Deep Cover

by Edward Bungert

  There was a timid knock on the door. "Come on in," said Dave with a sigh. He closed the ledger and pushed it to the side of his desk. His fourteen-year-old son, Mark, opened the door slowly.

  "Dad, I'm sorry to bother you. Can I talk with you a minute?" Dave nodded and smiled at his first-born. Mark sat on the floor.

  "I got a little problem," said the blue-eyed, redheaded youngster. "There's this guy. This big guy on the baseball team. Well, he's giving me a real hard time. You know, pushing me around and stuff. He's bigger than everyone else, and nobody's ever stood up to him. You know it really bugs me, because if I was allowed to tell him my dad was in charge of The Henchmen, he'd be real scared and—" Dave gently placed his finger on the boy's lips.

  "Every man has to stand on his own, Mark. The members of my club would do anything I'd ask of them. That doesn't mean I don't have to stand up for myself. I've told you and your sister that under no circumstances are you to tell any of your friends about Daddy's club. Your mother doesn't even talk to her friends about it. Besides, even if you scared him with that you'd never get his respect, and you would never respect yourself."

  "What should I do?" the boy asked forlornly. "This guy could kill me."

  Dave chuckled and hugged his son, lifting him off his feet. Still sitting in his desk chair, he held Mark by his shoulders with his huge hands. "Mark, I love you. You know that. But if you don't stand up to this... What's his name?"

  "Joseph."

  "Joseph... Joseph will never respect you, and he'll continue to treat you like crap. I'm not saying you have to fight him, although you may. I'm saying that you've got to make him believe in his heart that every time he bothers you he's going to have to fight you, regardless of how it turns out. My guess is he's not looking for a fight as much as he's looking to intimidate people." Mark smiled. "Understand, son?"

  "Yeah, I guess so. Hey, Dad... Will I lose self-respect if I kick him in the balls?" Dave laughed until he almost lost his breath. "No," he said, wiping a tear from his eye. "Whatever it takes."

  "Thanks. Oh, I almost forgot, Mom told me to tell you Uncle Jimmy's here. He's waiting for you outside. Bye." The youngster left his father's office. The Henchman put the ledger in the safe, locked the office door, and left the house. He walked to the curb, where James "Jimbo" Hill was standing next to his blue Chief Cherokee jeep.

  "Hey, Jimbo! How ya doin'?" The two bikers shook hands.

  "I'm good. We got a new shipment of merchandise. It's a lot larger than we expected. I think the guys need a little help on the distribution of this one. You ready to go?"

  "Yeah. Let's take my car. I don't trust that piece-of-shit jeep of yours."

  "Fine with me, man. Use up your gas, fine with me. You got a smoke?"

  Dave handed Jimbo a pack of Marlboro cigarettes from his shirt pocket. Jimbo took one and handed the pack back to Dave.

  "Got a light?" asked Jimbo.

  "Christ, you want me to smoke it for you too?" Dave lit the cigarette with a small yellow disposable lighter. "It was the same shit when we started out in '72, you were always grubbing stogies." Dave's mind quickly returned to the days when he and Jimbo had started the Iron Riders together. Broke, owning only their clothes, boots, and motorcycles, Dave and Jimbo had gone to work recruiting bikers and building up the club's business. They'd built the club into a force of almost fifty members by 1977. By that time the two founders had amassed a fortune selling drugs, and running one of the largest fencing operations in the northern United States. It was that end of their business that had caught Counsel's attention. Using the club's women, they would lure unsuspecting truck drivers with smiles and promises. What the truckers received were beatings and the loss of their cargo. It didn't matter what—electronics equipment, clothing, even produce.

  Dave remembered how he had built up such an elaborate network of contacts around the country that he could unload anything his people could highjack. He also remembered how The Outcasts had become interested in his club as well. For months both The Outcasts and The Henchmen had competed for the assimilation of The Iron Riders. Finally, to thwart off a "hostile takeover" from The Outcasts, The Iron Riders buried their colors and put on the hooded executioner insignia of The Henchmen. Dave smiled as he thought about the contrast between his life in the early seventies and his life now, almost twenty years later. He had gone from sleeping on the clubhouse floor to a three-hundred-thousand dollar home in suburbia.

