Norman Spinrad - Bug Jack Barron

“It’s impossible to come up with an average figure just like that,” said Howards. “You’ve got to figure in the cost of preparation for Freezing, the cost of the Freezing itself, amortization on the Freezer facilities, the cost of replacing evaporated coolant, power to run the pumps, salaries, taxes, insurance…”

“Yeah, we know you run a real complicated show,” Barron replied. “But let’s take a generous average figure no one can say is stingy…” Lay the trap right, he thought. True figure can’t be more than three thou per stiff per year, and he’s gotta know it, so give him more than enough rope… “Let’s say $5,000 will cover it, five thou per client per year. Sound reasonable?—or am I way too high? I don’t have much of a head for business, as my accountant keeps telling me every year around April fifteenth.”

“I suppose that’s about right,” Howards admitted grudgingly, and Barron could see the fear showing through his eyes. (Scared shitless, eh, Bennie? ’cause you don’t see where all this is going, ’cause you know there’s something happening and you don’t know what it is, do you Mr Jones?)

“And in order to be Frozen, you’ve gotta sign over a minimum of $50,000 in liquid assets to the Foundation in order to cover costs, right?”

“We’ve gone through all that,” Howards muttered, obviously uncertain as to what was going to happen next.

“All rightie…” Barron drawled, foot-signaling to Vince to kill Howards’ audio. He stared straight into the camera, tilted his head forward, picked up darkness-shadows reflected off the desk-arm of the chair from the kinesthop background in the hollows of his dead-end-kid innocent eyes, gave a little bemused inside-joke grin. “Okay, out there, we’ve got the figures, now let’s all do a little arithmetic. Check me, out there, will you? I’ve got a lousy head for figures—at least the numerical kind. Lessee… multiply how many bodies in the Freezers by $50,000 per body… . That comes to… ah… ten zeros and… why, that’s fifty billion dollars, isn’t that right folks? Foundation’s got at least fifty billion bucks in assets. Now there’s cigarette money! About half the defense budget of the United States, is all. Okay, students, now one more problem in multiplication—$5,000 for each body for a year times a million bodies in the freezers… in nice round numbers it comes to… five billion dollars. Now, let’s see—if I had fifty billion bucks to play around with I ought to be able to make—oh, say ten per cent a year on it. Couldn’t you, out there?—and wouldn’t you like to try? That comes to… why, it’s about five billion dollars, isn’t it? What a coincidence! Same as Foundation expenses—one tenth, count it folks, ten per cent of the Foundation’s total assets. Boy, numbers are fun!”

Visualizing the path to the punchline, Barron signaled Gelardi to give him a two-minute count to the next commercial and to cut in Howards’ audio.

“What the hell is this?” Howards snapped. “Who do you think you are, the Internal Revenue Service?”

Patience, Mr Howards, patience,” Barron drawled with purposefully irritating slowness. “Jack Barron, great swami—knows all, sees all, tells all. Now let’s try some simple subtraction. Subtract five billion in expenses from five billion a year in interest on your assets. That leaves a big fat zero, doesn’t it? That’s exactly how much maintaining those million bodies in the freezers cuts into that fifty billion bucks in assets you got squirreled away— zero! Not at all. How neat! And that’s how you hold on to your nonprofit, tax-exempt status, isn’t it? Expenses balance income. And that $50,000 each client chucks in—why, that’s not nasty old income at all, is it? Technically it’s not even yours, and that keeps the Income Tax boys’ hot little hands out of your till. Boy, I’d like to borrow your accountant!”

“What’re you gibbering about?” Howards said, with a totally unconvincing show of incomprehension.

“I’m gibbering about the small matter of fifty billion dollars,” Barron told him as the promptboard flashed “60 Seconds.” “Fifty billion dollars free and clear that you’ve got to play around with above Freezer expenses, a fifty-billion-dollar slush fund. Who do you think you’re putting on, Howards? That’s enough bread to provide a free Freezer for every man, woman, and child who dies every year in the United States, and in Canada too, for that matter, isn’t it? Fifty billion bucks sitting there, while Harold Lopat and millions like him die and are gone forever while you poormouth us! What does happen to that fifty billion, Howards? You must have mighty big holes in your pockets or else—”

“Research!” Howards croaked frantically. “Without research—”

Gelardi, anticipating even as Barron foot-signaled, flashed “30 Seconds” on the promptboard and cut his audio off.

“Research!” Barron mimicked, his image now filling the entire monitor screen, a mask of righteous indignation scowling into Brackett Audience Count estimated hundred million pairs of eyes.

“Yeah, sure, research, but research in what? Research in how to buy votes in Congress to get this cozy little setup written into law? Research into how to own Governors and Senators and… who knows, maybe your very own Presidential candidate? I don’t like to speak ill of the dead—the conveniently permanent dead—but you were awfully tight with a certain late Senator who was putting on a rather well-financed campaign for the Democratic Presidential nomination, weren’t you? That come under ‘research’ too? Fifty billion bucks’ worth of research— with people like Harold Lopat dying all around you every day. Research. Yeah, let’s talk about research! And we’ll have plenty of time to discuss fifty billion dollars’ worth of scientific—or is it political— research after this word from our relatively impoverished sponsor.”

As they rolled the final commercial Barron felt a weird manic exhilaration, knowing that he had set up a focus of forces which in the next few minutes could squash the fifty-billion-dollar Foundation for Human Immortality like a bug if Bennie proved dumb enough to not holler “Uncle.” Fifty billion bucks! Never added it up before, Barron thought. What the fuck is he really doing with all that bread? Shit, he could buy the Congress, the President, and the Supreme Court out of petty cash, if it came down to it. Talk about big-league action! Bennie Howards is bigger than the whole fucking country!

Yeah, but right here now no time-delay live, he’s nothing but a punk I can dribble like a basketball. And what’s that make me? Luke and Morris maybe not as crazy as they sound…?

He made the connection on the number two vidphone and Howards, his eyes now reptile-cold gimlets, stared up at him from the oh-so-tiny vidphone screen like a bug trapped in amber.

“All right, Barron,” Howards said in a dead-flat, money-talk voice, “you’ve made your point. We’ve been playing your game, and we both know I’m no match for you at it. You hurt me, and you hurt me bad. Maybe you can do more damage to me than I thought possible, but I warn you, you play ball and get me out of this mess or I’ll really finish you and quick. And don’t con me, you know damn well I can do it. You keep this up, and you’ll find out just how much muscle fifty billion dollars is—I’ll use every penny of it, if I have to, to pound you to a pulp. You’ll lose more than your show, I can have your tax returns for the last ten years investigated, sue you for libel and buy the judge, and that’s just off the top of my head. Play ball, remember what you’ve got to lose— and what you’ve got to gain.”