I had to maintain the appearance that he was the president of my club.
I wanted to tell him he had to stop acting the way he was acting. I wanted to push him out of the way, march back into the trailer, and arrest the losers we’d just dealt with. But I couldn’t. An undercover constantly trades his or her ethics for the greater good of a case.
I knew this kind of thing wouldn’t stop on its own, though. Barely two months on the job and Rudy needed to be reined in. Old dog, old tricks.
New problem.
11 WHY’D JACK GIVE ME THAT ROCK?
AUGUST 2002
THE NEXT DAY was Saturday. I went home. I needed to.
When I pulled into the driveway, my job was jammed inside me like a kidney stone.
It dissipated quickly.
I was greeted at the door by a postcard: my wife, my children, a dog.
Smiles and waves and hugs. The weekend passed in a blissful flash. The kids laughed around the pool, Gwen pointed me to the yard work. I love yard work. Everything is self-evident and rewarding. The lawn needed a trim, I trimmed it. There were flowers on the verge of the backyard that needed pruning, I pruned them. I put some of the clippings in a Southwest-style vase—red desert pottery painted royal blue with yellow sun discs—and put them in the middle of our heavy oaken table. I played flashlight tag with Jack and Dale on the golf course, we went to the movies, we played chicken in the pool. That weekend the heavyweight burdens of the job succumbed to the featherweight joys of home life.
Gwen’s birthday was coming up, and we knew I wasn’t going to make it—I had to go to San Diego for an ATF training session—so one night all the grandparents came over for dinner. Gwen broiled shrimp and I grilled T-bones. We talked about Jack starting slow-pitch baseball that fall. No more T-ball. My dad said I’d teach him all about getting it going under pressure. I said hell yeah, I would. We talked about what I’d do in San Diego, and I said aside from listening to lectures and hanging out with my partners, I was going to surf.
At night, in bed, I’d run through the case in my head. We’d made good progress, but I was still insecure. The fear I’d felt as we rolled up to Mesa was subsiding and beginning to congeal into confidence, but I still wanted to take it pretty slow. We’d go full-bore later, once we knew that we had a reasonable chance of getting away with riskier questions and activities. If you don’t wait until you have enough credibility, then cases can go bad fast.
My most recent bad experience was on a Sons of Silence case. The Sons were a minor biker gang in Colorado Springs. We were running around as a made-up club called the Unforgiven—all the members were cops, our center patch was Saint Michael—and we wanted to further demonstrate that the Sons used intimidation and the threat of violence to maintain their turf. If we could do this, we could roll it into the RICO case being built against them. We wanted to do it that night by putting the screws to them, by hanging out in their place and showing them up. They were small-time and my confidence was high.
My partners, John “Babyface” Carr and Chris “Chrisser” Bayless, accompanied me to their bar. We sat in their place and drank and waited. We didn’t have to wait long.
A guy asked me who I was and I told him I was the Unforgiven, who the fuck are you? He said he was the Warlord for the Sons of Silence. I lied and told him I’d never heard of them. He knew I was full of shit. He said we needed to take off our cuts, sit tight, and wait for the assbeating that was on its way from his brothers. I told him fuck you, we stay or leave when I feel like it, not when ordered.
That was stupid. The place was suddenly pin-drop quiet. The only sound was the deadbolts turning on the front door.
Most of the time, after taking a beating, a man will bullshit about how big the other guy was, how he didn’t have a chance in hell. I’m no small fry, but this guy was legitimately huge. According to the marshal’s processing, he was six foot six and a shade under 300 pounds.
He reeled back and hit me with a no-shit-for-real knockout punch.
My head whipped like a rag doll’s. Babyface later told me that as the guy hit me he watched my eyes roll into the back of my head. I fell, and the only thing that kept me on my feet was a column in the middle of the bar.
Not five seconds later, Babyface was chicken-winged while Chrisser and I fought for our lives as the whole bar whaled on us—guys, chicks, everyone. Pool cues, shot glasses, steel-toed boots, flashlights. We had a couple guys locked outside who eventually came in and helped put a stop to it, but we took a licking. We’d made such an impression that when the Sons’ president learned of the fight, he said, “I don’t know who those dudes are, but they should be in our club.” The only price I had to pay for that kind of respect was pissing grape juice for about a week.
