Spider Kiss

by Harlan Ellison

  Still Shelly wondered. The rock’n’roll craze seemed to have reached its peak, seemed to be going downhill. Since the payola scandals, the FCC clamping tighter restrictions on the industry, Presley’s return from Germany toned-down slightly, but noticeably…was it a dying horse?

  Or could Moore, as well as Costanza and his crack team of flak-merchants, merchandise Luther in a different manner? Did the boy have what Shelly (and apparently Freeport) had come to think he had? Shelly’s memory of Luther at the talent contest returned. The faces of the women in the audience—he had…what?…reached them, held them. Yes, Luther could make it.

  But first, conquer the flaws in the initial design.

  A memory of Asa Kemp intruded. Flaws?

  Yeah, those, too.

  They pulled up in front of the Sheraton-Astor and the bellhops magically erupted from inside. Tourists with bags that overpowered them stood waiting while Freeport’s entourage made its way up the steps, across the lobby and into an elevator waiting for them alone. The floor Jack Freeport had rented six years before now no longer had a number. It might have been between the 12th and 14th floors of the Sheraton-Astor…and it might not. It was unnumbered because it was very much foreign soil in the hotel’s bosom. It was Freeportland.

  “Shelly, tend to those items while I shower,” Freeport ordered, heading through the amethyst-and cream-colored living room. Shelly turned to the bank of phones on the Italian marble-topped desk.

  “Make yourself at home, Luther,” Freeport said as he disappeared into the master bedroom. In a moment the sound of a shower filled the room. Then the bedroom door was closed. Luther took in the suite, let fly a low, meaningful (and to Shelly possessively contemplative) whistle, and threw himself onto the amethyst-tinted sofa. His feet left sliding black smudges.

  “Whoooeee-sheet!” he exclaimed.

  Shelly sniggered under his breath. That’s right, baby, be impressed. Contract time is here at last.

  “This whole joint belong to the Colonel?” Luther asked. Shelly nodded, crushing the latest cigarette into a fresh ashtray. “Every interiorly decorated inch of it, Luther.” He dialed a number, waited, lit a fresh cigarette.

  A querulous hello came from the other end; Shelly’s face broke into a smile transmitted through the voice. Jolly. “Joe, baby! Shelly here, we is back, man…”

  And that was the way it went for the next hour.

  Eventually, he called Carlene.

  He looked dehydrated by that time, but not from the heat. He looked like the wrinkled, sweating rubber shell of a balloon about to expire. Shirt open, hair faintly mussed, the cigarettes now pacing one after another from the corner of his mouth, he excused himself and went into one of the side sitting-rooms, where he dialed the number he knew best.

  The phone rang three times and he knew she had to be out. Carlene was a woman who lived on the phone, whose sole line of communication with the outside world was the Princess phone, in coral, next to the bed. Where was she? He felt the same helpless rage, the same ineffectual trapped feeling he knew every time he rang her up and found her out. At times like that he wanted to lock all her clothes away, like the whacks in the bad jokes and the mystery stories—the big-time gangster shacking with the nympho, the guy who has to keep his broad naked with only high heels or she’ll ball anyone in sight—but the image was too weird and he put it away. He substituted a simple smash in the mouth.

  It was at times like this that he felt he knew how junkies got hooked. He knew their feelings. He was hooked on her. On a girl whose body was a commodity, and he happened at the moment to be the biggest demand for her supply.

  He hung up and ground out his cigarette, half-smoked, in the clean ashtray. He lit another and returned to the living room to continue the business calls.

  Shelly set the wheels in motion.

  The Colonel showered and lingered at his toilet.

  Luther examined every corner and room of the suite.

  And then, it was too soon time to talk contract. The evening was close, and the Colonel demanded his dinner. It always seemed that way to Shelly. Freeport would personally call room service, and order the dinner, but it never seemed to be ordering; it was always demanding.

  And after the squab on Austrian toast, the potatoes au gratin, the bottle of Liebfraumilch 1957 (from Freeport’s personal stock in the hotel’s wine cellar), the baked Alaska, it was talktime.

