Death of a Blue Movie Star

Healy wasn't sure how the words were going. It seemed familiar terrain, though the tone was different this time. He didn't feel defensive. He wasn't desperate or confused. Maybe it was because he'd been seeing Rune, maybe because he felt that somehow the equilibrium of the house had shifted and it was now his home more than it wastheirs. Every so often they'd fall back into the roles of adversaries. Boy, that was familiar: Hey, that was you, not me… If you'd said anything, I could have… That wasn't my fault… Sure, say it all you want, you know it's not true…

The old arguments… I'd rather deal with a pipe bomb any day…

But neither of them had the urge to go for the throat. And once that harmless sparring was done they were just having a good time. Healy got some beers and they began to reminisce. Cheryl was talking about the time an old friend called up to say they couldn't make it for dinner because his wife just left him but could he come tomorrow, only without the casserole because he didn't know how to make one.

And Healy mentioned the time they came home and found the dog standing in the middle of the dining room table, peeing on the candlestick.

And they both laughed about the night they were staying at Cheryl's parents' house, and remember, on the billiard table in the rec room? "Like I could forget?…"

Then there was silence and it seemed that they had come to the point where a decision was supposed to be made. Healy didn't know what the choices were, though, and he was stalling. He left it to Cheryl but she wasn't much help, either. She sat with her hands together, looking out the window she'd cleaned a thousand times at the yard he'd mowed a hundred.

Healy finally said, "Honey, you know, I was thinking-"

The phone rang.

He wondered if it would be Rune and how to handle it.

It wasn't.

"Sam?" the ops coordinator from the squad asked. "We got a live one."

"Tell me."

"A call from those Sword of Jesus assholes. The device is in a bag on a houseboat in the Hudson-"

"Houseboat? Where?" His heart thudded.

"Around Christopher. Maybe Eleventh."

"That's my friend's," he whispered.

"What? That girl who was in here?"

"Yeah."

"Well, don't panic. We've got a clean frozen zone and the boat's empty. She's not there."

"Where is she?"

"I don't know but we searched the boat."

"What's the device?"

"Different this time. The portable got a look at it before he called us. Looks like it's a bit of C-3 or C-4 embedded with ball bearings. Not much charge. Only a few ounces."

"So, antipersonnel." Ball bearings or coins were added to explosive to cause the most damage to human flesh.

"Right."

"Can the robot get it?"

"Nope. It's on the deck. Too narrow."

Healy pictured Rune's boat. Knew it would have to be a hand entry.

"Hell, get a bomb blanket over it and let it detonate."

"Only one problem. Your girlfriend didn't realize it, I assume, but she's docked right next to a barge that's filled with five thousand cubic yards of propane. That bomb goes and takes out the barge-that'll ignite three square blocks of the West Side."

"Hell, tow it out there."

"I made a call and it'll take two hours to get a tug there and get the barge rigged to move. It's bolted to off-loading pumps on shore. You can't just move the damn thing."

"And how much time do we have till the device goes?"

"Forty-five minutes."

"I'll be right there."

"One thing, Sam. It's weird."

"What's that?"

"The Sword of Jesus… they didn't just call in a threat. They said, 'Get the Bomb Squad over to this houseboat in the Hudson at Christopher.' It's like that was the most important thing, getting somebody from the detail there."

"That's why it's antipersonnel, you think?"

"Yep. I think it's directed at us."

"Noted," Healy said. He hung up. Turned to Cheryl, who'd heard the conversation.

He wondered if she was going to give him one of her exasperated looks. The Here-he-goes-again look. The shield against his stubbornness and selfishness. But, no, Cheryl was standing up, letting her white patent-leather purse fall to the floor, then walking straight to him. She eased her arms around him. "Be careful." He was surprised at how tightly he found he was holding her.

*****

Breathing hard, in the bomb suit.

Walking up the gangplank onto Rune's houseboat. Trying not to think about the last time he was here. About them lying in bed together. About the stuffed toy, Persephone, falling to the floor.

He saw the bag, peeked inside.

Okay. Problems.

It was one of the most sophisticated bombs he'd ever seen. There was an infrared proximity panel so that if a hand got close it would detonate. And it had a cluster shunt-twenty or thirty fine wires running from a shielded power source to the detonator. With a typical two-wire shunt, if you cut them simultaneously, you might be able to disarm. But it was impossible to cut this many shunt wires. The timer was digital, so there was no way to physically gum up the mechanism.

And to top it off, there was a mercury rocker switch in the middle of the shuts.