You Can Run but You Can't Hide (30 page)

that alone or lost. I have felt it. I have lived it. And I never, ever,

want to go back there again.

If Beth hadn’t saved me, I’m not sure I would have survived those

years.

The first thing I needed to do was get my health back. A different

doctor told me to get on a weight lifting program and put on some

pounds. He also suggested that I stop using caffeine and alcohol and

that I avoid peppers and a foot-long list of other foods, which he sus-

pected might be irritating my bowels.

I finally passed the kidney stone. The very next day, I was up and

at ’em, hitting the gym every chance I got. I began to bulk up almost

immediately, gradually putting on sixty pounds of pure muscle.

It took me a month of agony, but I finally emerged drug-free and

stronger than ever. It wasn’t easy, but I made it through the dark-

ness of those six months. With God’s help and Beth’s love, I had all

the support I needed. Now, all we had to do was get back on our

feet financially, and we’d be set.

But by Christmas of 1997, we had hit the absolute bottom. We

were stone-cold broke. The whole bail bonds industry knew we

were together as a couple. The thought of the two of us joining

forces scared the hell out of everyone.

We signed on to work with Mike Whitlock, who agreed to back us

for insurance. He was the first person to give us a break. We weren’t

making great money, but we were surviving. Beth was writing bail

while I was out bounty hunting. For a while, it was slim pickings. We

had been out of the game for a few months, so there wasn’t a lot of

business.

By New Year’s, we had committed to each other to make a

miraculous comeback. Come hell or high water, we were back in

the game. Nothing and no one could stand in our way. We were un-

stoppable.

Not so fast. By the end of the year, our insurance company came

to us and said we were too high-risk. It’s true, one out of every three

of our clients was running, but I caught each one. Beth and I battled

with Mike Whitlock for a while, but it was no use. He dropped us

like we were hot.

Beth went through a couple more insurance companies before

she found us both a temporary home. By the grace of God, an old

182

Yo u Ca n R u n , b u t Yo u Ca n ’ t H i d e

bounty hunter named Andy Raff came by to see me. He knew all

about me. He was a rebel who just wanted to give me a break.

“What have you got for collateral?” I didn’t have much to offer.

Beth and I were still pretty much living day-to-day. We were happy

just to have the chance.

“Don’t tell nobody, but I’m going to sign you up for nothing. How

many powers you want?” Like that, we were back swinging. And

strong, too. We became the Bonnie and Clyde of bail bonds. Every

time we showed up at one of the local jails, I could hear people say-

ing, “They’re baaack!”

C h a p t e r T h i r t y - t h r e e

ONE STEP FORWARD

Once Beth and
I decided to join together in business, we

slowly began pulling ourselves out of the financial black hole we’d

been in since I got shut down in Hawaii. We had to take some large

steps back in lifestyle. We moved into a small three-bedroom town-

house. Beth was pregnant with Bonnie Jo while we built our new

business. We became a threat to the industry, their worst nightmares.

People started flocking to Free as a Bird Bail Bonds. We jammed

music every morning while I walked my gigantic pet lizard on a

leash up and down the sidewalk in front of the other bail bonds of-

fices to get attention. We had free coffee and donuts. DAs came in,

cops stopped by, and everyone loved our very entertaining atmos-

phere. I plastered a mug shot of every fugitive I ever arrested on a

huge wall. Clients would come in just to see who they knew on our

wall of fame. It became a status symbol of sorts to be on Dog’s

board of mugs.

Once business began to build, Beth was more determined than

ever to go after the other bondsmen and insurance companies who

continuously tried to put us out of business. She was fighting mad

and didn’t give a damn who knew.

One night we walked into a meeting of the Denver Association

of Bail Bonds just to let the three hundred or so members know that

Dog and Beth were now a team. Although there were only thirty-

eight people present, we knew word would quickly spread. When

184

Yo u Ca n R u n , b u t Yo u Ca n ’ t H i d e

we walked through the door, every head in the joint turned to see us

standing there. It was great. I was dressed in a long black leather

trench coat, looking like Keanu Reeves in
The Matrix
, while Beth,

well, was Beth. She wore a low-cut, revealing top and high heels

that resonated off the linoleum like gunshots with every step she

took.

Before the meeting began, someone made an announcement

that we were not welcome. A couple of guys stood up, turned their

chairs around like protective shields, and hid behind them. Several

guys formed a human chain and pushed me right out the door. Beth

was still inside. I had to make sure she wasn’t in danger. I called out

her name as I tried to get back inside.

As Beth made her way outside, one guy lunged toward her. She

threw her arm up, caught him in the throat, and bodychecked him

into the wall. Several other guys got up too. One sprayed a can of

Mace toward my face, but he missed. I had a huge wad of chewing

gum in my mouth I was about to spit out. The Mace hit the gum be-

tween my teeth. I spit it out and said, “I’ll eat that can of Mace,

motherfucker!” The son of a bitch ran away. I just laughed. These

guys were pathetic. After those two punks tried to take us down,

somebody called the cops. We had delivered our message. We were

back in business and no one could stop us. If they didn’t like it, too

bad. Beth and I laughed all the way home. Suckers!

The next day, we were served with a stack of restraining orders

from disgruntled bondsmen. We fought every single one of them in

court. It was the Ike and Tina Turner Revue. We won them all. The

bondsmen kept telling the judge they were scared of us. He laughed

and said, “They scare me too, especially her, but there’s no reason

for these orders!”

