Over the Edge/An Edge in My Voice

by Harlan Ellison

  Let him tackle a novel if he thinks it is that easy.

  So, we come to a conclusion, and the tone of bitterness has been allowed to creep in despite efforts to bury it. Not bitterness at Nimoy, nor at the lady fan who made the original error, but at the entire corrupt system that lobbies in favor of inattention and stupidity on the part of the Great Mass of Watchers. Bitterness that there is not a modicum of generosity and appreciation in the hearts and minds of those who spend endless hours before The Tube, to honor the men who dream the expert dreams.

  For that’s all Art truly is: dreams.

  The more perfectly the dreams are devised by the dreamers…the more closely the work approaches Art. It is unfortunate that in television the dream must be manhandled by so many intermediaries before it passes the distance between the mind of the creator to the mind of the viewer.

  But it is a simple matter to correct.

  Watch the credits.

  Understand that WRITTEN BY precedes the name of the man who sat long hours alone and concerned, to create a dream for an actor of Leonard Nimoy’s stature to work with. And remember the names of the writers who have done their work well. Honor them. And when the writers have been bad, then condemn them. For a man who mutilates his craft is less than dirt. He is a traitor to all the holy chores Man has ever been entrusted with…

  And for me, the holiest chore of all is writing.

  FROM A GREAT HEIGHT

  All around him the shriek of sleeting snow was a frozen melody as he guided rapacious Vera and fat, sweaty little Arnold to the summit. He didn’t hear the wind, or feel the pins and needles of the driven snow. Kennoy was scared…really scared.

  Charlie Kennoy had a big choice: he could kill Vera Steig’s husband, Arnold, or get his face shot off by Karl Stockum’s triggermen.

  Stockum had sent his boys all the way from the Riviera. He had taken badly to Kennoy walking out on a thirty-one thousand dollar gambling debt; and now the two “wetwork” experts waited at the chalet, at the base of Mt. Keppler. They drank coffee and eyed the women and waited for Kennoy to come back from guiding the Steigs to the top. They waited for Kennoy to come back from his climb—so they could introduce him, with hands-on propriety, to the concept of death.

  Charlie had been a sport-bum all his life, shunting among ski resorts and mountain retreats, living off the money he’d gotten from the women he had encountered. He didn’t think much about the good or bad of it, the right or wrong of it. He’d been able to do okay that way; but times had started to get sandier. And no pearl anywhere in the oyster.

  The crowds at the resorts weren’t the same any more. Times, the Common Market, and the nature of Eurotrash, had changed. The women were more cautious…there weren’t as many jobs to be had…and now this loss to Stockum on the Riviera, and the gambler’s men waiting. Drinking coffee, admiring women, and waiting.

  Kennoy was really frightened. Not a bluff, nothing to con his way out of. Purely scared. His stomach—which was strong to the dangers of mountain-climbing—knotted up terribly when he thought of the two Albanians, sitting down there in the chalet, maybe sipping brandy cordials, not coffee, just waiting for him.

  This wasn’t like the other times when he could charm his way out of a tight situation with a wink or a laugh. Or run away. Or hit someone from behind. This was different because Stockum wouldn’t be jollied; he had no sense of humor; wasn’t playing games. He couldn’t afford to let someone beat him for a debt. It wasn’t good business. The word got around. The resort-casino circuit wasn’t small, but for gossip…it was hard-wired. That was why Kennoy had to get the money. This was serious.

  And that…that was why he was climbing the mountain with Vera Steig and her husband. That was why he had listened to Vera in the first place, when she’d come to him with that crazy shit, asking him to kill Arnold.

  Kennoy wrapped his muffler closer about his mouth. The wind seemed to want to rip it from the buttoned-up neck of his anorak. It was getting bad up here on the mountain. White hell. There had been an unfavorable weather report before they’d left—sliding passes, heavy winds, slipping moraines of debris all the way down the massif. Disturbances all the way to the summit—but Vera had insisted they go. Kennoy knew why; but dumpy little Arnold didn’t. And never would.

