BESTSELLERS & BEST FRIENDS
My book publishing blog, with murder mysteries woven through it.
If this is your first visit, be sure to start with “1. Let’s do it!”
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After about ten minutes, Joey came back and again sat next to me.
“So what happened when you were jumped in Ligonier,” I asked.
“Those guys put a hood over my head. They didn’t drive far, maybe just out of town.”
“They kept saying they were going to burn me. They lit a match. And I swear I smelled gas. Pretty fucking scary! Sorry, sir.” I waved away his apology for swearing.
He continued, “They wanted to know what dad was writing. I honestly didn’t know. They asked who he was talking to. I honestly didn’t know. They demanded to know where he kept his writing and notes. On his desk, our dining room table, I told them.
They demanded to know where his computer was. I told them he just used a typewriter. They didn’t believe me—”
“Hold on! No computer?”
“Never. Dad didn’t trust computers.”
“Amazing…a typewriter.”
“He’d mail typed stories to magazines. And the last pieces he did for the Pittsburgh newspapers, he took a bus downtown and hand-delivered them.”
I shook my head. Unbelievable.
He used to say, ‘It’s the world that’s gone wacky, not me. There’s just no place for me.’” Freeman was probably right.
“Then those guys drove me back into town and pushed me out of the car. Next day I took a bus back to Pittsburgh.”
I nodded. He closed his eyes. I did the same.
And we both slept the rest of the way to Penn Station.
Joey stayed that night with Sally and me. We talked about good old times. About when Sally first met Freeman, and how Freeman tried to pick up the minister’s wife at our wedding.
I made Joey promise to send me samples of his writing. Anything—journal entries, class assignments, poetry, whatever—as I’ve always thought the promise of good writing can be spotted in the most unexpected of genres and moments. And like I said earlier, if he was half the writer his dad was....
The next morning I walked Joey up to Penn Station and bought him an Amtrak ticket back to Pittsburgh. As we waited for the train, I asked him, “Anything else you can remember from when those guys grabbed you in Ligonier? You know, like did they use each other’s names (Joey shook his head “no”), or smoke a clove cigarette?”
Joey looked at me, about to laugh, “A clove cigarette? You really watch too many British mysteries.” He smiled, closed his eyes, obviously trying one last time to remember that night. “No sir, nothing except for the license plate.”
Freeman at our wedding
“License plate?! You saw it?”
“Uh, yeah.”
“And remember it?”
“Sure, it was easy. It’s Joe Greene, L.C. Greenwood, Dwight White, and S for Steelers.”
“What are you talking about?”
“I’m my dad’s son. I grew up in a bedroom with a big poster of the Steelers’ Steel Curtain. Last thing I saw before I fell asleep, first thing I saw when I woke up. Dwight White, number 78, Ernie Holmes, number 63, Joe Greene, number 75, and L.C. Greenwood, number 68.”
I’m shaking my head in amazement, but also with fondness for those dominating Steelers teams that once were. And how Matt, Rich, Freeman, and I enjoyed those great years of Pittsburgh football.
Joey continued, “So this license plate was Joe Greene, L.C. Greenwood, and Dwight White, with an S for Steelers. Pennsylvania plate 756878-S.”
Joey caught his train.
And I had someone to call, and a letterman’s jacket to try on.
Tomorrow: I call Ligonier Police Chief Jim