Bully

by Gonzalez, J. F.

  “And you believed him?”

  David shrugged. “Yes. No. I mean, I believe he probably beat some kid up, but I don’t believe he knocked the kid’s eyeball out.”

  “Why not?”

  “If you knew Raul, you’d know why.”

  “Humor me.”

  David sighed, clearly irritated. He took another gulp of beer. “Raul would tell you anything ... that he’d hotwired a Corvette and took a joyride around LA in it and the cops never caught him, that he’d been kidnapped by FBI agents and dumped in a field in Riverside and hitchhiked home, that he’d once jammed on the guitar with Jimmy Page of Led Zeppelin at a party he went to with his mom. It got to the point that you didn’t know what to believe.”

  “Did he ever tell you he killed anybody?”

  David looked startled. “Fuck no!”

  “Are you sure?”

  “Hell yes, I’m sure! Raul could be a ... hell, all three of us were trouble, but we could never kill anybody!”

  Tom already knew he’d be taking David Bartell down this line of questioning—he’d already made up his mind to pluck the aging drag-queen out of his natural environment and place him in police custody for further questioning, but he’d tell him that later. Now it was time to switch gears. “Tell me about Eva’s friends.”

  “Eva didn’t really have any friends. I mean, you couldn’t really call them friends. Customers is probably more like it.”

  “Okay, customers then. Who were they?”

  A shrug. “I don’t remember. There were so many of them it was hard to keep track of them.”

  “But Douglas Archer wasn’t one of them, correct?”

  “Probably not.”

  “What do you mean, probably not?”

  David’s voice, though obviously male, rang with a false feminine falsetto. “Well, I don’t remember all that I said in court back then, but Eva fucked anything with a dick and then some, and as far as I could remember Doug could have been one of the guys who was at the house.”

  “But then again, he may not have ever been there,” Tom murmured.

  David shrugged. “Sure.”

  “So you don’t remember any particular details about any of the men that used to—"

  “Oh, so it’s details you want! Well listen, honey, if it’s details you want, I can give you details. Got to be I was always so wasted every time I was over at Raul’s, I don’t remember the faces of half the guys who fucked me.”

  A lightbulb went off in Tom’s head. “You had sexual relations with some of Eva’s customers?”

  David made a mock surprise of shock, his hand covering his open mouth, eyes wide with surprise. “Oops, did I say that? Oh what the hell, what’s it going to hurt? Raul’s dead, Louie’s dead, doctor says my liver is failing, and I’ve got AIDS anyway, so I’m not long for this world myself. Besides, those guys are probably long gone by now anyway. You might be able to get in touch with some of them though, at least those that testified at the trial.”

  Tom’s mind was racing, his overactive imagination was already coming to the conclusions David was spitting out. “So you don’t exactly remember how many men had sex with you?” Tom asked, now feeling a slow numbness of horror that was crawling up his arms.

  David drained half his mug of beer in one swallow. He wiped his mouth with the back of his arm, smearing lipstick. His speech was slurred. “No, I don’t. After five or ten I started losing count.”

  “So were you ... involved in Eva’s ... prostitution ring?”

  David tittered drunkenly. “Involved? You mean, did we actively take part in it? What have you been smoking?”

  “Then spell it out for me.”

  David drained the rest of the beer and set the mug down on the scarred table. His blue eyes had a far away look that might have been from his intoxication or from remembering. “Shit, I hated going over there. Some of those scum bags had some good dope, though. Shit would fuck you up with just one hit.”

  “Who’s this? Eva’s customers? They supplied you with drugs?”

  David’s drunken gaze fixed on him. “Hell yeah, man. They had some good shit. The best. Part of the reason I liked hanging with Raul was because his mom and her friends really knew how to party.”

  “So Eva and her friends supplied you and Raul and Louie with drugs and booze, right? What about Raul’s brothers?”

  “Rudy and the other one? I can’t remember his name right now.”

  “Robert.”

