DeAngelo was a big, gregarious guy in his early thirties, with the usual beard and Poe-ishly long hair of the younger mystery writer. He was wearing a black suit with a tie but was not quite getting away with it-the suit meant for us to take him as a serious-minded adult, but his good-humored enthusiasm for his work, and for life, was childlike and endearing. DeAngelo had won two Edgars, once for a hardcover mystery novel and again the next year for a paperback; he was a very young man to have pulled that off-I couldn’t seem to find a way to resent or dislike him for it, though, try as I might.
He smiled when he saw me, and stuck his hand out to be shaken; I complied.
“I understand we’re on another panel together,” he said.
We’d been on a panel at the last Bouchercon I’d attended, also in Chicago, years before; I was a little surprised-and flattered-he remembered that, and me.
“Really?” I said. “I haven’t seen the program listing yet. But I did tell the ’con organizers I was willing to make a fool out of myself, if they wanted me to.”
“I think we’re on the catchall panel,” he said. “We’re supposed to talk about the ‘state of the mystery’-that’s so general a topic as to be meaningless.”
“Is Donaldson on it?”
“The Guest of Honor? No. Disappointed?”
“No.”
A wicked little smile formed under the mustache. “Don’t you like Donaldson?”
“Never met him.”
“I meant his books.”
“I know you did. I’m just being evasive.”
Ed Porter smiled a little. “Care to join us?”
“Thank you, no-I see Sardini and Murtz over there. I have to go talk over some things with Tom.”
Porter, a soft-spoken, gentlemanly man in his fifties, said, “Sorry to hear about Roscoe Kane.” His concern was genuine, his manner somber.
DeAngelo’s cheery look dropped away. “Terrible thing. Hell of a way to start a Bouchercon. It’s like a bad joke.”
“I wish it were a joke,” I said.
“Roscoe was a nice man,” Ed said, “and an underrated writer.”
I nodded.
DeAngelo said, “I never got to meet the guy, but he was very, very good. I think he was better than Chandler.”
That was a controversial thing to say out loud at a Bouchercon, Chandler having achieved a sort of sainthood approaching Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s. I liked DeAngelo for that-even if he had won two Edgars.
I stopped at the table where Tim Culver and Cynthia Crystal were just finishing up what appeared to be a rather silent breakfast. Cynthia smiled briefly on first seeing me, then apparently made the Roscoe Kane connection, because her expression turned sympathetic.
“Mal,” she said, rising, holding a hand out to me, which I took. She still had the same trim model’s figure, in a stylishly cut gray slacks outfit; she was wearing her pale blonde hair short these days.
“Hi, Cynthia,” I said.
There was something besides sympathy in her eyes; nervousness, maybe. It was impossible for Cynthia to be anything but graceful, yet somehow this seemed an awkward moment for her. “I’m very, very sorry to hear about Roscoe Kane’s death. I know what he meant to you.” She let go of my hand; swallowed. “Do sit down for a moment.”
Culver, without rising, motioned toward an empty chair-they were two at a table for four-and I sat.
“It’s been a long time, Cynthia,” I said.
“Since that other Bouchercon, here in Chicago. How many years ago?”
“I’ve lost track.”
“Don’t you ever get to New York?”
“Once in a while.”
“Call next time.”
“I will.”
Culver searched for words. “This must be a rough morning for you,” he said. “I know Roscoe Kane meant a lot to you.”
“Yes, he did. We sort of had the final audience with him, I guess, last night in the bar.”
Culver sipped some coffee, sighed heavily. “At least I got to tell the man how much I admired his writing. For all the money he made, he had precious little recognition.”
“I would have thought money was his primary goal,” Cynthia said, with a little shrug. She turned to me, still sympathetic. “I don’t mean to be unkind, Mal. I know Kane was your mentor, of sorts. I just mean, I don’t think we should feel too sorry for him, in terms of his writing career. Beyond the publishing problems of his later years, I mean. Because I don’t think Roscoe Kane had any literary pretentions; he was a craftsman, if you will, and he made his fortune, and I’d imagine he felt quite content having done so.”
Culver shook his head no. “I disagree. Kane wasn’t a hack by any means”-he glanced at me-“you must remember that ‘craftsman’ is Cynthia’s euphemism for hack.” He looked back at her sharply. “You seem to have forgotten he was a peer of Hammett and Chandler’s, the last ‘star performer’ of the original Black Mask crowd….”
Cynthia half-smiled. “Don’t you think I know that?” she said, with the gentlest condescension.
Something was going on beneath the surface of this literary discussion that I couldn’t quite pick up on; and I wasn’t sure I wanted to.
Culver looked at me again. “Anyway, I’m very sorry, Mallory. Just wanted you to know.”
“I appreciate that. And I’m sure Roscoe appreciated hearing your words of praise, too. You’re one of the few modern mystery writers he had any respect for.”
Culver smiled a little. “That’s nice to hear.”
“I’m glad to meet you, too,” I said. “I’ve always admired your McClain series. And I’m also a big fan of your brother’s. Is he attending the convention?”
Culver’s face froze.
“No,” he said. He plucked the check from the table and stood. “Excuse me while I take care of this,” he said, and rose and strode off toward the mini-gazebo housing the cashier.
“What was that all about?” I asked Cynthia.
“He and his brother don’t speak,” she said. “It’s simple envy on both their parts…. Tim gets the good reviews, and Curt gets the Hollywood sales.”
Culver’s twin brother, Curt-who wrote under the name Curt Clark-was the author of numerous comedy caper novels, a good half dozen of which had been snapped up by the movies. But it was Culver’s Hammett-like novels about professional thief McClain that had earned the critical raves, as well as a couple of Edgars and several overseas awards.
“Didn’t mean to step on any toes,” I said.
“Oh, he’s just in a gloomy mood today,” she said. “I think being with Roscoe Kane so shortly before his death made Tim a little dour, shall we say. Contemplating his own mortality-which of course is the male equivalent of the navel.”
She said this with the tiniest cocktail-party smile, and got a genuine smile out of me, despite my own mood. She was able to get away with saying the nastiest things by saying them in the most good-natured, offhand way.
“I liked your Hammett biography,” I said. “How’d you swing the cooperation of the estate?”
“Tact and patience,” she said. “Something the men who’d approached the estate hadn’t bothered trying.”
“I have to admit I was surprised you wrote a book about a tough-guy writer, what with your leaning toward the more genteel sort of mystery.”
Cynthia had made her reputation writing drawing-room mysteries, intelligent, urbane American versions of the Agatha Christie formula. Lately she’d begun doing occasional “big” books, suspense novels in the vein of Mary Higgins Clark; at this she’d again been critically and commercially successful, and was similarly successful with her Hammett bio.
“I’ve always admired Hammett,” she said. “That’s no secret. My own work is sort of an unlikely marriage between Hammett and Christie. But the tough mystery story beyond Hammett gets silly very quickly. Chandler has his merits, I suppose, but who else? Mickey Spillane? Don’t spoil my breakfast. Ross Macdonald? Possibly. But how you can take the likes of Roscoe Kane seriously-and I mean no disrespect, I’m talking about the man’s work, and nothing else-mystifies me.”