CHAPTER FOUR

The Border ­Bandidos

After the meeting in Blaine, I went back to Vancouver to figure out a plan while the DEA, as the “double A” (anchor agency) on this case, drew up the paperwork for my ­involvement.

One thing I knew for sure, bluffing my way in as a biker was not even a consideration. So the only real option in my mind was to appear on their turf as a regular crook and border ­runner.

Still, I figured that a bike would be a good thing to have, insofar as it would at least provide an excuse to make small talk with the Bandidos. There was no way I could handle a ­Harley–­they are just too big and powerful for ­novices–­so Andy had rounded me up a 900cc Norton Commando. It was a good choice. Back then, anything other than an American or European bike was considered “Jap scrap.” For example, Mongo, one of the more ­colourful–­and colour ­obsessed–­Bandidos I was to meet, had a sticker on his bike that read “Better to have my sister in a whorehouse than my brother on a Honda.” (The fact that his sister worked as a prostitute in Seattle may or may not have been lost on him.) Many of the hardcore bikers had started their careers on Nortons, Triumphs and BSAs, so the 900cc Commando would do ­fine.

Andy also had Scott Paterson register me for a ­one-­day course given by the B.C. Motorcycle Safety Association. It took place at the Richmond municipal airport and I learned the ­basics–­shifting, braking and ­handling–­by bombing down a disused runway on a small Honda. I figured I’d learn the rest as I went. (And never told Mongo about the Honda.)

Scott also made arrangements for me to visit the RCMP “barn” in Victoria that week, where a new licence was made up in my name, one that had a motorcycle permit added to it. I was almost ready to ­go.

The last thing to do was to move the Coachmen trailer stateside. Frank and a buddy of his from the fishing club took care of that, driving it to a trailer park off Highway 5 between Blaine and Ferndale. Frank wasn’t fully up to speed on exactly what I was doing, but he began to figure things out when Andy Smith greeted him at the Sumas border crossing and just waved him right through, the customs officers deferring to his DEA badge. It must have been reassuring to Frank to see that I was working with the good ­guys.

For the time being, Liz and Charlotte would move in with Frank and Louise. I stayed with them for most of the first month and didn’t use the trailer across the border more than three or four nights a week. I knew the guaranteed way not to get in with a criminal group was to be pushy. If I was always around, they’d start wondering what my game was and question my motives. The best approach was to let them invite me into their world. So I had to get noticed without getting in their ­faces.

Andy and Co. had told me that the local Bellingham Bandidos chapter held their weekly “church” meetings every Tuesday evening, after which they would repair to the Pioneer Tavern in Ferndale for a round or ten. As far as the cops knew, that was the only routine that, as a group, the Bandidos kept ­to.

So, at dusk one late summer Monday, I went to the Pioneer to familiarize myself with the bar’s layout and say hello. I had brought over my new car, a ­souped-­up Firebird, in an attempt to even the scales on the mechanical end. Bright purple with a red air breather on the hood (a hood, by the way, that was held down by padlocks), it was not a car meant to be subtle. Completing the ­muscle-­car look were rear air shocks, wide tires made for pulling out in a squeal of burnt rubber, and a chromed chain steering wheel. When the car idled, it vibrated and sounded like a snarling beast waiting to ­pounce–­that is, if the deafening sound system wasn’t drowning out the engine ­noise.

Driving the Firebird into Ferndale, I felt like a Texas Ranger riding into town to take on the bad guy. Before pulling into the Pioneer’s lot, I did a little prowl and growl around town. It was sleepy quiet. The Pioneer wasn’t much more happening, which was fine by me. I ordered a Pepsi and hung out for a while, playing pool by myself until another customer came in and challenged me to a game. He was a huge man named Chuck who in due course told me that he owned the local bike repair shop. It was a good ­start–­I figured there was no way he could operate such a business without being on good terms with the main bikers in town. I didn’t tell him anything about myself, in such a way that he could only suspect I did something ­shady.

“So, what’s it you do?” he asked at one ­point.

“The first thing I do is I mind my own business,” I said definitively. Then, having slammed a door on him, I opened a window, saying something friendly such as “Nice shot,” or “Hey man, it’s your turn.”

Gradually people started to drift in. Every Monday at the Pioneer they held what they called a Turkey ­Shoot–­a small pool tournament. Chuck’s regular partner didn’t show, so he and I teamed up. We did okay but eventually were knocked out, at which point I called it a ­night.

The next evening I was back not long after eight, again drinking Pepsi and playing pool by myself. Towards nine or ­nine-­thirty the Bandidos started to drift in in small groups. By ten o’clock there were almost a dozen members in the bar and me in the back by myself. It was suddenly a very lonely place to ­be.

