“What is it, baby? Tell me,” he said softly.
Luca opened his eyes and stared at him. He took a deep breath. “When I first met Freddy he told me he’d once had a roommate whom he loved but then at some point the roommate moved away. He told me that he missed him terribly but I always wondered why he looked so sad whenever he talked about that roommate. I just figured they’d been together and maybe had a bad breakup, you know?”
Kane nodded.
“Anyway, one night when Freddy got really drunk at a club, I had to ride the bus home with him to make sure he was safe. On the way home, he leaned his head on my shoulder and told me he wished his roommate would come back. He missed him.”
“Yeah but I don’t…” Kane began.
“Kane, when I asked him why he talked about the roommate so much, Freddy told me his name was Gabriel Mason,” Luca said, gazing tearfully into Kane’s eyes. “You get it? He was mourning the loss of his childhood… not a roommate.” He reached out and framed Kane’s face with both hands, staring into his eyes. “That must have been how you felt when your dad was killed. You were even younger than Freddy when your childhood was stolen from you.” His voice broke on the last words.
“Oh, baby.” Kane reached for Luca and wrapped his arms around him, pulling him to a standing position where he could engulf him in a hug. “You have such a kind soft heart,” he whispered into his fine hair. “Did I ever tell you that?” Luca shook his head. “More than anything else, I love that about you… sweetheart.” Kane’s big hands traced a slow path up and down Luca’s back in an attempt to calm all that sadness and pain he’d heard in his words. The empathy the man felt was astounding.
“Thank you, Kane,” Luca mumbled against his chest.
Kane had no idea how long they stood in his dining room, wrapped in an embrace. It didn’t matter. It was the only place Kane ever wanted to be.
｡･:*:･ﾟ★,｡･:*:･ﾟ☆
Kane’s phone rang just as he was walking into the Brentwood station later that morning. He was surprised when Cassidy Ryan’s number came up. He swiped the phone.
“Delancey.”
“Glad I caught you, Delancey,” Cassidy said. “Where are you?”
“Just walking into work.”
“Oh, good, you’re here.”
Kane looked up when the phone disconnected to find Cassidy and Mike standing at his desk. Kelly was there too. He smiled at them.
“What’s up?” he asked, walking over.
“We caught a weird one last night and after talking to the guy briefly, we both wanted to talk to you and Kelly before we sat down for the formal interview,” Mike said.
“You said interview, not interrogation,” Kane said. “Is he under arrest?”
“No,” Cassidy said. “It looks like he’s a victim.”
“Okay, what’s up with the guy?” Kane asked.
“Let’s go to the observation room,” Cassidy said. “We sat him down in interrogation but before we start interviewing him in earnest, we wanted you to see him. We’ll tell you what we know in there.”
“Okay,” Kane said, glancing at Kelly who nodded, looking serious. They all walked back to the interrogation rooms, stopping at one of the doors and walking inside. Behind the glass, Kane could see a very young man. There was a boyhood vulnerability in his features which couldn’t be disguised. If dressed correctly though, he could pass for college age. He had long, straight, unnaturally bleached hair with dark roots, fine bones, and elfin features. As he looked up at the glass, Kane could make out bruises under the pale skin of his face. There were older fading bruises but there were new ones as well. He looked similar to every battered woman Kane had ever interviewed.
At the man’s hairline, there was a recent cut which was about an inch and a half long. He held a bloody paper towel and occasionally dabbed at the cut, which would probably have to be stitched. The man was very thin and gaunt, but he had an almost ethereal beauty. Clearly, he had been abused in the recent past, but why anyone would want to leave bruises on that angelic face, Kane had no idea. His large brown doe eyes stared at the glass in an unfocused way. It was evident that he was high on something.
“We got a call from dispatch at about four o’clock this morning. We were on call and sitting at Dupar’s, our favorite all-night diner eating a very early breakfast,” Mike said. “A patrol unit spotted this guy standing on a street corner in WeHo. He seemed to be high and was bleeding from that cut on his head like a stuck pig.”
