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Rath do?”
    “From the beginning of the
Chronicler
, Rath used Beaufort as the consummate example of a talentless hack... really harped on it, making ‘Beaufort’ a virtual synonym for ‘hack.’ ”
    By then I was whispering, because we were moving into the big, low-ceilinged chestnut-and-glass parlor known as the Lake Lounge, where several hundred mystery fans were sitting on the floor like Indians. A few were leaning against walls and beams and just generally cramming themselves in. Curt Clark and his wife and the other mystery-writer guests (and spouses and companions) were lined up along one side, and the mostly seated game-players were watching Curt and company with rapt attention.
    Rath stood leaning against a beam, his expression foul. Cynthia Crystal, whose urbane drawing-room mysteries had led one critic to dub her “the American Agatha,” was trying to hold a conversation with Rath. She was smiling, being very friendly, laughing in a brittle manner that Rath didn’t seem to be buying. Cynthia was a lanky, fortyish blonde, in a chiclooking charcoal suit (“Halston,” Jill whispered), and she was smoking nervously. I knew her pretty well, and liked her. I knew less well her live-in lover, Tim Culver, whose presence here surprised me.
    Culver, a bearded man with wire-rim glasses and a quiet demeanor, looked something like Woody Allen’s older, better-looking brother. He was, in fact, Curt Clark’s older, not necessarily better-looking brother, older by about a minute that is. They were twins. Not identical twins, though the physical resemblance was strong. Otherwise they had little in common. Oh, they were both mystery writers, but Curt wrote comedy, whereas Culver was an exponent of the tough-as-nails school.Where Curt was a witty, life-of-the-party type, Tim was rather dour. He stood slumped against another beam, a drink in his hand (he’d brought his own—Quakers, remember), in a tan corduroy jacket and jeans and an open-at-the-neck plaid lumberjack shirt.
    “That’s a shock,” I whispered to Jill.
    We were standing next to Jack Flint and his wife; Tom Sardini was chatting with Pete, the two of them standing as far away from Rath as they could and still be a part of the group. The crowd was noisy, eager for Curt to get started.
    “What’s a shock?” Jill asked.
    “I knew Cynthia was a guest, but I didn’t know Tim Culver would be.”
    “Who’s Tim Culver?”
    I nodded toward him, slightly. “That guy. He’s only the best writer alive in the Hammett tradition. He makes Elmore Leonard look wordy.”
    “So why are you shocked?”
    “He and Curt are brothers. Curt’s last name is Culver, too. Clark was his mother’s maiden name or something.”
    “Yeah, so? What’s surprising about one brother inviting another brother?”
    “They hate each other,” I said.
    Jill blinked.
    “Oh,” she said.
    “Go away!” somebody said.
    The crowd was noisy enough that the outburst didn’t get heard by anybody but us mystery writers and the first row or so of game-players. But those of us who heard it were startled.
    It was Kirk Rath, speaking to Cynthia Crystal.
    Cynthia Crystal, the critically acclaimed, Edgar-awardwinning author, whose biography of Dashiell Hammett had been called by Kirk Rath himself “definitive and masterful.”
    “Don’t suck up to
me
, lady!” Rath snapped.
    Cynthia was taken aback; she swallowed, said nothing. Now, Cynthia has a sharp enough tongue—she’s a cool, bitchy number when she wants to be. But the rude, powerful young Mr. Rath had knocked her back.
    “I was just making conversation,” Cynthia said, still stunned. “Trying to be friendly....”
    “Why?” he said archly. “What’s your motive? This is the
mystery
world—there’s
always
a motive.”
    Culver moved away from his beam and joined this little Edward Albee one-act.
    “You shut up,” he said to Rath.
    Rath looked at him with cold anger.
    “Your... lady, here, has been trying to get on my