Gods of Mischief

by George Rowe

  At that point I figured why not go all the way and really sell it for ATF. I’d show the world I was down for the club and eliminate any doubts about my commitment to the Vagos. So I pointed Ready to a new canvas on the back of my bald head and asked for one more tattoo.

  I was now a giant step closer to getting my hands on that prized patch in the middle, the god of mischief himself . . . Loki. Only to get there I needed a Harley-Davidson under my ass. Hauling broken-down bikes in a pickup was fine for a hang-around, but to ride as a member of an outlaw motorcycle gang a Harley was required—the only machine any self-respecting one percenter would ever mount.

  John Carr had promised he’d replace the shovelhead chopper I’d sold to Doc the previous year, so I entered his name in my Nextel as “Uncle John,” a relative who bought motorcycles at government auction and flipped them for profit. It should go without saying that the first call I made after leaving the Lady Luck was to Uncle Johnny Law.

  “We’re in business,” I told him, almost giddy with the news.

  “You’re prospecting?”

  “Fuck yeah,” I boasted. “Got me a twenty-two tattoo and everything.”

  “Big step, George. Congratulations.”

  “Never mind that. Time for Uncle John to deliver on that Harley he promised.”

  I drove home to Valle Vista high on success and anxious to share the news with Jenna. In the few months she’d been living with me, the girl had tried her best to make our little chicken coop a home. She’d spent a fair amount of time slapping lipstick on that pig, including a picket fence around the dirt yard out front and curtains on the windows. Inside the shack beads had been strung to create privacy between the living room and bedroom, paintings were mounted on the walls, flowers were tucked in vases and butterflies were spread all over the fucking place. That girl was a nut for butterflies; butterfly paintings, butterfly pictures, butterfly plaques, ceramic butterflies, plastic butterflies . . . it was like Silence of the Lambs in that apartment, except with butterflies instead of moths.

  As I entered the shack, Jenna stepped through the beads.

  “What would you think about me prospecting with the Vagos?” I asked her right off, setting her up nicely for the big reveal.

  “I think that would be a really stupid thing to do.”

  Talk about a buzz kill. But I guess I should have expected it. Jenna was already familiar with the Vagos when she came into my world. Ready had tattooed her at the Lady Luck. She was friendly with some of the Hemet VOLs (Vagos Old Ladies) from high school, and she’d known Big Roy and Big Todd before I ever entered the picture. Knew them well enough, in fact, to decide they were idiots.

  “Well, it’s too late now,” I told her, turning my head and tapping the freshly minted 22 tattoo behind my ear.

  “Oh, my God. You actually did it,” said Jenna, unable to hide her disappointment. “I never thought you’d actually do it.”

  “And check this out.”

  I turned around to reveal the California rocker on my cut and the bigger surprise on the back of my head; tattooed in two-inch green letters the words GREEN NATION.

  “What’d you do that for?” she groaned.

  “It’s mandatory,” I said . . . which was horseshit.

  The girl looked at me like a turd that needed flushing.

  “Having a brain in your head is mandatory too,” she snapped, then turned around and disappeared through the beads.

  Jenna must have figured her boyfriend had officially joined idiot nation, but there was nothing I could do about it. I wasn’t about to share my double life with a drug addict. How the hell could I? The girl was a loose cannon. If I confided over breakfast that I was working with the feds, I’d end up buried by lunch.

  My “Green Nation” tattoo, inked at the Lady Luck.

  That’s what happened to Hammer, the federal informant who overdosed in a Jacuzzi. That CI made the golden mistake of telling his girlfriend he was working with the feds. Turns out she was related to someone who knew someone, and when she and Hammer split up, well, hell hath no fury. That scorned woman went sideways and single-handedly destroyed both her boyfriend and his mission. ATF’s Operation Green Nation folded like a limp tortilla.

  No, I wasn’t telling that crazy bitch a goddamn thing. Best to keep my two lives separate. There would be the George Rowe who ran a business and rode with the Vagos motorcycle club and the George Rowe no one but a handful of people knew, the George who was headed down the rabbit hole as a confidential informant for the federal government.

