Death of a Blue Movie Star (Rune 2)

No, she decided, it was actually two noises. One was similar to what she'd heard before: the ominous swishing of the hickory stick as it swung down on the leather bench.

The second was maybe just the sound of air escaping from a pipe or steam or distant traffic.

Or maybe it was what Rune thought it sounded like--the sound of a man's restrained laugh.

CHAPTER TWELVE

The watering can leaked but aside from that, Rune decided, it was a pretty good idea.

She rang the bell at Danny Traub's town house and wasn't surprised to find a stunning brunette in a silk teddy opening the door. She had breasts so high and jutting that Rune could have walked underneath them.

Bimbos from the Amazon ... Lord help us.

Rune walked past her. The woman blinked and stepped aside.

"Sorry we couldn't make it yesterday. Had a load of rhododendraniums to deliver to an office in Midtown, one of Trump's buildings, and the whole crew was busy."

"You mean rhododendrons?"

Rune nodded. "Yeah."

She'd have to be careful. A bimbo with some intelligence.

"Careful," the woman said. "Your can leaks. You don't want to, you know, hurt the wood."

"Got it." Rune started to work, watering Traub's plants and trimming the leaves with a pair of scissors. She carefully stuffed them into her pocket. The green jacket she wore had said MOBIL on it when she'd bought the thing at a secondhand store. But she'd cut the logo off and replaced it with a U.S. Department of Forestry patch.

She'd called Lame Duck and the studio receptionist had reported that Traub would be on the set for a couple of hours and couldn't be disturbed. Her only concern had been running into the woman who'd brought them the martinis the other day.

Well, it was a risk coming here. But what in life isn't?

Traub's only guest, however, appeared to be this brunette basketball player.

The woman didn't seem too suspicious; she was more interested in what Rune was doing. Watching everything she did, which--as far as Rune knew--was to murder every plant she touched. She didn't know zip about gardening.

"Did it take you a long time to learn all that stuff? About plants?" the Amazon asked.

"Not too long."

"Oh," she said and watched Rune cut through the roots of an African violet.

Rune said, "You want to give them some water but not too much. And some light. But--"

"Not too much of that either."

"Right."

The woman nodded and recorded that fact somewhere beneath her shiny, henna-enriched mass of hair.

"Never cut too many leaves off. And always make sure you use the proper type of scissors. That is extremely important. Sharp ones."

A nod; the woman's mental computer disk whirred.

"You make a living doing that?"

Rune said, "You'd be surprised."

"Is it hard to learn?"