Per Verse Vengeance Page 6

  Evan followed his initial success with a series of critically acclaimed and box office successes. He was nicknamed “Stellar” by the Hollywood press, and in a town where prestige and status are so important, he was given the front tables at the best and most famous restaurants in town — the Palm in West Hollywood, the legendary Dan Tana’s and of course, the Polo Lounge inside the Beverly Hills Hotel. He was sitting across from movie icons like Richard Zanuck, Tom Mankiewicz, David Brown and Orson Welles but unlike them, he had never finished reading a screenplay. It was all in the pitch when it came to the young Evan Thomas. Five intriguing and provoking lines from a writer, director or an agent and he was sold.

  He was named the head of a major studio but after a few years and numerous box office flops, he was forced to step down. Apparently, his gut feelings and luck had run their course … at least for the moment. At a hastily arranged news conference, in which he was barely coherent, he expressed gratitude to the oil company that owned the studio for the opportunity to run such a Hollywood landmark and later went on to say that his measly salary of half-a-million-dollars a year was nothing compared to what he made as an independent producer, suggesting that he was underpaid for green-lighting so many movie projects that ended up as major flops.

  Despite his box office failures and declining reputation, life was still wonderful for Evan. He purchased a mansion in Beverly Hills and named it after a Roman goddess. He developed a healthy fifty-thousand-a-week cocaine habit and had a harem of young girls, barely out of high school, parading around the house. He performed reprehensible sexual acts on the girls but like a real professional, he promised them all parts in his upcoming movies so they never went to the police. After all, you can take a shower and wipe the piss and poop off you but you can never wash away the shine on your star on Hollywood Boulevard. He threw parties almost every night and many of the Hollywood elite … actors, directors and fellow producers continued to show up. He still had plenty of money and as long as you had money, you were always a player and where else could you get such young pussy and not have to worry about going to jail?

  Evan’s love of movies never faded and he opened his own production company and named it “Stellar Productions.” The first few movies he produced were modest hits and that was great since he was the sole financier and his lifestyle demanded a steady flow of income. Unfortunately, the hits were followed by a new streak of box office flops culminating in a disaster about a Harlem nightclub during the 1920s, starring two miscast actors and directed by a talentless egomaniac without any qualms about going over-budget.

  But Evan was still a wealthy man, though no longer a member of the hundred-million-dollar club … or even the fifty-million-dollar club … or for that matter, the twenty-million-dollar club. Like a true survivor, he adapted. Instead of investing the lion’s share of his own money in a movie, he enticed wealthy, outside investors with his grand visions. After all, who doesn’t want to be in the movie business, surrounded by celebrities and going to premieres where your name rolls by on the final credits, if only for a split second? The parties continued and the cocaine flowed, but the girls weren’t as plentiful and the Hollywood elite decided he was too dangerous to be around. His speech was slurred and he started wearing a pair of large sunglasses day and night, indoors and out, that were clownish to say the least. He started keeping his hair slicked back like Rudolph Valentino and his hair tonic, or ghetto grease as people would call it behind his back, smelled like cat urine. He hired a well-known publicist to send out invitations to all those non-Hollywood millionaires — businessmen and women, lawyers, gangsters, and upper-class criminals, enticing them to invest in his latest project, a surefire mega-hit based on a classic TV series from the 1960s starring Roger Moore. Remakes and sequels were the new big thing in Hollywood … less risk, less originality and what better way to show your appreciation for a piece of art than by defaming its creators with cheap and talentless facsimiles.

  Evan and his surrogates did most of their fundraising at parties. First, get the guests a little drunk, offer them hits of cocaine passed around by beautiful young men and women dressed in skimpy attire, and then hit them with the pitch: a five-minute clip, narrated by the Stellar Boy himself, offering his guests the opportunity to enter the glorious world of Hollywood on the back of the most famous producer since David O. Selznick. Naturally, the money came pouring in. So much so, that Evan went over his goal after just two parties, but like a true champ, he didn’t stop there and continued with the parties and fundraising. It was so much easier than going to one of the studios and begging for money, not that any studio would give him a single cent. It was at one of these parties that a young, well-spoken man, with a noticeable scar running down the right side of his face, and wearing a dark Armani suit, took Evan aside and made a pitch that Evan could not resist: a charter membership in an organization that would guarantee him, at the very least, a hundred thousand dollars a month for life. The business was buying beautiful girls, age fifteen and younger, living in dirt-poor parts of the country. Once they turned eighteen, the girls would be shipped off to different parts of the country, such as Vegas, Los Angeles and New York, where their services would be in great demand and the large price tag not a problem. Evan loved the idea, and after a couple more hits of cocaine, he wrote out a check for two million dollars. After all, nothing sells like sex…

  Elizabeth Porter was born in Appalachia, like Nicole. A God-fearing young lady whose favorite book was the Bible, she was the type of girl who blushed when her friends talked dirty. Unfortunately, she was born beautiful and blossomed at an early age. She believed that God never put a challenge in front of her that she couldn’t overcome. So when she was purchased by the organization and uncertain of her future, she never doubted that God would protect her. And when she met Nicole on the plane to New York, she knew she’d found her angel. It was Nicole who wrapped her arms around her and made plans for the life they would lead together once they were released from their contracts or once Nicole came up with a way to escape. They were going to move far away and raise Nicole’s sister and never talk about the past. They would decorate for Christmas and have wonderful Thanksgiving dinners. They would be a family, and despite the size of their home, they would always share a room.