  Two parallel lives and never the twain should meet. At least not until the plug was pulled and the whole shithouse came crashing down.

  “Come to L.A., prospect, I’ve got your bike.”

  Baby, it was Christmas in July when I got that call from Uncle Johnny Law. I headed to the federal building with visions of beautiful Harley-Davidsons dancing in my head. John Carr led me to the underground garage to present my new toy . . . and my jaw nearly dropped.

  There it was, propped on its kickstand—the ugliest hunk of shit I’d ever seen. The bike was a Harley Touring Classic, a cop motorcycle with a massive dash. I had this gut feeling the feds never expected me to graduate past the hang-around stage, and once I made prospect they had to scramble around for something, anything, that might qualify as a motorcycle.

  So this rat bike was it.

  I lowered myself into the saddle, managed to get that pig running, then tried gunning it up a plank and into the bed of my truck. But the ramp fell and I plowed right into the bumper, busting the Harley’s headlight.

  Should’ve taken that as a sign.

  “Helluva start,” said John, straight-faced.

  I ignored the smartass, set up the plank and nailed it on my second try.

  Before I pulled out of the garage, John had a warning for me. Outlaw clubs confiscated a member’s bike for any number of infractions, and opposing gang members didn’t hesitate to steal one from a rival.

  “Whatever you do,” cautioned John, “do not lose that bike.”

  “Who the fuck would want it?” I fired back as I drove out of the garage.

  As soon as I got back to Valle Vista, I wheeled that ugly beast off the truck before anyone could see it and pushed it through the front door of the shack—leaking oil all the way. Right there in the living room, I stripped it down, then built it back up again. I gave that Touring Classic new tires, new brakes and a new clutch, then rebuilt the motor and cut off the handle bars to move them closer . . . hell, I gave that turd a complete makeover. Only thing I left in place were the side bars where the saddle bags used to be—they were the only thing holding that rat bike together. In the end I did everything I could to make that Harley look outlaw, but ultimately no matter how much sugar you sprinkle on shit . . . it’s still shit.

  Even Jenna was embarrassed by that ugly duckling. The only cool thing about it, she pointed out, was that the pipes spit blue flames. Sad but true, my machine would take home the trophy for the ugliest bike in Green Nation two years in a row. And I never even entered the contest. The pig just got pushed up there for judging by a bunch of smartasses. It was damn embarrassing, but at least I had a bike under my ass, and that meant I could finally ride with the Vagos and start some serious intelligence gathering for the ATF.

  My first opportunity came a few weeks later when Big Roy announced that Terry the Tramp had decreed another national run—this time to a biker bar out near Yucca Valley, a community between Twentynine Palms and Palm Springs. The Vagos were going to gather in the desert with several other motorcycle clubs in support of some charitable cause like Save the Whales or Save the Tits. The Vietnam Vets would be there, so would several of the law enforcement clubs like the Blue Knights and the Choir Boys.

  Law enforcement motorcycle clubs had chapters located all over the country. In California you had the Choir Boys in the High Desert and Los Angeles, the Blue Knights in Big Bear and San Bernardino, the Lords of Loyalty, started by the Cali
fornia Highway Patrol, in San Diego and the San Fernando Valley . . . the list went on and on.

  On appearances alone, the only thing that separated a club cop from a motorcycle outlaw was the hair and the badge. In just about every other aspect they were the same animal. Both had chapters, bylaws, prospecting requirements and club patches. Hell, they even had similar mottos. The Vagos wore a patch on their cuts with the initials VFFV, which stood for “Vagos Forever, Forever Vagos.” The Choir Boys have “Choir Boys Forever, Forever Choir Boys.” And the Blue Knights? You guessed it: “Blue Knights Forever, Forever Blue Knights.” More than one defense attorney, in support of an outlaw charged as a gang member, pointed out these similarities to a jury.

