Eve's Men (13 page)

It was almost noon, though, so Charley continued to lie there and watch. And finally the local news came on, a pretty young clone of Diane Sawyer breathlessly reporting that “Damian Jolly, director of the movie
Miss Colorado
, now being filmed here in Colorado Springs, has been shot and seriously wounded at his newly purchased home above Rockrimmon.” Her co-anchor, a slightly older, slightly prettier man, then took the baton and related that Jolly had suffered a head wound and was already in surgery at the hospital. His assistant, Rick Walters, trying to escape the rifle fire, had broken an arm in a leap from the balcony of the house. Appearing before reporters at the hospital, Rick said that he had a pretty good idea who had done the shooting and that he had informed the police of his suspicions, but the studio lawyers had cautioned him against saying anything more than that.

The anchorwoman then said that informed sources at the police department had identified the suspect as Brian Poole, notorious friend of the late superstar singer, Kim Sanders, on whose life Jolly’s movie was based. Poole had been arrested earlier in the week for destroying the film’s outdoor set at a ranch near Black Forest.

For the first time, then, Charley saw footage of Brian under arrest, looking handsome and pleasant, even amiable, as he was being led handcuffed into the county building. Next, they cut to the site of the bulldozing, showing the row of storefronts both before and after, a picturesque small-town street reduced to a pile of rubble, with the Cat dozer parked in front, like a discarded weapon. In voiceover, the anchorman explained that Brian was alleged by the same spokesman to be capable of any violence in his campaign to make the studio abandon the movie project. He was reported to have given the police a false address, and the police were said to be on the lookout for his late-model black Chevrolet pickup, which had been seen near Jolly’s house just before the shooting.

As the newscast went on to other matters, Charley turned the set off. The report of Jolly being wounded didn’t surprise him. As a kid, he remembered hearing the same kind of thing on TV about President Kennedy—after a large portion of his head had been shot off. And he figured this was not so much a matter of journalistic delicacy as it was simple lawyerly prudence, a reluctance to pronounce anyone dead until a medical doctor had done so. About the pickup truck, though—that made no sense at all. He and Eve had been seen not only
near
Jolly’s house but
right there
, inside the front gate and at the
time
of the shooting, not just before it. But then Charley reminded himself that this wasn’t the real world he had been watching, only the news at noon.

Within a few minutes the phone rang, and Donna was on the line, clearly unhappy at being pulled away even briefly from her “mansion” client. But when Charley explained things—explained them
partially
anyway—her attitude swung from impatience to shock.

“A
killing!
” she cried. “Oh my God, Charley, you’ve got to get out of there as fast as you can! Get away from him! He’ll destroy you—I know he will!”

“Don’t worry, I’m leaving as soon as I can—tonight or tomorrow morning at the latest. But first I have to go the police myself and give them a statement. I’m trying to get ahold of Ray Henley now, so he can recommend someone out here for me. I’ll call you again afterwards and let you know when I’ll be home.”

“God, I don’t know why you’re so pigheaded,” she said. “I told you not to go out there.”

“So you did. I guess I’ll never learn.”

“I guess not.”

“Good-bye, Donna.”

When Ray Henley finally called, Charley briefed him on his predicament and what he wanted him to do. Ten minutes later a local criminal attorney phoned Charley and they made an appointment to meet at three o’clock at the county building, where they would discuss what Charley soon thereafter would be saying in his statement to the DA.

After hanging up, Charley gathered his aching body, all six ravaged feet of it, and dragged himself into the bathroom to wash up. He also washed down a couple of aspirin tablets, which in his stomach immediately turned into hot coals.

He wanted desperately to lie back down and sleep for a few hours, or at least until the meeting with the lawyer. But he knew he had to get back to Brian and keep him focused,
carry
him down to the police station if he had to. So, reluctantly, he left his room finally and went back there—only to find the door ajar and the room empty. The dresser drawers had been pulled open and all the clothes and luggage and personal items were gone. As were Brian and Eve.

Eve had reclined the seat so far she couldn’t have seen out even if she had wanted to, which she did not, since the West always looked pretty much the same to her from thirty thousand feet: a vast tan emptiness with occasional stretches of pale lavender mountains and huge, green irrigation circles. She still had not changed clothes from the day before, was still wearing the same jeans and sleeveless jersey blouse that she had worn to the Purple Sage, and which had made her scoot as far from Charley as she could get on their way up to Jolly’s in the pickup. Now, though, stretched out in the chartered jet, she hoped that she had developed at least a modicum of body odor as an appropriate little gift for her seatmate: Brian the fugitive, Brian the bugout.

At first she had refused to go, telling him that she would not be a party to such madness, helping him jump bail and add to his crimes, not to mention leaving Charley holding the bag. But Brian had trumped her, nodding sympathetically, saying that he understood and even agreed with her.

“Yeah, I guess it’s high time you cut yourself loose from me. All I’m doing is dragging you down with me, and you deserve better than that. Really, baby, I understand.”

And for a short time she had stood by and watched him pack, tossing and stuffing his things into their suitcases. But the thought of the two of them parting so abruptly after so long a time together was simply too much for her to handle, and she soon joined him, hurriedly packing her things right in with his. And this made her even angrier, the fact that her loyalty to him came at such a price: not only turning her into a lawbreaker but forcing her to betray Charley as well.

As they were about to leave, she asked Brian about the bail money, how on earth he could justify letting his brother suffer such a loss, and he assured her that would not happen. He said that either he would return in time, once Chester was on the hook for the shooting, or he would simply repay Charley out of the contract money.

