'Not necessarily. In the U.S., good explosives are hard to find. Dynamite's easy-hell, southern states, you can buy it in hardware stores-but, like I told you, C-3 and C-4 are strictly military. Illegal for civilians to buy. You can only get them on the black market. So bombers have to take what they can get. A lot of serial bombers use different materials. The common elements are the target and message. I'll know more when I talk to the witness-'
'What witness?'
'A guy who was hurt in the first bombing. He was in the theater watching the movie.'
Rune said, 'And what was his name again?'
'Noagain about it. I don't give out the names of witnesses. I shouldn't even be talking to you.'
'Then why are you?'
Healy looked out the gap. Traffic moved slowly by on the street. Horns screamed and drivers hooted and gestured, everyone in a hurry. A half-dozen people stood outside, gawking up at the hole. He looked at her for a moment, in a probing way that made her uncomfortable. 'What they did here'-Healy nodded at the cratered floor-'that was real slick. Real professional. I were you, I'd think about a new subject for your film. At least until we find this Sword of Jesus.'
Rune was looking down, playing with the plastic controls on her Sony. 'I have to make my film.'
'I've been in ordnance disposal for fifteen years. The thing about explosives is that they're not like guns. You don't have to look the person in the eyes when you kill them. You don't have to be anywhere near. You don't worry about hurting innocent people. Hurting innocent people ispart of the message.'
'I told Shelly I was going to make this film. And I am. Nothing's going to stop me.'
Healy shrugged. 'I'm just telling you what I'd want you to do, you were my girlfriend. Or something.'
Rune said, 'Can I have my wallet back?'
'No. Letme destroy the evidence.'
'It cost me fifty bucks.'
'Fifty? For a phony shield?' Healy laughed. 'You're not only breaking the law, you're getting ripped off in the process. Now get out of here. And think about what I said.'
'About the Mossad and bombs and C-4?'
'About making a different kind of movie.'
Sonof a bitch.
That night, home from work, Rune stood in the doorway of her houseboat and looked at the damage. Every drawer was open. The thief hadn't been very careful-just dumping clothes helter-skelter, opening notebooks and dressers and galley drawers and looking under futons. Clothes, papers, books, tapes, food, utensils, stuffed animals… everything everywhere.
Sonof a bitch.
Rune pulled a new tear gas canister out of a closet near the door and walked through the boat.
The burglar had left.
She stepped into the middle of the mess, picked up a few things-a couple of socks, the book of Grimms' fairy stories. Her shoulders slumped and she set the objects on the floor again. There was too much to do, and none of it was going to get done tonight.
'Damn.'
Rune turned a chair right side up and sat on it. She felt queasy. Somebody had touched that sock, touched the book, touched her underwear and maybe her toothpaste… Throw them out, she thought. She shuddered from the sense of violation.
Why?
She had valuables, fifty-eight Indian head nickels, which she thought were the neatest coins ever made and would have to be worth something. About three hundred dollars in cash, wadded up and stuffed in an old box of cornflakes. Some of the old books would be worth something. The VCR.
Then she thought: Shit, the Sony.
L &R's camera!
Hell's bells it cost forty-seven thousand dollars shit Larry's gonna sue me double shit.
Enoughfor a man to live in Guatemala for the rest of his life.
Shit.
But the battered Betacam was just where she'd left it.
She sat for ten minutes, calming down, then started to clean. An hour later a good percentage of order had been restored. The burglar hadn't been particularly subtle. To unlock the door, he'd pitched a rock through one of the small windows looking out on the Jersey side. She swept the glass up and nailed a piece of plywood over the opening.
She'd thought about calling the cops again, but what would they do?
Why bother? They'd be too busy protecting nuns and the mayor's brother and celebrities.
She was just finishing cleaning when she glanced at the Betacam once more.
The door on the video camera's recording deck was open and the cassette of Shelly was gone.
The man in the red jacket had robbed her.
A moment of panic… until she ran to her bedroom and found the dupe tape she'd made. She cued it up to make sure. Saw a bit of Shelly's face and ejected the cassette. She put it in a Baggie and slipped it into the cornflakes box with her money.
Rune locked the doors and windows, turned out the outside lights. Then she made herself a bowl of Grape-Nuts and sat down on her bed, slipped the tear gas canister under a pillow, and lay back against the pile of pillows. She stared at the ceiling as she ate.
Out the window, a tug honked its deep vibrating horn. She turned to look and caught a glimpse of the pier. She remembered the attack, the man in the red windbreaker.
She remembered the terrible burst of explosion, the pressure wave curling around her face.
She remembered Shelly's blonde head turning into the room to die.
Rune lost her appetite and put aside the bowl. She climbed out of bed and walked to the kitchen. She opened the phone book and found the section on colleges and universities. She began to read.
CHAPTER SEVEN
The problem was that his voice kept trailing into silence as he answered her questions.
As if everything he said brought to mind something else he had to consider.
'Professor?' Rune prompted.
'Right, sure.' And he'd continue on for a few minutes. Then the words would meander once again.
His office was filled with what must have been two thousand books. The window overlooked a patch of quadrangle grass and the low sprawl of Harlem beyond that. Students strolled by slowly. They all seemed dreamy- eyed and intense. Professor V.C.V. Miller sat back in his creaky wooden chair.
The camera didn't bother him in the least. 'I've been on TV before,' he told her when she'd called. 'I was interviewed for Sixty Minutes once.' His subject was comparative religion and he'd written a treatise on the subject of cults. When Rune had told him she was doing a documentary on the recent bombings he'd said, 'I'd be happy to talk to you. I've been told my work is definitive.' Making it sound likeshe should be happy to speak tohim.
Miller was in his sixties, hair white and wispy, and he always kept his body three-quarters to the camera, though his eyes locked right onto the lens and wouldn't let go- until his voice grew softer and softer and he looked out the window to contemplate some elusive thought. He wore an ancient brown suit flecked with the dandruff of cigarette ash. His teeth were as yellow as little ivory Bud-dhas and so were his index finger and thumb, where he held his cigarette, even though he didn't inhale it while the camera was running.
Rune found the monologue had wandered into Haiti and she was learning a number of things about voodoo and
