No Angel

by Jay Dobyns

  As for the tattoos, I’d spoken to Gwen for years about getting sleeved—a long time ago she’d even drawn the flowers Mac had put on my upper arms. She liked what my tattoos said about me—that I wasn’t the usual suburban husband. But while she understood that I wanted to get sleeved, she couldn’t understand why I wanted to look like a gangster. I said it wouldn’t look too badass if I got covered with Yosemite Sams, Tazmanian Devils, and bunny rabbits. I knew that wasn’t what she meant, but it’s the way I thought about it. I liked the prison-ink look. I guess in regard to tattoos I wasn’t too different from the people I strove to take down.

  Gwen wasn’t surprised when I showed up with my arms done, but she was a little disappointed.

  “I guess you’re just a biker now, huh?” We were in our bedroom, getting ready to go to the barbecue. I was tired but rallying, sucking down a Red Bull.

  I poked her in the ribs. “Are you kidding me? You know I don’t like riding bikes.”

  “That’s not funny.”

  “I think it is.”

  She didn’t say anything. She went into the bathroom. I sat on the bed jonesing for a smoke. When she came out she looked great. She pointed at my tattoos and asked, “What’s she think of them? I bet she loves them, huh?”

  “‘She’ who?”

  “That woman you’re working with. Jenna.”

  “I’m not even gonna—”

  “I know what’s going on, Jay.”

  “G, nothing’s going on. Even if I wanted to, and I don’t, I wouldn’t have the fucking energy.”

  “No, you wouldn’t have the ‘fucking’ energy, would you?” I sighed and maybe rolled my eyes more than I should have. Gwen repeated, “No, you wouldn’t,” and walked back into the bathroom

  This wasn’t new. Gwen had been dropping hints for a few weeks. I hadn’t dignified them with a response. Guys on the task force had also started to point at JJ and me and rib me when she wasn’t around. I told them the truth, that I was maxed-out enough as it was. I’d say, “Dude, even if I could get it up, which I can’t”—probably thanks to my Hydroxycut problem—“I wouldn’t have the energy to put it to use.”

  However, this was the first time Gwen had come out and said it. I tried to let it go. When she reemerged from the bathroom I said, “Look, if it makes you any happier I’ll wear a long-sleeved shirt, OK?”

  “Whatever, Jay.”

  Yeah, whatever.

  I went into the bathroom and took four Hydroxycuts out of a pair of jeans slung over the towel rack. I gulped them down with the Red Bull.

  The party was at a house not far from ours. The family who lived there had a son who was Jack’s age and played on Jack’s Little League team. The father owned a construction company and the wife was a pharmaceutical rep. They had another boy who was a couple of years older than Jack. Whenever we made it to church, we’d see them there. They were a good family.

  We got in the car. Gwen drove. We didn’t speak. I wasn’t in the mood to go to a non-biker party. I didn’t want to talk about sports or mortgages or home extensions or kids or vacation plans, of which I had zero. I didn’t want to calm down or chill out. I wanted to keep my pot boiling. As we drove through a gorgeous Tucson evening, the sky streaked with pinks, purples, blues, and greens, I got more and more tense. My knees twitched. I wanted a cigarette, but I knew I couldn’t smoke around Gwen. I didn’t have my release—a business-casual cocktail party in the ’burbs did not compare to a Hells Angels clubhouse. My mind moved back to the place I’d been trying to force it to vacate.

  The case was all-consuming. I thought of what I’d say to Slats, how I’d have to pitch him, thinking about how some of the task force agents had taken me aside to say they thought pursuing membership was a good idea. They made me angry when they did that. I’d say, “Hey, that’s great, but I don’t need you to tell me in private. I know it’s a good idea. I need you to step up and tell Slats.”

  Gwen interrupted my thoughts with a harmless question. “They’ll want to know what you think about the boys’ team this season.”

  “What? What team?”

  “The baseball team?”

  “Oh. That. All right.”

  “Just try, OK?”

  “All right. I will.”

  We arrived and walked in. I might as well have been at a cocktail party on the moon. Some guy handed me a drink and I drank it quickly. Tasted like a no-salt margarita, but I couldn’t be sure. Gwen and I separated and I found the beer. I decided to go with that. Before the case I’d been a lousy drinker, but by then I was in tip-top shape. I could guzzle with the best of them, and even though I wanted to get fall-down drunk, I knew I shouldn’t. I took it slow.

