Robert leaned back in his chair, not knowing what to think. He glanced at Doug, feeling more certain now that the man sitting across from him, the man who had been convicted in the first degree kidnapping, sexual molestation, and murder of his little brother, Raul, had never committed the crime.
Six
AUGUST 12, 1977
The summer of 1977 should have been the best summer of his life.
That was the summer Danny finally got to see KISS in concert. Bobby Whitsett’s dad took them, attending one of three sold out shows at the Fabulous Forum. It was awesome, and Danny screamed himself hoarse as he waved his fists in the air in time to the music. He relived that concert in his mind for the next week, and even today when he tried to conjure up those magical moments of his childhood, that KISS show always stood out. It was the last thing he remembered that was truly fun. It seemed to close a chapter to a certain innocence he never knew he had.
Between the time he’d overheard his mother talking to her friend on the phone about how she sometimes feared for her children and the immense pride she felt for her son, and the KISS concert, Danny had a pretty good summer. If Tina was at her friend Anna’s house, Danny either went skateboarding somewhere with Bobby—either Skateopia, an empty swimming pool they’d found near Manhattan Beach Boulevard, or the empty swimming pool in Palos Verdes (which they'd christened The Fruit Bowl) on the rare occasions Jerry Valdez drove them down there, or they went to the beach and went boogie-boarding. Sometimes they hung out at Ted’s Arcade. Danny had his paper route, of course, and there was always Spider Records to hang out at. That was also the summer Bobby suddenly discovered the opposite sex. While he’d barely paid attention to girls when the summer began, by late July he was a regular little Casanova.
For the most part Tina stayed around the house and Danny was responsible for her care. This wasn’t too bad since Tina was three years younger than he. She was a good little sister to Danny. She wasn’t nosy, she was very good about playing by herself in her room or with her friends, and she listened to Danny and did what he told her to do. On nights their mother called to complain she had to work late, Danny would make them supper, which usually consisted of something from a can of Spaghetti-Os to a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. Sometimes he’d take her to the McDonald’s up the street. They were under explicit instructions to be in the house before nightfall, and Tina took their mother’s rules as seriously as Danny did, but sometimes Danny could be a little lenient, especially if they were in front of their own house.
Danny was sitting on the front steps that led to the porch of their house, his feet on his skateboard. Tina and Anna had drawn a hopscotch pattern on the sidewalk and were playing. Bobby Whitsett was on his skateboard, spinning 360’s on his Gordon and Smith. Bobby was great at 360’s. He could do them with one foot positioned on the tail and his hair flew out in a circular pattern as he spun.
Bobby was doing the occasional 360 now and was trying to get Danny’s opinion on which Charlie’s Angel was the better looking one—Farrah Fawcett or Jacqueline Smith. Since finally discovering girls, Bobby had a thing for blondes. He thought Farrah Fawcett was awesome, but Danny wasn’t about to tell him his taste in women sucked with Tina so close to earshot. If she happened to overhear he had the hots for Jacqueline Smith—
“Come on, come on, fess up,” Bobby said, weaving back and forth. “You like that other one, don’t you? The one nobody can remember.”
“I don’t watch Charlie’s Angels, dude,” Danny said. “I watch The Incredible Hulk and Starskey & Hutch. I’ve never seen Charlie’s Angels.”
“You know who Farrah Fawcett is though, right?”
“Well, yeah!” Danny got up now and began to skate, flipping the board around, skating around the driveway.
“Jacqueline Smith is hot, too,” Bobby said, moving effortlessly through a freestyle motion he was hardly aware of. “Actually, all three of them are hot. Even that other one.”
“What about the Bionic Woman?” Danny asked. He did a 360.
“Oh yeah! She’s hot, too!”
Danny thought he heard the girls giggling. Danny glanced their way, his heart lodged in his throat in fear that Tina overheard. The girls were squatted down on their hands and knees, drawing something on the sidewalk with chalk and laughing. Danny relaxed as he skated closer, than darted back to Bobby.
