ABC-Paramount had come through with the best deal—or perhaps it was merely that Sid Feller had the sharpest eye for new talent; Shelly suspected that was why he had the cleanest contact lenses in town—and they were packaging him with four-color sleeves on his 45s, with Frank Wess backings and a promotional sweep unlike anything since Kim Novak had been shoved down an unsuspecting populace’s throat.
The Brill Building was humming with word of Stag’s drawing power. The sheet music operators and the sideline grifters all wanted their taste. The better mousetrap had been built, and Tin Pan Alley was beating a polished Italian loafer path to Colonel Jack Freeport’s door.
Inside that door, Shelly Morgenstern, Colonel Jack Freeport, and Stag Preston held court.
The payola (now underground more than ever, discreetly delivered in white legal-size envelopes bought in Woolworth’s) spread like a fine slick of oil on troubled waters; and like other troubled waters, they parted to permit Stag Preston’s passage through to the Promised Land.
His first album, Let Me Sing To You, went onto the Top Ten in its third week and got rave reviews not only from Cash Box, Variety and Billboard, but Nat Hentoff and Ralph Gleason (the former of Jazz Review, the latter of the syndicated column “The Rhythm Section”) both found ethnic roots of true blues singing in Stag’s presentation, and lauded him openly, thus interesting the jazz audience.
The following month Down Beat and Metronome each ran an article of analytical discussion anent Stag Preston’s emergence as a true jazz singer, his value as the first jazz-oriented pop singer since Mathis had gone bland, and how he was saying things in the jazz idiom. They decided he had “soul.”
The fires were being stoked high.
Music Vendor referred to Stag Preston as “the hottest thing since sliced bread.”
Shelly caught the Colonel dry-washing his hands like a deranged miser on several occasions. It was Moneysville-On-Thames for one and all.
Stag had begun referring to Freeport as The Man.
Stag’s up-tempo version of “Let Me Call You Sweetheart” was pushed like a yak-cart going uphill on every DJ show, jukebox, tv dance program, high school prom or sock hop, every record shop in the country.
Let Me Sing To You passed two million. Stag was now stacking his gold records, biting his golden fingernails and calling Shelly, “Hey, you.”
“Let Me Call You Sweetheart” went into orbit at two million twelve, and Ed Sullivan called for Stag to appear on the “See America With Ed Sullivan” series, the show emanating from Manhattan. The Colonel, realizing the Big Time came no Bigger than this, made the deal and won Stag a close-out spot on the program. Trendex went out of its mind reporting that an estimated 23 .4% of the viewing audience had switched channels to catch the second half of the Sullivan extravaganza, even if they had been elsewhere for the first half.
Arbitron, Pulse, Nielsen and Hooper clocked similar phenomena and Stag Preston’s stock hiccuped into the blue chip strata. Freeport cackled and blushed and clapped his hands in childish glee as he hung up on one agent after another.
“Jackals startin’ to suck around real good now, Shelly,” he commented. Stag Preston was sewed up, and there was no room for a share-the-wealth policy.
Stag’s tv appearances were carefully kept to a minimum. Overexposure was the last disease Freeport wanted Stag to catch. Leukemia, but not overexposure.
There is, however, exposure…and exposure.
In the night scene, abruptly, Stag Preston became a familiar sight. Whether it was dinner at The Four Seasons, The Forum of the Twelve Caesars, the Chateaubriand or The Colony…drinks at Sardi’s (E and/or W), The Plaza, or The St. Moritz…champagne breakfasts at Rumpelmayers and about 1:00 PM a drink-breakfast at P.J. Clark’s…The Blue Angel, Bon Soir, The Living Room…the Copa, the Latin Quarter, El Morocco, the Waldorf’s Starlight Roof…the Jazz Gallery, Five Spot, the Showplace to catch Mingus and his group…Lindy’s, the Stage Deli…wherever it was, wherever the hipsters congregated…Stag Preston’s face was as much a fixture as the outstretched tip plate (with three quarters thereon) of the hat-check chick.
