Kill Your Darlings (A Mallory Mystery)

by Max Allan Collins

  “Go back to the farm, smart-ass,” said the guy who’d hit me. He had a voice as harsh as the gravel my hands were touching. I grabbed up a handful and tossed it at him and he went blind, for just a moment—long enough for me to throw a fist up into his groin and double him over.

  And I got up on my feet and hit him on the side of the head with everything I had, which was enough, because he went down into what used to be my pizza.

  That left the other two guys, and feeling brave and cocksure from my below-the-belt victory over the one in the quilted jacket, I went after the stocky guy in the cowhide, who had been standing near the mouth of the alley opposite the guy clutching Kathy, watching in case anybody tried to get involved (in Chicago?). I dove at him and he swatted me like a fly, over into some garbage cans.

  I hit hard, only it sounded worse than it felt, and I saw Kathy’s eyes get even wider and more frightened, and the stocky guy came after me with a nasty smile and two outstretched arms that weren’t planning to hug me, at least not in any affectionate way. I reached for something and my hand found the handle of a garbage can lid. I smacked him in the chest with it, like Prince Valiant using his shield on a barbarian. He went back on his ass, but sprang right up—and into my second roundhouse swing of the garbage can lid, which his face put a nice dent in.

  He went down and out.

  I turned and looked at the kid holding Kathy; I was splattered with blood and garbage and former pizza, and I had the dented garbage can lid in my hand and must’ve looked meaner than I thought, because he let go of her and ran.

  “Let’s get the cops!” Kathy said.

  I reached down and pulled the wallet out of the stocky guy’s pocket and checked his ID; he had a couple of business cards, and I took one of them.

  Kathy was holding onto my arm now, and I grinned at her. “Was it me that said Gat Garson wasn’t a good role model?”

  She had hysteria in her eyes. “Didn’t you hear me? Let’s get the damn cops!”

  “What, and lose you your job?” I said.

  “What do you mean?”

  I pointed at the two unconscious men.

  “Haven’t you ever seen angels before?”

  She didn’t know what I was talking about, but the confusion helped; we were in the first passing cab before she knew it.

  14

  We never did make it to Old Town that Friday night; we didn’t get to use those coveted reservations at Second City. I was bloody and just generally a mess, and Kathy was more or less hysterical herself, so we took the cab back to the hotel and ended up in my room. I was sorry we were going to miss North Wells Street and the funky shops and the good restaurants and the great show at Second City; but not sorry that I was alone in my room with Kathy Wickman.

  Who even now was sitting on my bed.

  “I knew Gregg was a sleazy little son of a bitch,” she said, gesticulating, “but I never dreamed him capable of this.”

  “Of what?” I said. I was standing in the bathroom at the sink, trying to decide whether to apply a cold washcloth to where my lip had gotten cut when I’d crashed into the garbage cans.

  “Of sending people to beat you up,” she said, a little irritated with my offhand attitude. Back in the cab I’d shown her the business card I’d lifted off one of the two guys in the alley, a card identifying him as Harry DiAngeli, DiAngeli Adult Books, Inc. Which made him an angel a couple of ways, neither of which would carry much weight with St. Peter, I felt sure.

  I came out and took my shirt off, and I was not, I assure you, doing my Richard Gere impression. While I have a certain amount of hair on my chest, no woman’s ever fainted over it, and I never owned a gold chain in my life. I was just anxious to change out of what might be described as a Gino’s pizza T-shirt.

  “I thought,” I said, slipping a gray short-sleeve sweatshirt on, “you might have been referring to that other little thing Gorman seems to be up to.”

  Her mouth twitched thoughtfully. “You mean that Hammett book.”

  I sat on the edge of the bed next to her. “I mean that most probably fraudulent Hammett book.”

  She touched my cut lip, with absentminded compassion. “And you think that has something to do with Roscoe Kane’s death?”

  “Let me put it this way: Gorman went to the trouble of having his angels publicly assault us. Not that anyone in Chicago seemed to take notice, but still.”

  “Your point being?”

