Genuine Lies

who broke into your house, who stole, who wanted the tapes.”
    “Drake?” Julia blinked against the flare of a match as Eve lit a cigarette.
    “Perhaps it isn’t entirely fair to blame Michael. After all, Drake was marred years before. But I prefer to blame him. He knew the boy’s weakness for gambling. Hell, the boy’s weakness for everything, and he used it. Drake was weak, he was calculating, he was disloyal, but he was also family.”
    “Was?”
    “I’ve fired him,” Eve said simply, “as my publicity agent, and as my nephew.”
    “That explains why he hasn’t been returning my calls. I’m sorry, Eve.”
    She waved the sympathy away. “I don’t want to dwell on Drake, God knows. My point is that all of the people in my life have had a certain amount of influence on it, and often on each other’s as well. Rory brought me Paul, thank Christ, and that binds all three of us together. I suppose, if you’re right about this Lily person, I’m connected to her too.”
    Julia couldn’t help but smile. “You’d like her.”
    “Possibly.” She shrugged it off. “Rory also brought me Delrickio, and Delrickio, Damien. You see how each character in a life story alters it, subtly or overtly? Without even one of the players, the plot might take a different turn.”
    “Would you say that Charlie Gray changed yours?”
    “Charlie.” Eve smiled wistfully into the night. “Charlie speeded up the inevitable. If I could go back, change one thing, it would be my relationship with Charlie. Perhaps if I’d been kinder, less self-driven, things would have been different for him. But you can’t go back.” Her eyes changed, darkened as they fixed on Julia’s. “That’s part of what I want to say tonight. Of all the people I’ve known, I’ve touched in my lifetime, there are two who have influenced it the most. Victor and Gloria.”
    “Gloria DuBarry?”
    “Yes. She’s outraged with me. Feels betrayed because I’m about to reveal what she considers her private hell. I don’t do it for revenge, or vindictiveness. I don’t do it lightly. Of all the things I’ve told you, this is the most difficult, and the most necessary.”
    “I told you from the beginning I wouldn’t judge. I’m not going to start now.”
    “But you will,” Eve said softly. “In the early part of Gloria’s career, when she was playing young, innocent girls, giggling angels, she met a man. He was breathtaking to the eye, successful, seductive, and married. She confided in me, not only because we were friends, but because I’d once fallen under the same spell. The man was Michael Torrent.”
    “DuBarry and Torrent?” There were no two names that Eve could have linked together that would have surprised Julia more. “I’ve read everything I could find on both of them. There was never even a rumor.”
    “They were careful. I helped them be careful. Understand that Gloria was desperately in love. And she wasn’t completely locked into her public image then. This would have been perhaps two years before she met and married Marcus. Therewas a wildness in her. A passion for life. One I’m sorry she’s smothered so completely.”
    Julia could only shake her head. She could no more imagine Gloria DuBarry wild or passionate then she could imagine Eve leaping onto the table to do a quick tap dance.
    Less.
    “At that time Torrent would have been married to …” Julia did quick calculations. “Amelia Gray.”
    “Charlie’s first wife, yes. Their marriage was rapidly sinking. It had a poor foundation. Michael’s guilt. He had used all of his power and influence to keep Charlie out of lead roles and never learned to live with it.”
    Julia let out a long breath. If Gloria’s illicit affair had been the left jab, this was the roundhouse. “You’re telling me that Torrent sabotaged Charlie’s career? Christ, Eve, they were friends. Their partnership is a legend. And Torrent’s become one of the most revered names in the industry.”
    “Become,” Eve repeated. “He might have ended at the same place if he’d been patient and loyal. But he betrayed a friend out of his own fears. He was terrified that Charlie would overshadow him. He pressured the studio, as some stars could at that time, into boxing Charlie into the buddy characters.”
    “Did Charlie know?”
    “He might have had suspicions, but he’d never have believed it. Michael also pleasured himself with Charlie’s wives. He confessed it all to me not long