No Angel
Page 22
No one heard us, though. The bikes were too loud, and we were rolling too strong.
This undercover scam had become my life. An ex-partner of mine used a baseball analogy to explain successful undercover work. In baseball, if you hit .250 you’re an everyday player. You hit .300 and you’re an all-star. Approach .400—just for one season—and you’re a lock for the Hall of Fame. The same percentages gauge a UC’s success—one that goes out and gets good intelligence 30 or 40 percent of the time is a rock star.
I was batting 1,000 percent with the Angels.
And I was being corrupted by success.
26
WILL YOU BE MINE?
FEBRUARY 2003
WE DEBRIEFED ON the third and took a big exhale. We drove Footy and Gundo to the airport, gave them loud, back-slapping hugs, and thanked them over and over. None of us could believe how successful the week-long ruse had been.
JJ drove back to San Diego with Jesse. She’d be off for a couple of weeks and then return to work full-time. Her value was immeasurable, even Slats couldn’t disagree with that. He’d held several conference calls with her superiors during the Solo week and persuaded them to let her go until the case came to an end. She was thrilled.
After the guys left we got our house in order. We cleaned up the Patch, tuned up the bikes, and took a good look at our suspect matrix. Slats and I decided that with Mesa feeling split and unpredictable, and with Bad Bob concerned about Rudy, we should shift our focus. We decided our next best opportunity was to see what Joby Walters could add. We moved him to the active area of the board. We’d go to work on him as soon as we got back from a couple of days at home.
That other house of mine—the one I was ostensibly in charge of, the one that contained Gwen and Dale and Jack—was not in order. Not at all.
I got home late on Friday night. No one was home. I knew they’d be gone. Gwen had told me earlier that they’d be spending the weekend camping in the mountains. She said I still needed to come home, though, to take care of the yard and fix part of the overhang on the back porch. For some reason it was leaking.
I got up early on Saturday, checked out the overhang, and made a trip to Home Depot. Some animal had peeled away a few of the composite roof shingles. I tore the old ones up, put down a patch of tar paper, and covered that with new shingles. I swung down from the roof, had a beer by the pool, fixed myself a tuna sandwich, and mowed the lawn and trimmed the plants around the edges.
I watched TV that night and put calls in to Smitty and Bad Bob from the comfort of my own couch. They didn’t answer. I left them messages. “Hey, it’s Bird, just checking in,” that kind of thing. Smitty and I had a gun deal in the works and Bob, well, I just wanted to hear his voice to make sure he wasn’t flipping out over Rudy.
I was glad the house was empty. Even the dog was gone. There was no pressure to change, no need to become someone I wasn’t. I could remain Bird, a visitor in my own home. I didn’t have to fake being Jay. That was the worst thing about coming home: There was no reprieve. The Angels knew only what I told and showed them, but Gwen had known me for eighteen years. I couldn’t hide anything from her or game her into thinking something that wasn’t so. Coming home was becoming more difficult than hanging out with the Hells Angels. This didn’t make me sad, it made me angry. Angry because I was beginning to feel that I shouldn’t have to change, that I should be able to simply decide that I was just going to stay in role. Gwen wouldn’t let that happen and she was right not to, but I couldn’t see it her way at the time. All I could see was that the house was empty—even with me in it—and I was relieved that I didn’t feel guilty for not being my old self.
I called Gwen on her cell on Sunday morning and told her everything was taken care of. She said they’d be back in the afternoon. I told her I had to go back to work early, there was a meeting first thing the next morning and I needed to get some paperwork done. She said the kids missed me and I said I missed them, too. I hadn’t given them much concrete thought over that weekend—they existed in my thoughts as abstractions belonging to Jay Dobyns. But as I said the words I realized it was true. I did miss them. In fact, I missed them so much it hurt. Even so, I told Gwen I wouldn’t be around and to tell them I loved them. She said of course she would, and hung up.