  As the two men walked toward the garage, Dave suddenly put his arm out, stopping Jimbo. "Wait, Jimbo. Somebody's been in this fucking garage."

  "How do you know?"

  "Look." Dave pointed to the top of the door frame. "See that broken piece of masking tape? Every time I close the garage door, I place a small piece of masking tape between the door and the frame. It's a habit I got into when Mark was younger and always wanted to get in to fuck around with the bike. The only way it could get broken is if someone has opened the fucking door."

  "Maybe it was Mark," Jimbo offered.

  "No way. Look at this." Dave pointed to the lock on the center of the door. Tiny scratches, evidence of a picked lock, were very barely visible.

  "Get Mark and Gloria out of the house," Dave ordered, and Jimbo immediately moved off to comply. Moments later he emerged from the house with Dave's wife and son. He told them to get into his jeep, then joined Dave by the garage door.

  Dave slowly opened the overhead doors. Jimbo stayed at Dave's side, holding his breath until the door rested in its open position. "Look over the bike, Jimbo. I'll check the car." Seconds later, Dave found it. "Jimbo, it's fucking wired." Both men examined the bomb, which was taped to the car's steering column. Four sticks of dynamite, armed with an electronic blasting cap, were wired to the spark plug. Dave would have been killed as soon as he turned the key.

  Jimbo carefully disarmed the bomb, first clipping the wire to the spark plug, then separating the blasting caps from the dynamite sticks. He handed the caps and the sticks to Dave. He then locked the sticks of dynamite and the blasting caps in the trunk of his car.

  Dave walked over to the jeep to speak with his wife and son.

  "Babe, I'm gonna have Jimbo take you and Mark to your mom's. Stay there until I tell you it's safe to come home."

  Gloria said nothing. In the sixteen years she'd been together with Frank David, she had learned to expect disruptions in her life. She looked over at her son. Mark was busy tuning the jeep's radio and playing with the steering wheel. The thirty-eight-year-old wife of the Henchmen leader remembered vividly the day she'd married Dave, ten years ago. It was the same day the club threw a party to celebrate the second anniversary of their Henchmen charter. They had rented a boat, packed over three hundred people in it, and cruised Lake Superior for ten hours. She thought about how she'd stood next to a smiling, slightly drunk husband-to-be, while Counsel performed the ceremony.

  "Do you, Gloria, take Dave, to be your husband... promise to polish his bike... not question his every move?" asked Counsel, reading from a book of Henchmen law that he had authored.

  "I do," she said.

  When the boat docked, Frank David and four other Minnesota Henchmen were arrested for having beaten a trucker in a bar the night before. The Henchmen were out of jail in twenty-fours hours, and the charges were eventually dropped.

  Now Gloria stared out the window as Jimbo drove them away.

  Dave called the clubhouse and spoke with his security officer, John "Jack The Ripper" Kendall.

  "Jack? Dave. Listen, I found a bomb in my fucking car. It could have been The Outcasts. They killed a brother from the Los Angeles chapter a week ago, and they may be launching a new offensive. I want the word put out on the street that The Henchmen are to be notified of any sighting of an Outcast or associate club member." At least five other motorcycle gangs in Minnesota were Henchmen affiliates, with another two hundred or so people working for them in various capacities. If The Outcasts were responsible, Dave would find out.

&
nbsp; Dave hung up the phone and sat silently for a moment in his black-leather armchair. He stared at the dust particles floating amidst the rays of the afternoon sun, like tiny snowflakes. He took a deep breath, held it for a moment, then let it out sharply, disrupting the pattern of dust flakes. This could all be gone in a second, he thought. My home, my family. All gone. He quickly reminded himself of how he had come to own this expensive home. How many bones have been broken? How many widows and fatherless children have I and The Henchmen been responsible for producing over the years? He who lives by the sword, dies by the sword, Dave. This rare moment of soul-searching was interrupted by the sound of Jimbo's Cherokee jeep pulling into the driveway.

  The two bikers left in Dave's blue Mercedes, leaving the jeep parked in front of the garage door. As they pulled away, Dave began to sweat. The calm he had experienced during the crisis was now replaced by anger. "Goddamn motherfuckers!" he yelled, using his right hand to punch the roof of his car. His left hand remained steady on the steering wheel.

