Where Mercy Is Shown, Mercy Is Given - Duane Dog Chapman [60]
The sheriff was stunned by my discovery. “Jesus Christ!” he said.
Fred was nervous the entire time. He was worried they’d figure out we were just a couple of bounty hunters and not feds. I pulled him aside in the hallway and tried to calm his nerves.
“Let them assume whatever they want, Fred,” I whispered to him. “I never told them we were the law. They came up with that all on their own. We’ve done nothing wrong here.”
Unfortunately, everything I said failed to get through and calm Fred down. He became consumed with the idea that he and I were going to end up in jail for our charade. Fred’s skin, which was normally of a dark complexion, had turned a light white. He was scared to death. Fred looked at me and said, “Do you remember cell number seven? I want that one because it was the cleanest we saw. We are all done, Dog. We are in the South. They’ll never let us go. It’s over. I know it is.”
When we finally got to Halligan’s cell, I immediately knew he was my guy. It was definitely him. When Halligan looked up and saw me standing there, all he could say was “Oh shit.”
I took a step forward and looked him dead in the eyes through the bars of his cell. “Warren, my man,” I said. “Who is the greatest bounty hunter in the world?”
“Damn, Dog. It’s you,” he answered.
“You ran on Mary Ellen, brotha,” I told him. “That’s a bad thing to do.”
He was in total shock and disbelief he’d been found. Warren thought he’d do his ninety-day stint inside the joint and then be let out a free man. He already had a new name and identity. If he got through his sentence, he’d be long gone.
The sheriff informed Fred and me that we could take Warren the next day. He even offered to let us stay with him at his house, but Fred couldn’t bring himself to take him up on it. He wanted to call Mary Ellen and tell her what was going on so she would know we were definitely going to jail. After all, we were still pulling the wool over the sheriff’s eyes by continuing to let him think we were the law.
The following morning, Fred and I showed up at the jail as planned, to grab Halligan. All we had to do was get him in our car and we were out of there. But just as the officers were about to escort him out, the sheriff called us back inside. He told us to head over to the district attorney’s office down the hall. When I asked why, the sheriff explained that the DA was the only person who could sign the extradition papers.
When Fred and I walked into the DA’s office, there was another sheriff waiting for us.
“Who the hell do you think you are?” the DA asked. Man, was he pissed.
“I’m not sure what you are talking about, sir,” I calmly answered. Under the circumstances, I thought being polite could only help things.
“You’ve been down here telling everybody you’re FBI. Well, we just checked with the Bureau and they tell us you’re a damned bounty hunter.”
Technically, I had never told anyone anything, because no one ever asked. “Just because I had an agent on the phone doesn’t mean I told anyone I was in the FBI,” I pointed out to the district attorney. “If your guys jumped to that conclusion, that’s their fault, not mine.”
Fred was panicked by this exchange. He wouldn’t even sit down in the DA’s office. Throughout the entire discussion, he kept pulling me aside and saying, “We’re going to jail, I told you, Duane. We’re definitely going to jail.” He sounded like Rain Man, repeating himself as he paced and said, “Oh my God” over and over. I kept telling Fred we weren’t going anywhere but the airport. Jail wasn’t in the cards.
I began laying into the DA for his dumb-ass sheriff not knowing about the dope he had in custody or that he had an inmate incarcerated under a false identity who was wanted on a $250,000 federal warrant or inmates who were hoarding all sorts of contraband.
“Listen, Mr. Smart Ass DA! I want my man,” I insisted.
“The only thing I’m going to give you is a one-way ticket to jail unless you get your ass out of my town, and I mean right now!”
“I ain’t leaving