Sugar Valley (Hollywood's Darkest Secret) (85 page)

Mr. Fryer picked up his glass from the
cigarette-butt-filled floor, hearing Mark responding with a wicked,
“Nope, three million or nothing.”

He looked at Mark with an angry image,
deciding that he was a good man for the job. This was now the
second step into the moment of truth judging Tom’s own fate, as
well as many other’s destinies that lurk in the future’s beginning.
“Alright, it’s a deal. I’ll get you the money when the job is
completed.”

“Well, since I’ve known you for so long, I
guess I can’t say ‘no’ to that. You give me at least three hundred
thousand tomorrow, and then the rest when the job is done. Now, is
that a deal?” Mark asked with a grin of a salesperson, phony and
generic.

He shook Mark’s thick and bulky hand,
speaking with hesitation under his breath, “Yeah. Oh, and another
thing, I’m not going to tell Julienne Wells any of this. This is
just between you and me. Got it?”

“Yeah, yeah, I got it, Tommy.”

Chapter Seventy

Three weeks passed by and the job wasn’t
complete, that is, the job to destroy, annihilate Damen Schultz,
take away his life-force for such a meaningless excuse. Tom Fryer
decided, through the crazy and immoral way of his thinking, that
the best way to assassinate, liquidate Damen’s life, exterminate
his aura, was by waiting at least a day before the Academy Awards;
he decided that for two reasons.

Firstly, it would give Mr. Fryer enough time
to develop an alibi and make Chuck and Darell less suspicious when
the job was completed. If he did it right away, then Darell, who
saw Tom and Damen arguing, and heard Damen threatening him from the
room, would know for sure that Tom had something to do with his
murder, being that it was so close to the argument. And with Chuck,
well, Tom knew that Damen told him the situation, and since Chuck
was Damen’s fatherlike figure, as well as his agent, then he would
definitely point fingers at Tom Fryer if he got rid of Damen
Schultz right away.

And secondly, because Mr. Fryer discovered
that he wasn’t as rich as he thought. All of his money went for the
limo service, bills, insurance, and last but not least, rent on his
office and home. He discovered that he had two million
six-hundred-thousand dollars to his name, and this upset the
infamous and secretive Mark, who would only take three million or
not execute the job at all. It was three million, or no killing.
Yet, when Tom offered his last two million that he had left,
besides the six-hundred thousand, Mark jumped at the offer and took
it, still awaiting the last million for full payment of his
soon-to-be-project of pulverizing Mr. Schultz.

This was a very secretive, camouflaged plan,
the last plan finally, of Tom Fryer that would completely, to his
mind, put his name in the clear, as well as everyone else, for that
matter. Damen was it: he was the leak, the human being with a cause
for chaos in Tom’s life, and by putting him out of commission, he
would break Tom Fryer’s dreadful fate of going to jail and
destroying his career for rape, making his life whole again,
without due harm of Damen ever being a threat to him again. Yet,
Tom Fryer still had to come up with one million dollars, for the
job to be exercised, and without it, Damen Schultz would go to the
Oscars, probably win the Award, as Tom Fryer perceived, and snitch
on him, telling the whole world, through his own sudden deputizing
of being called an “Oscar winner,” this greater fame, that Tom
Fryer was a slimeball, a cheat, a liar, and deceiver, a rapist, a
molester, and overall, Lucifer’s partner in crime.

Tom was going through hell. The clock was
ticking away, and Tom’s destiny was floating in the near distance,
having to decide his own fate of whether that destiny should go up
or all the way down. So, after heavy thinkingthrough his
anxiety-filled mind, Mr. Fryer decided to call up Julienne and ask
her for the extra money. Being that she was also a part of this
plan, yet didn’t know about Tom’s decision into obliterating
Damen’s body, Tom knew that she also had problems with Mr. Schultz,
and if she didn’t give the money, then Mr. Fryer could easily
blackmail her, knowing, deep inside, his own reasons for
blackmailing her if it came to that, and how he was going to break
it to her that he would blackmail her if she didn’t comply to his
plan, his arrangements. But of course, Mr. Fryer’s greedy habit had
to force him to ask for more, this way he’d get to keep a little
extra for himself.

