by Alex Caine
After a while, Vinny came up to me and said, “Hey, you were our only prospect here, and you did good.”
“He’s not my prospect,” interjected Mongo.
Vinny saw this as a personal challenge. “He’s the whole chapter’s prospect, you got that?” He wasn’t so much protecting me as asserting his own authority.
Mongo nodded grudgingly, like a kid who’d been chastised by his father. Still, it wasn’t enough, and Vinny decided to deal with the issue once and for all.
“You guys go off and straighten this out and don’t come back until you do.”
Mongo looked at me and told me to follow him. I got in my truck—before getting rid of the Firebird, I’d bought a 1965 Ford Twin I-Beam pickup—and followed his bike to the back end of the industrial park. I was afraid that some of my cover team might be lurking around, but we didn’t see anyone. Or maybe I was actually hoping they would be there. After all, this was a monster of a man with wild orange hair and beard and enough leather on him to dress several cows. The chain going from his belt to his wallet was a real chain, the type you use to lock up fences with. In the other corner—the “how the fuck do I get out of this?” corner—me: a 135-pound, five-foot-six runt.
We parked and Mongo told me that I had one chance to drive out of there and not come back. I told him I wasn’t going away. If he wanted to rock ’n’ roll, I might not win, but I would never back down. All he said was, “No guns, no knives.”
I watched as Mongo took two guns and two knives from various hiding places. He also detached the chain. I just took off my coat and hung it on my mirror. Then he said, “Oh, I almost forgot,” pulled up the leg of his jeans and took a small .22 from his boot. Even with Mongo disarmed, I knew I was in a very bad position. The only way I could win was to hurt him very badly, very quickly, and I hadn’t figured out how to do that yet.
He looked at me. “You know I can tear you a new asshole,” he said.
I said I knew that. Then I added, “It’s a hazard of the trade.” The line had worked at my first encounter with Vinny and Karate Bob, so why not use it again?
It hadn’t lost its charm. Mongo’s tone softened.
“Since we’re probably spending the night here, we’re not in any hurry,” he said. “Let’s go for a beer first and we can plan this out.”
“Sounds good to me,” I replied, with obvious relief.
Off we went to the nearest bar. Mongo had got over his dream, but he had a new concern. He thought I saw the Bandidos as nothing but organized crime instead of as a motorcycle club built on brotherhood. That caught me completely off guard. It was like the time Karate Bob refused my offer to bankroll the martial arts club for him. There was more to the Bandidos than just the criminality of some of its members, I was slowly learning. I sat and let Mongo teach and preach to me.
After a few hours we went back to the Resurrection’s clubhouse. Some of the gang were sleeping, others were drinking, the remnants of the Resurrection fetching their beers for them. Vinny saw us arrive and looked very pleased with himself. Gunk was still my sponsor as a prospect, but from then on Mongo was my mentor in the gang.
The next day, Andy called me in. During my verbal debrief, I told him and Corky about what Mongo had said. The cops thought it was funny and put no store in it. Though I didn’t say anything, I found myself taking Mongo’s side. I was beginning to feel that underneath all the violence and leather there was a certain nobility to the bikers. In retrospect, that kind of thinking should have been a warning sign.
It wouldn’t have been the only one. Andy also told me I needed to get in touch with my wife. Liz, I think, had phoned him to discuss what this investigation, especially now that I was a prospect, was doing to our family life. I hadn’t talked to her in a week or had time to send any money home. And I hadn’t visited in at least twice that long. My life in Vancouver seemed to be slipping away. It could have been seen as my work taking over my personal life; in fact, it was my new Bandidos family usurping my real one.
I was starting to rationalize my thinking, saying to myself things like, “She doesn’t know what I’m going through.” In truth, she didn’t know mainly because I wouldn’t share the job—its details or its stresses—with her. I now see how unfair and tough it must have been for Liz. Still, even though I made an effort to phone and send money more often, I pressed on with my work.
In early December, a few weeks after the Resurrection takeover, I was supposed to go home for a day or two. My thirty-fourth birthday was coming up and Liz had something planned. But toward noon I got a call from Vinny saying there was a party at his house that night and that I needed to show up. I considered making up an excuse but instead said, “I’ll be there.” I called Liz and disappointed her again, though she sounded as if she had been expecting it. Then I called Andy and told him about the party. He asked me if I expected any trouble. I said no, so he decided not to put cover on me; as a prospect, I might have to be there all night. I agreed with him.
When I arrived at Vinny’s, I helped him set things up, moving furniture around to make room and that kind of thing. Then, just before nine o’clock, Vinny told me to go on a beer run. I jumped in his truck and went down to the local liquor store.
I pulled in just as its employees were pulling out: it had closed for the night. I had to return to Vinny’s empty-handed. When I got there, most people had arrived.
“Where’s the beer?” Vinny asked.
I explained that I’d got to the store too late. Vinny wasn’t pleased. All conversation stopped.
“You don’t deserve your prospect patch. Give me that cut,” he said.