  “Look. I’m not saying Gorman isn’t capable of doing that just out of spite. That fallen angel of his did make sure I took a good shot in the gut, you know, to even the score.”

  She thought that over. “But he also told you to get out of town.”

  “That’s my point. He did everything but put me on a stagecoach.”

  “But, why?”

  “Elementary, my dear Wickman. I’m looking into Roscoe Kane’s untimely demise. The local authorities have written Kane off as an accidental death. My poking around might be enough to get the matter reopened, if I’m stubborn and noisy enough about it. And Gorman knows me to be both plenty stubborn and just a little bit noisy.”

  She was very, very pale; and, while it was barely perceptible, shaking some. “And you think Gregg is capable of...?”

  “Murder? Who knows what evil lurks?”

  “How can you be so flip about it?”

  “About murder? Death? Ah, shucks, ma’am. Trouble is my business. I go around on the prowl for homicide, just so I can put it all down on paper and make a bundle. I’m looking for another movie-of-the-week out of this one.”

  She studied me.

  “This flipness,” she said. “You’re masking how you really feel, aren’t you? Roscoe Kane’s death is a real blow to you, isn’t it....”

  I got up. I went over and pushed on my cassette player. Bobby Darin started singing “Beyond the Sea.” I loved that song, but these days it made me melancholy. Ever since Darin died, that song always got me to thinking in metaphorical terms. Somewhere—beyond the sea... I looked out the window down at Michigan Avenue and the adjacent park; I could see it all very well, but the street lights made it seem unreal, artificial. Street sounds floated up, seeming muffled and clear at the same time. Underwater sounds.

  Without looking back at her, I said, “The hell of it is, if I do figure out what happened to Roscoe, and who did it... and why... he’ll still be dead. And someday so will I, and someday so will you. So what’s the point? What’s the goddamn fucking point?”

  I felt her hand on my arm; cool.

  I hadn’t even heard her get out of bed, let alone cross the room to me. I looked back at her. She didn’t have the pink Norma Kamali top on anymore.

  “Who says there has to be any point?” she asked.

  I looked at her breasts. Or, as Gat might say, her perfect B cups were like two generous scoops of vanilla ice cream, each topped with a cherry.

  “If there’s no point,” I said, with an involuntary smile, “then don’t point those things at me.”

  “ ’Cause they might be loaded, Gat?” she asked, smiling wryly (#569) and then tumbled into my arms.

  She looked at me with a face so pretty it made my teeth hurt. She said, “Why don’t you forget this stupid mess and just enjoy the ’con and my company and then go home? You can spend the better part of the next two days in bed with me.”

  “I’ve had worse offers.”

  “Have you had better?”

  Not ever. She was sweeter than Gat Garson’s silly ice-cream metaphor. She was a tonic for all that ailed me. She was a hundred pounds or so of affection with shimmering brown hair and shimmering brown eyes and holding her in my arms made me not give a goddamn whether there was any point to life or death, or infinity either, for that matter.

  “Isn’t this when they smoke in books?” she asked. She was sitting up in bed, with both pillows behind her, sheet and blankets around her waist. The ice-cream scoops were tilting up; it’d be years before they started to melt.


  “It sure is. Only I don’t smoke.”

  “Neither do I.”

  “Then let’s not.”

  “Okay.”

  “Besides,” I said, “we don’t want to indulge in too many clichés. We’ve just had the obligatory sex scene. And we’ve already had the ritual violence.”

  Curiosity tinged her wry smile. “What d’you mean, ‘ritual violence’?”

  “Gorman’s business associates running that tough-guy number. It was right on cue. You have to have a little action, in a private eye yarn.”

  “Is that what this is?”

  Outside the window, a siren—ambulance, probably—split the night open.

  “That seems to be what I’m trying to make it,” I said. “If I were writing this, I’d be tempted to leave out the sex scene, and the ritual violence, too. They might play okay, but they’ve been done to death. So I’d probably cut ’em. Kill your darlings, y’know.”

  “What?”

