The Erection Set

“Yeah?”

“I though about it a long time before I cast that vote,” he told me.

Lee had a pair of TV dinners staying warm in the oven when I finally reached his apartment. A couple of drinks had obviously taken off his jumpy edge and he gave me that old half-silly grin I remembered so well. He took one look at me and shook his head. “They got cabs and subways in this town, buddy. Did you forget how to hustle one?”

“I walked.”

“No kidding. A new suit and you walked. I hope the raincoat worked.”

“Good enough. I’ll press the pants dry later.”

“Where were you?”

“Taking care of some business details.”

His grin faded and he held up his hands. “Don’t tell me about them, Dog. Whatever they are, I don’t want to know.”

“Hell, you wouldn’t believe it anyhow.”

“The hell I wouldn’t.” He grabbed my arm and led me over to the bar. When he mixed a drink and handed it to me he said, “Look, Dog, about tonight ...”

“Relax. I won’t embarrass you. Besides, I told you I had met Walt Gentry.”

“It’s not you I’m worried about. They’re a pretty hairy bunch, Dog. Me, I know them. We speak the same language. It’s when somebody new they can’t cross-index comes on the scene that you see the fangs come out. They’re nosy as hell and know how to dig things out and I’m just scared they’ll latch onto you.”

“So what’s there to find out?” I tasted the drink, nodded and put half of it down.

“About all that money, for one thing.”

“Let them call the bank.”

“Dog—I’m not kidding. That Merriman chick who writes the gossip column will be there, Dick Lagen who handles the political stuff from Washington ...”

“For Pete’s sake, Lee, I’m not big news.”

“Not news ... just new. And you got that look.”

“What look?”

“Like you could be news. Listen, I know these people...”

“I’m glad you do. How’s the female situation?”

“Don’t you ever think of anything besides women? It used to be flying ... now all of a sudden you’re dame happy.”

I finished the rest of the drink. “They’re kind of nice to have around.”

“Pardon me for sounding redundant again, but you’re absolutely nuts. Absolutely.”

“That didn’t answer my question.”

Lee gave a hopeless shrug and a short pull right out of the Scotch bottle. “Every damn she-wolf in New York will be there—and don’t say it.”

“Say what?”

“Good company for an old dog like you.”

I laughed at him and let him make me a refill.

VI

Originally, Sharon had planned to forego the cocktail bash at Walt Gentry’s penthouse. It would be the same old crowd; a few live celebrities who owed a favor to the host, a half-dozen oldies still recognizable from their reruns on the late late movies and a host of hangers-on who lived in the fringe areas of show business. A handful of new ones would make an appearance, mainly recently imports from Europe or the West Coast, and a handful of regulars would be missing, either bored with the routine or having shipped out to some remote comer with a stock show or picking up a bit part “on location.”

Sharon had expected to see a special screening of the new Cable Howard production, but S. C. Cable, who long ago had assumed that employees worked for him twenty-four hours a day every day, made a special request that she handle the social action, since it was rumored that Walt Gentry was thinking of dropping a few millions into a coproduction venture on some property he had discovered ... if he could find the right partners. And if Cable Howard Productions managed a deal with Walt Gentry, there would be a nice bonus, or perhaps even a small running percentage for Sharon Cass.

Nice, she thought. I have become an economic seductress. I am expected to give my all for Cable Howard. And they call the streetwalkers names and arrest them. Beautiful, modem morality.

She looked at herself framed in the six lights that encircled the vanity mirror, concentrated on getting the left false eyelash properly fixed, then steadied her hand to apply the black eyeliner that gave her the final naive touch and sat back, satisfied.

Pretty, she mused. I’m all sleekly feminine, grossly beautiful and the perfect target of attack. Bait. A lousy piece of bait. Fifteen thousand a year and expenses to draw the suckers into the net. A bonus when S.C. thought the job was worth it. What happened, Sharon? You used to be a little country girl smothered in ideals, with starry eyes. You liked the smell of cut grass and the wind coming off the ocean. You collected seashells and bugs, then one day you grew up and the bull dike editor from Future called you in to do some more teen-age modeling, saw the change and did the spread that got Cable Howard Productions to pick you up for that sun-fun picture. Oh, you were great, little sexpot, only you didn’t like to have to walk the plank of assistant directors and fat-lipped agents who had been mail room clerks the year before. Your Coke bottle made old S.C.’s ears ring and he thought you were cute enough to work out your option on his staff ... except that you did your work a little too well and here you were.

She got up, posed in front of the full-length mirror, a naked, overgrown pixie. “I still like me,” she whispered. “At least there’s still one thing left.”

The lovely, tanned image stared back at her, its eyes traversing the curves of her body, then meeting her eyes with a direct, peculiar stare. “I have a funny feeling,” she said.

The image looked back without saying anything. Then, slowly, it smiled.

The invitation had said six thirty, and Sharon was fashionably late, two propositions and a champagne cocktail down, a roomful of people to say hello to still and a conversation with Raul Fucia to contend with. Somehow she couldn’t remember how it started, but she pulled herself back from thoughts that were too many years old into the near-mesmerizing voice of the sensually lean man beside her.

“But, my dear, women are the true predators. They are the ones who do the ... how do you say it? ... the prowling. The men simply make themselves available when they desire to.”

“Your attitude is a little too European, Mr. Fucia.”

“Please, call me Raul ... and my attitude is only universal. The masculine viewpoint, and especially true here in New York.”

“We New Yorkers pride ourselves on being rather sophisticated. I don’t think it’s true at all.”

“Oh? Then look around you. See the men? They stand and let themselves be surrounded. They listen to the overtures, gauge the quality of the bodies and select the one they believe will be most appreciative of their favors. Already there has been some discreet pairing off.”

“Regular cocktail party routine, Raul. Same people, just a different time and place.”

“No, my dear, not routine at all. The women vie. Yes, they vie. They beg, they implore, they demand. Unlike the animal world, it is the women who compete in style and showy displays of flesh to entice the opposite sex into accepting their advances. For instance, look at yourself.”

Sharon turned and looked at him, smiling wryly. “I seem to be on the conservative side, don’t I?”

The smile he returned was deliberate, eyes dropping beneath the level of her own. “Not really,” he said. “Assuming that professional women are all properly coiffed and made up, carefully tailored and impeccably mannered, can you explain why you are not wearing a brassiere, nor why neither seam nor hem of undergarment