“Hey, I know where we can get some Playboys,” Bobby said, doing a trick called a spacewalk on his skateboard, which consisted of popping and maintaining a wheelie while swinging the board left and right for as long as you could maintain the wheelie; the motions rocked the board forward slowly, hence the term ‘spacewalk’.
“Shhh!” Danny glanced toward Tina and Anna quickly, hoping they hadn’t overheard. “Keep it down!”
Bobby sidled up to him and whispered. “You know Carl’s Liquor Store?”
Danny nodded. Carl’s was a combination liquor store/delicatessen on the corner of Crenshaw and Manhattan Beach Boulevard. When you walked in the store there was a large magazine rack immediately to the right.
“We wait till the clerk is waiting on a customer,” Bobby whispered. Danny knew what he was talking about; the cash register was ten feet away from the magazine rack and the Playboy and Penthouse magazines were all displayed on the bottom at the end of the rack closest to the door. “You can snag some Cokes and I’ll be pretending to look at something then, while you’re paying for the cokes, I’ll double back, snag a Playboy or something and dart out. He won’t know it’s missing.”
“Okay.” Danny had no real intention of stealing Playboy magazines, but he had to say something in support of the scheme or Bobby would call him a pussy.
The sound of the girls’ squeals interrupted their plans for juvenile delinquency. They looked up and Danny felt his stomach plunge down a black hole as Raul Valesquez and another of his low-life friends, David Bartell, began kicking at Tina and Anna’s toys on the sidewalk, laughing.
The girls scampered away to safer ground but were still hovering on the driveway. Tina was yelling. “Stop kicking my stuff! That’s mine! Danny!”
At the sound of Danny’s name, Raul looked over and their eyes instantly locked. Raul had been laughing at the destruction he was causing to the girls’ game, as was Dave, who was about fourteen and had such pale skin and blonde hair so delicate and white, he could pass for an albino. Like Louie McWiggin, his lips had a cherry red tint to them.
“The fuck you looking at, Hernandez?” Raul muttered. A lank of dirty brown hair fell into Raul’s face as he glowered at him.
Danny couldn’t say anything. His mouth ran dry. His body felt numb with fear.
“Danny, make him stop!” Tina yelled.
“Yeah, Danny, make him stop!” Dave Bartell giggled and made a clumsy grab for Tina, who darted away and up to the porch, screaming all the way. Anna ran after her and before he knew it, both girls were in the house. Raul started a slow saunter across the yard and up the driveway toward Danny and Bobby, who picked up his skateboard and retreated to the safety of the porch.
“What you gonna do about it, Hernandez? Fucking pansy-ass motherfucking mama’s boy motherfucker.” Raul was dressed in his usual attire; dirty blue jeans, a stained t-shirt, ripped up tennis shoes.
Before he was aware of it, Danny was on his front porch with Bobby, who was opening the front door. Danny tried to force a sense of conviction in his voice. “Get off my property, Raul.”
“Get off my property, Raul,” Raul mimicked effectively, masking Danny’s cracking falsettos perfectly. “It’s not your property, Hernandez, it’s your mother’s. You know ... that bitch I like to fuck every night.”
David Bartell howled with laughter, slapping his knees.
Now Danny was through the door, shutting it behind him as Raul quickly bounded up the front porch. Danny leaned against the door as Bobby threw the deadbolt in place and turned the lock. Heavy fists pounded the door, a quick tap-tap-tap-tap-tap sensation rattling the frame
. “Open the fucking door!”
“Get out of here!” Tina yelled.
“Get off my property or I’m calling the police!” Danny yelled.
The pounding on the door stopped. A second pair of footsteps crept up to the porch. “What the hell you want to call the cops for, Danny?”
“Get off my property!”
“You can’t make us!” Bartell said.
Danny stepped away from the door and was standing with Bobby, Tina and Anna, trying to stay away from the windows. Tina looked at her brother. “Danny, do something!”
