Free Eve's Men by Newton Thornburg Page B

screeching past him in a rage, honking the horn and giving him the finger. Then there was a red streetlight dancing above the car, whipsawed in a suddenly roaring wind. And he saw himself trekking up a seemingly endless flight of stairs, arm in arm with his brother’s lady, after which things briefly became clearer again. He remembered insisting on walking her to her room.
    “And here I thought chivalry was dead,” she said.
    “Not by a long shot,” he assured her.
    At her door she thanked him. “For listening to me. For being there. For everything.”
    “Aw shucks, ma’m, tweren’t nothin’.”
    She was looking at him as if he were her naughty little boy. “But tomorrow we’ve got to have a little talk. I need to know why a man of such moderation suddenly becomes so immoderate with me. All that Scotch, I mean.”
    For Charley the remark was like a foglight suddenly lit, parting the mists for a brief moment. He had been wondering that same thing. “I know,” he said. “I can’t figure it either. It makes no sense. I wanted you to like me.”
    She smiled sadly, beautifully. “But I do like you, Charley.” Coming up on her toes then, she kissed him on the cheek. “In fact, I like you very much.”
    He smiled. “Jesus, just think if I’d been sober and charming.”
    “I know. It boggles the mind.” She said goodnight and gently closed the door.
    Charley made it back to his room and got off his pants and shoes before toppling like a felled tree into his bed, though never landing as far as he knew, never even dreaming. He had no idea how long he slept, whether one hour or ten had passed when he suddenly felt himself being awakened, Caesar pulled squalling into the brutal air. Gradually he became aware that Brian was shaking him.
    “Come on, man! Get up, for Christ’s sake!”
    “What is it?” Charley managed. “What’s wrong?”
    “Just get up. We need you.”
    He saw that it was still dark outside, which meant that he had been asleep for only a few hours at most. Propping himself on an elbow, he also realized that he was still drunk. The room spun and his gorge rose.
    “Jesus, Brian, I can’t. I really can’t.”
    As he slipped back onto the pillow, Brian reached down and pulled him up into a sitting position, steadied him, shook him.
    “It’s the goddamn girl,” Brian said. “Belinda. She’s taken too much meth or something. We’ve got to get her to a hospital.”
    “Why me?” Charley asked. “I’m not in very good shape, little brother, as you can see.”
    “It’ll take two people,” Brian said. “And Eve won’t let me go. The thing with Kim Sanders—you know. The cops would blame me for this too, and the fucking media would crucify me.”
    “What the devil happened? What’d you do to her?”
    “Nothing, man! What do you think? We had sex and I went to sleep. Maybe she thought she was taking downers. I don’t know.”
    “Where is she?”
    “In a room I rented downstairs.”
    “How’d you get in here?”
    Brian looked disgusted. “Who the hell cares? I got a key at the desk, okay?”
    “Whatever.”
    Charley stood shaking and groaning as Brian helped him put on a sweater, jeans, loafers. Then Brian led him out onto the walkway and downstairs, to a room at the far end. Inside, Charley peered through the open bathroom door at Eve in jeans and a pullover, trying to work with Belinda, who was sitting naked on the toilet seat. Her forehead was bleeding and there were fresh red scratches on her face and breasts and thighs. Even now, though Eve was holding her by the wrists, the girl’s long-nailed fingers still raked at her body. And the words tumbled out of her, shrill and meaningless.
    “Oh no, don’t sleep … Oh, please, no, don’t ever … No, no, I can’t, I really can’t…”
    Her body quivered with tension, a condition that perversely—for Charley anyway—made her look even sexier, hard and lean instead of soft and cuddly. But it was a feeling that quickly died