Nice Weekend for a Murder by Max Allan Collins Page B

preproduction now.”
    “Lawrence Kasdan,” Jill said. “
Body Heat
! Wow!”
    “Movie buff,” I explained to Cynthia. “Ignore her. She won’t take me seriously until
I
sell to the movies.”
    “You
did
sell to the movies,” Cynthia said.
    “TV doesn’t count,” Jill said.
    “Especially at Mohonk,” I added. “But as for the brotherly feud—am I right to assume that the glowing reviews Kirk Rath lavished on Curt helped smooth things over between him and Tim?”
    “It certainly did,” Cynthia confirmed. “Rath may not be liked—scratch the ‘may’—but he
is
influential. Other reviewers pay attention to him and the
Chronicler
; a lot of critics have been reassessing Curt’s work since Kirk started championing him.”
    “So he and Tim,” I said, “have no reason to be jealous of each other anymore.”
    “Happy ending, darling,” Cynthia said, with her best cocktail party smile.
    Jack Flint lumbered over, like a small tank; he was dressed as I’d seen him this morning—seemed not to be in costume. On closer look, he had extra gold chains around his neck; otherwise, business as usual.
    He answered my unasked question with a shrug, saying, “The character I’m playing is so close to me, I didn’t bother with dressing up. My wife, on the other hand, is
not
cast to type.”
    I looked around for her, and finally spotted Janis, sitting in a chair to one side; frankly, I felt she
had
been typecast: the outside of her had just been made to match her shy, quiet, inner nature; her cheery, bright California dresses had been replaced with a drab brown one. Her hair was pulled back and she wore no makeup.
    I went over to her. “Nervous?”
    Her smile was just a slight pulling back of the upper lip over tiny teeth. “Terrified.”
    “Don’t be. The game is the thing, here. Our performances don’t need to be Oscar level. Besides, aren’t you a teacher? You should be used to being in front of people.”
    “I got out of teaching,” she said. “It made me nervous, too.”
    “You’re still in education, though.”
    “Yes. I’m assistant principal, primary level.” She smiled again. “Peter Principle, I suppose. I wasn’t much of a teacher so I got kicked upstairs.”
    “I’m sure you do a fine job. And I’m sure you’ll do fine today, too.”
    “You’re a nice man, Mr. Mallory.”
    “Call me Mal. And today I’m not a man, in case you haven’t noticed.”
    “You seem to be more a mouse.”
    “I do at that.”
    She smiled more broadly now. “They really gave you a ribbing about that prank last night.”
    “They sure did.”
    “I wish it were true.”
    “What?”
    “What you saw last night. That, or this mystery we’re acting out.”
    “In what sense?”
    She talked through her tiny teeth. “In the sense that that awful little bastard Kirk Rath would really be dead.”
    “Oh. That sense.”
    Still waters run deep.
    I wished her luck with her performance and wandered back to Jill, who was talking with Cynthia and getting along well.
    “I don’t see Curt’s wife anywhere,” I said.
    “She’s in the loo,” Cynthia said. Cynthia was the only person I knew who would use that expression. “Putting the finishing touches on her makeup and costume. Oh. There she is, now....”
    And there she was.
    Poured into a slinky black gown. Like Mary Wright, her figure was shown off to great advantage. Kim was slightly topheavy, and a lot of creamy skin was showing.
    “I’m just looking,” I said to Jill. “No pinching, please.”
    “We’ll just both keep our hands to ourselves,” Jill said agreeably.
    Kim’s eyes locked on mine and she grinned and, snugging her tight dress in place on the way, she came over to us. I hadn’t seen her since my last New York trip the year before.
    “I
hate
tight clothes,” she said, not at all coy, as if she were unaware the clinging dress made the most of her voluptuous figure. She had a high, slightly breathy, Judy Holliday sort of voice, and