“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 similar, 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?”
“Yeah?”
“Before we got… sidetracked, you said… said you were afraid. What of?”
“Oh. Nothing.”
“Come on. Spill.”
I shrugged. “Finding Roscoe’s killer, if there is such a person. It’s not going to make anything right, you know. That’s when it’s really going to hit me. That Roscoe’s dead and all my fancy footwork didn’t really do him any good.”