CHAPTER 9
NO PLACE LEFT TO RUN
NICE FUCKING DAY
August 27, 1990. A bare-chested, ski-masked Danny Rolling robbed the First Union Bank one half-mile from Christa Hoyt’s duplex on Archer Road. Two eyewitnesses later could only pick him out of a lineup after he removed his shirt. They recognized him by the muscle definition of his chest.
The hyperkinetic robber vaulted over the counter, smashed the video camera with his gun, and talked constantly, ordering the stunned robbery victims around. As he exited, he snarled sarcastically, “Have a nice fucking day.” Fleeing the scene, he removed his ski-mask and several eyewitnesses got a look at his face.
August 28, 1990. A white man walking towards the woods behind Archer Road with a black man was recognized by police as matching the description of the bank robber. When police ordered the pair to halt, the fleeing felon escaped into the woods, but Tony Danzy stopped. He told the cops he had known Mike for a few days, and eventually revealed that their relationship was based on Tony's selling Mike marijuana and crack cocaine.
Following the fugitive into the woods, police found Danny Rolling’s campsite. They seized the items they found there, including the stolen money, dye pack, 9mm Taurus pistol loaded with hollow-point bullets, ski-mask, and gloves used in the bank robbery. Police also found the screwdriver that pried open the sliding glass doors at the last two murder scenes, along with tape recorder and an audiotape.
Even though efforts to identify and apprehend the Gainesville slasher eventually cost the State of Florida over seven million dollars, it took police almost a year before one investigator finally listened to the tape the killer had left for them, giving his full name and linking him the scene of the crimes.
Police initially charged Michael J. Martin with the bank robbery. He bore a slight resemblance to Danny Rolling and had been camping out in the same woods. Three months later, when it became amply clear that the culprit was safely in custody, Martin was released. Michael Martin was the first in a series of hapless suspects detained, arrested, and publicly identified as suspects by Florida law enforcement in the crimes committed by Danny Rolling.
August 30, 1990. University of Florida engineering student Christopher Osborne returned home from a game of tennis to find the TV on, dirty dishes in the sink, and the door to the house wide open. The thief had come in through Osborne’s bedroom window by popping the screen. He had apparently made himself at home, helping himself to some of Osborne’s cookies and a bowl of Quaker Instant oatmeal. He also left evidence that he had watched a Playboy videotape, played with Osborne’s puppy, taken his car keys, and stolen his 1978 tan Buick Regal.
August 31, 1990. On Labor Day weekend, thousands of students left Gainesville. Fearing further attacks, over 700 students did not return.
September 1, 1990. Tampa residents Larry Dale Lawrence and Holli Jo Paula returned home from a weekend camping trip to find their home had been burglarized. The thief had ripped the entire rear kitchen window from the frame, knocking over several house plants in the process. Inside, the entire house was ransacked. The dead-bolted door between the kitchen and the garage had been kicked open, and virtually every file in a desk in the garage had been searched. Files in a desk in the master bedroom had also been disturbed. Missing were a Nikon 35mm camera, $10.00 in change, an unused knife sharpening stone, a black leather wallet with credit cards, and two birth certificates for Anthony James Lawrence. Numerous fingerprints were left. The stolen items were recovered from Chris Osborne’s Buick Regal when Danny Rolling was finally arrested.
On Labor Day Weekend, I broke into and burglarized an entire block—roughly 15 to 20 homes—looking for a pistol. I finally took a large rock out of a rock garden behind one house and smashed a basketball-size hole in the back door. Letting myself in, I found the .38 cal. revolver I was later busted with.
ODE TO JESSE
Well, I guess this song depicts the way my life really is. In a way Jesse James and myself, we’re both having to live the same life, the life of anout-law—even though I really don’t believe in Jesse’s heart it was what he wanted. So maybe I was really writing this song about myself. Well, anyway, here’s “Ode to Jesse”:
This is a story without a reason, without a rhyme
About a man named Jesse
Who chose a life of crime
His six-guns he wore by his lonely side
With the taste of desert dust
And the hot sun in his eye.
