The Origin of Ned’s Novel, Plus a Sneak Peek of Deep Cover Season Two

a heartbeat. So stay tuned for a season two of deep Cover mob Land coming your way January twenty fourth. In the meantime, I wanted to share a fun conversation that takes us back to season one of deep Cover. If you were a fan of the first season, I think you're really going to like this behind the scenes story. And if you haven't listened to deep Cover season one yet, now is a great time to go back and catch

up on it. You might remember from episode one. Deep Cover started when I got a hold of a novel. The book had no cover, no copyright page. I mean, not even a title or an author listed. It just said Spring nineteen eighty two. And then it started. A single sodium street light out on the far edge of a parking lot, shown down on a pay phone. This, of course, is the actor Walton Goggins, who did all

the voice over readings from Ned's novel. From that lonely pool of light, the darkness of the parking lot reached out a good twenty five yards before the glow of Neon beer signs signaled the borders of another America. This was the lawless America. This was the rebel yell. This was easy money, fast bikes, and girls that were easier and faster than both. Eventually, of course, I met the guy who the novel was based on, Ned Timmins, and he told me that this book, this novel about him,

had many different authors. Over the years, Ned worked with at least four different writers. These were people he hired to tell his story. What I had read apparently was a mashup of all their efforts. Plus Ned himself worked on it. He's still tinkering with it. In fact, if there any book editors listening, give him a call. Anyway, I always kind of wondered who these writers were, you know, what their take on Ned was, Because in a way,

I kind of felt like they were my predecessors. And then shortly after deep Cover was released, one of them reached out to me. His name is James Coyne. He's a screenwriter who lives out in southern California. He told me he worked with Ned on and off over the years. So one afternoon I called up James to hear all about it. He started by telling me about the first time he met Ned. I think he was much more understated than I expected him to be based on the story.

You know, he's very kind of you know, he blends right in right, it was sort of a standard Midwest American and how he dresses and carries himself. And it's not until you kind of see, you know, you start looking him in the eye, that you start to sense the depths there. But he stands out in Los Angeles for being very normal kind of Midwest American, but in any other place in the country, you know, you'd walk right by him in the airport and never know who

he was. It's interesting, I think, you know, so he had gone through he had worked with other writers, and I knew that they had kind of come before me. I really didn't know a lot of the details. I had seen what it turns out was an early version of your novel. It was kind of mysterious. It didn't even have all the pages and whatnot. But I got this. But I did understand that this is a guy who had been trying to tell his story in one form or another for a long time, like well over a

decade before I ever met him. I think his efforts went back, you know, more than a decade before meeting me. You know, yeah, because I saw I saw maybe a chapter and a half of somebody else's work, which was attempting to be a much more straightforward kind of um you know piece. I can't remember the writer's name again. It was you know, it came in a box with you know, uh, some photographs of you know, shrunken heads, and yeah, I think I saw the same box. We

both got the same box. So I sent the box back to him at some point. It was it was difficult to parse, um and didn't really have an organizational principle, so it was it was hard to to get into. But um, yeah, I was. I was certainly not the first person to come in, you know. I the novel was great, and it was it's interesting I'll share with you. I did a first episode of the podcast without the novel and it and it didn't quite it didn't work.

And so someone you know, and also there was like not an obvious point of entry for me as the storyteller, and I guess I was just telling someone how it had come onto my radar, and I started talking about the novel, and then someone said, why don't you just say that, like you know, it's like, why don't you just tell like the like the way it really began and the most obvious point of entry. So then I said, okay, I start telling the story of the novel. And then

we started reading it. I realized the novel was so great because it was this one version of Ned, like in a way, we all have the novel version of ourselves, right like I have it, you have it. We all have like the kind of you know, the way we would like to see ourselves. And so and this was just actually written out in novel form, and so it ended up being like an important part of like the

