Danny tried not to look at Tom, but he could feel the detective’s gaze weighing heavily on him. He glanced quickly at Jerry, whose face had turned ashen.
“I can convince Hank that James Whitsett was Raul’s killer,” Tom stated. “I can explain the discrepancy regarding the shoe prints. No problem. But I need a reason to do it. I want to be able to do it.” He paused and Danny snuck a quick glance up at Tom, who was regarding them calmly. “You two were there that day. I know it, but I need to hear it from you. What you tell me doesn’t have to leave this room,” he said, his voice lowered. “I swear to God it doesn’t have to leave this room. I just want to hear the truth.”
“How will you know what we tell you is the truth?” Jerry said. He looked up from staring at the floor, his expression of dread still etched across his face and he was regarding Tom warily, his features drawn with worry. “Danny’s told you all this shit that happened back then and you still think he’s holding out on something...what makes you think if we tell you more you won"t still think we’re hiding something?”
“Because I’ll know it in my gut,” Tom said. “It’s my instinct.” He allowed a pensive smile to crack his features. “I’m a cop.”
They were silent for a moment.
Danny’s gut churned and he closed his eyes, feeling sick.
He just wanted it to be over.
“I give you my word that what you tell me doesn’t leave this room,” Tom said again, his voice encouraging, soothing, not an ounce of judgment in its inflection. “It stays between us.”
“Shit,” Jerry said, covering his face with his hands, his long hair spilling out over them.
“It’s over,” Danny said, looking at Jerry. He wanted everything to be done. He wanted to end the nervousness, the fear that was pummeling his heart. “I’m sorry, man, but...it’s over.”
“Fuck,” Jerry moaned. “Fuck, fuck, fuck!”
“Trust me, guys, please,” Tom said. His blue eyes were open, displaying the honesty behind his words. Danny felt that honesty radiating out of him in waves. He wanted to trust his old friend and he believed he could. He sighed, looked at Jerry, then told him the rest of it.
AUGUST 27, 1977, 4:15 pm
IT HAD BEEN a normal enough Wednesday afternoon; Mom was working, Trish was at Anna’s playing, and Danny was collecting money for his paper route.
He managed to keep the route after Bobby’s death despite the feeling of dread he got every time he rode his bike past the Valesquez house. He’d missed one week of his normal run after the incident, entrusting it to a substitute delivery boy, but resumed it after Bobby’s funeral because he couldn’t quit. The fifty dollars a month he got from the route was the only money he received, and it went a long way towards helping him and Trish while Mom was working.
He and Jerry had done exactly what Raul Valesquez told them to do. They’d lied through their teeth to the police when they were questioned. They told the police that Bobby skated too far to the edge of the drainage ditch and fallen over. The police wrote the accident off quickly, but Bobby’s parents hadn’t been so quick to dismiss it. Bobby’s dad came to the house several times while Mom was home and drew Danny aside and asked him, his voice pleading, to please tell him what really happened that day. And Danny, still afraid of what Raul might do to his mother and sister, told Bobby’s dad the same thing he’d told the police. By then it had gotten easy. He’d told the story to the police so many times, and had repeated it to himself so often, he was able to say it with a semblance of truth. They believed him.
Only once did Danny visit Jerry Valdez. It was over a week after Bobby’s funeral, and Danny went to the older boy’s house on a whim to see if he was home. Jerry was at home watching HBO, both parents at work, his younger sister at the mall with her friends. Jerry was nervous. “I haven’t said anything and I’m not going to,” he’d said that day. “And I don’t plan on it either.”
They talked a lot that afternoon, and Jerry told Danny about what went on at the Valesquez house; the drug dealing, the prostitution. “The cops are there a lot and I think it’s only a matter of time before Eva’s busted and they take her kids away,” Jerry said, drinking a Coke at the kitchen table. Danny sat across from him, the afternoon sun sending shades of brilliant light through the Venetian blinds. “That shit can’t go on forever. I don’t have to go by the house at all if I’m walking home or something. I can always go around the block, down Manhattan to Van Ness or something. I suggest you do the same.”
