Vagos, Mongols, and Outlaws: My Infiltration of America's Deadliest Biker Gangs

by Charles Falco

  “What do you know about it?” His pale eyes pinned me in the dark, unsettling and cold like the steady gaze of a fly.

  “You murdered a woman, brutally.” I restated the obvious.

  “She deserved it.” Jan crushed the spider between his fingers and its bulbous belly burst.

  “If you brag to me one more time about wanting to be a serial killer, I’m going to kill you.”

  * * *

  As the designated Rep, I checked people every three days. Mostly the violations involved words exchanged between the races, jeers or insults mouthed through the glass. I also reviewed new arrivals’ papers to make sure they had been classified correctly. I paced, wired by lack of sleep and heightened awareness, knowing if I missed an affront, if a check went unpunished, my inaction could spark a prison riot. I had some perks—my own table in the dayroom, extra food.

  I was king of the killers.

  Each morning I led the Woods in mandatory exercise—four hundred push-ups, two hundred sit-ups—like a general preparing his soldiers for war. Actually, it helped me pass the time. And meanwhile, twenty feet across from us in the dayroom, the Hispanics chanted their own battle cry: “Big, Bad Sous” (Serranos Southern California Mexicans). I gave geriatrics and inmates suffering from drug withdrawals a pass. Once the steel doors buzzed open, each inmate had two minutes to scramble to his place in line and drop to the floor for push-ups.

  But there were always inmates who refused. One Wood in particular perpetually missed his workouts. The steel doors to his cell buzzed shut after two minutes and he stared at me through the glass, a wry smile plastered on his face. Maybe he was testing me? When his cell door reopened two hours later, I hovered in the entrance, arms folded, weary of the game.

  “You know the rules.”

  “What if I don’t like the rules?”

  “I’m going to have to check you,” I said, and I knew he was in trouble. Independent thinking had no place in the tank, no place in a gang, no place in the real world. I felt sorry for him. He was part of a cycle; he challenged, I disciplined, and if I detoured, someone else would discipline me. War operated in the same fashion. Good, decent people could not exist in this environment. It was the natural order of things.

  The inmate lowered his head, nodded, and accepted his punishment. “When?”

  “Tomorrow. After lunch.”

  The next day the inmate surrendered to his fate behind the stairs. Woods punched him for thirty seconds in the stomach.

  A few days later, the same inmate did it again. As the steel doors buzzed shut, he remained asleep, curled on his side, back to the dayroom. Again, I ordered the Bullets to beat him.

  “I can’t stay in here much longer,” I advised Koz over the phone. “It’s just a matter of time before I get more charges.”

  “We can pull you out right now,” Koz said.

  I stalled. “Let me get to the preliminary hearing.” There was no rush, not really. The ATF wasn’t paying me for my services. I didn’t cost them any money being incarcerated. In fact, Koz confided to me once that I was “the cheapest” investigation his agency had ever funded. Had I been a government agent, my stint in jail would have ended far sooner.

  The same Wood emerged flushed and sweaty from beneath the stairs after his third beating in two days and, undeterred, committed yet another violation. He shoveled in a few bites of runny mush, then pushed his plate aside and left the table before the others finished eating.

  I scraped back my chair and blocked his exit. “What’s the matter with you?”

  The inmate, tall and skinny, with a zipper tattoo across his skull, sucked in his breath and shrugged. “These rules are stupid.”

  The other Woods at the table watched me intently, their plastic forks paused midbite. Instinct propelled me and I head-butted the inmate hard, split open the thin flesh on his scalp and tore the length of one eyebrow. Stunned, the inmate fell backward. A whimper escaped his lips. My heart raced. I hadn’t meant to attack in the open, in front of the blacks and Hispanics, in plain view of the deputies. But my impulsive act produced the effect I wanted. The inmate grabbed his forehead. Blood seeped through cracks between his fingers. Other inmates quickly dispersed, all of us mindful that at any given moment a deputy could enter and we would all be in trouble.

