Sugar Valley (Hollywood's Darkest Secret)

by Stephen Andrew Salamon

  “Lady, I mean, Miss Wells, calm down. Why don’t you start from the beginning,” he spoke in a soothing voice.

  She lit up a cigarette and took a big breath of air into her lungs. “Alright, listen to me very carefully. My reputation as an actress has been mortified, ruined, even my own private reputation. In the beginning of my acting career, I climbed to the top of fame; everyone in Hollywood loved me. But, I realized they loved me for one thing,” Julienne announced, then pausing for a second.

  He waited anxiously for her to go on talking, questioning, “What’s that one thing?”

  She looked down at the pavement in slow motion and responded with, “Paul Fresco.”

  “Who’s Paul Fresco?”

  Julienne looked up at him in a shocked manner. Her eyes began to bulge out in a twisted formation as she began to cry.

  She grabbed a tissue from her pocket and started to blow her nose, explaining with tears, “You see, even you don’t know who Paul is anymore.”

  “I’m sorry, maybe if you tell me about--”

  She then, abruptly, interrupted his words in craziness, stating in a loud voice, “Listen to me, Paul Fresco was one of the top male stars in Hollywood back in the early ’90s. That’s how I got discovered. I began dating him. I walked with him on the Hollywood streets and even at a few Oscar ceremonies, and people loved it. So, I got in a few movies and then I realized that I didn’t like Paul in the first place. You see, I realized that the whole time I was dating him, I wasn’t dating him, I was using him for, I guess, fame, however corny it may sound. And that’s what I got. After we broke up, everyone loved me because I lied and said he was an abusive boyfriend.”

  “So in return, everyone would love you because you broke away and had the guts to say he was abusing you?” Mark asked with a smile.

  “Yeah, that’s right. But, as soon as Paul died, people loved him; it was like he was Elvis Presley or something. That’s when my fame began to diminish. I mean, I admit, I did lie a little bit, and that caused my fame to diminish even more. So, I decided to go out to a nightclub one night, and I was so depressed about everything when I went. That’s when I met Jose Rodrigo. I saw he was a very handsome young man, so I thought I could make him another Paul. You know? I wanted to use him for fame, just like I used Paul.” She spoke in lowness, having Mark comforting her by giving her a hug.

  “I never heard of Jose Rodrigo either.”

  Miss Wells began crying even more, speaking in a whiny fashion, “I know, that’s the sick, twisted part of the whole thing. Jose wasn’t famous yet, so I thought by me making him famous, in return, his fame would rekindle my fame. I don’t know why I chose him; I guess I thought he was an easy target. I figured if I made him famous, then people would love me for that, and at the same time, casting directors, agents, and so on would love me too. So, my first step was to get Jose in a movie, but I knew I had to get him away from Darell, and Damen.”

  “Why?”

  “Because, Damen and Darell were wimps, weak, kind, and everything else that’s not the recipe for achieving success in this business. In this business, you have to be ruthless; you have to step on other people’s souls just to get to the top. But then I found out that Darell was in a movie already, so I figured that maybe Darell had a little bit of ruthlessness in him. So, we went to Darell’s premiere for his first movie, I figured that’s the best place to make Jose known to the agents. That’s when I discovered that Henry and Dennis Schultz were directing a movie together. So, I thought, that’s the perfect opportunity to get Jose in his first movie. But I discovered that Damen was wanted for that role. So, I lied and said he was a drug user, and that made Dennis not want him anymore. I talked him into giving the part to Jose. That’s how this all began!” Julienne was stressed, her tears fell down to the tissue she was holding in her lap, and her aching, palpitating panic was growing larger by each tear shed.