That hadn’t been so easy for Danny. He had three customers on his route who lived on the street the Valesquez house was on, and every time he rode by the house to deliver the papers it was with a feeling of dread. He’d gotten into the habit of delivering his papers earlier than usual, and he had no idea what he was going to do when school started. Collecting the monthly seventy-five cent fee...that was a different story. If he could skate over to those homes quickly and do his business and never have to go near that section of his route for the rest of the month, that was fine. But next month he’d have to repeat the process and the only time he could collect during weekdays was after school when Raul would surely be home. Of course, there was always Saturday mornings during his route. He could always stop by those three homes early in the day and—
He was thinking these thoughts as he cautiously made his way past the Valesquez home, staying to the other side of the street as he did so. The front door was shut, the shades drawn. Rudy’s bike lay in the front yard on its side. Two cars were parked in the driveway and three other vehicles were parked at the curb in front of the house. Eva’s customers, probably. Danny skated past them and made it to the first house he intended to collect from and knocked on the door.
He got through the collection process with those three customers quickly, and he felt a brief sense of elation as he skated down the driveway of the last one, glad it was over with. He was on the Valesquez side of the street now, but he wasn’t too concerned. He was traveling fast enough that he could skate right by. He’d done it dozens of times, even when Raul was around, and never had a problem. Maybe he was letting all this get to him; maybe Raul wasn’t going to follow through with his threats now that he’d seen the police had written off Bobby’s death as an accident. Surely Raul would realize he and Jerry hadn’t squealed. That—
Everything happened so fast.
He skated by the Valesquez house just as the front door opened and Raul burst out, his features dark with pain and rage—
—the glimpse of a vehicle heading toward him from behind, slowing down as it drew closer—
—a brief glimpse of Raul as he skated past and looked away, ignoring him.
—Raul’s voice, brimming with blood lust. “Hernandez!”
Danny slowed down by instinct and his heart stopped in his chest at the sight of Raul running toward him, his face a mask of hate and rage.
Danny pushed off on his skateboard.
The vehicle was closer now, pulling up to the curb.
Raul was too fast; he was gaining on him. “You motherfucker, I’m gonna kill you!”
Another voice calling to him. “Danny!”
Danny saw the vehicle now; a red VW bus, the passenger side window rolled down. Jerry was at the wheel, his features quickly turning into a look of panic as Raul bore down on Danny.
Danny leaped toward the vehicle, quickly scooping up his skateboard.
The flesh along the back of his neck goosefleshed as Raul’s fist parted the air an inch away from his back as he let loose with a vicious swing. “Gonna kick your fucking ass, you motherfucker!”
With one swift motion, Danny got the side door of the VW bus open and dove inside.
Raul Valesquez, hot on his tail, dived in after him.
The bus peeled away from the curb, the side door swinging open.
“Motherfucker!” Raul screamed, his fists flailing.
Danny instinctively brought his skateboard up to ward off the blows. He was barely aware of J
erry yelling from the driver’s seat as he drove away. He was barely aware of the open door, of the speed of the car as it drove through the neighborhood. All he was aware of was Raul Valesquez bearing down on him in the rear of the van, trying to swing his fists at him. The brief glimpse he got of the younger boy stunned him.
Raul’s eyes were empty, devoid of emotion. It was almost like looking at a doll, one under control by some marionette.
Danny was clutching the skateboard in his hands, keeping it between himself and Raul. He dodged the blows Raul rained down on his head, flailing and kicking to get the boy off. His right foot managed to push Raul away, giving him a split second to re-maneuver the skateboard, clutching it the way he would thrust a spear. Raul crashed toward him, his eyes mad with mayhem, his lust to pummel and maim so strong that he didn’t even see the nose of the skateboard as Danny sent it crashing into his face.
The blow knocked Raul back into the rear seat, almost sending him falling out of the moving van. Danny yelled in fright, his heart racing. Jerry was yelling something incoherently. Danny only caught a brief snatch of it as Raul rose up and prepared to charge Danny again. “Hit him! Hit him, knock him out, Danny!”