  I horsed around with some of the kids. That was easy. They were playing in the pool and they kept begging me to throw them in. It didn’t take long before I did. I put my beer down and rolled up my sleeves a little and started chucking them into the deep end. They loved it. I did too.

  The woman throwing the party approached me holding two drinks, one full and one half empty. She held out the full one. She wore pink cotton pants cropped below the knees, a fuzzy, light green sweater, and dangly turquoise earrings. Her smile screamed hostess. I took the drink she offered and downed half of it. She looked at my arms and I selfconsciously pulled the cuffs down to my wrists. I hadn’t felt so exposed in months.

  She didn’t say anything about the tattoos, but I could tell she wanted to. She asked how I was doing and whether I thought the boys would have a good team that year. She talked about how hard my job must have been lately, since she hardly ever saw me. I didn’t ask, but she said Gwen seemed to be holding up well. My end of that conversation was minimal. If I could have gotten away with grunts, I would have.

  She was neither cruel nor ignorant, but she pressed on. She was probably just curious. I must have looked like a circus attraction at that party. I was strung out, and fresh tattoos peeked out from the edges of my clothing. I was also the only guest with a twisted five-inch corkscrew goatee, that’s for sure.

  All I could think was that I’d rather be hanging out with my guys. Not just Timmy, Pops, and JJ, but Smitty, Dennis, Bob, Joby—any of them. I didn’t like them more, but I didn’t feel so weird around them.

  I wanted to say to this decent suburban mom, “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. I’ll see you later.”

  Instead I stood there and watched her earrings and took my medicine.

  It was bitter.

  30

  HOOVER’S HIT

  LATE MARCH 2003

  ON MARCH 29 we had a funeral to go to. Daniel “Hoover” Seybert had been shot through the forehead on March 22.

  He’d been killed in the parking lot of Bridgette’s Last Laugh, a Phoenix bar, surrounded by his brothers, who conveniently—and ludicrously—didn’t see a thing. According to the Hells Angels witnesses, Hoover had just started his bike when he suddenly slumped over the bars. There was no exit wound. They didn’t hear a discharge. Some claimed that until they saw the wound in his forehead they thought he’d had a heart attack. Some said that he’d been hit by a sniper firing a large-caliber rifle—and they were all convinced that the shooter must have been a Mongol.

  We weren’t so sure. The medical examiner concluded that the wound was from a small-caliber, close-range shot. We later heard that Sonny postulated his beloved club would have been better off if he’d been the one in the casket. Hoover was revered and respected nationally and internationally by friends and foes—he’d been groomed as Sonny’s replacement and was a perfect fit. His death devastated the club and drove their paranoia to new heights.

  Hoover’s murder remains unsolved. The wound and the Angels’ reactions—and the lack of a spent shell casing in the parking lot—all pointed to an inside job. There was plenty of internal tension among the Angels in those days, centering on which way the club was headed, what they’d symbolize as they conti
nued their wild ride through American cultural history. The dispute between Bad Bob and Cal Schaefer concerning drug use and the amount of partying the Angels allowed their members to engage in offered a good snapshot of what the club was faced with on a broader scale. Generally, younger members felt as though they’d joined the Hells Angels to raise hell, to do what they wanted to, when they wanted to, and not be told otherwise. Older members—members, it should be said, who’d lived this freer, hell-raising lifestyle in decades past—preferred to rest on their laurels, doing whatever they could not to attract attention from the law. These Angels were content with being old-time kings of the hill and selling T-shirts at motorcycle rallies. Ironically, the old-school mentality was embodied in the aging Sonny Barger, historically one of the hardest, no-shit-taking-est Angels to ever walk the earth.

  Our theory was that the assassination of Hoover was designed as a message to those in the club who’d have them take the easier road. Hoover, after all, was a dear friend of Sonny’s. The two men co-owned Sonny Barger’s Motorcycle Shop and had great respect for each other. Officially, Sonny was nothing more than a rank-and-file member, but his word was still bond, and Hoover, it seemed, always deferred to Sonny’s judgments and opinions.

