Rune dodged out of the way of two teenage boys in T-shirts and Guess? jeans, walking fast, in an arm- swinging, loping roll, their voices harsh. 'Man, mothafuckah be mah boss but he don' own me, man. You hear what I'm sayin', man?'
'Fuck no, he don' own neither of us.'
'He try that again, man, an' I'll deck him. I mothahfuckin' deck him, man…'
They passed her by, Rune and her camera, as she taped a visual history of Times Square.
A place like no other in New York.
Times Square…
But every Magic Kingdom needs its Mordor or Hades and tonight as Rune walked through the place she didn't feel too uneasy. She was on her quest, making her movie. About the bombing but not about the bombing. She didn't have to justify the creepy place to anyone or worry about anybody's shoes but her own and she was careful where she put her feet.
Behind her, a huge snort.
Fantastic! Knights!
Rune turned the camera on two mounted policemen, who sat rod-straight in their saddles, their horses lolling their heads and stomping solid hooves into the piles of granular manure under them.
'Hey, Sir Gawain!' Rune called. They glanced at her, then decided she wasn't worth flirting with and continued to scan the street with stony gazes that streamed from under the visors of their robin's-egg-blue helmets.
It was when she looked down from the tall, chestnut horse that she saw the red jacket again. It vanished even more quickly than earlier.
A chill ran through her, despite the heat.
Who was it? she wondered.
No one. Just one of the ten million people in the Magic Kingdom. And she forgot about it as she turned the corner and walked up Eighth Avenue toward the site of the former Velvet Venus Theater.
Along this stretch she counted six porn theaters and adult bookstores. Some had live dancers, some had peep shows where for a quarter or a token you could watch films in little booths. She stuck the camera through the door and shot a sign(only one person per booth. it's the
LAW AND OUR POLICY. HAVE A NICE DAY) Until 3 big guy selling tokens shooed her away.
She got some good footage of commuters on their way to the Port Authority and their homes in suburban Jersey. Some glanced in the windows; most wore glazed faces. A few businessmen turned quickly into the theaters, not pausing at all, as though a gust of wind had blown them through the door.
It was then that a humid wind carried a sour stink of burn to her. From the theater, she knew. Rune shut off the camera and strolled up the street.
Still spooked. The paranoia again. But she still could hear, in her memory, the terrible bang of the explosion. The ground moving under her. Recalling the bodies, theparts of bodies. The terrible aftermath of the bomb and the fire. She glanced back, saw no one watching her.
She continued along the street, thinking: The press coverage of the event had been good. Newsat Eleven had devoted ten minutes to the incident and the story had been a hook for aTime magazine article on the trends in adult films ('Hard Times for Hard-Core?') and one in theVillage Voice on the conflict the bombing presented to the First Amendment ('Disrespecting Religion and Abridging the Press'). But, as Larry had predicted, those were all spot news stories, hard news. Nobody was doing a human-interest piece on the bombing.
Come on, Shelly, she thought. You're the key. I need you…
As she approached the ruins of the theater Rune paused, resting her hand on the yellow police tape. The odor was stronger than the day of the bombing. She almost gagged on the air, thick with the smell of wet, scorched upholstery. And something else-a sickening cardboardy scent. It would have to be the scorched bodies, Rune figured, and tried to force the image out of her thoughts.. Across the street was another theater. The neon said:
THE FINEST IN ADULT ENTERTAINMENT. COOL, COMFORTABLE
AND SAFE. Rune assumed that patrons were not much soothed by the illuminated reassurance and that business was slow.
She turned back to the destroyed theater and was startled by motion. Her first thought: Shit, he's back. Whoever was following her through Times Square.
A man's face…
Panic took her. Just as she was about to turn and run she squinted into the shadows and got a better look at her pursuer. He wore jeans and a navy-blue windbreaker that said NYPD in white letters on the chest. It was Cowboy. The guy from the Bomb Squad.
She closed her eyes and exhaled slowly. Tried to steady her shaking hands. He sitting on a folding chair, looking at a white sheet of paper, which he folded and put into his pocket. She saw a thin brown holster on his right hip. Rune lifted the camera and shot a minute or so of tape, opening the aperture wide to get some definition in the gloom.
He looked at the camera. She expected the man to tell her to get lost. But he merely stood and began walking through the ruined theater, kicking at debris, bending down occasionally to examine something, training his long black flashlight on the walls and floor.
The image in the viewfinder of the heavy camera faded. Dusk had come quickly-or perhaps she just hadn't noticed it. She opened the lens wide but it was still very dim and she didn't have any lights with her. She knew the exposure was too dark. She shut the camera off, lowered it from her shoulder.
When she looked again into the building Cowboy was gone.
Where had he disappeared to?
She heard a scuttling of noise near her.
Something heavy fell.
'Hello?'
Nothing.
'Hey?' Rune called again.
There was no answer. She shouted into the ruins of the theater, 'Were you following me? Hey, Officer? Somebody was following me. Was it you?'
Another sound, like boots on concrete. Nearby. But she didn't know where exactly.
Then a car engine started. She spun around. Looking for the blue-and-white station wagon, emblazoned withbomb squad. But she didn't see it.
A dark car pulled out of an alley and vanished up Eighth Avenue.
Uneasy once more. No, damn scared, for some reason. But as she looked over the people on Eighth Avenue she saw only harmless passersby. People on their way to the theaters. Everybody lost in their own worlds. Nobody in the coffee shops and bars paid her any mind. A horde of tourists walked past, obviously wondering why the hell their tour guide was leading them through this neighborhood. Another teen, a mean-looking Latino, propositioned her harmlessly and walked on when she ignored him, telling her to have a nice night. Across the street a man in a wide-brimmed hat carrying a Lord & Taylor shopping bag was gazing into the window of an adult bookstore.
Nobody in a red jacket, nobody spying on her.
Paranoia, she decided. Just paranoia.
Still, she shut down the camera, put the cassette into her leopard-skin bag and headed for the subway. Deciding that she'd had enough atmosphere for one night.
In the alley across the street from what was left of the Velvet Venus a bum sat beside a Dumpster, drinking from a bottle of Thunderbird. He squinted as a man stepped into the alley.
Hell, he's gonna pee here, the bum thought. Theyalways do that. Have beers with their buddies and can't make it to Penn Station in time so they come into my alley and pee. He wondered how the guy'd feel if the bum walked into his living room to take a leak.
But the man didn't unzip. He paused at the mouth of the alley and peered out over Eighth Avenue, looking for something, frowning.
Wondering what the man was doing here, why he was wearing that wide-brimmed, old-fashioned hat, the bum took another sip of liquor and set the bottle down. It made a clink.
