“It’s 10 PM. Do you know where your children are?”
“A Demonic Once Upon A Time In Hollywood.” – Jason Henderson, Author of “Night of the Book Man” and “18 Miles from Town.”
Heading the largest independent production and distribution company in Hollywood, Idalis Troy is determined to continue the crusade for global media domination her father started – albeit on her terms. But, to succeed, Idalis must face the East Coast boys club of old money and the predators ruling the entertainment industry in 1999.
Navigating her ambitious plans for an aggressive expansion of her empire and her budding relationship with her girlfriend, Idalis takes her executive team to Paris to salvage what is left of a man’s failed dream. But, in the city of light, a group of deadly conspirators tracks her every move, coming for her head.
To save her colleagues and herself, Idalis must not only outwit her lethal pursuers but figure out why she is haunted by a former child star – wife of Uncle Joe, the king of children’s entertainment – an actress who died two decades earlier but who might be an immortal, and more frighteningly, a god hungering for the worship of humanity.
[Content warning: This horror novel depicts scenes of violence, profanity, and sexual situations, and, therefore, may not be appropriate for sensitive or younger readers.]
The following is an exclusive preview of “THE NEON DEVIL” by Chris Buse.
Readers Discretion is strongly advised!
CHAPTER 10: BABYLON, HOLLYWOOD, 1951
“Ellen Callaway, I want you to come here this very minute,” Marigold shouted at the top of her lungs, standing in the foyer of the European-style 19th-century country-house. Even though her bedroom was on the other side of the residence, and she’d closed the door, she heard every word the woman yelled.
“I’m not ready,” Ellen screamed back, raising her voice that caused men to get a hard-on, smiling at the most beautiful creature she’d ever seen. “And don’t tell me you are going to kill my cat. I don’t have a fucking cat.” No, she didn’t, but it was the year of the cat; it most definitely was.
In half a year, it’d be the year of the dragon. The year of the water dragon, to put a finer point on it. In her mind, there wasn’t much difference between these species, though one wasn’t real, and Chinese dragons didn’t look like those mystical beasts you encountered in fairy tales. Her life was that. Like with the legendary Hydra or some other fabulous water-snake-like monster from ancient lore, it was a make-believe story, carefully crafted by publicists at her studio feeding lines to Hedda Hopper.
She was a princess who lived in one of the castles you saw around town; mansions made to resemble Babylonian temples, Moroccan forts, Persian palaces, and the stately pleasure-dome decree. There was no sacred river Alph, alas. The Los Angeles River ran dry for nine months of the year.
In this town, the structures, even the house they resided in, were that, painted backdrops on a movie studio backlot. Even the palm trees were set dressing. The faux-French country-house they’d been living in for five years was quite all right. A cat might like the open spaces. She was a goddess, however.
“I don’t care if you are ready,” Ellen heard her mother holler, rudely interrupting her contemplations.
“Do you want Mr. Mayer to see me in my birthday suit? That’ll get my contract re-upped.”
“Don’t be cute with me, Ellen, and don’t tell me you aren’t dressed yet.”
“That is exactly what I am trying to tell you, Mother, if only you’d listened. What’s the rush anyway?”
“We are going to Santa Monica. You know that. Being late is neither lady-like nor fashionable.”
“Don’t be ridiculous. And don’t worry, there will be plenty of food left by the time we arrive.”
“If we ever arrive. One minute. I’m going to send Rad after you so he can carry you over his shoulder.”
“You wouldn’t dare, Mother, I’m practically naked.”
“Don’t lie to me, Ellen, I know you are dressed.”
“Without lipstick, I ain’t,” she shouted back louder, getting even more irritable than she already was, especially since her mother was correct. She was wearing a breathtakingly beautiful silver sequin gown MGM’s star costume designer Helen Rose had made for her, though the dress and the precarious silver shoes she’d put on weren’t reflective of her age or appropriate. Her shiny black hair matched her attire with how it bounced in sleek, luxurious waves over her bare shoulders and back. She’d also lied about her lipstick. Being dragged to a party she had no interest in going to in the first place; she was still intent on leaving a lasting impression. She might even kiss a mirror in one of the bathrooms to give the filthy man something to dream about. Well, her Helena Rubinstein No. 6 crimson red lipstick was perfect for that. As for the most beautiful creature she was peeking at, wouldn’t that be her mirror twin?
“Ok, I’m sending Rad after you,” Marigold yelled, whose name meant “golden flowers,” quite puzzling considering the woman had the most annoying voice, especially when she got loud.
“How am I supposed to apply my lipstick when you keep screaming like that? Sweet Baby Jesus!”
She smiled at him, and then at her face, pleased by what she saw. Turning away from the full-length mirror, she made sure to blow his image a kiss before she stepped out of her room and into the corridor.
“Alas, she blesses us with her presence,” Marigold said, spotting her ambling from the living room.
“I’m ready for my close-up,” she declared as she finally made it into the lobby, sauntering not striding, still strutting her stuff, which the long gown she wore made easy. Smiling, Ellen directed her gaze to the beefy man, then to her mother, who hadn’t donned the thick glasses she usually put on when doing the books and financial records or whatever she did or when negotiating on her behalf. Of course, Marigold hadn’t. “You’re supposed to say, action,” she told Rad, flashing him an alluring crimson red lipstick smile.
“Action,” the tall man said, tipping two fingers against the short-sized brim of his gray fedora hat.
