Rune wasn't sure what to think about the play. As much as she loved movies, she generally didn't like plays very much. Just when you started to believe the painted sets and the funny way everyone talked and walked, the two hours were up, and you had to go back to reality. It could be very jarring.

But this wasn't bad at all. At least, unlike a lot of modern plays, it had a story you could follow. It was about a young woman — played by a pretty brunette actress named Rebecca Hanson — who kept postponing her romantic life because of her family. The major incident in the play was her decision to leave home at the age of thirty-two.

There was some very clever stuff in it, like the scene where one actor's talking to another actor who suddenly becomes someone else in a flashback. It was funny in parts, then sad, then funny again. Rune cried when the actress left her small-town boyfriend and headed off for Europe.

The audience loved it and about half of them gave the star a standing ovation. The play was long; by the time the curtain calls were over, it was 10:45. The audience, all except for Rune, left soon after the lights came up.

She waited until the actors and actresses had disappeared, then strolled backstage.

No one stopped her.

Rebecca Hanson's dressing room was at the end of the corridor.

Rune paused in front of it, collected herself, then knocked.

“Yes?”

Rune opened the door.

Shelly Lowe finished wiping the cold cream off her face and gave Rune a smile. It was pretty bleak, Rune decided.

“I thought I saw you in the audience,” she said. “Well, I guess we better have a little talk.”

Death of a Blue Movie Star

CHAPTER THIRTY

The two women walked down Lincoln Avenue past the closed shops and mostly empty bars to the broad intersection at Halsted and Fullerton, then they turned east.

In front of them the street and apartment lights disappeared into an expanse of blackness. Rune wondered if that void was the lake or the park or the sky.

She glanced at Shelly, who was wearing blue jeans, a silk blouse and Reeboks.

“You don't quite look the same. Close, though.”

“A little plastic surgery. Eyes and nose. Always wanted it bobbed.”

“Arthur Tucker knew all along, didn't he?” Rune asked.

“It was his idea, in a way. About six months ago he found out about my movie career — of course, I didn't exactly keep it a secret. We had this terrible fight.”

“I met him. He doesn't like pornography very much.”