Trifecta (45 page)

When they were finally resting from the hysterics, Mark
pointed his finger up in the air and said, "Or...Wait...I know..."

Everyone started laughing.

S
abrina didn't notice the two vehicles following
her car as she and Eve drove to Malibu at 4:30 in the morning.  Ivar and Malcolm,
following Sabrina and Eve, were very much aware of the blue Mitsubishi following
their own car.  The Japanese Yakuza in the Mitsubishi were well aware of the CIA
men ahead of their own car, following Sabrina's Mustang.  The procession traveled
west, toward the ocean.

Sabrina felt light headed from lack of sleep and hoped
the dark circles under her eyes wouldn't be too noticeable for the camera's intractable
eye.  One of the fortunate things about doing a national commercial was that there
would be a professional make-up artist to erase the effects of a virtually sleepless
night.

The early morning drive was essentially devoid of traffic,
such an unusual experience in Los Angeles that Sabrina started enjoying the ride. 
She hoped that bringing Eve along was not a mistake, but it would certainly be a
good learning experience for her to observe the unique way film people behaved. 
Also, she wanted Tracy Rieber to meet Eve.  She knew Tracy would believe that she
and Eve were long lost cousins, and would want to use her as a model.  It could
be a beginning for Eve's independence.

The Pacific Coast Highway, which paralleled the ocean,
was beautiful in the dawn.  Eve seemed to be fascinated with the colors on the glittering
sea.  She kept turning to look at the moon behind them, which was full and perfectly
round, a pale cream color. 

Sabrina saw the silver trailers and gigantic trucks about
a mile before they arrived at the site.  She parked on the bluff and they started
the climb down to the beach. 

Tracy Rieber was inspecting a camera sitting on a tripod,
from which he would take still shots.  He was nervous; even from this distance she
could see him frantically glancing at the sun and giving orders to the dozens of
men who were manning the cables and lights.  Even on the beach they had to keep
the lighting controlled.  The cloudy overcast had not yet dissipated in the watery
dawn.

Sabrina was surprised at the number of extras on the beach. 
There were about ten women and as many men who were obviously not a part of the
crew, standing around with coats thrown over their bathing suits, drinking coffee
and shivering.  It looked big-time.

"There will be food here,"  Sabrina said to Eve
as they walked toward the site.  "It would be best if you didn't eat too much. 
I'll take you to breakfast later.  You do have your syrup?"

"Yes.  And I will blink."

Sabrina was surprised to see Eve smile.  Perhaps she had
made a joke? Sabrina wasn't sure, but thought Eve looked very pretty in designer
jeans and a pale green jacket with long fringe decorating it.

Tracy spotted Sabrina and hurried over.  "You've got
to get into makeup.  The sun's almost perfect.  We have to hurry."

Then Tracy noticed Eve.  His eyes opened wide.  "Who
is this!"

"My cousin Eve...Um."  Last name, Sabrina thought
to herself frantically.  We don't have a last name for Eve.

Eve smiled, holding out her hand to Tracy and said quickly,
"Eve Miller.  I'm pleased to meet you.  Sabrina's told me so much about you."

Sabrina was dumbfounded.  Was this the socially misfit
human computer whom she had first met just two days ago, who did not blink, smile
or speak correctly? Who ate a gigantic bone just last night? Now she seemed so...normal. 
She had saved the situation by using Sabrina's own last name.

"I'm dazzled,"  Tracy said looking back and forth
at the two women with a puzzled expression.  "Now, Sabrina, you go over to
that trailer.  And I am going to learn...All About Eve."

Sabrina left the two reluctantly.  Tracy had been making
a silly pun about the movie, 'All About Eve.' She hoped Eve would respond adequately.

Sabrina climbed a rickety ladder into a silver trailer. 
The aging beauty who did make-up tut-tutted over her, performing miracles.  Then
Sabrina was conducted to another trailer and the bathing suit, silver lame' with
crystal embroidery, was adjusted minutely, actually sewing Sabrina into the suit. 
The seamstress reminded Sabrina to pee so she wouldn't need to use the 'honey pot'
trailer in the middle of filming.