  Kennoy looked below him. Attached to the line, ten feet below his spiked crampons, he could see the anxious face of beautiful Vera. Even the heavy cagoule jacket, coming down below her knees, could not conceal her lush figure. Her snow-glasses blocked off the expression in her eyes, but Kennoy knew what it was: cold, merciless desire for death.

  Well, you finally made it, Kennoy, he thought, chinking out a foothold with his pike. You finally took the last step. You ain’t no small-time chiseler any more. Today you are a man. Today you become a murderer. Just think: little Charlie Kennoy from Spokane, Washington…a hatchet-man!

  Somehow, he managed to grimace, inside the protection of the muffler. Inevitably, it didn’t bother him nearly as much now as it had when Vera first suggested it. Killing Arnold was just a job now, in the final reckoning. The only things that bothered him were thoughts of Stockum’s two well-dressed Albanian pistoleros—and Vera Steig.

  The whipping, grainy snow of the Alps faded around him; the cold and pearl-gray of the sky faded. His thoughts went back to the warmth: to the night he had met Vera in the chalet.

  He had seen her several times: on the slopes, near the shuffleboards, around the hearth, at the bar. And each time, she had watched him move through; she had turned to stare at him. Her eyes, her smile, her body language, told him a great deal; they told him she was rich—and hungry.

  That night in the cocktail lounge, he met her formally. She had been throwing incendiary looks in his direction, and he watched her carefully, making no move. He watched her in the smoky back-bar mirror, as she sat alone in a booth, sucking on a swizzle-stick.

  She became almost flagrant about her come-on. She moistened her full lips with her tongue, and slid about in the booth as if she were burning up. Kennoy knew he was handsome—he had tested that assurance on many occasions to keep him eating, and living at the high level he enjoyed. But even with that assurance, her provocative manner made him uneasy.

  So this time, he tossed the hot looks back.

  “John-Henri,” Kennoy had asked the bartender, “who’s the blonde, in the booth near the window?”

  “That’s Mrs. Steig, sir. She and her husband they are Americans. It is that they are here for the climbing, n’est-ce pas?”

  Kennoy finished his drink and slid off the stool. She watched him as a lab rat watches the syringe. He strolled toward her with the assurance of a vacuum seeking something to fill it.

  “Mrs. Steig?” He smiled down at her.

  She returned the look, and slid over. “I was wondering how long it would take you.”

  “I hear you’re here for the climbing?” He decided to play it guardedly.

  “Among other things,” she said, arching her back slightly, as though the tight-fitting sweater and slacks were constricting her.

  “Care to go skiing?” he asked. “I’ve discovered several excellent slopes.”

  She slid around toward him, her thigh touching his. “I was hoping you’d ask me. They tell me around here you’re one of the best.”

  He smiled slowly. “I’m a humble man. I only try my utmost.” They had gone skiing.

  And several times after that. One day they had even gone to explore the winding, cobblestoned streets of the little Alpine fairy-tale village in the valley below the chalet.

  As the week ebbed, Vera became nervous, as though she wanted to ask an important question. She introduced Kennoy to her husband, Arnold. Kennoy shook the fat little man’s hand, wondering how a fiery item like Vera had become the property of this…this wart. Because fat li’l Arnold acted toward her more like the proprietor of a rural general store than a devoted husband.

  Finally, one night, alone, she came to him in his roo
ms.

  Charlie Kennoy felt no cold, no guilt, as he climbed Mt. Keppler. Remembering Vera Steig, that night, remembering the question she had finally asked, he felt nothing but trapped by his own body.

  The door closed, and she leaned against it. Kennoy stared at her for a brief moment, catching the full length of her in the tight ski-sweater and the even tighter stirrup-cuff slacks. Fully-dressed and naked: ready for the bed, not the slalom. One sort of ride, not unlike another.

  Her hair was a rich, auburn mass, drawn back at the base of her neck in a tight knot. Her eyes were green as shadows up there on the massif. He’d wanted her since they’d met, but there was always the faint chance she didn’t want to play that hard. Rich women had their hidden agendas, their everlasting stupid secret games. But, it seemed, she was bringing the game to him.

