Sweetie's Diamonds (32 page)

She had gotten the idea of trading cars from that Alfred Hitchcock movie,
Psycho
.
 
Janet Leigh was on the run with a lot of stolen money and she became paranoid when a policeman began to tail her.
 
She pulled into a used car joint and created a great deal of suspicion when she tried to trade her car.
 
Unfortunately, her scheme didn't work.
 
The cop who was tailing her saw the entire transaction from across the street.

In Diane's case, however, no policeman was watching.
 
And no one was the wiser when she drove out of Omaha in a used green '97 Chevy Malibu.

D
arren Marshall was ecstatic over the news that Diane Boston was wanted for murder.
 
Even Brandon Mertz was beginning to show some interest in the story.
 
The city editor gave Marshall more leeway for time out of the office.
 
There was still a lot of research to be done and Marshall was busy tracking down everyone who had known Dana Barnett when she was doing adult films.
 
Unfortunately, there weren't a lot of folks left—they had either died, disappeared into obscurity, or didn't want to talk.
 
The latter was the case with Aaron Valentine himself.
 
Marshall had called the offices of Erotica Selecta and requested an interview.
 
When Valentine learned that Marshall wanted to talk about Dana Barnett, Marshall was told to go to hell.
 

Pete Rod, AKA Eric Gilliam, had provided the best stuff so far.
 
There were enough leads there to keep Marshall busy for a while.
 
Marshall especially wanted to track down Dana Barnett's roots in Texas.
 
Someone had to remember her.
 
It wasn't that long ago.
 

Marshall got up from his desk at the
Weekly
and stretched.
 
He had been surfing the Net for hours, compiling every bit of fact and fiction that had been written about Erotica Selecta, Aaron Valentine, and Lucy Luv.
 
There was a surprising amount of information, which just proved Marshall' long-time adage that “if it had been conceived and written down, then it was on the Internet somewhere.”
 

The phone rang.
 
He picked it up and said, “Marshall.”

“Uh, hi, it's Eric Gilliam.”

“Eric, how are you?”
 
Marshall went around the desk and sat.
 

“Fine.
 
Listen, I got to thinking after our conversation the other day.”

“Yeah?”

“And I went and got out some of my sister's stuff from storage.
 
I started to go through it and there may be some shit here you might want to see.”

“Really?”
 
Marshall felt as if he had just been given a raise in pay.
 
“What do you have?”

“Well there are some letters and a diary.
 
She writes a lot about Dana in it.”

“Fantastic.
 
When can I come by?”

Gilliam replied, “I'm shooting today but you could come by tomorrow afternoon.
 
But listen, since you're gonna profit by all this, I'm gonna have to ask you for a piece of the action.”

Marshall wasn't sure how to handle that one.
 
“Well, gee, Eric, like I told you, I'm gonna write an article for the
Weekly
and hopefully turn it into a book.
 
I don't get anything for the article except my regular salary.
 
The book is another story but that's way down the line.
 
I have no idea what that's gonna be or if it will even happen.”

“Don't bullshit me, Marshall,” Gilliam said.
 
“You and I both know that this is a helluva story.
 
The book will be a bestseller and it'll be a major motion picture, too.”

Marshall sighed.
 
He had to have Angela Gilliam's things.
 
“All right, what is it you want?”

“I want in on the movie.
 
Associate Producer or something.
 
With a salary.
 
And I'll play myself in the picture.
 
It's my ticket out of the adult business and into mainstream.”

“Whoa, Eric, how can I guarantee you something like that?
 
Let's say that this article does become a book.
 
Then let's say that the film rights are sold.
 
Once that happens, I have no control over what Hollywood does with it.
 
It'll be out of my hands.
 
Some producer will hire a scriptwriter and a director and they'll probably change the whole thing and I won't have any say.
 
You know how it works.”

“So don't sell the film rights unless you have some creative input in the project.
 
Believe me, I'll bet you can do it.
 
They're gonna want this story and they'll give you what you want.”

Gilliam had a point.
 
Marshall imagined his name in lights on a marquee.
 
He just might be able to get away with it.
 

“All right, Eric, we'll do it this way.
 
We can even put it in writing.
 
We'll have an agreement, but there's gonna have to be a lot of ‘ifs.'
 
If
I get creative input,
if
the thing sells,
if
they'll even take you.
 
If
that's okay by you, then we have a deal.”

“That's a lot of ‘ifs.'
 
How about you pay me five thousand dollars flat and I'll turn over all the stuff to you.”

“Sold.”

N
ick Belgrad kept the silver Lexus at least six car lengths behind Diane's new Chevy Malibu.
 
With years of experience tailing people, Belgrad was confident she was unaware she was being followed.
 
