Death of a Blue Movie Star
By Deaver, Jeffery

No way was it construction-site dynamite--she knew  That from living for several years in urban-renewing Manhattan. The  noise was way loud--a huge, painful bang like a falling boiler. The turbulent  black smoke and distant screams left no doubt.

Then sirens, shouts, running crowds. She looked but couldn't  see much from where she stood.

Rune started toward it but then stopped, glanced at a watch--of the three on her wrist, it was the only one that worked.  She was already late getting back to the studio--was due a half hour ago. Thinking: Hell, if I'm going to get  yelled at anyway why not come back with a good story to take the  sting out of it.

Yes, no?

Go for it. She walked south to see the carnage.

The blast itself wasn't all that big. It didn't crater the  floor and the only windows it took out were the theater's and the  plate glass in the bar one address up. No, it was the fire was the nasty part. Wads of flaming upholstery had apparently  arced like those tracer bullets in war movies and had ignited  wallpaper and carpeting and patrons' hair and all the recesses of the  theater the owner'd probably been meaning to get up to code for ten  years but just hadn't. By the time Rune got there the flames had done  their job and the Velvet Venus Theater  (XXX Only, The Best Projection In Town) was no more.

Eighth Avenue was in chaos, closed off completely between  Forty-second and Forty-sixth Streets. Diminutive Rune, thin and just  over five feet, easily worked her way to the front of the spectators.  The homeless people and hookers and three-card monte players and kids  were having a great time watching the slick choreography of the men  and women from the dozen or so fire trucks on the scene. When the roof of the  theater went and sparks cascaded over the street the crowd exhaled approval as  if they were watching the Macy's fireworks over the East River.

The NYFD crews were good and after twenty minutes the fires were  "knocked down," as she heard one fireman say, and the dramatic stuff was  over. The theater, a bar, a deli and peep show had been destroyed.

Then the crowd's murmuring disappeared and everyone watched in solemn  quiet when the medics brought out the bodies. Or what was left of them.

Rune felt her heart slamming as the thick green bags were wheeled or  carried past. Even the Emergency Medical Service guys, who she guessed were  pretty used to this sort of thing, looked edgy and green at the gills. Their

lips were squeezed tight and their eyes were fixed ahead of them.

She eased closer to where one of the medics was talking to a fireman. And  though the young man tried to sound cool, slinging out the words with a grin, his voice was shaky. "Four dead, but two are mystery stiffs--not even enough  left for a dental."

She swallowed; nausea and an urge to cry were balanced within her for a  moment.

The queasiness returned when she realized something else: Three