Eve still was amazed at how smoothly Brian had handled the getaway, almost as if he had expected it to happen and had had time to prepare for it. Hiding behind dark glasses and a Chicago Bears baseball cap, he had led her down the back stairs, away from both Charley’s room and the front desk. A short distance from the motel he stopped at a pay phone and arranged for a taxi to pick them up at a nearby mall. Back in the truck, he handed her his flight bag and had her take ten thousand dollars out of it, explaining that he wanted her to do all the talking and arranging from then on. He would be her backward brother, a dolt obediently tagging along.

He dropped her off, along with the luggage, just north of the main entrance to the mall. Then he parked the truck way out on the fringe of the huge parking lot and walked back to where she was, arriving only a few minutes before the taxi. Following his instructions, she had the driver take them to the airport, which was about twenty minutes away. South of the terminal, Eve went alone into the tiny office of a private air service and told the clerk that she and her brother wanted to charter a jet to Santa Barbara.

“As soon as possible,” she added.

Before the clerk could answer, a man coming out of the room behind her emitted a sharp laugh and said, “How about immediately, if not sooner?”

He was chunky and middle-aged, with a florid face and an outfit that proclaimed him self-employed: khakis, a Peanuts sweat shirt, and a tan, well-crushed captain’s cap. He told Eve that they’d had a cancellation that morning and had a Lear jet “all fueled and ready to go.” Flying time would be two and a quarter hours and the cost would be seventy-one hundred dollars, cash or credit card. As Eve brought forth her stack of hundreds and began counting out the fare, the man laughed again, this time a touch nervously.

“Well, it’s sure nice doing business with you, miss,” he said. “My name’s Ted Horne. I’ll be your pilot.”

Very soon after that they were airborne, banking and climbing above the Colorado plains before turning back and streaking west over the front range, with Pike’s Peak no more than a molehill far below. And now, well on their way, Eve was discovering that even though she hated what they were doing, she was grateful for the sudden peace and quiet, the chance to lie back in the plush, cozy cylinder of the Lear jet and try to relax, maybe even sleep. But as she lay there with her eyes closed, she heard Brian twisting in his seat and then felt his breath lightly brushing her face. Opening her eyes, she found herself looking straight into his eyes not even a foot away.

“What do you want?” she snapped. “I’m trying to sleep.”

He smiled ruefully. “Oh, I was just thinking—how lucky I am to have you. Or to
have had you
, I guess I should say. After all this, I imagine you’ll be moving on pretty soon, don’t you think?”

“That again, huh?”

“You mean back in the motel? Well, I guess it’s on my mind. I guess I know I’ve gone too far. That I deserve to lose you.”

“Well, you do put one to the test.”

“I know.” He paused there a moment, still smiling thoughtfully. “Charley,” he went on. “You really liked him, didn’t you?”

“Sure. And so should you. I really hate it, running out on him like this. Leaving him holding the bag.”

“I know. I do too. I really do, babe. But I just couldn’t stay. After that one night in jail—on top of the year in Mexico—I found out I just can’t cut it anymore. I’d go crazy. And I honestly don’t feel I deserve it. Belinda was an accident. And Chester shooting Jolly, I never even considered it a possibility. I really didn’t. And as for the bulldozing, that was for good reason—you know it was. A guy shouldn’t have to just accept it, those bastards taking your life and turning it into shit for all the world to see. Yet they will if I don’t stop them. They’re the ones who should be behind bars, not me.”

Eve did not feel like discussing it all yet again. “Let me sleep, okay?”

“Sure.” But he was looking at her in that special way he had, his lovely, muscular face somehow deprecating himself while romancing her at the same time, admiring her, appealing to her.

“I’ll cuddle to you, okay?” he said. “I’ll hold you while you sleep.”

“All right. But that’s all.”

“Of course. What else?”

As she rolled over, he pushed up the armrests between them and moved in tightly against her, Levi’s to Levi’s, his arm around her, his hand cupping her right breast. Through her jersey blouse and lightweight bra she could feel her nipples hardening—until he suddenly let go of her. She felt him fussing with his jeans, probably rearranging himself. Then he came back, putting his arm around her again and pressing in tight.

“Don’t be alarmed,” he said. “I’m not preparing to rape you, just giving Mister Big a little more elbow room.”

It had been his name for it in the beginning, a jest at his own expense. But in point of fact, it was a pretty fair moniker. In bed or elsewhere, as they set about making love, she often would slip down and inquire as to the subject’s welfare. “And how is Mister Big tonight?”

At the moment, though, rest and sleep were still her priorities. And she reminded him.

“Sleep, remember?” she said.

“Of course. No problem. This is fine.”

And so it was. Drifting, half-asleep, she could feel him hard against her buttocks. And she thought how delicious it would be if she did in fact fall asleep this way, with him holding her and the world so far below, out of sight, out of mind. But her nipples refused to join her in sleep, and in time she took hold of his hand and guided it under her blouse and bra, the touch of his fingers on her breasts as usual jumping like an electric current straight to her pubis. He began kissing her on the neck and nibbling her ear, and soon she turned in his embrace and the two of them began to kiss in earnest, their hands moving into the other’s jeans.

As they hustled out of their clothes, Eve glanced over at the cockpit door to make sure it was drawn tight. Then she slipped down onto her knees and took him in her mouth, feeling his hands as they combed back into her hair and cupped her head, moving as she moved. Brian had brought his seat back up partially, and she knew that soon he would reach down and lift her onto his lap, his fingers digging into her buttocks while he buried his face in her breasts. And she would feel it all coming closer and closer, that time of loveliness and terror that bound her to him like a rope of pearls.

After returning to his room, Charley was at a loss for what to do. He knew he had information that the police could have used, such as the fact that Chester Einhorn was in all likelihood the killer—or at least the shooter—of Damian Jolly. Also, the police undoubtedly would have liked to know that Brian to all appearances had jumped bail and was on the run.