“Next time I come, I’ll sell you a pound of high-grade shit.” Bull passed his joint to Gringo. “In Montana we all carry medical marijuana cards.” We had to bust him in another state.
I held my breath. Gringo huddled too close to Bull to reject his offer. Heat from the fire made me light-headed. This was it. We were done. Gringo took the joint. There was no way to rescue him. I watched him touch it to his lips and fake inhale. Panic shot through me as I scanned the faces around the fire, looking for subtle changes in expression, an eyelash flicker, a jaw twitch, a forehead wrinkle. But incredibly, no one noticed. And Gringo played it beautifully. He never flinched, never wavered. Cool. Smooth. Only his eyes watered slightly as he passed along the joint.
Bull, meanwhile, prattled on, and I hoped the drugs had anesthetized the crowd long enough for us to exit. Snuff lost interest in the bonfire and wandered off; the pills he had ingested on an empty stomach no doubt left him jittery and depressed. Random shouts split the dark like buckshot. Faces around the bonfire distorted into long howls. Chills coursed through me. Wind picked up. And before the joint made it around to me, I whined about my shoulder and stabbing pain. Bull stared dully in my direction. Gringo took my cue and scrambled to stand. As he did, his wire protruded from his neckline like a stationary horsefly. He had worn it all day so he could transmit sound in real time. The microphone, usually concealed inside his clothing, bobbed conspicuously. How long had it been sticking out like that? Had anyone noticed? Shock slid behind Gringo’s eyes. Neither of us spoke as we drifted from the circle, turned slowly, and waited for the bullet.
* * *
At the hotel, we stressed about the exposed wire, replayed what-if scenarios in our head. Did they see it? Did they not? Finally Gringo laughed it off: a spooky phenomenon, an inexplicable pardon. Next time he would be more careful. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I didn’t sleep. My arm throbbed. I padded down the hallway for ice. The stained mustard carpet with its black spots looked like a thousand eyes watching me. Slowly, I returned to the room and sat on the bed. Sheets bunched at my feet. The ice numbed my arm. Spilled moonlight cast a cool blue glow over us. We were all awake. We said nothing. Soon, we would return to Halloween town. None of us would wear a wire.
* * *
No one stirred until dusk the next day, when an Outlaw named Shia appeared like something recycled, used plastic spit into a new mold. His brown eyes bugged behind thick glasses. A mustache of sweat bordered his mouth. His cuts cropped above his protruding balloon belly. Rumors swirled that Shia’s wife pushed him into prospecting for the Outlaws, hoping the role would “toughen him up” and transform him into an eligible Outlaw.
He boldly displayed his coke and a loaded revolver strapped to his hip. I baited him, asked him if he had any extra for JD and me. Shia smiled, waddled off to call his drug source, and within the hour motioned us both inside his sedan. He resembled a bloated child with a gun. In the shadowy dark parking lot of Halloween town, I slid into Shia’s passenger seat and JD climbed into the back. My knees practically brushed my chest.
Shia held up his stash, his “nose candy,” and with a wide stupid grin, plunged a rusty spoon into the fine white powder. My nerves already shot, I was in no mood to deflect him. Shia offered JD a taste. I caught JD’s surprise in the rearview mirror. This was a test we couldn’t flunk. A light drizzle splashed across the windshield. “Fucking rain,” I barked. We had only seconds to improvise. If Shia picked up our foul scent, he would pounce. JD took the spoon. I shifted, joked about the cramped space, his car being too small and my body too wide.
Shia jerked at my tone and his attention drifted long enough for JD to toss the powder.
“That’s good shit.” JD broke the tension and pretended to pick his nose with his pinkie.
Shia grinned, swiveled to the front, and handed me the spoon. Metal glinted in the half-light and I felt my face flush. I knew addicts, knew their single-minded purpose, knew what blow did to a person’s brain. We had been tested before with drugs, but never like this, never this close. Shia’s revolver shined near my thigh; headlights from passing cars lit up his face like lightning flashing over a field. JD repeated my dance and distracted Shia long enough for me to dump the coke. Shia took our cash, gave us a quarter ounce, and opened the door. He wobbled off like a desperate rat in search of more trash.
