Death of a Blue Movie Star by Jeffery Deaver Page B

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.