Part 12 (1/2)
”What else?” said Sa for a hundred at hty-five dollars for the lot of the Sammy's face fall a little, he added, ”It would have been twenty dollars apiece, but Jack felt that Mr Radio orth a little extra”
”That's just for the rights, kid,” said Ashkenazy ”We'll also take you both on, Sammy for seventy-five dollars a week and Joe at six dollars a page George wants you for an assistant, Sam Says he sees real potential in you”
”You certainly know your trash,” Deasey said
”Plus we'll pay Joe, here, twenty dollars for every cover he does And for all your pals and associates, five dollars a page”
”Though of course I'll have to h,” said Saht dollars”
”Eight dollars!” said Ashkenazy ”I wouldn't pay eight dollars to John Steinback”
”We'll pay five,” said Anapol gently ”And ant a new cover”
”You do,” Sa, Sammy, it makes us nervous”
”What? What is this?” Joe's attention had wandered a little during the financial discussions-he had heard one hundred and fifty dollars, six dollars a page, twenty per cover Those nuht he had just heard Sheldon Anapol declaring that he would not use the cover in which Hitler got his jaw broken Nothing that Joe had painted had ever satisfied him more The coures, the circular dais, the blue and white badge of the sky The figures had weight andbody was daring and a little off, but in a way that was soht; the Escapist's uniform looked like a unifor, and not merely blue-colored flesh Butthis brutal beating was intense and durable and strangely redemptive At odd moments over the past few days, he had consoled hiht that soht eventually make its way to Berlin and cross the desk of Hitler hi into which Joe had channeled all his pent-up rage and rub his jaw, and check with his tongue for atooth
”We're not in a ith Gerer at Sa, or a president, or soet sued”
”May I suggest that you keep Gere the name and don't call theure out a different kind of i or Cleular cover artists”
Sa his head a little bit, as if he should have known all along that it would coain, however, his face was composed, his voice measured and calm
”I like the cover,” he said
”Joe,” said Sa else out Soood I know it's iht to be ientleht now”-he shot Anapol a dirty look-”but just think about it a ”
”I do not need to do that, Saree to the other cover, no matter”
Sammy nodded, then turned back to Sheldon Anapol He closed his eyes, very tight, as though about to ju ice-choked stream His faith in hiht, or whose welfare he ought to consider Would it be helping Joe if they walked out over this? If they stayed and co the Kavaliers in Prague? He opened his eyes and looked straight at Anapol
”We can't do it,” said Sareat effort ”No, I'm sorry, that has to be the cover” He appealed to Deasey ”Mr Deasey, that cover is dynamite and you know it”
”Who wants dynauy could lose a finger”
”We're not changing the cover, boss,” Sa to bear all his powers of dissimulated pluck and false bravado, he picked up one of the portfolios and began filling it with pieces of illustration board He did not allow hihts evil” He tied the portfolio shut and handed it to Joe, still without looking at his cousin's face He picked up another portfolio ”Hitler is evil”
”Cal e rate for the others up to six, nu? nu? Six dollars a page, Saht for your cousin here Coht for your cousin here Coe! Don't be foolish” Don't be foolish”
Sammy handed the second portfolio to Joe and started on the third
”They aren't all your your characters, don't forget,” said George Deasey ”Maybe your friends would see things differently” characters, don't forget,” said George Deasey ”Maybe your friends would see things differently”
”Come on, Joe,” said Sammy ”You heard what he said before Every publisher in toants in on this thing We'll be all right”
They turned and walked out to the elevator
”Six and a half!” called Anapol ”Hey, what about my radios?” radios?”
Joe looked back over his shoulder, then at Sammy, who had settled his snub features into an impassive mask Samer Joe inclined his head toward his cousin
”Sammy, is this a trick?” he whispered ”Or are we serious?” Saht it over The elevator chimed The operator threw open the door
”You tell me,” Sammy said
PART III
THE FUNNY-BOOK WAR
1
His ears still ringing with artillery shells, screa ack-ack ack-ack of Gene Krupa from the Crosley in a corner of the studio, Joe Kavalier laid down his brush and closed his eyes He had been drawing, painting, s else for much of the past seven days He clapped a hand to the back of his neck and engaged the bones that supported his battle-blown head in a fe rotations The vertebrae clicked and creaked The joints of his hand throbbed, and the ghost of a brush notched his index finger Each time he took a breath, he could feel a hard little billiard of nicotine and phlegs It was six o'clock on a Mondayin October 1940 He had just won the Second World War, and he was feeling pretty good about it of Gene Krupa from the Crosley in a corner of the studio, Joe Kavalier laid down his brush and closed his eyes He had been drawing, painting, s else for much of the past seven days He clapped a hand to the back of his neck and engaged the bones that supported his battle-blown head in a fe rotations The vertebrae clicked and creaked The joints of his hand throbbed, and the ghost of a brush notched his index finger Each time he took a breath, he could feel a hard little billiard of nicotine and phlegs It was six o'clock on a Mondayin October 1940 He had just won the Second World War, and he was feeling pretty good about it