Danny was barely aware Jerry had pulled the vehicle to the curb as Raul charged him again. This time Danny was ready for him. He swung the skateboard the way a baseball player would hit a home run. The deck of the skateboard made a resounding crack as it hit Raul in the forehead. The force of the blow knocked him back down into the seat, his head resting at the end of the seat, near the open door.
Danny’s heart was beating so fast he could hardly contain the mad sense of urgency racing through him. He stared at Raul, skateboard gripped in his hands, hoping he hadn’t killed him.
“Close the door!” Jerry yelled. The older boy was turned around facing the back, right arm gripping the front passenger seat. His face was pale, his brow sweaty. “Close the fucking door, now!”
“But—" Danny sputtered.
“He’s knocked out,” Jerry said quickly. “Close the door and just shut the fuck up and watch over him!”
Danny quickly scrambled over the unconscious younger boy and pulled the side door shut. He was on his side of the back seat in less than a second, not wanting to come in bodily contact with Raul. Jerry swung back out into the street and approached Manhattan Beach Boulevard.
“Where are we going?” Danny asked, looking at Raul as he tried to make out if he were alive or not.
“We gotta get the fuck out of here,” Jerry muttered. He made a right and headed toward Van Ness.
“Why don’t we just dump him off at his house,” Danny said, his mind racing. “We can just—"
“We’re not letting him go.”
Danny glanced at Jerry quickly. The older boy looked scared; he gripped the steering wheel so tightly his knuckles were white. Despite the fear that was evident in his shaky voice, there was a sense of grim determination behind it. “We’re not letting him go. Uh uh, no way, no fucking how!”
“But...we can’t just...kidnap him!” Danny exclaimed. He glanced quickly at Raul’s prone form and noticed he was breathing. His nose was bloody and there was a good-sized gash on his forehead that was bleeding badly, staining the back seat of the vehicle. There was also a splotch of blood along the seat of Raul’s dirty blue jeans; Danny could make out a faint trace of it the way the boy’s legs were splayed. Raul’s long, dirty brown hair was grimy, his t-shirt and sneakers caked in filth. For the first time Danny noticed a strange stench coming from the boy. It smelled like a mixture of dirt, shit, and something else...something musky.
“Let’s just dump him at his house,” Danny said again, the fear overtaking him again. He scrunched himself up against the side of the VW, hugging the skateboard to his chest, trying to put as much distance between himself and Raul. “Nobody will know what happened.”
“Nobody will know what happened because nobody saw shit,” Jerry said as they approached the intersection. He made a right on Van Ness and now they were heading toward Redondo Beach Boulevard. A right hand turn would take them back to the neighborhood. “It’s Wednesday, everybody’s still at work and there was nobody at Raul’s house when he came out. I was watching that house for over an hour and there was nobody around. Nobody saw what happened, nobody—"
A slow chill wormed its way through Danny’s spine. “What are you talking about?”
If Jerry heard him he didn’t address Danny directly. He was concentrating on his driving and talking to himself, as if he were trying to convince himself what he was doing was right and just. “Nobody saw what happened and nobody’s gonna give a shit. That little fucker is a goddamn pervert, psychotic motherfucker. Cops aren’t going to do anything if I call them. People’ve called the cops on him God knows how many times and nobody did shit. What the fuck are we supposed to do?” Jerry was clearly upset. His hands shook as he took a deep breath and made a right down Redondo Beach Boulevard, heading back toward the neighborhood.
Danny remained silent as they drove, wishing Jerry would pull in to their cul-de-sac as they approached it, but he didn’t. Instead, he drove on past. Danny noted that the street was still deserted; no kids were playing, nobody was hanging out in their front yards, no cars were moving down the street. He caught a fleeting glimpse of the Valesquez house. The front door was still shut, the shades drawn, Rudy’s bike still lay in the front yard and the same cars were parked in the driveway and along the curb.
“See?”
