Undercover Angel

It was Five O'Clock in the morning, January 3, 1978, and Dan Black was out of booze and almost out of speed. Nearly $600 worth of meth-amphetamine had disappeared into his nostrils since noon, and now all he had left was a thin, two-inch line that sat on a small mirror on the motel nightstand. When he had checked in the morning before, the desk clerk had given him a bottle of California champagne as a belated New Year's courtesy. He had drunk it while it was still cold, and by midnight he'd also downed two six-packs of Coors and a quart of tequila. He had tried very hard to get into a mindless stupor, and he'd succeeded.

But it was a defensive, miserable high. Black needed to blot out the knowledge that he'd ruined his life and that it was finally over with the girl. He was weary and wanted to sleep, but just one bag of the crank he'd been sniffing would keep an elephant awake for two days. He was about to finish his eighth bag in the past 36 hours, so he wouldn't be nodding off just yet.

Leaning over the nightstand, he inserted a small straw into his right nostril, pinched his left nostril shut and took his last hit. God, he was stoned. He pictured the winged death's-head on the gas tank of his Harley and vaguely wondered what his own skull would look like after he was dead. The jolt inside his head made his eyes water, and for a moment he studied them in the small mirror. They seemed to be shining, the pupils so dilated they reminded him of the bull's-eyes on pistol targets.

Black got up from the bed and staggered into the bathroom for a better look. He barely recognized the man staring at him from the medicine-cabinet mirror. In place of the heavily muscled athlete he had once been, he now saw a 170-pound speed freak in jeans and a dirty T-shirt. How grungy he had become. Black had always prided himself on being well groomed, but the burnt-out case in the mirror wore a scraggly beard and a greasy ponytail.

He studied his reflection more closely in hopes of seeing the man he'd been before becoming a narc whose cover name was Sid Davis. For a year and a half, drug dealers all over Northern California had done business with him and none had discovered that he was an undercover cop. How could they, when he had the perfect cover? Davis rode with the Hell's Angels, which no narc had ever done.

When the truth about his real identity surfaced, the Angels put out a $15,000 contract on his life. He wasn't a threat to their operations, but his infiltration had been an insult. At that moment, however, if an Angel hit man had walked into the motel room determined to put a bullet in his brain, Black probably wouldn't have defended himself. One way or another, it was all coming to an end, and he didn't really care how. Several months before, when he had quit his undercover career, he'd been called the state's most effective narc. He could have been called some other things as well--such as a doper, an alcoholic, a biker and now a bank robber. How it all happened was a little fuzzy, because Black couldn't really think straight just then. If he could stay wired on speed for the rest of his life, maybe he'd never have to remember any of it again.

•

Dan Black became a narc at the age of 27. By then, he'd served on the Healdsburg, California, police force for five years, during which he'd made more than twice as many arrests as any other officer. He was a persevering young cop who didn't take weekends off because he didn't want to miss the action that took place on Friday and Saturday nights. Healdsburg, about an hour's drive north of San Francisco, is a tough country town of about 7000 residents, nearly a third of whom are chicanos. On weekends, the town's dozen or so bars are often the settings for fierce brawls that have only one redeeming feature: Usually, all participants manage to survive.

Although he was only 5'8" tall, Black was exceptionally strong. Perhaps to compensate for his size, he'd begun lifting weights when he was 13 and within a few years had developed 17-inch biceps, a 44-inch chest and massively muscled thighs. At Healdsburg Senior High, he was a heavyweight wrestler, left fielder on the baseball team and an outstanding linebacker on the football team. After he graduated in June 1967, he enrolled at nearby Santa Rosa Junior College. He hoped to become a football coach; secretly, he dreamed of a career in the National Football League.

Both fantasies ended quickly. At football practices that August, Black chipped a bone in his elbow, severely sprained his left knee and, except for his left thumb, broke every one of his fingers. Nevertheless, he played in the season opener against Contra Costa Junior College. After the game, his fingers were so swollen he could barely grasp the cane he needed in order to walk. He quit the team the following week and forgot about football. In the spring, he switched his major from physical education to administration of justice and got a part-time job as a campus cop. Over the next few years, he went to school off and on, finally graduating in the fall of 1974 with a degree in police science.

In the summer of 1969, he married Claudia Penry, whom he'd been dating since his high school graduation. The couple moved into a small apartment in Santa Rosa and waited for Black to get a police job. In the meantime, he pumped gas at a Standard Oil station and Claudia worked as a nurse's aide at Santa Rosa Memorial Hospital.

They lived like that for more than a year. Black easily passed the oral and written tests he took when applying for police jobs in Berkeley, Richmond, Oakland and Los Angeles; but he couldn't satisfy the physical requirements. The problem was his weight: A 5'8" police recruit wasn't supposed to weigh more than 156 pounds; Dan weighed 230. In Los Angeles, the police department's examining physician gave him two months to drop 74 pounds. Black starved himself, took steam baths, exercised every day. When he went back for another physical, his waistline measured 32 inches; but he weighed 200 pounds and was again rejected.

Black was crushed. How could he have been so foolish as to school himself for a profession he couldn't possibly enter? Still, he was determined to make a go of it, and his luck turned around in September 1970, when he heard about an opening on the Cloverdale police force. Cloverdale, a nearby town of 2000 people, had different physical requirements. Black interviewed for the job and got it. His salary was only $462 a month, but he felt like a millionaire.

After seven months of handing out traffic tickets, Black learned that Healdsburg was about to hire another patrolman. Even though he still exceeded the weight limit for his height, he no longer had to worry about a physical: He was now a working cop who obviously kept himself in excellent shape. He joined Healdsburg's small force on April 9, 1971. His salary jumped to $568 a month and he and Claudia made plans to start a family. The following year, she gave birth to the first of their two sons.