So ride, Jesse, ride
Into the setting sun you cry
You were born to be free
But tomorrow where will you be?
September 2, 1990. It was a hot September afternoon. As the white Florida sun slipped lazily behind the horizon, a tan Buick Regal entered the Tampa Save-N-Pack parking lot at the corner of Nebraska and Fowler, and began to prowl.
Behind dark sunglasses, the man now known as Jesse cruised the area.
Dead broke and on the run
From the Lawman’s gun.
He parked the stolen Buick, got out, and walked across the filled lot. He stepped on the electric sensor and the glass door swung open with a whoosh.
Walking tall, Jesse entered the cool supermarket. He pulled a shopping cart from its stall and began to browse. Pushing the cart along nonchalantly up one aisle and down another, he cased the place for armed security. He grabbed a couple of cans of soup, dumped them into the basket, and strolled on.
In the middle of Aisle 6, an odd couple were arguing over what Poopsie, their French poodle, would eat. “I’m telling you, Homer, Poopsie won’t eat that stuff!” the tall red-dyed frizzy-haired woman spat, pointing her finger in the old man’s face.
“Hell! Ethel, that dog eats better’n I do!” the short dumpy bald-headed man replied, his face flushed with frustration.
“Excuse me, folks,” Jesse said, as he reached between the two for some Chow-Chow dog food. He eased around the corner. “I’ll betcha he’s as henpecked as he can be,” he mumbled, placing a box of Capt’n Crunch in the cart.
Moving on, he surveyed the environment. “Hmmm. No security in sight. Still, it’s a big place.” He weighed the risks in his mind and decided to go for it. Deserting the shopping cart in Aisle 4, he left the store light-afoot. He drove the Buick into an alleyway across from the parking lot and began to prepare.
Jesse robbed his first train
In the driving rain
As the posse lost his trail once again.
While he warmed his bones by the campfires
His mind began to dance
Cause he knew in his heart
He lived by chance.
So ride, Jesse, ride…
Into the setting sun you cry.
You were born to be free…
But tomorrow where will you be?
At the same moment, officers Delanoit and Wooten, representing Tampa’s finest shining shield of law and order, sat down at a local restaurant to have their supper.
Jesse got out of the car and placed the keys on top of the front left tire. He shoved the stolen .38 cal. revolver in his pants and pulled his shirt over it. Gloves dangled from his left rear pocket and a rolled-up ski-mask was perched on his head. He crossed the parking lot and stood against the far right wall, watching the flow of traffic. People were coming and going, nobody paying much attention to the lone man with the funny-looking brown cap leaning against the wall.
Jesse gazed up at the pearl-shell sky and gave a sigh. How he hated to live this way, from moment to moment not knowing whether he would survive another day.
He heard his fate calling
On the wings of the
wind. One day soon
It would bring a bitter end.
He pulled the white leather sports gloves from his left rear pocket and put his hands into them. The adrenaline throbbed in his temples, his breath quickened, and a million thoughts flooded his mind at once. It was always this way before a robbery. The muscles in his neck tightened. He pulled the ski-mask over his face, drew the .38 from its hiding place, and stormed into the customer-filled Save-N-Pack.
Elsewhere, a waiter brought the officers their food.
They savored the roma,
But would not taste.
For they would soon
Leave in haste.
Bounding in front of the checkout counter, the masked bandit shouted, “This is a holdup! Nobody move, nobody gets hurt! You, you, and you”—pointing the .38 in the cashiers’ direction—“take all the money out and put it in the sacks!” He pointed to the brown grocery sacks folded there. “Move it!”
The cashiers began to fill the paper bags with the contents of their registers. “That’s it, hurry up,” he demanded. “I don’t want anyone to get hurt.”
One of the checkout girls was having trouble opening her register. The outlaw sprang into her aisle and shouted, “You! Get that register open!”