I drove back to Phoenix at noon on Sunday. That night, after an hour or two of writing reports, I put on my Solo cut, hopped on my bike, and hung out at Sugar Daddy’s in Scottsdale—a place I knew the Angels went to from time to time. I drank beer and played pool and made appearances.
No one showed up.
AS THE WEEK started, Pops told me he’d been getting calls from Joby about that thing he’d asked me about—the silencers.
We discussed this problem at Monday’s debrief. There was no way I could hook Joby up with my old Bullhead silencer source from Operation Riverside, the machinist Tim Holt. We decided to walk a very thin line. I knew Holt was still making the tubes, and I knew Smitty was aware of it. I called Joby and told him that Smitty was going to have to hook him up because I wouldn’t be in Bullhead anytime soon. He said fine. And that was that.
My ethics prevented me from brokering a direct silencer deal for Joby, but I also knew there was nothing I could do to stop it from happening. The simple truth is that cops cannot prevent criminals from making illegal purchases. If we could do this, the world would be a much different place. For example, I could choose not to sell a machine gun to suspect X, but I couldn’t prevent him from buying a different machine gun from a different seller. I could arrest him for completing such a transaction, or I could buy that machine gun from him and use the purchase against him later, but I couldn’t prevent a third-party deal. That was the principle we were operating under with Joby and the silencers, except that we stretched our limits by referring him to Smitty, who we assumed would refer him to Holt.
We sunk ourselves back into work that week. Timmy bought a 9 mm Ruger from Cal that Bob didn’t know about, Pops and I bought more tiny bags of meth from a Phoenix Angel named Aldo Murphy. He lived near our Romley Road house with his wife and their ten-year-old daughter, a perennially dirty, undernourished girl with the unfortunate name of Harley Angel.
We’d bring the bags to the Patch for field-testing, and Slats would bark at us, “What, another half-a-half-a-half a teener? I’m sick of this shit.” We said we were sick of it too. He implored, “Get me dealers, not users.” We reminded Slats of the Casey woman, Mesa’s meth hookup, and he waved his hand like he was brushing a cobweb from his face. He said, “Fine. When JJ gets back I’ll put her on the tattooed wonder.” I was convinced we weren’t finding any mega-scale drug trafficking because we weren’t fully trusted. Everything we knew told us that the Hells Angels moved volumes of drugs, and it was embarrassing to me and frustrating to Slats that we weren’t getting them. He thought we had to push harder, I thought we had to gain even more credibility.
I hoped to do just that when Joby invited us to a Valentine’s Day party in Prescott. He said some guys would be there whom we had to meet. I asked if I should bring flowers. He laughed and said, “Naw, Bird. Just you.”
Prescott is in a central valley between Flagstaff and Phoenix. People who haven’t been to Arizona tend to think of the state as one big desert, but places like Prescott dispel that image pretty quickly. It’s beautiful. Pastureland, swaying blue grass, horse farms. Mountains to the east and north, desert encroaching from the west. It’s lush and cool—often cold—and it gets a fair amount of annual precipitation. It’s a college town with libraries and sports facilities and bars. It’s got a Starbucks—a fact I never miss. I often thought I’d retire to Prescott. But it’s a small town, and since I now know a few guys there, I don’t think that would go over too well.
But I didn’t know them then. Pops had rolled up ahead of Timmy and me. He’d called us on Joby’s behalf and told us to meet them at the Desperadoes Bar, the only joint in town that allowed bikers. He said it was right on Main Street.
Pops sat at the bar with five or six Hells Angels. Surrounding them was an assortment of other club members. There were Vagos, Vietnam Vets, Americans, Desert Road Riders, and Red Devils. They orbited the Angels like subservient moons around a dense planet. Timmy and I were brought to the center.
I didn’t think it was possible, but Joby introduced us to four Arizona Angels we’d never seen before. They were Teddy Toth, Bobby Reinstra, Joey Richardson, and Rudy Jaime. He also reintroduced us to Robert McKay, the Tucson Angel and tattoo artist who’d recently had his nonassociation clause lifted.
