Chapter 3 The Loner
I stayed in town for three days.
It might have been two days too many for my family. Oh, everyone was civil enough. They all assumed I had someplace to be and that I had very little time to get there.
Pastor Williamson had his flock to take care of. As for my two boys, they had it all covered. If there were awards to be handed out for the 2013 Arkansas Father of the Year, Josh and Jake might finish up in a first-place tie.
They were wonderful fathers. Solid. Great careers. Adoring wives and beautiful children.
“Grandpa, guess what Samantha wants to be when she grows up?” Joan said.
I looked down at my granddaughter, her curly red locks flowing freely in the breeze as we stood in front of the courtyard at the Hotel Marriott in downtown Little Rock, awaiting our table — and a final family Sunday morning gathering before everyone returned to their daily lives.
“Well, I don’t know. Samantha,” I said as I pinched her cheek, those Shirley Temple eyes looking straight up at me. “What do you want to be when you grow up?”
“I want to be a lady newscaster!”
Joan cringed, and so did I.
It had been an all-out war inside of me as I tried my best for seventy-two hours to portray the fact that I had my life in order when, in all reality, my insides were churning…half of me wanted to stay, but the voice in my head, trumping any of those thoughts, as I planned my getaway.
Finally. On the road again, alone once again in my thoughts, as I left early Tuesday morning with a lot of blacktop ahead of me. And then what?
I thought I was ready to put my new attitude into motion.
Mayweather said I was ready. Instead, I spent all three nights in Jacksonville at the Ramada Inn. Exchanged enough pleasantries with the adults and kept my sanity by playing flag football on a cool, brisk afternoon, reveling in the fact that I threw three touchdown passes — right on the money — to my grandsons, Randy, Robby, and Rance.
Walker had tried his best to break through the barrier I had set up. Even the pastor couldn’t detour around the roadblocks. So, after a two-hour talk in the church library, he handed me an envelope. “Take this with you, and when you’re ready, open it.”
The letter was tucked away in my suitcase. I would open it soon enough. But not now. Reading Maggie’s final words to me — her final thoughts- was too much. I was leaning on the fence, teetering. It wouldn’t take much to send me over the edge — in free fall. I’d had that nightmare before. I wasn’t ready to revisit that scene…not now.
I took the northern route back to Arizona. I curled my way into Oklahoma, drove through Tulsa, spent the night in Wichita, and made my way into Denver the next morning. I'd promised Brad Jolly that I’d stay overnight at his home, just outside of Aurora, and attend the game on Thursday night between the Broncos and the San Diego Chargers.
Those crazy Thursday night games — I could never get a handle on the time slot; it seemed odd to me, probably because I’m an old codger and not adaptable to such change. Pro football is for Sundays — not a midweek extravaganza.
Jolly had it all. He had earned it. Brad started as a sportscaster in Boise, Idaho, and quickly moved up the ladder and didn’t stop until he held the top spot in the Network. Of course, it didn’t hurt his career one bit when he ran into Emily Stoddard.
It was his first year in Philadelphia. He had bounced around like me for a good five years. I can’t remember all the stopping points Brad had reeled off, but he was definitely in the right place at the right time one Sunday afternoon after Dallas had beaten the Eagles, much to the dismay of the Philadelphia fans.
It was an after-game cocktail party, and Brad met Emily, who was in town to visit her father and watch the game. She was a senior art student at Stanford. She fell for Brad, and that was that. They’ve been married for thirty years, have no children…and they have the world by the tail.
Damian Stoddard, Emily's father, was the CEO of the CBC Sports Network.
Brad and Emily owned twenty acres of land just outside of Aurora, and their cocktail parties were to die for as they constantly entertained. It’s not unusual to have one hundred people roaming the grounds on the night before a Bronco’s game or mingling inside their three-story mansion — especially if the white stuff is floating down from the Denver sky.
As for my accommodations for my short stay, let’s say it’s a five-star setup — a guest house with a big-screen television in the living room area and a fifty-inch Vizio attached to the wall in the bedroom.
“Royce, it’s all yours,” said Brad as he handed me the key. “If you hear noises in the morning, chances are it’ll be a bear or two outside your window. It’ll be a little foggy in the morning. So don’t let them startle you.”
“Thanks for the warning, Brad.”
“Oh, and make yourself pretty. We invited a few guests tonight. They are mostly San Diego fans. You know how they are. They probably won’t stay long.”
“Yeah, right.”
