Where Mercy Is Shown, Mercy Is Given - Duane Dog Chapman [22]
“Six months! Hell, I only need the job for two weeks! I’m just looking to make a few extra dollars.”
I had to laugh because Calvin was sweating bullets and agonizing over his answer. I offered to call over to the person in charge of hiring and give them my personal recommendation if he thought that might help.
“You’d do that for me, Dog?”
“Of course,” I said. “I can’t promise anything, but I’ll give it a shot.” When we hung up, I called the woman in human resources and told her who I was.
“Hi. This is Dog the Bounty Hunter. I am calling on behalf of one of my good friends, Calvin Pope.” I hoped she knew it was really me and not a prank call.
“Oh, sure. I remember him. He really impressed me.” I wasn’t positive if she was being sincere or not, but I decided to play along anyway.
“I’ve known Calvin for many years. He is a great find for you and will definitely be an asset to your security team. He’ll be terrific in catching shoplifters and keeping an eye on things. He’s really good—you should definitely hire him.” I hung up feeling hopeful my call would seal the deal.
A few days later, Calvin called to say he’d gotten the job.
“Dog, they gave me a uniform and a badge, man.” I could tell he was proud of his new career. When I asked Calvin how he answered the felony question, he confessed that he had left it blank. In my heart, I was proud of him for not lying. He was a changed man who was being given a second chance in life. It felt good knowing that despite his past, he too had eventually ended up on the “right” side of the law.
CHAPTER 6
Lucy Pemoni
October 31, 2007
“Duane,” Beth whispered.
“What time is it?” I asked her.
“It’s four A.M.”
We’d been out celebrating Beth’s fortieth birthday the night before. I never gave her a surprise party because Beth is hard to pull one over on, but I’d wanted to do something special for her for her big four-o. We met several of our friends at Duc’s Bistro, a well-known restaurant in Honolulu. I was in bed at our home just outside of Honolulu and still pretty out of it when I heard Beth say, “We’ve got trouble.”
The only time Beth wakes me in the middle of the night is when I am having a bad dream or when there’s some awful news. In the past couple of years she has woken me to tell me my daughter Barbara Katie died in a fatal car accident and then when federal marshals were outside our door to take me away. If Beth wakes me up, it’s never good. She’s never once woke me to say, “We just won a million dollars!”
“The National Enquirer has you saying the ‘N’ word on tape. This is bad, Duane. Really bad.”
I thought, What’s so bad about that? “Bad” is one of the children is hurt. “Bad” is you’re going back to jail. “Bad” is someone we love just died. The National Enquirer story didn’t fit into any of those categories, at least not for me.
“Where are all the kids? Are they all right?” I asked.
Beth said they were fine. The only one I worried about these days was my son Tucker. Tucker went to prison in 2002 for robbing a Japanese tourist with a BB gun. He received a twenty-year sentence for armed robbery and was later paroled after serving four years. When he got out, Tucker came to live and work for me in Hawaii.
It wasn’t long before he was hanging with a bad crowd. Within weeks of his release, Tucker had a girlfriend who Beth and I thought was a terrible influence on him. I suspected Tucker was getting high again and it broke my heart. He was making one bad decision after another, but there wasn’t a lot I could do except tell him how I felt.
So when Beth woke me up that night, I figured it had to be about Tucker, though I had no idea what he’d done. When she told me it was a tabloid news story, I said I was going back to sleep.
“Duane, I don’t think you get it. You’re in deep trouble.”
“Beth, it’s me. Nobody’s going to be angry with the Dog for using the ‘N’ word. I use it all the time.” And I did.
I rolled over and