The frightened young black woman was obviously near panic as she answered, “I can’t! It won’t open. I—I…”
The robber was aware time was running out. He knew he must be in and out in less than three minutes. “OK, forget it!” he hollered, and scooping up the now-full sacks sitting at the end of the counters, he turned and dashed out.
His robberies he planned
With passion and joy
As he and the boys
Cleaned their deadly toys.
The Lawmen couldn’t catch you
And you escaped the hangman’s noose
Till a friend took aim and shot you
Turned your weary soul loose.
So ride, Jesse, ride…
Into the setting sun you cry.
You were born to be free…
But tomorrow where will you be?
“Unit Alpha, robbery in progress, Save-N-Pack, your 10-20.” Officer Copeland grabbed her field radio and keyed in, “Central, this is Unit 290 responding.” The three officers jumped up, left their hot suppers to grow cold, and scrambled out of the restaurant.
The running outlaw raced across the parking lot, his lungs heaving. He could call on an amazing burst of speed when in need, and the time had come. Several customers followed behind at a distance to see how it would go.
Little did they know
It would be quite a show.
The officers converged, but the outlaw did not see them yet. He sprang over the 7-foot brick wall separating the alley from the parking lot, and landed with his feet in motion. He reached the getaway car instantly, snatched the keys from under the fender well, opened the door, tossed the money sacks in, jumped in, slammed the door, and pulled off the brown ski-mask. As he started the engine, two policemen filed in front, blocking the exit with weapons drawn.
Jesse put it in reverse and peeled rubber, but the alley was too narrow. The left side of the Buick ground against the concrete dock and wedged itself there. Someone in the gathering crowd shouted, “Good for you, asshole!”
Officer Copeland appeared on the dock just above and twenty feet behind the now-stilled Buick. She unholstered her 9mm service revolver and leveled it on the man behind the wheel. “Get out of the car!” she screamed. The outlaw did not respond. “I said get out of the car! NOW!”
Inside the Buick, Jesse pulled his .38 caliber revolver and zeroed in on the lady cop. For a long moment, the two were transfixed on each other’s desperate faces. Then Jesse yelled, “Lady, I don’t want to shoot you! Don’t make me shoot you!”
Startled, with her weapon kept on target, she backed around the corner hugging the wall.
The jammed Buick now leapt forward towards the two cops barring the way with weapons aimed at the approaching vehicle.
Wildly, Jesse plunged ahead in a do-or-die effort, with his right hand on the steering wheel, foot heavy on the gas pedal, and left arm hanging out the window pointing the .38 in the direction of the matadors awaiting the charging bull. And so the bullfight began.
All hell broke loose! POP-POP-POP! The windshield exploded on top of him, as he ducked below the dash. With his left hand out the window, he answered their volley with two reports of his own. POW! POW! He was firing and driving blind.
The matadors emptied their weapons into the charging bull. Hot lead slammed into its metallic skin. Glass and parts of the dash and interior splintered everywhere.
Officer Delanoit was almost mashed as he got between the runaway Buick and the concrete wall. The driver was dodging bullets, driving blind, and did not see him. But it was close. So close in fact, that his partner rushed to aid his comrade, thinking the worst.
As the tan Buick left the alley, it screeched sideways and crashed into a mobile home, knocking it off its supports—and stalled.
There amidst the broken glass, Jesse raised up and immediately tried to restart the Regal. Whrrr…whrrrr…
Finally it came to life with a popping protest. The once-regal Buick limped off smoking with nineteen holes drilled into it.
The fugitive’s mind was racing ahead now. Escape…elude…survive. The Buick drew its last breath twelve blocks away from the shootout. The robber grabbed the money and the gun, and left the car hissing and smoking in the middle of the street.
Running for all he was worth, he came to the end of the street. A ten-foot chainlink fence barred his way. The interstate was just beyond.
Quickly he threw the brown sacks of money over the fence. With one hand clutching the .38, he climbed the fence with the other, swung over its barbs, and free-fell down onto the other side. Landing like a cat, he picked up the money sacks and dashed across the highway, outrunning an oncoming sports car full of joyriding. One of the youngsters stuck his head out the window, shot the finger and yelled, “What? Are you crazy?” as they sped off, missing him by inches.
