The Insiders (6 page)

Eve had been working
all morning with a cameraman and two assistants interviewing demonstrators who were protesting the tearing down of an old apartment building. It was fortunate, she thought, that her assignment that afternoon was outdoors, close to the waterfront, and the cold, salt breeze blowing in across the bay had cleared her head. When she'd called the answering service on her return to the apartment, the girl who handled her calls had given her Peter's message along with the rest.

"Your doctor called—he said he could squeeze you in tonight if you called him right away."

She couldn't suppress a smile, even while she wondered what had prompted Peter to call her on a weeknight. Maybe he wanted her to make another tape for him! However, once she had taken her shoes off and cleaned the day's makeup off her face, she was sufficiently intrigued to call him back.

Peter wanted her to go with him to a party, a big one given by a well-known rock singer. He wanted someone ornamental to take with him, he told her, apologizing for the last-minute invitation.

"I really hadn't intended to go," Peter explained, "but Ray called me this afternoon and went
on
about it. Used to be a patient of mine, and he wants me to meet his latest girl friend."

To bribe Eve, he mentioned cunningly that there were bound to be photographers present in droves, and she'd get her picture in the
society
pages for a change. He added significantly that it might make David sit up and take notice, and that was what decided her in the end. Peter was right; let David see that she was circulating and perfectly happy without him.

Peter arrived in his English sports car to pick her up in exactly an hour, and Eve decided that he was really quite a fun escort when she could get him away from the dark little restaurants he loved to frequent. He was the perfect escort in public—attentive, handsome with his clipped David Niven mustache and Pierre Cardin clothes, and he had a dry sense of humor and could make her laugh, too. So what if he had his little quirks and perversions; they only made him seem more human, and, after all, who didn't have hang-ups?

After they had arrived at the party, and following the introductions and naming of drinks, Eve and Peter joined a small knot of people gathered under a graceful arch in the enormous living room of the new house. It was a housewarming, thrown to celebrate an architect's achievement and the completion of the famous singer's San Francisco town house. And Eve agreed, along with everyone else, that the house was not only well designed but beautiful inside.

Peter started talking to the singer, and their conversation was low-voiced and intimate and excluded the rest of the group. Eve stood there fiddling with the thin stem of her martini glass, looking around her for familiar faces. So far she had spotted quite a number of celebrities, but no one she knew personally.

Her eyes wandered, then came back with something like shock to one particular face—the kind of face, the kind of man that any woman would stare at. At the back of her mind was the feeling that she had seen him somewhere before—not in the flesh, perhaps, but in a newspaper or a magazine; perhaps even on TV. Who was he? He stood slouching carelessly, looking bored in spite of the attentive-seeming inclination of his head, listening to something that the singer's girl friend was saying to him, her hand touching his arm. He was surely the best-looking man that Eve had ever seen, and she found it hard to believe that such classical good looks existed. She found herself trying to place him—a male model from out of town? Or maybe even a movie star come up from LA for the party?

The recognition, the feeling of having seen his face somewhere before was an elusive, intangible thing, and she caught herself watching him while he talked, looking almost unconsciously for a gesture, a certain kind of shrug that would mark him as one of the gay crowd.

Jerry Harmon, who had done the
Stud
pictures and article on her, walked up to the man and said something in his ear, ignoring the singer s girl; and she clutched more tightly to the golden man's arm, demanding his attention. Eve had named him that already because of the way he looked, and she watched now the somehow intimate way his gilt head bent toward the other man's dark one, even while his eyes continued to watch the woman who stood so close to him.

He was all bronze—face and arms and throat—contrasting with the bright bleached gold of his hair, and he was dressed so casually it was almost insulting— open-neck shirt unbuttoned halfway down his chest, thick gold chain about his neck, teamed with tight, faded blue Levi's and sneakers. He looked as if he'd been out sailing and didn't give a damn about his appearance, and if he
was
gay, that was unusual. His hair was long enough to curl at the back of his neck, giving him the look of an Edwardian satyr. Still staring, unable to help herself, Eve decided there was something about the slight flare of his nostrils, the mocking, somehow cruel curve of his chiseled hps that reminded her of an animal scenting prey. But whatever he was, satyr or fag, it was obvious the woman with him wasn't going to let go easily.

Eve realized suddenly that both Peter and the singer had ended their conversation and were following the direction of her gaze.

"Good-looking bastard, isn't he?" the singer murmured, watching his girl start stroking the blond man s arm. "I guess I'd better rescue Margo. He's the type who would swallow a little thing like her up like an hors d'oeuvre and then spit her right back out."

Eve thought that Margo looked neither little nor helpless; nor did she act as if she needed or would welcome her impending rescue. No polite, curvy redhead with Margo's good looks deserved pity, anyhow. But the singer obviously thought she needed protection, and he moved away purposefully.

Peter smiled warningly at Eve after the singer had left them.

"My pet, that's one man I'd advise you to stay away from. Ray isn't right about too many things, but he
is
right about Brant Newcomb."

"That's
the notorious Brant Newcomb?" Eve looked over at him with renewed interest, this time mixed with a cautious kind of horror. "I've read all kinds of nasty things about him. He sounds too bad to be true, almost. Is he really?"

Peter caught her hand and swung it between them, smiling his superior, knowing smile.

"He is, indeed! But I realize that by warning you to steer clear, I've probably madly intrigued your delightfully feminine mind, Eve darling. So I shall let you decide for yourself. Just try not to let yourself get too shocked or too excited by anything he says."

