Troubleshooter (3 page)

Malane had sat quietly through the first part of the intel dump with an expression of reserved superiority that Tim had learned was the prevailing attribute of an FBI agent. Malane cleared his throat and spoke, not lifting his eyes from the Cross pen that he tapped on the blank pad before him. "Uncle Pete is careful to keep the mother chapter free and clear of anything incriminating."

"Why'd you hit dead ends on the drug charges?" Tim asked.

"Same reason we always run into trouble with bikers--their drug network is self-contained and resilient. They are the distribution network, so they control the scene from the stash houses to the wholesalers to the street-level pushers. They're set up in the liquor stores, the mom-and-pops, the gas stations, doing little hand-to-hand deals that collectively move big product. They have a lot of free labor, in their women and their pledges. The threads of the operation are buried. You make a bust, that's all you got. One bust. Minimal product. Plus, they've got a reliable and internal pipeline for flowing drugs to other chapters and cities--themselves. During run season especially, forget it. You got hundreds of bikers on the roads, you're not gonna get cleared to implement cavity searches to suss out the few mules." Malane's face had contracted as if he'd tasted something sour. He was angry, but also humbled; he and his agency had been well and publicly spanked.

"Why don't we haul Uncle Pete in for a close look?" Tim asked.

"He's got that hotshot TV lawyer," Bear said. "Dana Lake."

"I would advise," Malane said, "treading lightly on that front."

Tim leaned forward, rubbing his temples, mulling over what little evidence they'd managed to acquire. The break itself had left few clues. The precision of the strike indicated that the route survey run by the transport team Monday--the day after Nigger Steve's murder--had been carefully surveilled. The operation itself had been impeccably planned and executed. Minutes behind the advance car, the driver of a venerable yellow Volvo had locked up the brakes on the 10, slant-parking across two lanes and leaving a smoke grenade in the backseat. Wearing a helmet, the person had fled on foot, vaulting over the freeway barriers, hopping onto a waiting Harley, and racing off. The car left behind to block traffic had as yet yielded no leads.

The sheriff's lab had already determined that the saddlebag explosive was an ANFO special, initiated by a dynamic detonator. Ammonium nitrate fuel-oil bombs, composed of ingredients obtained at any hardware store or construction site, are easily home-cooked, leaving a generic forensic signature and no Taggants microtraces to be run through the system.

The break team had used high-grade weapons: AR-15s were a step up from the Uzi-style MAC-10 blow-back grease guns wielded by less sophisticated offenders. Civilian versions of M16s, the AR-15s had been converted to full-auto machine guns. The process takes all of twenty minutes with a seven-piece mail-order conversion kit; a basic home workshop stocks the tools to machine out an AR-15's lower receiver and make room for a drop-in autosear. The best investigative bet would be tracking the rounds, but even armor-piercing ammo could be bought for cash at gun shows these days. The armor on the Dodge transport van, like all bullet-resistant protection, was designed only to buy a little time. For all his experience, Hank Mancone hadn't gotten off the X when the bullets started pounding, and that had cost him and Palton their lives.

Tim stood and walked to the head of the table, the others regarding him with anticipation. "Listen, we got our cages rattled pretty good. Frankie was a close friend to everybody here. I didn't know Hank as well, but whenever one of ours goes down, we all feel it."

Malane was wearing a bored expression, and Tim hated him for it.

"But being hotheaded isn't going to get us the perpetrators. Sheriff's is working Frankie and Hank's murders, so that frees us to focus on what we do best--catch fugitives. That's how we'll honor the dead. Work your CIs. Former cellmates, known associates, hangouts--you know the drill. Talk to gas-station attendants along biker routes, let them know there's a reward. Get the word out to motor shops, wrecking yards, swap meets. Let's ask our locals to red-flag bike thefts in case they're stealing new rides to throw us off the trail."

"But don't bother with Jap Scrap," Guerrera said. "Or chasing VIN numbers on frames. Outlaws grind and restamp. That's the problem with choppers--they're almost impossible to trace. Every part can come from a different bike."

