Astonished, Buckman said, “But there is no Jason Taverner file.”
“Apparently someone else had it out,” Peggy said. “Anyhow they just put it on the wire, so they must have just now gotten it back. There’s no note of explanation; Data Central merely–”
“Go away and let me look at it,” Buckman said. Quietly, Peggy Beason left his office, closing the door behind her.
“I shouldn’t have talked to her like that,” Buckman said to Herb Maime.
“It’s understandable.”
Opening the Jason Taverner file, Buckman uncovered a glossy eight-by-five publicity still. Clipped to it a memo read: _Courtesy of the Jason Taverner Show, nine o’clock Tuesday nights on NBC_.
“Jesus God,” Buckman said. The gods, he thought, are playing with us. Pulling off our wings.
Leaning over, Herb looked to see, too. Together, they gazed down at the publicity still, wordlessly, until finally Herb said, “Let’s see what else there is.”
Buckman tossed the eight-by-five photo aside with its memo, read the first page of the file.
“How many viewers?” Herb said.
“Thirty million,” Buckman said. Reaching, he picked up his phone. “Peggy,” he said, “get the NBC-TV outlet here in L.A. KNBC or whatever it is. Put me through to one of the network executives, the higher the better. Tell them it’s us.”
“Yes, Mr. Buckman.”
A moment later a responsible-looking face appeared on the phone screen and in Buckman’s ear a voice said, “Yes, sir. What can we do for you, General?”
“Do you carry the _Jason Taverner Show?_” Buckman said. “Every Tuesday night for three years. At nine o’clock sharp.”
“You’ve aired it for _three years?_”
“Yes, General.”
Buckman hung up the phone.
“Then what was Taverner doing in Watts,” Herb Maime said, “buying forged ID cards?”
Buckman said, “We couldn’t even get a birth record on him. We worked every data bank that exists, every newspaper file. Have you ever heard of the _Jason Taverner Show_ on NBC at nine o’clock Tuesday night?”
“No,” Herb said cautiously, hesitating.
“You’re not sure?”
“We’ve talked so much about Taverner–”
“I never heard of it,” Buckman said. “And I watch two hours of TV every night. Between eight and ten.” He turned to the next page of the file, hurling the first page away; it fell to the floor and Herb retrieved it.
On the second page: a list of the recordings that Jason Taverner had made over the years, giving title, stock number, and date. He stared sightlessly at the list; it went back nineteen years.
Herb said, “He did tell us he’s a singer. And one of his ID cards put him in the musicians’ union. So that part is true.”
“It’s all true,” Buckman said harshly. He flipped to page three. It disclosed Jason Taverner’s financial worth, the sources and amounts of his income. “A lot more than I make,” Buckman said, “as a police general. More than you and I make together.”
“He had plenty of money when we had him in here. And he gave Kathy Nelson a hell of a lot of money. Remember?”
“Yes, Kathy told McNulty that; I remember it from McNulty’s report.” Buckman pondered, meanwhile mindlessly dog-earing the edge of the Xerox page. And then ceased. Abruptly.
“What is it?” Herb said.
“This is a Xerox copy. The file at Data Central is never pulled; only copies are sent out.”
Herb said, “But it has to be pulled to be Xeroxed.”
“A period of five seconds,” Buckman said.
“I don’t know,” Herb said. “Don’t ask me to explain it. I don’t know how long it takes.”
“Sure you do. We all do. We’ve watched it done a million times. It goes on all day.”
“Then the computer erred.”
Buckman said, “Okay. He has never had any political affiliations; he’s entirely clean. Good for him.” He leafed further into the file. “Mixed up with the Syndicate for a while. Carried a gun but had a permit for it. Was sued two years ago by a viewer who said a blackout skit was a takeoff on him. Someone named Artemus Franks living in Des Moines. Taverner’s attorneys won.” He read here and there, not searching for anything in particular, just marveling. “His forty-five record, ‘Nowhere Nuthin’ Fuck-up,’ which is his latest, has sold over two million copies. Ever heard of it?”
“I don’t know,” Herb said.
Buckman gazed up at him for a time. “I never heard of it. That’s the difference between you and me, Maime. You’re not sure. I am.”
“You’re right,” Herb said. “But I really don’t know, at this point. I find this very confusing, and we have other business; we have to think about Alys and the coroner’s report. We should talk to him as soon as possible. He’s probably still at the house; I’ll call him and you can–”
“Taverner,” Buckman said, “was with her when she died.”
“Yes, we know that. Chancer said so. You decided it wasn’t important. But I do think just for the record we should haul him in and talk to him. See what he has to say.”
“Could Alys have known him before today?” Buckman said. He thought, Yes, she always liked sixes, especially the ones in the entertainment field. Such as Heather Hart. She and the Hart woman had a three-month romance the year before last . . . a relationship which I almost failed to hear about: they did a good job of hushing it up. That was one time Alys kept her mouth shut.
He saw, then, in Jason Thverner’s file a mention of Heather Hart; his eyes fixed on it as he thought about her. Heather Hart had been Taverner’s mistress for roughly a year.
“After all,” Buckman said, “both of them are sixes.”
“Taverner and who?”
“Heather Hart. The singer. This file is up to date; it says Heather Hart appeared on Jason Taverner’s show this week. His special guest.” He tossed the file away from him, rummaged in his coat pocket for his cigarettes.
“Here.” Herb extended his own pack.
Buckman rubbed his chin, then said, “Let’s have the Hart woman brought in, too. Along with Taverner.”
“Okay.” Nodding, Herb made a note of that on his customary vest-pocket pad.
“It was Jason Taverner,” Buckman said quietly, as if to himself, “who killed Alys. Jealous over Heather Hart. He found out about their relationship.”
Herb Maime blinked.
“Isn’t that right?” Buckman gazed up at Herb Maime, steadily.
“Okay,” Herb Maime said after a time.
“Motive. Opportunity. A witness: Chancer, who can testify that Taverner came running out apprehensively and tried to get hold of the keys to Alys’s quibble. And then when Chancer went in the house to investigate, his suspicions aroused, Taverner ran off and escaped. With Chancer shooting over his head, telling him to stop.”
Herb nodded. Silently.
“That’s it,” Buckman said.
“Want him picked up right away?”
“As soon as possible.”
“We’ll notify all the checkpoints. Put out an APB. If he’s still in Los Angeles we may be able to catch him with an EEG-gram projection from a copter. A match of patterns, as they’re beginning to do now in New York. In fact we can have a New York police copter brought in just for this.”
Buckman said, “Fine.”
“Will we say that Taverner was involved in her orgies?”
“There were no orgies,” Buckman said.
“Holbein and those with him will–”
“Let them prove it,” Buckman said. “Here in a court in California. Where we have jurisdiction.”
Herb said, “Why Taverner?”
“It has to be somebody,” Buckman said, half to himself; he intertwined his fingers before him on the surface of his great antique oak desk. With his fingers he pressed convulsively, straining with all the force he possessed, one finger against another. “It always, always,” he said, “has to be somebody. And Taverner is somebody important. Just what she liked. In fact that’s why he was there; that’s the celebrity type she preferred. And”–he glanced up–“why not? He’ll do just fine.” Yes, why not? he thought, and continued grimly to press his fingers tighter and tighter together on the desk before him.
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.