Vagos, Mongols, and Outlaws: My Infiltration of America's Deadliest Biker Gangs

by Charles Falco

  “The Puma Hi chapter is all active military,” George elaborated. “They have connections to weapons.” Woodstock stashed a Mossberg .12 gauge shotgun, a .22 revolver, and a .380 pistol in his bedroom and dismissed rumors that police thought he had taken the patch at gunpoint.

  * * *

  The next morning, over pancakes and pineapples in the hotel café, we planned to take the Kinsman’s colors. No one knew why or how, only that Tata had ordered the action. Never mind that only hours before Tata had held an emergency meeting in the parking lot of a nearby Home Depot to reprimand Rocco, Cowboy, Turtle, and Rhino for their random assault of a Satan’s Brigade member in LuLu’s. The Harley-Davidson rodeo event, he reminded everyone, was “public” and the club “didn’t need heat.”

  But as I drizzled syrup over my bacon, Rocco, secretary of the South Bay chapter, scraped back his chair and left to make another phone call. He spoke to Joker, who said the Kinsmen was Woodstock’s issue and the Vagos should not attack. I shoveled in a few bites of pancake. Rocco frowned, still conflicted. He left the table again, made a “follow-up” call to Tata.

  “He says we should confront the Kinsmen and take their patches by force.”

  * * *

  While we vacillated between orders, eight Kinsmen gathered at the Midnight Riders event across the street. George and I finished our breakfast, sucking on a few pineapple wedges. Meanwhile, Koz and Carr watched from their cars across the street. Koz, who had once infiltrated the Vagos, and Carr, who had testified against the club, could not risk exposure. Kiles, dressed in impressive black and looking like a tourist, openly snapped photos of the Vagos, including the international president, Terry the Tramp. Motorcycles roared. Awnings flapped in the breeze, old ladies participated in a game of hot dog on a string. Hands roped behind their backs, they leaned sideways in the saddle and puckered up to bite the end off a steaming hot dog.

  Amid cheers and whoops, we watched the Kinsmen, huddled together like a football team discussing the next play. We confronted two members from the Hells Angels Oakland chapter and wanted to know their “intentions” regarding the Kinsmen. The Hells Angels insisted they had no intentions regarding the Kinsmen; the Hawaii Vagos had the “problem” with the Kinsmen and their dispute should not become our issue. The Hells Angels were “on vacation” and had no plans to get involved. In truth, the Hells Angels would never defend a support club. If the Kinsmen wanted to patch over into the Hells Angels, they needed to prove their prowess.

  Rhino reminded the two Hells Angels that it was impossible to “mess with just one Vago. You mess with one, you mess with all of us.”

  The decision whether to attack required a majority vote. Five of us, George and I, Rhino, and two patches, waffled for nearly thirty minutes. We stared at the Kinsmen as they mingled outside the Midnight Riders event. We thought about fighting, but action eluded us. And the more we huddled, stared and huddled, the more foolish we looked. George and I finally voted to attack; it made the most sense for our characters. But even as we gave our nods, panic shot through me. How would we get off the island? With only one airport, we could hardly commandeer a submarine.

  Tourists strolled by us, ogled us like a curiosity, window dressing. Meanwhile, the Kinsmen clustered near the corner engrossed in the street theater, periodically glancing in our direction. The token Hells Angels waded through throngs of people; they reached the Kinsmen, whispered something urgent in their ear. The club bolted from the scene, and the Vagos, still debating what Woodstock or Tata would do, unwittingly avoided a war.

  13

  Street Vibrations

  Shortly after returning from Hawaii, I attended the Street Vibrations Motorcycle Festival, one of the largest annual motorcycle events in the country and easily as famous as Sturgis or Daytona. Held on Center Street in downtown Reno, Nevada, the festival attracted thousands of Harley lovers from all over the country, mostly civilian wannabes but also a large conglomerate of outlaw bikers including Hells Angels, Boozefighters, Mongols, and Bandidos. The event, a celebration of music, metal, and motorcycles, also offered tours, live entertainment, ride-in, and stunt shows. Major event venues were planned at Harley-Davidson dealerships in Reno and historic Virginia City. Participants could view the latest creations at America’s Finest Custom Bike Builder’s Expo and check out the Tattoo Expo for body art extraordinaire.