I was taken aback—I’d expected a reprimand, but not the loss of the patch. I took it off and handed it to him. Then George came out of the kitchen toward me, scowling. “Fuck, here we go,” I thought. Things were going from bad to worse.
He said: “Since you’re not wearing your patch, here, try this one on.” He handed me a leather cut with a full patch on it.
I just stood there holding the patch, looking from one guy to another.
“Put the fucking thing on before we change our mind,” Vinny shouted.
Everybody crowded around to congratulate and hug me. Even if I’ve always hated hugging, it felt great. Vinny asked me if I had anything to say.
“Prospectttttt! Get me a fucking Pepsi,” I bellowed at an aspiring member in the room. Everybody cracked up.
CHAPTER FIVE
My Colors Go National
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As in most outlaw biker gangs, Bandidos prospects usually spend at least a year proving their stuff—and getting drinks for members—before they are considered for promotion. Exceptions are made only in the rarest of circumstances. I hadn’t ever expected to be made a full member. At the rate I had been making buys and getting the goods on the Bellingham chapter, I figured the investigation would wrap up and the bust would come down before my year of prospecting was done.
I certainly never expected to be made a full member after only three months of prospecting. I think there are several reasons why I was fast-tracked. The first was that I wasn’t a very good prospect to begin with. Not being a grease monkey, not knowing a carburetor from a car horn, I was of limited use to members looking for free mechanical work. I could shine chrome, but that was about it.
At the same time, some of the more influential members began to believe that my being a prospect was costing them money. One of my strategies for discreet ingratiation was to do deals with Vinny, George, Dr. Jack and Jersey Jerry that were slanted to their benefit, and on which they made a good profit. After one incident I realized that such deals could sometimes get me out of unpleasant prospect duties. Vinny called me to say he had a half pound of cocaine that he wanted to unload. Was I interested? I told him I’d love to help but I was scheduled to go clean another member’s basement that day. How quickly do you think that job was canceled? But it went both ways. If a member wouldn’t let me out of the brush clearing, yar
dwork or whatever other chore I was supposed to be doing, the guy looking to deal began to feel it was cutting into his sales.
Finally, and perhaps most importantly, I hadn’t screwed up in my time as a gang associate or in my three months as a prospect, and had even won over Mongo. The boys liked the fact that I minded my own business but also was reasonably fun to be around. My being a teetotaler didn’t bother them in the least.
The brevity of my time as a prospect, and the fact that the three months occurred at a time of year when runs and campouts were few and far between, meant I’d had it easy. That didn’t diminish my sincere joy and sense of accomplishment when I received my patch. The best thing was the respect. I felt it from everyone that night. I was now an equal. I partied into the wee hours and then begged off to leave when I felt like it—another thing a full member can do that a prospect can’t.
As I was putting my jacket on, Vinny brought out his babysitter. “Here’s a birthday present for you. Bring her back in the morning.”
The girl was just a kid, fourteen at most. But I knew I couldn’t say no. So she got on the back of my bike and I headed for home. When we got there, I told her, “No offense, but I’m tired and going to bed.” I threw a blanket and pillow on the front couch. “You sleep there.”
Then, after hanging my vest over the back of the kitchen chair, I went to bed.
The next morning, Andy arrived at the office as usual at eight o’clock. My house had been wired to the rafters shortly after I moved in. There were bugs in all the rooms except the bedroom and bathroom, and two hidden cameras covering the kitchen, the living room and the dining room. Andy’s morning routine was to grab a coffee and glance at the two monitors. He saw the girl sleeping on the couch and someone’s colors—the club patch on a vest or jacket—on the back of the chair. “Ah, a guest,” he thought, and phoned the house.
He was calling, as he did most mornings, to verify that everything was okay and to find out whether the tapes from the night before had anything of value on them. If they did, he would review them and set them aside; if not, he would simply press rewind and use the tape again. (It was a habit that got Andy in serious hot water in court. The defense brought up the fact that there may have been things of value on those tapes, and so his actions were tantamount to destroying evidence. It was a valid point.)
I answered the phone and Andy asked who the girl was.
“A friend of Vinny’s,” I said, in case she was listening.
He asked who else was there.
“No one,” I said. “Just us.”
“Then whose colors are those?”
“Oh, that old thing? It’s just something I picked up last night.”
Then I cut off the conversation, saying we’d talk later, and hung up. Knowing he was watching, I put the vest on and woke the girl up. I dropped her off at Vinny’s and then went to the DEA office with the cut on. Wearing the colors was a thrill not unlike driving the flashiest car on the downtown strip on Saturday night, everybody looking at you and getting out of your way. That I was an infiltrator just made it that much more of a kick.
I always went in the back door of the DEA building. By the time I entered Andy’s office, the boys had the camera ready to take photos to send to the brass. I also asked Andy to keep last night’s tape to rebut any defense allegations of impropriety when it came to the babysitter.
It turned out not to be necessary. However, my treatment of the girl did win me an important ally. The next day, when I went to visit Vinny, his wife took me aside.
“Thanks,” she said.
“For what?”
“For the girl and how you handled it.”
“No problem,” I said. “Just please don’t let it get around.”