When Chuck came in, I was relieved to see him. He said hi to most of the Bandidos but wasn’t invited to sit with them. Instead, he came and shot some more pool with me. I made a mental note of his status, or lack ­thereof.
I half expected one of the bikers to come up and challenge me, sneering, “Who the fuck are you?” So I made myself extra small and even avoided going to the bathroom. That would not be a good place to have to explain what I, a stranger, was doing on their turf. But they seemed to have decided on a ­wait-­and-­see approach. If they were really wondering who I was, they could always question Chuck later. They might also have noticed the Canadian plates on the Firebird, which may have made them more cautious; their relationship with Canadian bikers and crooks was their financial lifeline. Still, it didn’t make them any friendlier that first evening. If looks could kill, I would have died several times ­over.

I didn’t push my luck and slipped out before any of them got too drunk and decided to have some fun at the stranger’s expense. At least I’d got on their radar. Certainly, Andy was thrilled that I had been in the same place with so many of them and been able to walk ­out–­even though it meant he had lost a friendly bet with one of the other cops that I wouldn’t make it through the ­night.

Over that first month, I’d go to the bar two, maybe three nights a week, and always on the Tuesday. Still, I didn’t exchange a single word with any of the Bandidos. I just played pool with Chuck or whoever and played it cool, chatting with the staff and the regulars, sipping my Pepsi in the back. The gang sat around a few tables in the front, ignoring me in their disdainful ­way.

I also took to visiting Chuck at his bike shop during the day and shooting the shit with him and whoever else was around. Often these were guys who had cordial relations with the Bandidos, so I knew that getting in good with them could help me penetrate the gang. On a couple of occasions I’d invite them back to my trailer for a beer or whatever. Increasingly I would make allusions to my work, which I let on to be smuggling and border running. “I was sneaking across the border a few days ago when ­this-­or-­that happened,” I would say. But going any further would have been ­silly–­admitting, for instance, that I was moving drugs across in the trunk of my car or illegal immigrants across by foot; no ­self-­respecting crook would have copped to ­that.

Still, after a month or so I hadn’t made any real progress and something had to give. Especially since my regular absences from Ferndale had started to become an issue with Corky. Theoretically, he and all the other cops could appreciate that it would only hurt the infiltration if I was around the whole time. I wouldn’t have any mystery, I wouldn’t be away on my nebulous business. Still, Corky was a ­nine-­to-­fiver and some part of him deep down must have wanted me to be one too, especially since I was getting a salary that likely eclipsed ­his.

“We’ve noticed how many times you’ve crossed the border and how long you stay,” he said at one of our meetings. “This isn’t a ­part-­time job, you know.”

“I can go home right now for good if you want,” I shot back at him. I wanted to force him to shut the fuck up. I was all they had, and even if by that point my work still hadn’t produced any useful evidence, I knew they were in no position to flush the ­probe.

In general, though, my relations with my handlers, Corky included, were solid right from the start. One reason: we were all Vietnam ­vets.

Andy Smith had been a captain in the Army Rangers, doing special operations that included ambushes and recovering POWs held by the Viet Cong. In fact, he occupied a notable place in the history of the war: he was one of the last eleven people helicoptered off the roof of the U.S. embassy in the early morning of April 30, 1975, during the fall of Saigon. He had a crushed hand to prove ­it–­it had been slammed in a heavy door leading to the roof. Andy was an aggressive, ­get-­it-­done type of guy, the kind that moves ahead like a freight train. He’d recently been transferred from New York and his attitude wasn’t always appreciated by the more ­laid-­back northwesterners, but it suited me ­fine.

Corky Cochrane, meanwhile, had been an Air Cavalry chopper pilot flying ammo in and body bags out. It had left him permanently wound up, borderline ­shell-­shocked even. Once or twice I took cruel pleasure in sending him back into his past. On one occasion, after he’d left the office for coffee, I hid behind the door. When he came back in, I yelled: “Incoming!” He threw his coffee in the air and dove under the desk. I thought I’d split a ­gut.

For his part, Larry Brant was the quintessential administrator and ­go-­between. He was so perfectly turned out in both manners and appearance that you knew he had been an officer and had stayed in the rear with the gear. Still, Larry had his place: he was our bridge between the street and head office, and a very good ­one.

Soon enough, however, I’d learn that not all vets were on the side of the good guys. I’d also find out that having smelled the same smoke could make for a strong bond with even the nastiest of ­people.

The ­thirty-­day evaluation period was drawing to a close and I was still not much further along in penetrating the Bandidos than I’d been after that first Tuesday night. The terms of my employment were pretty ­loosey-­goosey, little more than an understanding that after a month we would meet to assess the operation and take it from there. I still fully expected to be heading off to Bangkok to join Gary Kilgore and could have left the Bandidos behind in a heartbeat with no worries financially. Still, there was a certain professional pride involved. I wanted to impress the Americans and it was weighing on me that I hadn’t ­yet.

So, late one afternoon, sitting around at the Pioneer with Chuck, I made my move and asked him what the gang thought of me. He replied that the jury was still ­out.

“Some really don’t care one way or another. Others think you might be a cop.”

