Much to our relief, Whiskey told Steve and me to head back to New Jersey, and he would handle springing the boss. “We’ll catch up this week and get you guys straightened out, one way or the other,” he said.
As we headed west over the Outerbridge Crossing, Steve and I contemplated how much more time we could stand hanging with the guys from the Breed.
“We’ve got to get my front end back and then tell Whiskey this shit ain’t working for us,” Steve said. “I am not reliving this shit again. No fucking way. We’ll be doing time before the summer is out.”
“Whiskey ain’t going to take this well,” I replied. “Cisco will go off the wall—and Grip, Zorro, Wild Billy. Shit. We will make some serious enemies, man, if we walk.”
“If?” Steve asked.
“When,” I replied.
The two of us sat silently for a while, contemplating our immediate future.
“You know what, man? We did not survive that shit overseas to get pushed around in the world,” I said. “We did not expect this shit, and fuck all these motherfuckers. If Whiskey don’t see it, fuck him, too. I don’t remember him explaining shit about being slaves to these fucks. I would be much happier dead than prospecting for Crazy Horse.”
“Looking at it that way, yeah, man, there is no way. None,” Steve said.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
GOOD EVENING, MR. MOLOTOV
“Whiskey,” I said, “this shit is over for Steve and me. Over, and no chance of it turning around. He needs the front end of his bike, and we part ways. No bad blood, but this ain’t for me and him.”
“I need my parts back, man,” Steve echoed. “I got the money, but I’m with Chuck. No way I’m staying with this. No fucking way at all.”
Steve and I had set up a meet with Whiskey Joe at the Globe Bar on East Front Street in Red Bank, with the goal of making a graceful—and healthy—exit from the Breed. At the time, the Globe Bar was a classic gin mill where the most popular order was a shot with a beer back. The meeting took place early one evening in March, right before the start of the riding season, and the three of us were sitting at the big rectangular bar, with a pool table behind us. Steve and I were both drinking beer, and Whiskey was drinking his usual—whiskey, straight.
Whiskey had no immediate response for us but instead just sat there and slowly had a couple of shots.
“Can’t handle it, huh,” he finally said, leaning forward and resting his elbows on the bar.
“Yeah, can’t handle it. Right, Whiskey. We just can’t hack it,” I said, with a slight edge. I thought that if I showed weakness at any point with any members of the Breed, they would seize on it like a squad of jackals.
“What’s the problem, nobody served you coffee yet?” Whiskey said.
Steve and I knew we were taking a risk by even raising the idea of leaving the motorcycle club. We’d observed some pretty serious criminal acts, and knew many members of the Breed—and where they lived and got together for meetings. It was no secret that various police agencies, including the Federal Bureau of Investigation, wanted to know more about the club’s members.
Guys in the Breed wore colors at sporadic times, usually when they were together and rolling as a pack. They took security very seriously and took pains to make sure they weren’t followed when going to someone’s house or apartment. We routinely entered and exited buildings through alleyways and basements to throw off any undercovers who might be trying to follow us. At first, I thought that members of the Breed were just playing some kind of game on Steve and me. But after a while I realized that this was cold, hard reality and absolutely not a game.
Leaving the Breed wasn’t going to be a game, either. We knew that Whiskey Joe would take some real heat for bringing in two hang-arounds who quit under suspicious circumstances. But leaving wasn’t up for discussion. Steve and I were determined to get out, no matter what the consequences.
Whiskey and I glared at each other but said nothing.
“We got no problem with anyone in your club,” Steve said. “It’s all the way cool there. We don’t feel like we fit in. We don’t know jack shit about anything anyway. And we sure as shit ain’t giving the fucking Man anything. We just want to cut it clean.”
Whiskey had another shot and brooded for a while. I sensed what I always did about him: he was a hard man, smarter than he appeared. A real no-bullshit tough guy. And we’d put him on the spot. He’d vouched for us, and now were we betraying that trust by wanting to leave. He was pissed off and planning out his next move.
