piggish but most girls, thank God, found it cute. He was wearing his usual apparel: worn jeans, tennis shoes, T-shirt with satirical superhero Wonder Warthog on the front.
His life was wrapped up in comic art. He was an aspiring cartoonist himself and a devoted collector of comic books and strips and related memorabilia. He had no profession, outside of comics, having dropped out of college several years ago because of a lack of funds. He’d intended to go back when he got the cash, but when he finally did get it (from that bank robbery he’d been a part of, with Nolan) he’d had so much money that going back to school seemed irrelevant.
The comic-strip “carpet” Jon was presently in the midst of was a fitting accompaniment to the rest of the room. The walls were all but papered with posters of famous comics characters, which Jon had drawn himself: Dick Tracy, Flash Gordon, Tarzan, Buck Rogers, Batman, recreated in pen and ink and watercolor, uncanny facsimiles of their original artists’ style. The room was a bright and colorful shrine to comic art, and had come a long way from when Jon’s uncle Planner had first turned it over to him, a dreary, dusty storeroom in the back of the antique shop, its gray walls and cement floor straight out of a penal colony bunk- house. Jon had changed all that, first with his homemade posters, then with some throw rugs, circles of cartoony color splashed across the cold cement floor; and his uncle had donated a genuine antique walnut chest of drawers and almost-matching bed with finely carved headboard, neither of which Jon had spared from the comic art motif: bright decals of Zippy the Pinhead and the Freak Brothers, and taped-on examples of Jon’s own comic art, clung to the fancy wood irreverently. Boxes of comics, each book plastic-bagged and properly filed, stood three-deep hugging the walls, and a file cabinet in one corner was a vault that guarded his most precious comic artifacts.
On the wall next to his drawing easel was one of the few noncomic art posters in the room: Lee Van Cleef decked out in his “man in black” spaghetti western regalia, staring across the room with slanty, malevolent eyes. Jon felt the resemblance between Van Cleef and Nolan was almost spooky, though Nolan himself was unimpressed. Nolan was, in many ways, a fantasy of Jon’s come to life: a tough guy in the Van Cleef or Clint Eastwood tradition and a personification of the all-knowing, indestructible super-heroes of the comic books as well.
Initially Jon had been almost awestruck in Nolan’s presence. It was like coming face to face with a figment of his imagination and was unnerving as hell. Now, however, after two years of on-and-off close contact with the man, Jon realized Nolan was just another human being, an interesting and singular human being, yes, but a human being, imperfect, complete with human frailties and peculiarities. Take Nolan’s tightness for example. Monetary tightness, that is, not alcoholic. Nolan was a penny pincher, a money hoarder whose Scrooge-like habits were too ingrained to be thrown off even when on two separate damn occasions his miser’s life savings had been completely wiped out.
But the man was tough, no denying that. Jon knew of twice when Nolan had pulled through when he had enough bullets in him to provide ammunition for a banana-republic revolution. That alone was proof of the man’s toughness and perhaps indicated a certain shopworn indestructibility.
Nolan was in Iowa City, but Jon hadn’t seen him yet. He’d called Jon in the early afternoon to say that he was in town and that he’d stopped at the Hamburg Inn to grab a sandwich, where he’d run into an old friend named Wagner, with whom he was now spending the evening. Tomorrow Jon and Nolan would be driving in to Des Moines to sell some hot money to a fence—the money from the Detroit heist, which was all in marked bills.
Jon was getting a little groggy. The images of Li’l Abner, Alley Oop
His life was wrapped up in comic art. He was an aspiring cartoonist himself and a devoted collector of comic books and strips and related memorabilia. He had no profession, outside of comics, having dropped out of college several years ago because of a lack of funds. He’d intended to go back when he got the cash, but when he finally did get it (from that bank robbery he’d been a part of, with Nolan) he’d had so much money that going back to school seemed irrelevant.
The comic-strip “carpet” Jon was presently in the midst of was a fitting accompaniment to the rest of the room. The walls were all but papered with posters of famous comics characters, which Jon had drawn himself: Dick Tracy, Flash Gordon, Tarzan, Buck Rogers, Batman, recreated in pen and ink and watercolor, uncanny facsimiles of their original artists’ style. The room was a bright and colorful shrine to comic art, and had come a long way from when Jon’s uncle Planner had first turned it over to him, a dreary, dusty storeroom in the back of the antique shop, its gray walls and cement floor straight out of a penal colony bunk- house. Jon had changed all that, first with his homemade posters, then with some throw rugs, circles of cartoony color splashed across the cold cement floor; and his uncle had donated a genuine antique walnut chest of drawers and almost-matching bed with finely carved headboard, neither of which Jon had spared from the comic art motif: bright decals of Zippy the Pinhead and the Freak Brothers, and taped-on examples of Jon’s own comic art, clung to the fancy wood irreverently. Boxes of comics, each book plastic-bagged and properly filed, stood three-deep hugging the walls, and a file cabinet in one corner was a vault that guarded his most precious comic artifacts.
On the wall next to his drawing easel was one of the few noncomic art posters in the room: Lee Van Cleef decked out in his “man in black” spaghetti western regalia, staring across the room with slanty, malevolent eyes. Jon felt the resemblance between Van Cleef and Nolan was almost spooky, though Nolan himself was unimpressed. Nolan was, in many ways, a fantasy of Jon’s come to life: a tough guy in the Van Cleef or Clint Eastwood tradition and a personification of the all-knowing, indestructible super-heroes of the comic books as well.
Initially Jon had been almost awestruck in Nolan’s presence. It was like coming face to face with a figment of his imagination and was unnerving as hell. Now, however, after two years of on-and-off close contact with the man, Jon realized Nolan was just another human being, an interesting and singular human being, yes, but a human being, imperfect, complete with human frailties and peculiarities. Take Nolan’s tightness for example. Monetary tightness, that is, not alcoholic. Nolan was a penny pincher, a money hoarder whose Scrooge-like habits were too ingrained to be thrown off even when on two separate damn occasions his miser’s life savings had been completely wiped out.
But the man was tough, no denying that. Jon knew of twice when Nolan had pulled through when he had enough bullets in him to provide ammunition for a banana-republic revolution. That alone was proof of the man’s toughness and perhaps indicated a certain shopworn indestructibility.
Nolan was in Iowa City, but Jon hadn’t seen him yet. He’d called Jon in the early afternoon to say that he was in town and that he’d stopped at the Hamburg Inn to grab a sandwich, where he’d run into an old friend named Wagner, with whom he was now spending the evening. Tomorrow Jon and Nolan would be driving in to Des Moines to sell some hot money to a fence—the money from the Detroit heist, which was all in marked bills.
Jon was getting a little groggy. The images of Li’l Abner, Alley Oop
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