Joe got to his feet, literally holding his hat in his hand, and extended the other to Deasey.

"Josef Kavalier," Joe said. "How do you do."

"I'm fine, Mr. Kavalier." They shook. "And you're hired."

"Thank you," Joe said. He sat back down and smiled. He was just happy to get the job. He had no idea what Sammy was going through, the humiliation he was undergoing. All of his boasting to his mother! His strutting around Julie and the others! How in God's name would he ever be able to face Frank Pantaleone again?

Deasey set the cover art to his left, reached for the first page, and started to read. When he finished, he put it under Joe's cover and took the next page. He didn't look up again until the entire pile was on his left side and he had read through to the end.

"You put this together, son?" He smiled at Sammy. "You know, don't you, that this is pure trash. Superman is pure trash, too, of course. Batman, the Blue Beetle. The whole menagerie."

"You're right," said Sammy through his teeth. "Trash sells."

"By God, it does," said Deasey. "I can testify to that personally."

"Is it all trash, George?" said Ashkenazy. "I like that guy that comes out of the radio." He turned to Sammy. "How'd you come up with that?"

"Trash I don't mind," said Anapol. "Is it the same kind of trash as Superman, that's what I want to know."

"Might I confer with you gentlemen in private?" said Deasey.

"Excuse us, boys," Anapol said.

Sammy and Joe went and sat in the chairs outside Anapol's office.

Sammy tried to listen through the glass. Deasey could be heard murmuring gravely but indecipherably. Sometimes Anapol interrupted him with a question. After a few minutes, Ashkenazy came out, winked at Sammy and Joe, and left the Empire offices. When he came back a few minutes later, he was carrying a thin rattling sheaf of paper. It looked like a legal contract. Sammy's left leg started to twitch. Ashkenazy stopped in front of the door to Anapol's office and gestured grandly for them to enter.

"Gentlemen?" he said.

Sammy and Joe followed him in.

"We want to buy the Escapist," said Anapol. "We'll pay you a hundred and fifty dollars for the rights."

Joe looked at Sammy, eyebrows raised. Big money.

"What else?" said Sammy, though he had been hoping for a hundred at most.

"The other characters, the backups, we'll pay eighty-five dollars for the lot of them," Anapol continued. Seeing Sammy's face fall a little, he added, "It would have been twenty dollars apiece, but Jack felt that Mr. Radio was worth a little extra."

"That's just for the rights, kid," said Ashkenazy. "We'll also take you both on, Sammy for seventy-five dollars a week and Joe at six dollars a page. George wants you for an assistant, Sam. Says he sees real potential in you."

"You certainly know your trash," Deasey said.

"Plus we'll pay Joe, here, twenty dollars for every cover he does. And for all your pals and associates, five dollars a page."

"Though of course I'll have to meet them first," said Deasey.

"That's not enough," said Sammy. "I told them the page rate would be eight dollars."

"Eight dollars!" said Ashkenazy. "I wouldn't pay eight dollars to John Steinback."

"We'll pay five," said Anapol gently. "And we want a new cover."

"You do," Sammy said. "I see."

"This hitting Hitler thing, Sammy, it makes us nervous."

"What? What is this?" Joe's attention had wandered a little during the financial discussions-he had heard one hundred and fifty dollars, six dollars a page, twenty per cover. Those numbers sounded very good to him. But now he thought he had just heard Sheldon Anapol declaring that he would not use the cover in which Hitler got his jaw broken. Nothing that Joe had painted had ever satisfied him more. The composition was natural and simple and modern; the two figures, the circular dais, the blue and white badge of the sky. The figures had weight and mass; the foreshortening of Hitler's outflying body was daring and a little off, but in a way that was somehow convincing. The draping of the clothes was right; the Escapist's uniform looked like a uniform, like jersey cloth bunched in places but tight-fitting, and not merely blue-colored flesh. But most of all, the pleasure that Joe derived from administering this brutal beating was intense and durable and strangely redemptive. At odd moments over the past few days, he had consoled himself with the thought that somehow a copy of this comic book might eventually make its way to Berlin and cross the desk of Hitler himself, that he would look at the painting into which Joe had channeled all his pent-up rage and rub his jaw, and check with his tongue for a missing tooth.

"We're not in a war with Germany," Ashkenazy said, shaking his finger at Sammy. "It's illegal to make fun of a king, or a president, or somebody like that, if you're not at war with them. We could get sued."

"May I suggest that you keep Germany in the story if you change the name and don't call them Germans. Or Nazis," said Deasey. "But you'll have to figure out a different kind of image for the cover. If not, I can give it to Pickering or Clemm or one of my other regular cover artists."

Sammy looked over at Joe, who stood looking down, nodding his head a little bit, as if he should have known all along that it would come to something like this. When he looked up again, however, his face was composed, his voice measured and calm.

"I like the cover," he said.

"Joe," said Sammy. "Just think about it a minute. We can figure something else out. Something just as good. I know it's important to you. It's important to me, too. I think it ought to be important to these gentlemen, too, and frankly I'm a little ashamed of them right now"-he shot Anapol a dirty look-"but just think about it a minute. That's all I'm saying."

"I do not need to do that, Sam. I will not agree to the other cover, no matter."

Sammy nodded, then turned back to Sheldon Anapol. He closed his eyes, very tight, as though about to jump into a swiftly moving ice-choked stream. His faith in himself had been shaken. He didn't know what was right, or whose welfare he ought to consider. Would it be helping Joe if they walked out over this? If they stayed and compromised, would it be hurting him? Would it be helping the Kavaliers in Prague? He opened his eyes and looked straight at Anapol.

"We can't do it," said Sammy, though it cost him great effort. "No, I'm sorry, that has to be the cover." He appealed to Deasey. "Mr. Deasey, that cover is dynamite and you know it."

"Who wants dynamite?" said Ashkenazy. "Dynamite blows up. A guy could lose a finger."

"We're not changing the cover, boss," Sammy said, and then, bringing to bear all his powers of dissimulated pluck and false bravado, he picked up one of the portfolios and began filling it with pieces of illustration board. He did not allow himself to think about what he was doing. "The Escapist fights evil." He tied the portfolio shut and handed it to Joe, still without looking at his cousin's face. He picked up another portfolio. "Hitler is evil."

"Calm down, young man," said Anapol. "Jack, maybe we can push the page rate for the others up to six, nu? Six dollars a page, Sammy. And eight for your cousin here. Come, Mr. Kavalier, eight dollars a page! Don't be foolish."

Sammy handed the second portfolio to Joe and started on the third.

"They aren't all your characters, don't forget," said George Deasey. "Maybe your friends would see things differently."

"Come on, Joe," said Sammy. "You heard what he said before. Every publisher in town wants in on this thing. We'll be all right."

They turned and walked out to the elevator.

"Six and a half!" called Anapol. "Hey, what about my radios?"

Joe looked back over his shoulder, then at Sammy, who had settled his snub features into an impassive mask. Sammy pushed the down button with a determined jab of his finger. Joe inclined his head towardhis cousin.