  Nicole would read verses from the Bible to help Elizabeth sleep, even though Nicole had given up on God and religion a long time ago. Once Elizabeth was asleep, Nicole would often watch her — Elizabeth was her reassurance that the entire world wasn’t populated with greedy, selfish, pleasure-seeking individuals. She made a point every day to warn Elizabeth that under no circumstances was she to use drugs. Heroin and cocaine were readily available. Clients were constantly pushing the drugs onto the girls, even though the organization prohibited it. Alcohol, on the other hand, was a constant. Dom Perignon and Cristal flowed freely, often leading to the outlawed drugs. Girls were constantly overdosing. A few were forced into early retirement, their names and lives expunged from the chronicle of human evolution like a wet eraser passing over a dirty chalkboard. And even though Elizabeth would never intentionally disobey Nicole, after a few glasses of champagne, she became susceptible to the persuasive arguments of clients.

  The pestilence and filth and disgusting behavior associated with Elizabeth’s unlisted profession clung to her, but finally the light at the end of the tunnel was visible. The house with the white picket fence and rose gardens … filled with unconditional love and the laughter of a child and the rich aroma of home-cooked holiday dinners and beautiful decorations would soon be a reality. Nicole promised.

  The investors never saw a penny of their money. The movies were made and they got a chance to walk down the red carpet and mingle with a few stars and see their names flash across the screen, but there was no return. The critics panned all the movies and they flopped at the box office. The well had dried up; not even mailroom clerks took Evan’s calls, not even his family back east. But like any good con artist, he took his sh
ow on the road. First stop, Las Vegas.

  Evan’s sole income was from the organization that provided the high-class hookers. The two-million-dollar investment was the gift that kept on coming. Like the greaseball in the Armani suit promised, Evan received a check every month and it was now going on nearly five years since he became a partner. He didn’t know much about the organization but he did retain a phone number.

  The FBI, IRS, Homeland Security and the local police department all had ongoing investigations into the once famous, award-winning producer. Evan, who had to let go of his legal team, had no idea. As his film career and empire collapsed, his imperial palace deteriorated. Rodents and cockroaches moved in while the young, gullible and beautiful girls packed and went running. The smell emitted by the palace was so intense that nearby residents complained to the authorities. Like a true professional, Evan didn’t panic; he used the monthly check from the organization to get a steady high. Sure, the cocaine wasn’t as pure as in the golden days, but with enough martinis and a few amphetamines added to the mix, it was like nothing had changed.

  Unlike Evan, the organization and its supreme members were quite aware of the situation. They wanted nothing to do with the FBI, IRS or Homeland Security, and if ever there was going to be a snitch, a turncoat, a wheezy little rat … it was this disgusting asshole. And unlike the movies, the cannoli was to be left at the scene.

  Naked in his hotel room in Vegas, Evan was snorting coke and drinking martinis, and decided it was time he tried the product he’d invested in five years earlier. He forgot the warning that at no time were any of the girls to be used for one’s personal pleasures. He called the number and a friendly female voice answered. He insisted that he was a partner in the organization and demanded that a young innocent-looking girl be sent to his room. He was, after all, Evan Thomas, as he repeatedly screamed into the phone — Evan Thomas, Hollywood mogul and legend.

  She put him on hold, looked down at his name highlighted in red. The call was made.

  The greaseball who initially recruited Evan into the organization just so happened to be on his way from Los Angeles to Vegas when he received a cryptic message … the location of the target and the approximate time he was to be eliminated. The man in the Armani suit was a real professional. The mobsters in charge of the organization raised him. Carmine Costello, one of the heads of the organization, was like a father to him. He was taught to schmooze and kill and bully in a variety of different ways. He never left clues behind him after doing a job, and outside of his bosses back in Chicago, nobody knew much about him. It was only recently that law enforcement learned of him and was able to tie him to a number of murders, and still they did not know his name. When the man in the Armani suit got orders, he did not question them; yet his judgment and aptitude were so well respected that if he decided an order was too risky to carry out in that moment, or that it could expose the organization to problems, he was free to wait for an ideal time, which was usually never far away.

  Elizabeth receives the call and instructions shortly after Evan Thomas makes the call, and an hour later, she arrives at his hotel room. He opens the door, dressed in a bathrobe, holding a martini and wearing his clownish eyeglasses. He looks Elizabeth over as cocaine drips from his nose. “You’ll do.” He waves her into the room, which smells like a sewer — whether from the bathroom, the deplorable creature in front of her or most likely both.

