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Chapter 26:
Walking down
the sidewalk, away from Mary Anne's apartment, Jason Taverner said to
himself, My luck has turned. It's all come back, everything I lost. Thank
God!
I'm the
happiest man in the whole fucking world, he said to himself. This is the
greatest day of my life. He thought, You never appreciate it until you
lose it, until all of a sudden you don't have it any more. Well, for two
days I lost it and now it's back and now I appreciate it.
Clutching
the box containing the pot Mary Anne had made, he hurried out into the
street to flag down a passing cab.
"Where to,
mister?" the cab asked as it slid open its door.
Panting with
fatigue, he climbed inside, shut the door manually. "803 Norden Lane," he
said, "in Beverly Hills." Heather Hart's address. He was going back to her
at last. And as he really was, not as she had imagined him during the
awful last two days.
The cab
zoomed up into the sky and he leaned gratefully back, feeling even more
weary than he had at Mary Anne's apartment. So much had happened. What
about Alys Buckman? he wondered. Should I try to get in touch with General
Buckman again? But by now he probably knows. And I should keep out of it.
A TV and recording star should not get mixed up in lurid matters, he
realized. The gutter press, he reflected, is always ready to play it up
for all it's worth.
But I owed
her something, he thought. She cut off those electronic devices the pols
fastened onto me before I could get out of the Police Academy building.
But they
won't be looking for me now. I have my ID back; I'm known to the entire
planet. Thirty million viewers can testify to my physical and legal
existence.
I will never
have to fear a random checkpoint again, he said to himself, and shut his
eyes in dozing sleep.
"Here we
are, sir," the cab said suddenly. His eyes flew open and he sat upright.
Already? Glancing out he saw the apartment complex in which Heather had
her West Coast hideaway.
"Oh, yeah,"
he said, digging into his coat for his roll of paper money. "Thanks." He
paid the cab and it opened its door to let him out. Feeling in a good mood
again, he said, "If I didn't have the fare wouldn't you open the door?"
The cab did
not answer. It had not been programed for that question. But what the hell
did he care? He had the money.
He strode up
onto the sidewalk, then along the redwood rounds path to the main lobby of
the choice ten-story structure that floated, on compressed air jets, a few
feet from the ground. The flotation gave its inhabitants a ceaseless
sensation of being gently lulled, as if on a giant mother's bosom. He had
always enjoyed that. Back East it had not caught on, but out here on the
Coast it enjoyed an expensive vogue.
Pressing the
stud for her apartment, he stood holding the cardboard box with its vase
on the tips of the upraised fingers of his right hand. I better not, he
decided; I might drop it like I did before, with the other one. But I'm
not going to drop it; my hands are steady now.
I'll
give the damn vase to Heather, he decided. A present I picked up for her
because I understand her consummate taste.
The
viewscreen for Heather's unit lit up and a female face appeared, peering
at him. Susie, Heather's maid.
"Oh, Mr.
Taverner," Susie said, and at once released the latch of the door,
operated from within regions of vast security. "Come on in. Heather's gone
out but she --"
"I'll wait,"
he said. He skipped across the foyer to the elevator, punched the up
button, waited.
A moment
later Susie stood holding the door of Heather's unit open for him.
Dark-skinned, pretty and small, she greeted him as she always had: with
warmth. And - familiarity.
"Hi," Jason
said, and entered.
"As I was
telling you," Susie said, "Heather's out shopping but she should be back
by eight o'clock. Today she has a lot of free time and she told me she
wanted to make the best use of it because there's a big recording session
with RCA scheduled for the latter part of the week."
"I'm not in
a hurry," he said candidly. Going into the living room, he placed the
cardboard box on the coffee table, dead center, where Heather would be
certain to see it "I'll listen to the quad and crash," he said. "If it's
all right."
"Don't you
always?" Susie said. "I've got to go out, too; I have a dentist's
appointment at four-fifteen and it's all the way on the other side of
Hollywood."
He put his
arm around her and gripped her firm right boob.
"We're horny
today," Susie said, pleased.
"Let's get
it on," he said.
"You're too
tall for me," Susie said, and moved off to resume whatever she had been
doing when he rang.
At the
phonograph he sorted through a stack of recently played albums. None of
them appealed to him, so he bent down and examined the spines of her full
collection. From them he took several of her albums and a couple of his
own. These he stacked up on the changer and set it into motion. The tone
arm descended, and the sound of The Heart of Hart disc, a favorite
of his, edged out and echoed through the large living room, with all its
drapes beautifully augmenting the natural quad acoust-tones, spotted
artfully here and there.
