by Greg Aunapu
The number wasn't in Big Jim's name, of course. Nothing would be. Sue dialed the Broward number in trepidation. A gruff voice answered, "Yeah?" She heard the sound of dogs barking and people arguing in the background, though it might have been a television.
"You don't know me," Sue blurted out. "I'm a mother looking for my daughter."
There was a snort of derisive laughter. "Lady, you called the wrong fucking number."
"I'm looking for Big Jim Nolan," she said.
Silence.
Then, "Who the fuck did you say you were?"
"My name is Susan Billig. My daughter disappeared a few months ago, and I've heard she's with bikers. Outlaws. They said she was in Fort Lauderdale, and then up in Orlando."
"Oh, yeah," the man said, "I heard about you. Well, lady, if she's with us, she's a biker chick now. Don't try to find her."
"Please," Sue cajoled, "let me talk to you, show you her picture. I swear, all I want to know is if she's truly alive. If she wants to stay a ‘biker chick,’her father and I can handle that. We just want to know she's all right."
Big Jim was hesitant, but finally agreed to meet her—alone. She didn't dare tell Ned where she was going, so made an excuse to go out for a while, then rode a long, hot, nervous twenty-five-mile bus trip to Hollywood. She sat in her sticky plastic seat, watching passengers get on and off the bus: mothers with screaming children, the elderly, the poor, and the barely sane—each with their own story, their hopes and dashed dreams, their failures and disappointments. No one who could ride any other way would ever pick a sweaty, huffing, chugging Dade County bus. A bus full of hard luck stories. And hers, perhaps not even the saddest of them. But she brightened up. If Amy were in the Outlaw nation, Big Jim was the one who could find her.
She arrived at the bus stop and got off. Of course, Nolan wasn't waiting. She sat in the hot sun and sweated on the bus bench until a rusting, dented van sputtered around the corner. Through the dusty windshield, she could see a long-haired man driving. The van came to a brake-squealing stop in front of her. The unshaven man leaned out. "You looking for Big Jim?"
"I'm Sue," she said, hoping her terror wasn't too evident.
"Well, I'm Big Jim," the man told her. "Get in, lady." A few months before, Sue barely knew a man like this existed. She certainly would never have spoken to him, let alone get into a van with him. If Ned knew what she was up to, he would have had a conniption.
"You coming or not?" Jim said, putting the vehicle back into drive.
Sue pulled the door open with a yank. The smell of broiling plastic, stale beer, cigarette smoke, and wet dogs wafted out—the biker perfume she had come to know.
The house was yet another modest cement-block structure in a neighborhood of middle-class homes. All the other yards were semi-pruned, semi-raked, with a mango tree or some yellowing palms for shade. No one would be picked for a turf-builder commercial, but the ratio of sod to weeds was respectable. Except for the Outlaw residence. Here, the carcasses of aging cars vied for room with gritty black Harleys. Scruffy mutts lolled among the dog crap that was not exactly providing fertilizer for the rocky lawn.
"Home sweet home," Big Jim joked when he saw the look on her face. "Don't worry, you won't catch anything."
When the biker got out of the van, she could tell why he had been nicknamed Big Jim. He was a massive man, as tall as a basketball player, with large arms festooned with tattoos. He should have been called King Kong. "Watch out for the dog shit," Jim cautioned.
The blinds were shut, making the inside of the house dark as a cave. The air smelled more of marijuana than cigarettes. Tacked to the wall, Sue remembers vaguely, was a poster of a giant tattooed biker striding through a canyon, with a caption reading, Though I walk through the Valley of Death I will fear no evil, because I'm the meanest son of a bitch in the Valley. A Jim Morrison song blared on a tinny radio, while two biker women, wearing sweaty black T-shirts, soiled jeans, and scuffed boots, sprawled on a couch and passed a joint between them. A biker came out of a door, with a flushing toilet in the background.
Sue's little voice was yelling at her to leave, but her willpower reigned. The idea of Amy living like this was unbelievable, untenable. If she was, she had definitely been brainwashed.
"Can I get you a beer?" Jim offered.
