by Mel Bradshaw
“Markus—she was just in the wrong place at the wrong time.”
The older man scowled. He plainly wanted the universe to make more sense than that.
“Yeah,” he said eventually. “You’d better give me a few minutes with her, Ted. Thanks.”
Chapter 4
Ted had first become aware of the Dark Arrows by accident. An accident with deep roots.
He’d grown up on the west island of Montreal. As a suburban kid, he’d depended on his bicycle both for transportation and for a sense of freedom. Independent and small for his age, he was the kid that didn’t play hockey. He lived for the summer riding season and dreamed of engines more powerful than his short legs to let him bike faster and farther. He liked to listen to his Uncle Luc, who owned a country store in the Laurentians, talk about the Triumphs and Indians, the Hondas and Harleys he’d gassed up at his pumps. Then—as the years went by—more and more Harleys, and fewer of anything else.
Ted had been young during Canada’s first experience of biker gangs. He’d been ten when the Hells Angels had patched over the Popeyes to establish in Montreal the first HA chapter in the country. He’d been seventeen when the Sorel Hells had purged the leadership of the Laval Hells, zipping their brothers’ bodies into weighted sleeping bags and dumping them in the St. Lawrence River. He’d been eighteen when the first round of biker trials started. Biker gangs were the new face of organized crime, more murderous and reportedly more powerful than the Mafia. Far from being hedonistic users and losers, the Sorel crew were disciplined dealers—dependent not on substances they ingested but on pagers and spreadsheets. Here, for a keen and impressionable young McGill University freshman, was a subject worth studying. Socially important, and spiced with a paradox: how had the motorized two-wheeler, so suggestive of the open road under an open sky, become the symbol of a paramilitary troop of conformist bullies?
It didn’t escape Ted’s notice that biker gangs were not the safest subject to research. So when he’d come to the University of Toronto in 1989 to do graduate work in criminology, he chose a thesis topic that would not necessitate contact with criminals. Instead, he surveyed and analyzed the public’s attitude to sentences handed down by criminal courts. Much of his subsequent work had been on the youth criminal justice system, but organized crime remained a strong interest, and a subject on which he taught courses. And he never quite lost sight of the biker gangs. In 1995, during the war between the Hells Angels and the Rock Machine, a bomb in Montreal accidentally killed an uninvolved child only three years younger than Ted’s younger brother Patrick. Again, in 2000, Ted’s thoughts were drawn back to his hometown, when Dany Kane, a police informant against the Hells, was found dead in his garage and when—not long after—Journal de Montréal writer Michel Auger was shot six times in the back for writing about the gang.
Meanwhile, Ted had started riding motorcycles of his own, including the modest Yamaha that had carried him to the 1998 recital where he’d met Karin. He’d owned other bikes since, his most recent—bought in April of last year—a gently used Kawasaki Ninja.
That June, 2005, Karin had been on a western tour with her chamber orchestra, which left Ted many days for putting kilometres on his almost-new machine. On weekends, he would ride down back roads, practically at random. One spring Friday evening, he stopped at a bar between Wildfield and Snelgrove. His clutch cable was coming loose, and he found to his chagrin that he wasn’t carrying the very basic tool that would tighten it. So when he noticed a row of polished bikes outside the Grey Mare Tavern, he pulled into the parking area. Near the front door, two large men in black leather were smoking weed and keeping an eye on the machines.
When Ted asked to borrow an adjustable wrench, the beefier of the two sentries retorted, “For that Jap crap? Let it die.”
Ted ran his eye down the row of gleaming bikes, every one a Harley-Davidson. He concluded he was up against the vicarious U.S. chauvinism of a biker gang.
“I can’t do that,” he said pleasantly. “How’d I get home?”
The second biker walked to his machine and, taking a wrench from his tool kit, handed it wordlessly to Ted. The repairs made, Ted returned it.
“Much obliged,” he said. “Can I buy you gentlemen a beer?”
“No thanks,” said the second biker, speaking for the first time from under a heavy moustache.