  I drove to the event with Death Valley members Vinny, who had a suspended driver’s license, and Rust, who worried he might lose bike parts on the freeway. Mongols and Hells Angels roared past us, belching exhaust and smoke. They followed closely in packs, a blur of colors in tight formation, riding cannibalized Harleys, parts likely stolen or swapped for speed and style. Dust devils swirled around us on the freeway. I had just traveled four hours through mountainous terrain and small towns. As beer flowed, Vinny littered the road with empty cans. Knives winked from the floorboards. My recorder hummed inside my wallet. Then, in my rearview mirror, I saw lights flash, heard a siren chirp, and with dread, I pulled over.

  A deputy’s voice thundered through the bullhorn. My car, piled high with beer cans and a knife on the floor, was enough to get us in trouble. Worse, if the deputy ordered me to stand spread-eagled near the trunk with my hands on the hood, I was a dead man. In a pat-down, the cops would find my wallet tucked inside my pants, find the thin silver box that contained precious evidence, squint at the device, wag it in my face, and demand, “What’s this?” before cold dawning hit them and they let me go. But it would be too late. The Vagos, like salivating wolves, would have already registered my recorder, and, with the deputy safely gone, tear me to shreds.

  Nausea roared in my throat.

  A portly deputy approached the car. “License and registration,” he barked. My fingers fumbled for the information. Panic surged through me as the deputy returned to his car. Police always searched the wallet not only for identification but also for dope. Heaviness filled my lungs; it was over.

  “Leave your wallet on the dash and exit the vehicle with your hands up.”

  I barely remembered to breathe. Working undercover demanded a strange mix of courage and improvisation. Luck, too, and at times I was inexplicably lucky, as if an invisible shield had dropped around me. I played high-stakes poker with a fixed deck. I wanted so badly to let the deputy know I wasn’t my costume, I wasn’t a badass. I was one of the good guys. My hands shook in the air. Don’t do anything stupid, I telegraphed to my passengers.

  I was sure we were all going to jail. The deputy ordered Vinny and Rust out of the car and they stumbled to the curb. Be cool, I mentally warned them. He’s got nothing on us. He’ll let us go. Ride it out. Tumbleweed blew across the freeway. Fear gripped me. The deputy steadied his gun and radioed for backup with his other hand. Wind scratched my cheeks. Several bikes whizzed past. He’s going to search the car. He’s going to rifle through my wallet, he’s going to find … But he didn’t. Instead, he made me blow into a portable Breathalyzer right there on the side of the road, and when I registered zero alcohol, he ordered me to dump out the beer and “slow it down.”

  “You could kill someone.”

  * * *

  After that I did slow it down. While we were stopped on the side of the road getting harangued by the deputy, Vagos and Hells Angels nearly started a bloodbath inside the convention center in Reno. Hours before our arrival, one Vago lingered too close to a Hells Angels booth; the Hells Angel swatted him away. The pair acted like children flexing muscle on a playground fighting over the one twisting slide. They both needed a referee, some instruction on how to break away gracefully without injury, without incident. The Vago whipped out his cell phone and dialed Vinny. “What should I do?” the disembodied voice panicked. “I can’t just walk away.”

  A drunk Vinny put the Vago on hold and placed his own call to the international sergeant at arms: “Send as many Vagos to the convention center as possible.” Like a general rallying his soldiers, the sergeant at arms prepared for battle from a
safe distance. No one asked for details or justification. They were briefed on one fact: a Hells Angel had insulted a Vago. We learned later that within minutes of placing the calls, Vagos from other chapters streamed into the convention center, blocked the exits, crowded the packed booths in the hall, and hovered near the Hells Angels. Armed with Buck knives and pistols, they displayed an awesome show of force. For several tense moments, the Vagos and the Hells Angels squared off and leveled fierce looks at one another over the T-shirt displays until finally the Hells Angels relented.

  No blood would be spilled that afternoon.

  * * *

  The convention center boasted large banners in the entrance: WELCOME TO THE BIGGEST LITTLE CITY IN THE WORLD. The atmosphere inside was a mixture of electric noise, a cacophony of bands competing for space on nearby stages, and vendors selling grilled chicken parts, strips of steak, and booze. Motorcycle stunts and martial arts demonstrations drew crowds. Booths sold bike parts, T-shirts, leathercrafts. In a nearby ballroom, a tattoo expo buzzed in full force. Models volunteered their flesh canvas. Women with bare midrifts, leather-adorned bras, ill-fitting jeans, and head scarves paraded past me in a strange perversion of a masquerade ball. Amid the grinning skulls, vibrant colors, live entertainment, and loud pulse, violence suspended like a vapor, odorless, colorless, and deadly.

