2

Iowa City depressed Nolan.

It wasn’t the Midwestern atmosphere that bothered him, or even Iowa itself—he liked being left alone, which was basically what people did to each other in Midwestern states, as opposed to East Coast rudeness, West Coast weirdness and Southern pseudo-hospitality. Iowa City was a college town, and that depressed Nolan.

Or more specifically, college-town girls depressed him. Maybe it was this new awareness of what he was beginning to view as the onrush of senility. Or just an awkwardness that came from being around people he couldn’t relate to. But these young girls, damn it, all looking so fuckable and at the same time untouchable, in their jeans and flimsy tee-shirts. . . . He guessed it was ego; he didn’t like looking at a desirable woman without at least the remote possibility of getting in.

Not that he’d ever been much for playing the stud, that wasn’t it; sex was a gut need to be filled when time and circumstance allowed. But with young girls like these, daughters and possibly granddaughters of the one or two generations of women he’d had intercourse with, he had no basis for rapport, no way, man, none at all to relate with such creatures. Conversation was enough of a pain for Nolan without having to struggle for whatever wave-length these children were on this week.

As he walked the blocks between Planner’s antique shop and the Hamburg Haven, the thirty-above Iowa wind biting through his light suit into the healed-up wound, he had the strange feeling that this kind of sexual mind-wandering put him in the category of would-be child molester.

And he had to admit he liked the young look these girls had, the freedom of dress, long-flowing hair or mass of Shirley Temple curls or shortcut boyish; even those in grubby outfits managed to look fresh and clean, without appearing virginal, and Christ, where were the girls that showed it like that and had it to show when he was their age? Winter coming on and they weren’t even wearing bras; he’d never get used to that.

As far as the young men were concerned, Nolan saw that their lifestyle reflected a similar freedom of dress and grooming, but they carried their lot of freedom around so conspicuously it might well have been heavy.

An idealistic bunch, Nolan thought, stupidly idealistic, perhaps, or maybe just stupid, but a different bunch than the one he had grown up a part of, and Nolan could almost feel an envy for these kids who were getting a shot at mistakes he’d only dreamed of making.

He approached the Hamburg Haven, a brick two-story in the middle of the block, its windows streaked with grease and other moistures, and ignored the main entrance, opting for the doorway to the far left which led up a flight of stairs. From the look of the stairs Nolan figured they could hold his weight for once up, but he wouldn’t count on round trip. He took a chance and climbed them, knocked at the paint-flaked door at the top.

The door jerked open like a bad film cut and in its place was a five-feet six-inch figure in jeans and gray sweatshirt, with a mass of curly brown Harpo-like hair, intense blue eyes, and a little piggish turned-up nose in an otherwise well-featured face.

“Jon?”

“Mr. Nolan?”

Nolan nodded.

The boy seemed to be struggling to put the clamp on his enthusiasm, but Nolan could see the same look an eager puppy has jumping up and down in the bright eyes.

“Come on in, Mr. Nolan, come on in.”

Nolan stepped in and closed the door behind. After he got a look around, he weighed going back out again as a strong possibility.

The room’s crumble-plaster walls were practically wallpapered with posters, not the standard clever-saying type or famous movie star or once-the-rage psychedelic, but hand-drawn posters depicting comic-strip heroes, and a few store-bought movie posters of actors Nolan didn’t recognize.

The posters were hung, four by two feet, uncanny recreations of Flash Gordon, Prince Valiant, Buck Rogers, Dick Tracy, Batman, and several other comic characters not familiar to him. The movie posters, fewer in number, were unrecognizable to him, with one exception: Buster Crabbe, playing either Buck Rogers or Flash Gordon, he wasn’t sure which. Among the others was a gaunt-faced Western character with a mustache and pipe, dressed in black.

There was also a cot in the room, and next to it a drawing board with papers and pencils scattered on the floor around it. The room didn’t have a kitchenette, just a hotplate on an old table and a tiny icebox. The can had both a stool and a tub, but no door. A closet, also doorless, contained skyscraper piles of comic books. Also in the room was a steel cabinet, an office file, which in the midst of the pop-art ruin made as much sense to Nolan as a naked girl in a church choir.

Nolan said, “Why the file?”

Jon said, “The top drawer is for my really rare comics. I collect them, uh, comics that is. It’s my hobby.”

“What’re the other two drawers for?”

“Pardon?”

“In the file.”

“Oh. The second drawer’s for other rare things, you know, Big Little Books and daily and Sunday strips from old papers, stuff like that.”

“Leaves a drawer.”

“Clothes. That’s where I put them, I put my clothes in the bottom drawer.”