27
Raw
Shia resurfaced throughout the investigation in different forms. A week later, Brian showed up unexpectedly at our clubhouse toting a prostitute and a bag of speed. Bobby and I entertained him. All night Brian baited me, desperate for me to taste his “shit.” Meanwhile, his date spread on our couch looking like a doll missing its stuffing. Sickly and used, knotted blond hair, pale arms puffed blue with track marks, she was Brian’s prop. Part of him spilled over her legs as he shared the couch with her, the hilt of his gun flashed on his hip.
“What kind do you have there?” Bobby engaged him.
Brian smiled, wiggled free from the woman, and proudly slid his .380 onto the bar in prime view of the cameras. The night stretched into dawn, and finally, when Brian’s stash dwindled, he slapped his prostitute awake and headed for the door. “Can you leave me a line?” I called after him, knowing he had only a small portion left. Brian hesitated. I had deflected him all night. He trained his small nervous eyes on me and relented. He plunked his bag on the counter and said, “Take the rest.” I nodded, watched him leave, watched him stuff his doll woman into the backseat of his sedan and squeeze his dumpy self behind the steering wheel. In a few hours his life would repeat: The woman in the backseat would stir, chilled and disoriented, and he would pay her again with drugs to be his date. He would tell her he was something, a real Outlaw, a real outcast.
* * *
Next time I asked for weed.
But that backfired, too. “How come you never have any on you?” an Outlaw challenged me once. I made up excuses: I couldn’t carry weed with me when I rode. What if I got stopped by the cops? The Outlaws continued to test us. They brought coke to our clubhouse, urged us to do lines with them on the floor. Gringo shook his head and said, “Not in the open,” motioning to the partyers, some of whom we had invited inside from the local bars. In order to look the part of a legitimate chapter, we threw frequent parties at our clubhouse, always prepared for the unexpected visitor.
“We don’t know who they are,” Gringo explained. “They might be cops.”
And one by one the Outlaws filed into the restroom, Gringo, too. He flushed his stash down the toilet, and when he emerged minutes later he looked like the rest of them, red nosed, wide-eyed, and fidgety. He should have received an Oscar for his brilliant performance.
JD deflected further suspicion by offering me up as entertainment: “Do your midget routine.” Foam flew from his beer mug and settled in his goatee. Outlaws gathered around on our pink sofa chairs eager to hear my profane one-liners.
“How come I’m the show?” I laughed uneasily, put down my dirty rag, and assumed my best Vince Vaughn impression.
“I wouldn’t mind having midgets for the clubhouse. We could make them hustle for drinks.”
“They’re not human, man,” one Outlaw roared. He flashed yellow incisors at me.
“Can you imagine if my old lady was a midget?” I began, and I regretted the line as soon as I said it.
“We’ve never seen your ol’ lady.” I knew where this was going. Bridgett again.
“She probably flew off the back of your bike,” another heckled.
“I’d strap her on with bungee cords.” My routine was working. Not only did it distract the Outlaws from further drug pushing, but it endeared me to them, protected my cover. No way could I be a cop or an informant if I was as disgusting as them. Still, I kept a fake photo of an infant boy on my cell phone just in case anyone probed. And I told them my old lady couldn’t come around because she watched my kid. They didn’t care, not really, they just wanted to unnerve me.
“I should have a mi
ni-me, a mini-Chef.”
They roared. “I could prop him in the corner, drag him with me on a leash, or clip him to my chest in a baby sling.”
“You could dress him up in minicuts,” one Outlaw shrieked with laughter.
“You could make him fight for you.”
“Midget wrestling.” I pretended to endorse the idea. Their laughter echoed in the room, made the hair on the back of my neck bristle.
“Fuck that. We should just toss them from the rooftop and watch them splat on the cement.” They cackled, cheered, toasted. I was a big hit. I detached from them, from their hollow faces, from their darkness.
And as they funneled out of the clubhouse, one texted me midget porn.
He winked. “Until we can get Bridgett.”
* * *
As promised, Bull arrived several weeks later from Montana. He showed up at our Petersburg clubhouse in the late afternoon and brokered a marijuana deal with Gringo; he could deliver three pounds of marijuana worth over $13,000. Gringo made him a partial payment, earnest money in the amount of $2,500 in government funds. But Bull never made it back with the drugs. The agents made sure police stopped him in possession of five pounds of marijuana and two assault rifles.
