Norman Spinrad - Bug Jack Barron

Howards smiled, because best part is once I get her into bed with Barron I’ve bought her all the way because then the worst thing in the world for Miss Sara Westerfeld is for Barron to find out I’ve bought her, she’s a whore, my whore, she’ll do as she’s told, buy her, and you’ve bought Jack Barron.

“I want Sara Westerfeld in this office within five hours,” Howards said. “And I don’t care how you do it. Grab her, if you have to. Don’t worry. She won’t open her mouth, and won’t be pressing any charges after I get through with her.”

“But, Mr Howards, a woman like that, how can you…?”

“You let me worry about that. Obviously this is a girl with worms where her brains should be, and that kind you can always buy in the bargain basement. Get to it, man—and stop playing with that goddamned folder!”

Christ, I’m tired, Benedict Howards thought. Tired of having to do it all myself tired of dumb-ass politicians with qualms of conscience like Hennering tired of fighting from cold empty plains to oilfields stocks Houston, Los Angeles, New York, Washington circles of power, fighting doctors’ heads nodding nurses’ needles plastic tube up nose down throat life leaking away in plastic bottles, fighting fading black circle with money-fear power of life against death, fighting, fighting all the way alone idiots all the way incompetent phony sycophants useless fumbling fools lunatics stupidity lies all on the side of death, side of the fading black circle of nothingness closing in, smaller, smaller…

Won’t get Benedict Howards! Push you back, open you up, got you now, damn you! Palacci, Bruce, doctors, endocrinologists, surgeons, internists, Foundation flunkies, all against you, all owned by Benedict Howards, say I’ve got you this time, it works, endocrine balance stabilized Homeostatic Endocrine Balance, young, strong, healthy—feel it when I get up eat piss touch woman hot strong quick like in Dallas Los Angeles oilfield days, all night long, and hungry and strong in the morning, forever, Mr Howards, anabolism balances katabolism, Mr Howards, immortality, Mr Howards.

Fight, fight, fight, and now I’ve got it all. Got money-power, life-versus-death power, Senators (damn Hennering!), Governors, President…? (Goddamn bastard Hennering!), Mr Howards, got forever, Mr Howards.

And nobody takes forever away from Benedict Howards!

Not Teddy Hennering not Teddy the Pretender not nigger bastard Bolshevik Greene not smart-ass organ-grinder-monkey Jack Barron… Buy ’em, kill ’em, own ’em, all, men on the side of death, till only two kinds of men left: Foundation men and dead men, wormfood men, Mr Howards.

One last night to keep forever safe forever mine forever. Pass Utility Bill, find new flunky (son of a bitch Hennering), make him President, control it all, control Congress, White House, Freezers, power of life against death, immortality-power, all power against fading black circle, hold it back, push it back, open it up forever…

Then rest, rest ten thousand years of smooth cool women in air-cooled arenas of power, young, quick, strong, ten million years, rest spoils of battle forever, my women, my power my country my forever…

“Smart-ass Bolshevik con-artist Jack Barron thinks he can stand against me, con me, milk me, play power-games, threat-games, death-games with Benedict Howards no one plays games with Benedict Howards. Out of his league, squash him like a bug, buy him, own him, use him to pass Utility Bill despite coward Hennering. Own Barron own private pipeline to hundred million loser-slobs own them own fears minds votes bodies Congress White House country, safe when they find out safe, forever, safe.…

Last piece in pattern of power, Jack Barron, that’s all you are, smart-ass. Just last little piece to fit into pattern of Foundation life against death Senators, Governors, President, safety-power, little gear in big forever machine, little tin gear, Barron.

Stomp me, I stomp you, eh, Barron? Clean Jack Barron, nosy question-man bastard, Jack Barron. Think Foundation-power money-power life-against-death power can’t touch you? No one says no to Benedict Howards. I got the handle on you, Barron, find the handle on everyone, sooner or later.

Sara Westerfeld. Howards savored the name, tasted the syllables with his tongue. Dumb loser kook whore, but she’s got you by the balls, hasn’t she Barron? Think you’re strong, Barron, strong enough to play games with Benedict Howards…

Howards smiled, leaned back in his chair, waited, waited for Sara Westerfeld, Sara Westerfeld, the handle on Jack Barron. No man’s strong who’s weak for someone weak, he knew. Chain of command: Benedict Howards to Sara Westerfeld to Jack Barron to hundred million dumb slobs to Senators, Congressmen, President…

And all the links were already in place except the first one, the easiest one—Sara Westerfeld. Sara Westerfeld -bargain-basement stuff. Hates the Foundation, eh? Member of Public Freezer league…?

“Yeah,” Howards breathed aloud. That was it, that had to be it! Public freezer kooks want Federal Freezer Program so they (deadbeat-loser-slobs) can have place in a Freezer. Offer kook free Freeze, and she’ll sell out faster than you can buy. Price-tag on Sara Westerfeld: Jack Barron and Forever. And one’s her excuse to go get the other!

“Barren’s in my pocket, good as bought,” Howards thought. Sara Westerfeld, price of Jack Barron—lucky Sara Westerfeld!

Curiosity, fear, fascination, and contempt were a knot in her stomach… lightheadedness sense of vision bursting out of her head instead of coming in, stoned-electric-scalp-tingling, as Sara Westerfeld stepped out of the car, stood before the evil white dying-place-blankness of the main Freezer of the Long Island Freezer Complex.

Temple, she thought, it’s like an Aztec-Egyptian temple, with priests sacrificing to gods of ugliness and praying for alliances with snake-headed idols to ward off the god with no face, and all the time worshipping him with their fear. No-faced death-god, like a big white building without windows; and inside mummies in cold cold swaddling, sleeping in liquid helium amnion, waiting to be reborn.

She shivered as the balding man touched her elbow silently, priestlike, shivered as if she could feel the liquid helium space-cold sympathetic magic of the Foundation itself in his touch, the decayed-lizard death-touth of Benedict Howards, waiting for her, there in his bone-white windowless lair… Why? Why?

She followed the man who had come to her apartment with his all-too-polite invitation—politeness of dictators of Los Angeles cops Berkeley cops sinister Peter Lorre-secret-police politeness with paddy wagons riot cops cells guns booted feet waiting behind the crocodile smile—across a wide, green, somehow-plastic-seeming lawn, thinking it can’t happen here, we’ve got rights, writ of habeas corpus…

Sara shuddered. A corpus abducted into the Freezer could not be freed by all the court writs since the beginning of time, Not until the Foundation found a way to unfreeze bodies…

Get hold of yourself! No one’s going to Freeze you, just a little talk, the slimy creature said. With Benedict Howards. A little talk between an ant and an elephant. I’m afraid, she admitted, I don’t know of what, but oh, oh, I’m afraid. Power, that’s what he’d say, the arena, where it’s really at, nitty-gritty market-place of power baby.

That’s what he’d say, the cop-out bastard. Two of a kind, Jack and Howards. Jack’d know what to say, what not to say in fifteen different ways to tie that slimy lizard in knots. Just Jack’s bag.

Jack…

Across the lawn, down a path by the side of the Freezer, and into a smaller, windowed, outbuilding; cold, blue pastel hall with plush red carpeting, walnut doors, smells of secretaries, coffee, soft clickings of muted typewriters, human voices—an office building, no operating theaters, gurgling pumps bottled-blood chemical smells of Freezer building feel of layer on layer of Frozen dead waiting bodies bulging cold graveyard (colder than any graveyard) weight into the air of the corridor. Just an office building, lousy-decor office building, Texan industrially-designed tastelessness of Benedict Howards’ office building.