layering of who of who Ned was. And it's clear it was clear to me that that you would spend a lot of time getting to know this guy and also kind of channeling his voice. How how did you channel his voice? Because you know, having spent a lot of time with Ned, the voice in the novel often does sound exactly like him. We're using tape recordings, you're

taking notes. How were you doing it? For me? The joy of listening to Ned and and and hearing these stories and and you know, the sort of there's a there's a deep aspect of wish fulfillment in what Ned did, right that from a certain point of view, right like you know that you know he's he's like, he's like tell me out of a Walter Hill screenplay, right Like

there's a you can you can feel the movie. You're right, you know, Chimmans, I want your patche and your gun on my desk, right like, you know, there's a um And so I think for me in getting into writing the book, and what was so much fun about writing the book was was breathing into that aspect of the

wish fulfillment that is inherent to Ned's story anyway. And so if I adopted some of his language, or if I subconsciously picked up up on some of his tone, I think that's just kind of naturally part of my process. You know, I think everything I write sort of tends to have the tone of what it wants to be. You try to find a tone that suits the material. And I think, you know, Ned provided all of that over he and I spending so many years together talking

about these things. You know, I love that you were fascinated by the pig. You know that one of the screenplays opens on the pig with the mush, with it being fed the meth up onions, because that was just such an amazing image, and you're like, I got see that fucking pig on screen. The pig was great. Oh,

the pig's amazing. There's a big field and there's mountains up each side, and there's some hillbility there at the gate, and he meets us and gets as soon as gate and it's you know, it's just a two track sage brush cactus and just high mountain desert and we're getting near the barn and outcomes this freaking five hundred pound pig, I mean, a big pig. And he said, what the fuck is it? You know that's the guard hogs. What mean?

He said, well, he smells people if they're you know, and the mountains are trying to survey us or whatever hills. And that's true a pig. He has one of the best noses in the world. What really surprised Ned is what these hillbillies are feeding their prized guard pig. They'd soak a bug onion, sweet onion and math and throw it to the pig. The pig lollved it. I mean, he's like, you know, he wanted he wanted a fucking onion, and you know, I didn't really trust him because he's

really fucking big and he's got tossling shit. And this was Ned's life now, sneaking past a drugged up pig.

What a detail. What was really interesting is that the moments you chose to use some excerpts from the book and with the music, is that what what what I found is that all of a sudden, like some part of the story became very real and alive in a way that you know, sort of the more journalistic approach can get distant, right, like you can feel a step removed when somebody is as clinically accurate as you were being.

And yet somehow when the music and the story and all of that comes, it starts to become alive in a way that I think nonfiction has a much harder time being than fiction. No, And I'm so glad that we got Walter Goggins to read it because originally, in just early versions, I was reading it and it didn't have the same effect because you really wanted it to have kind of a distinct voice, and like, it was just much more effective to have it removed from me.

He's fantastic. They'll kill us, Bruce, we fuck up and they'll kill us. You understand, no one will even find the bodies to shoot us and stuck us in a Vada ascid of some shit. You have any idea how fucking dangerous this shit is? I nodded, but Toby grabbed him by the arm leaned in close, close enough he could smell the ether, the cigarettes and the bo do you, brothers? You fucking better because it's me and you out there, danglin,

right over the goddamn edge. Let me go back to a question that I was getting at earlier, which is that so you start working with them, and you're saying that maybe as much as a decade before that, he was working on telling the story, which seems possible to me, which begs this bigger question of why was it so important to Ned to tell the story? He went to enormous trouble and enormous expense over decades to do it, which is just really unusual. What was driving that? Why

was it so important to him? Do you not sense from him that he wants a certain validation for his role in this and that he did feel somewhat sidelined and forgotten in an investigation that took so much from him and cost him so much personally and professionally, that somehow it would all be okay if if the story was out there in the world and that he got the credit and recognition that he felt he was due. Yes, yeah, no, I think that's right. I think there's some of that.