  "My family could have been killed by that fucking bomb! Christ almighty, Jimbo, how the fuck do they know where I live?"

  "Take it easy, man. We'll get the motherfuckers. Red light, Dave." Dave quickly and smoothly applied the brakes.

  "It's all gotten so crazy," said Dave, his emotions starting to even out. "We used to brawl all the time with other clubs. They would throw us a beating one week, we would get them the next. You took your lumps and you didn't complain. Now, man... Shit, it's just getting fucked up, that's all." Dave slowly accelerated as the light turned green. They drove without conversation for about ten minutes. Calmer now, Dave leaned over and opened the glove compartment. "Look in there, Jimbo. With all this shit I forgot to tell you. The newsletter. It came yesterday afternoon."

  The newsletter came irregularly. However, Counsel always managed to produce at least three issues a year. Every chapter president received a copy. It then circulated among the members. Only patch-wearing brothers were permitted to read it, although it seldom contained anything compromising or confidential. It was always returned to the chapter president. No one was allowed to photocopy it.

  "Well, look at this shit," said Jimbo as he began to skim through the document. "Counsel got a request from a club in Australia for a charter. Fucking Australia, man. You think Counsel will do it?"

  "He might. First he'll send a couple of brothers to check them out. If they make the grade, why not?" Dave shrugged, both hands now firmly on the wheel.

  "Whoa," said Jimbo, surprised.

  "What is it?" asked Dave, turning his eyes from the road to look at Jimbo.

  "My brother probably knows this guy."

  "Who?"

  "The new member in L.A.," said Jimbo. "Johnny lives up in Hallock. He's about an hour from the Canadian border. He used to party with the Satan's Saints all the time. Shit, I'll have to give him a call and tell him Doc Death is a Henchman now."

  "Maybe your bro can come with us when we make the run to Eureka Lake next month. He can say hello to Dr. Death personally."

  "Yeah. Won't that be a piss!"

  Chapter 19

  I stopped at a phone booth on my way to the clubhouse to call in to Base I. Although I was a member, I wasn't about to take a chance using the phone at my apartment. For all I knew the club tapped the phones of all members, just in case. Fred Parkins was on duty when I called.

  "Walsh, how are you, buddy?" he said insincerely. "Your boys did some number last week in Philly."

  "They're not my boys," I said. Of course I could never share with anyone in the Bureau, especially this dick Parkins, that I was pleased The Henchmen had won the fight with the Toritellis. They had managed to accomplish what years of law enforcement had failed to do. The only problem now was how to deal with a more powerful, more brazen Henchmen chapter.

  "Is Leverick around? Or Atwood?" I asked.

  "No, sorry, bud. Just me."

  "Lucky me," I mumbled sarcastically. "I may need some assistance."

  "Shoot!"

  "We're driving down to San Pagano in a couple of hours. Six of us. Counsel wants to shut down the chapter. He plans to take their colors and suspend their membership indefinitely."

  "So, that's good. That's one less Henchmen chapter for us to deal with."

  "Yeah, but I'm afraid there might be trouble. You don't know what these colors mean to these guys. It goes deeper than we ever thought," I said with a sense of urgency.

  "I don't think we want to spook them now. What if they pick up the other agent's presence? We'd blow a major investigation for nothing. No. You've been in too long... too deep."

  "Parkins, I'm telling you! This could be serious, man!" I started to get angry. I was almost yelling.

  "I'm telling you," said Parkins sharply. "Everyone of us on this team is a supervisor. We have to make decisions based on what we feel is best for the investigation, as well as for the people in the field. And I say you won't need backup on this. We all have the files on The Henchmen. Counsel is legendary among all the chapters nationwide. He's shut down chapters six times since 1970. No one's ever gotten killed. A couple of beatings maybe, but no homicides. After what you and that guy Monk did to those boys in the pizza shop, you should be used to this shit by now."

  "God damn it, Parkins!" I was heated. "You'd better pray this comes off smoothly, or I'll file the biggest grievance against you the Bureau has ever seen!"

  "Fine. You do that. Anything else you want to report before I take my dinner break?"