Black quickly became a seasoned, efficient policeman. He learned the ropes the way any local lawman does--by arresting thieves and muggers and by battling bikers, dopers and drunks. In most ways, he seemed to be a model cop. He was assiduously honest, didn't drink or smoke and didn't hesitate to kick ass when the situation called for it. He loved his work--so much so that he bought a home less than two blocks from the station house so he could be instantly available in an emergency.

His single-minded energy and dedication paid off: Three years after joining the Healdsburg force, Black became, at the age of 25, the youngest police sergeant in the city's history. Before promoting him, though, Healdsburg police chief Lou Bertoli sent Black through a six-week police leadership training program at San Jose State University. Then, after he had been a sergeant for almost two years, Chief Bertoli decided to send him to the FBI National Academy at Quantico, Virginia--after which he would be promoted to lieutenant.

Those plans changed in late 1975. That September, Black's police judo instructor told him that the sheriff of Lake County was about to hire his department's first undercover narcotics agent. Since narcs were notorious for quick flame-outs, the sheriff was looking for a uniformed officer who would learn the job before going to Lake County.

Black wanted it. He had visions of busting up bigger dope rings than the French Connection, of zapping major California drug dealers, of personally putting a stop to several million dollars a year in drug traffic. Narcs dealt in danger, action and adventure, and Dan Black was all for that.

His next-door neighbor, Joe Ross, was a narc, so Black knew what to expect: He'd have to dress like a slob, grow a beard and long hair, be away from home for two or three weeks at a time and associate with the dregs of society. He'd also have to take a pay cut from $15,000 to $11,000, but none of it mattered. The opportunity was simply too good to pass up; for when his undercover duty was done, Black would be in (continued on page 142)Undercover Angel(continued from page 136) line to run Lake County's narcotics bureau, then in the planning stages. The work would be dangerous, but from what he could discover, the real dangers were internal: Most narcs became alcoholics and their marriages often broke up. But that, of course, wouldn't happen to him.

On December 1, 1975, Black was interviewed for the job by Lake County sheriff Alvie Rochester. Rochester liked what he saw. Black had the mild, good looks of a preacher's son and the body of a veteran stevedore. The sheriff knew that Black was an ambitious proven cop with a streak of daring a yard wide, but there was also something innocent and old-fashioned about him. One thing was clear: Black's record indicated he never gave anything a halfway effort. Rochester hired him without hesitation.

•

Black spent January through May of 1976 learning how to be a narc. He was attached to Sonoma County's narcotics unit, and when he reported for work, he knew nothing about the drug culture. He didn't understand, at first, that the dealers' beautiful women were there because the only way they could get their heroin was to fuck for it. He didn't know that junkie mothers shot up their kids to keep them quiet. He'd never seen people unable to slip needles into their arms because their veins had collapsed. He was unaware that junkies paid $25 for quarter teaspoons of heroin that were sold in toy-store balloons rolled up tighter than condoms. He learned to simulate snorting dope by using a straw blocked with cotton. There was a lot to learn, but Black was a good student.

He was teamed with another trainee, Ed Clarke, a burly hard-nosed cop who has since become a Sonoma County deputy sheriff. Together, they busted dealers and users by following traditional narc procedures and inventing several of their own. One of their standard scams was to cruise local highways, picking up the scruffiest hitchhikers they saw. Black and Clarke told them they were construction workers goofing off for the day, or else they claimed to be bank robbers with money to burn. Hitchhikers often knew where to buy narcotics and unknowingly helped them set up dozens of drug busts.

Black courted dealers the way a patient man courts women. He'd frequently meet them at bars, pay for their drinks and arrange another meeting, usually for dinner. He bought meals for dealers at some of the Bay Area's fanciest restaurants. If a connection seemed overly suspicious, Black wouldn't mention narcotics until he had known the guy for several weeks. At that point, he'd admit to being a dealer himself. The rest usually fell into place without a great deal of effort.

In five months, Black picked up the fine points of being a narc. "Dan's biggest assets were his honesty, his nerve and his dedication," says Clarke. "The other guys we trained with sometimes called him Serpico, but not because he was a threat to them. Hell, they admired Serpico, though they felt he probably was a little too zealous for his own good."

Black was like that, too: He lived for the job. As a result, he and Clarke racked up more than 90 drug arrests during their training period. Black was then ready to go out on his own.

That June, he drove 50 miles north to Lake County. Clear Lake, from which the county derives its name, is shaped like a large dog leg and is just over 20 miles long. Several rustic towns surround the lake, but they've never really caught on with travelers. A couple of well-financed resorts were built along the lake at the start of the Seventies, however, and after that, the county's tourism picked up a bit. So did its drug traffic.

Black arrived there in a 1961 Plymouth Valiant issued to him by the county sheriff's Special Investigations Division. He also received a phony driver's license made out to "Samuel Ike Davis," but he couldn't abide being called Sam. When he noticed that the initials of his cover name were those of the S.I.D., he simply renamed himself Sid. His blond hair now hung below his shirt collar, he'd grown long sideburns and a Fu Manchu mustache, and he sported turquoise-and-silver rings on every finger.

He rented a furnished room for $100 a month in the lake-front town of Clear-lake Highlands and began looking for dealers in local bars. It took him two weeks to make his first buy--five bags of crank for $100. That got him plugged into the area's dope action, if that was the word for it: Lake County's drug traffic was disappointingly small. In his first six weeks there, Black gathered evidence on 16 dealers, all of them nickel-and-dimers. Once a week, he delivered the drugs he had bought, along with written reports, to a deputy sheriff he met at night along a dirt road five miles from town. The deputy, in turn, gave him more money for dope. Although the S.I.D. felt he was doing a fine job, Black's inability to make a big score was getting him down.

