Jeffery Deaver - Death of a Blue Movie Star

"Me?"

"Well, sort of. Here, look."

She took a dusty book from the shelf and opened it up. Metamorphoses.

"Some old Roman dude wrote these stories."

"Roman?" Shelly asked. "As in Julius Caesar?"

"Yeah. Here, look at this picture."

Shelly glanced at the color plate of a beautiful woman being led out of a dark cave by a man playing a lyre. The caption read: Orpheus and Eurydice.

"See, you're her. Eurydice. You look just like her.". Shelly shook her head, then squinted. She laughed. "I do, you know. That's funny." She looked at the spine of the book. "This is Roman mythology?"

Rune nodded. "It was a sad story. Eurydice died and went down to Hades. Then Orpheus-he was her husband, this musician guy-went to rescue her. Isn't that romantic?"

"Wait. I've heard that story. It was an opera. Didn't something go wrong?"

"Yeah, those Roman gods had weird rules. The thing is he could take her out of the Underworld as long as he didn't look back at her. That makes a lot of sense, right? Anyway, he did and that blew the whole thing. Back she went. People think myths and fairy tales have happy endings. But they don't all."

Shelly gazed at the picture for a moment. "I collect old books too."

"What kind?" Rune assumed erotica.

But Shelly said, "Plays mostly. In high school I was president of the drama club. A thespian." She laughed. "Whenever I tell somebody in the Industry-I mean, the porn business-tell them that, they say something like, 'What's that, a dyke with a speech problem?' " She shook her head. "My profession's got a pretty low common denominator."

Rune clicked on an ultraviolet light. A black-light poster of a ship sailing around the moon popped out into three dimensions. It was next to purple-and-orange tie-dye hangings. "I mix my eras. But you don't want to get too locked in, do you now? Never be too literal. That's my motto."

"Avoid it at all costs." Shelly had climbed up to the pilot house and was pulling the whistle cord. There was no noise. "Can you take this thing out for rides?"

"Naw, it doesn't drive," Rune said. "Oh, no wait, I'm supposed to say she. She doesn't drive."

"Drive?"

"Well, sail or whatever. There's a motor, but it doesn't work. My old boyfriend and I were driving up along the Hudson and we found it-I mean, her -moored near Bear Mountain. She was for sale. I asked the owner to take me out for a spin and he said the motor didn't work so we went out for a tow. We did a lot of haggling and when he agreed to throw in the Formica dining room set I had to get it."

"You pay to dock it here?"

"Yep. You pay the Port Authority. They still run the docks even though they don't have much ship traffic anymore. It's pretty expensive. I don't think I can stay here forever. But it'll do for now."

"Is it safe?"

Rune pointed out one of the picture windows. "That's still a working pier so this whole area's chained off. The security guards and I are friends. They keep an eye out. I give them good Christmas presents. It's really neat, owning a house. And there's no grass to mow."

Shelly gave her another wan smile. "You're so… enthusiastic. And you actually live on a houseboat in Manhattan. Amazing."

Rune's eyes sparkled. "Come here. I'll show you what's amazing." She walked out onto the small gray-painted deck. She clung to a railing and dipped her foot into the opaque oily water.

"You going swimming?" Shelly asked uncertainly.

Rune closed her eyes. "You know that I'm touching the exact same water that's lapping up on the Galapagos Islands, and in Venice, and in Tokyo and Hawaii and Egypt? It's so neat. And-I haven't figured this out yet-it may very well be the same water that splashed against the Nina, Pinta andSanta Maria and against Napoleon's ships. The same water they used to wash away the blood after Marie Antoinette got the axe… I'm guessing that it might be… That's the part I'm not too clear on. Does water, like, die? I remember something from science class. I think it just keeps recirculating." Shelly said, "You have quite an imagination." "I've been told that before." Rune jumped back on deck. "Coffee? Something to eat?" "Just coffee."

They sat in the pilot house. Rune was putting peanut butter on her toast while Shelly sipped black coffee. The woman may have been a celebrity in the flesh trade but today she looked just like a Connecticut housewife. Jeans, boots, white blouse and a thin, light blue sweater, the arms tied around her neck.

"Find the place okay?" Rune asked. "Wasn't hard. I would've called first but you didn't give me a number."

"I don't have a phone. When I tried to get one the New York Bell guys drove up, laughed and left."

A moment passed and Shelly said, "I've been thinking about the film. Even after you agreed to the final cut approval I didn't want to do it. But something happened that changed my mind." "The bombing?"

"No," Shelly said. "What happened was I had a bad fight with one of the guys I work for. I don't want to go into the details but it brought a lot of things into focus. I realized how sick I was of the business. I've been in it too long. It's time to leave. If I can get some legitimate publicity, if people can see that I'm not a bimbo, maybe it'll help me get legitimate jobs."

"I'll do a good job. I really will."

"I had a feeling about you." The pale blue laser beams of her eyes fired out. "I think you're just the person who could tell my story. When can we start?"

Rune said, "How's now? I've got the day off." She shook her head. "I've got some things to do now but why don't you meet me this afternoon, around, let's say, five? We can do a couple hours of work. Then tonight there's a party this publisher's giving. Most of the companies publishing skin magazines are also into adult films and video. There'll be a lot of people from the business there. Maybe you could talk to them."

"Excellent! Where do you want to do the filming?" She looked around the room. "How's here? I feel very comfortable here."

"It's going to be a great interview." Shelly smiled. "I may even be honest."

After Shelly'd left, Rune was at the window. She caught another glint of red from the roof of the pier across the spit of slick water.

And she remembered the color.

The same as the jacket or windbreaker of the person she'd seen-or thought she'd seen-in Times Square, following her.

She went into her bedroom and dressed.

Five minutes later the red was still there. And five minutes after that she was on her way toward the pier, running low, crouched like a soldier. Around her neck was a big chrome whistle, the kind football referees use. She figured she could get 120 decibels easy and scare the hell out of anybody looking to give her trouble.

Which was fine for skittish attackers. For the others Rune had something else. A small, round canister. It contained 113 grams of CS-38 military tear gas. She felt its comfortable weight against her leg.

She hurried along the highway. The river water gave off its rotten-ripe smell, riding on the humidity that the clouds-now covering the sky-had brought. The day became still. Several church bells chimed. It was exactly noon.

Rune twisted through the gap in the chain link and walked slowly up to the pier. It rose three stories above her and the facade was weathered down to the bare wood in many places. She could make out part of the name of the shipping line across the top, in a dark blue paint that she associated with old-fashioned trains. America was one word. And she saw, or thought she did, a faint blue star.

The twelve-foot wooden doors looked imposing but were off their track and Rune easily slipped through a seam into the darkness.

It was ratty and spooky inside. At one time these piers had been the places from which the great liners had sailed to Europe. Then they'd been used for cargo ships until Brooklyn and New Jersey docks took over most of that business. Now, they were mostly just relics. A barge half the size of a football field had appeared one day, moored next to Rune's houseboat, while she'd been at the studio. But that was the only commercial shipping traffic in the neighborhood.