Come on, Shelly, she thought. You're the key. I need you…

As she approached the ruins of the theater Rune paused, resting her hand on the yellow police tape. The odor was stronger than the day of the bombing. She almost gagged on the air, thick with the smell of wet, scorched upholstery. And something else-a sickening cardboardy scent. It would have to be the scorched bodies, Rune figured, and tried to force the image out of her thoughts.. Across the street was another theater. The neon said:

THE FINEST IN ADULT ENTERTAINMENT. COOL, COMFORTABLE

AND SAFE. Rune assumed that patrons were not much soothed by the illuminated reassurance and that business was slow.

She turned back to the destroyed theater and was startled by motion. Her first thought: Shit, he's back. Whoever was following her through Times Square.

A man's face…

Panic took her. Just as she was about to turn and run she squinted into the shadows and got a better look at her pursuer. He wore jeans and a navy-blue windbreaker that said NYPD in white letters on the chest. It was Cowboy. The guy from the Bomb Squad.

She closed her eyes and exhaled slowly. Tried to steady her shaking hands. He sitting on a folding chair, looking at a white sheet of paper, which he folded and put into his pocket. She saw a thin brown holster on his right hip. Rune lifted the camera and shot a minute or so of tape, opening the aperture wide to get some definition in the gloom.

He looked at the camera. She expected the man to tell her to get lost. But he merely stood and began walking through the ruined theater, kicking at debris, bending down occasionally to examine something, training his long black flashlight on the walls and floor.

The image in the viewfinder of the heavy camera faded. Dusk had come quickly-or perhaps she just hadn't noticed it. She opened the lens wide but it was still very dim and she didn't have any lights with her. She knew the exposure was too dark. She shut the camera off, lowered it from her shoulder.

When she looked again into the building Cowboy was gone.

Where had he disappeared to?

She heard a scuttling of noise near her.

Something heavy fell.

"Hello?"

Nothing.

"Hey?" Rune called again.

There was no answer. She shouted into the ruins of the theater, "Were you following me? Hey, Officer? Somebody was following me. Was it you?"

Another sound, like boots on concrete. Nearby. But she didn't know where exactly.

Then a car engine started. She spun around. Looking for the blue-and-white station wagon, emblazoned withbomb squad. But she didn't see it.

A dark car pulled out of an alley and vanished up Eighth Avenue.

Uneasy once more. No, damn scared, for some reason. But as she looked over the people on Eighth Avenue she saw only harmless passersby. People on their way to the theaters. Everybody lost in their own worlds. Nobody in the coffee shops and bars paid her any mind. A horde of tourists walked past, obviously wondering why the hell their tour guide was leading them through this neighborhood. Another teen, a mean-looking Latino, propositioned her harmlessly and walked on when she ignored him, telling her to have a nice night. Across the street a man in a wide-brimmed hat carrying a Lord amp; Taylor shopping bag was gazing into the window of an adult bookstore.

Nobody in a red jacket, nobody spying on her.

Paranoia, she decided. Just paranoia.

Still, she shut down the camera, put the cassette into her leopard-skin bag and headed for the subway. Deciding that she'd had enough atmosphere for one night.

In the alley across the street from what was left of the Velvet Venus a bum sat beside a Dumpster, drinking from a bottle of Thunderbird. He squinted as a man stepped into the alley.

Hell, he's gonna pee here, the bum thought. Theyalways do that. Have beers with their buddies and can't make it to Penn Station in time so they come into my alley and pee. He wondered how the guy'd feel if the bum walked into his living room to take a leak.

But the man didn't unzip. He paused at the mouth of the alley and peered out over Eighth Avenue, looking for something, frowning.

Wondering what the man was doing here, why he was wearing that wide-brimmed, old-fashioned hat, the bum took another sip of liquor and set the bottle down. It made a clink.

The man whirled around quickly.

"Got a quarter?" the bum asked.

"You scared me. I didn't know anybody was there."

"Got a quarter?"

The man fished in his pocket. "Sure. Are you going to spend it on booze?"

"Probably," the bum said. Sometimes he'd hustle the crowds at the commuter stations by saying, "Help the blind, help the blind… I want to get blind drunk." And people gave him more money because he'd made them laugh.

"Well, I appreciate honesty. Here you go." The man reached down with a coin.

As the bum began to take it he felt his wrist gripped hard by the man's left hand.

"Wait!"

But the man didn't wait. Then there was a slight stinging feeling on the bum's neck. Then another, on the other side. The man let go of his wrists and the bum touched his throat, feeling two flaps of skin dangling loose. Then saw the razor knife in the man's hand, the bloody blade retracting.

The bum tried to shout for help. But the blood was gushing fast from the two wounds and his vision was going black. He tried to stand but fell hard to the cobblestones. The last thing he saw was the man reaching into his Lord amp; Taylor shopping bag, pulling out a red wind-breaker and pulling it on. Then stepping out of the alley quickly as if he were, in fact, late for his commuter train home.

The next morning Rune was lying in bed-well, a bunk-listening to the sounds of the river. There was a knock on her front door.

She pulled on her jeans and a red silk kimono, then walked to the front of the boat. She opened the door and found she was looking at Shelly Lowe's back. The actress was examining the water lapping under her feet as she stood on a small gangway painted egg-yolk yellow. She turned and shook her head. Rune nodded at the familiar reaction.

"It's a houseboat. You live on a houseboat."

Rune said, "I used to make wisecracks about having water in the basement. But the material's limited. There aren't a lot of houseboat jokes."

"You don't get seasick?"

"The Hudson River isn't exactly Cape Horn." Rune stepped back to let Shelly into the narrow entryway. In the distance, along the roof of the pier to the north, a flash of color. Red. It reminded her of something disturbing. She couldn't remember what.

She followed Shelly into the boat.

"Give me a tour."

The style: nautical suburban ranch, mid-fifties. Downstairs were the living room, kitchen and bath. Up a narrow staircase were two small rooms: the pilot house and bedroom. Outside, a railing and deck circled the living quarters.

The smell was of motor oil and rose potpourri.

Inside, Rune showed her a recent acquisition: a half-dozen Lucite paperweights with flecks of colored plastic chips in them. "I'm very into antiques. These are guaranteed 1955. That was a great year, my mother tells me."

Shelly nodded with detached politeness and looked around the rest of the room. There was a lot to put politeness to the test: turquoise walls, a painted vase (the scene: a woman in pedal pushers walking a poodle), Lava lamps, kidney-shaped plastic tables, a lampshade made out of Bon Ami and Ajax cleanser cartons, wrought-iron and black-canvas chairs you sank down into like hammocks, an old Motorola console TV.

Also: an assortment of fairy-tale dolls, stuffed animals and shelves filled with old books.

Shelly pulled a scaly, battered Brothers Grimm off the shelf, flipped through and replaced it.