One afternoon, however, he was told about a major drug supplier in Marin County, and he arranged a $1000 heroin buy for the next night. His spirits soared as he contemplated busting a heavy-duty dealer; as it turned out, the man could barely manage two bags of low-grade heroin for $50. There was no point in making an arrest, for Marin County's S.I.D. wouldn't appreciate a scab narc turning up with such a penny-ante drug bust. Black stormed out of the dealer's house and headed straight for the nearest redneck bar. He intended to get royally potted.

Five brandies-and-Seven-Up took the edge off his anger, as did the conversation he struck up with a biker sitting next to him at the bar. Charlie Harris was a little guy who looked as if he'd made a career of getting stomped on. There were scars all over his face, his nose was smashed in. He wore a denim vest that proclaimed his membership in the Misfits, a bikers' club with chapters in Sacramento and Santa Rosa. He seemed like a friendly enough soul, though, so Black bought him a few rounds.

When the tab for the drinks came, Black fished out a wad of bills, maybe $1200 worth. Harris did a double take. Then he asked where the money had come from. Black must have been very drunk at that point, because he did an unpardonably stupid thing. "They give it to me to buy dope," he said.

"You deal?" Harris asked.

"Hell, no," he answered. "I'm a narc."

As soon as he said it, Black realized that in one swift, idiotic stroke, he'd put his life in jeopardy. Harris was silent for maybe a minute and then asked a few questions to see whether or not the guy was putting him on. The guy wasn't.

"You're a real crazy son of a bitch," Harris finally said. "Hey, if I wanted to, I could get you dusted, you know?"

"You won't," Black replied, suddenly sober again. "Nothing's happenin', anyway. If people got dope to sell, they sure aren't sellin' it to me."

"That's 'cause you ain't doin' it right," Harris said. He looked Black over carefully and then shook his head from side to side. "What are you supposed to be, a walking turquoise machine? It ain't that easy."

Harris told him that dealers were hip to narcs trying to pass themselves (continued on page 220)Undercover Angel(continued from page 142) off as newly arrived free-lancers, unemployed bartenders or carpenters moon-lighting their way to fame and fortune. Narcs needed cover identities that could stand up to serious scrutiny, because dealers suspected everyone of being a narc. About the only people they didn't suspect were hard-core bikers.

If a narc were smart, he'd pass himself off as a biker.

"I don't know a damn thing about being a biker," Black said, an edge of irritation in his voice.

"Don't worry about it--it'll come to you like stink on shit. Want me to teach ya?"

"What are you looking for?"

"A job," Harris said. "I want to be a cop."

They met again two weeks later at a park in Santa Rosa. In the interim, Black had done some research on his new friend. Harris, 34, had been a very bad guy for a long time. His rap sheet showed convictions for narcotics possession and armed robbery and arrests for everything from jaywalking to kidnaping to suspicion of murder. He would not be joining the force.

"But I can pay you for information," Black told him. "You can be my snitch."

"Don't you ever call me a snitch," Harris snapped. "I'll be an informant, but I ain't no snitch. A snitch rats on everyone; an informant only turns in dudes he don't like."

That seemed reasonable. In addition to becoming an informant, Harris would teach Black biker etiquette. His fee for all that was an agreed-upon $800 a month, a small apartment on Clear Lake, a beat-up Dodge Polara and Black's Healdsburg police badge. A few days later, Harris moved into the apartment with his girlfriend. Once or twice a week thereafter, he drove down from Clear Lake to Santa Rosa to spend the night with his wife and six children.

Black's education as a biker began immediately. To start with, he needed leathers. He visited a boutique and paid $195 for a beautiful pair of buttery leather slacks; Harris soaked them in 50-weight motor oil. He made sure Black got a pair of used boots; new boots and a new face always made dealers nervous. The Lake County Sheriff's Department issued Black a blue Harley-Davidson and Harris showed him how to handle it.

The lessons were thorough. Harris told Black that bikers wear a gold earring, so Black had his right ear pierced, and Harris almost fell down laughing. "It's left ear for bikers, right ear for faggots!" Harris said bikers never mince words and are always ready to tell people to fuck off and then fight about it. So they went to bars, where Black told people to fuck off and then fought about it.

He won most of his bouts but not all of them. At one place, Harris pointed out a solitary drinker and told Black, "Hey, this dude just called you a punk." Black knew it wasn't true, but that was part of the game. He went up to the man, grabbed his arm (it felt like a piece of oak) and moments later was knocked cold by a crushing right to the jaw.

Harris wasn't a mere observer to these proceedings. At one bar, he approached a well-dressed young couple, argued with the guy and then began pummeling him unmercifully. When the girl jumped onto Harris' back, Black rushed over and separated the two men--at which point Harris threw the girl down and kicked her in the face, breaking her nose and leaving her unconscious. "A woman can hurt you as bad as a man," he explained on their way out.

After three weeks of picking fights and hanging out in bikers' bars, Harris presented Black with a graduation present: a 410-gauge sawed-off shotgun. "It's what every undercover agent needs--an alley sweeper," he said.

Then he showed Black how, in a pinch, he could shoot blind from around a corner and blast away everything within a 10- to 15-foot range. The shotgun was 17 inches long and had a small leather loop nailed to its butt; the weapon was designed to be worn around the neck like a pendant and could easily be concealed beneath a short jacket.

Black was now ready to take the most hazardous step of his masquerade. If he was to establish a strong cover identity as a well-connected Bay Area biker and dealer, he'd have to pass muster with the Hell's Angels. There really was no other way.

