Harlan Ellison - Spider Kiss

She stood up and smoothed the skirt across her thighs. “Come on, lover, cheer it up. We all have our little illnesses. I’m not so bad, you know. I might be hot for the wet towel scene, or whips, or even coat hangers. I’ve had some friends with real kinky habits.”

He wanted to say something gentle. Something that would penetrate the crust of scorn and cynicism she had burned around herself. But they weren’t operating on that level. Sentimentality was for Kalamazoo or Pittsburgh (where his father still sat dovening ; still studying the Talmud late at night). Sentimentality was for the suckers who’d settle for nine-to-five and two weeks paid in the Catskills. It wasn’t for the hungry ones. He had understood Jean Friedel even before she’d spoken to him like this … his desire for her had been something subliminal, something dreamlike … a villa at Cap Ferrat, a gold-plated Rolls, a night in bed with Loren, Lollobrigida, and Bardot, with Monroe for a chaser. A dream. A wish out of a fairy tale.

“We’d better wake up Primo Carnera,” Shelly said, reaching for his pants. It took a bottle of smelling salts and three cups of coffee to do the job.

Stag Preston, had his picture been flashed coast-to-coast, might easily have lost his followers had they seen the Val-Packs under his eyes. “Don’t blink or you’ll bleed to death, Beany,” Shelly advised him. The singer sat on the floor, head in hands, moaning.

“Why don’t you record that,” Jean Friedel said, coming in from the kitchen with a fresh pot of coffee. “It’s got that whatchacallit— beat !”

“Why don’t you go fuck yourself, sister,” he snarled. “You ever lift your paw to me again, I’ll cream ya!” He tried to rise, slumped back again. “Ohh, my head, suh!”

“Lay off him, Grushenka,” Shelly said grinning.

Stag looked up. “Who?”

“Forget it,” Shelly said. “Have some more coffee.”

“I don’t want any more. Where’s The Man?”

“Take the coffee and shut up. You’d better hope the Colonel doesn’t breeze in here while you’re off your pony. He’ll have you back picking boll weevils out of your pompadour.”

“Like hell he will. Forty fuckin’ percent, I got, Big Brother Sheldon. Forty big P.”

Shelly raised his eyes to heaven.

“I’m going home,” Jean said suddenly. “Shelly, will you drive me?”

“I came by cab, but I’ll ride up with you. You’re still on 97th, aren’t you?” She nodded. Shelly caught the glance Stag threw at them, from the corner of his eye. He hoped the boy would avoid complicating matters at this juncture.

“Go to bed, kid,” Shelly said. “We’ve got a heavy one tomorrow.” He turned toward the door. Jean had her shoes in her hand and was almost to the elevator doors. “I’ll take Jean home.”

“Have fun,” the kid said. Sullen. Annoyed. Sick.

Shelly shrugged, and reached the doors just as they sighed open. On the way down he said nothing to Jean Friedel, and in the cab the conversation was sparse.

“He didn’t like that,” she said.

“I know. Nuts to him.” He moved to take her hand. Surprised, he found she did not resist. “Jeanie…” he started.

“Forget it, Shelly. I’m the girl with the cast-iron heart, remember?” There might have been a softness in her face. There was a softness in her voice.

Manhattan late at night was a pearl. It shone and it rested and it lived all at once. Cabs with dome lights warm and softly-orange cruised past, hissing on the streets freshly wet from the sanitation sprayers. Mailboxes hunkered on street corners waiting for young men in trench coats to post last-minute letters. It was a time to go someplace; a time to have someone nearby. A time when loneliness seemed a sin, and even false acquaintances had merit, were treasured. From this hour of the waning day, the dawning next, phony love affairs were born. But in the back seat of the cab Shelly had no such misimpressions. He was holding a hand, -30-, finis, end of report. This was a ship that had passed him several times in the night, and might again. But there was no breeches buoy to carry one across to the other’s vessel.

“Where was the Colonel tonight?” Shelly asked.

“Don’t you know? I thought you kept the tabs up to date?”

Shelly lit a cigarette with one hand, still holding her with the other. He snapped the match against the striker as a truck driver might. “Well, he was supposed to make some dinner at the Overseas Press Club and then a premiere at the De Mille. But he should have been back by now. Oh well … he’s a big boy; he can take care of himself.”

She didn’t reply, and when they pulled up in front of her building she urged him to stay in the cab. “Don’t bother, Shelly. I’m beat. Thanks. For tonight. For being you. See you around the campii.”

Then she was gone. He told the driver to wait a moment, watching the street-facing window of her fourth floor apartment. The light had been on. A hunch; a mere trickle of an inkling.

When enough time had passed for her to get upstairs, he told the cabbie to wait and left the cab. He walked across the street, into the building, and found the doorman. It was surprising in a city where once you slipped into your burrow in the wall and thought you were secret, how much doormen, bellboys and elevator operators knew.

It only took a fiver. Information goes at a very low rate in certain social strata.

Yes, Miss Friedel had a visitor. No, he had arrived a little earlier. Yes, he had a full head of white hair. Indeed yes, he almost looked like an ambassador, or a celebrity, like a patriarch, like a middle-aged playboy.

Perhaps?

Yes, indeed.

He looked like he might have been an officer; even a Colonel.

Shelly got back into his cab and gave his home address. Carlene was waiting. The cup that chills.

She was lying awake, smoking, when he came into the bedroom. “Joe Costanza called about five minutes ago. He left a number, wants you to call back immediately. He said it was an emergency. Something about the kid.”

“Whaaat? I just left him at the hotel. He was plowed out of his mind.”

She shrugged, proffered a piece of paper with a number. Shelly bit his lip and dialed the number. “Hello, is Joe Costan—Joe, that you? Where the hell am I calling? The Blue Angel ? He’s WHAT! Are you putting me on ? Oh, for God’s sake!

“Well, the hell with him. I hope he gets his ribs broken … no, I don’t mean that. Get him out of there. That guy’s a born troublemaker and he’ll kill Stag if he gets mad enough. What? No, I’m not coming down. I’ve done my Gandhi for the evening.

“He’s all yours, baby. Just get him out of there, drunk or sober, and up to the suite. Get him to bed. We’ve got a date at the recording studio tomorrow.

“I don’t give a scrim what he’s doing or who he’s feeling up. I don’t care what Kilgallen or Winchell or anydamnbody says. Get him out of there, and don’t bug me any more tonight. I’m beat bushed whacked-out finished. I’ve had the Boy Wonder for one night. And so saying, I retire.

“Good and night !” He slammed the receiver, fell back on the pillow without removing his clothes, and was asleep in a matter of moments, his mouth open, snoring.

Beside him, Carlene smoked for a time, her mouth thin, cruel, undemanding. Then she snubbed the last butt, turned off the light and slid down beneath the covers.

Her last act before dropping off was to turn away from the man beside her.

Her legs were crossed.

“Let’s forget our friendship, Shelly. This is a business meeting. We have a cursed problem on our hands, and someone has got , I say got , to solve it.”