Bug Jack Barron

by Norman Spinrad

  As Howards half-stormed half-slunk in through the door, slamming a prop-attaché case stuffed no doubt with prop-documents down on the desk top and sitting down immediately without speaking like a Russian diplomat arriving at the umpteenhundredth session of the Geneva Disarmament Conference, Barron felt a flash go through him as he looked at a Benedict Howards he had never seen before—a stone-seat-grim efficient Texas speculator, who had come from the Panhandle with holes in his pockets and who had fought and connived his way to the fifty-billion-dollar point where he held life versus death power over two hundred and thirty million people, would own the next President of the United States like a deaf Smith County judge. It was the big leagues, all right, and Barron knew it.

  But Bennie knows it too, he thought as Howards stared at him like a stone basilisk, waiting for the man whose turf he was on to make the first move. Seeing Howards, Mr. Big League Action himself looking at him with not anger, not quite fear in his eyes but cold and, for the first time shrewdly-calculating appraisal, Jack Barron dug the image of power mirroring genuine near-fear of the living-color image of himself—and, in Howards’ cold eyes granting him the ultimate compliment of emotionless scrutiny got a heady musk-whiff of his own power.

  “All right, Howards,” Barron said in a cold voice he saw caught Howards half off-balance, “no bullshit, no pyrotechnics. You’re here to do business, I’m here to do business, and we both know it. Give. Make your pitch, and in words of one syllable.”

  Howards opened his attaché case, placed three copies of a contract on the desk. “There it is, Barron. A standard Freeze Contract, in triplicate, signed by me, the assets clause marked ‘Assigned by Anonymous Donor’ and made out to Jack Barron, effective immediately. That’s what you throw away if you don’t play ball, a Freeze, free and clear, and no one can take it away from you.”

  “And of course, that ‘anonymous donor’ would reveal himself as Benedict Howards, along with a copy of the contract to the press, if I sign it and then don’t play ball,” Barron said, feeling the calculus of power filling the air with the gold-stench of necromancy.

  Howards smiled professionally. “I’ve got to have some insurance. All right, Barron, just sign on the dotted lines, and we can get down to the business of repairing the damage your big mouth has done to the Freezer Utility Bill.”

  “That wasn’t the deal we made, and you know it,” Barron told him. “You’re not hiring a flunky, you’re leasing my specific services as, shall we say, a public relations counselor? That’s free-lance work, and it means I gotta know everything about the product I’m supposed to peddle. Everything, Howards. And, for openers, I gotta know exactly why you’re so hot for my body.”

  “After last night, you ask me that?” Howards snarled. (But Barron saw that the snarl was calculated.) “Thanks to you, the Freezer Bill’s in real trouble. I need that bill, which means I need votes in Congress, which means I need public pressure on my side, which means I need your pipeline to a hundred million votes, which means, unfortunately, that I need you. But don’t misunderstand me, you say ‘no’ to me, then I need your scalp nailed to the barn door—and I’ll get it. You’re in too deep, Barron. You either play my game, or you don’t play any game at all.”

  “You’re lying,” Barron said neutrally. “Your Freezer Bill was a shoo-in till I started making waves, and I didn’t make waves till you started playing footsie with me. So it couldn’t have been to save the Freezer Bill that you were after my ass in the first place. Had to be something else, something bigger, and I don’t screw around with anything that big till I know exactly what it is.”

  “I’ve had enough of you!” Howards snapped and now Barron was sure he had finally pierced Bennie’s cool. “You spend so much time trying to convince me how dangerous you are, all right, all right, I’m convinced. You know what that gets you? It gets you pounded to a pulp, same as I’d smash a scorpion, unless you play ball. Scorpion’s deadly, could kill me if I gave it a chance, but that doesn’t mean that the moment I see it’s really become dangerous I can’t squash it like a bug. ’Cause it is a bug, and so are you.”

  “Don’t threaten me,” Barron said, half-calculatedly, half-responding to adrenalin-signals. “Don’t give me the idea I’ve got my back to the wall. ’Cause if I get to having an itchy back, I’ll do a show on the Foundation that’ll make the last one seem like a Foundation commercial. And the next will be worse than that, and worse, and worse every week till you can get me off the air. And by then, Bennie, it’ll be way too late.”

  “You’re bluffing, Barron,” said Howards. “You don’t have the guts to blow your whole career just to get me. And you’re not stupid enough either to throw yourself out in the cold, a ruined nobody, with no place to go.”

  Jack Barron smiled. Bennie, he thought, you’ve walked right into it. You’re out of your league after all, bigshot, here comes them four aces in the hole. “Funny you should say that, Bennie,” he drawled, “’cause the fact is I got all kind of people telling me there’s someplace else I ought to go.”

  “That I can believe,” Howards said dryly.

  “Good to see you’ve still got a sense of humor, ’cause you’re gonna need it. Because if you force me to blow the show by knifing the Foundation, it won’t just be crazy revenge. Y’know, I got people asking me to do just that, powerful people like Gregory Morris and Lukas Greene begging me to play their game, and do you in, and to hell with Bug Jack Barron. And they’re offering me something bigger than anything you’ve laid on the table so far to do it, too,” Barron said and waited for the straight line.

  “You’re bluffing again,” said Howards, “and this time it’s really obvious. What could anyone offer you that’s bigger than a place in a Freezer, a chance at living forever?”

  You’re beautiful, Bennie, show biz all the way, Barron thought as he made with the tailor-made punchline:

  “Would you believe the Presidency of the United States?”

  “Would I believe what?” Howards goggled, seemed about to say something cute, then Barron sensed him backing off, putting one and one and one together in his head and getting only two and a half, not knowing how to react, whether it was a gag or pure bluff or some weird new equation of power. He sensed that Howards was waiting for him to speak—and sensed status-relationships in a state of uncertain flux.

