“You make a truly convincing nerd,” Jill said, smirking cutely, skin crinkling around the corners of her cornflower-blue eyes.
“I know you are,” I said nasally, “but what am I?”
“Takes one to know one,” she said nasally back at me.
I gave her a sloppy, nerdy smooch and slipped my arm around her shoulder and we walked out into the hall and down to Curt’s room, where all the role-playing authors were assembling, prior to the first of the weekend’s two interrogation sessions, which was to begin just fifteen minutes from now. Partylike sounds were going on behind Curt’s door; we paused before going in.
“You look so cute with that little mustache,” she said, pinching my cheek (facial cheek). “I’m tempted to just be a groupie and hang around and watch your performance.”
I shook my head no. “I’d really prefer you to circulate — listen to the other ‘suspects.’ ”
“What am I supposed to get out of that?”
“I don’t know,” I admitted. “Just make sure you catch a glimpse of each of them, noting whether or not they seem unduly ill at ease.”
“If they do, it won’t necessarily mean anything more than stage fright.”
“Maybe not, but jot down some notes anyway. Also, look for any particularly obsessive game-players; anybody who seems to be taking this too seriously, or is really pushy in the interrogation sessions.”
“How am I supposed to know what their names are?”
I pointed to my badge. “They’ll be wearing them.”
“Ah.”
We knocked on Curt’s door, which Curt himself opened. “Well, Lester Denton in the flesh!” he said above the crowd’s conversation, doing a pop-eyed take. “Where on earth did you find that suit?”
Jill said, “You’d be surprised. I didn’t have to dig all that far back in his closet to unearth it.”
I shrugged. “The early seventies were a do-your-own-thing kind of era; apparently my thing was tacky plaid suits.”
“Yesterday’s trendsetter,” Curt said, ushering us in, “today’s nebbish.” His room, which was filled with the other suspects, was easily twice as large as ours, a suite really; the fireplace was bigger, and the twin beds were boxed together, I noted. The suspects were all in costume, of course; only Curt was in civvies, a casual blue shirt and brown slacks. He had a glass of something in his hand — ginger ale, as it turned out — and he got us some.
“Well,” he said, “you certainly look your part. Ready to live it as well as look it?”
“Sure. How long did you say this session’s going to be?”
“One hour; they get another hour with you tomorrow morning. Say, you know, you really loosened everybody up.” He gestured to the costumed suspects around him.
“How’s that?”
He raised his eyebrows. “Ah, well...” He put them back down. “I think my sense of black comedy got the best of me, in whipping up this mystery; some of the guests — Jack Flint and my brother, in particular — took a little offense at the way I’d written their roles, especially in regard to ‘Roark K. Sloth.’ ”
“Hit a little too close to home, did you?”
He mock-grimaced for just a moment. “Guess so. Anyway, that prank that got pulled on you last night, when the word got around, gave everybody a laugh.”
“I noticed.”
He put a hand on my shoulder, pretended to be somber. “You’re not angry with me?”
“For making me the laughingstock of Mohonk? I’m livid. I’ll never speak to you again.”
He shrugged, mugged. “Just so we cleared that up,” he said, and moved on to mingle with other members of his cast.
Jill, who’d been at my side listening to all this, said, “You sure cut that guy a lot of slack.”
“He’s done me plenty of favors. Remember my mentioning that one of my teachers at a writers’ conference helped me get an agent?”
“Sure.”
“Well, Curt was that writer. 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.”