Eve's Men

by Newton Thornburg

  “Is that the truth?”

  “It’s the God’s truth,” he said, reaching across the tiny table and taking her hands in his. Because of her sunglasses, he still couldn’t see her eyes.

  “I do love you, Charley,” she said.

  “And I love you.”

  “I’m not very hungry. Let’s go back to the hotel.”

  When they got there—by taxi—Eve did lie down, but not to think about turning herself in. Stripping immediately, she flew into his arms and wrapped her legs around him, and he carried her that way to the bed and laid her down, kissing her as he struggled out of his clothes. And they made love almost violently, so hungry for each other that Charley wondered if they would ever find quietus again.

  Eventually, though, he collapsed onto her, spent. But even then, he remained right where he was, holding her in the cradle of his arms and kissing her tears and hair and everything else his lips could reach. For a good ten minutes they stayed that way, twined in the pale afternoon light, until finally Charley felt himself beginning to grow again, which naturally resulted in his starting to move again, slowly and gently. And this time there was no violence in their lovemaking, just a slow and delicious sweetness, as if the act had become a mere aspect of their kissing, the joining of their lips being their essential union. Charley was almost convinced that this time it would go on forever, or at least until he expired from an excess of happiness and pleasure.

  It did end, though, with the sudden ringing of the bedside telephone. At first Charley made no move to answer it, but the thing kept on ringing. Finally, in a silent rage, he moved off Eve and picked it up.

  “That you, Charley?” It was Brian.

  “Yes, you bastard.”

  “I figured if you were in town, you’d be there—old moneybags Charley, you know. But why bastard?”

  “Your little park, we’ve had a bellyful of it.”

  “Yeah, I can imagine. And I’m sorry, man. But listen, me and my friend, old C.J., we had this surprise visitor, you know? And it sort of complicated things.”

  “C.J., that’s the guy who lives on his boat?”

  “Yeah, here in Lake Union. Listen, we’re going out for a little spin tomorrow morning. Why don’t you and Eve come along? She is there, isn’t she?” When Charley didn’t respond, Brian continued. “We’ll talk things over, okay? The FBI, your money, whatever you want.”

  “I don’t want to ‘talk’ about my money, Brian, I just want it back.”

  “Whatever. So you two come on over, okay? And we’ll have this little shakedown cruise.”

  “And who gets shaken down, I wonder.”

  Brian laughed. “My brother, the comedian.” He went on then, giving Charley directions to the boat. Finally, he asked to speak with Eve.

  Charley put his hand over the mouthpiece. “He wants to talk to you.”

  Eve shook her head. “No thanks.”

  “She’s not very talkative right now,” Charley said. “And for that matter, neither am I. We’ll see you tomorrow.”

  After he’d hung up, Eve reached for him. “Where were we?”

  Charley kissed the tip of her nose. “I think I remember,” he said.

  Chapter Twelve

  As he and Eve drove around the small lake, heading for Brian’s friend’s boat, Charley could have kicked himself for not having gone along with Eve’s earlier suggestion that they go looking for the boat on their own. She had told him that it was on the north shore, straight across from the downtown high-rises, but he hadn’t realized how easy the search would have been, considering that there were only a few small marinas there, squeezed in among the many lakeside restaurants and marine service companies. Charley figured that it would have taken them all of half an hour to locate the Seagal, and Brian. But then he wasn’t about to complain. The last few days had been among the happiest of his life.

  When they reached the marina, Eve went over to the locked gate while Charley phoned the Seagal from the car, as Brian had suggested. It was Brian who answered.

  “Charley?”

  “I think so.”

  “Sounds like you.”

  “Must be then. Eve’s over by the gate.”

  “Then I shall buzz her through.”

  “Good of you.”

  As he and Eve headed down the pier between the rows of boats, Charley gave her waist a slight squeeze and she tipped her head toward him, so he could give her a last-minute kiss. In addition to his new deck shoes, he was wearing jeans and a T-shirt. Eve had on shorts and a sleeveless blouse over a bikini. And both of them had brought along windbreakers, knowing how cold it could get out on the water.

