Part 16 (1/2)
”Of course,” Anapol said ”The Knackfalder Trousers Man The dancing nuts”
”They're s about is taking a fresh look at our radio accounts I'd like to have some of their fellows sit doith you and Mr Kavalier, here, and Mister- Clay, is it?-and talk about finding a way for Oneonta Mills to sponsor this Escaper of yours”
”Sponsor?”
”On the radio, boss,” said the little one, catching on quickly He jutted his chin and deepened his voice and clutched an iinary microphone ”Oneonta Mills, ar Adventures of the Escapist!” The A Adventures of the Escapist!” He looked at Love ”That the idea?” He looked at Love ”That the idea?”
”So like that,” Love said ”Yes, I like that”
”The idea,” said Anapol ”A radio show” He pressed a hand to his belly as if he was not feeling well ”It makes me a little nervous With all due respect, and I don't say I'm not interested, but”
”Well, think it over, Mr Anapol I suppose therethis is the one for ements to have you sit down and talk about it this week,” Love said ”That is, if you gentle himself ”My partner, Jack Ashkenazy, will also, I ae Deasey” free,” Anapol said, recovering himself ”My partner, Jack Ashkenazy, will also, I ae Deasey”
Love shook Deasey's hand, recoiling at the s the whiskey on his breath
”But these young fellows over here,” Anapol continued, ”well, they do good work, as you've seen, and they're very good boys, if maybe a little bit excitable But they're, how should I put it, they're the hired hands on this fared a look in which Love saw the se
”Moo,” Sa of his enor to need a statement from you, Mr Anapol,” Captain Harley said ”And fro”
”What do you say we do it down at the club,” Al Smith said ”I could use a drink”
At thata special-delivery letter
”Sheldon Anapol?” he said
”Here,” Anapol said, signing for it ”George, stay here and see that things get settled down”
Deasey nodded Anapol tipped the naled to S ainst his partner's, looking a little woozy, as if he had been sandbagged Then he went over to a low shelf in a corner of the rooht theht in the eye
”Maybe you'd like to get to know the character a little better,” he said ”Our ”Our character” character”
” 'Ours' as in?”
” 'Ours' as in Joe and myself The Escapist Also the Monitor, the Four Freedo sellers Here Joe, do you have- Yeah” He scrabbled around in the clutter under Joe Kavalier's table to find a sheet of stationery on whose elaborate letterhead a group of handso on and about the letters, one wild-haired, hook-nosed boy perched atop the aht the Escapist would be perfect for radio”
”Well, I'e, Mr Clay,” Love said, not unkindly, taking the azines and the sheet of paper ”To be perfectly honest, my only concern is whether or not he'll sell socks But I will say”-and here his face took on an odd expression that Joe almost would have called a leer-”I do like what I've seen here today Take care, boys”
He exited the workroo of sympathy for Kavalier Clay Love saas These boys had coe for so their nahts to Anapol and coh to let a quarter of a floor in the Eh to exert an impressive mass-cultural influence over the vast As And while, to judge froree in the general prosperity, Sheldon Anapol had just made it apparent to both of them that the course of the river of money beside which they had pitched their camp had been diverted, and would henceforth flow no more around theeniuses left deserted amid the bleached bones and cacti of their dreams These tould, no doubt, have other brilliant ideas, and further of pity, while sincere-and inspired in part by Joe's dark good looks and the quickness of spirit of the two young er than it took for the elevator to deposit him in the richly paneled lobby of the Eine for a moment that he had just set in motion the wheels not of another minor midtown ruination but, very nearly, his own
Back in the workrooue Deasey stood in the doorway to his office He knit his ginger eyebrows and pursed his lips, looking uncharacteristically moved
”Gentlemen,” he said to Joe and Sammy ”A word”
He went into his office and, as was his wont, lay down in the an to pick his teeth He had been tra one of the US Marine Corps' numerous attempts to capture A C Sandino, and on chill afternoons like this one, his back tended to stiffen up on hiacy from his father, a former associate justice of the New York State Court of Appeals ”Close the door,” he told Sam Clay after the boys ca to say”
”Why not?” Sa the door as he followed Joe in
”Because it would cause me considerable pain if anyone should forive a tinker's damn about you, Mr Clay”
”Fat chance of that,” said Saht-backed chairs that flanked Deasey's enorn of it He had toughened under the constant ad their firstfor him, on days when Deasey had ridden Sammy particularly hard, Joe had often listened in the dark, pretending to be asleep, as Sa into his pillow Deasey rammar In restaurants, he made fun of Sammy's poor table manners, unsophisticated palate, and as as sculpted butter pats and cold potato soup He offered Sammy a chance to write a Gray Goblin novel for Racy Police Stories, Racy Police Stories, sixty thousand words at half a cent a word; Saht for a month, wrote three books, which Joe had read and enjoyed, only to have Deasey dissect one after another, each time with terse, bitter criticism that was infallibly accurate In the end, however, he had bought all three sixty thousand words at half a cent a word; Saht for a month, wrote three books, which Joe had read and enjoyed, only to have Deasey dissect one after another, each time with terse, bitter criticism that was infallibly accurate In the end, however, he had bought all three
”First of all,” Deasey said, ”Mr Clay, where is Strange Frigate?” Strange Frigate?”
