“You got a pencil to write this stuff down?” Ray asked him.
Ray gave him a list of items, most of which he was reading directly from one of his
first aid manuals. He had to speak slowly and spell a lot of the words for Jimmy,
which infuriated him. The list included Vicodin, Betadine, prescription-strength antibiotics,
prescription-strength antibiotic ointment, hydrogen peroxide, and gauze.
“This must be a serious case of VD you got, Ray,” Chavez commented when he finished
reciting his shopping list. “Five rolls of gauze? What you gonna do? Wrap up your
dick like the mummy?”
“Just bring it,” Ray said. He told Chavez where he wanted the stuff delivered. “Get
here within the hour and there’s an extra fifty in it for you.”
“I’m almost there,” Chavez said, hanging up.
Ray staggered to the couch and collapsed. His head was swimming and he thought for
a moment he was going to throw up. Above him, the model aircraft suspended from the
ceiling swooped and dived.
He’d made too many mistakes. Despite his planning and his best efforts at making his
father proud, Ray knew he’d fucked everything up. Leaving his gear back in Napa was
the final straw; that mistake that would unravel everything. Game over.
As he waited for Chavez to deliver the medicine, he thought about his father and how
much he missed him. The aching he felt for his lost childhood rivaled the shrieking
pain in his body. How he wished he was back in those days, the days before he became
Ray Cowell.
Before the summer of 1964.
CHAPTER 45
The apartment door opened before Farrell knocked. Standing before him in the doorway
was a giant.
“You Farrell?”
“I am.”
“Come on in,” the giant motioned, stepping aside. “The Judge said you’d be coming
over.”
Farrell entered an apartment with no sign a woman had ever graced it. The walls were
adorned with sports posters and pictures of cars. Beer cans, dirty dishes, and soiled
laundry lay scattered over worn furniture. A Sam Browne gun belt, complete with a
revolver, lay on the coffee table in the middle of the room. There were also a pair
of boots and a tin of polish next to the gun. The air was thick with cigar smoke.
“I’m Charlie White,” the giant said in his booming voice. He was clad in a Hawaiian
shirt with a multicolored stain on the front, and had a day’s gray stubble on his
chin. A cigar smoldered in one corner of his mouth like it had been pounded in with
a sledgehammer. He looked to be somewhere in the range of fifteen years older than
Farrell, close to the Judge’s age. White stuck out a paw that completely encircled
Farrell’s hand when he shook it. He pointed to a chair at the kitchen table.
“You want a drink?” he asked Farrell.
“Always,” came the reply. “What do you have?”
“Name it,” White commanded.
“Bourbon over ice, if you please.”
“You work for Judge Callen?” he began, pulling a bottle of Wild Turkey from a cupboard.
“I do. I’m a private investigator. Judge Callen hired me to find the man who’s stalking
his daughter.”
“Callen’s a good man,” White said. “The best. Old school. Known him forever. Work
with his daughter Paige at the courthouse.” His brow furrowed. “You were a cop, weren’t
you?”
“Almost thirty years at SFPD,” Farrell told him.
“What are you going to do if you find this creep?” White asked. “Arrest him?”
“Not likely.” White seemed satisfied with the answer.
“You mind if I smoke?”
“Knock yourself out,” White told him.
Farrell lit an unfiltered Camel with his battered Zippo and exhaled a long stream
of smoke.
“What can I do to help?” He poured two triple shots over ice and sat down at the table
opposite Farrell.
Farrell raised his glass; White did the same. “Does the name Arnold R. Pascoe mean
anything to you, Deputy White?”
White let bourbon roll around his mouth a moment before answering. “It does,” he finally
said. “Real nasty blast from the past.”
“Tell me about it.”
CHAPTER 46
The summer of 1964 would always remain etched in Ray’s memory. The images of that
fateful season faded little with the passage of time.
Ray was eight years old, and it was the summer his mother began working at the gift
shop on Park Street to bring in extra money. It was the summer before he became Raymond
Cowell.
It was the summer of Sissy Levine.