And then I think, too he gets like, you know, I think a lot of people around him say, holy shit, this should be a movie, Holy shit, this should be a book. You know, like, this is incredible, what a story? You know, why doesn't anyone know this? And you know, how many times do you hear that before you start to think to yourself, you know, they're probably right. So so what is he hired you to write the like?

How did that work? He had he had hired me to work on the scripts, and then when we had kind of hit the wall, he approached me about doing a book. So just to be clear here, it starts off. It starts off as you writing this script. So he hired you initially to write a script for a future and correct correct, which I did, you know again many many versions of and worked with some pretty high level

people to get into a good position. And uh, you know, I think the issue where our story kind of hit a brick wall in Hollywood especially was, you know, it's it's difficult with marijuana, right like, you know, these guys are bringing in hundreds of thousands of pounds of marijuana,

They're doing billions of dollars worth of business. But it's it's just it's an inherently less threatening drug than you know, if if these guys have been importing, you know, bargeloads of cocaine, you know, this story would I think have been a movie ten years ago, because cocaine is somehow so much more. You know, it's it's bigger, it's sexier,

it's more dangerous. You can turn it into crack and ruin an entire community, right you know, you can, you know, you can let loose the shitload of marijuana on an entire community, and you know, fast food sales go up, right, It's just not It just doesn't have the same impact as as some of the dirty or nasty or drugs that are out there. And I think that that really harmed our ability to market the story. That's fascinating. Did did did they? Were you told that explicitly we're people

going back to producers? Or I yeah, I heard that explicitly in meetings. You know, could we could we up the cocaine factor? You know, it's like, wow, not really right, like, you know, if we're being honest to the story. After the break, more on my conversation with James. Do you guys then come up with a whose idea is it to write a novel? You know, I think it was Ned who came to me with that idea, and it says like, let's just turn this into a book, or yeah,

let's turn this into a book. You know the story better than anyone else at this point, you know, I like you, you know, um, you know, what could you what could we possibly do this for financially? And I sort of looked at, you know, where I was and what I was doing, and I said, you know, look, I can give you about twelve weeks, right, and so this is what I need to live for the next twelve weeks, and if you can afford that, then I'll write you the book. You wrote that book in twelve weeks. Yes,

that's crazy. That's like a full length novel and pretty good shape. Well yeah, and that's well you have you have the much bridge version. My first draft was I think somewhere in the neighborhood of eighty five to ninety thousand words. So you're working on the book when he's when you're going over these like what do you like? What do you make of the stories? For example that he tells you about Toby, For example, I was Toby

was a character that fascinated me. I couldn't actually talk to him because he had passed away, as you know, I talked to his son. I remember writing the motorcycles with them with me on the back. He was just kind of reckless and dangeroed. I was screaming holding on for dear life, right, and he just thought it was funny. Um, But that was him. It's he wasn't There wasn't anything that that that he was afraid of nothing, nothing. What

was your take on I'm Toby. Well, you know, unlike you, it was entirely through Ned's eyes, right, you know, for me, a lot of that stuff was about like, you know, okay, so Ned's given me some really. Ned has these great details, amazing and the way he has tagged these details to people, uh is a very natural storyteller's kind of instinct. Right.

You know, in a different world, Ned would be a great screenwriter because of how he sort of sees detail in people and what he chooses to associate with them. I would ask him, especially early in the process, right, you know, he's taking all these amazing risks and he's you know, he's spending months and months, you know, stinking like a biker and hanging out with these assholes who clearly he doesn't like, you know, and uh and and and putting himself in danger and wrecking his family for

this case. Right and why? Right? Like why what was the what was the driving motivation? Again? If you think about if you if you said to if you said to me, you know, James, you know, I want you to be a hero, and I want you to take these drugs off the streets, right, you know, you go, Okay, I can. I can buy into that on some level, But what was the what was the reason that you were so devoted to doing this and so willing to kind of, you know, dig as deep as you did.