"Can you narrow it down more on the bikes?" Freed asked. "What we're tracing and what we should keep an eye out for when we're in the field?"

Guerrera frowned thoughtfully. He had the face of a teenager, still not hardened out despite the stubble on his cheeks. His long eyelashes and full lips looked more Italian than what people might think of as Cuban, but he was Little Havana through and through. "Outlaw bikes are lean and mean. It's a rough ride, beats your insides. Full-dressers come off an assembly line at seven hundred pounds, but outlaws'll strip 'em down to four--that's called a cutaway. Maybe they steal a garbage wagon from a weekend warrior. If they don't part it out, they'll dump the saddlebags, the fairing, the extra chrome, the springs on the forks, the rear shocks, the fender. They'll re-form the seats, downsize the headlights, install dual carburetors.

"Most outlaws'll swap out the thick stock tanks because they cover the top of the motor and hide the horses, but Sinners, especially nomads, leave them on in case they need more gas for cop chases. That's why they prefer swing-arm handlebars to ape hangers, too--easier to navigate on the run. They'll pull every trick in the book to make their bikes faster--cut down the flywheels on the left side for faster acceleration, throw in suicide clutches, and power-jump with hot cams, fat valves, and increased bore and stroke. You won't find Sinner nomads doing dumb shit like going sky-high on the front tire. They're more pragmatic that way--they'll sacrifice looks for speed. They have to outrun Johnny Law, and they're not gonna get tangled up because they raked out the front wheel four feet. That's something to remember with the Sinners--despite the noise, they're outlaws first, bikers second."

"We need to find every point of leverage," Tim said. "I want to know if any of these mutts ever skipped on a bail bondsman. I want you talking to members in jail--isn't their former secretary doing a dime up at the 'Q'?"

"Yeah, but these boys don't roll over," Guerrera said. "Not even in the clink."

"So? We just let him pump iron and watch The Bachelor all day? I want him interviewed. Haines?"

"Got it."

"Zimmer, you'll liaise with Homicide on the murders. Thomas--what do we have on active Sinner investigations?"

"Where do you want me to start? An old broad in a Mary Kay pink Caddy hit and killed a Sinner out on PCH last year. She was murdered in her Pasadena home two days later. A hitchhiker got turned out in August--gang-raped and kept with the club for three months. She won't press charges. Supposedly the Sinners keep files on family members for shit like that. They know where your niece goes to elementary school--you want to squeal, you got a hefty decision on your hands. A floater washed up--"

"Get all the case files, see if you spot any inroads. How's the intel on members of the mother chapter?"

"Surprisingly bad," Bear said. "The clubhouse is sealed off, helmet laws ensure we can't tell them apart on the road, and distinguishing marks don't help for shit when they've all got them. Believe it or not, the nomads are easier to ID because they're all fugitives."

"Sheriff's Station in Fillmore has been sitting on the clubhouse since right after the break. Jim--take Maybeck and get up there...." Tim noticed that everyone was staring at Jim. Another drop of blood fell from Jim's ear, tapping the paper in front of him. "Jim. Jim...you have..."

"Oh." Jim cupped his hand, catching the trickle. He looked at his stained hand blankly. "Sorry, guys."

"Why don't you step out, go down to the nurses' station."

"Right. Okay."

The door closed behind him. Tim took a moment to recapture his thoughts, the pause stretching out uncomfortably. Thomas exhaled hard, puffing his cheeks. Bear slid his jaw to one side, cracking it.

"Okay, Maybeck, go check in with the deputies keeping an eye on the clubhouse. Tell them to keep the Sinners tangled up in penny-ante nonsense--muffler violations, high handlebars, helmet infractions. Have them put another set of locals a few miles down the road to write them up for the same stuff. That'll help us match faces to names and give us good records on who's moving in and around the clubhouse and on what bikes. What are the odds on sliding someone in undercover?"

"Nil," Malane said quickly.

Guerrera, loath to agree with a Feeb, nodded reluctantly. "It's almost impossible. You gotta snuff someone to get in these days, just to prove you're not law enforcement. Then you have to get through the initiation ceremony. Nasty, nasty shit."

