“You’re crazy, you know that?” said Jack Barron. “You expect me to risk the show by grinding your private ax? Where’s the percentage, Howards? I knock down four hundred thou in a good year, and I got a lot of years left with Bug Jack Barron. Show biz gives me enough money to let me live exactly the way I want to, and I dig it. Forget it man, you can’t buy me the way you buy loxes like Teddy Hennering. You just don’t have anything I want that bad.”
Benedict Howards smiled a smug smile. “Don’t I?” he said. “I’ve got something everyone wants, something you can’t buy with money—life, Barron, life itself. Immortality. Think about it, man, a life that goes on and on, not for a lousy century but millenium after millenium, young and strong and healthy forever. Think about what that means every morning when you wake up, knowing it’s all there forever—the way food tastes, the way a woman’s body feels, the smell of the air—all of it yours, and all of it forever. Wouldn’t you sell your soul for that? Wouldn’t anyone? Because you wouldn’t need a soul to go somewhere and play a harp when you croak. You’d have it all, right here on terra firma. Forever…Forever…”
“You sound like you’re about to breathe fire and brimstone and ask me to sign a contract in blood,” Barron remarked dryly.
Howards seemed to start; his hot eyes suddenly contracted to cold boar-shrewdness as if he were talking about something he suddenly realized he shouldn’t——or, Barron thought, as if old Bennie just realized how loopy he sounds.
“I’m talking about a Freeze Contract,” Howards said. “A free Freeze. No assignment of assets. I got tentacles, Barron, and I know you spend money as fast as you make it. You’ll never hold on to enough to buy a Freeze. And just between you and me, even if you did, I’d never let you buy it now. Because I don’t want your money when you die. I want you, Barron, live, right now. That’s the deal——you play ball with me and have your chance at immortality, or when you die you’re wormfood. Forever is a long time to be dead, Barron.”
What goes? thought Barron. Bennie’s bill’s a ten votes to spare in the Senate thirty in the House shoo-in, all over but the shouting. Why’s he so hot for my bod? Free Freeze is fat-cat Senator-Cabinet-Supreme-Court-Justice level bribe, and way out of line for purchasing kick-’em-in-the-ass Jack Barron. He’s popping cookies all over the lot—admitting to me Freezes can be bought or withheld for other than money. What’s the schtick, what’s he know I don’t, why’s got-it-in-the-bag Bennie Howards running so scared? Scared of me…
But shit, a Freeze beats a fancy funeral any day. Immortality…who knows what the next century can bring? Live forever, young, healthy, strong…? Nothing to lose in a free Freeze, worst thing can happen it’s all a shuck, and, baby, you’re dead then either way. Could I pull it off? Play Howards’ game, but subtly enough to keep the show? No sweat anyway, once Freeze Contract is signed in triplicate, Bennie can’t welch…But honest Jack Barron’d have nothing to hold legal water on paper, could cop-out on Bennie any time. Got Bennie by the balls, it seems. But why? Why? Fun and games out of my league? Play it cool, Jack, baby!
“I can smell the wood burning,” Howards said. “You can taste it, can’t you, Barron? Forever, a million years of life, for at most a few months of playing ball. Every man’s got his price, old saying, eh? But I’m something new; the coin I can pay, everyone’s selling.”
“Not so fast, Bennie-boy,” said Barron. “This smells like a dead flounder. Okay, so I admit that a Freeze Contract sounds interesting, buying my flesh at top dollar, and maybe, just maybe, I might like to take you up on it. But why’re you going so high to get me? You’ve got your Freezer Bill in the bag; you’ve got the muscle and grease to put it over in Congress, and we both know it. And besides, if you’re willing to offer Freezes as bribes, why bribe me, why not deal with the Foghorns direct? Jeez, I’m only thirty-eight, and the idea of a Freeze interests me, Senator or Congressman carrying around another thirty years should really be interested. It appears that I need you more than you need me, and you’re just being generous. But I just don’t figure you for the philanthropist type. Beware of Greeks and freaks bearing gifts, I always say, ’cause gift means poison in German.
“You’re holding out on me, Howards, and you’re playing in the big leagues. I find that a paranoid situation. You’re scared, don’t try to con me. You’re uptight about your Freezer Bill’s chances, and from what I know you shouldn’t be. Therefore I don’t know everything, but I damn well will before I even think about talking turkey.”
