Death of a Blue Movie Star (37 page)

John’s aura of gentleness was misleading. Harris and William hunted for deer and geese with that excited, hungry love of the hunt. John did not. John had been a marine in Nam and had never once spoken about his tours of duty. Harris and William knew that the ones who didn’t talk about killing were the ones who had the most personal relations with it.

John said, “We can’t leave New York yet.” He shrugged. “That’s how I feel.”

William hawked and spit into a linen handkerchief. “All right. How does Gabriel feel?”

Harris snapped home the bolt of his machine gun. “He’ll do whatever we want him to.”

“But he should act fast.”

John poured coffee into mugs and handed them to William and Harris. “Oh, he will.”

William nodded, then said, “What’s the target going to be?”

John’s eyes flickered to an illuminated crucifix above his desk, then he looked at the other men.

“I sometimes feel great temerity at times like this,” Harris said. “Deciding who should live, who should die.”

“He told me about someone, Gabriel did. I think it’s an interesting idea.”

“Let’s go with his thoughts then,” Harris said, nodding.

“Agreed.”

“Let’s pray for his successful mission.”

Their eyes closed tightly as they dropped to their knees and the three men that made up the council of elders of the New Putnam Pentecostal Church of Christ Revealed, known—though only to themselves—as the Sword of Jesus, prayed. And they prayed so fervently, their grim lips moved with silent words and tears came into their eyes.

Ten minutes later they rose from the floor, feeling refreshed and cleansed, and John placed a call to Gabriel, waiting for their message in the terrible city of Sodom.

Sam Healy didn’t sound quite right.

Rune wasn’t sure what it was. Maybe he was standing next to a five-pound wad of C-4 or a land mine.

“So. What’s it going to be? Sunshine and sand? Mountains? I need fresh air and wildlife, skunks and badgers, even worms and snakes. Where’re we going?”

The rush-hour traffic sped past the phone booth. It was eight a.m.

“Uh, Rune …”

Oh, boy. Do I know
that
tone.

“Something’s sort of come up.”

Sort of, yeah.

“What? You on an assignment?”

Silence.

Healy said, “I want to be honest with you….”

Oh, shit. She hated that word:
Honest
. It was like
Sit down, dear
. Right up there with
There’s something we have to talk about
.

“Cheryl called,” Healy said.

Hey, not the end of the world.

Not so far.

“Is Adam okay? Is anything wrong?”

“No. Everything’s fine.”

Another pause.

“She wanted to see me. To talk about … our situation.”

He’s told her about me? A warm burst of pleasure in her stomach. Rune asked, “Our …”

“I mean, Cheryl and me,” Healy said.

“Oh.” That
our
.

“I know we made plans but I thought I ought to … I wanted to be up-front with you.”

“Hey, not a problem,” Rune said cheerfully. I’m not going to ask. No way in the world am I going to ask…. Where they go, what they do, that’s their business.
I will not ask
. Rune asked, “Is she going to spend the night?” Oh, shit, no, no, no … “I’m sorry, it’s none of my business.”

“No, she isn’t. We’re not even going to have lunch or anything.” He laughed. “We ’re just going to talk. On neutral ground.”

Discuss their situation?
The bitch dumped him. That’s not a situation; that’s warfare.

As politely as possible: “Well, I hope you both get everything resolved.”

Big grin on my face. I’m so proud of myself.

“I’ll call you tomorrow,” he said.

“No phone, remember?”

“You call me?”

“Will do.”

“You don’t sound pissed …”

Don’t I? I’ll try harder
….

“… but you probably are. The thing is, I like you a lot, Rune. I didn’t want to lie to you.”

“Honest, yeah, I appreciate honesty, Sam. That’s very important.”

They hung up.

“Fuck honesty,” she said out loud.

He should’ve lied through his teeth. Told me he was
dismantling bombs. That he had to have his gallbladder out. That he had tickets to take Adam to the Mets.

She leaned against the phone stall for a moment, looking at the graffiti sprayed on the clear glass sides of the booth. A motorcycle went past. A voice called, “Wanna ride?” But the Honda didn’t slow down.

Sweat ran, tickling in streams down her face. She wiped it away and walked west toward the river. She stepped in a blob of tar that grabbed her shoe. It came away with thick black strings attached.

Rune sighed and sat down on the curb, wiping off what she could.

Picnic, she was thinking. Beach. Mountains.

He could have told me he had a headache. Or he got a stomach flu.

Talk about their situation
…

Dump her, Healy, Rune thought. She’s no good for you.

She knew, though, where it would end up.