  He watched her push away from the door, and come toward him. “Where’s Arnold?” he asked, not giving a damn.

  “I left him discussing the merits of the devalued franc with an obnoxious Belgian,” she said. She grinned at him, the grin of a little girl doing something she shouldn’t, and she came closer. “I’ve been watching you for a week, Charlie. You haven’t made a pass at me.”

  “You’re married.”

  “Not that married.” Her arms, strong through the sweater, slipped around his neck. He felt his stomach knot, and his legs felt warm at the back of the knees.

  Her face was very close, and as he ran his hands up her back, he felt the soft wool of the sweater slide. She stepped back for a moment, and the sweater came off. She had known she wasn’t going out into the biting cold of the Swiss Alps that evening: she was naked under the sweater.

  He didn’t move. He knew with certainty that there was more to this beautiful woman tossing herself at him than just a quick, clandestine fuck. There were other men, equally as attractive, equally available, in the chalet-lodge. No, there was something more going on than just muscle contractions.

  She moved toward him again, slowly, and he backed up till the edge of the bed caught him in the warmth that spread from the back of his knees.

  Kennoy squinted through his goggles. The summit was another hundred and twenty feet; across the snow-bridge; over the ledged rise—the tiny arête—and then the cave. The snow whipped past him in capricious flurries, and he dug the crampons in tightly, felt the weight of Vera and Arnold below him, double dead weight on the line. Practically carrying them up. Rich bitches, their wheezing hubbies, no way ready for the climb.

  He replayed the devil-deal she had offered him, as he felt the ice pick bite into the crusted snow.

  “I want you to push Arnold off the top. I’ll give you ten thousand dollars.” That’s what she said. “I came to you…because you’re the guide who was recommended to me…they say you can lead us…but when I saw you, now…it’s more than that.” He laughed at the ten grand. She said fifteen. He just looked at her. She upped the ante. He sighed.

  She offered him much more than ten thousand. She also offered herself, which was nice vigerish. But still, a little light. He told her that. Finally, she sweetened it to a level Kennoy was content to contemplate. It wasn’t the thirty-one thousand he needed to keep from winding up a frozen icon on a windswept slope, but it was close enough to buy him breathing space with Stockum. And wasn’t that the point, wasn’t that always the point: to keep breathing?

  “So are we in agreement? I pay you twenty-five thousand dollars, and you kill my husband?”

  “Why don’t you just leave him?”

  “I like his money too much for that, Charlie.” She smiled, and let him slip inside her again.

  She had sensed his vestigial resistance, and she moved cunningly atop him, breath coming raggedly. “Look, Charlie, I’ve been married to that fat slug for eight years. I’m beautiful. I am beautiful, isn’t that right, Charlie?” There was a wild look in her green eyes as she made a small, glacial movement around him. “I want to be young—with you!”

  And it had set Kennoy thinking (when he was actually capable of fresh thought). He had worried it through his mind for three days before he proposed the trip to the summit of Mt. Keppler’s easy-tourist climb up the northern massif.

  It would be simple.

  The summit was cut off from sight below by the expected violent weather. He was sure that even if Arnold Steig heard the meteorological report, he could allay his fears. One healthy shove when they reached the ledge and the cave…and Arnold Steig would plummet ten thousand feet, with no questions asked by the authorities…and a big, fat fortune left to Vera. Yeah, Vera. She knew how to move.

  All that money, and Vera, too.

  They kept climbing. Kennoy had still been nervous about it—actually, intentionally, with premeditation, killing someone he barely knew and didn’t even hate—but the day they had left—yesterday—he had seen Stockum’s killers arriving. And that had decided him. He was truly frightened. If he didn’t have the twenty-five thousand to placate them, he would surely be dead by tomorrow. He was in it now; and he would have to do it. Just one good shove.

