The Last Undercover (42 page)

We made our last-minute preparations. The surveillance teams were in place, the technical equipment was in working order, and I was ready to go. I strapped on the recording equipment and headed to the airport, less than half a mile from the hotel.

The American Airlines flight out of Dallas–Fort Worth was scheduled to arrive at 11:10
AM.
When I pulled in front of the airport, my three friends from NAMBLA were eagerly awaiting. We greeted each other with hugs and drove back to the hotel.

It was clear I was not well, and all three examined my phlebitis-stricken arm. My hotel room provided the perfect venue for a relaxing afternoon. They were a somewhat captive audience; I needed to keep the compresses on my arm, their rooms weren’t “ready,” and the torrential rains persisted.

Once we settled in my room, a unique discussion took place, offering insights into not only the boy lover mentality but the child sex trade. Three relaxed sex offenders, believing they were safe from the inquiring minds of law enforcement, commenced a textbook look into the world of the sexual predator.

Since Paul had not been with us at Johnny Rockets restaurant in Coconut Grove, I was able to use that as my reason for having Todd and David repeat their travel experiences. There was no hesitation on the part of either man.

Todd was the first to share. Several years ago, he arranged a couple’s retreat for himself and his office staff in Jamaica. By the time the trip came around, he was going through his divorce, but chose to make the trip anyway. He flew alone in his airplane and met his staff and their spouses in Montego Bay.

One evening, Todd was at a local bar on the beach, having a beer and listening to music, when he saw “some people over on the beach, selling stuff.” He decided to investigate. He approached “this one old, black guy, who was probably in his sixties . . . [who] said, ‘What can I getcha—a man, a woman, a boy, a girl?’”

Paul, as shocked as I was, interjected, “He said that?”

“Actually, you know what? He didn’t. He said, ‘What do you want? Man? Woman?’ And I’m like, ‘Well, no, actually . . . that’s not what I want.’ I kind of beat around the bush. I was real uncomfortable, because I’d never done that before. And I finally said, ‘You know what, I want a boy.’”

The old man, whom Todd referred to as “the pimp,” said he could help and instructed Todd to follow him. It was late, “nine thirty, maybe ten o’clock,” and they took a cab to another bar. At this second bar, Todd gave the pimp seventy dollars and was told to wait. Todd did as instructed but questioned whether he would ever see the pimp or the money again. A short time later, to Todd’s surprise, the pimp did return, asking for more money. Todd reluctantly complied. The pimp escorted Todd to another cab, and in the backseat sat Charlie, an eleven-year-old boy. Todd told us he “wanted somebody like fifteen or sixteen, but this eleven-year-old looked pretty good.” Todd, Charlie, and the pimp then drove for a long time to what Todd described as a “really poor part of Jamaica.”

Paul interrupted again. “Aren’t you worried this guy is gonna rob you or something?”

Todd admitted he was afraid. He had about three hundred dollars in his wallet and knew that was a lot of money in Jamaica. They eventually arrived at “just a dump of a shack” and the pimp asked for more money. Todd had already paid $195 and refused to pay any more. They argued briefly and the pimp stormed off, leaving Todd and Charlie alone. At this point in the story, Todd mentioned that Charlie had a large open sore on the left side of his head, the result of a beating by the pimp. Todd, though a medical professional, didn’t offer to treat the wound or take the child for medical care. Instead, he offered this assessment: “Charlie’s a good-looking kid, except for this open place.”

Charlie took Todd into the house and suggested they could spend the night together in his bedroom. Todd said, “I walk in this room, and the bed, if you want to call it that, is just covered with stuff. . . . And it just looks really filthy, and just really scary. . . . There’s no way I’m gonna spend the night here.”

Charlie added to the suspense by informing Todd that the pimp killed people. Charlie even wanted to show Todd a skull that was buried in the back, just to reinforce how dangerous the pimp was. As this discussion took place, a car returned with, according to Charlie, the pimp’s girlfriend, who Todd believed was looking for him, perhaps to collect more money on orders from the pimp. Todd was terrified, fearful both he and Charlie might be killed. Todd began to panic and looked for a place to hide. When the opportunity arose, he and Charlie ran toward the highway. They found a cab and headed back toward the resort.

