Jerry Langton Three-Book Bundle (53 page)

Built in 1848, Hamilton General Hospital looks even older. It has since undergone an extensive facelift, but at the time Stadnick was there it had a sinister, industrial revolution-era atmosphere inside and out. Situated on one of the worst sections of Barton Street—just two blocks from the jail—everything about the General belies its reputation as one of the best hospitals in Canada. Its burn unit was and still is particularly well respected.

Diane was a nurse at the General at the time Stadnick was there and remembers his stay well. “It was crazy; most of the day there were these big, burly bikers outside his room,” she said. “And the rest of the time, it was these big, burly cops—it's like he was a rock star or something.” There was not much affection between the 13th Tribe and the Hamilton-Wentworth Regional Police. “You could tell the bikers were small-town boys; they weren't used to cops like we had here in Hamilton,” she said. “They used to taunt and tease the bikers all the time—trying to start a fight, eh?” Despite the best efforts of the police, the bikers couldn't be persuaded into anything illegal. “After a while, things seemed to calm down and the two sets of guys seemed to at least tolerate each other,” said Diane. “But the cops always referred to Mr. Stadnick as ‘French Fry' and the bikers always called the cops ‘the Doughnut Gang.' ”

Visiting hours were busy. Anderson was there as much as her job would allow, and Stadnick had frequent meetings with his lawyer and many local friends. Stephan Frankel was shocked at how badly his client had been burned. “He was beyond recognition. The only way I knew it was him was when I saw Kathi sitting beside his bed,” said Frankel. Don Stockford, a friend of Stadnick's family who'd always wanted to be a biker, dropped by regularly and earned Hells Angels prospect status with his kindness and loyalty. And, of course, Harris visited every once in a while. “I just wanted to remind him I was around,” he said. “And annoy him a bit.” The Outlaws never showed up and the 13th Tribe earned their colors, becoming the Hells Angels Halifax Chapter on December 5, 1984.

When he was released from the General, Stadnick was a very different person. The crash and burn had cost him two and a half fingers, the tip of his nose and much of his skin. He was scarred over much of his upper body, especially his arms and face, but the incident also affected his personality. “It's not like he was an attractive guy before the accident, but he was real hard to look at afterwards,” said Harris. “And it seemed to change him even more mentally than physically; he seemed isolated and depressed afterwards.” Those changes didn't affect Anderson and Stockford, both of whom stayed loyal to Stadnick. “You have to hand it to Kathi,” said Harris. “She stuck by him after the accident; not many people would have.”

While Stadnick was recovering at home in Hamilton, Réjean Lessard was declaring war in Montreal. Upset by the fact that the members of Laval were snorting more cocaine than they were selling and were accumulating horrendous debts, Lessard decided to “close” the chapter. He decreed death sentences for the primary offenders and invited the entire chapter to a party at the headquarters of the Gitans (formerly the Dirty Reich), a Sherbrooke, Quebec, club prospecting for the Hells Angels. The slaughter, later known as the Lennoxville Massacre after a nearby suburb, was a qualified success. Lessard and his men shot and killed five members of the Laval chapter, but missed Yves “Apache” Trudeau, their primary target, who had checked into rehab a week earlier. For their participation, the Gitans were awarded the honor of becoming the Hells Angels Sherbrooke Chapter.

Before the bodies started floating up to the surface of the St. Lawrence River, word of the Lennoxville Massacre had spread through the Quebec underworld and divided it sharply. Some were impressed by Lessard's decisiveness and ability to impose his will, while others were appalled by the Hells Angels' ability to turn on their own kind. No organization was split more deeply than the SS, a loose-knit gang of East End lowlifes with a racist bent. The division was so profound that it actually broke the SS up. One member, Salvatore Cazzetta, was so appalled that he and his brother Giovanni formed their own gang in opposition to the Hells Angels. Realizing how dangerous it would be to flaunt their existence in front of Lessard's men, the new gang—the Rock Machine—identified its members not by colorful jackets, but with rings emblazoned with a stylized eagle's head.

Cazzetta made it clear when he formed the new gang that it was because he did not want to be part of the Hells Angels. “Sal once told me: ‘Those guys, they operate their club in such a way that I didn't want to join them,' ” said Fred Faucher, a veteran of the SS and one of the Rock Machine's original members. With the charismatic Salvatore Cazzetta's close ties with the Montreal mafia, his new gang had no lack of business and soon grew strong and large. They gained even more strength and credibility when two notable SS veterans—the immense Paul “Sasquatch” Porter and the cold-blooded André “Curly” Sauvageau—joined the new club.

One of Cazzetta's closest friends and a founding member of the SS, Maurice “Mom” Boucher, disagreed. A hardcore tough from the nastiest streets of Montreal who dropped out of high school to become a full-time drug dealer and enforcer, Boucher was in prison when the SS broke up. He'd been found guilty of sexually assaulting a woman while holding a knife to her throat and had served 23 months of a 40-month sentence when he was released to a new Montreal. While he was inside, one Hells Angels chapter had butchered another, the SS had disbanded and a major new gang had emerged. Naturally, the Cazzettas tried to recruit him for the Rock Machine, but Boucher wasn't interested. He didn't want to be part of the third-best biker gang in Montreal. In fact, Boucher actually admired what Lessard had done—he'd seen a problem and taken care of it. Boucher had always wanted to be part of the best gang and the way Sorel had handled Laval showed him that the Hells Angels were indeed the top of the heap. Rather than take a primary position with the Rock Machine, Boucher rode his bike to Sorel and asked to join the Hells Angels. They were more than happy to accept him as a prospect as long as he promised never to use cocaine again. That was okay with him; he'd switch to alcohol.

