Death of a Blue Movie Star

left.
    She stepped into the middle of the mess, picked up a few things—a couple of socks, the book of Grimms’ fairy stories. Her shoulders slumped and she set the objects on the floor again. There was too much to do, and none of it was going to get done tonight.
    “Damn.”
    Rune turned a chair right side up and sat on it. She felt queasy. Somebody had touched that sock, touched the book, touched her underwear and maybe her toothpaste…. Throw them out, she thought. She shuddered from the sense of violation.
    Why?
    She had valuables, fifty-eight Indian head nickels, which she thought were the neatest coins ever made and would have to be worth something. About three hundred dollars in cash, wadded up and stuffed in an old box of cornflakes. Some of the old books would be worth something. The VCR.
    Then she thought: Shit, the Sony.
    L&R’s camera!
    Hell’s bells it cost forty-seven thousand dollars shit Larry’s gonna sue me double shit.
    Enough for a man to live in Guatemala for the rest of his life
.
    Shit.
    But the battered Betacam was just where she’d left it.
    She sat for ten minutes, calming down, then started to clean. An hour later a good percentage of order had been restored. The burglar hadn’t been particularly subtle. To unlock the door, he’d pitched a rock through one of the small windows looking out on the Jersey side. She swept the glass up and nailed a piece of plywood over the opening.
    She’d thought about calling the cops again, but what would they do?
    Why bother? They’d be too busy protecting nuns and the mayor’s brother and celebrities.
    She was just finishing cleaning when she glanced at the Betacam once more.
    The door on the video camera’s recording deck was open and the cassette of Shelly was gone.
    The man in the red jacket had robbed her.
    A moment of panic … until she ran to her bedroom and found the dupe tape she’d made. She cued it up to make sure. Saw a bit of Shelly’s face and ejected the cassette. She put it in a Baggie and slipped it into the cornflakes box with her money.
    Rune locked the doors and windows, turned out the outside lights. Then she made herself a bowl of Grape-Nuts and sat down on her bed, slipped the tear gas canister under a pillow, and lay back against the pile of pillows. She stared at the ceiling as she ate.
    Out the window, a tug honked its deep vibrating horn. She turned to look and caught a glimpse of the pier. She remembered the attack, the man in the red windbreaker.
    She remembered the terrible burst of explosion, the pressure wave curling around her face.
    She remembered Shelly’s blonde head turning into the room to die.
    Rune lost her appetite and put aside the bowl. She climbed out of bed and walked to the kitchen. She opened the phone book and found the section on colleges and universities. She began to read.

 
    CHAPTER SEVEN
     

    The problem was that his voice kept trailing into silence as he answered her questions.
    As if everything he said brought to mind something else he had to consider.
    “Professor?” Rune prompted.
    “Right, sure.” And he’d continue on for a few minutes. Then the words would meander once again.
    His office was filled with what must have been two thousand books. The window overlooked a patch of quadrangle grass and the low sprawl of Harlem beyond that. Students strolled by slowly. They all seemed dreamy-eyed and intense. Professor V.C.V. Miller sat back in his creaky wooden chair.
    The camera didn’t bother him in the least. “I’ve been on TV before,” he told her when she’d called. “I was interviewed for
Sixty Minutes
once.” His subject was comparative religion and he’d written a treatise on the subject of cults. When Rune had told him she was doing a documentary on the recent bombings he’d said, “I’d be happy to talk to you. I’ve been told my work is definitive.” Making it sound like
she
should be happy to speak to
him
.
    Miller was in his sixties, hair white and wispy, and he always kept his body three-quarters to the camera, though his eyes locked right onto the lens and wouldn’t let go—until his voice grew softer and softer and he looked out the window to contemplate some elusive thought. He wore an ancient brown suit flecked with the dandruff of cigarette ash. His teeth were as yellow as little ivory Buddhas and so were his index finger and thumb, where he held his cigarette, even though he didn’t inhale it while the camera was running.
    Rune found the