Royce (44 page)

And to Joy’s liking Rosa made everything from scratch and planned her day based on what she would cook and Joy learned to relax and take it slow.  The table would be laden with food for la comida and everyone came to eat, the children were let out of school, Royce came over from the ranch, Ricardo would come in from the yard, Jameson and Valerie would come from next door and the house was always warm from the oven because Rosa always had something cooking, from baking bread to simmering pots or slow roasting meats in the oven.  After la comida the Spanish took a siesta, they rested, relaxed and that’s when the beach was full, or people went into town to visit, shop or hang out with friends, it was a way of life Joy and Royce weren’t used too.  They were used to working all the time, and never slowing down, but Spain taught them to slow down and break up their day in chunks to get the most enjoyment out of it.  After siesta everybody went back to work, home or school.  And when the work day was done it was fun time or fiesta, the people got out.  They’d have la merienda, a light after la comida snack, usually a chorizo sausage with bread, or bread topped with chocolate, then they’d hang out at the beach or in town until dinner which was usually around nine and lasted till midnight. 

To Joy the Spanish were night people, they came alive at night and could hang out for hours it seemed, no matter what time she looked towards town the colored lights were always on and people were always there milling around.  Usually hanging out at the cafes, music from indoors could be heard in the street and the people were always laughing, socializing, dancing and having fun.  The Spanish may have been night people but she and Royce were not, that was one thing the Spanish lifestyle couldn’t change; they wound down during dinner hours and usually by ten o’clock were in bed.  So the family adopted this new lifestyle, they worked hard but they also stopped to take a siesta and enjoy family and friends.

Royce had found his way and was happy and busy.  Not long after they arrived he took the children across the street to see the horses and was appalled at the condition they were in.  Their lazy caretaker left them half starved, uncared for and the only reason they hadn’t died was because there was a small stream on the property, and Joy couldn’t believe against this beautiful mountain backdrop horses were starving.  Royce convinced the owner to let him run it.  He fired the caretaker and invested his money and turned the business around and started breeding Andulusian horses. 

He and Jameson drove all over Spain until he found the right stallion he named Whirlwind, and it didn’t take Whirlwind long to start siring little colts.  When a mare showed signs she was ready Whirlwind was right there to oblige her.  Royce had taught them all to ride and they loved it, so now all of them helped out at the ranch as much as possible.  Royce was happy doing something he loved.  All his life he’d wanted nothing more than to run his father's ranch and now here he was running for his life, but living the life of his dreams. 

After fixing up the ranch, paying Jameson and taking care of his family in the style they deserved his money was running low.  Who knew it wouldn’t take that long to run through a million dollars.   He went to the bank and had funds wired from the Cayman account and in the memo section it said, “Hot sauce aisle 10”, and Royce laughed at first, but then he thought about what that meant to him and Bobby.  It was their way of saying a hot girl was nearby, but after that Bobby always said, “She’s dangerous, keep away”, and he’d make the caution sound,
beep, beep, beep
, so there was a message here and he understood it, he went straight to Jameson. 

“Look at this Jameson”, he showed him the memo section of the check, “Is there more going on?”  Royce knew about the search, Jameson had informed him of that.

Jameson looked at him, he knew he would never tell him everything, never tell him what he knew his friends and family were going through, “No, still the search and it’s still warm, not hot yet”, and Jameson had told him
warm
meant they were searching but hadn’t hit on anything,
hot
  was if they hit on something like them being in Jamaica, or the disastrous flight.  Jameson had made a point to rub in the disaster of the plane ride.  Royce didn’t think he’d ever forgive them for that, but Bobby's message to him was clear, something was going on.

Bobby had wired the money just to get him that message.  There was plenty of money in that account.  They’d been stashing money there for years, there was at least twenty-five million dollars in that account, but Bobby had to warn him and had used his cell phone from his hospital bed to get him that message.

A few weeks or so after Royce left his father called, “Bobby where’s Royce we haven’t heard from him and his secretary says he hasn’t been in the office!” 

“He’s gone sir that’s all I know, he didn’t tell me anything, he just left.”