He’d go back to the wife.

It was so hyperobvious. Back to Cheryl, with her daisy contact paper. Cheryl, with her white silk blouses and big boobs. The Darling-I’m-making-eggplant-casserole-for-the-Andersons Cheryl. Who was probably a perfectly fine person and who only walked out after he refused her tearful and perfectly reasonable request to get out of bomb detail.

She’d be decent, sweet, a good person. A perfect mother.

How I hate her….

Rune had canceled the restaurant interview, thinking she’d be on her way to the beach. She didn’t have any money to work on her film. She was stuck in deserted New York over a blistering hot August weekend. And her only boyfriend was going to shack up with his wife that night.

Aw, Sam …

It was then that she glanced up to a storefront window and saw an old sign, faded and warped, that advertised tax return preparation by a CPA.

Rune looked at the sign, smiled, and said, “Thank you, Lord.”

She stood up and left black footprints of tar all the way back to the phone.

Rune opened the door of her houseboat and let Warren Hathaway, carrying several beach bags, inside. In sports clothes—shorts, a dark green Izod shirt and tennies—he was much less of a nerd than he had been in the suit.

“Hey, Warren, you’re looking pretty crucial.”

“Crucial?”

“Jazzed? You know, cool.”

“Well, thanks.” Hathaway laughed.

“You like?” Rune did a pirouette. She wore a miniskirt and red tank top over her bikini.

“You’re looking pretty crucial yourself. What are those on your skirt? Electric eels?”

She looked down at the squiggly lines radiating from larger squiggly lines. “It’s from South America. I think they’re landing pads for spaceships.”

“Ah. Spaceships, sure.”

Rune slung her leopard-skin bag over her shoulder and locked the front door.

“I was really glad to hear from you. I was going to call. I mean, I
did
—at that place you used to work. But they said you didn’t have a phone at home. I’m glad you called. I didn’t know if I’d ever hear from you again.”

No way was she going to say that she’d been stood up or—at least until he had a few drinks in him—that she needed some backing for her film and had he thought any more about the investment idea? So she just said, “I
thought it might be fun to get some fresh air. I didn’t mean to wheedle a trip to Fire Island. You have a place out there?”

They walked down the wharf to his car.

“I wish. I’m in a summer share. A lot of the people from the firm go in together. When you said you wanted to get out of the city I thought about the Island.

“I’ve never been there. Why do they call it that, I wonder. Fire Island.”

Hathaway shrugged. “I’m not sure. I’ll look it up and give you a call.”

Rune looked at the frown on his face as he memorized his task. Seemed like he still needed a little work at loosening up, according to mother’s instructions.

They loaded their bags into the trunk and got into the car.

“Put your seat belt on,” he said.

“Yessir.”

He started the car and drove out onto the highway, heading south.

Rune didn’t even have to bring up the topic. Before they’d gone a half mile Hathaway said, “I’ve run a lot of numbers on documentary films. They’re kind of encouraging. It’s not a gold mine. But it looks like there’s money to be made. We’ll go over the details if you want.”

“Well, sure.”

He signaled and checked his blind spot as he cautiously changed lanes.

In two hours they climbed off the ferry and trekked over the sandy sidewalks to his vacation house, halfway between Kismet and Ocean Beach on Fire Island. The place was a cheap assembly of sharp-angled gray wood and glass and yellow pine with polyurethane so thick the grain was distorted by the lens of the coats. When Warren finally got the door open—he had key trouble—Rune was disappointed. The windows were filthy. The grit of sand
and salt was everywhere. The stench of Lysol and the sour scent of mold fought for supremacy.

A crummy house, a romantic beach—and an accountant …

Thanks tons, Sam.

But, hey, life could be worse. At least he was a rich accountant, almost ready to invest in her documentary film.

And besides, they had a fierce yellow sun and a case of Budweiser and potato chips and Cheez Whiz and Twinkies and the restless Atlantic Ocean.

Who needed anything but that?

Arthur Tucker, no longer dressed in his workaday suit but in an old work shirt and slacks and rubber-soled shoes, sat forward in the back of a taxicab and told the driver to go slower.

They were cruising along the West Side Highway.

“What’re we looking for?” the man asked in a thick accent.

“A houseboat.”

“Ha. You kidding.”

“Slower.”

“Here,” he said. “Stop here.”

“You sure?” the driver asked. “Here?”

Tucker didn’t answer. The Chevy pulled to a stop. He climbed out of the cab, picked up the heavy canvas bag beside him and paid the driver. He made a point of not asking for a receipt; the less evidence, he knew, the better.