That summer, Ray’s dad began working longer hours at the naval supply depot. He also
began to spend more evenings away from home with his co-workers. Though he always
found time to toss the baseball with Ray or thrill him with exciting stories of fighting
the communists in Korea, he was drinking more, and not just his customary Budweiser
after work. On more than one occasion, Ray would go into the garage and find his father,
bleary-eyed and slack-jawed, with an empty bottle at his feet.
He remembered those episodes very well, because it was during such times his father
would yell at his mother. Sometimes he would even hit her. Ray would hide in his room
and cover his ears. Eventually, his mother would come in and convince him that everything
was all right. By then, his father was usually gone and might not be home again for
several days.
When he returned, his dad was his old chipper self and would bring small presents
for Ray and his mom. Once he brought Ray an authentic San Francisco Giants baseball
cap.
That summer was also when Ray’s mom began hiring Sissy to babysit him on the nights
she worked late at the gift shop. At first, Ray was insulted that at eight years old,
his mother thought he still needed a babysitter. But Sissy, who was fifteen years
old, let him stay up past his bedtime to watch The Twilight Zone.
Sissy’s real name was Cecelia Levine, and her family lived down the block on Pacific
Avenue. Sissy had long, dark hair and had to wear a retainer on her teeth at night,
which looked like a horse’s bridle to Ray. Sometimes after she put him to bed, she
would take one of his dad’s Chesterfields and smoke it in the backyard after she thought
Ray was asleep.
Ray would sit up in bed and peer at Sissy through his window. She would lounge in
the backyard, and he would watch her silhouette outlined against the white garage
wall as she puffed away on his father’s cigarette. Sometimes, one of the neighborhood
boys would come over and the two of them would go into the garage.
When this occurred, Ray would creep in his pajamas out the back door to the far side
of the garage. By climbing on the garbage cans stationed there, he could look in through
the window above his father’s workbench. Through a kaleidoscope of Stanley handcrafted
tools, he could spy on Sissy and her visitor in the semidarkness of the garage’s interior.
Ray watched as the boy kissed Sissy and put his hand under her shirt. She would moan
and rub against him. The first time Ray witnessed this, he was shocked to learn she
wasn’t even wearing her retainer. He stared, fascinated, as they kissed with their
tongues and the boy rubbed Sissy’s chest.
For some reason, Ray would get short of breath while observing Sissy and her friend
and start to feel warm and tingly all over. He knew Sissy’s chest wasn’t big like
his mother’s, but the boy didn’t seem to mind. Every so often, the boy would try to
touch Sissy between her legs, but she would push his hand away, even though it appeared
she didn’t want him to stop. It was very confusing.
The garage meetings between Sissy and her visitor usually ended with her announcing
that Ray’s parents would be home soon. Not only was that her guest’s cue to exit but
Ray’s as well. When hearing those familiar words from Sissy, he would quietly climb
down from the garbage cans and resume his place in bed.
One hot July night, however, the routine changed dramatically. Ray was, as usual,
perched atop the garbage cans and peeking intently through the garage window. This
was the tenth or eleventh time he’d observed Sissy in the garage, and for some reason
unknown to him, he never found it boring, even though she and her visitor always did
the same thing. He found when watching his babysitter, he experienced tightness between
his own legs and a pounding in his chest not entirely caused by his fear of getting
caught.
This particular night, Sissy seemed more daring. Not only did she let the boy rub
under her shirt, but she took it off! Ray gasped through the steamed-up window, riveted
by what he saw. She was wearing a bra, but not like his mom’s, which he sometimes
saw when she left the bathroom in a hurry. Sissy’s bra showed more of her skin. A
lot more.
As the boy began to rub Sissy’s chest, she shrugged her shoulders and the bra slipped
off. Sissy was half naked!
Ray’s legs started trembling; the tightness between them had reached a fever pitch.
Suddenly, Ray was flat on his back, the crash of the garbage cans exploding in his
ears.
Before Ray could get to his feet, the boy who only seconds before had been rubbing
Sissy’s bare chest was holding him by the scruff of his pajamas, a fist poised over
his face like a dragon.
