The Guardian

would never have gotten the punishments that he did. His mother always ignored the things their old man did to them. Perhaps it was her own safety she was concerned with or just plain fear of the old man. She did nothing. It didn’t matter; she could be lying right next to them in bed while the old man had his way with the boy and she said nothing. Again, his father was not charged. When the police came out, he would tell them he had had a bit too much to drink and got carried away. They never knew the damage done. Before the cops left, they would tell the old man to “take it easy, lie of the hooch, and don’t make us come back out here.”
    It just made sense that Charles would turn out like his old man. The only difference was, he’d never been married, never had kids of his own and just had a thing for young boys.
    He had run away from home when he was 18 and never looked back. He hadn’t seen either of his brothers or Raymond since. He often wondered if they were dead or alive. He just figured that the old man replaced him with one of his brothers.
    After enlisting in the Army, he did a few tours overseas. He got out and he used his GI Bill to get an AA Degree in Business Management. While in the service, he developed a liking for what they called the Ladyboys while doing an R&R in Bangkok Thailand. These were young boys that you couldn’t tell from a girl if you tried. The difference was they looked like pretty, young girls but had the equipment of a male. They had no body hair and Charles had grown fond of that. It was a sort of disguise for him. He thought that no one would know that he liked the boys.
    After his discharge, he drifted around awhile doing odd jobs and what not. He worked his way west stopping in Las Vegas to see the sights. All the lights, the lack of morals, the easy way to get what ever you wanted, especially the string of gay bars and massage parlors, he had no trouble deciding that this was the place to be. He loved going to the Apollo over in Commercial Center on Sahara Ave. At the time, it was the only Gay bathhouse. Now there were two or more. It was where the gay men went for casual sex with other men.
    Charles had gone over to the VA clinic to be registered, got lucky, and landed the job at the VA. After he completed his probationary period, he was in. Once you’re in a permanent status with a government job it takes almost an act of Congress to get rid of you. He planned to stay here for a long, long time.

Chapter 11
    As Lieutenant Halloway read the report, he concluded that this sick twist, Charles Radcliff was probably just like his old man. Quite possibly, he had grabbed the wrong young boy. And whoever it was that had caught up with him was getting even for something.
    He knew it was wrong but he couldn’t help but feel the bastard had gotten what he deserved. Still, whoever had done this to him had broken the law and needed to be punished. Las Vegas had enough nut cases running the streets. A vigilante is the last thing they needed.
    When he was done, Griffin, still there waiting, said, “Pretty sick shit huh Lieutenant?”
    “How’d you come up with this much anyway, this is good work?”
    “Well, when we got the results from the prints back, we figured we’d run them through the system. Sure enough he had a record. After that I just took the Social, ran everything I could get my hands on and of course, the mental hospital came up and we followed up with the staff. The ones that were still there, and the ones who had left we had to track down. Basically other than specific counseling sessions, you know HIPPA shit, the rest was given as we asked.”
    Halloway wanted to know, “Any chance of contacting the mother, brothers or even the dad?”
    “We tried that. The whereabouts of the siblings is an unknown at this point. The mother died of unknown causes about ten years ago. The old man was killed in a drunken driving accident. He was on life support for about two to three weeks, suffered a lot I guess. He had a lot of internal damage.” She said sounding a little too pleased.
    “The bastard probably beat her to death and that far back; up in hillbilly heaven nobody asked any questions.”
    “Do you want us to track the siblings down or do you think we have enough?” Laura asked.
    “Well, see if you can locate them, just so we have a contact point. We won’t bother them unless this thing leads us directly to them. I think you’ve got enough here for now. We