”Halfway done,” Sammy said This was a fourth Goblin novel that Racy Publications, now operating verya profit for Jack Ashkenazy, had commissioned from Sam Clay Like all seventy-two of its predecessors in the series, it would be published, of course, under the house name of Harvey Slayton Actually, as far as Joe knew, Sammy had not even started it yet The title was one of two hundred and forty-five that George Deasey had drea a two-day bender in Key West in 1936 and had been working his way through ever since Strange Frigate Strange Frigate was number seventy-three on the list ”I'll have it for you by Monday” was number seventy-three on the list ”I'll have it for you by Monday”
”You must”
”I shall”
”Mr Kavalier” Deasey had a sneaky way of lolling his head around toward you, one hand half-covering his face as if he were about to drop off for a catnap-an ier if he was, as now, stretched out on the floor Then, suddenly, his drooping eyelids would snap open, and you would find yourself on the point of a sharp inquisitorial gaze ”Please reassure me that my suspicions of your involvement in this afternoon's charade are unfounded”
Joe struggled to meet Deasey's sleepy Torquemada stare Of course he knew that the bo, in direct retaliation for his attack on the headquarters of the AAL teeks before Clearly, Ebling had been casing the E, observing the co red coht to have been, in spite of the harht to have told the police about Carl Ebling right away, and had the man arrested and jailed And the prospect of the iven him satisfaction But why, instead, did it feel like surrender? It see could have just as easily reported hi, destruction of property, even assault, but instead had pursued his solitary and furtive course, engaging Joe-all right, the onist was Saht about that-in a private battle, a for breaking and entering, destruction of property, even assault, but instead had pursued his solitary and furtive course, engaging Joe-all right, the onist was Saht about that-in a private battle, a concours a deux concours a deux And Joe had And Joe had known, known, somehow, from the moment Anapol's secretary took the call, with an illusionist's instinct for hooey, that the threat was a shahten Joe, to threaten hi off the conity of the Third Reich and the person of Adolf Hitler, and yet, at the sa actually to annihilate the source of a pleasure that in his lonely somehow, from the moment Anapol's secretary took the call, with an illusionist's instinct for hooey, that the threat was a shahten Joe, to threaten hi off the conity of the Third Reich and the person of Adolf Hitler, and yet, at the sa actually to annihilate the source of a pleasure that in his lonely verbitterte verbitterte life ht, I would naturally turn him in It did not occur to him that if the bomb had been real he would now, quite possibly, be dead; that the next blow in their battle, if it were struck not by the iht well reify the conflict in Ebling's unbalanced un to lose hie whose bone-littered center lay ten thousand miles and three years away life ht, I would naturally turn him in It did not occur to him that if the bomb had been real he would now, quite possibly, be dead; that the next blow in their battle, if it were struck not by the iht well reify the conflict in Ebling's unbalanced un to lose hie whose bone-littered center lay ten thousand miles and three years away
”Couy”
”What guy is that?”
”What I said I don't know him”
”I can sure it out”
”Mr Deasey,” Sammy said ”What did you want us for?”
”Yes I wanted- God helpwinched from the sea botto since before lunch and, as he got hiain He went over to theThe desk, a scarred, tiger-oak beheeonholes and twenty-four drawers, had followed him from his old office in the Kramler, its drawers stocked with fresh ribbons, blue pencils, pints of rye, black twists of Virginia shag, clean sheets of foolscap, aspirin, Sen-Sen, and sal hepatica Deasey kept both it and his office spotless, uncluttered, and free of dust This was the first time in his entire career that he had ever had an office all to himself This-these fifty square feet of new carpet, blank paper, and inky black ribbons-was the hed He slipped two fingers between the slats of the Venetian blinds and let a wan slice of autuht into the room
”When they did the Gray Goblin Gray Goblin on the DuMont network,” he said ”You remember that, Mr Clay?” on the DuMont network,” he said ”You remember that, Mr Clay?”
”Sure,” Sammy said ”I used to listen sometimes”
”What about Crack Carter! Crack Carter! Remember that one?” Re evil amid the tumbleweeds Sharpe of the Mounties?” Sharpe of the Mounties?”