No Angel
Page 24
I was Bird. I was Jay Dobyns. I was good. I was evil. I was all and none of the above.
So. Both arms got skulls and flames and demons mixed with flowers and clouds and angels. Like the rings I wore on each finger, the earrings I had in each ear, and the bracelets I wore on each wrist, these talismans balanced each other out. I was the scale, and they were the weights and counterweights. I thought by evening these things out on my body I would remain balanced in my mind. This was just lip service, though. I couldn’t have been more out of whack.
But Mac was good. We would do an hour on one arm, an hour on the other. JJ would sit in the dark room and make phone calls. She’d talk business with Casey, Pops, or Timmy. Sometimes Lydia would call to see what was going on. Slats and I had numerous coded conversations while Mac’s needles buzzed away under a bright desk lamp.
Mac asked a lot of questions about my collections business. I told him it was pretty easy money. He wanted to know if I beat a lot of people up. I told him the near-truth—that I rarely beat anyone up (or never, since I never did any actual collections). I said it was usually enough to just show up with a baseball bat and a couple guns and my serial killer cap. He wanted to know how much I made. I told him it depended, but usually ten percent. I told him the most I ever made was fifty grand. He asked, no shit? I said no shit, and, travel time aside, it never took longer than twenty minutes.
Mac said he’d like to get in on it with me, if I ever needed the help. I told him I’d keep him in mind, but that with Timmy and Pops I was pretty well covered.
Mac also wanted to know what the story was with the Solos. The fact that Bad Bob had pulled our colors was a hot topic. It was also unpleasant. The control the Angels exerted on us by pulling our vests was good for the case—it would bolster the RICO charges—but it felt awful to be twisting in the wind.
And it was a noisy wind that snuck through all the cracks. All through March we fielded constant calls from Smitty, Dennis, Joby, Doug Dam, Casino Cal, Dan Danza, and a host of others wondering what was up with us and our club. The guys’ questions were more curious than accusatory. They wanted to know why the Mexican Solos were kneecapping us. We told them the truth: We didn’t know and were taking care of it. Mainly, though, we kept our fingers crossed. We weren’t sure whether Bad Bob would be satisfied with the evidence I’d given him, but based on the calls he’d put in to Joanie, the Phoenix charter P, it looked encouraging. However, if Bad Bob or Joanie wasn’t satisfied, then the case could easily have folded. In the event that this happened, several task force agents were in the preliminary stages of drafting search-warrant affidavits.
Despite our concerns, the case continued. In the wake of the Chico threat, we shut down the Romley Road house and got a four-bedroom on Carroll street—a pool and everything—in a quiet neighborhood on the edge of the Cave Creek charter’s territory. It felt good to be back in a middle-class, suburban neighborhood. Jay Dobyns still lived somewhere inside me.
I spoke with Bob on March 6. He said he’d gone over everything with Joanie and that they were convinced. I asked him if we could suit up again and he said, “You guys are good, Bird. Put your cuts back on. But I ain’t happy with these Solos. I’m getting fed up with taking care of your shit. I didn’t vouch for you so I could be your babysitter. This isn’t over.” He didn’t elaborate, but I guessed what was coming.
We were about to get pushed.
On the morning of the seventh we met Joby at the Iron Skillet Truck Stop in Kingman to further discuss our Angelic future.
We sat in a window booth, the powerful semis outside growling and idling. It was before noon, but the sun was strong and soaked the thin veneer of clouds with a blinding white sheen. Timmy and I sat across from Joby, JJ was wedged between Joby and Pops. Joby ordered eggs, sausage, dry wheat toast, and coffee. The rest of us ordered waffles. Joby wanted to know what was with us and waffles. JJ asked him what was wrong with waffles? We all laughed.
Our coffee came. Joby spoke quickly. He ranged over topics like a crop duster over pest-stricken fields. Laughlin: He was afraid he’d soon be arrested; he’d stabbed guys there; he’d given CPR to a fallen Angel named Fester, whom he couldn’t revive, and under whose body he’d hidden a firearm; he might go to Mexico if it didn’t look good with the law; he’d expected to die the night of the riot. “I didn’t think we’d make out the way we did. I think that’s why we won. We went in there knowing we were outnumbered four or five to one, knowing we were dead. So we weren’t afraid, you know?” He stopped there. He shook his head.
