Danny and Jerry headed to the table and sank into chairs. Danny barely noticed that the house was largely empty except for some boxes stacked in the living room, and the lone dining room table and a pair of chairs. James Whitsett hovered near the window, glancing outside occasionally as he talked. “I take it you did as I asked?” he asked Danny.
Danny nodded.
“Good.”
A cell phone rang and James deftly extracted a small Kyocera from his left breast pocket. “Yes?” His features remained calm as he talked. Danny and Jerry watched him, not even looking at each other as James Whitsett spoke on his cell phone. “Good. No, I haven’t heard from Micah yet. Yes, that troubles me, too. I have them here now. Yes...it shouldn’t take long. Okay.” He folded the phone up and replaced it in his breast pocket. “Half of our worries are over. Detectives Gary Little and Franklin Navarro are dead. That just leaves your old friend, Detective Jensen.”
Danny didn’t know what to say. He guessed that Navarro and Little had been working with Jensen on unraveling this mess, but that was all. He traded a nervous glance with Jerry, feeling his heart race. “My kids,” he said, his voice raspy. “Tina and Chris. Where are they?”
“They’re being well cared for,” James said, keeping the gun trained on them. “Karen is being looked after, too.”
“What’s going on here?”
“We need to come to a decision right now,” James said. He nodded at Jerry. “His wife and daughter are due home in just under two hours. If we don’t come to an agreement by then, they both die when they walk in here, then I kill you and call Clavell and have him take care of your family.”
Danny felt himself collapse. “No,” he breathed.
“Or we come to a quick agreement right now,” James said. He picked up his little cellular phone and held it out to Danny.
“What agreement?” Danny asked.
“You call Lieutenant Getz and confess to the murder of Raul Valesquez.”
“Jesus fucking Christ,” Jerry said, burying his face in his hands.
Danny felt his nerves shatter. “You can’t be serious.”
“I am,” James said. He held the phone out. “If it weren’t for the fact that your friend, Jensen, is probably dead now, I’d have you call him and confess personally. But since we had to take the necessary measure of getting those few people who seemed intent on dragging up this sorry business eliminated, I’m afraid you can’t do that.”
“Listen man, please, you can’t do this,” Danny said, practically blubbering as he started to panic.
Jerry was shaking his head, his face in his hands, moaning. “No, no, no, this can’t be happening, oh fucking shit.”
“It is happening and we’re going to take care of this now,” James said. He pointed the gun at Danny. “We have less than fifteen minutes now. What will it be?”
“What the fuck is going on!” Danny screamed.
“I’ll tell you what’s going on,” James said calmly, his eyes cold. “And you listen carefully because I’m only going to say it once.”
Jerry Valdez wasn’t listening. He looked up at James through splayed fingers. His hair hung in his face. “You were in on it,” Jerry said, his voice taking on a sense of dawning realization.
James turned to Jerry. “Excuse me?”
“You were part of it,” Jerry repeated, and Danny could tell by the look on his face that he had made the connection himself. “You were involved in all the shit that went on at Raul’s house, weren’t you?”
James glowered, his eyes narrowed to cold, blue flints. “So what if I was? That doesn’t absolve you of—"
“You knew that house was being used as a place for people to do whatever the fuck they wanted, with whoever the fuck they wanted, and you didn’t care!” Jerry’s voice grew a little more tinged with anger. Danny tried to control his breathing as he watched his old skateboard buddy slowly simmer, his anger slowly boiling as he began making the connections. “And now you’re trying to pin on us what happened to Raul because—"
“Oh, cut the bullshit,” James snarled, stepping to the table, moving the barrel of the gun from Danny to Jerry. “I know what happened, okay? You don’t have to feed me that bullshit!”
Danny found his voice. “Okay, so we confess. But first I want to hear from you why you did it?”
James looked at Danny. “You think I’m stupid? You think I’m going to tell you that?”
