Spider Kiss

Eighteen

A healthy, red apple, with one bite out of it, turns brown and stinking in the air, inside a few minutes. Stag Preston turned around to face the Colonel, and his healthy, red face went brown and stinking within a matter of seconds.

Someone had taken a big bite out of him.

But Shelly’s question preceded the singer’s. “You what?

You sold his contract? Are you kidding?”

They were inane responses to an extraordinary statement, but easily on a par with the inane answers to extraordinary pronouncements down through the ages. Now that it had been said, Shelly was not certain he had really heard it. Men do peculiar things in the peculiar world Shelly Morgenstern inhabited, but they did not throw millions away. Underarm or sidearm.

“Tell me what went on here today,” Freeport demanded, laying his pearl-gray fedora on the table. He studied the boy in front of him, and his glance narrowed down as he turned his eyes to Morgenstern.

“You, Shelly. Tell me.”

Shelly recapped it, hill-and-valleying it for speed and attention to such details as his calls to Costanza in re the columnists. The Colonel, however, seemed peculiarly disinterested; his attention was more clinical than personal.

When Shelly had concluded, Freeport moved across to the French doors, examined them carefully, stepped out onto the balcony and took a fast look down. He re-entered the living room and sat down in an upholstered straight chair, as though he had something brief to say and wanted no part of momentary comfort till he had said it.

“Boy,” he said, aiming a blocky hand at Stag, “you have an apartment of your own, I believe. I’ll expect you to be out of here as soon as possible. If you have any clothing or possessions I’ll have the management send them over to you.”

He steepled his longshoreman’s hands and puffed at his lips. “Shelly, you still own a block of Stag’s stock, don’t you? Hmmm. I thought of that this afternoon. Well, of course, it’s your decision, but there’s always a job open with me if you want to market your share of the contract. I couldn’t retain you on my staff with your interest in—” He did not finish the sentence, merely aimed two steepled fingers at his ex-talent.

Then Stag Preston, silent and bottled up during the explanation by Shelly and the comments by Freeport, exploded. He threw the drink across the room.

It shattered just under a Utrillo oil the Colonel had brought back from France, and the stain smeared down the wall in helpless, offensive trickles.

“What the fuck you think you’re doin’, Mr. Freeport suh! Just what the hell you think you’re doin’? Whaddaya mean you sold my contract? You think I’m some kinda shit to sell or somethin’? I got a lot to say around here, and you ain’t sellin’ Stag Preston to nodamnbody! Not till I say so, y’heah?” His eyes, dark a moment before, now actually glowed and flashed as he saw a bit of the situation out of his hands. All that drive, all that power and success and money, and he was still nothing more than an item on the slave-block for the more muscular traders.

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.

She ignored the slap. “Is it true?” she asked.

“Is what true?”

“About that kid falling out the window.”

“Correction: balcony.”

“Balcony, then. Is it true?”

“Why?”

“Because I have to know!” she howled, infuriated by his fencing.

“So you can check out and find another nest high above the city if this pigeon’s about to be gobbled by the hawks?”

“Is. It. True?”

He grinned maliciously. So there was a part of him that still gave a damn about the hipster life. “Yeah, Princess, it’s true. But don’t worry, we’ve got it hushed. It won’t interfere with your dinners at The Four Seasons.”

She bit her lower lip in concentration.

“Well, so long, Mommy. Your baby boy’s dattaway.”

He was halfway to the door when she said to his back, “He’s all finished, Shelly.”

Shelly turned. “How do you know?” There was fun and games, and there was seriousness, and Carlene’s intuition (compounded of a sensitive feeling for the scene and its warm air currents, and tips from knowledgeable friends) was seldom wrong. It was past time for fun and games; it was time to dig her closely. “How do you know?”

“I know,” she answered cryptically. “He’s had it. You can’t keep what happened today quiet. It’ll get out.”