  “Right! Robert. Naw, they weren’t around much. Especially Robert. I hardly saw his punk ass. He hated everybody at the house, man. Rudy was cool though. He partied with us sometimes.”

  “But it was mostly the three of you? Louie, Raul and yourself?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Did you like going over there?”

  “Not really.”

  “Why not? Your friend’s mom and her friends plied you with free booze and drugs. What’s not to like?”

  “You think we liked putting out for those assholes?” David looked troubled. He averted his gaze from Tom for a moment and Tom saw his cheeks quiver slightly. David took a quick breath and turned back to him. “It’s like what they always tell kids and their parents now about pedophiles. How they gain your trust; they shower the child with affection, pay attention to him, make the kid feel like he’s wanted and important. Then they start coercing them into doing things the kid doesn’t understand. You know what I mean?”

  Tom was adding all this up in his head, imagining the chaos in that house. “I think I do.”

  “Raul’s place was cool for like, the first four months I started hanging with him,” David said, his speech rolling faster, his voice cracking a bit. “Louie started hanging out with him around the same time. I don’t know who he used to pal around with before. But when I met him it was great. My parents didn’t give a shit about me and were always gone, so Raul’s house was like a second home to me. His mom was cool, she would make dinner for us and stuff and we could hang out and get high and do whatever we wanted. I knew she had a lot of boyfriends and shit, cause they were always in and out of the house and they’d go to her room for awhile and you could hear them in there, you know?” David got that faraway look again. “But then one day it happened, just like they say they get to you. One of Eva’s friends, guy who was real cool...I don’t remember his name. Used to have great Thai Stick. And Quaaludes. You remember those? He used to bring them over in little aspirin jars and we’d pop a Quaalude and drink a beer and get real fucked up. He was cool because he was, like, old enough to be my dad, you know? And then one night...I’m sitting on the couch getting fucked up with him and Raul is...shit, I don’t know where Raul got off to. One minute he was on the floor watching TV and getting high, next minute he was just gone and then this guy that I thought was real cool, who was real mellow all the time, he fucking did me, man. Motherfucker just pinned me down and raped me right there on the sofa.”

  Tom tried not to look shocked. He nodded at David to go on.

  “He hurt me pretty bad,” David said. He reached into his purse for a pack of cigarettes and lit it with a shaky hand. Tom let him; if the bartender came by to ask him to comply with the No Smoking rule, Tom would show him his badge. David took a deep drag on the cigarette, his blue eyes looking far away. “I was scared, too. I felt so dirty and ashamed and ... and just so wrong. Guy gave me an ounce of Thai when he was done too, so I took it. I guess it was like ... I don’t know ... payment or something.”

  “Did you ever tell anybody?” Tom asked.

  “No,” David said, shaking his head. “I didn’t. I don’t know why. It might be because...of the drugs maybe. I knew that hanging out at Raul’s house wasn’t good, that doing drugs wasn’t good, but I did it anyway. And...what would my parents or the police say if I reported it? They’d say I had it coming to me; they’d just call me a faggot and say I deserved it.”

  Tom waited while David took another drag on his cigarette. “Christ, I need anoth
er beer,” David said.

  Tom signaled the waitress. She arrived, and when she saw David smoking, she frowned. Tom showed her his badge. “Gardena P.D., Homicide. Can you get her another beer, please?”

  The waitress looked startled, but did as she was asked. She returned quickly with another beer and pushed it in front of David and retreated quickly.

  David took the mug and downed a third of it greedily. He sighed, eyes closed. Tom could see the tremors in his fingers had stopped. “Thanks.”

  “Don’t mention it.”

  “Did I mention that my liver’s failing?”

  “Yes, you did.”

  “It isn’t the AIDS that’s killing my liver. It’s my drinking.”

  Tom almost said, Maybe you should stop drinking, but wisely decided not to.

  David poured another third of the beer down his throat and set the mug down, eyes closed. Tom watched him, waiting. David took another drag on his cigarette. “I can’t stop now if I wanted to. Last time I tried I got real sick.”

