If I Robbed Him
An exclusive excerpt from O.J.'s next book.
A lot of people think they know what went down in that Las Vegas hotel room. Well, they don't know. I've seen the evidence. I've listened to the audiotape. I've posed for the mug shot. I've negotiated the deal for the HBO docudrama. And of course, I've heard all the theories.
That I did it.
That I did it but I don't know I did it.
That killing Nicole and that Goldman dude back in 1994, who were really asking for it, not that I'm saying I did it, but if I did do it then it wasn't that big a deal, she had it coming, that no-good blood-sucking c—
Ahem. That, anyway, thirteen years after killing Nicole and whatshisname, Goldman, I'm consumed with guilt and feel a compulsion to confess, blah blah blah, and that my suppression of what I know to be the hideous truth about my terrible deeds has started to undermine my grip on reality. If you believe that, my friend, then you'll believe that NASA space missions are on the up-and-up, and not faked at a remote Army base in the desert!
Let me tell you what really happened Sept. 13 at the Palace Station Hotel & Casino. Picture this.*
An auctioneer in California named Thomas Riccio contacted me to say that some guys in Vegas were secretly trying to sell souvenirs from my football days. I asked Riccio to set up a meeting in Vegas. On Thursday I met Riccio in the hotel lobby with my pals Clarence Stewart, Michael McClinton, Tom Scotto, and Walter Alexander, who has a really, really big mouth. (Way to stand up for a buddy, Walter! I'll take care of you later.)
There was also a sixth guy, whom the Las Vegas police won't identify. I'll call him Zeppo. Zeppo tried to talk me out of confronting the sellers. "Don't do it, O.J.!" he said. "It's unlawful to rob somebody at gunpoint!" As events progressed, Zeppo keened and wailed like a Greek chorus. "Look, O.J.! They have bingo! Why don't we play a little bingo instead?"
Some people think Zeppo is a figment of my imagination or a lame literary device to voice conscience-stricken sentiments that I've repressed. But Zeppo was there, and to be honest I was sorely tempted to plug the guy just to shut him up.
Anyway, we took the elevator up, entered this hotel room, and lo and behold there were Alfred Beardsley and Bruce Fromong. Beardsley collects O.J. Simpson memorabilia, and I've tangled with him in the past over whether I agreed or didn't agree to sign some autographs in East L.A. Fromong, another collector, was kind enough to testify on my behalf at the civil trial. They're a pair of lowlifes, but with my liquidity problems you can't be too choosy about who your friends are. Anyway, with them in the hotel room was a pile of memorabilia that my former sports agent, Mike Gilbert, stole from my mother's storage locker. Mike claims something lame, like he took them because I didn't pay him. Which actually may be true. But let's not get bogged down in minutiae here.
Riccio, the auctioneer, brought a concealed tape recorder, because he thought we'd get the guys to admit they were fencing stolen goods and then we could call the cops on them. He was kind of shocked when instead my buddies pulled guns out and pointed them at Beardsley and Fromong.
Way I see it, the tape is a good news/bad news thing. It's good news because I don't have to go all fuzzy in this book like I did in If I Did It about what happened when my explosive rage crossed the line into criminality.
Uh, if it crossed into criminality. Which it didn't.
http://www.slate.com/id/2174077/?GT1=10436
