I Will Fear No Evil

1

The room was old-fashioned, 1980 baroque, but it was wide, long, high, and luxurious. Near simulated view windows stood an automated hospital bed. It looked out of place but was largely concealed by a magnificent Chinese screen. Forty feet from it a boardroom table also failed to match the decor. At the head of this table was a life-support wheelchair; wires and tubings ran from it to the bed.

Near the wheelchair, at a mobile stenodesk crowded with directional mikes, voice typewriter, clock-calendar, controls, and the usual ancillaries, a young woman sat. She was beautiful.

Her manner was that of the perfect unobtrusive secretary but she was dressed in a current exotic mode. "Half & Half"—right shoulder and breast and arm concealed in jet-black knit, left leg sheathed in a scarlet tight, panty-ruffle in both colors joining them, black sandal on the scarlet side, red sandal on her bare right foot. Her skin paint was patterned in the same scarlet and black.

On the other side of the wheelchair was an older woman garbed in a nurse's conventional white pantyhose and smock. She ignored everything but her dials and a patient in the chair. Seated around the table were a dozen-odd men, most of them in spectator-sports style affected by older executives.

Cradled in the life-support chair was a very old man. Except for restless eyes, he looked like a poor job of embalming. No cosmetic help had been used to soften the brutal fact of his decrepitude.

"Ghoul," he was saying softly to a man halfway down the table. "You're a slavering ghoul, Parky me boy. Didn't your father teach you that it is polite to wait for a man to stop kicking before you bury him? Or did you have a father? Erase that last, Eunice. Gentlemen, Mr. Parkinson has moved that I be invited to resign as chairman of the board. Do I hear a second?"

He waited, looking from face to face, then said, "Oh, come now! Who is letting you down, Parky? You,

George?"

"I had nothing to do with it."

"But you would love to vote ‘Aye.' Motion fails for want of a second."

"I withdraw my motion."

"Too late, Parkinson. Erasures are made only by unanimous consent, implied or overt. One objection is enough—and I, Johann Sebastian Bach Smith, do so ob­ject... and that rule controls because 1 wrote it before you learned to read.

"But"—Smith looked around at the others—"I do have news. As you heard from Mr. Teal, all our divisions are in satisfactory shape; Sea Ranches and General Textbooks are more than satisfactory—so this is a good time for me to retire."

Smith waited, then said, "You can close your mouths. Don't look smug, Parky; I have more news for you. I stay on as chairman of the board but will no longer be chief executive. Our chief counsel, Mr. Jake Salomon, becomes deputy chairman and—"

"Hold it, Johann. I am not going to manage this five-ring circus."

"Nobody said you would, Jake. But you can preside at board meetings when I'm not available. Is that too much to ask?"

"Mmm, I suppose not."

"Thank you. I'm resigning as president of Smith Enterprises, and Mr. Byram Teal becomes our president and chief executive officer—he's doing the work; it's time he got the title—and pay and stock options and all the perks and privileges and tax loopholes. No more than fair."

Parkinson said, "Now see here, Smith!"

"Hold it, youngster. Don't start a remark to me with ‘Now see here—' Address me as ‘Mr. Smith' or Mr. Chairman.' What is your point?"

Parkinson controlled himself, then said, "Very well, Mister Smith. I can't accept this. Quite aside from promoting your assistant to the office of president in one jump—utterly unheard of!—if there is a change in management, 1 must be considered. I represent the second largest block of voting stock."

"I did consider you for president, Parky."

"You did?"

"Yep. I thought about it...and snickered."

"Why, you—"

"Don't say it, I might sue. What you forget is that my block has voting control. Now about your block— By company policy anyone representing five percent or more of voting stock is automatically on the board even if nobody loves him and he suffers from spiritual bad breath. Which describes both you and me.

"Or did describe you. Byram, what's the late word on proxies and stock purchases?"

"A full report, Mr. Smith?"

"No, just tell Mr. Parkinson where he stands."

"Yes, sir. Mr. Parkinson, you now control less than five percent of the voting stock."