  “You okay?” Tom asked.

  David nodded, took a deep breath.

  Tom waited calmly, saying nothing.

  David took another drag on his cigarette, tapping the ash out on the table. “I haven’t talked about any of this in years.”

  Tom nodded. “If you can, I’d like to hear more.”

  “Of course you do. And now’s as good a time as any to talk about it.”

  “When did all this happen?”

  “The rape? I’d say it was earlier in the year.”

  “The winter of 1977?”

  “Yes.”

  “Did Raul ever find out?”

  “He found out. He was in on it, too.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Those monsters that hung out at the house didn’t just settle on me. If you had a hole, you got plugged. Simple as that.”

  “So Raul was sexually molested, as well?”

  “Sexually molested. Why has that become the accepted term for rape nowadays? Doesn’t lessen the act any more.”

  Tom ignored him and continued. “So Eva’s clients, friends, whatever you want to call them ... they raped you and Raul? What about Louie?”

  “Louie too. And Rudy.”

  “Rudy?”

  David nodded. He took a sip of beer. “Even Rudy. Poor kid. He really suffered.”

  Tom’s mind was racing. His cell phone chirped annoyingly and he ignored it. He felt sick. “What about Robert?”

  David appeared to gain his composure back. He looked up at Tom. “Robert? Fuck no, he was never around. He didn’t even know what was going on.”

  “Did Raul’s mother know what was going on?”

  “You bet she did. Bitch fucking helped instigate most of it. At first she was responsible by proxy - she'd be either too out of it due to alcohol or drugs, she didn't know what was going on and some of the guys there...well, they took advantage of that. That's how it started. That makes her responsible.”

  The more Tom Jensen was hearing, the more sickened he was becoming. “So she didn't know what was going on."

  "Not at first. At some point, though, she did. Once that line was crossed, it was crossed. She might have been under the influence most of the time, but she definitely knew what was going on and she was helping to facilitate it."

  "She actually ... encouraged the abuse of her own kids? Of her son’s friends?”

  “Fuck, yeah. Bitch was fucked up. Not as fucked up as some of the vermin that infested that house, but fucked up nonetheless.”

  “How long did this go on?”

  “Until Raul was killed.”

  “What do you know about that?”

  “I know it wasn’t Douglas Archer, that’s for sure. That guy was never around the house.” Another drag on the cigarette. “Although like I said, there were so many horny bastards going in and out of that house, he could have been there.”

  “Let’s forget about Doug Archer for a minute,” Tom said, his mind formulating something now, trying to lead David Bartell down a different path. “Tell me about the days after your rape. You said you were scared and ashamed, that you wanted to call the police, but you didn’t. You also apparently went back to Raul’s house. Why?”

  “Why did I go back to Raul’s house?”

  “Let’s start there. Why did you go back to Raul’s house?”

  “Because I was fucked up. Part of me couldn’t believe what had happened to me. I tried to stay away, but Raul would see me and call me over and...and he was my friend, you know? I couldn’t just...cut off all ties with him. I couldn’t just leave him!”

  “You knew he was being abused, too,” Tom said, the picture starting to come clear in his mind. “You felt sorry for him...you didn’t want him to suffer in silence.”

  “That’s a bullshit way of saying it, but yeah...I didn’t want him to suffer by himself. We were friends.”

  “So what happened the next time you were at the house?”

  “We got high.”

  “The guy that raped you...was he there?”

  “Yeah.” David took a drag on his cigarette. “He pretended like the shit didn’t happen. Got me buzzed on some nice coke, though.”

  “Did he rape you again?”

  “At some point, yeah.”

  “Did other men rape you?”

  “Yes.”

  “You were never really a willing participant in the sex?”

