Eve's Men

by Newton Thornburg

  Terry was lying facedown across the bed, as if she’d thrown herself there. “Yeah, I guess so,” she said. “Just tired is all. I haven’t been sleeping so hot.”

  “That’s understandable. So I’ll just leave you alone, then.”

  “No, come on in,” Terry said. “I won’t sleep. And I guess I wouldn’t mind a little company.”

  Eve sat down on the corner of the queen-size bed. Like the salon, the room was carpeted and luxurious, with its own private bathroom.

  “One thing I’ve been worried about,” Terry said. “I hope you didn’t break up with Brian because of me. I’m nothing to him, really, just a kind of helper or gofer, you know? All the way driving up here, he never even touched me. I don’t think he thinks of me as a woman or even a girl.”

  Eve smiled at her. “Or maybe he was just being a gentleman. Remember, you’re still a teenager, Terry.”

  “You really think that was why?”

  “Why else?”

  Terry rolled over and sat up, running her palms over her eyes, which had moistened when she told Eve about Brian’s indifference. “I guess I’ve really screwed up, haven’t I?” she said. “I mean, being wanted by the police now, and Stephanie probably climbing the walls.”

  “Well, I’m afraid the FBI wants me too—helping Brian escape or whatever. Charley says that the sooner we all turn ourselves in, the better it will go for us.”

  Terry gave her a puzzled look. “Do you really prefer him to Brian? I mean, Brian’s just so exciting, you know? I never get tired of watching him. He’s like a movie star.”

  Eve shrugged. “Well, maybe I just got tired of excitement, or at least Brian’s kind. If you knew Charley, I think you’d understand.”

  Getting off the bed, Terry went over to the back window and stood there looking out at the boat’s boiling wake. “There’s something else too,” she said. “Something that really scares me.”

  “What’s that?”

  The girl made a face of self-deprecation. “Oh, I imagine it’s nothing. I’m probably way off base. But I keep hearing things that Brian and the others say, and I get the feeling he’s planning something, another strike against the studio, something like that.”

  “How? Where?”

  “I don’t know, but I’d say somewhere up here, on one of the islands. But I’m not sure—it’s just a feeling I have.”

  “Can you tell me what you’re heard?”

  “No, I’ve already said more than I should have, since I don’t really know anything.” Looking peevish now—at herself or her predicament—she turned and headed for the door. Before leaving, though, she looked back at Eve. “Don’t say anything, okay? I really don’t know a damn thing. I’m probably just tripping on too little sleep, that’s all.”

  Eve looked dubious. “You really think that?”

  “Sure. Why not?”

  Eve couldn’t think of a polite way of answering that, so she moved on. “Listen, before you go, there’s something else I’ve been wanting to ask you.”

  “Go ahead.”

  “What you did at Greenwalt’s place—how did Brian talk you into doing it?”

  The girl shrugged. “He didn’t, really. He just asked me to follow him in the Porsche and showed me where to park it. He wanted me to wait there, and then after he came back, he was going to leave the wagon there and we’d take the Porsche home. But I said I wanted to be his lookout. And one thing led to another.”

  Eve smiled. “It certainly did.”

  “And he never told me about leaving town until we were on our way.”

  “He made you go?”

  “Oh, God no! I loved it.”

  “So here you are,” Eve said.

  “Yeah. So here I am.”

  After Terry had left, Eve stretched out on the bed, wondering whether there was anything to what the girl had said about another strike. Certainly Charley was uneasy about the trip, how much more than a little spin it was turning into. But for the life of her, she couldn’t imagine anything Brian could do to Wide World Studios up here in Puget Sound. In any case, the bed proved to be firm and comfortable, and she was surprised at how good it felt to get away from the sun and the wind and the water. Since it was already late afternoon, she suspected that the Seagal was going to spend the night in the San Juans, which in turn made her wonder where she and Charley would sleep that night: perhaps right where she was. Thinking about it, she began to ache for him, could almost feel his long, hard arms around her, his lips roaming her face and hair, his lovely cock filling her to the brim.