I don’t think he thought we’d “pussied out.” But he would be stung by the club for bringing us in. Finally, he made his play.
“Then one of you guys got to meet Front End John up north. You can’t just kiss us goodbye. Negotiate with him. Tell him you can’t handle it, or whatever the fuck you want to say. But somebody got to show, somebody’s gotta explain. I ain’t doing it for you,” Whiskey said. “I got my own shit to explain ’bout this fucking bullshit.”
Steve caught my eye and asked me to go for a quick walk with him. We headed back toward the men’s room.
“I know you, you fuck,” Steve said, standing inches from me, his finger in my face. “You’re gonna go up there and take care of this shit with Front End John, right? You’re thinkin’ that, right?”
“You’re reading my mind,” I said. “I ain’t afraid of these cocksuckers, and only one person needs to go. You got this girlfriend you’re all in love with, and I really don’t give a fuck about anything. Yeah, let me put this shit to rest.”
“Did you ever stop and think how fucking stupid you are?” Steve asked.
“No, tell me how the fuck stupid I am.”
“Front End John is the front end of a car,” Steve said emphatically. “You go meet these fucks and you are going to have an accident with all the right witnesses. You will meet a Front End. Just not a human one.”
Steve and I said nothing further and walked back to our bar stools. I had learned the hard way how to deal with danger in life. There is but one way: attack danger like a good infielder plays a ground ball. You go after it. You don’t back up and let it play you. Whiskey had no problem with my defiant attitude. He was a tough infielder as well.
“No fucking meeting, no fucking negotiations,” I told him. “You owe Steve his front end. Give it back. We forget this ever even started.”
Whiskey leaned forward and stared at me. I could smell the booze on his breath.
“You bought yourself a real problem,” Whiskey said. “No walking away from this one, no fucking way. Give me a call. You know, so you can pay for your front end. Season’s starting. You can’t ride without half the bike.”
Whiskey threw down some money on the bar and stood to leave.
“I got the bar bill,” I said. “Don’t look so sad. We’re going to be getting together real soon.”
A few days later, Steve called and told me that he’d tried and failed to get his front end back. He described how he’d called Whiskey’s house and first gotten the guy’s wife on the phone. She verbally abused him for a while before handing the phone to Whiskey, who cranked up the volume and made it clear that there was no chance of Steve ever getting the part back, no matter what he did.
Steve was furious, in part because we were getting close to riding season and he really wanted to get his Shovelhead out of our living room and back on the road. The plan that the two of us hatched over the phone wouldn’t have won any awards from army tacticians. Basically, it was a frontal assault that would be mounted by Steve and me and our buddy “Lesh,” who owned an auto repair shop in town. We were going to drive up in front of Whiskey’s modest two-story house on West Street in Red Bank, hit the car horn until someone came out and demand that we be given the front end back. If that didn’t work, we were going to toss a Molotov cocktail onto Whiskey’s front porch. What better way to get some
action?
There were some challenges with the plan. We had no idea if Whiskey would be home. Would other people be there? Would anyone be armed? How were we going to get away, given that the house was in the middle of town and just a couple of blocks from the busy commercial areas around Riverside Avenue and West Front Street? Was Steve’s front end even in the house? And there was one other issue: the Red Bank Police Department was two blocks away, on Monmouth Street. You could walk from police headquarters to Whiskey’s house in four minutes.
Shortly after nightfall, Steve, Lesh and I hit the road, heading into Red Bank in Lesh’s car to do some reconnaissance. We’d fortified ourselves before the trip with a liberal dose of alcohol. The lights were on in Whiskey’s house, and there were a couple of cars parked out front. Otherwise, things looked quiet, so we decided to go ahead with our plan. We went back to Lesh’s place and swapped cars, using Steve’s for this trip. Lesh, who was psyched to be part of some real action in town and didn’t worry about consequences, hopped in the back seat, holding a Molotov cocktail and a lighter.
