“I’ll pay for the vase,” Jason said. “How much do you want for it?”

Hesitating, she said, “Well, there’s the wholesale price I get when I sell to stores. But I’d have to charge you retail prices because you don’t have a wholesale number, so—”

He got out his money. “Retail,” he said.

“Twenty dollars.”

“I can work you in another way,” he said. “All we need is an angle. How about this—we can show the audience a priceless vase from antiquity, say from fifth-century China, and a museum expert will step out, in uniform, and certify its authenticity. And then you’ll have your wheel there—you’ll make a vase before the audience’s very eyes, and we’ll show them that your vase is better.”

“It wouldn’t be. Early Chinese pottery is—”

“We’ll show them; we’ll make them believe. I know my audience. Those thirty million people take their clue from my reaction; there’ll be a pan up on my face, showing my response.”

In a low voice Mary Anne said, “I can’t go up there on stage with those TV cameras looking at me; I’m so—overweight. People would laugh.”

“The exposure you’ll get. The sales. Museums and stores will know your name, your stuff, buyers will be coming out of the woodwork.”

Mary Anne said quietly, “Leave me alone, please. I’m very happy. I know I’m a good potter; I know that the stores, the good ones, like what I do. Does everything have to be on a great scale with a cast of thousands? Can’t I lead my little life the way I want to?” She glared at him, her voice almost inaudible. “I don’t see what all your exposure and fame have done for you—back at the coffee shop you said to me, ‘Is my record really on that jukebox?’ You were afraid it wasn’t; you were a lot more insecure than I’ll ever be.”

“Speaking of that,” Jason said, “I’d like to play these two records on your phonograph. Before I go.”

“You’d better let me put them on,” Mary Anne said. “My set is tricky.” She took the two albums, and the twenty dollars; Jason stood where he was, by the broken pieces of vase.

As he waited there he heard familiar music. His biggest-selling album. The grooves of the record were no longer blank.

“You can keep the records,” he said. “I’ll be going.” Now, he thought, I have no further need for them; I’ll probably be able to buy them in any record shop.

“It’s not the sort of music I like … I don’t think I’d really be playing them all that much.”

“I’ll leave them anyhow,” he said.

Mary Anne said, “For your twenty dollars I’m giving you another vase. Just a moment.” She hurried off; he heard the noises of paper and labored activity. Presently the girl reappeared, holding another blue-glaze vase. This one had more to it; the intuition came to him that she considered it one of her best.

“Thank you,” he said.

“I’ll wrap it and box it, so it won’t get broken like the other.” She did so, working with feverish intensity mixed with care. “I found it very thrilling,” she said as she presented him with the tied-up box, “to have had lunch with a famous man. I’m extremely glad I met you and I’ll remember it a long time. And I hope your troubles work out; I mean, I hope what’s worrying you turns out okay.”

Jason Taverner reached into his inside coat pocket, brought forth his little initialed leather card case. From it he extracted one of his embossed multicolored business cards and passed it to Mary Anne. “Call me at the studio any time. If you change your mind and want to appear on the program. I’m sure we can fit you in. By the way—this has my private number.”

“Goodbye,” she said, opening the front door for him.

“Goodbye.” He paused, wanting to say more. But there remained nothing to say. “We failed,” he said, then. “We absolutely failed. Both of us.”

She blinked. “How do you mean?”

“Take care of yourself,” he said, and walked out of the apartment, onto the midafternoon sidewalk. Into the hot sun of full day.

Kneeling over Alys Buckman’s body, the police coroner said, “I can only tell you at this point that she died from an overdose of a toxic or semitoxic drug. It’ll be twenty-four hours before we can tell what specifically the drug was.”

Felix Buckman said, “It had to happen. Eventually.” He did not, surprisingly, feel very much. In fact, in a way, on some level, he experienced deep relief to have learned from Tim Chancer, their guard, that Alys had been found dead in their second-floor bathroom.

“I thought that guy Taverner did something to her,” Chancer repeated, over and over again, trying to get Buckman’s attention. “He was acting funny; I knew something was wrong. I took a couple of shots at him but he got away. I guess maybe it’s a good thing I didn’t get him, if he wasn’t responsible. Or maybe he felt guilty because he got her to take the drug; could that be?”

“No one had to make Alys take a drug,” Buckman said bitingly. He walked from the bathroom, out into the hall. Two gray-clad pols stood at attention, waiting to be told what to do. “She didn’t need Taverner or anyone else to administer it to her.” He felt, now, physically sick. God, he thought. What will the effect be on Barney? That was the bad part. For reasons obscure to him, their child adored his mother. Well, Buckman thought, there’s no accounting for other people’s tastes.

And yet he, himself—he loved her. She had a powerful quality, he reflected. I’ll miss it. She filled up a good deal of space.

And a good part of his life. For better or worse.

White-face, Herb Maime climbed the stairs two steps at a time, peering up at Buckman. “I got here as quickly as I could,” Herb said, holding out his hand to Buckman. They shook. “What was it?” Herb said. He lowered his voice. “An overdose of something?”

“Apparently,” Buckman said.

“I got a call earlier today from Taverner,” Herb said. “He wanted to talk to you; he said it had something to do with Alys.”

Buckman said, “He wanted to tell me about Alys’s death. He was here at the time.”

“Why? How did he know her?”

“I don’t know,” Buckman said. But at the moment it did not seem to matter to him much. He saw no reason to blame Taverner … given Alys’s temperament and habits, she had probably instigated his coming here. Perhaps when Taverner left the academy building she had nailed him, carted him off in her souped-up quibble. To the house. After all, Taverner was a six. And Alys liked sixes. Male and female both.

Especially female.

“They may have been having an orgy,” Buckman said.

“Just the two of them? Or do you mean other people were here?”

“Nobody else was here. Chancer would have known. They may have had a phone orgy; that’s what I meant. She’s come so damn close so many times to burning out her brain with those goddamn phone orgies—I wish we could track down the new sponsors, the ones that took over when we shot Bill and Carol and Fred and Jill. Those degenerates.” His hand shaking, he lit a cigarette, smoking rapidly. “That reminds me of something Alys said one time, unintentionally funny. She was talking about having an orgy and she wondered if she should send out formal invitations. ‘I’d better,’ she said, ‘or everyone won’t come at the same time.’ “ He laughed.

“You’ve told me that before,” Herb said.

“She’s really dead. Cold, stiff dead.” Buckman stubbed out his cigarette in a nearby ashtray. “My wife,” he said to Herb Maime. “She was my wife.”

Herb, with a shake of his head, indicated the two graywrapped pols standing at attention.

“So what?” Buckman said. “Haven’t they read the libretto of Die Walküre?” Tremblingly, he lit another cigarette. “Sigmund and Siglinde. ‘Schwester und Braut.’ Sister and bride. And the hell with Hunding.” He dropped the cigarette to the carpet; standing there, he watched it smolder, starting the wool on fire. And then, with his boot heel, he ground it out.