That’s why I love yard work, and I had plenty of it that August weekend. But the weekend had to end, and as I loaded the Merc, Jack ran up to me. He looked up and held out his hand, giving me a small, smooth rock from the backyard. He placed it in my palm and folded my fingers over it. He held my fist in his hands. It was a mature gesture for an eight-year-old. I wondered what exactly the rock was for as I smiled at Jack, but I didn’t ask. I pocketed it and kissed his hair and left.
THE TRIP TO San Diego was a week away, and before we left, I had to see Smitty.
Throughout the Riverside case I’d run with Sugarbear, I’d maintained that I was not a One Percenter. As far as Smitty knew, I was a freelance roughneck. I was afraid he’d be suspicious when I revised my line and told him that I’d been a Solo Angeles Nomad all along.
I knew Bad Bob had called Smitty and told him that the Solos were a new club with permission to fly their colors in Arizona. When Smitty told Bad Bob he knew who I was and that I was no One Percenter as far as he knew, Bad Bob assured him I was on the level. He agreed with Smitty that I should’ve told the truth from the beginning, but he vouched for me in the same breath, saying that my dishonesty would be compensated for by my loyalty. Smitty told him fine, but he still wanted to talk to me.
On August 9, Carlos, Timmy, Pops, and I met Smitty, his wife, Lydia, and Dennis at the Inferno in Bullhead. We were led upstairs to a private room that had been set up with empty glasses and a few bottles of Crown Royal.
I apologized quickly and said I’d lied out of necessity and respect. I said, “I held out so long because the last thing I wanted to do was challenge the Hells Angels. I’m sorry I wasn’t honest, but, hindsight being twenty-twenty, I think it was best for everyone.”
Smitty mulled this over. Lydia and Dennis sat off to the side whispering to each other. After a minute or so Smitty cracked the seal of a bottle of Crown and poured out half a dozen shots. When he was finished he looked at each of us with hard eyes. He lifted his glass and indicated we should do the same. We did. He took a sip. As he removed the glass from his lips, he cracked that mile-long grin of his. Even his beard got happy. Smitty put a hand on my shoulder. He wagged his finger at all of us like we’d been bad, bad boys. Then he said, “You did all right, Bird. Not right, mind you, but all right. From now on you be on the up-and-up with the Eight-Ones and all is forgiven.” Eight-Ones was another of their nicknames, referring to the eighth and first letters of the alphabet: H-A.
I choked back my Crown and said, “No sweat, Smitty.”
Smitty then launched into his welcome-to-Bullhead speech. He said do your thing. He said I have guns if you want them. Said I got guys all over the state with guns for you. Said I got chicks with guns. To that Carlos cupped his hands and jiggled them in front of his chest and said I hope so! Smitty laughed, his grin never breaking stride, and said not just those kind, but the kind that go pop, too! Carlos said that he’d once had a pair of titties go pop on him. Said it wasn’t pretty. We all laughed. Lydia laughed the hardest.
Then, unprompted, Smitty offered up that he had fled California for Arizona after he’d committed an arson. He said he’d torched a bar, an adjacent business, and a motorcycle garage.
“It was just too hot, you know?”
No one pointed out the bad pun.
He went on. “Hey, man, Arizona’s good stuff. Good stuff. Sonny’s here, Johnny and Hoover and Bad Bob too. Teddy’s here. Crow’s here. Lots of old-school headbangers. We got this state locked down. Arizona is Red and White through and through. Bad Bob did right. We’re thin up here and we’re happy to have you. You guys are good fucking stuff. Now let’s go eat dinner.” As we left the bar, Smitty flashed the butt of a gun at me with a wink and handed it to Dennis, a convicted felon.
Dennis took it and stuffed it in his pants.
We consummated our friendship with burgers, beer, and milkshakes at the Mad Dog Tavern.
Everything was delicious.
Things were going well.
Which meant we were due to hit our first speed bump.
12 TEACHING TEACHER
MID-AUGUST 2002
“THE FUCK DO you mean we’re ‘not official’?!” It was Slats. He had Rudy in the crosshairs.
Rudy was strung out. His eyes were as beady and black as a teddy bear’s.
