Harlan Ellison - No Doors, No Windows

She heard a car drive up outside, and stop. Then the crunch of footsteps approaching. Was he coming back? What would he do to her now?

Vague, formless terrors of childhood surrounded her: the devil, the bogey-man, the twitchee that Daddy said would eat her alive if she whined, all of them back to haunt her at once. Two days of terror mounted in her throat, and she turned like a caged animal, a small animal, seeking some way out. The door was the only way, and now she could hear the steps approaching the door.

She saw a flicker of lighter something in the dirt by the wall, and reached for it.

A pitchfork, broken off three-quarters of the way up the handle.

She hefted it, feeling the bits of dirt clinging to the wood. The rusty pitchfork felt terribly heavy in her tired arms, but she stood trembling, ready at least to scream and fight!

The footsteps began to hurry, almost run, as though the man was in a rush to do what he had come to do.

Then the door burst open, and a gigantic black shape was there, and Penny lunged heavily at it. The combined speed of the running man and the lunging child drove the rusty pitchfork deep, deep, deep into the black shadow, and the man screamed high and whining, the sound bubbling up in his throat.

Penny screamed, and shouted at the shadow, “You let me alone, let me alone! I want my Daddy, I want my Daddy!”

The shadow bubbled again, then fell.

The night was silent once more, save the hoot of the owl in the tree, and the soft moan of the little girl as she cried, over and over, “I want my Daddy …”

Benny kicked the electric blanket off his naked feet, patted Bonnie on her naked stomach, and placed the telephone receiver to his naked ear. Three chuckles of ringing and abruptly, on the other end, a cricket was rubbing its hind legs together. It was Candy, Orson Heller’s right-hand boy.

“Mistuh Helluh’s office,” the cricket chirruped.

“Candy baby!” Benny was not smiling. “Like to talk to Mr. Heller. This is Benny.” Bonnie had lit a filter; now she handed it across, and Benny puffed deeply.

“Jus’a’minnit, Mr. Mogelson. Mr. Helluh’ll be right whichah.” There was the soggy sound of a hand coming across the mouthpiece, a faraway voice, and the phone changed owners.

Orson Heller — who, for seventeen years, had been in charge of the Combine’s hit system, i.e., its assassination branch — cleared his throat. As befitted the new owner of the Sunset Strip’s poshest dining club. “Benny. How’s my PR man?”

“Orson, I’m a hero.”

“That so?”

The public relations man straightened in Bonnie’s bed, and flicked ashes unceremoniously onto the white pile rug. “So. Very much so. Remember I told you I’d make you a star? Well, by this time tomorrow, The Barbary Coast and its new owner — the celebrated Mr. Orson Heller — will be the hottest properties in Hollywood.”

“You talk a lot, Benny.”

Heller had not quite lost the thug tones he bad employed for seventeen years. Or perhaps the weight of sixty-four men’s souls — shot, stabbed, doused with acid, embedded in concrete, and fed to the fishes — rested heavily on the vocal cords as well as the spirit.

“What I’m trying to build you up for, Orson sweetie, is —”

“Don’t call me those names, Benny.”

“— uh, yessir, yessir, well, what I’m trying to tell you is that you get two inches in tomorrow’s paper. And are you sitting down? Are you planted firmly? Are you ready for this? Ta-ra-ta-t aaaa! You, oh employer of mine, will be two inches in Bonnie Prentiss’ column.”

The smirk came unbidden to Benny Mogelson’s publicly related face.

The gasp was tiny, but audible, at the other end. “Bonnie Prentiss? Saaaaaay …” Heller drew the word out with awe and pleasure. “Benny boy, you are a winner. An authentic winner. How did you manage that? ”

Benny’s hand strayed absently to Bonnie’s full breasts. Firm and still warm from the recent encounter. “Oh, just a little schmachling — a little butter — Orson. Miss Prentiss and I are old friends.”

Heller was delighted. “Great, Benny, just great. I knew when I hired you on as PR for the club, I just knew, you were going to pan out. Glad to see it. See you tomorrow after the column hits the newsstands. A little bonus perhaps.”

“Fine, Orson. Just fine. Talk to you tomorrow.”

He racked the receiver and turned to Bonnie. She was really getting long in the tooth, he mentally noted for the thousandth time. The little crow’s tracks were becoming more prominent, even with her heavy tan, evenly laid on by metal reflectors, poolside. And the sooty puddles of dissipation under the eyes were daily becoming a little harder to disguise with heavier and heavier layers of pancake makeup. Too many oversweet daiquiris, and too many overplayed young boys. Too many rocks in the rack with hustlers like Benny Mogelson, PR man supreme.

“That hood!” Bonnie Prentiss snorted viciously. “All the French cuffs, big studs and white-on-white ties will never make him anything more than a hood. Why do you associate with such filth, Benny?”

“Because,” Benny replied nastily, snubbing the butt in the onyx ashtray, “this is a town full of teeth, Bonnie baby, and I have this thing about fang marks in my neck. Heller pays me a nice fee for getting him promo coverage. If I don’t do it, some other schlep ’ll do it instead.”

“He’s a dangerous clown,” Bonnie said, rubbing herself up against Benny.

As he turned toward her again, feeling her body heat rise, Benny murmured softly, “Hey, baby, that, uh, that column already went to bed, didn’t it? Tomorrow’s items?”

“Mmm-hmm,” Bonnie hummed, reaching her half-open mouth up to his. “Time for everybody to go to bed …”

Benny closed his eyes and moved in next to her. He had to close his eyes; he couldn’t stomach making love to Bonnie with them open … the aging harridan … and with his eyes closed he could dwell in silence and darkness on the exquisite pleasure of the letter she would receive in her mail that day. The letter that would tell her it was all over between them; that he had been using her lust and his cunning against her for three months; bedding her in exchange for favorable items about his clients in her column. The letter that wished her hail and farewell, since he now had a happy and contented list of big-name clients who would stick with him despite the anger he knew she would direct against him.

“… but it gets to be time for me to remember that I’m a human being, not a rutting machine,” the letter concluded, “and there are other columnists I don’t have to wallow in scum with, to get a mention. Bye bye baby. Stay well, and say hello to the next young patsy you sucker into your sack.

With eyes closed, and hands mechanically busy, Benny could dwell on the fact that he had outsmarted Hollywood, that the town had not gotten to him, that he had come out on top.

Yes, this time he was on top.

And after a while, she was.

Benny’s tailor was fitting the new hopsacking sport jacket in the office (very Palm Springs: double-breasted, royal blue, military crest buttons), when the phone call came. It was a full day since he had last seen Bonnie, and he had been expecting this call. She had gotten the letter.

“Mr. Mogelson,” said the switchboard girl, “Miss Prentiss on 45, sir.” He pressed the button and Bonnie’s voice came floating out at him.

“Benny darling, I got your letter.”

He took a deep breath. What threats would she offer? “Sorry, Bonnie. But it’s been a hard three months.” He tapped his right cuff, holding the phone with his shoulder, indicating to the kneeling tailor that he wanted more length at the wrist.