He found no difficulty in dating. It meant not only a juicy item in the columns to be seen with the scintillant young star, but personally Stag had that indefinable air that marked him unquestionably heterosexual, male, a real guy. There were no rumors—no matter how malicious the speaker—that Stag was anything but broad-happy. There were, however, a few murmurs that he might be, just a teeny bit, too broad-happy. Yet if such rumors were grounded in fact, it seemed to make no difference to the hordes of models, pseudo-models, career girls, pseudo-career girls, visiting starlets and call girls who made it their business to be seen in his company.
Now that the career-building had settled down somewhat, Shelly found he was able to relax.
The money was coming in nicely. He paid off the balance on the Mercedes, had it rebored and tuned, had the six assorted scrapes and scratches on its gleaming black hide repaired, and took it out on the Taconic for a run. He purposely opened it full-throat and allowed a growler to run him to the curb. He even paid the speeding ticket—with a grin that annoyed not only the prowl cop but the cherubic justice of the peace who charged him. For once, the money didn’t matter.
Shelly Morgenstern had hitched his checkbook to a star named Stag Preston.
But like any star—as seen through a cloudy atmosphere—the twinkle was merely an erratic flickering.
At first the flickerings were faint, mere ghosts of what was to come. They were faint, but bothersome for all that. It began to get to Shelly the second night he had returned to staying with Carlene.
It was never hard to go back to Carlene. That was the trouble; it was like getting hooked on junk. The first one or three were easy-come-easy-go. Then a half dozen because it was chuckles. Then another one because it was wanted…who wanted? Oh, yeah, I wanted. And who am I?
The answer comes back as down a long, empty corridor—You are the hooked man, man.
That was how it was, going back to Carlene.
One of the trappings of seeming affluence, Shelly had “acquired” Carlene almost as though she had been the prize in the Cracker Jack box. After his first big touch with a television promotion outfit (a lofty term for a sotto voce organization who arranged plugs on-screen for payola), he had come into the sphere of influence of Colonel Jack Freeport and one day, almost as though ordered by the stock number, Carlene had appeared in his newly furnished apartment. She had stayed on, had moved in, had lived with Shelly without past or future—only with a non-demanding present.
There was no need for Carlene to demand.
Her existence was demand enough; her face and body were her dues, and she paid them regularly.
It was the ideal, yet the most unbearable, situation for a man of Sheldon Morgenstern’s constitution. It was a loveless relationship predicated solely on Shelly’s ability to keep her supplied with the delicacies of life, in exchange for which she was always bed-warm and ready, as well as discreet about her transgressions. She was cook, housekeeper, secretary and bed-partner. But that was all. Her similarity to Jeanie Friedel was the spur that drove Shelly’s interest between the two women. Each was cold, each was incapable of a true depth of love—whatever that meant. Each was compelling by the very withholding of warmth.
And maybe, Shelly had simplified it on several occasions, to himself, I’m just a sucker for that type of broad.
There was considerable merit in the concept.
But periodically Shelly would decide he wanted a more realistic, a less surrealistic, life. At those times he would not even consider sending Carlene away, but would move himself either to Freeport’s suite in the Sheraton-Astor or would take a room in some 42nd Street fleabag.
But he always came back.
It had to be that way. She had come into his life unbidden, and by demanding only silently, bound him with his own desire.
I’m a prisoner of my crotch, Shelly would unfailingly, u
nhappily muse, in the cab on the way back to the apartment and Carlene. He had thought just that, for the hundredth time, in the cab returning after Stag’s career had gotten smoothly running. He had avoided going back—though the thinking could not be avoided—but it was months, and now like the hooked man he was, he was returning.
That night she bound him ever more tightly with loins and lips and liquid stillness. It may not have been the most perfect of all lives, but it was undeniably Shelly’s and he was stuck with it.