Just as Ray thought he was about to die at the hands of Sissy’s visitor, Sissy herself
came running out of the garage. Her shirt was now on but her bra was sticking partially
out of one hip pocket.
Sissy yelled at the boy, whom she called Teddy, and tugged at this arm. After a moment,
he released Ray, calling him “a little pervert”. He stormed off.
Once Teddy left, Sissy seemed strangely calm. Ray expected her to yell at him and
threaten to tell his parents. Instead, she helped him to his feet and put him to bed.
Still shaking from his ordeal, Ray lay in bed with the covers up to his chin as Sissy
brought him a glass of milk. In hushed tones, she told him she supposed he’d been
watching her for a long time. He nodded. Sipping his milk, Ray noticed how pretty
Sissy was, maybe even as pretty as his mother, even though her chest was smaller.
Sissy explained that what he’d seen wasn’t bad, but if his parents found out she’d
been in the garage with a boy, she’d get into trouble and wouldn’t be allowed to babysit
him anymore. And then he wouldn’t get to watch Rick Jason and Vic Morrow in Combat!
or go beyond the boundaries of imagination in The Twilight Zone. She told Ray if he
promised to keep what he saw a secret, she would buy him a new baseball glove with
some of her babysitting money at the end of the summer.
Ray finished his milk and promised not to tell a soul. His heart burst with pride
that someone as mature as a fifteen year-old would entrust him with so important a
secret. Sissy kissed him on the forehead and left.
The events of that July evening seemed spectacular to Ray until an occurrence less
than a week later made them seem inconsequential by comparison.
As usual, his father was out with his co-workers. His mother was working the late
shift at the shop. Sissy was babysitting and had just put him to bed. Moments later,
from his open window, he again heard Sissy greeting her backyard visitor. Ray resisted
the impulse to spy on her, because the memory of his last disastrous jaunt was still
fresh in his mind.
Ray tried to sleep. He wondered if Sissy would take her bra off again, or if the last
time was a special occasion. As his eight year-old brain pondered the status of Sissy’s
brassiere, a terrible sound reached his ears. Footsteps, heavy and slow. His father!
Ray heard the garage door swing open and the sound of his dad’s indignant voice. His
angry words spilled through his open window.
“…out of here, you little bastard. I catch you on my property again, I’ll kick your
ass up to your eyebrows. Beat it.” The sounds of lighter, faster footsteps echoed
and faded. Then Ray heard the garage door close.
Ray couldn’t resist. The drama about to unfold in the garage was too exciting to miss.
Would his father yell at Sissy? Spank her? Forbid her from babysitting him any longer?
Like a cat, Ray was out the back door and on his garbage-can perch, shivering with
anticipation. But when his eyes crept over the rim of the window, what he saw puzzled
him.
Sissy was seated on the garage floor where Ray had seen her many times in the past.
She was covering her bare chest with her sweater and crying. His father stood over
her, looking down. He had a nearly empty pint of bourbon in his hand and an expression
on his face Ray had never seen before.
Ray could hear what he was saying, even though his speech was fuzzy.
“…a slut. That’s what you are. A whore. A goddamned whore. Am I paying you fifty cents
an hour to fuck boys in my garage? Is that what I’m paying you for?”
His father was using words Ray didn’t understand. Sissy cried harder.
Suddenly, his father reached out and snatched the sweater away from her. She stopped
crying, and a shocked look adorned her face.
“What’s wrong, slut? Can’t I see your tits? You’ll let some punk kid paw at your boobs
but won’t let a real man take a look?”
Ray watched in a combination of fascination and horror as his father unfastened his
trousers and took out his thing. Sissy started to scoot away, but his dad followed
her and cornered her against his workbench.
Ray was hypnotized, his heart pounding as never before. His father’s thing was standing
up as if it had a will of its own.
Sissy started to scream, but before any sound left her lips, his father smothered
her mouth with her own sweater. He dropped his bottle and it shattered. He pinned
Sissy, who was struggling terrifically, against the bench. With one hand still covering
her mouth, he forced his other hand under her skirt and pulled off her underpants.