Master of the Game

"His plane was delayed," George said glibly. "He wanted me to stay with him. I kept thinking he'd take off at any minute, and then finally it got too late for me to telephone you. I'm sorry."

"It's all right, now that you're here."

George thought of Eve as she was being carried out on the stretcher. Out of her broken, twisted mouth, she had gasped,

"Go...home...nothing...happened". But what if Eve

died? He would be arrested for murder. If Eve lived, everything would be all right; it would be just as it was before. Eve would forgive him because she needed him.

George lay awake the rest of the night. He was thinking about Eve and the way she had screamed and begged for mercy. He felt her bones crunch again beneath his fists, and he smelled her burning flesh, and at that moment he was very close to loving her.

It was a stroke of great luck that John Harley was able to obtain the services of Keith Webster for Eve. Dr. Webster was one of the foremost plastic surgeons in the world. He had a private practice on Park Avenue and his own clinic in lower Manhattan, where he specialized in taking care of those who had been born with disfigurements. The people who came to the clinic paid only what they could afford. Dr. Webster was used to treating accident cases, but his first sight of Eve Blackwell's battered face had shocked him. He had seen photographs of her in magazines, and to see that much beauty deliberately disfigured filled him with a deep anger.

"Who's responsible for this, John?"

"It was a hit-and-run accident, Keith."

Keith Webster snorted. "And then the driver stopped to strip her and snuff out his cigarette on her behind? What's the real story?"

"I'm afraid I can't discuss it. Can you put her back together again?"

"That's what I do, John, put them back together again."

It was almost noon when Dr. Webster finally said to his assistants, "We're finished. Get her into intensive care. Call me at the slightest sign of anything going wrong."

The operation had taken nine hours.

Eve was moved out of intensive care forty-eight hours later. George went to the hospital. He had to see Eve, to talk to her, to make sure she was not plotting some terrible vengeance against him.

"I'm Miss Blackwell's attorney," George told the duty nurse. "She asked to see me. I'll only stay a moment."

The nurse took one look at this handsome man and said, "She's not supposed to have visitors, but I'm sure it's all right if you go in."

Eve was in a private room, lying in bed, flat on her back, swathed in bandages, tubes connected to her body like obscene appendages. The only parts of her face visible were her eyes and her lips.

"Hello, Eve..."

"George..." Her voice was a scratchy whisper. He had to lean close to hear what she said.

"You didn't...tell Alex?"

"No, of course not." He sat down on the edge of the bed. "I came because - "

"I know why you came... We're...going ahead with it..."

He had a feeling of indescribable relief. "I'm sorry about this, Eve. I really am. I - "

"Have someone call Alex...and tell her I've gone away...on a trip...back in a few...weeks..."

"All right."

Two bloodshot eyes looked up at him. "George...do me a favor."

"Yes?"

"Die painfully..."

She slept. When she awakened, Dr. Keith Webster was at her bedside.

"How are you feeling?" His voice was gentle and soothing.

"Very tired...What was the...matter with me?"

Dr. Webster hesitated. The X rays had shown a fractured zygoma and a blowout fracture. There was a depressed zygomatic arch impinging on the temporal muscle, so that she was unable to open or close her mouth without pain. Her nose was broken. There were two broken ribs and deep cigarette burns on her posterior and on the soles of her feet.

"What?" Eve repeated.

Dr. Webster said, as gently as possible, "You had a fractured cheekbone. Your nose was broken. The bony floor where your eye sits had been shifted. There was pressure on the muscle that opens and closes your mouth. There were cigarette burns. Everything has been taken care of."

"I want to see a mirror," Eve whispered.

That was the last thing he would allow. "I'm sorry," he smiled. "We're fresh out."

She was afraid to ask the next question. "How am I - how am I going to look when these bandages come off?"

"You're going to look terrific. Exactly the way you did before your accident."

"I don't believe you."

"You'll see. Now, do you want to tell me what happened? I have to write up a police report."

There was a long silence. "I was hit by a truck."

