Murder Your Darlings by J.J. Murphy

black tie and tails. He sat down and unfolded the extra afternoon edition of the Knickerbocker News .
    That afternoon at the Automat, Bud Battersby had asked him to fill in for Mayflower as the Knickerbocker ’s drama critic. This was the opening night of Ziegfeld’s new musical revue, Twenty-three Skidoo!
    Dorothy took her seat next to Benchley. She wore her best evening clothes—a midnight blue velveteen dress—and her hair up. She often accompanied Benchley to the theater in his professional capacity as a drama critic. And it was fun to play dress up—once in a while.
    She opened up the Playbill and flipped through it. Something caught her eye. Staring up at her was the gaunt but smiling—almost leering—face of dapper old Leland Mayflower. His black-and-white picture stopped just below his chest, which gave the appearance that he sat at a high writing desk. In his hand, he prominently held a Saber fountain pen. At the top of the advertisement was the familiar Saber slogan. At the bottom of the ad was Mayflower’s roller-coaster signature, with its high, narrow peaks, its wide, arcing loops, and its sharp, plunging depths.
    Her eyes were drawn again to Mayflower’s photo. She couldn’t stop staring at his taut, unwavering, imperturbable grin.
    “Oh, dear,” Benchley said.
    “Yes, dear?” she said.
    “Look here.” Benchley leaned over and spread the tabloid newspaper for her to see. “It’s all about the murder of Mayflower at the Algonquin.”
    Benchley read the headline and the deck line. “KNICK CRITIC KILLED! MAYFLOWER MURDERED AT ALGONQUIN ROUND TABLE.”
    She suddenly produced, as if by prestidigitation, a pair of horn-rimmed spectacles. She slid them on and scanned the headlines, the photographs and the tiny ten-point type. “It’s not just about Mayflower,” she said. “It’s about each one of us. The Vicious Circle.”
    Dorothy and Benchley pored over the newspaper. It was a flimsy tabloid, only twenty-four pages, with more advertisements and pictures than text. And that text was largely taken up by screaming headlines. (She once offhandedly referred to the Knickerbocker as “nothing but ads and adverbs.”) In this edition, the main body copy recounted the details of the murder, but several accompanying side articles reported the backgrounds of many of the Round Table members, even speculating about their animosities and disagreements with Mayflower.
    Benchley scanned through the main article about the details of the murder—how, when and where Mayflower’s body was found. Then he skipped past a few glowing biographical paragraphs about the deceased critic. The next few paragraphs caught Benchley’s eye.
    “Listen to this,” he said, and read it aloud.
    Imagine how simple it is for a great writer—with the world at his (or her!) fingertips—to cross out a word. Or, consider what a matter-of-fact business it is for an influential editor—flush with the power of his lofty position—to strike out an entire paragraph, or whole pages even. So, too, did this murderer rewrite New York history. It was as easy as this! A simple erasure. A blotting of ink. A word struck through with a line. This was how easy it was for a murderer to strike down the famous yet frail figure of Leland Mayflower.
    “Who wrote this?” she said. She sought the byline. “Bud Battersby? That son of a bitch.”
    Benchley continued reading.
    This coterie is the Vicious Circle, as the group “jokingly” refers to itself. Some joke! The name is apt, as was made clear when the group repaired to a nearby exclusive eatery, when their infamous Algonquin Round Table could no longer serve, and sat themselves comfortably down at the table—a regular rectangular one had to do. But did this inconvenience rain on their merry parade?
    No! They were as gay as ever, with Mr. Benchley splitting their sides with an intemperate joke (which is unprintable in a family newspaper). The entire tragedy of their late colleague’s death