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uncle had given him were not exempt from comics influence, either: the chest of drawers had bright underground comics decals stuck all over its rich wood surface (Zippy, the Freak Brothers, Mr. Natural), and on top Jon’s pencils, pens, brushes, and bottles of ink were scattered among the cans of deodorant and shave cream and other necessities. Even the finely carved headboard of his bed was spotted with taped-on scraps of Jon’s artwork, cartoonish sketches of this and that, mostly character studies of his girl, Karen, and Nolan, and his Uncle Planner.
    His Uncle Planner. Still hard to think of Planner as being dead. Just a few months since it happened, and though Jon was almost used to the absence of the old man, he still didn’t like living alone in the big, dusty old antique shop. Soon he’d be getting around to contacting some people to come in and appraise and bid on the merchandise in the store. Planner’s collection of antique political buttons alone would bring a pretty penny. Of course the stuff in the front of the store, the long, narrow “showroom” of supposed antiques, was junk, crap Planner had picked up at yard sales and flea markets just to keep the shop sufficiently stocked; the good stuff was in the back rooms, because when Planner had run across actual antiques, he’d crated them up carefully and packed them away. Jon’s uncle had had real respect for real antiques, and felt it was silly to sell them, as their value was sure to increase day by day. Jon, however, had no hesitation about selling those back-room treasures, though he’d do his best to find a buyer who’d haul away the junk as well as the jewels.
    Mostly, of course, the shop had been a front for Jon’s uncle. Planner had been just what his name implied: he planned things—specifically, jobs for professional thieves. He’d traveled around on “buying trips” and, in the role of cantankerous old antique dealer, had gathered the information necessary to put together successful “packages” for professional heist men like Nolan. Planner’s packages were detailed and precise, at times even including blueprints of the target, and he’d charged a fee plus percentage of the take. Two years ago, with the guidance of his uncle, Jon had participated in the execution of one of those packages, a bank robbery headed by Nolan (whom Planner rated as perhaps the best in a dying craft), and some three quarters of a million dollars from that robbery had rested in Planner’s safe since then—until this summer, when two men with guns came into the antique shop and shot Planner dead and took the money.
    Jon and Nolan had gone after the two men and the money, and caught the two men, all right, but the money was lost. And so was Jon’s dream of owning a comic book shop, a mecca for collectors like himself—as were his hopes for having enough money to support himself for as long as it took to break into the comic art field. All of that—up in smoke.
    But not really. As Planner’s sole heir, he was now owner of the shop, which he could conceivably convert into his comic book mecca, even if its location (Iowa City, Iowa) was a bit off the beaten track. And he had those two back rooms full of valuable antiques to turn into cash. And, too, Nolan had told him that the next time something came together, Jon was the first man he’d call. So things weren’t so awfully bleak, really.
    Jon returned to his room with the mail (not much—just some bills and the latest issue of The Buyer’s Guide for Comics Fandom ) and flopped on the bed, his eye catching the poster of Lee Van Cleef on the wall over his easel. The Van Cleef poster was one of a few posters in the room that were photographic and not his own drawings. Van Cleef was in his “man-in-black” gunfighter stance and, it seemed to Jon, resembled Nolan a great deal: they shared the same narrow eyes, mustache, high cheekbones and genuinely hard, hawkish look, though Nolan could get an even