The Insiders (7 page)

Marti was actually looking worried, and because Marti wasn't the worrying type as a rule, Eve felt her unreasoning sense of fear come back. She brought her drink over and sat on the couch beside Marti.

"What did you mean, you hope I didn't make him mad? He was quite horrible in his nasty, sneering way, but he didn't exactly strike me as a psychopath, either. You're trying to warn me about something, Marti, and that's unusual!"

"Sure it is—I try to mind my own business! But you're a good kid, Eve, and I wouldn't want you to get hurt. Brant Newcomb's the type who could do it if he felt like it."

"Don't worry, it's not likely that I'll ever run into him again. I intend to stay as far away from him as I can get! Honestly, Marti, I never thought I'd meet a man who could really scare me, but he did. Afterward, I got to wondering if most of it wasn't just my imagination."

"No, it wasn't just imagination. Don't ever dismiss Brant that easily, because he's—a very ruthless person. And he doesn't have feelings, not the kind other people have."

"You sound as if you
know
him."

Marti's voice changed—the slightly slurred quality was gone—and Eve could see that she had tensed.

"I know him too well. I should say
knew
him, because all these years I've tried to stay out of his way. He doesn't come to this city too often—lucky San Francisco!" The sound Marti made was short and bitter, not really a laugh, although she meant it for one. She looked at Eve, her eyes measuring.

"Eve baby, I'm in the mood to talk. I've been sitting here all bloody evening trying to get drunk, waiting for the goddam phone to ring, hoping Stel would call and tell me she changed her mind. But she didn't, so—no, don't waste your pity on me, Eve," Marti warned, catching Eve's look. "If there's one thing I despise it's pity. But we were talking about Brant. And I've a story to tell if you're interested. Perhaps you'd better listen and learn."

"That sounds rather ominous!" Eve tried to make her voice sound light, but Marti's mood and solemn words had depressed her.

Marti said sharply, "Eve, I'm not kidding! Listen, I don't usually tell my life story to anyone, but this part concerns Brant Newcomb, and I'm just drunk enough to want to tell you enough so you'll know he plays rough. You want to hear it or not?"

"If you're sure it won't upset you," Eve began, but Marti interrupted her sharply.

"Nothing can upset me more than I am right now— and this all happened a long time ago, anyhow. Funny how you try to forget things, put them firmly out of your mind, and then something happens and it all comes back like a goddam movie or something. God! I can almost see myself as I used to be in those days. Stupid ingenue trying to play it cool and sophisticated."

Marti had begun to turn her glass around and around between her palms as she spoke, her voice curiously husky.

"I guess it's an old story, really. My parents—they were so damned rich and such damned snobs! They had to send me to a private school. Public school wasn't good enough for their only daughter—I mean, little Martine might meet poor kids with lower-class morals, and that wouldn't do, would it? So I was sent to Miss Dietrich's Academy for Young Ladies. Boarding school—which meant I was safely out of their way. They enjoyed traveling a lot and they were always partying, and I suppose having a kid was inconvenient. I was quite young when they first sent me away. At least, that's how it seemed to me at first, until I learned how to fit in." Marti looked up at Eve and smiled mirthlessly. "Yep— you could say that that's where it all began. The way I am now, I mean. I started young, and I had really en-thuiastic teachers. And you know what? I
enjoyed
itl For the first time I knew what it felt like to be wanted and loved. I had my first crush on a girl when I was only eight. She was much older than I, but she loved me back, and she was mother and lover and teacher all in one. I took to the life like a duck takes to water. Craving for love, my analyst called it. Perhaps! But it felt
good—
it still does."

Marti shrugged lightly, almost defensively.

"To cut a long story short, I was one of the few kids who really
enjoyed
Miss Dietrich's. But after I graduated I tried the 'normal' kind of love the other girls had moved on to—the heterosexual route. I wasn't bright enough for college, you see, and my parents were eager to have me married off, I suppose. They "brought me out' in a hurry and shoved me on the marriage market. God, they must've wanted me out of their way real bad— we were like strangers! Anyhow, I tried to please them; they teach you respect and obedience at Miss Dietrich's. I guess I was curious, too; all the girls I'd been with seemed to enjoy boys just as much as they'd enjoyed each other during our cloistered years. I had a lot of freedom; I mean, what my parents didn't realize was that our set was really pretty wild, especially the younger crowd. Try anything for kicks was our motto. And some of the guys, for instance, had traveled all around the world with their folks and had picked up all kinds of sexual expertise. I'd go out on decorous dates and end up in some Greenwich Village pad, maybe; or in someone's beach house. Sometimes alone with one guy, and sometimes with the rest of the gang. And I'd lie there and let them do it to me because I felt it was the done thing to get laid. But inside I felt nothing. And I hadn't learned to pretend too well, so some of the guys I ended up with would get damn disgusted at me because of my lack of enthusiasm. Word got around that I was too aloof—cold."

Ice clinked emptily in Marti's glass, and she blinked down at it as if she were surprised. She drew a deep breath, and Eve heard herself sigh, too.

"Oh, well—I'm nearly through, in case you're starting to wonder. Well—then I just happened to meet Brant. He'd come up to town for a few days to inspect the current crop of debs—that was the way one reporter put it. We met at a party—by chance, I thought—and I was even flattered that he singled me out, but a girl friend told me afterward that some of the guys had been talking about me. Miss Iceberg, they called me, and they thought he'd be the best one to teach me a few things. They picked well, I suppose. Brant's a good teacher!"

Something in Marti's voice made Eve want to reach out her hand to her, tell her she didn't have to go on talking, but at the same time she felt she wanted to hear what Marti had to say. Maybe it would help Marti to talk about it. Maybe, as Marti had intimated, it might help her to hear. After a slight pause, Marti continued speaking, her voice low and somehow harsh.