  The day was bright and cool, with a brisk breeze roiling the lake and making the few sailboats’ halyards clatter against their aluminum masts. Charley knew that by any reasonable standard, he should have felt just fine, given the beautiful weather and the setting and the fact that he was about to go sailing with Eve. But because Brian was in the picture, all he could feel was the old sense of uneasiness and even dread. Brian had led him down the garden path so many times before that he couldn’t help feeling that was where he was headed yet again.

  But there was still the little matter of his money, which he was determined to recover. Then too there was always the outside chance that he could persuade Brian to give himself up, join him and Eve in going to the FBI. And if neither of these things developed, well, there was still the sun and the sea. Nevertheless, as he and Eve moved along the pier, looking for the Seagal, he couldn’t shake the old negative feelings.

  The Seagal turned out to be something of a surprise, not the rotting old wood scow Charley remembered from the snapshot but a gleaming while fiberglass forty-foot yacht with elegant teak and stainless-steel trim. Just as in the past, however, Brian and C.J. were standing at the stern railing, beer cans in hand. Except for a cowboy hat, sunglasses, and a week’s growth of beard, Brian was wearing only a pair of khaki shorts. His old friend C.J. now looked a decade older than Brian, having gone jowly and bald, with a fringe of collar-length gray hair. Looking down at Eve and Charley, his mouth curled upwards in a tight little smile, as if he alone were privy to some amusing cosmic secret.

  Part of the hull was folded down into a kind of stepladder, which Eve climbed now, with Charley’s hand on her elbow, needlessly helping her.

  “See how chivalrous my big brudder is,” Brian said. “He’s a gentleman of the old school. And my oh my, C.J., but don’t they make a fetching couple?”

  “That they do.”

  On the deck now, Charley looked at Brian without enthusiasm. “Any more of that,” he said, “and we’re going to fetch ourselves right back where we came from.”

  Smiling still, Brian turned to Eve. “Speaks for you now, does he?”

  She didn’t answer.

  “And what is this? We’ve been apart, what, an entire week, and you don’t even have a kiss for Daddy?”

  She started to peck him on the cheek, but he moved and kissed her on the mouth, chastely though, apparently not quite ready yet for a showdown. He then introduced Charley to C.J. As they shook hands, Charley asked the man if he had a last name.

  “Beaver,” C.J. said. “And don’t ask what the initials stand for. I’m just C.J.”

  Brian laughed. “If I get a little high tonight, Charley, I just might tell you.”

  “And get tossed overboard for your trouble,” Beaver said, as if Brian couldn’t have manhandled him with ease.

  Charley had some extra things for himself and Eve in a flight bag. He asked Brian where he could put it.

  “You mean, where’s your cabin?”

  “Something like that.”

  “Well, right now the bow cabin’s occupied by our new arrival, who’s sleeping off a fairly heavy one last night. Man never had mai-tais before.”

  “I take it he knows about you?”

  “You mean my fugitive status? Yes, he does. But he still chose to stay on, at least for this little outing. You two c
an meet him later.”

  Charley held up the flight bag, reminding Brian.

  “For now, just toss it in the main cabin there, what C.J. calls the salon. We’ll work out sleeping arrangements later.” Saying this last, he looked at Eve, his expression ironic and playful.

  But Charley hadn’t missed the term. “Sleeping arrangements? I thought this was to be a little spin out in the Sound. We’re not going if it’s overnight.”

  Brian was still looking at Eve. “I repeat, Charley speaks for you now, does he?”

  “In this instance, yes.”

  “Well, I should have said napping arrangements,” Brian explained. “Don’t worry, you two will be home by beddy time.”

  “You’re really cute today,” Charley said.

  Brian smiled. “I do my best.”

  Beaver reached for Charley’s flight bag. “Here, we’ll just put this in the salon. And later, if you two want to lie down or just escape from the rest of us, there’s the main stateroom. And then of course there are the couches right here in the salon.”