“We don’t drink with ricers,” said his companion.
“Easy, Chuckles. The nice man is going to get on his little riceburner and take it where it won’t offend your eyes.”
Ted, who had been heading for the bar, took the hint and changed course. With one touch of the electric starter, his 250 c.c. engine came to life. Over its growl, a whisper to what would be the thunder of the big Harleys, he heard Chuckles retort—
“You’re out of line, Scar. I don’t go easy or uneasy on your say-so.”
Ted sped away but was back the next day to make some enquiries at the bar. He was told a dozen men in black leather came to drink every Friday night, and a selection of them might turn up any other night of the week as well. They wore no club insignia on their vests or jackets, and they caused little trouble. In fact, their presence rather discouraged than encouraged drunken insults or brawls. End of story.
He wanted to know more. Nothing in what the bartender had told him made him think it would be hazardous to return, and if the Harley riders saw his Japanese bike as a provocation, so be it; he could leave it at home.
The following Friday, Ted came to the Grey Mare by taxi and spent the evening shooting pool. When the men in black arrived, several with female companions, he wasn’t sure if he would once again be shown the door, but the previous week he hadn’t removed his helmet in the bikers’ presence, and it didn’t appear at first that any of the gang recognized him. One of the leather crowd came over and challenged him to a match of nine-ball billiards. Ted had played regularly for pocket money two decades back as an undergraduate at McGill, but rarely in recent years and never for stakes. Tonight, he lost the first two games. Then he won four straight, dropped one more, and with a fifth win took the match and the fifty dollars riding on it. While his late opponent was placing the banknote in Ted’s right hand, another biker was removing the cue from his left. It became evident that the gang members wanted a game among themselves, so Ted retired, paid his bill, called a taxi and went to wait for it outside.
“You come on that riceburner of yours?” asked a quiet voice behind him.
Ted wheeled around to see that Scar was once again on duty guarding the row of polished hogs.
“Naw, I sold it to the president of Hells Angels,” he said.
“That’s not so funny.” Scar spat on the asphalt. “This your local bar? I never saw you before last week.”
“Just moved into the neighbourhood,” Ted improvised. “One of the new subdivisions south of Mayfield Road.”
A blue and white taxi made a left turn into the parking area.
“What’s the address?” said Scar, making for the driver’s window.
“I’ll tell him myself, thanks.” Ted lost no time climbing into the back seat of the cab, but was not quite fast enough to keep from hearing Scar’s suggestion that next week he might consider coming to the bar another night, or better still going to another bar.
Ted was giving a graduate seminar on gangs that summer. He didn’t return to the Grey Mare, but he made anecdotal use of his visits to an unspecified tavern north of Highway 7 in his teaching. By autumn, he had traded in his Kawasaki for a second-hand Toyota sedan. At the beginning of the new semester in September, a student Ted recognized from his summer course came to his office. Melody Clark had in fact got the top mark. Now she wanted to discuss with him a research project for her M.A. The squeak of her dingy sneakers on the linoleum announced her arrival. She was a heavy girl, with big glasses in purple plastic frames, a spotty complexion, and bleached hair in an unflattering pony tail.
“Professor Boudreau,” she said, “I’d l
ike to work with you on a study of that biker gang you discovered last spring.”
“My impression is that they wouldn’t make very good interview subjects,” Ted objected, smiling to himself at the bookish girl’s naïveté.
“Mine too.” Melody cleared her throat. “That’s why I took a job in August as a barmaid at the Grey Mare.”
Ted sat up and studied the student’s face for any sign that she was joking. There was none.
“You didn’t mention the name of the bar,” she added, “but my family lives in the area, and I put two and two together. Tell me I got it wrong.”
Ted wouldn’t have scrupled to tell her exactly that, except that he might thereby be leading her to underestimate the risk she was running. He thought of the servers he’d seen the time he’d been in the bar, their piercings and tattoos, their hard jaws and challenging eyes. It wasn’t easy to imagine how Melody—today wearing a shapeless denim jumper over a fraying T-shirt—could join their ranks without arousing the bikers’ suspicions.
