Death of a Blue Movie Star

CHAPTER NINETEEN

Rune spent the day assembling the reels of exposed footage for the House O' Leather commercial and stuffed it, along with the editing instructions, into a big white envelope.

Sam picked her up at L &R and drove to a postproduc-tion house, where the technicians would edit the raw footage into a rough cut. Rune dropped it off with instructions to deliver cassettes to L &R and the client as soon as possible, even if it meant overtime.

Then she said, "Okay… work's done. Time to party. Let's go to the club." And she gave him directions to the West Side piers.

"Where?" Healy asked dubiously. "I don't think there's anything there."

"Oh, you'd be surprised."

She gave him credit-he was a sport.

Healy put up with the place for a couple of hours before he managed to shout, "I don't feel quite at home here."

"How come?" Rune shouted.

He didn't seem sure. Maybe it was the decor: black foam mounds that looked like lava. Flashing purple overhead lights. A six-foot Plexiglas bubble of an aquarium.

Or the music. (He asked her if the sound system was broken and she had to tell him that the effect was intentional.)

Also he wasn't dressed quite right. Rune had said casual and so she'd dressed in yellow tights, a black miniskirt and-on top of a purple tank top-a black T-shirt as holey as Jarlsberg.

Sam Healy was in blue jeans and a plaid shirt. The one thing he shared with most of the other clubbies was a pair of black boots. His, however, were cowboy boots.

"I think I got it wrong," he said.

"Well, you may start a trend."

Maybe not but he wasn't being eyed like a geek, either, Rune noticed. Two pageboy blonds lifted their sleek faces and fired some serious "Wanna get laid?" vibrations his way. Rune took his arm. "Sunken cheeks like that, you see them? They're a sign of mental instability." She grinned. "Let's dance some more." And began to gyrate in time to the music.

"Dancing," Healy said and mimicked her. Ten minutes later, he said, "I've got an idea."

"I know that tone. You're not having a good time."

Healy wiped his forehead and scalp with a wad of bar napkins. "Anybody ever dehydrate in here?"

"That's part of the fun."

"You sure like to dance."

"Dancing is the best! I'm free! I'm a bird."

"Well, if you're really into dancing, let's try this place I know."

"You're pretty good doing this stuff." Rune drank down half of her third Amstel as she continued to move in time to the music.

"Oh, you think this is good, try my place." "I know all the clubs. What's this one called?" "You've never heard of it. It's real exclusive." "Yeah? You need a special pass to get in?" "You need to know the password." "All right! Let's go."

The password was "Howdy" and the girl at the door checking IDs and stamping hands with a tiny map of Texas responded with the countersign-"How y'all doing tonight?"

They were shown into the club-which for having a four-piece swing band was incredibly quiet. Or maybe it just seemed that way after the deafening roar of Rune's place. They were seated at a small table with a gingham plastic tablecloth.

"Two Lone Stars," Healy ordered.

Rune looked at a girl sitting next to them. A tight white sweater, a blue denim skirt, stockings and white cowboy boots.

"Very, very weird," she said.

"You hungry?"

"You mean this's a restaurant too? What, you get to pick your own cow out of the pen in the back?"

"The ribs are great."

"Very weird."

"I liked that other place," he said. "But I kind of have to watch the noise." Pointing to his ears. She remembered that bomb blasts had affected his hearing.

They drank the beers and were still thirsty so they ordered a pitcher.

"You come here much?" Rune asked.

"Used to."

"With your wife?"

Healy didn't answer for a minute. "Some. It's not like it was a special place for us."

"You still see her at all?"

"Mostly just when I pick up Adam."

Mostly, she noticed.

Healy continued. "There're books she left she comes by to pick up. Kitchen things. Stuff like that… I never asked you if you're going with anybody."

Rune said, "I'm sort of between boyfriends."

"Really? I'm surprised."

"Yeah? It's not as unbelievable as some things, like talking dogs or aliens."

"I'd think you'd have them lined up."

"Men have these strange feelings about me. Mostly, they ignore me. The ones who don't ignore me, a lot of them just want sex and then the chance to ignore me afterward. Sometimes they want to adopt me. You see people in Laundromats Saturday night doing their underwear and reading two-week-oldPeople magazines? That's me. From what I've learned during the rinse cycle I could write a biography of Cher or Vanna White or Tom Cruise."

