Death of a Blue Movie Star (31 page)

They were shown into the club—which for having a four-piece swing band was incredibly quiet. Or maybe it just seemed that way after the deafening roar of Rune’s place. They were seated at a small table with a gingham plastic tablecloth.

“Two Lone Stars,” Healy ordered.

Rune looked at a girl sitting next to them. A tight white sweater, a blue denim skirt, stockings and white cowboy boots.

“Very, very weird,” she said.

“You hungry?”

“You mean this’s a restaurant too? What, you get to pick your own cow out of the pen in the back?”

“The ribs are great.”

“Very weird.”

“I liked that other place,” he said. “But I kind of have to watch the noise.” Pointing to his ears. She remembered that bomb blasts had affected his hearing.

They drank the beers and were still thirsty so they ordered a pitcher.

“You come here much?” Rune asked.

“Used to.”

“With your wife?”

Healy didn’t answer for a minute. “Some. It’s not like it was a special place for us.”

“You still see her at all?”

“Mostly just when I pick up Adam.”

Mostly
, she noticed.

Healy continued. “There’re books she left she comes by to pick up. Kitchen things. Stuff like that … I never asked you if you’re going with anybody.”

Rune said, “I’m sort of between boyfriends.”

“Really? I’m surprised.”

“Yeah? It’s not as unbelievable as some things, like talking dogs or aliens.”

“I’d think you’d have them lined up.”

“Men have these strange feelings about me. Mostly, they ignore me. The ones who don’t ignore me, a lot of them just want sex and then the chance to ignore me afterward. Sometimes they want to adopt me. You see people in Laundromats Saturday night doing their underwear and reading two-week-old
People
magazines? That’s me. From what I’ve learned during the rinse cycle I could write a biography of Cher or Vanna White or Tom Cruise.”

“Let’s dance,” he said.

Rune frowned and looked out over the dance floor.

Healy said, “It’s called the two-step. Best dance in the world.”

“Let me get this straight?” she said. “You hold on to each other and you dance at the same time?”

Healy smiled. “It’s a whole new idea.”

Tommy Savorne pressed the buzzer of Nicole D’Orleans’s apartment and thought of how strange it was going to be to see
her
standing there and not Shelly.

He had tried—often, lately—to remember the first time he saw Shelly. He couldn’t. That was another odd thing. He had a good memory and there didn’t seem to be any reason why he shouldn’t remember Shelly. She’d been a person you could picture clearly. Maybe it was the poses she struck. She was never—what was the word?—random about anything she did. She was never careless in the way she stood or sat or spoke.

Or in what she decided to do.

He had recent images: Shelly on Asilomar Beach in Pacific Grove or at Point Lobos, on the bluffs where the park rangers were always telling you to stay away from the edge. Man, he could picture her clearly there.

He pictured her in bed.

But the first time they met, no, he couldn’t see that at all.

He’d tried a lot lately.

Nicole opened the door.

“Hey there,” she said.

“Hi, babe.” He took off his cowboy hat, kissed her cheek and hugged her and felt that wonderful presence of a voluptuous woman against your body. She looked good: a pale blue silk dress with a high neckline, high heels, hair teased up and back. The makeup—well, she was a little over-the-line there, but he could tone it down with some gels on the lights. He picked up his camera bags and carried them inside.

He noticed her dangling zirconia earrings. They were pretty but he’d get lens flare off of them. They’d have to go.

“You look nice,” he said.

“Thanks, come on in. You want a drink?”

“Sure. Juice. Mineral water.”

“So you’ve, like, completely stopped drinking?”

“Yep,” he said.

“Good for you. You mind if I …”

“Oh, God, no. Go right ahead.”

Nicole poured two orange juices. Added vodka to hers. The bottle vibrated slightly in her hand as she poured. He smiled. “What, you nervous?”

“A little I guess. Isn’t that weird? I do a sex film and no big deal. I’m on camera with my clothes on and I get butterflies in my tummy.”

“Ah, it’ll be a piece of cake.” They clinked glasses. “To your new career.”

She sipped the drink, then set the glass down. Her eyes swiveled; she’d been thinking about something, it seemed. She decided to say it. “If this works out, Tommy, you think there’ll maybe be others I could do?”

Tommy drank down half the juice. “I don’t see why not.” Then: “I ought to start getting set up. Can you show me the kitchen?”