He’d never made a move, being too smart for that. Even though Marigold controlled the purse strings, and she signed his weekly checks, Rad had zero trouble identifying the household’s breadwinner. She’d been that since she was eight. Slinking across the hardwood floor, she cast her famous lavender-colored eyes about the foyer. The hideous antique table she saw, the tufted sofas in the living room, the Charles and Ray Eames-designed DCM chairs in the dining room, and the other pieces of furniture in the house her parent considered an investment, her movie star money had paid for all of it. The east-facing, 3,200 square foot hillside country-house, which sat on a three-acre lot together with a 2,000 square foot farm-style guest cottage, the stone fireplaces, the beamed ceilings, the paned windows, and even the fucking outdoor swimming pool, all of which were a soundstage and film set props, albeit rented since this was California and nobody had any roots, it depended on her knowing her silly lines, smiling innocently into a camera, looking pretty, and playing nice. Rad knew it, and Marigold knew it, and that was why tonight she and her mother were going to this fucking party to show the men at the studio that she was worth their time and valuable enough to have her seven-year contract renewed, which ended in nine months.
“Drive,” Marigold said. Ellen slumped back in her seat, carefully avoiding creases in her evening gown. One of the windows in the rear was open, and she enjoyed the cool air that whizzed by. It was July, and the temperature during the daytime stayed above one hundred degrees. Driving along Benedict Canyon and Beverly Crest, Ellen smelled the heavily fragranced scent of the thick pines and the flowering cherry trees. Without leaning forward, she gazed at the man in the driver’s seat, who kept his eyes on the road ahead but was still seeing her. How could he not, she was the girl a studio paid a weekly salary of $850. According to the deal he and Marigold had struck when he began working for them two years ago, Rad made $60 a week for the services he provided, plus free room and board, liquor not included.
Rad, whose full name was Radix Thorn, had managed to fit several careers into the relatively short span of thirty-four years he had roamed this mortal coil. Having dropped out of college during his junior year for lack of funds, he immediately began competing in amateur boxing matches, turning pro during the year before enlisting in Uncle Sam’s Army, where he continued his chosen path. However, obtaining an honorable discharge after the war, he tried his hand at acting, moving out to Hollywood. Rad landed a few minor roles in cheaply produced B-movies which in turn led to him being cast as the male lead in one of the better crime dramas of the era; the beautifully nihilistic, Camus influenced, “Detour,” helmed by none other than Edgar C. Ulmer. But movie stardom kept eluding him, thus Rad returned to the ring, a washed-up boxer at twenty-nine. It couldn’t last, and Rad fell in with the wrong crowd, or depending on your perspective, the right side, or maybe actually a bit of both, since he first worked as a gangland enforcer, then as a private eye. He then was brought on to MGM by one of Louis B. Mayer’s lieutenants as a fixer, which was also where he’d met Marigold, who’d asked the studio if it was ok if she hired him away from them as a driver and bodyguard for her and her star child. Since guys like Rad, men with cold eyes, rough-hewn faces, military issue crew cuts, and broad shoulders were a dime a dozen, the studio didn’t object, especially not since she’d just starred in her most successful film to date, which had made 6.5 million dollars at the worldwide box office on a budget of less than $250,000.
Looking at the man’s huge hands on the wheel, she figured once again that his name was interesting. The meaning in Latin was “root,” as far as its Slavic origin went, it meant “fortunate,” “eager,” or “lucky.” In German, Rad was the word used for “wheel,” which kind of made him a “wheel of fortune.” Well, in her mind, it did anyway, and no surprise then that he should end up as her driver. As for the other part of his job description, she did just fine fending for herself if need be, but it was comforting to know that he waited in the car whenever she was seeing someone outside the studio lot. Like with that guy who’d invited her to his Laurel Canyon mansion, allegedly to discuss the character she was playing, to develop the script, or what other lame-ass excuse his one-track-mind had managed to pull out of his sorry ass.
It’d happened earlier in the week, and when she showed up on his doorstep, she already got a sense that this wouldn’t end well. For one, the man, a director in his early fifties, had a Greek name she found impossible to ever pronounce correctly, not that she cared. But the former, and the fact that he wanted to meet with her at his house, made her raise an eyebrow. She only played the little dumb bitch in the movies, he had to know that. After some polite conversation and a bit of shop talk, both intended as a pretext to whatever he had in mind, with her being able to see in his beady big wolf eyes how the gears in his head clicked into place, he told her he wanted to show her something, and what he presented to her was shocking, albeit not surprising if you paid attention to the blind items in the Los Angeles Times.
The windowless room she was led in by the foreign director was soundproof for good reasons. By all appearances, he’d had a dungeon installed right next to his fucking living room and home office. Judging by the torture equipment her violet eyes spied, the old pervert was really into what was called BDSM.
“I want to tie you up,” the smarmy pig announced, breaking into a sweat as he pointed to an x-shaped metal cross that was fixed to a frame and the floor and featured leather straps to restrain an individual in a spreadeagle position. “I’m going to fuck your tight little pussy until you come so hard you faint,” he added with a sicko grin on his oily olive skin, the corners of his spittle-wet lips twitching uncontrollably.
Peering at the metal cross, she concluded that it looked interesting, darkly fascinating even, that was until you noticed the gross man standing next to it leering at her.
Since she read a lot, she was an actress after all, and in-between takes, there was nothing else to do on a set other than that, to fuck or get shit-faced, she knew, it was called a Saint Andrew’s Cross, named for Andrew the Apostle, who like his brother Simon Peter was a disciple of Christ and a fisher of men.
However, when coming to the Greek city of Patras in AD 60, people didn’t take well to his preaching. Willing to die for his faith, Andrew allowed himself to get arrested and bound, not nailed, to what was known as a Latin Cross, the kind Jesus was nailed to by the Romans. The legend changed in subsequent re-tellings, identifying the cross as a crux decussata, also known as a Saltire or an x-shaped cross.
