Jeffery Deaver - Death of a Blue Movie Star

He gave a surprised laugh.

"I was looking over your shoulder last week."

He nodded. Then debated and showed her the plastic sleeve.

Thesecond angel blew his trumpet, and a great mountain, burningwithfire, was thrown into the sea, and a third of the sea became blood…

This too was from the Sword of Jesus. He slipped it into his attache case.

Rune said, "What I was asking a minute ago-where is everybody? You're almost the only cop left."

"Ah, the word has come down." Healy looked at the crater again.

"Word?"

He nodded toward the smoking building. "If, say, a cop'd been killed in there. Or a kid or a nun or pregnant lady, well, there'd be a hundred cops and, FBI here right now." He looked at her, the kind of glance parents give their kids during birds-and-bees lectures to see if the message is getting across.

It didn't seem to be and Healy said, "The word is we're not supposed to waste too much time on people like this. In the porn industry. Understand?"

"That's ridiculous." Rune's eyes flashed. "What about those people in the theater? Don't you care about them?"

"We care. We just don't care too much. And you want to know the truth about the patrons at the Velvet Venus? A couple of them were innocent bystanders, sure. But two were wanted on drug charges, one was a convicted felon who jumped parole, one was carrying a ten-inch butcher knife."

"And if a nun'd been walking by outside when it went off, or on that sidewalk there, she'd be just as dead as Shelly Lowe."

"True. Which's why I'm saying the we're not going to stop investigating. We're just not going to waste resources."

Rune was spinning the silver bracelet on her wrist. "You talk like Shelly wasn't a real person. She was, and somebody killed her."

"I'm not saying I feel that way."

"Would it give you any more incentive if you knew she was trying to get out of the business?"

"Rune-"

"Somebody kills you and it's a crime. Somebody kills Shelly Lowe and it's urban renewal. That sucks."

A Fire Department inspector walked up to them, larger than life in his black-and-yellow gear. "We're going to have to put supports in before anybody can go up, Sam."

"I've got to do the postblast."

"Have to wait till tomorrow."

"I wanted to finish up tonight."

Rune walked away. "Sure, he wants to take five minutes or so and look for clues."

"Rune."

"… then get back to protecting nuns."

Healy called after her. "Wait." The voice was commanding.

She kept going.

"Please."

She slowed.

"I want to ask you some questions."

She stopped and turned to him and she knew that he could see her thick tears in the swinging glare of the fire-truck lights. She held up a hand. Angrily she said, "Okay, but not tonight. Not now. There's something I've got to do and if I don't go now I won't ever. The detectives have my number."

She thought maybe Healy called something to her. She wasn't sure; her hearing was, at the moment, a lot worse than his. But mostly she was concentrating on where she was going and had absolutely no idea how she was going to handle what she now had to do.

Nicole D'Orleans, however, had already heard the news.

Rune stood in the doorway of the apartment in a high-rise in the Fifties, watching the woman lean against the doorjamb, exhausted by the weight of sorrow. Her face was puffy. Along with the tears, she'd scrubbed away some of the makeup, but not all. It made her face lopsided.

Nicole straightened up and said, "Like, sorry. Come on in."

The rooms were cool and dark. Rune smelled leather and perfume and the faint fumes of the vodka that Nicole had been drinking. She glanced at the blotches of modern paintings on the wall, the theatrical posters. She noticed some framed signatures. One looked like it said George Bernard Shaw. Most she didn't recognize.

They walked into a large room. A lot of black leather, though not kinky the way you'd think a porn star's apartment would be. More like some millionaire plastic surgeon would have. There was a huge glass coffee table that looked like it was three inches thick. The carpet was white and curled around the toes of Rune's boots. She saw packed bookshelves and remembered the way she and Shelly had looked through some of Rune's books just that morning and she wanted to cry. But forced herself not to because Nicole seemed to be pulling up just shy of hysterical.

The woman had her mourning station assembled. A box of Kleenex, a bottle of Stoly, a glass. A vial of coke. She sat down in the nest of the couch.

"I've forgotten your name. Ruby?"

"Rune."

"I just can't believe it. Those bastards. They're supposed to be religious but that's not the way good Christians ought to be. Fuck 'em."

"Who told you?" Rune asked.

"The police called one of the producers. He called everyone in the company… Oh, God."

Nicole blew her broad nose demurely and said, "You want a drink? Anything?"

Rune said, "No. I just came by to tell you. I was going to call. But that didn't seem right-you two seemed close."

Nicole's tears were streaming again but they were the sort that don't grab your breath and her voice remained steady. "You were with her when it happened?" She hadn't heard Rune's refusing a drink, or had decided to ignore it, and was pouring Stoly over small, half-melted ice cubes.

"I was in the street, waiting for her. We were going to a party."

"The AAAF party, sure."

The memory of which set off another jag of tears.

Nicole handed Rune the drink. She wanted to leave but the actress looked at her with such wet, imploring eyes that she eased into the hissing leather cushions and took the offered glass.

"Oh, Rune… She was one of my best friends. I can't believe it. She was here this morning. We were joking, talking about the party-neither of us really wanted to go to it. And she made breakfast."

What should I say? Rune thought. That it'll be all right? Of course it won't be all right. That time heals all wounds? Forget about it. No way. Some wounds stay open forever. She thought of her father, lying in a Shaker Heights funeral home years ago. Death changes the whole landscape of your life, forever.

Rune sipped the clear, bitter drink.

"You know what's unfair?" Nicole said after a moment. "Shelly wasn't like me. Okay, I do a pretty good job. I've got big boobs so men like watching me and I think I know how to make love pretty good. And I like what I do. I make good money. I've even got fans send me letters. Hundreds of 'em. But Shelly, she didn't like the business. It was always like she was carrying around a, you know, burden of some kind. She would've done something else if she had a chance. Those religious nuts… It's not fair they picked her."

Nicole stared at the bookcases for a moment. "You know, one time we went to this movie about this hooker who was also a blues singer. She had a terrible life, she was so sad… Shelly said that was her, that's how her life was. Blue. We saw it twice, and, boy, did we cry."

Which is what she did now.

Rune set the vodka down and put her arm around Nicole's shoulders. What a pairwe are, she thought. But there was nothing like tragedy to bring out sisterliness.

They talked for another hour until Rune's head began to ache and the cuts on her face began to throb. She said she had to leave. Nicole was sentimental drank and still segued into tears every few minutes but she also would be asleep in a few minutes. She hugged Rune hard and took her number at L &R.

Rune waited for the elevator to take her down to the shiny marble lobby of the building.

Thinking how it was really sad that now with Shelly gone, Rune wouldn't be able to make the movie that would tell everyone about her-about how she was really a serious person, despite what she did for a living, how she wanted to rise above it.