Death of a Blue Movie Star

before we got here.”
    “So he’s still in town.”
    “Doubt it. People know him, people can place them together. My bet is he got a car and’ll drive to some small airport, then grab a connecting flight to California. Hartford, Albany, White Plains.”
    “You’ve got to call them. Get a description—”
    “We can’t lock up every airport in the Northeast, Rune. They’ve got a citywide out on him now but he’ll probably make it out of the area. They’ll get him when he gets home—where is it? Monterey? The MPs’ll be after him too. And theft of government property and interstate flight’ll bring in the FBI.”
    “Oh, Sam.” She pressed her head against his chest.
    He held her, which made her feel good, but what made her feel even better was that they were standing in front of a half dozen of the guys he worked with and he was still hugging her, not glancing around or making it look like she was just an upset witness. He held her tight and she felt some of the horror shift away to him and she let it go. He knew what to do; he could dispose of it. That was his job.
    They walked.
    South, into the Theater District, then through the geometric shapes of cold neon in Times Square. Down Broadway. Past a wolf pack of four black kids wearing throwaways, with round heads and shaver-cut streaks in their hair, looking innocent and sour. Past businessmen and businesswomen in running shoes. Past hawkers, past a couple—German or Scandinavian tourists—dressed in nylon running suits, carrying Nikons. Their heads, covered with stringy blond hair, looked around them, their expressions asking,
This
is New York?
    Past the billboards on which the fifty-foot models, reclining sexily, sold liquor and jeans and VCRs, past a porn theater that gave off the smell of Lysol (maybe Shelly or Nicole was performing on screen at that moment). There was no way of knowing what the movies were; the marquee promised only that there were three superhot hits showing.
    “You know,” Rune said, speaking her first words since they’d started to walk. Her voice snagged. “You know that Thirty-fourth Street used to be the big entertainment strip? All the theaters and burlesque shows. I’m talking turn of the century. A long time ago.”
    “I didn’t know that.”
    “Times Square’s pretty recent.”
    They walked past a big monument, a statue of a woman in wings and robes. She gazed down at pigeons and a dozen homeless people.
    Who was she?
    A Greek or Roman goddess?
    Rune thought of Eurydice, then of Shelly. A captive in the Underworld. There was no Orpheus and his lyre nearby, though. The only music was from a scratchy rap song on a tinny boom box.
    When they came to the Flatiron Building, they stopped.
    Rune said, “I should go home.”
    “You want some company?”
    She hesitated. “I don’t need—”
    “I didn’t ask
need
. I asked
want
.”
    Rune said, “Your house?”
    “It’s small, ugly. But homey.”
    “Tonight, I think I could go for homey.”
    “I’ve got to help with some of the paperwork—you want to meet me there? I’ll give you the keys.” He wrote down the address. She took the slip of paper and the keys.
    “I oughta go pick up some things at my place.”
    “I shouldn’t be any longer than an hour or so. You all right?”
    Rune tried to think of something funny and flippant to say, something a tough lady newscaster would sling out. But she just shook her head and gave him an anemic smile. “No, I’m not.”
    He bent down quickly and kissed her. “You want a cab?”
    “I walk, I feel better.” He turned away. She said, “Sam …”
    He paused. But there was nothing at all she could think of to say.

     
    In the houseboat Rune stacked up the tapes she’d shot—the rough footage for
Epitaph for a Blue Movie Star
—and set them on her shelf, but put the script for the narration in her bag. That was something she could ask Sam about. Tell him to pretend he was in the audience and read it to him.
    But not tonight.
    In the morning.
    That would have to wait till the morning.
    She glanced into her purse and saw the script—the one she’d stolen from Arthur Tucker’s office. She picked it up, flipped through it. Hell, she’d forgotten all about it. And now that he wasn’t a suspect she ought to get it back to him. Mail it anonymously. She tossed it on the table and walked into the bedroom, to her dresser. She packed a skirt, T-shirt, blouse, socks, underwear (no Disney characters, girl; go for