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.

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.