A thought suddenly flashed into del Vecchio’s thawing mind. «What are you doing in Switzerland?»
The attorney’s face grew somber. «You’re not in Switzerland, Del. We had your vat flown back here. You’re in New York.»
«Wh… how…?»
«And you haven’t been under for fifteen years, either. It’s only three years.»
Del Vecchio tried to sit up in the bed, but he was too weak to make it. His head sank back onto the pillows. He could hear his pulse thudding in his ears.
«I tried to warn you,» Scarpato said, «that night at dinner in Providence. You thought you were outsmarting the law, outsmarting the people who make up the law, who are the law. But you can’t outwit the people for long, Del.»
Out of the corner of his eye, del Vecchio saw that the room’s only window was covered with a heavy wire mesh, like bars on a jail cell’s window. He choked back a shocked gasp.
Scarpato spoke quietly, without malice. «Your cute little cryonics trick forced the people to take a fresh look at things. There’ve been a few new laws passed since you had yourself frozen.»
«Such as?»
«Such as the state has the right to revive a frozen corpse if and when a grand jury feels he’s had himself frozen specifically to evade the law.»
Del Vecchio felt his heart sink in his chest.
«But once they got that one passed, they went one step further.»
«What?»
«Well, you know how the country’s been divided about the death penalty. Some people think it’s cruel and unusual punishment; others think it’s a necessary deterrent to crime, especially violent crime. Even the Supreme Court has been split on the issue.»
Del Vecchio couldn’t catch his breath. He realized what was coming.
«And there’s been the other problem,» Scarpato went on, «of overcrowding in the jails. Some judges—I’m sure you know who—even let criminals go free because they claim that putting them in overcrowded jails is cruel and unusual punishment.»
«Oh my God in heaven,» del Vecchio gasped.
«So—» Scarpato hesitated. Del Vecchio had never seen his old friend look so grim, so purposeful. «So they’ve passed laws in just about every state in the union to freeze criminals, just store them in vats of liquid nitrogen. Dewars, they call them. We’re emptying the jails, Del, and filling them up again with dewars. They’re starting to look like mortuaries, all those stainless steel caskets piled up, one on top of another.»
«But you can’t do that!»
«It’s done. The laws have been passed. The Supreme Court has ruled on it.»
«But that’s murder!»
«No. The convicts are clinically dead, but not legally. They can be revived. And since the psychologists and sociologists have been yelling for years that crime is a social maladjustment, and not really the fault of the criminal, we’ve found a way to make them happy.»
«I don’t see…»
Scarpato almost smiled. «Well, look. If you can have yourself frozen because you’ve just died of a heart ailment or a cancer that medical science can’t cure, in the hopes that science will find a cure in the future and thaw you out and make you well again… well, why not use the same approach to social and psychological illnesses?»
«Huh?»
«You’re a criminal because of some psychological maladjustment,» Scarpato said. «At least, that’s what the head-shrinkers claim. So we freeze you and keep you frozen until science figures out a way to cure you. That way, we’re not punishing you; we’re rehabilitating you.»
«You can’t do that! I got civil rights…»
«Your civil rights are not being infringed. Once you’re found guilty by a jury of your peers you will be frozen. You will not age a single day while in the liquid nitrogen. When medical science learns how to cure your psychological unbalance, you will be thawed, cured, and returned to society as a healthy, productive citizen. We even start a small bank account for you which accrues compound interest, so that you’ll have some money when you’re rehabilitated.»
«But that could be a thousand years in the future!» del Vecchio screamed.
«So what?»
«The whole world could be completely changed by then! They could revive me to make a slave out of me! They could use me for meat, for Chrissakes! Or spare parts!» He was screeching now, in absolute terror.
Scarpato shrugged. «We have no control over that, unfortunately. But we’re doing our best for you. In earlier societies you might have been tortured, or mutilated, or even put to death. Up until a few years ago, you would have been sentenced to years and years in prison; a degrading life, filled with violence and drugs and danger. Now—you just take a nap and then someday someone will wake you up in a wonderful new world, completely rehabilitated, with enough money to start a new life for yourself.»
Del Vecchio broke into uncontrollable sobs. «Don’t. For God’s mercy, Chris, don’t do this to me. My wife… my kids…»
Scarpato shook his head. «It’s done. Believe me, there’s no way I could get you out of it, even if I wanted to. Your wife has found herself a boyfriend in Switzerland, some penniless count or duke or something. Your kids are getting along fine. Your girlfriends miss you, though, from what I hear.»
«You sonofabitch! You dirty, scheming…»
«You did this to yourself, Del!» Scarpato snapped, with enough power in his voice to silence del Vecchio. «You thought you had found a nice fat loophole in the law, so you could get away with almost anything. You thought the rest of us were stupid fools. Well, you made a loophole, all right. But the people—those shopkeepers and unemployed bums and screwy housewives that you’ve walked over all your life—they’ve turned your loophole into a noose. And your neck is in it. Don’t blame me. Blame yourself.»
His eyes still flowing tears, del Vecchio pleaded, «Don’t do it to me, Chris. Please don’t do it. They’ll never wake me up. They’ll pull the plug on me…»
«Don’t think that everyone’s as dishonest as you are. The convicts will be kept frozen. It only costs a thousandth of what it costs to keep a man in jail. You’ll be safe enough.»
«But they’ll thaw me out sometime in the future. I’ll be all alone in the world. I won’t know anybody. It’ll be all strange to me. I’ll be a total stranger…»
«No you won’t,» Scarpato said, his face grim. «It’s practically certain that Marchetti and Don Carmine will both be thawed out when you are. After all, you’re all three suffering from the same dysfunction, aren’t you?» That’s when the capillary in del Vecchio’s brain ballooned and burst. Scarpato saw his friend’s eyes roll up into his head, his body stiffen. He slammed the emergency call button beside the bed and a team of medics rushed in. While Scarpato watched, they declared del Vecchio clinically dead. Within an hour they slid his corpse into a waiting stainless steel cylinder where it would repose until some happier day in the distant future.
«You’re out of time now, Del,» Scarpato whispered as a technician sealed the end of the gleaming dewar. «Really out of time.»
BÉISBOL
There are other (better!) ways for nations to compete than by going to war. The Greeks figured that out more than two thousand years ago.
I got this crazy idea one day—if the United States began its rapprochement with Communist China by sending Ping-Pong players to Peking, maybe someday we would start to make up with Castro’s Cuba by sending a baseball team to Havana. As I mulled it over in my mind, a certain Mr. Lucius J. Riccio, of New York City, suggested the same thing in a letter to The New York Times of March 3, 1985.
I realized that I could not waste time mulling. The idea would slip away from me if I didn’t get the story onto paper.