"Work? You call it work? What does your mother say about your career?"
Anger burst in her face. "I'm not a porn actress."
The other smiled. "Well, I guess that's not too hard to figure out." His eyes scanned her body. "So whatta you do for the company? Get coffee? Do makeup? Give the actors head to get 'em up before the shoot?"
She started up. "Listen--"
"Sit down." He waved her back into the car. "I've got a lot better things to do with my time than talk to one of you people." His partner didn't seem as angry but he wasn't stopping the man's tirade. "You want to do this kind of bullshit with your life, encouraging people to get diseases and things, fine. It's a free country. Just don't expect me to like you and tell you how sorry I am your friend got blown the fuck up. Now, I wanna ask my questions and get the hell outa here. So tell me what you saw." A notebook appeared.
She was crying again, messy, sniffling tears, as she told them what happened, about the party they were going to, about Shelly getting a phone message, Rune waiting for her downstairs.
Rune said, "I saw her in the window, then the room exploded." She closed her eyes. The blast replayed in slow motion; she opened her eyes again. The scene continued, vivid, in her mind. "It was ... it was so loud."
The one who was taking notes, the mean one, nodded and slipped his pad into his coat pocket. "You didn't see anybody else?"
"No."
He turned to the other with a feigned frown of thought. "Maybe we should take her up to see the body. She could ID it."
"Yeah, with that blast, the ME's office'll have a bitch of a time. You can be a big help. Come on, Miss Porn, you've got a strong stomach, don't you?" He took her by the arm, pulled her from the car.
The other was grinning. "Half her skin's blown off and the rest is pretty burnt." He pushed her toward the doorway.
A voice behind them: "Howdy, gentlemen. What's up?"
Cowboy stood on the sidewalk, moving his knuckles slowly along the rim of his baseball cap. He glanced at Rune, then back to the cops.
A detective nodded toward her. "Eyewitness. We were just--"
Rune pulled away, stepped toward Cowboy. "They were going to make me go upstairs and look at Shelly's body."
Cowboy's brow creased. "Were they?"
One of the cops shrugged, a grin on his face.
Cowboy said, "They took it out ten minutes ago, sent it to the ME's office. You guys saw it go."
The detectives grinned. "Having a little fun is all, Sam."
He was nodding, not pissed, but not smiling back either. "You finished with her?"
"Guess."
"Mind if I talk to her for a bit?"
"She's all yours." The detective turned to her. "We'll want you to sign a statement. Where can we get in touch with you?"
Rune gave them the phone number of L&R Productions.
Climbing into their unmarked car, one detective said, "I hope you consider this a lesson, young lady. Get your life together."
"I wasn't--," Rune began. But they slammed the doors and sped off.
Cowboy was studying her face. "Not too bad."
"What do you mean by that?"
"The cuts, I mean. You were lucky. It'd been on ground level, you might not have made it."