Death of a Blue Movie Star Read Online Free PDF

another sip of liquor and set the bottle down. It made a clink.
    The man whirled around quickly.
    “Got a quarter?” the bum asked.
    “You scared me. I didn’t know anybody was there.”
    “Got a quarter?”
    The man fished in his pocket. “Sure. Are you going to spend it on booze?”
    “Probably,” the bum said. Sometimes he’d hustle the crowds at the commuter stations by saying, “Help the blind, help the blind…. I want to get blind drunk.” And people gave him more money because he’d made them laugh.
    “Well, I appreciate honesty. Here you go.” The man reached down with a coin.
    As the bum began to take it he felt his wrist gripped hard by the man’s left hand.
    “Wait!”
    But the man didn’t wait. Then there was a slight stinging feeling on the bum’s neck. Then another, on the otherside. The man let go of his wrists and the bum touched his throat, feeling two flaps of skin dangling loose. Then saw the razor knife in the man’s hand, the bloody blade retracting.
    The bum tried to shout for help. But the blood was gushing fast from the two wounds and his vision was going black. He tried to stand but fell hard to the cobblestones. The last thing he saw was the man reaching into his Lord & Taylor shopping bag, pulling out a red wind-breaker and pulling it on. Then stepping out of the alley quickly as if he were, in fact, late for his commuter train home.

CHAPTER THREE

    The next morning Rune was lying in bed—well, a bunk—listening to the sounds of the river. There was a knock on her front door.
    She pulled on her jeans and a red silk kimono, then walked to the front of the boat. She opened the door and found she was looking at Shelly Lowe’s back. The actress was examining the water lapping under her feet as she stood on a small gangway painted egg-yolk yellow. She turned and shook her head. Rune nodded at the familiar reaction.
    “It’s a houseboat. You live on a houseboat.”
    Rune said, “I used to make wisecracks about having water in the basement. But the material’s limited. There aren’t a lot of houseboat jokes.”
    “You don’t get seasick?”
    “The Hudson River isn’t exactly Cape Horn.” Rune stepped back to let Shelly into the narrow entryway. In the distance, along the roof of the pier to the north, a flashof color. Red. It reminded her of something disturbing. She couldn’t remember what.
    She followed Shelly into the boat.
    “Give me a tour.”
    The style: nautical suburban ranch, mid-fifties. Downstairs were the living room, kitchen and bath. Up a narrow staircase were two small rooms: the pilot house and bedroom. Outside, a railing and deck circled the living quarters.
    The smell was of motor oil and rose potpourri.
    Inside, Rune showed her a recent acquisition: a half-dozen Lucite paperweights with flecks of colored plastic chips in them. “I’m very into antiques. These are guaranteed 1955. That was a great year, my mother tells me.”
    Shelly nodded with detached politeness and looked around the rest of the room. There was a lot to put politeness to the test: turquoise walls, a painted vase (the scene: a woman in pedal pushers walking a poodle), Lava lamps, kidney-shaped plastic tables, a lampshade made out of Bon Ami and Ajax cleanser cartons, wrought-iron and black-canvas chairs you sank down into like hammocks, an old Motorola console TV.
    Also: an assortment of fairy-tale dolls, stuffed animals and shelves filled with old books.
    Shelly pulled a scaly, battered Brothers Grimm off the shelf, flipped through and replaced it.
    Rune squinted at Shelly, studying her. A thought occurred to her. She laughed. “Know what’s weird? I’ve got a picture of you.”
    “Me?”
    “Well, sort of. Here, look.”
    She took a dusty book from the shelf and opened it up.
Metamorphoses
.
    “Some old Roman dude wrote these stories.”
    “Roman?” Shelly asked. “As in Julius Caesar?”
    “Yeah. Here, look at this picture.”
    Shelly glanced at the color plate of a