Death of a Blue Movie Star

back either. “You finished with her?”
    “Guess.”
    “Mind if I talk to her for a bit?”
    “She’s all yours.” The detective turned to her. “We’ll want you to sign a statement. Where can we get in touch with you?”
    Rune gave them the phone number of L&R Productions.
    Climbing into their unmarked car, one detective said, “I hope you consider this a lesson, young lady. Get your life together.”
    “I wasn’t—,” Rune began. But they slammed the doors and sped off.
    Cowboy was studying her face. “Not too bad.”
    “What do you mean by that?”
    “The cuts, I mean. You were lucky. It’d been on ground level, you might not have made it.”
    Rune was staring at the smoldering hole, where firemen had set up portable lights in metal cages hanging from scorched wires and conduit.
    “What was her name?” he asked.
    “Shelly Lowe. That was her stage name. She was an adult-film star.”
    “That was a studio?”
    “Lame Duck Productions.”
    He nodded, looking up at the hole in the side of the building. “Another porn bombing.”
    “They”—she nodded at the detectives who’d just left—“thought I worked for them.”
    “They were giving you the shock treatment. They do the same thing with kids they find with drugs, and hookers and drunk drivers. You humiliate them, they’re supposed to change their wayward lifestyle and go back to school or go on the wagon and join the church. I did it myself when I was a portable.”
    “A what?”
    “A beat cop.”
    She walked a foot or two toward the building, staring at the opening. “I didn’t work with her. I’m doing a documentary about her. I don’t do those kind of films.”
    “I’ve seen you before.”
    “I was at the other bombing, the theater, and I saw you. Then again last night.”
    “I saw somebody with a camera. I didn’t recognize you.”
    “I asked you something and you didn’t answer me.”
    “I didn’t hear,” he answered. He touched his ear. “Hearing’s not so great. Been doing bomb work for a few years now.”
    “I’m Rune.” She stuck out her hand.
    His fingers were narrow, but thick with calluses. “Sam Healy.”
    Healy motioned for her to step back as several blue-and-white police cars pulled away. Rune noticed that most of the police were gone. Just a half-dozen fire trucks were left. And the blue-and-white Bomb Squad station wagon.
    He stood with his hands on his hips, looking at the shattered wall. He paced up and down.
    “Why is everyone gone?”
    Healy stared at the bricks. He asked, “Did you see a flash?”
    “A flash? Yeah.”
    “What color was it?”
    “I don’t remember. Red or orange, I guess.”
    He said, “Did you feel a chemical irritation, like tear gas or anything?”
    “It smelled pretty bad but I don’t think so.”
    “No one threw anything through the window?”
    “Like a hand grenade?”
    “Like anything,” he said.
    “No. Shelly called out the window, asked me a question. Then she went to make a phone call. It blew up a minute later. Less, maybe.”
    “Phone call?”
    “She got a message that she was supposed to call someone. The guard might know who. But I’m sure the detectives talked to him.”
    Healy was frowning. He said in a soft voice, “They sent the guard home. He didn’t know anything and didn’t say anything about a message. Or the detectives
said
he didn’t. Hey, wait here a minute, okay?”
    He was walking back to the station wagon on his long legs. He spoke on the radio for a few minutes. She saw him put the receiver back on the dash. A young officer came up to him and handed him a plastic bag.
    When he returned to Rune she said, “Second angel?”
    He gave a surprised laugh.
    “I was looking over your shoulder last week.”
    He nodded. Then debated and showed her the plastic sleeve.
    The second angel blew his trumpet, and a great mountain, burning with fire, was thrown into the sea, and a third of the sea became blood
….
     
    This too was from the Sword of Jesus. He slipped it into his attaché case.
    Rune said, “What I was asking a minute ago—where is everybody? You’re almost the only cop left.”
    “Ah, the word has come down.” Healy looked at the crater again.
    “Word?”
    He nodded toward the smoking building. “If, say, a cop’d been killed in there. Or a kid or a nun or pregnant lady, well, there’d be a hundred cops and FBI here right now.” He looked at her, the kind of glance parents give their kids during birds-and-bees