Table of Contents
Biker
Inside the Notorious World of an Outlaw Motorcycle Gang
Jerry Langton
To my own little gang: Tonia, Damian, and Hewitt
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Biker isnt a typical novel. While it is a work of fiction, I didnt make very much of it up. Theres very little in Biker that didnt actually happen at one time or another.
Much of it comes from the research I did for my first book, Fallen Angel. While collecting the material necessary for that book, I had some great stories that just didnt fit because they didnt fit with the primary theme of Walter Stadnicks rise to power, couldnt be substantiated in time, or put me at risk of libel.
And since Fallen Angel was published, I have met dozens of other peopleincluding bikers, their friends, their girlfriends, cops, lawyers, and otherswho have told me more and more about their world. So Biker is as much a collaborative effort as any non-fiction book I could write. And Id like to thank all of my collaborators here.
My thanks has to start with John Wiley & Sons Robert Harris, who believed in this crazy hybrid idea right from the start and is ultimately responsible for its existence. And, of course, the great Don Loney, the only editor any author would ever want, deserves just as much thanks. The rest of the team at Wileyfrom Robin Dutta-Roy and Erika Zupko, who will make you want to buy the book, to Adrian So for his awesome cover and Tegan Wallace for her great interior design, to Lindsay Humphreys for her production prowesswere outstanding as always. Thanks also go to my agent B.G. Dilworth. I must also mention Leta Potter here.
And I am grateful to the people who talked with me. Most of them would prefer not to be mentioned by name, but theres no way I can leave out the incredibly informative Sergeant John Harris of Hamilton Police Services.
And I have to thank my wife and children, whose patience and creativity made writing Biker not only possible but enjoyable.
CHAPTER 1
Even though his girlfriend was gyrating on stage completely nude, Steve Schultz wasnt paying any attention. The former Miss Nude Springfieldwho went by the name of Lexus onstage and Connie Horvath away from itwas doing her best to be seductive, but Steve was busy with something he considered far more pressing. He was in the middle of a meeting with his two most trusted confidantesWarren Lizard Lessard and Daniel Bamm Bamm Johanssonand one of his most promising young newcomers, Ned Aiken.
The subject was a phone card scam. Steve had fake long-distance phone cards printed in Thailand and he marketed them through convenience stores in Toronto, across the border. The immigrants who bought them were desperate for a bargain, and too scared of the authorities to raise a fuss when they discovered that Steves cards didnt actually connect to anything.
Unlike Steve, the rest of the patrons of Foxes Gentlemens Club (known throughout town as the Strip) were eating up Connies act. Connie was exactly what they had come for. She was tall and blonde. But under the harsh light at Foxes, her natural blonde hair darkened and appeared light brown, so she dyed it nearly white. Away from the stage, it looked harsh and unnatural, but thats not where she made her money. She was painfully thin. You could easily count her ribs from behind. The view from the front was a different story. A former boyfriend, intent on advancing her career, had sprung for radical breast augmentation surgery. Distinct lines ran down from her sternum and they ended a few inches below her ribcage. The implants in no way resembled actual breastsand the crowd adored them.
Calling the collected patrons at Foxes a crowd might be too ambitious. There was seventy-one-year-old Hank, who sat silently in the back of the bar, three shy Chinese teenagers who popped up the collars of their golf shirts and sipped long-necked Buds, and Buddy, a morbidly obese kid with a learning disability who cleaned the place and worked the dishwasher in exchange for not having to pay a cover charge or order drinks.
Steve didnt own Foxes. The actual owner was a wealthy man named Myron Fishman whose luck was in decline. Myron had made his considerable fortune manufacturing cardboard boxes. He had retired to Florida not long after Steve made his first appearance at Foxes in the company of Lessard and Johansson, who were decked out in full Death Dealer colourscomplete with club patches that featured a skull in a top hat with four aces and a joker tucked into the brim. Now Steve had the run of the place.
A full-patch member of Americas largest bike gang, the Sons of Satan, Schultz had been hand picked by the gangs national president, Ivan Mehelnechuk, to bring the ragtag assembly of Springfields bikers under the Sons control. The larger goal was to wrest the citys drug and prostitution rackets out of the hands of their biggest rival, the Lawbreakers, who had adopted the Satans Own, a proudly independent local club, as their Springfield chapter.
Many of the disenfranchised and disillusioned local bikers approached the Death Dealers when word spread that they were now headed by a bona fide Son of Satan. Steve had earned his nickname Hollywood. He was handsome, he was larger than life, and he never, ever stopped talking about himself. Steve wasnt from Springfield and he never let the other guys forget it. He had moved there when he was fifteen, then left to enjoy a successful career with the Sons of Satan in Mehelnechuks power base of Martinsville. While Martinsville was a fairly large city by Midwestern standards, it was hardly cosmopolitan. Steves brash worldiness stood out.
Steve was actually from Bay Ridge, a quiet, residential neighborhood full of tree-lined streets in the south side of Brooklyn. It has more in common with the New Jersey suburbs than the mean streets people associate with Brooklyn, but that didnt matter to the guys in Springfield. In their minds, Steve was a New Yorker with all the rights and privileges that held. And he knew how to play it up. Hed go from spouting a ridiculous parody of Brooklynese (dese, dose, and dem) to speaking in overly complicated Englishsometimes in the same sentencewhenever he thought it would give him a psychological advantage.
He hadnt wanted to go back to Springfield. He considered it being sent to the minorsgoing to the boondocks to babysit a bunch of idiot yokels. But Mehelnechuk painted an entirely different picture of the Springfield assignment. Steve wouldnt be a babysitter, the boss assured him; he would be a general, heroically carrying the Sons of Satan banner into a war he was sure to win. Ivan also, subtly, indicated that once the city was secured, it would be his to plunder. Schultz readily accepted and, in a short time, he had achieved impressive results.
By the night on which he spoke with Lessard, Johansson and young Ned Aiken, Steve had turned the Death Dealers into the Sons puppet club and made them a force to be reckoned with in Springfield.
As they discussed the nuts and bolts of the phone-card scam, Connies show was coming to a close. Lets have a big hand for Lexus. Lexus, everyone, the DJ intoned as Connie crawled around the stage on all fours picking up the crumpled bills that had been thrown at her. There were a few minutes of awkward silence as the DJ waited until she was finished before starting his spiel to introduce the next dancer.