As Todd described it, “It just kept going downhill from there.” Todd and Charlie returned to the hotel where the couple’s retreat was being hosted, but the retreat’s policy barred children, and the security guard denied them entrance to the complex.

Despite all Todd had been through that evening, he renegotiated with Charlie. “So I’ve negotiated with this kid, I’ll pay him sixty-five dollars if we can make one last ditch effort to hook up somewhere, somehow. So, basically, long story short, over here in front of some bushes on the highway I talked him into letting me touch him through his shorts for like three seconds, once . . . and that’s the end of it. I didn’t die.”

Paul seemed shocked by Todd’s admissions. I believed Paul when he said, “The youngest [I ever had sex with] is seventeen. . . . I’ve never done anything really young like this.” Paul turned to David. “How about you? Tell some stories.”

Before David could begin, Todd added, “I have [had sex], one other time, very, very briefly with a thirteen-year-old. And then again when he was fifteen, but extremely rushed . . . no long-duration stuff like this trip. I’m fantasizing about this coming four days.”

Next up for true confessions was David.

43

PREDATORS TELL ALL

D
avid Mayer proceeded to educate all of us on his sexual travels, burying himself with his words. “Been to Thailand four times, and Mexico numerous times, more than I can count. . . . Acapulco was hit and miss . . . until I hooked up with Frank [the cook at the bed and breakfast], then it became much more consistent in ‘Rockapulco.’ There’s a gay beach that’s infamous for having boys. [Unless the local police department has just conducted a sweep] the boys will be there. And even if they have done a sweep, then the boys will be back, but you just never know in what period of time that they’ll come back.”

Todd, our ingénue, was confused by David’s continual referral to Acapulco as “Rockapulco”: “I’m curious, why do you keep calling it ‘Rockapulco’?”

David looked at him in disbelief. “
The Flintstones.
They went down to Rockapulco.” Todd had never watched
The Flintstones
but admitted to being a big fan of SpongeBob.

When Todd asked me about my experiences, I said I had never traveled outside the United States but had experiences with four boys, eleven being the youngest—but only fondling. David said, “So, you never consummated the marriage?” I hesitated, and David smiled, saying, “Oh, a little blush there . . . a little color in the cheeks.” What he interpreted as a maidenly blush on my part was actually the rise in my blood pressure as I suppressed the urge to end the investigation right there by throwing him out the window.
Another twenty-four hours,
I kept telling myself.
Just keep it together another twenty-four hours.

Todd wouldn’t let it go, though; he kept inquiring about my relationships. I said that all were developed over a period of time through long-term friendships with the boys. I figured sticking to the time-honored NAMBLA mantra of “building loving relationships” would be safe.

David took just the opposite tack, and seemed proud of it. His relationships, he said, were purely sexual: “Mine were always sexual . . . a very transient relationship . . . it’s purely sex.”

David did cite one boy whom he saw on multiple occasions over several years. Frank, the cook at the B and B, also had sex with the boy, so as a favor to both Frank and the boy, David once brought a PlayStation, “because Frank liked him and I liked him, so we kind of both were tag-teaming.”

Then David talked more about his trips to Thailand: “The bars that I was in, where the boys were, there was literally, like, a show. They just kind of paraded by. . . . The youngest I saw was five. The average was, probably, ten . . . to thirteen.”

David described most of the customers in the boy bars as Germans and Americans. He denied having sex with the five-year-old because the child “didn’t do anything for me, but I can’t be . . . a hypocrite and say, you know, ‘Don’t do that.’ But as I told Todd, the five-year-old, literally you needed a stick. . . . I mean, there were, like, twenty people trying to get to him, but [the boy] didn’t do anything for me.”

David said, “There were rooms, either upstairs or somewhere relatively close, and a hell of a lot safer than Jamaica, mon. . . . I never felt threatened in Thailand.”

Not to be left out of the discussion, Paul also wanted to share. He joined Big Brothers and was matched up with a twelve-year-old boy. The boy’s mother was divorced but dating. She viewed Paul as a convenient babysitter and Paul certainly didn’t mind. Paul had a variety of toys that interested the boy, including his four-wheel-drive truck and a five-foot-long remote-control boat. Paul said he and the boy “went . . . all over the place. . . . The mother never suspected anything.”