He had kept tabs on her since she left Illinois and had witnessed the exchange of cars in Omaha.
 
He, too, was reminded by the Hitchcock movie.
 

Her trip to the jewelry store was puzzling.
 
What was that all about?
 
And where was the boy?
 
The whole thing was one big mystery, but Belgrad thrived on mysteries.
 
He made his living solving them.
 
Pieces were slowly falling into place and he was beginning to understand something about the woman he was tailing.
 
Her lawyer had been quoted extensively, saying that she was innocent of killing her ex-husband and that she was on the road looking for her runaway son.
 
The chief of police in Lincoln Grove, a man named Grabowski, didn't believe it and he was frothing at the mouth to catch her.
 

But Belgrad had seen her run from her ex-husband's house.
 
She had appeared frightened and hysterical, and in Belgrad's experience that was not the demeanor of a murderer after committing the crime.
 
In his opinion, she looked like she had just seen something horrible, which is what the lawyer claimed.
 
Belgrad bought it.

What he didn't believe was that she was looking for her runaway son.
 
Belgrad was convinced that something bad had happened to the kid.
 
And Diane Boston knew what that was.
 

All this was leading Belgrad nearer to closing the gap between this woman and what had happened to the Rabinowitz brothers.
 
That was the main objective.
 
Belgrad had a job to do and he had promised Moses that he would do it.
 
When the phone call came after Hiram's funeral in New York, Belgrad felt that he owed it to the Rabinowitz brothers to see it through.
 
Moses' death had been another shock but Belgrad wasn't particularly surprised by it.
 
He had warned Hiram time and time again that they played with fire and were likely to get burned.
 
Even Belgrad's father had reproached the brothers about their shady dealings and the elder Belgrad was their dearest and closest friend.
 

It all had something to do with Diane Boston and her association with the pornographers in Los Angeles, Belgrad was sure of it.
 

He had done his homework.
 
Diane was really Dana Barnett, an actress who worked for Erotica Selecta Films in the late seventies as “Lucy Luv.”
 
She was most likely involved in a lesbian relationship with another actress, Angel Babe, the sister of a male porn star named Pete Rod.
 
The pair disappeared in 1980 at the same time as a gang shoot-out that took place at Aaron Valentine's warehouse in Van Nuys.
 
According to a police report that Belgrad was able to get hold of through a business contact in California, Valentine had a younger brother named Eduardo.
 
Police believed that Eduardo was the liaison between Valentine and the mob.
 
Eduardo had been arrested once for drug trafficking but got off thanks to his brother's connections.
 
Belgrad figured that Eduardo probably supplied drugs for the porn actors and actresses.
 

Eduardo Valentine and three other Erotica Selecta employees were found shot to death at the warehouse.
 
Several slain members of a black gang that operated out of Nigeria were also discovered at the scene.
 
The police never could figure out what the gunfight was about but it was highly probable that it had to do with drugs.
 
It made sense.
 
Aaron Valentine had been questioned at length but he convinced the authorities that he knew nothing.
 
What was not reported in the media but was mentioned in the police account was that evidence was retrieved at the scene indicating Lucy Luv may have been present.
 
Police feared that she and her girlfriend Angel had been thrown into the incinerator.
 

The sun had finally set and Belgrad saw the Malibu pull off the highway.
 
He figured that she was calling it a day and would check into a motel.
 
That meant another night of sleeping in the car, staking her out.
 
He had to be able to hit the road as soon as she did and the only way to do that was to keep an eye on her car.
 

What fun.
 
Lots of coffee.
 
Maybe a cold sandwich or a pizza.
 
A little shut-eye in the dead of night.
 
An aching back in the morning.
 
Ibuprofen.
 
More coffee.
 

It was all part of the job.

T
hey made it in good time.
 

Los Angeles was waking up when the van rolled into town.
 
The trip took two nights and not quite two full days.
 
David was dead tired but Emo Tuff seemed to be as alert as ever.
 
Was the guy human?
David wondered.
 
The man never once yawned or gave any indication that he needed sleep.
 

“Welcome to the City of Angels, David,” Tuff said.
 
“Too bad we got into town just as rush hour's starting.”
 

“Where exactly are we going?” David asked.

“To Aaron Valentine's house.
 
You know who he is?”

“No.”

“He's a millionaire.
 
Movie producer.
 
You'll like him.”

The van made its way through the dense traffic onto the Hollywood Freeway and headed west on the Ventura, crossing the 405.
 
Eventually Tuff took the exit to Woodland Hills.
 
He drove through the better part of town and then turned left onto a road that circled up into the hills.
 
David watched with interest as they passed several spectacular homes hidden at the back of private roads or behind security fences.
 

“Is this Beverly Hills?” he asked.