  She explained everything to a man she met for the first time, a man named Mark, who was a killer, but a listener to her inextinguishable conscience. She was ready to have a nervous breakdown as she finished explaining, it was like Mark was her shrink; she told her problems to a killer. That’s why she told him, because she knew he was ruthless like her, and he didn’t care about anyone, except for that moment when he listened to Julienne’s story. At the end of her story, she dried her tears away with the tenth tissue she used and spoke, “Now, that’s why I want you to kill them. I want fame more than anything else, as well as a leveled mind, and I’m willing to give all of my money to achieve it again, and to get rid of always worrying about something coming out, or blackmail. I’m a ruthless, heartless, arrogant bitch, but I got this far. So I’m proud of it. My plan worked with Jose, and pretty soon I’ll dump him too and say he raped me or something. Alright, after hearing my long, boring story, do you still think I’m gonna run off with the eight million?” Julienne then got up and noticed her limousine down the street, for the eleventh time.

  “I like you, lady, you’re tough but beautiful at the same time. It’s a deal,” he said. Julienne put the check in her pocket and grabbed another one, at that moment her limo pulled up to them and waited for her.

  “Now, here’s a check for two million dollars to get rid of Damen. With this check and the one I’m going to leave you tomorrow, it will be ten million altogether. Also, just in case anyone gets suspicious, since this is a large amount of currency, after this job is completed, and you have the checks, give them back to me, and I’ll cash them for you. So, these checks are just insurance that I will comply with this job that you’re going to do and pay you the full amount. But first, what’s your last name?”

  “Michelle, Mark Michelle. But listen, all I need is one million right now.”

  Julienne started to write his name on the check, and at the same time, announcing, “Oh, Tom said you needed two million.”

  “Well, like I told you before, he gave me a check for two million dollars already. Now, all I need is one more million for the Damen job.”

  “I knew he was lying. But, take the money anyway,” Julienne said, handing him the check. “Now, I’ll leave the check for eight million under my seat tomorrow at the ceremony. That eight million is the job that I want you to do. So, altogether, I’m paying you ten million dollars, plus Tom’s two million that he already gave to you. Is it a deal?” Julienne’s question was strict; her strictness was caused by her understanding that she was going to pay a man that she’d met for the first time, ten million dollars. Her strictness went to anger, questioning again, “Is it a deal?”

  “Well, altogether, I’m getting paid twelve million dollars to kill two people. So, I guess it’s a deal.” He shook her hand, adding, “Thanks, Miss Julienne Wells.”

  She walked up to her limousine and waited for the chauffeur to exit the car, and open her door for her. He got out, and opened it, while she spoke toward Mark, “I’ll say ‘you’re welcome’ when the job’s completed. Remember what I explained to you, be at the Oscars by 6:00 p.m.; they begin at 7:30 p.m. Just make sure you follow every bit of detail I told you.”

  Miss Wells winked at him, and stepped into her limo.

  “Don’t worry, Miss Wells, I got it all under control.”

  The limousine drove away, and Mark stood there, on a vacant strip, and watched the limousine, getting smaller and smaller, smiling toward it until it was too far for his own eyes to see its shimmering body, reflecting its resplendent beauty off of the moon’s jubilant light.

  Chapter Seventy-One

  Mark ran directly to a public phone, immediately after Julienne left, and called up his partner, looking around the vacant streets of California, gawking at every corner, to see if a silhouette appeared, or a shadow was spying on him. His partner was named Curtis, he was like Mark’s little brother, knowing him since the age of eight, going from stealing candy in stores, to robbing houses of California; they were really close. He told Curtis to meet him at the Oscar building, in Hollywood, in an hour. He said,
“Bring the equipment with, and also bring the weapons. By the way, the building is called ‘The Majestic,’ make sure you don’t screw it up with the old Oscar building.” He then dropped the phone, without even bothering to hang it up, and ran to a taxicab that was parked down the street. Mark tried to open the door to the cab, but it was locked. Still looking around to see if anyone appeared to his sight, he pulled the handle on the door so much, that he almost broke it.

  “I’m off duty,” the cabdriver announced, hearing Mark still trying to open the door. The driver, a little man but a tough one, jumped up from his sleeping position, and made himself known to Mark’s eyes.

  “Let me in now, it’s an emergency, my son just got hit by a car,” Mark yelled out.

  The driver laughed, chuckling as he spoke, “Yeah, I heard that one before. The next thing you’re probably gonna tell me is it’s your only son. Am I right?”