“It’s the race angle your goddamned show stirred up,” Howards told him with an obviously-put-on vehemence that put Barron uptight on guard. “All that crap from Greene and the rest of it turning every coon in the country against—”
“Hold it, Howards!” Barron snapped, bugged, but at the same time coldly calculating. “For openers, I told you I don’t like the word ‘coon,’ and besides, that’s all bullshit. Eighty per cent of the Negroes in the country vote S.J.C. anyway, and the S.J.C. is dead set against your bill, so how can you claim I cost you votes you never had in the first place? So you got the S.J.C. and the Republicans against you for separate reasons, but that shouldn’t be uptighting you with Teddy Hennering your front-man and even Teddy the Pretender forced to cool it with the weight you swing in the Democratic party. Democrats control what—nearly two-thirds of Congress? And you got the other factions too spooked to make waves, and Hennering & Co. is in your hip pocket. So what’s—”
“You mean you haven’t heard?” Howards asked.
“Heard what?”
“About Hennering.” Howards reached into his inside breastpocket, then tossed a ragged clipping across the desk. Barron read:
TED HENNERING DIES IN AIR DISASTER
Private plane destroyed in mid-air explosion.
“Happened late last night,” Howards said. “Now you see why I’m a little nervous. Hennering was our big front-man on the bill. With him dead, we’re not exactly in trouble but we’ve lost a piece of the edge we had and I don’t believe in taking chances. You can get that edge back for me and cool it with the coo—er, Negroes. That’s why I’m offering you a Freeze, Barron. Without you, the bill is still almost certain to pass. But I don’t like almosts. I want it locked up. I want certainty.”
Hennering dead, thought Barron, so that’s it, Bennie-boy, you lost your chief presidential-puppet stooge means next President is Teddy the Pretender for sure, and he’s not quite in the old hip pocket. Yeah, that sure would uptight you, but…
But not about the Freezer Bill, he suddenly realized. Nothing really lost there but Hennering’s one lousy vote, and you got plenty of votes to spare. So why—?
Chill danger signals from somewhere from years of reflex-reaction to gambits of men of power flashed to Barron’s mind from gut-nerve endings saying: Big! Big! Big! All too pat too many lose ends not loose ends: Hennering acting like walking corpse Wednesday night dead for real Friday morning, prepared clipping, prepared chain of answers from Howards each one more nitty-gritty seeming as if extracted under pressure. Buy Jack Barron to make shoo-in triple certain? Don’t add up, adds up to something bigger offstage that scares even Howards…
Play your cards right, Jack, baby! Gambler’s instinct: you’re holding the high ones, Bennie knows it, knows what they are, you don’t, so raise, raise, don’t call till you know how many aces you’re holding.
“Look Howards,” he said. “I haven’t had lunch yet, and I’m getting tired of being waltzed around the block. You’re holding out on me. I don’t know what you’re sitting on, but you’re sure as hell sitting on something. Hennering or no Hennering, you’ve got that Freezer Bill locked up, and don’t waste both our time by telling me otherwise. Let’s say I am interested in playing ball with you, why not, a free freeze you don’t throw away because your heart is pure. But I don’t go into anything blind, and that’s what you’re asking.”
Howards hesitated, pursed his lips, breathed heavily, picked his nose, opened his mouth, closed
it, paused, opened it again, and said, “I want you to do a job for me, I don’t want a goddamn partner. You’re asking partner-type questions that’re none of your business. I’m paying you more than the job deserves, and I’m doing it only because I can easily afford it. Make it something other than easy, and you’ve blown it. I’m way out of your league, Barron, don’t push your luck.”
That’s exactly where it’s at, thought Barron. Bennie wants to buy himself another flunky, wants it real bad. Too bad. So I’m out of my league, Bennie-boy? Breadwise, powerwise, maybe. Keep thinking that way, Howards, and you go home in a barrel. Maybe I’m in the wrong league, but you’re in the wrong game. Too much power too long to play bluff with me. Three yards and a cloud of dust’s where you’re at, can’t match fancy footwork with good old Jack Barron’s been thinking immelmanns around fatter cats too long, Mr. Howards.