“The unis stopped to ask if someone had assaulted him. The officer we talked to told us he was weaving and unsteady on his feet. In order to talk to him, they guided him off the corner and had him sit on the ground with his back against a wall so he wouldn’t fall over. They called in his ID and everything seemed to check out. He had no wants or warrants but he did have a solicitation arrest in his past. After they started talking to him, he told this weird story,” Cassidy said. “They said that he claimed someone was going to murder him and when the uni called in, the watch commander told them to call us. When we heard what they had to say, we got interested. We asked patrol to bring him in.”
“What was so interesting?” Kane asked.
“He told us that the man who wants to murder him is his pimp,” Cassidy said, pinning Kane with a hard gaze.
“Who’s the pimp?” Kane asked, confused by the look Ryan was giving him.
“Slade Ruiz?” Kelly asked.
Of course, … I should have realized.
“Oh, got it,” Kane said lamely.
“Yeah, exactly,” Mike said. “That’s when we decided to let him sober up a little and bring both of you in to watch while we question him.”
“Thanks for that,” Kane said. “Now, I’m interested to hear this.” Anything having to do with Slade Ruiz threatening to murder one of his boys was of great interest to all of them.
Cassidy and Mike left the observation room and walked into interrogation. Mike had a cup of coffee in his hand which he held out to the kid as Kane reached out and turned up the volume on the speaker so he and Kelly could hear everything.
“Thanks for the coffee,” the kid said as the two detectives sat down with their backs to the glass.
“No problem. How are you feeling?” Cassidy asked gently.
The boy smiled weakly, holding up the bloody paper towel. “Fine except for this.”
“We just wanted to ask you a couple questions and then we’ll get you a doctor,” Mike said. “Would that be okay or do you want to see a doctor first?”
The kid smiled at Mike and Kane was amazed how pretty he looked, even battered the way he was. With his long, straight hair that fell past his shoulders and his slight frame, he could have been mistaken for a woman if you didn’t look too closely. There was a definite shadow of dark stubble on his chin that was just starting to come in.
“I’m okay, cop. I’ve had a lot worse than this.” The emotional pain in his eyes was evident. “But I guess you know what I do for a living.” He chuckled without mirth. “Comes with the territory, right?”
Cassidy shook his head. “It’s a shame that happens sometimes.” He looked down at the file that he’d put on the table. “Kendal.” Kane hadn’t even realized that they’d pulled his rap sheet. Cassidy looked back up. “Sorry, your name is Kendal Mercer, right?”
“Right,” the kid said, smiling flirtatiously. “But you can call me Kenny or K or whatever you like, detective,” he purred, batting his eyes at Cassidy. “You’re gorgeous. Do you know that?”
“Okay, Kendal,” Mike said, interrupting. The kid glanced over at Mike and lost his smile, sitting back in the metal chair. “Why don’t you tell us what you told the officers early this morning?”
The man reached out a hand and began to draw random circles on the table with his index finger as he stared at it hypnotically. Mike gently cleared his throat and the man stopped drawing and looked up.
“Okay, so… I have this pimp, you know? His name is Slad
e and I’ve been working for him for about three months.”
“You told the officers that his name is Slade Ruiz. Is that correct?” Cassidy asked.
“Yeah, that’s right,” Kendal said, looking down as he started to draw patterns on the table again. “So anyway, I’ve been workin’ for him for like three months and before… when I moved out here from Kansas, I was clean, you know?”
“You didn’t use drugs until you moved to LA?” Mike asked. “Is that what you mean? You didn’t use drugs in Kansas?”
Kendal shook his head and laughed softly. “No way, man. My town was so square. That’s why I got out of there and headed for LA on the first train I could find.” He smiled but the smile was sad. “I hit LA and thought, man I’m gonna make it big. In high school back in Kansas, my drama teacher told me I should be on stage. He told me I had a commanding presence.” Kendal made air quotes, pausing before continuing almost wistfully. “He said I could be a movie star.” He laughed bitterly. “A lot of empty words, you know?” He looked up with pleading eyes as the two detectives nodded.
“Go on. You were telling us about Slade,” Cassidy said.