Jesse bounded across the median and the opposite lanes, reached the next fence, and went through the same maneuver—climbing, dropping, scooping up the money—and continuing his flight.
He fled through a residential area, salty sweat stinging his bloodshot eyes. Then overhead in the evening skies a helicopter began its search. Closer and closer it circled, tightening the noose with every pass.
Jesse came upon some old trucks parked in an overgrown lot. He hid himself between two of the junkers and watched the copter circle him like a shark homing in on its prey.
A patrol car pulled up and stopped. Jesse held his breath, certain that he would be discovered. He could hear them talking on the radio about him. Inexplicably, they left.
After he was sure they were gone, he began running strong. Further and further the helicopter faded into the approaching darkness, and once again the outlaw disappeared into the arms of his lover, the night.
HE THOUGHT HE WAS GOING TO DIE
September 3, 1990. After the Save-N-Pack robbery and shootout, Jesse was looking for a place to hide. He broke into Janet Bos’ home through a window and stole a bike, a bag of gym clothes, and a canceled check. He took the canceled check and wrote on the back, “In case of emergency, call Claudia Rolling,” and listed the Rollings’ home phone number. He also placed four long-distance calls to Shreveport, speaking to his mom one time for 20 minutes and Bunnie Mills three times for 2, 3 and 2 minutes each.
“He thought he was going to die,” said Assistant State’s Attorney Cass Castillo later when the robbery came to trial.
It was a pretty stupid thing to do, but I was having a bad day, and I needed someone to talk to. I told my mom and Bunnie about the shootout. They didn’t know where I was and were very worried for me. I didn’t mean to upset them, but I guess I did. I was running wild and not thinking clearly.
The night closed in on the lone gunman escaping with the loot. Like a vampire bat seeking a cave, he crept through an unfamiliar neighborhood searching for a place to rest. A well-lit Tampa home presented its haven as a gift. Desperate and on the run in a strange area, the outlaw cased the house for occupants. It was Labor Day weekend and nobody was home.
CRASH! He broke a window with his fist wrapped in a t-shirt. For a tense spell he stood there in the dark waiting to see if the noise had alerted a neighbor to the burglary in progress. Then he carefully extracted the jagged pieces of glass wedged in the sill and let them fall to the green grass below.
The man searched the house for weapons. He found none, but he still had the .38 he had used in the Save-N-Pack robbery. He took a small navy blue athletic bag and dumped the stolen cash into it. As he was leaving, he hijacked a ten-speed bicycle leaning on its kickstand by the back double-glass doors leading to the screened-in porch.
Off into the darkness he pedaled, changing gears on the ten-speed, breathing in deeply the cool night air. Ahhh, it was so good to be alive, free, and rolling-in-dough—a couple of thousand dollars worth.
He spent the night in an unfinished house. The raw beams resembled the backbone and ribs of a whale’s skeleton. Rest was fitful at best. The mosquitoes making kamikaze runs on his exposed face and arms kept him busy most of the night. He left early, before the sun came up, not wanting to be caught there when the construction workers came back in the morning.
A QUIET EVENING
September 4, 1990. His eyes were bloodshot and he had been stretched past the limit of his endurance. Mounting the bike, he pedaled on down the road in search of a safe place to hang out. When he chanced upon Lowery Park and Zoo, he stashed the bike and strolled up to the main entrance to the park. He approached a woman waiting on the bus across from the arcade. He was to drift in and out of her life like a warm summer breeze, barely ruffling her hair. The two got acquainted rather easily.
“Hi! Name’s Jesse—Jesse Lang.”
“Hello. I’m Diana.” She was a free-lance artist drawing portraits in the park. She showed Jesse one of her pastel sketches.
“Hmmm…you’re pretty good. Would you do one of me? I’ll pay you. How much do you charge?”
She told him. He agreed and Diana drew him leaning against a fatherly oak with branches sagging from years of gravity pulling it earthward.
