Who Is Raphael Garza?

THURSDAY 3:45 AM EASTERN TIME

After a long and painful wait in the emergency room, the attending physician told me that I had fractured three small bones in my right hand. The doctor said that my hand should heal completely in a few weeks and sent me home with a removable plastic cast and a prescription for Vicodin. When I got home, I took two Vicodin and then checked my computer. The video was still streaming. It was dark in the bedroom, and it appeared that Kathy and the maggot were asleep.

I sat at the computer and put my head down on the desk thinking I would just rest for a few minutes.

THURSDAY 7:20 AM EASTERN TIME

At 7:20 AM, the sound of voices woke me from a restless sleep. I lifted my head and looked at the computer screen to find Raphael sitting up in bed, stroking his semi-erect penis while talking to Kathy. I quickly turned my camera back on the capture whatever might happen.

"I'd like to make love to you once more before you have to leave," Raphael said.

Kathy looked at him and smiled. "I really should get going," she said, but she didn't leave. Instead, she reached over and wrapped her hand around Raphael's cock, started stroking it up and down and then she bent down and took that filthy cock into her mouth.

"Come up here and let me get my cock inside you now," the prick faced fungus said, once Kathy had him fully erect.

Kathy got up, straddled Raphael's hips and lowered herself onto his shaft. Kathy bounced up and down on the rat bastard's cock until he announced that he was about to cum. When he started to climax, he pulled Kathy down tight against his body and held her there while he emptied his worthless seed into her. When the dip shit finished, Kathy disengaged from him and slowly stood up. I felt sick as I watched Raphael's cock slide out of Kathy followed by a large gob of his thick semen, and as she moved away from the rotten potato with a drippy dick, more of his semen dripped from her onto the bed. At that point, I'd seen as much as I could handle. I closed my computer, turned off my camera, took two more Vicodin and went to bed.

THURSDAY 2:35 PM EASTERN TIME

I was only able to sleep for a short time, and by eleven o'clock, I was up, sitting in the living room, with a cup of coffee, planning on how I was going to deal with Kathy if she ever came home. Luckily for me, the Vicodin was not only relieving the pain in my hand, but it was also taking the edge off the mental stress that Kathy's fling with Raphael had caused me, making it easier to think about what I needed to do. I uploaded the video I recorded to my computer and edited out the portions where there was no activity, then I copied the edited video onto a DVD.

I decided that when I confronted Kathy, I would take my time and drag the truth out of her, hopefully making her suffer a little before I showed her the video. I was pretty sure that she would be devastated when she found out how badly that diseased toad played her.

It was 2:35 PM when I heard the garage door opening. I had parked the rental car in the street, so Kathy would be coming into the house not knowing that I was there. When I heard the kitchen door opening, I took a deep breath and told myself to remain calm.

Kathy went straight to the phone to check messages. "Kathy, it's me. Call me when you get home. Love you," the message I had left Tuesday, was the first message to play followed by two more messages from me and then, "Kathy, it's Mom. Where are you? Walt called me this morning looking for you. Is something wrong? Call me."

I heard Kathy mumble "Oh shit, I should have called."

I was glad that she at least expressed something that sounded like concern. I was beginning to get excited about the coming confrontation. I wanted to make Kathy as uncomfortable as possible.

Kathy's next move surprised me a little. Instead of taking her suitcase and heading upstairs, I heard her pick up the telephone and start punching in a number. The sudden ringing of my cell phone startled me. I don't know why I guess I expected that she would call her mother first. I took my phone out of my pocket, but I didn't answer it. I just waited for Kathy to hear my phone ringing.

Kathy came out of the kitchen into the living room, and when she saw me, she screamed, "Walt. Oh my God, you nearly scared me to death." When I didn't respond, Kathy came farther into the room. "What are you doing home? I thought you wouldn't be home until Saturday."

"I had to come home early because I had a family emergency," I said.

"What family emergency?" Kathy asked as she dropped into a chair facing me.

"It seems that my wife disappeared and no one knew where she was," I said. "Cam was ready to fire me for leaving the class early, so you had better have a good reason for taking off and not telling me where you were going," I said. Now it was time to see if she would start with a big lie or a little one. "So, where were you?"

"I was in Philadelphia."

