Jerry Langton Three-Book Bundle (65 page)

The Hells Angels had their own problems. After being warned about his weight by his doctor and losing more than 70 pounds, on February 23, 1996, Robert “Ti-Maigre” Richard suffered a massive coronary and died. Just as important, however, was the fact that Carcajou had conducted a series of raids on Hells Angels' interests in Quebec City. Starting with club associate Clément Allard, who was caught with $20 million in fake $20 bills on March 14, Carcajou raids led to 35 arrests and the confiscation of enough guns and drugs to put a serious dent in the gang's bottom line.

A few days after Richard's funeral, his former protégé, Steinert, exerted himself in a surprisingly public way—by getting himself a piece of Quebec history, Château Lavigueur. On the night of April 14, 1986, 18-year-old Yves Lavigueur answered the door of his run-down home in Lachine to meet a poorly dressed man who was yelling something at him in English. He slammed the door in the stranger's face and forgot about the incident until the next day when the same man showed up again with a friend. Lavigueur was about to call the police when the stranger's friend spoke to him in French, saying “Mr. Murphy has some important news for you.” Lavigueur let them inside and they sat on the family couch with Yves' father, Jean-Guy.

Through his interpreter, William Murphy reminded Jean-Guy about how his lost wallet had been returned anonymously. Although he'd given back all of Lavigueur's cash and identification, Murphy had kept a 6/49 lottery ticket he'd found inside. It hit. The winnings were $7.8 million. After the celebrations were over, Jean-Guy decided to split the tax-free windfall evenly with four relatives and Murphy, each receiving $1.3 million. It was a story that delighted the entire province, but soon went bad and drew even more interest. The family moved into a palatial home in the luxurious part of Ile-Jésus, just north of Laval, which the media quickly named Château Lavigueur (the Lavigueur Mansion). As soon as they moved in, the hard-drinking, simple Lavigueurs started embarrassing themselves and the tabloids caught every bit of it. It played like a real-life version of
The Beverly Hillbillies
gone terribly wrong. When they finally ran out of money in 1995, the city put the house up for sale and the Lavigueurs retreated back to Lachine. So intense was the public interest that an admission fee of $25 to view the mansion was instituted to keep the curious out.

Two friends of the Death Riders who had been hurt in the Bar Le Harley explosion in September purchased the house. While they were working on renovations like bullet-proof windows and video cameras, a reporter asked Richard Turcot (the man whose name was on the deed) if he was an associate of the Hells Angels. He said “no” and refused to answer any more questions. When the fortification was complete, Steinert, whom the Hells Angels had sent north to control the Death Riders, moved into Château Lavigueur. The opulent setting did more than just serve as a palace for the man who considered himself king of Laval and as a place to conduct Death Riders business. When he found out that an old friend, Stéphane Chouinard, had come into some money and was interested in making some porn videos, Steinert offered him the use of Château Lavigueur—as long as the host could be one of the on-camera participants and get a cut of sales.

A lull in the violence in the summer of 1996 had Montrealers feeling pretty good about their city and about Carcajou. Some editorial writers were bleating that the war was over and some politicians were suggesting reducing Carcajou's budget or even disbanding it altogether now that its mission had been accomplished. That feeling of calm was shattered on the morning of August 22 when three bombs exploded in the suburbs. The next day, the RCMP, following a Kane tip, made a frightening discovery. When Gagné got out of prison in April, he sent a message to Boucher that he was looking for work. Two days later, Gagné's mother got him out of bed to tell him he had visitors. It was Boucher and his right-hand man Tousignant. They took him for a ride.

Just southwest of Maisonneuve-Hochelaga, in a neighborhood called Verdun, Boucher pointed out the Rock Machine's headquarters. Then he put his fist in front of Gagné's face. When he was sure Gagné was looking, he quickly extended his fingers, mimicking an explosion. No words, no sound effects. He asked Gagné if he understood. Gagné said he did. Boucher handed him $1,000 and Tousignant drove him home. After many frustrated attempts to get a clear shot at the clubhouse, Gagné finally got his hands on a stolen Hydro Quebec van, a vehicle so commonplace and anonymous it was almost below suspicion. He packed it with over 200 pounds of dynamite in five camping coolers, each with its own remote-controlled detonator. The day it was supposed to go off, the RCMP found it parked on one of the busiest streets of Verdun, not far from the Rock Machine clubhouse. Forensic tests indicated that the blast would have been powerful enough to have killed dozens in a shrapnel storm and even cause major structural damage to nearby buildings.