I could handle a small dinner party. It’s just for one night. I was sadly mistaken.
It was a farewell party for the old anchorman. They not only came from the San Diego office but also from the Denver office, the Phoenix office, and LA. Seventy-five in all, including just about every old newsman and newswoman in the Network.
“I’m sorry, good buddy,” Brad said moments after I had made my entrance. “I’ve been planning this for two weeks. Most of the retirees are here; just about everybody you have worked with at one time or another is on the premises.”
I shook hands with Brad as he handed me a bottle of Coors.
“You deserve it, Royce. My God. You pretty much gave up everything for this company. You can’t deny that, can you?”
“No, I can’t, Brad. No, I can’t.”
For the next three hours, I managed to roll with the flow. I let loose a little, downing a few cold ones, but kept count. Mayweather had pounded in my head. “Alcohol is your enemy and can turn all the progress you’ve made upside down. That stuff is a depressant.”
She was right. I kept things at an even keel as I shook hands and reminisced with my friends and co-workers. They were my on-camera family, and sadly, they knew me as Royce Reirdon, a TV personality. Once I walked out of the booth and turned off the lights, I wouldn’t see them again until the on-the-air light came back on.
You have to work hard at being a loner. It takes a lot of practice. I seek solitude, yet when I have it, I quickly feel the pain of being alone. It’s taken me years to juggle my personality in the booth with my personality out amongst the English. Heard that saying in a movie once…and I never forgot it. It was near the end of the movie Witness, and the old Amish man was warning Detective John Book, played by Harrison Ford, to be careful as he drove away from the farmhouse and returned to his life as a lawman.
In some ways, I have become a man with two lives. It’s hard enough living one life, but trying to hide a second one, or at least battle to disguise it, takes energy. My juices are running low. The old light bulb is flickering.
“Royce, you old man, you. I haven’t seen you since ’65 in Little Rock,” said a gray-haired man with a well-cropped beard of the same color. “I heard you retired. I never thought I’d see the day.”
“Brian Houseman. Is that you behind that beard?”
“That’s me, all sixty-five years of me.”
“I thought you worked down in Miami.”
“I do, but I took a leave of absence for six months. I have some medical issues to take care of. I may be just behind you, Royce. Thinking seriously about hanging it up, too. I’ve got a little place over in West Palm Beach. I may sign those retirement papers when I get back, dust the dirt off my old set of Pings, and hit the links. I remember you were a scratch golfer…always winning the company tournaments.”
Houseman smiled. “I have a hard time breaking into the 70s now. Haven’t played much over the last ten years or so. You know how it is, Royce.”
“Yes, I do.”
“Ladies and Gentlemen. May I have your undivided attention? We are here tonight to honor a man who has been with us for, my goodness, fifty years. Is that right, Royce, fifty years?”
I raised my bottle and acknowledged Brad. “Forty-nine, but who’s counting?”
The laughter subsided, and Brad continued. “I had a couple of our producers in the Denver office put together a tribute to Mr. Reirdon. Dim the lights, please.”
For the next seven minutes, my life flashed across the screen. I was more stunned than anything else as I watched a young man, with the back of his hair sticking straight up, stutter through a two-minute report from the sideline of a high school football game. “Central scored three touchdowns in the fourth quarter and pulled off the upset of the season with a 31-24 win over Lincoln High…Central’s Johnny Duncan raced around the right end and scored from twenty yards out with two minutes left in the game for the go-ahead touchdown…Royce Reirdon, Channel 7, reporting from the sidelines at Central High.”
Every network executive, from LA to New York, flashed across the screen, each one of them offering a toast to the company’s latest retiree.
By the time the clip came to an end, I was speechless.
Unfortunately, I was being beckoned to the podium. “Ladies and Gentlemen, may I present the young man you saw at the beginning of the clip, our anchorman, Royce Reirdon.”
Somehow, I found the words. I thanked everyone for coming. I rattled off a handful of stories involving my good friend, Brad Jolly. I told a few jokes, clean enough for mixed company. I even offered a word or two of advice for my successor out in LA, Jimmy Johnstone. “Jimmy, hang in there and hold on tight. It’s a long ride.”
The Thursday night game didn’t exactly go as planned for the hometown Broncos. Peyton Manning threw two touchdown passes, but a late interception by San Diego in the fourth quarter cost the Broncos the game, as the Chargers prevailed 27-20.