•

By all accounts, the Hell's Angels--with anywhere from 400 to 800 members--are the most lethal group of motorcycle riders in the United States and probably the world. Founded in Southern California at the start of the Fifties, the Angels soon attracted intensive police pressure; and by the Sixties, most members had moved north to the San Francisco Bay Area. They have a well-documented reputation for being maximum outlaws and they usually demonstrate a reckless disregard for their own welfare and everyone else's as well. Their reputation is such that even in a bikers' bar, the appearance of two Angels will usually cause all conversation to cease.

Before introducing Black to his Hell's Angels friends, Harris warned that under no circumstances--none--could Black get into a fight with an Angel patch holder. If that happened, every Angel in attendance would put the boots to him in the same manner Harris had done with the girl in the bar. Black also had to understand that as a friend of the Angels, Harris would have to jump in on their side.

With that proviso, Harris and Black--who was now going by the name Sid Davis--traveled around to Hell's Angels chapters in Oakland, Richmond and Vallejo. At a party in Vallejo, they witnessed the kind of violence that often flares up among the Angels themselves. It started when a drunkenly abusive member was told by the chapter's vice-president, a hard-looking man named Rooster, to quiet down. The drunk unwisely punched Rooster in the face, and in a pure fury, Rooster beat him senseless and might have killed him if two other Angels hadn't interceded. Unfortunately, Rooster was out of control, so he also decked the two peacemakers. Several other Angels attempted to restrain him, but they were also laid out by this human buzz saw who was all flying fists, karate kicks, head butts and elbows. The onslaught continued until Rooster finally calmed down and cooled it of his own accord. Black was to meet a number of Angels given to similar rhapsodies of rage.

After a week of visits, Sid Davis was welcome to ride with them. But first, Harris wanted him to attend an Angel's wedding--he promised it would be unlike any his narc friend had ever attended.

Late on a sunny Friday afternoon, the two men drove their choppers to a secluded country home about 30 miles east of Clear Lake. The house was set deep in a forest glade, and when they arrived, the celebration was well under way. Nearly 150 Angels and about 75 of their girlfriends were partying in splendid biker fashion: Open cases of liquor were strewn about the clearing, bowls of speed, grass and cocaine sat unattended on a long table and everyone seemed to be drunk, stoned or both. There was a lot of laughing and shouting, all of it competing with the Boz Scaggs and Billy Swan albums that blasted out of a stereo set up in front of the house.

After introducing his buddy Sid Davis to several Angels, Harris quickly got lost in the crowd. Black took part in a few short conversations about motorcycles, drugs and pussy, the bikers' three main interests in life. On the back of his denim vest, he flew the colors of the Hangmen, a Midwestern bikers' gang. He felt less like an alien by the time it got dark, but it was best to hang back until he absolutely knew his act was together. Off by himself, he picked up a bottle of brandy and proceeded to drink the whole thing.

Twice, he stumbled over couples who were screwing on the ground. That shocked him, for at home, Black and his wife, Claudia, usually turned out the lights before making love. Several girls approached him for sex, but he was sure they'd give him V.D. and he refused. Sometime after midnight, a minister (or someone dressed like one) married the bride and groom, who disappeared into the house to the accompaniment of good-natured cackling and put-downs. When he got drunk enough and tired enough, Black sat under a tree and passed out.

The party was still going strong when he awoke around 11 in the morning. The majority of guests were tripped out on speed and hadn't been to sleep yet. The Angels were cutups; whenever one of them passed out, his buddies would gather around and piss him awake. Most of the men had wandered into the house, so Black did, too. He wedged his way into the packed front room to see what was going on--and there on the floor was Harris, fucking the bride. The rest of the bikers were waiting their turn to do the same, for an Angel's bride was turned out the morning after her wedding night.

Black was shaken and hurried into the kitchen for some coffee. Harris joined him there a couple of minutes later and bragged, "I was first in line."

"Congratulations," Black said. Harris shrugged his shoulders and left.

The Angels' use of their women repulsed Black but also perversely fascinated him. He walked back to the living room and this time saw the bride sucking off a biker who was doing her with a Coke bottle. He was followed by a man with a broom. If an Angel's momma didn't acquiesce to all that, her old man would beat her up badly. Which still couldn't save him from looking really rank in front of his friends.

Black left shortly afterward and didn't see Harris again until three days later, when the wedding party finally ended. In the interim, he visited Claudia and the kids, but it was an unhappy reunion. Claudia seemed like a tense stranger and Black found himself constantly putting her down. The boys, Adam and Andrew, were flat-out scared of their father. After one night, he returned to his room in Clearlake Highlands.

He began riding with the Angels the following week. Harris said the key to winning their trust was to pick up every dare they laid down, and Sid Davis went at it with a vengeance. Cruising past a Mexican bar near Napa one night, several Angels challenged him to ride his bike inside--a dangerous move, for area chicanos intensely disliked the Angels. Sid rode right in and the result was a vicious brawl that earned him a cut lip, a black eye and the respect of his similarly banged-up colleagues.

Another day, riding along Highway 101 with several Richmond Hell's Angels, Sid was challenged by one of them to a high-speed tug of war. Moments later, he and the Angel were grabbing at each other while running down the road at 75 miles an hour. Sid soon got a firm grip on the Angel's upper arm. In danger of being yanked out of his seat and smeared all over the highway, the terrified rider began screaming, "You crazy son of a bitch, let me go, let me go!!"

But Sid was into the game, and several more seconds passed before he finally released his hold. When they pulled off the road, the Angel vaulted off his motorcycle and ran over to Sid. "Don't you ever do that again!" he shouted.

"Then don't ever dare me to do it again," Sid replied. "You wanted to play? We played."