  “Go back to your cell and stay there for a couple of days,” I ordered. Both of us knew better than to report the other. My head throbbed from the assault. I was sure the inmate needed stitches, but that wasn’t going to happen. He held a rag to his head and shuffled into his cell. With one eye swollen shut he glared at me through the other, blinked back blood, and nodded. We understood the unspoken rules.

  * * *

  Two days later, the black deputy eyed the damaged Wood suspiciously. The inmate’s face looked bruised and shiny, his eye still swollen shut.

  “What happened to you?” the deputy sneered and stood inches from his face. My own head still throbbed from the gash in my forehead.

  “I fell down the stairs.” The inmate played the game.

  “Sure you did.” The deputy glanced down the line at all of us, looking for cracks in our expressions for signs of slippage. We all stood stoic, eyes straight ahead, the code of silence in full force.

  * * *

  A few days later a Hispanic inmate who called himself Beast motioned me over, said he wanted to speak in private. “I know what you are,” he whispered, his accent thick.

  I knew what he was, too, a triple murderer. I had read about Beast in the local paper before my incarceration. He was a drug dealer who had gunned down several of his cousin’s “problems” in the confines of his own garage. Unfortunately, Beast had also inadvertently shot and killed his cousin. His pronouncement jolted me, but there was no way he could know who I really was.

  He looked at me with small flat eyes and asked simply, “What do I have to do to be a Vago?” I couldn’t believe it. Beast actually wanted to prospect. He wanted me to sponsor him. I couldn’t imagine how I would accomplish that given the confines of the Murder Unit, but it would play well with the Vagos, especially since Psycho had lost control of his tank and had renounced his own gang. He had not been asked to be the Rep.

  “Vinny.” I cupped the phone to my ear later in the dayroom. He now served as the vice president of the Victorville chapter, the second oldest chapter in the Vagos’ history and the birthplace of the Hells Angels’ first chapter. “Beast says he wants to be a Vago prospect.”

  “That motherfucker is in there with you? He’s hard-core.” Vinny deferred to me, and I suddenly realized the clout I had with the club. I sponsored Beast. But I couldn’t really order him around, not the way a true Vago prospect would be ordered to serve. That would only incite a race riot. Beast had to remain a predator for his own survival. Still, Beast enjoyed the idea of being my prospect. I had a natural rapport with him, having grown up in a Hispanic barrio. Plus, Beast and I had drug dealing in common. The Woods and Hispanics were considered allies against the blacks. Having a prospect slave like Beast at my command bolstered my image in the eyes of my fellow Woods as well as the Vagos. Practically, I knew there was no chance Beast would ever emerge on the outside. He faced a triple life sentence and would likely rot in prison.

  The night Beast became my official prospect, a riot erupted in the tank next to mine. The commotion began, as all fights did in the Murder Unit, over race. A black inmate disrespected a Hispanic, and the Hispanics, forced to retaliate, attacked with fists and makeshift shanks, knives carved out of toothbrushes, razor blades melted into pens. Dark stripped away the inmates’ toughness, left them raw and exposed. Sounds morphed into wails, pained anguish, yelps, cries that wrenched through steel. Latches opened, and through the small portal deputies hurled grenades into the cell. They contained tiny rubber balls that smacked the skin like bullets, traveling at speeds of four hundred miles an hour.

  “Like being hit with a baseball bat,” Jan described. The dayroom filled with smoke. My eyes sm
arted. I watched an inmate get struck in the ass, fall to his knees, and sob from the pain.

  “This happens sometimes,” Jan breathed, his face too close to mine, through the portal. His lips were chapped and a small row of pimples formed around the edges. “Fucking animals.”

  And it struck me that brutality was human, that each of us had savage impulses we contained and civilized rules we aimed to follow to redirect our primal instincts into productive tasks. A person’s desire to kill, for instance, could be channeled into a desire to hunt. Slaughtering a deer or a pig was acceptable if the animal provided nourishment. But killing for thrill was just plain murder. In here, in these cells, inmates concerned only with their own base desires became unable to see each other as human beings. The more beatings they endured, the easier it became for them to harm and kill each other. Mistreatment facilitated the process of dehumanization. It was only a matter of time before they turned on one another.