  “We’ll need a stenographer,” Freeport said, wiping his mouth, wiping his hands, dipping the end of the linen napkin in his water glass and touching the corners of his mouth.

  “I’ll get Jeanie Friedel,” Shelly answered. He shoved away from the table, made another phone call, and returned to the table.

  They stared at each other in expectant uneasiness. The animals were beginning to sniff each other; the hunting season had opened right on schedule. From where Shelly sat, the Colonel seemed to have the larger-bore weapon.

  “More coffee?” Shelly asked.

  Luther shook his head.

  Freeport took a pill. He took a capsule. He took a pepsin tablet.

  Shelly lit a cigarette. It tasted foul. He snubbed it, and almost immediately lit another.

  Luther coughed self-consciously, covered it with another, a forced cough from deep in the throat.

  Shelly dragged on the cigarette.

  The elevator sighed open beyond the door, and the doorbell went off an instant later. They each started, and Shelly recovered first, pushing back his chair. “I’ll get it. Must be Jeanie.”

  When he opened the door, the girl caught him with her eyes, and there was a glint of something quick, taunting, smoldering. She smiled, lowering her eyes coquettishly. “Hello, Sheldon,” she said, whispering it; calculated sexuality couched in a tight challenge. One step out of reach. It was wholly incongruous: this was Shelly, or Shel or Shel-baby, but never, except by Mama Morgenstern, Sheldon.

  He felt his face going tight; the bitch with the heart like a popsicle. She edged past him, her smile turned elsewhere, but somehow (Bast, you cat goddess!) still on Shelly. He watched her back as she moved across the room…the play of her legs, moving more than her body. She had a way of carrying herself that most tall girls had never learned. It was the movement they spoke about when they used the word statuesque.

  Silkenly, gliding, coming off the balls of the feet in little, long strides that stretched the fabric of her slim skirt taut; strides that made strangely disturbing emotions run through the Colonel’s right-hand man.

  “Good evening, Colonel Freeport,” she said, and though there was nothing in the tone, Shelly could detect a come-on as flagrant as any he’d ever encountered.

  Jean Friedel was on the make.

  Not for Shelly and his measly twenty grand a year, but for something bigger. Perhaps Freeport, perhaps anyone else who had wanted what she wanted. Did it really matter who?

  This was the tempting shape of the hungry ones in Jungle York.

  “Good evening, Jean.” The Colonel smiled at her with the particular return-smile of a man who has known a woman, and further, knows what she is, who she is. Shelly found a spiteful pleasure in the knowledge that though Jean looked at Sheldon Morgenstern as small peanuts…still, she would never hook the Colonel. Freeport might make her, if she was offering it, but she was being conned. By an expert.

  “We’ll be needing your superlative stenographic abilities, my dear.” Freeport leered at her. To Shelly, it was the smile of the cat, gauging tibia, fibula and femur. To Jean Friedel, it was a return image of her own come-on.

  To Colonel Jack Freeport, it was getting the job done. A girl who thought she would get something for “service” would be certain to give good—service.

  “Jean, I’d like you to meet Luther. You’ll be taking down some things Luther has to say in a few minutes, and we want to be sure you keep it in strictest confidence.

  “We have big things planned for this boy.” He waved her on to Luther, who stared at the tall, dark-haired gir
l with an open appraisal.

  It was slave-block time in the land of Luther Sellers.

  The boy leaped up and shook hands with the hotel stenographer vigorously. His smile was as engaging in intensity as his scowl had been facing Asa Kemp. “I’m very pleased to meetcher, Miss—” He left it hanging the way he had seen it done in the movies.

  She gave him a beggar’s smile and moved the flash and fire back to Freeport. “I’m ready any time you are, Colonel.”

  I’ll just bet you are, thought Shelly.

  Freeport waved Shelly and Jean to chairs at the table, settled back with another pill and a glass of water. For a moment Luther stood staring at the trio, then he too sat down, placing himself across the table from the others. Almost as though sides were being drawn up.

  “Well, Luther, it’s time we dispensed with some very small business details,” the Colonel said. He beamed at the boy and opened his mouth to speak again.

