Lewis Parker

“ Willy and Red remained silent, inferring that I was to carry the ball.
"What I'm dim about, Willy, is how this ties in with your professional livelihood. Why do you have to give up art?"
"Isn't it obvious?"
I shook my head meekly. Willy sighed and reached for a pastel stick. He sketched quickly on the layout pad, first in greys, then filling in with the three basics. It was a martini glass, and the first basic was the cherry in it. Then he addressed his signature under the sketch. ”

“ He smiled wanly. "You know better than that, Jim."
I did. He had a big name, and that, as is the way of commerce, is what the buyers paid for. Things looked hopeless for Willy. We sat. Red got up and stretched, then adjusted her halter, into which Willy had put too much imagination. She jumped from Willy's knee to the drawing desk, and stretched out on the pad. Willy looked at her hungrily, and she smiled warmly back at him. I was beginning to get that "third party" feeling—and then it hit me.
I leaned forward excitedly. "We will make a million!" ”

“ Nobody but me. And I don't know either. I keep thinking of what Red said about her "fourth dimension" world. I think about it a lot.
I've given up my job at the agency. My apartment too. I got a new one. Willy's. It's just as it was that night. Right down to the last pastel and brush. It's going to stay that way too. Everything just as it was. Every gadget that Willy used in his work.
I've got a use for everything in that apartment. I've got to know what happened. And there's only one real way to find out.
I spend my days thinking about my ideal woman. Each day she gets more vivid in my mind. ”

“ She failed to throw it back because she was placing a bet with herself that Willy was short for Wilhelmina.
Willy straightened his tongue out. "Jim, I've got to see you."
Now Willy was a nervous little guy from faulty thyroid but neurotic in a bearable way. He sounded even more upset than he usually did. I didn't particularly like him, but he was a topflight illustrator and I liked the way he drew women, and besides I'd been trying for a year to tag him for our agency. All the slicker art agencies were after him, that's how good he was. ”

“ I was half tempted to ask Willy to fill my rye glass with pastels again, but it seemed an imposition at the moment.
"Oh, what the hell," I said committingly. "I'm not the kind of guy to let a friend down over a technicality!"
Red leapt to my lap and clambered up my shirtfront. "I knew you wouldn't let us down!" she said happily, and bussed my chin. Before I could be modest about it she had bounded to the desk-top and was stretching herself out beside Willy's drawing of himself. Willy and I stared from her to each other.
"Well," Willy said. "Let's get to it." ”

“ Like the saying goes, all I can draw is flies and rubber checks, and frequently a blank. I've seen a lot of artists do their stuff, but none of them come up to Willy. You've seen his illos in most of the big slicks—you know, the guy and gal in all angles on the yellow beach under a pink sky, and the story title reads "When Will You Come Back, Dearest?", or the cola series on the back cover where the girl swigs and the guy gawks at her bathing suit, that sort of stuff. The fat accounts, they all came running for Willy. With him on the payroll the agency could have made a fortune. ”

“ I like an item right on the table where I can eye it and touch it and say, "That's a spade," or, "That's a buck." If there's water on Mars I'll believe it when I drink it, but until then I'll say, "So what's with Mars? It's one hell of a long way off." ”

“ You could—help me, with your drag at the agency you represent. I could do account execking, or maybe be a consultant art director-without-portfolio, anything—"
"Whoa down, Willy," I said, startled. "Give up illustrating? Just because of a dame—"
Willy shook his head sadly. "She's got nothing to do with anything else I draw. She isn't at all like the models. Oh, I know what a goop I've been about them, but Red has cured me." He paused and looked at me quizzically, shaking his head. "I knew you had a level head, Jim—that's exactly why I've told you this. ”

“ You're not expected to believe this story since it's the kind of thing that science calls impossible. But anyway, she happened. Who? Why—
To make it clear how normal everything was when the evening started out, I'll let you in at the time Willy phoned me. I was in my apartment with a lady from down the hall....
I had asked her what she liked and she'd purred, "You." I had asked her with soda or gingerale and she'd said, "Straight," so I'd obliged and poured myself a triple too and sank into the sofa beside her.
The phone rang.
"Oh damn," she said.
"Your earlobes—" I began. ”

“ Tell me exactly where Red fits in, and where the—uh—trouble started."
Willy slapped his knees and looked even more forlorn, reaching for a smoke while he still had one in his mouth. "Sorry I doubted you, Jim, but you can understand how I feel about it. Look—"
He stood up, butted the fresh fag, and walked across the room to the drawing desk where he did his layouts.
"The best thing to do is simply show you," he said. I sighed and dragged my chair over and sat to one side of him. He pulled out a layout pad, opened his pastels and arranged them deliberately beside it. ”

“ He smudged chalk on his finger and touched the sketch with quick strokes, moulding the form, and what a form. I leaned forward, and half stood over his chair, marvelling at the way he did it. Then, applying a dough rubber to pick out highlights and stray smudges, he leaned back and reached for a pencil. Noticing how tensed he was, I sank back into my chair and lit a cigarette.
"There," he whispered, his hand poised with the pencil at the bottom left-hand corner.
"So now what gives?" I asked. "Is she the—"
"So now I sign it." He looked around at me, spaniel-eyed. ”