He lay down
on the couch, removed his shoes, made himself comfortable. She did a damn
good job when she taped this, he said to himself, half out loud. I'm as
exhausted as I've ever been in my life, he realized. Mescaline does that
to me. I could sleep for a week. Maybe I will. To the sound of Heather's
voice and mine. Why haven't we ever done an album together? he asked
himself. A good idea. Would sell. Well. He shut his eyes. Twice the
sales, and Al could get us promotion from RCA. But I'm under contract to
Reprise. Well, it can be worked out. There's work in. Everything. But, he
thought, it's worth it.
Eyes shut,
he said, "And now the sound of Jason Taverner." The changer dropped the
next disc. Already? he asked himself. He sat up, examined his watch. He
had dozed through The Heart of Hart, had barely heard it. Lying
back again he once more shut his eyes. Sleep, he thought, to the sound of
me. His voice, enhanced by a two-track overlay of guitars and strings,
resonated about him.
Darkness.
Eyes open, he sat up, knowing that a great deal of time had passed.
Silence. The
changer had played the entire stack, hours' worth. What time was it?
Groping, he
found a lamp familiar to him, located the switch, turned it on.
His watch
read ten-thirty. Cold and hungry. Where's Heather? he wondered, fumbling
with his shoes. My feet cold and damp and my stomach is empty. Maybe I can
-
The front
door flew open. There stood Heather, in her cheruba coat, holding a copy
of the L.A. Times. Her face, stark and gray, confronted him like a death
mask.
"What is
it?" he said, terrified.
Coming
toward him, Heather held out the paper. Silently.
Silently, he
took it. Read it.
TV
PERSONALITY SOUGHT IN CONNECTION WITH DEATH
OF POL GENERAL'S SISTER
"Did you
kill Alys Buckman?" Heather rasped.
"No," he
said, reading the article.
Popular television
personality Jason Taverner, star of his own hour-long evening variety
show, is believed by the Los Angeles Pol Dept to have been deeply involved
in what pol experts say is a carefully planned vengeance murder, the
Policy Academy announced today. Taverner, 42, is sought by both
He ceased
reading, crumpled the newspaper savagely. "Shit," he said, then. Sucking
in his breath he shuddered. Violently.
"It gives
her age as thirty-two," Heather said. "I know for a fact that
she's-was-thirty-four."
"I saw it,"
Jason said. "I was in the house."
Heather
said, "I didn't know you knew her."
"I just met
her. Today."
"Today? Just
today? I doubt that."
It's true.
General Buckman interrogated me at the academy building and she stopped me
as I was leaving. They had planted a bunch of electronic tracking devices
on me, including -"
"They only
do that to students," Heather said.
He finished,
"And Alys cut them off. And then she invited me to their house."
"And she
died. "
"Yes." He
nodded. "I saw her body as a withered yellow skeleton and it frightened
me; you're damn right it frightened me. I got out of there as quickly as I
could. Wouldn't you have?"
"Why did you
see her as a skeleton? Had you two taken some sort of dope? She always
did, so I suppose you did, too."
"Mescaline,"
Jason said. "That's what she told me, but I don't think it was." I wish I
knew what it was, he said to himself, his fear still freezing his heart.
Is this a hallucination brought on by it, as was the sight of her
skeleton? Am I living this or am I in that fleabag hotel room? He thought,
Good God, what do I do now?
"You better
turn yourself in," Heather said.
"They can't
pin it on me," he said. But he knew better. In the last two days he had
learned a great deal about the police who ruled their society. Legacy of
the Second Civil War, he thought. From pigs to pols. In one easy jump.
"If you
didn't do it they won't charge you. The pols are fair. It's not as if the
nats are after you."
He
uncrumpled the newspaper, read a little more.
believed to be an overdose
of a toxic compound administered by Taverner while Miss Buckman was either
sleeping or in a state
"They give
the time of the murder as yesterday," Heather said. "Where were you
yesterday? I called your apartment and didn't get any answer. And you just
now said -"
"It wasn't
yesterday. It was earlier today." Everything had become uncanny; he
felt weightless, as if floating along with the apartment into a bottomless
sky of oblivion. "They backdated it. I had a pol lab expert on my show
once and after the show he told me how they -"
"Shut up,"
Heather said sharply.
He ceased
talking. And stood. Helplessly. Waiting.
"There's
something about me in the article," Heather said, between clenched teeth.
"Look on the back page."
