Max Collins - Kill Your Darlings

Heroes arent supposed to die.

But heroes, at least real-life role model type heroes (as opposed to such mythic figures as Hercules and Davy Crockett), are human beings; and human beings, even the best of em, sooner or later, each and every one, wind up dead.

My hero was dead in a bathtub; drowned, apparently. Hed been drinking heavily, earlier that night. Hed been dead drunk when I walked him up to his hotel room. And now he was just dead.

A few hours before, hed been vocal-embarrassingly vocal-sitting in the cocktail lounge downstairs. We were in Chicago, in the Americana-Congress Hotel, and it was October.

There hasnt been a goddamn mystery writer worth reading since Dashiell Hammett died, he slurred, at a table of mystery writers. Tomorrow was day one of the Bouchercon, the annual mystery fan convention.

Youre worth reading, I ventured, smiling, trying to keep it light.

Roscoe Kane, the shoulders of his plaid shirt flecked with dandruff, his patched brown sports jacket slung sloppily over the back of his chair, looked at me with disgust lining every wrinkle of his basset-hound face, his rheumy china-blue eyes like nasty lasers. The hoarse voice wanted to be contemptuous, but sad self-pity got in the way: I used to be.

Across the table from us, Brett Murtz, in faded blue workshirt and jeans, leaned over and gestured, his long curly hair and free-flowing mustache making him look like a hippie Gene Shalit; he had the kind of enthusiasm it took to have driven here from Colorado in a Datsun.

Ill bet you could still write a hell of a yarn, he said. You ought to come out with a new Gat Garson!

A bigger chill couldnt have fallen across the small party of five if somebody had turned on the air conditioning; the rest of us-me, Peter Christian, Tim Culver-were well aware of Roscoe Kanes unfortunate situation, where publishing was concerned.

But Murtz rushed in where angels fear to tread.

Dont tell me youve got writers block! Murtz said, good-naturedly. I wrote you a fan letter back when I was in high school, and told you I was trying to be a writer, and said I had a book half-written but was stuck-and that I was afraid I had writers block-remember? And you wrote me back and said

There aint no such thing as writers block, just blockhead writers, Kane said, with a mirthless smile.

Murtzs grin went up in one direction, his mustache in a couple of others. You remembered!

I smiled and nodded. He told me the same thing, two years ago.

Kane said to me, Thats the advice I give to any jackass in that situation, Mallory. I need another Scotch.

A pretty brunette barmaid in a short skirt took care of that; Kane didnt seem to notice her, even when she bent over and gave us a view right off the cover of one of Kanes Gat Garson paperbacks.

I was hoping the question about why Kane wasnt publishing anything-why he hadnt published a new novel in the United States in fifteen years, in fact, and anywhere in the world in the last ten-had been forgotten in the wake of Kanes latest Scotch, a long slow joyless sip of which he took, and then got right into the inevitable harangue.

I was the biggest name in paperbacks, he said, launching into a variant of a speech I had heard half a dozen times before and read as many times in letters from him. Spillane came along writing his violent junk, and took the paperback world by storm. It was postwar, and the vets wanted some hair on their books chests, and the Mick, for all his faults, knew that. You dont take a guy whos been in the Battle of the Bulge and give him a book about a guy in a white suit whose gun goes bang and makes a nice clean tidy little hole in the bad guys black suit. Naw! You have your guy shoot a big unpleasant bloody hole in the bad guy! A hole you could drive a Mack truck through. Thats what a reader whos been through the Second World War goddamn well expects. Carnage. And he doesnt expect the sex to be prim and proper, either. Hes looking for it hot and horny.

Kane was wound up, now; this story used to be delivered more articulately, but the Scotch-not just tonights-had taken away a few too many brain cells for Kane to be in top form. What he was saying was true, of course. In the postwar paperback boom, sexy, violent novels inspired by the success of Mickey Spillanes Mike Hammer series were the backbone of the fledgling industry. But of Spillanes many imitators only one-Roscoe Kane-had given the Mick a run for the money. Even Richard S. Prather and John D. MacDonald were runners-up, compared to Kane. Why?

Because I was smart enough to use humor. Oh, not that broad campy crap Prather used to dish out-

Murtz, hearing one of his idols besmirched, interrupted. I like the Shell Scott stories.

They were lousy! Kane ranted. My humor was subtle. My stuff was Hammett done tongue-in-cheek.

Low-key, Peter Christian said, eyes intense behind dark-rimmed glasses. Somehow the humor never gets in the storys way. Wonderful. Pete is a dark-haired, stocky, vaguely disheveled man who happens to be one of the most knowledgeable guys in the mystery business, having coauthored the definitive Encyclopedia of Mystery and Detective Fiction a few years back.

Next to him was Tim Culver, who in his tan corduroy sports jacket and wire-rim glasses looked like Woody Allens older, better-looking brother. Id never met him before, and hed seemed quiet, even shy, as the evening began; but a few drinks loosened him up a bit and he occasionally spoke.

Like now.

I always got a kick out of your stuff, he told Kane, with a soft-voiced intensity. Its the Hammett understatement done to a turn. The average reader could appreciate it for its surface-a fast-paced story, well told. And a slightly more hip reader would appreciate the put-on.

The folds of Kanes face turned into a hundred smiles. He liked compliments. He liked them from the likes of Pete, who after all was partly responsible for the Encyclopedia, which had given Kane the only literary recognition hed ever received in his long career. Paperbacks didnt get reviewed back when Kane was doing them; they still dont, mostly. But the kudos from Culver meant even more to him, Im sure, since Culver was considered by many critics to be the best modern writer working in the Hammett tradition.

I was hoping these compliments would forestall the tragic story that, should Kane tell it, would no doubt end the evening. Because once he got into that, the party was over.

Murtz, Murtz, Kane was muttering, looking suspiciously at the hardworking writer whose counterculture background was still apparent, and even today would label him a longhair to a conservative eccentric like Roscoe Kane. What have you written?

Some occult-oriented private eye stuff under a pseudonym, Murtz said casually. Kane asked what, specifically, and Murtz told him, and Kane said hed never read any of em. Trying to hide his hurt, Murtz said hed sent Kane copies, but Kane ignored that-which is probably what hed done with the copies.

Anything else? Kane said.

Murtz shrugged. Ive ghosted some stuff. I wrote some of the Exterminator books. He was referring to that enormously successful-and enormously silly-paperback series about a Vietnam vet who takes on the Mafia single-handedly, and wins. And wins. And wins.

Garbage! Kane shouted, with his usual tact. The guy that writes that tripe wrote me and said he was a fan, and wondered, considering my situation, if I wanted to do some ghosting for him, myself. It was his way of paying me back for teaching him, the condescending twerp. You know what I told him to do?

He then told us, just as the zaftig waitress was bending delivering Kanes latest Scotch; the effect of the expletives Im deleting was to put a blush on the paperback-worthy view shed been continually giving us, in a crass attempt to get us to leave a big tip, no doubt. I planned to leave five bucks. So far.