Eve's Men

by Newton Thornburg

  When Brian had carried her bags upstairs for her, helping her settle into the room, he had tried to explain things, saying that he thought she should have been able to understand Stephanie’s feelings, not wanting to put him and Eve together in the same room, sleeping together in her house, where he and Stephanie once had been lovers.

  “Of a sort,” he’d added. “I mean, nothing like us. I mean, there just wasn’t much choice, you know? She let me stay here—kept the goddamn reporters off my back—so I just kind of went along. But it was no big deal, believe me. She was a lot like now, in no shape to do much of anything but drink and talk. And that’s all she wants from me now, to stay up and gab all night with her. That’s why she wants me in the room next to hers, for convenience, that’s all. She runs down at about dawn and then sleeps till one or two, and then manages to get up only with Terry’s help. The poor kid.”

  Eve gave him a wry look. “Maybe the poor kid could use a bit of your time too.”

  “Well, she needs something, all right. Stephanie works her like a coolie. Not just the cooking and cleaning, but the shopping too. Stephanie claims she has agoraphobia and can’t leave the place.”

  “I’m not surprised.”

  Brian mistakenly read that as a sign of sympathy and acquiescence. Taking her by the shoulders, he moved as though to embrace her. But she pulled back. He frowned in consternation.

  “Anyway, just a little patience, okay, babe? A couple of days and we’ll be on our way. And at night don’t think that because I’m down there with her alone that anything’s happening. All you have to do is sneak downstairs and listen. All you’ll hear is Stephanie running on about her miserable life, that’s all. If I touch her, it’ll only be to give her one of her precious massages. Nothing else.”

  Smiling slightly, Eve shook her head. “Well, that sure is a relief to hear. I just can’t wait to get up every few minutes and sneak downstairs to make sure you’re not fucking the lady.”

  Brian looked crestfallen. “Aw, come on, baby, give me a break. Can’t you see I’ve got enough other shit to deal with right now? Jesus Christ.”

  “You’d better leave,” she said. “I think I hear our hostess calling.”

  At the door, Brian had turned and looked back at her. “And fuck you too,” he’d said.

  So now here she was, in her assigned room, alone with her twin beds and rock stars and acres of silicone breasts. Lying down, she lit another cigarette and thought again about leaving on her own, how she would go about it. Just call a cab, pick up her things and the money—and leave? Could it be that simple? Soon, though, her mind began to wander and she found herself thinking again about Charley, wondering where he was, what he thought of her now, running off the way she had, leaving him holding the bag, all without a word of apology or explanation, to all appearances every bit as selfish and thoughtless as his little brother. And the worst of it was that she could never explain. It was too late for that. There was simply no way she could ever make him understand how it had happened, how torn she had been, having to decide so quickly between him and Brian, between decency and love. Well, the least she could do was make sure he got his money back. And she would, she vowed. One way or another, she would see to it.

  Still, that in no way eased her feelings of shame and remorse. It continued to surprise her, how deeply she resented the idea that Charley probably thought of her now as his brother’s perfect little soulmate, just another selfish, heartless jerk. “But I’m not like that!” she wanted to cry out. “I’m not like that at all.”

  Having smoked her cigarette down almost to the filter, she looked about for an ashtray. Seeing none close by, she flipped the cigarette out through the balcony doors, hoping it would clear the bougainvillea below and drop into the pool, maybe right in front of Mr. Spitz himself.

  Terry came and got her at five-fifty, saying that Stephanie wanted everyone in the game room for the six o’clock news, followed by Hard Copy, the tabloid show, both of which had been following Brian’s story.

  “She’s been taping them,” Terry said, then looked away in unexplained embarrassment. “We both think it’s really great, what Brian’s done. I mean trying to shut down the movie like he has. We know he didn’t shoot Jolly.”

  Eve said nothing.

  The game room was situated next to the living room, near the front of the house. There was a handsome old pool table, a Wurlitzer, and a large leather sectional sofa arranged about the fireplace, with a television and a VCR off to the side. Brian and Stephanie were sitting together, facing the TV, Brian in chinos and a USC sweatshirt and Stephanie in her same pajamas, a lit cigarette in one hand and the other resting on an end table, her fingers fondling the stem of her champagne glass.