Eve felt like pulling back now, but Peter was already tugging her along with him and was halfway across the room when Brant Newcomb turned away from the singer and his pouting lady and noticed Eve. His eyes met hers briefly, moved away, and then came back to her, raking down the front of her dress quite openly and insolently, with no civilized attempt to disguise what was in them. And while she hated the way he had looked at her, she could not help noticing that his eyes were the brightest blue she had ever seen—so blue and thickly lashed they seemed opaque.

He began walking to meet them, and even his manner of walking was junglelike—an animal stalking its prey.

"Well, well. It's been quite some time since we've run into each other, hasn't it, Pete baby? And that's a lovely creature you have by the hand there. Is she yours, or only borrowed?"

"I'll lend her to you for a few minutes if you’ll swear you'll bring her back. I think she's curious about you, and I want her to find out."

Eve listened to them talk at each other—light, fencing words that showed they knew and disliked each other. Already she regretted having let Peter lead her into this.

Brant Newcomb was saying, "I'll be sure this charmer finds out anything at all she wants to know, sweetheart. I like girls who look like her—all autumn tones. She looks warm.
Are
you warm, honey?"

Eve tried to return his somehow mocking look levelly and coldly, but she felt uncomfortably as if his eyes were not looking
at
her but into her, eating through her clothes. Suddenly and unreasonably, she was frightened and didn't want to be left alone with him. Her fingers tightened around Peter's. She didn't want him to leave!

'I’ll be back in just a few minutes, Eve," he said, smiling at her urbanely. "I'll just get us some refills at the bar, and Brant here will look after you for me until I get back."

Peter winked at her, pulled his hand away firmly, and left her there with Brant Newcomb. Who was
the
Brant Newcomb? Money and women were his specialty, and dangerous sports. If she remembered right, he'd been in a few spectacular wrecks, automobiles and motorcycles. He was the land the magazines called a playboy, the kind of man she despised.

Already she hated him, and so she looked back at him defiantly, letting her dislike show.

"Peter's always playing psychiatrist, even if it's after office hours. I'm sorry."

"No—no, don't be. Tell me, Eve Mason, are you his plaything?"

If she was amazed that he knew her name, she refused to show it.

"That's really none of your business, is it? Or is rudeness one of your habits?"

She had made her voice icy, but he only laughed, catching at the hand that Peter had dropped so unceremoniously.

"Ah, I can tell you've heard all the bad things they say about me, and believe them. Well, luv, they're true. But you're not the type who's easily scared off, are you?" He squeezed her hand meaningfully. "I think—I just have the feeling we might like the same kind of things. Why don't you come home with me tonight and find out? I'd really like to fuck you, Eve. And Jerry would, too, wouldn't you, Jerry? I mean, you really owe him one for that really great picture of you he did for
Stud."

The dark-haired photographer seemed to trail Newcomb everywhere he went, Eve thought contemptuously, even as she felt her insides coifing up with anger at his words. She ignored Jerry Harmon and fixed her cold gaze on Brant Newcomb.

"Why don't you just fuck each other instead?" she said politely. "I mean, I'm sure it wouldn't be the first time."

She pulled her hand away and started to walk, hearing their delighted laughter behind her.

Eve could feel her cheeks burning with rage and humiliation as she kept right on walking. She was furious with Peter, too, for leaving her alone with that
monster
of a man.

Brant Newcomb had caught up with her and was walking beside her, still laughing.

"All right, Eve Mason—touche! No sharing with Jer, even if he
is
my best friend. But I want you, so let's not play games. Name your price, baby—anything you say."

"Oh, God, you have a nerve! I'm not for sale. And now will you please leave me alone?" Her voice shook with rage as she tried to brush past him, but he moved in front of her, thumbs hooked into his belt in a kind of deliberate caricature of a Western movie villain.

"Everyone
has a price, Eve. And one way or another, I'm going to find out what yours is—one of these days. I almost always get what I want in the end, luv, and I'm patient. I can wait."

Before she could move or retaliate, he had patted her face lightly and almost absently, and then he turned away from her and was gone, mixing with the crowd. Eve continued to walk toward the bar, her knees feeling suddenly weak. It took her a few moments to realize that she was actually
frightened.
Where on earth was Peter? Suddenly, she wanted to go home.

M
arti was sitting
up late again when Eve let herself into the apartment. She waved the drink in her hand at Eve.

"Hey, you're early. Want to help me drown some sorrows?"

Eve was still preoccupied, her brows drawn together in a frown.

"Marti, do you know a man called Brant Newcomb? You know more people than I do, and he's not the type you'd forget easily. A big blond guy; reminds me of an animal. And I get the feeling he is one. I—"

Marti was sitting up straight, her eyes suddenly alert.

"So you finally ran into him. Every girl in town runs into dear Brant sometime, and senses the same thing. Women are a kind of hobby with him, you might say— among other things."

Eve shuddered. She flipped her shoes onto a chair and walked over to the small portable bar.

"Suddenly, I could use a drink myself. I met him this evening, and my stomach's still revolting. Tell me more about him—is he just another professional rake who counts on the shock value of the things he says, or is he something more? Marti, I sensed a kind of
danger,
I'll swear. It mined my evening. I was actually scared!"

"And you were right, baby. He's pure poison, and I mean that. He's the type of guy any woman should stay away from; the unfortunate thing is that many of them are attracted to the bastard because he's rich and so damned good-looking." Marti looked at Eve with sudden concern. "You didn't make him mad, did you, baby? Because he's dangerous—I mean, in every way. Even physically. The thing is, he doesn't give a damn about anything or anyone. And because he has all that money, he gets away with practically anything he pleases."