Befriend and Betray

by Alex Caine

  Nonetheless, I had got the green light to say yes to investing in the bar, and the next day I phoned Steve from my house. I told him I was in and he confirmed that it would be a strip bar—no surprise since that was the only type of bar bikers were usually interested in.

  “And how much money are we talking about?” I asked.

  “Fifty large,” he answered. It was less than I’d been expecting. I thought he’d want at least $100,000. Still, it didn’t stop me from making a gambit.

  “Listen, I don’t want to be a silent partner. If I’m in, I’m in. I want an office at the club and access,” I said. By access, I meant the right to look at the books and total involvement in day-to-day operations of the club. It was a big request, but being a silent partner wouldn’t have got me any prestige or provided me with an excuse to move down to Texas.

  “No problem,” Steve said. Maybe he was so amenable because he was desperate to get his hands on my cash; or maybe he just saw my demands as inevitable. After all, a biker businessman likes to follow his money, and if there are any side benefits to an investment, and there usually are with peeler bars, he likes to take advantage of them.

  Everything was unfolding as we wanted it to, and I phoned Andy with the good news. “We’re good to go,” I said. “Steve’s cool with me moving down there and being totally involved. I just need to be down there in a day or two with the money.”

  “Great. But I need to get together with you alone and talk about something.”

  At the office early the next morning, before the rest of the staff arrived for work, Andy dropped a bombshell. Head office had approved the move to Texas, but they were refusing to allow him to stay with the case. It was an administrative thing, he said. He was stationed in Washington and they didn’t want to go through the hassle of transferring him to Texas. Needless to say, he wasn’t happy about it.

  “We built this thing together and I want to stick with it to the end,” he said. Appealing to my loyalty, he continued, “There’s only one way I can see them changing their minds: you tell them you won’t go if I don’t go.”

  I would be only too happy to issue the ultimatum. Andy and I worked excellently together and always had. After more than three years, we were finishing each other’s sentences and I had no interest in developing a new working relationship with an unknown, especially some Texas yahoo with more testosterone than brains.

  After I told Andy I’d lay it on the line with the brass, he smiled broadly. “Okay, then. They want to meet with you tomorrow.”

  That pushed it all back a day, but it was fine with me. Texas, however, wasn’t being so patient. The night before, I’d gone up to Vancouver to discuss the move with Liz. I’d presented it as the mop-up to the case and found a silver lining that appealed to her: Louise and Frank, Liz’s parents, had moved to Florida about six months previously and I suggested that she and the kids could join them for as long as Texas lasted. After all, Texas and Florida were a lot closer than Texas and B.C. The trip to Vancouver had meant that I hadn’t been around for Steve’s calls. So he had phoned Vinny, asking where I was.

  “Steve has been calling for you,” Vinny told me later that day when I dropped by his place for a visit. “Where the fuck you been?”

  “I’ll get on it,” I said, but I wasn’t going to phone Steve until I had something solid to tell him—a departure day, a flight number. Too much vagueness didn’t go over well with bikers like Steve.

  The only Washington Bandido I’d told about my Texas business opportunity was Dr. Jack. I would have told George, but he was in prison, doing time on some charge from before I’d come onto the scene. I wanted someone of influence in the Bellingham chapter to know that my getting involved in the bar was the result of an invitation to invest, not me looking for other action behind the backs of the local boys. Jack had been encouraging, but he also warned me to be careful of the Texas Bandidos—there was a treacherous streak to them, he said, telling me a cautionary tale. Apparently, a few years previously, some of the guys in Texas had made the acquaintance of a rich businessman and wannabe bad-boy biker. They’d fed the guy’s interest and dangled in front of him the prospect of becoming a member. First, though, he would have to do what all members did, they told him: make the club the exclusive beneficiary in his will. The idiot went along with it and of course soon found himself dead in the desert. They wouldn’t go to such lengths with me—after all, I was a patched member—but I got the picture.