Our food came and we dug in. Joby moved on to the Solos. He repeated everything he’d told me at the Valentine’s Day party, how we had to come up to Skull Valley, how we’d be given freedom to conduct business, how we were ready. He said he was planning on giving us a formal recruitment offer when he got back from the fifty-five-year anniversary party in Berdoo the following week. This was nothing new. What was new was that he said our membership was essential to consolidating Angel power in the area between Bullhead, Vegas, and San Bernardino, California. Joby let on that we were needed. This sent me flying. I could use it to bargain not only with Joby and the Hells Angels, but with Slats and our superiors.
Breakfast was over. I tried to pick up the tab, but Joby insisted. We were on a frigging date.
Joby and I walked side by side through the parking lot. He asked me if I had any support stickers. I thought he was asking if I had any Red and White stickers. I began to remind him that I didn’t wear those things, when he interrupted me. “No. Not those. Do you have any for the Solos?”
I said, “Pops has some.”
He asked Pops. When we got to our bikes, Pops dug through his saddlebag and came up with three or four that read support your local solo angeles. Joby took one and walked over to his bike, peeling the backing off the sticker. He laid his hand over his oil bag and smoothed it into place. He turned and looked at us. JJ leaned on my hip, I had an arm around her shoulders. Timmy and Pops straddled their bikes. We must have looked like Stallone’s gang in The Lords of Flatbush. We couldn’t believe what we were looking at. It was possible that this was the first time a Hells Angel had placed another club’s flash on his bike, ever. And that club was ours.
Joby knew what he was doing. “I don’t care, Bird. Timmy, Pops, JJ.” He looked each of us in the eye as he said our names. The semi trucks rumbled. “I don’t care. You guys are right by me, and I support you.”
I walked away from JJ and gave Joby a hearty hug. I said, “Thanks,” into his ear.
He barely shook his head. “No need. You guys are my brothers. I’ll talk to you when I get back from the fifty-five party.”
29
“LOOK, LADY, IT’S NOT LIKE I DON’T GIVE A FUCK WHAT YOU’RE SAYING, BUT I DON’T GIVE A FUCK WHAT YOU’RE SAYING.”
MARCH 2003
IT DIDN’T STOP. Alberto, the trash-talking Solo, had the ear of Guy Castiglione, the Dago P, who was under DEA surveillance. (The evidence gathered against Castiglione led to a guilty plea on his own RICO charges.) Alberto continued ranting that we weren’t legit, that we didn’t come to Tijuana often enough, that we were impostors, that Rudy Kramer was a piece of shit, and that we’d never brought Suzuki his Harley Evolution Sportster. Guy passed this to Bob, Joby, and Smitty at the fifty-five party, and they barked back that we were the real deal, that our club was abandoning us and the Solo Angeles organization was worthless. Joby also caught all kinds of grief about the Solos support sticker he’d pasted to his bike, but he took it in stride and didn’t back down. He told them to wait, as soon as they met us they’d understand.
I saw Bad Bob again toward the end of March, in the middle of a three-day meth bender. He looked like a wet paper bag that had been shot through with electric current. Barry Gibb was dead. Bob said all the Solo Angeles drama had ruined the Hells Angels fifty-fifth anniversary party for him. He was fed up. He said, “I should just go down to Tijuana and beat this Alberto fuck into the Pacific.”
Which in a sense, I was.
Oddly, the anger and confusion that Bob and Joby and the rest of them felt toward the Solo Angeles in Tijuana never transferred to us. The worries revolving around our legitimacy put any lingering concerns about our cover story to bed for good. The Hells Angels had been given the perfect opportunity to question us, to take a good look and ask if we were what we claimed to be. They’d been told the truth about us and they’d dismissed it as jealous lies and slander. They felt they’d done their due diligence—we knew at that point that they’d conducted at least three independent background checks on us—and they felt they knew us. As Bob said to me, “I back you to my fullest, but I’m tired of this shit.”
