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marble-topped end table and took up a heroic stance before the Colonel. .I m
here to see justice done, Colonel, that's what I m doing here!. His voice
seemed to come from the bottom of a sealed barrel, hollow, resounding, but
entirely wooden. Freeport set down the drink with a snap of the wrist. He
slid off the stool and approached Golightly. The manager moved back a pace.
.What exactly, sir, are you blathering about?. .Justice, Colonel, that s
all. Just a little common, decent justice, the kind one man expects from a
fellow man, the kind.. .Golightly!" Shelly said, cutting off the rotund
manager s ramblings, .get your mouth out of gear and just tell us what
you re gibbering about!. Spider Kiss by Harlan Ellison 132 .Stag
Preston, Mr. Morgenstern. That is what I m talking about.. Shelly looked up
at the ceiling with exasperation. He mumbled something to himself that
sounded vaguely like The man is deranged! and rotated his hands in a
go-on-andmake- your-point gesture. Golightly summarized quickly: .I ve stood
back and watched that boy of yours carry on pretty shockingly, and haven t
said anything, because it wasn t my business, but when he gets one of my
clients in trouble and refuses to marry her, then I figure it s about time I
sa.. .Aaaah!. Shelly shrieked, clutching his head. .No! No, you re putting
me on, Golightly, you re making a giggle, that s it, that s what it is, tell
me that s what it is!. He reached out and grasped Golightly by his lapels,
dragging him forward. .Talk, you greasy little gozler ... talk, and talk
straight!. .Trudy Quillan ... Trudy ... he s got her, he s got her in a
family w-w-way ... stop shaking me!. Shelly released the lapels and slumped
back against the wall, stunned. .You re kidding.. The Colonel, for the first
time since Shelly had known him, seemed inwardly disheveled. .Mr. Golightly,
this is not funny. If this is some sort of prank, sir ... if you re trying to
get that girl a more formidable place on the tour ... if you re trying to
hold us up for.... Shelly cut him off, without a glance. .Golightly, this is
on the level? You re not kidding?. The manager related the story as Trudy
Quillan had told him, then launched into a fierce diatribe against young boys
with too much activity in their sex glands, too much money, too big an
estimate of themselves and too much success. Spider Kiss by Harlan Ellison
133 Shelly did not listen. His mind was whirling. After trying to keep Stag
out of trouble, and deluding himself that he had done precisely that ...
this! .Well, it s a simple matter, Shelly,. the Colonel said. .If this is
true, and.. he aimed a finger at Golightly, .we intend to have our physician
assure us it is as you represent it, sir, then we merely make a settlement on
this young girl, this. what s her name, Shelly?. .Trudy Quillan,. Shelly
said in a small voice. .Yes, Trudy Quillan. We make a settlement on her, let
her have done what must be done, and we re through with it. It s a cursed
business, of course, but nothing serious. Every hotblooded young man gets at
least one girl in trouble before he s married. Ha ha.. Shelly heard the
hollow laugh and answered it with one of his own. .Yeah. Ha ha. But not every
prominent, talented, apple-cheeked, red-blooded All-American boy, free white
and over puberty knocks up a Black girl. .Chew on that one awhile!. Spider
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Kiss by Harlan Ellison 134 Eleven Clichés begin to stink after they ve
lain around for a few years, and there is no more redolent cliché in the
listings than, .He turned white with shock.. Yet that was precisely what
happened when Shelly pointedly informed his employer that the girl Stag
Preston had knocked up, Trudy Quillan, was in point of fact, a lovely young
subscriber to the Negro persuasion. Freeport did turn white. He turned ashen.
He went dead sheet white. His complexion matched his great shock of snowy
hair. Some one pulled a plug out of his rump and drained the blood from his
face. In short, damn the clichés and full speed ahead, he turned white with
shock. Shelly watched as his own personal God fell apart. It was something
to see; a definite facial and metaphysical altering of Freeport s appearance.
More than merely his substance: his reality. The Colonel took a faltering
step backward, found the bar stool with his searching fingers and plumped
onto the edge of the seat. The Pimm s Cup might have helped, but it was
unnoticed by Freeport s elbow. The room had abruptly gone darker, to Shelly,
with Freeport s blue eyes that peculiar almost-albino white that seemed
lifeless. .A Nigrah.... As though someone had just told him all fifty-dollar
bills were counterfeit. As though he had opened his wallet to examine the
sheaf of fifty-dollar bills therein and had found not Ulysses S. Grant
staring up at him, but a winking jester, Spider Kiss by Harlan Ellison 135
an epileptic leper, motley, insipid, rotting, leering. Then he would turn
and say, .Counterfeit.... the way he had said, .A Nigrah.... Golightly
looked to Shelly for an explanation. .Didn t he ... ?. Shelly shook his head.
.Uh-uh. He didn t know.. They both watched the Colonel. It was an unpleasant
but fascinating thing to watch.a man s face shriveling and changing and
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