Sue's throat was dry and swollen, but she didn't want to touch anything. "I'm fine," she croaked, fishing in her purse for Amy's picture. She held it out to Jim. "This is my daughter."
Jim snatched the photo and fell heavily into a cracked recliner. He snapped his fingers at a woman who passed him the joint. He took a deep toke. "And a beer," he commanded. The woman jumped off the couch and scuttled for the kitchen. You could see she hadn't been fast enough sometime in the past, and had probably been punished for it.
Jim studied the photograph of Amy under a dim light and let out a low whistle. "No one's gonna want to give her back," he said.
"Please," she said. "I don't want to make trouble for anyone. I don't want to put anybody in jail. I just want my daughter back."
Jim handed the picture to the other biker, who had meandered over. Another large, mean-looking guy with scars and tattoos. "Never seen her," the biker said.
"Me either," Jim admitted. "But you know, we don't see everyone all the time. I get reports. We talk on the phone, but we rarely all get together at one time."
Sue told him about Creature and the Orlando trip, the identification from the Majik Market. Jim asked several questions, all coming back to: "What are you going to do if your daughter doesn't want to come
There was something highly intelligent in Big Jim's enunciation.
"I told you, that's her choice. But you must know how I feel? I can tell you're an educated man," Sue concluded, purposefully trying to appeal to his vanity.
Big Jim laughed. "Hell, lady, what do you think bikers are? We're too smart to take shit from anybody in some nine-to-five job. I was valedictorian of my class! Now, have a beer, lady. While I make a few calls."
Sue sipped from a cold can while Jim got on the phone. He seemed to be talking in code with guys about how many "shirts" had been sold, or how much "heat" was around. Little by little he would get around to the subject at hand. "Tell Creature to call me if you see him. He's headed to Tennessee," he said during the final call. He turned to Sue. "If your daughter is in the Outlaw nation, we'll find her," he said.
"I've heard that before," Sue said doubtfully.
"Oh, yeah? Well, you never heard it from me," Big Jim responded.
Sue looked at this giant, filthy, tattooed Sasquatch and realized that he was president of a nation within a nation, every bit as powerful in his own way as a great Mafia boss. He had the power of life and death over his tribe, and beware anyone who lied, cheated, or stole from him. A bit of calm washed over her, and she patted his large, callused, greasy hand. "I believe in you," she said.
Big Jim's eyes locked with hers, and she could feel some softness, some communication, between them. His would be an act of mercy, not because he was kindhearted or sympathetic, if those emotions could still be found in his heart. No, he would do it because he had the power. Simply because he could.
-4-
T his crisis provoked a strange paradox by bringing out the nobility in the most brutal of people and turning otherwise normal characters into vultures. The Glasser twins' "prank" and the other false extortion attempts are prime examples of the amazing depths that some people can sink to in order to prey on their fellow human beings. But as vile as they were, these acts were arguably perpetrated by the immature, people whose moral compass had not yet been formed. But how do you explain the following?
In October of 1974, two former Dade County narcotics agents, Bobby Barr and Carlos Rojas, contacted the Billigs through a lawyer. "We really know these bikers," they told Sue over the phone. "We will find her."
"Oh, thank you," Sue said, deeply grateful.
"We will need $3,000," the man continued.
> A lump formed in Sue's throat. "We're selling everything we own, but we just don't have much money left," she confided.
"See how much you can dig up," the man told her.
Sue and Ned spent a couple of days raising the cash. The couple had already sold their 1954 Bentley, which was well-known around town, and that money had already been spent. The Help Find Amy Billig account was down to a few dollars. The gallery had pretty much already been cleaned out of its valuable stock, but a few customers bought some lesser known artists at cut-rate prices to help them out. Susan sold some jewelry. They scraped together $1,500 and, accompanied by Father Hingston, a local minister, met the ex-policemen at a Denny's.
The two men, with dark Latin looks that had helped their undercover careers in Miami, were dressed professionally in suits and ties and exuded an air of authority.
"All we can put together is $1,500," Sue said. "But believe me, if you find her, we'll make it worth your while. There's the $2,000 in an escrow account at the Coconut Grove Bank, and we'll hold a benefit if we have too. Anything. You won't be sorry."