* * *
My dual life took its toll. One morning, early, in bitter cold, I sat in my car with the engine on. Heat blasted my face. Flurries blew around my wife and newborn son framed in the doorway of my house. Still dressed in pajamas and slippers, she waved good-bye to me. A smile stained her face. She had long ago mourned the loss of me. Guilt wedged in my throat. I couldn’t stop being undercover, couldn’t stop being husband and father, couldn’t stop being broken or hunted. My family, my job seduced me. I wanted both, needed both. But at times the pressure to deliver nearly cracked me. There was no “time off” in war, no “safe zone.” I compartmentalized my family, kept them contained in a field fenced with barbed wire.
The agents and I returned again to North Carolina and the Charlotte clubhouse. I followed behind them in the undercover car as the agents fishtailed through sleet. Still groggy from pain medication, and with my arm in a sling, we entered the clubhouse prepared to discuss hunting humans. Gringo tucked his wire inside his thick cable sweater. Winter blew around us. JD’s trench coat swallowed him. Bobby wore a mask of calm. Only a bluish tint around his lips telegraphed his half-frozen state. His cuts, stiff from cold and wet, glazed with ice. Our boots left puddles on the concrete. Heaviness filled the air.
Les, now the Charlotte chapter vice president, ushered us into a back room. The space resembled a large closet and smelled of wood chips. Unease itched down my spine. This was different, against pattern. Prospects bolted the two doors behind us. The clicks resounded like bullets loading in a chamber. Plywood boarded the windows. Something was up. M & M was propped against a crate looking like a muscle. Had we just walked into an ambush? Shut in, closed off, it would be impossible for the cover team to reach us in time. Panic raced through my head. Had they seen Gringo’s wire after all? Did they know he was a federal agent? Did they know I was an informant? Reason took over; they would have shot me by now, dropped me on the concrete and watched my blood drain; the agents they might beat silly, pull their patches, and kick them out, but they might not kill them. Me, they would kill.
Ten other Outlaws from our region joined us. They all looked nervous. Eyes dropped to the floor, hands folded across chests, winter in their cheeks.
“You’ve heard about Ivan?” M & M briefed us. The Tennessee Outlaw had recently kidnapped a sheriff’s deputy at gunpoint and threatened to shoot him. Ivan had reliable intelligence that the deputy, who was posing as an Outlaw, was actually undercover. After threatening to torture the deputy, Ivan, in the end, simply confiscated the deputy’s colors.
“We’re taking precautions.” M & M folded his arms and barked, “Everyone strip.”
Nerves slicked my body. Gringo blanched. Rifles and shotguns lined the walls. If the Outlaws found Gringo’s wire, we were as good as dead. The cover team would be too late. With an injured shoulder, I had no way to return fire. Thinking quickly, I yanked down my pants, wriggled out of my boxers, and flashed my ass in the Outlaws’ faces.
“You want a piece of me?” I hoped my spectacle was enough of a distraction. Bent over, head between my legs, I gauged M & M’s reaction; he smirked, shifted uncomfortably, flustered, but before he could protest, Bobby took my cue and stripped. Slowly, he unbuttoned his jeans, untangled his legs from stiff, ice-flecked denim. He tossed the jeans to the side and, in his underwear, modeled for the members, sashaying his hips as if he were in some kind of drag queen beauty contest. Les snickered; the prospects chuckled. M & M bristled. I whistled, tried to stall the audience. Gringo was next. Bobby prolonged his production, pretended his arms were twisted in the sleeves of his bulky sweater. He was the headless horseman. We had only seconds. JD unbuttoned his trench coat. Gringo was next. The room spun. Overwhelming sadness gripped me.
This would be my last image, a cold, white, boarded-up space. I thought of rabbits, when they died, how their eyes snapped final shots like camera flashes. Gringo visibly paled. This was it. I wanted to thank him, tell him he’d saved me, gave me such a life. I hoped he knew I forgave him for riding so fast. He looked up, stared at me with wet eyes, and winked. Fear shivered through me. I knew all of us felt the tremor. But we were outnumbered. The end would last only seconds.
