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  "Every year there're dozens of people wrongly convicted in New York. Sometimes they get out, sometimes they don't. It's a scary thing to think it could happen."

  "I think it'll make a good story."

  Swenson started down the hall back toward the exit. Rune followed him. He said, "They'll give you the phone number of the warden in Harrison at the main desk." He escorted her through the security gate and to the door. She said, "I'm glad I ran into you."

  "Good luck," he said. "I'll look forward to that show."

  chapter 5

  WHEN RUNE CLIMBED UP THE GANGWAY ONTO HER HOUSE boat, which was rocking gently in the Hudson River off the west side of Greenwich Village, she heard crying inside. A child's crying.

  Her hand hesitated at the deadbolt then she unlocked the door and walked inside.

  "Claire," Rune said uncertainly. Then, because she couldn't think of anything else to say, she added, "You're still here."

  In the middle of the living room the young woman was on her knees, comforting three-year-old Courtney. Claire nodded at Rune and gave her a sullen smile, then turned back to the little girl.

  "It's okay, honey."

  "What happened?"

  "She just fell. She's okay."

  Claire was a few years older than Rune. They looked a lot alike, except that Claire was into a beatnik phase, while Rune shunned the antique look for New Wave. Claire dyed her hair black and pulled it straight back in a severe ponytail. She often wore pedal pushers and black-and-white-striped pullovers. Her face was deathly white and on her lips was the loudest crimson lipstick Max Factor dared sell. The only advantage in her rooming here-- since she'd stopped paying rent--was that her fashion statement added to the houseboat's decor, which was 1950s suburban.

  After Claire had lost her job at Celestial Crystals on Broadway and been evicted from her fifth-floor East Village walk-up she'd begged Rune to take her and her daughter in. Claire had said, "Come on. Just a day or two. It'll be fun. Like a pajama party."

  That had been six weeks ago--and what had followed had been like no pajama party Rune had ever been to.

  That morning, before Rune went to work, Claire had told her that she'd gotten a new job and promised that she and Courtney would be gone by dinnertime.

  Now, Claire stood up and shook her head in disgust. "What it is, that guy, he backed out. Some effing people!"

  Rune didn't exactly remember who "that guy" was or what he was backing out of. But Rune was now even madder at him than Claire was. She's gotta go.... Talk now or later? Now, she decided. But her courage broke. Shit. She dropped her leopard-skin bag on the purple shag kidney-shaped scrap of carpet that she'd found on the street then bent down and kissed the three-year-old's forehead.

  Courtney stopped crying. "Rune," she said. "Story. Read me a story?" She was dressed in blue jeans and a dirty yellow pullover.

  "Later, honey, it's time for dinner," Rune said, crouching down and smoothing the girl's curly dark hair. "This hair is like totally audacious." She stood up and walked into the galley of the houseboat. As she poured Grape-Nuts into a large bowl and added chocolate chips and cashews she shouted to Claire, "Her hair, I was saying. What it is is all that garbage we use. We dye it and we mousse it and we perm it. I'll bet if you never touch your hair it'd be as nice as that forever."

  Claire said sourly, "Well, sure, but that would like be so boring."

  Rune came back into the living room, eating the cereal and drinking a Molson Golden. "You eaten?"

  "We ate Chinese."

  "Courtney too? Is that good for her?"

  Claire said, "Are you kidding? There are a billion people in China and whatta you think they grew up on?"

  "I don't know--"

  "You're eating that crap?" Claire glanced at the cereal.

  "I'm not a three-year-old. Don't you watch commercials? She's supposed to be eating that gross stuff that comes in jars. You know, like pureed carrots and spinach."

  "Rune," Claire said, "she's not an infant. She's got teeth."

  "I like spinch," Courtney said.

  Rune said, "I was you, I'd get that book. Spock."

  "The guy on the old Star Trek?" Claire asked.

  "Different Spock."

  Claire said, "The Vulcan nerve pinch. That's what I'd like to learn. Put 'em right to sleep."

  "What's a Vulcan?" Courtney asked. Then she disappeared into the bedroom without waiting for an answer. She returned a few minutes later, pulling a stuffed dragon by the tail.

