The waiter frowned. He was not the same “Tom” from the week before. Debbie met my gaze across the table. There was a slight tick in her jaw. My thoughts raced—Don’t you say a fucking word. This was self-preservation.
“Tom” took the fall. Tension cut across the table. Grease stared icily at the waiter.
The waiter giggled nervously. He had a slight tremor in his hand.
“You forgot my rice.” Grease’s tone sent a chill down my spine. He flapped open his cloth napkin, tucked an end into the neck of his T-shirt, and placed his gun on the table.
“You want more?”
“Last week.” Grease tapped a finger on the gun butt and repeated the words slowly, as if he were communicating in code. “Rice. Forgot?”
“OK, I bring now.”
That night I drove Grease home, helped him with the “takey homey” boxes. Heavy curtains draped his front windows. Madame Cherie, his ol’ lady, buzzed the garage open; a narrow path tunneled through stacks of canned goods, bike parts, discarded and broken appliances, and bags and bags of garbage.
3
MY PLAYBOOK
Wounded people are dangerous—they know they can survive.
—BIG PETE
College football (which I once played) was a game of inches. Sometimes that’s all that was needed, a couple of inches to execute a well-calculated goal. No more rice mix-ups. No more volatility involving tempers and potential bullet spray, reminiscent of the Ling Ling dining experience.
It was my move. I wanted (notice I did not say “need”) the Outlaws’ trust and respect. Name recognition was critical to my overall success. “Outlaw” opened doors. I planned a large party. My wedding to Debbie (aka “Bun”), held in the Grand Ballroom of the Willowbrook Holiday Inn, was an Event.
Guests included Moose members, country line-dancers, the Loyal Order, and various motorcycle clubs, including the Chicago Outlaws. I spent days devising elaborate seating charts so rivals did not share tables, feuding Bosses kept a healthy distance, and club politics did not erupt into dangerous debate.
“This is like seating for the UN,” I told Debbie.
Debbie’s wedding
“And you haven’t even addressed our parents and relatives.” True. Hers were cultured figurines, mine … very loud.
Guests arrived from the service at the Greek Orthodox church in individual limousines and gathered in the atrium of the hotel until the ballroom opened. Debbie’s mom clutched her purse tightly to her chest, looking wan, trying to fade into the walls. Madame Cherie, Grease’s old lady (an ex-stripper once married to a cop), stood next to her, reeking of weed and gardenias, barely contained in her rose bustier, probably secretly hoping this wasn’t going to be another biker wedding, with paper plates and plastic forks.
I had ordered a live band from Nashville and a local disc jockey to play Marshall Tucker and other personal favorites. But when I showed him my playlist, he balked, pissing me off.
As I stormed out of the ballroom into the atrium, the doors smacked Backlash in the face. Once convicted of manslaughter for murdering two Latin Kings over donuts, he was a member of the Joliet chapter of the Outlaws Motorcycle Club and the Chicago Boss’s enforcer. Backlash appeared at my wedding clean-shaven, hair clipped, “so [he could] walk amongst the squares.” He took the cue and headed into the ballroom to have a chat with the DJ.
“Look at me.” Backlash snapped his fingers at him; the DJ’s hands trembled. “Play anything Peter doesn’t like and I’ll slit your fucking throat.”
The DJ’s voice cracked as he announced the bridal party, and Debbie and I waded through billowing smoke from a machine to the “Peter Gunn Theme.” And when the band finally arrived, the DJ disappeared, leaving behind his equipment.
Later his supervisor called me. “You’re not going to … harm him, are you?” Don’t get me wrong: I would have, and I would have enjoyed it, but it was enough that Backlash had threatened him with bodily harm. To have someone of Backlash’s caliber step in as enforcer on my behalf was huge. We weren’t even in the same club, but he already viewed me as a Boss.
Amidst plumes of weed and table dancing, waiters served filet mignon on plates with delicate gold piping. Backlash danced with my mom while the rest of my family bickered loudly over the guests’ fashion choices and the number of shots they could swallow. Meanwhile, Debbie’s parents sat quietly at a corner table, looking wan and pale, pretty cloth napkins spread across their laps.