Supposedly Andrew had requested this contraption to be used as the instrument of his execution lest he put himself on one level with Jesus, deeming his sorry self unworthy of crucifixion on the Latin Cross. It was either this or Andrew, declared a saint for his sacrifice, was into some kinky shit. Curiously gazing at the restraining points for wrists, ankles, and waist on the sex object as tall as she, she could see that. She was sure there were pleasures to be had from being tied to this plaything; only the fat, ugly helmer was not the partner she wanted to try this out with. She was more into girls right now anyway.
“You like that, don’t you?” the man with the unpronounceable name deduced while his eyes x-rayed her attire. “I want you to take off all your clothes,” he told her as he began to pull down his pants.
“You know, my mother has put me on a strict diet, which means I’m always hungry. If I put that in my mouth, who knows what’s going to happen. I might chew it off clean and swallow it whole in one bite.”
His pitiful member got flaccid fast following her candid proclamation, especially with how she flashed her pearly whites at him. He could tell she had strong jaw muscles, and she was a hungry girl.
Flustered, he pulled up his seersucker pants in no time flat as she saw herself out. Striding to the car idling at the curb in front of his mansion, she never mentioned the incident to Rad, who sat behind the steering wheel, but when he shot her a glance in the rearview mirror, she was convinced he knew.
Rad stopping the car was what pulled her out of her reverie. They were at 625 Palisades Beach Road, Santa Monica. The gaudily lit white beach house with the brown shingle roof she spied was right at the water. The light from inside the house and the terracotta-tiled terrace imbued the indigo blue water of the Pacific and the beach with a golden sheen. It was already past 10 p.m., and though there were stars up in the night sky, no moon competed with the tacky illumination of the beach house. As for the stars she beheld above her when Rad got the door for her and her mother and she got out of the blue Lincoln Cosmopolitan Limousine, a case could be made that they shone less brightly than those signed to MGM, and it wouldn’t even have been a lie.
“I want you on your best behavior,” her mother whispered to her as they approached the house.
She nodded in agreement while her eyes followed the car. Rad wasn’t leaving, he was simply moving the vehicle, so when the next party guests arrived, they had the stage to themselves. She knew he’d be waiting at a parking area behind the 6,416 square foot abode designated for the fancy rides of the stars. It was also where the drivers hung out, passing around a flask of cheap bourbon or scotch or whatever their poison was, awaiting the return of their employers, most likely intoxicated themselves by the time they re-emerged from the oceanfront domicile, thus unable to notice any liquor stench on their driver’s breath in their inebriated state. Only Rad didn’t drink, at least not in public. Instead, he usually brought one of the paperback novels he was fond of reading, books with lovingly painted, enticingly lurid covers.
“You look like a million dollars,” Ellen heard her mother say once they’d reached the swimming pool. The water looked green as it reflected the lights from the domicile. Then, casting her violet gaze upward, she spied three wrought-iron balconies appearing glaringly white.
“Don’t worry; they are going to renew my contract, and I will continue to shit money for us,” she said, thinking of the thirteen onyx bathrooms of the magic castle she’d heard so much about. She might leave something else in there other than a crimson lipstick kiss. However, that would have been unfair since the studio boss no longer resided in the pleasure dome he’d decreed in 1936, erected within six weeks, utilizing electricians, artisans, and carpenters from MGM’s backlot. Balding Kubla Khan had even tasked art director Cedric Gibbons with giving the beachside property a Mediterranean, olive-tree-rich flair.
“Don’t talk like that,” Marigold admonished her, feigning the naive Midwesterner she never was. She had been around the block a couple of times since her divorce. Ellen hardly remembered her father.
“Don’t worry, I’ll play your little girl, Marigold. I’m an actress. I’ll even pretend I’m still innocent.”
“You cannot shock me, Ellen. But yes, go right ahead and do that. We need that contract.”
“Yeah, I know,” she assured her mother, glancing at the front door and the high panoramic windows left and right from it, loathing the people she spotted in the large living room on the ground floor.
“L.B. we’re so glad we’ve finally made it,” Marigold purred, adding with a sigh, “Traffic on the PCH is a nightmare. Why in the world do so many people own cars who don’t know how to drive?”
She had to hand it to Marigold. She was one of the few people who called the studio mogul L.B. But even more amazing was her ability to switch from being a tough bitch in business affairs to her pussycat mode in under ten seconds. The men in the movie-making colony considered her old at forty-three, and they made her feel fat, which she wasn’t, yes, a bit bloated sure, but she knew how to turn on the charm like a car’s headlights, though her headlights were a long time away from getting much attention.
“Marigold, I’m glad you made it,” said the rail-thin gray-haired man with the horn-rimmed specs. He had the dough-like face of a bulldog. In her silver high heels, she towered over him. Louis B. Mayer was a tyrant and a major asshole, but he was also a smart businessman. She was his investment. Having to deal with her stage mother was simply the cost of doing business. Ellen knew Mayer hated her mother, or any mother, for that matter, who was protecting her child from men like him. The way he glanced at Marigold gave it away. There was so much hate in those eyes magnified by his hideous glasses.
He expected she’d be soon distracted by craft services. Being a prick and an old miser, he’d hired the catering crew who worked for the studio, and lest his valuable two-legged racehorses got fat, the menu consisted exclusively of fresh seafood tonight. Unlike Marigold, she had no love for the buffet set up on sideboards arranged into a cross as if they were supposed to pray to the Catholic Legion of Decency.