He and the boy went camping together and would sleep in the same bed. He denied ever doing anything illegal with the boy but admitted to holding and hugging him. Paul admitted it could have led somewhere had the relationship continued. He said it was “moving in that direction little by little.”

That situation came tumbling down when Paul’s roommate reported him. The roommate was going to accompany Paul and the boy to Daytona Beach for Bike Week. When the boy came over to the apartment, Paul allowed the boy to sit on his lap while the roommate was getting ready. When the roommate came out of the bedroom and saw what was happening, he became suspicious of the relationship and later called the Department of Children and Families. The sheriff’s department conducted an investigation.

During the inquiry, the boy told officials that Paul had spoken to him “about masturbation.” Big Brothers terminated Paul after only three months in the program, but according to Paul, there was no evidence of criminal conduct. Sometime later, while Paul was jogging in the park, he saw the boy again. He was with his mother. When the boy spotted Paul, he came running. The mother became concerned, pulled the boy away, and left the park. Paul interpreted the boy’s actions at the park as meaning he wanted to continue the relationship. “The kid’s not upset with me and I wasn’t doing anything wrong with him. He actually was . . . well, I would say he was eating it up.”

David was getting hungry but I didn’t want to terminate the video-recorded conversation. David checked on the rooms and they still weren’t ready. Surprisingly, no one questioned why my room had been ready and theirs were not. David suggested we eat, but he refused to eat in the hotel. My suggestion of Seaport Village, an outdoor shopping area in downtown San Diego near the water, received a unanimous yes vote.

Before we broke for lunch, Paul had another story he wanted to share. As we learned in Miami, Paul drove a Corvette. He told us he would drive to the park, then jog. One day, when he returned from his run, Paul met a twelve-year-old boy who had taken an interest in the car. They began talking. According to Paul, at one point in the conversation, the twelve-year-old invited Paul to join him in “monkey-bar fighting.”

When David asked Paul to explain monkey-bar fighting, Paul described it: “You grab the monkey bars and you wrap your legs around each other. . . . You fight, wrap your legs around each other . . .”

Todd smiled, saying he thought that wrapping your legs around a child sounded like fun.

David asked, “Do you keep your clothes on?” Paul, who never seemed to catch on to David’s humor, stared back incredulously. “Yeah . . . it’s at the park.”

David liked the idea of monkey-bar fighting and asked, “Does the B and B have monkey bars? Even if they don’t, we’ll make our own.”

Paul went on with his story. The boy lived several blocks from the park and would show up every day on his bike. As Paul jogged around the park, the boy would follow.

David interrupted again, commenting that Paul was being “stalked by a twelve-year-old.”

Paul agreed. He and the boy spent a great deal of time together in Paul’s car, listening to music and talking. Paul learned that the boy’s father was an alcoholic who was “always drunk” and abusive. One evening Paul joined the family for dinner. “His mother is cooking food. She was a little leery, I could tell. The father didn’t give a damn.”

Paul continued to meet with the boy almost every day at the park. He denied doing anything sexual with the boy, but said, “[The boy] knew what was going on. I mean, he knew . . . where things seemed to be leading.”

Paul seemed surprised that his activities and constant presence at the park sparked law enforcement interest. Paul said, “Believe it or not, the police got called out there twice on me. They said, ‘We have complaints that you keep seeing this kid.’ Because I have this highly recognizable car. There’s neighbors all around, seeing this car everyday, me with this kid, [we’re] sitting in this car every day at this park. . . . They call the Sheriff’s office. . . . The deputy goes, ‘Well . . . Mr. Zipszer, I just have to investigate, we’ve got a complaint. . . . You’re seen talking with him and some other kids.’ Because other kids kept coming up to me, young boys.”

Thank God for alert neighbors,
I thought.

David interrupted, smiling. “Young boys?”

Paul said, “Yeah. . . . They were just flocking to me, for some reason. I don’t know, it must’ve been the car. I don’t know what it was. They like Corvettes or something.”

To Paul’s credit, when Todd asked, “Did you have a hard time not acting upon all that wonderful stuff?” Paul responded, “I’m kind of weird this way, because I was just enjoying the company of him. . . . I didn’t want to progress it too quickly.”