A voice said warmly and softly in her ear, "How are you, Eve baby? Did you have a nice sleep and get all rested? Because I have some new friends coming in from out of town—you haven't met them yet, but they think they'd like to meet you. Why don't I pick you up around eight? And this time you won't play hard to get, will you, sweetheart?"
She was cold—suddenly so icy cold that she felt the telephone had frozen to her ear. She swallowed, but her throat was dry and no words emerged.
"Eve? You wouldn't try to hang up on old Jer, would you, sweetheart? Listen, I've just been telling Brant that I know you're really a very sensible girl; and you photograph so well, too. I just feel bad that you didn't have any fun last night—tonight will be different, I promise. And there'll be quite a bit of money in it for you if you cooperate."
She found her voice at last, but there was no emotion left in it. It was cold, like the rest of her—cold and dead-sounding.
"Is your friend Brant listening on the extension? I hope he is, because I want him to hear this, too. You see, I don't give a damn what you two do with those pictures, and I'm sure Brant can find better uses for his money. Buy yourselves some other girls to play your sick games with. And just remember, blackmail is a felony and so is rape—I'm sure your damn pictures will show I wasn't willing. Don't bother calling again, will you? I'm late for an appointment with my attorney."
She put the telephone down, holding it away from her as if it could sting, and found that she was shaking so hard she had to he there for a while, pressing her hands against her forehead as if to push her thoughts inside—keep them from tumbling out to overwhelm her.
Last night—God, it was already late afternoon! She had actually slept, managing to blank out horror and shock from her mind, maybe because she'd thought that nothing worse could happen to her than had already happened. But this was worse. Had they been testing her? Or did Brant Newcomb really think she'd be willing to play the whore for him and his friends? And there had been David, thinking her one. Not believing her. If it had been David who had called...
The telephone began to ring spitefully again, and with a mindless, vicious motion, Eve yanked the cord out of the wall jack. Let them all go whistle up the wind. David, too; she couldn't care any longer; even if there was a hurt place where love had been before, he'd taken that from her, too. Right now the only feeling left in her was a cold, deadly hate for Brant Newcomb. She wanted to get him, to show the world what he was, he and his friends with the famous names—sick, perverted animals, all of them! The hell with the pictures, she'd— she'd do a news story, an expose. He couldn't stop her. And if it was too hot for television coverage, she'd sell the story to the Record.
"Eve baby, you can't do it. You'd have to be crazy to try, because all you'd end up doing would be to destroy yourself, don't you see drat?"
Marti had been horrified, sympathetic, full of fury. But Marti was also pragmatic, pointing out to Eve just how impossible it would be to try to "get" Brant Newcomb.
"But you don't understand!" Eve said wildly. "If—if everyone he hurts or brings down the way he did me says the same thing—don't you see? It's like women who don't report rape because they're scared of the scandal. So some bastard gets away with it, to try again. Marti, I can't let him get away with it! He hurt you, remember? And there was Francie—what he did with Francie, who isn't even eighteen yet—"
"Think David will like his kid sister's name plastered all over the newspapers? Or yours, and his connection with you? Christ, Eve, nobody knows better than I what a bastard Brant Newcomb is—I warned you about him, remember? And if you tried to get your story heard out in the open, he'd find a way to stop you. It would be the word of everyone else there, against yours. He'd accuse you of trying to blackmail him. Shit—I don't mean to scare you, Eve, but he might do even worse than that; and no, I'm not being melodramatic, either. Brant possesses neither scruples or conscience—haven't you found that out for yourself?"
"But—"
Marti's voice softened; she put her hand on Eve's shaking shoulder.
"Look, honey, I know what you're feeling. Think I didn't feel the same way? And I'll tell you what—I feel madder at that prick David for sending you there than I—"
They both heard the buzzer at the door and stiffened.
"I'll get it," Marti said brusquely. "You just sit there and think over what I've been saying, will you?"
Eve got up and fixed herself a drink while Marti went to the door. She couldn't stop her hands from shaking, and she poured Scotch all over the top of the bar. Marti was wrong, she knew. And then, not daring to look around, she thought sickly, Not David, please! I couldn't face him again, not so soon....
It wasn't David, though. It was a messenger, a young man in a brown uniform.
"Personal, for a Miss Eve Mason."
Marti's voice: "Just a minute."
She came back to Eve, holding a long white envelope. Thick paper. Linen finish. Not stopping to think, Eve tore it open. A check fluttered out onto the rug. There was a note with it, and she read it disbelievingly while Marti was saying, "If you'll sign for it, I can— Eve?"
Sorry you couldn't make it this evening. The check is to take care of last night. Maybe another time?
There was no signature on the note, but she recognized the name on the check.
"Wait," Eve said, and from somewhere inside herself, hate and fury hardened her voice. She tore the note and the check, over and over, until the paper shredded in her hands, and then handed the untidy scraps to the gaping man.
"Give him this—the man who sent you. And there's no message."
A dramatic, satisfying gesture, but where would it get her? Where would anything she had planned to do and still wanted to do get her in the end? Even Marti wouldn't understand. Marti kept arguing with her, pointing out consequences with ruthless logic. And giving her advice she didn't want to hear.
"Go back to work. Tell them you were in an automobile accident and banged up your face. Why don't you call your shrink friend and ask him to prescribe a tranquilizer for you? Eve, you've got to try to put what happened out of your mind."
Eve felt as if her head were bursting. Hate and frustration joggled against despair while she kept saying doggedly, "But I must—don't you see that I must do something?' until Marti used the last, unanswerable argument.
"All right. You want to do something about it? Call David. He's an attorney, isn't he? And God knows he owes you some free advice, after all he—well, call him! See what he has to say."