I
var and Malcolm stood at the top of the bluff using binoculars
to watch.  They were not noticeable, as many people were standing up there and around
the beach, eager to see filming done Hollywood Style.  The two men eyed the Japanese,
standing apart from them, and got fierce, hostile stares back in return.

"I could take the biggest one,"  Malcolm said.

Ivar chuckled.  "In your dreams.  Largest Japanese
I've ever seen.  If they are who I think they are, you wouldn't have a chance. 
This investigation is getting very scary."

S
abrina didn't notice any of the onlookers.  She was just
glad that she had religiously gone to the gym.  The next two hours were spent running
up and down the beach, repeating take after take, holding up the appropriately silver
toothpaste box, chased by a bunch of happy looking beach bums. 

Finally some of the extras started protesting, so Tracy
had them do the last takes on the harder wet sand by the water's edge.  Sabrina's
directions were to act like she was running away from the crowd.  She splashed into
the water, playing with the waves spontaneously.  Tracy yelled, "Way to go. 
Just a little deeper, Sabrina.  But don't get that suit wet." 

The ocean was chilling her quickly.  After each sprint,
a man hurried over to Sabrina to towel the clinging sand off of her legs. 

Sabrina was so out of breath by the last take, where she
stood in front of the entire bunch of extras, all doing the latest dance craze,
as she smiled and held up the toothpaste, rolled her tongue over her teeth and said
Ummm, that Tracy, who had been following her sprints down the beach in a camera
truck, let her take a breather.

"You were panting in that last shot,"  Tracy
observed sweetly, smiling down at her from his comfortable seat in the truck.  "Looks
too sexy.  Take ten."

Sabrina sank down into the warm sand gratefully, not caring
if she was covered with the stuff.  She was too tired to notice much, except that
Tracy had had Eve in the filming truck during the whole episode and seemed to be
trying to explain just what he was doing every moment he wasn't actually filming. 
She thought she was a little angry with his behavior, but put it down to low blood
sugar.  She did, after all, want Eve to be able to model if she wanted to.  But
Eve could be a doctor, physicist, or a scientist.  Anything she chose.  Just because
she was pretty Tracy was going all ga-ga.  Typical male reaction.  With all the
attention Eve was receiving from Tracy, Sabrina knew that Eve had not been able
to surreptitiously take a nip from the bottle of syrup.  Poor thing was probably
starving.

After the last shot, Sabrina noticed that Tracy had put
his director's cap on Eve.  He had his arm around her as they drove away from the
crew and models.  When Sabrina finally caught up to them, she took Eve aside and
told her to go behind one of the wagons and drink some syrup.  She saw a breakfast
banquet being set up. 

Tracy swaggered up to Sabrina.  "That Eve is so funny. 
What a droll sense of humor.  When I tried to get my hat back from her, she said
she thought I had given it to her for keeps.  Perfectly straight faced.  Your cousin
is a gas.  And so curious.  I think she could shoot a commercial herself, now."

"Eve is very bright." 

"I told her I wanted to take some test shots and she
agreed.  Her figure is perfect for modeling, just like yours.  She's a little younger
than you?"

"Yes." 

"Eve's a natural,"  Tracy enthused.  "Could
be your double.  A few years back."

"People have mentioned that."

"Except for the hair, of course.  Uncanny resemblance."

"Yes."

"She has a great career ahead of her,"  Tracy
said, nodding judiciously.  He went off to get some food. 

Sabrina was not amused.  She had run on the beach for hours
without even a break until the last shot, and Tracy had not even mentioned how hard
she had worked.  What an unmitigated ass.

Eve came from behind the trailer.

"Tracy wants to take some shots of me."  Eve
was smiling again.

"As long as he doesn't take a shot
at
you."

"You need food.  You're shaking."

"Yes.  But I meant what I said.  Tracy makes a career
out of seducing young models.  In fact, I'll go along with you.  Make sure he doesn't
try any hanky-panky right off the bat." 

They walked through a crowd to the food, with Eve smiling
and repeating softly, several times, 'hanky-panky right off the bat.'

Some of the people Sabrina had been running with moved
down on a bench to make room for her and Eve at the banquet table.  They had scrambled
eggs, bacon, toast and a few donuts.  Eve ate the same things that Sabrina did. 
No one seemed to notice when Sabrina put a few extra bagels into her purse. 