  As Beaver led the way into the main cabin, or salon, Charley saw Terry sitting on a stool at the galley bar, picking at a bowl of potato chips. She was wearing jeans and a Sonics basketball T-shirt. Across from her was the main helm. Behind her was a curving stairway going below, and beyond that jalousied doors leading to the bow cabin. The girl barely looked up. Eve went over and said hello, asked her how she was doing.

  Terry shrugged indifferently. “Okay, I guess.”

  “Your mother’s really worried about you,” Charley told her. “Have you tried to call her yet?”

  The girl looked at him as if he’d just crawled aboard from the bottom of the lake. “Are you serious? The FBI would trace it and come after Brian. You want to see him locked up?”

  Brian gave Charley an amused look. “Well?”

  “No, I don’t,” Charley said to Terry. “But I gather he’s pretty keen on the idea.”

  The girl did not even smile.

  At that point Beaver said that he was going up top to start the engines and that Brian and Terry should get ready to cast off. But Charley intervened, saying that he wanted to have a few words in private with his brother before they got underway.

  Beaver shrugged. “Sure. What’s a few minutes?” He motioned for Terry to follow him, and they went out onto the rear deck, followed by Eve, who gave Charley an enigmatic smile as she closed the glass door behind her. Brian made a face, benign but bored.

  “This really ain’t necessary, Charley. I know just what you’re going to say, so you can save your breath. Yes, I’ve got your money with me. And yes, I’ll give it to you before we get back. Also, I’ll be ready then to turn myself in to the FBI or the CIA or whoever else wants me. You can be the go-between, okay?”

  Charley was surprised, almost stunned. He smiled wryly. “Well, I must say, that does save a bit of breath. There is one other question, though.”

  “Shoot.”

  “Why is this little spin so important? Why not just forget about it, give me my money, and let me find a lawyer and start negotiations with the FBI?”

  Brian shrugged. “I don’t know. Maybe because I just want this last free afternoon out in the sun, you know? And with my brother along, and my lover, or ex-lover—whatever she is now.” He said this last without any emphasis, as if it held no special pain or meaning for him. “Is that so hard to understand?” he added.

  Charley shook his head. “No. So I guess we might as well get underway.”

  Brian laughed. “Hey, you’re beginning to sound like C.J., the admiral.”

  Charley smiled. “Man the hatches and belay the halyards.”

  “Aye aye, captain.”

  They went back outside then, where Terry was perched near the stern line, waiting. Brian went forward, taking the catwalk alongside the cabin. Beaver had already climbed up onto the bridge, where there was another helm. Charley went over to Eve.

  “Is everything all right?” she asked.

  “I think so. At least, he said all the right things.”

  “Good.”

  One of the engines suddenly kicked in, and Charley looked up at the bridge. “Let’s go up there too,” he said.

  Eve smiled, but shook her head. “No, you go. I think I’ll just wait here.”

  Still waiting to cast off, Terry sat watching them. So Charley limited himself to giving Eve a lingering touch on the arm before he clambered up the metal ladder to the bridge. He accepted it that she had to be alone with Brian, that there were things they had to say to each other in private. Still, he couldn’t pretend that he felt no pain or anxiety, wondering how she would react, being alone with Brian again. At the moment, though, there were other things to divert his attention.

  When both engines were idling to Beaver’s content, he signaled to Brian and Terry to cast off the moorage lines, which they did. Beaver then eased the gears into reverse, and the huge boat started backwards, with the throttles still on idle. He then eased one gear back into neutral, and the yacht turned, backing around like a car. Once out in the waterway, he put both engines into forward gear and eased the throttles forward. The Seagal was on its way.

  Charley and some of his friends had gone coho fishing a few times on Lake Michigan in a similar boat, so he was not totally unacquainted with the feeling of riding on the bridge of a motor yacht. It was a little like sitting on the roof of a small two-story house floating out to sea, only in total comfort, sitting in a soft, leathery seat. Unlike the Lake Michigan boat, the Seagal’s bridge had no canopy, So Charley and Beaver were sitting right out in the sun. And Charley liked it that way, for the air was dry and the sun felt almost cool. At the same time, it was so bright it had turned downtown Seattle into something like Ronald Reagan’s “shining city on a hill.”

  “Nice up here, huh?” Beaver said.