“And we’ll be glad once you find the time to talk about the new contract,” she heard Marigold say to the disgusting man. It was impossible not to notice how his x-ray eyes were pinned to her sequin dress.
“The contract you want to include a substantial raise. But all in due time. Just be patient.”
“As long as you remember that my girl is worth every red cent. Just look at her, will you? That’s silver screen goddess material right there,” her mother concluded her pitch while she slowly drifted away.
Well, she did wear a silver dress; as for the goddess part, the smarmy actor, making a beeline for the prettiest girl in the room, seemed to think that she was that. Before he even spoke, she shot him a gaze telling him she was Athena having sprung forth from Zeus’ head, a fourteen-year-old sans any intention of polishing his tiny johnson. Darting her violet eyes to the platinum blonde starlet involved in a serious discussion with two directors while falling out of the dress she was sheathed in like a dagger, she silently told him, “Go, fuck Barbara Payton,” while she pondered at the same time what in the world the would-be actress was telling these filmmakers who politely laughed at her anecdotes. They were not different from a thirteen-year-old boy jerking off to her recent pin-up photo, the one depicting the hot blonde in a metallic-red two-piece swimsuit. Lounging seductively at the edge of a swimming pool, she made the most of her body and her long legs, though the mansion in the background was only superimposed into the shot. Rumor had it she was fucking Bob Hope, though all she ever craved was a big Black cock.
Having disentangled herself from her suitor, she stepped to one of the windows to look at the roaring ocean nipping at the sand. What creature might be born in its black depth, she wondered, squinting at the bobbing, frothing waves, ignoring the million lustful eyes checking out her ass, which was probably for the better. It was one of those nights when she missed her father.
She did eventually make it to the buffet, which was where another guy chatted her up.
“You are Ellen Callaway, right?” the man deduced, not the most original way to get her attention.
Holding a plate in one hand, he still had a hand at his disposal to brush back the long strands of thick brown hair that were grazing the temples of his lean face. Only he didn’t do that. Maybe it was supposed to be charming, only it wasn’t. He seriously needed a comb. Plus, he was at least twenty years older.
“People keep calling me by that name, and I respond, so I guess it must be true.”
“I’m Joseph Belle,” the mustachioed guy introduced himself as if she didn’t know who he was. “People call me Uncle Joe,” he added in his soothing, deadly-dull Southern drawl that made him sound retarded.
“I’m not going to call you that,” she told the man who had crooked teeth and a long, thin nose as she reached for a silver spoon to add two deviled eggs to her citrus shrimp and avocado salad.
“Why not?” he wondered as he helped himself to a healthy serving of the shrimp curry madras.
“Because I’m fourteen, and you’re a grown-ass man, and it sounds fucking creepy,” she whispered.
“I see. Little children love calling me that. They love my rabbit,” he said, shrugging his shoulders.
“Now, here I might take this as a double entendre, but sadly, I can tell you’re serious.”
“I am. Stucky the Lucky Rabbit is a star,” he asserted, awkwardly flashing his uneven teeth at her.
“You are just weird. What are you doing here anyway? You are not MGM. Are you trying to get laid?”
“She isn’t MGM either,” he posited, darting a glance at a smoking hot blonde. “And neither is the guy she’s with. They don’t look like they are in the business at all.”
“That’s Kitty Gehova as you probably know. Her dad can buy her a studio for her birthday, no sweat.”
“I know. Mr. Mayer and we are in negotiations for a joined project,” he revealed.
“Great. That’s what we need. More horny rabbits.” Ellen cast her gaze to her plate. “I’m into nibbling on eggs, but even though it’s the year of the rabbit, I’m not into rabbit meat,” she stated, striding away, sensing his eyes burning holes into her dress that accentuated her ass thanks to the talented Miss Rose.
“Wow, she’s something else,” Ellen heard the nerdy, bespectacled guy say who was standing next to the uninspired hack who’d come up with one good idea and who otherwise relied on his legion of gifted animators to haul his ass out of the fire that was bankruptcy. After a string of hits in the 40s, Belle wasn’t doing so hot. There was even a rumor going around that Belle’s business partner was trying to sell the failing studio, and maybe that was why both men were here tonight. Only for now; Stuart Stucky Siegel, the man for whom Belle had named his lucky creation, was busy staring at her buttocks.
The oily-haired, round specs-wearing man in the bespoke suit and the gaze he darted at her from the other end of the room was something else entirely. Standing prone, Ellen shot him a smile indented to make his wood hard, though his wife, artist Miriam Svet, was watching him like a hawk. At forty-six, he was a halfway decent playwright and a one-time director, however, what was most puzzling, the money men in New York had forced L.B. to bring him on as his next Irving Thalberg. As much as Mayer was one Hell of a shrewd numbers guy, MGM was losing ground fast with the ever-changing taste of moviegoers. Luring Dore Schary away from RKO and making him head of production was one big Hail Mary to reverse the fortunes of the studio. At least it was that for MGM’s parent company. Glancing at him, Ellen could tell he was a shark swimming among guppies. In 1944, L.B. had lost this house in a divorce settlement, although his ex-wife Margaret let him use the property on occasion after Mayer had moved into a suite at the Roosevelt Hotel. Now, this man was gunning for his job. She almost felt sorry for the sexist pig.
Ellen was sitting in the armchair she used for her desk, though she’d turned the chair to face her bed, with her bare feet propped up on the heavy mattress. Smoking a cigarette, she cast her gaze away from Boris Karloff’s stern scowl to her legs. She was wearing faded blue jeans that were too long; hence she’d rolled up the cuffs, which was peculiar, she thought, since everybody kept telling her that she had these most amazing legs. Well, her legs weren’t as long as Barbara Payton’s, but her fifteenth birthday was only a week ago. She’d requested her quinceañera to be a low-key affair. Surprisingly, her mother had relented, but then she could sense it, too. Hollywood was changing.