“You mean to tell me he just left you and the company…What kind of foolhardy thing is that?” “Yes and I don’t have any idea…”  “You sure you don’t know this doesn’t sound like Royce, you been to his house?”  His father asked abruptly.  “Yes and he’s not there”, and that was a lie he hadn’t been to the house, but he knew where the key was.   Royce had left it for him in the garage and he had the code to get in the garage and the alarm code to get in the house, but he wasn’t going to tell anybody that, not even Royce's father.  Royce's safety meant everything to him and his father might let something slip to the kids and they'd let it slip to that bitch Tammy and he'd never forgive himself.

“If you hear anything you let me know we’re worried about him.  His mother can’t sleep she’s so worried”, his father said.

“I will sir, " he said and hung up and three days later...

He was heading to his car in the parking garage and about five men jumped out of a brown van parked near his car.  They grabbed him, tossed him in the van and drove him to another location and tossed him around like a rag doll beating him, all the while demanding, “Tell us where your partner is!” PUNCH!  PUNCH!  PUNCH!  He screamed and took the beating always saying the same thing, “I don’t know!  He just ran off, I don’t know!”  As they cracked his ribs with their punches and broke his fingers he was grateful he didn’t know, so grateful he couldn’t give them what they wanted or he knew he just might spill it to get them to stop and after they’d broke his nose with a hard punch to the face he yelled at them, “If you want me to make shit up to make this stop I will!  Okay he’s in China!  I don’t know!”  His mouth was full of blood and he could taste the metal taste draining down his throat, and finally they believed him because they untied him, tossed him back in the van drove him back to the parking garage and tossed him in a bloody heap by his car. 

He managed to get his cell phone out his pocket and with his thumbs the only fingers that weren’t broken he dialed 911, and before he passed out his only thought was,
I’ve got to get a message to Royce, he can’t come back,
but he blacked out when the ambulance screeched in front of him and he woke up in Parkland Hospital. 

He made Sarah stand guard outside as he called the bank and using his pass codes and identity markers he wired a million dollars to the account in the Cayman’s and he said, “Make sure you put this in the memo section, make sure of it!”  He demanded, “Hot sauce, aisle 10,” that was the only way he thought he could let Royce know without alerting anyone and he cried after he hung up, cried and prayed Royce had gotten somewhere safe.

After they’d patched up the badly beaten man it was a doctor’s responsibility to alert the police to what they thought was criminal activity and they called when the badly beaten man was heavily sedated and taken to x-ray with all his fingers and nose broken, his ribs cracked from repeated punches or from a hard object.  The on duty police officer interviewed Bobby when he came to, and he wouldn’t give them anything, “I don’t know who did it or why.  I don’t know anything.”  He knew the police couldn’t help Royce now and he didn’t know what the men would do to his family if he told.  They’d threatened as much as they tossed him out the car, “If you love your old lady keep your fucking mouth shut,” and even though the on duty officers thought he knew more than he said they couldn’t do anything about it without information so they filed it with the hundreds of other unsolved crimes no one would follow up on.

Two days later police were called by the alarm company to check out an alarm going off on Chaucer Street, 23 Chaucer Street.  When they got there the home owner, a Royce Harrington wasn’t home but his office was trashed and they realized they might have passed the guys in a brown van when they were coming in.  Bobby got that message from Ms. Severs, the alarm company called the office the next morning when they couldn’t get in contact with Royce all night.  Bobby had Sarah go over and check out the house, “The office is trashed but everything else is okay”, she said, “Lock up and reset the alarm”, he said through his bandages, and he tell her know he could communicate with Royce, but he hoped he got his message through.

The next week Michael was coming out his office.  He walked briskly and quickly towards his car, he had a date tonight.  He was still seeing Amanda and Maria.  Amanda more now that she’d split up from Collin and he smiled, “That woman loved what he was throwing down between the sheets,” and he had to admit he loved doing her too.   She spread her legs wide and let him push so deep inside her, it was like she wanted every inch he had down deep, but it was Maria he was seeing tonight.  She was wild in bed and he’d liked that about her every since their club days.  He didn’t pay attention to the brown van parked close by, he should have because before he realized what hit him he was cold cocked and stunned. 

