Death of a Blue Movie Star

CHAPTER FIVE

Their faces were stone.

Rune sat in the back of an NYPD patrol car, the door open, her feet on the ground outside, and wiped at her tears. She was aware of the two men who stood five feet away, watching her, but she didn't return their gaze.

The fire was out. A foul, chemical reek filled the air and a film of smoke hung over the street like an oily fog.

Rune's face and elbows had been cleaned and bandaged by the EMS attendants. They used Band-Aids. She thought they would've used something more elaborate but they just scrubbed the skin, slapped on flesh-colored strips and went upstairs. They walked slowly. No one up there needed their talents.

She pressed the shredded wad of Kleenex into her eyes one final time and looked up at the men, who were dressed in dark suits. "She's dead, isn't she?"

"You're shouting," one of the detectives said.

She couldn't hear her own voice-her ears were still numb. She repeated the question, trying to talk more softly.

The question surprised them. One had an expression that could have been a faint smile. He said something she couldn't hear. Rune asked him to repeat it. He said, "She's extremely dead."

It was confusing, talking to them. She caught fragments of phrases, missed others. She had to look at their eyes to make sense of what they were asking.

"What happened?" she asked.

Neither of them responded. One asked gruffly, "What's your name, miss?"

She told them.

She heard: "Not your stage name, honey, not the one you use when you're up on the silver screen, your real name." He gazed at her coldly.

"Rune is my real name. Wait… You think I worked with Shelly?"

"Work? You call itwork? What does your mother say about your career?"

Anger burst in her face. "I'm not a porn actress."

The other smiled. "Well, I guess that's not too hard to figure out." His eyes scanned her body. "So whatta you do for the company? Get coffee? Do makeup? Give the actors head to get 'em up before the shoot?"

She started up. "Listen-"

"Sit down." He waved her back into the car. "I've got a lot better things to do with my time than talk to one of you people." His partner didn't seem as angry but he wasn't stopping the man's tirade. "You want to do this kind of bullshit with your life, encouraging people to get diseases and things, fine. It's a free country. Just don't expect me to like you and tell you how sorry I am your friend got blown the fuck up. Now, I wanna ask my questions and get the hell outa here. So tell me what you saw." A notebook appeared.

She was crying again, messy, sniffling tears, as she told them what happened, about the party they were going to, about Shelly getting a phone message, Rune waiting for her downstairs.

Rune said, "I saw her in the window, then the room exploded." She closed her eyes. The blast replayed in slow motion; she opened her eyes again. The scene continued, vivid, in her mind. "It was… it was soloud."

The one who was taking notes, the mean one, nodded and slipped his pad into his coat pocket. "You didn't see anybody else?"

"No."

He turned to the other with a feigned frown of thought. "Maybe we should take her up to see the body. She could ID it."

"Yeah, with that blast, the ME's office'll have a bitch of a time. You can be a big help. Come on, Miss Porn, you've got a strong stomach, don't you?" He took her by the arm, pulled her from the car.

The other was grinning. "Half her skin's blown off and the rest is pretty burnt." He pushed her toward the doorway.

A voice behind them: "Howdy, gentlemen. What's up?"

Cowboy stood on the sidewalk, moving his knuckles slowly along the rim of his baseball cap. He glanced at Rune, then back to the cops.

A detective nodded toward her. "Eyewitness. We were just-"

Rune pulled away, stepped toward Cowboy. "They were going to make me go upstairs and look at Shelly's body."

Cowboy's brow creased. "Were they?"

One of the cops shrugged, a grin on his face.

Cowboy said, "They took it out ten minutes ago, sent it to the ME's office. You guys saw it go."

The detectives grinned. "Having a little fun is all, Sam."

He was nodding, not pissed, but not smiling back either. "You finished with her?"

"Guess."

"Mind if I talk to her for a bit?"

"She's all yours." The detective turned to her. "We'll want you to sign a statement. Where can we get in touch with you?"

Rune gave them the phone number of L &R Productions.

Climbing into their unmarked car, one detective said, "I hope you consider this a lesson, young lady. Get your life together."

"I wasn't-," Rune began. But they slammed the doors and sped off.

Cowboy was studying her face. "Not too bad."

"What do you mean by that?"

"The cuts, I mean. You were lucky. It'd been on ground level, you might not have made it."

Rune was staring at the smoldering hole, where firemen had set up portable lights in metal cages hanging from scorched wires and conduit.

"What was her name?" he asked.

"Shelly Lowe. That was her stage name. She was an adult-film star."

"That was a studio?"

"Lame Duck Productions."

He nodded, looking up at the hole in the side of the building. "Another porn bombing."

"They" -she nodded at the detectives who'd just left- "thought I worked for them."

"They were giving you the shock treatment. They do the same thing with kids they find with drugs, and hookers and drunk drivers. You humiliate them, they're supposed to change their wayward lifestyle and go back to school or go on the wagon and join the church. I did it myself when I was a portable."

"A what?"

"A beat cop."

She walked a foot or two toward the building, staring at the opening. "I didn't work with her. I'm doing a documentary about her. I don't do those kind of films."

"I've seen you before."

"I was at the other bombing, the theater, and I saw you. Then again last night."

"I saw somebody with acamera. I didn't recognize you."

"I asked you something and you didn't answer me."

"I didn't hear," he answered. He touched his ear. "Hearing's not so great. Been doing bomb work for a few years now."

"I'm Rune." She stuck out her hand.

His fingers were narrow, but thick with calluses. "Sam Healy."

Healy motioned for her to step back as several blue-and-white police cars pulled away. Rune noticed that most of the police were gone. Just a half-dozen fire trucks were left. And the blue-and-white Bomb Squad station wagon.

He stood with his hands on his hips, looking at the shattered wall. He paced up and down.

"Why is everyone gone?"

Healy stared at the bricks. He asked, "Did you see a flash?"

"A flash? Yeah."

"What color was it?"

"I don't remember. Red or orange, I guess."

He said, "Did you feel a chemical irritation, like tear gas or anything?"

"It smelled pretty bad but I don't think so."

"No one threw anything through the window?"

"Like a hand grenade?"

"Like anything," he said.

"No. Shelly called out the window, asked me a question. Then she went to make a phone call. It blew up a minute later. Less, maybe."

"Phone call?"

"She got a message that she was supposed to call someone. The guard might know who. But I'm sure the detectives talked to him."

Healy was frowning. He said in a soft voice, "They sent the guard home. He didn't know anything and didn't say anything about a message. Or the detectivessaid he didn't. Hey, wait here a minute, okay?"

He was walking back to the station wagon on his long legs. He spoke on the radio for a few minutes. She saw him put the receiver back on the dash. A young officer came up to him and handed him a plastic bag.

When he returned to Rune she said, "Second angel?"

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.

But then she thought: Why not?

Whycouldn't she make the film?

Sure she could.

And remembering something that Nicole had said, about the blues, suddenly the title for her film came to mind. She thought about it for a minute and decided that, yes, that was it. Epitaph for a Blue Movie Star.

The elevator arrived. Rune stepped in, rested her face against the cool brass plate holding the buttons and sent the car on its journey to the first floor.