Last year in August, less than a month after the party at the oceanfront property he no longer owned, Louis B. Mayer had been unceremoniously fired from the studio he’d run for almost three decades with a tight fist and his wandering eyes. As she’d had predicted, greasy-haired Dore Schary succeeded Mayer at the helm, but the writing was on the wall. Following a landmark United States Supreme Court ruling that barred studios from operating proprietary theatres, Loews, Inc., MGM’s overlord, decided to divest its controlling stake in Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Studios, Inc. Here was an ironic movie twist for you. Being the parent of one of the largest chains of movie theatres in the country, namely Loew’s Theaters, Loew’s chose to retain its lucrative distribution and exhibition business rather than keep churning out content. Meanwhile, Dore Schary believed that even more lavish Cinemascope productions filmed in Technicolor were an antidote against their new enemy, the black-and-white eye that was television.
She’d heard that Belle was interested in the new medium, but with a studio that once was the last to embrace sound pictures, and with Mayer gone, whatever deal the awkward gaunt man had envisioned to save his little shingle was dead in the water. Schary had no interest in television as was evident from the studio’s new production slate, but Mayer he was not. If you wanted further evidence that the tightly controlled star system had overstayed its welcome and that the public was eager to see Rome Babylon go up in flames, there was a new scandal rag rumored to be waiting in the wings to blow the lid off.
Hollywood began to look like “The Day of the Locust” had arrived, only that the little men who were dead inside and who’d come to Hollywood to die were turning on Tinseltown to cheerily witness “The Burning of Los Angeles” firsthand, if not lighting the fuse themselves. To get a taste of how much things were destined to become unhinged, uncensored, and off the record, you only had to take a look at the shitshow that was the disappearance of Kitty Gehova. Just a week after the daughter of the richest man in America had turned up at Margaret’s beachside mansion; Kitty had vanished one night while driving in her silver Mercedes sports car on Route 110. Not only was Kitty wealthy, but she gave Barbara Payton a run for her money in the looks department. Naturally, the press was all over the case. And though the small army of reporters working on the story didn’t bury the lede with their wild speculations that she’d either been abducted by aliens in their flying saucer, Satanists, or a pack of in-bred perverts, they didn’t shy away from pointing the finger at the degenerates you encountered in the cesspool of depravity and sinfulness that was Hollyweird, sensing that Mr. and Mrs. Midwest Bible Belt had an insatiable appetite for sordid tales of moral downfall. For every Kitty, there was another starlet with stars in her eyes. She might be next, too, and there wouldn’t be much of a studio system left to protect her from the vultures. So far, she was still everybody’s darling, and she knew what MGM’s press release would say tomorrow. Today was Wednesday, April 30, 1952, and it was an important day for Marigold and her.
This morning, they and the new head of MGM had signed a new seven-year contract, and she didn’t even have to fuck Dore Schary for it. However, the oily-faced executive had steadfastly refused to make good on the raise Mayer had tentatively agreed on to put a stop to Marigold’s badgering. Citing financial pressure from his corporate puppet masters, he had assured them that she was still MGM’s princess.
Marigold had put on a happy face, but she knew she was growing bitter and resentful, having invested a lot of time in cultivating a working relationship with L.B., enduring much ridicule from the man behind her back. Everybody wanted to fuck with her, but nobody wanted to fuck her. Thus, tonight, they’d only had a small celebration, just the two of them, not at home as she’d have liked it. Her parent desired the publicity, and she’d ordered Rad to drive them to Sunset Boulevard where they had dinner at Mocambo. She liked the club all right. The Latin-American-themed design was tacky as fuck, but the food was some of the best, and she was famished, and she wanted a steak so badly. But that was not what her mother had in mind for her, telling her she needed to stay thin and that a small waist made her breasts and ass stand out more, that there were girls who wanted what was handed to her on a silver platter.
As per her mother’s order, what got handed to her was half a grapefruit that wasn’t anything to write home about and even less worthy of being referred to as “supreme.” Alas, the Lobster Cocktail Cardinal was, only that it was for her mother to stuff her face with. The situation didn’t improve once the entrees arrived, the beast masking as a parent had ordered. They could have asked for the Chateaubriand Grille Bouquetiere for two or she’d have gladly settled for the Lobster Thermidor Prince de Monaco, but what she was saddled with were the grilled lamb chops with veggies sans potatoes like she was a fucking kid. Naturally, Marigold happily and noisily gormandized an entire finger-thick New York Sirloin Steak until she was gorged with so much protein and vitamin B to last her a lifetime. When she protested, Marigold looked up from her plate, and lifting a hand with her fork clutched tightly, she pointed to a famous child actress sitting with her handlers, signing autographs in between chowing down on hearts of celery.
“Watch your weight; there’s your competition,” she said before binging on Crepes Suzette Paradis.
She could have murdered Marigold, but she also felt sorry for her. Still, she was elated that her parent had chased down all that food with four Dry Martinis Mocambo, which had put her out of commission.
She’d finagled the bigger bedroom which connected to a dressing room on one side and her mother’s room on the other. As she killed her smoke, she listened carefully, but there wasn’t a sound throughout the entire house other than the snoring emanating from opposite the wall. Blowing Boris Karloff an air kiss, she quickly put on her canvas sneakers she wasn’t allowed to wear in public. She opened the door leading to the woodland garden, stealthily stealing into the night. She’d played plenty of nosy teenaged detectives, forced to act as a sidekick to the near-unsufferable boy wonder Mickey Rooney, no wonder below the waist according to Ava Gardner, so creeping wasn’t an issue.