Although Kane's information had prevented another potential Desrosiers situation, he was also committing crimes with impunity and costing the RCMP a lot of money. Since he was the only source the police had inside the Hells Angels, they were obliged to believe what he said. Still, many cops speculated that he was behind or at least involved in a number of crimes, including the bomb that killed Desrosiers. But if he denied it, there was little they could do.

When Roland Lebrasseur's body was found on a deserted roadside in the South Shore community of Brossard, the police asked Kane what he knew about him. Kane told them that Lebrasseur had taken a job as a driver for Carroll's escort agency. When he met more Hells Angels, he boasted that he knew how to make bombs. Since they knew he was a Canadian Armed Forces veteran, they let him hang around. But he never made any bombs; he didn't actually know how. Instead, he started snorting tons of cocaine and racking up debts with the wrong people, particularly Carroll, who was chronically short of cash despite his high rank and numerous businesses. What Kane did not tell them was that, at a party in February, a drunk and stoned Lebrasseur had made a play for Patricia, Kane's new girlfriend. When she rebuffed him, he told her about Josée and Kane's three kids. Patricia not only told Kane it was over, she left the city. Kane also didn't tell police that before the sun rose on the morning of March 3, he drove Lebrasseur out to an unlit field far from any houses and told him to get out of the car, put three holes in his head and chest, then drove home.

Although the RCMP was paying him $4,000 every two weeks and he was still earning for the Hells Angels, Kane told them that he needed something more. Begging like a spoiled teenager, Kane told them that all the important Hells Angels ran businesses and that it would increase his credibility if he had one too. After some discussion, the RCMP gave him $30,325 to start
Rencontres Selectes
, a gay dating magazine where men placed racy ads looking for partners. The bulk of the profits would come from larger ads for strip joints, phone sex lines and escort services, many of which were owned or at least influenced by Kane's friends. After it succeeded, he told them, he could morph it into a gay club in Montreal and start making real money. A high-school dropout, Kane knew nothing about graphic design and even less about publishing, so his handlers at the RCMP came up with a business plan and even designed the first issue. He was playing them for fools. Kane did little meaningful work on the magazine and it folded after just three taxpayer-funded issues. He did, however, get what he'd wanted in the first place—access to gay men.

Aimé Simard was a sad and lonely young man from Quebec City who lived with his mother. Despite a habit of petty thefts and frauds, Simard studied police technology in college. After an instructor told him no police force would ever want an officer as short and fat as he was, Simard quit school and went back to his mother's house. When charges for passing rubber checks and using fake identification started piling up, he fled to Hamilton, where his father had relatives. But there was little work there for a college dropout who didn't speak English, so he returned once again to his mother's house. Before long he landed in prison and ran afoul of a tough cocaine dealer. After he was freed, he went to the Quebec City police and offered to inform on the dealer. The police, many of whom knew that Simard had always wanted to be a cop, were surprised he didn't ask for anything in return.

After word spread that Simard was an informant, he started carrying a handgun with him wherever he went. When his weight ballooned to 355 pounds, he convinced the provincial government to pay to have his stomach stapled. Determined to start life over again as a thinner man, Simard enrolled in nursing school. After a fellow student noticed and asked about the gun, Simard was arrested for possession of a restricted weapon and for pointing it at a classmate (a charge he denied). He received a sentence of 18 months. On a weekend pass he was issued just before a parole hearing, he decided to celebrate by going dancing. That night a passing cop happened to see him hiding his gun under the seat of his Jeep; Simard went back to prison to serve the rest of his term and a few months more. As soon as he got out, Simard moved back into his mother's house under her two conditions—that he get a job and go back to school. While working as a night clerk at the Château Mont-Ste-Anne and studying criminology in the day (still holding out hope of being a cop, despite his record), he placed an ad in
Recontres Selectes
under the bisexual category. After a few phone conversations, Kane told him he'd be stopping by Quebec City on the way to Halifax. During a date that included sex in his mother's bed, Simard recognized a tattoo on Kane's arm that identified him as a Hells Angel.