Within a matter of weeks, Sid Davis became known as a stand-up guy who'd be there when the action started--and who'd also be there when it ended. And even for a well-heeled drug dealer, he was generous when it came to his buddies. He could be counted on to pick up $100 bar tabs whenever he went drinking; and since he went drinking almost every night, his reputation as a big spender--and his circle of friends--kept growing.

So did the intelligence he gathered. But Black had no intention of busting Hell's Angels, for that would quickly put an end to a cover identity no narc had ever successfully fabricated. Instead, he preferred to let the Angels turn him on to suppliers, which they did. He was soon buying dope all over Northern California and making busts in partnership with police departments from San Jose to the Oregon border.

To protect his cover, Black changed costumes on drug raids. Instead of dressing like a flashy biker, he tucked his hair up under a Healdsburg High baseball cap and wore dark glasses, a new windbreaker, a sport shirt and clean Levis. It was the damnedest thing: Dealers he'd been drinking with only the night before never recognized him as one of the four or five cops taking them into custody.

By autumn, Black had initiated more than 200 drug arrests, but the four months he'd spent as a narc were beginning to get to him. He was drinking heavily every night of the week. When he began throwing up even when he wasn't drinking, he visited a doctor and was told he had an ulcer. He promised to lighten up on the booze and the stress, knowing he'd do neither.

He was stepping over too many lines too quickly. One night, at a bikers' bar in Vallejo, the table talk turned to sex and he heard himself saying, "Hell, nothing bothers me; I can take any kind of sex with a woman."

An Angel named Dave said, "Oh, yeah? You got the guts to get your red wings?"

"Sure I do," Sid said. "What do I do?"

His ignorance cracked up everyone at the table. The Angels' vests were festooned with their own versions of merit badges; red wings were awarded to a biker who went down on a menstruating woman in front of witnesses.

"See that broad over there?" Dave asked. "I happen to know she's on the rag--go eat her."

Sid swallowed hard. "If she's willing, I'm able," he said with false bravado, wishing desperately he were somewhere else.

The girl was seated at a table by herself and Dave went over to her, spoke for a few moments and then returned. "She's yours," he said.

"I need a few drinks first," Sid told him, feeling like a damned fool. In the next 20 minutes, he tossed down seven shots of tequila and then approached the girl. Her name was Brenda and she wasn't bad-looking at all.

"How ya doin'?" he said, sitting down.

"You getting your red wings tonight?" she asked.

"Right." Sid's mouth was bone dry.

"Get to it, then," Brenda said. Without standing up, she slipped her jeans down to her ankles. There were about 20 drinkers in the bar, and most of them gathered around the table.

Sid got under it and earned his red wings.

To be sure, bikers' bars aren't your ordinary cocktail lounges. In a normal bar, if a drink isn't to a customer's liking, the bartender will mix another one. In a bikers' hangout, if a drink isn't to a customer's taste, the customer may very well beat up the bartender or simply kick him out of the joint and tend bar himself for the rest of the night. Anything goes.

A few days later, Black was called in for one of his infrequent meetings with Sheriff Alvie Rochester. "You're doing fine work, son," Rochester said. "Everything going all right?"

"Yes, sir."

"Well, we have a little assignment in mind for you," Rochester continued. "Mendocino County has one undercover agent and I'm afraid some people have discovered that he's a law officer. Sheriff Jondahl down there called me and wants to switch undercover agents, and I think that might be a good idea. How would you feel about being on loan for six months or so?"

"That would be all right with me, sir. Anything special the sheriff wants done?"

"Yes," said Rochester. "He really would like you to make a dent in the county's drug traffic, starting with the town of Ukiah. Think you can do it?"

"I'll do my best, sir."

Black would later say that going to Ukiah was the worst decision he'd ever made.

•

On a cool, gray day in December of 1976, Sid Davis rode into Ukiah. Starting at noon from the north end of town, he systematically checked out every bar; by ten o'clock, he'd seen nothing to indicate blatant narcotics activity. The last bar he came to was called the Peacock, and as soon as he walked in, he knew he'd found the local dope supermarket. The Peacock was packed with laborers, bikers, a few obvious fags and a lot of good-looking ladies, many of whom were on hand for the women's pool tournament that had taken place earlier that night.

Right away, Sid laid a $100 bill on the bar and bought a round for the house. It cost him $90, but it was the kind of gesture that always got a stranger noticed very, very quickly. Sid had almost finished his brandy when a sleek, darkly attractive brunette tapped him on the shoulder and kissed him on the cheek. "Thanks for the drink," she said.

Sid checked the girl out as she walked back to the pool table. She was about 5'8", well-built and sensuous. She was wearing a tight pink sweater that ended just below her ample breasts, and her jeans fit so snugly that Sid could tell she wasn't wearing underwear. Very nice.

He turned back to the bar and bought another round for the house. The girl came by again a couple of minutes later. "Thanks one more time," she said. She had a nice smile. "My name's Mary Jo. Why don't you come over to the table and watch me play pool?"

Mary Jo finished a quick rack of eight ball, and then she and Sid sat down and drank and talked until closing time. Mary Jo Pedersen was 24, the mother of a two-year-old daughter named Elisha and the estranged wife of a man then serving time in a Colorado Federal prison. Mary Jo was also an ex-junkie and an ex--biker's momma. She had piercing brown eyes and seemed to be the most honest, outspoken woman Sid had ever met. When the waiter came to pick up their glasses, she asked where he was staying that night.

"In a motel," Sid said.

"No, you're not," she laughed. "You're staying with me."

Sid took her home and was about to sack out on the couch when he noticed Mary Jo staring at him as if he were a Martian. "What do you think you're doing?" she asked. "Come on into the bedroom."