  You fuck, I thought to myself. Here 1 am risking my life and you're concerned with your dinner break. I knew I didn't like this chickenshit the first time I met him. He's the type of guy that agents in the field refer to as a real "suit." Someone who has no idea what the real world is all about and doesn't give a shit about anyone's life. The only thing that matters to suits like Parkins is their own careers. Fuck everybody else. He wouldn't last five minutes rubbing elbows with these guys, but he's the one calling the shots right now. Integrity and brains? Not this one.

  "One more thing," I said. "In Jersey. They're planning to hit Fort Dix. I couldn't find out exactly when, but they got a woman inside. A secretary in the records department. Is that worth some manpower?" I made no attempt to hide my sarcasm.

  "I'll take care of it. Call in first opportunity tomorrow."

  I must have seemed a little pissed off when I arrived at the clubhouse. Dog ribbed me a little about my mood.

  "Hey, shitface. You look like you just tongue-kissed your grandmother," he said.

  "It's that fucking... parole officer. He's a fucking ballbuster. Fuck him." I figured since I was pissed off and it showed, I might as well add credibility to my parole officer story.

  "You got that right. You know, maybe we can take care of your PO problem."

  "How so?" I asked.

  "Depends. Let's say he's married or some shit. We send one of our cunts to scope him out, get him to go to bed, then photograph him. We tell him we'll give the photos to his old lady if he doesn't do the right thing by you. Or maybe we just slip him a few bucks, or threaten to kick the shit out of him. We've done it before."

  "I'll let you know, man. It's just a bad fucking day, that's all." I actually began to visualize Dog and Iron Man beating the shit out of that asshole Parkins, and I liked what I saw. It was strange. I felt more camaraderie with Dog than with one of the men on my own team. I decided at that moment that the next time I spoke with Atwood I was going to insist that Parkins be kicked off the team.

  We rode to San Pagano in the blue van. Counsel drove. Dog sat on the passenger side. Savage and Iron Man were sitting in the rear. I sat opposite Monk near the middle. Most of the conversation was light during the trip. Dog would occasionally offer one of his many tasteless jokes.

  "Hey, what's the difference between quiche and pussy?" he asked.

  "What, Dog?" the rest of us answered simultaneously.

  "Real men don't eat quiche." Dog laughed loudly, almost losing
his breath. The rest of us rolled our eyes and chuckled, more at Dog's reaction than at the joke itself.

  Counsel pulled into the driveway of the San Pagano clubhouse and turned off the engine. He motioned toward Iron Man, who lifted a metal box from the back and placed it in the middle of the van. The toolbox-size case contained three nine-millimeter pistols, two sawed-off shotguns, and one .357 Magnum revolver. Counsel reached over and grabbed one of the sawed-offs. I took the Magnum. Savage got the other shotgun.

  "Why so much hardware?" I asked.

  "Just a precaution," said Counsel. Monk was quiet. He had hardly said a word since we'd left the clubhouse. Of course, Monk didn't say much anyway.

  "Let's go," said Counsel. He looked over at Iron Man and nodded. Iron Man returned the nod and stuffed the pistol in the back of his belt. Savage did the same and we all followed his lead. We approached the house slowly. Counsel had his hand behind his back, ready at the trigger. Monk walked beside me. He looked cool, confident that there would be no trouble. "They fucked up," he said to me earlier, "so they lose their charter. No big deal. Counsel took other charters away before."

  Counsel stopped a few feet short of the door to let Savage and Iron Man overtake him. They knocked at the door and waited. Counsel stood behind them, Dog behind him. Monk and I looked from right to left, scoping out the surrounding houses. "Seems pretty quiet," said Monk.

  The door was barely open an inch when Iron Man kicked it in, knocking the man behind it to the floor. I recognized him when I got closer to the doorway. It was Slip. I remembered him from Popeye's funeral.

  "Hey, man! What the fuck…?" complained Slip. His complaint was abruptly silenced by a shotgun blast to the face. I looked on in disbelief as Counsel, Iron Man, and Savage entered the house shooting. One of the bikers, seated behind a large table, began to fire a small-caliber handgun. Iron Man took him down. I fired the Magnum at the walls a few times, giving the impression that I was taking part in the slaughter. Dog followed along, too. I wasn't sure if he'd shot anyone or not. Monk never fired a shot.