Death in North Beach by Ronald Tierney Page B

death. Your name was given to us by someone who said that some of what he had to say would embarrass you.’
    Malone smiled. ‘I’m sure he could embarrass me. We had quite a few moments together, especially in our youth, that wouldn’t be flattering, but not worth killing over.’
    Malone seemed in general good humor.
    â€˜I’m very sorry he’s dead,’ he went on. ‘I think we had a few wonderfully embarrassing moments ahead of us.’
    â€˜Maybe you could just tell me a little about the man.’
    â€˜Whitney always considered himself a major writer. If he had been a politician he wouldn’t have been satisfied until his countenance was on Mount Rushmore. So he felt slighted that the world hadn’t acknowledged that he was the voice of his generation at least. No Nobels, no Pulitzers, no National Book Awards.’
    â€˜Were you too much competition, perhaps?’ Carly asked.
    Malone laughed. ‘Of course. He loved the competition and often regarded his competitors as noble opponents. As life dealt him serious blows to his ego, his competitors seemed to lose their nobility.’
    â€˜You haven’t had contact with him?’
    â€˜No. But I doubt if his character has changed much. He was really, at heart, a noble warrior. He believed in truth and honor and loyalty.’
    â€˜This is a man who cheated on his wife and was about to tell on his friends,’ Carly said.
    â€˜If you have the scent of the killer, it could hardly have led you here, but for those of us who know and love Whitney, this is not in any way contradictory. What you have to understand is that when you are Whitney you are God, judge and jury. He is allowed his foibles because of how much he suffers . . . suffered for his art. It’s an ego not uncommon with writers. They create their own universes. And most, foolishly, mirror this one.’
    â€˜You liked him?’
    â€˜Sure. We were very close friends.’
    â€˜You wrote a book together.’
    â€˜Not really. We both contributed to a photography book. Frank Wiley’s. It was Wiley’s book, really.’
    â€˜What happened to you two?’
    â€˜I don’t know what you mean. We stopped hanging out with each other primarily because I settled down. I no longer wanted to engage in drinking contests. I wanted to be with one woman. I wanted to go to bed early. I’m afraid I dwindled in Whitney’s esteem, but he didn’t hate me. And I didn’t hate him.’
    â€˜He knew no damning secret about you?’ Carly smiled. She had received a thorough looking over when she arrived. He may have wanted to be with one woman as he said, she thought, but he wasn’t done looking. It was also clear that he was debating something. There was a long, long pause. Carly waited it out.
    Malone got up.
    â€˜Once, when we had been drinking, which we both did to excess at the drop of a metaphor, we were talking about what it meant to be a man. And in order to be a man, one had to be willing to fight, physically, whenever it was called for. Honor, loyalty, etc. One wasn’t much of a man if he never seriously considered killing himself, never spent a night in jail, never planted a tree, never fathered a child, never slept with a whore, never . . . I forget. There was quite a list. And so we were being honest with each other.’
    â€˜Trying to out-macho the other guy.’
    Malone grinned. ‘Well, yeah. Otherwise what was the point? That was part of being a man. You know, lifting more weight, throwing the ball farther, having more foul words at your command . . .’
    â€˜You outdid him?’
    â€˜Foolishly, I told him something. When you’re drinking and the conversation and the competition escalates and the inhibitions fall by the wayside . . .’
    â€˜And?’ Carly asked, trying to drag him back from thoughts to words.
    â€˜After tales of bar