  Rune made the dragon dance, then hugged Courtney. She asked the little girl, "What's her name? Do you remember?"

  "Persephy."

  "Very good. Persephone. And who was Persephone?"

  Courtney held up the dragon.

  "No, I mean in real life?"

  Claire said, "Real life?"

  "She was a goddess," Courtney answered. "She was Zeus's little girl."

  Claire said, "I don't think it's a good idea you're teaching her that stuff like it's true."

  "What isn't true about it?"

  "About the gods and goddesses and fairies and all that shit."

  "Shit," said Courtney.

  Rune said to Claire, "You're saying it's not true?"

  "You believe in Roman goddesses?"

  "Persephone was Greek. I'm not saying I believe and I'm not saying I don't."

  "I want her to grow up to be a highly grounded person," Claire said.

  "Oh, get real," Rune said. "Your goal in life is to get to every club in downtown Manhattan and never pay for a drink yourself. That's reality?"

  "I want her to be an adult."

  Rune whispered, "She's three years old. She'll grow up fast enough."

  Claire cocked an eyebrow at Rune. "Some people I know have resisted adulthood totally successfully." She smiled sweetly. "Favor, please?"

  "I'm broke."

  "Naw, what it is is I gotta go out tonight. Babysit, will you?"

  "Claire--"

  "I met this guy and he was talking about a job. He might hire me."

  "Which club're you going to meet him at?" Rune asked wryly.

  "S.O.B.'s," Claire admitted. "But he really thinks he can get me work. Come on, please...." Nodding at her daughter. "You two get along so good."

  Rune looked at Courtney. "We do get along, don't we, dude? Gimme five high." She held up her hand and Courtney crawled forward. They slapped upraised palms.

  "Dude," the little girl said then crawled back to Persephone. Rune looked at her face and didn't see much of Claire in it. She wondered who the father was. Claire, she knew, occasionally wondered the same.

  After a moment Rune said, "You know, I'm not, like, too good with saying things like this...." Rune paused, hoping Claire would pick up on the hint. But she was concentrating on putting a fake diamond earring into one of the holes on the side of her nose. Rune continued, "What I'm saying is you really've got to find a place to live."

  "I didn't plan on staying this long. It's not that easy to find a place to live in Manhattan."

  "I know," Rune said. "Look, I don't want to kick you out."

  Claire got solemn for a moment. "The truth is I'm thinking about going back to Boston. Just to get my act together for a while. What do you think?"

  Hallelujah!

  Rune said, "I think that's a very mature thing to do."

  "Really?"

  "I do. Absolutely."

  "I'll stay with my mother. She's got a nice house. I can have the upstairs to myself. The only thing that bothers me is I don't know what I could do there exactly."

  Rune wasn't sure what Claire could do here in Manhattan either, except hang out and go to clubs, which she could probably do in Boston just as easily and for a lot less money. But she said, "Boston's supposed to be a wonderful place. History, lots of history."

  "Yeah, history. But, excuse me, what do you do with history?"

  "You don't have to do anything with it. It's just neat." Rune hefted Courtney to the windowsill, propped
her on her hip. "Just look out there, honey, and picture it three hundred years ago. You know who lived there? Indians! The Canarsie Indians. And there were bears and deer and everything."

  "Like the zoo," the girl said. "Can we go to the zoo?"

  "Sure we can. Maybe tomorrow. And see over there, all those roads? They used to be tobacco fields. They called the place Sapokanikan. It means the tobacco plantation. Then the settlers came up here from New York City--which was all down by the Battery then. They came up here because they had all these terrible plagues or epidemics--and they saw all these fields and farmland and the place got called Green Village--"

  Claire interrupted, "And now it's Greenwich Village and it's got bagels and coffeehouses and ATM machines and the Antique Clothes Boutique."

  Rune shook her head. "Oh, you're just so sitcom, it's disgusting."

  Claire said, "So--Boston ... You mind if I spend some time there?"

  Mind? Rune felt as if she'd just gotten a package in a turquoise Tiffany's box. "I'd say: Do it."

  "Then I will," Claire said lethargically. She yawned and pulled a vial out of her purse. "You want some coke?"

  "Coke," said Courtney.