I exploded. “Me? A cop? Who the fuck is saying that?”

Chuck was taken aback. He said it wasn’t him, that the idea hadn’t even crossed his mind and he hadn’t doubted me for a ­second.

I kept up the theatre, demanding to know where I could find the members of the gang that ­instant.

Chuck said that some of the guys were at his shop. In fact, that was why he was at the ­bar–­they’d told him to make himself scarce while they used his facilities to work on their ­bikes.

I jumped into the Firebird, peeled out and drove the block and a half to the shop in a matter of seconds. Chuck’s shop was divided in two: in front was the retail section, at the back a garage. I screeched around back and into the open shop door, squealing my tires to a halt. Three Bandidos were standing around talking. To say they were surprised would be an understatement. I jumped out and walked up to ­them.

“Chuck told me you guys think I’m a fucking rat, or even a pig!”

They just looked at me as if I was totally nuts. Getting no response, I continued my ­rant.

“Where I come from, that’s done face to face!”

The same confrontational technique had worked well for me in Hong Kong. But for the act to work, you need a response from the bad guys that you can work with. In this case they just weren’t saying anything. Finally, though, one of the guys, who I later learned was Vinny Mann, the chapter president, took a few menacing steps in my direction. Well over six feet tall and solid, with a scraggly beard and unkempt hair, he pointed a finger at ­me.

“If I thought you were a pig, you would be dead already laying in a ditch,” he growled in his gravelly ­way.
Even if it didn’t provide much of a way out, it was at least a response. So I jumped at ­it.

“That’s what I heard about you ­guys–­you were solid and didn’t play around. That why I was so surprised when Chuck told me that.”

That led to more silence. I knew I was talking too much, but they weren’t helping. I relaxed my pose and added, “You can’t blame me for ­overreacting–­in my business reputation is everything!”

Vinny muttered under his breath that Chuck talked too fucking much. Then he threw me a lifeline. “It takes balls to do what you just did. I would have done the same thing.” Another pause before he continued. “By the way, I am checking you out. In the meantime, be cool.”

A biker I would later know as Karate ­Bob–­he had a couple inches on Vinny and a foot on ­me–­added menacingly, “Who knows, you may still end up in the ditch.”

“It’s a hazard of the trade,” I said, getting a laugh out of them. Or at least a smirk. Then I went to my car, without a glance in their direction, pulled ­out–­slowly this ­time–­and went ­home.

Even if I had just scored a few points, I was extremely happy to be out of there. I couldn’t help but notice that my hands were ­shaking.

Back at the trailer, I wrote up my notes about the encounter and later left them in the night drop box behind the DEA building in Blaine. It was the routine procedure we’d agreed to when I’d signed on and wasn’t considered too much of a security risk in those more reckless ­days.

But the response I got from the handlers the next day wasn’t standard at all. Everyone had read my report by the time we got together for a meeting, and their reactions were all over the map. Corky was pissed, convinced that I had needlessly jeopardized the case with the confrontation. In my defence I argued that once Chuck had opened his mouth he had taken away my ­options–­I had to act like a bad guy would act. Anything else would have been wimpy, I said. Andy, on the other hand, thought it was not only hilarious but likely the breakthrough we needed. It was in his ­rough-­and-­tumble character to appreciate that sort of ­rashness.

“I would give anything to have seen the look on their faces,” he kept saying, ­laughing.

The confrontation did end up being an ­ice-­breaker. The next time I went to the Pioneer, I got a little conversation from Vinny. Once he acknowledged me, the others followed ­suit.

I inadvertently scored a second major coup with Vinny not long afterwards. One night we were at the bar as closing time approached and he told me that I had to give him a ride home. His wife had his truck and their house wasn’t far from the trailer park where I was living. There was a Marty Robbins tape in the Firebird’s deck and the song that came on as we drove away from the Pioneer was “Ballad of the Alamo.” It was a favourite of mine. The story of fewer than two hundred men holding off a force more than twenty times as strong was a special inspiration to me. I knew most every detail about it. What I didn’t know at the time was that the Alamo was a very, very special inspiration to the Bandidos. Vinny was surprised to hear the song but said nothing. I sang along and then went on about how, if the Alamo happened today, we would be those guys, standing tall until the end, whatever the ­odds.

I laid it on thick and Vinny’s reaction was hard to read. He just looked at me in a perplexed but not hostile way. I suppose he was trying to figure me out. The song couldn’t be a ­set-­up because there was no way I could have known he would be in the car. He never said a word about it that I knew of, and when we arrived at his place he just got out of the car and closed the door, barely mumbling a thank you. But the story got around, as I would learn two years later in Sturgis, South ­Dakota.

The first thirty days were up and there had been no word on the Thailand gig, so we all decided to give the Bandidos job another thirty days. I was getting into my role and the agency was starting to get a view of the local chapter they didn’t have before. They gave me a $500-­per-­month raise and upgraded my Norton, which I’d been