  “Well, it’s about time you came down,” she said to Eve. “That long a beauty sleep, you certainly don’t need it, you know.”

  Eve smiled coolly. “You should have told me.”

  “Anyway, you want to keep up with your fella’s exploits, don’t you?”

  “Not particularly.” Sitting, Eve too lit a cigarette.

  Brian explained. “To her, they’re not exploits, they’re crimes.”

  “Oh, come on,” Stephanie scoffed. “I can’t believe she feels that way.”

  She, Eve thought. It was as if she weren’t even there. “Crimes against himself,” she said, and immediately wanted to kick herself for going along with them, letting them set the rules of engagement.

  “How against himself?” Terry asked.

  “Because he’s the one hiding out. Because he’s the one headed for prison.”

  Stephanie laughed. “Well, nothing like standing by your man, I always say.”

  “And I always say, fuck off.”

  “Hey, come on, you two,” Brian said. “Let’s just cool it, okay? And it’s news time anyway. Let’s see what lies the bastards are spreading tonight.”

  For the next five or six minutes the networks kept Stephanie busy, switching from one to another, looking for Brian’s story. But to that point there wasn’t any coverage, and this seemed almost more than she could bear.

  “Goddamn pissant liberals!” she complained. “In a couple minutes they’ll all run some phony story about some ghetto school where the fuckin’ minorities are supposed to be doing just fine. But the real news, like Brian’s cause, they just totally ignore it! What assholes!”

  She had barely finished her tirade when Dan Rather came back on, sweaterless now that it was summer. “This morning,” he reported, “motion picture director Damian Jolly was seriously wounded by rifle fire while standing on the deck of his house in Colorado Springs. The immediate suspect in the shooting is this man, Hollywood hanger-on Brian Poole, who was arrested last Saturday night for bulldozing the outdoor set of Miss Colorado, the movie Jolly has been filming. The movie reportedly is based on the life of the late country music star, Kim Sanders. Four years ago, while in the company of Poole, the singer died of a drug overdose in Colorado Springs. Out on bail, Poole is reported to have fled to California in the company of his present girlfriend, Eve Sherman.”

  As Rather covered the story, there were brief intercuts of Jolly before the shooting, then wounded and being wheeled from his house on a gurney, then of Brian being brought to jail, followed by shots of the bulldozed set and finally a still photo of Eve.

  “Wow, from the lips of Dan Rather, no less!” Stephanie cried. “You’re famous, kiddo, and for a lot longer than fifteen minutes, I’ll bet.”

  Brian grimaced. “Infamous, you mean. And that hanger-on bullshit—is that what we call stuntmen these days? And what I can’t figure is why they’re not onto little Chester yet. What the hell is Charley doing? He knows the truth.”

  “Maybe he’s just getting even,” Eve said. “Can you blame him?”

  “Yes, I can blame him! Jesus Christ, I could be charged with attempted murder.”

  Stephanie meanwhile was busy flipping back and forth between the other networks, looking for more of the st
ory. And finally she found it on ABC too, where the substitute anchor merely mentioned the shooting before turning the story over to a reporter in Colorado, an earnest young black man who covered the same material as Rather had, adding nothing.

  Later, though, on the tabloid show Hard Copy, their reporter Diane Dillon was characteristically scooping the competition. Already in Colorado Springs, the stylish young brunette was standing outside Penrose Hospital, with Pike’s Peak rising scenically in the background. First, she reported the details of Jolly’s wound: a glancing shot off his skull, cracking it and causing a blood clot on the brain. The surgeons had opened the skull and removed the clot, an apparently simple operation that nevertheless had left Jolly in intensive care, heavily sedated. Dillon then went on to her scoop.

  “From sources close to the FBI, I’ve learned that Brian Poole might not have been the shooter after all. Reportedly there is another man—a cowboy, I was told—who was either paid to do the shooting by Poole or did it for reasons of his own. Whether the FBI already has this man in custody, I don’t know. But I assume we’ll learn more by tomorrow.”

  Brian smiled with relief. “Way to go, Hard Copy!”

  “More like, way to go, Charley,” Eve said.

  “Whatever, I’ll take it. Better than the thin gruel CBS had to offer.”

  “True. I especially liked that part about you traveling with your girlfriend Eve Sherman. Sort of like Bonnie and Clyde. My lifelong ambition.”