She was as passionate as she was attractive. After they made love, Mary Jo fell asleep, but Black couldn't close his eyes. Aside from his bizarre barroom exhibition in Vallejo, this was the first time he'd been unfaithful to Claudia. He felt guilty and he suddenly missed his wife and children very much. While Mary Jo slept, Black slipped out of her house and drove all the way to Claudia and home.

He got to his house shortly before dawn and slept on the sofa. Black was certain--for 24 hours, anyway--that Mary Jo had given him the clap, and he spent a difficult few days with his wife and kids. During that time, he realized he'd changed drastically. He had no patience with his sons, and regardless of how loving Claudia tried to be, she only irritated him. When he went back to Ukiah, he and Claudia both knew their marriage was over.

Mary Jo happened to be walking down the street when he pulled into town four days later. "Where the fuck you been?" she asked.

"I didn't know you were my boss," Sid shot back.

Mary Jo was angry, but she backed off. "Let's go for a ride," she said.

"Sorry, I'm busy right now."

He roared off down the street, but 15 minutes later, he was at her front door. They went riding that afternoon and, although Sid kept a motel room, he moved in with her that night.

At the Peacock that evening, Mary Jo introduced Sid to a number of dopers, one of whom sold him a couple of lids of marijuana. The fact that he was with Mary Jo immediately eliminated any suspicions about Sid; no one who knew her would ever suspect her of sleeping with a narc.

One of the first connections she turned Sid on to was a black man named Cedric Weir, the Peacock's bouncer. Mary Jo had once lived with him, but as soon as the two men got to know each other, they became good friends.

They became soulmates the night five Mexicans began beating up two girls just outside the Peacock. Sid and Cedric tried to break it up and suddenly found themselves as overmatched as the women. They were definitely getting the worst of it, so Cedric ran inside for help--and Sid was set upon by all five attackers. Four of them spread-eagled him on the ground and the fifth was about to plant the jagged end of a broken cue stick in his face when Cedric reappeared and smashed the guy's head in with the fat end of a pool cue. The Mexican's skull sounded like a watermelon being splattered against the sidewalk. His companions picked him up and ran.

Cedric introduced Sid to a number of Peacock regulars who were dealers. One of them, a cocky young kid named Tom, could come up with ten kilos of grass or an ounce of coke in 15 minutes. Black never did uncover Tom's supplier, but nailing the kid himself was no problem. A couple of months after they met, Tom offered him seven kilos of grass to kill two dealers who'd murdered Tom's partner by shooting him up with rabies vaccine. Tom is still doing time on drug charges; the solicitation-of-murder charge was dropped.

Black's situation in Ukiah was a narc's vision of Valhalla. He didn't have to look for drugs; he merely had to take his pick of what was offered to him. The Peacock became his headquarters, and after a while, they wouldn't allow him to pay for his drinks.

He and Mary Jo fell totally in love with each other. She could surprise him with her humor and romanticism, but she was also the toughest woman he'd ever met. One night at the Peacock, a Pomo Indian challenged her to a game of eight ball, and when his two buddies put up $100 on the side rail, Sid did likewise. After a couple of minutes, Sid noticed that the Pomo moved the cue ball or threw one of his balls down a pocket every time Mary Jo turned her back to the table. Sid walked up to the side rail, picked up his $100 and said, "The game's over."

"No, it's not," the Indian replied. He grabbed Sid's arm and got punched in the neck for his trouble. His two friends jumped Sid at that point, and soon all four men were rolling on the floor, swinging and shouting wildly. Sid was in the process of getting his ass kicked when he heard Mary Jo yell, "C'mon, baby, you can do it, beat 'em all up!"

That clearly wasn't going to happen, especially when one of the Indians started kicking him in the chest. Sid looked up and saw Mary Jo rushing over with a pool cue; so did one of the Pomos, who jumped up and grabbed it away from her. The Indian threw the stick down and advanced on Mary Jo--and ran into a hard right hand that split his nose open and put him on his knees. One of his buddies got so angry that he stopped kicking Sid and went to belt out Mary Jo; she caught him with a clean right to the chin that knocked him over the pool table.

Sid was almost unconscious; he and the remaining Pomo nevertheless exchanged looks of amazement. The Indian backed off, and Mary Jo picked Sid up by the collar and marched him out of there.

That April, Black fell off his white horse. One afternoon, Mary Jo turned him on to speed, and they stayed up for three straight days making love, playing cards, drinking and snorting crank. Like cocaine, speed isn't addictive, but you sure can get hooked on the stuff. Black loved being all cranked up. Speed gave him energy and a sense of power he'd never felt before.

And he didn't even have to pay for it. Sid was so well liked and such a volume buyer that suppliers gave him as much as he wanted for his personal use. Speed doesn't necessarily kill; it does, however, play hell with your system. In his first three weeks of doing crank, Sid lost more than 25 pounds. To see how far he could push himself, he went through 18 bags while going without sleep for an entire week. There seemed to be no limit to his strength.

His drinking was also out of control. He was getting shitfaced every night now, downing round after round of tequila or brandy or show-off drinks such as flaming hookers--Southern Comfort set on fire and swallowed while still aflame. His ulcer grew worse; he began vomiting blood.

And yet Dan Black, ace narc, continued to function. Every couple of weeks, he disappeared for several days to see his Angel friends in the Bay Area, and they continued to introduce him to drug dealers. During one such visit, Sid stopped into the same Vallejo bar in which he'd won his red wings. Several of his Angel friends invited him over to their table, and he was soon hearing about an Angels laboratory that was then producing 100,000 hits of LSD a week. Toward the end of the evening, the talk turned from dope to sex, and Sid was asked if earning his red wings had made him think at all differently about women. "No way," he boasted. "I'll fuck anything that walks."

