Jeffery Deaver - Hard News

Courtney stopped crying. "Rune," she said. "Story. Read me a story?" She was dressed in blue jeans and a dirty yellow pullover.

"Later, honey, it's time for dinner," Rune said, crouching down and smoothing the girl's curly dark hair. "This hair is like totally audacious." She stood up and walked into the galley of the houseboat. As she poured Grape-Nuts into a large bowl and added chocolate chips and cashews she shouted to Claire, "Her hair, I was saying. What it is is all that garbage we use. We dye it and we mousse it and we perm it. I'll bet if you never touch your hair it'd be as nice as that forever."

Claire said sourly, "Well, sure, but that would like be so boring."

Rune came back into the living room, eating the cereal and drinking a Molson Golden. "You eaten?"

"We ate Chinese."

"Courtney too? Is that good for her?"

Claire said, "Are you kidding? There are a billion people in China and whatta you think they grew up on?"

"I don't know-"

"You'reeating that crap?" Claire glanced at the cereal.

"I'm not a three-year-old. Don't you watch commercials? She's supposed to be eating that gross stuff that comes in jars. You know, like pureed carrots and spinach."

"Rune," Claire said, "she's not an infant. She's got teeth."

"I like spinch," Courtney said.

Rune said, "I was you, I'd get that book. Spock."

"The guy on the oldStar Trek?' Claire asked.

"Different Spock."

Claire said, "The Vulcan nerve pinch. That's what I'd like to learn. Put 'em right to sleep."

"What's a Vulcan?" Courtney asked. Then she disappeared into the bedroom without waiting for an' answer. She returned a few minutes later, pulling a stuffed dragon by the tail.

Rune made the dragon dance, then hug Courtney. She asked the little girl, "What's her name? Do you remember?"

"Persephy."

"Very good. Persephone. And who was Persephone?"

Courtney held up the dragon.

"No, I mean in real life?"

Claire said, "Real life?"

"She was a goddess," Courtney answered. "She was Zeus's little girl."

Claire said, "I don't think it's a good idea you're teaching her that stuff like it's true."

"What isn't true about it?"

"About the gods and goddesses and fairies and all that shit."

"Shit," said Courtney.

Rune said to Claire, "You're saying it's not true?"

"You believe in Roman goddesses?"

"Persephone was Greek. I'm not saying I believe and I'm not saying I don't."

"I want her to grow up to be a highly grounded person," Claire said.

"Oh, get real," Rune said. "Your goal in life is to get to every club in downtown Manhattan and never pay for a drink yourself. That's reality?"

"I want her to be an adult."

Rune whispered, "She's three years old. She'll grow up fast enough."

" Claire cocked an eyebrow at Rune. "Some people I know have resisted adulthood totally successfully." She smiled sweetly. "Favor, please?"

"I'm broke."

"Naw, what it is is I gotta go out tonight. Babysit, will you?"

"Claire-"

"I met this guy and he was talking about a job. He might hire me."

"Whichclub're you going to meet him at?" Rune asked wryly.

"S. O. B.'s," Claire admitted. "But he really thinks he can get me work. Come on, please…" Nodding at her daughter. "You two get along so good."

Rune looked at Courtney. "Wedo get along, don't we, dude? Gimme five high." She held up her hand and Courtney crawled forward. They slapped upraised palms.

"Dude," the little girl said then crawled back to Persephone. Rune looked at her face and didn't see much of Claire in it. She wondered who the father was. Claire, she knew, occasionally wondered the same.

After a moment Rune said, "You know, I'm not, like, too good with saying things like this…" Rune paused, hoping Claire would pick up on the hint. But she was concentrating on putting a fake diamond earring into one of the holes on the side of her nose. Rune continued, "What I'm saying is you really'vegot to find a place to live."

"I didn't plan on staying this long. It's not that easy to find a place to live in Manhattan."

"I know," Rune said. "Look, I don't want to kick you out."

Claire got solemn for a moment. "The truth is I'm thinking about going back to Boston. Just to get my act together for a while. What do you think?"

Hallelujah.

Rune said, "I think that's a very mature thing to do."

"Really?"

"I do. Absolutely."

"I'll stay with my mother. She's got a nice house. I can have the upstairs to myself. The only thing that bothers me is I don't know what I could do there exactly."

Rune wasn't sure what Claire could do here in Manhattan either, except hang out and go to clubs, which she could probably do in Boston just as easily and for a lot less money. But she said, " Boston 's supposed to be a wonderful place. History, lots of history."

"Yeah, history. But, excuse me, what do you do with history?"

"You don't have todo anything with it. It's just neat." Rune hefted Courtney to the windowsill, propped her on her hip. "Just look out there, honey, and picture it three hundred years ago. You know who lived there? Indians! The Canarsie Indians. And there were bears and deer and everything."

"Like the zoo," the girl said. "Can we go to the zoo?"

"Sure we can. Maybe tomorrow. And see over there, all those roads? They used to be tobacco fields. They called the place Sapokanikan. It means the tobacco plantation. Then the settlers came up here from New York City – which was all down by the Battery then. They came up here because they had all these terrible plagues or epidemics – and they saw all these fields and farmland and the place got called Green Village- "

"And now it's Greenwich Village and it's got bagels and coffeehouses and ATM machines and the Antique Clothes Boutique."

Rune shook her head. "Oh, you're just so sitcom, it's disgusting."

Claire said, "So – Boston… You mind if I spend some time there?"

Mind? Rune felt as if she'd just gotten a package in a turquoise Tiffany's box. "I'd say: Do it."

"Then I will," Claire said lethargically. She yawned and pulled a vial out of her purse. "You want some coke?"

"Coke," said Courtney.

Rune took Claire by the arm roughly, whispering viciously: "Are you crazy? Look what you're teaching her." She snatched the vial and spoon away from Claire and tossed them back into the purse.

Claire pulled away angrily. "Coke is real. Dragons and goddesses aren't."

"You keep your reality." Rune stood up and took Courtney by the hand and led her up onto the outer deck. "Come on, honey, I'll read you a story."

An hour later Courtney asked, "One more, please."

Rune debated, flipping through the book of fairy stories. She glanced down into the galley and saw

Claire doing a small line of coke off her compact mirror.

"Okay," Rune said. "One more, then off to bed."

She looked at the story the book had fallen open to and laughed."The Snow Princess." Which seemed like a good choice since Claire had a nose blizzard going at the moment.

"'Once upon a time-'"

"In a land far away," Courtney yawned and lay down with her head. in Rune's lap.

"That's right. '… in a land far away, there lived an old couple who never had any children.'"

"I'm a children."

" 'The man and woman loved each other dearly but dreamed about how happy they would be if only they had a daughter to share their life with. Then one winter, as the husband was walking home through the forest, he saw a snowman that some children had built and he had an idea. He went home and together, with his wife, they built a little princess out of snow.'"

"What's snow?"

"Last winter, that white stuff."

"I don't remember," the girl said, frowning.

"It comes out of the sky and it's white."