Kendal nodded. “Yeah, so anyway, when I got here, I met a couple guys at the bus station. I didn’t have a whole lot of money except what I’d saved back home. My parents hated me because I was gay and so when I hit the road, there wasn’t a lot of money except for food and stuff. The guys I met told me I could crash with them and they were really nice you know?”
“They were the ones who introduced you to Slade?” Mike asked.
Kendal nodded. “Yeah. They told me I could make a lot of money with a face like mine. I didn’t know what they meant. I guess I wasn’t thinking right. It just felt good to hear the good stuff after my parents, you know?”
Kane balled his hands into fists. He wanted to strangle parents who couldn’t see the good in their own kids. He’d seen it time and time again working the detective beat in San Diego. Hearing stories like this was always heartbreaking.
“Anyway, when I met Slade and saw how gorgeous he was, I was kinda like star struck. We were at his apartment and he asked me if I wanted to party with him and the other guys. I was totally down for that. To me, partying meant beer and a little weed.”
“Did you use drugs that night?” Mike asked.
“Yeah,” Kendal nodded. “Slade gave me drinks and then some weed. I’d smoked weed at school back home but I never had the kind of reaction I did with the stuff he gave me. I was like trippin’… pretty much hallucinating and stuff.”
Kane watched Cassidy and Mike exchange a glance.
“The marijuana was probably laced with PCP,” Cassidy said. “On the street they call it a sherm.”
“Or angel dust,” Mike added. “Some people say it makes them feel like they’re floating… detached.”
Kendal nodded emphatically, smiling widely. “Yeah, that’s it exactly. One minute I’m sitting on the couch smoking weed and the next minute I’m facedown on a bed getting fucked.” He looked up sharply, noting the camera on the wall. “Shit. I said that on camera, I bet.”
“It’s okay,” Cassidy instantly reassured him. “Tell us, Kendal, were you being raped or assaulted or do you think it was consensual sex that you were having?”
Kendal smiled. “It felt really good, man. Even if I started out resisting, Slade knew what he was doing. It was the hottest sex I’d ever had. When he was done, he cleaned me off and then I realized he hadn’t gloved up.”
“He had bareback sex with you?” Cassidy asked.
Kane could hear the tightly-banked anger in the detective’s voice. Kane was pissed off by what Ruiz had done to Kendal when he’d been so out of it, he couldn’t refuse. Regardless of how Kendal described the sex act, he’d been coerced into it by being given angel dust. He might just as well have been roofied. The drugs had the same effect on the young man.
“Yeah,” Kendal said, shrugging. “I’d never barebacked but Slade kept telling me how clean I was… how beautiful I was.” He paused and stopped making circles on the table. “I guess I was really stupid to believe anything he said. But then when it was time to sleep, and the drugs had worn off, he didn’t kick me out of bed. He held me close. All I could think was, man, I hit the lottery or something. This guy is hot and he wants me.”
“Sociopaths like Slade Ruiz have no conscience but they can manipulate trusting people like you, Kendal. You shouldn’t feel stupid about what you believed at the time,” Mike said.
“But then it turned into something worse?” Cassidy asked, moving the interview along.
Kendal sighed and returned to making patterns on the table with his finger. “After a week of that, he told me that I was so beautiful, he wanted to introduce me to a friend of his. I was like, sure, that sounds great. So we went to a party at someone’s house. It was this really rich house and there were three older guys there. They were all interested to meet me. I guess they gave me something because I passed out and when I woke up, I was in bed.”
“Did they have sex with you?” Mike asked quietly.
“Yeah, they all did. After that, Slade had me go to parties almost every night. I was so stupid I didn’t even realize he was charging guys for my ass for a month.” He laughed again and sat back. “It wasn’t so bad, I guess. I was getting weed regularly and then other drugs… poppers before parties. Stuff like that.”
“What scared you tonight, Kendal?” Cassidy asked.
