No Angel: My undercover journey to the dark heart of the Hells Angels

by Nils Johnson-Shelton

  This was all great, but Rudy had one more box in his checkered past that sealed his importance to us. He was an inactive member of a Mexican OMG called the Solo Angeles, based in Tijuana, Mexico. The Solos had about a hundred total members, with minor representation in the San Diego–Los Angeles area.

  We knew the Hells Angels were paranoid, but we also knew they weren’t insecure in the ways the smaller clubs were. If we’d run straight at the Hells Angels as average Larry Bad Guys, they would’ve ignored us or, at the most, handled us with extreme caution. We had to be invited into their house. It was an issue of respect. In biker circles this was universally understood, just like it’s understood that the sky is blue.

  The plan was to have Rudy ask the HA permission to set up an Arizona Nomads charter of the Solo Angeles, and then we’d tell them we were Rudy’s crew. The fact that this club was Mexican dovetailed perfectly with my established claim that I ran guns south of the border. Being Solo Angeles Nomads, we wouldn’t need affiliation with an established charter, so existing members wouldn’t have an opportunity to get in our way. It also set the stage for RICO charges, since it would establish that the Angels controlled the outlaw clubs in Arizona. It was pluses all around. Rudy would be our president. Carlos would be a full patch. My trusted informant, Pops, would be a prospect, as would Billy “Timmy” Long. And I, Jay “Bird” Dobyns, would be the Solo Nomads’ vice president.

  BEFORE WE GOT started, I had to meet Rudy. Slats set up a date at the Embassy Suites near the Sky Harbor International Airport in Phoenix.

  Rudy knew practically nothing about me. By design, Slats hadn’t told him I was a fed. We wanted his first impression of me to be formed with as little prejudice as possible.

  I rode my ’63 Harley-Davidson Panhead to the hotel. Slats’s car was out front. I was dressed in my usual. I wasn’t openly armed.

  I knocked on the door of room 11. Footsteps came to the door and it opened, streaming sunlight into the otherwise dim room. Slats held the doorknob and waved me in.

  Seated at a round table to the right of the door was a thick man with close-cropped brown hair who wore wraparound sunglasses. He kept a tidy mustache he was obviously very proud of, and a triangular tuft of brown hair was tucked below his lower lip. He had a deep, horizontal worry line on his forehead. He wore a black tank top. His entire upper body—arms and neck included—was covered in tattoos.

  I turned to him and stuffed an unlit cigarette in my mouth. He pushed his seat back and stood up. A couple of seconds passed while we sized each other up.

  “I’m Bird.”

  “Rudy.”

  I stuck out my hand and he took it. It was a knuckler of a handshake. He looked at my shoulders and chest, checking out my ink. He didn’t let go of my hand. I didn’t let go of his.

  “Where’d you do your time? What’d they get you for?”

  I smiled at Slats and turned back to Rudy. “Man, they didn’t get me for shit, and I’ve never been inside.” Neither of our hands buckled, but both must have hurt. Mine sure did.

  “Then what the fuck’re you doing with this guy?”

  “Hey, dude, I don’t know what Big Boy over here told you about me,” even though I did, “but I’m here because Slats and I have a working relationship.” I paused. “I’m a fed.”

  Rudy let go of my hand and drew his head back in a motion of disbelief. Pleasant sensations returned to my knuckles. I wanted to shake it out but didn’t. He said, “Bullshit.”

  “Nope. God’s honest truth. They send me a check every two weeks to dress like this and hang out with guys like yourself.”

  Rudy laughed, looked at Slats, and pointed at me. “That’s not fair. How are we supposed to win against motherfuckers who look like this?”

  Slats shrugged.

  “You’re not, dude.” I motioned for us to sit at the table. “That’s why there are guys who look like me—and there are more of us than you can probably imagine.”

  He considered this. Maybe he ran through a file of faces and names, picking out candidates. “Fuck it. No point in me worrying about that now.”

  I sat down and took off my shades and placed them on the table. I put my cigarette behind my ear and laced my fingers together. My rings joined in a tinny little symphony. I projected calm. I said, as kindly as possible, “Look. We got you, it’s true. I know Slats has told you this already. You’re an old-timer, you know the game as well as we do. This is a good chance for you, dude, a good chance for you to correct past wrongs, if you care to. If not, then you know what’s waiting for you.”

