Jerry Langton Three-Book Bundle (68 page)

His fears were unfounded. Gagné was proving his worth with the Rockers. While serving under the watch of Boucher's right-hand man, Tousignant, and Paul “Fonfon” Fontaine, Gagné distinguished himself as a drug salesman and frequently lobbied to prove his worth to the club in other ways. Before they'd let him join a “football team” (what the Montreal Hells Angels called their killing squads), they told him he had to wait. But Gagné was too ambitious and impatient for that. Christian Bellemare was an old friend of his and had been selling his drugs since the days before Gagné got involved with the Hells Angels. Their long-standing friendship had allowed Bellemare a certain amount of leeway as far as debts were concerned, but when he'd run up a $12,000 tab at the same time Gagné needed to prove a point, he was in big trouble.

In the spring of 1997, Gagné and another would-be Rocker, Steve Boies, invited Bellemare up to a party in the Laurentians. After they got good and drunk at a chalet bar, Gagné suggested they go outside for a joint. When they were out of sight of the chalet windows, Gagné pulled out a gun. Realizing he was the intended victim, Bellemare took off and started climbing over one of the snowbanks that surrounded the parking lot. Just as he was getting over the top, Gagné shot him and Bellemare tumbled over backwards onto the pavement. They were surprised to see he wasn't dead, so Gagné grabbed the barely conscious man by the shirt, pointed the gun at his forehead and pulled the trigger. It jammed. Exasperated, he put his hands around Bellemare's throat and started squeezing. When Gagné was satisfied the man was dead, he left the body where it was, and he and Boies kicked enough snow over it so it wouldn't be discovered until they were back in Montreal. The plan probably would have worked if they had killed Bellemare, but they hadn't. Strangled merely into unconsciousness, the victim dug himself out of the snow and made it back into the bar where a waitress called 911. Although Gagné had not managed to kill anybody, he'd made his point. He was certainly willing to become a murderer.

Boucher was becoming obsessed with the idea that he had a rat in his midst. Since he couldn't find out who was telling the cops about what the Hells Angels were doing, his plan was to make the cops too scared to do anything about it. Under his new plan, the Hells Angels would murder police officers, prosecutors, judges and others who tried to put members behind bars, thereby inciting enough fear in the authorities to leave the Hells Angels alone and to ensure that, even if a biker was arrested, he'd never be convicted. Of course, the plan also had a personal side. Like many organized crime leaders, Boucher had very little love for authority figures and he wouldn't have minded seeing a few of them dead. So to kick off the operation, Boucher targeted the people he hated most, the ones he considered stupid and beneath his contempt, the ones who had treated him the worst over the years: prison guards. And, although Boucher didn't realize it, with Kane behind bars, there would be nobody to warn the RCMP.

True to the Nomads' philosophy, Boucher pushed the job down to his underlings, Tousignant and Fontaine. Although both men had a great desire to please their boss, neither wanted to take on such a hazardous job. According to Vincent, the man who claimed to be friends with both Boucher and Stadnick at the time, the belief among Montrealers at the time was that when a biker killed another biker, the police and prosecutors considered it a natural part of the business they were in. When a biker killed a civilian, it was sad but fairly routine. But if a biker were to kill an authority figure, he would be in real trouble. But Boucher wanted a prison guard dead, so it had to happen. This was the kind of job that normally would have fallen to Kane, but he was in jail awaiting trial on the MacFarlane murder, so Tousignant and Fontaine turned to another eager young thug, Stéphane “Godasse” Gagné.

They could hardly have picked a better candidate. Gagné was obsessed with becoming a Hells Angel, and he had a personal grudge against prison guards. Not only had they thrown him into the heart of Rock Machine territory in Bordeaux, but a group of seven guards had beaten him severely in Sorel. He jumped at the chance to take one down. As with many East Enders, when Gagné thought of jail or prison, he thought of the nearby facility in Rivière-des-Prairies, a sort of holding pen for maximum-security prisoners on their way to court. After he cased the prison several times under the cover of darkness, Gagné found a section of the chain-link fence he could crawl under. From there, he found a spot in the trees where he could watch the parking lot. After a few nights, he fixed on a target.