“What the hell am I supposed to do?”
“You want to be a pussy, fine, be a pussy Danny,” Raul teased. “We’ll just hang out on your porch until you come out.”
“My mom’ll be home any minute,” Danny said. “You’ll have to leave when she gets here.”
“She can suck my dick.”
Bartell chimed in. “Mine, too.”
Laughter from outside. Danny felt his stomach churn. Tina tugged at his shirt and he looked at her. “Are you going to let him say that stuff about mom?”
“Tina,” Bobby began, “if you don’t like the way Raul’s talking about your mom, you shut him up.”
“He’s not talking about your mom, he’s talking about ours!”
“Will you two shut up!” Danny said.
Anna stood by the sofa, her little round face alight in fear. Danny noticed her and said, “Anna, why don’t you call your house and tell your mom what’s happening.”
Anna darted to the kitchen where the phone was.
Danny turned to the front door. He glanced at Bobby quickly. Raul and David were still outside.
“I mean it, Raul,” Danny warned again, trying his best but failing miserably at putting menace in his voice. “My mom’s not going to like you being here and she’ll get pissed.”
“I’ll piss in your mom’s twat,” Raul said.
“Anna’s mom is coming to get her, too,” Bobby said. “Her dad’s coming as well.”
“I don’t give a fuck! What are they gonna do?”
“They’ll make you leave.”
“Is this their house?”
For being such a pain in the ass, the kid had smarts. Danny paused. This was the first time either he or Bobby had bore the brunt of Raul’s torments. Normally Raul picked on kids his size or younger, but it had only been within the past few months that he started targeting older kids. The incident from earlier that summer still stood out in both boys’ minds.
“You shouldn’t cuss!” Tina said.
“Suck my dick!”
Danny turned to his sister. “Tina, go to your room,” he said, his voice lowered.
“Why?”
“Just go.” He ushered her out of the living room.
Anna hung up the phone in the kitchen and darted past him to Tina’s room. “My mom’s coming to get me,” she said loud enough for Raul to hear.
Raul taunted her through the front door. “You know what I think I’d like to see you do, you little slut?”
Danny turned toward the front door, trading another nervous glance with Bobby. “Raul, go home.”
“Where’s your sister?”
“She’s not here.”
“She in her room?”
“Yes, now go!”
Silence. Danny strained to listen. He could hear Raul on the other side of the door.
He couldn’t hear Dave Bartell.
A sliver of ice ran down his spine. Where was Dave? He glanced at Bobby, and from the look on his face his friend was obviously thinking the same thing. Had Dave hopped the fence into his backyard and was now creeping toward the back door to try to find a way inside? He nodded at Bobby, motioning toward the rear of the house, and Bobby understood the message clearly. He went into the den, turning on the lights as he went, and Danny turned back to the front door. “Raul, go home. My mom will be home any minute now and she won’t like seeing you here. Now, get out!”
“I can come back, you know,” Raul said, his voice a whisper that made Danny’s arms break out in gooseflesh. “I do it all the time, anyway.”
“Do what?”
“Come over.”
“No, you don’t. You hardly ever come here.” That was as true as Raul’s recent upgrade to tormenting those older than himself. In the four years Danny lived in this neighborhood he’d seen Raul exactly half a dozen times, all of them in the past few months, and the Valesquez family had been entrenched in this four block area of the neighborhood for as long as Danny had been alive.
“That’s because you have no idea I’m here.”
“Why would I have no idea you’re here?”
“Because I’m hiding outside your bedroom window watching you as you sleep.”
Danny’s heart froze. Rationally, he couldn’t believe what Raul was saying. He knew Raul’s reputation for bragging, but he also knew he was a kid you didn’t mess with because he usually carried out his threats. “No, you’re not.”
“Yes I am.” Raul’s voice was low, a gravelly whisper. “I come over here late at night and look in the windows and watch you. You, your mom and sister. You guys go to bed too early.”