“You’re scaring me,” he said.
“I can pass all right,” she said quickly. “Contact lenses, tons of make-up, skimpy clothing. I even got a navel ring to go with it. I am a blonde, after all, as much of one as matters. And I watch my language. I say ‘whatever’ a lot, and I don’t go near words like ‘acculturation’. The thing is—I’ve only been there a couple of weeks, and I think I’m already onto something.”
“Something of academic interest?” asked Ted. “Or something for the police? There are theoretical and practical reasons why a university criminology department shouldn’t be doing the Biker Enforcement Unit’s job for them.”
“We’re critical observers of the criminal justice system, not part of it. I understand all that. What I’m proposing is a descriptive study of a holdout motorcycle gang. My research proposal would go something like this—” Melody Clark quickly found a crumpled page of handwriting in her backpack, unfolded it and read aloud: “The big international outlaw biker federations like the Hells Angels and the Bandidos are battling for control of turf. In Ontario, one way in which they compete is by patching over smaller clubs; i.e., arranging for them to swap their coloured crests for those of the larger organization. Bikers that refuse either to merge or to disband may form holdout clubs. The long-term future of such holdouts is unclear. Quite possibly they will be liquidated as the giant federations continue to consolidate their power, but their short-term chances of survival are increased if they (a) make no public display of their colours and (b) do not engage in the lucrative drug trade that has become the big federations’ raison d’être.”
“When speaking,” said Ted, “it’s customary to read the letters i.e. as ‘that is’.” His pedantry did a poor job of disguising from Melody that she’d caught his interest.
“Whatever,” she replied cockily. “Do you want to hear about my source?”
“Give that door a shove and keep your voice down.”
Melody complied. “I hadn’t been on the job many nights when I had to help a woman who’d collapsed in the washroom. Later she told me her name was Layla. This would have been a Saturday, and none of the bikers was around. They’d gone for a weekend stag run or something. Anyway, Layla had locked herself in one of the stalls and passed out. Drug overdose, I guess. I had to crawl under the partition, wake her up, and put her back together. Her jeans were down around her ankles. While I was pulling them up, I noticed a tattoo on her thigh. It looked like a black arrowhead with red on the tip, to suggest blood. By the time she was able to hold herself upright in a chair it was almost closing time, so I drove her home. I think she accepted because up to that time I hadn’t asked her any questions. I did in the car, though. I asked about the tattoo, and she said it was the emblem of the Dark Arrows Motorcycle Club. She had been with one of the officers, a man named Scar. Now he didn’t want to see her any more because he thought she was a junkie, but she believed if she hung around the club bar and showed Scar she was clean, he’d take her back as his ol’ lady.”
“That it?” Ted asked.
“That’s it for now. But I’m continuing the friendship. I think this woman likes me and has a lot more to tell.”
“Why are you doing this?”
“I think it’s valid research,” Melody shot back. “Your reference to bikers in the seminar led me to believe you thought so too.”
“But do you have some personal connection to the scene?” If not, Ted hoped he might divert her energies into less dangerous projects.
“No, no. I’ve seen rides through my village, nothing more than that.”
“Then what’s going on?”
The student filled her cheeks with air and let it out slowly. “Okay,” she said. “Back home in Pebbleton, Ontario, some girls were boy magnets. I was the mark magnet. There was no contest in high school, but university is something else. Here there are plenty of brains, plenty of readers. To stand out, I figure you have to be willing to do what other people won’t.”
“Quit that job,” said Ted. “Interesting as the field of study may be from an ethnographical or sociological point of view, there’s no safe way to pursue it. Your informant’s a heroin addict. You can’t trust her testimony, and you can’t count on her discretion. If she’s willing to betray Scar’s secrets to you, what makes you think she won’t betray yours to him?”
“I’m a risk-taker.”
“Take your risks on the ski slopes, then. Or go whitewater canoeing.”
“I didn’t say I was athletic,” retorted Melody.