“You said Jerry’s family is due to arrive home soon,” Danny said, the idea coming to him instantly. “Jerry and I will confess, but first tell me why you allowed this to happen. If you do, we’ll not only confess but we’ll—"
“What the fuck are you doing?” Jerry hissed, his features an angry grimace.
Danny ignored him. His heart was racing. “I know you loved Bobby, Mr. Whitsett. So did I. He was my best friend. And I know you and my mom had a thing going on, and I don’t care about that. All I want to hear from you is why you were involved with Manning and these other guys in aiding and abetting what was going on at the Valesquez house. I don’t care what happened to Raul afterward, and I don’t care what happened to whoever else got hurt. All I want to know is why you helped.”
James’s mouth turned up slightly in a grin. “I don’t believe it. You really want me to talk to you about this? Incriminate myself?”
“You already have,” Danny said. “You admitted to us that Jensen is probably dead, as well as his partners, and that makes you some kind of accessory. I may not be the brightest man on the planet, Mr. Whitsett, but I know that if I tell the police, that’ll—"
James raised the gun and pointed it at Danny’s head. “You’re right. You aren’t the brightest man in the world, Danny. You think I’m going to tell you why I did what I did back then? I might as well kill you anyway if I tell you.”
“Then do it,” Danny said, not breaking his gaze from James.
“What the fuck are you doing?” Jerry yelled. Jerry’s body was a live wire; it seemed like it wanted to jump out of the chair of its own accord and strangle both of them.
James didn’t say anything for a moment. Danny held his ground, his eyes locked with James. There was a faint glimmer in James’s eyes, and then the older man hesitated. He lowered the gun slightly, his eyes blazing with rage. “Goddamn you,” he breathed.
“Tell me,” Danny said.
James took a deep breath. He seemed to be struggling with himself. He took another deep breath and raised the gun again, pointing it at Danny. “Don’t make me do this, Danny.”
“Tell me,” Danny said again. Inside, his soul was screaming. If you loved your son the way I know you did, you'll tell me.
The wait was excruciating. All total, James had Danny in his sights for less than a minute, but it felt like an hour. Finally, he lowered the gun again. The older man’s brow was dotted with sweat. “You want to know why,” he said softly, his voice a low rumble. “Let me tell you why. You think a man can get by in his retirement on a shitty pension and social security for very long? I didn’t come from an affluent background, Danny, and you know it. Neither did any of the men that participated in this little scheme. Chief Manning probably had the best pension of the six of us, but he wanted more for his kids and future grandkids. He had a son who came home from Vietnam a complete basket case, and a daughter who’d dumped her kids with him and his wife and took off for who the hell knows where. You think Manning had the means to support three grandchildren and a mentally disabled son? After all he’d done to save up for his retirement? And do you think he was going to abandon his grandkids when they needed him most? That was out of the question, and the answer was right in front of us the minute we got together one night at Barnelli’s for our bi-weekly get together.”
Danny and Jerry listened, spellbound as James confessed. “You know what went on at the Valesquez house. How Eva was drunk ninety percent of the time. Shit, she was drunk all the time. She was a fucking whore who sold herself out of her house when her kids
were at school. Then she started selling herself when the kids were at home, and the criminal activity that followed began to be noticed by the neighbors and the police. Social Services intervened a few times, but there was nothing they could do. Eva would sober up for ninety days or so, get a job, get on track, then slide back down again. It wasn’t before long that she was dealing drugs out of the house and encouraging the men that came to the house to engage in whatever illicit activity they were involved in, in the privacy of her own home. She didn’t give a shit. So long as she had enough booze to keep her fucked up, she didn’t care what went on. The only person in that house who had his head on straight was Robert, her older son, and by then he was staying away as much as possible. He stopped calling the police on his mom by the time he was thirteen because he knew nothing would ever happen. But he did try to keep his younger brothers away from their mother and her influence. He had some success with Rudy, but Raul...” James’s voice trailed off slightly. “...he was trouble from the beginning. A couple times Robert tried to forcefully take Raul out of the house and what ended up happening was a big fight.”