  I have a slightly different theory. Whenever I think of Hoover’s death, I think of all those silencers the guys had been asking me about. I can’t speculate who actually pulled the trigger, but I think the evidence strongly points to an inside job by someone in Arizona, maybe even by someone I knew. Maybe the man who’d done it wasn’t satisfied with the Hells Angels’ lack of action against the Mongols. Maybe he thought there should have been a top-down effort to eradicate the Mongols from the face of the earth, and he was deeply disappointed that there wasn’t. Maybe he felt that the men hindering this explosion of Hells Angels vengeance were the same ones preventing some of the younger members from raising hell and living free.

  Maybe.

  This is all unsubstantiated conjecture based on very circumstantial evidence and my own gut feelings, and I wouldn’t confidently be able to point at any one person, but I think it’s a reasonable theory, if not a likely one.

  Whatever the real reasons, there was no doubt the club was divided, and I believe my Solo Angeles Nomads bridged that divide. I may be flattering myself, but it’s my belief that we were highly regarded by both factions. The older guys liked us because we were buttoned-up, respectful, and consistent. The younger guys liked us because we didn’t take any shit and were into doing business. They all liked us because they believed we were connected enforcers, earners, and killers. I truly believe that the Angels saw in us a standard they could respect and even aspire to.

  I hoped to find out. And I hoped I wouldn’t have to wait too long.

  TWO DAYS AFTER the shooting, Timmy, Pops, and I met Joby at the Cave Creek clubhouse. Hoover’s murder, whoever had committed it, had spooked the Angels, and the place was on lockdown. Full-time armed guards secured a perimeter around the wide, two-story house. No one was in a good mood.

  Joby asked us upstairs. We were joined by Cave Creek Angel David Shell.

  Joby went over the same stuff I’d been getting from him and Bob and Smitty for the past couple of weeks. Our time had come, we had to join. We didn’t say anything. We weren’t yet fully approved to accept an offer. Honestly, I wasn’t sure how to proceed. I assumed we’d have to wait a few more weeks, or at least until Hoover was in the ground.

  Not so.

  Joby paced as Shell rolled a joint and lit it. After complaining about having “to deal with all this Hoover bullshit,” Joby got to the interesting part. “Anyway, it’s set, Bird. You’re coming up with us in Skull Valley. I worked it all out with Bob and Smitty. Smitty’s been cool with it all along—he knows you’ll be with us in Mohave Valley once that’s up and running. Bob was a harder sell. He was pretty sure the only place for you was Mesa. I convinced him otherwise.”

  I said, “Great. Thanks for pushing for us, Joby, it’s a real honor.”

  He said, “Yeah, well, you know how I feel about you guys.” Shell had taken a deep pull and now tumbled into a hoarse coughing fit. I thought it was pretty funny, like he was choking right when it sounded like Joby was about to profess his love for me and the Solos.

  “So what’s all this mean? Practically speaking?” asked Timmy.

  “Practically, it means you gotta come to Skull Valley’s next church meeting. All of you. You’re gonna be under Joey, Pops will be under me, and Bird will be under Bobby.” Bobby was Bobby Reinstra, the muscled-up Boston bricklayer. “It also means you gotta get a place in Prescott.” A Hells Angel had to maintain a residence near his charter. “And it means you gotta hang up your Solo cuts.” He kicked a dust bunny on the floor for emphasis.

  I said, “OK, but I need to deal with the rest of this Solo shit.” I paused and added, “Again, this is a real honor, Joby. Thanks.” Shell asked if we smoked weed. I lied and said yeah. He said good, the club needs more smokers. Then, as the stuff hit him hard, his eyes rolled blissfully into the back of his head.

  Business done, we left. We had to talk to Slats.

  WHICH WASN’T SO easy. Slats and I had been on very touchy terms since our fight after the Chico threat. In fact, we hadn’t spoken at length in weeks.

  Dan Machonis, our respected Phoenix Field Office supervisory special agent, had noticed and asked me to meet him at a sports bar near the Patch. He said we had to discuss some operational issues. It was a setup. When I showed, Slats was there, under the impression that he too was having a one-on-one with Dan. We met at the bar, Dan paid for a pitcher of beer, grabbed three mugs, and directed us to a horseshoe booth near the pool table.

