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Sonof a bitch.
Rune pulled a new tear gas canister out of a closet near the door and walked through the boat.
The burglar had left.
She stepped into the middle of the mess, picked up a few things-a couple of socks, the book of Grimms' fairy stories. Her shoulders slumped and she set the objects on the floor again. There was too much to do, and none of it was going to get done tonight.
"Damn."
Rune turned a chair right side up and sat on it. She felt queasy. Somebody had touched that sock, touched the book, touched her underwear and maybe her toothpaste… Throw them out, she thought. She shuddered from the sense of violation.
Why?
She had valuables, fifty-eight Indian head nickels, which she thought were the neatest coins ever made and would have to be worth something. About three hundred dollars in cash, wadded up and stuffed in an old box of cornflakes. Some of the old books would be worth something. The VCR.
Then she thought: Shit, the Sony.
L amp;R's camera!
Hell's bells it cost forty-seven thousand dollars shit Larry's go
Enoughfor a man to live in Guatemala for the rest of his life.
Shit.
But the battered Betacam was just where she'd left it.
She sat for ten minutes, calming down, then started to clean. An hour later a good percentage of order had been restored. The burglar hadn't been particularly subtle. To unlock the door, he'd pitched a rock through one of the small windows looking out on the Jersey side. She swept the glass up and nailed a piece of plywood over the opening.
She'd thought about calling the cops again, but what would they do?
Why bother? They'd be too busy protecting nuns and the mayor's brother and celebrities.
She was just finishing cleaning when she glanced at the Betacam once more.
The door on the video camera's recording deck was open and the cassette of Shelly was gone.
The man in the red jacket had robbed her.
A moment of panic… until she ran to her bedroom and found the dupe tape she'd made. She cued it up to make sure. Saw a bit of Shelly's face and ejected the cassette. She put it in a Baggie and slipped it into the cornflakes box with her money.
Rune locked the doors and windows, turned out the outside lights. Then she made herself a bowl of Grape-Nuts and sat down on her bed, slipped the tear gas canister under a pillow, and lay back against the pile of pillows. She stared at the ceiling as she ate.
Out the window, a tug honked its deep vibrating horn. She turned to look and caught a glimpse of the pier. She remembered the attack, the man in the red windbreaker.
She remembered the terrible burst of explosion, the pressure wave curling around her face.
She remembered Shelly's blonde head turning into the room to die.
Rune lost her appetite and put aside the bowl. She climbed out of bed and walked to the kitchen. She opened the phone book and found the section on colleges and universities. She began to read.
CHAPTER SEVEN
The problem was that his voice kept trailing into silence as he answered her questions.
As if everything he said brought to mind something else he had to consider.
"Professor?" Rune prompted.
"Right, sure." And he'd continue on for a few minutes. Then the words would meander once again.
His office was filled with what must have been two thousand books. The window overlooked a patch of quadrangle grass and the low sprawl of Harlem beyond that. Students strolled by slowly. They all seemed dreamy-eyed and intense. Professor V.C.V. Miller sat back in his creaky wooden chair.
The camera didn't bother him in the least. "I've been on TV before," he told her when she'd called. "I was interviewed for Sixty Minutes once." His subject was comparative religion and he'd written a treatise on the subject of cults. When Rune had told him she was doing a documentary on the recent bombings he'd said, "I'd be happy to talk to you. I've been told my work is definitive." Making it sound likeshe should be happy to speak tohim.
Miller was in his sixties, hair white and wispy, and he always kept his body three-quarters to the camera, though his eyes locked right onto the lens and wouldn't let go- until his voice grew softer and softer and he looked out the window to contemplate some elusive thought. He wore an ancient brown suit flecked with the dandruff of cigarette ash. His teeth were as yellow as little ivory Bud-dhas and so were his index finger and thumb, where he held his cigarette, even though he didn't inhale it while the camera was ru
Rune found the monologue had wandered into Haiti and she was learning a number of things about voodoo and West African Dahomean religion.
"Do you know about zombies?"
"Sure, I've seen the movies," Rune said. "Somebody goes to an island in the Caribbean and gets bit by this walking-dead gross thing, yuck, with worms crawling around, then he comes back and bites all his friends and-"
"I'm talking about real zombies."
"Real zombies." Her finger released the trigger of the camera.
"There is a such a thing, you know. In Haitian culture, the walking dead are more than just a myth. It's been found thathoungans ormambos -the priests and priestesses-would appear to induce death by administering cardiopulmonary depressants. The victims seemed to die. In fact, they were in suspended animation."
("Rune," Larry'd told her, "the interviewer is always in control. Remember that.") She said, "Let's get back to the Sword of Jesus."
"Sure, sure, sure. The people that're responsible for these pornography bombings."
Rune said, "What do you know about them?"
"Nary a thing, miss."
"You don't?" Her eyes strayed to the bookshelves. What was this "definitive" stuff.
"No. Never heard of them."
"But you said you knew most of the cults."
"And I do. But that doesn't necessarily mean they don't exist. There are thousands of cult religions in this country. The Sword of Jesus could be one that has a hundred members who read from the Bible and talk fire and brimstone-of course, all the while writing off their tithes on their income taxes."
He got an ash into the round ceramic ashtray on his desk before it fell to the floor.
"Say they did exist. You have any thoughts on them?"
"Well, 1 guess…" The volume went way down. Eyes out the window again.
"Professor?"
"Sorry. It's surprising."
"What is?"
"The killings. The violence."
"Why's that?"
"You see, in America, we can't escape the heritage of religious tolerance. We're so damn proud of it. Oh, we'll lynch a man because he's black, persecute him because he's a Communist, despise him because he's poor or because he's Irish or Italian. But his religion? No. That is not a prejudice that flies in America, the way it would in Europe. And you know why? Nobody really cares about religions here."
"But what about Jim Jones? He was American."
"People may kill toprotect their religion. And these Sword of Jesus people, if there is such a thing, unquestionably come from conservative, military backgrounds and a love of firearms and hunting. They'd kill abortionists. But, see, that's to save lives. Killing purely to further a system of morality… Well, I could see some Islamic sects, some primitive religions doing that. But not in America, not a Christian group. Remember, Christians were the folks that brought you the Crusades, and the reviews were not good at all. We've learned our lesson."
"Would you have any idea where I could find out if they're real?"
"You're talking to the best source, young lady, and I'm afraid I can't help very much. Is this going to be network?"
She said, "Maybe even in the movie theaters."