Kendal sighed deeply and started drawing circles again. “After that first couple months, Slade started telling me he wanted me to model ‘cause I was too thin to have dates anymore.” Kendal looked up with those huge brown doe eyes and Kane recognized the pain in them. “He told me we’d make a movie to show some agents and then my modeling career would take off. I was really, really happy. This was my chance to get into modeling and then movies just like I dreamed of back home.”
“But the movie didn’t turn out to be an audition, right?” Mike asked.
“No, man,” Kendal said, laughing bitterly. “It was straight up gay porn but it was the really hard stuff. You guys would call it deviant, probably. BDSM and other stuff. I got beaten everywhere but my face. Slade said they couldn’t touch my face.”
Kane watched Cassidy’s leg begin to bounce under the interrogation table as he drummed his fingers on the table top. He’d never seen Cassidy get agitated before so it seemed especially weird.
“He let guys beat you?” Cassidy asked.
“Yeah, well, they call it flogging or whatever but then when I was too stoned to keep my eyes open, they’d use their fists. One morning I woke up and I was bruised all over, even my face that time. That was about a week ago. I had two black eyes and a cut lip.” He gestured to his eyes. “When I was cleaning up, I overheard voices outside the strange bedroom where they’d filmed me. That’s when I heard Slade tell someone that I was finished. He told them if they wanted me for a snuff film, he’d sell me for a thousand bucks.” Kendal looked up at them. “You guys know what a snuff film is?”
Cassidy and Mike both nodded. “They were going to kill you and film it.”
“Right. I knew that from movies and TV and stuff. After that, I started trying to figure out how to get away from Slade before he could make that happen,” Kendal said. “Last night, I saw an opportunity when Slade took me to a party where I knew the guys always got really rough. I didn’t smoke weed but I acted like I did. One of them punched me really hard though. I passed out. When I came to, I couldn’t remember where I was or who I was with but I was bleeding like hell. When I recognized all the guys on the bed with me, it all came back. All the guys who’d fucked me were passed out, so I left. I got out of the apartment where I was and started walking. I don’t remember much until you cops came and talked to me.”
“So, Slade was at that party, Kendal?” Mike asked.
“Like I said, he brought me there but after a while, I didn’t see him. He wasn’t there when I woke up. That was for
sure. I checked. If he’d been there, I would have been too scared to leave.”
“Okay,” Cassidy said. “I’m glad you got away when you could, Kendal,” Cassidy sounded very compassionate. “If we arrest Slade, will you tell a court what he did to you and what you heard?”
“If you guys can protect me, yeah, I’ll tell a judge or whoever you want me to. That guy is crazy and he has to be stopped before he does this to another kid. I should have gone to the clinic after Slade started getting guys to fuck me bareback but I was too afraid of what the doctor would say. What if I caught the bug?”
Cassidy reached across the table and covered the hand Kendal had been drawing with. Kendal looked up at him. He had tears in his eyes.
“There’s a whole lot of help out there for people with HIV. If you have it, I’ll personally see to it that you see the best doctors.” He paused as Kendal nodded. “Do you believe me, Kendal?”
“S-sure, Detective Ryan. I-I guess. No one has been nice to me in a while so it’s hard to believe.” All of Kendal’s teasing flirtation had gone away and all Kane could see was a vulnerable kid who’d been preyed upon by a monster.
“Thank you, Kendal,” Mike said, standing and reaching for Kendal’s empty coffee cup. “We’re gonna get you some more coffee and then get you to a doctor, okay kid?”
“Yeah, no problem. As long as I don’t have to go back there to Slade.” He smiled weakly. “Thanks,” he said to Mike then Cassidy.
Kane caught the reflection of a smile in the glass as Cassidy shook Kendal’s hand. Both men left the interrogation room and walked into the observation room.
“What a story,” Mike said.
“Unfortunately, it exactly matches the stories we heard about Slade Ruiz in San Diego when I was a detective there,” Kane said.
Cassidy nodded, looking thoughtful. “Yeah, I read the case file that you sent me. We need to pick up Ruiz and end his career. I’d be willing to bet when we search his place, we’ll find evidence leading to his snuff film career and then we’ll have him on accessory to murder as well as assault and battery.”
Play With Me Page 21