I could see that she was going to make me drag the story out of her. "What were you doing in Philadelphia?"

"A friend called and asked me to come down for a couple of days."

"You could have saved me a whole lot of trouble if you had just called and told me what you were up to."

"I am sorry. I know I should have called you."

"So why didn't you?"

"I was going to, but I didn't have my cell phone with me. I must have lost it somewhere."

"I found your cell phone in the bedroom. By the way, you're going to need a new one," I said. "Where did you stay in Philly?"

"The Four Seasons."

"That's a bit expensive isn't it?"

"Don't worry, you didn't have to pay for it," Kathy snapped.

"What's with the sudden attitude?"

"I'm sorry. I guess I am just tired and all these questions are giving me a bit of a headache."

"What did you do in Philly?"

"We went to a couple of museums and a play."

"So you had a good time then?"

"Yes, I did," Kathy said. "I had no idea that my little trip would get you in trouble at work. Tell Cam I am sorry for causing a problem."

I guess Kathy thought she had dodged the bullet because I could sense that she was beginning to relax. Then she saw the cast on my hand.

"What happened to your hand?"

"I saw something that upset me, so I slammed my hand on my desk and broke a couple of bones," I said.

What... Why? What did you see?" Kathy stammered.

"I'll get to that later," I said.

"Would you mind if we continued this conversation later, I would like to take a shower?" Kathy said.

I waited until Kathy was standing and getting ready to leave the room and then asked, "So, this friend that invited you to Philly, what was his name?"

I could see the panic in Kathy's eyes. "What are you trying to say? Are you accusing me of something?"

I sat for a long time without saying anything and just let the panic take hold. I could see that Kathy's legs seemed to be getting a bit wobbly. Then, in as calm a voice as I could manage I said, "Let's just cut through all of the bull shit. I want to know the name of the man my wife spent two nights with in Philadelphia."

I could see in her face that Kathy was trying to figure out if there was any way she could get out of confessing the truth. Finally, she sat back down in the chair and looked down at the floor. "His name is Raphael Garza, but this is not what..."

"Don't you dare try to tell me it's not what I am thinking. I want to know how long this has been going on and I want to know why you decided to throw our marriage away for a piece of shit like Raphael Garza."

"Don't call him names, he is not a bad person," Kathy said. I could see the tears beginning to run down her cheeks.

"Are you in love with him? Is that what this is about?"

"No. Just let me explain."

"Please do and don't leave anything out."

"I won't. I met Raphael a couple of months ago."

"So you have been cheating on me for two months?"

"No... No... Let me finish. Remember back in April when my mother was in the hospital for her bypass surgery? I spent a lot of time at the hospital that week, and one day I was sitting in the cafeteria having lunch when I noticed that the man at the next table was crying. I asked him what was wrong, and he told me that his wife had just died.

"I felt so bad for him that I moved over to his table and tried to console him, but he was nearly inconsolable. I spend most of that afternoon talking to him. He told me that he and his wife Isabel had been in a bad car accident and she had died from her injuries. He said that he blamed himself for the accident and he wished that he had also died.

"I got him to stop crying, and we just talked all afternoon. When I left, I gave him one of my business cards and told him he could call me if he needed to talk. I was afraid that he might kill himself if he didn't have anyone to talk to.

"I didn't hear from him for a couple of weeks, and then I got an email from him. He said that he wanted to thank me for helping him when he was feeling so low. After that, we traded emails about every few days. Over the last month, he started calling me at work. He told me that he was having trouble dealing with the approach of the tenth anniversary of the day he and his wife, Isabel, married.

"Then Monday night he called me and said that he was thinking of going to join Isabel. He said he just couldn't take it anymore. I did my best to talk him out of doing anything drastic and asked him to call me again in the morning.

"When he called Tuesday morning he asked me to come to Philadelphia and spend a couple of days with him doing the things that he and his wife used to do."

"So you just jumped into the car and drove down to Philly to stand in for his dead wife?"

"Yes. I guess that is what I did."

"Did that include fucking him?"

"Why do you have to be so vulgar?"

"Did you fuck him?"

"I don't have to sit and let you talk to me that way."

"I said, did you fuck him?"

Kathy put her face into her hands and said, "Yes, but I didn't do it for love, and I didn't do it for the sex. I did it because I was afraid of what he might do if I left him alone."