  At the same time, she had reservations about their sleeping together at all that night, here, so close to Brian. And for that matter, she judged that Charley, being the kind of man he was, wouldn’t feel right about it either, the two of them sort of rubbing Brian’s nose in it.

  Trying not to think about it all, she picked some magazines off the built-in table next to the bed. She had hoped for a Vogue or an Elle, pretty pictures of anorexic young things selling expensive clothes and cosmetics, some of which she sometimes bought. But there was only Time, Fortune, and Business Week, all library copies, which Eve thought odd. The first two had pictures of the ex-Australian tycoon Rupert Stekko on their covers, as well as long articles on him inside—not the sort of thing Eve was interested in at the moment.

  Putting the magazines aside, she stretched and closed her eyes and wondered if she could fall asleep, considering the roaring of the engines and the boat’s wake churning a few feet from her head. It didn’t seem very likely.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Charley was sitting alone on the stern deck, indifferent to the island slipping by on his left, green and rocky and beautiful. Rather, he was thinking about Donna, wondering what sort of state she was in by now and what she might have done about his continued absence. He regretted that when he’d phoned her from Eve’s aunt’s house that he hadn’t told her a little more of the truth, for instance that he was with Brian’s newly abandoned girlfriend, trying to help “the poor thing” out, something like that. Lies still, but closer to the truth. That way, he figured he would at least have given Donna a plausible reason for his absence, as well as a pretty good idea of what was actually going on, some real fuel for the fires of resentment undoubtedly burning in her.

  Of course, it wasn’t as though she previously had lacked for reasons to be critical of him. After all, was he not the incomprehensible jerk who had turned over to her the running of his business so he could play architect and carpenter with his “geriatric seven,” as she called his staff? And while she was hard at work selling houses and opening branch offices and raking in the money, wasn’t he likely to be found on the golf course or tennis court? None of which she ever let him forget. Mr. Donna Poole, she had said; that’s what people were beginning to call him.

  So he had a pretty fair idea what she was feeling, probably more anger and contempt than pain. And he had no doubt that if he didn’t come crawling home soon, she and her lawyers would begin the process of picking him clean. What he didn’t know, however—and what worried him the most right now—was what else she might have done about his absence, such as contacting the FBI and informing them that he was missing and that he evidently had fallen in with Brian and his girlfriend. And that scared him, the possibility that the feds might now be looking for him too, and not as a cooperating witness but as a suspect, a principal, a cohort of Brian’s.

  Even then, considering all that, he never for a moment questioned his involvement with Eve. Whatever trouble he was in, whatever losses he might incur, he figured it was worth it—as long as he had her.

  As he sat there on the deck, he was aware that Terry had come up from below. Seeing him out on the stern, she had slipped forward quietly and now was standing at the point of the bow, holding onto the railing. Brian, Beaver, and Chester were on the bridge, above and behind her. Charley noticed that they were unusually talkative and excited, but he didn’t think much about it, not even when the engines sud
denly throttled down and the boat lurched sharply, slowing. Beaver then pointed it away from the shore, and there they floated, the engines idling, exhaust pipes gargling salt water.

  Getting to his feet, Charley looked up at the bridge and saw Beaver and Chester hovering anxiously around Brian as he peered through a pair of binoculars at what appeared to be a luxurious resort about a half mile distant. There was one large white building occupying a wooded, rocky point, with numerous outbuildings and cottages scattered around it and in the wooded hills above as well as along the curving shore of the bay. There was a swimming pool and tennis courts and in the bay itself breakwaters that protected moorage buoys and floating docks, where over a dozen yachts already had tied up for the evening. Farther out, on the near side of the breakwater, a single boat rode at anchor, a long, handsome yacht with a dazzling white hull and a reddish, wooden superstructure.

  Even before he asked the question, Charley knew that he wasn’t going to like the answer. “Brian, what’s going on?”

