"You own Lame Duck?"
"A controlling percentage. There are some other people involved."
"The Mafia?" Rune asked.
The smile stayed on Danny Traub's face. He said slowly, "You don't want to say that. Let's just say they're silent partners."
"You think they might have anything to do with the bombing?"
Again the fake smile. "Some calls were made. Some questions were asked. Nobody from… over the river, let's say, had anything to do with it. That information's gold."
She supposed that meant Brooklyn or New Jersey, headquarters of organized crime.
"So, yeah, I'll talk to you. I'll tell you my whole life story. I've been in the business for about eight, nine years. I started as a cameraman, and I did my share of acting too. You wanta see some tapes?"
"That's okay. I-"
"I'll give you one to take home."
A blonde woman-maybe last night's entertainment-appeared, groggy and sniffling. She was dressed in a red silk jumpsuit, unzipped to the navel. Traub raised his fingers as if he were signaling a waiter. The woman hesitated, then walked toward them, combing her long hair-it tumbled to her mid-back-with her fingers. Rune stared at the hair, a platinum-gold color. Neither God nor Nature could take credit for a shade like that.
Traub said to Rune, "So what would you like? Coke? I mean the real thing, of course." He held up a saltshaker. Rune shook her head.
The audience heard: "She's a Puritan. Oh, my God." Traub glanced back at Rune. "Scotch?"
Rune wrinkled her nose. "Tastes like Duz."
"Hey, I'm talking single-malt, aged twenty-one years."
"Old soap isn't any better than new soap."
"Well, just name your poison. Bourbon? Beer?"
Rune stared at the woman's hair. "A martini." It was the first thing that came into her mind.
Traub said, "Two martinis. Chop-chop."
The blonde wrinkled her tiny nose. "I'm not, like, a waitress."
"That's true," Traub said to Rune, who had apparently joined his audience. "She's notlike a waitress at all. Waitresses are smart and efficient and they don't sleep until noon." He turned back to the woman. "What you're like is a lazy slut."
She stiffened. "Hey-"
He barked, "Just get the fucking drinks."
Rune shifted. "That's okay. I don't-"
Traub gave her a cool smile, the creases cut deep into his face. "You're a guest. It's no problem."
The blonde twisted her face in anemic protest and shuffled off to the kitchen. She muttered a few words Rune couldn't hear.
Traub's smile fell. He called, "You say something?"
But the woman was gone.
He turned back to Rune. "You buy them dinner, you buy them presents, you bring them home. They still don't behave."
Rune said coldly, "People just don't read Emily Post anymore."
He missed the dig completely. "You mean like the flier? Wasn't she the one tried to fly around the world? I did a movie about an airplane once. We called itLove Plane. Sort of a takeoff onThe Love Boat -I loved that show, you ever see it? No? We rented a charter 737 for the day. Fucking expensive and a pain in the ass to shoot in. I mean, we're in this hangar in March, everybody's blue. You don't realize how small a plane is until you try to get three, four couples spread out on the seats. I'm talking wide-angle lenses. I mean, almost fish-eyes. Didn't work out too good. It looked like all the guys had dicks about an inch long and three inches wide."
The blonde returned. Rune said to Traub, "My film. Will you help me out? Please. Just a few minutes about Shelly."
He was hesitating. The blonde handed out the drinks and put an unopened jar of olives on the thick glass coffee table. Traub started to grimace. She turned to him and looked like she was going to cry. "I couldn't get it open!"
Traub's face softened. He rolled his eyes. "Hey, hey, honey, come here. Gimme a hug. Come on."
She hesitated and then bent down. He kissed her cheek.
"You got any?" she whined.
"Say please."
"Come on, Danny."
"Please," he prompted.
She said, "Please."
He fished into his pants pocket, then handed her the saltshaker-filled with coke, Rune assumed. She took it, then walked sullenly off.
She hadn't said one word to Rune, who asked Traub, "She's an actress?"
"Uh-huh. She wants to be a model. So does everyone else in this city. She'll make some movies for us. Get married, get divorced, have a breakdown, get married again and it'll take and she'll be out in Jersey in ten years, working for AT &T or Ciba-Geigy."
Rune felt Traub's eyes on her. The feeling reminded her of the time her first boyfriend, age ten, had put a big snail down the back of her blouse. Traub said, "There's something, I dunno, refreshing about you, you know. I see all these women all day long-beautiful blondes and redheads to die for. Stunning, tall…"
Oooo, watch the tall, mister.
"… big tits. But, hey, you're different."
She sighed.
"I mean that sincerely. You want to come down to Atlantic City with me? Meet some wild people?"
"I don't think so."
"One thing I am is talented. In the sack, you know."
"I'm sure."
"Plenty of recreational pharmaceuticals."
"Thanks anyway."
He looked at his watch. "Okay, tell you what, Uncle Danny'll help you out. You want to shoot me, so to speak, go ahead. But let's hurry. I got a busy day."
In ten minutes Rune had the equipment set up. She slipped a new tape into the camera. Traub sat back, popped his knuckles and grinned. He looked completely at ease.
"What do you want me to say?"
"Anything that comes to mind. Tell me about Shelly."
He glanced sideways, then looked into the camera and smiled sadly. "The first thing I have to say, and I mean this sincerely, is that I was wholly devastated by Shelly Lowe's death." The smile faded and his eyes went dull. "When she died, I lost more than my star actress. I lost one of my very dearest friends."
From somewhere, Rune had no idea where, Danny Traub produced what might pass for a tear.
CHAPTER NINE
The gruff man, in his sixties, with abundant white hair and cool eyes, looked down at Rune.
"So you think you can act?" he asked sternly.
Before she could say anything he turned and walked back into his office, leaving the door half-open. It was an old-fashioned office door, with a large window of mottled glass in it. The sign, in gold lettering, read: ARTHUR TUCKER, ACTING AND VOICE INSTRUCTION.
Rune stepped into the doorway, but stopped. She didn't know whether she'd been dismissed or invited in. When Tucker sat down at his desk she continued inside and closed the door behind her.
He wore dark slacks and a white shirt and tie. His dress shoes were well worn. Tucker was slightly built, which made him seem younger. His legs were thin and his face chiseled and handsome. Bushy white eyebrows. And those piercing green eyes… It was hard to hold his gaze. If Tucker were a character actor he would've played a president or king. Or maybe God.
"I don't know whether I can act or not," Rune said, walking up to the desk he sat behind. "That's why I'm here."
The office on Broadway and Forty-seventh was a theater museum. The walls were covered with cheap-framed photos of actors and actresses. Some of them Rune had seen in films or heard of-but nobody was very famous. They seemed to be the sort of actor who plays the male lead's best friend or the old wacko woman who shows up three or four times during a movie for comic relief. Actors who do commercials and dinner theater.
Also on the walls were props, bits of framed fire curtains from famous theaters now gone, Stagebill covers pasted on posterboard. Hundreds of books. Rune recognized some titles; they were the same as Shelly Lowe had on her bookshelf. She saw the name Artaud and she remembered the phrase again: the Theater of Cruelty. It brought a jolt to her stomach.