Of all the cars that arrived and left—mostly rusted old minivans or cheerless economy cars—one stood out. Five nights a week, a man in a suit, who left earlier than all the others at shift change, strode into a brilliantly white spotless Buick Park Avenue that was always parked in the closest spot to the door. Clearly, he was someone important. Not wanting to take any chances, Gagné followed him out of the parking lot one night. Gagné knew that unless he got his victim on the highway, he'd never be able to get away from the crime scene. He was disappointed when he tailed the man in the big white Buick. Instead of turning off on the Autoroute Métropolitaine into the suburbs, the Buick kept driving down Boulevard Henri-Bourassa into the city. Disappointed, Gagné was mentally running through his list of potential victims when he got an urgent page to report to Boucher's office.

When he arrived at Rue Bennett, Tousignant was waiting outside. He took Gagné to a bar and told him that Boucher was getting impatient for results and that they would be working together from now on. The plan was simple. Gagné and Tousignant would follow a prison guard onto the Autoroute Métropolitaine on a motorcycle, kill him just before the bridge to Laval, cross over, dump the bike in a mall parking lot and drive away in a stolen car. When it came time to do the job on June 26, Tousignant picked the most un-Harley bike he could find, a wildly low-slung silver Suzuki Katana racer. The two men sped to Rivière-des-Prairies and waited in the darkness until shift change. When the first guard left in an old Jeep Cherokee, they followed him until he passed the Autoroute turnoff. Tousignant then stopped the Suzuki, turned it around and twisted his right wrist until they were back at the prison.

Just as they arrived, they saw a short, heavyset guard get into a white Plymouth Voyageur and drive out of the parking lot. Tousignant followed. When the minivan turned onto the Autoroute Métropolitaine, the bikers knew they'd found their quarry. Diane Lavigne, the daughter of a veteran prison guard and one of the first women ever to serve as a guard in Quebec, was driving in the slow lane. She only took the Autoroute Métropolitaine about a mile before she turned off on the Chemin-des-40 Arpents to her house in St-Eustache. Tousignant brought the Suzuki even with the minivan. Gagné pulled out his revolver and fired into the open window three times. He hit her twice, the second one passed through her arm and her left lung before coming to a stop in her backbone. She was dead before the Voyageur came to a stop on the shoulder. Tousignant then sped into Laval, where they dumped the bike, burned their clothes and fled in a stolen Voyageur. Danielle Leclair was another Rivière-des-Prairies guard; she was driving on Autoroute Métropolitaine about a quarter mile behind Lavigne. She saw the Suzuki, even swerved to avoid it at one point, and heard some cracking noises. When she recognized Lavigne's minivan by the side of the road, she considered stopping, but didn't.

When news of the murder hit the media the next day, Gagné, Tousignant, Fontaine, Boucher and others celebrated. They were surprised to find out the victim was a woman and, after some ribbing, Boucher put his arm around Gagné and told him not to feel bad. He didn't. After receiving his Rockers prospective membership, Gagné interpreted their gratitude as an indication that he was one more murder away from his full patch. But it would have to wait. About a week later, a young drug dealer was driving around the East End in a stolen car when he spotted Gagné wearing his Rockers patch (Fontaine and Tousignant earned prospective Nomads memberships). Eager to make his own Rock Machine prospective patch, the driver plowed his car into Gagné's Harley and fled. Gagné suffered injuries bad enough to keep him out of commission until late August. When he emerged, he resumed his duties as a drug dealer and started planning for another hit. Fontaine advised against hitting another prison guard. Without any information from Kane, Lavigne's murder was being treated as an isolated incident. Although the hit was professionally done, some elements—like the Japanese bike—put the police off the scent. Another, similar killing might make it obvious who the real killers were. But Fontaine was missing the point. Boucher's master plan was to destabilize the Quebec government and make them fear the Hells Angels. Following a model set down by the cocaine barons of Colombia, Boucher wanted to terrorize the police and judiciary into submission. Making it obvious was a key element to success. The next victim would be another prison guard.