Obediently,
he turned to the back page, the continuation of the article.
as a hypothesis pol
officials offered the theory that the relationship between Heather Hart,
herself also a popular TV and recording personality, and Miss Buckman
triggered Taverner's vengeful spree in which
Jason said,
"What kind of relationship did you have with Alys? Knowing her -"
"You said
you didn't know her. You said you just met her today."
"She was
weird. Frankly I think she was a lesbian. Did you and she have a sexual
relationship?" He heard his voice rise; he could not control it. "That's
what the article hints at. Isn't that right?"
The force of
her blow stung his face; he retreated involuntarily, holding his hands up
defensively. He had never been slapped like that before, he realized. It
hurt like hell. His ears rang.
"Okay,"
Heather breathed. "Hit me back."
He drew his
arm back, made a fist, then let his arm fall, his fingers relaxing. "I
can't," he said. "I wish I could. You're lucky."
"I guess I
am. If you killed her you could certainly kill me. What do you have to
lose? They'll gas you anyhow."
Jason said,
"You don't believe me. That I didn't do it."
"That
doesn't matter. They think you did it. Even if you get off it means the
end of your goddamn career, and mine, for that matter We're finished; do
you understand? Do you realize what you've done?" She was screaming at
him, now; frightened, he moved toward her, then, as the volume of her
voice increased, away again. In confusion.
"If I could
talk to General Buckman," he said, "Imight be able to -"
"Her
brother? You're going to appeal to him?" Heather strode at him, her
fingers writhing clawlike. "He's head of the commission investigating the
murder. As soon as the coroner reported that it was homicide, General
Buckman announced he personally was taking charge of the incident - can't
you manage to read the whole article? I read it ten times on the way back
here; I picked it up in Bel Aire after I got my new fall, the one they
ordered for me from Belgium. It finally arrived. And now look. What does
it matter?"
Reaching, he
tried to put his arms around her. Stiffly, she pulled away.
"I'm not
going to turn myself in," he said.
"Do whatever
you want." Her voice had sunk to a blunted whisper. "I don't care. Just go
away. I don't want to have anything more to do with you. I wish you were
both dead, you and her. That skinny bitch - all she ever meant to me was
trouble. Finally I had to throw her bodily out; she clung to me like a
leech."
"Was she
good in bed?" he said, and drew back as Heather's hand rose swiftly,
fingers groping for his eyes.
For an
interval neither of them spoke. They stood close together. Jason could
hear her breathing and his own. Rapid, noisy fluctuations of air. In and
out, in and out. He shut his eyes.
"You do what
you want," Heather said presently. "I'm going to turn myself in at the
academy."
"They want
you, too?" he said.
"Can't you
read the whole article? Can't you just do that? They want my testimony. As
to how you felt about my relationship with Alys. It was public knowledge
that you and I were sleeping together then, for Christ's sake."
"I didn't
know about your relationship."
"I'll tell
them that. When" - she hesitated, then went on - "when did you find out?"
"From this
newspaper," he said. "Just now."
"You didn't
know about it yesterday when she was killed?"
At that he
gave up; hopeless, he said to himself. Like living in a world made
of rubber. Everything bounced. Changed shape as soon as it was touched or
even looked at.
"Today,
then," Heather said. "If that's what you believe. You would know, if
anyone would."
"Goodbye,"
he sai. Sitting down, he fished his shoes out from beneath the couch, put
them on, tied the laces, stood up. Then, reaching, he lifted the cardboard
box from the coffee table. "For you," he said, and tossed it to her.
Heather clutched at it; the box struck her on the chest and then fell to
the floor.
"What is
it?" she asked.
"By now," he
said, "I've forgotten."
Kneeling,
Heather picked up the box, opened it, brought forth newspapers and the
blue- glazed vase. It had not broken. "Oh," she said softly. Standing up
she inspected it; she held it close to the light. "It's incredibly
beautiful," she said. "Thank you."
Jason said,
"I didn't kill that woman."
Wandering
away from him, Heather placed the vase on a high shelf of knickknacks. She
said nothing.
"What can I
do," he said, "but go?" He waited but still she said nothing. "Can't you
speak?" he demanded.
"Call them,"
Heather said. "And tell them you're here."
He picked up
the phone, dialed the operator. "I want to put through a call to the Los
Angeles Police Academy," he told the operator. "To General Felix Buckman.
Tell him it's Jason Taverner calling." The operator was silent. "Hello?"
he said.
"You can
dial that direct, sir."
"I want you
to do it," Jason said.
"But sir -"
Please," he
said.
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