Sweetie's Diamonds (34 page)

“I know.
 
No one has.
 
She's dead,” Diane said.
 

“I didn't know that Dana had a twin sister,” he said.
 
“And I knew her pretty well.”

“She kept it quiet, especially in the business she was in.
 
May I come in?
 
I hope I'm not disturbing you?”

“No, no, I'm sorry, come in.
 
I'm kind of in shock.”
 
He stepped aside so that she could enter the house.

He led her past a “reception area,” where, he said, he interviewed potential actresses for his amateur adult videos.
 
Diane was familiar with what those were.
 
Girls who wanted to break into the adult film industry usually started out in amateur productions, of which there was a proliferation—Gilliam wasn't the only “older” male adult film actor who had begun his own amateur business.
 
It was highly lucrative and it also kept him in the public eye, mainly because it was usually he who had sex on camera with the beginning actresses.
 
If he didn't set up a stationary camera to film himself with the girl, he might employ one other person as a cameraman; otherwise it was strictly a one-man operation.

He took her into a large den where his television, stereo equipment, and a bar were located.
 

“Sit down somewhere.
 
Something to drink?” he asked.

“Just some ice water if you can manage that,” Diane said, sitting on a large, denim-covered comfy chair.

As he fixed her a glass and got himself a beer from a refrigerator, he said, “So I understand you've been in the news lately.”

“Does it travel this far?” she asked.
 
“My, my.”

“You're in a lot of trouble.”

“Yeah, I guess so.
 
None of what you heard is true, you know.
 
I
am
Dana's sister.
 
And I didn't kill my ex-husband.”

“Hey, I don't care.”
 
He handed her the glass.
 
“What I'd like to know is what happened to
my
sister.”

“I don't know,” Diane said.
 

He squinted at her.
 

“Really,” she insisted.
 
“Your sister disappeared with my sister.”

“All right, I suppose I'm prepared to believe you.
 
So what brings you to my door?”
 
He sat across from her on a sofa.

“Aaron Valentine,” she replied.
 
“He heard about me and he thinks I'm Dana.
 
There was some bad blood between him and my sister and I suppose he wants to kill me.”

“So you came to LA to let him do it?”

“No.
 
He's kidnapped my son and is using him as bait.”

“Your son?”

“He's thirteen.
 
David.”

Gilliam whistled.
 
“Geez, why don't you call the police?”

“That's exactly what he told me not to do.”

“Right, right.
 
So… why did you come to me?”

She sat forward in the chair.
 
“I've come to ask you for help.
 
You know Aaron Valentine.
 
I don't.
 
You know his business, his cohorts, and you know his mansion.
 
I don't want to just walk in there without some kind of plan, some kind of security for myself and for David.”

“Why me?”

“Because of Dana, of course.
 
And Angela.
 
Valentine had them killed, you know.
 
Along with several other actors and actresses who didn't want to go along with his business terms.”

Gilliam sat silently for a few moments and then asked, “How do you know that?”

“Dana was my sister,” Diane replied.
 

“So how come she never talked about you?
 
How come Angela never mentioned it?
 
You know they were tight, Dana and Angela.
 
Lovers.
 
You knew that?”

“Yes.”

“You'd think Dana would mention that she had a twin sister.”

“You'd think.
 
She chose not to.”

“So what's your story?” he asked.
 
“I want to know everything you know before I say anything about helping you.
 
Aaron Valentine may not be as bad as he was in the seventies and early eighties, but he's still a dangerous guy.
 
He's powerful and he's got powerful friends.
 
He was just acquitted on charges of racketeering, pandering, and using underage actresses.
 
If you ask me, the DA's office had him in the bag.”

“What happened?”

“His goons must have got to one or more of the jurors.
 
He walked.”

“I'm not surprised.”

“So you tell me about you and Dana.
 
I want to know some things before I get involved.”

She sighed.
 
“Dana and I lost our parents when we were kids.
 
First my father, when we were three, and then my mother two years after that.
 
We were sent to live with my aunt and uncle, my father's brother, down in Texas.
 
My uncle was not the nicest nor most intelligent of guardians.
 
We split as soon as we got out of high school and headed west.
 
Dana was dead set on becoming an actress.
 
I was into physical education and wanted to work in a gym.
 
Dana tried to get an acting agent but wasn't successful, and before long she started running with the wrong crowd.
 
Drugs and stuff.
 