  Just then Eve came up from below, evidently wakened by the boat’s sudden slowing in the water. As she joined Charley on the stern deck, Brian came down the ladder, followed by Chester and Beaver. Charley sensed that his brother was trying hard to appear calm and relaxed, but his face was flushed and his eyes were fired with excitement. He parroted Charley’s question.

  “What’s going on? Well, Charley, I don’t like telling you this, but I’m afraid you were right. We’re not out for a little spin after all. No, afraid not. And that place over there, it’s sort of our destination. But C.J.’s the expert. I’ll let him explain.”

  Beaver signaled to Terry, who was still up on the bow. “You might as well hear this too,” he called. “No sense having to repeat it.”

  But instead of explaining what was going on, all he did at first was tell them where they were and what they were looking at. The riverlike body of water they were on was the East Sound and the land on either side was horseshoe-shaped Orcas Island. In front of them was the famed Romano Resort. The main building, the mansion, was originally the retirement home of a Seattle lumber baron. Built just after the turn of the century, the house rested on bedrock and had foot-thick concrete walls as well as its own water and electric power systems. It had been turned into a resort by a subsequent owner, and now Romano offered every amenity the yachting crowd might require, “except space,” Beaver went on, “as you can see. For instance, that large yacht over there, it had to anchor outside the breakwater. Now, for most yachts that might be a problem in rough water, but not for that one. Because, you see, that’s the Nomad, and there wasn’t any plastic back when she was built. In fact, she’s one of the few great classic motor yachts left. Very beautiful and extremely valuable. And her owner—”

  Brian interrupted him at that point. “Let me tell them,” he said. “The owner, my friends, is none other than Rupert Stekko, the man that owns the company that owns the studio that owns Miss Colorado. And tonight, when it’s dark and everyone’s ashore celebrating, I’m gonna blow that beautiful boat to kingdom come.”

  The remaining hours of light went much too fast for Charley. For a time he was inclined to go along with Eve and Terry, who were trying to convince themselves that Brian wouldn’t go through with it in the end and actually blow up the Nomad. He might have come all this way with that purpose in mind, they said, but now that he was here and could see his target—how large it was, how beautiful—certainly he would come to his senses. He might have destroyed a movie set and a collection of bad art, but this was virtually a ship. It would be just too much, too violent. It would be an act of terrorism.

  And Charley thought Exactly. What else was it Brian had been engaged in these past weeks if not terrorism, albeit of a somewhat more frivolous variety? On this occasion, though, it wasn’t frivolousness Charley saw in his brother’s eyes so much as a kind of grim acceptance, like that of a man who had a terrible duty to perform, and try as he might, could not talk himself out of it. So Charley felt he had no choice finally except to take the man at his word, that he actually was going to try to blow up the Nomad. And just as Charley accepted this, he accepted the fact that he would have to try to stop him, any way he could.

  Soon after Brian had made his announcement, Beaver went, into the cabin helm and took the Seagal in about three hundred yards closer. They moved slowly past the eighty-foot yacht and then went on across the Sound to a small cove on the other side, again less than a mile distant from the resort. There they dropped anchor and began the long wait for darkness, with Chester taking the first watch up on the bridge, keeping the binoculars trained on the distant yacht.

  Meanwhile Beaver pointed out that the Nomad’s skiff—actually a handsome old Chris-Craft speedboat—was already in the water, tied to the ladderlike stairway that led up to the deck. So one could surmise that Rupert Stekko and his guests were still aboard, had not yet gone ashore for drinks and dinner. When Charley asked what would happen if they did not go ashore at all, Brian said it was all worked out, that he and Chester would simply board the Nomad and herd everyone into the Chris-Craft and take them down the Sound a few miles and put them ashore in the wild, then return to the yacht and “blow it at our leisure.”

  “Just like that,” Charley said.

  “Don’t worry, they’ll be going in for dinner,” Beaver insisted. “That’s why they’re here after all, to see and be seen. Later they’ll probably bring some new friends out to the boat for a nightcap. Also to let them gawk at the gold hardware and priceless woodwork.”

