We sat and talked at the restaurant for a couple of hours. Through the course of our conversation, I learned that Faith was eight years older than I. Faith was a fairly radical person who enjoyed living the Bohemian lifestyle that was so popular during the late 60’s and early 70’s. She also was unemployed and in trouble with the law. Faith claimed that she had been apprehended in the state of Georgia for an alleged armed robbery that took place approximately one year ago, and had been eluding the police ever since she skipped bail. Before Faith and I parted ways, she gave me her phone number and insisted that I call her if I ever needed anything. Although I accepted the number, I had no intentions of calling her.
At that time, I was living in a run down trailer home with two young, married couples that I had met through the ex-con. I didn’t have a job; therefore, I had no viable means of support. My only source of income was earned from babysitting for the people I lived with. My babysitting career ended though, after my roommates received an eviction notice from the landlord, who apparently didn’t condone communal living.
Once again, I was homeless. Unable to deal with my plight, I resorted to calling the woman that I had previously met at the free clinic. Faith was elated to hear from me, and invited me to her home. I discovered that Faith’s house was within walking distance from the trailer park that I had been living in. I told her that I would be there within the hour. My newfound friend lived in a small, shabby, three-bedroom apartment in San Francisco, which was virtually devoid of any furniture. She shared her living quarters with a rough looking man, by the name of Robin. He appeared to be in his late thirties. Faith told me that Robin was her roommate. I ended up having dinner with them. They served Kraft macaroni and cheese. By the time dinner was over, Faith had invited me to come and live with the two of them. “Don’t worry about paying rent,” she said. “I’ve got some connections at a health spa. I might be able to get you a job there.” I didn’t have a lot else going for me at the time, so I decided to accept her offer. I had nothing to lose. Besides, if I could get my hands on enough money, maybe I could get back to Illinois. A couple of days after I moved in with Robin and Faith, I began working at my new job; which ended up being a dirty bookstore that was adjacent to a sleazy massage parlor, in a undesirable part of the city. My job was to stock shelves with pornographic material, and other sex-related paraphernalia. I also attended to the customers, and answered the telephone. This was my first exposure to any type of sex industry work, and unfortunately not my last. I worked there about one month with Robin. The bookstore was open seven days a week, from noon until midnight. I opened the store, and Robin closed it. Faith ended up spending her time hustling pool at the neighborhood bars for money.
On my way to work one morning, I was stopped by one of the tenants that lived in our apartment building. He told me that the police had been questioning all the people that lived there about a robbery that happened the other night, in one of the first-level apartments. The first thing that came to my mind was the fact that Faith had an outstanding warrant for her arrest. The last thing that I needed was for her to wind up in jail, which would cause me to be stranded in California all by myself. I had to get in touch with either her or Robin. Unfortunately, Faith didn’t have a telephone, due to the fact that she never paid her telephone bill. I decided the best thing for me to do was to call Robin, because the police were in the process of questioning everyone in the building.
I threw on my leather jacket and proceeded to walk towards the payphone. Suddenly, it started to rain. San Francisco was notorious for that. Not wanting to get my hair wet, I began to run down the street towards the direction of the drug store. My intentions were to hang out in there, until the rain subsided. I wasn’t paying attention to my surroundings, and was almost hit be a moving vehicle, while running across the side street. The driver quickly slammed on his brakes to avoid hitting me. I paid no attention to the incident, and started walking briskly.
From the corner of my eye, I happened to notice that someone driving a crème-colored utility van was following me. I glanced over to see who the driver was. A smiling, heavyset man began to wave at me. I was in no mood to be bothered by admirers, so I didn’t respond to his efforts trying to catch my attention.
Suddenly, the driver pulled over to the street curb and rolled down the passenger side window. “Hey,” the stranger yelled. “I’m the guy who almost hit you back there.” I continued walking towards my destination, still refusing to acknowledge the man’s presence. Before I knew it, he had gotten out of his van and headed in my direction. Luckily, the drugstore was only half a block away. I ran through the glass doors of the drugstore in hopes of losing the man, but my efforts where to no avail. The stocky man continued to follow me into the store and approached me. The persistent stranger held out his hand to shake mine. “Hi,” he said as a big grin graced his ugly face. “I’m Martin Cotello, and you just ran in front of my van a couple blocks ago.” I said nothing. “You look like you’re in a hurry or something,” the man said.
I glanced out the store window. It was now pouring down rain. “I’ve just got some business to take care of,” I replied. “I was heading toward the payphone down the street.” I could feel myself becoming irritated at this conversation.
“That payphone is not working,” he remarked.
“Why don’t you let me give you a lift to the one by the bus station?” I thought about it for a minute. The man seemed harmless enough, so I decided to take him up on his offer. I left the store with the stranger. Together we walked down the street to where his van was parked. I noticed that there was some type of advertisement stenciled across the left side of the van that read “Cotello Auto Parts Service.” I thought nothing of it, and climbed into the van.
“The payphone is right down here a ways,” the man assured me.
I didn’t reply. I was too absorbed with my own thoughts to care about what he was saying.
As soon as we got down to the end of the block, the man got on his CB radio and began talking to someone. “Yeah, it’s me Martin. Hold all calls for me,” he instructed the person on the other end. “I won’t be going back to the shop today.”
For a split second, a surge of terror came over me. I thought to myself, what if this guy is some type of murderer or something? But I quickly dismissed the thought, as we continued to drive down the street.
Meanwhile, I noticed that we had already passed up several payphones. A red flag popped up in my head. “You passed up two phone booths already,” I said. I could feel my temper begin to escalate. “Oh those,” he said, “They are out of order. I tried using one myself the other day, and lost all of my damn change in the thing.”
“You know what?” the stranger continued, “I’ve got to stop by the shop to pick up a couple of invoices. There is a payphone right out front that is working. You can use it.”
“How far away is that?” I asked. “Just a few more miles,” the man replied as a smile crossed his thin lips. “A pretty lady like you shouldn’t worry so much.”
“Look Mr.,” I sarcastically said. “I don’t have all damn day! Just let me out. I can walk faster than you can drive.” The man ignored my request and proceeded to make a right hand turn at the intersection.
Now we were driving through a small industrial park. “Look,” he said, “it’s right over there.” Straight ahead on the right hand side of the street was a medium sized building with a large blue and yellow sign that read Cotello’s Auto Service.