Michael Chabon - The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay

"I take it your partner had sense enough to evacuate," Smith said, returning them to the ostensible purpose of this conversation.

"He is with an appointment. And there isn't any bomb."

At that moment, just as Joe Kavalier said "bomb," there was a burst of clamor- brrrang! -right over their heads. James Love jumped and let go of his cigarette.

"All clear," Smith said, mopping his forehead with a hankie. "Well, thank God for that."

"Good heavens." There was ash all down Love's jacket, and he brushed it away, blushing.

"All clear!" called a husky voice. A moment later, the elderly firefighter stuck his head into the workroom. "It was just an old clock, your honor," he told Smith, looking at once relieved and disappointed. "In the desk of a Mister… Clay. Taped to a couple of dowels painted red."

"I knew it," said Joe softly, starting in on the second little box.

"Dynamite isn't even red," the old fireman said, walking off. "Not really."

"The guy reads too much comic books," Joe said.

"Governor Smith!"

They turned, and three men came into the workroom. One of them, balding and vast in every part and extremity, had the air of a high official in some disreputable labor union; the other, tall and merely potbellied, had thinning rusty hair, a football hero gone to seed. Behind the two big fellows stood a tiny, quarrelsome-looking young man, dressed in an outsize gray pinstriped suit with padded shoulders that were almost comical in their breadth. The little one immediately came over to the drawing table where Joe Kavalier was working. He nodded to Love, sizing him up, and put a hand on Kavalier's shoulder.

"Mr. Anapol, isn't it?" Smith said, shaking the fat man's hand. "We've had a little excitement around here."

"We were at lunch!" Anapol cried, coming to shake Al Smith's hand. "We came running back as soon as we heard! Governor, I'm so sorry for all the trouble we caused you. I guess maybe"-here he shot a look at Kavalier & Clay-"these two young hotheads have been taking things a little too far in our magazines."

"Maybe so," Love said. "But they're brave young men, and I congratulate them."

Anapol looked taken aback.

"Mr. Anapol, may I present an old friend, Mr. James Love. Mr. Love is-"

"Oneonta Mills!" Anapol said. "Mr. James Love! What a pleasure. I regret that we're obliged to meet under such-"

"Nonsense," Love said. "We've been having a fine time." He ignored the scowl this statement produced on Al Smith's puss. "Mr. Anapol, this may be neither the time nor the place for this. But my firm has just brought all of our various accounts together under one umbrella and placed them with Burns, Baggot & DeWinter," Love went on. "Perhaps you've heard of them."

"Of course," Anapol said. "The Knackfalder Trousers Man. The dancing nuts."

"They're smart boys, and one of the smart things they've been talking about is taking a fresh look at our radio accounts. I'd like to have some of their fellows sit down with 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 imaginary microphone. "Oneonta Mills, makers of Ko-Zee-Tos brand thermal socks and undergarments, presents The Amazing Adventures of the Escapist!" He looked at Love. "That the idea?"

"Something 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 there must be other characters available, but I have a feeling this is the one for me. Let's say I'll telephone Jack Burns and make arrangements to have you sit down and talk about it this week," Love said. "That is, if you gentlemen are free."

" I'm free," Anapol said, recovering himself. "My partner, Jack Ashkenazy, will also, I am sure, be free. And this is our editor in chief, Mr. George Deasey."

Love shook Deasey's hand, recoiling at the smell of cloves covering 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 farm."

Sam Clay and Joe Kavalier exchanged a look in which Love saw the smoldering coals of a grudge.

"Moo," Sam Clay said, with a shrug of his enormous false shoulders.

"I'm going to need a statement from you, Mr. Anapol," Captain Harley said. "And from you, Governor, and your guest. It won't take long."

"What do you say we do it down at the club," Al Smith said. "I could use a drink."

At that moment a messenger in blue livery walked in, carrying a 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 messenger and exited behind Al Smith. Love signaled to Smith that he would follow, then turned back to the two young men. Sam Clay stood, his shoulder against 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 room. He quickly gathered a stack of magazines and brought them to Love, looking the older man right in the eye.

"Maybe you'd like to get to know the character a little better," he said. "Our character."

" 'Ours' as in…?"

" 'Ours' as in Joe and myself. The Escapist. Also the Monitor, the Four Freedoms, Mr. Machine Gun. All of Empire's leading 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 handsome, muscular men and boys lounged, relaxing on and about the letters, one wild-haired, hook-nosed boy perched atop the ampersand of the words "Kavalier & Clay." "I've always thought the Escapist would be perfect for radio."

"Well, I'm really not qualified to judge, Mr. Clay," Love said, not unkindly, taking the magazines 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 workroom, troubled, but not unduly, by a pang of sympathy for Kavalier & Clay. Love saw how it was. These boys had come up with this Escapist character and then, in exchange for some token payment and the opportunity of seeing their names in print, signed away all the rights to Anapol and company. Now Anapol and company were prospering-enough to let a quarter of a floor in the Empire State Building, enough to exert an impressive mass-cultural influence over the vast American marketplace of children and know-nothings. And while, to judge from their attire, Messrs. Kavalier & Clay were sharing to some degree 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 them. In bis life as a businessman, Love had seen plenty of boy geniuses left deserted amid the bleached bones and cacti of their dreams. These two would, no doubt, have other brilliant ideas, and furthermore, no one was ever born smart in business. Love's feeling of pity, while sincere-and inspired in part by Joe's dark good looks and the quickness of spirit of the two young men-lasted no longer than it took for the elevator to deposit him in the richly paneled lobby of the Empire State Club. He did not imagine for a moment that he had just set in motion the wheels not of another minor midtown ruination but, very nearly, his own.