The King of Sting by Craig Glazer

Author:Craig Glazer
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Skyhorse Publishing
Published: 2011-01-25T16:00:00+00:00

WOODBECK was a friend of Eric “Joe” Ramirez, whose Mexico-based family owned marijuana fields and a used car business that was a front operation. After serving the remainder of his sentence in Arizona, Don went back into the drug delivery business, along with Milwaukee Jim, as usual. They bought two private planes, twin engine Beechcraft Bonanzas, and began transporting hundreds of pounds of weed from the Ramirez plantation to remote areas of Arizona and Southern California. The operation became so well known that it was proudly dubbed the MAF, Marijuana Air Force, by High Times magazine.

On October 23, 1977, Don and Milwaukee Jim were about to land in the Palm Springs area with 600 pounds of grass. Suddenly they noticed a San Bernardino County Sheriff’s Department stakeout waiting for them. As soon as Don touched down, he hit the throttle and took off again.

But they had not gotten away. A handful of government aircraft, fixed wing planes and helicopters, were in hot pursuit. Don and Milwaukee Jim frantically dumped marijuana bales from the plane. Don even tossed his .38 out the window.

The chase turned into a bizarre dogfight. At one point it appeared Don tried to bring down a helicopter by clipping its tail rotor with a tip of his wing. He also seemed to try to ram one of the prop planes. An astonished agent in the plane fired his shotgun through the windshield at the Bonanza. The blast forced Don to land in a field and surrender.

The next day, a retiree in Palm Springs was surprised to find a .38 embedded barrel-first in her front yard.

Don served some eighteen months at the Arizona State Prison in Florence, presumably transferred there for violating his parole in that state. During his time in Florence, Don began to study transcendental meditation and yoga. He thought maybe they would change his life. He certainly already believed in karma. Every day he spent in prison he knew he was paying for his crimes both known and unknown.

After his release, Don joined Milwaukee Jim in Santa Barbara, where they worked at a restaurant and also as salvage divers. Digger Dave gave me their phone number.

“How ya doin’, ya ole horse thief?” Don asked when I called.

“I’m selling our story to Hollywood, Don. Told you one day I’d make us famous.”

“I don’t know, college boy. We tried the sting thing, tried the police thing. It never happened.”

“Now it is. I got us an agent and we’re going to be movie stars.”

“You said ‘we,’ right?”

“Yeah. We’re going to tell them everything we did.”

“Everything?”

“Except we’ll be Robin Hoods,” I said. “We’ll be hippie vigilantes.”

“But we weren’t.”

“That doesn’t matter. It’s a great story.”

“I don’t know,” he said. “I’m as famous as I want to be.”

I played the Bronson card. Don liked Charles Bronson.

“The story is like Death Wish except there’s two of us.”

Don still wasn’t saying yes.

“Just come on out to Hollywood with me,” I said. Then I pushed the same button that had worked on him playing pool that fateful night at Fridays & Saturdays in Phoenix when I was eighteen years old.

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