Manhattan Is My Beat (Rune 1)

"It doesn't stink. It's great."

"The acting's ridiculous, the costumes are silly, there's no story ..."

Frankie Greek said, "That's what makes it so, like, you know ..." The end of his sentence got away from him, as they often did. He prowled through the racks to find another film.

Rune looked over the store: the stained gray industrial carpet, the black strings--left over from promotional cards--hanging down from the air-conditioning, the faded red-and-green holiday tinsel that was stuck to the walls with yellowing glue. "I was at a video store on the Upper East Side and it was a lot classier than here."

Tony looked around. "What do you want? We're like the subway. We serve a valuable function. Nobody gives a shit we're classy, not classy."

Rune checked out two movies to a young man, one of the Daytime People, she called them. They'd rent movies during the day; they worked at night--actors, waiters, bartenders, writers. At first she'd envied them their alternative lifestyles but after she got to thinking about it-- how they were always bleary-eyed or hung over and seemed dazed, smelled like they hadn't brushed their teeth--she decided aimlessness like that depressed her. People would be better off going on quests, she concluded.

She returned to her previous topic and said to Tony, "That place uptown? The video store? They had all these foreign films and ballets and plays. I'd never heard of most of them. I mean, it's like you go in there ask for Predator Cop, this alarm goes off and they throw you out."

Tony didn't look up from Dear Abby. "Got news, babe: Predator Cop makes us money. Master-fucking-piece Theatre doesn't."

"Wait, is that a real movie?" Frankie said. "Master... What?"

"Jesus Christ," Tony muttered.

Rune said, "I just think we could doll the place up some. Get new carpet. Oh, maybe we could have a wine-and-cheese night."

Frankie Greek said, "Hey, I could get the band to come down. We could play. Some Friday night. And, like, how's this? You could put a camera on us, put some monitors in the front window. So people, the ones outside'd notice us and they'd come in. Cool. How's that?"

"It sucks, that's how it is."

"Just an idea." Frankie Greek slipped a new cassette into the VCR.

"Another one?" Rune said, watching the credits.

"No, no. This is different," Frankie said. He showed Tony the cover.

"Now you're talking." Tony folded up the newspaper and concentrated on the screen. Patient as a priest with a novitiate, he said, "Rune, you know who that is? It's Bruce Lee. We're talking classic. In a hundred years people'll still be watching this."

"I'm going to lunch," she said.

"You don't know what you're missing."

"Bye."

"Be back in twenty."

"Okay," she called. Adding, once she was outside, "I'll try."

Richard's idea about the film school was a good one. But she didn't actually need to go to the film department itself.

She stopped at the Eighth Street Deli, which did a big business selling overpriced sandwiches to rich NYU students and professors.

She paused on her way inside, looked around. This was the deli where that guy with the curly hair--the one she sorta recognized/sorta didn't--had ducked into yesterday. She wondered again if he'd been checking her out.

Thinking, You've got yourself more secret admirers? First Richard, now him. Never rains but ...

Get real, she reminded herself, and walked up to the counterman, who said, "Next ... oh, hi."

"Hey there, Rickie," Rune said.

He was working his way through school. He was an NYU junior, a film major, and he could have been Robert Redford's younger brother. When Ru

ne first started working at WSV, she'd spent a ton of money and many hours here, talking to Rickie about films--and hoping he'd ask her out. They'd remained good friends even after Rickie introduced her to his live-in boyfriend.