  “Sounds like great fun,” Charley said.

  Beaver shrugged defensively. “It’s a way of life, good as any other, I’d say.”

  They were in the salon at the time, so Brian and Beaver could fill everyone in on the operation. Brian wanted them all to know what was coming, he said, to make sure they wouldn’t get in the way or get hurt. Beaver explained that the Nomad, despite its size, didn’t have diesel engines but ones that ran on gasoline, a pair of antique sixteen-cylinder behemoths requiring an eight-hundred-gallon tank to feed them. That was what Brian was going to explode.

  “I think I can safely say it’ll go off with a bang, not a whimper,” Beaver concluded, with a smirk.

  Charley looked over at Eve. “What do you think now? You still think they won’t do it?”

  She gave him a despairing look.

  “Right,” he said. Getting up, he started for the rear door, and as he expected, Brian reached out to stop him, keep him from doing anything rash. But Charley did it anyway, seizing his brother by the arm while he was off balance and roughly pulled him out onto the stern deck. Beaver immediately had jumped to his feet to help, but Charley froze him with a stab of his finger.

  “You stay put!” he said.

  By then Brian had regained his balance and was standing with his back to the railing, smiling sheepishly, like a football hero bested at Ping-Pong. Meanwhile Chester had come hurrying across the bridge to the top of the ladder, eager to come to his master’s aid. But Brian waved him off.

  “Everything’s okay,” he told him. “Just keep watch.”

  As Chester reluctantly returned to his post, Eve came up next to Charley, facing Brian.

  “You’re not going to do this,” Charley told him.

  Brian made a face: weariness and derision. “Man, it’s just a goddamn boat. A lot of wood and metal, that’s all.”

  “If that’s all it was, you wouldn’t be here.”

  “It’s important to him, that’s why.”

  “Him? You don’t even know him, for Christ’s sake.”

  “I know what he does. I know his decisions affect me and everyone else. If he can make a few more million maligning me, well, that’s his business.”

  Eve joined in. “But this is so extreme, Brian. It’s not like the other things.”

  “Sure it is,” he said. “Destruction of property, that’s all it amounts to.”

  “You blow that gas tank,” Charley told him, “and
parts of that boat are going to be falling all over the resort.”

  “Should be quite a sight:”

  That left Charley speechless for a few moments. He just stood there looking at Brian, wondering why he couldn’t bring himself to smack him one, knock the arrogance right out of him.

  “I’m not gonna let you do it,” he said finally.

  “You’re not gonna let me?”

  “That’s what I said.”

  Brian gave him a pained look. “Aw, come on, Charley, don’t try anything, okay? If you’re thinking of swimming to shore here, keep in mind the water’s not even fifty degrees. A lot of people go into shock after only ten or twenty seconds in it. And even if you did make it, which I can’t let you do incidentally, it’d take you an hour to find a phone and try to blow the whistle on us. So why not just relax and go with it? Like I said, it’s only a fucking boat.”

  Eve’s eyes had filled. “God, Brian, you should hear yourself. You’re really over the edge this time, and you don’t even know it.”

  “By your standards maybe. Not by mine.”

  “And what comes after this?” Charley asked. “Kill some Stekko stockholders? After all, they own the company too.”

  Brian sighed in boredom. “Look, I don’t have time for all this. I want you two and Terry to go down below and stay there till it’s all over.”

  “We’re not going anywhere,” Charley said.

  “Come on, man, please.”

  “Fuck you.”

  “Then just stay out of my way, all right?” Brian turned away then, starting to leave.

  But Charley wasn’t finished. Reaching out, he roughly took his brother by the arm again, to pull him back. But Brian came too easily, spinning, and drove his fist hard into Charley’s ribs, just below the heart, knocking the wind out of him and dropping him to his knees. Unable to breathe, Charley knelt there on the deck, vaguely aware of Eve cursing Brian and crying at the same time. Then she and Terry were each holding him under the arm and struggling to help him up. Above, on the bridge, Chester was squealing happily and pounding his fist into one of the seats.