Nolan nodded. He looked around the room again, made an effort to suppress the gigantic sigh inside him wanting out, and reached in his pocket to get the white box Planner had given him.

Nolan said, “Here you go, kid. For the second drawer. Your uncle sent this over.”

The boy took the box, opened it, and his eyes lit up as if he had a candle inside his head, his outer shell staying passive. “Uh, thanks for dropping this off, Mr. Nolan, thanks a lot.”

“Yeah. Well. I got to be going. Nice meeting you, kid.”

“Hey . . . hey, wait a minute!”

Nolan was opening the door. “What?”

“What about the . . . the, you know . . .” he dropped his voice, to a conspiratorial whisper, “. . . the robbery?”

“Forget it, kid.”

“Bullshit. You came here to talk business. Now, now shut the door and come back in here and talk it.”

Nolan hesitated and the boy reached over and slammed the door shut.

“Wait, don’t tell me,” Nolan said, “I just figured it out. We hit the bank, I take the cash, you take the dimes and we drop you off at a newsstand.”

“You show both your age and your ignorance, Nolan. It’s been years since comic books sold for a dime. I suppose you remember when they were a nickel.”

“I remember when they drew them on cave walls.”

“Listen, this is a big goddamn joke to you, isn’t it? A little boy and his games? Okay, maybe I got a childish habit that isn’t as mature and rewarding as booze or dope or something, but a cheap habit it isn’t. I paid a hundred thirty-five bucks for the first ‘Superboy,’ a hundred for the first ‘Captain Marvel Jr.,’ and two hundred for ‘Detective’ thirty-eight.”

“Thirty-eight?”

“That’s the first appearance of Robin in ‘Batman.’ž”

“Fine reason to hit a bank, fine. So you can build a comic book collection.”

“Am I asking you what you want to do with your share?”

“No.”

“Let me ask you something . . . you ever go to college, Nolan?”

“No.”

“I’m not in this semester, going back when I can dig up the bread, but do you know what kind of grades I got?”

“No.”

“I got a three point five average on a basis of four.”

“Really? Well, that’s fine, that’s perfect. Sound credentials. Not only do you love comic books, you get straight As. Where’s the note from the Dean saying what a swell heist artist you’ll make?”

Jon walked over to the cot, lifted the covers that hung to the floor and pulled from under a barbell with massive lead weights on either end. He rolled it out into the middle of the room.

He looked at Nolan and said, “Try it.”

“Step one in my test to earn you as a partner?”

“Try it.”

Nolan finally let the sigh escape and dropped his bag to the floor and bent down and gripped the weight. His side burned as he brought the barbell to his waist, then jerked it up to his chin. He pushed to get it over his head, tried, tried, but couldn’t make it. When he set the weight down, the room shook.

Jon laughed. “Bet that knocked a few hamburgers off the grill downstairs.”

“Now,” Nolan said, “I suppose you lift the weight and show me up, instantly creating a till-death bond between us.”

Jon smiled and said, “Something like that.” He leaned down, bending only at the waist, and quickly did an underhand curl with the barbell, shoving the weight over his head and switching his hands around in midair, then easing it back to the floor.

“Now what?” Nolan asked. “You kick sand in my face?”

“No,” Jon said. “You and I talk about that robbery.”

“If we were going to swipe a bunch of lead weights, those biceps of yours might come in handy.”

“So it was a stunt,” the boy shrugged. “It got your attention.”

“This is a deadly serious business, you know.”

“Sounds like you’re the one reads comic books.”

Nolan grinned. “Okay.” He dug in his pocket for his cigarettes, got one out and lit it. “Best thing to do first off is meet with the other masterminds you got lined up for this once-in-a-lifetime score.”

“Good enough. This afternoon too soon? We’ll have to drive a ways. Fifty miles.”

“Got a car?”

“Yeah.”

“All right.”

“I’ll have to make a phone call.”

“Go on.”

“I don’t have a phone. Have to use the booth downstairs.”

“You need a dime, in other words.”

Jon nodded, smiling.

Nolan searched his pockets, came up with two nickels and tossed them to the boy. “Just don’t come back with a comic book.”

“Be right back,” the boy said, heading for the door.

Nolan was standing in front of the poster of the black-garbed Western figure with mustache and pipe, surveying it suspiciously, when the boy re-entered the room five minutes later.

“Lee Van Cleef,” Jon said.

“What?”

“That’s Lee Van Cleef. An actor. Looks something like you, don’t you think?”

Nolan shook his head, smiled with half his mouth and jabbed a finger toward Buster Crabbe. “Flash Gordon’s more my style. How long till we leave?”