  What I didn’t realize was that Andy and Co. could be equally duplicitous, though it was probably for my own good.

  I went into the meeting where I was going to issue the Andy ultimatum armed and wearing my colors—not a good start in retrospect. I had no plans to start banging my fist or anything; I would just calmly lay out my bottom line and leave it at that.

  The local boys were there—Andy, Larry, Corky—along with two suits from the Seattle DEA office and a regional director of the FBI. We began with casual chitchat about the move to Texas and the opportunities it would offer. Soon enough, though, either Corky or Larry—I forget which one—said, “Too bad Andy can’t go along with you.”

  I feigned surprise. “What do you mean Andy can’t go?”

  “What? Didn’t Andy tell you?” came the reply. “It was decided Andy would be more useful up here and that we’ll transfer the handling to a local guy.”

  First I got inquisitive—Why couldn’t Andy come? Was the decision final? Who would the new handler be? Then I played the digesting act—staring at my feet, stewing on the news, thinking about it. Finally I went into the rejection role. “Well, I’m sorry, but if Andy isn’t going, neither am I,” I said simply. It was a pretty good performance, I thought. Little did I know that I was the one being played to perfection.

  The suits then said it wasn’t just an administrative decision and started questioning Andy’s competence and his performance as handler. That got my back up.

  “If you don’t know he’s capable, why are you so sure I am?” I said, my voice rising.

  “We’re not so sure,” the suit said. “But you’re all we’ve got.”

  That pushed me over the edge and the Bandido in me came out full force. I exploded to my feet and started stabbing at the suits with my finger, screaming, challenging, maybe even threatening them physically. I was in such a blind rage I can’t remember what I said. All I recall is that I was yelling and swearing until, all at once, a light came on in my head. I just stopped and looked around. No one had moved from his chair, no one was saying anything. Confused, distraught, I turned and walked into Andy’s office and just sat there in a daze, scared of who I’d become.

  After about five minutes, Andy and Larry joined me. I told them that I knew I needed help, that I was getting lost in the character. They agreed and then gently let me in on something: one of the suits was actually a federal deprogrammer who had worked extensively with cults. The whole meeting—and more—had been a test to see how I was handling my double life. There had never been any plan to pull Andy from the investigation. It had just been a ploy to push me over the edge and get the sort of reaction needed to assess my state of mind. The ultimate goal: to gauge whether I was still receptive to following orders, and find out whom I was really working for—the cops or myself. I had failed the test.

  We agreed that the thing I needed most right then was rest and time to reflect. So I went home, got a change of clothes and checked into one of the motels on Blaine’s main strip. For two days I just disconnected from the Bandidos life, staying inside the whole time. I had three or four visits from the deprogrammer, who turned out to be a civilian employee of the FBI. They weren’t formal “sessions” as such; he would just drop by for casual chats, sometimes bringing food. I also spent hours on the phone with Liz, reconnecting. Those talks did me a world of good. But just as important was the time I spent staring at the ceiling, thinking things over, getting my bearings back.

  Finally, on the evening of the second day, I felt I ha
d my shit together enough to go back to work and get the Bandidos job over with. The end was overdue. I had no idea, however, that it would come so quickly.

  Looking back on it, I suppose my meltdown-turned-breakdown sapped not just my drive to make the case as big and devastating to the Bandidos as possible, but the drive of the whole office. The scene hadn’t cost me any respect or admiration from Andy, Corky and Larry; on the contrary, it seemed to open their eyes to the pressure I’d been working under and engender within them a certain deference. But I think it was also a reality check. We’d taken the case way beyond anything we’d originally imagined or even dared to hope for, but it couldn’t go on forever, nor nail every Bandido or badass biker everywhere. It was time to wrap it up.

  Even calling in the deprogrammer must have been a difficult decision for Larry. Here was the biggest case ever to come to his office. It had been a huge success and, in going national, put his career on the fast track. He could have just let things play out, sent me to Texas and hoped for even bigger returns. Instead, he saved my life, I’m quite sure. And, in doing so, maybe even saved the case. Had I not been around to testify, racking and stacking those Bandidos we already had wouldn’t have been the breeze it turned out to be.