  Maybe it isn’t such a bad deal after all, he thought, the mountain whispering to him. I can give Stockum the twenty-five grand, and beg Vera for the other six. We’re in this together…she’ll have to go for it, or else! Then maybe I’ll even marry her, spend the rest of my life on soft cushions—with my veins running with money!

  They kept climbing.

  At the next plateau, Vera sank against the ice wall, panting, and Arnold disengaged the tow-rope, scuttled over to where Kennoy was sitting, hunched into his anorak, trying to shut out the fury of the mountain, trying to shut in the conscience that continued to warn him against murder, even when it was an argument lost.

  “I want to talk to you,” Steig said, over the keening of the wind.

  “What is it?”

  Steig slipped down next to Charlie. He put his mouth close to Kennoy’s ear. “I want you to do something for me. I’ll pay you…handsomely.”

  Kennoy sat up straighter. He looked around sharply.

  Steig’s face, even overhung with ice particles, was anxious. The fat little man swept nervous glances at Vera from time to time. She slumped against the ice wall, drawing in breath heavily, oblivious to their huddled conversation.

  “I want you to kill Vera,” Arnold Steig said, haltingly. “I’ll give you twenty thousand if you push her.” Steig’s fatty, puffy face was beaded with flakes of snow, and the rosy glow of his cherub-cheeks was bright against the ice of his eyebrows and moustache.

  Kennoy felt a peculiar, neuralgic queasiness…as if he had eaten ice cream too fast. This was unbelievable. They both wanted to hire him. What a pair of assholes!

  “You can’t be kidding, Steig. Nobody would kid about a thing like that, but…” Kennoy’s face was incredulous.

  “Don’t look at me like that!” Steig said, snappishly. “You don’t understand! You couldn’t possibly! You aren’t married to her.”

  “Doesn’t look too bad to me,” he replied.

  “She’s nothing but a gold-digger, a rutting weasel, a whore. She’ll screw mud or trees or animals, the little bitch! But she won’t ever let go of me…I can’t get rid of her. If I try to divorce her, she’ll go to shysters…you know the kind! And the European courts always screw Americans! I’ve got to get rid of her—she’s making my life a misery. You’ve got to help me!”

  Kennoy considered for a moment. Steig would certainly go to thirty-one grand, maybe even forty or fifty. He could have either/or: twenty-five thousand and Vera…the whole boodle and no Stockum worries, without Vera. It was almost a toss-up.

  “I’ll have to think about it,” he said. Then he stood up into the wind. The crampons bit into the ice. “Come on!” he screamed into the whipping snow. “It’s only seventy-five feet to the summit!” Here comes the payoff, Charlie.

  They began the long climb once more.

  He was having more difficulty digging out handholds with the pike. Finally he resorted to
the piton—a metal spike with a ring in the head—driving it deeply into the ice. He rested on the piton a moment, then used his pick. It wouldn’t take big enough chunks, and he slipped it back onto the ring on his belt, and removed the ice-axe.

  The weather had gotten thicker; dense, black, cutting wind; night; deathly cold; and they climbed blindly. Soon he was able to start again, and the ice-axe did its work with relative ease.

  Kennoy found himself slipping away from the tedious work of climbing Keppler, from the constant whining of Arnold Steig behind him, to thoughts of this other matter, now so much richer with possibilities. Which offer should he take?

  He was now certain that he would take one of them.

  At first, the idea of murder had appalled him…but he was pleased to realize he had very quickly become accustomed to its niceties. He could do this, no sweat. It only remained to decide which was the better of the two deals. Charlie was proud of his adaptability. I am a very fine fellow.

  But: should he settle for Vera and the twenty-five thousand—with a bite into the entire fortune later? Or Steig’s offer, er, uh, after the appropriate negotiations? What if she decided she had no further use for him…after he’d done the job? What if she just said go fuck yourself, Charlie, when they came back down? What if she refused to marry him? What if Steig ratted him out, denied he’d ever hired Charlie, or just said it was an accident? What if she gave him only the twenty-five and dared him to talk? He couldn’t, of course, but what if? Either way, what if?