  Rune took Claire by the arm roughly, whispering viciously: "Are you crazy? Look what you're teaching her." She snatched the vial and spoon away from Claire and tossed them back into the purse.

  Claire pulled away angrily. "Coke is real. Dragons and goddesses aren't."

  "You keep your reality." Rune stood up and took Courtney by the hand and led her up onto the outer deck. "Come on, honey, I'll read you a story."

  AN HOUR LATER COURTNEY ASKED, "ONE MORE, PLEASE."

  Rune debated, flipping through the book of fairy stories. She glanced down into the galley and saw Claire doing a small line of coke off her compact mirror.

  "Okay," Rune said. "One more, then off to bed."

  She looked at the story the book had fallen open to and laughed. "The Snow Princess." Which seemed like a good choice since Claire had a nose blizzard going at the moment.

  "'Once upon a time--'"

  "In a land far away," Courtney yawned and lay down with her head in Rune's lap.

  "That's right. '... in a land far away, there lived an old couple who never had any children.'"

  "I'm a children."

  "'The man and woman loved each other dearly but dreamed about how happy they would be if only they had a daughter to share their life with. Then one winter, as the husband was walking home through the forest, he saw a snowman that some children had built and he had an idea. He went home and together, with his wife, they built a little princess out of snow.'"

  "What's snow?"

  "Last winter, that white stuff."

  "I don't remember," the girl said, frowning.

  "It comes out of the sky and it's white."

  "Feathers."

  "No, it's like wet."

  "Milk."

  "Never mind. Anyway, the couple went to bed and all night long they wished and wished real hard and what do you think happened?"

  "They got a little girl?"

  Rune nodded. "'In the morning when they woke up there was the most beautiful little princess, who looked just like the girl the couple had made out of snow the night before. They hugged her and kissed her, and they spent all their time playing with her and taking the little girl for walks in the forest. The couple was so happy....

  "'Then one day a handsome prince came riding along through the snow, and saw the snow princess playing in a snow-filled field beside the couple's house. They looked at each other and fell in love.'"

  "What's--?" Courtney began.

  "Never mind that. The thing is he wanted the snow princess to come live with him in his castle at the foot of the mountain. The snow princess's parents were very sad and begged her not to go but she married the prince and went off to live with him in the castle.

  "'They were very happy throughout the winter, then one day in early spring the sun came out, strong and hot, as the snow princess was walking with her husband....'"

  Rune paused and read ahead in the story--to the part where the sun gets hotter and hotter and the princess melts, the water running through her husband's fingers into the ground until there's nothing left of her. She looked up at the girl's expectant face and thought: We've got a problem here.

  "Go on," Courtney said.

  Pretending to read, Rune said, "Well, the sun was so hot that the snow princess remembered how much she missed her parents and she kissed her husband good-bye and climbed back up to the mountain village, where she moved back in with her parents, and got a job and met a neat guy, who was also made out of snow, and they lived happily ever after."

  "I like that story," Courtney said in her tone of an official pronouncement.

  Claire came out on deck. "Time for bed."

  Courtney didn't complain much. Rune kissed her good night then helped Claire put her pajamas on her and get her into bed.

  "You know, if you're interested," Claire said, "it's much easier to meet men in Boston."

  "You want me to go to Boston with you? Just to meet men?"

  "Sure, why not?"

  "Because most men are damaged to start with. Why should I go somewhere where it's easier to meet men? I'd think you'd want to go where it's harder."

  "What's wrong with men?"

  "Haven't you noticed something?" Rune asked. "How many men do you know whose IQ matches their age?"

  "You gonna marry Sam?"

  "He's a great guy," Rune said defensively uneasy with the M word. "We have a good time...."

  Claire sighed. "He's twenty years older than you, he's going bald, he's married."

  "He's separated," Rune said. "Anyway what twenty-five-year-olds with hair have you met that're such good catches?" Admitting to herself, though, that the married part was definitely an ongoing problem.

  "You move to Boston, you'll be married in six months. I guarantee it." Claire pirouetted. "How do I look?"

  Like a hooker, circa 1955.

  Rune said, "Stunning."

  Claire grabbed her bag and slung it over her shoulder. "I owe you one."