Dr. Keith Webster wondered again how anyone could have tried to destroy this fragile beauty, but he had long since given up pondering the vagaries of the human race and its capacity for cruelty. "I'll need a name," he said gently. "Who did it?"

"Mack."

"And the last name?"

"Truck."

Dr. Webster was puzzled by the conspiracy of silence. First John Harley, now Eve Blackwell.

"In cases of criminal assault," Keith Webster told Eve, "I'm required by law to file a police report."

Eve reached out for his hand and grasped it and held it tightly. "Please, if my grandmother or sister knew, it would kill them. If you tell the police...the newspapers will know. You mustn't...please..."

"I can't report it as a hit-and-run accident. Ladies don't usually run out in the street without any clothes on."

"Please!"

He looked down at her, and was filled with pity. "I suppose you could have tripped and fallen down the stairs of your home."

She squeezed his hand tighter. "That's exactly what happened..."

Dr. Webster sighed. "That's what I thought."

Dr. Keith Webster visited Eve every day after that, sometimes stopping by two or three times a day. He brought her flowers and small presents from the hospital gift shop. Each day Eve would ask him anxiously, "I just lie here all day. Why isn't anyone doing anything?"

"My partner's working on you," Dr. Webster told her.

"Your partner?"

"Mother Nature. Under all those frightening-looking bandages, you're healing beautifully."

Every few days he would remove the bandages and examine her.

"Let me have a mirror," Eve pleaded.

But his answer was always the same: "Not yet."

He was the only company Eve had, and she began to look forward to his visits. He was an unprepossessing man, small and thin, with sandy, sparse hair and myopic brown eyes that constantly blinked. He was shy in Eve's presence, and it amused her.

"Have you ever been married?" she asked.

"No."

"Why not?"

"I - I don't know. I guess I wouldn't make a very good husband. I'm on emergency call a lot."

"But you must have a girl friend."

He was actually blushing. "Well, you know..."

"Tell me," Eve teased him.

"I don't have a regular girl friend."

"I'll bet all the nurses are crazy about you."

"No. I'm afraid I'm not a very romantic kind of person."

To say the least, Eve thought. And yet, when she discussed Keith Webster with the nurses and interns who came in to perform various indignities on her body, they spoke of him as though he were some kind of god.

"The man is a miracle worker," one intern said. "There's nothing he can't do with a human face."

They told her about his work with deformed children and criminals, but when Eve asked Keith Webster about it, he dismissed the subject with, "Unfortunately, the world judges people by their looks. I try to help those who were born with physical deficiencies. It can make a big difference in their lives."

Eve was puzzled by him. He was not doing it for the money or the glory. He was totally selfless. She had never met anyone like him, and she wondered what motivated him. But it was an idle curiosity. She had no interest in Keith Webster, except for what he could do for her.

Fifteen days after Eve checked into the hospital, she was moved to a private clinic in upstate New York.

"You'll be more comfortable here," Dr. Webster assured her.

Eve knew it was much farther for him to travel to see her, and yet he still appeared every day.

"Don't you have any other patients?" Eve asked.

"Not like you."

Five weeks after Eve entered the clinic, Keith Webster removed the bandages. He turned her head from side to side. "Do you feel any pain?" he asked.

"No."

"Any tightness?"

"No."

Dr. Webster looked up at the nurse. "Bring Miss Blackwell a mirror."

Eve was filled with a sudden fear. For weeks she had been longing to look at herself in a mirror. Now that the moment was here, she was terrified. She wanted her own face, not the face of some stranger.

When Dr. Webster handed her the mirror, she said faintly, "I'm afraid - "

"Look at yourself," he said gently.

She raised the mirror slowly. It was a miracle! There was no change at all; it was her face. She searched for the signs of scars. There were none. Her eyes filled with tears.

She looked up and said, "Thank you," and reached out to give Keith Webster a kiss. It was meant to be a brief thank-you kiss, but she could feel his lips hungry on hers.

He pulled away, suddenly embarrassed. "I'm - I'm glad you're pleased," he said.

Pleased! "Everyone was right. You are a miracle worker."

He said shyly, "Look what I had to work with."