  * * *

  By my third week as Rep I had upgraded to commissary food, M&M’s and ramen noodles. As I checked each new arrival’s paperwork to make sure he had been properly classified in his tank, I noticed a lump curled on a mattress “boat” in the dayroom. We had no cells available. Twist slept knees to his chest on a bald pad in the middle of the floor. His skin had a bluish tint and he looked like he suffered from drug withdrawal. What were the odds that Twist would be thrown into my tank?

  I tapped on my cell window to get his attention. “Hey, dude.”

  He opened one hooded eye and shuddered.

  “Want some M&M’s?” I waved the bag at him.

  His lips curled into a crooked smile and he shook his head.

  “What are you in here for?” I hoped it wasn’t for another murder. Koz had ensured that Twist’s original charges had been dropped; still, I knew eventually I would have to testify against Twist. That fact never bothered me. I always knew my job. The line between gangster and hero never blurred. I had no love for Twist or what he represented. Prison was just a revolving door for damaged people like him. The Vagos, like any outlaw gang, backed their own because they loved to fight; loyalty, brotherhood, code had nothing to do with it. Respect was just another word for fear. Members bragged they could always count on their Vago brothers to bail them out. But it was all illusion; it was all bullshit.

  “Felon in possession,” Twist mumbled, and he spent the next two days asleep.

  * * *

  And then I heard about Bernard, a Mexican drug dealer housed in a nearby federal facility, who faced twenty-five years minimum in prison. Thanks to me. His case circulated in the papers. It was a case I had worked before ever infiltrating the Vagos. His trial loomed in the weeks ahead. I planned to testify against Bernard. But as long as I remained in the Murder Unit, my identity could be revealed, my cover blown, my life taken. It wouldn’t take long before he learned through pretrial discovery my information, my exact cell and unit, my affiliation with the Vagos. And Bernard wouldn’t need a contract hit.

  I shivered in the dark, listening intently to chains rattle metal. A large clock in the deputies’ tower ticked the hours. Nearly midnight, and I sensed Bernard’s presence like an amputated limb. He knew I was in the Murder Unit. Paranoia settled in. I imagined the Hispanics emptying their cells, blowing into mine like a harsh wind, knocking my head into the wall, carving me up with their knives. Worry chipped at my resolve. Each time the cells opened, I anticipated the deadly assault, helpless to stop it but determined to end my days fighting.

  “He’ll kill me if he finds out I’m in here,” I told Koz. “He’s tight with the Mexican Mafia.” He never became a member of that prison gang, easily one of the most brutal and ruthless in existence. Bernard didn’t need to join La eMe; he was a millionaire drug dealer who didn’t want to spend the rest of his life in prison. If he wanted me dead, he only needed to name his price. And there was no way I would ever testify against a Mexican Mafia member.

  “The prosecutor wants to interview you for Bernard’s case,” Koz said.

  I absorbed the news with dread. “If I’m singled out and the only one taken from my cell, I’ll just attract suspicion.”

  “What do you suggest?”

  I hesitated, knew my only option. “Put me in the hole.”

  The next day, Kiles made sure fifteen of us Reps moved cells. By relocating all of us at once, she ensured my safety. I would not be singled out. I would not arouse suspicion. Beast grunted a sincere good-bye, mumbled something about seeing me soon, on the outside. Hard-core gangsters hugged me in succession. They wrapped clumsy arms around my shoulders, some knuckle-punched my fist, even Jan looked genuinely sad. I felt like a celebrity walking the gauntlet, shaking hands, making false promises, hoping to see them each again. The inmates parted the way for me like I was Moses leaving my people.

  I went to solitary confinement.

  10

  Solitary

  In the hole, light had its own claustrophobia, heavy and still like lake water but without the quiet. No windows, no blanket, and no fresh air. Chilly concrete walls entombed me. A mattress in the corner vomited cubes of foam. My toes curled with cold. In the next cells, Black Bubba’s government rants exploded in my head. Hollow and loud, he shouted at shadows and imagined rats that clicked through the pipes. Fear gnawed at me: What if my rescue never came? What if I were simply forgotten? After all, I didn’t exist. I curled on the hard floor with my feet touching the wall. Pain shot through my belly, my last meal a distant memory. The steel door sealed me inside like suction.