"You fucked him to keep him from killing himself? Well, kudos to you. You killed our marriage to save his life," I said.

"No. Please don't say that."

"So, tell me. What do you really know about this asshole?"

"Why must you call him names?"

"Because he is a slimy piece of shit and he fucked my wife, and he destroyed our marriage. Anyway, what do you know about him?"

"Raphael is a vice president at Four Seasons."

"Oh, so you spent two nights with him at the Four Seasons. I hope he didn't make you pay for the room."

"He didn't stay at the hotel with me," Kathy said. "I spent one night at his condo. I am sorry, Walt. I never meant for this to interfere with our marriage. I was just doing what I felt I needed to do under the circumstances. If I hadn't spent the night with him and he had committed suicide, I never would have been able to forgive myself."

"How are you going to feel about it when I kill him?" I said.

Kathy screamed and said, "No, please don't do anything stupid. It was just one time, and it will never happen again. Please just let it go. I love you, and I want to stay married to you."

"Just one time? So what do you tell him next year, when he calls you on the next anniversary? Will you tell him to drop dead?"

Kathy didn't respond, but I could see that she had never considered that possibility.

I laughed at her and said, "When you know the truth about that festering scab you'll want to kill him yourself."

"What do you mean by that?"

I said, "Watch this," and then I turned on the television and the DVD player and started the video. When Kathy saw herself in the hotel room, she looked at me and said, "What is this? Did you have me followed?"

"Think about it, Kathy. How could I have gotten a video of you in your hotel room? Just watch the video."

Kathy watched quietly as the video played. When it got to the part where she was admiring herself in the mirror, I said, "So, if you were only doing this to kept your lover from killing himself, why do you look so pleased with the way you look in the sexy underwear he sent you?"

Kathy just looked at me with her tear-filled eyes, shook her head and then looked back at the video.

When the video showed Kathy leaving the room, I pressed pause. "Any comments so far?"

"How did you get this video?"

In answer to her question I opened my laptop on and showed her the emails, I had received from Raphael.

"He sent that to you?" Kathy said. "I don't understand, why would he do that?"

"You're asking me? He's your lover, why do you think he did it?"

"Was he trying to break up our marriage?"

"That would be my guess," I said.

"Why would he want to do that?"

"I don't know, but I intend to ask him before I beat him to death," I said.

"Don't talk that way; you're scaring me."

"Why don't we watch the rest of the video?"

"Oh God, there's more?" Kathy said.

"There's a lot more," I said and then started the video again.

When the video got to the point where Kathy started sucking Raphael's cock, Kathy said, "Please turn it off. I don't want to see anymore."

"No. You are going to watch every bit of this video because I had to watch it all last night."

I let the video run until it showed Kathy going to sleep, and then I paused it again.

"So, what do you think of your performance?" I said.

"It was horrible. I am so sorry you had to see that. I had no idea that Raphael was going to do anything like that. I was just trying to help. I can't understand why he would do that to me."

"He didn't do it to just you; he did it to us."

"Of course, you're right. I am sorry," Kathy said. "I believed Raphael when he said that he was depressed and was thinking of killing himself. Last night I was just trying to help him."

"You know, as crazy as all this seems, I believe that what you did last night you did because you thought that you were helping the asshole through a bad time," I said. "But if that's true, how do you explain what happened this morning?"

I pressed play, and the video started again with the two of them in bed in the morning when Raphael said, "I'd like to make love to you one more before you have to leave."

When Kathy saw what was happening, she began to cry. "Oh God, I am sorry. I don't know why I did that. I'm sorry... I'm sorry."

"What makes it even more disturbing is that you fucked him without protection."

"It never occurred to me that I would need it," Kathy said.

I didn't say anything more; I just let her cry. After several minutes, Kathy got up, ran upstairs to our bedroom and closed the door. I didn't follow her.

THURSDAY 5:15 PM EASTERN TIME

Kathy didn't come back downstairs until 5:15 that afternoon. She had stayed in the bedroom most of the day, but I heard the shower running around five o'clock. When she came into my study, Kathy was wearing jeans and a sweater. I had been sitting at my desk trying to stay busy so I wouldn't keep thinking about Kathy and Raphael.