  I grinned at her. “You never heard that old bromide? The editor of Noir? Shame on ya. That’s the mystery writers’ code.”

  “Kill your darlings?”

  “Sure. It’s just a way of saying to a writer: cut your work, ruthlessly; edit it, unsparingly. Get rid of the self-indulgent crap. I first heard that vivid little piece of advice from Roscoe Kane when he was showing me where to cut my first novel.”

  She cocked her head, a good-natured, puzzled expression on her face. “I’m still not sure I get it....”

  I leaned on one elbow, gestured with my other hand, pretending to be smart. “Y’see, often the things writers get the biggest charge out of in their own stories—a mixed metaphor here, a purple phrase there, even a complete scene full of snappy but pointless patter—are exactly what ought to be slashed the hell outta there. Of course, if I cut all the self-indulgences out of my novels, they’d be short stories. Still, like the old mystery writer says, kill your darlings—only the Roscoe Kane Murder Case is so full of self-indulgences on my part, I’m starting to think the whole damn thing might be invalid.”

  “Don’t be silly, Mal....”

  I stole one of the pillows out from behind her so I could sit up in bed comfortably, too. Postcoital chivalry may not be dead, but it clearly isn’t feeling well.

  I said, “It’s like Sardini, and even Gorman, said: I’ve read too many mysteries. And maybe written too many, too.”

  She studied me.

  I said, “I’d appreciate it if you’d violently disagree with that last point.”

  Little smile. “Consider yourself violently disagreed with.”

  “Thanks. Coming from the heart as that did, it means a lot. Anyway, maybe I should throw in the towel on this one.”

  “Like Roscoe Kane’s killer did.”

  “Huh?”

  She poked at my chest with a tapered finger. “He threw the towel in, remember? Actually, plural, towels. In the hamper. Sopped up the water with ’em after drowning Kane... remember? Your theory?”

  I got out of bed and walked over to the window again; Darin was singing “Artificial Flowers,” a satirically upbeat song about a little girl who freezes to death selling flowers on a street corner.

  “That’s just what I mean, Kathy,” I said, looking down at the unreal street. “That’s so damn lame. That’s mystery-novel evidence, not real-life evidence. No, I should try to accept the possibility... the likelihood... that Roscoe really did die an accidental death. I’m deluding myself into thinking he was murdered, because in a way, it’s keeping him alive for me.”

  This time I heard her crossing the room behind me, as she said, “How so, Mal?”

  I turned and looked at her; the only light in the room came from the window behind us and the shadows and dim lighting gave her lithe little body that same glow of unreality as the street below.

  “Don’t you get it?” I asked her. “As long as I’m playing Gat Garson, trying to sort out Roscoe’s death, then Roscoe’s still with us, in a way... till his ‘murder’ is solved, his life remains unresolved. His story unfinished. Which may be how I want it.”

  She stroked my arm. “That’s not true. You’re trying to solve that murder, resolve that life. You’re not trying to hold onto Roscoe Kane in some sick, subconscious way. You’re just following that sweet, silly romantic nature of yours—trying to make sense out of things, make life—and death—mean something. That may be a hopeless pursuit, but it’s a... noble one.”

  “You talk like a character in a G. Roger Donaldson book,” I said, with a small smile.

  The one-sided smile she gave me back looked sad in the half-light. “Maybe I’ve read too many mystery novels, too.”

  I hugged her. “You’re the only real thing that’s happened to me at this place. Everything else is like a bad dream.”

  She nibbled at my ear. “You said I was a dream come true, in bed.”

  “Wet dream come true, I meant to say.”

  “Gat, you say such sweetly tacky things....”

  We stood and looked at each other; smiled at each other. Walked hand in hand back to the bed and crawled under the covers. Cuddled like spoons.

  “I don’t know, Kathy,” I said to her back. “I think maybe I’ve just been running a scam on myself, a bigger scam even than Gorman’s.”

  She glanced over her shoulder at me. “But that you believe is real. Gorman’s scam.”

  “Sure. And I believe Roscoe probably ghosted that book for him; I’ll know for sure when I read it.”