  “Sixty percent.” Luther stopped him. “I get sixty percent of my own contract.”

  Shelly was too amazed to notice the Colonel’s expression, but he was certain it was one of blood-draining confusion. Of course, the boy would pull off no such hat trick, but the gall…the temerity…

  One hour later, far less time than any of them thought it would take, Colonel Jack Freeport (Savannah, New York, Cannes and London) had agreed to a contract the terms of which assigned Shelly Morgenstern thirty percent of Luther Seller’s earnings, himself thirty percent, and the boy retained forty percent. It was not that unusual a legal form, except Freeport had never before gone that route. He owned one hundred percent (where more was not feasible) of any enterprise he dipped into, and at the end of that contract, there were several shifts in attitude.

  Freeport realized he had a live item on his hands, one which was not going to be duped, and for that reason came to the competition better prepared; Freeport was unsettled about Luther’s hipness in gaining majority control of his own contract—how had he pulled that cursed stunt?—but he was already counting unhatched chickens.

  Luther’s opinion had changed, also. He was not so much in awe of these dynamiting promoters. He had bluffed once, had made it stick, and realized his muscles were firmer than he had thought.

  Shelly changed his mind radically: Luther’s brand of WhatMakesSammyRun was not innocent ruthlessness. It was calculated. At that moment, what had been vague distaste for his brain child, turned chameleon-like into outright dislike.

  As for Jean Friedel…

  The base of operations had shifted. In her heart of hearts she could not see the difference between grave-robbing and cradle-robbing. All’s fair…

  And so that was how Luther Sellers gained control of the valuable contract of Stag Preston.

  Since one admired the other so much, it seemed just naturally the way the old mop flops. Or as Shelly put it in one of his getting-more-frequent introspective moments: That, friends, is how the old train derails.

  SIX

  Phil Moore did things with Luther Sellers that Pygmalion would have admired. It was decided at a policy meeting that they would avoid the Jerry Lee Lewis image (spangled jackets, yellow ochre peg-cuff pants, fifteen pounds of marcelled hair, green lace shirts), while at the same time steering away from the Pat Boone brand of cleanliness. He was consequently inculcated by the mysteries of slim Continental suits, Italian loafers, conservative gray ties and a manner of walking, talking, thinking that retained the minuscule charms of his Kentucky roots, forcefully brought out the humble, disarming manner so psychologically necessary for proper identity, while at the same time reinforcing the animal sexuality of the boy.

  They tried names on.

  Luther fitted badly inside a charcoal-gray name like Bruce Barton. He glared out hostilely when covered with Alan Prince. The vulgar innuendo of Brick Colter sat on his shoulders jarringly, and Matt Gore almost made it but was eventually discarded because the sleeves were too long.

  It was Shelly who came up with Stag Preston.

  Natural? Like a run of sevens.

  As it was analyzed nine months later in a journal of general semantics: “We cannot by any means overlook the simplest explanation of the surname; it is that combination of onomatopoeia and naturalism quickly identified as masculine, forceful, imperative. Stallion, stud, stag—each of these conjures the phallic interpretation, sets aside any misconceptions of homosexuality due to the nature of the bearer’s style or bearing, and leads the gestalt female attention to the heart of the bearer’s presentation. ‘Preston’ bears the same hard quality, in much the same manner employed by Thomas Hardy when he called the hero of The Mayor of Casterbridge Michael Henchard. Henchard, trenchard. Such awareness, on the part of those responsible for Mr. Preston’s public image, of the subliminal potency of the sound of certain words, merely indicates yet another of the many reasons for this young man’s success.”

  Joe Costanza and Shelly held long conferences, far into the night, first mapping out the larger areas of promotion, then fine tuning the program, eventually dwelling with almost pathological attention on the smallest details:

  Who should get the first news break about Stag?

  (If we give it to Cholly Knickerbocker no one will notice it outside of New York, but we’ll have a strong source in Manhattan for future use. But if we plant it with Winchell, not only will it make his column, but he’s got that new tv spot, and a mention there—mysteriously tipped as he’s made a rep doing it for the past seven hundred years—we’ll get a nation-wide break. Then there’s Kilgallen, or maybe Hedda…or a parlay, handing it out in three different regional areas…the overlap might not be too bad. But if one tipped to the other’s having the same info, we might make an enemy or three…)

  What label should we record him on?