  Mark ran up to the driver’s side window and began pounding on it, trying to make the driver change his mind, wanting him to change his mind before he took drastic actions. “Listen, if you don’t let me in, I’m going to kill...” Mark paused his own words, thinking that it was a mistake for him to threaten the cabdriver. Still looking around the streets, the sidewalks, seeing vacancy still, he knew what he had to do to this driver. Mark paused for a moment and then gave a smile, saying in a nice and subtle way, “Listen, I’ll pay you one hundred dollars to take me to my destination.”

  “Two hundred.”

  Mark’s tall frame stared down at the ground, feeling the anger that this so-called tough taxi driver gave to him. This driver had no idea about Mark’s character. Hearing a brief sway of wind blowing against his face, he just stared at Mark, awaiting a reply, and having a smart-alecky smile engraved on his taxi driver face.

  “Alright, I’ll pay you two hundred dollars,” said Mark, cracking his tense neck.

  The driver smiled again, saying, “Three hundred.”

  Mark leered at this driver in a straight stare, and glowered toward him, but then smiled back to him. He started laughing toward the driver, and his giggle rubbed off on the driver’s mouth, and he began to laugh as well. Then, suddenly, through the night’s shadows, and the vacancy of silhouettes, Mark punched straight through the window and knocked this greedy driver out cold.

  “How about nothing?” Mark opened the driver’s side door and pulled the driver out of it, scraping this man’s back with the broken glass that lay on the street’s cement, having blood appear through this man’s white shirt. He put him in the backseat and then got in the driver’s seat, still smiling toward what he’d just done, finding humor in it of sick, unsound and demented quality. As soon as he turned on the engine, he looked at the cabdriver in the back seat and laughed, “Where to?”

  Mark drove to the destination, while the cabdriver slowly began to regain consciousness. Pulling the cab into the back alley of the Oscar building, and seeing Curtis standing in the middle of it, he got out of the cab, while the cabdriver regained full consciousness, opening his eyes a bit, leering around the cab in disoriented gestures. A cool breeze shot through the alley, as Mark went up to Curtis’ short figure and whispered, “Give me my gun with the silencer on it, now.”

  Curtis gave him his gun, silver and shiny, with thickness to it like that of a train’s steel. The cabdriver started to scream for help, seeing that he was in a vacant alley, praying to God that he would see his children again, knowing that harm was about to come to him. The driver’s life flashed before his eyes, seeing Mark, holding a gun toward his head, the driver began to flash things in his mind that he never thought would come to his thoughts.

  Oh, God, please, please, I don’t want to end up on the five o’clock news, having my body being found in an empty alley. Please, oh God, please, why didn’t I just drive off, oh God, no, please help me, please. I promise, oh I promise I’ll start going to church more often, promise I’ll put the seat down on the toilet, I promise, oh God, help me.

  As his mind flushed out these thoughts through his consciousness, as well as sub’, this gun that was being shown to him, was a subliminal message of death, knowing that through this darkness, a light would appear; the spark from the gun going off.

  Mark smiled at this helpless driver and spoke, “You see, if you would have just settled for one hundred dollars, this would have never happened.”

  Bang.

  He shot the bullet from this silenced gun into the driver’s forehead, pulverizing his brain, seeing the blood gushing out of it, running down his face, and neck. Mark pulled the cabdriver’s dead body from out of the cab and threw it in a dumpster. He then walked up to Curtis and said, “Alright, little buddy, let’s do this.”

  They walked over slowly to the side door of the building, when Mark heard a noise; it was a screeching noise. He put his finger up to his mouth as a signal to Curtis for him to be quiet, and then he turned to view where the noise was coming from.

  “It’s coming from the front of the building,” Curtis whispered.

  “What is it?”

  Curtis tried to pick the side door lock with a screwdriver, responding, “I don’t know, I came in this alley from the back end of the building, you did too. Just don’t worry about it, it’s probably something like a cat.”

  Mark slowly walked down the alley, hiking his evil-filled legs toward the end of it. Coming to the end of it, Mark saw poles of lights and a red carpet that stretched a mile long. There were bleachers and bleachers for the fans to sit in, and an Oscar statue that stood twelve feet high. The beauty overpowered his mind, but he seized it back when he saw security guards in his view. He began to feel fear, fear that he was going to get caught, and fear that he was going to get shot.

