"You're quite attached to your work, I can see that," Love said, catching the younger man's air of amused unconcern.

Joe Kavalier looked down at his feet, where a pair of metal cuffs linked his left ankle, in a gray sock with white and burgundy clocks, to one of the legs of his table. "I was not wanting to be interrupted, you know?" He tap-tap-tapped the end of his pencil against the piece of board. "So many little boxes to fill."

"Yes, all right, that's very admirable, son," Smith said, "but for gosh sakes, how much drawing will you be able to do when your arm is lying down on Thirty-third Street?"

The young man gazed around the studio, empty but for the smoke of his cigarette and a pair of grunting firemen, the buckles on their raincoats rattling as they clambered around the room.

"There isn't no bomb," he said.

"You think this thing's a hoax?" Love said.

Joe Kavalier nodded, then lowered his head to his work. He considered the page's first little box from one angle, then another. Then, rapidly, in a firm and certain manner and without stopping, he began to draw. In choosing the image he was now putting to paper, he didn't appear to be following the typewritten script lying stacked at his elbow. Perhaps he had committed it all to memory. Love craned his head to get a better look at what the kid was drawing. It seemed to be an airplane, one with the fierce-looking jambeaux of a Stuka. Yes, a Stuka in a streaking power dive. The detail was impressive. The plane had solidity and rivets. And yet there was something exaggerated in the backward sweep of the wings that suggested great speed and even a hint of falconish malevolence.

"Governor?" It was Harley. He sounded as if he was irritated with Al Smith now, too. "I got two men with a wrench ready and waiting."

"Just a moment," Love said, and then felt himself blush. It was Al Smith's decision, of course-it was Al Smith's building-but Love was impressed by the young man's good looks, his air of certainty with regard to the bomb's fraudulence; and he was fascinated, as always, by the sight of someone making something skillfully. He wasn't ready to leave either.

"You've got half a moment," Harley said, ducking out again. "With all due respect."

"Well, now, Joe," Smith said, checking his watch once again, looking and sounding more nervous than before. His tone grew patient and slightly condescending, and Love sensed that he was trying to be psychological. "If you won't evacuate, maybe you'll tell me why the Bund- would this be the Bund?"

"The Aryan-American League."

Smith looked at Love, who shook his head. "I don't believe I've ever heard of them," Smith said.

Joe Kavalier's mouth bunched up at one corner in a small, eloquent smirk, as if to suggest that this was hardly surprising.

"Why are these Aryans so upset with you people here? How did they come across these controversial drawings of yours? I wasn't aware that Nazis read comic books."

"All kinds of people are reading them," said Joe. "I get mail from all over the country. California. Illinois. From Canada, too."

"Really?" Love said. "How many of your comic books do you sell every month?"

"Jimmy-" Smith began, tapping the crystal of his wristwatch with a fat finger.

"We have three titles," the young man said. "Though now it's going to be five."

"And how many do you sell in a month?"

"Mr. Kavalier, this is fascinating stuff, but if you won't agree to come quietly I'm going to be obliged to-"

"Close to three million," Joe Kavalier said. "But they all get passed along at least once. They get traded for other ones, between the kids. So the number of people reading them, Sam-my partner, Sam Clay-says it's maybe two times how many we sell, or more."

"Das ist bemerkenswert," said Love.

For the first time, Joe Kavalier looked surprised. "Ja, no kidding."

"And that fellow out there in the lobby, with the key on his chest. That your star attraction?"

"The Escapist. He is the world-greatest escape artist, no chains to hold him, sending him to liberate the enprisoned peoples in the world. It's good stuff." He smiled for the first time, a smile that was self-mocking but not quite enough to conceal his evident professional pride. "He is made up by my partner and me."

"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."