  Not unlike one percenters, many cops growing up as social misfits find their identity as part of a brotherhood. And, make no mistake, law enforcement was most definitely a brotherhood. Sometimes the line between cops and outlaws gets so blurred that it’s hard to identify one from the other. When a California motorcycle officer was killed on duty a few years ago, the Choir Boys showed up at his funeral wearing sleeveless shirts, denim vests and bandanas. Lot of those boys were closer to the outlaws they were trying to bust than they’d like to admit.

  Cops and criminals. The blue line was very thin, indeed.

  When I called Uncle Johnny Law to let him know about the upcoming desert run, he thought it was a great opportunity to gather intelligence. My handler was especially interested in learning more about the recent murder of Dennis “Shorty” Daoussis up in Landers. So we made plans to meet the following afternoon at the Little Luau Hawaiian BBQ in Beaumont, a restaurant fourteen miles north of Hemet, where John would set me up with some state-of-the-art recording gear and offer some pointers on how to avoid getting my ass killed.

  This would be my first real test in a long process of collecting criminal evidence against the Vagos, but not the first time I’d gone out wired. That had happened two weeks earlier when John sent me into the Lady Luck just to get “the feel” of what it was like to wear a recording device. My handler hadn’t been after information. He’d just wanted me to hang out for a few minutes and shoot the shit with Big Roy and the boys.

  We sat in the front seat of John’s Expedition in a secluded location while he hooked me up. And my first thought was, Man, if this is what I’ve got to wear, I’m done. There was a recorder, maybe the length and width of two cigarette packs, held to my chest by a Velcro strap that went around my body. A wire microphone that came off the recorder was taped to my skin. I swear it felt like a scene from The Godfather. John was outfitting me old-school—not the way they do it nowadays—and it was terrifying.

  And it wasn’t just the size of that chunk of metal on my body that had me spooked. Unlike trained government agents, informants are rarely comfortable when they first wear a recording device. There’s that initial, almost paralyzing fear of being found out. Even the tiniest device hidden on the body can seem gigantic to an untrained CI. You feel the thing, you know where it’s at and the only thing you want to do is hide that recorder where no one can find it—and if that means shoving it up your ass, well, so be it. I swear you can stand and have a conversation with someone a thousand times and it all flows smooth and natural, but strap on a recording device and suddenly you’re acting a little strange and the person you’re talking to wonders why you’re sweating and talking gibberish.

  Or at least that’s the way it seemed to me.

  “You sure that’s a good spot?” I said as John finished placing the microphone.

  “It’s a good spot.”

  “But how do you know?”

  “I know because I’ve done this a few times in my life. This spot is good. I know it works here. Just relax, George. You’re going in there for a low-key conversation, that’s all. There’s no pressure.”

  “Easy for you to say. What if they search me?”

  “Why would they search you?”

  “How the fuck should I know? You’re the expert.”

  “They’re not gonna search you, dude.” John paused to study me a moment. “Look, I know you’re nervous. And that’s understandable. Everybody gets nervous at first. But, trust me, the more you do this, the easier it gets.”

  He went back to taping.

  “You ever get caught with one of these on you?” I wanted to know.

  “Nope. Never have. There was this one time when I was wearing a shirt that was too tight and you could see the wire under it. And I’m sweating, so the tape keeps coming loose and I have to keep patting my chest to keep it from slipping. The dude I’m talking to is looking at me like I’ve lost my mind.”

  “What happened?” I asked.

  “Nothing. The mic finally came off and slipped down my pant leg.” He finished taping the wire. “In the old days I used to strap the recorder right to my balls. I figured those guys weren’t keen on searching my nuts.”

  “That sounds pretty good to me,” I said through a tight smile.

  John grinned and handed me my flannel shirt. “This will work just fine.”

  “Yeah, sure. Remind me again why we’re doing it this way?”

  “Because this is about interacting with the people you’re recording. Getting comfortable with that feeling. If you can pop your cherry with this device, the other shit we’ve got for you will be a piece of cake.” John paused a moment, then added, “Trust me, George, I wouldn’t let you go in there if I thought it was dangerous.”

