The Insiders

"So you're marrying Brant to get even?"

"I don't know! I don't really know why I'm marrying Brant, except that he wants me to, and I—maybe I'm finally ready for marriage!"

"Huh!" Marti said sourly. She started folding Eve's clothes neatly in little piles on the bed, and she didn't say much more after that, although her disapproval was palpable.

In the end, Eve took just two cases with her. She left Marti a check for her share of the rent for the next two months, and the keys to the apartment. Somehow, that seemed to make everything so final; she felt as if she had put herself in Brant's custody, and the feeling made her quiet and withdrawn. She had the sudden impression of being on a roller-coaster that was out of control and racing toward destruction. Would he end up destroying her?

CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

AT THE TOWN HOUSE, like a bad omen, Jerry Harmon was waiting, leaning up against the weathered brick exterior, his eyes watching them both. Somehow, just seeing him standing there made Eve sickly afraid— unreasoningly so, because, after all, it had been Brant and not Jerry who had started it all that night. Brant who...

She felt quite suddenly as if she couldn't get out of the car, didn't want to, but Brant's firm, strong fingers grasped both her hands, pulling her upward and onto her feet, moving her forward. Jerry ignored her, and she felt a kind of relief at that.

"Hey, Brant! I've been trying to get in touch all day, man—figured that if you'd gone sailing, you wouldn't lie out too late." His glance flicked over Eve at last, and she wanted to cringe under it.

"Partying all alone, huh? Well, how's about joining the crowd tonight at my place? Got some new faces coming in from the southland, man, and they all love lo ball. I came all the way up here just so I'd be sure to catch you."

Brant kept smiling his cold, polite smile, but he was shaking his head, and Eve felt relief flood through her. For a few horrible seconds, she had been afraid that he'd want to go and would force her to go along with him.

"Sorry, Jer. No more playing for me for a while, and I guess you might just as well pass the word around that I'm leaving town again tomorrow. Eve and I are getting married."

He'd said it easily, conversationally, but Eve could see Jerry's eyes bug, his mouth open and then close, as if he were having difficulty finding words.

Finally he said slowly, "Man, you have got to be kidding! This is all a big put-on. Go on, tell me that and I'll laugh. Because, Brant baby, it's not your bag, man. I mean, you're cool, sweetheart. Just a little crazy, maybe, like the rest of us, but not that crazy. Come on, now, tell old Jer you were fooling—the sun got to you, maybe "

Inexplicably, Eve found that she, too, was watching Brant, waiting for his laugh, waiting for him to shrug and tell Jerry that he wasn't serious at all, it was a put-on.

But instead, here he was telling Jerry something quite different.

"Sorry, Jer, but I am serious—finally. Maybe everything just got to be a drag—you know? Anyhow, why don't I just let you think up some story wild enough to tell the gang. I'm going to be too damned busy to make any announcements myself."

Jerry stood there shaking his head for a long time after they had gone in the house—Eve still silent, and Brant explaining casually that they had a lot of packing to do.

"You're eloping?"

"Guess you could call it that. We haven't decided where yet, or when, exactly. Just soon. We're leaving in the morning, so be a sweetheart and keep everybody away, huh?"

Jerry had agreed, his expression still stunned, but now he found himself wondering if Brant weren't, after all, playing some monstrous kind of trick. On the girl, on him, on them all. Brant could be a kind of weirdo sometimes—he was as difficult as hell to figure out at all times.

But to marry Eve Mason, of all people? Everyone knew she was crazy about that lawyer guy, Francie's brother. And then there had been all die publicity about her going to New York to take Babs Barrie's place on the biggie morning show—what about that? Hell, he thought, only a week or so ago, Brant had invited everyone at his party to screw the broad—had even helped. To think that he, Jerry, had actually thought he knew Brant Newcomb better than most people did! That was a laugh because did you ever really get to know anyone as rich as Brant, or as self-contained as he was, even if you'd been stationed at the same base in 'Nam?

Brant Newcomb was a loner even when he was the center of a crowd, the laugh of the party. There'd always been women in his life, of course, and even an occasional man if it was an orgy scene with everyone doing it to everyone else. But Brant, unlike most guys, had never had a special friend (unless you could call him one, and Brant had sure as hell shown him different, hadn't he?) nor kept a mistress. Not even when he lived in Europe, where it added a certain cachet to a rich man's reputation as a lover to keep a well-known movie star or an opera singer.

Brant, with his looks and his millions, could have had his pick of the women; instead he would use them— fuck them and forget them. He genuinely didn't give a damn about anyone. Some jealous women, their vanity hurt when he'd picked them up and dropped them just as quickly, had even tried to start rumors that Brant was a closet queen, but nobody really believed that because Brant balled too many women—some of them too publicly—and took too much enjoyment in the doing of it. He was as horny and ready as often as an eighteen-year-old.

So what in hell did Brant think he had found in Eve Mason? She was beautiful, but beauty was cheap and easy to come by these days. She was a product of middle-class suburbia, nothing special, and had had the usual quota of men on the way up. What had Brant discovered that was so special—there had to be something, only Jerry hadn't figured it out yet. Oh, well, they said a leopard couldn't change its spots, and Brant couldn't change overnight. He was human, too, like everyone else, and he'd be back in circulation after a while, with or without his bride.

Jerry had been walking back to where he'd parked his car, deep in thought. Brant's sudden announcement had shaken him more than he wanted to admit, even to himself. After all, they'd been buddies since Vietnam, and Brant hadn't even asked him in the house this time, the cold bastard!

Suddenly, as a thought struck him, Jerry's footsteps quickened. Hell, why hadn't he thought of it before? He had the juiciest piece of gossip in the city right now —he knew something no one else knew. City, hell! This piece of gossip was news—international, wire-service type. It was a goddam scoop, and if there was money to be made, Jerry baby was going to make it. Maybe his old pal Brant would let him take some pictures at the wedding? Al

l he had to do now was get on the phone to Evalyn Adams in Los Angeles, and she'd jump at the chance to be the first to run the story—she always paid well, too. Bread. He could use some. Parties were expensive.

Eve thought that the thing that frightened her most about Brant was his cruelty. It wasn't a conscious, considered cruelty most of the time, perhaps, but it was all the more frightening because it seemed instinctive and thoughtless. After seeing Jerry Harmon, the fear that had returned to haunt her hadn't gone away yet, and since they'd been back, she felt they were farther apart than ever.

There was nothing for her to do here—every thing was being taken care of, even her final packing. If she needed anything else, all she had to do was ring for Jamison and tell him, and he'd see to it. She wondered nervously what Jamison thought of all this, his employer's latest whim—did he think at all, or was he merely a robot? Was that what you had to be to survive around the man who was going to be her husband?

She'd paced around the rooms on the first floor of the house until Brant, looking up from the telephone, had offered her a tranquilizer. She'd refused, and he'd shrugged and gone back to his telephone calls. Now Eve wondered whom he was calling—he'd been on the phone for what seemed like hours, making one call after another.