Death of a Blue Movie Star (Rune 2)

"You need some talent but if you work hard ..."

"I'm an actress," Amazon said, then did a line of cocaine and sat down in front of the TV to watch a soap opera.

Ten minutes later Rune had defoliated half of Traub's plants and had worked her way upstairs into his office.

It was empty. She looked up and down the corridor and saw nobody. She stepped inside and swung the door shut. There was no file cabinet inside but Traub did have a big desk and it wasn't locked.

Inside she found bills, catalogs from glitzy gadget companies, a dildo missing its batteries, dozens of German S & M photo magazines, roach clips and parts of water pipes, matchbooks, pens, casino chips. Nothing that could help her--

"Want another martini?" the voice asked, coldly.

Rune froze, then turned slowly. The blonde, the same woman who had served her and Traub the other day--the one she'd been hoping she didn't run into--stood in the doorway.

Well, it was a risk coming here....

"I--"

The woman walked sullenly past her and pulled open another drawer. It held maybe a thousand in crumpled tens and twenties. "Help yourself." She turned and walked out of the office.

Rune closed the drawer. "Wait, can I talk to you?"

The blonde kept walking. When Rune caught up to her in the corridor she said, "I'm Crystal. You're ...?"

"Rune."

"You want to get into films or just robbing my boyfriend?"

"Is he really your boyfriend?"

She didn't answer.

Crystal led the way to the roof. Outside, she took off her bathrobe and bikini top and stretched out on a lawn recliner covered with thick pink towels. She rubbed aloe vera sunscreen on her chest and arms and legs and lay back, closing her eyes.

Rune looked around. "Nifty place."

Crystal shrugged, wondering, it seemed, what was nifty about a gray sundeck. She said, "He's not." She pulled on sunglasses with dark blue lenses. Looked at Rune. "My boyfriend, I mean." She didn't speak for a moment, then she said, "Every once in a while you see these big cruise ships come down the river. I wonder where they're going sometimes. Have you ever been on a cruise?"

Rune said, "I took this neat cruise around the city once. The Circle Line. I pretended I was a Viking."

"A Viking. With the helmets?"

"Right."

"I mean a real cruise."

"No."

"I never have either. I'd like to go sometime."

Rune said, "You have a wonderful figure."

"Thank you," she said as if no one had ever told her. "You want some blow?"

"No thanks."

Crystal's head lolled toward the sun. Her arms draped over the edges of the recliner. Even her breathing was lethargic. "I'd like to live in the Caribbean, I think. I was in St. Bart's once. And I've been to Club Med a couple times, Parad

ise Island. I met a guy, only he was married and was separated and after we got back to New York he went back to his wife. Funny, he had a kid and he didn't even tell me about it. I saw him on the street. You don't want to get into movies."