  The afternoon of my third day at the motel, I called Vinny to check in. His reception was cold.

  “Where the fuck have you been?” he asked. Apparently some of the local boys had been trying to contact me for a couple of days, not to mention our friends from Lubbock. “They’re waiting for you in Texas,” he continued. “You got to get down there and take care of business.”

  “I know, I know. I’m just getting things organized. I’m going down as soon as possible.”

  “Things are already organized,” Vinny said. “There are some guys from Texas in Seattle right now and they’re going back and they want you to go back with them.”

  He gave me the name of a motel in a scuzzy part of Seattle and a phone number to call when I got down there. “Get down there to-night,” Vinny ordered.

  It all screamed setup to me, and not just because it was the first I was hearing about some Texas Bandidos visiting. I immediately called Andy and shared my concerns with him. He thought I was overreacting and said even if things did turn ugly, he and the boys would be covering me, I had nothing to worry about. His reassurances were comforting, but not very; I hadn’t got as far as I had in this investigation without relying on my instincts, and things still felt wrong. I went, but on high alert.

  I drove to Seattle, Andy et al. presumably not far behind, checked into the motel and made the call. I didn’t recognize the voice that answered, but whoever it was seemed to have been waiting for me. He said someone would be coming straight over to pick me up to take me over to where the Texans were. This was definitely not right.

  In less than ten minutes, two guys arrived at my door. One I recognized from the Resurrection, by then a full-patch Seattle Bandido. The other guy I’d never seen before. Another former Resurrection member was standing guard near the car.

  At the car I hesitated for a moment before getting in. It wasn’t long, but long enough for my worst fears to be confirmed: the guy I didn’t recognize pulled out a semi-automatic nine-millimeter and said, “Get in.” That cleared things up. I did as I was told.

  Had I not, they might have knocked me out and stuffed me in the trunk. Instead, I sat in the back seat on the passenger side, waiting for Andy and gang to descend. I noticed that the driver didn’t lock the sedan’s doors from up front and thought that might help me escape if absolutely necessary. Still, I was sure it wouldn’t come to that. Another indication that these guys weren’t real professionals: it was the guy in the passenger seat who held the gun, making me an awkward target.

  We drove for I don’t know how long through Seattle, I wasn’t even aware of what direction. At first I just wondered whether these three clowns would put up a fight when Andy and the team took them down. Then all I could think about was how long it was taking for Andy to act. I waited and waited until I decided I couldn’t wait any longer—sooner or later we were going to arrive at where we were going and my options would then be even more limited.

  As we took a left turn, I noticed the guy with the gun was looking ahead. That was all I needed. In an instant, I had the door open and was rolling out. God, it hurt. Still, the second I came to rest, I was up on my feet and running down a dark alley. Without looking back, I tried every door I came to. I didn’t hear anyone behind me, but if someone was chasing me I, frankly, didn’t want to know about it. Finally, a door gave when I tried it and I rushed into the pitch blackness within, slamming the door behind me. Then I stopped and just stood there about five or six feet from the door, waiting, my heart pounding.

  Five minutes, ten minutes, twenty minutes passed, each going by excruciatingly slowly, with no sound of feet, no one pushing open the door. I relaxed a bit, sitting down on a concrete floor, leaning against a wall, but still not venturing out.

  I stayed there at least an hour, maybe two, maybe more. I may have fallen asleep for a few minutes, but I’m not sure of that either. Eventually, everything aching, the cold of the concrete and the damp of Seattle in late fall having sunk into my bones, I got tired of waiting. Inaction leads to failure, I told myself, and I pulled my legs toward me and got to my feet.

  I listened at the door. Nothing but the sound of my own breathing. I opened the door a crack and peered into the alley. A fine drizzle had turned the alley pavement into a mirror, reflecting the light bulbs above the doors.