  Little Terry evidently thought her hero wasn’t getting the respect he deserved. “Well, it wouldn’t bother me any. I mean, considering what Brian’s trying to do. I’d think any woman would be proud to be with him.”

  Stephanie laughed, briefly moving her champagne glass away from her lips. “That’s my girl,” she said.

  Eve bit her tongue. She was after all Stephanie’s guest and would soon be eating Terry’s cooking. If they didn’t quite see the whole picture, so be it, she thought. She knew from experience that they were not the first females to be taken in by Brian Poole.

  After dinner the three adults sat outside under oil-fed Hawaiian torches, with the electric grid of Los Angeles spread out below, as tidy as a dream of Baron Haussmann. The sunset had already faded behind the next rise, deepening the darkness in the canyon below, where Eve could hear a lone coyote yipping. With her champagne glass still firmly in hand, Stephanie was waxing enthusiastic about the subject apparently closest to her heart: her loathing of “Upper Mehico, grease trap of the Pacific,” as she called California.

  “There are so many beaners on welfare now—them and their yellow brethren—that they’ve drove property taxes simply out of sight. Imagine, someone like me, who actually owns the roof over her head—and I mean owns it free and clear—and taxes are so high I can’t even afford to stay here anymore. Poor Terry has to do all the work herself—the house, the pool, the yard, you name it—and I’m still going down the toilet.”

  “Maybe you ought to rent out a few rooms,” Brian said.

  “Oh sure. To who? Some would-be actress or agent who’d always be promising to pay me next month? Or stealing me blind. No thank you.”

  “So what are you going to do?”

  “What can I do? I’m one of the new property-poor. I’d be better off broke. Then I could live it up on welfare. I could have Jane Fonda take care of me.”

  In order not to miss a second of Brian’s newfound fame, Stephanie had brought a portable TV out to the patio with them. She had placed it on an umbrella table and kept working with it until she got a news broadcast. CNN, with the sound barely audible. Brian immediately lunged for the set and turned up the sound, for there on the screen was Charley, coming out of what appeared to be a high-rise hotel in a large city—Denver, Eve imagined. As reporters thrust their mikes at him, along with a dozen simultaneously shouted questions, he stopped and raised a protecting hand, smiling uncomfortably, as if he were being mobbed by a crowd of raucous children. When the reporters finally quieted down, Charley spoke.

  “As you may know, I came out to Colorado from my home in Illinois to help my brother, mostly just to get him out of jail. And I can tell you he had nothing to do with the shooting of Damian Jolly. He was swimming in a motel pool in Colorado Springs at the time. So why’d he run? I don’t know. Simple panic maybe. And there’s one other thing I want to say. The woman traveling with him—his girlfriend, Eve Sherman—I can tell you definitely that she’s not involved in any of this, and that includes his vendetta against the movie company. She’s simply traveling with Brian, and from what I could see, trying to get him to stop the vendetta. She shouldn’t be considered his partner in any of this. More his victim, I’d say.”

  The reporters let loose with another torrent of questions and Charley waited patiently for a break. Giving up, he started moving through them toward a waiting taxi.

  “Home,” he told one of the reporters. “I’m just going home.”

  The reporter came on then and told the viewer what the viewer had just seen and heard. Brian turned down the sound.

  “Well, that sure ought to help,” Stephanie said. “With the shooting charge anyway.”

  “Yeah, but why no mention of Chester Einhorn—I don’t get it,” Brian said, giving Eve a sardonic look. “But then I got the feeling I’m not the one he’s really concerned about.”

  Eve let that pass.

  “Nice-looking man, your brother,” Stephanie observed. “Though of course not as yummy as you.”

  Brian licked a finger and ran it over his eyebrow. “Well, of courth not. Leth not be ridiculouth.”

  Eve stood up and stretched. “My God, I feel like I’ve been sitting forever.” She looked at Brian. “I’m going for a walk down the road. You want to come?”

  He frowned. “Jesus, I’d like to, but I’m afraid that if a car came along I’d pull a Quayle—the old bunny-in-the-headlights routine.”

  Eve stared at him, wondering if he was serious. “Up here?” she said. “And on a cul-de-sac at that?”

  Brian shrugged. “Just call me cautious.”

  “That’ll be a first.”