  He said, “Look, man, I’m here to work.”

  “Good. Then let’s talk.”

  I told him all about Bird and nothing about Jay Dobyns. I told him how I’d managed some token intros to a few of the Angels he claimed to know. We talked about Smitty and Bad Bob. I told Rudy he’d be an essential component of the next phase of the case. Slats reiterated that we needed him. It’s always good to talk up an informant, especially one who’s separated from you by a flow of ambivalence. You need to build trust, or at least the illusion of trust, in a case like Rudy’s. He asked what we wanted from him. Slats outlined the plan. Rudy listened carefully, nodding and smiling from time to time. When Slats was through, Rudy said it was risky, especially for him. But he also said it was so crazy it might just work, and that we’d chosen the right guy. I said we couldn’t do it with just anyone, we needed him and only him.

  I pulled the cigarette from my ear and lit it. We all lit cigarettes.

  He said, “You don’t need to flatter me so much.”

  I said, “Maybe not. But you’ll be in charge as far as anyone knows, and you can’t forget that you’re not. If this works, and we start to roll as a unit with you as our ‘leader,’ then you have to remember that it’s us— and especially me—who’s calling the shots on the street. Got it, dude?”

  He went, “Mmmmm.” I stared at him. He still had his sunglasses on. I knew I wouldn’t get to see his eyes that day. Maybe it was the shame of being put in a bad spot, or maybe he was jazzed by the prospect of doing something so ballsy—but whatever the reason, he kept them hidden behind his shades. I couldn’t blame him. He was a man with no choices, and you don’t want to stare in the face the guy who’s taken control of your life, not right after you’ve met him.

  I asked, “Well?”

  He didn’t say anything for a minute. Then he pointed at my left arm and said, “That tattoo.”

  “Yeah?”

  “What is it?”

  “It’s Saint Michael.”

  “Oh.”

  “You know him?”

  “Think so. He’s the patron saint of cops, right?”

  “That’s right. And grocers. I looked it up on the Internet once.”

  “No shit?”

  “No shit.”

  He didn’t think it was cute. Whatever.

  He said, “Well, you’re gonna have to come up with some other story about that if you wanna run with these guys.” He sat back in his chair and twirled his finger at the ink on my torso.

  “Shit, dude, you think I got to where I am without a story for my Saint Mike? I’m the guy with the sword, the dragon’s my addiction to junk, and I’m killing that motherfucker. I’ve been around the block, Kramer, don’t sweat it.”

  Satisfied, he grunted and parted the drapes. “What about that?”

  “My bike?”

  “Yeah.”

  “What about it?

  “It looks OK, but it won’t keep up with the guys we’ll be seeing.”

  “I’ll keep up.”

  “Not on a worn-out Panhead, you won’t. You might be king-shit undercover, but I’m king-shit biker, so watch and learn.”

  “I can’t argue with you there, dude, I can’t argue with you there.” And I didn’t.

  PART III

  THE MIDDLE

  7 TOO BROKE FOR STURGIS, WHERE

  TIMMY LEARNED THE FINE ART OF

  FETCHING SAUERKRAUT


  JUNE–JULY 2002

  JUNE AND THE better part of July were spent getting our Solo Angeles story straight.

  After Rudy got our Solo charter official—he and Pops had to make a couple of trips to Tijuana to pay dues and sort it out—he set to work in Arizona. He ran a few meth deals with Tony Cruze and reestablished contact with Bad Bob. Rudy had to answer questions of perception and politics: The Angels were curious why, all of a sudden, Rudy had become so hot to set up shop in Arizona. He said it was because of the proximity to Mexico, where his club was based and where his boys— that is, us—had established “some business,” alluding to our gunrunning ruse. They also wanted to know what we thought of the Mongols. Rudy assured them the Solos didn’t have an official position on the Mongols, but that we didn’t think much of them at all. He told Bad Bob we’d be happy to watch the Nogales border on behalf of the Angels, letting them know when any Mongols showed up there. Bad Bob thought it over.

