“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 anyday 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 SJC anyway, and the SJC 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 SJC 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 breast-pocket, 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 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 loose 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.”