But the fact that we were set did not put our anxiety at ease. If anything, March was the most anxious month on the case since August. It came down to continuing on an uncharted path or shutting the whole thing down before it had run its course.
We made an unspoken decision to ride it out. We had too much invested to end it because the Hells Angels were forcing our hand. I wouldn’t shut down because the opportunity to join the Angels was too important. Slats wouldn’t stop because he refused to be swayed by the biker rumor mill.
We continued with the game.
Mac finished my sleeves. One morning in the middle of March, as Mac was putting the finishing touches on me, JJ called. She said she was with a guy at a local diner, having breakfast. I told her to keep him there, I was on my way. I flipped shut and asked Mac, “You wanna make a few bucks? JJ’s pinned down a guy I been trying to collect.”
He put down his needle and gauze and said, “Hell yes.”
Mac took off his cut, knowing he couldn’t wear it on a collection without club sanction. We left and Mac locked up the shop.
As we climbed onto our bikes I looked at my arms. They were dark with ink, red around the areas he’d been needling. They glistened with a thin coat of Vaseline. My arms looked great. They belonged to me. They belonged to me more than they had before they were covered in ink.
We went to the Grant Road Waffle House. We parked our bikes and stalked toward the entrance. Mac asked what he should do, how he should act, what if we had to beat on the guy? I told him to stay quiet, follow my lead, and simply support me. He said he could do that.
JJ sat next to a twentysomething white guy in a window booth. She wore a black tank top and jeans, and the guy wore a white Roca Wear track suit with green piping and amber-tinted sunglasses. We walked up and stood over them, our arms crossed. I said, “Move over there, sweetie,” indicating the other side of the booth. The guy just said, “Shit.”
I sat next to the guy. Mac sat next to JJ. Mac eye-fucked the guy hard. JJ stared at the table, playing the part of the dumb girl in the wrong place at the wrong time.
I pointed at the guy’s food and asked, “You eating that?” taking the fork out of his hand.
He said, “I was.”
“Not anymore.” I pushed the food around his plate and reached across him and grabbed his coffee and downed it in one gulp. “You know who I am?”
“I have a pretty good idea.”
“Good. I just wanna let you know today’s your lucky day.” He harrumphed. “See, they could have sent someone else, someone who introduces himself by putting a pipe on the back of your knee.” I stuck my chin at Mac. He nodded slowly. “But you got me.”
“Great.”
“Don’t show no lip.” I took a mouthful of hash browns and mumbled, “Listen, don’t talk. Dig?”
“Yeah.”
“Good. We’re getting along great. Now. I need that fucking money.”
I’d told Mac that the guy owed Big Lou twenty-one large. The guy said he didn’t have that kind of money on him. I said that I hoped he didn’t—it wouldn’t be too smart to walk around with a wad like that. I asked if he had a checking account. He said he did. Then that means you have a checkbook? Yes. How much you got in that account? I reminded him not to lie. He said he thought he had about seventeen. I slid his plate over so it was in front of me and said that was a good start, we were getting places. I told him to start by writing out a check for seventeen, to sign it but leave the pay-to line blank. He said OK and fumbled in his pocket. I told him not to move too quickly. He didn’t. He pulled out his checkbook. The checks had whales on them. A conservationist. As he made it out, I asked what else he had. He said about three hundred cash and a gun—a Sig 9 mm. I said I’d take both. I asked him to keep his hands on the table and asked him where the gun was. He said in the back of his waistband. I asked him if he had a concealed-carry permit. He said Uh, no. I told him to take it easy, what did he think I was, a cop? He laughed nervously. I removed the pistol and slipped it into my jacket. I reminded him of the cash. He took out his wallet and handed over a small wad. I counted it quickly—$314. I put a twenty on the table for the food, nodded at Mac, and got up. He got up too. JJ and the guy stayed in the booth. I said, “You guys too. C’mon.” They got up. We went outside.
The guy thought JJ was going to go with him, but as we walked through the parking lot, JJ looped her arms through one of mine. When the guy saw this he stopped short. Mac and I climbed onto our bikes, JJ climbed on behind me and hugged tight. She said to the guy, “See you later, sweet pea.” We peeled out, leaving the guy to think it over.