"Let's dance," he said.

Rune frowned and looked out over the dance floor.

Healy said, "It's called the two-step. Best dance in the world."

"Let me get this straight?" she said. "You hold on to each other and you dance at the same time?"

Healy smiled. "It's a whole new idea."

Tommy Savorne pressed the buzzer of Nicole D'Orleans's apartment and thought of how strange it was going to be to see her standing there and not Shelly.

He had tried-often, lately-to remember the first time he saw Shelly. He couldn't. That was another odd thing. He had a good memory and there didn't seem to be any reason why he shouldn't remember Shelly. She'd been a person you could picture clearly. Maybe it was the poses she struck. She was never-what was the word?-random about anything she did. She was never careless in the way she stood or sat or spoke.

Or in what she decided to do.

He had recent images: Shelly on Asilomar Beach in Pacific Grove or at Point Lobos, on the bluffs where the park rangers were always telling you to stay away from the edge. Man, he could picture her clearly there.

He pictured her in bed.

But the first time they met, no, he couldn't see that at all.

He'd tried a lot lately.

Nicole opened the door.

"Hey there," she said.

"Hi, babe." He took off his cowboy hat, kissed her cheek and hugged her and felt that wonderful presence of a voluptuous woman against your body. She looked good: a pale blue silk dress with a high neckline, high heels, hair teased up and back. The makeup-well, she was a little over-the-line there, but he could tone it down with some gels on the lights. He picked up his camera bags and carried them inside.

He noticed her dangling zirconia earrings. They were pretty but he'd get lens flare off of them. They'd have to go.

"You look nice," he said.

"Thanks, come on in. You want a drink?"

"Sure. Juice. Mineral water."

"So you've, like, completely stopped drinking?"

"Yep," he said.

"Good for you. You mind if I…"

"Oh, God, no. Go right ahead."

Nicole poured two orange juices. Added vodka to hers. The bottle vibrated slightly in her hand as she poured. He smiled. "What, you nervous?"

"A little I guess. Isn't that weird? I do a sex film and no big deal. I'm on camera with my clothes on and I get butterflies in my tummy."

"Ah, it'll be a piece of cake." They clinked glasses. "To your new career."

She sipped the drink, then set the glass down. Her eyes swiveled; she'd been thinking about something, it seemed. She decided to say it. "If this works out, Tommy, you think there'll maybe be others I could do?"

Tommy drank down half the juice. "I don't see why not." Then: "I ought to start getting set up. Can you show me the kitchen?"

She led him into the large, tiled room. It was chrome and white. In the center of the ceiling was a large steel rack hanging from chains. Dozens of heavy copper pans and bowls hung from it.

"This'll work just fine."

"We had it redone last year."

He looked over the room. "We can use those pans. Copper looks good on camera."

Together they began assembling the camera and lights.

Nicole asked, "Was it hard for you to, you know, get out of the business?"

"Out of porn? Yeah, financially it was a pain. What I did was assist at some film companies for a while."

"Like what Rune's doing?"

"Rune? Oh, that girl. Yeah, like her. And eventually I started getting some jobs as a cameraman, then I directed some documentaries."

"I'd like to act. I keep thinking I could take lessons. I mean, how hard can it be? Shelly had a good coach. Arthur Tucker. She said he helped her a lot. I don't know why he hasn't been around. He didn't go to the memorial service. I thought he would've called."

"The coach?"

"Yeah."

"I don't know," Tommy said. "When somebody dies it makes people feel funny. They can't deal with it." He turned to her, examined her closely. "You should act. You should be always in front of the camera. You're very beautiful."

Their eyes met for a moment. A copper bowl paused in Nicole's hand. She looked away.

He finished assembling the camera and lights. Nicole watched him, the smooth, efficient way he handled the equipment. She leaned against the island, absently spinning the round-bottomed copper bowl. She looked down at its hypnotizing motion.

"I know Shelly got some kind of kick out of the porn films she made but, all in all, I don't see why she didn't give it up."

"Because," Tommy said, stepping next to her, "she was a whore. Just like you." And he brought the long, lead pipe down on the back of Nicole's head.