Spider Kiss (21 page)
But they were drawn down and half-closed with passion, and opened only a fraction each time Stag thrust down into her.
He could hear sounds. They were fine sounds. Cool sounds. The girl was making them, over and over, and he liked the sounds, trying to match them. Someone said, "Move the mike in a little, ah, that's got it;
sweet
!" But Stag paid no attention. The girl was smooth and warm all over and he had this heavy thing on his back and it was himself, pressing down into the blonde girl. He loved her, he really loved her, she was so warm and all.
A while or so later, or so he thought, a while later, he was with another girl … she had very black hair and it was all loose and he put his hands through it and draped it over his face so he was hidden in a little hut of nice silky black, but someone said, "Get his face outta there, we gotta see it, for Arnie to … that's got it, now keep him faced around like … ah, yeah … swing!"
So Stag swingadingding and the weight on his back wasn't himself anymore, it was guess who! The blonde again and all three of them were there having a wonderful time and there were smooth things to touch and little hard things to touch and everybody was swinging warm and swinging wild.
Stag had a wonderful time.
Until he was back outside with a sour stomach and a buzz of Christmas tree lights that bubbled inside his head, getting into Porter's car once more, and one of the girls who was in the car said, "What'll we call it, huh, honey?"
So Stag listened because this was 'mport'nt, wasn't it. And he heard Porter, his sweetie
bubbie
glib Porter Hackett answer with a twinkle in his voice. "Well, this is his magnum opus, this's his finest effort to date, and we got a name for it."
And the girl asked again, annoyed, and a little tipsy herself, "So whaddaya gonna
call
it … c'mon!"
Porter laughed in the back of Stag's head, and answered simply:
"We're going to call it
STAG
!"
It fit.
Porter Hackett waited only long enough to have half a dozen prints made of the film and an equal number of tape recordings cut off the master, to be synchronized with the film. He did not have long to wait, for in the rumpus room of the huge Moorish-style mansion there was a completely outfitted darkroom. A fully outlined processing set-up. A fully developed facility for producing dozens and dozens of "art films" to be sold and distributed throughout the country.
For smokers. For stag dinners. For office parties. For private collectors. For fraternity rush parties.
For blackmail.
When Porter and his two-hundred-and-twenty pound sidekick tried to get the money from Stag, he laughed them out of the scene. Stag Preston knew almost all there was to know about handling himself on the stage; he even knew a considerable amount in the field of human reactions, taken singly or taken as a gestalt in the shape of an audience. He did not know about the fickle turning of public opinion … that emotional mob rule without reason, such a mixture of love and lust and sin and hate … that admiration so easily turned to vitriol. Hate/love. The cliché held. They weren't a thin line apart — they were the same.
Shelly knew it.
Freeport knew it.
They saw the film and blanched. There had been smoker movies, and there had been smoker movies, but this … this … it was aptly titled
Stag
!
Their money-making child star, clean-cut and continental Stag Preston had performed every obscenity in de Sade's scrapbook with a few melodramatic touches of his own, reminiscent of his earthy, all-too-human style before more legitimate cameras. Someone had to pay the ransom for the films.
Over the barrel and into the woods, without a paddle to break over Stag Preston's head.
They negotiated. The price went up for dallying. Two hundred thousand dollars. Stag suddenly found he was not as affluent as he had imagined. Advances had been drawn on his records, more than would allow any further; his payments on the Universal contract were tied up with the accountants and the tax people — they had been spaced out over a period of years to allow him the best possible break, though he was in the 91 percent tax bracket; and he was into Freeport for a staggering sum.
"Aw, to hell with it!" Stag said, folding his arms, stubbornly staring out the window. "Let them show the damned thing. Let them run it in every theatre in the world, see if I give a damn!" He was a three-year-old, railing idiotically at the adult world.
Shelly stood over him, trying (he knew not why) to explain the seriousness of it all. "What's the matter with you? You got holes in your head to let the stupidity run out? Bigger names than you have been ruined by less than this. Are you clowning, or what?"
Stag snarled, "Who? Who ever got ruined? You tell me one: just name me one!"