“How do you know?”
“I come over here at one in the morning and you fucks are already asleep.”
Danny was scared but he tried not to let that show in his voice. Bobby returned and stood in the living room, silent, his eyes wide with fright. “Maybe you shouldn’t come over here so late, then.”
“Why not? It’s fun.”
“What’s so fun about watching people sleep?”
“I don’t know.” There was the sound of shuffling feet on the porch, as if he were moving around. “It just is. I like to imagine what I could do.”
Danny licked his lips. His voice cracked as he asked the next question, the one he was dreading to ask because he was afraid of what the answer might be. “What could you possibly want to do here so late at night?”
Raul was silent for a moment. From Tina’s bedroom, the girls were quiet; Danny could see them out of the corner of his eye, hovering at the threshold to the bedroom. Bobby hadn’t moved from his spot in the living room.
Then, in a low whisper that Danny could barely hear, Raul said, “I could break in real easy, you know. I could break in while all three of you are asleep and kill you before you’d even know what’s happening.”
Danny tried to talk but he couldn’t. His voice was locked up in his throat. His limbs trembled, his belly felt like shaved ice. “Stop fucking with me, Raul. Just go!”
“It’s true,” Raul whispered. “I could break in easy. Just jimmy the lock on that sliding glass door in your back yard and I’d be in. You guys sleep like sacks of shit, you know that? I could sneak up on you while you’re sleeping and slit your throats and you wouldn’t even know it.”
“Raul, just go.” Danny felt like he was going to hyperventilate, he was so scared.
“And nobody will know who did it.”
Then he laughed.
Raul’s laugh shattered the ice that had settled in Danny’s system, sending jagged shards spiking into his nerves. Danny jumped at the suddenness of it. There was pure evil in that laugh. There was nothing remotely humorous in Raul’s voice at that moment. He was deadly serious and his laughter was maniacal and savage, without a trace of humanity in it.
And it was at that moment when Danny Hernandez believed that Raul Valesquez was capable of doing what he was insinuating.
“You’re so full of bullshit,” he said, trying to be brave and call Raul’s bluff.
A loud pounding on the sliding glass door that led into the den erupted from the rear of the house and Danny jumped, screaming in fright. Tina and Anna screamed and the bedroom door slammed shut hard enough to rock in the doorframe. Bobby yelled, almost collided with Danny at the sudden scrabbling of noise coming from the back and Raul laughed harder. The moment after the fright came, it was replaced with a burning sense of embarrassment and a
nger as the source of the sound became obvious: it was David Bartell, rattling the sliding glass door that led into the den in the back of the house.
“Hahahahaha,” Raul laughed hysterically. “You fucking pussies! We got you good!”
“Get the fuck out of here!” Danny yelled, getting angrier now. His face felt hot and Bobby ran toward the rear of the house, yelling at David Bartell that the cops were coming. David Bartell laughed like a hyena.
A pair of headlights stabbed the darkness of the living room and Danny felt relief flood his system. Mom was home!
“Bartell!” Raul yelled. “Let’s get the fuck out of here!”
Bobby yelled something else at Bartell but Danny was barely aware of what was going on back there because Raul was whispering to Danny again. “You think I’m kidding? I did it already in Torrance two weeks ago and it was awesome. I could do it again. Don’t think I can’t, either.” Then he was bounding off the front porch, his laugh joining that of his juvenile delinquent comrade as they pelted down the driveway and down the street, their footfalls and voices receding only to be replaced by the slam of a car door and the click-click of high heels walking up to the front porch.
Danny unlocked the door and threw open the bolt, and his mother was there, looking puzzled and a little irritated. She was dressed for work—tan skirt, a white blouse, her shoulder-length dark hair still impeccable from this morning. She had her black purse slung over her shoulder and was cradling a bag of groceries in her right arm. “Who was that? That looked like that Raul Valesquez kid.”
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