  Sometimes it took unexpected forms. We left to go barhopping. We took a shortcut.

  * * *

  In an alley behind busy Main Street, a small shadow approached with a cigarette dangling between her lips. “Got a light?” She nodded at the prospect behind me. He spit his response, “Fuck off,” and pushed her aside. The waif, unmoved, hissed, “Fuck you.” The exchange rippled through the darkness like an electric current. Without warning, she lunged, scratching thin lines in the prospect’s old lady. In a flash, their bodies tangled on the asphalt. Fists struck bone, skin dragged across bits of glass and decaying rats.

  Soon other old ladies pummeled and clawed at the waif, knocking her to her knees. The woman shook a band of hair from her eyes. Blood drooled from her mouth and random flecks hit the side of my boot. With her front tooth missing, another old lady kicked her hard in the chin and whipped her head backward. A crowd gathered and formed a perimeter around the women. They cheered and mocked with the enthusiasm of spectators at a cockfight. It was hard to watch and not intervene; it went against everything I believed in. The wounded woman crawled, dazed and disoriented, and propped herself against a broken fender in the alley. And just when I thought she might surrender, a flash of metal glinted in the darkness and she plunged her blade deep into the woman’s thigh. As blood gushed, the crowd scattered. Sirens wailed in the distance. The alarms were my exit cue, and as much as I wanted to help her, I knew I couldn’t. The real war happened in dark, narrow spaces, to innocents. The gangs just pretended.

  14

  Close Call

  After Street Vibrations, the transmission in my car exploded and I had no choice but to ride my bike, which meant I also had to wear my colors. It was like wearing a target on my back. Random motorists honked at me, flipped me off, and defiantly roared past me. The San Bernardino gang unit had a field day with me and pulled me over, harassing me (as they should have) regarding my gang affiliation, issuing me tickets for failing to activate my turn signal. They snapped photos of my various tattoos and hoped I’d sign a gang card confirming my Vagos membership.

  I called up Kiles. “I got another one.”

  “Meet me at the Taco Bell on the corner.” Kiles signed off that she had “fixed” the faulty turn signal.

  The charade continued for several weeks until, shortly before Thanksgiving on a blustery afternoon, Bubba solicited me for a drug buy. He arranged to sell me cocaine in the back of his shop, Outlaw Tattoo. Koz met me first in a nearby café, handed me a recorder, patted me down for drugs, and gave me $350 cash to execute the deal.

  “You okay with this?” he asked, knowing the inherent dangers. The choice to wear a wire or do a deal was exclusively mine. If Bubba decided to search me and found the device, he would not hesitate to put a bullet in my head. No questions asked, investigation over. But it was a risk worth taking because without the ability to preserve evidence, the government had no case.

  “Sure.” I shrugged, hoping I sounded more confident than I felt.

  “We’ll be right outside,” Koz said. Wind smacked my cheeks as I pulled my leather jacket closed but made sure my cuts stayed exposed. With my hands shoved in my pockets and the recorder on, I approached Bubba’s white Ford Bronco. He left the engine on. He was dressed casually in a Vagos T-shirt, jeans, and dark sunglasses. I wasn’t worried about the actual deal; I had done hundreds in my lifetime, waiting near trash dumps, empty graves, and street corners just to exchange cash for drugs, to see the flicker of relief skitter across the dealer’s skinny, haunted eyes.

  But something stirred inside me on this afternoon. Cops often spoke of a sixth sense, an inexplicable “vibe” that danger lurked. The hair on the back of my neck pricked. My heart beat faster. Traffic flowed noisily on the streets behind me: The parking lot where Bubba idled contained rows of cars and bikes. A gun poked from Bubba’s waistband. He had come alone. Without a word, he led me inside his fairly empty shop. Stragglers lingered in the middle of the day. Bubba motioned me toward a small back office. Guns were stacked along the walls and littered the desk. I flashed my cash and he slipped me the cocaine. I tucked the half ounce inside a slim pocket in my leather jacket; it didn’t fit in my boot.

