Fifty Cents For Your Soul Read online

  Praise for the writing of Denise Dietz

  Fifty Cents for your Soul

  Ambitious Hollywood ingénue Frannie Rosen lands a part in a horror movie directed by the celebrated (and reviled) Victor Madison, but gets more than she bargained for in the demonic possession department when a violent and slutty real-life doppelganger takes over her body. The over-the-top, irreverent serving of horror and Hollywood noir in Fifty Cents for your Soul is something of a departure for Dietz (Footprints in the Butter, etc.), but who can resist a book that opens with: "The woman who straddled Victor Madison had hiccups"?

  -- Publishers Weekly

  Fifty Cents for your Soul is a book that travels flawlessly between the storyline and reality…Dietz captivated me with her wickedly raunchy story of Frannie, her psychic experiences and the lurid, cruel and sexually insatiable obsessions of film director Victor Madison. The author has a way to keep you reading with her snappy, well crafted dialogue, witty narrative and a plot so interesting, you will be very shocked at the end…Fifty Cents for your Soul is not a book for cozy lovers. This is an explosion of sex, religion, demons and dopplegangers all wrapped up in a veritable feast of sharp, black humor that will appeal to the mystery reader with a taste for something with real bite. Highly recommended.

  -- Murder on the Woo Woo Express

  Denise Dietz is a very talented writer who has crafted a combination mystery horror novel that will appeal to fans of both genres. Fifty Cents for your Soul stars a delightfully quirky heroine who doesn't let the fact that she is “possessed” interfere with her main goal of being a famous actress. Readers will adore her because she is so charming and piquant as she stars in a strong story line.

  -- Harriet Klausner, The Best Reviews

  FIFTY CENTS FOR YOUR SOUL

  Denise Dietz

  www.loose-id.com

  Warning

  This e-book contains sexually explicit scenes and adult language and may be considered offensive to some readers. Loose Id e-books are for sale to adults ONLY, as defined by the laws of the country in which you made your purchase. Please store your files wisely, where they cannot be accessed by under-aged readers.

  * * * * *

  This book is rated:

  Contains explicit sexual content and violence.

  Fifty Cents for your Soul

  Denise Dietz

  This e-book is a work of fiction. While reference might be made to actual historical events or existing locations, the names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Published by

  Loose Id LLC

  1802 N Carson Street, Suite 212-29

  Carson City NV 89701-1215

  www.loose-id.com

  Copyright © October 2004 by Denise Dietz

  All rights reserved. This copy is intended for the purchaser of this e-book ONLY. No part of this e-book may be reproduced or shared in any form, including, but not limited to printing, photocopying, faxing, or emailing without prior written permission from Loose Id LLC.

  ISBN 1-59632-052-4

  Available in Adobe PDF, HTML, MobiPocket, and MS Reader

  Printed in the United States of America

  Editor: Erin Mullarkey

  Cover Artist: Trace Edward Zaber

  “Hollywood is a place where they’ll pay you a thousand dollars for a kiss,

  and fifty cents for your soul.”

  -- Marilyn Monroe

  “A sharp knife cuts the quickest and hurts the least.”

  -- Katharine Hepburn

  "Everyone to his own taste, as the woman said when she kissed her cow.”

  -- Rabelais

  Houston

  “Now I lay me…”

  The woman who straddled Victor Madison had hiccups. They inched up her throat, higgledy-piggledy, and emerged between her moans of feigned passion.

  Snakelike, she twisted her face, scrutinized the bedside table, and zeroed in on a book. A portion of shiny red cover was missing and the book’s title, above a satanic, sharp-fanged face, spelled out FOREVER ASMO…

  Between the pages, looking like a fat bookmark, a sheet of paper had been folded twice, lengthwise. Every visible line included one word, written over and over, as if Madison had wanted to duplicate a signature. Piglet, he had scribbled. Piglet, Piglet, Piglet…

  Next to the novel were three empty Tsingtao bottles and an empty bottle of champagne. Next to a kidney-shaped lamp, an ashtray held gold foil from pralines dipped in dark chocolate.

  Madison had eaten the candies, every one.

  She had gulped down the champagne, every drop.

  A pessimist might say she was half drunk while an optimist might say she was half sober. Drunk enough to endure the tireless beast who lay beneath her spread legs. Sober enough to hear raindrops pelting the window. To her ears, the raindrops sounded like acrylic fingernails drumming do-a-deer-a-fe-male-deer…

  Madison tiddly-winked her nipples, then compressed her ribcage, and the hiccups evaporated. What a relief!

  Her relief was short-lived. He began to hoist her up and down like a carousel horse, impaling her each time, and she let out a shriek. “Sorry,” he said. “S’okay,” she said, even though it wasn’t.

  But he was her meal ticket, her Bob-Hope-Bing-Crosby “Road to Fame and Fortune,” especially the hope part. So she faked another orgasm, then collapsed against his chest. He smelled of sour sweat and Obsession cologne.

