Read Online No Angel by Jay Dobyns - Free Book Online

to roll as a unit with you as our ‘leader,’ then you have to remember that it’s us—and especially me—who’s calling the shots on the street. Got it, dude?”
    He went, “Mmmmm.” I stared at him. He still had his sunglasses on. I knew I wouldn’t get to see his eyes that day. Maybe it was the shame of being put in a bad spot, or maybe he was jazzed by the prospect of doing something so ballsy—but whatever the reason, he kept them hidden behind his shades. I couldn’t blame him. He was a man with no choices, and you don’t want to stare in the face the guy who’s taken control of your life, not right after you’ve met him.
    I asked, “Well?”
    He didn’t say anything for a minute. Then he pointed at my left arm and said, “That tattoo.”
    “Yeah?”
    “What is it?”
    “It’s Saint Michael.”
    “Oh.”
    “You know him?”
    “Think so. He’s the patron saint of cops, right?”
    “That’s right. And grocers. I looked it up on the Internet once.”
    “No shit?”
    “No shit.”
    He didn’t think it was cute. Whatever.
    He said, “Well, you’re gonna have to come up with some other story about that if you wanna run with these guys.” He sat back in his chair and twirled his finger at the ink on my torso.
    “Shit, dude, you think I got to where I am without a story for my Saint Mike? I’m the guy with the sword, the dragon’s my addiction to junk, and I’m killing that motherfucker. I’ve been around the block, Kramer, don’t sweat it.”
    Satisfied, he grunted and parted the drapes. “What about that?”
    “My bike?”
    “Yeah.”
    “What about it?
    “It looks OK, but it won’t keep up with the guys we’ll be seeing.”
    “I’ll keep up.”
    “Not on a worn-out Panhead, you won’t. You might be king-shit undercover, but I’m king-shit biker, so watch and learn.”
    “I can’t argue with you there, dude, I can’t argue with you there.”
    And I didn’t.

TOO BROKE FOR STURGIS, WHERE TIMMY LEARNED THE FINE ART OF FETCHING SAUERKRAUT
    JUNE–JULY 2002

    JUNE AND THE better part of July were spent getting our Solo Angeles story straight.
    After Rudy got our Solo charter official—he and Pops had to make a couple of trips to Tijuana to pay dues and sort it out—he set to work in Arizona. He ran a few meth deals with Tony Cruze and reestablished contact with Bad Bob. Rudy had to answer questions of perception and politics: The Angels were curious why, all of a sudden, Rudy had become so hot to set up shop in Arizona. He said it was because of the proximity to Mexico, where his club was based and where his boys—that is, us—had established “some business,” alluding to our gunrunning ruse. They also wanted to know what we thought of the Mongols. Rudy assured them the Solos didn’t have an official position on the Mongols, but that we didn’t think much of them at all. He told Bad Bob we’d be happy to watch the Nogales border on behalf of the Angels, letting them know when any Mongols showed up there. Bad Bob thought it over.
    On July 13, Bad Bob offered Rudy a deal he guaranteed would be formalized at the next Hells Angels officers’ meeting: We’d be allowed to operate freely in Arizona so long as we agreed never to fly an Arizona rocker—this honor was reserved for Hells Angels alone—and so long as we backed up the HA in their struggles with the Mongols. Additionally, we wouldn’t be wed to the Angels in the way that the Red Devils or the Spartans were—we’d have their back and pay them their due respect, but we wouldn’t be another puppet club.
    As Rudy secured our standing, we worked on putting together a bona fide bike gang. We got the bikes up and running and our backstop stories down pat. Christopher “Cricket” Livingstone, an ATF agent and Slats’s right-hand man on the task force, used Rudy’s jacket as a template and got his mom to make the patches we’d sew onto our brand-new leather vests. Our club’s colors were orange on black, so