Cops swarmed the hotel near midnight and politely suggested we “wrap things up.” But when Backlash demanded another Crown Royal after the open bar closed, I slipped the bartender a $100 bill for the whole bottle and warned him, “It might be best to just keep Backlash happy.”
* * *
“Grease needs you at the docks to help with his boat,” Backlash called to tell me a few days later. “Help” was code for “work.” And “boat” was a stretch. I actually doubted the fucking thing floated. Hardly seaworthy, the craft fit on the back of a trailer. Grease liked to drift in the lagoons.
“It’s where he thinks,” Backlash said. “Or, just smokes weed.”
The sky was gray and overcast; whitecaps split the water. A line was formed on the dock. Seagulls glided overhead, diving into the choppy cold for fish. Backlash waved me over.
Grease paced the wooden jetty, hands shoved into the pockets of his bib overalls. The Chicago skyline jutted in the distance. Clouds circled above large metallic and stone columns. We shivered, blew into our cupped hands, waited for the line to move. The first drops of rain plopped on Grease’s boat. Then, the man behind us cut in front. Just like that, his fate was sealed.
Backlash sprung to action—a bowie knife flashed in one hand, his other squeezed the man’s throat. The line behind me suddenly thinned; people scattered, yelps and gasps punctuating the gloom. One family dropped their picnic basket and littered the deck with ham-and-cheese sandwiches; gulls swooped down and picked apart the insides.
“I’ll cut your fucking throat.” The man’s eyes bulged as Backlash skimmed the blade across his flesh and drew blood. Jesus, he was really going to kill him.
Grease screamed, “Stop!”
Then, as if snapped out of a trance, Backlash released his grip. The man dropped to the dock, sputtering, coughing, barely able to stand. Backlash’s thumb had left an imprint on the man’s throat. We bolted just as sirens screeched the air.
* * *
“Peter,” Backlash called me later, his voice sounding thin. “They’re coming for me.”
He was in full-blown panic.
“I have to go out,” I said to Debbie; she knew better than to ask for details. By the time I arrived at Backlash’s place, he had spread his arsenal of weapons over the bedroom floor: grenades, Molotov cocktails, chains, brass knuckles, and assorted pistols. He paced, twirling a Glock around his middle finger.
“They’re coming.” He watched the empty street. He was really freaking me out. He lived alone but had multiple offspring … somewhere. His breathing was labored. I thought he might pass out, or worse—shoot something. I didn’t know what to do really, so I invited him to dinner.
“Bun will make your favorite.”
He relaxed a bit, his strange, flat eyes crinkling at the edges.
“I like you, Peter.” Score.
Wind blew through the streets, sliced through the empty buildings. I mounted my bike, inhaled the darkness. I liked him too. He represented all I ever wanted to be: a rebel, a nonconformist, a detached and potentially limitless destructive force hovering on the fringes of society, completely and utterly free. My dark mirror.
* * *
One play deserved another, and that weekend Backlash invited me to an “Outlaw National,” held in Joliet at the Chicagoland Speedway, “in honor of West Side Tommy, murdered” just a few days before. We parked our bikes next to flatbed trailers, SUVs, RVs, and campers along Gecko Ridge, so close to the track we could smell the burning rubber. At dusk, as barbecues
fired up and Outlaws settled in with cold beers, Backlash paced, his boots crunching in the gravel.
“I need something,” he said. “Peter…”
I knew he meant blow. But this was Joliet, unfamiliar territory. My contacts lived in Chicago. This was a test.
“I’m sure you can work something out,” Backlash said as he leaned against his car, anxious and sweaty, looking like he had been up all night.
Loud music blared over the speakers.
I made a phone call. My connection referred me to his sources.
“You’ve met him?” I asked.
“Yeah, sure.”
“You’ll let him know I’m coming?” Click.
I headed out to Bolingbrook, a ghetto similar to Englewood in Chicago. The dealer lived in a run-down olive green two-story with a broken tricycle on the front lawn. I arrived alone; it was the only way I could be sure to avoid witnesses.
I knocked, and chipped paint flecked off a rotting panel. Several slides and clicks later, the front door cracked open. The place smelled like a dentist’s office.