It was two weeks before the big night, and
Mr. Fryer attempted to call Julienne, but she wasn’t home. He tried
a second, third, fourth, and even a fifth time to call her, but she
still was missing. He tried her cell phone, he tried everywhere,
but no luck, and pretty soon he was going to run out of luck
altogether. It wasn’t until the night before the big night when Tom
finally got an answer from Julienne. He explained the whole
situation to her and told her his plan of action.

“How much is it going to cost?” Julienne
asked, going into the bathroom and slowly closing the door. Hearing
this plan caused her to get nervous, not wanting Jose to hear a
word of it. So she knelt down in the corner of her bathroom, and
just stared at the bottom of the door, seeing if a shadow would be
there, waiting for Jose’s silhouette to show up.

“Six million dollars,” Tom replied. Julienne
stared into her vanity and saw wrinkles from stress beginning to
compile on her face, hearing Tom add, “I already gave two million,
all I need from you is four million.”

She was angry, distraught, yelling in a
silent pitch, “Listen, that’s way too much. This is your problem,
so deal with it. I don’t want anything to with this plan of yours,
bye.” She hung up the phone.

Ring, Ring, Ring, Ring.

Miss Wells peered at her ringing phone,
staring at it closely, not wanting to answer, and feeling that it
would be a terrible fate decision and judgment if she did.

Ring, Ring, Ring, Ring.

Hearing the phone’s signal, drowning her
thoughts, filling her with horrible images and unimaginable
consequences, wondering if it was him or not, wondering what he
would say to her if she did answer the phone’s cries. She just
wanted it to stop ringing, looking around her bathroom of beauty,
waiting for the phone’s cries to stop abruptly; but they
didn’t.

Ring, Ring, Ring.

It stopped, but moments later the phone
started ringing again; it seemed louder than before to her
thoughts. She then grabbed it with her anger-filled, trembling hand
of sweat, and answered in a shout, “What do you want?”

Hearing silence for a brief five seconds,
Julienne just stared at her door, feeling the breath from Tom
blowing his exhales into the phone, somehow actually having
Julienne feel its breeze through her frightened mind and frightened
flesh. Suddenly, Miss Wells heard Tom’s voice, yelling, “You listen
to me, bitch, you’re in this just as much as I am. If Mark doesn’t
get the proper amount of money, then Damen stays alive. If Damen
stays alive, then he has a chance at winning the Oscar. And if he
wins the Oscar, he will tell my illegal actions to the whole world
on stage. If he doesn’t win, he will do it anyway after the
ceremony is done, I know he will. Now, if he does, then you could
bet your lucky stars that I’m gonna bring you down with me. I’ll
tell the media everything about you, I’ll even tell them how you
used, and are still using, Jose to regain your precious stardom,
your precious fame!”

Julienne sat on her bathroom floor with shock
in her eyes. She lit up a cigarette, and questioned with defense
and curiosity, “How do you know I’m using Jose?”

“Because, I had a little discussion with your
ex-agent. John told me all about it. Now, I want you to give me the
money tonight, so I can give it to Mark. I want him to do this job
tonight,” he responded in a stressed-out manner.

She thought about it, knowing that it was the
truth about her using and manipulating Jose, feeling that Tom Fryer
would bring her down with him, in more ways than one. “Alright,
since it’s a lot of cash, I want you to give me Mark’s number so I
could get ahold of him.”

He shouted, “No, just give me the money
tonight!”

“Either I give it to Mark personally, or Mark
doesn’t get it at all. Which will it be?” She took a drag of her
cigarette, and awaited a loud reply from Mr. Fryer’s voice.

Tom paused for a few second and thought about
it, realizing that going to jail and losing his career was more
important than five million dollars extra for him. “Alright, you
can give him the two million dollars personally.”

“Oh, now it’s two million?” she questioned in
a smart-alecky expression.

“Yeah.” Tom still had his greed. Lowering the
amount to another fake amount, he felt that one million dollars
extra for himself was sufficient. He then gave her Mark’s number,
and right after the last digit came out of his mouth, Julienne
Wells hung up the phone immediately and called the number; it was
Mark’s pager. After hearing the beeps, she left a voicemail,
saying, “Mark, this is Julienne, Tom Fryer spoke to me about the
money situation, the one about, well, um, extinguishing Damen
Schultz. Um, meet me on Rodeo Drive in two hours, I need some time
to get at least half of the money, the rest will be given to you
once the job is done. See ya then.”

