Rune said, "How's now? I've got the day off."
She shook her head. "I've got some things to do now but why don't you meet me this afternoon, around, let's say, five? We can do a couple hours of work. Then tonight there's a party this publisher's giving. Most of the companies publishing skin magazines are also into adult films and video. There'll be a lot of people from the business there. Maybe you could talk to them."
"Excellent! Where do you want to do the filming?"
She looked around the room. "How's here? I feel very comfortable here."
"It's going to be a great interview."
Shelly smiled. "I may even be honest."
After Shelly'd left, Rune was at the window. She caught another glint of red from the roof of the pier across the spit of slick water.
And she remembered the color.
The same as the jacket or windbreaker of the person she'd seen--or thought she'd seen--in Times Square, following her.
She went into her bedroom and dressed.
Five minutes later the red was still there. And five minutes after that she was on her way toward the pier, running low, crouched like a soldier. Around her neck was a big chrome whistle, the kind football referees use. She figured she could get 120 decibels easy and scare the hell out of anybody looking to give her trouble.
Which was fine for skittish attackers. For the others Rune had something else. A small, round canister. It contained 113 grams of CS-38 military tear gas. She felt its comfortable weight against her leg.
She hurried along the highway. The river water gave off its rotten-ripe smell, riding on the humidity that the clouds--now covering the sky--had brought. The day became still. Several church bells chimed. It was exactly noon.
Rune twisted through the gap in the chain link and walked slowly up to the pier. It rose three stories above her and the facade was weathered down to the bare wood in many places. She could make out part of the name of the shipping line across the top, in a dark blue paint that she associated with old-fashioned trains. America was one word. And she saw, or thought she did, a faint blue star.
The twelve-foot wooden doors looked imposing but were off their track and Rune easily slipped through a seam into the darkness.
It was ratty and spooky inside. At one time these piers had been the places from which the great liners had sailed to Europe. Then they'd been used for cargo ships until Brooklyn and New Jersey docks took over most of that business. Now, they were mostly just relics. A barge half the size of a football field had appeared one day, moored next to Rune's houseboat, while she'd been at the studio. But that was the only commercial shipping traffic in the neighborhood.
Rune had been to this particular pier a couple of times since she'd docked the boat along this stretch of river. She'd stroll around, imagining what the luxurious liners of the nineteenth century must've been like. She also wondered if some of the ships had dropped off contraband (gold bullion was a front-runner) that had never been found. Pirates, she knew, had sailed the Hudson River, not far from here. She wasn't surprised that she found no chests of gold. The only salvage was empty cardboard boxes, lumber and big pieces of rusty machinery.
After she'd decided there was no plunder Rune would come occasionally to picnic with friends on the roof and watch the giants in the clouds play above the city until they disappeared over Brooklyn and Queens. Sometimes she'd come just to be by herself and feed the gulls.
In the portion of the pier farthest into the water there were warrens of rooms. These had been offices and the off-loading docks and were boarded up now. Whatever light snuck in did so through the grace of the carpenters' sloppy nailing. This portion of the pier contained the rickety staircase that led up to the roof.
And this portion of the pier was what she now slipped into. Rune eased through the back of the pier and started toward the stairs slowly. At the foot of the stairwell the floor of the pier had given way; a ragged hole three feet across led down into darkness. Water lapped. The smell was sharp and foul. Rune stared through the gloom at the hole and edged slowly past it.
She listened carefully on her way up but there was no sound other than distant traffic and the water on the pilings and the wind that meant the storm would hit pretty soon. Rune paused at the top landing. She pulled the white tear gas canister from her pocket and pushed the door open.
The roof was empty.
She stepped outside, then walked carefully along the rotting tar paper and gravel, testing each square in front of her. At the edge, she walked back toward the front of the building to the spot where she thought she'd seen the guy.
Rune stopped and looked down at her feet.
Okay, so it's not my imagination. She was looking at footprints in the tar. They were large--a man's shoe size. And were smooth, like conservative business shoes, not sneakers or running shoes. But aside from that, nothing. No cigarette ash, no discarded bottles. No cryptic messages.
As she stood there a sprinkling of rain began and she hurried back to the stairs. She started down slowly, reaching out with her foot to find the flooring in the dimness.
A noise.
She paused on the second-floor landing. Stepped through an open doorway into the dark, abandoned office. Her hand gripped the tear gas canister firmly. Her pupils, contracted from the brightness, couldn't take in enough light to see anything.
But she could hear. Rune froze.
He's here!