He was tossed in the van and driven out in the woods and as the men beat him the only question they asked, “Where the fuck is your wife?”  “We know you know!  Where is she?”  And he screamed as they broke his fingers and punched him repeatedly in his rib cage and he was so thankful Joy had gotten away.  He sent his thanks up to God for her getting away before these lowlife thugs got to her, “I don’t fucking know and if I did you really think I’d tell you!” For that they almost knocked him unconscious, but he didn’t care they could beat him bloody, even kill him but they didn’t get Joy and even as they beat him as hard as they could they couldn’t wipe that stupid smile off his face and when they’d either had enough or figured he really didn’t know they tossed him beaten and bloody back in the van and drove back to the parking garage and tossed him right where they picked him up, and it was another man leaving late who saw him sprawled out barely conscious by his car and called 911.

Michael spent the week in Intensive Care at Parkland Hospital and the doctors on call followed protocol and alerted the police to a possible crime, but it was different doctors on duty and no one put the two similar incidents together, and it was different police officers who took the report and Michael being the guy he is knew he couldn’t have anyone snooping around trying to find Joy.  She needed to stay laying low wherever she was, and he told the officers, “It was a robbery, they only got my watch”, and if the police had asked about his personal possessions when he was brought in they would have noticed he had five hundred dollars and a Rolex watch.  They were in his cabinet in his room, but he didn’t give them any other information, “I didn’t see them. I don’t know what kind of car it was”, so they took the report and filed it under “Robbery/Assault and Battery”, and no one would bother to look any further.

Two days later Ernestine and Cecil Vincent had just come back from RVing.  They’d gone down south this time and had spent two weeks in Charleston.  Even though it was April and Spring it was cold in Philadelphia and she wanted to warm her bones.  It was dark when they arrived home, “We’ll clean up tomorrow, let’s just get some rest tonight”, she said.  “Okay honey,” Cecil said and he checked and rechecked the locks on the RV.  Although they’d lived in Point Breeze a long time and nothing had ever happened he still didn’t take chances, times had changed.  He walked up the steps behind Ernestine and she unlocked the door and they walked into the dark house.  She flicked the light switch and nothing happened, “What the…”. 

Suddenly someone grabbed her pinning her arms to her side and a hand over her mouth.  She heard a loud thud and Cecil went down.  She tried to scream and opened her mouth against the hand, the man holding her said, “Scream and I’ll slit your throat,” and she clamped her mouth shut. 

One of the intruders shut the door and turned on the lights and there were two men in her house.  They tied her and Cecil to dining room chairs, Cecil’s head was bleeding from the hit he’d taken and her heart was beating wildly.  They didn’t have much, they’d spent and invested all their money in their girls and now they lived off Cecil’s pension, and their girls gave them cash for birthdays and holidays.  That’s what they asked for and their girls were generous, it was nothing for Joy and Sylvie to give them five thousand dollars apiece for Christmas and add in Lanie’s thousand and they had several trips paid for, so they lived frugally.  One of the men pulled Cecil’s head up he was awake now and held his head up, “I got one question to ask you and if you answer right I’ll let you and your ol lady go…but if you answer wrong...Well you’ll see what I’ll do to youze”, he said in a heavy New York or New Jersey, accent. 

“Where the fuck is your daughter Joy?  She took something that don’t belong to her and ran off and we want to know where she is…Now we won’t hurt her if you tell us where she is.  We’ll just take back what she took,” he said with his heavy accent.  “This is about Joy?  Joy wouldn’t tell us where she went if she was running, we been away ourselves.  We don’t know nothing about what Joy’s doing,” Cecil said.  “Wrong answer,” the guy said and punched him, and punched him again. “Now I’ll ask you again, where is Joy and I don’t want you don’t know?  No daughter leaves without telling their parents,” he stated like it was fact, “Now tell us where she is!”  “Look mister we don’t know where she is, like I told you she wouldn’t tell us…,” and he was punched again and again. “He’s telling the truth!”  Ernestine yelled at them, “He’s telling the truth we don’t know nothing!”  She cried and yelled at them and they slapped her.  “You mean to tell us your beloved daughter just ran off  without telling you anything, I say what kind of daughter is that…I don’t believe you,” and he punched Cecil again and again. “Believe what you want, Joy wouldn’t tell us if she was in any kind of trouble or if she took something, she wouldn’t tell us,” Cecil said and they saw the one guy nod to the other and they began to untie them.  “We’re going to let you go this time, but if we find out you know anything, anything about the whereabouts of your daughter we’ll be back,” they said and left quickly and quietly through the front door and afterwards Cecil and Ernestine clung to each other crying and holding tight.