  Within minutes, I steered my bike into rush hour: Anxiety fueled my impatience and I split traffic, my tires riding the white line. The shopping center where Koz and I had agreed to meet loomed just a few short blocks away. Behind me, Koz darted in and out of traffic like a dark fish. I changed lanes abruptly and forgot to signal. Marked San Bernardino sheriff’s units descended on me with their flashing lights and sirens. Koz slowed and the deputies pulled us both over; they had seen Koz follow me. Panic gripped me; I had a large quantity of cocaine in my pocket.

  Koz said nothing as the officers patted me down. Their hands skimmed my cuts and jacket, traveling over my bulging wallet but strangely missing the chunk of cocaine in the other pocket. Sweat moistened the back of my neck. My heart raced. Harsh wind slapped my face. Koz, who had been pulled over a few hundred yards away, flashed his ATF credentials and convinced the deputy he had followed me because I was a Vago. He smartly allowed the traffic charade to continue. If he hadn’t, he would have risked my exposure and the integrity of the investigation. After thirty minutes, the deputies, satisfied that I had committed nothing more than a traffic violation, scribbled me a citation. But my relief quickly turned to dread as I caught Bubba’s truck across the road, idling on the shoulder: He watched with interest as the deputies released me.

  Another Vago from the Victorville chapter pulled up in his Chevrolet pickup and approached the deputies; Kiles told me later she recognized his passenger: a San Bernardino sheriff’s deputy. The cop insisted he was off duty, a mere patron at the Vago’s barbershop. But that didn’t explain why the Chevrolet was registered to him. I figured the Vago knew about the cocaine buy and saw the cops pull me over. He didn’t show up out of concern for my predicament; he came because he thought my bike would be towed and he wanted to offer to take it instead. There was no danger that the registration would ever come back as government issued. The bike belonged to me.

  Kiles, who had watched the scene unfold from her surveillance car, appeared a few minutes later wanting an update.

  “Are you going to arrest him?” she asked a fellow deputy.

  “I just know he has stuff on him, but I can’t find it.”

  * * *

  And they never would. Although others continued to be suspicious of me, Psycho never worried about my credentials. He formed his own loose rules. Numbers mattered; the more members he recruited into his club, the more powerful his presence. He collected my club dues but often forgot about my a
pplication and patch fees and checked me off his list as “compliant.” But the fact that I was never busted for the cocaine puzzled everyone. And I had no plausible explanation for my uncanny “luck.”

  At least once a week someone challenged my identity, until one rainy afternoon at Garcia’s Mexican Restaurant, Psycho chewed a mouthful of pulled pork and remarked thoughtfully to Rhino and Head Butt that I couldn’t be a cop. I didn’t initiate drug and arms deals. I didn’t ask for anything or do anything. But in truth, I had been buying drugs and guns from the Vagos every chance I could. I had just kept quiet. Head Butt glared at me and inhaled his refried beans. Rhino shoveled sizzling chicken into a fajita. My heart hammered in my chest. I had worked so hard to deflect attention, to be a flawed gangster, one who, unlike a federal undercover agent, didn’t attend every planned motorcycle run or participate in every organized criminal transaction precisely because I didn’t want to play a criminal, I wanted to be one. I had an advantage: I had already been one.

  Psycho dipped his taco into a blob of salsa and said, “If I didn’t know you, I’d have made you road kill.”

  He never made idle threats. I took a sip of water, crunched ice between my teeth, and smiled weakly, unprepared for his next bomb.

  “Joanna told us about the letter.” He chewed calmly and explained how my girlfriend had worked as a Vagos spy for the first three weeks of our relationship. My stomach lurched. Now it made sense why so many of the Vagos thought I was a cop. The room spun. Ice slicked my throat. I couldn’t believe it. I thought I had smoothed things over with Joanna, thought I had convinced her I was studying to be a paralegal. My one foolish attempt to reconcile with my ex-wife threatened to topple the entire investigation. This was it. I couldn’t believe I had been derailed by a woman, a woman I trusted. Sounds amplified in the dim restaurant, the scrape of a fork across a plate, the clink of glasses, a match flare. Sauces blended together. My hair stuck to the back of my neck, wet with sweat. I had imagined so many scenarios—bullet spray, a cold gun against my temple, a beating.