“I don’t know you.” The dealer motioned for me to sit in his kitchen. Shirtless and sweaty, he opened the pantry, flashing shelves of assault rifles balanced above bags of flour.
“Jose sent me.” My mouth was dry, the tips of my fingers numb.
“How do I know Jose sent you? How do I know you know Jose?” His voice sounded scratchy and his nose kept running. Small pipes fashioned out of soda cans lined the sink. I had a bad feeling about this.
“Look.” I pushed back from the table. “Jose said you could hook me up. If that’s not true, I’m out of here.” The dealer whipped out his Glock and waved it at me. “You’ll leave when I tell you to leave.”
I stared at his shaking hands. The room suddenly shrunk. “What are you going to do?” In retrospect, that probably wasn’t my best line. Never bait a dealer who’s been awake for days.
“Why so rushed?” The dealer flirted with the trigger. He peered into the street. “You bring the Feds? Are you a Fed?” He pressed the Glock to my temple. “Give me one reason why I shouldn’t blow your fucking brains out.”
“Call Jose.” I swallowed. “See if I check out.”
“Fuck you!” he yelled in my ear. “You don’t give me orders.”
I inhaled slowly. I didn’t have time for this shit. By now Backlash had probably imploded. I was there to buy an ounce of coke, worth at most $1,000. I had orchestrated hundreds of deals before, without incident. But this dealer had violated the rules of play—he used. This made him paranoid and sloppy.
I knew how to cut coke, add weight without adding mass. It was the difference between a pound of lead and a pound of feathers. In the end, both equaled a pound, but a pound of lead was the size of a fist and feathers could fill a gunnysack. It was easy to add grams of coke to feathers. No one dealt pure cocaine unless he was El Chapo. I knew how to break down coke, add to it, and re-rock the drug for a bargain.
The dealer flipped open his burner phone and dialed Jose. Tomato sauce congealed on two plates in the sink. A fly buzzed in the faucet. There was no way I was going to fucking die here with my brains splattered on these checkered tiles miles from Chicago. My heart raced. After a few more minutes of silence, the dealer pocketed his Glock and tossed me a baggie of coke.
“What took you so long?” Backlash trotted off behind a trailer to make his own sale. He returned minutes later and slapped a few bills in my hand.
Cheers erupted from the speedway. Backlash popped a can of beer, chatted with me about his son, whom he affectionately called “The Professor.”
“He’s so smart.” Backlash pressed the cold can to his forehead and laughed. “He’ll probably become a cop.”
“Hey.” Footsteps crunched behind us.
“What do you want?” Backlash gulped the last of his beer and crushed the can with his head.
The buyer waved the baggie of coke at Backlash. “You’re short.”
“Short?”
“Yeah, you shorted me.”
“Peter.” Backlash waved me over, rolled his eyes. “He wants his fifty bucks back.”
“I didn’t short him.” I shoved a hand in my pocket to retrieve the cash and heard the sound of ribs crack. Backlash had punched the buyer, knocking him to the ground, and now he was slamming his skull into the dirt. The buyer yanked a clump of Backlash’s hair and pulled him down. A crowd circled the sweaty mass. No one intervened. Finally, an Outlaw regional enforcer stepped in, but before he could pry the two apart, Backlash had reached for his serrated bowie knife and stabbed the enforcer with the precision and speed of an assassin.
“The fucker tried to kill me.” Backlash looked a little dazed as Outlaws swarmed him and dragged him inside a trailer. One wiped the blood from his blade with a rag. Another helped the enforcer to the curb and waited with him until the ambulance arrived.
All this over $50?
“Want a cookie?” An Outlaw named Truck stoked hot coals near the trailer.
“What?”
He shook a plate at me. “These are magic cookies. They’ll take the edge off.”
I popped one in my mouth. And soon the night sky filled with tiny fireflies. The dark puddles of blood became hard stones. A strange calm filled me.
Truck’s laugh echoed. “It’s all good, right?”
Suddenly I was on my bike, blowing down dark streets, his whisper in my head: It’s all good—right.…
* * *
The next day Backlash came to dinner. Debbie and I tried not to stare as he sliced up his plate of dolmades.1 He was on the phone, cradling it between his ear and shoulder as he slowly chewed. After several minutes he handed me the receiver, wiped the oil from his hands with a napkin, and pushed back from the table.