"Brant asked me out. My parents
knew
about him— they at least had heard all the wild stories about him, but he was richer even than they and a bachelor, so they nagged at me until I accepted his invitation.

"I was supposed to be one of a party of six, including a chaperone, that would cruise to the Bahamas and back on Brant's yacht. Well, I was one of six, all right, but he'd lied about the chaperone, and the other five were all men." Marti shivered slightly.

"We were away for a week—ten days—what does it matter? They brought some other girls aboard, in Jamaica, I think. They were black—high-breasted, with proud, outthrusting buttocks. They were really something, those girls. And that was the only time I was able to reach orgasm—to come, over and over, with those girls—I was past caring by then that all the guys watched. After that, they had me pegged for what I was —am—and they didn't bother me too often on the cruise back. Brant even took me to see a doctor before he escorted me back to my parents' house. He advised me, on the way, to stick to my own kind from now on, that I’d be happier and more contented that way, and I followed his advice. It's always better once you adjust to knowing yourself. Ever since then, I've accepted the fact that I am what I am."

Eve, her eyes filled with shock and horror, could hardly contain her angry reaction. Dear God, poor Marti!

"But—didn't you tell your parents? Surely there was something they could have done to have him punished? I mean, what he did to you—that was horrible, unforgivable! A man like that ought to be locked away somewhere. I'd have tried to kill him if I could!"

Marti's eyebrows lifted.

"Sweetie, I thought about it. But he was careful. And he had my parents figured out. They're the type who are more afraid of gossip than of God Himself; and dear, careful Brant took lots of pictures, especially of the scenes with the girls. It was actually Brant who suggested afterward that I ought to become a model. He said I didn't have the talent to learn to act, but I should do well at modeling, and he was right. So you see, Eve—"

"I see. God, Marti, if I ever set eyes on him again, I think I'll
run,
not walk, to the nearest exit."

"Don't get me wrong, though, Eve. Brant can be very, very charming when he wants to be. I've seen him that way, too. But underneath—if there's anything underneath, it's rotten. Maybe he's some kind of misogynist; maybe he's a closet queen trying to prove something. Whatever he is, he's all evil."

Eve got up and walked over to the bar again.

"I need a drink after that. I hate Peter!
He
was the one who introduced us. I guess he knew what would happen, the kind of proposition the man would make. Ugh!"

Marti came over to join her and started to pour herself some vodka. Her eyes were unreadable.

"By the way, David called. I didn't tell him where you were, just that you were out."

Her casual, offhand statement caught Eve by surprise and acted like a jolt of electricity.

"David?
Oh, Marti! What did he say? What time was it? Did he want me to call back?"

Marti shrugged. Obviously her talkative mood was over and she was withdrawing into herself—something Eve had noticed about Marti since the advent of Stella.

"He didn't say much, just asked for you. But then you know he doesn't like me." Almost violently, she added, "Why in hell do we have to fall in love with the people who are
worst
for us? Look at you, getting starry-eyed because David calls out of the blue—and after the lousy way he's treated you. And me—not able to play it cool with Stella, waiting for a damned phone call that I know damned well isn't going to come!"

Marti turned away so abruptly, she spilled part of her drink. But she didn't bother to wipe it up.

"I'm going to my room. I have a shooting at ten in the morning, and I'm going to feel like hell and look worse."

After she left, weaving slightly, Eve finished her drink and thought about David as she stared at the phone. She was still in a state of shock. David had called. Out of the blue. What did it mean? Of course it had to mean that he still wanted her. That he loved her, even if he never had admitted it. Oh, damn, damn! Why hadn't she stayed home tonight? Now David would think— Well, she shouldn't care about what David might think. Forget David. Wasn't that the name of the game, the name of the project she'd been concentrating on all these months?

She should forget about David. Not talk to him if he called again. But her hands were shaking and her knees felt weak. David, David, David. Please God, let him call again!

He did call again
, after all—at six in the morning— and she felt, groping fuzzily for the telephone, as if she'd just barely fallen asleep. As usual, he sounded crisp, alive, and wideawake. And just as if nothing had ever gone wrong between them.

"Eve? I'm sorry if I woke you up, but you're very difficult to get hold of these days. Listen, I'd like to see you. To talk to you."

"Who... David?" Eve sat up in bed, the sheets falling away from her body, her head starting to spin. "David, it's only six o'clock!"

"I know." His voice had a chuckle in it. "Time you were awake—the sun's up already. You shouldn't party so late."

"I didn't— You have some nerve, David Zimmer! Calling me up at this ungodly hour, telling me I shouldn't party so late. Is that what you—"

He interrupted her smoothly, his voice changing, becoming warm and intimate, making her cheeks flush.

"Eve—baby—I'm asking to see you again. I've missed you. I tried like hell, but I haven't been able to get you out of my mind. So I'm a coward, asking you on the telephone, but I want you to be my girl again. Eve?"

She held the phone to her ear and felt her eyes close. Her hands were shaking. He was asking her to see him again, to be his girl. Oh, God, you
must
be real, you heard me!

"David—" Her voice came out as a whisper, and she had to swallow hard before she could say any more. "Oh, damn you, David! Why'd you have to catch me by surprise this way? Just when I was starting to get over you, too. After everything you said, the things you
thought
about me—oh, David, I just don't know what to say!"

"Say you'll have dinner with me this evening. That'll do for starters. You don't know how much I need to see you again, baby, or just how much I've missed you. Lisa keeps sending her love, too. Every time I go down to see the kids, she keeps asking for you."

"You rat! You
knew
how that would get to me. I shouldn't even be talking to you…"