Death of a Blue Movie Star

camera backed off for a longer angle shot of the entire logo: a cow wearing a top hat.
    “Cut,” Larry yelled sternly. “Save the lights.”
    The lights went out.
    Rune closed her eyes, thinking that she’d still have to get all the little rectangles packed up and returned to the prop rental store before six; Larry and Bob wouldn’t want to pay another day’s fee.
    Then the voice came from somewhere above them. “One thing …”
    It was Mary Jane, who’d watched the whole event from a tall ladder on the edge of the set.
    “What’s that?” Mr. Wallet asked.
    “I’m just wondering…. Do you think the logo’s a little lopsided?” She climbed down from the ladder.
    Mr. Wallet climbed up, surveyed the set.
    “It does look a little that way,” he said.
    Mary Jane said, “The cow’s horns aren’t even. The left one and the right one.”
    Mr. Wallet looked at the fallen dominoes. “We can’t have a lopsided logo.”
    Mary Jane walked forward and adjusted the design. She stood back. “See, that’s what it should be like. I would’ve thought you’d tried a test first.”
    As Rune took a breath to speak the words that would send her straight to Unemployment, Larry squeezed her arm. “’Ey, Rune, could you come out here for a minute, please?”
    In the hall she turned to him. “Lopsided?
She’s
lopsided. What does she think it is, oil paint? It’s not the Sistine Chapel, Larry. It’s a cow with a fucking top hat. Sure it’s going to be lopsided. She’s on some kind of a power trip—”
    “Rune—”
    “We do it again the horns’ll be fine but the hat’ll be wrong. I want to knock her—”
    “I’ve got a distributor for your film.”
    “—buck teeth out. I—”
    Larry repeated patiently, “A distributor.”
    She paused for a minute. “You
what?
”
    “I found somebody who said ’E might want to handle your film. Looking for gritty, noirish stuff. It’s not a big outfit but they’ve placed at public TV stations and some of the bigger locals. We’re not talking network. But sometimes good films, you know, they get picked up in syndication.”
    “Oh, Larry.” She hugged him. “I don’t believe it.”
    “Right. Now then, we’re going to go back in there and make nice with the ice lady, okay?”
    Rune said, “That woman is a totally airborne bitch.”
    “But they’re our clients, Rune, and in this business the customer is always what?” He raised an eyebrow.
    She walked toward the door. “Don’t ask me questions you don’t want to hear the answers to.”

     
    Rune’s favorite part was the dogs.
    The rest was pretty neat—the artillery shells, the hand grenades, the sticks of dynamite wired to clocks, silver cylinders of detonators, which all turned out to be phony. But the really audacious part was the three Labrador retrievers that nosed their way up to her and rested their big snouts on her knees when she crouched down to pet them. They wheezed as she scratched their heads.
    Healy and Rune stood in the BOMB SQUAD headquarters upstairs at the 6th Precinct on Tenth Street. It wasn’t easy to miss the office: In the corridor, over the door, hung a bright red army practice bomb, stenciled with BOMB SQUAD in gothic lettering.
    In the main room were eight battered desks. The walls were light green, the floor linoleum. One woman, in a dark sweater, sat at a desk, intently reading a technical manual. She was pretty, with long, brunette hair and still eyes. She was the only woman in the unit. The others were men, mostly in their thirties and forties, wearing white shirts and ties. Trim guns rested in hip holsters. They read, talked among themselves, stretched back, spoke quietly on the phone. A few acknowledged Healy with waves or raised eyebrows.
    No one looked at Rune.
    “We’ve got the biggest civilian bomb disposal unit in the world. Thirty-two officers. Mostly detectives. A few waiting for the rank.”
    On the wall was an old wooden board mounted with formal portraits of policemen. Rune caught the words “In memory of …”
    The board was the largest display in the room.
    She bent down and patted a dog’s head.
    “EDC,” Healy said.
    “That’s a weird name,” Rune said, standing up.
    “That what he
is
. An Explosive Detection Canine.”
    “The initials again.”
    “Saves time,” Healy said. “You’d run out of breath, you had to say, ‘I’m taking the Explosive Detection Canine for a walk.’”
    “You could try
dog
.” One rolled onto his back.