Manhattan Is My Beat (Rune 1)

"Walking around," Rune said. "I didn't feel like coming back. I mean, he was dead. I saw him. Right in front of me."

"Whoa. You see the bullet holes and everything?"

"Oh, Jesus Christ. Hang it up, okay?"

"Are they like in the movies?"

She turned away, kept wiping the counter with Windex. Tony and Frankie both smoked. It made the glass filthy.

"Well, you shoulda called. I was worried."

"Worried? Like, I'm sure," she said.

"Just call next time."

Rune had a feel for it now. He was backing down. No trips to unemployment this week. Them's the breaks... She felt like pushing so she pushed. "There won't be a next time. I don't do any more pickups, okay? That's a rule."

"Hey, we're all simpatico here, no? The Washington Square Video family." Tony glanced at Frankie as the skinny young man came out of the back room.

"Think I can fix that monitor," Frankie said.

"Yeah, well, that's not your priority. Locking up's your priority."

The large man slung his dirty red nylon backpack over his shoulder again and disappeared out the front door.

Frankie said, "Like, I heard you talking to Tony."

"And?"

"How come you didn't make up something? About coming in late today? Like say your mother got sick or something?"

Rune said, "Why would I lie to Tony? You only lie to people who have power over you.... So what happened with the Palladium?"

Frankie was crestfallen. "We only got one pass and Eddie, like, won the toss. Man. It was Blondie too."

He glanced at a stack of porn tapes that had been returned and needed to be reshelved. One title seemed to interest him. He put it aside. He said, "That guy who was killed. He was that old guy you liked, right?"

"Yeah."

"I don't remember him too good. Was he cool?"

She leaned on the counter, playing with her bracelets. She looked outside. The city had these weird orange streetlamps. It was close to eleven P.M. but the light made the city look like afternoon during a partial eclipse. "Yeah, he was cool." She dug under the counter and found the bootleg tape she'd made for Kelly. Turned it over in her hands. "Also, he was kind of different."

"Like, what? Weird?"

"Not weird the way you mean."

"What, uhm, way do I mean?"

She didn't answer. A thought was in her mind. "But there was one thing weird about him. Not him personally. He was the nicest old guy you'd ever want to meet. Polite."

"So what was weird about him?"

"Well, he'd only been a member for a month."

"And?"

"He rented the same mo