We were getting ready to go through one of our gauntlet sessions at the Patch. At these get-togethers, undercovers and informants sat at one end of the room while Slats and the support agents grilled us as mock Hells Angels. It was role-playing designed to keep us sharp and in character.
Rudy shuffled and looked down. “I mean, you know, I haven’t paid my membership dues.”
Slats was livid. “We gave you money, why didn’t you pay them? Pops, weren’t you down in Tijuana with Rudy?”
Pops said, “Yup.”
“And so? Didn’t you pay up?”
Pops said calmly, “I thought we did. Rudy handled it.”
Slats turned on Rudy. “You get on the level right now or I’m calling the paddy wagon and someone other than Iwana is going to be soaping up your ass tonight.”
Rudy spoke into his chest. “It wasn’t enough. I owed three years of back dues. They wanted more for the start-up in Arizona. It wasn’t enough,” he repeated.
Slats stepped close to him, took out a tin of Copenhagen, loaded his mouth, and spoke very quietly. “You unfuck this ASAP, understand?”
Rudy watched the ground like he expected it to open up and swallow him whole. Slats continued, “I find out you’re blowing the money we give you on crank and trailer-trash pussy, I swear to God Almighty I’ll bump you faster than you can say ‘recidivist.’ Got it?” I leaned into Pops and reminded him quietly, “Dude, don’t fuck with Slats on this case.” He nodded reassuringly.
Rudy said, “Yeah. But, I might need help.”
Slats said, “What. The. Fuck.”
That’s when Rudy told us that not only were we not official at Solo Angeles world headquarters in Tijuana, Mexico, but that we weren’t even supposed to be organized in Arizona. He said it wasn’t like they said he couldn’t do it, it’s just that they said he didn’t have permission on account of the money he owed.
We had to get creative, fast.
First stop, Los Angeles, Solo Angeles U.S. headquarters, to meet president Dave “Teacher” Rodarte.
Rudy, Carlos, and I went to Rodarte’s house and sat down in his living room. At first, Teacher wasn’t too happy. He called some of his friends over and we punked them down. He had them wait outside while we told him how it was. We basically cross-arm-eyefucked the guy into submission. We told him Arizona was already set up and we were sorry we weren’t on the level, but we’d promptly take care of whatever Rudy was short on. We said we were doing good and we wouldn’t miss another payment, ever. We told him we’d followed local protocols and gotten the blessings of the Hells Angels.
Strong-arming the U.S. president was a risky tactic, but we had to do it that way. We didn’t have time to screw around, because if the Angels caught wind that we weren’t official with our own damn club, it was going to look fatally suspicious. We also could use it to gain more credibility. The last thing a criminal—even a halfassed biker like Teacher—expects of an undercover cop is to be outtoughed by him. The logic was, yeah, maybe we messed up, but look at us, we’re more real-deal than you are, so shut up and give us what we want.
He did.
As a token of our appreciation and commitment, we gave him $500 in cash.
He told us the only catch was we had go to Tijuana immediately to meet with the head Solo, a wiry Mexican-Japanese cat called Suzuki.
Fair enough.
We sent Rudy and Pops down once again. Only God could give us special agents permission to leave terra Americana, and we didn’t want to bother God. Our bosses could’ve also done it, but then they’d probably shut us down for lack of due diligence with Rudy, so that was out too. Before they left I told Pops not to let Rudy screw the pooch. We gave Pops an extra $1,000 that Rudy didn’t know about, just in case. Carlos and I went back to Phoenix and waited.
Pops told us about it afterward. He said they were all happy to see Rudy again—all of them except for a Solo named Alberto, who kept to himself and shunned Rudy and Pops. They paid Rudy’s back dues and were told that from then on at least one of us would have to come down for their monthly church meetings. We were also ordered to purchase genuine Solo cuts with the Nomads rocker in Spanish—Nomada.
Lastly, Suzuki demanded that we bring him a Harley Evolution Sportster on our next trip. Rudy and Pops agreed to their demands, but we never bothered to heed them since they couldn’t reasonably enforce them. Instead, to maintain our Solo Angeles membership, we kept throwing token amounts of cash at them and never missed another dues payment. By the time the case ended, they’d collected something to the tune of $3,000 from us. Credibility can literally be bought from minor clubs like the Solos.
