Hard News

everything.”
    The detective nodded. He walked over to the medical attendants, who were putting Nestor’s body on a gurney.
    “I thought you’d taken off,” Rune told Boggs angrily.
    He stared at the ground, not able to return her gaze. “I just went down to Atlanta for a day or two to get my money and then I was coming back. I was going to do that all along—I have some business to take care of here.”
    “Business?” she asked skeptically.
    “I’m giving some of my money to the family of this friend of mine from Harrison. He got himself killed ‘cause he was my friend. Anyway, I
couldn’t
leave—remember, Mr. Megler said I had to stay in New York until the case was officially over?”
    “When has obeying the law ever meant anything to you?” Rune snapped. “Why didn’t you tell me about you and Jack?”
    “Was a new suit,” he said, studying his torn sleeve. Then he looked up, focused on the flipping lights atop a squad car. “Was the deal I made with him.”
    “Him?” Rune asked in disbelief. “That son of a bitch?”
    “Way I was brought up is you don’t snitch.”
    “He used you!”
    “Know that now. Didn’t then. Didn’t until just a few days ago.”
    “Didn’t you think it was kind of funny that he took you along on this credit card thing then coincidentally somebody gets killed?”
    “Not at the time I didn’t think so. And then, when I started to think it
was
a little off, he give me all that money to keep mum. I needed a nest egg. A hundred thousand dollars—where’d I ever get money like that otherwise? Nowhere I know of.”
    Rune’s head swam with painful emotions. She wanted to slap him, to scream, to grab his thin collar and shake him.
    Randy Boggs said, “I’m sorry.”
    She didn’t answer.
    “I coulda just left. I’m thinking of going to Hawaii after everything gets settled in court, you know. I coulda just got my money and kept going there.”
    “Hawaii?” she asked as if he’d said, “Mars.”
    He nodded. “Buy me a store of some kind. On the weekends I could sit on the beach and drink those drinks that look like pineapples. With umbrellas in them. You could come visit. You like them drinks?”
    She didn’t answer.
    “I wanta give you some money.”
    Rune said, “Me? Why?”
    “It was on account of me that your house got burned down. How’s ten thousand?”
    “I don’t want your money.”
    “Maybe fifteen?”
    “No, forget it.”
    “Maybe your little girl—”
    “She’s
not
my little girl,” Rune snapped.
    Neither of them spoke for a moment. Then Boggs said, “I’m just trying to tell you I’m sorry.”
    Rune said, “I wanted to help you. That was why I did the story in the first place. Everybody told me not to. Everybody told me to forget about you, that you’d killed a man and that you deserved to be in jail.”
    Boggs said, “I’d appreciate it if you’d consider taking the money.”
    “Give it to Courtney’s mother, Claire. She needs it more than me.”
    “I’ll give her some, sure. But I’ll give you some too. How’s that?”
    Rune slapped the top of the police car. She shook her head then laughed. Boggs was looking around, smiling too, though he didn’t know what was funny. She said, “Hell, Randy, no wonder you never made any money— you give it all away.”
    “Haven’t held on to it too good. That much is true.”
    She turned to him and said, “I need to do my story again. I’ll have to interview you. Will you talk to me? And this time give me the
whole
story?”
    “If I do that will you forgive me?”
    She said, “I really don’t know.”
    “Could we go drink beer some time?”
    “I don’t go out with felons.”
    “I’ve done some things that’re
criminal
, I admit that, but I’m not sure I’m a felon exactly.”
    The detective returned and said to Rune, “Need to get some statements from you both now.” He was in his politely firm civil-servant mode.
    “Sure,” she answered.
    He took Boggs aside first and, for the moment, Rune was alone, surrounded by a pool of dull colors on the wet street—reflections from the streetlights, from apartment windows, from the emergency cars. She felt a huge desire to get home, to go back to her houseboat and to Courtney. But, of course, the boat was gone: And the little girl was with her grandmother.
    Rune looked at the scene in front of her.
    The news crews—at last joined by one from the Network—were busy taping their three-minute segments on the shooting.