“No, and you didn’t say you were suicidal either. Undercover cops that mess with gangsters are at least fit and trained in self-defence. And quite apart from your own safety, think of the risk you’re exposing us to. ‘Student slain while doing research for Department of Criminology’. I don’t ever want to read that headline, thank you very much.”
“You want me to sign a waiver? Fine!”
“Cheer up, Melody. You’re bright. You’ll find another research project. And if not, I can always suggest one. Such as: the failure of strict discipline facilities for young offenders. Drop in any time, and I’ll give you a reading list.”
It wasn’t that easy to get rid of Melody Clark. She did choose another research project, but she also slid sealed envelopes under Ted’s door from time to time over the following academic year. One contained a purported list of members of the Dark Arrows, along with their occupations and club duties—including who was obliged to attend Thursday night meetings, who was excused, and the one member who was obliged to stay away so they’d have someone on the outside in the event of a raid. That one, the biker known as Chuckles, was most disturbingly alleged to work part-time as a Peel Region special constable. Another envelope held a description of the location, layout and fortifications of the DAs’ Caledon Hills clubhouse, including the breed of guard dog used. Layla had told Melody she believed Scar preferred Dobermans to people.
All such documents Ted destroyed, but not before he had scanned, encrypted, and transferred their contents to a CD. There was a hiatus in the dispatches when the riding season ended in late December. Ted understood that the Dark Arrows still met, but without their precious Harleys, they frequented the Grey Mare less often. Melody’s bulletins also informed him that Layla had cleaned herself up and been taken back by Scar. Her acceptance had made her far less communicative with Melody. Then in the spring, almost a year after Ted had first stumbled on the club, Melody returned to his office in a state of some excitement.
“They’re dealing!” she exclaimed. “And they’re manufacturing.”
“I don’t want to know,” Ted protested.
He had to say this. He’d decided from the start that, while he couldn’t keep Melody from putting herself in harm’s way, he mustn’t give her the least encouragement to spy on the Dark Arrows. He had not solicited her data. She’d forced it on him. True, he hadn’t destroyed every trace of it either—his academic curiosity had prevented that—but he
hadn’t told Melody he was keeping it. His sense of obligation was no less under the new circumstances she was alleging. The danger was all the greater for anyone in the gang’s vicinity.
“The significance is huge, Professor Boudreau. Remember I said that the Dark Arrows would be tolerated by the big biker federations only so long as they didn’t show their colours and didn’t involve themselves in the drug trade?” She didn’t wait for an answer. The words tumbled out of her. “There’s a DA nicknamed Walter Weed, the one that works in a doughnut factory. He was in the Grey Mare six weeks ago with a few of the guys—not a regular Friday gathering, just a mild spring night when a few of the gang felt like getting a jump on the riding season. Walter seems not to have a car, so he rides his hog earlier and later than most. They must have drunk a couple of pitchers of beer each. I’d brought them a bucket of peanuts, and some of them had bought bags of chips from the vending machine as well. After we closed, and the owner had finally got them out the door, I started to sweep the floor. Among the peanut shells and chip bags, there was a scrap of paper. It was a receipt for a pill press, $138.20. In the States, it’s illegal for the ordinary joe to own one of those, because of the fear that it will be used to make drugs. Well, no kidding. And on the back of this receipt was scribbled a URL. I thought I’d just keep the paper and look up the Web address later, but then I heard one of the bikes coming back. I copied the address and reburied the receipt in the floor litter, just managing to hide the broom before someone started pounding on the locked door. I let Walter in. He’s one of the smallest gang members, but—like the others—bulked up on steroids. His head looks like a pimple sitting on these wide shoulders. He shoved by me and went straight to the table where he’d been sitting. He found his precious scrap of paper, scrunched it into the pocket of his leather jacket, and made for the door. I’ve learned never to ask the bikers questions beyond, ‘What are you drinking?’ But Walter must have felt his behaviour was too weird to pass without comment. He looked at me on his way out and mumbled, ‘Ol’ lady’s new phone number.’ ”