Death of a Blue Movie Star

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

She got as far as the glass door.

Hathaway looked soft but he was tougher than coat-hanger wire. He latched onto her wrists and wouldn't let go, then dragged her back into one of the wood-paneled bedrooms. Just like on the pier. He was the one who'd followed, he was the one who'd attacked her!

He slapped her hard and she spiraled down to the ground. She couldn't get her hands up for protection. Her head hit first. She lay for a moment, stunned, the pain radiating from her eyes back into her skull. She felt a punch of nausea.

"Warren-"

"Gabriel," Hathaway said, as cheerfully as if he'd just picked her up at a church social. He stepped out of the bedroom to collect the bag and the explosive. As he walked back, sipping his iced tea, he said to her, "You can call me Gabriel."

Rune whispered, "The Sword of Jesus… There really is a Sword of Jesus…"

"And we're very upset that people think we were just the creation of some psychotic murderer. We have you to thank for that. You and that film of yours."

"What do you want? What are you going to do to me?"

Hathaway began taking tools and wire and small boxes out of his canvas bag. "You have to understand I don't feel we can eliminate sin and evil. There've always been whores, there's always been sin. But there have also been those who fight against it, even if they have to sacrifice their own life." He looked at her carefully and when he spoke, the reasonable tone in his voice was somehow as terrifying as Tommy Savorne's craziness had been. "We're like advertising in a way. We get the message across. What people do with that message is up to them."

Rune said, "You weren't a witness at all. The first bomb-you planted it."

"As I was leaving the theater, a man stopped me. He called me 'brother.' He had a kind face. I thought I could help him, I could get him to repent and accept Jesus. Even if we both died in the blast he'd be entering the Kingdom of God. That would have been such a marvelous thing.

Unfortunately, what he was looking for wasn't salvation at all but twenty dollars for a blow job. As I turned to leave the bomb went off. It removed most of his head but what was left of his body saved my life. That's ironic, I suppose. God works in strange and wonderful ways."

And the injuries on her face-part of that was the tear gas.

Rune realized too that he'd lied about the man in the red windbreaker being older-to shift suspicion away from himself. And he'd worn the hat to cover up his bald head.

Hathaway continued. "I saw you outside the theater. Saw you with the camera. I thought you were one of those sinners. I was going to kill you. But then I thought maybe we could use you." He nodded around the room. "And I guess I was right."

"What are you going to do with me?"

"Make you a living testament to the will of God."

"Why me? I don't make those movies."

"You were doing this film about a pornographic actress. You're idealizing her-"

"No I'm not. I'm showing what the business did to her."

"She got exactly what she deserved. You should make your movies about missionaries, about the glory of God-"

"I'll show you my film! There's nothing glamorous about it."

Hathaway looked at her and smiled. "Rune, we all have to make sacrifices. You ought to be proud of what's going to happen to you. I think the press coverage should last a year. You're going to be famous."

He sat down on the small bed, spreading out the components of the bomb, examining each one carefully.

She eased forward, her feet sliding under the bed slightly.

Hathaway said, "Don't think about jumping at me." The box cutter she remembered from the first attack on the pier was in his hand. "I can hurt you in very painful ways. It's why I wear ared windbreaker-I sometimes have to hurt people. They sometimes bleed."

Rune sat back on the bed.

Hathaway spoke in a soothing tone as he pressed a white cylinder into the middle of the wad of explosive. "This is about three ounces of C-3." He looked up. "I wouldn't go into this detail normally but since you're going to be my partner in this project I thought you'd like to know a little about what to expect. It's not fair to let you think you can just pull the wires out and wait for help." He held up a black plastic box, which he pressed the explosive into. "And what we have here is very clever. A rocker box. It has a liquid mercury switch. If you pick it up and try to pull the detonator out the switch sets off the explosive. The battery's inside, so you can't cut the power." He ran wires to another small black box with a clock on it. "The timer. It's set and armed electronically. There's a shunt. If you disconnect the wire or cut it the detonator senses a drop in voltage and sets off the bomb." He smiled. "God gave men such miraculous brains, didn't he?"