  “You’re the greatest, Madison,” she said, trusting her voice sounded seductive rather than weary.

  Hadn’t Vivian Leigh, as Scarlett O’Hara, said something about toting the weary load?

  Maybe not. Maybe it had been that old-man-river man in Showboat. The re-make…a happier ending…Magnolia and Gaylord singing about make-believe while Ava Gardner smiled sadly and the movie’s invisible orchestra played…

  Jump down, turn around, pick a bale of cotton. Jump down, turn around, pick a bale of… Hey! Could a person die from too much fucking? Or too much fucking heat? Although Madison’s hotel suite was expensive, the air conditioner didn’t cool good. Cool well. Cool hell.

  Perspiration trickled down her face and thirst clawed at her throat. How could she be so wet on the outside and dry on the inside?

  The only other light came from a TV. Disney’s Sleeping Beauty. But Madison had clicked the remote on MUTE and the Prince searched for Beauty in animated silence.

  How could Beauty sleep for a hundred years? Wouldn’t the wretched girl have to wake up to eat? Drink? Pee?

  Victor Madison wouldn’t wake Beauty with a kiss. He’d lick, suck, thrust, prick…

  Oh, God, wasn’t it the prick of a spindle that had Valium-ed Beauty into her centennial slumber?

  Lucky Beauty. Lucky Princess. Now he lays me. Down to sleep. Pray the Lord. My soul to keep.

  Madison’s first two fingers plunged, and she felt as if a pronged corkscrew had invaded what she, as a teenager, had called her volvo.

  Here we go again. Here we go loop-de-loo, here we go loop-de-laid… He stopped. Why? Damn, she hadn’t moaned. He liked her to moan. She moaned.

  “Shut up,” he said. “I hear something.”

  His fingers twitched nervously and she began to experience her first genuine orgasm of the evening…until she glanced down at his face. It looked skeletal, as if his skin had been knotted at the nape of his neck.

  “Elevator,” he whispered, removing his fingers. “Elevator. Me.”

  Elevator me? Was that a sexual innuendo?

  The bedroom door dragged against thick carpeting and r
uined the visitor’s dramatic entrance.

  “Come in,” Madison said, his voice filled with relief.

  “I’m already in, you bastard!”

  “Come on down,” Madison taunted.

  With another moan (this one ingenuous), she shifted positions and lay on her back at Madison’s side. The intruder’s expression revealed a jealous rage, and her brain suggested ‑‑ no, demanded ‑‑ that she scream her head off. But the hotel was old, its walls well-insulated, and anyway her spit had dried up.

  Hadn’t Madison locked the suite? Yes! She remembered him placing the do-not-disturb placard on the outside of the door, then checking the lock…

  Had he, or had he not, slid the chain?

  “L’chayim,” he had said, handing her the champagne bottle and stuffing his mouth with pralines.

  While she gulped down champagne, straight from the bottle, he’d eased her clothes off. Then, kneeling at her feet, he had pressed his palms against her butt and aimed his tongue at her volvo.

  “Bed,” she had said, already unsteady on her feet. Earlier, she’d primed the pump with a couple of margaritas.

  Without another word, he had propelled her onto the mattress.

  She had lusted after Madison, even conspired with the devil to get him, but she soon discovered that making love to him was like running uphill on a treadmill.

  Now, watching him prop his head and shoulders against two pillows, she burrowed closer.

  Ignoring her, he stared at the intruder and said, “Care to join us?”

  His voice sounded arrogant, not fearful. So it was a joke. Right?

  The intruder stepped toward the bed, hand held high. Light from the TV brought a knife blade into stark, sharp relief.

  This had to be one of Madison’s famous publicity stunts, right?

  The knife swooped down, aimed at Madison’s penis and testicles. At the last minute, it changed direction, driving easily through his neck ‑‑ a barbecue skewer strung with pharynx, larynx and Adam’s apple. The blade slid out the other side, notching the pillowcase and the striped casing.

  Dizzy with disbelief, she vaguely categorized the pillows as the feathery kind, not the foam rubber kind, because tiny white-gray feathers stuck to the bloody blade as it withdrew.

  Any moment now Madison would yell cut-and-print. Right?

  Wrong! Madison’s smug smile faded. His mouth dropped open and blood ran from the corners, down his cheekbones, toward his earlobes. His hand snaked out, grasped her breast, squeezed convulsively, then fell away.

  Jeee-sus! Victor Madison was dead. Deader than the corpses who populated his horror films. Deader than the movie monsters who always received their comeuppance during the final reel, then resurrected themselves for a sequel.

  Would Madison resurrect himself for a sequel?

  Using her heels and butt, she managed to bump and grind herself sideways, but the killer straddled her body, knee-pinned her to the mattress like a butterfly, and said, “If you move, I’ll carve my initials on your breasts.”

  The feather-encrusted knife gestured menacingly.

  She had to throw up. “I have to throw up,” she said. “Can I go to the bathroom?”

  “No.”

  “Can I pray? Please?”

  “Not if you puke.”

