A Killing in Comics (27 page)

“That’s enough,” he said.

“And then, with the gears in your noggin still not meshing right, you went over to the Waldorf, to her suite, and of course you got right in . . . and you confronted her about it, about all these men, and she probably said it was none of your damn business, and maybe finally you told her what you’d done for her, but she wasn’t impressed, was she? Or, anyway, not in the way you’d hoped she’d be. And she disappointed you. Disappointed you so bad that you took her not in your arms but in your hands, and squeezed the life out of that funny, sad, smart, beautiful woman.”

“I thought she was wonderful,” he said softly, through clenched teeth. “But she was a tramp! A filthy whore. My only regret is . . . I can’t kill her again. And again! And again!”

“Once was enough,” I said.

And my remark was enough, too, because he did just what I was hoping he’d do: jump at me.

I couldn’t kill him. I promised Maggie no vigilante nonsense. But I owed Honey this much: I broke that square superhero jaw with one sharp, hard swing.

The roll of quarters helped.

He fell to the floor by the bar, not unconscious, but out of commission. And then he did the damnedest thing: he started to cry.

And for a small, very infinitesimal slice of a second, I did the damnedest thing: I felt sorry for him.

But it passed so quick I barely noticed, and then Chandler was by my side, come up from the back where he’d been running the three tape recorders he’d set up this afternoon, two hidden mikes at the table, one at the bar.

“Get what you need?” I asked him.

“Oh yeah,” he said, with a nasty grin, hauling Morella up off the floor. Another plainclothes dick, a colored guy, was pulling the chauffeur’s hands behind him, to properly cuff him.

As they dragged the murderer out—they forgot his chauffeur’s cap, and I kept it as a souvenir—I headed over to the banquet-style table where all eyes were large and all jaws were gaping, like something out of the damn comics . . . except for Maggie’s. She was hooded-eyed and beautiful and gently smiling; at some point in my part of the proceedings, she’d sat herself down.

“Well done, Jack,” she said, and touched my sleeve. “Well done.”

“Christ, I hope not,” I said. “I want mine with some juice in it—medium rare, at least. . . . Let’s eat.”

And everybody except Louis Cohn stayed for the free feed-sack. He could afford to pay, and preferred to pick his own company.

 
 
 
I wish I could report happy endings all around, but the
Funny Guy
strip bombed, the comic book, too. And, after a bunch of strained courtroom claptrap, on the advice of their lawyer, Spiegel and Shulman settled for one hundred grand, most of which Bert Zelman’s fees ate up, and Americana did not offer them a new contract.
Wonder Guy
flew on without them.

Funny thing—within the year, attorney Zelman set himself up as a Hollywood producer; he did a bunch of Mamie Van Doren pictures, all rotten (I know—I saw every one). Where Zelman got the kind of dough to produce movies, only God knows, or maybe Louie Cohn. What would it have been worth, under the table, do you suppose, to make the
Wonder Guy
boys disappear?

Meanwhile, as we say in the funnies, Rod Krane’s underage ploy worked, and he got a big fat contract and continual solo byline credit, while Will Hander went on freelancing for small change. The ’60s
Batwing
TV show made Krane very wealthy, and he exhibited pop art paintings that were probably ghosted, though they were lousy enough to be his. The campy TV show based many of its episodes on Will Hander scripts, without credit or compensation. He died broke, without his family, and probably drunk. Comics historians consider him the co-creator of the famous caped crimefighter, but Rod, who died rich and somewhat famous, still gets the official credit.

Selma Harrison died just shy of ten years later, of a heart attack, out on the patio where we spoke.

Louis Cohn got onto the board of directors of the huge corporation that bought Americana in the ’70s, and died at age one hundred. That’s a long time for a bastard like Louie to live, but think of it this way: one hundred years of humorless boredom is a kind of prison in itself.

Speaking of which, Hank Morella went to Sing Sing, as I predicted, and indeed got the hot seat. The papers had lost interest by that time, though. Love-nest murders were a dime a dozen in New York in those days, and the newshounds had been counting on a killer from the comic business (and come to think of it, that would have been the only way a syndicated cartoonist could land on the front page).

You probably know that in their later life, Spiegel and Shulman—thanks to the lobbying of a younger generation of comic-book professionals—embarrassed Americana’s new corporate owners into giving the two aging creators substantial pensions. Spiegel had been reduced to civil service clerking, and Shulman was blind, living with his family back in Des Moines.

But the blockbuster
Wonder Guy
motion picture—one of the top-grossing movies of the 1970s—had their names in the opening credits, big and bold, right up on the screen:
Created by Harry Spiegel and Moe Shulman
. And it must have meant a hell of a lot to the boys.

Too bad Moe couldn’t see it.

A TIP OF THE FEDORA

This novel, despite some obvious parallels to events in the history of the comics medium, is fiction. It employs characters with real-life counterparts as well as composites and wholly fictional ones.

