A small, thin man in a green surgical gown was leaning over her. "My name is Keith Webster. I'm going to operate on you."
"I don't want to be ugly," Eve whispered. It was difficult to talk. "Don't let me be...ugly."
"Not a chance," Dr. Webster promised. "I'm going to put you to sleep now. Just relax."
He gave a signal to the anesthesiologist.
George managed to wash the blood off himself and clean up in Eve's bathroom, but he cursed as he glanced at his wrist-watch. It was three o'clock in the morning. He hoped Alexandra was asleep, but when he walked into their living room, she was waiting for him.
"Darling! I've been frantic! Are you all right?"
"I'm fine, Alex."
She went up to him and hugged him. "I was getting ready to call the police. I thought something terrible had happened."
How right you are, George thought.
"Did you bring him the contracts?"
"Contracts?" He suddenly remembered. "Oh, those. Yes. I did." That seemed like years ago, a lie from the distant past.
"What on earth kept you so late?"
"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."