  As Eve turned to go, Stephanie offered a word of caution. “You better be careful. This is cougar country. And coyotes too.”

  Eve smiled back at them. “That’s all right. I’ll enjoy the company.”

  Brian laughed. “Ouch!” he said.

  To reach the gate, Eve had to walk along the inside of the stucco wall that bordered the property, a wall whose visible height varied from five feet at the front of the house to only a foot or so along the patio perimeter, though it undoubtedly was much higher at that downhill point, the major part of it being out of sight. Leaving the pool area, Eve went past the garage and headed out through the open gate, which was bracketed with burning coachlights.

  On the way to Mulholland Drive, she passed the two other houses that shared the lane. Built on stilts, they both looked as if Brian and Charley could have pushed them down into the canyon without breaking a sweat. As she walked, she kept thinking about Charley’s radio interview, how he had gone so far out of his way to speak up for her, and it made her feel even worse than before, more ashamed than ever. She slaps him in the face, and what does he do? He turns the other cheek. What a lousy, unmodern, un-American thing to do, she thought, a man behaving like that, like some kind of plaster saint just to put people in your debt, just to shame them and make them feel two feet tall.

  And just to make them cry, she added now, looking through tears at Stephanie’s gate, the orange-glowing coach lights. She wiped her eyes and blew her nose, and vowed again that the next morning she would begin to set things right. She would get Charley’s money and call a cab, and if anyone tried to stop her—well, they just weren’t going to. That’s all there was to it.

  Back at the patio, Brian and Stephanie were right where she’d left them, anchored to their redwood lounge chairs, Brian lying back with his hands laced under his curly head, Stephanie sitting more erect, holding firmly ont
o her glass of champagne, which seemed to be the only beverage she stocked.

  “See any cougars?” she asked.

  Eve smiled. “Just their eyes glowing in the dark.”

  “Well, that’s good. I figure we don’t need any more excitement around here. I think Brian has provided elegant sufficiency for one day.” Chuckling at the felicity of her words, Stephanie drained her glass and immediately started to refill it. “This is probably the most excitement we’ve had in Tinseltown since O.J. was practicing his golf swing.”

  Brian thanked her for the comparison, and she laughed happily. Swinging her cigarette hand wide, she gestured toward Hollywood and Beverly Hills.

  “Why, I bet they ain’t talking about anything else down there except you, kiddo. Especially the brass at Wide World Studios. I’ll bet right now them bastards are padlocking their doors and shaking in their Gucci combat boots.”

  “Fat chance,” Brian said. “They’re too busy collecting bad art.”

  Stephanie laughed again. “Oh, you think so, do you?”

  This cryptic exchange puzzled Eve, but she didn’t care enough to ask about it. Though she still had a drink—her own glass of champagne—she barely touched it, contenting herself instead with just sitting there and smoking, saying nothing. But her hostess more than made up for her silence and abstemiousness, continuing to pour down her off-brand bubbly as she prattled on, slurring her words and giggling and sometimes misplacing an elbow, almost toppling out of her chair.

  “I just bet you can’t figure me as a starlet,” she said to Eve. “But I was one, all right. Fact, I was some looker, lemme tell you. Skin like peaches and cream, and boobs out to here. Only trouble was, I kept fucking the wrong producers. Sy Wineglass! Now, who the hell ever heard of Sy Wineglass? What does he get me into? Attack of the Lizard People! Great stuff like that. I didn’t really give a damn, though. The flicks may have been lousy, but I looked great up there on the screen, fifty feet of primo tits and ass.” She sucked down some more champagne, then lifted her glass as if she were toasting some unseen crowd. “So what happened, right? That’s what you’re thinking, right, Eve? Well, I’ll just tell you—nothing happened except that I was a true California girl, that’s all. Why, I bet I spent half my goddamn life laying out in the sun in a fucking bikini. Probably soaked up a couple billion volts of ultraviolet by now. And probably smoked a couple billion cigarettes too. And then, this stuff—” She waggled her glass, spilling some of the champagne onto the front of her jogging suit, which she had changed into before coming outside: “It all contributes, believe me. So here I am, Stephanie Hodges, forty-eight-year-old starlet with seventy-eight-year-old skin. And in these hills there’s probably fifty thousand just like me. We ought to form a union and sue somebody, right? Maybe Sy Wineglass, huh?”