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S: That was clever

M: It was clever but it was stupid, because it was the first step in fucking around with the case

S: And the next step riting your own letter

M: I just wanted to keep it alive

S: The story

M: That's right Even if Whitfield killed himself, which I didn't think he did, that still left Will out there, with a couple of other killings to his credit Now he's lying low, but what's it gonna do to hi to be him? He has to respond, doesn't he? And even if he doesn't, he's back in the news

S: So you wrote the letter…

M: So I wrote the letter, and then you broke the case and got Adrian tagged as Will And now I' copycat, with everybody in a rush to deht to be would write such a chickenshit letter I thought it was a pretty good letter Remember, it wasn't supposed to be Will It was supposed to pry Will out of the ork

S: But that was impossible…

M: Because Adrian was Will, and the poor fuck was dead And the story goes about quietly dying, and I try to fan the flais Kilbourne isn't content with stinking up the Arts section, he's got to piss all over the oped page And he couldn't just say, hey, look at me world, I'm braver than the characters Errol Flynn used to play Instead the dirty little cocksucker has the nerve to review ave you another bad notice

M: He killed Tuentle, even if they weren't going to sell any tickets But he was vicious He had a line toward the end, hoas speaking this candidly in the hope that it would dissuadea first play that way?

S: It must have been painful

M: Of course it was And I have to say it worked I never wrote a second play Oh, I tried, I wanted nothing , but I couldn't do it I'd type 'Act One, Scene One,' and then I'd fucking freeze He put ht, the bastard He stabbed me in the back

S: And you returned the favor

M: Funny, huh? That wasn't planned Except it's hard to say as planned and asn't

S: What happened?

M: He reviewed et a life And I thought, Jesus, he's asking for it, isn't he? I found out what play he was going to that night, and when the curtain caht into Alien's I got to look at the poster

S: The poster?

M: For Tumult All the posters on the walls in there are for shows that didn't make it Kelly Christine If you close within a few days of your opening night, you're sure of a place of honor in Joe Alien's

S: I knew that, but I never noticed your poster there

M: Oh, it's there, right alongside the men's room door The Tumult in the Clouds, a new play by Martin Joseph McGraw And there's thebroad while he gets ready to piss all over somebody else's life's work I had a few at the bar while Kilbourne and the photographer stuffed their faces, then went outside when they did I didn't have to do a 'follow that cab' routine I was close enough to hear what he said to the cabby, so I gotacross the street from his house I alht maybe he's alone, one and she'd been there-

S: You'd have killed them both?

M: No, never First place, he wouldn't have let ot soone home and slept it off and that would have been the end of it

S: Instead…

M: Instead I stayed where I was I had a pint inat it, and then the two of theht, fuck it, aonna follow them to her place now? Or are they off to some after-hours to party until dawn? They could do it without me But instead he put her in a cab and ca house

S: And what did you do?

M: Finished the pint Stood there for a while withhis bell He buzzedin the hallway I told him who I was and that there'd been a new development in the Will case Even then he didn't much want to let , the cops this and Will that, I didn't knohat I was saying, and I don't suppose he knehat to ot behind hiht Fancy fucking thing, weighed a ton, he got it fora speech somewhere I hit him as hard as I ever hit anybody in ood ship Titanic

S: And you went into the kitchen…

M: Yeah

S: And got the knife?

M: And got the knife, yeah And stabbed hiht, teach you to turn your back on ht, you stabbed ht? I was too drunk for whatever I thought to make much sense

S: You washed the knife

M: I washed the knife, and dofavor and don't ask me why If I orried about prints all I had to do ipe it, right? But I washed it, and then I put the paperweight in my pocket and took it home withwhen you woke up?

M: Everything You used to have blackouts?

S: Lots of the thing The only thing, I tried to tell ht's sitting on the bedside table, so it's no dreauess I have to

M: Yeah, and so do I I killed a huavebelieve it But I believe it

27

"You like irony," I told Ray Gruliow "Maybe you'll like this I suspected Marty early on Matter of fact, I suspected hiht," he said "I'd recognize it anywhere And we even talked about it at the time You ran a check on Marty, made sure he was otherwise occupied when a couple of Will's victims qualified for last rites"

"Patsy Salerno and Roswell Berry He couldn't have killed either of them, but before I established asinout his very real feelings about Richie Vollmer"

"And Richie calls up and says he's not really such a bad guy, and Marty arranges to s him up"