The few San Diego fans who were in attendance returned to Southern California as happy campers. Still, the locals left Mile-High Stadium unhappy and, for a few hours, anyway, had nothing good to say about their quarterback.
As for me, I left so early that I was long gone before the bears had a chance to make an appearance. I left the guest house key and a note to Brad, thanking him for his hospitality.
With my early departure, I assumed I’d make it to Santa Fe, rest there for the night, and pull into Tucson before dark on Saturday. I intended to spend a few days getting my affairs in order, keep my final appointment of the year with Mayweather, and return to Jacksonville on Christmas Eve.
Yes, I'd promised the family that I’d fly out for Christmas dinner and spend the holidays with them for the first time in a long while.
Josh was skeptical. “Dad, I’ll believe it when I see it.”
Could I blame him for his skepticism? The way he had it figured, Santa and the Reindeer were a more conceivable option.
A front was moving into Denver, and snow flurries were forecasted for late in the day. With a bit of luck, I’d miss it all.
I stopped for a late breakfast at a diner in Pueblo, Colorado, gassed up, and then made my way through Trinidad and crossed the border into New Mexico. I ran into a snowstorm about a hundred miles east of Santa Fe, but buzzed through it quickly and arrived at the Hotel Santa Fe in time for lunch. I made my way into the hotel’s cantina, sat down, and ordered the Number 7, my favorite Mexican dish — a Carne Asada taco, a green corn tamale, rice, and refried beans.
I waited for the two o’clock check-in, handed the lady at the desk my credit card, obtained the keys, and quickly walked across the corridor to my room. I showered and shaved, and I was happy to have today’s trip behind me.
I looked over at my open suitcase and grabbed Maggie’s letter. I had at first decided to wait until the trip was over before reading Maggie’s last words to me. But for some unexplainable reason, I held the envelope in my hand, staring directly at Maggie’s handwriting. I tore into the envelope.
Dear Royce…
I found myself reading the words over and over again. “Please come home, Royce. Your family needs you.”
It was like a bomb went off in my head. “Royce, Jake has developed the same cancer as I have. You have been so detached from us that I have held off on telling you, but I have very little time left, and I can’t keep this from you any longer.”
I read on.
“Walker is a good man and has been a good husband. He will also be available for support, but Jake, Joan, and the girls need you back in their lives. Please come home. I have left some papers for you with Walker. Included in the papers is the deed to the property we bought up by Lake Conway…you remember we made plans a lifetime ago to build our retirement home there.”
I removed my reading glasses and looked around the hotel room. I glanced at a picture on the east wall, a picture of a dirt road weaving and winding its way into a forest, with a flock of geese hovering above a dark blue pond.
My eyes are glazed. I rubbed my forehead and returned to the letter.
“Josh is retiring in the fall from the fire department and wants to move Bonnie and the boys to Conway to be closer to Jake. I pray that you’ll come home and be with them, too. I’ve seen the changes in you over the last few years, and deep down, I know you want to come back to us.”
I stared at the signature. Love, Maggie.
The hotel room began to cave in on me. I turned on the lamp. Shuffled through the channel changer on the remote. I found the channel I wanted. Wayne was boarding the streetcar. He had said his goodbyes to Lauren Bacall and Ron Howard.
Maggie’s letter was still in my hand when I opened my eyes and glanced at the clock radio on the nightstand. Two hours and thirty minutes had passed. I had missed the shootout at the saloon, not that it was necessary for me to watch the ending of Wayne’s farewell movie, “The Shootist” — I’d seen it so many times before and could repeat the final spoken words from bad guys Hugh O’Brian and Richard Boone, just moments before their demise.
It was midnight. I splashed water on my face and looked in the mirror, grabbed a towel, and stared at my image in the mirror. I didn’t like what I saw as I threw down the towel. I located my room key, took the elevator to the lobby, and made my way to the bar.
The bartender recognized me right away. “Good evening, Mr. Reirdon. “What can I get you?”
“Margarita on the rocks with salt,” I say.
“Comin’ right up.”
The bar area was empty, aside from the two men sitting in the corner booth. Both men had numerous tattoos on their arms and neck, along with shoulder-length hair — their appearance was reminiscent of two NFL offensive linemen, except that together, they would have a hard time pushing a digital scale over the 300-pound mark.
Chapter 4 The Loner
Bobby Joe and Frankie Ray Johnson were on the run. When weren’t they? The two brothers left Clay County, West Virginia, four years ago, bound for nowhere.