When the bodies of the Laval members started to appear, the police knew who had murdered them. But it wasn't until a chance arrest of Trudeau coincided with a tabloid article that claimed he was being targeted as Sorel's next victim that the case broke. His testimony against the Sorel chapter was exactly what the police needed to cripple the Hells Angels in Quebec. After a long and exhaustive inquest, prolonged by numerous challenges by Hells Angels lawyer Léo-René Maranda, Crown attorney René Domingue charged 17 Sorel members with murder and issued warrants for ten more on October 2, 1985. Fear caused two more Hells Angels, Gerry “Le Chat” Coulombe and Gilles “Le Nez” Lachance, to agree to turn informant. Lachance's testimony was especially damning, as he was an eyewitness to the Lennoxville Massacre and was desperate to escape what he thought was a death sentence from Sorel.

Things were little better for the Hells Angels on the East Coast. A Halifax prostitute who was enraged when the bikers started demanding 40 percent of her gross earnings in exchange for advertising and protection, went to the cops and told them everything. On May 30, 1986, all eight full-patch members of Hells Angels Halifax Chapter were arrested and charged with conspiracy to live on the avails of prostitution; they were eventually sentenced to one-year terms. The clubhouse and what remained of their business was operated by prospects and hangarounds until Michel “Sky” Langlois, who became president after Lessard was arrested, was informed by Eastern headquarters in Manhattan that a chapter must have a minimum of six full members or face potentially permanent suspension, as had happened in Buffalo, New York, a few years earlier. Desperate, Langlois dipped into the Sorel and Halifax coffers to pay to fly full-patch B.C. members to operate the chapter in two-week shifts.

The national network of Hells Angels chapters that Yves “Le Boss” Buteau had envisioned and begun in earnest was in shambles. Laval was extinct, all the important members of Sorel and Halifax were behind bars, ratting on their brothers or hiding from police, while the B.C. chapters were busy on a cross-country commute trying to keep the entire club from falling apart. And, despite repeated forays, the club had no footing in Ontario, Canada's richest market for drugs and prostitution.

The Hells Angels' misfortunes didn't escape the Outlaws' notice. Traditionally less aggressive than their rivals, the Outlaws began to exert themselves in Quebec. They began by posting leaflets all over the Montreal area which illustrated “Hells Angels Brotherhood” with crudely drawn pictures of dead bikers at the bottom of the St. Lawrence. At an April 10, 1986, open-air rock concert in the tiny village of Verchères on the South Shore just down river from Montreal, the normally discreet Outlaws arrived in full colors. According to eyewitnesses and tabloids like
Allô Police
, they also conducted drug sales without fear of interruption by police or rivals. In hopes of hosting an international Outlaws party, the Montreal Chapter bought a farm in Dundee, Quebec, just walking distance from the U.S. border. Before any events could take place, the tipped-off Sûreté du Quebec (SQ) raided the farm and found 200 handguns, 30 hand grenades and a box of dynamite, but made no significant arrests. The Outlaws' new assertiveness was complemented by the Evil Ones, a prominent Hells Angels puppet gang, who stopped wearing their colors in public. When Langlois found out, he was enraged. He sped to the Evil Ones' clubhouse and threatened their president, Marc Bourassa. Unless the Evil Ones showed more backbone, and their colors, he told them, they would be stripped of them and, he hinted, they could find themselves at the bottom of the river. Bourassa and his men complied and sweetened the deal by donating the proceeds of local stickups to the Hells Angels' defense fund.

Stadnick, out of the hospital, was recuperating at his trailer in Courtcliffe Park in Carlisle, Ontario, just outside Hamilton. Courtcliffe is a friendly place where people kick back, relax and get to know each other generation after generation. As in Hamilton, Stadnick's country neighbors found him quiet, unassuming and eminently likeable. “He never caused any problems; he was always friendly,” said a man who had a trailer near his. “I didn't even know he was a biker—he always drove a car up here.” While Stadnick never rode his Harley or wore his colors up to Carlisle, he did bring at least one piece of the underworld with him.

In the summer of 1986, a neighbor was mowing the area around his trailer when he came across a large white Tupperware container in the underbrush. When he opened it, it was full of pills. Sensing something was wrong, he called the police. Since most of the Hamilton-Wentworth force knew Stadnick was up there, the case was forwarded to Harris. “It was full of amphetamines, and we knew it was his,” said Harris. “So we put the container back where it was found and kept an eye on it.” But Stadnick must have realized what had happened, because he never went back to retrieve the pills. “He was pretty smart,” said Harris. “If nothing else, he had an ability to keep himself out of trouble.”