“Finished!” She proudly presented it to him.
“Yes, and it looks just like me!” He handed her two twenties and a ten.
“Oh no! This is too much!”
“No, you take it. Just mail the portrait to this address.” He gave her a phony address in Dallas, Texas.
Diana asked Jesse if he had a place to stay for the night. He told her no. She offered to let him stay over at her place, and he gladly accepted. They rode the city bus to her duplex apartment. She let him take a shower and wash his clothes in her washer.
They spent a quiet evening together, eating Chinese food and watching “Good Morning Vietnam” on TV. Later he slept on the sofa and she slept in her bedroom. The next day when he left, she gave him written directions on how to get back to her place. But he was never to return.
THE ROBBED ROBBER
September 5, 1990. Fading into the seedy side of Tampa, Jesse spent a lot of money on meals, movies, alcohol and crack cocaine. One night at a strip joint called the 2000 Club one of the pretty blonde dancers asked to dance privately for him. Taking him by the hand, she led him upstairs, where they danced one-on-one in a special room with a jukebox.
“Give me some quarters for the box,” she said, smiling seductively. He gave her some change and she fed the machine, punching up her choices.
Jesse had been drinking all afternoon. His new kick was Captain Dee’s Spiced Rum. It wasn’t the best, but if you drank enough of it, you could get a pretty good buzz going. At this point he had about two pints stirring in him.
The dancer was completely naked. She rubbed her body up close to the man sitting in a comfortable padded chair. Her body moved with grace and ease as she turned around, straddled his lap, bent over, reached around her ass, and spread her pussy, giving him a close-up view of her insides. Mercy sakes and a bag of rattlesnakes!
The outlaw reached out to stick a finger up her snatch, but the dancer politely slapped his hand down gently.
“Uh-uh! You can look, but you can’t touch!” she smiled.
“Ah, too bad. It looks pretty good in there,” he grumbled.
She bent back over and wiggled her ass in his face. He began to gently scratch the back of her legs, starting from her buttocks to the back of her knees, surprised that she allowed him to do so.
Then she turned around and gave him a frontal of her beautiful body. She squeezed her perky breasts, saying, “That was nice. I’ve been on my feet all night and my legs are tired. Scratching them felt good. Say, I know what!” And she leaned over and put her exquisite breasts right in his face. Well, you don’t stick a firm pair of ripe peaches in a hungry boy’s face and expect him not to take a taste, do you? Jesse grabbed both tits and sucked on them until the music stopped and the dance was over.
He asked her if she knew where to get some crack. She said her friend did, but they had to work all night.
“How much to get you and your friend the night off?”
“Two hundred apiece.”
He forked it over. They got dressed and the three of them got into a white Jeep and drove out to the projects to get some blow. Jesse produced another two hundred dollars cash, they scored the rock, and the three of them split.
“Let’s get a hotel room and party!”
“OK…but no sex.”
“What do you mean, no sex?”
“Just that! We’ll party with you, but no sex.”
“Well OK, whatever. Let’s get high.”
They rented a hotel room and drank and smoked their way into the wee hours of the morning.
Danny came to with the pounding on the door matching the pounding in his head. “Who is it!” “It’s the manager!” “Uh-huh?”
“It’s past checkout time. If you wanna stay another day, you’ll have to pay the bill.”
“All right. Thanks. I’ll be down in a minute.”
His head was half a mile thick and he was sick to his stomach. He staggered into the bathroom and threw up. He washed his face and looked around the room. The girls had disappeared and—his moneybag! It was gone! The strippers had robbed him and run off.
“Damn! The money’s gone! What am I gonna do now?”
He left the hotel with a sinking feeling lodged in the pit of his uneasy stomach. As his head cleared, he remembered the .38 he had used in the Save-N-Pack robbery. He had stashed it in the bushes behind the 2000 Club.
The next night he went back to the club, mad as a Brahma bull with a burr under his saddle. The head barmaid waddled up, a big fat ugly bitch.
“Where’s hose two girls I left with last night?”
