“It’s… it’s absurd,” Howards said weakly. “You could never win. The Democrats can’t lose, and you know it.”
“You’re probably right,” Barron agreed. “But that’s not the point; I’ve got no eyes to be President. Point is, in a campaign like that you lose no matter who wins. By the time I’m finished working on you, you’ll stink so bad the Democratic candidate—even if he is your stooge—will have to jump up and down on your bleeding bod to win. And who really knows…? Tom Dewey was a sure winner in ’48…”
“You’re turning my stomach,” said Howards. “A Commie cretin like you even thinking about being President…”
Barron shrugged it off. “So do your patriotic duty, and save your own skin while you’re at it. I don’t have eyes for the White House. Buy me. I’m sitting here, waiting to be bought. My cards are all on the table. Let’s see what your hole card is. And it better be good, ’cause if you don’t come clean now you won’t have another chance.”
Barron felt the moment hanging high and cool in thin air between them like the Continental Divide; like being high on Big Stuff, he thought as he studied the gears meshing, tumblers falling into place behind Howards’ cold rodent eyes. He’s bought it, he thought, or anyway he’s not laughing it off, shit the whole schtick’s real. Look at the cat measuring me, measuring himself against me, measuring fifty billion bucks life-and-death power against nothing but a fancy pyramid of bullshit, and, baby, you got him going, got your hot little hands around his throat. How’s it feel, Bennie, to finally meet a cat who looks like he’s your size?
What the fuck, Barron suddenly realized, it’s no shuck, I am his size—smarter, trickier, thinking circles around him. Jack Barren’s anyone’s size. Who’s a better man—Luke, Morris, Teddy, Howards…? Just bigger muscles, is all, you really be afraid of any of ’em in a fair fight? Just men like you, is all, and probably not even as well hung. Crazy to imagine myself as President. Know damn well the job’s too big… but maybe it’s too big for anyone, and deep inside anyone who’s ever looked across that Rubicon’s gotta think he’s getting flippy. It’s all a game of bluff, money, power, President—life is all—and who wrote that book but good old Jack Barren? Anybody’s got the openers can play to win in any game. Is that what Sara sees?
He almost half-hoped that Howards would call him, tell him to get stuffed, push him off the cliff into unknown waters; felt like a power-junkie sitting on top the Mother Lode, the Last Big High sitting in his spike, and who knows how it would come out, who really knows? Whee, he thought, brat-wise, that hole card of yours had better be good, Bennie!
“Look at me, Barren,” Howards finally said. “What do you see?”
“Let’s not get into…” Barren began to snap back, then stopped when he saw the strange, strange manic-junkie look creeping like a plague into Howards’ glistening eyes.
“Yeah, Barren,” Howards said, smiling a mirthless reptile smile. “Take a good look. You see a man in his fifties, in pretty good shape, right? Take another look ten years from now, twenty, a century, a million years from now, and you know what you’ll see? You’ll see a man in his fifties, in pretty good shape is what you’ll see. A decade from now, a century from now, a thousand years from now—forever, Barren, forever.
“I’m not just a man now, I’m something more. You said it yourself, four billion dollars a year is a lot of money to spend on immortality research without getting results. Well, my boys finally got results, and you’re looking right at ’em. I’m immortal, Barren, immortal!. You know what that means? I’ll never get older. I’ll never die. Can you feel it? Can you taste it? To wake up every morning and smell the air and know you’ll be smelling it every morning for the next million years… maybe forever. Dumb joke the doctors made—they won’t know if I’ll live forever till I’ve lived forever. No data, see? But Benedict Howards is gonna give ’em their data, gonna live forever, forever… You see what you’re up against, Barren? An immortal—like a god! Think I’d let anything stand between me and that? Would you?”
“No…” Barren whispered, for the look on Howards’ face told him in flaming letters a mile high that it was true. True!
Immortality he thought. Even the word doesn’t sound real. Forever! To really live forever. Never to die, to be young, and strong, and healthy for a million years. Explains where Bennie’s head’s at, shit for that a man would do just about anything. Just about…? And to think this perambulating pile of shit’s got it! Immortality! This motherfucker lives for the next million years, he’ll stink like the pile of shit he is, laughing for a million years while I rot in the ground we all rot and shit-eating Bennie goes on and on and on…
“I’m gonna buy you, Barren,” Howards said, reaching into his attache case. “Down to the soles of your feet, right now.” He pushed another Freeze Contract in triplicate across the desk at Barren. “That’s a very special contract,” he said, “first one of its kind. Just like the other one, but with one important difference—there’s a clause in there entitling you to any immortality treatment the Foundation shall develop at your own discretion. And we’ve got an immortality treatment now. Forever, Barron, forever. You give me a couple lousy years out of your life to put over my bill, elect me a President, and… sew things up, and I give you the next million years. Take it from the only man in the world who really knows, eight years ain’t even worth thinking about; it’s less than the blinking of an eye from where I stand. From where you stand…”
“Who do you think you are, Howards, the Devil?” And even as he said them, the words filled him with mortal dread he had never believed would ever be possible for him to feel. Funny word, he thought, devil. Cat with a long spiked tail knows the secret, the secret, everybody’s secret, everybody’s price, and got the bread to meet it too no matter what it is, and what you give him in return is a thing called a soul, immortal soul, ain’t it, supposed to be the biggest thing a man’s got to give. Immortal soul means like young and healthy and alive in paradise forever—price the Devil gets is the fee Howards gives. Devil, shit he’s just a busher; Bennie can outbid him anytime. Satan, watch out the Foundation don’t foreclose the mortgage!
“I take it back, Howards,” he said. “Beside you, the Devil’s on welfare. Just my name in ink on the dotted line? I don’t have to sign it in blood? Copies for me that I can keep in a very safe place? Not subject to cancellation, or exorcism?”
“A thousand copies if you want ’em, Barron, an ironclad contract even I couldn’t break. Yours, forever. All you gotta do is sign.”
Sara! Barron suddenly thought. “Sara?” he said. “My wife… same deal in her name too?”