I pulled the car right up in front of Whiskey’s house and hit the horn. Steve yelled for Whiskey to come out. Instead, Whiskey’s wife came out.
“Go fuck yourselves,” she yelled from the porch of the wood-frame house, which was set back about 20 feet from the road. She gave Steve the finger to punctuate her statement.
Lesh took her response as a firm no and immediately lobbed the firebomb onto the porch, where it exploded in flames and set the porch on fire. Whiskey’s wife beat a hasty retreat inside.
The flames started to spread, and the roof over the porch also caught fire. I hit the gas and we sped off into the night.
Back at Lesh’s place, we switched cars again. Steve, Lesh and I returned to Whiskey’s place in my cage to see what was going on. I was behind the wheel, and Steve was riding shotgun—literally carrying a loaded shotgun that was pointed out the passenger-side window of the car as we drove back into town at around 8:30.
We found Whiskey and a bunch of his buddies standing outside the house, working to put out the fire. Some other members of the Breed were there, too.
Small-arms fire rang out as I drove past. We ducked and sped away—but not before the car was struck by several bullets.
Some perverse voice told me to pull a K-turn on Wall Street and make one last pass in front of Whiskey’s place. I was stunned to see my nemesis walking across the street alone—and wondered if he’d been using the pay phone at the Brothers Tavern. I’d seen him do that before as a way of ensuring that the authorities couldn’t trace his calls.
My mind flashed back to the shitty conversation we’d had when I told him I wasn’t going to run with his wolf pack. I flashed to the kissing bandit, the armed robbery of those people in Staten Island and Crazy Horse’s intimidation of countless others. I snapped, put the pedal to the metal and aimed the car straight at Whiskey. He was going to meet my Front End John.
A split second before impact, Whiskey jumped up. He rolled across the hood and slammed into the windshield before rolling off and crashing onto the pavement. I left him there and continued driving. But Red Bank Police cars were blocking the street ahead, and five cops immediately took the three of us into custody.
The cops seemed unsure what to do with us. They knew Steve and me, knew that we were ex-military and had stood with them in bar fights. We had nothing but respect for the police. But they also knew that this insane scene demanded action. Whiskey and his wife had already identified us as the ones responsible for the Molotov cocktail. Then there was the issue of possessing a loaded shotgun in a vehicle, and my attempt to run over Whiskey, which had been witnessed by three police officers. In the face of overwhelming evidence, we took full responsibility for what we’d done.
We were taken to a large, open room in the police headquarters. A couple of officers were sitting at their desks, looking at us. Two other officers and a detective lieutenant confronted us and demanded to know what was going on. “You guys are usually good eggs but this is way out of line,” he said. “Loaded shotguns, gunshots in my town … This shit is fucking getting sorted out.”
Suddenly the door smashed open, and in walked a limping and apoplectic Whiskey Joe. Pointing at me, he screamed, “You missed me, you motherfucker!” He turned his attention to the cops and continued his tirade. “Just where the fuck were you, you goddamn motherfuckers, when these pussies were trying to burn down my house? I pay your fucking salaries, you lazy mother—” Whiskey never got a chance to finish his sentence: three police officers grabbed him by the arms and removed him.
“Get the fuck outta here, don’t look back. Just disappear. And make sure you stay away for a while,” one of the cops told us. “Your ass just got yanked from the fire. Get moving.”
The three of us walked out of police headquarters without a word to anyone. We worried that someone in charge would change his mind and call us back inside.
I walked back to my car, which was still parked by Whiskey’s house. When I got there, Milo Esteves, president of the North Jersey Breed at the time, was leaning on my car. The two of us were alone.
“Did you ever have a problem with the Breed Motorcycle Club before?” he asked.
“No.”
“Well, you sure fucking do now,” he said.
Completely drained by the evening’s events, I met his stare and said, “Okay.”