“That’s when Robert almost got arrested for kidnapping,” Danny said, remembering what Tom Jensen told him.
James nodded, still keeping the gun trained on them. “By spring, maybe early summer of ’76, the police had arrested Eva and other people that visited the house for everything from disorderly conduct to contributing to the delinquency of minors, to drug use and prostitution. I was working on the City Safety Committee then, and I wanted to keep our area safe for Bobby. You remember how much of a hardass I was with him being safe, don’t you, Danny?”
Danny nodded. It was true; James had been diligent in keeping track of Bobby and making sure he and Danny were safe.
“I wanted the Valesquez family gone,” James continued. He moved around the table, talking to both Jerry and Danny as he kept the gun trained on them. “I knew the police made arrests before at the Valesquez house, and I knew there had to be some frustration there. I didn’t know what to do. So I talked to Father Clavell at St. Mark’s about it one day, and when I did I was rather determined to do something about it. I told him that I was going to the Commissioner and the Chief of Police at the next meeting and that if they didn’t do anything about it, I was going to bring them up before the Los Angeles County Board of Commissioners. Father Clavell was adamant about backing me up, but little did I know at the time that he was a frequent customer of Eva Valesquez’s and had already made a deal. The minute I left my meeting with Father Clavell, he called Chief Manning.” He paused, eyeing them coldly. “When I got home there was a police car at my house. Chief Manning was waiting for me on my front porch. Susan and the kids were gone that afternoon at the mall. Chief Manning told me to come into the house. I’ll admit that when I saw him I was scared that something happened to my family, but then he told me Father Clavell just called him and that’s when I became petrified with fear.”
Danny listened, his attention riveted on James Whitsett’s story. Jerry sat at the other end of the table, his hands clenched into fists as he listened to James. “To make a long story short, Father Clavell and Chief Manning were already customers of Eva’s’ and they’d run into each other at the house and already had long discussions about what to do with the situation that was rapidly growing out of control. Father Clavell had managed to keep his relationship with Eva a secret from his congregation and was afraid of being exposed. Likewise, Manning was married and didn’t want his family to find out, but there was another reason he wanted to keep his affair with Eva secret. During the year or so he’d been fucking Eva, he was dismissing criminal allegations that had been brought up regarding the going-ons at the house and was, effectively, protecting her.”
Danny’s heart pounded as the pieces fell into place.
“Manning knew about my position on the city Commissioner’s office. He knew I could do something about the situation if I really wanted to. He also knew about...my relationship with your mother.” James was eyeing Danny now. “He knew about my family, and he knew that if Susan ever found out about your mother and me, my life would be ruined. It was the most idle of threats I’d ever received and I knew right then and there that I would have to do anything to keep that secret buried, so I told him that I wouldn’t carry out my threats. That was when he smiled in that ever so charming way of his and told me about a meeting they were having at Bonnelli’s that evening to discuss the very situation that had me so riled up and that I was invited. I detected it wasn’t so much an invite as an order to attend, that if I didn’t show up Susan would get a phone call.” He cocked an eyebrow at Danny. “Do you understand?”
Danny nodded. “Yeah.” His memory flashed back to this period of time instantly. He remembered it vividly; he and Bobby were constant companions and he remembered James dropping by the house every few days to talk to his mom while he and Bobby played outside or rode skateboards. This was all dove-tailing perfectly.
“That evening we had a private room at Bonelli’s,” James continued, strolling by the window to peak out quickly. “Myself, Father Clavell, Chief Manning, Micah Brooks, Alex Dunning, who was the mayor of Gardena at the time, and Harold Oblowski and Billy Dennison, who worked for the city. All of them were in some way involved with Eva Valesquez, mostly as customers. Dennison had a cocaine problem back then and was buying from one of Eva’s customers. Miles also bought drugs from a friend of Eva’s; the other guys were either fucking her or one of her friends, a woman around her age named Mary Alexander. You might not remember seeing her, but she was a looker. Long dark hair, great body, great tits.”