  “Well, would you believe a Presidential nomination?” Barron said, still not quite able to bring himself to use the whole silly schtick seriously. “You know how tight I’ve always been with the S.J.C., Founding Father and all that crap; well, when Luke Greene saw me dig my spurs into you he figured I could use the show to build myself up as The Hero of the People at your expense, and run for President on the S.J.C. ticket next year. And without my giving him the go-ahead he nosed around, and now he tells me he really can deliver the Social Justice nomination.” Hold the last ace for the showdown, he told himself. Let Bennie walk into it with his jaw.

  “So that’s what you mean by a Presidential nomination,” Howards said, smiling easily. “The S.J.C. nomination and a first-class plane ticket just might get you to Washington with a good tailwind, and you know it. I don’t get it, Barron, you’re not dumb enough to throw away a free Freeze over a chance to lose your show and make a public joke of yourself. That’s not even a decent bluff. You’re slipping, Barron, you’re slipping.”

  Barron smiled. This is it, he thought. Now I knock you right on your ass, Howards. “You know, Bennie,” he said, “that’s just about what I told Luke at the time. (He saw Howards relax some more and plunged straight through the hole in the line.) Yeah, I told him kamikaze’s not the name of my game…but, of course, that was before Greg Morris offered me the Republican nomination.”

  Howards started, went a trifle pale. “That’s a lie,” he said, but without too much conviction. “You a Republican? With your background? Who they supposed to run on the ticket with you, Joe Stalin? You’ve gotta be stoned to think I’d believe that.”

  B
arron pushed his vidphone across the desk. “You don’t have to believe anything,” he said. “Call Greene. Call Morris. You’re a big boy, Bennie; I’m surprised no one’s told you the facts of life yet. Add it up. The Republicans have been sliding down the drain since Herbert Hoover, they’re desperate, they’ve gotta win, and, as Morris so flatteringly indicated, they’d run Adolph Hitler if that’s what a victory would take. The only Chinaman’s chance they have of winning is on a fusion ticket with the S.J.C., and the only man they can run who could get the S.J.C. nomination is yours truly, Jack Barron.”

  “Ridiculous,” Howards said, his voice thin and unconvincing. “The Republicans and the S.J.C. hate each other worse than either of ’em hate the Democrats. They don’t agree on anything. They could never get in bed together.”

  “Ah, but they do agree on one thing,” Barron said. “They agree on you. They’re both against the Freezer Utility Bill and the Foundation for Human Immortality—and there’s your fusion platform. They don’t run me against the Pretender or any stooge you may still be able to ram down the Democrats’ throats. I run against you, Howards. I use Bug Jack Barron to hang you around the Democratic candidate’s neck like a rotten albatross stinking from coast to coast, and I run against that. Get the picture? Win or lose, the Foundation gets cut to pieces in the process. And win or lose, it’d mean you couldn’t muscle me off the air because even though the Republicans can’t deliver votes anymore, most of the fat cats in the country are still behind ’em. Pressure my sponsors, and the G.O.P. can line up ten others. Republican-type bread still controls two out of four networks, still has as much leverage with the F.C.C. as you do.”

  “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 Barron’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 Barron? 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, Barron,” Howards finally said. “What do you see?”

  “Let’s not get into…” Barron began to snap back, then stopped when he saw the strange, strange manic-junkie look creeping like a plague into Howards’ glistening eyes.

  “Yeah, Barron,” 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, Barron, 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, Barron, 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 that air and know you’ll be smelling it every morning for the next million years…maybe forever. Dumb joke the doctor 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, Barron? An immortal—like a god! Think I’d let anything stand between me and that? Would you?”

  “No…” Barron 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 still 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, Barron,” Howards said, reaching into his attaché case. “Down to the soles of your feet, right now.” He pushed another Freeze Contract in triplicate across the desk at Barron. “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 can 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 iron-clad 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?”

  Benedict Howards smiled a sulphur smile. “Why not? I can afford to be generous, in fact I can afford just about anything. Secret of my success, Barron: I can afford to destroy an enemy, and I can afford to give any man I want to buy anything he wants, including—if he comes that high and he’s worth it—eternal life. Come on, Barron, we both know you’re gonna do it. Sign on the dotted line.”

  Barron fingered the contracts; his eyes fell on the pen sitting on his desk. He’s right, he thought. Immortality with Sara, forever, I’d be an idiot not to sign. He picked up the pen, and his eyes met the eyes of Benedict Howards. And saw Howards staring greedily at him like some monstrous mad toad. But behind the egomaniacal madness, he saw fear—fear as naked as Howards’ megalomania, an unguessable feral fear feeding his madness, giving it strength; he realized that Howards’ whole crazy power-drive was fueled on fear. And Benedict Howards was afraid of him.

  Something’s rotten in Colorado, Barron knew for certain. With this in his pocket and fifty billion dollars, Bennie can buy anyone and everyone he needs. So why’s he need me so bad to pass some lousy bill when he can buy Congress, the President and the fucking Supreme Court? And he does think he needs me, look at that hunger in those eyes! He’s after my bod because somehow he really needs it to fight whatever he’s afraid of. And if he’s afraid of it, and I’m supposed to be some kind of sacrificial front man, where’s that leave me?

  “Before I sign,” Barron said (conceding to himself that he would), “would you mind telling me why, with this kind of action going, you think you need me?”

  “I need public support,” Howards said, frantically earnest. “It’s the one thing I can’t buy directly. That’s why I need you, to sell immortality to that goddamned public of yours.”