Unlike previous historical novels of mine—the Nathan Heller “memoirs,” the Eliot Ness series, the “disaster” mysteries and the
Road
trilogy—I have chosen not to use real names and/or to hew religiously to actual events. As this is a mystery in the Rex Stout or Ellery Queen tradition, the murder herein has only the vaguest historical basis, and real-life conflicts have been heightened and exaggerated while others are wholly fabricated. Characters reminiscent of real people, in particular cartoonists and editors and others in the comics industry of the 1940s, are portrayed unflatteringly at times, because they are, after all, meant to be the suspects in a murder mystery.

While I invite readers—particularly comics fans—to enjoy the roman à clef aspect of
A Killing in Comics
, I caution them not to view this as history but as the fanciful (if fact-inspired) novel it is.

That said, I wish to in particular acknowledge Gerard Jones for his masterful, compelling
Men of Tomorrow
(2004), which tells the true story behind my imaginary tale. Jones has said kind things about
Ms. Tree
, the comic book created by myself and Terry Beatty—who provides the illustrations for this novel—and I now owe him twice over.

For New York color I leaned upon
New York: Confidential
(1948) by Jack Lait and Lee Mortimer; and the WPA Guide for New York City (1939).

My longtime research associate George Hagenauer provided me with hundreds of pages of photocopies from various issues of fanzines (in particular,
The Comics Journal
,
Comic Book Artist
and
Alter Ego
) featuring interviews with writers and artists of the Golden Age of comic books. My thanks to George, and to the fanzines and their scribes who work so diligently to record the history of the comics medium.

Other books consulted included
The Mad World of William M. Gaines
(1972), Frank Jacobs; and
Batman and Me
(1989), Bob Kane with Tom Andrae. I also drew upon reminiscences of the early days of comic books shared with me by writer Mickey Spillane, who passed away during the writing of the final chapters of this novel.

Thanks to editor Natalee Rosenstein for her patience and support, and for suggesting that I use the world of comics as the backdrop for a mystery; my agent and friend Dominick Abel; and my wife Barbara, my invaluable in-house line editor.

MAX ALLAN COLLINS, a Mystery Writers of America Edgar
^®
nominee in both fiction and nonfiction categories, was hailed in 2005 by
Publishers Weekly
as “a new breed of writer.” He has earned an unprecedented fourteen Private Eye Writers of America “Shamus” nominations for his historical thrillers, winning twice for his Nathan Heller novels,
True Detective
(1983) and
Stolen Away
(1991), and in 2006 received the PWA “Eye” for Life Achievement.

His other credits include film criticism, short fiction, songwriting, trading-card sets, and movie/TV tie-in novels, including
Air Force One
,
In the Line of Fire
, and the
New York Times
-bestselling
Saving Private Ryan
. His nonfiction work includes
The History of Mystery
, nominated for every major mystery award, and the Anthony-winning
Men’s Adventure Magazines
, cowritten by George Hagenauer.

His graphic novel
Road to Perdition
is the basis of the Academy Award-winning DreamWorks 2002 feature film starring Tom Hanks, Paul Newman and Jude Law, directed by Sam Mendes. His many comics credits include the
Dick Tracy
syndicated strip (1977-1993);
Ms. Tree
(created by Collins and artist Terry Beatty);
Batman
; and
CSI: Crime Scene Investigation
, based on the hit TV series for which he has also written video games, jigsaw puzzles, and a
USA Today
-bestselling series of novels.

An independent filmmaker in his native Iowa, he wrote and directed
Mommy
, premiering on Lifetime in 1996, as well as a 1997 sequel,
Mommy’s Day.
The screenwriter of
The Expert
, a 1995 HBO World Premiere, he wrote and directed the innovative made-for-DVD feature,
Real Time: Siege at Lucas Street Market
(2000).
Shades of Noir
(2004) is an anthology of his short films, including his award-winning documentary,
Mike Hammer’s Mickey Spillane
. He recently completed a feature-length documentary,
Caveman: V. T. Hamlin and Alley Oop
, and the film version of his Edgar-nominated play,
Eliot Ness: An Untouchable Life
, took top honors at two regional film festivals in 2006.

Collins lives in Muscatine, Iowa, with his wife, writer Barbara Collins, sometimes collaborating under the name “Barbara Allan.” Their son Nathan is an honors graduate in computer science and Japanese at the University of Iowa at nearby Iowa City, and recently completed post-grad studies in Japan.

TERRY BEATTY has collaborated with Max Allan Collins on various comic book series, including
Johnny Dynamite
,
Mickey Spillane’s Mike Danger
and their co-creation
Ms. Tree.
For the past eight years, Terry has been part of DC Comic’s “animated-style” Batman art team, currently inking
The Batman Strikes
. He teaches cartooning at MCAD (Minneapolis College of Art and Design), where he is currently “visiting artist.”