you or any of your families have any reservations about being involved, then, please, with my blessing and understanding, say so now and walk away.”
He paused. Silence.
I raised my hand. “Fuck it, Joe, I’m out.”
Everyone laughed.
Joe said, “All right, then, I’ll see you on Monday. Enjoy the last free Sunday of your foreseeable futures.”
RUDY WANTED TO KNOW WHERE I DID MY TIME
MAY 2002
OUR CI, RUDY Kramer, was a longtime biker and repeat offender. His rap sheet revolved around meth, which he had cooked, dealt, and used, thereby violating rule number one of the Successful Drug Dealer’s Handbook. He’d been pinched on a felon in possession of a firearm, which was made worse by the fact that the weapon in question was a machine gun. Given the alternative of turning informant versus going away for a very long time, he wisely chose to cooperate.
Rudy was not a Hells Angel, but he could name an impressive number of them from mug shots and claimed to be on speaking terms with at least three prominent Arizona Hells Angels: Mesa charter president Robert “Bad Bob” Johnston, Cave Creek charter president Daniel “Hoover” Seybert, and Sonny Barger himself. He told us Sonny had exchanged alcohol and drugs for the pleasures of Pepsis and ice cream. He also said that Sonny rode with a windshield to protect the tracheostomy hole he’d received as a result of laryngeal cancer.
Rudy also knew a guy named Tony Cruze, a greedy drug user who dealt openly in guns and narcotics. Cruze was the president of the Tucson Red Devils, a Hells Angels support club. Support clubs are distinct from their superiors—they have their own member rolls, clubhouses, and officers—but they operate with the official sanction of their parent clubs and do basically whatever’s asked of them. Other Hells Angels support clubs in Arizona at the time included the Spartans and the Lost Dutchmen, but the Red Devils were the largest and most dangerous. They mainly provided muscle to the Angels for enforcement, collection, and extortion jobs.
This was all great, but Rudy had one more box in his checkered past that sealed his importance to us. He was an inactive member of a Mexican OMG called the Solo Angeles, based in Tijuana, Mexico. The Solos had about a hundred total members, with minor representation in the San Diego–Los Angeles area.
We knew the Hells Angels were paranoid, but we also knew they weren’t insecure in the ways the smaller clubs were. If we’d run straight at the Hells Angels as average Larry Bad Guys, they would’ve ignored us or, at the most, handled us with extreme caution. We had to be invited into their house. It was an issue of respect. In biker circles this was universally understood, just like it’s understood that the sky is blue.
The plan was to have Rudy ask the HA permission to set up an Arizona Nomads charter of the Solo Angeles, and then we’d tell them we were Rudy’s crew. The fact that this club was Mexican dovetailed perfectly with my established claim that I ran guns south of the border. Being Solo Angeles Nomads, we wouldn’t need affiliation with an established charter, so existing members wouldn’t have an opportunity to get in our way. It also set the stage for RICO charges, since it would establish that the Angels controlled the outlaw clubs in Arizona. It was pluses all around. Rudy would be our president. Carlos would be a full patch. My trusted informant, Pops, would be a prospect, as would Billy “Timmy” Long. And I, Jay “Bird” Dobyns, would be the Solo Nomads’ vice president.
BEFORE WE GOT started, I had to meet Rudy. Slats set up a date at the Embassy Suites near the Sky Harbor International Airport in Phoenix.
Rudy knew practically nothing about me. By design, Slats hadn’t told him I was a fed. We wanted his first impression of me to be formed with as little prejudice as possible.
I rode my ’63 Harley-Davidson Panhead to the hotel. Slats’s car was out
He paused. Silence.
I raised my hand. “Fuck it, Joe, I’m out.”
Everyone laughed.
Joe said, “All right, then, I’ll see you on Monday. Enjoy the last free Sunday of your foreseeable futures.”
RUDY WANTED TO KNOW WHERE I DID MY TIME
MAY 2002
OUR CI, RUDY Kramer, was a longtime biker and repeat offender. His rap sheet revolved around meth, which he had cooked, dealt, and used, thereby violating rule number one of the Successful Drug Dealer’s Handbook. He’d been pinched on a felon in possession of a firearm, which was made worse by the fact that the weapon in question was a machine gun. Given the alternative of turning informant versus going away for a very long time, he wisely chose to cooperate.
Rudy was not a Hells Angel, but he could name an impressive number of them from mug shots and claimed to be on speaking terms with at least three prominent Arizona Hells Angels: Mesa charter president Robert “Bad Bob” Johnston, Cave Creek charter president Daniel “Hoover” Seybert, and Sonny Barger himself. He told us Sonny had exchanged alcohol and drugs for the pleasures of Pepsis and ice cream. He also said that Sonny rode with a windshield to protect the tracheostomy hole he’d received as a result of laryngeal cancer.
Rudy also knew a guy named Tony Cruze, a greedy drug user who dealt openly in guns and narcotics. Cruze was the president of the Tucson Red Devils, a Hells Angels support club. Support clubs are distinct from their superiors—they have their own member rolls, clubhouses, and officers—but they operate with the official sanction of their parent clubs and do basically whatever’s asked of them. Other Hells Angels support clubs in Arizona at the time included the Spartans and the Lost Dutchmen, but the Red Devils were the largest and most dangerous. They mainly provided muscle to the Angels for enforcement, collection, and extortion jobs.
This was all great, but Rudy had one more box in his checkered past that sealed his importance to us. He was an inactive member of a Mexican OMG called the Solo Angeles, based in Tijuana, Mexico. The Solos had about a hundred total members, with minor representation in the San Diego–Los Angeles area.
We knew the Hells Angels were paranoid, but we also knew they weren’t insecure in the ways the smaller clubs were. If we’d run straight at the Hells Angels as average Larry Bad Guys, they would’ve ignored us or, at the most, handled us with extreme caution. We had to be invited into their house. It was an issue of respect. In biker circles this was universally understood, just like it’s understood that the sky is blue.
The plan was to have Rudy ask the HA permission to set up an Arizona Nomads charter of the Solo Angeles, and then we’d tell them we were Rudy’s crew. The fact that this club was Mexican dovetailed perfectly with my established claim that I ran guns south of the border. Being Solo Angeles Nomads, we wouldn’t need affiliation with an established charter, so existing members wouldn’t have an opportunity to get in our way. It also set the stage for RICO charges, since it would establish that the Angels controlled the outlaw clubs in Arizona. It was pluses all around. Rudy would be our president. Carlos would be a full patch. My trusted informant, Pops, would be a prospect, as would Billy “Timmy” Long. And I, Jay “Bird” Dobyns, would be the Solo Nomads’ vice president.
BEFORE WE GOT started, I had to meet Rudy. Slats set up a date at the Embassy Suites near the Sky Harbor International Airport in Phoenix.
Rudy knew practically nothing about me. By design, Slats hadn’t told him I was a fed. We wanted his first impression of me to be formed with as little prejudice as possible.
I rode my ’63 Harley-Davidson Panhead to the hotel. Slats’s car was out
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