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Shelly. He s been paying off, but the overhead, well, you know what that s
like. I can t afford to risk it. Something will have to be done to curb his,
er, activities.. Sheldon Morgenstern spread his hands like a pair of diving
doves. .What can I tell you, Colonel? I ve tried to keep the kid straight,
but he s some kind of a nut. He wanders around late at night like the
Werewolf of London. After that scene up here I thought he was stacked-away
for the night, next thing I knew he was.. Freeport rattled a newspaper
snatched quickly from a stack on the bed. ..he was brawling in a nightclub
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with a paunchy ex-movie star whose finest examples of histrionic ability
have been in pubs and gin mills, the past five years. You ve made every
column in the city.... ....well, publicity can t hurt hi.. Spider Kiss by
Harlan Ellison 103 ..hurt him! Shelly, I m surprised that you would try that
fast talk on me. We both know this is the worst sort of press he could get.
Look at this.. He folded the paper lengthwise as subway riders do, stabbing
at an item circled in red grease pencil with an angry thrust. .They re
calling him .Stud Service Preston!. That is impossible, Shelly, impossible! I
won t tolerate it!. Shelly felt his head swimming. He was suddenly not only
his brother s keeper, but regulator of public morals, suppressor of secrets
and nanny to the hottest toddler in or out of perambulators. He raised his
hands in mute forestalling, hoping to ward off the Colonel s next words.
.Shelly, I d like to tell you something. .You may have been wondering at
these long distance calls I ve been getting from Atlanta the past two weeks.
Well, they re from an intermediary who has been trying to move a little land
purchase for me. I m almost in the final stages of negotiation to buy back
all the land my family owned in Georgia. I m going to rebuild a home that was
sacked and burned at the time of Atlanta, my boy; it is a dream I ve held
for many years. The estate of Freeport will grow again. Now you own a good
piece of Stag Preston yourself, Shelly, and I know you feel very much a part
of this project, but if my own plans are put in jeopardy, I m afraid I ll
have to take steps to remedy matters. There are ways, you know.. Shelly
knew. He felt unhappy. Very unhappy. .So let me summarize, Shelly. If you
can t do something swift and decisive about curbing this cursed infant s bad
habits ... I ll have to seek out someone who can. Spider Kiss by Harlan
Ellison 104 .Is there any area of our conversation that remains muddy?.
Shelly shook his head, mollified, subdued, cowed. The conversation was clear
as an unrippled pool. He knew precisely what the Colonel meant. There were
men who could be hired who charged by the broken limb. One hundred dollars
for an arm. One fifty for an arm and leg combination. Two hundred and fifty
for a broken back. With prices on request for special services peculiar to
the client. He stood up. .Colonel, say no more. As of this moment, I am the
Jiminy Cricket of the hip set. I will stick so close to Huck Finn that he
will have to send through an interoffice memo if he wants to use the
bathroom.. The Colonel winced at the indelicate reference, but smiled
immediately thereafter, clapping Shelly on the back, adroitly steering him
toward the door. .Good, good, my boy. I knew all it would take was a little
close talk on our parts. We re doing fine, Shelly, just fine.. And he was
outside. It was the same sort of bum s rush the Colonel had given outsiders,
or people on the staff who were on their way out. The image of
Needleman.somewhere out there hustling again.came to him. Was there a
power-grab in the offing? Shelly began casting about for ways and means to
shore up his position. Then again, he caught himself, I'm in fairly swinging
shape if I can keep the Creature From the Stork Club out of trouble. Spider
Kiss by Harlan Ellison 105 It sounded a good deal easier than it was
destined to be. As Shelly found out twice within the space of a week and a
half. His first mistake was in taking Stag up to his apartment. His second
mistake was leaving the singer with Carlene while he changed out of the
charcoal brown business suit into a tux. His third mistake was in not leaving
the bedroom door open to overhear their conversation. They were slated to
attend a banquet of pop music publishers, and Stag.who had kept the lamps
going all the night before in the watering holes.had not bothered to change
out of his Continental tuxedo. He had worn it all the next day, and though he
looked rumpled, the animal grace of him canceled the taint of déshabille. But
Shelly had to change, and so Stag Preston met Carlene for the first time.
.Listen, Carlene, fix Stag a drink, will you? I ll be out in a couple of
minutes.. It was not that Shelly was unaware of Stag Preston s proclivities
toward new women, nor even that he thought Carlene s fidelity was a thing of
cohesion and permanency. It was simply that he was rushed, harried and
harassed. He went into the bedroom to change. Stag Preston s eyes fastened
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