“Don’t push yours, Howards,” he said. “You can’t buy me, only maybe rent me as a free agent. You don’t buy me as a flunky or no deal. You tell me the truth, the whole truth and maybe you rent yourself an ally. You mickey mouse me much longer, and you’ve got yourself an enemy. I don’t think you can afford me as an enemy—if you could you wouldn’t be so hot for my bod.”
“Take my word for it, you don’t want to know what you think you do,” Howards said. “I’m not peddling cars or dope, and I’m not an entertainer. I play for the…for blood. Let it go, Barron, you’re out of your depth. This is so big…it’s none of your business. You got a chance to live forever, don’t blow it by trying to stick your nose in a meatgrinder. Yes or no, Barron, right here, right now. No more fencing.”
“You’ve had my final word,” Barron said, “and you can take it or leave it.”
“Look, let’s not be hasty,” Howards said, again with a weird shift of verbal gears to incomprehensible sweet reason. “I’ll give you a week. Think about it. Think about wormfood—and think about living forever.”
Schmuck! Barron thought. Bennie-boy, you blew it. Bennie Howards doesn’t back down from take-it-or-leave-it unless he thinks the answer will be leave it, and knows he can’t afford a leave it from Jack Barron. You’re hot for my bod, baby, and before you get it, do I put you through changes!
“Okay,” he said. “A week. For both of us to think about it.” And will you get something to think about next Wednesday, Mr. Benedict Howards!
“That’s what I want, Vince,” Jack Barron said as Gelardi’s gray basilisk image did a double take on the vidphone screen. “That’s what I want, and it’s my show, and that’s what I’ll get.”
“I don’t get it,” Gelardi said. “This week you give me static for feeding you a call that just played footsie too hard with Howards, and now you want to aim a boot at his testes. What happened between Wednesday and today, man?”
Barron paused, considered, felt vidphone-camera circuitry carrying his image-words to Gelardi camera-to-camera, screen-to-screen-phosphor-dot patterns talking to each other, in control cool, keep it cool. Big stakes, Jack, baby, with free Freeze maybe just for openers, got to see what Howards has in the hole, how many cards he takes on draw. Play your own hand in this game, sorry, Vince, no kibitzers allowed.
“Bennie Howards happened,” Barron said. “He happened all over this office about an hour ago.”
“So the show did put him uptight?”
“Uptight!” said Barron. “Bennie was uptight like Shabazz is black. I’m going to have to have the rug replaced, and there are still toothmarks on my throat. Howards blew his gourd. He threatened to strong-arm the network, lean on the sponsors, and get his flunkies on the F.C.C. to put me on the shitlist, is all.”
“Did you cool him?” Gelardi asked nervously. Directing show and monkey block’s best gravy train you ever rode, eh, Vince? Barron thought. Get conniptions when I make waves.
“Cool him?” Barron said. “Cool him? I cooled him, all right, I told him to go take a flying fuck.”
Gelardi made a rude headshaking bellynoise, rolled his eyes upward. Barron smiled calculatingly inward. Need a good wrong reason to do the right thing, he thought, make Vince think highest all-time stakes still the show. Need Bug Jack Barron-oriented reason to knee Bennie in the groin.
“You’re crazy, you know that, Jack?” Gelardi said in dead earnest. “You keep telling me we don’t twist tigers’ tails, and now what do you do, you get Bennie Howards uptight, and then instead of cooling it you tell him to go fuck himself. And now we don’t have enough tsouris, you want a whole show aimed at Howards’ jugular. You on something stronger than our sponsor’s grass?”
“In words of one syllable, Vince,” Barron said, “we are in trouble. Howards was convinced I’m out to get him, and I couldn’t unconvince him. Therefore he informed me that he was going to get me, and we both know he can do it, given the time. At which point, knowing sweet reason would do no good, I told Bennie to fuck off, and I threatened him. I told him that what happened this week was just good clean fun compared to what would happen to him if he got fancy with me. Which is why we go after his ass on the next show—to give proof positive that I mean what I say, that there’s no percentage in really bugging Jack Barron even if you’ve got the muscle Howards’ got. We give Howards a taste of the fire next time, and he’ll back off. He thinks he’s got his Freezer Bill all locked up; I want to show him I can put it in doubt if he gives me reason enough to run the risk. We show him our claws, and he’ll suck in his, comprende, paisan?”