Walking slowly, breathing in the cool air, she passed the swimming pool, its calm dark water reflecting the unmoving treetops of the blooming cherry trees that provided some needed cover when she either raced with herself from one end of the pool to the other or she sunbathed. People in this Hell of a town were offering good money for a shot of her in a bathing suit, but she was no Barbara Payton. She wasn’t a dime-a-dozen pin-up queen; she was stunningly beautiful. She knew half of Hollywood’s men wanted to fuck her, and many of the women, too, not that she minded; she’d tried both with different partners. It didn’t make much difference. She’d enjoyed fucking. That was all there was to it for now. She paused when she reached the guest cottage. Standing behind a pine tree partially hiding her well-proportioned frame, she peered across the darkness at the brightly lit living room that was like a soundstage without any bothersome drapes drawn over the paned window. Shirtless, clad in the pants of the suit he’d worn in the car, Rad stood with his back to her, his powerful body outlined by the floor lamp in the room. His upper body was ripped. He had more muscles than she knew existed, and a round scar marred the taut skin above his right shoulder blade. It had to be from a bullet.
Two weeks ago, while Marigold was still negotiating her new contract, a fellow actor approached her. She knew he and Belle were born the same year, 1916 to be precise, but that was where all similarities ended. Since making his film debut in a crime drama for Paramount Pictures in 1946, starring alongside Barbara Stanwyck, his star had been on the rise. There was talk around town that he was thinking about starting up a production shingle. He was also dangerously handsome and had gotten divorced recently. She didn’t know what to expect when she showed up by herself at his big suite at the Chateau Marmont on Sunset Boulevard. Entering the suite, she found him sitting in an armchair in a semi-dark room, the drapes behind him pulled over the windows during the daytime. He was wearing the same brown suit, white shirt, and red tie he’d been photographed in by David Seymour, a Polish wartime photojournalist earning big bucks in Hollywood now by making vain actors look even better. Like in his headshot in LIFE, the star’s famous chin dimple seemingly contained a pool of black water, an effect of the afternoon sun peeking into the room despite the drawn curtains.
“I like what you’re wearing,” he’d stated calmly, his cold blue gaze tracking her up and down.
Lowering her gaze, she spied the riding crop he was holding in one hand. Then she noticed the shiny black boots standing next to his chair, but they weren’t the right size for a man. They were for her.
“I want you to undress. Do it slowly. Then I want you to put the boots on. I am going to rape you, and then I am going to whip you. I might do it the other way around. Honestly, I haven’t decided yet.”
“Yes, you will do that, and I can’t stop you,” she’d told him without missing a beat. “But you know, I’ll tattle on you afterward. I have got this friend in Hollywood who is like a big brother. We tell each other everything. So my friend might want to give you a talking to, my friend Ronald.”
It was only a white lie, the part about her telling somebody anything, but she was friends with Ronald, a decent actor. He’d served as the president of the Screen Actors Guild for the last couple of years since Gene Kelly had nominated him for the job. He was also a close personal friend of J. Edgar Hoover, which meant he fed the malevolent toad and rumored closeted crossdresser the names of actors who’d gotten the roles he’d auditioned for, denouncing any such unfortunate individuals as either Commie infiltrators or sexual deviants, whatever worked best with the script J. Edgar was writing for a program called, “This Is Your FBI,” also known as “Your Life Is Fucked,” the shadow of “The Hollywood Ten” looming large.
The flicker in the eyes of her dimple-chined would-be-rapist was unmissable. “Get out!” he barked.
She did get out. But five minutes later she returned to his suite, telling him to open up. It was either that or Rad would break down the door. One look at his face revealed that he was ready to do it. She’d told him what had happened. Then, turning in the driver’s seat to face her, Rad had asked her what she intended to do about it. She’d shot him a hard grin. She knew if she didn’t stop it right there, the actor would simply go on to one of her colleagues, any one of those girls who were told to watch their weight.
Rad had the pig on the floor in under a minute. Sure, he was in shape, but Rad was a boxer, and he’d kicked ass for the Mafia. He didn’t break the actor’s nose or jaw, but he did a lot of damage. It’d gotten violent quickly. The actor would later tell the press that defending a girl, he’d taken on five goons.
Smiling, she’d pulled her skirt up and her panties down to her knees. Standing wide-legged over this asshole, she’d assumed a squatting position, bringing her pussy and ass close to his cracked visage.
“Open up,” she’d ordered him again, then shooting a stream of warm piss into his bloodied mouth.
Rad moved away from the window, and she glimpsed the woman who lounged on the sofa, holding a thin stem cocktail glass, a cigarette burning between her lipstick lips, thick curls grazing her temples. She was Antonella Thorn, Rad’s wife, an Italian woman with rumored ties to the mob. She was also two years older than her husband, which she found strange, even though Antonella, who went by Tony, was a cool tough chick. From all she could tell, he seemed in love with her, even though she had a hard time putting her drink down. Relationships were fascinating. Peering at them through the paned glass, Ellen imagined how they made love. It had to be like animals fucking. Then, turning left, she slinked to a path leading through the whispering pines and up the hill. Walking up the drive, passing the flowering cherry trees, she paused to peer into the lush green canyon illuminated by the lights from Beverly Hills and Bel Air. The child star listened to what sounded like the mating song of the coyotes calling their lovers. Ellen approached the French country-style mansion near-identical to the house she’d just left, referred to as the Twin House. The domicile she was looking at, towering over the other residence like an eerily white specter, was simply known by its address, Cielo Drive 10050.