  She studied me.

  I went on. “If Roscoe did ghost it, Gorman obviously wouldn’t want me, or anybody, poking around where Roscoe Kane is concerned, ’cause the scam might come out in the open—where, as Gat Garson would say, it’d unravel like a cheap sweater.”

  “Wouldn’t it eventually come out anyway?”

  “Timing here is everything. If the book goes to publication, and a controversy follows, so do major sales for the book. Years ago that happened with something called The Search for Bridey Murphy, which you’re too young to remember. But if the controversy precedes publication—if in fact, the hoax is exposed before publication—the book’s dead in the water. Pardon the expression. And so’s Gorman.”

  “Wouldn’t people still want to read the thing?”

  “Some people would; but not many. And it probably wouldn’t even go to press—the publisher would be too embarrassed about the incident. Remember the Clifford Irving/Howard Hughes ‘autobiography’?”

  She turned over and faced me. “I see what you mean. And Gregg might’ve gotten concerned about his ghost, Kane, getting talkative... Kane was drinking heavily again, after all, and in public—and you did say Kane was talking wild in the bar, last night....”

  I nodded. “And Gorman could’ve thought Roscoe’s loose lips might sink the Hammett ship—yeah. That’s a real possibility....”

  “You’re not going to stop looking into this, are you, Mal?”

  Bobby Darin was singing “Mack the Knife” in the background: Oh, the shark, babe...

  “No,” I said. “I don’t have it in me to let this lie. I wish I did.”

  “I’m glad you don’t.”

  “I’m afraid, Kathy.”

  “What of? Gorman and his goons?”

  “Watch it,” I cautioned her. “Now you’re starting to sound like some dame in a Gat Garson novel.”

  I motioned over at the cover painting against the wall; I’d turned it face out when we came in, earlier. In the half-light the girl on the Murder Me Again, Doll cover looked frighteningly like Kathy.

  “After that scene in the alley,” she said, “I feel like a character in a Gat Garson novel.”

  I put a hand on an ice-cream scoop. “You do at that.”

  She smiled one-sidedly and said, “And I suppose you have Gat Garson’s recuperative powers?”

  “Sexually speaking you mean?”

  “Sexually speaking is exactly what I mean.”

  “When Gat was asked something very si
milar, in Death Is a Dame, he said, ‘Baby, you could raise the dead.’ ”

  “Why don’t you show me what happens next in a Kane novel, after such racy double-entendres ensue?”

  “I can’t.”

  “Oh?”

  “No, doll. See, at this point Kane always fades out....”

  Pretty soon I was being wakened by a light going on in the bathroom. I opened my eyes—or anyway, one eye—and saw Kathy in there, fully dressed, freshening up at the sink.

  “Are you going somewhere?” I asked.

  I gave her a start; wide-eyed, she said, “I, uh... need to go to Gorman’s party. Nightcaps after the movie, remember?”

  I sat up in bed. “Why are you doing that, for Christ’s sake?”

  She stood in the bathroom doorway, a silhouette against the light behind her. “He’s still my publisher, after all.”

  I thought about that.

  Then said, “What are you up to?”

  “I have to make an appearance,” she said. “Noir’s important to me....”

  She was passing by the bed, and I latched onto her wrist. Not hard. But hard enough to stop her.

  “You’re not that crass,” I said. “You’re pissed about what those angels of his did to us, and you’re up to something. What?”

  She pulled her arm away from my grip.

  “Go to sleep,” she said.

  “What are you up to?”

  “Can I have a key so I can come back and join you, later? Or would you rather I slept in my own room?”

  “Don’t leave, Kathy. Just stay put.”

  Very firmly she said, “Can I have a key, Mal?”

  “There’s one on the dresser. Take it. Want me to go with you?”

  “So you can punch Gregg in the stomach again? No thanks. Trust me on this, Mal.”

  “Do I have a choice?”

  “No,” she said, shaking her head no.

  “Well,” I said. “Have fun.”

  Wry smile #892. “See what I can do. Mal?”