"Walt? Can we talk?"

"What is there to talk about?" I said.

"What happened to the mirror over my dresser?"

"The mirror broke at the same time that your cell phone broke," I said.

"I think I can guess how that happened," Kathy said. "What's going to happen to us now?"

"There is no more us," I said.

Kathy was crying again. "Isn't there anything I can do to fix this?"

"There is nothing to fix. Our marriage is broken, it's over," I said. "For now, the only thing you can do to help me is to tell me how I can find Raphael."

"Why, what are you going to do?"

"I don't think you should worry about what happens to your lover after what he did to you."

"I'm not worried about him; I'm worried about you. I don't want you to get into trouble."

"What I do is no longer any concern of yours," I said. "Just tell me where I can find him."

"I can't."

"Do you mean you can't or you won't?"

"I can't. I don't know Raphael's phone number, and I don't know where he lives."

"Bullshit. You were at his house last night."

"Yes, but I don't know where it was. I was there only two times, and both times, I was in a limo. I didn't pay attention to how I got to the house, so I don't know where it was or how to get there."

"You said he works for the Four Seasons hotel."

"He's a vice president, but I don't know if he works at the hotel or if his office is somewhere else," Kathy said. "What do we do now?"

"I want you to go stay with your mother," I said. "I am going to Philadelphia in the morning to find your lover."

"What am I going to tell my mother?"

"That's your problem, but you might want to try telling her the truth."

FRIDAY 9:00 AM EASTERN TIME

At nine o'clock Friday morning I was standing at the reception desk of the Four Seasons hotel in Philadelphia. When the young woman behind the counter approached me, I asked if Mr. Garza was in.

"Is Mr. Garza a guest of the hotel?" she asked.

"No. My understanding is that Mr. Garza is an employee of the hotel chain," I said.

"There is no one at this hotel by that name."

"Mr. Raphael Garza?" I said.

"No. I am sorry."

I realized that Raphael had probably lied about being a VP at Four Seasons, but it was the only lead I had. I had printed out a couple of video captures from the DVD I had made that clearly showed Raphael's face. I showed one of them to the desk clerk and asked if she recognized him. She said she wasn't sure and then she asked the bell captain to step over to the desk.

The bell captain looked at the picture and said, "That's Frank."

"Frank? His name is Frank?"

"Frank Lewis, but his stage name is Franklin Hawthorne."

"He's an actor?" That made sense. He was acting the whole time he was with Kathy. "Does Frank work here at this hotel?"

"When he doesn't have an acting gig he works as a bellman if we need extra help at the hotel."

"Is he here today?"

"No."

"Do you know where he lives?" I asked.

"No, but I couldn't tell you even if I did. It's against policy to give out that kind of information about hotel employees."

"It's very important that I speak with Mr. Lewis."

Then the girl behind the counter said, "I thought you were looking for Raphael Garza."

"Turns out Raphael Garza and Frank Lewis are the same person."

"If you want to talk to him why don't you just go to the theater tonight and talk to him after the play?" the bell captain said.

"He's in a play tonight?"

"Opening night," the bell captain said as he laughed. "They're doing the "Philadelphia Story"."

The irony was lost on me.

"And you think I could get in to see him then?" I said.

"This isn't Broadway. It's the Broad Street Theater. Only seats about 300 people and usually isn't full. No big names in the cast, just a bunch of wannabe actors. You wouldn't have any problem going backstage after the play to talk to him."

FRIDAY 9:40 PM EASTERN TIME

There had only been about 150 people in attendance at the small theater, but they all seemed to enjoy the performance. The play was surprisingly well done, and in spite of the fact that I wanted to kill Raphael (or Frank Lewis, or Franklin Hawthorne or whatever name he might want to use) I have to admit he was pretty good in the role of Macaulay Connor.

As soon as the curtain came down, I headed backstage and found the dressing room that Frank Lewis shared with one of the other cast members. I waited until the other actor picked up his jacket and headed out leaving Frank alone in the dressing room. I removed the plastic cast from my right hand and put it in my pocket before entering the room. I didn't think I would look as intimidating with a cast on my hand.

Frank was sitting at his dressing table removing makeup when I entered the room. He turned to look at me and said, "Can I help you?"