“Not if we keep the columnists and fan mags in our pocket.”

“There are other voices, and much louder,” she said.

“I don’t believe it; not in this country, anyhow.”

“You’ll see,” she assured him, turning and finding her way to the bedroom. The words hung behind her mystically, almost a pronouncement of doom, and they bothered Shelly more than he cared to admit.

He was certain she was not soothing Stag in that bedroom. She might be checking the condition of her luggage, but she sure as hell was not soothing Stag Preston.

It was like a brush fire.

It began very slowly and in no time at all was completely out of control. Attendance was down at The Palace all the rest of that week. It was actually possible to get seats.

Fan mail assumed a different tone. A questioning tone, without really asking any questions. There were fewer requests for photos.

A copy of a photo, mailed from Secaucus, reached Shelly. It showed Stag and the dead girl, Marlene, thrashing on the balcony, but it could have been interpreted as Stag had related it to the police. There was no return address on the envelope. No amount of private detective pressure or investigation could uncover who the girl was, or who had taken the pictures. And there were more. One arrived each day, five in all. One of them was an out-of-focus blur that could have been a body, falling toward the camera. Another showed a man looking down from the balcony.

There was no letter attached to any of them. There was no hint of blackmail. It was simply FYI—For Your Information. Shelly began to shake.

Stag took no notice. He was above it. He had bigger things to worry about. The “syndicate” of little merchants had gotten in touch with him, and with Shelly. There was going to be a stockholders’ meeting.

But the wind was rising. It told in the little things:

Stag had to wait for a table at The Harwyn Club.

They were evasive at the record company about things like the sales curve on the new album, when the next cutting session would be, whether Sid Felder would take it, what promotion was swinging with at the moment. Little things … things that had always been Am-Par’s business, of course, but which they had gladly shared with Stag and Shelly.

Carlene disappeared. There was a rumor she had found a playboy from the Dominican Republic and was yachting south.

All the tables were reserved at the Stork.

Stag’s tailor presented his long-standing, glad-to-put-a-star-like-you-onna-cuff-Mr.-Preston bill.

Stag stopped drinking heavily, tapered down and down and finally abstained altogether.

Cabdrivers no longer turned around to ask, “You’re that Stag Preston, ain’tcha?”

To Stag the air was hot, close, barely moving.

But for Shelly, it was a swift current, chilling and eddying and heading out to sea. He went to the stockholders’ meeting with trepidation.

He needn’t have felt trepidation, for the “syndicate” of small merchants was just that. Money was a self-conscious garment to them. Tiny operators with Yiddish accents, Italian hand gestures, Polish sets to their eyes and lips, uncommunicative, questioning, altogether charming and friendly. They made their wishes plainly known.

No more boozing.

No more wenching.

No more bitching.

And lots of money into the group kitty. They addressed their property in his presence as “Stag” or “Mr. Preston” and called him “the property” in his absence. Shelly had seen these men on Mott Street, had known their inflections and their desires back home—they had been friends of his father. These were the men who ran the shops in the lower middle-class sections of the town with signs that read GOING OUT OF BUSINESS! POSITIVELY LAST DAYS! all year through. They were the ones who felt the tomatoes and the melons before they bought them. They were the men who backed quick operations, who sliced in and up and out like a switchblade.

The promoters.

The men who cut the ends off their cigars rather than throw away a chewed stub.

The entrepreneurs.

The men who sold when the market was five points higher than when they’d bought.

The schlock operators.

The men whose teeth, when bared, were not fangs but more rodent-like, who could never be cornered nor put out of business; for there was always a slipperiness to them, a small time, niggling eel quality that carried them from quick operation to short change maneuver, and who hit only below the belt, because little men can reach no higher.

Though Stag Preston may only have sensed it, Shelly knew it to be a fact. When Freeport had pulled out, the operation known as Stag Preston, Incorporated, had dropped instantly to the minor leagues. And the wind was rising.