Manhattan Is My Beat (Rune 1)

But being gay ... this was something to think about. Could she deal with it? It'd be hard to own up to but maybe she'd have to admit it. Some things you can't run from.

Admitting it, she felt relief flood through her. It explained why she was reluctant to sleep with a man right away--she probably didn't really like sex with men. And if Richard turned her on like an electric current it was probably just because of what she'd realized before--that there was something feminine about him. Sure, that made sense.

Telling Mother would be hard.

Maybe she should get a crew cut.

Maybe she should become a nun.

Maybe she should kill herself.

At the corner of Eighth Street, rather than turn toward the subway to get a train to the loft, she turned the other way, to return to the video store.

She knew what she wanted to do.

Get a movie. Maybe It Happened One Night. As long as I'm going to cry anyway, why not get a movie to go along with it? Ice cream, beer, and a movie. Can't lose with that combination.

How about Gone With the Wind?

How about Lesbos Lovers?

Ten minutes later she pushed inside Washington Square Video. Frankie Greek was behind the counter and he was looking totally sheepish.

Well, he damn well ought to. Fucking up when he took that message from Richard ... She was going to give him hell. But, as she looked at him playing nervously with the VCR remote, it seemed there was something else on his mind. He was nervous but it wasn't because of her.

"Hello, Rune."

"What is it, Frankie? Your sister okay?"

"Yes, she's fine," he recited. "She had a baby."

"I know. You told us. What's the matter?"

"How are you tonight? Doing okay, I hope. Doing good." A wanna-be rock musician talking like Mister Rogers? Something was really wrong here. "What's with you?"

"Nothing, Rune. I heard it was kind of cold out there tonight." It was like he was in a bad skit on Saturday Night Live.

"Cold. What the hell are you--"

"Rune?" a man's deep voice asked.

She turned. Oh, it was that U.S. marshal. Dixon, she remembered.

"Hi," he said.

"Hey, Marshal Dixon."

He laughed. "You make it sound like a sheriff in a bad western. Call me Phillip."

She looked at Frankie, paler than Mick Jagger in February. "I saw his badge," Frankie said.

"He arrests people who screw up phone messages," Rune muttered.

"Huh?"

"Never mind."

"How you doing?" Dixon asked, smiling. Then he frowned, looked at her face. "There's a little ..." He pointed at her cheek.