Death of a Blue Movie Star

The rest was pretty neat-the artillery shells, the hand grenades, the sticks of dynamite wired to clocks, silver cylinders of detonators, which all turned out to be phony. But the really audacious part was the three Labrador retrievers that nosed their way up to her and rested their big snouts on her knees when she crouched down to pet them. They wheezed as she scratched their heads.

Healy and Rune stood in the Bomb Squad headquarters upstairs at the 6th Precinct on Tenth Street. It wasn't easy to miss the office: In the corridor, over the door, hung a bright red army practice bomb, stenciled withbomb squad in gothic lettering.

In the main room were eight battered desks. The walls were light green, the floor linoleum. One woman, in a dark sweater, sat at a desk, intently reading a technical manual. She was pretty, with long, brunette hair and still eyes. She was the only woman in the unit. The others were men, mostly in their thirties and forties, wearing white shirts and ties. Trim guns rested in hip holsters. They read, talked among themselves, stretched back, spoke quietly on the phone. A few acknowledged Healy with waves or raised eyebrows.

No one looked at Rune.

"We've got the biggest civilian bomb disposal unit in the world. Thirty-two officers. Mostly detectives. A few waiting for the rank."

On the wall was an old wooden board mounted with formal portraits of policemen. Rune caught the words "In memory of…"

The board was the largest display in the room.

She bent down and patted a dog's head.

"EDC," Healy said.

"That's a weird name," Rune said, standing up.

"That what he is. An Explosive Detection Canine."

"The initials again."

"Saves time," Healy said. "You'd run out of breath, you had to say, 'I'm taking the Explosive Detection Canine for a walk.'"

"You could trydog." One rolled onto his back. Rune scratched his stomach. "They sniff out explosives?"

"Labradors've got the best noses in the business. We've used computerized nitrate vapor detectors. But the dogs work faster. They can sniff out plastic, dynamite, TNT, Tovex, Semtex."

"Computers don't pee, though," one cop offered.

"Or lick their balls in public," another one said.

Healy sat down at a tiny desk.

One detective said to him, "How'd you rate, missing the abortion clinic detail?"

"Lucky, I guess." Healy turned to Rune. "You want some coffee?"

"Sure."

Healy walked into the locker room. Three officers sat at a fiberboard table eating Chinese food. He rinsed out a china mug and poured coffee.

Rune stood at the bulletin board, looking at color snapshots of explosions. She pointed to a photo of a red truck that looked like a huge basket. "What's that?"

"The Pike-La Guardia truck. We don't use it much anymore. It was built in the forties. Got its name because it was built when a guy named Pike was C.O. of the Bomb Squad and La Guardia was mayor. See that mesh there? That's cable left over from the Triborough Bridge. They used to put IEDs in there and take them to the disposal grounds. If it went off the mesh stopped the shrapnel. Still a lot of flame escaped, though. Now we use a total-containment vehicle."

Rune said, "A TCV, right?"

Healy nodded.

Rune picked up a thick plastic tube about a foot long filled with a blue gelatin printed with the words DuPont. She squeezed it. Grinned. "This is kinda kinky, Sam."

He glanced at it. "You're holding enough Tovex to turn a pretty good-size boulder into gravel."

She set it down carefully.

"If it were live… That's just for training. So's everything else in here."

"That too?" She pointed to an artillery shell about two and a half feet long.

"Well, it's not live. But we picked that up a year or so ago. What happened was a woman calls 911 and says she got hit by a bullet. So Emergency Services shows up and they go into the apartment. They find her on the floor. They ask, 'Where's the shooter, where's the gun?' She says, There's no gun-just the bullet.' She points to the shell. Then says, 'I opened the closet door and it fell out.' It broke her toe. Her husband collected artillery shells and-"

A voice shouted, "Sam."

He stepped into the main room. A heavy, square-jawed man with trim blond hair was leaning out of the commander's office. He glanced at Rune briefly, then looked at Healy. "Sam, ESU just got a Ten-thirty-three at a porn theater in Times Square. Somebody found a box, looked inside. Saw a timer in there and maybe a wad of something might be plastic. Seventh Avenue, near Forty-ninth. Rubin, you go with him."

No more bombings, he'd said? But before she could comment to him Healy and another cop, a thin man of about forty-five who looked like he belonged more in an insurance office circa 1950 than in the Bomb Squad, were racing to the locker room. They opened their lockers and pulled out battered canvas bags, then ran for the door. Healy snagged his attache case as he disappeared into the corridor.

"Hey…," Rune was saying. Healy didn't even glance back.