Max Collins - Kill Your Darlings

The room got very quiet. Gorman had sat back in his chair, but his face was still very red. Jerome Kane had a small smile; Evelyn Kane did, too. In the front row, Kathy looked a little frightened. And Mae Kane was crying quietly into a handkerchief.

“The first person to cast doubt on the authenticity of The Secret Emperor was G. Roger Donaldson,” I said. “Mr. Donaldson-who on this very stage received some rude treatment from me this morning, for which I apologize-came to me with his suspicions. He’d read the manuscript, having been asked by its ‘discoverer’ to help verify its authorship; at first he’d been convinced. But then he had second thoughts. It occurred to him that Roscoe Kane might have been capable of having written this and, after Kane’s suspicious drowning, Donaldson approached me with a copy of the manuscript. He wanted my opinion as a Roscoe Kane authority. Did I think Kane might have ghosted this book?”

Donaldson, next to Kathy, smiling faintly, nodded at me.

I went on: “I read The Secret Emperor last night. Through internal evidence, I can prove Kane wrote this book. His literary fingerprints are all over it. But I would like to add that it is a first-rate Hammett pastiche. I would trust it will one day see print, and enhance Roscoe Kane’s reputation-at least his literary reputation.

“Now, as to the question of who is responsible for this hoax-who has attempted to swindle Random House and all of you mystery fans out of your money-it is of course none other than my good, good friend Gregg Gorman….”

Gorman stood and thrust a finger toward me. “That’s a lie!” Without a microphone, his voice had a hollow, impotent quality, about as forceful as a stone rattling around in a can.

But he shouted on: “A complete fabrication! You have no proof, Mallory! Get him off the stage, somebody-aren’t there any security guards in this joint?”

I took the check out of my pocket. My voice coming out of the loudspeakers was like the voice of God, where Gorman was concerned. “When I confronted Gregg Gorman earlier today, he offered me ten thousand dollars, up front, to keep quiet about Kane’s ghost job; and ten thousand more, six months after the book’s publication. He made this offer in front of a witness. He gave me this check in front of several more. G. Roger Donaldson and Kathy Wickman, specifically.”

Donaldson and Kathy stood and turned toward the audience and nodded their heads.

Then they sat down.

So did Gorman, defeated; sat down heavily and slumped forward. He looked, as if for help, toward Mae Kane. Mae Kane didn’t look at him.

I continued. “I hope you people, and the thousands upon thousands of mystery readers you represent, will not look too unkindly on Roscoe Kane. He paid a heavy price for his involvement in this fraud; much heavier than the loss of his reputation. Roscoe Kane was my hero-but he was also a man. A flawed one-as has been every man I’ve ever met, to one degree or another. But I do think he had in mind to do something-something that, had he been able to do it, would’ve made him look better, in your eyes, and posterity’s.”

The room was dead silent; five-hundred-some rapt faces were fixed on me… everyone in the room was looking at me-except Gorman and Mae Kane, the former gazing downward, the latter staring blankly off to her left, her tears dried, now.

“I believe Roscoe Kane intended to reveal his authorship of the so-called Hammett book,” I said. I spoke softly, but it came across loud-not so much because of the loudspeakers, but because of the words themselves. “I believe he intended to reveal this all along. But initially, I think, he planned to allow the book to be published, and be received well by the critics and readers; then, possibly, he planned to pack up his share of the loot and head for Mexico or somewhere. But I know… knew… Roscoe. I know his ego. He would’ve told. Eventually he would’ve told. He’d have wanted his horse laugh on the publishing industry. He’d have wanted to have the last word with the fans. And his killer knew that.”

The room got noisy, then, but quieted down when I continued: “Yes-his killer. Because Roscoe Kane was murdered. I discovered his body, with his wife Mae. The evidence on the scene indicated murder, but the Chicago coroner’s office disregarded it, and my theories. So, today, in public, in front of this audience and these television cameras, I challenge the city of Chicago to reopen the death of Roscoe Kane, for a possible-probable-homicide investigation.”

The room went berserk; murmuring escalated into near shouting, and the TV minicam cameramen bore down on me, and reporters with microphones were moving in, too.

“Please,” I said, motioning to them to keep back. “Allow me to continue. I believe Roscoe had decided to reveal his complicity in the Hammett hoax, before publication of the book. And because of that, I think he was murdered. I think the murder was impromptu, almost a crime of passion, motivated though it was primarily by greed. And I also think I know who did it.”

A hush fell over the room; I looked at Evelyn Kane-she looked at me.

“I know who did it, and I’m prepared to share my opinion and my reasons for it with the police. Unfortunately, it would not be proper for me to share it with you people, here.”

The room got noisy again, and I had to call out to be heard, even with the microphone: “Right now, there’s an award to be presented-to Mae Kane, Mrs. Roscoe Kane, would you please step forward?”

The room got funeral-parlor quiet again, and Mae rose from the audience like an apparition in black. She floated to the front of the room, the silver arcs of her hair swinging gently, and took the plaque from me. The plaque pictured the cover of Kill Me, Darling , the first Gat Garson novel; she didn’t look at it, though. She looked at me. Her face was white; her expression was blank; the tracks of tears could be seen against her pale makeup.

“Mal,” she said. “Why did you do this?”

I leaned across the table and pretended to be looking at the plaque, smiling as I did. The room was noisy again, people discussing, arguing, the revelations I’d dropped in their laps; the media people were keeping their distance from me at the moment.

I was away from the microphone now; no one could hear me but Mae.

I whispered: “You did it, Mae. You did it. Roscoe and Evelyn were getting back together. Her companionship offered him more than your bed ever could. She gave him his self-respect back; she’d convinced him to expose you and Gorman and the whole scheme, before the fact. So that he’d be the hero of the piece, the media star. So that his career might be able to start all over again, and you’d be left behind.”

She looked at me with wide, empty eyes.

I said, “When the police investigate, they’ll find it all out, easy enough. You arrived at the hotel and went up to his room-you knew what name he’d registered under. Did you ask for a key at the desk, or was the room unlocked? No matter. You went in and took off your coat and drowned him; then you put your coat back on over your clothes and disposed of the wet towels you’d sopped the bathroom floor up with, and you came down to the lounge and found me. And made a fall guy out of me, as Gat Garson would say. I found it a little odd that you left your coat on after we found Roscoe, even when you lay down on the bed, but I didn’t make much of it; then it occurred to me you might’ve left it on because your clothes under there were wet, still wet. From drowning him.”

The wide eyes filled with tears; actress tears? I couldn’t tell.

Then, softly, so that no one could hear but me, she answered: “I didn’t plan it. He was asleep in the tub. I held him under; he didn’t even wake up. He didn’t suffer. He just went away….”