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.

“Did you kill Alys Buckman?” Heather rasped.

“No,” he said, reading the article.

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.

“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.

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?”

Tlie 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, “I might 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.