This was the other thing that had happened. When she and her mother had moved into the house at Cielo Drive 10048, both estates were owned by an older gentleman named Dr. Hartley and his wife. The Hartleys lived in the house that sat on a separate plateau above the Twin House, which they rented out to rich folks in the movie-making colony. Then, late last year, the pair took a cruise ship trip around the island nations in the Caribbean. During their stay in Haiti, the Hartleys befriended a younger couple, the husband being a medical doctor as well. As it turned out, Dr. Mosdor had worked at a hospital in Paris, only for him to up and leave his home country of France with his elegant wife and infant son when the opportunity presented itself for him to run a private clinic sponsored by the Haitian government.
But presently, Haiti had descended into turmoil, burning through several presidents in the last years. So Dr. Mosdor was looking for a way out for his family before the situation became untenable.
Learning about this, the Hartleys told the Mosdors that they’d been thinking about selling their two country-style houses to move to Florida for a change of pace. Since Dr. Mosdor’s wife was the heir of a wealthy French family, a deal was quickly struck. The Mosdors bought the houses and relocated to the United States. Marigold and she got to know them when they introduced themselves. Their son Francois was three years younger than she. The French boy was an ugly child with big eyes, not too bright, either, but harmless. She wasn’t so sure if the same was true about the man who resided in the spare bedroom of the Mosdor residence. Right now, the lamp in his lodgings was the only light source illuminating the path in front of the 19th-century style house leading past the swimming pool with its dark water.
Her heart tightened, and she instinctively held her breath when she saw him stepping to the window across from her, his emaciated frame backlit and silhouetted. Other than the pine trees, there wasn’t a place for her to hide without him noticing her; thus, she remained in the same spot, not making a move, not breathing while he cast a telescoping gaze out of the paned window. Standing this close, she sensed the bad vibes radiating off him. The driver of the family was only five years her senior; still, she couldn’t miss the word “drifter” writ large across his pasty-white forehead. She knew that with this guy, evil was going on, not the type of mojo a pervert director or a dimple-chined sadist ever envisioned.
She exhaled as he backed away from the window, and no additional lights came on, which meant he hadn’t seen her. Fuckin’ asshole, she thought, and then she resumed her stride, and soon she heard the kind of music her mother hated, but then what did Marigold know who had so little taste. Those Eames chairs in their dining room, paid for with the money she made acting? Those were an investment.
Ellen knew that the tune she was able to pick up before she’d reached the door of the guest cottage at Cielo Drive 10050 was called “Dig.” It was the second track on the first album by a jazz trumpet player named Miles Davis. The record was “The New Sounds,” and the talented musician was Black, which was why this was forbidden music in Marigold’s mind. As for the woman she spied through the window, her eyes in a trance, a wine glass in one hand, a smoke in the other, her vigilant parent dismissively referred to her only as “the Haitian Woman.” Ellen didn’t know why twelve-year-old Francois Mosdor should still need a nanny, but she was sure glad he did, otherwise, the French doctor and his wife might not have asked the young woman to settle with them in the U.S. It was apparent that she came from an academic background, but given the political situation, working for a wealthy white family, then leaving her home with them seemed a much safer bet than staying behind to see one dictator ousted by a military coup after the next. Even though Cécile Freeman was eight years older than she, they’d become best friends fast; obviously on the QT and hush, hush. Once she stepped into the pad Cécile lived in rent-free as part of her remuneration package like Rad did in the guest cottage of the Twin House, she could immediately tell that they were kindred spirits. Glancing at her sleek black hair, cut short but not too short, and her ebony skin, it was more for her. Cécile made her horny, a sensation that was reciprocated.
Entering the 2,000-square-foot abode, the first thing you spied was the poster for “Reefer Madness” displayed on one of the walls in the spacious living room. The imaginative one-sheet pulled you in with its fire engine color scheme and a double tagline that went for it. “The Sweet Pill That Makes Life Bitter!” “Women Cry For It – Men Die for It!” There was also a photo on the poster depicting a square-looking joe, lighting the stick an attractive, high-cheeked woman in a glittery dress seductively dangled between her lips. The irony wasn’t lost on her. Her friend wasn’t only smoking tobacco, as she could tell from the sharp scent wafting toward her as if the smoke wanted to connect them. There was no need for the tall woman to hide her habit either, since, according to Cécile, her employers were proponents of smoking weed for medicinal and recreational purposes. Smiling, she gazed at the beautiful woman who swayed her hips to the smooth, restless sound of Miles Davis’ trumpet, then she cast her eyes about the room. What she spied was a print of one of Max Ernst’s surrealist paintings and pics of Humphrey Bogart and Emily Dickinson, the latter reminding her of a poem she quite liked called, “One need not be a Chamber to be Haunted.” The room also featured several build-in shelves crammed with books and other reading material. Kerouac’s “The Town and the City” and Bradbury’s Arkham House short story collection “Dark Carnival” were among Cécile’s favorite titles. Other shelves held her record collection, ranging from the works of Erik Satie and Igor Stravinsky to Chet Baker and Davis. Cécile played the Bongo drums and was quite good at it. Other furniture included an old sofa and a round table adorned with a green candle in an empty wine bottle. Ellen also spied an open wine bottle, an unused glass, and an ashtray. What she glimpsed as well were relics and artifacts from Cécile’s home, Vodou dolls, and death masks.
“Wanna take a toke?” Cécile offered, extending her arm.