"Okay, forget it. But let's red-flag the leads near the mother chapter--the safe houses double as crash pads, so they usually aren't far away." Tim turned to Malane. "We're gonna need the files you used during the trial, everything from the murders to the CCE."

"I'll see what I can do."

"Do better than that."

Malane folded his hands across his belly, a gesture that might have looked assured on a broader man. "I'll tell you right now, everything's registered in the names of their women--real estate, portfolios, the whole mother lode. That's how they do it. Since a lot of them are felons and can't pack, they even have their women carry their guns for them."

"Let's use that, then," Tim said. "The women might be our route in. I want to know who they are and who they're paired with. Guerrera, how's it work?"

"The Sinners use different terms for their broads than the other biker gangs--part of their new-breed image. 'Mamas' are called 'slags,' 'old ladies' are 'deeds.' Slags are club property, tagalong putas. Any of the boys can dip into one whenever they want, trade her to another club for bike parts, whatever. Now and then the club'll kidnap a girl or 'recruit' her from a battered-women's shelter and turn her out. A deed belongs to one dude, and no one messes with that, you know."

Tim asked, "One deed for each biker?"

"Except Uncle Pete, who keeps a handful. Property jackets ain't enough for him--all his old ladies give up a little finger. That's the cost to sled with papi chulo."

"Okay," Tim said. "It all starts with intel. We need better information. Let's go get it."

One of the court security officers leaned into the room. "A Cholo just got shot off his bike in Piru."

Bear cocked back in his chair, catching Tim's eye. "Game season open."

Chapter
5

Bear drove his beater of a Dodge Ram, Tim riding shotgun and Guerrera sandwiched between them on the bench seat. They wound over Grimes Canyon Road from Moorpark to Fillmore. When they passed the dirt turnoff to the garage shack where Tim had first confronted Ginny's killer, he felt his stomach tighten as it always did. He'd eradicated many of his painful reactions--to little girls' laughter, the smell of Jolly Ranchers, hacksaws--but the familiar dirt road still got to him. Distracted with a phone call, Guerrera didn't take note of Tim's discomfort, but Bear, familiar with the secret history, glanced over, gauging Tim's temperature.

The fall blazes hadn't left much in their aftermath--scorched hills, ash-streaked foundations, beavertail cactus cooked to a pale yellow and collapsed in limp piles. The few trees that had magically avoided incineration thrust up from the blackened ground like charred skeletons. The late-afternoon sun was low to the horizon, lending a cinematographer's cast to the bleak landscape.

Earlier Tim had dispatched Haines and Zimmer to check out the Piru shooting so he could review the admittedly slight case information at hand and get the command-post structure up and running--bureaucratic responsibilities he was only too glad to assume with his new role. His afternoon meeting at L.A. County Sheriff's Headquarters in Monterey Park had gone well, as he'd anticipated--the two agencies had a history of working closely, and both accorded the unfolding case top priority. A mutual aid agreement between departments pulled in Ventura Sheriff's, Dray's agency, seamlessly. Already the techies had put together a database to record the intel Tim had requested on biker stops--it could be accessed and updated online from the various stations. Before Tim had left the meeting, names and descriptions of the Sinner mother-chapter members were already trickling in. The Ventura deputies, familiar with individual Sinners from drug-related arrests within their jurisdiction, seemed to be leading the charge.

Guerrera flipped his phone shut. "So Haines confirms that there were no witnesses to the Piru shooting. Our boy Chooch Millan was gunned down on a quiet road at the city outskirts. They stripped his originals, left muchacho in an undershirt."

"Why take the jacket?" Bear asked.

"An outlaw's originals are his ultimate symbol of pride--more than his bike, even. Once they're awarded, they're never washed."

"Never?"

"Not even after initiation ceremonies where the jackets--and their proud new wearers--get baptized by oil, piss, and shit. The hard-core dudes even leave their jackets under their bikes at night to collect crankcase drippings. Yeah, it's sacrilege to wash the originals. Punishable by death, even."