  He pulled his body back in the alley deeper, whispering, “I can’t do this. Am I crazy? This is the Oscar Awards, police and Security are going to be all around.” As he thought about it, Curtis accidentally tipped over a garbage can in his attempt to unlock the side door. Mark ran up to him and said in an angry but nervous voice, “Listen, would you be quiet, I don’t want to get arrested.”

  “I thought you said she told you to come at 6:00 p.m. tomorrow?” Curtis questioned, throwing the screwdriver away from himself with frustration in his velocity. He noticed that there was a chain, with a lock, that was on the knob of the door and connected to a pole that was on the brick of the building. He pulled out a wrench, cut the chain, and then asked, “Hello, did you hear me? Didn’t you say she told you to come at 6:00 p.m. tomorrow?”

  “Yes, I know, she did, but it’s better that we come now, this way we won’t have to deal with a lot of security guards on our asses,” Mark answered, removing the chain and the broken lock from the door. He took out his gun with a silencer, and shot through the doorknob, breaking his target in a snap of a finger.

  “Why didn’t you just shoot that and the chain before?” Curtis whispered while Mark opened the door.

  “Because, I wanted to see you try to pick it, it was for my own amusement?” They pulled out flashlights and began to comb the area, pointing their lights to walls and doors that were located on the inside, in back of the building. It was amazing to them, the front of the building, where the theater and main stag are located, was beautiful, with decorations galore, and glamour that made a rainbow look ugly. Yet the back of the building was timid, smelly, with the aroma of urine and dirt, and dust on the ground that was as thick as sand. Mark flashed his light at Curtis’ face, adding, “Now, all we have to do is find the stairway that leads up to the rafters.”

  They were in total darkness, their flashlights were the only way to guide their sight; they scanned the area. Finally, Curtis came across a door that read TO THE RAFTERS. Seeing that Mark was standing right next to it, Curtis stated in a smart-alecky pitch, “Here it is.”

  Mark pulled out his gun, very quickly, and tightened the silencer that was on it, speaking in a whisper, “She was right. Alright, let’s go.”

  They started to walk
up the creaking stairs, feeling sandlike dust, cracking against each step they took, and then hearing a voice, out of the darkness, shouting, “Who’s there?”

  The men turned around and saw a single security guard, flashing his bright flashlight rays at their faces, burning their eyes at the same time. They both had to think quickly, so Mark spoke, “Oh, um, it’s us, we’re the, ah, night guards.”

  Mark held his gun in back of him, hearing this security guard questioning with suspicion, “Do you have any identification?”

  “Yeah, here’s my identification.”

  Bang.

  Mark pulled the gun from behind his back and shot the guard in the stomach, smiling as this innocent man fell to the ground, twitching from death coming to his body so suddenly.

  Curtis became frantic, hysterical, yelling through the darkness, “Shit, what did you do that for?”

  “Cold, hard cash, you dumbass. Uniform or not, nobody’s getting in the way of my money. Nobody.” Mark hit Curtis on the head with his other hand, adding, “You idiot, he was a security guard, I had to kill him.”

  They both grabbed onto the body and carried him up to the rafters, hearing the stairs creaking more, stopping and resting ever so often from the guard’s weight. Once they reached the top, they threw his body in a cardboard box that resembled a refrigerator, and began to set up their equipment. Looking out from the distance, the rafters hung from many strings, or wire-like cables, levitating in the air, making this long strip of wood into a bridge-like platform. The view was beautiful; seeing the stage in the distance, and the darkened, red seats below, they could just imagine what this sight would be like with lights on. Suddenly, Mark realized that the rafters were where the lighting men went to maneuver the lights for the ceremony. He began walking on this platform, thinking of what to do if the lighting men came up there when, in a moment’s notice, his movements provoked the bridge to shake. Curtis felt it swaying and shaking as well, yelling out, “My God, dude, this thing isn’t sturdy. I’m afraid of heights.”