“She had long wavy hair?” Jerry asked. “Always wore those skintight jeans?”
“That was her,” James said. He turned to Danny. “It wasn’t just Eva selling herself out of her house. She also let a few of her friends use the place to ply their trades from it as well. That was the topic of discussion that night, as well as the subject of Manning being saddled with caring for his son and young grandchildren so close to retirement. He was a young man—in his late forties—and he’d been in law enforcement since he was eighteen. He’d built up a nice pension for himself and his wife, and now it was going to be blown to hell because of this recent change in his life. And that’s when he started getting the idea of doing what we eventually did. The only reason I was brought in was to avoid destroying any hopes he had of making this into something.”
“Why didn’t he just kill you at your house?” Jerry asked, still looking nervous and twitchy.
“I don’t know.” James looked out the window again. “I don’t know what to think about that. He could have but he didn’t. That’s all that matters now.”
There was silence for a while. Danny digested this bit of information, trying to think of a way to divert James’s attention from the gun in his hand.
James continued. “When Manning proposed the plan, everybody that night volunteered to do their part in protecting the operation. And the more it was discussed, the more I saw a way to pad my own savings for retirement. It wasn’t going to be enough to stay in just so Manning would keep his mouth shut to Susan. If I was going to be involved, I wanted something out of it, too. Because my mid-mornings were relatively free during that time, I volunteered to be at the house during those hours to make sure things operated efficiently. Manning accepted this and everybody else volunteered other duties and time slots. Then—"
“So what did you do?” Danny asked, beginning to get a little confused. “I mean, I know you protected Eva from getting busted and stuff, but...” He gestured vaguely, not sure what he was asking, just knowing that he didn’t understand the full implications of what James was insinuating.
James leaned forward over the table, still keeping the weapon on Danny and Jerry. “I’ll spell a scenario out for you. Let’s take a typical day at the Valesquez house. Eva was usually asleep between six a.m. and ten. During that time, somebody was at the house to make sure the kids got the
hell out and off to school, then a couple of Eva’s friends were whisked in to do business in one of the bedrooms. Being that Micah and his boss were with the local police force, they monitored all the police logs that were called in regarding the activity of the house and called the shots regarding what got investigated and what didn’t. Simple public drunkenness or suspected drug dealing activity merited a car cruising by the house. When one of us saw that, we just made sure whatever was going on inside was done a little more discreetly. If the car actually pulled up to the house, we knew the shit had hit the fan, and if that was the case it was usually either Micah or Manning coming to warn us. As to the rest of the day, as each of us took our shifts we would work at various things. I might get on the phone with a list of contacts Father Clavell had given me and call people who needed drugs, guys who were looking for a fix, maybe a piece of pussy. I’d arrange the dates and prices and made sure the deed was done quickly. We all did.”
“And you skimmed off the top,” Jerry said.
“Of course, we did,” James Whitsett said, eyeing Jerry coldly. “That was the whole point. If you knew how much money flowed through that house, you would understand better.”
“What kind of money are we talking about?” Jerry asked.
“Anywhere from a few thousand dollars a day, to up to twenty-five grand a day,” James said.
Danny was astonished at the figures. “That was all from...from drug sales and prostitution?”
“It was for anything,” James said. “If you wanted to conduct any kind of business at Eva’s house, you paid a fee. The bigger the tricks Eva and her friends pulled, the higher the commission they paid to us. Same with the drugs. As for the risky stuff, the price went up.”
“What about the stuff that happened to Raul and Bartell and Louie,” Danny said, feeling his stomach throb with pain again. “Jensen said that you allowed child molesters to abuse them. How could you do this? I mean...how could you do this knowing—"
“How could I do this when I had a son of my own?” James Whitsett leaned toward them, his face cold, uncaring. “Simple. Raul and his friends were already lost causes. What happened to them didn’t matter. And the perverts that wanted them were willing to pay a lot of money for a chance to have them.”
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