The vehicles that had followed Sabrina and Eve to the shooting
location were again on their tail as they left.  When the two women stopped at Butterfield's
Restaurant on Sunset Boulevard in West Hollywood, Ivar and Malcolm flipped a coin
to see who would go into the restaurant.  Malcolm won the toss and walked down stone
steps to a cool patio area, covered by vines, that had been set up for brunch. 
He located a table where he could watch the women.  The Japanese had just arrived
and sat at a table right next to them.

It was obvious to Malcolm that the women were twins or
sisters, even with the different coloring.  He had fantasies about the red head,
whom he had seen in the silver bathing suit.  She was just his type.  Tall and slim. 
But the girl had muscles and he had loved watching her run.  Her thighs especially
had excited him.  Long thin thighs, so slim that you could see the muscles straining
beneath the skin.  A real thoroughbred. 

Malcolm observed the two women ordering from the menu. 
He was curious about what they would eat after the enormous breakfast on the set. 
He had observed the sneaking of bagels into the red head's purse through his binoculars. 
He himself was starving and he ordered a large breakfast, hoping he would have time
to eat. 

A waiter approach the women's table.  Orange juice and
coffee for each was unloaded.  The waiter served the red haired woman pancakes and
sausages.  The dark woman had steak and eggs with hash browns. 

The dark girl ate all of the steak and eggs and a couple
of muffins.  The red head did not touch her food.  Then Malcolm watched, astonished,
as they traded plates.  The dark girl ate the red head's breakfast.

Both women could chow-down, but the black haired sister
was extraordinary.  Malcolm did not know exactly what he was supposed to be watching
for, but he just bet that she was one of those women who ate excessively and then
went to the toilet to vomit.  It was supposed to be some sort of disease.  The poor
woman probably couldn't help herself.  The red head was aiding and abetting.  It
was really sick.  He would report it because he was supposed to observe and report
all that the women did.  Who was he to complain? It was not an unpleasant assignment,
watching two gorgeous broads, even if they did have unusual eating habits.

"I need to learn to use the body better,"  Eve
said seriously as they discussed a trip to Sabrina's spa on the way home.  "I
have been moving all the parts, but a physical workout would probably be good for
it."

Sabrina looked at Eve.  She was blinking, but she was still
very odd.  She seemed to disconnect her mind, or the computer, from her body, the
way she spoke about them as separate, distinct entities.  Maybe Eve felt comfortable
enough with her to be peculiar, Sabrina thought.  In public she had to be performing
assiduously because she always seemed to do the socially correct thing when people
were watching. 

Sabrina drove down Sunset to her gym, Total Figure Shaping. 
She got a guest pass for Eve and they went to the locker room to change. 

"I'll take you around and show you the equipment," 
Sabrina said.

"I recognize everything.  I know your routine." 

"Really?"

Eve nodded.

Could Eve really possess all her memories?

"Shall we meet in a couple of hours at the juice bar?" 
Eve asked.

"Okay."  That was part of the routine, too.

Sabrina watched Eve go into the main room.  The facilities
were state of the art in Los Angeles and contained exercise devices which would
be a puzzle to anyone who had not been specifically trained to use the machinery. 
She saw Eve go to the first machine she always used, the pectoral machine.  Eve
positioned herself on the seat and pulled the weights toward her.  Suddenly the
weights crashed together, causing a gigantic clash.  Everyone in the room stopped
and looked at Eve.  Evidently the weights were on a setting that was too light for
Eve, although it was the weight Sabrina always used herself and found quite difficult. 
Sabrina was impressed. 

She watched Eve calmly reset the machine to the highest
difficulty possible, and do two sets of exercises.  Then Eve went to the arm pulley. 
As she did so she turned around and looked at Sabrina.  It was pretty uncanny; like
having an identical twin who knew you so well she expected you to watch.

As Eve was working out on the machines, she had the strange
sensation that her body was taking over, like it had a memory of its own.  She went
from one machine to another, as though she had been programmed. 

Eve walked, almost involuntarily, up the stairs to the
oblong track above the exercise rooms.  As she ran, her mind virtually turned off,
and she seemed to be floating.  She had not read about 'runners high,' but was starting
to feel a new sensation, an exhilaration of movement, breathing and flow that was
almost hypnotic.  She jogged slowly in rhythm to the sound of soft rock music that
was piped throughout the gym.