“Oh, my bleeding ulcer!” Gelardi said. “I dig the necessity now, but the network will have a shitfit.”
“Screw the network,” Barron said. “There’s three other networks would love to have Bug Jack Barron, and they know it. As long as we scare Howards off our backs they’ll rant and rave, but they won’t do squat. And that goes in spades for the sponsors. For the bread the show makes for all concerned, they can afford the milk to baby their ulcers. Question is, what kind of call can we count on getting next week that I can use against Howards? We can concoct a put-up job if we have to, but I don’t like that idea very much. If Howards or the network or the F.C.C. found out we were faking calls…”
“How about a deathbed scene?” Gelardi suggested instantly. Good old Vince, Barron thought, give him an angle he can buy and he’s off to the races.
“Deathbed scene?” Barron asked.
“Sure,” said Gelardi. “We get at least half a dozen every week, crank stuff, I got standing orders with the monkey block not to let ’em past the first screen. Some cat’s croaking from something slow, usually cancer, usually on Social Security or Guaranteed Annual Wage, you know, like broke, and the whole goddamn family gathers ’round the vidphone with the prospective corpse as a prop and wants you to get the Foundation to give the old man a free Freeze. Tear-jerker stuff. Chances are we’ll even get one where the dying man does some of the talking. And it’s a safe bet we can add on the race angle again if we want to.”
Yeah, thought Barron, just the right touch. Milk it for maybe ten, fifteen minutes’ worth of hot angry tears, then put Bennie on (you know he’ll be answering his phone this time) for the rest of the show. Give him a taste of the whip, then it’s his option, then the knife again, then he makes more points, then another kick in the balls—cat and mouse, show him just where it’s at. Show him you can kill him stone-cold-dead, but back off the coup de grace, leaving the goose bleeding but with one more chance to give with the golden egg—and a fucking good show in the bargain!
“I like, I like,” Barron said. “But let’s lay off the race schtick this time round. He’ll be ready for that, and we want to hit him where he ain’t. Have the first screen boys feed all deathbed calls directly to you, and give me the best lily-white one you get.”
“You’re the boss, Jack,” Gelardi said. “But personally the whole schtick has me shaking. You hurt Howards too bad and you won’t scare him off, you’ll goad him into a kamikaze. You’re gonna really have to walk that line, man—and with both our jobs riding on it.”
“That’s the name of the game, Vince,” Barron told him. “You shove me out on the high wire, and I walk it. Trust old Uncle Jack.”
“Trust you like my brother,” Gelardi said.
“I didn’t know you had a brother.”
“Yeah,” Gelardi said, grinning. “He’s doing five to ten in Sing Sing for fraud. See you in the frying pan, Jack.”
5
“Clean?” said Benedict Howards, looking past the head of the faceless, bookkeeperish man, out the picture window at the soothing white walls of the main Freezer of the Long Island Freezer Complex, monolith of immortality power, safe from crawling maggots of incompetence like this Wintergreen, random servants of the fading black circle of death like Jack Barron.
“No man’s clean, Wintergreen, and certainly not a man with a past as rank as Jack Barron’s—a founder of the Social Justice Coalition, ex-Berkeley rabble-rouser, boyhood buddy of every Peking-loving Commie son of a bitch in the country, and you tell me Barron’s clean? He’s about as clean as an open cesspool.”
Wintergreen fondled the fat manila folder he kept shuffling from his lap to the desk and back, worried it like a goddamned nervous kangaroo. “Well, of course, not that way, he’s not, Mr. Howards,” he said. (Rabbity yes-man bastard! Howards thought.) “But this is a complete dossier on Barron, and there’s nothing in here we can use against him, nothing. I stake my reputation on that, sir.”
“You’re staking a hell of a lot more than your nonexistent reputation on it,” Howards told him. “Your job’s on the line, and your place in a Freezer too. I don’t keep a head of ‘Personnel Research’ to produce a shitload of useless paper on a man I want nailed to the wall, I pay you to find me a handle I can grab on a man. Every man’s got a handle, and you’re paid to find it.”
Bug Jack Barron Page 6