Back at the Black Rose, I gave Mac $200. I said, “See? Ten minutes, two hundred bucks. That’s how easy it is to make money with me.”
He smiled, shook his head, and said, “Thanks.”
“No problem. Thank you. I’ll see you soon.”
“Sounds good.”
JJ and I pulled out and headed to Phoenix.
THE COLLECTION VICTIM had been ATF Special Agent Eric “Otter” Rutland. He’d played the part perfectly.
JJ AND I spent the night in Phoenix. It was an off night. Timmy and Pops
were at their real homes. She asked if I wanted to go drinking.
“I’m sick of bars.”
“Yeah, me too.”
“Well, let’s do something.”
We tried to think of the last place a Hells Angel would show up, but our imaginations were dead. I didn’t feel like going to a movie, JJ didn’t want to go out for dinner—we needed to blow off steam, not go on a bullshit date at the end of which nothing would happen. Finally, I asked if she played golf.
“Couple times. Not really.”
“Wanna go hit balls?”
“Sure. Yes.”
We went to a driving range in Scottsdale. She’d lied—she had a great swing. We each hit around a hundred balls, drank beers, and had a good time.
Gwen called midway through the fun and wanted to know when I’d be home. I said tomorrow. She reminded me that we had a barbecue to go to. It was at the house of some old friends. I said I hadn’t forgotten and that I’d make it.
I’d forgotten.
I hung up. JJ leaned on a seven-iron, drinking beer from a brown bottle. She looked right at me.
“That Gwen?”
“Yeah.”
“She all right?”
“Doubt it. She’s sick of me not being around.” I teed up another ball. Why should I have to explain the broken state of my marriage to the woman I was pretending to sleep with? I owed JJ loyalty, guidance, friendship, and protection—not explanations.
“Off to Tucson tomorrow, then?”
“Yeah.” I hit the ball with my driver. It hit the ground just shy of the 250-yard marker and rolled past it, stopping around 270.
“Cool. I’m gonna hang around here. Maybe see if Timmy wants to hit a movie or something.” He’d probably do that. Timmy had also developed a mentor-like friendship with JJ, and I knew they did things on their own, too.
She put her beer on the floor, teed a ball, and smacked it. With the seven-iron, JJ could drive the ball 120, 130 yards. This one went straight down and rolled past 150.
She laughed. “Oh man, Jay. Wait’ll Gwen gets a load of those arms.”
* * *
OUR FRIENDS KNEW I was the police, but none of them knew what kind. Most thought I worked long hours as a city narc or on a homicide task force. I can’t think of one who knew that I’d done deep cover work for over fifteen years. This created some familial tension. Both Gwen and I would deflect questions about my job with half-truths and allusions. I was researching a drug ring, I was chasing down illegal firearms, I was backing up investigators looking at an interstate trafficking consortium. I was busy. No specifics. No talking about how I’d been shot, nothing about the guys I investigated, no mention that I’d had guns pointed in my face dozens of times. The pride I took in these events was private—or at least limited to the company of my peers.
This reticence wasn’t such a big deal for me—I lived in a world of cops. I could stand around the water cooler and talk about my experiences till the cows came home. I had regular mental-health checks from ATF shrinks and old friends and partners like Chris Bayless. I had outlets.
Gwen bore more of this burden than I did. In a sense, she had to live an undercover life too. She couldn’t let on that she was the wife of a UC for the simple reason that doing so could compromise me or my partners and associates. She’d learned a long time ago to keep the things she said about my job to a minimum. Our close friends got used to not hearing much about me. That was the way it had to be, and it was the way I liked it.
Usually it was easiest if I didn’t put her in the position of having to lie. As the years passed I’d grown accustomed to telling her less and less about my work. There were things she’d never know or need to know. I felt there was nothing to be gained from letting her in on the intricacies of my life. Of course, that wasn’t true. While I hadn’t yet lost her trust, I’d lost a closeness we’d once had. Telling her more about my work might not have made her feel better or ease her worries, but it might have prevented her from feeling so alienated.