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 thoment 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