The bitch spat, “We heard about you, lover-boy. We don’t want your kind in this club ever again. Now get lost and don’t come back.”
“Oh, I’ll get lost all right, doggie-breath. But I’ll be back! And you ain’t gonna like it!” He stormed out, seeing blooming bloody blasted RED! He went around in back of the club and retrieved the .38. It felt so good in his hand. He stood holding it, visualizing waiting on the two whores who robbed him—but it was not to be.
Instead, the robbed robber broke into an apartment, and while Reynaldo and Patricia Rio slept in the next room, he ate a banana, then picked up the car-keys and a couple of watches off the table and eased out. He started the Rio’s Silver 1983 Ford Mustang and drove off into the night.
He made it as far as Ocala, where his money and his luck finally ran out.
THE LAST ARREST
September 7, 1990. The barechested gunman burst from the grocery store in Ocala, Florida, a.38 revolver in his right hand and a jeweled bag of folding green in his left.
The young woman leaving the gift shop at the corner of the shopping center dropped her bag, screamed, and scurried back into the store as the robber raced by and turned the corner.
A quick spring, and Jesse reached his getaway car—an old silver Mustang. It sat running, engine firecracker-hot under the boiling Florida noonday sun. He yanked the driver’s side open and tossed the money bag and the revolver onto the empty passenger’s side. He dived in, slammed the door, threw it in gear, and burned rubber!
Jesse sped off, the vinyl backrest of the Mustang blistering his flesh. The adrenaline was throbbing through his brain and sweat stung his hazel-green eyes.
In the distance, a wail of sirens gathered in strength. A voice told him, “This ain’t gonna go down right.” Suddenly police cars emerged from everywhere!
Look to the left…look to the right…
No place to run…no place to hide…
One police car screamed past the Mustang, then another. Then one stopped and let out a big black man in a brown uniform and sped off.
The black cop crouched with his big hand resting nervously on his service 9mm automatic. He looked over at the Mustang now waiting at the stop sign and approached cautiously, stalking his prey like a big black panther.
Jesse read the scene playing out before him. The cop stopped at the corner and screamed, “Put your hands where I can see them!”
Jesse reached over and grabbed the .38. With an innocent smile like the cat who ate the canary, he called out, “What’s the problem, officer?”
The cop repeated, “Put your hands where I can see them!” and unsnapped the strap on his holster.
The moment was tense. The two men looked into each other’s eyes. It was a matter of who moved first.
The outlaw weighed the chances. “I could drill a hole in him as easy as fallin’ off a log.” But he decided, “No, not this time,” and he floored it.
The old beat-up Mustang came to life. The carburetor sucked air as the 4-barrel kicked in, the tires smoking on the hot pavement.
The policeman was left standing behind, pointing his automatic at the departing vehicle and waving his free hand at his comrades to give chase.
The Mustang was weaving in and out of noon rush-hour traffic, reaching speeds of a hundred plus miles per hour. Looking in the rearview mirror, the fugitive saw many red and blue flashing lights trying to pursue, but heavy traffic slowed their progress. “Well, Jesse,” he said to himself, “the chase is on!”
Foot off the gas, on the brakes. Tires screaming, the Mustang almost rammed the rear end of a 1990 tan Buick. Turning hard left, it cut in front of another car in the center lane with only inches to spare. Jesse put his foot on it and watched the speedo climb from fifty to ninety. “Man! This thing has sho-nuff got some HEART!”
Leaping ahead, he approached a busy intersection. As the light turned red, a tractor-trailer pulling a load of fresh-cut trees for the sawmill pulled out and stopped, blocking the intersection.
Foot off the gas, on the brakes. Skidding 170 feet, then hard right, barely squeezing between the logs hanging off the end of the trailer and a stopped vehicle. It was so close he could have grabbed the red flag dangling from the end of the log-laden tractor-trailer. The rampaging Mustang jumped the curb, tore down a street sign, and sped off again.
Then from a side street, a motorcycle cop pulled in behind him, sirens blaring like on TV, a regular Evel Knievel in a cop suit.