  (If we set up our own company, we lose out on the effective promotion someone like Columbia or Victor might give us. But if we go for one of the big boys, we’ll have to cut them in for a taste…)

  Who gets the first tv look at him?

  (If we go the Dick Clark route, then he gets identified as a teen star, and the adults sneer. If we avoid Clark and go the Sullivan or Dinah Shore way, we lose the instant identification of the teenagers. How about…)

  What product tie-ins should we allow?

  (Cereals are out—pre-teens. The T-shirt, charm bracelet, chewing gum bit might be a little too adolescent. If we try to foist off Stag Preston dinner jackets we’ll get laughed at all the way to AfterSix and back. No, best we stay in the sport shirt and after-shave lotion area, with a try for the teens on their own level, but decorous, like very decorous…)

  Finally, it came time for the pitch.

  Shelly made his phone calls—how would the hipster operate so easily, without that wondrous gadget?—and the studio was reserved. A rented studio, a pick-up orchestra, special arrangements commissioned by an unnamed top female exec of a top record company, mastered by a top technician working for one of the smaller jazz labels, and a small group of background singers prepared to drop in Doo-wah or Oo-oo-ooo when needed.

  Out of that session (it was a take on the third try) came Stag Preston’s first record, “I Don’t Know You Anymore,” b/w “Car Hop Angel.”

  Demo discs were cut off the master and surreptitiously circulated to the four or five most influential A&R men in the trade, with no build-up, merely the word that they had come over from Freeport. They were listened to with careful attention, and tentative feelers came back to the suite in the Sheraton-Astor. Shelly held them off, parlaying interest in the anonymous singer (for there had been no explanatory label on the demos) and promising something very interesting, very soon.

  Something very soon was three days later; something very interesting was a personal invitation to the A&R men who had received the demos, to be Colonel Jack Freeport’s guests at a high school sock hop in Parma, Ohio.

  A chartered plane flew Freeport, Shelly, Joe Costanza and their guests to Cleveland where three Cadillacs sat pantin
g, prepared for the drive to the suburb of Parma.

  The high school was ablaze with lights, and one of Cleveland’s leading disc jockeys, Bob Mandle, was waiting. The sock hop was a benefit to raise money for the high school’s new library and auditorium. Mandle had been contacted to plan the show, had imported up-and-coming rock’n’roll talent who would work cuffola for the publicity—and Freeport had mildly suggested Stag Preston be made a featured headliner.

  He was billed as “A Surprise Mystery Guest” which conjured images of anyone from Frankie Avalon to Lanny Ross, depending on who was conjuring.

  The A&R men knew only that they were going to meet the mystery talent Jack Freeport had avoided discussing with them. Shelly could see interest in their faces; arrangements such as these were tantamount to an offer of big gold.

  When Mandle led them into the huge gym, Shelly realized Freeport had done more than merely suggest that Mandle feature Stag. (It was a sort of brainwashing that had been effected by the weeks of preparation of their talent; he no longer thought of the boy as Luther; now he was Stag, even in unguarded thoughts.)

  A suggestion might have gotten Stag a spot on the bill, but the opulence of the decorations, the almost studiedly melodramatic stage on which the artists would perform—Shelly dredged up memories of Warner Bros. musicals circa 1940—meant the Colonel had shelled out some sugar to swing Mandle to his way of thinking. Some money that had been spent to do the place up the way Freeport thought it should be done up—all the better to showcase you, my dear: a contribution to the library/auditorium fund—one of Mandle’s weak spots in these days of public service, now that the payola stink was dulled by the shortness of public memory.

  “Seats for you in the front row,” Mandle said, grinning, his expression that of a college senior. He waved them to the padded chairs facing the stage. “Show’s about to start.”

  Already the gym was filled. Almost eight hundred boys and girls were jammed into the gym, filling the chairs behind the A&R men, overflowing into the back of the room where they were packed, standing.