But instead of stretching out, she pulled off her Wicked Witch socks and aimed the remote control at the VCR, then watched the movie one more time until the scripty words The End splashed up on the screen.

A karate flick was on the monitor.

Oriental men in black silk trousers sailed through the air, fists hissing like jet planes. Every time somebody got hit, it sounded like a cracking board.

One of the Chinese actors stepped toward a couple of rivals and spoke in a southern drawl. "Okay, you two, back outa here real slow and you won't get hurt."

Rune leaned back on the stool in front of the register at Washington Square Video. Squinted at the monitor. "Hey, you hear that? That is completely wild! He sounds just like John Wayne."

Tony held his blue deli coffee cup and cigarette in one hand and flipped through the Post with the other. He looked up at the screen critically. "And he's going to beat the shit out of those guys in ten seconds flat."

It took closer to sixty and while he was doing it Rune mused, "You think that's easy? Dubbing, I mean. You think I could get a job doing that?"

Tony asked, "Don't tease me, Rune. You quitting?… Or you mean when you get fired?"

Rune spun her bracelets. "They don't have to memorize their lines, do they? They just sit in a studio and read the script. That'd be so cool-it'd be like being an actress without having to get up in front of people and memorize things."

Frankie Greek was combing out his shaggy hair with a pick. He rubbed the mustache he'd started a month ago; it looked like a faint smudge of dirt. He stared at the TV screen. "Shit, look at that! He kicked four guys at once." He turned to Rune. "You know, I just found this out. A lot of music in movies, they do it afterward. They add it on."

"What, you thought they had a band on set?" Rune shut off the VCR. Tony looked at the TV. "Hey, what're you doing?"

"It stinks," she said.

"It doesn't stink. It's great."

"The acting's ridiculous, the costumes are silly, there's no story…"

Frankie Greek said, "That's what makes it so, like, you know…" The end of his sentence got away from him, as they often did. He prowled through the racks to find another film.

Rune looked over the store: the stained gray industrial carpet, the black strings-left over from promotional cards-hanging down from the air-conditioning, the faded red-and-green holiday tinsel that was stuck to the walls with yellowing glue. "I was at a video store on the Upper East Side and it was a lot classier than here."

Tony looked around. "What do you want? We're like the subway. We serve a valuable function. Nobody gives a shit we're classy, not classy."

Rune checked out two movies to a young man, one of the Daytime People, she called them. They'd rent movies during the day; they worked at night-actors, waiters, bartenders, writers. At first she'd envied them their alternative lifestyles but after she got to thinking about it- how they were always bleary-eyed or hung over and seemed dazed, smelled like they hadn't brushed their teeth-she decided aimlessness like that depressed her. People would be better off going on quests, she concluded.

She returned to her previous topic and said to Tony, "That place uptown? The video store? They had all these foreign films and ballets and plays. I'd never heard of most of them. I mean, it's like you go in there ask for Predator Cop, this alarm goes off and they throw you out."

Tony didn't look up from Dear Abby. "Got news, babe: Predator Cop makes us money. Master-fucking-piece Theatre doesn't."

"Wait, is that a real movie?" Frankie said. "Master… What?"

"Jesus Christ," Tony muttered.

Rune said, "I just think we could doll the place up some. Get new carpet. Oh, maybe we could have a wine-and-cheese night."

Frankie Greek said, "Hey, I could get the band to come down. We could play. Some Friday night. And, like, how's this? You could put a camera on us, put some monitors in the front window. So people, the ones out-side'd notice us and they'd come in. Cool. How's that?"

"It sucks, that's how it is."

"Just an idea." Frankie Greek slipped a new cassette into the VCR.

"Another one?" Rune said, watching the credits.

"No, no. This is different," Frankie said. He showed Tony the cover.

"Now you're talking." Tony folded up the newspaper and concentrated on the screen. Patient as a priest with a novitiate, he said, "Rune, you know who that is? It's Bruce Lee. We're talking classic.

In a hundred years people'll still be watching this."

"I'm going to lunch," she said.

"You don't know what you're missing."

"Bye."

"Be back in twenty."

"Okay," she called. Adding, once she was outside, "I'll try."

Richard's idea about the film school was a good one. But she didn't actually need to go to the film department itself.

She stopped at the Eighth Street Deli, which did a big business selling overpriced sandwiches to rich NYU students and professors.

She paused on her way inside, looked around. This was the deli where that guy with the curly hair-the one she sorta recognized/sorta didn't-had ducked into yesterday. She wondered again if he'd been checking her out.

Thinking, You've got yourself more secret admirers? First Richard, now him. Never rains but…

Get real, she reminded herself, and walked up to the counterman, who said, "Next… oh, hi."

"Hey there, Rickie," Rune said.

He was working his way through school. He was an NYU junior, a film major, and he could have been Robert Redford's younger brother. When Rune first started working at WSV, she'd spent a ton of money and many hours here, talking to Rickie about films-and hoping he'd ask her out. They'd remained good friends even after Rickie introduced her to his live-in boyfriend.

She lifted the cello-wrapped apple pie for him to see, opened it, began eating. He handed her usual-coffee with milk, no sugar. They talked about movies for five minutes, while he made tall sandwiches out of roast beef and turkey and tongue. Rickie knew a lot of heavy-duty stuff about movies and even though he always said "film" or "cinema," never "movies," he didn't get obnoxious about it. She finished the pie and he refilled her coffee.

"Rickie," Rune asked, "you know anything about a film called Manhattan Is My Beat?"

"Never heard of it."

"Came out in the late forties."

He shook his head. Then she asked, "Is there like an old film museum at your school?"

"We've got a library. Not a museum. The public library's got that arts branch up at Lincoln Center. MOMA's probably got an archive but I don't think they let just anybody in."

"Thanks, love," she said.

"Hey, I don't make the rules. Start working on a grant proposal or get a letter from your grad school adviser and they'll let you in. But that's pretty heady stuff. Experimental films. Indies. What do you need to know?"

"I need to find the screenwriter."

"What studio made it?"

"Metropolitan."

He nodded. "Good old Metro. Why don't you just call 'em up and ask?"

"They're still around?"

"Oh, they're like everybody else nowadays, owned by some big entertainment conglomerate. But, yeah, they're still around."

"And somebody there'd know where the writer is now?"

"Be your best bet. Screen Writers Guild probably won't give out any information about members. Hell, I were you, I wouldn't even call; I'd just go pay 'em a visit."

Rune paid. He charged her a nickel for the pie. She winked her thanks. Then said, "Can't afford to fly out to L.A."

"Take a subway, it's cheaper."

"You need a hell of a lot of transfers," Rune said.