Nice Weekend for a Murder by Max Allan Collins Page A

I’d written him fan letters for years, and my early short stories were all brazen imitations of his work. He felt flattered, rather than plagiarized, and gave me a lot of help.”
    “So he’s a mentor. Like Roscoe Kane.”
    I lifted a lecturing finger. “There’s a difference.... Kane’s dead. Curt’s alive.”
    “One of your few surviving heroes, then.”
    “Yup. So I’ll cut him some slack any ole time.”
    Nearby, Tom Sardini was chatting with Mary Wright; both of them were in costume—Tom in his trenchcoat and fedora, Mary in a slinky shiny red low-cut gown that showed her figure off to good advantage.
    “The Quakers wouldn’t approve,” I said, nodding toward her impressive decolletage.
    “To hell with the Quakers,” Mary said, toasting us with her plastic glass of ginger ale, slipping her arm around my shoulder mock-drunkenly and as if we were (ahem) bosom buddies.
    Jill pinched me; the plaid suit was so heavy I barely felt it, though I got the point.
    Jill said to her, coldly, “I didn’t know you were an author.”
    “I’m not,” Mary said, her arm still around my shoulder, as she paid Jill’s manner no noticeable heed. “But a few of the roles had to be filled by Mohonk staff members.”
    I smiled and slipped out from Mary’s arm as gracefully as possible and got Jill and myself some more ginger ale. We were standing sipping it when Cynthia Crystal slid over and put her arm around me; she seemed seductive despite her costume and makeup: she had transformed herself into a grandmother type, hair in a gray bun, wearing granny glasses and a blue calico Mother Hubbard.
    “What big eyes you have, Granny,” I said.
    “Was I rude this morning?” she said.
    “A little.”
    “Did it surprise you?”
    “Not in the least.”
    She let loose her brittle laugh. “You really have me pegged, don’t you, Mal?”
    “I think so,” I said with a lecherous grin. “But I love you anyway, Cynthia.”
    Jill pinched me again; this time she found her way under my coat to my pink shirt, under which was my pink flesh.
    “Ow,” I said.
    “What?” Cynthia said.
    “Nothing. Where’s your Mr. Culver?”
    She nodded over toward the fireplace. “Talking with his brother.”
    So he was. Culver was dressed all in black; what separated him from Johnny Cash were gloves, a beret, and a domino mask. Between the brothers, making a strange backdrop, was an oil painting in a fancy frame, leaned up above the fireplace, on the mantle—a striking abstract work in which shades of orange and yellow and red swirled in an off-center spiral, a whirlpool of color.
    “What happened to their famous family feud?” I said.
    “Fizzled, finally,” Cynthia alliterated. She adjusted her granny wig. “It was mostly jealousy, you know.”
    Curt had had great success in Hollywood with his comedy caper novels, five of which had been made into movies and God only knew how many more of which had been optioned. But the critics had always been tough on Curt—unfairly, I thought—often referring to him as “a road company Donald E. Westlake.” On the other hand, Tim Culver had earned kudos from even the toughest critics for his series about professional thief McClain; the acclaim included multiple Edgars and overseas awards. But in over a twenty-year career, he had never had any success in Hollywood—never generated a dime of option money (I knew the feeling).
    “Tim envied Curt’s financial success,” Cynthia said, with a shrugging smile, “and Curt envied Tim’s critical success.”
    “What turned that around?” Jill asked Cynthia. “They seem to be getting along now.”
    And they did. They were chatting, even smiling a little. Not warm; cool as the unlit fireplace, actually. But not feuding. One having invited the other, and the other having accepted.
    “Tim sold McClain to the movies,” Cynthia explained. “Lawrence Kasdan took an option on the whole series, and the first of them,
McClain’s Score
, is in