Hard News

about films. I think I want to make documentaries. Right now I’m working for this TV station. I’ll do it for as long as it excites me. The day I wake up and say I’d rather go have a picnic on the top of the Chrysler Building than go to work that’s the day I quit and do something else.”
    Boggs said, “You and me’re kind of alike. I’ve done me a lot of different things too. I keep looking. Always been looking for that nest egg, just to get a leg up.”
    “Hey, before this job, I spent six months at a bagel restaurant. And before that I was a store-window dresser. Most of my close friends are people I met at the Unemployment office.”
    “Pretty girl like you I think’d be considering settling down. You have a boyfriend?”
    “He’s not exactly the marrying kind.”
    “You’re young.”
    “I’m not in any hurry. I think my mother’s got this bridal shop in Shaker Heights on call. In case I tell her I’m engaged she’ll be like the Pentagon—you know, Red Alert. But I have trouble seeing me married. Like some things you can imagine and some you can’t. That’s one that doesn’t compute.”
    “Where’s Shaker Heights?”
    “Outside Cleveland.”
    “You’re from Ohio. I spent some time in Indiana.” Then he laughed. “Maybe I shouldn’t put it that way. Not like I was
doing
time. I lived about a year there, working. A real job. As real as day labor can be. Steel mills in Gary.”
    “Miss,” the guard said, “I let you stay a little longer than you should.”
    She stood up and said to Boggs, “I’m working really, really hard on the story. I’m going to get you out of here.”
    Boggs was running his finger along the edge of his book. “I’ll keep this.” He said this as if it was the best thing he could think of to say to thank her.
    As Rune and the guard walked back to the prison exit, the guard, without looking at her, said, “Miss, word been around about what you’re trying to do.”
    She looked up at him. Her eyes didn’t get much past the huge biceps.
    “About you maybe getting him a new trial.”
    “Yeah?”
    “I like Randy. He keeps to himself and doesn’t give us any grief. But there’re some people here don’t like him much. I’m not supposed to be telling you this and I’m hoping it won’t go any further than here….”
    “Sure.”
    “But if you don’t get him out soon he’s not going to live to parole.”
    “The people who did that?” She nodded back to the infirmary.
    “There’s nothing we can do to stop them.”
    They arrived at the gate and the guard stopped.
    “But what did Randy do?”
    “What did he do?” The guard didn’t understand her.
    “I mean, why did somebody stab him?”
    The guard’s face snapped into a brief frown. “He ended up here, miss. That’s what he did.”
    THE PLACE WAS PRETTY EASY TO GET INTO.
    Like water through a sieve, Jack Nestor thought. Then laughed, thinking that probably wasn’t the best word to describe a houseboat. The only problem had been there was a parking lot nearby and a booth with a security guard, who’d glance at the boat every so often like he was keeping an eye on it. But Nestor waited until the man made a phone call then walked past him and jogged up the yellow gangplank.
    Once he was inside he pulled on brown cotton gloves and started at the back. He took his time. He’d never been on a houseboat before and he was pretty curious about it. He’d done some charters and been on more party boats than he could count and of course he’d done time in military LSTs and landing craft. But this wasn’t like anything else he’d ever seen.
    The decor sucked, for one thing. It looked like his nutzo stepmother’s place. But he admired the pilothouse, if that’s what you’d call it, which had beautiful brass fixtures and levers and grainy oak, all yellow with old varnish. Beautiful. All the controls except the wheel were frozen and he guessed the motor was kaput. He resisted a temptation to pull the horn rope.
    Downstairs he carefully went through the bookshelves and the cheap, sprung-fiberboard desk that was a sea of papers and pictures (mostly of dragons and knights and fairies, that sort of shit). There were a couple of dozen videocassettes. They were mostly that make-believe stuff too. Fairy stories, dragonslayers, the stuff he never watched. Some dirty films too.
Lusty Cousins
. And something called
Epitaph for a Blue Movie Star
.
    So, this chicky had a kinky side to her.
    Then he rummaged