High school dropout Bobby Joe had somehow made it to his senior year at Clay County High, and Frankie Ray, just a year younger than his older brother, was making a career out of his sophomore year — not once, but twice.
Trying to better themselves the good old-fashioned way was just not in the cards. They were always looking for the easy way out, a fast buck, and just enough money to keep them in beer and cigarettes.
Of course, they had two strikes against them — no father and a heroin addict for a mother. It was none of this “You have a nice day at school, boys” — a nice kiss on the cheek by a caring mom who then hands them two sack lunches and waves to them as they board the yellow school bus.
There was none of that. Instead, the boys would ride a couple of stolen bikes to school. It was either that or late, which they were on many occasions.
A few years later, on a cold and wet November morning, Bobby Joe could hear the television blaring away in his mother’s room. He jumped out of bed and walked into the hallway. His mother’s bedroom door was unlocked, and rays of sunlight filtered through the opening. He entered the room, his mother’s body lying limp on the bed — a syringe still stuck in her arm and blood running freely to the floor.
A week later, the two teenage boys were placed in the Huntington Hills Home for Boys. Within days, they stole a late-model, four-door sedan, the keys conveniently in the ignition. They held up an all-night convenience store and got away with $200 and enough cartons of cigarettes to last them a month.
They stole their way into Ohio and crossed into Kentucky. Their dearly departed mother had one known relative, a distant cousin who owned an auto salvage business on the outskirts of Ashland. It was a front, and Cousin James employed enough young men — all down on their luck — to keep an auto theft operation running 24/7. James Andrew Call hired Bobby Jo and Frankie Ray. Gave them some up-front money, found them an 800-square-foot apartment to live in, and put them to work on the paint crew.
Six months later, the two brothers had graduated from fieldwork. Bobby Joe was a natural and, with a bit of on-the-job training, could break into any make or model, rewire the ignition switch, and be gone in ninety seconds. Frankie Ray had trouble getting the hang of it but was good with his fists — and if there was trouble on the streets, it would be Frankie to the rescue.
A year passed. Then two. Bobby Joe was restless, ventured on his own one night, broke into the home of a state congressman, and got away with ten grand from a floor safe that wasn’t even locked.
Bobby Joe felt like he had upped his game. He convinced Frankie Ray to head east to Chicago. One morning, they paid Cousin James back for all his kindness. They broke into the office, found fifteen grand hidden in the wall behind their cousin’s desk, selected the prize auto in the garage — a freshly-painted four-door sedan, a top-of-the-line 1998 Buick Skylark, and left town with money in their pockets and a world of crime awaiting them.
“Frankie Ray, stay with him.”
“Don’t worry,” says Bobby Joe. “We know where he’s going. We’ll stay back and enjoy the scenery. Besides, we have a new-fangled cell phone here. Everything we need to know about old man Reirdon is inside this amazing gadget.”
“That’s if you know how to work it?”
“Relax, Frankie, my boy. Hand me that battery charger.”
Bobby Joe had gone high-tech after just one year in the big city of Chicago. He found a nice, friendly fellow, an “I can sell anything to anybody” type. After filling out a purchase agreement, Bobby Jo walked out of a Chicago mall with everything he needed, including new knowledge on how to skim through the internet and “Google” just about anything he wanted to know.
R-O-Y-C-E R-E-I-R-D-O-N. Bobby Joe was smart enough to know they’d be losing connection soon as they headed for Las Cruces. Still, the two brothers had spent the evening the night before in the hotel room in Santa Fe, surfing the internet and discovering all they needed to know about the famous anchorman.
Less than a month ago, the two brothers had outgrown their welcome in Chicago; every cop on the South Side of the city could pull up their rap sheet, and it was just blind luck that they had escaped Illinois without some jail time.
They had spent a week hidden away in Pueblo. They had grown tired of the Windy City and decided to move on, looking for trouble along the way. Their stop in the small, sleepy town of Pueblo was a short one. It wasn’t long before they were back on the road, heading for New Mexico. They splurged a bit and spent some of their hard-earned money in Santa Fe, and it was there they found their next mark — at the hotel bar.
Bobby Joe ordered a couple of beers and returned to the corner table. He raised his beer bottle and tapped the neck of the bottle on the glass his younger brother was holding.
“We have found our man.” Bobby Joe says. “We have found our man!” Frankie Ray looks over his shoulder, grins, and fills his glass to the top.