  Nothing. No movement or sign of life.

  I opened the door wider and stepped out into the night. No one came out of a shadow, nothing sprang to life. I was really alone. I walked quickly to the street where I’d bailed from the car so unceremoniously earlier that evening. It was deserted. So I started walking toward the lights of downtown. A cab came my way and I hailed it. It didn’t even slow down. No wonder: my clothes were ripped and I was covered in cuts, scrapes and blood.

  Eventually I came to a pay phone and called the emergency number I had been given at the very start of the operation. By then I’d figured out I was on the south side and gave the intersection. The voice told me to wait there. It took fifteen minutes or so before three Seattle PD black-and-whites, sirens screaming, arrived. I got into the back seat of one, no encouragement of a semi-automatic required this time. I went with a couple of the uniforms to the nearest station; others went to the motel to retrieve my truck.

  Andy, Corky and the tactical squad were at the station when I arrived. They told me they had been on the car the whole time but had somehow missed seeing me roll from it. For whatever reason, the bikers hadn’t stopped and chased me; perhaps by then they had figured out they were being tailed. Not long after I bailed from the car, Andy and company had pulled it over. Of course, the three goons weren’t talking, and Andy, astonished not to find me there, didn’t want to ask them directly—it would blow any cover I had left. They were being held on some trumped-up charge (and eventually were charged with kidnapping and forcible confinement).

  After I had my cuts and scrapes attended to, a tac squad member drove me back to Blaine while another drove my truck. We all went straight to the DEA office and into a discussion about what the next step should be.

  As far as Corky was concerned, the investigation was completely done for. “We’re going to evac you right now and take you across the line,” he said. Back to Canada.

  Andy wasn’t so unequivocal. Sure, I had fallen afoul of the Texas nasties—that was a given. Still, he wondered if the local boys might stand up for me. For my part, I wanted it all to be over, but at the same time I agreed with Andy. No one, to our knowledge, suspected I was working for the cops. As far as they were concerned, I had simply fucked up; I’d promised cash to a member of the national and then not delivered as quickly as he’d expected. Maybe he had lost a little face, but it wasn’t that big a deal one way or another.

  Sure, they had se
nt what seemed to be a hit squad to deal with me and I was lucky they’d gone with the B team—had they sent Milo or guys from Texas, I would never have seen it coming. But that didn’t necessarily mean that, given the chance, I couldn’t still talk my way out of trouble by appealing to the common sense and loyalty of influential members in Bellingham.

  In hindsight, that’s what I should have tried to do as soon as Vinny ordered me down to Seattle and my date with destiny—gone over to his house, surprised him, explained my little disappearing act by saying I’d been nabbed at the border or something. Convinced him to argue my case with Texas. That’s where our imagination failed us, that’s where our diminished drive led us astray.

  Sure, it was Vinny who had tried to set me up in Seattle, but Andy and I decided that talking to him was still worth a shot. Even if it turned out that the investigation was beyond saving, trying would at least let us know for certain.

  Finally, if Vinny lost it and said something along the lines of, “You should be dead by now!” or “What! You’re still alive!” it would tie him into a conspiracy to kill me and perhaps be enough for other charges against him.

  So, under close cover, I returned to my house up the alley from the office—thanks to the cameras and surveillance, we were sure no one was waiting for me outside or with a garrotte behind the door—and phoned Vinny. We didn’t do it from the office because the fifteen or twenty members of the tactical team made it difficult to concentrate. I needed some breathing room to relax and get my wits about me. Furthermore, if things went badly with Vinny, I would have a few minutes to pack some belongings before being evac’d.

  In the house, I sat down in the living room, turned on the TV and collected my thoughts. It wasn’t long after midnight on what had been a seriously long evening. Finally, I called Vinny. His surprise at hearing my voice was obvious. There was a pause. But he recovered relatively quickly and without saying anything incriminating.