The four unknown men belonged to the Skull Valley charter of the Hells Angels. Teddy Toth was the president. I’d heard about him. He was a former East Coast Angel from New York City. He’d transferred out west when his health started to fail. We knew a little about him from Slats’s intelligence. Teddy was an old-school, thirty-year member—an Angel power broker, on a par with guys like Bad Bob, Hoover, Johnny Angel, and even Sonny Barger himself. He took no shit and operated by the outlaw book.
In spite of this stature, my first impression of him was that he could die any minute. He carried haggard sacks underneath his eyes, and a pair of tubes were stuffed up his nose. The tubes led to a wheeled oxygen tank that leaned against the bar. He was fat and slow. I knew, however, that I couldn’t trust appearances. Teddy was dangerous. Just like an old mobster who no longer needed his health to rule the family, Teddy was a man to be reckoned with.
I didn’t know anything about the other guys. Bobby Reinstra, another East Coast guy from Boston, was Skull Valley’s vice president. He was younger and physically stronger. He had as much expression as a log. He didn’t smile when we met. I didn’t either. I’d call us kindred spirits, except that Bobby was quiet when he spoke and careful of what he said. He was the proverbial strong, silent type, which in a Hells Angel can be pretty terrifying. Rudy Jaime, on the contrary, was all smiles and energy. He was the junior member and had piercings all over his head. Joey Richardson, the last member, looked like your standard muscled-up, middle-aged weightlifter. They called him Egghead.
I walked up to Teddy holding a support card with $100. He took it and I gave him a hug. As we pulled apart, Teddy wheezed, “I like you, walking in here all dick-out cocky. Just like a New Yorker would.”
I said, “Just paying my respects.”
Teddy said, “Good, good.”
We shook everyone’s hands. Rudy asked Pops if he wanted to get high. Pops shrugged and disappeared with Rudy to the far end of the bar.
We drank. Joby played host. He’d recently transferred to Skull Valley as their sergeant-at-arms. The guys didn’t loosen up, but as we spent the next hour talking, I got the feeling they never loosened up. Teddy and Bobby were old-school bad boys who impressed people with their lack of humor. They were the kind of guys who spent every waking minute waiting for a reason to pull out a lead pipe and put it to use on the backs of someone’s knees.
I could deal with that.
After a while Joby asked me to step outside and we excused ourselves. We stood on the sidewalk while laughing college kids in baseball hats and sorority sweatshirts drifted by. I lit a cigarette and we stood shoulder to shoulder. We spoke out of the sides of our mouths.
“Whaddaya think, Bird?”
“Of what, dude?”
“The guys.”
“They seem like good guys.”
He nodded and I took a deep drag. “Listen. First off, thanks for putting me with Smitty on the carburetor hookup.” That was slang for silencer.
“You got what you need?”
“Yeah, think so. The guy’s working on it.”
“Cool. Make sure you field-test them. Sometimes they come up loud.”
“Will do. Thanks.”
“No prob.”
“Look. I know you’ve been hearing shit about coming over, and I got a proposition for you.”
“OK.”
“I want you guys to come up under me, here at Skull Valley.”
“Really? I mean, don’t get me wrong, Joby, I’m flattered.” I waved my hand at the town in front of us. “But why here, dude? It’s pretty and all, but this place looks about as exciting as paint.”
“It is. That’s my point. I know Bob wants you, and between you and me, Tucson wants you too. I think that’s why Mac’s here, actually. I know Smitty already voted to bring you on with the Nomads in Flagstaff. Shit, you even got Dirty Dan sniffing on you for Cave Creek. Here’s the deal. You go up at Mesa and you gotta get twenty guys to give you the stamp of approval.” Prospects had to be voted in with mandatory counts. “You piss off one guy, or get sideways with some political bullshit down there, and you’re a prospect forever, dig?”
“Yeah. Yeah, I do.”