And I could never get a straight answer right like it was, there was never a satisfactory kind of response from Ned in any of that. Years go by and I had flown out to Michigan to do sort of my last round of interviews with him before getting started

on the book. And at that time he had a home in the northern part of the Lower Peninsula, Uh, this beautiful hunting cabin that he has um and he took me around the whole property, and he had done things like um, you know, like the woods had been clear in these fairways almost like a golf course, and then he would plant all of these different herbs and

flowers and seeds that would be perfect for deer. So the deer would come out of the cover of the woods and into these places that are basically like a Schmoger's board for them, a buffet all you can eat of their most favorite plants, and they'd be completely exposed while they were eating them, and there'd be a little hide built down at the other end of the fairway so a hunter could kill the deer if they wanted to.

It was a hunter's paradise. And inside the lodge, which was, you know, I'm going to be conservative and say it was a five thousand square foot home, he had a taxidermy of almost anything that has ever taken a breath that you could shoot at. The bears, dozens of them, these creatures with you know, beautiful horns that had killed in Africa, lions, you know, just if he could kill it,

he had shot it. And I got up to Pea in the middle of the night and it was like, you know, it's like a horror film, like a Frank Osman movie, right, like where these things are kind of going to come alive in the darkness because every squares surf at some point, like a bat had fucking died in the gutter. And he had a taxi journey as a joke, right. It was, it was, it was, it was,

you know, it was beyond creepy, it really was. And what I suddenly realized is that this was why Ned was an FBI agent, right That badge was his hunting license for his favorite thing. To hunt, which is human beings. And starting from the youngest age, some of his earliest memories, Ned will tell you that his granddad would let him stand up in a backpack while they would go out bird hunting, right, Like, you know, Ned's very earliest memories

are you know, hunting. Wow. And the thing that you know that being an FBI agent really meant to Ned was this opportunity to go out and hunt the most intelligent and the most dangerous animal on earth. And when you listen to how he talks about the people that he would, you know, go out and get right. What are the words that you've heard one hundred times out and as all, this guy's a killer. How many times have you heard that? Yeah? That's he loves that. Yeah, yeah,

But I agree with you, you know, it's interesting. I think it's insightful, and I agree that there's the challenge of it as the hunter. But he also has this side of him that he befriends these guys um you know, Lee Rich being one of them. But also there was a biker that I met that you describe in the novel Who Who knew Toby who remains close to to

this day. I think he is he does have that hunting instinct, but simultaneously he also some of these guys he seems to form like a really intense and lasting bond with um that's somewhat but only after he's only after he's bagged him. You know, it's like now their you know, their teeth have been pulled, their their declaude. You know, I I you know, it's not a perfect metaphor, and it never could be, but you know, I don't

I think there's a deep humanity to Ned. I don't say that to say that he's some sort of sociopath who just likes to go out and kill people or hunt them down, but that the thrill of the chase is the is everything to him. You know, even after he leaves the FBI, he you know, there's that whole second chapter of his you know, work in Columbia that was you know, fascinating and done almost without any kind of supervision or the ages and protection of any kind

of an agency. That he was working freelance because he was so hooked on that adrenaline rush that he had been you know, living for all of those years. Yeah, if there's a part two of this, like you know, we said that the novel ended it in kind of a cliffhanger, with the woman showing up and saying, you know, I need your help. I have someone down in Columbia who's in trouble. What is that kind of the elevator

pitch for that sequel. Ned did go to Columbia to start a fishing business after he left the FBI, and once he gets down there, he ends up doing a lot of sort of contract work for customs and sort of falls very naturally back into being an FBI agent again, or rather an undercover operative again, and is bombed at

the Hilton. He tells this amazing story of being out on this little island off the coast of Columbia where the bugs were so intense at night that you had to like go to sleep in a hammock wearing a wetsuit and uh and cover your face with a towel

so that bugs couldn't eat you. There was there was a lot of detail in that post FBI part of Ned's life which was really really interesting, and because it was, you know, being done under his own auspices was infinitely more dangerous and I think he must have reached a point where, you know, what you and I would consider danger, wouldn't even you know, wouldn't even get his heart rate up, and he you know, I think that the adrenaline hit that he was looking for was was probably going to

