Death of a Blue Movie Star

“They’re almost ready.”
    He mouthed,
Almost?
    Mary Jane’s dark hair swiveled as she looked down at Rune. “Almost?”
    “A problem with the typewriter.”
    “Oh.” Mary Jane laughed with surprise. “Sure, I understand. It’s just that … Well, I would’ve
thought
you’d have them for us before this. I mean, this is the logical time to review them. Even today is a little tardy, in terms of timing.”
    “Another couple hours. I glued the key back on.”
    Larry said, “Rune, maybe you could go work on them now.”
    Rune said, “I thought we were going to talk concepts.”
    “Oh,” Mary Jane said, looking down at her, “I hadn’t understood you were in a creative position here at the studio.”
    “I—”
    “What do you do, exactly?”
    Larry said, “Rune’s our production assistant.”
    Looking her up and down, Mary Jane said, “Oh.” And smiled like a fourth-grade teacher.
    Mr. Wallet was looking at a huge roll of a backdrop, twenty feet across, mottled like a pastel Jackson Pollock painting. “Now, that’s something else. You think we can use that for the shoot? Mary Jane, what do you think?”
    She glanced toward it and said slowly, “Might just fly. We’ll put our thinking caps on about it.” She turned back to the desk and opened her briefcase. “I’ve done a memo with all the schedule deadlines.” She handed the paper to Rune. “Could you run and make a copy of it?”
    Larry took the paper and held it out to Rune. “Sure she will.” His eyes narrowed and Rune took the sheet.
    “I’ll be back in just a minute. I’ll run just like a bunny.”
    “Daddy, will they have a makeup person? I don’t have to do my own makeup, do I?”
    Rune vanished through the door into the office. Larry followed.
    “I thought you said it was bleedin’ finished.”
    “The
e
fell off your cheap-ass typewriter. That’s the most-used letter in the English language.”
    “Well, go buy a new fuckin’ typewriter. But I want those estimates in a half hour.”
    “You’re a sellout.”
    I don’t ‘ave time for your bleedin’ lectures, Rune. You work for me. Now get the copies made and get those estimates to us.”
    “You’re going to let those people walk all over you. I’m looking out for your pride, Larry. Nobody else’s going to.”
    “You gotta pay the rent, honey. Rule number one in business: Get the bucks. You don’t have any money you don’t get to do what you want.”
    “They’re obnoxious.”
    “True.”
    “He smells bad.”
    “He does not.”
    “
Somebody
smells bad. And that woman, that Mary Jane, is a dweeb.”
    “What the ’ell’s a dweeb?”
    “Exactly what she is. She’s—”
    The door opened and Mary Jane’s smiling face looked out, her eyes perching on Rune. “Are you the one who’s in charge of lunch?”
    Rune smiled. “You betcha.”
    “We should probably get a head start on it…. We were thinking in terms of salads. Oh, and how’s that copying coming?”
    Rune saluted with a smile. “It’s on its way.”

     
    The next day at eleven-thirty Sam Healy picked her up outside of L&R and they drove north.
    “It’s just a station wagon.” Rune, looking around inside, was mildly disappointed.
    Sam Healy said, “But it’s blue and white, at least.” It also had BOMB SQUAD stenciled in large white letters on the side. And a cage, empty at the moment, that he explained was for the dogs that sniffed out explosives. “You were expecting …?”
    “I don’t know. High-tech stuff, like in the movies.”
    “Life is generally a lot lower-tech than Hollywood.”
    “True.”
    They drove out of Manhattan to the NYPD explosives disposal facility on Rodman’s Neck in the Bronx.
    “Oh, wow, check this place out. This is totally audacious.”
    It was essentially a junkyard without the junk. Her feet bounced up and down on the floorboards as they pulled through the gate in the chain-link fence, crowned with spirals of razor wire.
    To their left was the police shooting range. Rune heard the short cracks from pistols. To their right were several small red sheds. “That’s where we keep our own explosives,” Healy explained.
    “Your own?”
    “Most of the time we don’t dismantle devices. We bring them here and blow them up.”
    Rune picked up her camera and battery pack from the backseat. There was a green jumpsuit there. She hadn’t noticed it before. She tried to pick it up. It was very heavy. The helmet had a green tube, probably for ventilation,