Death of a Blue Movie Star

Like shrapnel. Purely antiperso

"You got the robot into the chamber?"

"Well, no. Actually I dismantled it."

"You?"

He shrugged and nodded to the pit, where the two men had finished their wrapping exercise and were retreating to a bunker of concrete and sandbags.

"They're practicing setting off military charges. That's an MI 18 demolition block. About two pounds of C-4. For blowing bridges and buildings, trees. They've wrapped it with detonating cord and'll set it off by remote control."

Over the loudspeaker came a voice: "Pit number one, fire in the hole! Fire in the hole!"

"What do they mean?" Rune asked.

"That's what they used to yell in coal mines when they lit the fuse on the dynamite. Demolition people use it now to mean there's about to be an explosion."

Suddenly a huge orange flash filled the sky. Smoke appeared. And an instant later a clap of thunder slapped their ears.

"Boaters hate us," Healy explained. "City gets a lot of claims for broken windows."

Rune was laughing.

Healy looked at her. "What?"

She said, "It's just weird. You brought me all the way out here to give me a lesson on IEDs."

"Not really," he said, considering.

"Then why did you invite me?"

Healy looked away for a moment, cleared his throat. His face was ruddy to start with but it seemed he was blushing. He opened his attache case and took out a couple of cans of diet Coke, two deli sandwiches, a bag of Fritos. "I guess it's a date."

CHAPTER TEN

He may have looked like a cowboy but he wasn't the silent type.

Detective Sam Healy was thirty-eight. Nearly half of his fellow Bomb Squad detectives had gotten into demolition in the military but he'd gone a different route. First a portable-a foot patrolman-then working an RMP.

"Remote motor patrol. It means police car."

"Initials, I remember."

Healy smiled. "You're talking to an MOS."

"Moss?"

"Member of Service."

After a few years of that Healy'd gone into Emergency Services: New York 's SWAT team. Then he'd signed up for the Bomb Squad. He'd taken the month-long course at the FBI's Hazardous Devices School in Huntsville, Alabama, and then was assigned to the Squad. Healy had majored in electrical engineering in college and was studying criminal justice at John Jay.

He talked with excitement about his workshop at home, inventions he'd made as a kid, his twenty-year, uninterrupted subscription toScientific American. Once he had come up with a formula for a chemical solution to neutralize a particular high explosive and had almost gotten a patent. But a big military supplier beat him to it.

He'd never fired his gun, except on the range, and had only made four arrests. He carried a Brooklyn gun shop's business card, on the back of which was printed theMiranda recitation; he knew he'd never remember the words in a real arrest. He'd been called on the carpet several times for failing to wear his service revolver.

When the conversation turned personal he became quieter, though Rune sensed he wanted to talk. His wife had left him eight months before and she had informal custody of their son. "I want to fight it but I can't bring myself to. I don't want to put Adam through that. Anyway, what judge is going to awardme custody of a ten-year-old kid? I deal with explosive devices all day."

"Is that why she left you?"

Healy pointed across the field. Rune heard the staticky warning again. Another huge flash, followed by a tower of smoke fifty feet high. Rune felt a concussion wave slap her face like a sudden summer wind. The cops watching lifted their fingers to their mouths and whistled. Rune jumped to her feet and applauded.

"Nitramon cratering charge," Healy said, studying the smoke.

"Fantastic!"

Healy was nodding, looking at her. She caught him and he looked away.

"The job, you mean?" he asked.

Rune had forgotten her question. Then she recalled. "The reason your wife left?"

"I don't know. I think the reason was I didn't ever get home. Mentally, I mean. I live in Queens. I've got a house with a lab in the basement. One night I'd been doing some work downstairs and I was kind of lost in it and my wife came down and said di

Rune said, "Don't be too hard on yourself. Takes two."

He nodded.

"Still in love with her, huh?"

"No way," he said quickly.

"Uh-huh."

"No, really."

The sound of wind rilled the range. He became silent, almost impenetrable.

Which would have been one of his wife's gripes. The difficulty of reaching him.

After a moment Healy said, "All of a sudden, out of the blue, she says she can't stand me. I'm just one big irritation. I don't understand her. I'm never there for her. I was floored. I really asked for it, in a way-I pushed her, I kept telling her how much I loved her, how sorry I was, how I'd do anything… She said that was just torturing her. I went a little nuts."

"Lovers can do that to you," Rune said.

Healy continued. "For instance-when she left, Cheryl took the TV. So the next day all I can think about is getting a replacement. I went out and boughtConsumer Reports and read all about the different kinds of sets. I mean, I had to buy the best TV there was. It became an obsession. Finally, I went to SaveMart and spent-God, I can't believe it-eleven hundred on this set…"

"Whoa, that must be one hyper TV."

"Sure, but the thing is: I never watch television. I don'tlike TV. I'd do things like that. I was pretty depressed. Then one day we got a call on this pipe bomb. See, they're real dangerous because they're usually filled with gunpowder, which is awfully unstable. Thing weighed about thirty pounds. Turns out it's planted in front of a big bank downtown. In a stairwell. We can't get the robot in there so I get a bomb suit on and take a look at it. I could just carry it out to where the robot can pick it up, then put it in the containment vehicle. But I'm thinking, I don't care if I'm dead or not. So I decide to do a render-safe myself.

"I started twisting the end off the pipe. And what happened was some of the powder got in the threads of the cap and the friction set off the charge."

"God, Sam…"

"Turned out it was black powder-not smokeless. That's the weakest explosive you can find. And most of it was wet and didn't go off. Didn't do anything more than knock me on my ass and blister my palms. But I said to myself, 'Healy, time to stop being an asshole.' That helped me get over her pretty well. And that's where I am now."

"Over her."

"Right."

After a moment Rune said, "Marriage is a very weird thing. I'm not sure it's healthy. My mother's always after me to get married. She has a list of people for me. Nice boys. Her friends' sons. She's nondenominational. Jewish, WASP… doesn't matter to her. Okay, theyare sort of ranked by professions and, yeah, a doctor's first-but she doesn't really care as long as I end up rich and pregnant. Oh, and happy. She does want me to be happy. A rich, happy mother. I tell you, I have a great imagination but that's one thing I can't picture, me married."

Healy said, "Cheryl was real young when we got married. Twenty-two. I was twenty-six. We thought it was time to settle down. People change, I guess."

Silence. And Rune sensed he felt they'd gone too far into the personal. He shrugged in a dismissing way, then noticed a uniformed cop he recognized and asked what had happened to a live hand grenade someone had found in the Bronx.

"S'in the captain's office. On his chair."

"His chair?" Healy asked.