"Please, I'll do whatever you want. Do you want me to make a movie about God? I can do that."

Hathaway looked at her for a moment. "You know, Rune, there are clergy that will accept repentance at any time, whether the sinner's acting of his own will or whether he's, say, being tortured." He shook his head. "But I'm funny. I need a little more sincerity than this situation warrants. So in answer to your question: No, I don't want a little whore like you to make a movie about God."

Rune said, "Yeah? And what do you thinkyou are-a good Christian? Bullshit. You're a killer. That's all you are."

Hathaway's eyes lifted to her as he picked up the wire. "Swear all you like. God knows who His faithful are."

He stood back. "There we go." He placed the assembly of boxes and wires on the night table and slid it into the middle of the room. "Now let me tell you what's going to happen." He was proud. He looked critically at the ceiling and walls. "The explosion will take out most of the inner walls-they're only Sheetrock-and the floor and ceiling too. The outer wall is structural and shouldn't collapse. On the other hand you wouldn't want to be caught between that wall and the bomb."

Hathaway bounced on the floor near the bomb.

"Wood." He shook his head. "Hadn't counted on that. Splinters are going to be a problem. Fire too. But you'll just have to hope for the best. Now, there's easily enough explosive here to kill you. In fact, I'd say you've got a. twenty percent chance of getting killed outright. So I would suggest you take the mattresses and springs and lay them over you…" He looked around. "In that corner there. You'll be blown into the living room. It's hard to know exactly what'll happen but I can guarantee that you'll be permanently deafened and blinded. When C-3 goes off it spreads poisonous fumes. So even if you aren't blinded by the explosion you will be by the smoke. I think you'll probably lose an arm or leg or hand. Lung bums from the fumes. Can't tell for sure. Like I was saying, the splinters are going to be a problem. That's how most sailors were killed in nineteenth-century naval warfare, by the way. Splinters, not cannonballs. Did you know that?"

"Why are you doing this to me? What's the point?" "So you'll tell everyone about us. People will believe us and they'll be afraid. You'll live off charity, you'll live off God's grace. You might die, of course. In fact, you can always choose that. Just pick it up." He gestured to the box. "But I hope you won't. I hope you realize what kind of good you can do, what kind of message you can leave for our poor sinful world."

"I know who you are. I can tell-" "You know Warren Hathaway, which isn't, of course, my name. And how are you going to pick me out of a lineup without eyes?" He laughed, then nodded at her and said, "You have thirty minutes. May God forgive you." Rune stared back at him.

Hathaway smiled and shook his head and left the room. She heard a half-dozen nails slamming into the frame of the door. Then there was silence. A moment later, the black box clicked and a red light came on. The hand of the clock started moving.

She ran to the window and drew her hand back to smash through the glass with her palm.

Suddenly the window went black and she gave a soft whimper as Hathaway began nailing the thick plywood sheet over the glass.

"No, no," she was crying, afraid the huge booming of the hammering would set off the bomb.

Ten minutes.

The canvas bag was at the gap by the gangplank.

Sam Healy took a deep breath. Looked at the containment vehicle.

The longest ten feet…

"How you doing, buddy?" the ops coordinator asked through the radio headset.

"Never been better," Healy replied.

"You got all the time in the world."

Breathing. In, out: In, out.

He bent over the canvas bag and carefully closed the top. He couldn't keep it level holding it by the strap so he'd have to grip the base with both hands and pick it up.

He backed down the gangplank, then went down on one knee.

Breathe, breathe, breathe.

Steadiest hands in the business, someone had once said about Healy. Well, he needed that skill now. Fucking rocker switches.

He bent forward.

"Oh, Jesus Christ," came the staticky voice in the radio.

Healy froze, looked back.

The ops coordinator, Rubin and the other men from the squad were gesturing into the river, waving madly. Healy looked where their attention was focused. Shit! A speedboat, doing thirty knots, was racing along, close to the shore, churning up a huge wake. The boater and his passenger-a blonde in sunglasses-saw the Bomb Squad crew's gesturing and waved back, smiling.