On September 3, Gagné and Fontaine were hiding in the trees at Rivière-des-Prairies when they selected a victim. They followed Richard Auclair and Gagné suggested they kill him at a stoplight just before he turned onto the Autoroute. Fontaine, who had appeared nervous to his partner from the start, begged off, saying he didn't think the escape route was safe. Gagné disagreed, but respected his decision. On the ride home, Fontaine revealed that he was having a problem with killing a guard. “Killing a Rock Machine—that doesn't bother me; they're our enemies,” he said, pointing out that he had no grudge against the guards. “They mean nothing to me.” He also wanted to make sure that Gagné knew that if they were caught they were guaranteed 25-year sentences. Fontaine's arguments didn't have much effect on his partner, though. Gagné had already murdered one guard and was desperate for his full patch.

They were back in the woods again on September 8. When Boucher found out that it was Fontaine who had hesitated, he wanted to know why. Fontaine said he didn't like the risk of taking motorcycles, so Boucher got him a little Mazda 323 hatchback and a Dodge Caravan minivan. Not only was Fontaine back on the job, but Boucher suggested he be the triggerman, although Gagné would carry a gun for backup.

That morning, 12 buses left from Rivière-des-Prairies to pick up prisoners and, when one turned toward where the getaway Caravan was parked, the bikers followed it in the Mazda. As government vehicles must, the bus stopped when it came to a railway crossing. Robert Corriveau, the relief driver, was in the front passenger seat when he saw a fat man dressed in black in front of the bus. He appeared to have a gun. Before he could say anything, Fontaine climbed onto the hood of the bus and emptied his .357 Magnum in the direction of Pierre Rondeau, the driver. Through a shower of tiny glass cubes, three bullets entered his body. One bounced around inside, shredding most of his internal organs. Stunned, Corriveau watched as Fontaine slid off the hood and ran away, but he didn't see Gagné until he heard the click. Gagné's 9 mm, aimed at Corriveau's head, had jammed. Corriveau hid under the dashboard. Gagné slid off the hood and calmly walked around to the right-hand side of the bus. Through the window in the door he could see Corriveau huddled in a ball and he shot every bullet he had before leaving. Somehow, every one of them missed Corriveau; but one hit Rondeau, whose heart was still faintly beating.

While Boucher was waging war on prison guards, the violence escalated again as the summer wound down. On the same night, two Hells Angels-associated bars were hit by Molotov cocktails and someone set fire to Sensations, Steinert's stripper/escort agency. Although many considered the fire just another salvo in what appeared to be an endless war, Steinert had enough enemies within his own club and in the mafia that it could have been almost anyone.

Further ambiguity arose on August 23. Louis “Mèlou” Roy was getting out of his black Mercedes in the parking lot of his father's motel when a masked man shot him four times and ran into a nearby getaway car. Police guarded Roy in the hospital and when he awoke a special team of investigators was sent in. Roy refused to answer any questions that the “pigs” asked and eventually threw them out of his room. They withdrew their protection and one was quoted (anonymously) by a newspaper speculating that it was the Hells Angels who had made the attempted hit in retaliation for Roy's bringing the bothersome Quesnel into the loop.

It was also the summer of Stadnick's masterful western surprise. Even from the beginning, he had left Boucher largely to his own devices in Quebec, stepping in only as he saw an opportunity for or a threat to his own interests. The result had been a slogging, blood-and-guts war in which bombings were commonplace, shootings were routine, innocent victims were part of doing business and the government of Quebec became the ultimate target. That wasn't Stadnick's way. He'd always rather buy a rival a beer than kick his head in. He knew that the way to succeed in the organized crime business is to seduce your rivals into working for you and give the police nothing to hang you with. That's how he conquered Alberta.