  The first few hours I spent sleepless, straining against the light, waiting for my eyes to adjust to the brightness. But they never did. This was madness: locked down for twenty-three hours a day in a cell the size of a closet. No human contact. Disembodied voices. Boredom tore at my conscience; everywhere was whiteness and dead space. Solitary, designed to house the “worst of the worst” or the mentally ill, only warehoused problems. Paranoia gripped me and I experienced druglike visions. I imagined myself behind glass in an incubator, spotlighted, watched by people I couldn’t see. I saw bodies stacked rows on rows still alive in a mass grave waiting for release. I felt my mind shutting down. Numbness. I couldn’t complete a whole thought. I saw partial faces, friends’, Bernard’s. They flashed around me like fragments from a strobe. I heard voices that melted together into white noise, difficult to make out any words. Thick tones of my father, guttural grunts of the guards, empty sounds of the other inmates. Bubba’s screams next to me. His voice echoed through the vents, boomed down the skinny hall where a shower splashed cold water on my face, stiffened my hair, and made me shiver.

  “How long have I been in here?” I asked Koz after the deputy hustled me back into my hole. I never learned his first name; he went by Atkins. But they changed all the time; sometimes the black deputy came, sometimes Mexican Hitler. They barely spoke, and as far as I could tell they had little other human interaction. They lived in silence like animals, like the inmates they supervised. They shared an office in the fishbowl, a colorless room, a box within a box.

  They never saw sunlight either. Maybe they had a family on the outside, maybe they saw them just long enough to watch them sleep. Deep lines etched into their faces, stress brought on by living in a tomb, isolated from human contact. They looked at me with an emptiness that made me shudder.

  “It’s only been three days,” Koz assured me on the telephone. Sweat drenched my shirt. I had heard of inmates who had never suffered any mental illness suddenly developing symptoms of psychosis. Solitary was the prison’s solution to gang violence. Inmates could be locked down for days, even weeks, at a time until they renounced their affiliations. But what officials failed to realize was that gangs in prison actually served a purpose: status, respect, even a sense of community. Isolating gang members in the hole only made them angry.

  I paced; the exercise increased circulation in my legs. When panic made me dizzy, I moved faster. This is what I imagined being buried alive must
feel like. I had seen programs on television about skiers lost in snowdrifts or avalanches, knowing their fate but desperate to claw their way out only to meet more snow, more whiteness, more cold. It didn’t matter that my situation was temporary; within hours I thought about death.

  Then I heard the click of the lock, the bolt slide back. Sharp light filtered through a wedge in the open door.

  “You have visitors,” the deputy said.

  * * *

  Kiles drove Koz and me to the U.S. Attorney’s Office in downtown Los Angeles after she checked me out of Solitary like a library book. The assistant U.S. attorney (AUSA) prosecuting Bernard for drug conspiracy charges wanted me to identify the particular jewelry store inside the Diamond Mart where Bernard had purchased a precious necklace. Now that Bernard had resurfaced after three years as a fugitive, his federal case resumed. And the AUSA, learning of my recent arrest, wanted me to testify against Bernard in my jail clothes.

  “The jury will wonder about [Charles’s] status.” She revealed her ignorance about my safety. After all, if I testified in jail clothes, Bernard would know I was in custody on other charges.

  “Make sure she knows I didn’t assault anyone,” I urged Koz, worried that she might revoke my federal release conditions if she believed I had committed a crime while out on bail. I had learned to trust no one, not even prosecutors. Every department had its moles, dirty cops, biker informants, overzealous defense attorneys, careless prosecutors who might let it slip that I worked undercover.

  But I had no choice. We told her.

  * * *

  Sunlight and fresh air assaulted my senses through the open car windows. My first exposure to the outside world in two months and I felt reborn: Traffic signals flashed primary colors, ocean spray tickled my nostrils, the honk of a horn jolted me, smells of rubber on asphalt—freedom. I had fantasized about this moment, envisioned burgers and fries in my cave like a mirage.

  “Any special requests?” Koz laughed.

  “In-N-Out Burger,” I blurted.