Death of a Blue Movie Star (11 page)

CHAPTER SEVEN

The problem was that his voice kept trailing into silence as he answered her questions.

As if everything he said brought to mind something else he had to consider.

“Professor?” Rune prompted.

“Right, sure.” And he’d continue on for a few minutes. Then the words would meander once again.

His office was filled with what must have been two thousand books. The window overlooked a patch of quadrangle grass and the low sprawl of Harlem beyond that. Students strolled by slowly. They all seemed dreamy-eyed and intense. Professor V.C.V. Miller sat back in his creaky wooden chair.

The camera didn’t bother him in the least. “I’ve been on TV before,” he told her when she’d called. “I was interviewed for
Sixty Minutes
once.” His subject was comparative religion and he’d written a treatise on the subject of
cults. When Rune had told him she was doing a documentary on the recent bombings he’d said, “I’d be happy to talk to you. I’ve been told my work is definitive.” Making it sound like
she
should be happy to speak to
him
.

Miller was in his sixties, hair white and wispy, and he always kept his body three-quarters to the camera, though his eyes locked right onto the lens and wouldn’t let go—until his voice grew softer and softer and he looked out the window to contemplate some elusive thought. He wore an ancient brown suit flecked with the dandruff of cigarette ash. His teeth were as yellow as little ivory Buddhas and so were his index finger and thumb, where he held his cigarette, even though he didn’t inhale it while the camera was running.

Rune found the monologue had wandered into Haiti and she was learning a number of things about voodoo and West African Dahomean religion.

“Do you know about zombies?”

“Sure, I’ve seen the movies,” Rune said. “Somebody goes to an island in the Caribbean and gets bit by this walking-dead gross thing, yuck, with worms crawling around, then he comes back and bites all his friends and—”

“I’m talking about real zombies.”

“Real zombies.” Her finger released the trigger of the camera.

“There is a such a thing, you know. In Haitian culture, the walking dead are more than just a myth. It’s been found that
houngans
or
mambos
—the priests and priestesses—would appear to induce death by administering cardiopulmonary depressants. The victims seemed to die. In fact, they were in suspended animation.”

(“Rune,” Larry’d told her, “the interviewer is always in control. Remember that.”) She said, “Let’s get back to the Sword of Jesus.”

“Sure, sure, sure. The people that’re responsible for these pornography bombings.”

Rune said, “What do you know about them?”

“Nary a thing, miss.”

“You don’t?” Her eyes strayed to the bookshelves. What was this “definitive” stuff.

“No. Never heard of them.”

“But you said you knew most of the cults.”

“And I do. But that doesn’t necessarily mean they don’t exist. There are thousands of cult religions in this country. The Sword of Jesus could be one that has a hundred members who read from the Bible and talk fire and brimstone—of course, all the while writing off their tithes on their income taxes.”

He got an ash into the round ceramic ashtray on his desk before it fell to the floor.

“Say they did exist. You have any thoughts on them?”

“Well, I guess …” The volume went way down. Eyes out the window again.

“Professor?”

“Sorry. It’s surprising.”

“What is?”

“The killings. The violence.”

“Why’s that?”

“You see, in America, we can’t escape the heritage of religious tolerance. We’re so damn proud of it. Oh, we’ll lynch a man because he’s black, persecute him because he’s a Communist, despise him because he’s poor or because he’s Irish or Italian. But his religion? No. That is not a prejudice that flies in America, the way it would in Europe. And you know why? Nobody really cares about religions here.”

“But what about Jim Jones? He was American.”

“People may kill to
protect
their religion. And these Sword of Jesus people, if there is such a thing, unquestionably come from conservative, military backgrounds
and a love of firearms and hunting. They’d kill abortionists. But, see, that’s to save lives. Killing purely to further a system of morality … Well, I could see some Islamic sects, some primitive religions doing that. But not in America, not a Christian group. Remember, Christians were the folks that brought you the Crusades, and the reviews were not good at all. We’ve learned our lesson.”

“Would you have any idea where I could find out if they’re real?”

“You’re talking to the best source, young lady, and I’m afraid I can’t help very much. Is this going to be network?”

She said, “Maybe even in the movie theaters.”

A caterpillar of ash fell onto his shiny pants and he brushed it away to join the other fractured, gray bodies at his feet. “I have tenure, you know, but still, every bit helps. Now, if you still have some tape left would you like to hear about the Sioux Sun Dance ceremony?”

In his most cheerful Down Under lilt, Larry was saying, “What it is, we’re gonna give you a raise.”

Rune was unplugging the tungsten lights. They’d just finished interviewing people for a documentary on day-care centers. Rune was exhausted. She’d been up until three that morning poring over books about cults—and finding nothing about the Sword of Jesus—and rewatching Professor Miller’s less-than-helpful tape. Now she paused and stifled a yawn. Looked at her boss.

This
was
Larry, wasn’t it?