Danny turned toward Jerry, who was paying close attention to his driving.
“Nobody saw,” Jerry said. “There’s nobody there. For all anybody knows, Raul took off somewhere.”
“Jerry?” Danny began.
Jerry wasn’t paying attention. He sped past Crenshaw Boulevard, past El Camino College, heading for Prairie Avenue. “Fucking little psycho was standing outside my sister’s bedroom, peering into her window and jacking off!”
“What?” Images of Raul peering into his own window over a month ago in the early hours of the morning stabbed into him. I see you when you sleep, Raul told him that night, his voice an evil purr as Danny listened on the other side of the front door. I watch you through the windows when you’re all asleep...like I did to that family in Torrance...then I—
“My sister told me about it one morning,” Jerry said, his eyes darting to the rearview mirror to meet Danny’s gaze. “She said she heard something outside her window one night and when she looked out she saw Raul out there, hiding under her window. He ran off and it freaked her out. I remember what you said he told you that day, and I told her to sleep in my room the next night.” He licked his lips, his hands trembling on the steering wheel. “She went to sleep in my room that night. I told her I’d sleep in her room because I wanted to see for myself what the fuck was going on. I stayed up, watched Saturday Night Live and Don Kirshner’s Rock Concert, then I went to her room and lay down in her bed. I heard him before I saw him, and I slipped out of bed and crawled on the floor and out of the bedroom into the hall and darted to the bathroom.” He paused, his breathing heavy. “I waited till he was under her window, then I crept to the bathroom and peered out the window. I got a good look at what he was doing and I swear to God, man, that little fuck was yanking his crank outside her bedroom window!”
“Jesus,” Danny said, feeling sick.
“You know what would happen if I called the cops and told them what I saw, right?”
Danny nodded. “They wouldn’t believe you.”
“Damn right.”
“You think—” Danny began.
“That Raul killed those kids and that family?” Jerry finished. “Fuck yeah, I do. I saw him kill Bobby; you’re goddamn right I think he killed those kids and that family.”
“Then we have to go to the police!” Danny said, his voice breaking. He could feel himself panicking now.
“And tell them what?” Jerry said, his eyes meeting Danny’s in the rearview mirror. “That we kicked hi
s ass and then kidnapped him? That’s what they’re going to believe if we call them, Danny. I mean...look at this shit!”
“That’s why we need to go back and drop him off at his house!” Danny exclaimed.
Jerry shook his head, his hands gripping the steering wheel tighter. “We’re not doing that.”
“Then what are we going to do?”
Jerry looked grim. “I don’t know.”
They were silent for a moment as Jerry piloted the VW past the golf course on the right. When they reached Prairie Avenue, Jerry turned into an Auto Parts Store and quickly killed the engine. “My wetsuit is on the floor by your feet. Throw that over him. I’ll be right back.”
Danny felt his fear rise as Jerry exited the vehicle. “Wait! Where are you—"
Jerry stopped and leaned into the backseat. “Throw the wetsuit over him!” he ordered.
Danny quickly scooped up the wetsuit that was lying on the floor of the van and threw it over Raul’s unconscious form. He wanted to get out of the vehicle and away from Raul more than anything. “I won’t be longer than two minutes,” Jerry said. “I’m just gonna get some duct tape to tie him up with. If he wakes up, hit him again with the skateboard.”
“Duct tape? But—”
“Stay there!” Jerry commanded, and Danny saw that Jerry was just as scared as he was; he was just handling it differently. There was a sense of desperation in the older boy’s eyes, a desire to do something to stop Raul’s insanity before it spilled over and touched them more personally. “I swear to God, Danny, we’re going to take care of this. We just...we just need to get Raul out of here and away from...this fucking shithole, okay? Just...trust me, okay?”
“We’re not going to...hurt him are we?”
“No,” Jerry said quickly and Danny believed him. He stepped away from the car. “We just need him tied up so he won’t try anything and...then we’re going to get him somewhere and talk to him. Maybe if we...convince him to...I don’t know...turn himself in or something he’ll...”
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