The office on Broadway and Forty-seventh was a theater museum. The walls were covered with cheap-framed photos of actors and actresses. Some of them Rune had seen in films or heard of — but nobody was very famous. They seemed to be the sort of actor who plays the male lead's best friend or the old wacko woman who shows up three or four times during a movie for comic relief. Actors who do commercials and dinner theater.

Also on the walls were props, bits of framed fire curtains from famous theaters now gone, Stagebill covers pasted on posterboard. Hundreds of books. Rune recognized some titles; they were the same as Shelly Lowe had on her bookshelf. She saw the name Artaud and she remembered the phrase again: the Theater of Cruelty. It brought a jolt to her stomach.

Tucker went through an elaborate ritual of lighting a pipe and a moment later a cloud of smoke, smelling of cherry, filled the room.

He gestured to the chair, sat. Lifted an eyebrow, saying in effect, keep going.

“I want to be a famous actress.”

“So does half of New York. The other half wants to be famous actors. Where have you studied?”

“Shaker Heights.”

“Where?”

“Ohio. Outside of Cleveland.”

“I don't know any academies or studios there.”

“It was the middle school. I was in the Thanksgiving pageant.”

He stared at her, waiting for her to go on.

No sense of humor, she noted. “That's a joke.”

“Uh-huh.”

“I was also a snowflake once. And in high school I painted backdrops for South Pacific... That's another joke. Look, sir, I just want to act.”

“I'm a coach,” Tucker said. “That's all I am. I improve, I don't create. If you want to go to school, study drama, come back, I may be able to help you. But for now...” He motioned toward the door.

Rune said, “But my friend said you're the best in the city.”

“You know one of my students?”

“Shelly Lowe,” Rune said and pressed the button of the little JVC camcorder in her bag. The lens was pointed upward, toward Tucker. She knew she wouldn't get the whole angle, but she'd see enough. Also, she thought the little black border might give it a nice effect.

Tucker turned to look out the window. A pile driver in a nearby construction site slammed a girder down toward the rock that Manhattan rested on. Rune counted seven bangs before he spoke. “I heard what happened to her.” Tucker's ruddy face gazed at Rune from under those bushy white eyebrows. Did he brush them out like that? Rune changed her mind: He'd be a much better wizard than a president. A Gandalf or Merlin.

Rune said, “Whatever else about her, she was a good actress.”

After a long moment Tucker said, “Shelly Lowe was my best student.” A faint, humorless smile. “And she was a whore.”

Rune blinked at the viciousness in his voice.