Remember the Time: Protecting Michael Jackson in His Final Days by Tanner Colby, Bill Whitfield, Javon Beard Read Free Book Online Page A

asleep and discombobulated, wearing pajamas, shivering in the freezing cold.
    Mr. Jackson had this look of panic on his face, his eyes wide open. “Somebody’s inside the house,” he said. “They’re trying to break into my bedroom through the terrace door.”
    My first thought was that we should leave, just take the cars and bounce. But Javon was saying, “Check the room! Let’s check the room!” So we stayed to investigate. We brought Mr. Jackson and the kids inside the trailer. Javon stayed with them. I drew my weapon, went into the house, and made my way upstairs to Mr. Jackson’s bedroom.
    The thought in the back of my mind was that someone must have climbed up the back balcony. Once I was inside his room, Icould hear what he was talking about. There was this rustling sound coming from outside the door to the balcony, like someone trying to get in. I crept up and threw the door open and looked out. Nobody there. But now I could hear the sound better. Sounded more like flapping. I looked up and there was a wing sticking out of this vent, frantically flapping around. A pigeon. All this over a pigeon.
    I reached up and grabbed it. I pulled it out of the vent and threw it over the balcony. I couldn’t tell if it took off or what. I may have broken its wing. All I saw was the thing going straight down. I went back downstairs and told Mr. Jackson it was just a bird. Of course now he was all concerned about the bird. He was like, “You didn’t kill it, did you?”
    “No, sir,” I said. “Of course not. I just let it go.”
    “Oh, good.”
    Javon: By that point, it was well past three in the morning. Prince was like, “ Da-ad , can we go back to bed now, please ? We’ve got school in the morning, and I’m tired.”
    So they all shuffled back into the house to go to bed. As they walked in, Mr. Jackson said, “See, kids? Better safe than sorry.”
    Bill: A couple weeks later, maybe mid-February, about one-thirty in the morning, I got this frantic call from his manager, Raymone. She was all worked up, saying, “You gotta get Mr. Jackson out of the house!”
    “What’s the problem?”
    She wouldn’t tell me. She just kept saying, “Get him outta the house! I booked you a room at a hotel. Get him outta the house!”
    I figured it had to be something serious. I told Javon to get the cars ready, and I ran into the house. When I got upstairs, Mr. Jackson was running around in the dark. It was pitch black inside; he didn’t want the lights turned on, like he was scaredsomebody was going to see him. He had the kids going room to room with flashlights, getting their stuff together, packing to leave. He was whispering to them, “Let’s go! Let’s go! C’mon! No, we don’t need that! Just grab a few things!”
    I didn’t know what was happening. I said, “Sir, what’s wrong? What’s going on?”
    He wouldn’t say. He just said, “Raymone called. There’s a threat. We have to leave. We have to leave. Right now .”
    Javon: I had the cars ready, and I was outside in the security trailer. There was nothing on any of the monitors; none of the sensors had been tripped. Before we left, me and Bill checked the whole house. Nothing. We went to Mr. Jackson and said, “Sir, everything’s fine. The house is secure. Trust us, no one’s getting in here.”
    But he was in a full panic. He was almost incoherent, like he wasn’t even hearing a word we told him. He just kept saying, “We gotta go! We gotta go!”
    Bill: We had no idea what was going on, but we loaded the suitcases and the kids into the trucks and took everyone to the Green Valley Ranch, a resort nearby in Henderson. The manager was waiting for us at the loading dock when we pulled in. We crept up in there in the middle of the night, with no advance security check, nothing.
    We got him settled in his room, and we took the room across the hall. The next morning, I went over and talked to him. He was fuming. He said, “I shouldn’t have to leave my