She led him into the large, tiled room. It was chrome and white. In the center of the ceiling was a large steel rack hanging from chains. Dozens of heavy copper pans and bowls hung from it.

“This’ll work just fine.”

“We had it redone last year.”

He looked over the room. “We can use those pans. Copper looks good on camera.”

Together they began assembling the camera and lights.

Nicole asked, “Was it hard for you to, you know, get out of the business?”

“Out of porn? Yeah, financially it was a pain. What I did was assist at some film companies for a while.”

“Like what Rune’s doing?”

“Rune? Oh, that girl. Yeah, like her. And eventually I started getting some jobs as a cameraman, then I directed some documentaries.”

“I’d like to act. I keep thinking I could take lessons. I mean, how hard can it be? Shelly had a good coach. Arthur Tucker. She said he helped her a lot. I don’t know why he hasn’t been around. He didn’t go to the memorial service. I thought he would’ve called.”

“The coach?”

“Yeah.”

“I don’t know,” Tommy said. “When somebody dies it makes people feel funny. They can’t deal with it.” He turned to her, examined her closely. “You
should
act. You should be always in front of the camera. You’re very beautiful.”

Their eyes met for a moment. A copper bowl paused in Nicole’s hand. She looked away.

He finished assembling the camera and lights. Nicole watched him, the smooth, efficient way he handled the equipment. She leaned against the island, absently spinning the round-bottomed copper bowl. She looked down at its hypnotizing motion.

“I know Shelly got some kind of kick out of the porn films she made but, all in all, I don’t see why she didn’t give it up.”

“Because,” Tommy said, stepping next to her, “she was a whore. Just like you.” And he brought the long, lead pipe down on the back of Nicole’s head.

CHAPTER TWENTY

They ended up at her houseboat.

First, after the country-western club they were drenched with sweat so they decided it’d make sense to go for a walk. Then a cool night breeze came up as they were walking in the West Village and that made Healy suggest coffee nearby and they went to a cappuccino place on Hudson Street with a fountain where water spit out of a goat’s head into a trough filled with coins.

One of the coins was an Indian head nickel and Rune spent a couple minutes nonchalantly fishing the coin out while Healy tried to distract the waitress.

“Hmm,” Healy muttered. “Petty larceny. And I’m an accessory.”

She retrieved the coin and then wrung the slimy fountain water out of her sleeve. “It was in deeper than I’d thought.”

After that they’d walked another five or six blocks and found themselves not far from her boat.

“I only live three blocks away.”

“Where?” he asked.

“In the river.”

He looked at her for the standard five seconds before asking the standard question. “
In
the river?”

“I have a houseboat.”

“I don’t believe you. Nobody’s got a houseboat in New York. This I’ve got to see.”

Which was a line that’d been tried on her before.

Not that it mattered. She was going to invite him home anyway.

After the tour of the houseboat Rune looked for something to offer him. Beer didn’t seem right after coffee and her only bottle of brandy had been capped with foil a year or two ago and a dark residue floated in the bottom.

“Sorry.” She held up the bottle.

“Bud’s fine.”

They stood on the deck, looking over at New Jersey, feeling the nerves in their legs click from all the dancing and feeling tired and energized at the same time.

She wasn’t quite sure what started it. She remembered saying something about the stars, which you couldn’t see very well because of the city lights, but they were both looking up, and then there was his face filling the sky as it moved toward her and they were kissing, pretty serious kissing too.

She felt the slight prickle of his mustache, then his lips, and she felt his arms going around her. She’d expected he’d maybe be more cautious, like feeling his way along a pipe bomb, ready to jump back at any moment.

But he wasn’t that way at all. No reluctance, no hesitation. She guessed maybe she was the first girl he’d kissed like this since Cheryl had left. She knew he wanted her. Her arms went tight around his neck.

She maneuvered them into the bedroom.

A huge stuffed dragon sat in the middle of the bed.

“A monster,” he said.

“A friendly monster.”

“What’s his name?”

“
Her
name is Persephone.”

“My apologies.”

Rune picked up the dragon and held the mouth up to her ear.

“She forgives you. She even likes you.”

For a moment nothing moved, neither of them spoke. Then he knelt on the bed.

Her arms went around him, kissing hard, pressing, hands hungry. The dragon was still in between them. She considered making a joke about it. About something coming between them, ha, ha, but he was kissing her fast, urgently.

Rune grabbed the toy and dropped it on the floor.