bucks to get them back.” The more pebbles I skipped across the still pond, the wider the ripples.
* * *
Santa called a few days later to complain, “Ray Rayner says you’re sanctioning everybody.”
I bristled. “First of all, I never sanction any club.” The idea that I accepted any club for the club’s sake was dangerous.
“That’s what Ray Rayner is saying.”
“So.”
“What do you mean ‘so’?” Santa sounded like he dropped a screwdriver on the concrete.
“S. O.”
“Why are you encouraging all of these clubs to form?”
“Let me pose this scenario to you,” It was easier if I thought of him as a bigheaded child. “Five guys walk into a clubhouse and ask permission to become a club. I say no. They leave. The tough guy in the group pauses outside and mumbles under his breath, “Fuck him. Why do we have to do what he says? Let’s start our own anyway.’”
Santa said nothing.
“Is Ray Rayner going to hunt this new club down and demand accountability? Will you?”
Again nothing.
“No. I will. If I can even find them,” I broke the silence.
All I heard was breathing.
“Why not make them our friends? Most of these idiots won’t even be around in two years. They’ll wither on the vine, disappear, poof, gone. Problem solved.”
“Okay, I see your point.”
“Bye.”
* * *
It was a kind of game for me: Random prospective groups approached me regularly to ask my approval to form a new club.
“A lot goes into this,” I told one group of hopefuls as I invited them to the clubhouse, instructing them to bring their members and all of their paraphernalia.
We didn’t meet in my office—that was reserved for invited guests. Instead I sat in the center of the room and made them all stand in a semicircle.
“Who do we have?” There were five of them, including the clearly marked sergeant at arms, president, and vice president.
“So you’re the sergeant at arms?”
The man stepped forward, his chest as wide as a beam. “That’s right.”
“You do understand you’re the first one shot?”
As if I had popped him with a pin, the man instantly deflated.
“And you’re the president?” I pointed to the next man in line, who had an embroidered “President” patch on his vest.
“Yes.”
“Well, you’re the second one to get shot.”
This man, too, paled, shifted uncomfortably, and had no response.
I continued. “You’re the vice president?”
“Yes.”
“You’ll be running away and take a bullet in the back.”
They stared at me dumbfounded.
“Doesn’t everyone know who you are?”
Again silence.
“Look here, why would you broadcast your titles? A patch that identifies your rank makes you a moving target.”
* * *
The shine clubs were not my only challenge. My vision for the COC was to eliminate rivalry altogether, to create an army of thirty-seven loyal clubs and all their soldiers, who, though once autonomous, would now consider me their leader.
“I’m not taking orders from a woman,” a member of the Hillbillies, a Polish club, complained at the next COC meeting after one of its particularly entrepreneurial female members splintered off and formed a mixed male/female social club.
I made my Big Mistake after eight members disbanded suddenly from the Hillbillies and formed their own club, Legacy, multiplying like octopi. Though they initially pledged their allegiance to the Outlaws, they soon became rogues, implementing their own rules, missing Outlaw parties and runs, arriving late to charity events.
The Last Chicago Boss Page 14