  Evan lets his robe drop to the floor and lies on the bed naked, wiping his dripping nose with his finger and placing it into his mouth. He looks like a corpse: a charter member of the walking dead, a pompous asshole too stupid to lie down and play dead. Steeling herself, Elizabeth gently passes her hand up along his thigh. The texture of his skin makes her cringe. It is dry and fractured as though he laid out in the desert sun for too long, unprotected and dehydrated — or maybe he was simply the victim of radiation poison or was accidentally placed in a microwave and left to cook on high. She reaches into her purse and takes out a lubricant and rubs it gently around his crinkled genitals but there is no reaction.

  Is he dead? She wrinkles her nose at the stench of decay. All that’s left is for maggots to come crawling through his skin, out of his mouth, eating away at his eyes that are covered by those clownish glasses.

  He pushes her away as he lowers his glasses and looks at her with eyes so dilated that they look more like tennis balls. “Don’t you know who I am?”

  “Mr. Thomas,” Elizabeth replies meekly.

  “Mr. Evan Thomas. The world’s most famous movie producer!” He snorts two large hits of cocaine, wipes the residue from beneath his nose, and licks it off his finger with his lizard-like tongue. “Don’t you go to the movies, you stupid little whore?”

  “Not much. I don’t have the time.”

  “Of course not. Too busy sucking cocks and taking it in the ass. Isn’t that true, bitch? Tell me, how do you like it in the ass? Hard and dry or hard and wet?”

  “I don’t do that. Nothing anal.”

  He reaches for his martini on the nightstand and spills half of it. Rivulets of alcohol run down his shriveled and arid body as Elizabeth, a pure and sinless soul caught in the whirlwind of a soulless beast, moves farther away.

  He laughs and laughs, “I’m the great Evan Thomas. You don’t tell me what I can or can’t do.”

  He starts to mumble incoherently, a decrepit, rabid beast, unhinged and dangerous … even his fingernails are unnaturally long and dirty like the claws of an animal ready to pounce on some innocent prey. Elizabeth picks up her purse, excuses herself and walks into the bathroom and closes the door. The stench is unbearable as she looks down into the toilet that is filled with a ghastly amount of vomit, blood, mucus and other bodily discharges. She reaches over and flushes the toilet as Evan blasts through the door, takes her by the back of her hair and pushes her face down. He rips at her panties and tries to force himself into her. Elizabeth grasps a metal Kleenex dispenser, rips it off the wall and flings her arm backwards, smashing it against his head. He falls sideways into the bathtub and she grabs the top off the toilet tank and smashes it against his body. Then she pulls her panties up from around her legs. Shaken like a virgin leaf caught in the whirlwind of a dangerous storm, she runs out of the room.

  The door to Nicole’s apartment rattles for a moment and then is thrown open. Nicole drops her book and stares as Elizabeth runs past her to the bathroom. A moment later, the shower starts. Nicole knocks, but doesn’t wait for an answer. Elizabeth is already on the shower floor, knees drawn to her chest, tears mixing with the water pouring down on her. Nicole kneels next to her, picks up a washcloth and soap and gently begins wiping the body of her one true friend … her only real family.

  Between fits of uncontrollable crying, Elizabeth tells Nicole what happened. Nicole offers words of comfort and repeats over and over again that they would very soon be leaving Vegas and starting the life they have dreamed about. She has Elizabeth promise her that she will not leave the apartment, tells her just to stay in the shower and let the water run over her, and concentrate on the beautiful life they are about to embark on. Then she walks into the bedroom, opens the top drawer of her dresser and takes out her Maxim 9. In the business Nicole was forced into, being emotional was suicidal; nothing was more important than having control. But seeing Elizabeth tonight…

  She places the gun in her purse and leaves the apartment.

  At Evan Thomas’s hotel, she enters the elevator alone and watches the flashing buttons on the panel until the door opens. The man in the Armani suit stands there. “Going down?” he asks.

  Nicole shakes her head as she walks out of the elevator.

  “Hope your luck changes,” he says, unexpectedly, as Nicole looks back at him for a long moment. The door closes as Nicole turns down the hallway to Evan’s room. She clutches at the concealed gun in her pocket and slows her pace as she hears footsteps and commotion coming her way. Suddenly, a paramedic gently touches her arm and asks her to move to t
he side. She doesn’t hear him with all the commotion. She panics and pulls the gun out of her pocket and then quickly puts it back as a group of paramedics rush toward her, wheeling a semi-conscious Evan Thomas on a stretcher. She glances down at the pig. “What happened?”

  “Fell in the bathtub. A guest called and complained about the smell. My God, it stinks in there.”

  Nicole enters the room and immediately covers her nose. She looks at the soiled bed, the mound of cocaine, then turns and walks back to the elevator.

  Nicole parks her black Jaguar and watches the paramedics unload Evan Thomas at Sunrise Hospital and Medical Center. She gets out of the car and walks toward the entrance, then stops. The man in the Armani suit walks out of the ER. Nicole doesn’t believe in coincidences, and if she had to kill the pig and his bodyguard, all the better. She waits for him to disappear and then walks into the ER and to the admitting station. The area is empty, except for a few staff members. A nurse greets her, but refuses to tell her anything about Mr. Thomas.

  “Take a seat. Or come back later,” the nurse remarks without looking up from her paperwork.