explosives were going to be heavy as iron weights. They weren't. The whole thing didn't weigh more than a pound.
'No rocker,' he said to the microphone. The smell of his own sweat was strong. He breathed slowly. 'Or maybe I've got steady hands.'
'Doing good, Sam.'
The timer on the clock showed seven minutes until detonation.
Healy backed out into the aisle, sliding his feet behind slowly to feel the way. He set the box into the arms of the robot.
'This place is gross,' Healy said.
'Okay, we'll take over,' Rubin told him.
Healy didn't argue. He dropped his hands to his side and walked backward until he felt Rubin tap him on the shoulder.
Rubin drove the robot out of the theater and up the ramp to the containment chamber, which fellow Bomb Squad officers had driven up from the garage connected to the 6th Precinct. It looked like a small diving bell on a platform. He gingerly manipulated the remote controls to get the box inside. The robot backed away and Healy approached the open door from the side. He pulled a wire to close the door most of the way, then quickly stepped in front and spun the lever. He stepped back.
Rubin helped him out of the suit.
'Whatsa time?' Rubin asked.
'I make it about a minute to go.'
Rune broke through the police line and ran up to Healy. She squeezed his arm.
He pushed her around behind him.
'Sam, are you all right?'
'Shh. Listen.'
'I-'
'Shhhh,' Healy said.
Suddenly, a loud ping-it sounded like a hammer on a muffled bell. Smoke and fumes began to hiss out of the side of the changer. A sour, tear-gassy smell filled the air.
'C-3,' Healy said. 'I'd know that smell anywhere.'
'What happened?' Rune asked.
'It just exploded.'
'You mean that thing you were bringing out? It just blew up? Oh, Sam, you could have been killed.'
For some reason Rubin was laughing at that. Healy himself was fighting down a grin.
He looked at her. 'I'm going to be here for a while.'
'Sure. I understand.' She didn't like the glazed, wild look on his face. It scared her.
'I'll call you tomorrow.' He turned and began speaking to a man in a dark suit.
She started back to the sidewalk and then glanced at the tailgate of the Bomb Squad station wagon. Sam Healy's briefcase was resting on it.
She wasn't exactly sure why she did it. Maybe because he'd scared her, looking the way he did. Maybe because she'd spent the day setting up little squares of plastic and enduring small-minded people.
Maybe because it was just in her nature never to give up a quest-just like it was in Sam Healy's to go into buildings like this and find bombs.
In any case Rune quickly flipped open Healy's briefcase and examined the contents until she found his small notebook. This she thumbed through until she found what she was looking for. She memorized a name and address.
She glanced toward Healy, standing in a cluster of other officers. No one noticed her. Their attention was on a clear plastic envelope Healy held. A moment later Rune's voice, theatrical and low, filled the theater. ' The third angel blew his trumpet and a great star fell from heaven, blazing like a torch, and it fell on a third of the rivers and on the fountains of water.''
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
'Look, I'll talk to you. But you can't use my name.'
They sat on the deck of Rune's houseboat that night, drinking Michelob Light. The skinny young man continued, 'I mean, my mother thinks I was in a car crash. If she ever found out…'
Warren Hathaway was the witness whose name she'd found in Sam Healy's notebook. He'd been in the Velvet Venus Theater when the first bomb blew. Rune had called him and asked if she could interview him.
'I'm the only person in the world who got blown up my first time in a porno theater…' Then he caught her amused look. 'Well, okay, maybe not my first. But I don't go all that often.'
Hathaway was about five six, early thirties, pudgy. He had bandages on his neck and his arm was taped. He spoke loudly too-just like Rune after she'd witnessed the bombing-and she guessed the explosion in the Velvet Venus had temporarily deafened him. 'How did you find me?'
'The policeman who interviewed you? Detective Healy? I got your name from him.'
The camera was set up. Hathaway looked at it uneasily. 'You can mask my face out, can't you? So nobody'll recognize me?'
'Sure. Don't worry.'
She started the camera. 'Just tell me what you remember.'
'Okay, I was doing an audit at a publishing company on Forty-seventh. I'm an accountant and financial advisor. And, what happened was I had a couple hours off and I walked to Eighth Avenue to this deli I'd seen. They had great-looking fruit cups-they seemed nice and fresh, you know, lots of watermelon-and there was this theater right in front of me and I thought, Hell, why not?' He took a sip of the beer. 'So I walked in.'
'What was your impression?'
'Filthy, first of all. It smelled like, you know, urine and disinfectant. And there were these tough-looking guys. They were… well, black mostly, and they looked me over like I was, I don't know, dessert. So I hurried down to a seat. There were about ten people in the whole place is all and some of them were asleep. I sat down. The picture was awful. It wasn't a movie at all but this videotape. You could hardly see anything it was so fuzzy. After a while I decided to leave. I stood up. There was a big flash and this incredible roar and the next thing I know I'm in the hospital and I can't hear.'
'How long were you in the theater?'
'Total? Maybe a half hour.'
'Did you get much of a look at the other people in there?'
'Sure. I was looking around. You know, to make sure I didn't get mugged. There were some folks there. Some dockworker sorts. And transvestites-you know, prostitutes.' He looked away from both Rune and the camera.
Rune nodded sympathetically and it crossed her mind that Warren Hathaway might know more about transves-tite prostitutes than he wanted to admit.
'Did you maybe see somebody in a red windbreaker?'
Hathaway thought for a moment. 'Well, there was somebody in a red jacket, I think. And a hat.'
'With a wide brim?'
'Yeah. It looked funny. He moved kind of slow. I got the impression he was older.'
Older? Rune wondered. She asked, 'He was leaving the theater?'
'Maybe. I couldn't swear to it.'
'Any idea how old?'
'Sorry. Couldn't say.'
'Could you describe him at all?'
Hathaway shook his head. 'Sorry. I wasn't paying attention. What're you exactly, a newspaper reporter?'
'I'm doing a film about that girl who was killed in the second bombing. Shelly Lowe.'
A motorboat went past and they both watched it.