  Charley nodded. “It’s great up here.”

  Flying in over Seattle, he had been surprised to see that the city was essentially an isthmus lying between Puget Sound and the twenty-mile-long Lake Washington. At the city’s waist, a ship canal ran from the lake to the Sound, on the way passing through the smaller Lake Union and finally the Ballard Locks, which dropped the Seagal almost twenty feet to sea level.

  Before they got that far, though, Beaver had put on a smart white windbreaker and a captain’s cap, neither of which did much to alter his appearance as an aging hippy. For a while he chattered amiably, making small talk about the points of interest they were moving slowly past. Eventually, though, Charley was able to steer the conversation to more pressing matters.

  “Brian says he’s going to turn himself in when we get back.”

  Beaver nodded, but said nothing.

  “Which is a little puzzling,” Charley went on. “I mean, why bother? Why take the chance? If you had boat trouble and the Coast Guard found him aboard, it could get kind of dicey, couldn’t it? Harboring a fugitive and all that.”

  Beaver shrugged. “I’m not worried. The Seagal’s running just fine. And Brian keeps a pretty low profile. Right now he looks like a cowboy, don’t you think?”

  “Or a beachboy. But tell me, do you think he’s really going to turn himself in?”

  “Who knows? It’s up to him.” Beaver got out a cigarette and lit it. “You gotta remember, Charley,” he said, “me and Brian go way back. Whatever he wants is okay with me, ’cause he’s pulled my fat out of the fire plenty of times.”

  Charley smiled ruefully. “I wish I could say the same.”

  “Well, you two kinda went separate ways, right?”

  “You could say that.”

  “And anyway,” Beaver said, “this whole thing, it just ain’t right, big movie companies thinking they can twist the truth around any way they want and call it history. I go along with what Brian’s doing. I say he’s got a right.”

  “Well, I just thought I’d mention it,” Charley said. “You’re really sticking your neck out for him, and I wanted to be sure y
ou knew the risk.”

  “Don’t worry—I wasn’t born yesterday. But you want to know something? This is the first time in years I’m having fun. That’s the great thing about Brian. When he comes around, things tend to get lively.”

  “That’s for sure.” Getting up, Charley gave Beaver a friendly clap on the shoulder. “Anyway, I think Brian’s lucky to have a friend like you. And for that matter, I think you’re pretty damn lucky to own a boat like this.”

  Beaver gave a dry, mirthless laugh. “Well, at least part of it anyway. A few nuts and bolts at least.”

  Since he didn’t elaborate, Charley assumed that the man was merely saying that the boat was not yet paid for.

  They were just then emerging from the ship canal into the Sound, and for a few moments Charley continued to stand there on the bridge, holding onto a seatback as he took in the scene around him: the shining city off to one side and the dazzling expanse of water stretching to the deep green of the Olympic peninsula with its high, jagged mountains running snow-capped across the sky. Closer, a pair of large, modern ferries were speeding across the Sound in opposite directions.

  As Charley turned, about to take the ladder down to the stern deck, he saw that Brian was already on it, halfway up, only his head and naked torso visible. He was smiling, not very pleasantly.

  “Well, our guest is finally up and around, Charley,” he said. “Are you ready for this?”

  “Ready for what?”

  In response, Brian swung backwards, extending his arm out like a circus ringmaster. “Ta da!” he sang. “May I present none other than Mr. Chester Einhorn in the flesh!”

  And so it was. The little cowboy was standing down on the stern deck, blinking in the bright sunshine, trying to look up at Charley on the bridge. And for a moment, Charley almost panicked, ready to fall to the floor or jump behind something to protect himself, thinking his brother had lost his mind over Eve and somehow had found Chester and enlisted him to carry out his revenge. But then Charley saw that the cowboy was unarmed, was just standing there in his boot socks, with his wiry little arms hanging loose at his sides. He was wearing just what he’d had on the last time Charley saw him, the same blue-checked shirt and stovepipe jeans, ripped now at the knees and seams, and not as a fashion statement either. Then there was his expression, his look of utter lostness, like a monkey in a spaceship.