"Right there," said an Angel named Joey, pointing to a girl. "I dare you to fuck her here and now."

Dan Black wanted to run and hide, but Sid Davis did not back down from a challenge. He went over to the girl, told her what had been said and she agreed to take him on. The only available space in the bar was next to the jukebox, which was next to the pool table; but when Sid and the girl got onto the floor, the pool players politely stepped over them.

Just after Sid entered the girl's body, the jukebox began blasting out Undercover Angel. That caused something to snap in his head, and Sid faded away completely at that moment. What was he doing? Black saw himself rutting like an animal in front of a bunch of wild men who'd kill him in a second if they ever discovered his true identity.

A couple of weeks later, local law-enforcement authorities agreed upon a course of action: A date would soon be set for Black to testify before the grand jury, after which he'd lead a mass roundup of Ukiah dope dealers.

At the end of April, the Mendocino sheriff's office acted upon a request from Humboldt County officials and asked Black to check out a bikers' bar in Eureka, 120 miles north on the Coast. He and Mary Jo rode up there on his Harley, but the bar turned out to be clean. For some reason, Mary Jo was eager to return to Ukiah the next day, so he took her back. When they walked into the Peacock that night, the bar's pool table was covered with a white tablecloth and on it sat a huge cake topped by the figure of a rider astride a Harley. It was Sid's birthday, and every dealer in Ukiah had shown up for the big event. Sid began crying. He didn't know who the hell he was anymore--only that he was about to hurt a lot of people he liked.

And so Sid abruptly went out of business. Black quit buying dope and refused to meet new dealers. In mid-May, he made a decision: He had to get out. He wanted no further part of being a narc or being a biker; he wanted a new life. One night, at Mary Jo's house, he turned to her and said, "Hey, let's leave; let's cut out of here."

"You mean take a trip?" she asked.

"No," he said. "I mean, let's leave; let's live somewhere else."

"Where?"

"Anywhere," he answered. "We could go to Arizona, maybe."

"I ain't movin' to fuckin' Arizona," Mary Jo said. "I like it right here. What's bugging you?"

"Nothing," he said. "Nothing at all." At that moment, he realized that, of course, he wasn't going anyplace. His investigation would end as planned and his friends would all be sent to prison. Who would have thought that when the Lone Ranger took off his mask he'd turn out to be Judas?

A few days later, Lake County's S.I.D. was officially notified that Black would testify before a grand jury in Ukiah in early June. That information apparently landed in the wrong hands.

Less than a week before Black's courtroom date, three hippie types walked into the Peacock and saw Cedric talking with Sid. One of them called Cedric over and told him Sid was a narc. Cedric punched him in the mouth. The man's two friends were too terrified to do anything but carry him out of the bar.

"Weird fuckers," Cedric said, as he and Sid watched the three bearded men get into their car and take off. "They said you were a narc. Can you beat that?"

Black had never seen any of them before. The following night, an easygoing biker named Buddy walked into the Peacock with a worried look on his face. He came over to Sid's table and said, "You better watch your ass, cousin. There's a Lake County narc named Dan Black who's been workin' around town."

Sid looked at him very coolly. "Where'd you hear that?"

"From some friends in Lake County," Buddy said. "The guy's supposed to be, oh, about your size. He drives a black Harley."

Black was grateful that his Harley was blue. "I'll keep an eye out for him," he said.

•

Black stopped using speed two days before his grand-jury appearance. He testified from eight in the morning until ten o'clock that night, and afterward he agreed to show up at the sheriff's office at 4:30 the following afternoon. The roundup of suspects he'd named would begin at five P.M.

He got to Mary Jo's house a half hour after he finished testifying. He knew that he finally had to tell her who he was, yet he just couldn't bring himself to do it. He copped out. "Listen, baby," he said, "you better get out of town. Some things are gonna happen tomorrow, and it's not going to be healthy for either of us to be around."

"Sid, I don't know what the hell you're talking about," Mary Jo said.

Black began packing up all his clothing. He couldn't look at her.

"You son of a bitch, what are you doing? Where are you going?" she shouted. He heard the pain in her voice and hated himself for it.

"It's over with us!" he yelled. "If you know what's good for you, take off!"

Mary Jo was crying when he slammed the door and walked out into the night.

The next day, Black arrived at the sheriff's office at 4:30. Sheriff Jondahl led him into the squad room, where more than 50 police and deputy sheriffs were gathered. They'd been told nothing more than that they'd be introduced to the narc whose grand-jury testimony had implicated every suspected doper in town. Only Jondahl and two men on his staff knew Black's secret, and they hadn't broken faith with him. The rest of the officers knew him only as Sid Davis, the swaggering biker and reputed dope dealer they all hated.

"Gentlemen," said Jondahl, "I want you to meet Dan Black, the undercover agent who's been on loan to us from Lake County."

For a moment, the room was stunned into silence. And then Black's fellow officers stood up and cheered. They gathered around him, congratulating him, shaking his hand, clapping him on the back. They bathed him in respect and admiration, but he was strangely unmoved.

For the next four hours, Black led cars filled with law officers to various houses in and around Ukiah, and by nine o'clock, 28 people--including Cedric--had been arrested. During his seven months in Ukiah, Black had spent $40,000 of law-enforcement money on drugs that he delivered and on suspects that he bagged. He had done a magnificent job.

And yet he still didn't know how to tell Mary Jo he was a narc. The next morning, she and a girlfriend went down to police headquarters to bail Cedric out. A colleague of Black's led her into another room, where Sid was waiting for her.

"Mary Jo, my name is Dan Black," he said. "I've been a cop for seven years."