Nine days later…
I reached for my forehead and pulled off a wrinkled white scarf. There were splotches of blood on the scarf, and the smell of alcohol was present.
My shoulder ached, and I felt dizzy. Where the hell was I? It was a single bunk bed and barely long enough for my aching legs. My ankles were tied together. My hands were tied with a rope. I turned my body and struggled to get my hand in the right pocket of my pants…my back pocket…nothing!
“My, God! What has happened to me? What…What is my NAME?”
I heard a key turn. The door opened. A man is standing in the doorway. “Hey, Bobby Joe…the old man is awake!”
Slam! The door closed. I looked around the room. It looked more like a bunkhouse. A couple of horseshoes dangling on the wall to the left of the bed. A saddle propped up in the far corner of the room.
“Where am I? Who is the guy in the doorway? Who is Bobby Joe?”
“Who the hell am I?”
I closed my eyes. I was weak and tired. I can’t stay awake…
Frankie Ray giggled, took a sip of warm beer, and made his way back to the ranch house.
“Grab me another beer, Frankie!”
“Sure, Bobby Joe. Sure thing.”
Frankie Ray reached for the cooler. “What are we gonna do with the car? It’s sitting out there like a sore thumb!”
“Relax, Frankie. Relax!”
Bobby Joe shook his head. His brother was a nuisance.
He had it all covered. He knew what needed to be done…and when.
The hard part was over. They made their move just outside of Socorro. They ran Reirdon off the road. Within minutes, Frankie Ray grabbed Royce from his Lexus and threw him in the back seat of the Skylark, quickly taping his hands and his feet while slapping a piece of tape across his mouth.
Bobby Joe sped away in the Lexus. Frankie Ray followed. They backtracked to Socorro, checked into a Motel 6, and stayed in the room for two long days, leaving only for food and beer.
When the time was right, they left Socorro with their prize mark and headed for their next hideaway…a place out in the middle of nowhere…a place where they could disappear and take their time, planning their next move.
They found the place easy enough. Found a generator in the barn and quickly found out the secret to getting it started. It wasn’t long before they had the lights on and made themselves at home.
They found the keys to the bunkhouse and locked in their prize catch. Bobby Joe drove to a town called Animas and picked up enough supplies, including food, beer, and ice, to last for a week.
According to Frankie Ray, the owner was on a tight schedule but was due any day now. She’d be in for quite a surprise.
“My God!” said Frankie Ray. “Maria is going to be here soon. She’s not going to like this.”
Bobby Joe shook his head. The boy is in heat. His brother met Maria on the south side of Chicago over two months ago — a dark-haired 26-year-old Mexican beauty without a piece of documentation in her purse, which was her own. She had confided in Frankie and told him she had a hole in the wall, a forty-acre parcel, out in the middle of nowhere…some 45 miles west of Lordsburg, New Mexico…near the Arizona line.
She had told Frankie jokingly, “After a couple of six packs and some smokes, you have no idea which state you were in.”
Turns out Maria was smarter than she looked and even better at dodging the law than the Johnson boys. She was a drug runner. Drove a 2012 Jeep Cherokee, equipped with an onboard computer system, the envy of any state trooper from Chicago to the Mexican border.
She had connections. Of course, most of them were south of the border. That part worried Bobby Joe, but he’d deal with that problem soon enough.
Right now, he had more pressing things to attend to. Like getting rid of the Lexus, getting rid of Reirdon, and staying a step or two ahead of the cops, after all, it wouldn’t be long before some nosy cop found out where old man Reirdon’s money went.
It had been easy so far. Two or three trips to Lordsburg, one to Deming, and another to an out-in-the-middle-of-nowhere teller machine, next to a cowboy bar in some twenty-building town called Rodeo. He shook his head. He had to hand it to Reirdon. The man had money, and it had been a piece of cake distracting a lot of it.
But the real kicker was a one-day trip to Tucson. An easy break into Reirdon’s house on Windspur Lane, a nice little shack near the mountain range the locals called the Santa Catalinas.
Bobby Joe, in no time at all, broke into Reirdon’s fancy roll-top desk and extracted a little black book, which was conveniently pushed up against a book entitled Computer Passwords for Dummies.
Before Bobby Joe was through, Reirdon’s little nest egg, totaling $50,000 — all in a handful of different accounts, would all be gone.
Stealing money was one thing; murder was another. He would get rid of the car and deposit the gentleman somewhere in the desert, between that hole-in-the-wall town of Rodeo and the border.
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