Christ. They were coming more quickly now. Only a day apart on these. “How bad?”

“Nobody outside the theater but inside it's a fucking mess.”

“MO the same?”

“Seems to be. You get on it. Get on it big.”

Healy hesitated. Didn't feel like he wanted to mince words. “I thought you wanted low-profile.”

There was a second of silence. The ops coordinator hadn't anticipated that question. “It's kind of... What it is, it's kind of embarrassing now.”

“Embarrassing.”

“You know. We need a perp in custody. That's from the mayor.”

“You got it,” Healy said. “Any witnesses?”

The response was a bitter laugh. “Parts of 'em, yeah. Those pricks must've used a pound of plastic this time.”

Sam Healy hung up the phone and pulled his blue-jean jacket on. He was all the way out to the elevator when he remembered his pistol. He went back and got it and had to wait three long minutes for the elevator. The door opened. He got in. He looked at his watch. At least the timing was right. Rune would be at work and wouldn't hear about the bombing until later. He'd have time to finish the postblast and seal the site before she found out.

It was one problem he'd never had with a girlfriend before: intruding at a crime scene.

Rune, sitting on the subway, thought about men.

Older men, younger men.

Her most recent boyfriend, Richard, had been close to her age, just a few years older. Tall, skinny, with that narrow, dark, French face that you found everywhere in straight and gay New York City. (She'd leave him alone in bars to go to the John and come back and find bartenderettes leaning forward, dreamily pouring him free drinks.)

They were together about six months. She'd enjoyed the time but toward the end she knew it wasn't going to work. He'd gotten tired of her ideas for dates: picnicking next to the huge air conditioner vents on the roof of a Midtown office building, playing with the Dobermans in her favorite Queens junkyard, wandering through the city looking for the sites of famous gangland rubouts. They talked about getting married. But neither of them was real serious about it. Richard had said, “The thing is, I think I'm changing. I'm not into weird anymore. And you're...”

“Becoming weirder?”

“No, it isn't that. I think I'd say, you're becoming more you.”

Which she took as a compliment. But they still broke up not long afterward. They still talked some on the phone, had a beer now and then. She wished him well though she'd also decided that if he married the tall, blonde advertising account executive he'd been dating their wedding present was going to be the four-foot stuffed iguana she'd seen in a resale shop on Bleecker Street.

Young, old...

But, naw, it isn't the age. It's the state of mind.