“Tucson, they’re small but fucked up. Smitty’s Nomads are good too, and I love them, but they’re kind of the black sheep. But here—you come up here, it’s nice and quiet and we got no competition. There are five guys in Skull Valley. You’ve already got my vote, so that means you gotta make four guys happy. Four versus twenty. Shit, Bird, whaddaya say?”
“Joby, you trying to get in my pants, dude?”
He laughed. “Fuck yeah, I am. You gotta come up here, man. It’s the easy way in. After, you can transfer with me to that Mohave Valley charter Smitty’s setting up in Bullhead. I’ll be an officer there, Smitty’ll be the damned P. You’ll come in big.”
“What about Timmy and Pops? What about Bad Bob? I got obligations to other people, you know? Big Lou, my down-south pistoleros, the Solo Nomad brothers you met last week…”
“Bob—I’m working this all out with him, don’t worry. The other Solos—naturally Timmy and Pops are part of the deal. We love them too. When you guys are in, then you can prospect your out-of-town boys to your heart’s delight.”
I paused to stomp out a cigarette and lit another. I asked, “What about prospecting, Joby? You know me. I can’t spend a year being someone’s step-and-fetch bitch.”
He shook his head. “Don’t worry. I’m talking to people, Sonny’s helping me out. You guys are gonna be fast-patched. We don’t have to teach you guys shit, you know the drill up, down, and inside out. Two-day hangarounds, ninety-day prospects. You’ll have club duties, but they’ll be light. No questions about business—we understand you guys travel a lot to make your living and that’s fine by us. Telling you, Bird, one day you’ll just wake up and you’ll be Eighty-Oned.”
“It sounds real good, Joby.” It really did. “Thank you for thinking of us, dude, it means a lot.”
“So that’s a yes?”
“That’s a strong maybe. I’m sorry, I can’t just say yes. I been a Solo for a long time and I gotta talk to my boys before I say anything either way.”
“I understand.”
“I won’t string you along, all right? You got my word.”
“All right.”
I thought it was a great pitch and one hell of an earnest Valentine. I finished smoking in silence, thinking this must be what a popular freshman feels like during rush week. I went back inside. Joby had a high bounce in his step, like there was a pebble in his boot. He nodded at Teddy as he walked up to the bar. Teddy didn’t move. He just wheezed.
27
“9-1-1! 9-1-1! GET OUT OF THE HOUSE!”
LATE FEBRUARY 2003
ON FEBRUARY TWENTY-EIGHTH my cell rang. Timmy, JJ, Pops, and I were hanging out at the Phoenix UC house on Romley Road.
“Yeah, Bird.”
“Get the fuck out of the house right now!” It was Slats. He sounded scared.
Slats never sounded scared.
I twirled my finger through the air like a little tornado. Everyone got up, grabbed their weapons, and ran outside. I followed, pressing the phone to my e
ar.
“What’s up?”
“Don’t have time. Get to the Patch right now. Watch your asses.”
“We’re already out the door. We’ll see you in fifteen.”
We piled into the Cougar. I turned the engine on and peeled out.
We drove in circles a little to make sure we weren’t being followed. We pulled into the Patch’s office park and went around back. The bay doors were open and we pulled in. They closed behind us.
Slats paced. He spat into a can. I lit a smoke. Slats said, “C’mon.”
As we made our way to the conference room he told us what was going on.
“DEA’s got a snitch associated with the Phoenix charter. His handler called up half an hour ago and told me that Chico put together a hit squad and they were on the way to Romley to smoke you guys.” He was talking about Robert “Chico” Mora, the Phoenix Angel that Mesa Mike had warned me of over a year ago.
I asked, “Why the fuck’s Chico wanna smoke us?”
“That asshole in Tijuana—Alberto?—apparently he’s been talking about you.” I’d heard a little bit of this. Our receptions in Mexico had been generally warm and easygoing, but there were always guys who rocked the boat. This Alberto was the Solos’ vice president. He’d always given us the cold shoulder. I assumed he’d had some bad blood with Rudy that went back years, and was never going to give us the benefit of the doubt. We chose to ignore it, hoping it would stay in Mexico.