Mary Jo was in a state of shock for two days. Black asked her not to leave him, but the idea that she'd lived with a narc was almost impossible for her to deal with. "I would never have associated with him if I knew he was a cop," she told a writer for the San Francisco Chronicle.

Finally, though, she chose to stay with him. "He completely abandoned his wife and kids for me," she said. "I thought for two days and then I told him it took me five months to fall in love with him, so I'd stay with him no matter what."

When the Ukiah investigation ended, the state of California got 25 convictions out of 28 arrests. Black decided not to testify against Cedric Weir, though the Peacock Bar lost its liquor license and closed.

Black was transferred to detective work, but he just couldn't hack being a cop anymore. His superiors sensed his changed outlook and tried to shape him up by reassigning him to uniform duty in October 1977. He tried it for two days and then quit the force.

By then, he'd moved back to Mary Jo's house in Ukiah. Although several police sources informed him that the Hell's Angels had issued a contract on his life, Black made no plans to leave Northern California. He felt that if the Angels were truly out for his blood, the only way he'd escape would be by leaving the country, and he just wasn't ready for that. He was sure the Angels would eventually realize he hadn't tried to take them down. In time, if they didn't exactly forgive him, he was reasonably certain they'd at least forget about him.

Soon after he moved back to Ukiah, Black heard that Cedric wanted to see him. The two men met for a drink. "I have no hard feelings," Cedric told him. "You were only doing a job."

"You know something, Cedric? I think I better get my ass into a different line of work."

•

In November, 1977, Black took a job as a construction worker and began using speed again. Heavy rains throughout Northern California virtually shut down the construction industry that autumn, and Black soon sank into a state of depression. He was an unhappy, confused man, and Mary Jo found him difficult to live with. In early December, she announced that her husband was (concluded on page 244)Undercover Angel(continued from page 236) about to be released from prison and that she and Elisha would return to Colorado in mid-January. Black realized that if she went to Colorado, there'd be nothing left in his life.

On December 20, 1977, Mary Jo and her daughter left Ukiah for a week-long visit with her parents, who lived in a San Francisco suburb.

The next day, behind a headful of crank, Black walked into the Geyser-ville branch of the Bank of America. Beneath a zippered jacket, he wore the alley sweeper Charlie Harris had given him as a graduation present. Black rolled a ski mask down over his face, whipped out the concealed, sawed-off shotgun and handed a startled teller a paper bag with instructions to fill it with cash. He escaped with $282.

Afterward, he drove around for two hours in an old green Ford Falcon and then returned to Mary Jo's house. He sat there all night long, snorting speed and thinking: What have I done? I could have been shot. I must be crazy.

He spent a lonely Christmas Eve by himself and the next night picked up Elisha and Mary Jo at her mother's house. When they got back to Ukiah, he told her about the robbery.

"Why?" she kept asking. "Why did you do it?"

When he tried to tell her, he found that he didn't know why. He started crying, and so did Mary Jo. The only thing he knew was that he needed her; he also knew that Mary Jo was right when she said it wasn't working out between them. When she recovered her composure, Mary Jo told him he'd have to move out after New Year's Eve. She didn't want him around longer than that.

On the worst New Year's Eve of Black's life, he and Mary Jo went to sleep at nine P.M. The next morning, he loaded the Falcon and drove aimlessly around for 12 hours. He slept in the car that night, and in the morning he bought a bottle of tequila, two six-packs of Coors and checked into a motel. He had lots of crank left and he meant to get wasted.

•

Five A.M. came and went and Dan considered checking out of the motel but decided against it. Shortly before ten o'clock, he got into the car and drove to Mary Jo's house to see her for the last time. Mary Jo had said he could take her and Elisha to the bank and perhaps for a little shopping trip afterward, but that would be it. Black desperately hoped to charm her into getting back with him, but as soon as Mary Jo opened the door, he could tell that wasn't going to happen. She was cool and distant and remained that way the rest of the morning. At noon, he dropped her and Elisha off at home. He'd never see them again.

A half hour later, Black held up the Savings Bank of Mendocino County in Ukiah and got away with $6850. He didn't even get a chance to count it. From the bank, he drove to a bar a few miles away, where he ordered a brandy and soda and played one rack of eight ball. Then he made a telephone call to Mary Jo. While he was dialing, Black heard the roaring whine of police sirens, and then their plaintive mechanical gasps as they were turned off in front of the bar. He didn't have to be an experienced cop to figure out that his car had been spotted outside.

Mary Jo was crying when she answered the phone.

"What's the matter?" he asked.

"Oh, Dan, I've got the goddamn C.B. scanner on, and they just reported the bank robbery. You did it, I know you did it."

"Yeah," he said calmly, "I did."

"They're gonna arrest you this time. They're gonna send you to jail," she sobbed.

Just then, Deputy Rick Iversen, a cop Black liked, walked into the bar and tapped him on the shoulder. Black looked at him and nodded.

"They're here now," he told Mary Jo. "Goodbye, baby."

•

After the trial, Dan Black's public defender said he'd never seen a man so intent on being punished. Convicted of two counts of armed robbery, he was sentenced to four years in Soledad prison. In 1978, while he was still serving his sentence, he and Claudia were divorced.

Black was paroled on December 11, 1980. Eight days later, he married Bonnie Ford, whom he had met several weeks before his trial. In recent months, they have been looking for a ranch to manage, and Black has applied for more than 60 jobs, without success.

There is a chance that he will lecture at seminars to be conducted by the FBI at its National Academy in Quantico, Virginia. Proposed subject: the dangers of being an undercover narcotics agent.

"Black must have been very drunk, because he did an unpardonably stupid thing. 'I'm a narc,' he said."