  On July 13, Bad Bob offered Rudy a deal he guaranteed would be formalized at the next Hells Angels officers’ meeting: We’d be allowed to operate freely in Arizona so long as we agreed never to fly an Arizona rocker—this honor was reserved for Hells Angels alone—and so long as we backed up the HA in their struggles with the Mongols. Additionally, we wouldn’t be wed to the Angels in the way that the Red Devils or the Spartans were—we’d have their back and pay them their due respect, but we wouldn’t be another puppet club.

  As Rudy secured our standing, we worked on putting together a bona fide bike gang. We got the bikes up and running and our backstop stories down pat. Christopher “Cricket” Livingstone, an ATF agent and Slats’s right-hand man on the task force, used Rudy’s jacket as a template and got his mom to make the patches we’d sew onto our brandnew leather vests. Our club’s colors were orange on black, so all of our patches were stitched with pumpkin-orange thread. The ones on the front of our jackets—small rectangles and diamonds collectively referred to as “flash”—were mostly abbreviations: SFFS (Solos Forever, Forever Solos), IIWII (It Is What It Is), and FTW (Fuck The World, a biker favorite). On our backs were sewn our three-piece patches: a round center patch depicting an orange motorcycle, a top rocker that said SOLO ANGELES, and a bottom rocker that said TIJUANA. In addition to these we had a side rocker that said NOMADS.

  We were ready to roll.

  A COMMITTED BIKER’S calendar is filled with rallies and runs, and we Solos wanted to commemorate our coming-out on a large run, which, in addition to being ceremonial, would maximize our exposure. We chose an “all clubs” rally at Mormon Lake called Too Broke for Sturgis.

  The afternoon before the run, Slats told me we needed to have a sitdown. We’d been having meeting after meeting, going over details and procedure and backgrounds for weeks, and I felt like we didn’t need to have another. Slats’s way was methodical, whereas mine was improvisational, a method Slats would later dub “smokin’ and jokin’.” I was eager to get going, my nerves shook, my adrenaline began to flow. I knew Slats must’ve been nervous too, and I figured this would be the last pre-op meeting he and I would have, so I agreed to see him. He told me to meet him at Jilly’s Sports Bar in Tempe.

  I pulled up in role, got off my bike, and walked inside, test-driving the “dick-out” style I wanted to trademark. I figured a yuppie sports bar was as safe a place as any to let it all hang out. I pushed the door open, guns in my waistband, wife-beater on my back, camos on my legs, flipflops on my feet, and a belt buckle so big Ty Murray would’ve been proud. My eyes struggled to adjust from the Phoenix sunshine to a dimly lit bar. As they did, I saw before me a smiling Slats, his family, Carlos, and, most important, Gwen, Dale, and Jack. I’d completely forgotten it was my birthday. I let go of my attitude and returned to my old self. We ate cake, opened presents, and talked about everything but work. For three hours I made a point of putting as much loving on the kids as possible. It was one of the best birthday celebrations I ever had. Toward the end, Carlos elbowed my ribs and said, “Nice, huh? Slats wanted you to see Gwen and the kids one more time before we die in the forest tomorrow.”

  I nodded. It was nice.

  THE NEXT MORNING the team gathered for breakfast at the Waffle House on I-17 and Bell Road. We finished before Rudy showed up, and waited for him. Eventually he pulled into the parking lot with a piggish piece of trailer trash clutching his sissy bars. He got off the bike and ordered her to stay outside.

  As he sauntered in, Carlos asked, “Who’s the beauty queen?”

  “Can’t remember her name. Grabbed her in the parking lot at the Apache Junction Wal-Mart.”

  “Well, get rid of her,” Carlos said.

  “Fuck that. We go bitchless, they’ll think we’re a bunch of homos.

  Not cool.”

  “All right, fair enough. But if she becomes a liability, then the gig’s off. I think Jay and Timmy will agree.” We said we did. Rudy said don’t worry about it.

  Mormon Lake is about two hundred miles north of central Phoenix, off I-17. Rudy and I rode up front, him on the left, me on the right— the usual positions for the president and vice of an OMG. The members fell in behind us. Behind all of us, keeping their distance, were the two vehicles that carried the cover team: a white rental truck and a passenger van.

