Harlan Ellison: Spider Kiss

“Whaat?”

He nodded. “That’s right. The morals clause. They’ve got him, if they want him. And they may just decide to dump. This thing with the chick who took the brodie is just too hot to shut up. We may have kept it out of the papers, but his fans are leaking it. That bunch in Secaucus—we’ve tried to hush them, but no good—they’ve even mimeographed some innocuous gossip sheets and they’re mailing them to every Stag Preston Fan Club in the country.”

“Anything libelous?” she asked, more concerned than he thought she would be.

He shook his head, pursing his lips contemplatively around the cigarette. “They must have had a lawyer dream it up for them. Safe as a Copa girl having her period. But it’s doing the job; that, and word of mouth. It’s circulating, Jeanie. The word is out, and even Am-Par is getting edgy. I tried to get through to Sid, but he’s been ‘conferencing’ like mad.

“I’m getting out, Jean. All this I’ve said about the wind rising has nothing to do with why I’m checking out. It was only offered as reasons for your leaving Stag, too.”

“Why are you checking out?”

He snubbed the cigarette and blew out the final blast of smoke. “Because I’m having trouble with my dry cleaners.”

She looked at him questioningly.

“They can’t get the stink out of my clothes,” he explained.

She bit her lower lip as she nodded understanding. In silence. In deep. She was thinking.

“And you want me to come with you.” She stated it more than asked it. He nodded. “And do what?”

“And get married, maybe, we’d see.”

“And live in Bucks County or in Riverdale out in the Bronx, in a big rich house, and raise kids between us?”

“There’s worse.” He was defensive now; her tone…

She shook her head with stately deliberation. “Uh-uh, Sweetie. You’re a wonderful guy, and you’ve somehow found the secret of it all, but it won’t play.”

“Why not? Anything as simple as—you don’t love me?”

She looked pained at that. Her jaw muscles clumped for a moment, then relaxed, and the cosmopolitan veneer slid sickly back across her eyes. “That too, Shelly. You’re fun to ball once in a while, and you’re nice to talk to, but I don’t love you. And even if I did, it would still be a no.”

“Why, for God’s sake? Do you like this life?”

Her smile was patronizing. He finally understood. “Now you understand. Yes, Shelly, I do like it. I love it. This is my way. Everybody’s entitled to go to hell in his or her own way, and this just happens to be mine. We aren’t alike anymore, Shelly, you and I. We’ve changed in the past weeks, but you more than me. I’ve seen it happening. You can’t con or swing with the Lindy hang-ups any more. They hurt you … here…” She tapped his chest.

Then the food came, and they ate without talking.

When it was gone, the schnitzel à la holstein and the apple sauce, and the strudel , and the coffee, again they lit their cigarettes and shared smoke, perhaps the last thing they could share.

“I don’t know what I’ll do with my share of the contract,” Shelly said.

“Well, sell it, of course,” she advised him. “What else?”

He toyed with a fork. “I don’t know,” he said softly.

“Shelly…”

He looked up. Hoping.

“N-nothing.” She shook her head, as if to clear it.

He exhaled deeply, as though washing his hands of the entire matter and expelling the last air drawn while it was under consideration. “Do me a favor, will you, Princess?”

She smiled softly, sweetly, affirmatively.

“Call a meeting of the stockholders for tomorrow night, will you? Eight o’clock at their usual stand.” He folded the linen napkin from his lap, very neatly, and laid it on the table. He started to rise.

“Do me a favor, Shelly … no, two favors.” She waited.

He nodded acquiescence.

“The first is please always remember what I told you that night I called you, and you came over to help me with Stag.

Some of us can’t help ourselves, Shelly. You don’t curse a steam whistle when it blows; that’s what it’s built to do…”

“And the second favor,” he said cutting in sharply.

“Let me come to the meeting.”

Shelly had finally made up his mind. Or rather, it had been made up for him, by his conscience, by his philosophy, and by Jean Friedel, who had denied whatever they had shared, and who had decided to remain on the deck of the sinking ship.

Sinking. While Shelly was escaping ?

At the meeting, when Shelly announced he was getting out, the eyes of the members of the syndicate of small-time operators gleamed ferociously. One man’s bald head began to sweat. It shined like oil, slick and moist in the overhead lights. Another thirty percent open to them … up for grabs.

Teeth began to gnash, sharpening, silently.

They began dry-washing their hands almost in unison; it resembled some wild Rockette routine, employing old, anxious, greedy, senile men.

Old they were. And anxious. Greedy, as well. But hardly senile. Teeth flashed, hands dipped toward eyes, shading them so emotions could not shine out.

The sweet odor of the animals about to feast filled the room, filled Shelly’s nostrils, spurred the old men on.

Stag leaped up and slammed his hand on the table. “I wanta talk to you, Shelly. I wanta say something to you.” He waited for Shelly to give some indication, then strode around the table into the other office. He pulled the door tight behind him and turned on Sheldon Morgenstern.

There was open fear in the boy’s eyes.

“Shelly, they gonna cancel me at The Palace. You heard!”

Shelly nodded. He’d heard.

“I need you, boy. I need you bad. You been with me from the first and if you take off and leave me I’m gonna be out in the open for them lousy kike bastards in the other room there.” He noticed Shelly stiffen, but had no idea why.

“Sorry, Stag. I have to go away.”

Stag Preston’s face became a grimace. “You can’t! You can’t just jerk out and leave me sittin’, man! I need your help. You been makin’ a pile … look, I’ll give you a couple of my shares of the contract … that way you’ll have a bigger bite than any one of them.”

Shelly actually felt sorry for the boy. It was down to the wire now. He could feel it in the air. Everyone was running away from him and he knew he was slipping. Now even his monumental self-assurance, the driving hunger that had made him as big as he was, could not help.

Stag abruptly altered his expressions and his nostrils flared as he threatened Shelly, “Look, you sonofabitch, I’m tellin’ you this: you leave me and I’ll have you blackballed in every city in this country. You’ll have to go to Russia to get a job, you smart-aleck sonofabitch, you hear me?”

Shelly shook his head sadly.

“What you gonna do with all that contract, you bastard? What you gonna do with that thirty percent … give it to those slobs out there to use against me? That what you’re gonna do? Sell it to them?”

He stood with fists clenched at his side, panting, the blood drained out of his hollow-cheeked face, his eyes black and intense, glowing, glaring.

Shelly spoke very softly. “No, Stag, I’m going to put it where it belongs, give it back to the one who deserves it most.” He reached into his jacket pocket for the contract.

“That crummy Ruth Kemp, thass who! That’s who you gonna give it to … that mewlin’ sonofabitch woman come around here suckin’ and cryin’ till we don’t know what all…”

Shelly cut him off as he handed the contract shares across to the boy. “Here, Stag, you take them. It’s a gift. A little piece of your soul back again. I held it too long.”