It's Superman! A Novel by Tom De Haven Read Free Book Online Page B

preferably a True-Tone model. Tenor, not alto. And with the satin-gold finish, if he can find one in the dark. Patsy fancies himself quite the virtuoso on a gobble-pipe; his little apartment off Times Square is full of them.
    But on his walk to the pawnshop—on Seventh Avenue in the high Thirties—Willi has second thoughts about the whole thing. Does he really want to do this? If he gets caught, he’ll land in jail. With criminals! Is it worth it just to get his camera out of hock—well, off the shelf, off the premises —a couple of days sooner than he would otherwise?
    Yeah, but I really want to shoot that fire, he thinks.
    But what if some potsy strolls by checking doors?
    By this time he’s walked past the hockshop and the coast, damn it, is clear.
    He pretends to study a window display of flatware, phonographs, trumpets, guitars, baseball mitts, paste jewelry, toasters . . .
    His heart is racing, kicking.
    Either do it, he tells himself, or go.
    He turns to go, but then he does it.
    And to his enormous surprise, he does it quickly, efficiently.
    Second pick he chooses: bingo.
    Now Willi is inside the pawnshop, the door shut, and his head is throbbing arhythmically. Get your stupid camera and blow, he thinks, carefully moving through the gloom toward the waist-high counter that runs half the length of a side wall. Behind it are deep metal shelves jammed with good and bad cameras and camera equipment, but Willi knows exactly where his Speed is. Yesterday he watched where Chodash the pawnbroker randomly stuck it. So just grab.
    As Willi rounds the far end of the counter, his left foot collides with a solid object and the sole of his right shoe comes down in a puddle of something gummy and slides. A moment later he lands hard on his prat. What the hell? He scrambles to get up but keeps slipping. The seat of Willi’s trousers is wet and so is one of his shirtsleeves, the cuff a sodden blotter. Both palms feel slathered with warm paste.
    What’s that smell ?
    Then all at once he knows.
    And knows what he slipped in, as well.
    “Mr. Chodash?” he says, reaching.

III
    Good news. Gruesome discoveries.
Willi plies his trade. Trapped!
Lois calls her mother to talk about men.
●
    1
    “Lois?”
    “Professor Gurney? Oh my God, I thought you were someone else.”
    “Boyfriend?”
    “ Ex -boyfriend. And I’m so sorry—believe me, sir, I don’t go telling everybody that calls to please drop dead.”
    “ ‘Sir’? School is out, Lois. Call me John.”
    “There are still exams.”
    “You don’t think we actually read those things, do you?”
    “Professor Gurney, was there a reason . . . ?”
    “As a matter of fact, there was. I have some very good news I thought I’d pass on. Lois, my star pupil, you are no longer speaking to an associate professor of journalism at Columbia University, you are speaking to the national tours editor for the Federal Writers Project.”
    “Oh my gosh! That’s incredible !”
    “Sought out by Harry Hopkins himself.”
    “You must be thrilled,” says Lois.
    “Can’t say I’m crazy about living in D.C., but yes. To the gills. Play your cards right, my girl, and I’ll get you a job writing for the American Guide series. Or better yet, I’ll find one for your ex-boyfriend. In North Dakota. Say, is that a giggle? I love a girl that giggles.”
    “Professor Gurney . . .”
    “I’m calling to invite you to a celebration. Tonight. Say yes.”
    “That’s so thoughtful of you, but—”
    “Stork Club.”
    “I really don’t—”
    “Harold Ross’ll be there. Westbrook Pegler. George Jean Nathan.”
    “You’re making that up.”
    “Lois! For shame. I’m a journalist, I don’t ‘make things up.’ Hemingway might drop by. And Irving Berlin.”
    “Stop!”
    “Lenny Lyons, Clare Boothe Luce. Walter Winchell.”
    “Now I know you’re fibbing. You hate Walter Winchell.”
    “It’s a party, Lois! Grudges are buried, feuds forgotten. Morals forbidden.”
    “I wish you