Shelly threw up his hands. "This isn't Monroe on a nude calendar. Or Mitchum smoking a little grass. Wasn't anything wrong with that. This is pornography, smut, filth, screwing, you simpleton! It can get you blackballed by every PTA and American Legion post in the country. The Legion of Decency will be all over you like piranha fish. The NODL will excommunicate anybody who even reads the marquees on your film, you stupe! The record company will dump you. Universal wouldn't touch you if you were gilded. Kid, you'll be back in the slums of Louisville so fast you won't know which way the truck went!"
Stag bit his lower lip. His tone was less domineering, less imperious. But still Stag. "Aw, c'mon, you're just trying to scare me. Who ever
really
got burned by a scandal?"
Shelly named a few.
"Fatty Arbuckle, Alan Freed, Charlie Chaplin, Dalton Trumbo, Gale Sondergaard, Howard da Silva, William Talman, Lila Leeds … hell, do I have to run through the
Who's Who
for you? Some make it back, okay, but most of them get hung good and proper. And don't think you're that big that you can risk it, sonny-boy. Are you willing to take the chance?"
Stag bit his lip again. His eyes narrowed. He wanted to strike out. But at which face could he throw the punch? "That bastard Hackett! I'll get him … I'll get the sonofa —"
"Listen, just bag that punchout shit for the moment. You've got a problem, and don't forget it. Try to
focus
! He's got god knows how many prints of that film, and you'll be dead in a week if they get out … or what if the
Confidential
stringers get wind of it?"
Stag flailed his arms to windmill clear the very sound of Shelly's voice from the air. "Lemme alone, willya, fer chrissake; I can't even
think
any more. I don't know what the hell to do! I haven't got that kind of money, and you know it!
"You and The Man have been makin' it all off me." He was suddenly snarling, belligerent. "I've been workin' my ass off and you two are raking in the bread. Why should
I
have to pay the freight?"
Shelly aimed a finger at him. There was no sympathy as he said, "Why? Because you've blown every cent you've made; you've acted like king of the hill and clipped the Colonel, and me for every penny you could mooch, just to pay off your stupid debts. Now this one is
yours
, Sunny Jim.
"Either you pay it or get started washing your socks for the long hike back to Louisville. Because
you
know and
I
know the Colonel will dump you like a bucket'a garbage if this thing breaks. And I've about had it up to
here
with you already so don't count on any more support from me!"
Shelly was surprised at how easy it had been to tell Stag the truth. Whatever friendship or empathy he had felt for the boy was now sickened, dying. He still harbored a pang of uneasiness as a shadow of fear crossed Stag's face, but that pang subsided as the old arrogance once more seeped back into Stag's expression.
"They wouldn't
dare
blackball me. I've got a contract." His mouth curled in a tight return to former assurance.
Shelly shook his head wearily. "Boy, I'll bet you believe in leprechauns and the Easter Bunny, too, don't you? Sure you've got a contract, you simp, and your contract's got some fine print called a morals clause! And in case you haven't figured it out yet, that little film you made the other night is what the studio would term 'offensive to the average citizen's morality.'"
"Aw, hell!"
"Aw, hell, my backstrap, Stag! Listen, you think I'm trying to scare you, and maybe I am, but if I am it's because I like my share of what you make and I'm not happy about the idea of going back to flacking for a living."
Stag threw a hand at Shelly, and a snarl. "What's the matter, partner, you afraid you'll have to go back to work at an honest job? You've been making a pretty buck off me … you're as bad as me, blowing your dough on that pad of yours, and Carlene …"
He caught himself.
Shelly's jaw muscles worked. That was a part of his life he didn't talk about. But Stag had come into contact with that part a little too often. He ignored the matter, for the moment; obfuscation and sidetracking would only make logical arguments murkier.
"You really think you're big enough to buck it, don't you? You really think you're a hero, that your hotshot teen-agers'll stick with you. Are you in for a surprise! The crowd is like a … like a weather vane, or like a pet panther. As long as it gets meat, it won't bite your hand. You miss one meal, or sneak in a red herring instead of ground round and watch how fast it goes after your throat!"