  "I know you do," Rune said and watched her clatter unsteadily down the gangplank on high-heeled saddle shoes.

  chapter 6

  THE NOTE ON HER DESK THE NEXT MORNING, FROM MAIsel, was to the point.

  Sutton's office. The minute you come in!

  --Lee

  Rune had received a lot of notes like this and they were usually the preface to flunking a course, getting fired or getting yelled at.

  Heart pounding, she left her Morning Thunder tea on her desk and walked out of the studio. In ten minutes she was standing in front of Piper Sutton's secretary. Yesterday's look of terror at Rune's unauthorized entry had been replaced by a subtle gloat.

  Rune said, "I'm supposed to see--"

  "They're waiting for you."

  "Is it okay to--?"

  "They're waiting for you," the woman repeated cheerfully.

  Inside, Sutton and Maisel turned their heads and stared as she approached. Rune stopped halfway into the big office.

  "Close the door," Sutton ordered.

  Rune obeyed then walked into the room. She smiled at Maisel, who avoided her eyes.

  Oh, boy, she thought. Oh, boy.

  Sutton's eyes were flint. She said, "Sit down," just as Rune was dropping into the chair across from the desk. Rune felt a shiver down her back and the hairs on her neck stirred. Sutton tossed a copy of one of the city's tabloids on her desk. Rune picked it up and read a story circled in thick, red ink that bled into the fibers of the newsprint.

  NETWORK WANTS TO FREE KILLER OF ITS EXEC

  By Bill Stevens

  The story was short, just a few paragraphs. It recounted how a reporter from Current Events was investigating Randy Boggs's conviction for Lance Hopper's murder. Boggs's defense lawyer, Fred Megler, had no comment other than to say that his client has always maintained his innocence.

&
nbsp; "Oh, shit," she muttered.

  "How?" Sutton tapped her glossy fingernails on the desktop. They were as red and hard as the finish on a Porsche. "How did this happen?"

  "It's not my fault. He lied to me."

  "Bill Stevens?"

  "That wasn't the name he gave me. I was at the Department of Corrections and this guy came up and said he worked for the press department and could he help me and he was real nice and he even told me things off the record so I assumed it was okay to--"

  "Assumed it was okay?" Sutton's voice rose. She lifted her eyes to the ceiling. "I don't believe it."

  Maisel sighed. "This's the oldest trick in the book. Jesus, Rune, you fucked this one up. Stevens is a beat reporter for the paper. He covers the government agencies. When he sees a reporter who's new and doesn't recognize him he finds out what their assignment is then scoops them."

  "You walked right into his arms." Sutton lit a cigarette and slapped the lighter down on the desktop. "A fucking babe in the woods."

  "He seemed like a nice guy."

  "What the hell does 'nice' have to do with anything?" Maisel asked, exasperated. "This is journalism."

  All ruined. My one big chance and I blew it, right out of the gate.

  Sutton asked Maisel, "Damage assessment?"

  "None of the other nets are that interested." He touched the tabloid. "Even Stevens didn't follow up on Boggs. The focus of the story was that we're trying to get him released. So we look like idiots if it doesn't pan out." He toyed with an unlit pipe and stared at the ceiling. "The story's hit some syndicated news services but so far all we've had are a couple of junior reporters call Publicity for statements. Nobody on Wallace's or Rather's level. Nobody from Media in Review. It's a pain in the ass but I don't think it's critical."

  Sutton kept her eyes on Rune as she said, "I've already gotten a call from Semple."

  Maisel closed his eyes. "Ouch. I thought he was in Paris."

  "He is. The Herald Tribune picked up the story in their third edition."

  Dan Semple was the current head of Network News. He'd taken over when Lance Hopper was killed. He was, give or take a few miracles, God. One of the reasons that Hopper was so sorely missed was that he was an angel compared with Semple, who was known for his vicious temper and cut-throat business practices. He'd even punched a junior producer who'd carelessly lost an exclusive to CNN.

  Maisel asked, "What was his reaction?"

  "Not fit for human consumption," Sutton said. "He'll be back in a few days and he wants to talk about it." She sighed. "Corporate politics ... just what we need now. And with the budgets coming up in a month ..." Sutton looked at the newspaper, gestured at it then glanced at Rune. "But the big danger of this is what?"