But then something miraculous happened. M & M had had enough; we “were taking too long.” “Leave your coats in your car and come back in so we can do this quickly.”
Relief etched into Gringo’s face as he bolted outside into the winter chill, exhaled by his bike, and slowly unraveled his wire.
* * *
Later I reminded Gringo of the party in Brockton and Monster, the chapter’s regional boss. He’d feasted on lobster, tore soft white meat between his teeth, sprinkled paprika on a claw, and bragged about bombings he’d orchestrated.
“I threw a grenade once on a Hells Angels’ clubhouse roof.” Clear juice dribbled down his chin. “It landed in the fucker’s yard and blew up his rottweiler.” He wiped his sticky fingers on a paper napkin and reached into his pocket. He produced something that resembled a pager, and my heart stopped. “Check this out.” I knew instantly what it was.
“It’s a bug detector.” Monster held the device close to my chest. “The thing vibrates if it detects a wire.”
“Nice.” I smothered a smile, dipped a lobster claw into butter sauce, and felt light-headed. Thankfully, none of us had worn a wire that day.
Monster chuckled. “Fucking feds.” He tucked the bug detector into his vest. “I like you.” He laughed. “You’re quiet, funny.” He pressed his thumb to his temple. “You’re smart.” Then he pulled off his T-shirt with an Irish three-leaf clover and handed it to me. “Take it,” he said, his flesh as pale as the underbelly of a fish. “You should have a souvenir.” It meant something to him. The Outlaws’ skeleton logo appeared on the front. They didn’t make those shirts anymore. He thought it a great honor to give me the relic.
“The trick is not to mind it,” I told Gringo.
“I mind it.” Gringo’s face reddened. We all did. The psychological warfare was worse than the physical. Each night at the clubhouse we reviewed the day’s play, mentally checking off the conversations we’d had, the inflections and tones, the facial expressions. These were our maps. We studied them, memorized them, and learned to read them like white water. “Young” rivers had steep drops and waterfalls; “old” rivers coursed through flatlands; “middle-aged” rivers had a combination of both and were typically the most deadly.
That night I dreamed of rushing rapids, of light shallow water, of warning Vs in the ripples. There’s something down there, I shouted into cold winds. But no one heard me. River left. I paddled furiously toward shore. River left. Get out. Get out. Eddy the boat. Obstacle ahead.
* * *
After that close call, I worried that I had
become a liability to the team. M & M’s impromptu strip search rattled me. It had been too close. And I had been helpless to defend against bullet spray. After four months, I begged my doctor to “take a second look” at my arm.
He scheduled another MRI. I waited anxiously in my paper robe for the results.
The doctor looked grim, his pasty cheeks drained of bloom. “I’m sorry,” he began. “The first surgery did absolutely nothing.” He suggested a “redo,” that I simply rewind the last four months. I felt sick. The tendons in my shoulder had snapped like “rubber bands,” he explained. If he cut just “two more inches” and reattached them, he might reduce the pain. Might. He warned that if this procedure failed, I would never regain mobility of my arm. I would lose everything. I would be an invalid, invalid. If I never punched again, never pulled a trigger, never rode a motorcycle … what would I be?
* * *
Guilt tore at me. I had risked my family, risked everything, for a chance to save them, for a chance to give them “normal.” They trusted me. My wife did not deserve to be anonymous. I thought I could do it, penetrate a violent world, eradicate the beasts, and leave unscathed, leave the streets safer. After all, I had accomplished as much with the Vagos.
But being an Outlaw was entirely different. Not only was the gang infinitely more brutal and unpredictable, but I was different, too, and I had underestimated the toll my commitment to the work would have on my wife and son. In the program, she and I lived an artificially contained existence. Security was paramount, so much so that it made our lives sterile. We knew each other’s schedules. We ate meals together and enjoyed full conversations. Undercover, that kind of routine wasn’t possible. Even when I was home, I wasn’t home. My thoughts drifted to the gang, to my dual persona. At night, if I slept at all, I had disturbing visions, pressure on my chest, loud bangs in my ear like exploding buckshot. I searched for my missing arm. Harsh wind blew through the gaping socket.
Vagos, Mongols, and Outlaws: My Infiltration of America's Deadliest Biker Gangs Page 20