"I don't believe that. It's different with me. They love me … I've got 'em right in the palm of my —"
"Bullshit! They have no mind … it's a mob. Don't tell me there's any reason in a mob like that. Otherwise there wouldn't have been riots at the University of Georgia when those two Negro kids wanted in … there wouldn't be any lynch mobs or strike riots or —"
"What's that got to do with me? What the hell are you talking about?"
"Oh, forget it. I wouldn't expect you to understand." Shelly remembered Trudy Quillan. "Especially not you. But listen, did you ever hear of Dashiell Hammett?"
"No. What's he got to do with —"
"Ever hear of
The Maltese Falcon
or
Red Harvest
or
The Glass Key
? No, forget it, I wouldn't expect you to have — did you ever hear of
The Thin Man
?"
Stag nodded slowly. "Wasn't there some tv show like that?"
Shelly agreed with a nod. "Yeah, right. Well, the character, the Thin Man, was dreamed up by a writer named Dashiell Hammett."
"So?" Stag was bored, but still concerned by the problem at hand.
"I'm trying to make a point, so listen: Hammett was a big writer in this town. He had it locked. But he got mixed up with some stupid political affiliations and they crucified him …"
"What was he, a Commie? He deserved it, they all oughta be strung up by the b —"
"Yeah, sure. That was the kind of pudding-brained thinking that got Hammett slaughtered. He was the biggest, Stag; he had a reputation that couldn't be touched, maybe the finest detective-story writer we've ever had. And do you know what this rotten town did to him … he died about six months ago in New York, and no one had heard of him in years. Hell, I thought he was long dead; it was a shock when I heard he was still alive … or had been. That's what this town'll do to you if this thing gets out. They'll run over you like a Mack truck.
"You want to lose everything?"
Stag had listened. Finally, he nodded. "Okay, tell the Colonel I'll go along with it."
Why had Shelly worked so hard to convince Stag he should pay off the owners of the film? Why had Stag balked? It was all tied up with Stag's deflated bankroll and the debts Freeport had been marking down in the little green-leather notebook.
Stag was broke.
Freeport would pay the tariff.
But Stag had to sell a block of his controlling interest in himself. To Freeport.
The Colonel had laid it out to Shelly simply. Either get Stag to agree, or start looking for a new line of work. Ruin was an easy mistress to acquire in Shelly's line, and he had no reason to refuse. So he told Stag about Dashiell Hammett. At length.
Until Stag said, "Okay, tell the Colonel I'll go along with it."
That was the point at which Stag Preston began his long, untidy trip to the garbage dump.
The film had been destroyed; Freeport had talked at length to Porter Hackett, alone, and whatever it was the Colonel had said to him, Porter Hackett turned over all prints. There would be no further demands. Freeport had a way about himself in these matters.
But now Stag worked for Freeport and Shelly. Bits of his share began to chip away. A new matched pair of turquoise Rolls-Royces for the twin showgirls Stag was balling, a few bribes to keep Stag out of court on old charges incurred while running with "The Ginchy Set," minor expenditures for partying, wardrobe, appearances. It all added up. But so much was coming in … who cared?
Certainly not Stag Preston.
There followed a dispute between two major tv networks as to which would sign Stag for exclusive appearances (out of which only Shelly and Freeport emerged the victors, with sky-high advances and residuals for the partners), a series of successful club appearances, two more gold records, and the emergence on the nation's lips of the words
STAG
and
PRESTON
. Householdly speaking, saturation-wise, Stag Preston was the hottest thing since the walking man. He became a commonplace subject for magazine cartoons, comedians' jokes, minutiae in realistically-written
New Yorker
and
Evergreen Review
short stories, and arguments between parents and their wild daughters.
At which point of the graph-climb, Stag Preston was booked triumphantly into The Palace.
Enter the physical presence of the Past — in the form of Ruth Kemp, widow.
And holla! to thee, O Spirit of Christmas Wasted. Swing!
With that disregard for coincidence it seems to favor, Fate stopped the breath of Asa Kemp within the same hour Stag Preston was exhaling his own breath in the opening song of his triumphant Palace engagement.
