Death of a Blue Movie Star

CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

Rune spent the next couple weeks by herself. That was the way she wanted it. She saw Sam Healy a few times but she thought it was best to keep things a little casual.

And professional. There'd been some follow-up. Rune had told the police that she'd heard Hathaway on the phone not long before he'd locked her in the bedroom. He might have been talking to the others in the Sword of Jesus. The New York State Police traced the call and started an investigation of their own. Three days after Gabriel was blown to pieces three senior members of the Sword of Jesus were arrested.

There was also the matter of Arthur Tucker. When Rune arrived back at her houseboat from Fire Island she saw that it had been broken into. Nothing was missing, she thought at first, until she noticed that the script she had lifted from Arthur Tucker's office was gone.

She'd called him, threatened to call the police and tell them that he'd stolen a dead woman's plays. The crotchety old man had told her, "Call away. It's got your fingerprints on it and I've already got a police report filed about a break-in a week ago-just after you came to interview me. And I'm not very happy that you told half the world I was a suspect in the case. That's slander."

Their compromise was that neither would press charges and that if he made any money from the plays, he'd donate a quarter of it to the New York AIDS Coalition.

Then something odd happened.

Larry-the Larry who was half of L amp;R-had appeared at the door of her houseboat.

"No bloody phone. What good are you?"

"Larry, I've had my abuse for the week."

"It's a bleedin' 'ouseboat."

"Want a drink?"

"Can't stay. I came by to tell you, 'e's an arse, Mr. House O' Leather, what can I tell you?"

"I still lost you the account, Larry. You can't give me my job back."

He snorted an Australian laugh. "Well, luv, that wasn't ever go

"Larry!"

"All right, I recommended you. And they got a budget. Not much. Ten thousand per film. But you can't bring it in under that you got no business being a film maker."

He wrote down the name. She got her arms most of the way around him and hugged him hard. "I love you."

"You fuck it up, I don't know you. Oh, and don't tell Bob. What 'e does is 'e 'as this little doll and it's got your name on it and every night 'e sticks pins-"

"That's a load of codswallop, Larry."

"Rune, that's Brit, not Aussie. Work on your foreign languages some, right?"

Five minutes after he'd left Rune was on the phone. The distributor had been pretty aloof and said, real non-committally, to submit a proposal and they'd make their decision on funding.

"Proposal? I've got rough footage in the can."

"You do?" He sounded more impressed than a film person ought to. "Everybody else has these one-page treatments."

Two days later, when she called, he told her he'd soldEpitaph for a Blue Movie Star to PBS. It was slotted for September, on a program about young film makers. A check for all her postproduction work would be sent shortly.

Sam Healy emerged again and began spending more and more nights on the houseboat. He complained about the rocking motion for a while, though that was mostly for effect; Rune figured something inside of him felt it was better for the woman to move into his homestead, rather than the other way around.

He saw Cheryl some, too. He told Rune about it- Honesty, goddamn honesty -but it seemed that their get-togethers were to discuss the sort of nitty-gritty details appropriate for people on the verge of divorce. Nonetheless, dear Cheryl still hadn't filed papers and once or twice when Rune stayed over at his place he took calls late at night and talked for thirty, forty minutes. She couldn't hear what he said but she sensed that it wasn't Police Central he was talking to.

Adam decided he liked Rune a lot and asked her advice on which rock groups were current and where to get good chic secondhand clothing. ("It's all right, Sam. You don't want him to be a geek, do you?") The two of them went to a Mets game once after Healy'd bought tickets but couldn't make it because of a travel alarm ticking away in a suitcase in a Port Authority locker. Rune and Adam had a great time; when somebody had tried to pick her up by telling her what a cute brother she had Adam had said, "Don't talk about my mom that way."

They laughed about the guy's reaction for a good portion of the trip home.

Tonight was Sunday and Sam Healy had stayed the night. He was watching the ball game as Rune looked through theTimes working up the courage to actually cook breakfast and wondering how risky it would be to make waffles. She noticed an article, read it, sat up suddenly.

Healy looked at her.

She pointed to the story. "That guy they found in the trunk of the car at La Guardia a couple of days ago?"

"Somebody with the Family?"

"Yeah."

"What about it?" Healy asked.

"The medical examiner said the autopsy showed he'd been dead for a week."

Healy turned back to the game. "The Yankees're behind by seven and you're worried about dead hit men."

"The assistant medical examiner who did the autopsy-his name is Andy Llewellyn."

But Healy was directing all his attention to help the boys from the Bronx rally back in the eighth.

"I've got a couple errands to run," Rune said. "You'll be here when I get back?"

He kissed her. "They can do it," Healy said.

She looked at him.

"The Yankees," he said.

"I'll keep my fingers crossed," Rune said sincerely.

Rune went for a long walk and ended up-surprised to find herself there-in Times Square. She walked into the old Nathan's Famous and ordered a Coke and a cardboard carton of crusty French fries, which she covered with sauerkraut and ketchup and mustard and ate as best she could with the little red skewer they give you instead of a fork.

She hadn't quite finished when she got up suddenly and went outside to a pay phone. She made two longdistance phone calls and in five minutes was in a cab on the way back to her houseboat, wondering if Sam would loan her the money for a plane ticket.

Beneath the 727, the sheet of Lake Michigan-so much bluer than New York Harbor-met the North Shore somewhere near Wilmette. The fragile lattice dome of the Baha'i temple rose just above the dark green sponge of late-summer trees.

Rune, looking through the viewfmder of the little JVC video camera, lost sight of the temple as the plane eased out of its bank. She released the shutter. The wheels lowered with a quivering rush of protest against the slipstream, bells sounded and lights came on and in five minutes they were on the ground at O'Hare. With the roar of the reverse thrusters, the final-approach thoughts of mortality vanished.

"Welcome to Chicago," the steward said.

I don't know about that, Rune thought, and unbuckled her seat belt.

"This city is flat… It's not like New York, where all the energy is crowded onto a rocky island. It's a sprawl, it stretches out, it's weak, it's…" Rune's voice faded; the miniature tape recorder sagged.

"Dissipated?" The cabdriver offered.

"Dissipated?"Click. She shut off the recorder.

Rune glanced at his head, balding on top but hair pulled back from the sides and tied into a long ponytail. In the rearview mirror she noticed he had a demonic goatee.