  About a hundred miles in, we pulled off at Cordes Junction to gas up. We stopped at a Mobil and unassed. My legs and shoulders were killing me.

  I felt as old as the road was long.

  Rudy slouched on his bike like a vacationer in a hammock. He yelled, “Prospect! Go get me a pack of Reds, and make sure you tell the bitch-ass attendant we’re filling up. Pay for all of it.” He spoke to Timmy. An absent grin faded from the lips of the nameless woman clutching Rudy’s waist. She looked like she’d lived the lives of three women put together. Rudy slapped her on the thigh and she slowly draped her arms over his shoulders, like a bored bitch doing a trick for which she no longer got rewarded.

  Timmy shook his head, but did what was asked. He was an experienced cop who’d dealt with perps and CIs like Rudy for years. He knew we were on our way to a real-life run, and we were all playing dramas that would make us more like the genuine article. As a prospect, Timmy had to get used to being ordered around.

  I went inside and bought a pack of Marlboro Lights and two packets of Advil. I slammed the pills dry and packed the cigarette box on the heel of my palm. I lit a cigarette as we pulled out.

  We rode on for another hour and pulled off at Munds Park. At the bottom of the ramp, Rudy turned to me and said, “That sucked. You better speed the fuck up. My club ain’t gonna roll like bitches.”

  “Whose club?”

  “Slats told me to kick you up. You’re s’posed to be following me. I’m your P.” “P” meant president.

  “We ain’t at the run yet. And I thought we did pretty good.”

  “Maybe we hit seventy. That’s too slow. You gonna work the Angels, then kick it up a notch or twenty.”

  “All right, President Kramer, next time we’ll make you prouder, sir.”

  “Good.” He turned back to the road and gunned it. We followed, but at a distance, just to piss him off.

  We rode through flat land toward blue mountains rising up in the east. On either side of the road, broad swaths of green-yellow grazing grass alternated with massive stands of ponderosa pines. It was a nice ride.

  Rolling into a biker rally wearing a three-piece patch is like walking into a high school cafeteria naked. It was no different at Too Broke. Before we got there I’d been nervous, but as we rolled in I got scared. This was a feeling I was used to. A huge part of undercover work is hiding your fear and channeling it into things that bolster you. Everyone we passed looked at us. I decided to take the attention as a compliment and not an accusation. My ego was hungry and ate it up. I accepted the fear, and the attention felt good.

  Rudy sped up as we approached the entrance gate. We did too. He blew by the attendant, flipped him off, and yelled, “SOLOS DON�
��T PAY FOR SHIT!”

  That felt good too.

  We pulled into a parking area and walked around. Rudy led us to a group of Red Devils and intro’d us to Tony Cruze. Cruze looked like Jerry Garcia without a smile. He ordered a prospect to get beers, Rudy ordered Timmy to help him. Rudy yelled at Timmy to bring him two, and to make sure they were both “like ice.” Timmy marched off. Carlos and Pops and I stood behind Rudy as he talked to Cruze. Rudy bitched about setting up the new charter, never missing an opportunity to flatter himself and his ability to sway the Angels. Cruze asked if I was the one who did the business down south. I said yes. He said we needed to get together, Rudy said one of us would be in touch. Two women, one short and skinny, one tall and overweight, walked up to Cruze. He grabbed and jiggled the ass of the taller one. She leaned toward him and bit his ear. The smaller one winked at Rudy’s gal, who, to her credit, hadn’t said anything. The women walked away. The backs of their jackets had single patches that read PROPERTY OF THE RED DEVILS. This referred to both the women and the jackets.

  Timmy returned toting a load of Silver Bullets. I took two. I popped one and wedged the other into a back pocket. I was always an amateur drinker, but knew I’d have to get in shape fast on this job. I took a large gulp. The cold beer sliced through the dust kicked up by bikes and wind. Timmy stepped between Cruze and Rudy to hand his president his beers.

  “Prospect, I am trying to talk to this guy and you’re getting in my way!”

  Timmy looked over his shoulder. Cruze stared at him, his long curly hair blowing around his face. Cruze’s prospect had delivered the beer without interfering.