Michael Chabon - The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay

Joe, sipping his coffee, looked politely away.

"Huh," Rosa said after a moment.

"Huh," Sammy agreed.

Sammy and Joe got in to the office at seven sharp, pink-cheeked, tingling from lack of sleep, coughing and sober and saying little. In a leather portfolio under his arm, Joe had the new pages he had laid out, along with Sammy's notes not only for "Kane Street," the first of the so-called modernist or prismatic Escapist stories, but also ideas for a dozen other stories that had come to Sammy, not just for the Escapist but for Luna Moth and the Monitor and the Four Freedoms, since last night. They went down the hall to find Anapol.

The publisher of Empire Comics had abandoned the vast chromium office that had so discomfited him and taken up residence in a large custodial closet, in which he'd had installed a desk, a chair, a portrait of the composer of Songs of an Infatuated Muezzin, and two telephones. Since the move, he claimed to be far more comfortable and reported that he slept much better at night. Sammy and Joe walked right up to the office-closet door. Once Anapol got in, there was really no room for anyone else. Anapol was writing a letter. He held up a linger to signal that he was in the middle of an important thought.

Sammy saw that he was writing on the letterhead of the Szymanowski society. Dear Brother, the letter began. Anapol's hand hovered while he read the line over, moving his fleshy purple lips. Then he looked up. He smiled grimly.

"Why do I suddenly want to hide my checkbook?" he said.

"Boss, we need to talk to you."

"I can see that."

"First of all." Sammy cleared his throat. "Everything we've done around here up to now, as good as it's been, and I don't know if you ever look at what the competition's doing but we've been better than most of them and as good as the best of them, all of that is nothing, okay, nothing, compared to what Joe and I have worked out for the Escapist from now on, though I'm not at liberty to divulge just what that will be. At the moment."

"That's first of all," said Anapol.

"Right."

Anapol nodded. "First of all, you should congratulate me." He sat back, hands clasped smugly over his belly, and waited for them to catch on.

"They bought it," Sammy said. " Parnassus."

"I heard from their lawyer last night. Production is to commence by the end of this year, if not sooner. The money is certainly not enormous-we're not talking M-G-M here-but it isn't bad. Not bad at all."

"Naturally we are obliged to ask you to give us half of it," Joe said.

"Naturally," Anapol agreed. He smiled. "Now tell me what it is. that you two have worked out."

"Well, basically it's a whole new approach to this game. We saw-"

"What do we need with a whole new approach? The old approach has been working great."

"This is better."

"Better in this context can mean only one thing," Anapol said. "And that is more money. Is this new approach of yours going to make more money for me and my partner?"

Sammy looked at Joe. He was, in fact, still not entirely persuaded of this. But he was still feeling the sting of Bacon's accusation the night before. And what was more, he knew Shelly Anapol. Money was not-not always-the most important thing in the world to him. Once, years before, Anapol had cherished hopes of playing the violin in the New York Philharmonic, and there was a part of him, albeit deeply buried, that had never completely resigned itself to the life of a dealer in whoopee cushions. As Empire Comics' sales figures had climbed, and the towering black cyclones of money came blowing in out of the heartland, Anapol, out of this residual ambition and a perverted sense of guilt over the brainless ease with which colossal success had been achieved, had grown extremely touchy about the poor reputation of comic books among the Phi Beta Kappas and literary pooh-bahs whose opinions meant so much to him. He had even imposed upon Deasey to write letters to The New York Times and The American Scholar, to which he then signed his own name, protesting the unfair treatment he considered those publications had given his humble product in their pages.

"Lots," Sammy said. "Piles, boss."

"Show me."

They fetched the portfolio and tried to explain what it was they intended to do.

"Adults," Anapol said after a few minutes of listening. "You're talking about getting adults to read comic books."

The cousins looked at each other. They had not quite expressed or understood it that way before.

"I guess so," Sammy said.

"Yes," said Joe. "Adults with adult money."

Anapol nodded, stroking his chin. Sammy could see a relief flowing into his shoulders and the hinges of his jaw, unknotting them, sending Anapol tilting back in his big leather swivel chair with a grandeur and an ease not entirely free of the threat of metal fatigue and failing springs. Whether it was relief at having at last found a worthy basis for his commerce, or merely that he was comforted by the reassuring proximity of certain failure, Sammy could not be sure.

"Okay," Anapol said, reaching for his unfinished letter. "We'll give it a try. Get to work."

Joe started to walk away, but Sammy took hold of his arm and pulled him back. They stood. Anapol added another sentence to his letter, considered it, then looked up.

"Yes?"

"What about this not-enormous money from Parnassus?" Sammy said. "We got a piece of the radio show. You gave us a piece of the newspaper strip. I don't see why we-"

"Oh, for God's sake," Anapol said. "Don't even bother to finish, Mr. Clay, I've heard it all before."

Sammy grinned. "And?"

Anapol's smile grew cagey and very, very small. "I'm not averse. I can't speak for Jack, but I'll take it up with him and see if we can't work something out."

"A-all right," Sammy said, surprised and a little suspicious, sensing an imminent condition.

"Now," Anapol said, "see if you can guess what I'm about to say to you."

"They're putting Szymanowski on a bubblegum card?"

"Maybe you aren't aware of this," Anapol said, "but Parnassus Pictures does a very healthy business in Europe."

"I didn't know that."

"Yes. As a matter of fact, their second-biggest market after the domestic is, of all places-"

" Germany," said Joe.

"Naturally, they're a little concerned about the reputation you two have earned for this company, in your many imaginative ways, as antagonistic to the citizens and government of that nation of fanatical moviegoers. I had a long talk with Mr. Frank Singe, the studio head. He made it very clear-"

"Don't even bother to finish," Sammy said. He was disgusted. " 'We've heard it all before.' " He looked appealingly at Joe, willing him to speak up, to tell Anapol about his family and the indignities to which they were being exposed, the one hundred cruelties, gross and tiny, to which, with an almost medical regimentation, they were being subjected by the Reichsprotektorat. He was sure that Anapol would give in once again.

"All right," Joe said softly. "I will stop the fighting."

Anapol's eyebrows shot up in surprise.

"Joe?" Sammy said. He was shocked. "Joe, come on. What are you talking about. You can't give up! This-this is censorship. We're being censored! This is the very thing we're supposed to be standing up to. The Escapist would stand up to something like this."

"The Escapist is not a real person."

"Yeah, I know that. Christ."

"Sam," said Joe, his cheeks reddening. He put a hand on Sammy's arm. "I appreciate what you think you are doing. But I want to do this now." He tapped the portfolio. "I'm tired of fighting, maybe, for a little while. I fight, and I am fighting some more, and it just makes me have less hope, not more. I need to do something… something that will be great, you know, instead of trying always to be Good."