One man looked at the other and nodded, then reached across the table for the envelope of cash. He didn't count it before putting it in his jacket pocket. He patted Sue's hand. "Don't worry, Mrs. Billig, this is the best investment you ever made. We'll call you every day from wherever we are." He smiled.
"Call collect from anywhere," Sue said in a hopeful tone. "It'll make me feel good knowing you're out there."
"We will," the detective assured her.
They ate their sandwiches, drank their coffees, and
Sue paid the check. The group of five left the restaurant together and said their goodbyes in the parking lot.
While driving their silver station wagon home, they came across a lovely young teenager hitchhiking under the shade of a banyan tree, just blocks from where Amy had last been seen.
Something roared in Susan's head. "Stop, Ned.”
Ned pulled the car over to the side of the road and Sue jumped onto the sidewalk. The young blonde, wearing Birkenstocks, a tie-dyed T-shirt knotted at the midriff, and blue-jean hip-huggers, skipped toward the car in glee. "Thanks for stopping!" she called out.
"What, are you crazy?" Sue scolded. "Do you know how dangerous hitchhiking is?"
The girl halted. "This isn't a ride?"
Sue sighed. "My daughter was picked up a few blocks from here, just months ago, and we've never seen her again. Haven't you seen the signs we put up? I used to hitch all the time, but it's too dangerous now." The girl crinkled her blue eyes and flashed a smile. "I don't get in a car if there's a bad vibe."
"My daughter said the same thing, honey," Sue reprimanded. "You just have to be wrong once! We'll take you into town, but you have to promise me you won't do this anymore. You can't. Don't put your parents through what we've been through."
On the short ride into town, Sue told the girl Amy's story and could see it gradually sinking into the young woman 's naive head. By the time they left their passenger in Coconut Grove, the young woman had been evangelized. "Okay, Mrs. Billig," she said. "I swear I won't hitch anymore. I swear."
"And tell your friends, girls and boys—it doesn't matter," Sue said. "It's a different world we're living in now."
And it was. The Broadway musical Hair was still a success. The Fifth Dimension version of the great new age optimistic song, "Age of Aquarius," was a radio hit. Even five years later, the feeling of Woodstock still reverberated in the air. Peace and understanding would rule the world. But as the Watergate investigation inched forward and gas shortages became commonplace, cruel reality was slowly impinging on this age of innocence.
The ex-officers were just more evidence of the changing world, showing the true nature of the Age of Aquarius being ushered in.
Night after night, Sue and Ned made sure someone was always by the phone. The detectives had taken their money, spoken their promises, and kissed Sue good-bye on the cheek. Sue had invested more than her money. She had invested her priceless trust in the basic goodness of man, a human trait that she wouldn't disbelieve. It kept her sane, hoping that even if Amy had been kidnapped—a terrible act—that she was still alive unharmed, because there would be no reason to kill her.
"God, have I learned about human nature," she says now.
Night after night they waited for the detectives to adhere to their promise: "We'll call you every day from wherever we are."
They took the money the Billigs scraped together. Money that could have gone to useful purposes. But they never called. "A month later I finally tracked them down," Sue recalls. "They said they'd searched all over Central Florida, all the way up to Atlanta and Tennessee, before the expense money ran out.”
They never called collect because, Sue says, "I don't think they ever left town." Vultures.
This was an achingly difficult time for the Billigs. The trail had cooled. Calls to Big Jim Nolan were producing little. "I'm on it," he told her. But he had bigger things on his mind.
A lot bigger things.
Authorities were beginning to crack down on the brotherhood. The Hell's Angels bodies found at the rock quarry had caused an outcry. At a recent concert in a public park, the Outlaws had started whipping hippies with chains again. The public's love fest with the biker image was eroding. Arrests were being made. One biker got time for kidnapping, another for drug charges. Soon prosecutors might get someone to "flip" on his buddies.
Sid Fast called. His deep New York accent sounded sincere. "Big Jim wanted me to give you some info. Seems Creature sold Amy before he left for Tennessee."