When he opened the door, he knew another man (men?) had been there. Not too recently—there was always somebody, a bellboy, a doorman, a flak-man on his staff that Carlene had gotten to, who would tip her when he was getting ready to trek back—but someone had been there. The smell of Mixture 79 pipe tobacco was faint but detectable.
She was in the kitchen, her long, perfect legs encased in sheath slacks that fraction of an inch too tight to produce a desire to grab her by her cheeks and pull her up against him. They were white with black piping and they were topped by a silk blouse cut on full lines. Carlene was shy in the chest and though it really never occurred to anyone who was stopped by her almost Grecian-symmetrical beauty, and her height, it was a constant pique to her. Hence, the baggy blouse. Her black hair came down in a pageboy, a smooth, sloping fall that caught the kitchen light from overhead and toyed with it, much as she toyed with him. Her eyes were hidden, but Shelly saw them nonetheless. They were green. As green as something utterly unromantic.
Choose one: an unset emerald, slightly flawed
green slime on a condemned pond
a snake’s skin
dollar bills old, wrinkled, being sent
back to the mint to be burned
the color on the base of old toy soldiers.
She looked up suddenly, as he stood in the kitchen doorway, and he was struck by the green of her eyes. They were none of the things he had considered them. They were green, very green, terribly commandingly green, extra deep, and faintly moist. (Was it from the onions a-peeling in the sink, or the mist of a woman secreted behind the iris?)
“Welcome home,” he said.
“You look tired,” she replied.
“What’s been happening?” he said.
“Not a thing. Want a drink?” she replied.
“Not now, thanks anyhow. Any mail?” he said.
“Nothing but a few bills. I paid the current ones; you’ve got a letter from your tailor, whatshisname,” she replied.
“Breidbart,” he said, “Jack Breidbart.”
“That’s right. Him,” she replied.
“Do not pass go; do not collect $200,” he said, turning.
This time, she did not reply.
He ate dinner with her in silence, wrote out checks to cover the bills, considered TV Guide, and finally gave himself up to it.
They were in bed, straining, feinting, playing at mutual passions, when the phone rang.
“Damn!” he snorted, against her shoulder.
“So don’t answer it,” she said in the tone of a woman who is polishing her nails while talking to you, “let it ring.”
It rang. It rang again. On the seventh, he hoisted off and snatched at it.
“What the hell do you want at this hour, schmuck!” he bellowed into the mouthpiece, and slammed it back onto the cradle. He fell onto his back as she rolled away from him, and for a long moment stared sightlessly at the ceiling somewhere above in the darkness. It was no good, no damned earthly good. But he had to have it; to the man who has nothing, nothing with substance is something.
The phone rang again.
This time he clapped it to his ear before the first ring had faded away.
He was about to use The Words when a woman’s voice crashed against his anger. “Shelly! Shelly, for Chrissake help me!”
Jean Friedel.
“What’s the matter? What the hell’s wrong?”
“I’m up at the suite. He’s got me locked in the bedroom…Jeezus, he’ll break through that muthering door in a minute, Shelly, get over here!”
Only it was not that ordered, not nearly that coherent. There were breaks and sobs and frightened whimpers.
“Who? Who’ll break in? Where’s the Colonel; what the hell is happening, Jeanie, answer me, stop mumbling!”
“Stag, the kid. He’s…he had too much to drink, Jeezus, he doesn’t want to just make love, Shelly, he wants to, Jeezus, I don’t know what. Please…get over here, will you!”
The sound of her frenzy screeched galactically past the receiver. Carlene sat up and turned on the headboard lamp; the sheet was clutched over her bosom. “What’s the matter?”
He covered the mouthpiece. “The kid’s got one of the hotel secretaries cornered in the suite. Freeport isn’t there, I suppose. She wants me to come over.” A shriek erupted from the phone.
“He’s breaking down the, Jeezus, Shelly, please!”
“I’ll be right over…keep him out somehow,” he yelled, and cradled the receiver. He was out of bed and pulling on his trousers from where they had fallen on the floor, without bothering about underwear. His shirt, the jacket, and he was streaking from the apartment.
