Kill Your Darlings by Max Allan Collins Read Free Book Online Page B

too, Sardini; you, too, Murtz.”
    They were smiling, nodding.
    “I had about three heroes, in my life. Real-life heroes I looked up to. During my teen idol phase, I liked Bobby Darin—probably ’cause ‘Mack the Knife’ was a blood-and-guts crime yarn—had pics of him plastered all over the walls of my room... next to the Elke Sommer pics, that is. She wasn’t my hero, but there was a place for her. And I liked Jack Webb. That movie, ‘Pete Kelly’s Blues,’ you guys ever see that? That shootout in the ballroom at the end, the rainstorm outside? Great! I always wanted to write Webb a letter and tell him how much I admired his work, but I wanted to wait until I’d written something I was
really
proud of, a book I could send him, as a fan who made good. Then last Christmas he died. I felt like I’d lost my best friend. I moped around. Everybody thought I was nuts. I took it damn near as hard as when my folks died. Crazy. Darin and Webb and Kane, they weren’t my only heroes, of course; I had the usual ones... John Wayne, Bogie, JFK. They’re all dead. Darin died after open-heart surgery at age thirty-seven, you know. Kane was the last one. The last living one. I’m thirty-three years old and feel old as hell, ’cause all my goddamn heroes are dead.”
    I pounded the table with my fist; I surprised myself with the force it exerted, coffee cups jumping all around.
    Sardini reached across the booth and put a hand on my arm. “Mal. Are you all right?”
    “Haven’t you ever seen a tough guy cry before? I’ll see you guys later.”
    I went back up to my room; the maid, a black woman about twenty-three, was in there and said, “You didn’t have no sign on the door.”
    I didn’t follow that. I said so.
    “You don’t want the room made up,” she said, defensively, “you gots to leave the do-not-disturb sign on the door.”
    “That’s okay,” I said. “Sorry to interrupt—you go on with your work. I’ll go for a walk or something.”
    I was to the elevators when it occurred to me to go back and ask her something.
    “Miss?”
    She turned and gave me a sullen stare. She said nothing.
    “Did you work yesterday?”
    “I work damn near every day, mister.”
    “Please back off a little. I’m not trying to give you a bad time or anything. I just wondered if you worked yesterday, because I wanted to ask you if you’d run short of towels.”
    “Huh?”
    “Let me start over. Do you work just on this floor?”
    “No such luxury.”
    “Did you happen to make up room 714 yesterday afternoon?”
    She smirked and pointed upward with a thumb. “Yeah, so what?”
    “It was a late make-up, wasn’t it? The guest had left the do-not-disturb sign on his door till late afternoon, right?”
    Unimpressed, bored, she nodded. “I gots work to do, mister.”
    “Were you short on towels?”
    “No, I wasn’t short on towels.”
    “You weren’t. How many towels did you leave in 714?”
    “You’re crazy, man. I gots work to do.”
    I showed her a five.
    “How many towels?”
    She snatched the bill out of my hand.
    “Four,” she snapped. “How many you think?”

5
    There was a do-not-disturb sign on the knob of door 714.
    Hardly surprising, considering what Mae Kane had been through; but an unpleasant little ironic reminder of why I was here....
    I knocked, and when there was no answer, knocked again, then paused to say, “Mae? It’s me—Mal.”
    A few seconds later the door opened a ways and Mae’s face appeared over the taut nightlatch chain, a game little smile in the midst of the pretty but puffy face.
    “Hello, Mal,” she said. “You’re a dear, but... I’m not really up to visitors right now....”
    “Sure,” I said. “I understand. But we need to talk, soon as you’re up to it. It’s important we talk.”
    The big brown long-lashed eyes, which had a red filigree this morning, narrowed and the lipstick-free lips pursed; she nodded and let me in.
    Her bags were packed, by the door.
    “When