She stiffened and choked back her sobs.
‘Yes, of course.’ She got unsteadily to her feet. ‘You could never understand.’ She clutched the cassette in her hand. ‘You don’t know what love means.’
I wanted to be rid of her. Maybe she was right. Maybe I didn’t know what love meant, but if it meant the death of two people, no matter how worthless, I didn’t want to know.
I walked to the door and opened it.
‘Goodbye, Jean.’
She moved forward, then paused, looking at me.
‘Will you do something for me?’
‘If I can.’
She held out the cassette.
‘Will you destroy it, please?’
‘That’s your business, Jean.’
‘Please... do it for me.’
‘All right.’ I took the cassette and dropped it into my pocket. She moved slowly by me and out into the corridor. She turned and looked at me.
‘Thank you. Goodbye, Steve.’
I regarded her. How odd, I thought, that this woman had at one time seemed to me the only woman for me. I looked at her haggard, white face and the misery in her eyes and I was looking at a stranger.
‘Goodbye.’
I was glad to shut the door and see the last of her. After wandering around the wrecked room for some minutes, I went to the telephone and called Borg. When he came on the line, I said, ‘I have had burglars in here, Joe. The place is completely wrecked. I’m leaving for Los Angeles in an hour. Will you handle it?’
‘Have you called the police?’
‘I haven’t the time to tangle with the police. You do that.’
‘Hell! I’ll get Jean to handle it.’
‘I would handle it myself if I were you,’ I said and hung up.
I packed two suitcases, then I picked up the gun that had shot Gordy and Freda and went down to the basement. I dropped the gun in the rubbish tip which was constantly smothered with refuse and I dropped the cassette into the furnace. I returned to the apartment, picked up my bags and rode down in the elevator to my car.
I had more than two hours before my plane to Los Angeles took off. I drove slowly to the airport, aware the blue Mustang was following me. Leaving the car at the airport garage, I checked my bags in, then went into the bar. I didn’t feel like eating. I sat in a corner, nursing a whisky on the rocks and thought about Jean. I thought about what she had told me and I longed to be in the aircraft, flying away from this city.
Eventually, after what seemed an eternity, my flight number was called and I walked across the tarmac to the waiting plane. I embarked, sat, smoked and tried to consider my future. My thoughts kept being interrupted by the picture of Chandler and Jean standing in the aisle of the Welcome store. That picture, I knew, was going to haunt me for a long time.
On arrival, I collected my bags and started across the lobby in search of a cab.
‘Mr. Manson?’
I looked around at a tall, lean man who was smiling at me.
‘I’m Terry Rogers of the Hollywood Reporter.’ His smile broadened into a grin. ‘The grapevine told me you were on the plane. Mr. Manson, is it correct that you have resigned as editor of The Voice of the People?’
‘That is correct.’
‘Was there a difference of opinion between you and Mr. Chandler?’
‘No. I decided the editorial chair isn’t for me.’ I began to move away from him. ‘Sorry about your secretary.’
I paused and eyed him.
‘My secretary?’
‘Miss Jean Kesey. She was your secretary, wasn’t she?’
‘Yes. What about her?’
‘Came over the tape about ten minutes ago. She walked under a truck.’
I felt no reaction. It had to end that way.
‘Did she?’
‘When he heard, Mr. Chandler said it was a very sad loss for the magazine. Have you any comment, Mr. Manson?’
‘All of us have to die sometime — even goldfish,’ I said and left him, staring after me.