“Peter, I have to go.”
“What’s happening?”
“Fuckers at the South Side are trying to oust Grease.”
I didn’t know exactly what that involved, but it sounded like mutiny. I was on my feet. “I’ll go with you.”
Backlash paced. “What do you have here?”
I retrieved a .40-caliber Glock from a shelf in the pantry and tucked a .38 snub nose into my waistband.
Debbie knew better than to say a word, but I knew she was worried. Hell, I was worried.
When we arrived at the South Side clubhouse, Backlash rang the bell. It sounded like a gong. It didn’t matter that I was with the Loyal Order—Backlash and Grease were my friends. I was prepared to do anything necessary to protect them—even take a bullet. “Good,” a brother said to me once we were inside and I’d slid onto a bar stool next to him and told him as much. “That way when the shooting starts slugs will pass through you first before they ever strike me.”
Once they were opened for us, Backlash pushed through the large swinging doors of the clubhouse toward the sound of yelling, furniture scraping against wood, glass shattering, and baseball bats being thwacked.
“What’s going on in there?” I asked.
“They’re discussing things.”
My whole body tensed; I rested my finger on the trigger of my gun. No one spoke. Sounds muffled. The room filled with members; some played pool, their bodies framed in puffs of chalk, balls clacking against balls like gunshots. The scene was suspended animation, the lull before explosion.
Shot glasses shook. Broads huddled in a corner, one sucking the beads of her large plastic necklace. Another fiddled with her clumpy hair. They reminded me of dolls left out from vigorous play.
The back room was suddenly eerily quiet. I shifted on the stool, my right leg almost numb from the static. The gun warmed in my hand. I had never shot anyone, never killed anyone. The closest I had ever come to witnessing a murder was the man on the dock with Backlash’s knife pressed against his throat.
Still, I’d never felt so alive. And whether it was the idea of dying or the thought of never having really lived before that terrified me more, I wasn’t sure. But I had such clarit
y—the room, the lights, the bar flickered like the past fading in and out of focus. A fly buzzing on a shot glass sounded like a jet. My boots blended into the black floor. The jukebox played “Welcome to the Jungle,” and Axl Rose’s voice boomed to the ceiling, then whizzed from wall to wall. His was the sound of Power.
The back door swung open, and out walked two Outlaw brothers with Grease and Backlash in tow.
“Non-Outlaws need to leave.” The Boss snapped his fingers at me. “We’re about to start Church.”
That’s what they called their business meetings, reserved for full-patched members. I was reminded again that no matter what, no matter how close I became with the Outlaws, I was still an Outsider. Still, Bosses noticed me. And they noticed I’d come with Backlash.
* * *
Backlash came over the next day. “How about you and I take a ride?”
We sped down alleys and deserted streets. Thunder rumbled in the distance. A few slashes of lightning lit up the afternoon sky. Wind bit into my face. Backlash didn’t speak. He didn’t have to; we fell into a road rhythm, noting subtle changes in each other’s throttle that signaled turning, slowing down, speeding up. He zigzagged between semis, and nearly clipped parked cars. I absorbed noise and smells through my skin, becoming part of the road.
By the time Backlash stopped, I was exhausted, having already had whole conversations with him in my head.
“They’re not too happy with me.” We were stopped on a ramp on the expressway, target practice for Hells Angels. He’d run out of gas. But I always traveled with an extra tank.
As Backlash filled up, he said, “At least Grease can stay on medical. They’re not going to make him retire.” He opened the gym bag he always carried with him; it was filled with exotic sex toys, and for a minute I thought he might give me a token of his appreciation, but instead he pulled out a bungee cord, then secured the bag tighter.
“I did something,” he said. “It was pretty fucking stupid.” He never elaborated, and I’d learned not to ask for details. But I knew from biker-speak, and had heard enough through the grapevine, that he’d made a threat to two Regional Bosses. They had a reputation for ruthlessness and would never have been intimidated by Backlash (an enforcer from the Joliet chapter) unless … he had flashed a gun.
The Last Chicago Boss Page 3