Being in business was one thing. Staying in business was some-

thing else. We had a difficult time finding an insurance company to

back us. Most of them viewed us as high-risk. They thought we were

writing some bad bonds that would lose them a lot of money.

Beth and I set out to effect positive change in the otherwise dis-

honest world we worked in. Because of her background in the leg-

islature, we consulted with several state senators on creating bills

to reform the industry. Most of our time was spent trying to regu-

late the insurance companies, who were as crooked as the thieves

they insured. At the time, an insurance company could write as much

O n e S t e p F o r wa r d

185

insurance as they wanted. If the company went out of business,

the bondsman was stuck holding the financial bag. He had to pay

the full value of the bond if his client skipped. It was a very big

problem for the bondsman, who might have put his house up for

collateral.

We saw that imbalance in business practices as being completely

unfair to the bondsman, and we spent an enormous amount of

time working with local government in Denver to get those laws

changed. We were successful on every level. Not only were our rights

better protected, but also, within three years, our provisions in the

new laws essentially put the Colorado Department of Insurance

out of business. Success is the best revenge.

But it was short-lived. In February 1999, the Colorado legis-

lature passed a new law stating that convicted felons could not

bounty hunt. How did this law slip in? We were friends with all the

lawmakers. We knew what was happening on the state level before

anyone else.

I was making a bust when Beth called to deliver the bad news. I

threw up. I remember standing on the street next to my car asking

the Lord when He was going to cut me a break. I couldn’t help but

feel that the state was purposely coming after me. Someone with a

lot of power and influence was at it again. My assumption was that

the guys from the Denver Bond Association were behind it. They

must have paid a lobbyist to quietly try to push the bill through

without word ever leaking. Every time we thought we won a battle,

it turned out we hadn’t even begun to fight the war. It was only a

matter of time before they would be permanently successful.

I’ve always been a fighter, but I have to admit, I was losing my

stamina. Because of my situation in Hawaii, I wasn’t able to write

bail, but I could still bounty hunt. And now, because of this new

law, it looked like I might lose that right too. I have fallen and risen

from the ashes so many times in my life; I wasn’t about to get burned

again. I spent the past twenty years trying to live a good, honest life.

But throughout that time, I was constantly answering for that one

horrible night in Pampa. That damned murder-one conviction

haunted me everywhere I went. I could run, but I couldn’t hide.

I had to stop the madness. Tony Robbins taught me to always

use your resources, use who you know. You have to have something

for people to buy before you can sell. I paid a visit to Senator Joyce

186

Yo u Ca n R u n , b u t Yo u Ca n ’ t H i d e

Lawrence, the sponsor of the new bill. Beth put together a presenta-

tion to show her all of my accomplishments as a bounty hunter. We

had dozens of letters from clients and other members of law en-

forcement singing my praises for the work I had done.

I was extremely nervous. If the senator didn’t like what she saw

and heard, I would be out of business for good. After I gave her a long

speech about how her bill would end my career, she was somehow un-

aware that the new law would negatively impact me. She told us she

would amend the bill so I could go back to work—if Beth and I could

collect enough signatures of support from other state senators.

One thing I knew for sure, we had our work cut out for us. But I

also knew I could sell grass to a golf course, so I figured convincing

a bunch of conservative senators to let me do my job couldn’t be all

that hard.

Beth and I spent the following two weeks meeting all thirty-five

senators in the state of Colorado. Some were on board right away.

Others, well . . . not so fast. Senator Ken Clover didn’t even want to

take the meeting. His grandmother had been murdered by an ex-

con. When I walked into his office to shake his hand, he stood cold

and still. He told me he hated all ex-cons. I was startled by his gen-

eralization, especially because I have seen so many felons eventually

make something good out of their lives.

I did the only thing I could think of. I engaged the senator in

conversation about something other than crime. I said, “Senator,

do you hate pie?”

He said he only hated lemon pie.

“Well, then, let me ask you something, Senator. Do you hate all

pie because you don’t have a taste for lemon pie?”

He looked at me for a moment, clearly trying to figure out where

I was going with all my talk about pie.

“No. I only hate lemon pie.”

Blam. I just closed the deal. Made the sale. I was out selling Kir-

bys again, only this time I was selling my life, my career. I begged

the senator to give me a chance. I told him I was a good guy. I gave

him the scrapbook Beth made of all the articles written about my

accomplishments. I wasn’t the felon who killed his granny. I was the

guy out there chasing down those scumbags.

Nearly all the senators we met agreed about one thing: they

couldn’t pass a law for a single man. The consensus was that a law

O n e S t e p F o r wa r d

187

had to cast a wide net. Fair enough. But I was quick to point out

that laws do affect a single person each and every day. I told the

senators a story about how I was recently out driving on a two-lane

highway in the middle of the plains when I came to a four-way stop.

I could have kept cruising right on through that stop sign. No one

was around to see me. But I didn’t. I stopped. I obeyed the law.

Why? Because it is the law. I wanted the senators to see that laws

are as individual as their interpretation.

After I won the battle to keep my bond license, I began spending

more time with a bunch of the other bondsman’s kids who were

pretty much a fixture on bail bonds row in Denver. They ranged in

age from eighteen to twenty. They were all adults, but they were

young and immature. Tim “Youngblood” Chapman was the son of

one of Denver’s best female bondsmen. I liked Tim from the mo-

ment we met. At the time, I didn’t have my oldest sons, so I kind of