By the time he had reached the lobby, Carlene had called the doorman and a cab was waiting. “The Sheraton-Astor,” Shelly squawked. He fished in his wallet and brought out a bill. Without looking at its denomination he said, “This is for the baby if you bust your ass making it over there,” and was thrown back against the seat cushions as the cab careened away from the curb in a rocking U-turn.
It might be too late.
The gravy train might have already been derailed.
Oh, that bitchette! Oh, like wow!
Who cared if she had the ass stripped off her, who gave a bloody! Just keep that kid’s rep intact. Floor it, Jim!
Go!
EIGHT
Shelly was out of the elevator almost before the doors had slid completely open. The suite was silent. It looked as though Quantrill had herded his raiders through mounted on rhinoceroses. The drapes were torn, tables had been overturned, one Italian marble coffee table had been broken in half as though someone had dropped an anvil on it. A stain of wet ran down the wall and on the floor beneath the stain, a shattered vase and flowers lay in a pool of moisture. Every door was open, a bookshelf had been pulled down, the telephone was off its hook and a pair of legs protruded from around the curve of the sectional sofa. Shelly’s face went dry and tight.
It was all over. The show boat had gone ’round the bend for the final performance. It was enough to make a grown man shatter and bawl—hundreds of thousands of bucks flying South for the duration. Shelly leaned over the sofa, prepared to see Jean Friedel’s throat blue with finger impressions, the eyes wide and staring nowhere, the body twisted where she had fallen. He stared at her for a long moment, swallowing hard, before he realized he was not seeing what he was seeing.
Stag Preston was lying unconscious at the side of the sofa.
“I hit him with a bottle of after-shave lotion,” Jean Friedel said, coming in from the bedroom. She stepped over the remains of a straight chair that had been used to club open the door. “Wrecked hell out of the bottle.” She held it up; it had been shattered at the base of its two-foot stem. Shelly realized the pervasive smell of strong men’s scent hung in the suite.
“Jeezus epileptic Keerist, baby, you have just jobbed my meal ticket!” Shelly climbed over the back of the sofa and plopped down, his feet on Stag Preston’s stomach. He lit a cigarette and stared down woefully at the unconscious singer. “Keerist!”
“Don’t cry, little man,” Jean said, dropping the neck of the bottle on the rug. She came toward him, sat down with her bare feet on Preston’s thigh. “He’ll survive. He’ll probably want a few of those little Bufferin B’s zonking around in his system, but he’ll survive.” She yawned, moving her head in a short arc as a tired driver might do it after a night turnpiking it behind the wheel. “Who do I have to assassinate to get a dr
ink?”
Shelly puffed out his cheeks and rose. The bar was a shelf in the kitchen. “What’s your reward, Joan of Arc?”
“Has he got branch water in there?”
Shelly rummaged and came up with a half-filled bottle. “Bourbon and branch?”
“Just fine.” He heard the record player click the beginning of its cycle. As he mixed, the saccharine tones of a Jackie Gleason record lofted through the suite.
When he brought her the glass, she was back on the sofa, legs stretched out before her. “None for you?”
He handed over the bourbon. “That’s all I’d need; on top of all the adrenaline I’d have a beautiful case of Seventy-Day Sour Stomach. By the way, thanks a bunch, Rapunzel.”
“For what?” She quirked an eyebrow, then sipped daintily.
“For alarming my ulcers. My specialist’ll love you for it; might even give you a little taste for piecework above and beyond.” He lit a cigarette, his hands shaking slightly. Beside him, the girl smiled thinly.
“Shelly, would you mind dousing some of the light?”
He turned and examined her expression. There seemed to be no ridicule there, no taunting; she had said it very matter-of-factly.
“What is this, prelude to a seduction?” he asked. “The beautiful barefoot seductress, the Jackie Gleason background, and now, ‘Shelly, would you mind plunging us into darkness?’ Come on, Jeanie, don’t tell me I look good to you suddenly?”