I hopped in my bullet-ridden car and drove away, wondering about my life expectancy.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
SHAKING THE TIGER’S TAIL
Things were quiet for two or three weeks, with no visits from members of the Breed. It was hard to believe that Whiskey and his buddies would let Steve and me get away with the firebombing, but maybe they were just hanging low for a while.
I continued to hang out at the Globe Bar in Red Bank with my friends. One rainy night in late March, I was having a beer there when the phone rang. The bartender picked it up.
“It’s for you,” he said, handing the phone across the bar to me. I’d never received any phone calls at the Globe before; this was truly a first, and I wondered if the caller would be friend or foe.
“You haven’t been coming around,” Jake Slater said casually. “We never see you.” A legendary figure on the Jersey Shore, Slater was the very persona of a tough biker, a man feared by all who crossed his path, and respected by some.
“I’ve been busy,” I said. “But when are you getting something together?”
“Tonight, as in now,” Slater said. “I’ll give you directions, you gotta come by. Some of the guys want to meet you.”
“Okay, give it to me. I’m in.”
I’d met Jake on a couple of occasions. He lived in Atlantic Highlands, where he pretty much ruled the community. Jake stood about six foot three and weighed a muscular 260 pounds. His black hair was moderate length and wavy, and he always had a beard—sometimes a full one, sometimes a Fu Manchu. He was missing one of his front teeth, which gave him a gap-toothed smile. Jake always wore a black leather glove on his right hand, with silver metal studs on it, and a matching chap on his right forearm.
Slater reminded me a bit of Big T from my army days. Both men were naturally massive in size, loved violent domination and were charismatic and intelligent. Both could also be disarmingly charming one moment and sadistic and deadly the next. I genuinely liked Slater and enjoyed the brief time I’d spent with him. I knew he was being seriously courted by the Pagans Motorcycle Club, and I was still a little gun-shy from my time with the Breed, so I never attempted to locate him or frequent the places where he could often be found drinking truly prodigious amounts of rye whiskey.
I paid my tab at the Globe, headed out and hopped into my old Ford Galaxie for the short ride to Slater’s designated meeting place, his buddy Steve Stone’s house in the Port Monmouth section of Middletown. About 12 people were
there when I arrived late that evening; I only knew two from high school and around town. A few others I recognized as members of the Asbury Park chapter of the Pagans Motorcycle Club. No one at the house was wearing colors, and the mood was light and friendly. What was perhaps most remarkable about the gathering was the setting: the interior of the house had been gutted, and we were looking at wall studs, outlets and plumbing. There was no Sheetrock in the place, at least not the parts that I saw.
This felt like a different crowd than the Breed, and I didn’t get the sense that these guys would be watching bestiality films or looking to stick people up at gunpoint. The conversation was all about bikes, bars, bitches and not taking shit from anyone. This was a tough group, and the Pagan reputation for ferocity didn’t seem in question. But there were no kissing bandits here.
I also got the sense that I was being observed by some of the guys, and wondered if I was being vetted as a potential member of the Pagans. I knew that the club was looking to expand its territory, and the North Jersey coast was in play.
After spending a couple of hours at the house, the group decided to hit a bar in Keansburg, where I lived. Keansburg was an interesting choice as a place to party for the likes of us—a square mile of bungalows and bars, split evenly between Italians and Irish at the time, with a distinctly lower-end blue-collar feel. It was a very close-knit community, with outsiders only nominally welcome. The place was legendary for notorious bar fighters, and the police had a reputation for helping to ensure that outsiders who caused problems didn’t want to return anytime soon. Going to Keansburg guaranteed that this was going to be an interesting evening.
We rode to Keansburg in several different vehicles, with Slater and another guy in one car, Stone driving a van and me alone in my car. Jake picked a bar called Memories, which had a reputation as a bucket of blood—a place where fights between patrons were as commonplace as shot glasses and beer mugs.
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