He slid off of his stool and went to look down on the autu Steam purled from the orifices of the street A crew of a half-dozen workers in tan canvas coveralls, with peaked white caps perched atop their heads, used a water hose and long disheveled brooutters toward the storm drains at the corner of Broadway Joe threw open the rattling sash of theand poked his head out It looked like it was going to be a fine day The sky in the east was a bright Superman blue There was a dank Octoberish sar works along the East Biver, seven blocks away To Joe, at that moment, it was the smell of victory New York never looksto knock theuise of the Escapist, Master of Elusion, Joe had flown to Europe (in a yro), stormed the towered Schloss Schloss of the nefarious Steel Gauntlet, freed Plueon, defeated the Gauntlet in protracted two-fisted coed off to Berlin, where he was strapped to a bizarre uillotine that would have sliced hily looked on Naturally, patiently, indomitably, he had worked his way loose of his riveted steel bonds and hurled himself at the throat of the dictator At this point-with twenty pages to go until the Charles Atlas ad on the inside back cover-an entire Wehrers and that gravely desired larynx Over the course of the next eighteen pages, in panels that crowded, jostled, piled one on top of the other, and threatened to burst the e, the Wehrmacht, the Luftwaffe, and the Escapist had duked it out With the Steel Gauntlet out of the picture, it was a fair fight On the very last page, in a transcendent ed him before a world tribunal Head finally bowed in defeat and shaainst humanity The as over; a universal era of peace was declared, the i theue-were free of the nefarious Steel Gauntlet, freed Plueon, defeated the Gauntlet in protracted two-fisted coed off to Berlin, where he was strapped to a bizarre uillotine that would have sliced hily looked on Naturally, patiently, indomitably, he had worked his way loose of his riveted steel bonds and hurled himself at the throat of the dictator At this point-with twenty pages to go until the Charles Atlas ad on the inside back cover-an entire Wehrers and that gravely desired larynx Over the course of the next eighteen pages, in panels that crowded, jostled, piled one on top of the other, and threatened to burst the e, the Wehrmacht, the Luftwaffe, and the Escapist had duked it out With the Steel Gauntlet out of the picture, it was a fair fight On the very last page, in a transcendent ed him before a world tribunal Head finally bowed in defeat and shaainst humanity The as over; a universal era of peace was declared, the i theue-were free
Joe leaned forward, the heels of his hands pressed against the sill and the lower into his back, and breathed in a cool vinegar whiff of theslept no more than four hours at a stretch in the last week, not in the least tired He looked up and down the street He was struck by a sudden sense of connectedness to it, of knohere it led to The map of the island-which looked to hireeting-was vivid in his mind, flayed like an anatomical model to reveal its circulatory system of streets and avenues, of train, trolley, and bus routes
When Marty Gold finished inking the pages that Joe had just completed, they would be strapped to the back of aBroadway, down past Madison Square and Union Square and Wanamaker's, to the Iroquois plant on Lafayette Street There, one of four kindly, uess with surprising violence and aplo Dorniers, the Steel Gauntlet's diesel-driven suit of ars that Joe had drawn and Marty had inked The big Heidelberg caraph the colored pages, and the negatives, one cyan, oneold Italian engraver, Mr Petto, with his corny green celluloid visor The resulting color halftones would be shi+pped uptown onceat West Forty-seventh and Eleventh, where reat steam presses to publish the news of Joe's rapturous hatred of the German Reich, so that it could be borne once more into the streets of New York, this time in the form of folded and stapled comic books, lashed with twine into a thousand little bundles that would be hauled by the vans of Seaboard News to the newsstands and candy stores of the city, to the outerhs and beyond, where they would be hung up like laundry or e banns from wire display racks
It was not that Joe felt at ho he never would have allowed hirateful to his headquarters in exile New York City had led hireat, mad new A presses and lithography caenuine war, then a tolerable substitute And she paid hi so: he already had seven thousand dollars-his faram ended, and the newsreader for WEAF ca, by the governated a series of statutes,Laws, that would enable it to ”superintend,” in the newsreader's odd formula, its population of Jews This followed earlier reports, the newsreader reminded his listeners, that so transported to labor camps in Ger the crown of his head against thefraan to swell on his head, and turned up the volume But that was apparently all there was to say about the Jews of France The rest of the war news concerned itself with air raids on Tobruk and on Kiel in Germany, and with the continued harass to Britain Another three shi+ps had been lost, a a load of oil pressed from the seeds of Kansas sunflowers
Joe was deflated The surge of triu, and seerow briefer with every job This ti to shame and frustration The Escapist was an iinary, fighting a war that could never be won His cheeks burned with e his ti at his eyes with the back of an ar a war that could never be won His cheeks burned with e his ti at his eyes with the back of an arroan of the Krae door being rolled to one side He saw that his shi+rtsleeve was stained not only by tears but with coffee and sraphite The cuff was frayed and inky He becarit and the clammy residue of sleeplessness on his skin He was not sure how long it had been since his last shower
”Look at this” It was Shelly Anapol He had on a pale-gray sharkskin suit that Joe didn't recognize, as giant and gleaht red, and the skin of his ears was peeling Pale phantolasses fra, looked incrementally less so than usual ”I'd say you're here early if I didn't know that you never left”