  “Oh, no?” I said, voice dripping with sarcasm.

  “Not unless you freak out and rip your shirt off or something. You’re not gonna do that, are you?”

  “Rip my shirt off? No. But I might piss in my pants.”

  I opened the passenger’s door.

  “Remember,” he said as I left the car, “no pressure. Just act natural.”

  Natural my ass. I climbed into my truck and drove to the Lady Luck. Before entering I lit a cigarette, took a deep breath, then stepped through the front door.

  Swear to Christ, the instant I arrived it felt like every eyeball was on me. I just knew those boys could see and smell that big hunk of metal under my flannel shirt—the flannel shirt I was wearing on a hot day in Hemet. With a denim cut over it no less.

  Within seconds I was sweating like a whore in church.

  Big Roy and Iron Mike were in the shop that day, so was Jimbo, the muscle-head who supplied steroids to the chapter, and Ready, the tattoo artist who had recently been patched into the club. I fell into conversation with Iron Mike but don’t remember a word we said. I just kept thinking that Vago knew what I was up to, that any second he would push me against the wall and pat me down. Of course, in hindsight, my fears were unfounded. At that point I was still a hang-around, and no club business was being discussed at Big Roy’s place. Still, at that moment and in that context, the experience was incredibly nerve-wracking.

  After what seemed an eternity, I walked out of the Lady Luck like a man who’d just finished a marathon. Man, you could have taken that flannel shirt and wrung it out right there on the sidewalk. But at least I’d done it. I’d passed my first test going wired.

  Now it was time for the real deal.

  The morning before the Vagos run to Yucca Valley, Old Joe and I piled into the company truck and headed off to do a job estimate. Along the way I told him about the meeting I was about to have with John Carr at the Hawaiian BBQ in Beaumont.

  My friend went quiet, as was usual when this topic came up, and turned his gaze out the window. From the moment he’d found out I was working with the feds, Joe had kept his distance from me. And I understood that. I respected the man’s position. But that didn’t change the fact that I still wanted him on board. So I asked Joe to come meet Special Agent Carr at the Little Luau.

  It was a long moment before he answered me in that easy drawl, slow and thick as molasses.

  “You know I’m a nonviolent guy, George,” he began. “I’m no rabble-rouser, and I’ve got no criminal record. I don’t g
o looking for trouble, but it seems like that’s where you’re taking me.”

  “Hey, man, you know I’d never—”

  “Hold on, brother,” Joe interrupted. “Let me finish. I’ve been thinking about this for a while now. To be honest, I really didn’t know whether I was going to stick around. I mean, somebody throws something like that at you, and you’re thinking, Wait a minute. I didn’t sign up for this. Understand what I’m saying?”

  “Sure I do.”

  Joe’s gaze wandered back to the window now. “But you’ve been more of a brother to me than my own flesh and blood. Every time I’ve needed help you’ve been there for me.” He turned back to me. “You’re my only true friend, George. You’ve always stuck by me, so I’m sticking by you. From here on out, whatever happens, happens to the two of us. Okay?”

  And that’s where we left it. Old Joe and I never spoke of the matter again. From that day forward, my buddy was on board.

  Around noon we drove up to Beaumont and found a table in the Little Luau. John Carr wasn’t there yet. An hour later he still hadn’t shown up.

  One thing I quickly learned about working with Special Agent Carr—the man was chronically late. John finally arrived without apology, ordered the beef teriyaki combo, and got down to business. And because Old Joe was at the table, he was the first topic up for discussion.

  “George didn’t give me much of an option with you,” John said to him. “The cat’s out of the bag and there’s no putting it back in again, is there?”

  “No, sir, I guess not,” Joe replied. “And I understand your concern, Agent Carr. But George knows I’m a man of my word. My father was a minister. He raised me honest. And if I tell you I’ll keep your secret, you can count on it.”