take him to get and killed down there until you know, he kind of gets his ship together. And I thought that would have made a very interesting follow up to the first book. Is there anything else that I that I didn't ask that you thinks worth mentioning, or that occurred to you, you know, in the last little bit while you heard the podcast or afterwards. I think the thing that I found just so wonderful about the podcast was the way you really dug in and went past

those those blocks that I never did. I'm so gratified that I kind of get some of the answers on a story that you know, I lived with so intimately for so very long, three drafts of a script and a novel. Is you know that's that's six eight months out of my life spent, you know, in Ned's head. To finally kind of see the larger perspective that you

delivered was intensely gratifying to me. I was able to to, you know, kind of turn off any personal ego issues and uh and and really just enjoy what you did. So I thank you for that. Well, I mean, likewise, I feel I feel grateful to you. I mean, I it was the novel that that that drew me into this story, and and as again as I said to you earlier, I felt like it was just a faithful

and kind of almost uncanny channeling of Ned's psyche. There were times I was working on the story and I had thousands of pain I mean, the amount of transcripts I have is crazy. But often when I want to try to really get a sense of how Ned thought about something, I would go to the novel. And I think that's just a reflection of the fact that you spent so much time talking to him and thinking about

him and kind of channeling his character. I was very much appreciative to have it and to get a chance to talk with you. Well, this has been a real pleasure for me as well. After my talk with James, I kept thinking back to what he said about Ned's hunting lodge and the rows and rows of taxidermied animals. That's all true. By the way, Ned told me. There were eleven bears, two moose, two mountain lions, three caribou, two Arctic wolves, five to six deer, and seventeen assorted

animals from a hunting trip in Africa. And that's just to name a few he sent pictures. Actually, imagine the Museum of Natural History in New York City, only a lot more crowded. So look, I get why James picked up on this, why he saw Ned as the hunter. And I even pose this question straight to Ned, is this why you did it? The thrill of the hunt?

And Ned, well, he kind of answered me in that classic roundabout Ned way where he started telling one story and then another about the bikers, how he spent years with guys like this. I think Ned was reminding me that, Yeah, sure, in the Hollywood version of this story, he might be cast as the Count Zarov character you know from the movie The Most Dangerous Game, the guy who hunts humans

for fun. In reality, Ned was more like, well, a babysitter, That's how he put it, anyhow, because there was never a moment where he could just breathe easy, fix a drink, and stare into the glassy eyes of a head that was mounted on his wall. This bonus episode of Deep Cover was produced by Jacob Smith, Amy Gaines, and Jennifer Sanchez and was edited by Karen Shakerji. Original music and our theme was composed by Louise Gera. Mia Loebell is

Pushkin's executive producer. Special thanks to Heather Faine, John Schnarz, Carli Mgliori, Christina Sullivan, Eric Sandler, Maggie Taylor, Nicolemarano, Jason Gambrel, Martin Gonzalez, and Jacob Weisberg at Pushkin Industries. Additional thanks to Jeff Singer at Stoway Entertainment. Deep Cover is a production of Pushkin Industries. Subscribe to Pushkin Plus and you

can hear deep Cover ads free. You'll also be able to binge all of season two at once find Pushkin Plus on the deep Cover Show, payee in Apple Podcasts or at pushkin dot fm, slash plus. To find more Pushkin podcasts, listen on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts. I'm Jake Halpern And if you've listened this far, here's one more clip from deep

Cover Season two. Mob Land launching January twenty fourth, So Nick, can you just tell me like if I'm a guy who owes you money for a juice loan and I have not paid you. Can you just give me an example of what you would say to me, Like I tell you, Jake, you know you got twenty four hours to come up with that money. If you don't come up the money, I'm gonna come bust your fucking head or pop your eyes out and eat him like grapes Day