Max Collins - Fly Paper

Bernie’s social-climbing wife, and the indignities he suffered because of her, was a topic Nolan could do without, so he steered around it, saying, “Anyway, Bern, my point is, there are certain of my former activities the Family doesn’t want me engaging in.”

“Shit, you’re even starting to sound like a damn college man. Okay, so you’re here for a heist. And you want the lid kept on it.”

“Right, Bern.”

“What do you need, a car? You can have a car as long as you’re in town, Nolan. On the house. Course, if you wreck it, I’ll expect you to buy the thing. That’s only fair, I mean.”

“More than fair. But you could help me another way.”

“Whatever it is, I’ll do what I can.”

“I need some supplies for the job. And I figure the less people I talk to, better off I am. Can you get me what I need?”

“Think so. Anything short of a tank, anyway. What is it you want?”

Nolan told him.

“What the hell you need those for?”

“I don’t want the guys I’m heisting to see me. If they see me, I’ll have to shoot them.”

“Getting soft, Nolan? Ain’t fat bad enough?”

“I never been one to kill without reason, Bernie.” That was true enough, but Nolan didn’t go into the rest of it — that his main reason was, he didn’t want to subject Jon to violence that extreme. If he could help it.

“Well, okay, Nolan. You always known what you was doing. Sit and have another beer — there’s plenty in the cooler. I’ll go get a man to rustle that crazy shit up for you. Run you about twenty-five bucks per. What you want, a couple?”

Nolan nodded.

“Okay, good as done. But I were you, I’d remember those toys’re no substitute for firepower. You can’t beat a gun, no way.”

“Oh, I’ll have a gun, Bern. I may be getting soft and fat, but I’m not crazy.”

The ballroom was filled with long tables, tables stacked with the wares of dozens of individual dealers, and hundreds of kids-of-all-ages were filing past the tables, stopping to examine those wares. The dealers ranged from small-time local collectors getting rid of their duplicates, to big-time operators who’d come from either coast in vans loaded with boxes and boxes of rare material. The goods of both were scrutinized with equal suspicion by prospective buyers, who slipped the books from their plastic bags to make sure each was properly graded, fairly priced, going over each yellowing artifact like a jeweler looking for flaws in a diamond. A generally cordial mood reigned, however, and the horse-trading, the bickering over an item’s monetary worth, was considerably more amiable than what you might run into at a pawnbroker’s, say, or an antique shop. Jon, in his jeans and sweatshirt, fit in well with this crowd, who hardly looked prosperous, unless you noticed that greenbacks of just about every denomination were clutched in the countless hot little hands like so much paper. Though the throng included kids below teen-level, as well as men into middle age and beyond, most were closer to Jon’s age, and ran to type: male; glasses; skin problems; skinny (or fat) or short (or tall); ultra-long hair (or ultra-short); T-shirts with super-heroes on them. If Nolan were here, he’d look at this crowd and figure them for the bums of tomorrow — hell, bums of today — but in reality these were highly intelligent, if slightly screwball young adults, potential Supermen even if they did look more like offbeat Clark Kents.

What was going on was a comic book convention. This ballroom in a downtown Detroit hotel had been converted into “Hucksters’ Hall,” and Jon, like all the scruffy fans wandering through the room in search of pulp-paper dreams, was dropping money like a reckless Monopoly player: in his first twenty minutes, Jon passed GO, spent his $200. This is what he purchased: three Big Little Books, two Flash Gordon, one Buck Rogers; one Weird Fantasy comic with a story by Wood; and two Famous Funnies comics with old Buck Rogers strips inside and covers by Frazetta. All of it was the comic book version of science fiction; that is, pirates in outer space: Killer Kane hijacking Buck’s rocket ship; Ming the Merciless holding Dale Arden captive to lure Flash into a trap; pirates flying the skull-and-crossbones in the sea of outer space. Great stuff.

So why was he so damn unhappy?

Not about the prices he’d had to pay — he’d done all right on the items he picked up so far, by shrewd if halfhearted haggling — and not in disappointment at the size of this convention, though it really didn’t compare to the New York Cons, whose Huckster rooms were breathtaking, both in scope and prices. This convention was not, after all, totally devoted to comics, being the Detroit Three-Way Fan-Fare, a joint gathering of comics freaks, science-fiction enthusiasts and old-movie buffs. Since Jon fell into each category, he naturally was more than pleased with the arrangement.

But right now he was feeling low, an exceptional state of affairs considering he was now in the middle of the atmosphere that most nearly fit his conception of heaven: namely, a room full of comic books. Not unhappy exactly, more like unnerved. Moody. Jumpy. Ill at ease.

Tonight — the prospect of tonight — was scaring the bejesus out of him.

When Nolan had suggested going to Detroit and ripping off old man Comfort, the convention came immediately to Jon’s mind; but he decided to wait for the right moment to spring the idea on Nolan. When Jon did ask if it was okay if they stayed at this particular hotel, Nolan’s left eyebrow had raised and he’d said, “Comic books. It has something to do with comic books... I don’t know how in hell it can, but it does.”

Jon admitted as much, pointing out, “The convention’ll get my mind off the job — I won’t get all fumble-ass nervous about the thing. You can do your setup work, getting the car and the other stuff, and I can spend the afternoon looking at old comic books. It’ll keep my mind from dwelling too much on tonight.”

They’d been sitting on the plane at the time, having driven to the Quad City Airport in Moline for a Friday morning flight to Detroit. They hadn’t phoned ahead any hotel reservations, as it was Nolan’s intention to find a cheap motel once they got there. He’d made the intention known to Jon, who hadn’t been surprised by it, considering that right then they’d been sitting in the plane’s tourist section, another of Nolan’s money-saving tactics. Their conversation had to be couched in euphemisms, as they took up only two of three adjoining seats, the window seat being occupied by a conservatively dressed businessman who might be offended by discussion of the armed robbery pending.

Jon had discovered, through experience, that Nolan was something of a cheapskate. While Nolan had earned some half-million dollars in his fifteen years as a professional thief, he’d kept the bulk of it salted away in banks, while living a painfully spartan existence. Nolan had been satisfied with modest apartments and second-hand Fords because he lived for tomorrow — that is, had planned an early retirement from the heist game, a retirement that would include a nightclub Nolan wanted to own and operate through his “twilight years.”

But now that Nolan had been wiped out of his half-million nest egg, not once but twice (Jon’s along with it, the second time) you’d think the guy would’ve learned you might as well enjoy yourself today since a safe’s liable to fall on you tomorrow.

But no. With Nolan it was tourist-class seats and cheap motels and, Jon supposed, a hamburger joint for supper.

So when Nolan didn’t seem to be buying the argument about the hotel with the comics con being a way to keep Jon’s mind off the job, Jon mentioned the special room rate; if thrift didn’t win Nolan over, nothing would. “We can have a double room for twenty bucks, Nolan. That’s less than half price. People attending the convention get the rooms less than half price.”