From then on I had an influential friend inside Vinny’s house, one who proved useful over the next few months, especially when I wanted information about our chapter’s relationship with Bandidos’ national leadership. Had I asked Vinny any direct questions, he’d have become immediately suspicious. His wife, on the other hand, was only too happy to chat about what she knew. And since most of the calls from national came through their house, she knew a lot.
Getting my patch not only raised my status among the Bandidos, it prompted the DEA to buy me a new bike. It was in part a reward, but there were practical considerations as well. My Sportster was fine for riding around town, but it was useless on long runs—its tiny gas tank had to be fueled up at least twice as often as the bigger Harleys. As a full member, there was no avoiding the longer runs, so a full-sized Harley was in order.
There was another, very practical, benefit to the ride I ended up buying, an FXRT: it came from Jersey Jerry. Buying his old bike brought me closer to him, and he, as national secretary-treasurer of the Bandidos and the Northwest regional officer, topped the DEA’s hit list. In fact, like the FBI, the ATF, the RCMP and other forces, the DEA names investigation files after the case’s highest-ranking target; in our case, it was Jersey Jerry. So, any way of cozying up to him was good.
The FXRT was a sweet, sweet bike. Jerry had only owned it for six months or so and let me have it for a song—$5,500. Five-speed, rubber-mounted engine with air shocks, it was a full dresser with fiberglass saddlebags and a windshield. I was thrilled even if it was much too big for me. I had to take all the air out of the shocks to lower it and then cut open the seat and remove half the foam just to allow my feet to touch the ground.
Those weren’t my only modifications. One of my first highway rides was with George Wegers, taking the I-5 down to Seattle. On the way, we passed two Honda Interstates going north. They both waved to me. I was so upset that I signaled George to pull over and we talked about it. He knew a place in Bellingham that could fix my problem. We headed there immediately. At the garage, I traded the fiberglass bags for old leather ones. Then I held a steel bar in the muffler while George hammered it in, the bar going through all the sound baffles. I kept the windshield but cut it down. When we stepped back, it looked great. I turned it on and it roared at about a hundred decibels, barely legal. No Honda rider would ever wave at me again.
I didn’t know why George had asked me to accompany him to Seattle, other than to provide backup. We eventually arrived at an old house on the south side. We parked in the alley and knocked at the back door. A woman answered and George asked if her old man was home.
“He’s still sleeping,” she said, clearly petrified.
George told her to sit in the kitchen and not say anything. She obeyed meekly. As he walked down the short hallway toward the bedroom, George picked up a golf club that was leaning against the wall. I followed, positioning myself in the hall where I could see George and still keep my eye on the woman in the kitchen. Without saying a word, George started whaling the guy with the club. One unpleasant way to wake up! It took only a few seconds before the late riser was a bloody, whimpering mess clutching his face.
He was able to stumble to his feet and made a break for the door, still in his underwear. I caught him in the chest with a solid kick and he fell back into the room. The woman became hysterical and started rocking back and forth. George leaned over him and screamed, “You have my money by tomorrow or we’ll be back!”
When George turned to leave, I glanced at his face. It was contorted with rage, looking just plain evil. I made a mental note never to be on the wrong side of that look unless I had a gun—a big one.
The storm passed just as quickly as it had come over him. As soon as we walked out of the house, George was all smiles. On the way back to Ferndale, we stopped at a rest area. After we’d dismounted, he came over to me and gave me a small diamond-shaped patch. It had 1% on it.
It’s a patch worn by most of the criminalized biker gangs, indicating they’re the 1 percent of motorcyclists who give the fraternity a bad name. The origin of the patch dates back to the famous Hollister weekend in 1947, when bad-boy bikers first penetrated the collective consciousness of the United States thanks to lots of sensationali
st media coverage. Following it, a spokesman for the American Motorcycle Association said that 99 percent of bikers were responsible citizens and only 1 percent were barbarians. After that, the “one-percenter” designation was embraced as a badge of honor. Most gangs gave the one-percenter patch as a matter of course to all members once they’d successfully completed their prospecting period. Among the Bandidos, however, another member had to bestow it, and it indicated a special bond between the two men.
“Can you get someone to sew this on for you?” George asked.
As I spent more time with George and other senior Bandidos, things deteriorated between me and Gunk. He saw himself as my sponsor and it seemed to him that I was ignoring him. I was. We had at least three deals with him, more than enough for the convictions I was there to secure, and so I had moved on. But of course Gunk didn’t know that, and he didn’t like the fact that he wasn’t making any more money off me. He saw my friendship with George as an ambitious attempt to elevate my standing in the gang. Again, he was right.
At the same time, George was a much more interesting and complex person to spend time with. Where Gunk spoke a lot but had nothing much to say, George could hold his own in a conversation about almost anything. Not only did he read the paper, he also read books, which was fairly remarkable among his peers. He wasn’t educated, but he was intelligent, curious and ambitious. We’d spend many evenings sitting on the back porch of my house, looking down the alley and south toward California, discussing what we wanted to do with our lives. Even then he was fixed on becoming national and world president of the Bandidos—a goal he would achieve sixteen years later.