Kill Your Darlings (22 page)

She closed the lid on her suitcase and smiled at me. “It’s been a real eye-opener meeting you, Mal. You’re just like your books.”

I put my hands on her waist. “I hope that’s a compliment.”

“Of course it’s a compliment. I love your books.”

“But do you love me?”

“Sure. You know I love ya.”

The “ya” bothered me.

“Kathy,” I said. “I don’t mean to be a hopeless romantic, but I thought we set off a spark or two. I know we’re separated by a few miles, but maybe we could do something about that.”

Wry smile #692. She bussed my cheek. “We’ll have to do this again sometime.”

And she moved away from me and went into the bathroom, where she was gathering toiletries up to put in a flight bag.

“Do what again?” I asked. “Have a little two-night stand at a convention?”

She looked up, smiled one-sidedly, arched a brow. “Sure. Why not?”

“I was hoping for a little more. Why don’t you come spend a week with me, sometime soon. Or why don’t I come spend a week with you....”

She walked out of the bathroom and stood solemnly before me. “Look, that just isn’t possible.”

“Why?”

“I’m sort of... married.”

“Sort of married?”

“Well, Ron and I keep it loose. I don’t wear a ring or anything and neither does he. We give each other space. But not that much space. You can’t come visit me and I can’t come visit you. But, maybe next year. Next Bouchercon.”

My mouth felt dry. I tried to swallow and couldn’t quite bring it off.

“Is that what this was? Just another Bouchercon?”

“Hey, come off it, Mal. It’s a convention; a weekend away from home. Boys’ night out; girls’ night out. Didn’t you ever hear of that?”

I nodded. “I heard of it. I just thought... we might be something more. Why didn’t you tell me you were married?”

Wry smile, arched brow. “Why didn’t you ask?” She patted my cheek. “I’ll tell you why you didn’t ask... because it was just another Bouchercon, and I’m just another girl. Don’t try to make it anything else, you sweet romantic sap.”

I found a little smile somewhere. “I won’t play the sap for you,” I said.

She patted my cheek again; very softly. “I got time for breakfast. You want to buy me some? Or is it my turn?”

“You buy,” I said.

As I was holding the door open for her, she said, “I suppose you’re going to break your promise to me now.”

“What promise?”

“You’ll turn this into a book. You won’t be able to resist.”

I shrugged. We were headed for the elevators.

“Now that Evelyn Kane killed Mae Kane in front of God and the TV cameras and everybody,” Kathy said, “she’ll be a celebrity. A regular literary cottage industry’ll grow up around her and what she did yesterday.”

“This year’s Jean Harris,” I said, glumly.

“Right,” Kathy said, cheerfully.

We got on the elevator. There were going to be some rocky nights, back in Iowa. I was going to have to live with the memory of Mae Kane dying in front of me; I was going to have to wonder if I had somehow caused that, somehow stage-managed that death.

And I was going to wonder if Kathy Wickman’s feelings for me were really as shallow as she wanted me to believe.

I knew one thing, going down in the elevator with her. When I got home I’d frame that original cover painting, from
Murder
Me Again, Doll
, and hang it somewhere prominent. Looking at it would provide the sort of bittersweet experience I can’t resist—like listening to Darin sing “Beyond the Sea”; painful, but it reminds me I’m still alive.

And it wasn’t that the painting would remind me of Roscoe Kane; that was a loss I’d already faced.

Just before the elevator doors opened, I gave her a wry smile. “You really do look just like that girl in my Gat Garson painting,” I told her.

“I know,” she said.

But she wasn’t smiling.

Photo Credit: Bamford Studio

Max Allan Collins is the
New York Times
bestselling author of
Road to Perdition
and multiple award-winning novels, screenplays, comic books, comic strips, trading cards, short stories, movie novelizations, and historical fiction. He has scripted the
Dick Tracy
comic strip,
Batman
comic books, and written tie-in novels based on the
CSI
,
Bones
, and
Dark Angel
TV series; collaborated with legendary mystery author Mickey Spillane; and authored numerous mystery series including Quarry, Nolan, Mallory, Eliot Ness, and the bestselling Nathan Heller historical thrillers. His additional Mallory novels include
The Baby Blue Rip-Off, No Cure for Death, A Shroud for Aquarius
, and
Nice Weekend for a Murder
.