  “No, not really.” David took another sip of beer. His speech was becoming more slurred. “At first it was most definitely rape. And even though I never wanted to have sex with any of those people, the last few months I just resisted less and less. It was almost like...what do they call it now? Date rape? It even got to the point that I was so fucked up, I would just go along with it. That’s what turned me into a whore. If they wanted me to put makeup on and dress like a girl, I did. If they wanted me to blow them, I did. It didn’t matter. If I didn’t, they’d make it painful for me—they’d just take me. If I played into their fantasies, they were real good to me. They’d get me high, buy me shit...be real good to me, you know?”

  “You don’t remember any names? Faces, physical descriptions?”

  “I remember some. Not a lot, but some.”

  “And Louie McWiggin was raped repeatedly as well? Under the same circumstances? He was befriended by Eva and her friends, given drugs, and then raped?”

  “Yes.”

  “Same with Raul?”

  “Same with Raul.”

  “How did Louie and Raul handle it?”

  “How do you think? Shit, you know from looking at Raul’s criminal record how he handled it.”

  “I can see how he handled it, and he didn’t handle it very well. Neither did you and Louie.” Tom’s mind went back over Raul’s police record and more pieces started coming together. No wonder the kid was so angry and defiant. He’d been abused for years, had been turned into a monster by years of sexual abuse. He thought about the murders of those other two kids Douglas Archer had been implicated in and wondered now if his new theory of Raul Valesquez being their killer had more merit. The autopsy report he’d read on both cases indicated both children had been raped, that semen was left behind. Two of the victims in the home invasion had been similarly sexually assaulted as well. These new revelations didn’t prove Raul was their killer—after all, Raul was eleven-years-old and Tom wasn’t sure an eleven-year-old boy was capable of ejaculating—but it certainly made it more likely.

  With that in mind, Tom shifted gears slightly. “This may sound weird, but I guarantee that your answer will help in our investigation.”

  “What’s that?”

  “Did you witness Raul being abused?”

  “Yes.”

  “Did you ever see Raul ejaculate?”

  Tom could tell the question came as a surprise to David. The drag queen looked stunned. He looked at Tom as if silently asking if he were kidding, then sighed. His blue eyes had a far away look. �
�Yeah,” he said, the first sign of tears on his face and in his voice. “He was young and I knew he wasn’t into it, but yeah...he came.”

  “Did Raul’s behavior grow worse as time went on?”

  “I guess. He sure as shit didn’t handle it well. None of us did.” David finished his cigarette. He stubbed the butt out on the table and drained the rest of his beer. “Shit, after Raul was killed I went downhill even faster. It was like...all that shit that happened at Raul’s house was the setting stage for my downward fall.” He looked across the table at Tom, weaving drunkenly. “Know what I mean?”

  Tom nodded. “I understand. And in going through all the original files, I haven’t come across any evidence of your accusations. No police reports, no rumor or hearsay. Eva Valesquez had a long criminal record for various prostitution and drug offenses, and Social Services had attempted to remove her children from the house because of it, but nothing was ever done. There was no record of child abuse, much less sexual abuse. The defense in Mr. Archer’s trial never brought such charges up in his case. They mentioned Eva’s other crimes of course, sort of laying their case that one of her other customers could have committed the murders, but they never dug deeper than that. My question is, if this occurred to you and Louie and Raul, why didn’t this come out in some form? Why didn’t Louie go to the police? I also find it hard to believe the three of you were the only children who were victims of Eva and her customers.”

  David nodded. “You’re right. There were others. I don’t remember how many. Some were the children of Eva’s customers but—"

  “And the cops never knew about it?” Tom was finding it hard to believe that such a large case of child abuse would go unchecked for so long. “It was happening right under their noses and the police never knew?”

  David looked at Tom as if he were slow. “Fuck man, it’s right in front of you and you aren’t even seeing it.”

  “Seeing what?”

  “Who the guys were. Eva’s customers...the ones who raped us...”

  “Who were they?”

  And when David told him it hit Tom like a ton of bricks. He felt his face go slack, the blood run cold in his veins. His hands shook as he stopped writing in his notebook, struck with a certainty that he was up against a larger foe than he’d anticipated.