Harlan Ellison - Spider Kiss

Freeport contained himself. The mask of imperturbability stayed fastened firmly. He aimed the steepled index fingers at Stag Preston and amended the boy’s speech. “You had something to say.”

Stag assumed a pose that could only be called snotty , legs apart, arms akimbo, neck thrust forward. “Now what is that supposed to mean, Big Man?”

The Colonel seemed almost to be relishing the exchange. The years with Stag had been ones of inner annoyance for Freeport. He had taken this raw Kentucky dirt and made a star of it, yet had seen himself maneuvered too often by circumstances manufactured out of poor public relations, recklessness and outright immorality. Now he was exercising his pleasure at cutting Stag Preston to his own mold. Now he was seeing the cockiness and the smartmouth drop away into fear and uncertainty. He was pleasuring himself at last.

“It means that your antics for the past four years, and in particular the past nine months, have drained your assets. You have sold me thirty-three percent of your contract in return for certain considerations—I’m sure you’ll remember some of them—over a period of two years, and this, added to my original thirty percent makes me the controlling investor in the stock known as Stag Preston, Incorporated. Sixty-three percent is a good bit over majority.”

Shelly had not known it had gone that far. He remembered how Stag had been hit brutally by taxes and expenses; he recalled how the boy had had to scrounge to make the payment to Trudy Quillan and Golightly. He even knew things were shaking seriously when the pay-offs came due for various stringers around Hollywood and Broadway. (The half dozen who kept quiet monthly, for a fee, totaled close to eight thousand dollars.)

And then there had been Stag’s parties, his romances, his exorbitant expenses for cars, apartments, gifts. All that money came from somewhere, and there were enough entourage-leeches hanging around to take another sizeable bite from the apple that was Stag Preston.

And finally, the monstrous chunk to quash the stag movie scandal. That had started the decline and fall of the Roaming Empire in earnest. But to have only seven percent of his own contract left! That was almost frightening in its implications.

A madman, spending with both hands, would find it almost impossible to waste a constant fortune of that sort. The only investments Stag had made were in a music publishing company dealing almost exclusively in nothing but his songs; and the profit from that venture had been blown on the celebration party Stag had thrown. It was in the red for decades.

Seven percent. A measly seven percent. Shelly was now a larger contract-owner than Stag. Thirty, still in Shelly’s name, still pouring money into a bank account on a carefully lawyer-and-tax regulated basis to extrude the last possible cent of gain. Shelly might quit working that moment, and never have to lift a telephone again.

Why, then, was he still beating the drum for Stag?

It had nothing to do with money. He had explained all that to himself months before. There were days like this, when by all rights he should have quit cold, rather than bailing the kid out. But he stayed on.

Seeds of rot are planted deep.

Responsibility is a tenacious plant, too. It can grow from the most rotten of seeds, and cling to a barren, arid personality. So he stayed on, listening.

“And so—?” Stag demanded. “So?”

Freeport smiled a wafer-thin smile. Depending on who was describing it, perhaps even a smirk. “So I have just realized a profit from your contract by selling it to the highest bidder.”

Stag pulsed with fury. Sold, like a side of beef. “And who the hell’d you sell it to?” He was shouting now. Completely out of control.

“To a group of small, but consolidated, businessmen from all walks of life, boy, who will manipulate the strings with a good deal more tightness than I did.”

Shelly recognized the pattern. Freeport had unloaded what was fast becoming a harrying proposition, in favor of a juicy, quick profit. Stag had been purchased by a group of schlock operators; entrepreneurs who would milk him fast, build him up greedily, and then dump him as soon as it looked as though his mode was running out. Like a green club fighter, he would be overmatched, overexposed, overplayed, and then resold, right down the river. Or right down the drain…

Nothing as shadowy and sinister as a “syndicate,” but a group of mutually-interested parties who owned blocks of the boy, held meetings to decide policy and direction, and controlled the purse strings. Stag was now no longer his own man. He was owned. They would get in touch with Shelly soon enough.

Did he want to stay around and see what would happen?

He had to think about it. Not now, but later, when he could think without wincing, when the noise level in his skull had lowered. Not now.

Freeport was still speaking, slowly and distinctly, and still with great relish. “I think I pulled out of this cursed arrangement just in time, my boy. I feel your escapade today was enough to make you a very unsure property. In this connection, please get out of my suite.”

The thin smile that might have been a smirk broadened, and a coarse laugh—too coarse for the pose Freeport affected—escaped him.

Stag leaped. The afternoon had been too much. Adding insult and rejection had done their part. He swung at the seated Colonel, his fist an awkward device that took Freeport high on the cheekbone, just under the right eye. The Colonel again demonstrated the hidden depth of his physical strength, half-rising from the chair and throwing himself to the side, even as Stag’s blow caught him.

He reached out a huge hand, clawed a vicious hold on the boy’s thigh and crotch—causing Stag to scream like a woman—and in one sinuous movement wrapped his other hand in the boy’s collar and lifted him bodily off the floor.

He hoisted Stag once, as though about to heave a sack of coffee beans, and hurled him across the room. In a mass of uncoordinated flesh and limbs, the almost six-foot length of Stag Preston did a flatdive over the sofa and crashed into the table halfway across the entrance chamber. The table—unlike breakaway furniture Stag had encountered in Hollywood— barely gave at the impact, and his back was bent over it, sickeningly, as he crashed onto it. Stag slipped off the table, taking with him the mosaic ashtray, the enamel statue of two gulls in flight, and a decorative bowl of pierced glass balls.

They landed in a glass-shattering heap at the base of the table, and Stag Preston’s eyes rolled up in his head.

“Shelly, get him out of here. Call me when you’ve made up your mind.” Freeport started to turn away, to gain the seclusion of his bedroom and bathroom, to wash away the perspiration and change his clothes. He paused and added, “Take your time, Shelly. I can always use you. See how the wind blows with him, and if it looks as though he can last, there will be no hard feelings. But I’ve been feeling it in the air; he’s wearing off, and today may have been the finishing stroke. Don’t get caught when the building falls in.”

Then he turned and left Shelly to prop the half-conscious, bleeding Stag to his feet.

“C’mon, Meal Ticket,” the flak-man murmured, mostly to himself, “let’s leave Waterloo to the big artillery.”

He rang the bell and Carlene opened the door. Her eyes widened momentarily at the sight of Shelly’s burden, but she moved to allow them entrance. Shelly helped Stag to the sofa, but the boy staggered erect and disappeared into the bedroom. The sound of a leaden weight striking the bed came through to the living room distinctly.

Shelly looked around.

“You’re living a lot higher than when you roosted with me, baby,” he said to the girl.