Pops and Rudy spent the night in a Solos’ safe house with security cameras and high walls and a methamphetamine lab on the second floor. Pops couldn’t understand a lot of the conversations because they were in Spanish. Before they left, I’d taught him all the Spanish I knew:
Tiro el gringo en la cabaza—shoot the white boy in the head. That wasn’t very useful, so Pops settled down with a few SoCal members and bullshitted with them.
They told him something interesting. They’d heard that there was an undercover cop or informant running with the Red Devils in Tucson, or maybe with the Phoenix metro charter of the Hells Angels. This was a hard-to-crack charter that consisted almost entirely of former Dirty Dozen members, including the dangerous Robert “Chico” Mora, whom Mesa Mike had warned me of at the Florence Prison Run. Pops said thanks and he’d pass it on.
Which is exactly what he did as soon as he got home.
13 FEEDING SMITTY HIS CAKE
LATE AUGUST 2002
THIS INTELLIGENCE COULD’VE referred to Rudy himself, or any of us, or Mesa Mike. It could also have simply been an inconvenient, baseless rumor. Bikers always think they’re being infiltrated by someone—it confirms that they’re big shots who need to be checked. They don’t want to be investigated—that’d be a real pain in the ass—but they always want to believe they’re being investigated.
It’s a strange psychology.
The task force discussed the issue at our headquarters, the Patch. Since we couldn’t come up with a way to make it work to our advantage, we decided to let it play out. In the meantime we were off to San Diego for our annual undercover operators’ conference.
ATF training sessions are not known for their entertainment value, but this one was a blast. The speaker that weekend was Michael Durant, the Black Hawk helicopter pilot who got shot down over Mogadishu, Somalia. His lecture was truly inspirational. The specifics of his ordeal were more harrowing than I could imagine. He spoke at length about the generalities of perseverance in the face of lethal odds—a thing the UCs at the conference understood completely. His words sent a charge through the crowd.
After Durant spoke, I decided to clear my head and hit the surf. I rented a long board and headed down to a popular Mission Beach break. The beach was lined with bars looking over the water.
I zipped up my wetsuit and paddled out. I waited with the local kids on the line and caught a few waves.
The ocean did its rejuvenating thing. The salty air erased a carton of cigarettes from my lungs, and the water scrubbed my nicotine-stained fingertips clean.
When I was done, I trotted up the beach to the boardwalk and turned south to where I’d parked my car. As I passed the Lahaina Beach Club bar, I heard shouts of “Baldy! Hey, Baldy!”
I turned to the bar’s patio. Sitting in the best seats in the house—in a bar that is notoriously difficult to get good seats at—were Smitty, his wife, Lydia, and Pete Eunice, the Dago Angel we’d met at the Laughlin Flamingo and who’d been a shooter that night at Harrah’s.
I walked onto the patio and joined them, leaning my board against the wooden rail of the terrace. Smitty asked what brought me to Dago, and I said I was in the area on a collection and after that I was going down to Tijuana on Solo Angeles business.
After we’d talked for a while, Pete barked, “What the fuck, Bird? You surf?” He said the words as if he were confirming that I’d been to the moon. Things like surfing, especially for the old-school guys like Pete and Smitty, were basically off-limits for Hells Angels.
I said, “Fuck yeah, dude!”
“Where’d you learn?”
“I know these crazy Mexican cats down in Puerto Vallarta, drug dealers. They like to do half a dozen lines and dive in the ocean with their long boards. They get so jacked up that half the time they’re just falling into the drink, but they have a hell of a time. They taught me.” I’d actually learned while in college.
Pete said, “Crazy wetbacks.”
“Yeah, well. They help me out, I help them out. We have a good time. So, you guys here on pleasure?”
“Business and pleasure,” answered Smitty. “I got your call. Was gonna get back to you later.” He pointed his beer at Pete. “We got some serious club shit to go over. And Lydia came out too, so we could celebrate my birthday.” I recalled the Laughlin surveillance tapes showing how Smitty had backed up Pete while Pete plugged away with his pistol. I assumed they were getting their stories straight for when they got served by the grand jury, which hadn’t happened yet.
No Angel: My undercover journey to the dark heart of the Hells Angels Page 10