"Good. 'Cause I'm getting tired of hearing it." Rune grinned.

Cowboy reined in a smile.

"Now." Brown Suit stepped forward.

"Okay, okay." Rune walked away.

But slowly-just to show they weren't going to bully hertoo much. Her leisurely departure let her overhear something the young priest was saying to Cowboy and Brown Suit.

"I hate to tell you this but if that note has to do with the bombing it's not such good news."

"Why not?" Cowboy asked.

"That verse? It's about thefirst angel. In the whole passage there are seven angels all together."

"So?" asked Brown Suit.

"I guess that means you've got six more to go until God wipes the slate clean."

In the office of L amp;R Productions, on Twenty-first Street, Rune took a beer from the fridge. It was an old Kenmore and one of her all-time favorite objects. On the door was a raised pattern like the grille of a 1950 Studebaker and it had a big silver handle that looked like it belonged on a submarine hatch.

Looking at her reflection in a scabby mirror above the receptionist's desk, she saw her muted black-and-green portrait, lit by the fluorescence of the office: a girl in a red miniskirt, printed with silhouettes of dinosaurs, and two sleeveless T-shirts, one white, one navy. Her auburn hair was pulled back in a ponytail, which made her round face somewhat less round. In addition to the watches, Rune wore three pieces of jewelry-a double-terminated crystal on a chain, a single fake-gold earring in the shape of the Eiffel Tower and a silver bracelet in the shape of two hands clasped together, which had been broken and soldered together. The little makeup she had put on that morning had vanished in the sweat of the August afternoon and the spewing water from an open hydrant on Thirty-first Street she couldn't resist dunking her head under. Rune wasn't much for makeup anyway. She did best, she felt, with the least attention. When she got elaborate with her looks, she turned sophisticated into clowny, svelte into whorish.