Sue wished she could order Fast to explain just how a woman could be bought, sold, traded, and treated like an animal or a slave. The idea turned her stomach inside out. But that kind of anger wouldn't get her anywhere, and it certainly wouldn't help Amy. "Sold her? To who!" she asked, her voice shaking.
"I don't know. Someone who isn't an Outlaw. They were taking her to New York. We'll see what else we can find out. But if she isn't with Outlaws anymore, it's going to be a lot harder."
If this was a put-off, Sue wanted him to feel bad. "I trust you," she told him with a shaky voice. "I know you're a good man and you'll do your best."
That made him think. "Yeah, that's what my mother always said."
But the calls petered out. Big Jim's big promises were abruptly back-burnered when he was arrested for threatening a police officer at a bar. It was really just a reason for authorities to keep him from skipping town. But afterward, finding Amy wasn't his top priority, if it ever had been. Prosecutors had something else up their sleeve, too. Soon Big Jim was indicted for the Hell's Angels rock-pit murders.
Sue and Ned stayed in therapy to control the depression. Sue would have a glass of wine or two, but was never a big drinker. It was more difficult for Ned, perhaps because of his supportive rather than front-line role in the search. He had loved his little girl, and this wasn't the future he'd seen for her or their family.
The big question was: Why didn't Amy call? In all this time, hadn't there been a second when she was left alone near a phone?
The couple's therapist advised them that Amy "might be subject to the Stockholm syndrome. You
know, like Patty Hearst." The syndrome was groundbreaking news at the time, categorized in 1973 after four hostages were taken by robbers during a failed bank heist in Stockholm, Sweden. When authorities tried to rescue them six days later, the captives resisted. Later they refused to testify against the criminals and helped them raise money for their legal defense. One hostage even became engaged to one of her former captors during his prison sentence.
About the same time Amy had disappeared, the heiress Patty Hearst had been kidnapped by the Symbionese Liberation Army and become a fellow revolutionary who helped them knock over banks.
The same syndrome was rampant in the biker culture. While many women gravitated to the life for their own reasons, others were basically kidnapped, indoctrinated, and brainwashed
so thoroughly that they stayed for life, even when they could have escaped.
The more time that went by, the bolder Sue became. In the first days, she had cried endlessly. But by the time of the Orlando trip, she had become indomitable. Like mothers who had lifted wrecked cars off of their children, finding unknowable depths of strength and courage, she had entered the intimidating biker lair at Big Jim Nolan's without anybody knowing where she'd gone. In the future, she would do worse.
One incident from that period is branded forever into her memory.
"Some friends of ours from New York had come down to lend moral support. After dinner, the guys were doing something in the other room, and my girlfriend and I were sitting on the couch reminiscing about Amy. Suddenly I heard a girl screaming outside, 'Help me. Help!' To me it was Amy. My friend froze, but I jumped up and rushed outside into the darkness. Bushes were rustling across the street, and the girl was screaming. I dashed across the street, where there were two figures fighting. One was a girl, with blood smeared across her face."
The other person was a man twice Sue's size, but she didn't hesitate. She threw her tiny, 100-pound body between the victim and assailant and thrust him aside. "Get out of here!" she yelled, and the man scuttled away.
"It's all right," Sue said, hustling the terrified teenager into her house. "Ned, call the police."
"I was babysitting," the girl explained as Sue wiped the blood from her nose. "I can't believe it, that was my old boyfriend. He's mad because I'm seeing someone else. He's a very violent guy, and I think he would have hurt me."
It was only after the police had arrived and taken the girl home that Sue trembled in Ned's arms, realizing she could have been killed in someone else's domestic quarrel. She told Ned, "I know I should have waited for you men, but it was like Amy was calling me! That girl is someone's daughter. Don't you hope someone would do the same for Amy, wherever she is?" "It's good karma," Ned agreed.
Years later, when Sue was attending a play at the Coconut Grove Playhouse, a woman approached her with tears in her eyes. "You probably don't remember me," she said, "but you saved me one night years ago. I just wanted to thank you and let you know everything has turned out right for me. I really think I might have been killed that night if it wasn't for you." Of course Sue remembered her.