She moved out and lived with some drug dealer for a while.
 
I think it was through him that she got into porn.”

“We call it the adult film industry,” Gilliam said.

“Whatever.
 
Anyway, she and I, well, we lost touch.
 
I didn't know what she was up to.
 
Then one day she shows up at my apartment and she's been beaten.
 
She had a bloody lip and a black eye.
 
I was appalled.
 
She told me that she was working in the
adult film industry
and Aaron Valentine sent some guy to beat her up because she wanted more money or something, I can't remember.
 
Maybe she wanted out, I really don't know.”

“I remember that!” Gilliam said.
 
“I remember when she had the black eye and busted lip.
 
She couldn't work for three months until her face got back to normal.”

“Yeah.
 
Well, I told her to get out of that business and come back to live with me.
 
She wouldn't do it.
 
I found out later that she was hooked on drugs.
 
She was living with your sister by then.”

Gilliam nodded.
 
“They were both using heroin and cocaine,” he said.
 
“I guess we all were back then.
 
Coke was very big in the late seventies.
 
Dana OD'd one night.”

Diane concurred.
 
“That's the next part of the story.
 
One night I got a call from Cedars-Sinai Hospital.
 
My sister was admitted with a drug overdose.
 
I went to see her and she was barely alive.
 
She pulled through, though, and I begged her to get help.
 
I pleaded with her to get out of that business.
 
That's the first and only time I met Angela, by the way.
 
She was there in the hospital room and she looked pretty strung out herself.”

Gilliam merely nodded.
 

“Anyway, after Dana got out of the hospital she went back to her old ways.
 
Then one night I got a call from her and she said that she and Angela were finally going to quit the business and run away.
 
She said that unless they left LA then one of Valentine's men would kill them.
 
Do you know who worked for Valentine then that was capable of doing that?”

“Sure,” Gilliam said.
 
“He's still around, too.
 
A guy named Emo Tuff.
 
He's Valentine's right hand man, enforcer, and whatever.
 
I wouldn't be surprised if he was the guy who nabbed your kid.
 
Very scary guy.
 
But there are others, too, I suppose.
 
Valentine always had some shady characters around him.
 
Go on.”

“Anyway, then she told me about Valentine's brother.”

“Eduardo?”

“Yeah, that's him.
 
She said that Eduardo was the one who supplied all the actors and actresses with drugs.”

“That's right,” Gilliam said.
 
“He was real good at his job.
 
He did a lot of Aaron's scumbag work.”

“Apparently Eduardo was closer to the organized crime thing than his brother was.”

“You could say that, but Aaron knew all about it.
 
Eduardo always acted on Aaron's orders.
 
Did you know about Eduardo and Angela?”

Diane cocked her head.
 
“What do you mean?”

“They were an item for a while.
 
And she was still living with Dana.
 
Eduardo was fucking her.
 
I imagine it was a sex for drugs thing because from what I could tell, she was devoted to your sister.
 
Dana didn't see it that way.
 
She was pretty upset about it.”

“I didn't know that.
 
That explains some things.”

“Keep going.”

She sighed.
 
“On the phone that night, Dana told me that she and Angela planned to rip off a bunch of diamonds from Valentine.
 
Eduardo had apparently made some kind of drugs for diamonds deal with some gangsters from Africa or someplace.”

“The warehouse massacre,” Gilliam said.
 
“That was big news.”

“Yeah.”
 
Diane looked away and had to compose herself.
 
Telling the story had unearthed some dormant emotions.
 
“Sorry.”

“That's okay.
 
Angela and Dana were never heard from again after that.”

Diane looked back at him.
 
“Dana called me from the warehouse just after the shootings.
 
She had been hit and begged me to come and get her.
 
I found the warehouse and got there before any cops knew what happened.
 
I saw all those men, dead.
 
Dana and Angela weren't there.
 
It looked like—”
 
She hesitated and nearly sobbed.
 
“There was this incinerator in the warehouse.”

Gilliam held up a hand.
 
“I know.
 
It looked like both girls had been thrown into it.”

She nodded.
 
“But no one knows for sure.
 
I never saw Dana again.”

Gilliam crushed his empty beer can in his hand.
 
After a moment of silence he said, “All right.
 
I'll help you.”

Diane smiled and exhaled loudly.
 
“Thank you.
 
Maybe we can both get a little payback for our sisters.”

“As a matter of fact we have a golden opportunity tonight.”

“What's that?”