Julie had done a nice job on his Hat story, illustrating one of Sammy's retooled, custom-fitted Shadow plots in a flat, slightly cartoony style not too different from that of Superman's Joe Shuster, only with better buildings and cars; and Sammy was satisfied with the Escapist adventure, though Joe's layouts were, to be honest, a little static and overly pretty, and then rushed and even scratchy-looking at the very end.

But the undisputed glory of the thing was the cover. It was not a drawing but a painting, executed in tempera on heavy stock, in a polished illustrator's style, at once idealized and highly realistic, that reminded Sammy of James Montgomery Flagg but which Joe had actually derived, he said, from a German illustrator named Kley. Unlike the great anti-Nazi covers to come, there was no hullabaloo of tanks or burning airplanes, no helmeted minions or screaming females. There were just the two principals, the Escapist and Hitler, on a neoclassical platform draped with Nazi flags against a blue sky. It had taken Joe only a few minutes to get the Escapist's pose right-legs spread, big right fist arcing across the page to deliver an immortal haymaker-and hours to paint in the highlights and shadows that made the image seem so real. The dark blue fabric of the Escapist's costume was creased with palpable pleats and wrinkles, and his hair-they had decided to do the kerchief as a mask that left the hair exposed-glinted like gold and at the same time looked messy and windblown. His musculature was lean and understated, believable, and the veins in his arm rippled with the strain of the blow. As for Hitler, he came flying at you backward, right-crossed clean out of the painting, head thrown back, forelock a-splash, arms flailing, jaw trailing a long red streamer of teeth. The violence of the image was startling, beautiful, strange. It stirred mysterious feelings in the viewer, of hatred gratified, of cringing fear transmuted into smashing retribution, which few artists working in America, in the fall of 1939, could have tapped so easily and effectively as Josef Kavalier.

Joe nodded and squeezed Sammy's hand in return. "You're right," he said. "Maybe we done something good."

Joe leaned against the wall of the kitchenette, then slid down until he hit the floor. Sammy sat down next to him and handed him the last saltine. Joe took it but, instead of eating it, began snapping off tiny pieces of cracker and tossing them out into the greater Pit. His nose in profile was a billowing sail; his hair descended in exhausted coils over his forehead. He seemed to be a million miles away, and Sammy imagined that he was wistfully recalling some part of his homeland, some marvel he had seen long ago, an advertising jingle for pomade, a dancing chicken in a gimcrack museum, his father's ear-whiskers, the lace hem of his mother's slip. All at once, like the paper flower inside one of Empire Novelty's Instant Miracle Garden capsules, the consciousness of everything his cousin had left behind bloomed in Sammy's heart, bleeding dye.

Then Joe said, half to himself, "Yes, I would like to see again that Rosa Saks."

Sammy laughed. Joe looked at him, too tired to inquire, and Sammy was too tired to explain. Another few minutes passed in silence. Sammy's chin dropped down onto his chest. After bobbing there for a moment, his head bounced up again and he snapped open his eyes.

"Was that the first woman you ever saw naked?"

"No," said Joe. "I drew models at the art school."

"Right."

"Have you seen?"

There was more implicit in this question, naturally, than the mere observation of a woman without her clothes. Sammy had long ago prepared a detailed account of the loss of his virginity, the moving tale of an encounter under the boardwalk with Roberta Blum on her last night in New York City, the eve of her departure for college, but he found he lacked the energy to recount it. So he just said, "No."

When Marty Gold wandered upstairs an hour later, in search of a desperate glass of milk to counteract the effects of the coffee he had drunk, he found the cousins asleep on the floor of the kitchenette, half in and half out of each other's arms. Sleepless, ulcerated, Marty was in a very ill mood, and it is to his lasting credit that, instead of throwing a fit at their having violated his prohibition on sleeping in the apartment, he threw an army blanket over Joe and Sammy, one that had returned with the Waczukowski son from Ypres, and warmed the five toes of Al Capp. Then he brought in the bottle of milk from the windowsill and carried it with him back to bed.

Monday dawned as the most beautiful morning in the history of New York City. The sky was as blue as the ribbon on a prize-winning lamb. Atop the Chrysler Building, the streamlined gargoyles gleamed like a horn section. Many of the island's 6,011 apple trees were heavy with fruit. There was an agrarian tinge of apples and horse dung in the air. Sammy whistled "Frenesi" all the way across town and into the lobby of the Kramler Building. As he whistled, he entertained a fantasy in which he featured, some scant years hence, as the owner of Clay Publications, Inc., putting out fifty titles a month, pulp to highbrow, with a staff of two hundred and three floors in Rockefeller Center. He bought Ethel and Bubbie a house out on Long Island, way out in the sticks, with a vegetable garden. He hired a nurse for Bubbie, someone to bathe her and sit with her and mash her pills up in a banana. Someone to give his mother a break. The nurse was a stocky, clean-cut fellow named Steve. He played football on Saturdays with his brothers and their friends. He wore a leather helmet and a sweatshirt that said army. On Saturdays, Sammy left his polished granite and chromium office and took the train out to visit them, feasting in his private dining car on turtle meat, the most abominated and unclean of all, which the Mighty Molecule had once sampled in Richmond and never to his dying day forgotten. Sammy hung his hat on the wall of the charming, sunny Long Island cottage, kissed his mother and grandmother, and invited Steve to play hearts and have a cigar. Yes, on this last beautiful morning of his life as Sammy Klayman, he was feeling dangerously optimistic.

"Did you bring me a Superman?" Anapol said without preamble when Sammy and Joe walked into his office.

"Wait till you see," said Sammy.

Anapol made room on his desk. They opened the portfolios one after another, and piled on the pages.

"How much did you do?" Anapol said, lifting an eyebrow.

"We did a whole book," said Sammy. "Boss, allow me to present to you"-he deepened his voice and flourished his hands in the direction of the pile-"the debut issue of Empire Comics' premier title, Masked-"

"Empire Comics."

"Yeah, I was thinking."

"Not Racy."

"Maybe it's better."

Anapol fingered his Gibraltar chin. "Empire Comics."

"And their premier title…" Sammy lifted the sheet of tracing paper on Joe's painting. "Masked Man Comics."

"I thought it was going to be called Joy Buzzer or Whoopee Cushion."

"Is that what you want to call it?"

"I want to sell novelties," said Anapol. "I want to move radios."

"Radio Comics, then."

"Amazing Midget Radio Comics" Joe said, clearly under the impression that it sounded very fine.

"I like it," Anapol said. He put on his glasses and leaned down to examine the cover. "He's a blond. All right. He's hitting someone. That's good. What's his name?"

"His name's the Escapist."

"The Escapist." He frowned. "He's hitting Hitler."

"How about that."

Anapol grunted. He picked up the first page, read the first two panels of the story, then scanned the rest. Quickly, he scanned the next two pages. Then he gave up.