Harlan Ellison: Spider Kiss

And the reassuring strain in his conscience answered, You aren’t the same man you were when you found him four years ago. You’ve changed. Your values aren’t the same. Don’t be a greedy fool. He used you as much as you used him … now get out from under. You’ve done all you can. He’s out of your area of responsibility. The money changed you, but for the better … for Stag it was only a spur to his rottenness; it corrupted him all the more. How guilty can you feel ?

How much longer can you punish yourself, eating your heart out at every stinking stunt the kid pulls off? You’re not alleviating the evil, you’re only corrupting yourself again. A man exposed to Plague doesn’t allow himself to be contaminated again, once he’s been healed, unless he’s a fool. Are you a fool, Shelly?

Don’t believe it. You’re a decent guy; get out of this and go cover your scars with some honest muscle. You’re a good publicity man … You can make a living anywhere. Get out now. It’s got to get worse, and no indication that it will get better.

You don’t owe it to anyone back there. They’re animals, Shelly. They know no allegiances. They’ll eat you alive. The money isn’t a factor in any way. You’d have to cut even if you were penny-poor. But do it now.

And from that teeth-grating inner conversation came a philosophy. A very simple one, yet one that brought with it a sense of reality; a rationale for existence.

Money is freedom.

If you have money you don’t need to sell yourself. You can sell your services, but only to whom you want, for those ends you feel worthy. It is possible to bring from the dry-rot of a hipster existence a flowering decency by which a man can be his own man and live. The money had been made: don’t think about it. It was a tool. A tool can be neither good nor evil. It is only to be used.

Money is freedom.

Shelly realized he might limp for a while, for after all, he had been lame a long while. But living in a leper colony was possible only for another leper. He was out of the scene now. For good.

One stray tie bound him, however faintly.

Jean Friedel. When he had decided there were no debts owing to the animals of Jungle York, did that also mean Jeanie? There had been nights when they had talked … the time after Ruth Kemp had been turned away … the evening Stag had tried to rape her … other times since then. She had been a useful companion in running Stag Preston, Incorporated. Was there a debt still owed?

He didn’t know. He decided he’d have to find out.

She was on her knees before a filing cabinet, shuffling stacks of papers and file folders, hanging them into the sliding racks more in gobs than in particular. Her skirt was very tight across her rump, and once again he marveled at the mechanisms of modern women’s undergarments that had introduced the unbroken, one-cheek backside. He wasn’t certain he altogether approved of the innovation, though there were times—and now was one of them—that the sight was distinctly appealing.

He ran through his memorized list of clever mental openings, for one he had never used on Jean Friedel, and came up with, “You look like a girl who’d like an intensive six-week course in karate.”

She turned her head and smiled, still cramming great sheaves of documents into the file drawer. “Hi.”

“Hi, yourself,” he replied, perching on an edge of the desk. It was a new desk; an inexpensive modular unit that poorly copied a Knoll design. It was typical of the furniture in this new office: an office whose bills were paid by the syndicate of small-time operators. It was flashy on the surface, but underneath merely borax. Freeport was oak and gold; the little men were borax and gilt.

“Oooo,” she exhaled heavily, rising. “What a job! Transferring records from the Colonel’s office to this joint has been almost more than I could take.” She kicked the bottom file drawer closed with the tip of her Capezio.

“Didn’t they have a records transporting concern do it?” he asked.

She gave him a lopsided, rueful grin and said, “Oh sure. Lotsa luck.

“I did it all by my lonesome. I’ve been up and down Fifth Avenue maybe ninety-two times in the past week.” She held up a grimy pair of hands. “How would you like to take The Soot Queen out to lunch?”

He grinned despite the tenseness in his stomach. “Mah pleasuh, Ma’am,” he imitated Stag’s phony Kentucky drawl. While she washed her hands and put on fresh makeup he lit a cigarette and walked around the office.

It was going to be difficult. Was there anything between them? She had once told him she wanted everything there was to want, and if she didn’t want it, it wasn’t worth having. That might still be true. There had been moments when they had communicated, when they had shared something, however small. But whatever it was, did it really have any meaning to her? Shelly had run with the pack in Jungle York long enough to know their hungers were monstrous, and small pleasures were exchanged, shared, accepted only when they did not interfere with the running, or the eating. It was going to be difficult.

He took her for schnitzel and dark beer at the Steuben Tavern on West 47th, and in a back booth, surrounded by the deep reassurance of dark woods and good smells, he lit for both of them and settled back waiting for openers.

“How’s the rogue of the rock’n’roll set doing today?” She smiled at him. When she smiled, small creases appeared at the corners of her eyes. Shelly thought he liked that very much. It wouldn’t be difficult looking at this girl first thing every morning for the next fifty years…

“Oh, hey!” She cut him off before he could speak. “We got the transcript of the coroner’s inquest this morning. Did you have to give anybody anything for that testimony? Stag looked solid gold when it was over.”

Shelly did not feel it was necessary to tell her the syndicate of small-time operators had made their deals. Stag had indeed looked like solid gold. The verdict had been accidental death. Even Marlene’s parents from Secaucus were convinced, and when Stag had gone to them at the inquest, put his arms around the dead girl’s mother and wept unashamedly, it had won the day. Suspicions had disappeared like morning mist.

Stag had even given the dead girl’s parents a handsome check to cover the funeral arrangements. The heaviness of the check would have provided for the burial of a maharajah.

“To me, that girl was more important than the King of England,” Stag had said, wiping his cheeks of tears. “I sung before some of the biggest people in the world, but that little girl was the best of them all.” It had gone over very well.

Shelly had considered offering the script to Theatre Arts Magazine for an unabridged publication.

Shelly dragged his thoughts back to the girl across the booth. The inquest was over, Stag had been exonerated. Now Shelly had to make his decision to check out, stay, or take her with him in either case. He avoided answering the question about bribing the witnesses at the inquest. “Listen,” he said, “I’ve got some things I’ve got to say and I’m embarrassed.”

She looked at him archly. “You’re kidding.”

“Now c’mon,” he said sophomorically, blushing, “it’s hard enough being serious for a change, and twice as hard when you sit there putting me on. I’m about to unbare the tortured inner surface of my soul, so pay attention—”

“ Jee zus!” She shook her head.

“Look, Jeanie…” Shelly leaned toward her. He wanted to take her hand, but they were both holding cigarettes and the awkwardness of shifting hands and smokes would have destroyed what he was trying to build. “The kid is on his way out. I know for sure, and so do you if you’ve been taking as good care of the office as I think. But it’s there. I heard from Universal that they’re going to drop his option…”