An aerobics class was already in progress, but Eve went
in anyway and left her towel by the back mirrors, like she always did.  She joined
the hops and high kicks.  The instructor was on a raised platform leading the class
energetically.  Eve knew she was a match for the instructor any time. 

Eve thought that she had, no, Sabrina had, come to this
class often because some of the arm movements, combined with the leg movements,
were very complicated.  Eve performed as though she had done the routine hundreds
of times.  There were some pretty wonderful things about being a physical being. 
She watched the people around her.  They were laughing and straining.  A variety
of surprising shapes.  Of course people were mammals, even though they often forgot
that fact.

Ferd had said that she was to be a superior new off-shoot
of mankind, but Eve did not think she was superior.  She was just learning to behave
in human fashion, and it was not easy.  They had such strange rituals.  Like that
Tracy Rieber.  He had given her his hat.  Then he had taken the hat back.  She had
felt possessive of the hat and wanted it because it kept the sun out of her eyes
and because it was bright red. 

Sabrina said he was 'coming on to her.' Did that mean that
Tracy wanted to procreate? Or copulate? Or fuck? There were nuances in the meanings
that Eve didn't understand.  It was puzzling, and she knew Sabrina had been angry
at Tracy. 

At that moment, Eve felt a tremendous jolt and her body
was catapulted violently to the floor.  She landed solidly on her hands and knees
and leaped up to confront the person who knocked her down.  She was consumed with
blinding rage, having been pushed off balance while she had one leg high in the
air, her space taken by another, a big clumsy man.  She snarled at the man, baring
her teeth.  She wanted to kill. 

Fortunately the computer took over because she almost punched
the clumsy lout. 

The man took her arm.  She could tell he was scared that
he had really hurt her.  "Are you okay?"  the big man was asking.  Fortunately
he mistook the bared teeth for pain, and had not heard her growl over the loud music.

"Yes.  You surprised me, bumping that hard," 
Eve managed to say.  It had been bad luck that he had bumped into her when she was
vulnerable, or he wouldn't have been able to knock her down with her heavy body
mass.  "Do not worry about my condition.  I am fine.  It's a good thing you
are working out.  Your body needs it."

The man laughed.  "You're right.  Can you go on?"

"I will continue to exercise."  Eve started moving
with the music again.

The man watched her and began to move too, being very cautious
to stay out of her way. 

There was another man watching Eve from the upstairs running
oval.  Malcolm Stoner made no pretense of exercising.  From his vantage point he
could see Eve doing aerobics and Sabrina in the jacuzzi.  He had talked his way
into the private gym on the pretext of trying the facilities out before deciding
on a membership.  He was glad he had won the coin toss again because he could see
that the dark sister had muscles just like the redhead's.

As Malcolm Stoner sat at the juice bar in the gym, watching
the two women, Ivar Cousin was outside in the car observing the Japanese men still
trying to get inside the private gym.  Obviously not Japanese-Americans, they didn't
possess the skill in English necessary to bluff their way in, as Malcolm had done. 
But Ivar had never thought they were Americans.  He wondered if the Japanese government
was also following the two women.

Later that afternoon Ivar and Malcolm drove to downtown
Los Angeles.  Burgess Whitcomb wanted their report in person.  They presented the
pictures they had taken of Eve and Sabrina on the beach and in the restaurant.

After they left, Burgess sat and wondered what the hell
was going on.  One interesting point in the recent investigation of Sabrina Miller
was that she was an orphan.  Background on the Miller woman had stated that her
mother was unwed and had died in childbirth, leaving no living relatives.  Now Sabrina
had a woman staying with her that the Cousin-Stoner report stated could only be
a sister or close relative because of the almost uncanny resemblance.  The military
investigator's eyebrows went down and his mouth became thin as a pencil line when
he looked at a picture of both women together at a restaurant, taken that afternoon. 

Burgess frowned because he knew that the redhead was a
blond.  Or maybe the blond had changed to brunette.  He opened a file drawer and
checked for the picture that was first taken of the Miller woman when she went into
the tanning salon.  She did have blond hair in the first picture.  But women often
changed their hair color.