  Dan sat between us. Filling the mugs with beer, he asked, “You guys ready to sort some stuff out?” Without looking at him or at each other, we both said no. “Great.” When he was done pouring the beer, Dan said, “Here’s the deal. We’re gonna sit here and drink this beer—and if we drink all this beer I’ll get more beer—until you put aside your bullshit and start talking.” He picked up his mug, held it over the middle of the table for a second, brought it to his lips, and downed half of it. Neither Slats nor I moved. Dan put down his mug, wiped away a frothy mustache with the back of his hand, and said, “Drink. That’s an order.”

  We waited a couple more minutes. I think I moved first. Maybe it was Slats. The other followed almost immediately. We picked up our beers and each downed them in a few gulps. Dan poured out the next round.

  Midway through the third pitcher we started to talk.

  I said, “I know you’re under a lot of pressure.”

  Slats said, “Damn right. And I know you are too.”

  We didn’t need to say much more before the floodgates opened. By the time Dan was coming back with the fourth pitcher, Slats and I were bitching about everything we’d had to deal with over the past months.

  We started to play pool. I beat Slats the first three games as we talked about how to move forward.

  I said, “We have to accept the offer they’re giving us. It doesn’t make sense not to.”

  “They’re gonna run you all over. The freedom tour’ll be done.”

  “That’s fine. It’s what you’re supposed to do when you’re prospecting. I can handle it.”

  “What about Timmy and Pops?”

  “They’re in. You know they are. Timmy talked to you, right?”

  “Yeah.” He leaned over the table, lined up a short bank shot.

  “They can handle it. No sweat.”

  “JJ?”

  “She’s fine. She’s ready.”

  Slats said, “Hnh.” He made the bank. He stood up and watched the cue ball move into position for the next shot.

  He didn’t appear to be convinced about JJ. I said, “She’s strong.”

  “I know that, but this is still her first assignment.”

  “I’ll protect her, you know I will.” I would have taken a bullet for her or any of them.

 
He made a straight shot up the side rail. “No, I’ll do that.”

  I let him have that one. “OK.”

  He sank two more balls and missed a thin cut. I moved to take my turn.

  I continued my pitch as I shot. “We have to go over. We shut down now, and what do we have? You know as well as I do that if we allow them to force us over, then it’s good for the RICO. Coercion, intimidation, all that. If we don’t go through with it, all we can say to the judge is, ‘They wanted us to come over with them but we didn’t.’ We do it and we can say, ‘They made us go over to them.’”

  He didn’t say anything. That was good.

  I continued, “I’m not taking anything away from the Solos, you know that. It was a hell of an idea and it’s worked. Shit, your idea’s been too good. Neither of us thought the Angels would press us like this. No one could’ve predicted what we’re dealing with.”

  I sank three balls and missed an easy shot into the corner. Slats had two balls and then the eight. He didn’t say anything. Dan, content that he’d done his duty, sat in the booth nursing a beer and doing the USA Today crossword. Slats made a tight shot, squeezing his ball between a rail and one of my balls. The cue ball moved directly in line for his next shot, a gimme into one of the side pockets. The eight was frozen on one of the short rails between the corner pockets. Slats cheated his last ball into the side pocket with a lot of draw. After contact, the cue ball curved slightly and ran right up the table, stopping five inches from the eight ball for an easy shot into the corner.

  “Corner pocket.” He pointed the tip of his cue at the target. He leaned over, took a few practice swings, and shot. He hit it too hard. The eight rattled in the jaws and stopped, hanging over the lip. “Fuck.”

  As I sank the rest of my balls, Slats said, “OK. We’ll try it out. You know I know all about the prosecutorial benefits of letting it play.” Of course I knew. This was a guy who, during a lull in his career, had taken the LSAT on a lark—no studying, no guides—and scored in the ninety-sixth percentile. He was like Rain Man with a gun. He could cite incidents, addresses, suspects, and statutes off the cuff—and they were always right. I’d seen him play five hands of craps at once, win, and then correct the dealer on payout mistakes. Even when we were at odds I trusted his knowledge and intelligence.