Click.

She rushed around her mansion, thinking of
something to do. Julienne comprehended, and understood very well,
that she had a big, big problem. Out of the malicious lies that she
told, became a malicious problem for her, not knowing, for the
first time in her life, what to do or even how to handle it. The
feeling of fear finally was captured in her mind, the fear of her
lies being revealed, and the fear of being caught by the police if
they found out that she was a part of the killing of Damen; that
is, after Damen died. She ran up and down her staircase, trying to
form a plan in her head, a scheme that would get rid of all the
lies and fabrications she told, a plan that would also make her
victorious in the eyes of Hollywood.

Looking up at her chandelier and watching as
the lights flickered every time the pure crystal would sway against
them, due to the draft from her mansion, she was tormented by her
mind being blank to this dreadful circumstance. She sat down in the
middle of her foyer and looked up at her fresco painting that was
on her ceiling. Miss Wells then took out her pack of cigarettes and
lit one of them up, trying to get the flame near the end of her
cigarette, trying to fight her trembling hands. As she smoked it,
she watched as the cloud of tobacco went passed the chandelier and
caused a kind of a shadow once it went passed the lights. That’s
when she said, “My God, I don’t know how to handle this one.” For
the first time, her evil mind didn’t come up with a plan, and that
shocked her. To Julienne, it was like realizing she didn’t know how
to swim, even though she’d been swimming all of her life. Every lie
that she told, forced her mind to come up with another lie to cover
up the one before. It was like her mind said,

Enough already.

She knew that this would either make her, or
break her. This new situation that arose, caused her to say,
“Either I’ll come out victorious to Hollywood, or I’ll get caught,
and come out a killer to it.” Julienne didn’t know whether she
should follow through with Mr. Fryer’s plan, or ignore him and
hopefully this whole situation would go away. But, that’s when she
remembered his words.

If I go down, I’ll bring you down with
me.

That thought traveled in her mind, hearing
Tom Fryer’s voice caused her to get a chill up her spine. She
blocked out the memory of his threat, and decided to do it her way.
Miss Wells got up from the ground, and decided to shape a plan that
would be the greatest plan of all; a plan that would rise above all
other schemes, a plan that would force her fears to go into hiding.
It was a strategy that would mean bankruptcy or riches to her if it
went through perfectly; she loved to gamble. Julienne dropped her
cigarette on the marble floor and rushed out the door, watching
Jose pulling up in the limo, seeing her flushed face and nervous
eyes gawking at him with dismay or fear.

Jose exited the limo, asking, “Where are you
going?”

“Oh, um, well, um, I’m going to Rodeo Drive
to, ah, to, to pick up some hair styling things, I want to look my
best for tomorrow.” Julienne’s voice was very calm, but inside, her
nerves were ready to bust through her veins.

Jose became suspicious, looking up at the
pale moon, hanging in the skies, deep in the distance, he started
to form confusion from her motive. She disappeared into the night,
while Jose grew more skeptical of her errand, “It’s already 12:30
a.m., isn’t everything closed by now?”

“No, a few stores are open.” She then closed
the limo door.

“Hey, I thought you got everything. Remember,
we went to Chicago for two weeks and shopped our brains out?”

Hearing that question of his, Miss Wells was
forced to give a reply, so she rolled down her tinted window and
answered, “Yes, I remember, but I forgot one more thing. I’ll be
right back.” The limo began to move down her driveway, and then
pass the two steel gates.

Julienne finally arrived at Rodeo Drive and
told the limo driver to go up a block and wait for her. The moment
the limo drove away, Mark appeared in his dark silhouette, standing
by a building that Julienne was right in front of.

Mark flung his cigarette into the street, and
spoke with a whisper, “Are you Julienne Wells?”

“Why, are you a fan, or are you Mark?”

“I’m Mark, the guy that Tom Fryer hired.”

Julienne Wells gave an evil smile toward him,
and then started walking with him, saying, “Well, Mark, the plan
has changed a little bit. You see, I’m going to be the one paying
you.”