The motorcycle cop sped in behind the runaway Mustang.
Inside the fleeing felon’s mind was panic, pure and simple. He drove like a maniac, slamming on brakes, cutting in between people on their way to lunch with nothing on their minds but pizza and computers.
Eventually, the man eluded the CHiPs from Hell. “Whewwwww-WEE!” A moment of ease.
Then! From both sides of the road, two new tormentors appeared, lights blinking madly and sirens spitting obscenities.
“Damn!” Jesse said. “This has got to stop!” Brakes again, leaving ninety-something feet of Goodyear on the hot asphalt. Speed reduced to about fifty, trying to power-slide to the right down a side street.
Suddenly out of nowhere, a long blue whale of a car appeared with two nice little old ladies coming from the flea market. The blue whale beached itself at the stop sign—too late for the silver bullet to change course.
The ladies turned their heads and looked on helplessly, astonished as the silver Mustang moaned and groaned toward them on burning rubber, and finally smashed into their whale.
The impact threw the money and the .38 onto the floor of the Mustang, and the driver into the steering wheel. Dazed and disoriented, Jesse looked for the pistol but could not find it. “Must be under the seat.”
Just then the motorcycle cop showed up with siren howling.
Daaaanneeeeeee !
Come to meeeeeee!
Daaanneeeeeee!
The fugitive grabbed the sack of money, opened the door and stepped out, unsteady on his feet for a moment. Suddenly he dashed across the parking lot packed with cars.
Cat and mouse time. The bandit dashed between the parked cars trying desperately to get away, but the Robocop sped ahead of him. An army of police cruisers arrived—motorcycle cops, state troopers, and whatever else Marion County could throw at him. Sirens and blue and red lights everywhere.
Look to the left…look to the right…
No place to run…from the Lawman’s gun…
He felt like Custer in the print that had hung by his bed as a boy. Still, he didn’t give in. He chunked the bag of money into the pale blue sky. “Who says money don’t grow on trees? Why, lookie here, it’s raining tens and twenties! Money, money everywhere! Across the parking lot, under cars, stuck on windshields!”
Sprinting, legs reaching out in quick strides, his athletic heart and lungs pounding in his chest, he outran the motorcycle cop and ducked into an insurance office, where one man sat at his solitary post.
Bursting in, breathing hard with sweat pouring down his desperate face, Jesse felt the cooled air but it did not soothe him. His mind was ablaze.
The insurance man jumped to his feet. “What on earth is going on here?” The running man never stopped. On his way to the back he yelled over his shoulder, “The cops are after me!” and smashed through the door into the back driveway.
Lo and behold, the driveway was blocked by a trailer. And wouldn’t you know it? The back lot was packed with sweet little blue-haired ladies. It was the flea market the ladies in the whale had just left.
Dodging between tables full of old clothes and whatnots, the man dashed across the driveway into a back lot coated with lush green grass.
Look to the left…look to the right…
Nowhere to run…nowhere to hide…
The police converged. The motorcycle jockey sped ahead, blocking escape. Cops were coming at him from every angle now.
Nowhere to run…
And so he stopped. And to the amazement of a hundred or so sweet little old ladies, the serial killer who had terrorized the entire state of Florida dropped to his knees, raised his hands, andsurrendered.
Now, for those of you
Who are taking all this in,
If you’ve never been taken down
By the Law,
Let me fill you in.
It’s like someone pulled a plug
On your life.
All the sounds
And tastes
And feelings
Drain from your soul,
And leave you empty and numb.
I don’t recommend it
For anyone.
Someone behind him yelled, “Get down on your face!” He did.
Someone—a woman—put a gun to his head and screamed, “You move and I’ll blow your fucking head off!”
“Don’t worry, lady,” he answered as they handcuffed his hands behind his back, “I ain’t budgin’ an inch.”
And thus Danny Rolling was finally dragged away.
Louisiana Law is after me…
for the things I’ve done…
Now they’ve surely found me…
nowhere left to run…