Kane went to Halifax under the orders of Carroll, who was appalled at the mess his old chapter had become since he'd left. Without their leader, the Hells Angels in Halifax weren't interested in anything but partying and had lost their grip on the prostitution and, particularly, drug markets. They had piled up massive debts with Carroll, and with other drug dealers who they had allowed to take over their territory. Kane was meeting up with Carroll's old friend Paul Wilson, a well-known owner of several Halifax bars, to deal with the chapter and recruit a small army of tougher young men to take back the city.

While Stadnick was moving his chess pieces around the board in hopes of an Ontario takeover, things started to unravel a bit in Winnipeg. Although Stadnick had done a remarkable job with the Redliners, his puppet gang there, all the really experienced bikers in Winnipeg ran with Los Brovos or the Spartans, and the best of them were Los Brovos. While the Redliners looked good as bodyguards and threw a decent party, it was with the members of Los Brovos that Stadnick did his real business. He trusted them to sell Hells Angels drugs in Winnipeg and, in the spring of 1996, told Ernie Dew, their president, to prepare to become a prospective Hells Angels chapter.

In an effort to extend more goodwill and to demonstrate the brotherhood between chapters, Mike McCrea, who was running the Halifax chapter while Carroll was in Montreal, invited David Boyko, a former president of Los Brovos and still one of the most popular members, out east for a party. At first, Boyko didn't want to go, but when McRea insisted, he agreed. He didn't have a good time for long. One of the other guests at the party was Magnussen, and they didn't get along. Drunk and stoned by the time Boyko arrived, Magnussen had gained his current boss's brashness and pride, but had none of Steinert's charm to temper it. Magnussen had lost a great deal of money in a bad drug deal in Winnipeg the previous year and blamed Los Brovos. He'd never liked Boyko and, since he was the first member of Los Brovos he'd seen in a long time, he took out his anger on him.

The big man they called “Bam Bam” approached Boyko with his fists clenched and demanded to know where his money was. Boyko tried to calm him down, saying he didn't know what he was talking about. Before he could finish, Magnussen took a swing. The fight didn't last long. A group of guests pulled them apart and threw Magnussen out. Later that weekend, Boyko's body was found on a gravel road in nearby Dartmouth.

The news devastated many in Los Brovos, where Boyko was extraordinarily well-liked (the primary reason Stadnick had urged McCrea to invite him to Halifax). His funeral was a hugely lavish affair with members of Los Brovos, the rival Spartans and clubs from all over the prairies (primarily the Grim Reapers of Alberta) in attendance. McCrea attended in hopes that it would help convince the bikers in Winnipeg that Boyko's death was an isolated incident, a bit of one-on-one violence that had nothing to do with the Hells Angels. It didn't work. Nobody at the funeral would acknowledge his presence and the members of Los Brovos turned their backs whenever he approached.

Although some Hells Angels in Montreal told him to give up on Winnipeg—some even believed he might be murdered for revenge—Stadnick wouldn't entertain the thought. He'd worked too hard on Winnipeg, particularly on Los Brovos, and he wasn't about to allow some idiot to waste it. Back in Winnipeg, the members of Los Brovos seethed in relative silence for a couple of months until the night of May 11, when a drug deal between a number of their associates and three members of the Redliners went bad. There was no negotiation. The three unlucky Redliners were beaten, kicked, burned, sliced and mutilated beyond recognition, with much of the torture occurring before their deaths. Perhaps the killers were symbolically taking out their frustration on Stadnick or the Hells Angels, because when he arrived in Winnipeg to help make peace, two members of Los Brovos met him at the airport. They weren't exactly friendly, but they didn't kill him either.