  “I won’t. I promise,” she said, wondering if she could keep her promise. She smelled Madison’s blood, the killer’s sweat, and her own fear. She smelled the chocolate-covered pralines, too, even though Madison hadn’t shared…the pig.

  She pictured Madison’s bookmark. Piglet.

  “Are you Piglet?” she asked.

  “No, I’m Eeyore. Look, I haven’t got all night. Do you want to pray or don’t you?”

  “Our fa-father, which art in heav-heaven, hallowed be…hallowed be…I can’t remember the words. Wait, oh wait, I know.”

  This time she recited the nighttime prayer of her childhood aloud, and had reached the line “If I should die before I wake” when the knife carved a smile across her throat.

  The murders made front-page headlines worldwide. Even the New York Times and Wall Street Journal screamed bloody murder.

  For Victor Madison, it was the culmination of a long life of publicity. For Dawn Sullivan, it was her first starring role.

  Chapter One

  “In the beginning…”

  My spiritualist never mentioned murder. I guess it wasn’t in the cards.

  On the day after my twenty-fourth birthday, I arose from my bed and contemplated abdominal crunches. Instead, I drowned Captain Crunch in skim milk, then clothed my petite body in denim shirt, faded jeans, and black leather boots. Would a .32 automatic fit inside my padded bra?

  Probably, I thought critically, draping a Les Miserables sweatshirt across my shoulders and slip-knotting its sleeves at my collarbone.

  Except, I didn’t own a gun. Or silver bullets. I didn’t even own a crucifix. No big deal. A cross wouldn’t be much protection against a famous spiritualist. Neither would the Star of David chained ‘round my neck. I had a gut feeling guns and silver bullets wouldn’t work, either.

  My only defense was disbelief.

  One hour later, I tethered my sunglasses to my shirt and entered the Ansonia. The ghosts of show biz celebs supposedly permeate the dark, musty hallways, and I wondered who, or what, lurked behind closed doors. Rosemary’s baby? No, that was the Dakota.

  The Beatles’ Do You Want to Know a Secret hummed from a room radio, and the hairs on the back of my neck prickled. Hadn’t John Lennon been murdered outside the Ansonia? No, damn it, the Dakota!

  What the hell was the matter with me? I had nothing to fear. True, I’ve occasionally used the lord’s name in vain, but I’ve never coveted my neighbor’s wife or ass. I’ve never killed anything except roaches, and I honor my father and mother. Well…my father.

  Taking a deep breath, actually several deep breaths, I rode the elevator to the fourth floor, hesitated, then knuckled my fist and knocked.

  The door creaked like a coffin lid and a woman said, “Come in.”

  Mrs. Carvainis could have been hired by Central Casting to play the part of the quintessential spiritualist. Her face had accumulated so many wrinkles it resembled a piece of crumpled graph paper. Below her saggy chin, she wore a long black dress. The oval brooch, pinned to her bodice, looked like an alexandrite stone. Her hair was white and sparse and bunned. Her eyes were very black, as if an ophthalmologist had dilated the pupils. Her plucked eyebrows followed the economy, peaking in the middle then dropping sharply.

  She led me through her living room, where a rabbit-eared TV squatted atop a wrought-iron stand. Her ancient on-its-last-legs couch and chintzy armchair would have been laughed off Antiques Roadshow. A coffee table held a stack of yellowing newspapers that climbed, like Jack’s beanstalk, toward a Casablanca ceiling fan. A rickety card table displayed today’s paper, opened ‑‑ inadvertently, I presumed ‑‑ to the Horoscopes page. A jar filled with potpourri tried to hide the smell of…mildew? Kitty litter? Venetian blinds displayed Manhattan sky-stripes, and I felt like a claustrophobic Peter Pan.

  We walked into a gloomy study whose paneled walls reminded me of dark prosceniums. An old carpet covered the floor. Its ornamental scarab design seemed to move in colorful swirls. Oh, God, did I really want to do this? No. But I’d promised my best friend, Bonita Sinclair, a fellow actress whom I’d known since kindergarten. Bonnie believed in psychics, and she’d given me half the fee ‑‑ a birthday present.

  Mrs. Carvainis pointed her gnarled, rheumatic finger toward a table and two chairs. The table’s sculpted legs ended in lion’s feet with mahogany claws. “Please sit, Francine Rose,” she said, then peered at me as if gauging my reaction, having apparently forgotten I’d given my name to her over the phone.

  In fact, I’d given her my stage name ‑‑ Francine Rose. An authentic clairvoyant should have known that my real name was Frannie Rosen. I wanted to strangle Bonnie. Instead, I sat.

 
; Mrs. C’s index finger squiggled across my palm. I’d felt the same sensation before. Summer. Ten years ago. Lying on the ground, staring at the sky, daydreaming up a storm, I hadn’t noticed a parade of fire ants. Until they decided to take a shortcut, beginning at the base of my fingers, ending at my wrist. This time I held my hand steady, but the rest of my body squirmed like a puppy getting its tailbone scratched.