In ten seconds the huge wake would hit the boat, jostle it and set off the rocker switch.

"Sam, get the fuck outa there. Just run."

But Healy was frozen, staring at the registration number of the speedboat. The last two numbers were a one and a five.

Fifteen.

Oh, Christ.

"Run!"

But he knew it would be pointless. You can't run in a bomb suit. And besides, the whole dock would vanish in the fiery hurricane of burning propane.

The wake was twenty feet away.

He bent, picked up the bag with both hands, and started down the gangplank.

Ten feet from the houseboat.

Halfway down the gangplank.

Five feet.

"Go, Sam!"

Two steps and he'd be on the pier.

But he didn't make it.

Just as he was about to step onto the wood of the pier the wake hit the houseboat. And it hit so violently that when the boat rocked, the gangplank unhooked and fell two feet to the pier. Healy was caught off balance and pitched forward, still clutching the bomb.

"Sam!"

He twisted to the side, to get his body between the bag and the propane barge, thinking: I'm dead but maybe the suit'll stop the shrapnel.

With a thud he landed on the pier. Eyes closed, waiting to die, wondering how much pain he'd feel.

It was a moment before he realized that nothing had happened. And a moment after that before he realized he could vaguely hear music.

He sat up, glanced at the sandbags, behind which the squad stood immobilized with shock.

Healy unzipped the bag and looked inside. The rocker switch had closed the circuit. What it had set off, though, wasn't the detonator but apparently a small radio. He pulled the helmet off the bomb suit.

"Sam, what're you doing?"

He ignored them.

Yeah, it was definitely music. Some kind of easy listening. He stared at it, unable to move, feeling completely weak. More static. Then he could hear the disc jockey. "This is WJES, your home for the sweetest sounds of Christian music…"

He looked at the explosive. Pulled off the glove and dug some out with his fingernail. Smelled it. He'd have recognized that smell anywhere-though not from his bomb disposal training. From Adam. The explosive was Play-Doh.

Rune didn't waste any time trying to break through the walls. She dropped to her knees and retrieved what she'd seen under the bed when he'd first dragged her into the room.

A telephone.

When Hathaway had seen her ease forward on the bed, it wasn't because she was about to leap. It was because she'd seen an old, black rotary dial phone on the floor. With her feet she pushed it back into the shadows under the bed.

She now pulled it out and lifted the receiver. Silence.

No!

It wasn't working. Then her eyes followed the cord.

Hathaway, or somebody, had ripped the wire from the wall.

She dropped down to the floor and, with her teeth, chewed off the insulation, revealing four small wires inside: white, yellow, blue, green.

For five minutes she stripped the four tiny wires down to their thin copper cores. Against the wall was a telephone input box with four holes in it. Rune began shoving the wires into the holes in different order. She was huddled, cramped on the floor, the receiver shoved under her chin.

Finally, with the last possible combination, she got a dial tone.

The timer on the bomb showed twelve minutes.

She pressed 911.

And what the hell good is that going to do? Did they evenhave a fire department on Fire Island? And how could she even tell them where she was?

Shit!

She depressed the button and dialed Healy's home number.

No answer. She started to slam it down, then caught herself and cautiously pressed the button again-feeling as if she had only a few dial tones left and didn't want to waste them. This time she called the operator and told her in a breathy voice that it was an emergency and asked for the 6th Precinct in Manhattan. She was astonished. In five seconds, she was connected.

"It's an emergency. I need to speak to Sam Healy, Bomb Squad."

Static, someone near the switchboard telling a Polish joke, more static.

"Patch it through," Rune heard. More static. The punch line of the joke.

Static.

Oh, please…

Then, Healy's voice.

The operator was saying, "Central to Two-five-five. I've got a landline patch for you. Emergency, she says. You available?"

"I'm in the field. Who is it, what does she want?"

"Sam!" she shouted.

But he didn't hear.