The Ledge (short story)

"The Ledge" is a short story by Stephen King, first published in the July 1976 issue of Penthouse, and later collected in King's 1978 collection Night Shift.

Plot summary

King employs a first person narrator and opens with the protagonist, Stan Norris, in the clutches of Cressner, a wealthy, cruel criminal overlord. Cressner intends to get revenge on Norris, who has been having an affair with Cressner's wife. Instead of killing him outright, Cressner reveals his penchant for striking wagers and offers a chilling ultimatum: if Norris is able to circumnavigate the 5-inch ledge surrounding the multi-story building which houses Cressner's penthouse, he can have Cressner's wife and $20,000. If Norris refuses, he'll be framed for heroin possession and never see his lover again. Cressner also reveals that he has done this to six others, three professional athletes who crossed his path and three ordinary people who got into serious debt with Cressner. Not once has Cressner lost the wager.

Seemingly without any other choice, Norris accepts the wager and proceeds to carefully make his way around the building's cold, windswept exterior. Norris encounters multiple obstacles, including an obstinate pigeon. Norris completes the harrowing ordeal, only to discover that Cressner had already murdered his wife. Cressner slyly claims that he never welches on his bets, stating that the heroin has been removed from his car and giving him the large amount of cash; his wife's fate was never part of the bet. Mad with rage, Norris overpowers Cressner and his bodyguard and takes the bodyguard's gun, shooting Cressner and his bodyguard. Pleading with Norris, Cressner promises to give him as much as $10 million in a Swiss bank account. Norris says that it is time Cressner got a taste of his own medicine of what he has done to others, proposing to spare his life if only he is able to complete a trip around the ledge. However, as Cressner starts out, Norris reveals to the reader that, unlike Cressner, he does sometimes welch on bets, implying that he will kill Cressner even if he completes the task.

Film, TV or theatrical adaptations

It was dramatized as a section of the film Cat's Eye, starring Robert Hays as Stan Norris and Kenneth McMillan as Cressner. Unlike the story, where Cressner leaves Stan alone on the ledge, Cressner resorts to tricks, ranging from childish pranks using a toot horn to blasting the protagonist with a fire hose should he linger around a roomier sector of the ledge. One notable scene in the film version is when Cressner's bodyguard "Ducky" is killed and Cressner is overpowered; he is seen stumbling by an issue of Penthouse, the magazine in which the story was first published. The film did give a decisive ending for Cressner, as the implied one from the story would not have been as satisfying to theatrical audiences. Stan did not need to welch on his bet, as a frightened Cressner is knocked off balance by the pigeon. He falls off the ledge and lands on the same toot horn he used to tease the protagonist.

See also

• Stephen King short fiction bibliography