“Yes, but not like this,” Ellen replied, smiling at her friend, who was clad in a sleeveless back top and black Capri pants. She also wore black Ballerinas, and she smelled amazing.
Ellen stepped closer, and she and the beautiful Black woman locked eyes. They embraced, and when they kissed, she pushed the marijuana smoke together with her tongue into her mouth and oral cavity. Sucking the sweet, pungent-tasting fume into her lungs, Ellen felt a bit dizzy, but in a good way.
“Toute notre vie, Cara Mia,” Cécile said when they eventually came up for air.
“All our lives,” Ellen concurred, flashing her another smile that drove men insane.
They made love on the floor. Afterward, still undressed, Cécile shot her an inquisitive glance.
“You look like a wet cat or like you’re plotting the crime of the century.” Her accent was sweet.
No, she wouldn’t whine about her life to a woman who had to babysit a spoiled brat while earning a fraction of what MGM was willing to pay her since she was a pretty white girl and she knew how to say lines writers typed when they weren’t completely shit-faced, and they got this notion that they had any clue how a real girl talked. On second thought, nobody was interested in hearing her talk like a real girl. Moviegoers had enough reality in their lives to ever want that at the movies.
“It’s nothing,” she said. “Ok, yeah, we signed the new contract this morning,” she blurted out.
“Oh, that was today? I can tell it doesn’t make you happy.”
“I’m not supposed to be happy,” Ellen said, glancing up at her lover while she lay on her back, cursing herself for saying exactly what she’d just told herself she wouldn’t say.
“Everybody deserves to be happy.”
“I wish I could pray. I’m sure, He doesn’t listen.” She paused. “I know you do. You pray to your god.”
“No, I don’t. My god isn’t like your God. Bonié doesn’t involve herself in human affairs.”
“But you told me you were a manbo of Vodou. Whom do you pray to?”
“I’ve made a lifetime commitment to serving the Iwa who are our saints. Angels, you might call them.”
“So, you talk to the Iwa when you do what you do, I mean, when you do your rituals, and you pray?”
“No,” Cécile said as she got up. “I pray to Papa Legba who in turn will speak to the Iwa on my behalf. That is if he likes what I have to say or what I ask for in my prayers.” She walked across the room to pick up her smokes from the table with the two bottles of wine, one half-full, the other sealed with a green candle. Striking a match, a yellow flame illuminated her face briefly. She was sweaty; they both were.
“It sounds like an awfully convoluted plot,” Ellen surmised, getting up on her knees. “You speaking to an errand boy for him to talk to the downstairs help instead of praying to your god,” she mused, cursing herself no sooner than she’d finished her sentence. “Fuck, that sounded wrong. I’m sorry.”
“No offense taken, Cara Mia,” Cécile said, taking a puff at her smoke, inhaling, then slowly exhaling.
“I must come across like an insensitive, uncultured idiot. Ok, in my defense, I’m only an actress.”
“You’re also a child,” Cécile said, squinting her eyes at her. “I could end up in jail or worse.”
“Nobody will ever know.” Ellen got up and stepped to the table, taking the cigarette from her hand.
“I was an ounsi when I pledged myself to the Iwa and the Iwa possessed me. I’m a priestess now.”
“What do you mean?” she asked, taking a deep drag on the cigarette, wishing it was a roach.
“As a manbo, I can help a person send a prayer to Bonié. But there’s a condition.”
“Isn’t there always?” Ellen wondered, exhaling slowly, sounding wise beyond her years.
“You need to understand something,” Cécile began, pulling on the cigarette she’d just taken from her lover’s fingers. “Even though Bonié is a name that’s derived from the French for “Good God,” Bonié isn’t anything like your Christian God. Bonié, the Grand Mèt, is the source of absolute power and safeguards the universal order. I’ve told you she doesn’t involve herself in the affairs of men. But you may petition her with your plea if you’re prepared to make a sacrifice. The balance must be maintained.”
“I want to be free to make my own decisions. I’m prepared to pay any price it involves.”
“Be careful what you ask for, Ellen. You might not like what will be asked of you in return,” she stated, handing the girl the cigarette who took quick puffs at it. “As I’ve told you, Bonié, or Bondyé as she’s also known, is not like your God. We do not believe in God and the Devil. Bonié is both.”
“Cécile, you can’t scare me, my love,” Ellen said, leaning over the table to kill the cigarette.
“You are serious, aren’t you?”
“Yes. I’m so sick and tired of men trying to rape me; of men telling me what to say and do. I want to be myself for a change. I don’t even know if I’ve ever been myself.”
“Ok, Ellen,” Cécile said, turning away from the table. She stepped to a door that seemed to have been locked but then wasn’t. “Whatever happens, please remember one thing. Toute notre vie, Cara Mia.”
“All our lives,” she repeated like she truly meant it, unexpectedly struck by a sudden sadness. Tonight, here, now, it was the end of something. She sensed it in the electricity in the air and the lingering reefer smoke. She glanced briefly at the movie poster, then her eyes darted back to the door.
“Step into my ounfò, my heart,” Cécile said once she’d opened the door, and Ellen did exactly that.
AND CHECK OUT PART ONE OF THIS DECADES-SPANNING HORROR SAGA
“You must read this epic adventure.” – Tracy Sayers
Cover by Terry Osterhout, Liz LaPoint
Cover design by Dave Elliott
Author Profile
- I'm Al Mega the CEO of Comic Crusaders, CEO of the Undercover Capes Podcast Network, CEO of Geekery Magazine & Owner of Splintered Press (coming soon). I'm a fan of comics, cartoons and old school video games. Make sure to check out our podcasts/vidcasts and more!
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