Death of a Blue Movie Star (Rune 2)

imate before this meeting."

"Sorry. I'll bring it in."

He sighed. "All right, let's go meet everybody. If they ask we'll tell 'em we were 'olding on to the estimate till this meeting. It was intentional."

"Larry, you shouldn't do advertising. It--"

"Oh, one of your boyfriends called."

"Yeah, who?"

"'ealy, something like that. Wants you to call."

"Sam called? Great. I'll just be--"

"Later."

"But--"

He held the door open and smiled threateningly. "After you, luv."

Rune heard the name but forgot it immediately.

Larry was droning on, looking impressed as he recited, "... the second biggest wallet and billfold manufacturer in the United States."

Rune said, "How interesting."

The man with the company and the unmemorable name--Rune called him Mr. Wallet--was about fifty, round and sharp-eyed. He wore a seersucker suit and sweated a lot. He stood with his arms crossed, hovering beside a doughy woman in her late twenties, who also crossed her arms, looking with flitting eyes at the lights and cameras and dollies. She worked for the company too and was his daughter. She was also, Rune found out, going to act in the commercial.

Larry pretended to miss Rune's eyes as they made a circuit of the ceiling at this news.

Another young woman, horsey, with a sensible pageboy haircut and an abrasive voice, said to Rune, "I'm Mary Jane Collins. I'm House O' Leather's advertising director. I'll be supervising the shoot."

"Rune."

Mary Jane extended her bony hand, the costume jewelry bracelets jingling. Rune gripped it briefly.

Daughter said, "I'm a little nervous. I've done voice-overs but I've never been on camera before."

Mr. Wallet: "You'll do fine, baby. Just forget that--" He looked at Mary Jane. "How many people are going to see her?"

"The media buy should put us at about fifteen million viewers."

He continued, "Fifteen million people are going to be watching your every mood ... oops, I mean move." He laughed.

"Daddy." She smiled with a twisted mouth.

Mary Jane read some papers. To Larry she said, "The budgets. I haven't seen the revised budgets."

Larry looked at Rune, who said, "They're almost ready."

He mouthed, Almost?

Mary Jane's dark hair swiveled as she looked down at Rune. "Almost?"

"A problem with the typewriter."

"Oh." Mary Jane laughed with surprise. "Sure, I understand. It's just that ... Well, I would've thought you'd have them for us before this. I mean, this is the logical time to review them. Even today is a little tardy, in terms of timing."