Occasionally, when she had a hangover or was tired or it was early in the morning, she had trouble telling them apart. Bob, she had to remember, was a little smaller, with a trimmer beard and a tendency toward beiges and browns, while Larry wouldn’t be found south of Dutchess County in anything but black.

“A raise?”

He said, “We figure it’s time you took on a few more things.”

Her stomach gave an excited lurch. “A promotion? I get to be a cameraman?”

“Something like that.”

“How
much
like that?”

“We were thinking: an administrator.”

Rune began coiling the electric wires into loops. After a moment she said, “I worked for an administrator once. She wore her hair in a little bun and had glasses on a metal chain and her blouses had little embroidered dogs on them. I got fired after about three hours. Is that the sort of administrator you have in mind?”

“Serious work is what I’m saying, luv.”

“You’re firing Cathy and you want me to be a secretary. Oh, this is, like, too gross for words, Larry.”

“Rune …”

“Forget it.”

His face was a massive grin and he would have been blushing if he knew how. “Cathy’s leaving, right. That part is true.”

“Larry, I want to make films. I can’t type, I can’t file. I don’t
want
to be an administrator.”

“Thirty bucks more a week.”

“How much are you saving by firing Cathy?”

“I didn’t bleedin’ fire her. She’s going on to a better opportunity.”

“Unemployment?”

“Ha. Tell you what, we’ll give you forty more a week and all you ‘ave to do is ’elp out a little in the office. When you feel like it. Let the files stack up, you want.”

“Larry …”

“Look, we just won the bid for this big advertising job. That company we were going after. House O’ Leather. You
’ave to ’elp us out. You’ll be first production assistant. We’ll let you shoot some footage.”

“Advertising? You shouldn’t do that crap, Larry. What about your documentaries? They’re honest.”

“Honesty ’as its place, luv, but what it is, this agency’s paying us a two ’undred thousand fee plus fifteen percent markup on production. Please … Just ’elp us out for a bit.”

She waited a moment while she muscled up some coyness. “Larry,” she said. “You know I’m working on this documentary. About the bombing—but not about the bombing.”

“Yeah, right.” His mouth curled a portion of a millimeter.

“Maybe, when it’s finished, you could talk to some of the programming people you know. Put in a good word for me.”

“Rune, you think you’re gonna send a tape to PBS and they’re gonna bleedin’ show it? Just like that?”

“Pretty much.”

“Lemme see it first. Maybe, you got some good footage, we could go in and work with it.”

“Not it,
me
. Work with
me
.”

“Sure,
you’s
what I meant to say.”

“You can introduce me to some distributors?”

“Yeah. Might ’appen.”

“All right, fair enough. You want an administrator, I’ll do it.”

Larry hugged her. “’ey, way to go, luv.”

Rune finished coiling the wires. She made sure the coils were even but not too tight. That was one thing they’d taught her at L&R, and she appreciated it—how to take care of your equipment.

Larry asked, “’ey, what kinda hook d’you come up with for that film on the bombing? A bio of that girl got killed?”

“That’s what it
was
going to be about, but not anymore.”

“What’s it’s about now?”

“It’s going to be about finding a murderer.”

Rune sat on Nicole D’Orleans’s couch, sinking so far into the luxurious leather that her feet were off the ground.

“This is very embryonic, you know. They oughta sell these to therapists. Get right back, you know, to the womb, sitting here.”

Nicole wore a purple minidress with a scooped neck showing six inches of taut cleavage, purple glittery stockings, white high-heel shoes. When she walked she loped forward awkwardly. Her concession to mourning was a huge black bow in her hair. She’d just come back from a memorial service for Shelly, an informal event that the people at Lame Duck had arranged. “I’ve never seen so many people crying at one time. Everybody loved her.”

That brought back the tears but this time she was able to control the sobbing. Rune watched her wander through the living room. Nicole had started—obsessively, it seemed—to pack up Shelly’s belongings. But since the actress had no close family she didn’t know what to do with them. Moving cartons lay half-filled in the bedroom.

Sunlight streamed through the open-weave drapes and fell in bright patterns on the carpet. Rune squinted against it as she waited for Nicole to finish aligning the boxes, folding the lids over. Finally Nicole sighed and sat down.

And that was when Rune said to her: “I think Shelly was murdered.”

Nicole gazed blankly for a minute. “Well, yeah. The Sword of Christ.”

“Sword of Jesus.”

“Whatever.”

“Except that it’s fake,” Rune said. “It doesn’t exist.”

“But they left these notes about angels destroying the earth and everything.”

“It’s a cover-up.”

“But I read it in
Newsweek
. It
has
to be true.”

Rune looked at the centerpiece on the table, hungry and wondering if the apples were too ripe; she hated mushy apples. But if she started to eat one she couldn’t very well put it back. She said, “Nobody’s every heard of them. And I can’t find any reference to the group anywhere. And think about it—you want to kill someone, okay? You make it look like a terrorist thing. It’s a pretty good cover.”