Death of a Blue Movie Star

He slapped her hard and she spiraled down to the ground. She couldn't get her hands up for protection. Her head hit first. She lay for a moment, stunned, the pain radiating from her eyes back into her skull. She felt a punch of nausea.

"Warren-"

"Gabriel," Hathaway said, as cheerfully as if he'd just picked her up at a church social. He stepped out of the bedroom to collect the bag and the explosive. As he walked back, sipping his iced tea, he said to her, "You can call me Gabriel."

Rune whispered, "The Sword of Jesus… There really is a Sword of Jesus…"

"And we're very upset that people think we were just the creation of some psychotic murderer. We have you to thank for that. You and that film of yours."

"What do you want? What are you going to do to me?"

Hathaway began taking tools and wire and small boxes out of his canvas bag. "You have to understand I don't feel we can eliminate sin and evil. There've always been whores, there's always been sin. But there have also been those who fight against it, even if they have to sacrifice their own life." He looked at her carefully and when he spoke, the reasonable tone in his voice was somehow as terrifying as Tommy Savorne's craziness had been. "We're like advertising in a way. We get the message across. What people do with that message is up to them."

Rune said, "You weren't a witness at all. The first bomb-you planted it."

"As I was leaving the theater, a man stopped me. He called me 'brother.' He had a kind face. I thought I could help him, I could get him to repent and accept Jesus. Even if we both died in the blast he'd be entering the Kingdom of God. That would have been such a marvelous thing.

Unfortunately, what he was looking for wasn't salvation at all but twenty dollars for a blow job. As I turned to leave the bomb went off. It removed most of his head but what was left of his body saved my life. That's ironic, I suppose. God works in strange and wonderful ways."

And the injuries on her face-part of that was the tear gas.

Rune realized too that he'd lied about the man in the red windbreaker being older-to shift suspicion away from himself. And he'd worn the hat to cover up his bald head.

Hathaway continued. "I saw you outside the theater. Saw you with the camera. I thought you were one of those sinners. 1 was going to kill you. But then I thought maybe we could use you." He nodded around the room. "And I guess I was right."

"What are you going to do with me?"

"Make you a living testament to the will of God."

"Why me? I don't make those movies."

"You were doing this film about a pornographic actress. You're idealizing her-"

"No I'm not. I'm showing what the business did to her."

"She got exactly what she deserved. You should make your movies about missionaries, about the glory of God-"

"I'll show you my film! There's nothing glamorous about it."

Hathaway looked at her and smiled. "Rune, we all have to make sacrifices. You ought to be proud of what's going to happen to you. I think the press coverage should last a year. You're going to be famous."

He sat down on the small bed, spreading out the components of the bomb, examining each one carefully.

She eased forward, her feet sliding under the bed slightly.

Hathaway said, "Don't think about jumping at me." The box cutter she remembered from the first attack on the pier was in his hand. "I can hurt you in very painful ways. It's why I wear ared windbreaker-I sometimes have to hurt people. They sometimes bleed."

Rune sat back on the bed.

Hathaway spoke in a soothing tone as he pressed a white cylinder into the middle of the wad of explosive. "This is about three ounces of C-3." He looked up. "I wouldn't go into this detail normally but since you're going to be my partner in this project I thought you'd like to know a little about what to expect. It's not fair to let you think you can just pull the wires out and wait for help." He held up a black plastic box, which he pressed the explosive into. "And what we have here is very clever. A rocker box. It has a liquid mercury switch. If you pick it up and try to pull the detonator out the switch sets off the explosive. The battery's inside, so you can't cut the power." He ran wires to another small black box with a clock on it. "The timer. It's set and armed electronically. There's a shunt. If you disconnect the wire or cut it the detonator senses a drop in voltage and sets off the bomb." He smiled. "God gave men such miraculous brains, didn't he?"

"Please, I'll do whatever you want. Do you want me to make a movie about God? I can do that."

Hathaway looked at her for a moment. "You know, Rune, there are clergy that will accept repentance at any time, whether the sinner's acting of his own will or whether he's, say, being tortured." He shook his head. "But I'm funny. I need a little more sincerity than this situation warrants. So in answer to your question: No, I don't want a little whore like you to make a movie about God."