Smith added sweetly, "So you're fired, you young ghoul. Jake, call a special stockholders' meeting, legal notice, all formalities, for the purpose of giving Parky a gold watch and kicking him out—and electing his successor. Further business? None. Meeting's adjourned. Stick around, Jake. You, too, Eunice. And Byram, if you have anything on your mind."

Parkinson jumped to his feet. "Smith, you haven't heard the last of this!"

"Oh, no doubt," the old man said sweetly. "Meantime my respects to your mother-in-law and tell her that Byram will go on making her rich even though I've fired you."

Parkinson left abruptly. Others started to leave. Smith said mildly, "Jake, how does a man get to be fifty years old without acquiring horse sense? Only smart thing that lad ever did was pick a rich mother-in-law. Yes, Hans?"

"Johann," Hans von Ritter said, leaning on the table and speaking directly to the chairman, "I did not like your treatment of Parkinson."

"Thanks. You're honest with me to my face. Scarce these days."

"Removing him from the board is okay; he's an obstructionist. But there was no need to humiliate him."

"I suppose not. One of my little pleasures, Hans. I don't have many these days."

A Simplex footman rolled in, hung the vacated chairs on its rack, rolled out; von Ritter continued: "1 have no intention of being treated that way. If you want nothing but Yes men on your board, let us note that I control much less than five percent of the voting stock. Do you want my resignation?"

"Good God, no! I need you, Hans—and Byram will need you still more. I can't use trained seals; a man has to have the guts to disagree with me, or he's a waste of space. But when a man bucks me,. I want him to do it intelligently. You do. You've forced me to change my mind several times—not easy, stubborn as I am. Now about this other—sit down. Eunice, whistle up that easy chair for Dr. von Ritter."

The chair approached; von Ritter waved it back, it retreated. "No, I haven't time to be cajoled. What do you want?" He straightened up; the boardroom table folded its legs, turned on edge, and glided away through a slot in the wall.

"Hans, I've surrounded myself with men who don't like me, not a Yes man or trained seal among them. Even Byram—especially Byram—got his job by contradicting me and being right. Except when he's been wrong and that's why he needs men like you on the board. But Parkinson— I was entitled to clip him—publicly—because he called for my resignation—publicly. Nevertheless you are right, Hans; ‘tit for tat' is childish. Twenty years ago—even ten—I would never have humiliated a man. If a man operates by reflex, as most do instead of using their noggins, humiliating him forces him to try to get even. I know better. But I'm getting senile, as we all know."

Von Ritter said nothing. Smith Went on, "Will you stick?—and help keep Byram steady?"

"Uh...I'll stick. As long as you behave yourself." He turned to leave.

"Fair enough. Hans? Will you dance at my wake?"

Von Bitter looked back and grinned. "I'd be delighted!"

"Thought so. Thanks, Hans. G'bye."

Smith said to Byram Teal, "Anything, son?"

"Assistant Attorney General coming from Washington tomorrow to talk to you about our Machine Tools Division buying control of Homecrafts, Ltd. I think—"

"To talk to you. If you can't handle him, I picked the wrong man. What else?"

"At Sea Ranch number five we lost a man at the fifty-fathom line. Shark."

"Married?"

"No, sir. Nor dependent parents."

"Well, do the pretty thing, whatever it is. You have those videospools of me, the ones that actor fellow dubbed the sincere voice onto. When we lose one of our own, we can't have the public thinking we don't give a hoot."

Jake Salomon added, "Especially when we don't." Smith clucked at him. "Jake, do you have a way to look into my heart? It's our policy to be lavish with death benefits, plus the little things that mean so much."

"—and look so good. Johann, you don't, have a heart—just dials and machinery. Furthermore you never did have."

Smith smiled. "Jake, for you we'll make an exception. When you die, we'll try not to notice. No flowers, not even the customary black-bordered page in our house organs."

"You won't have anything to say about it, Johann. I'll outlive you twenty years."

"Going to dance at my wake?"

"I don't dance," the lawyer answered, "but you tempt me to learn."

"Don't bother, I'll outlive you. Want to bet? Say a million to your favorite tax deduction? No, I can't bet; I need your help to stay alive. Byram, check with me tomorrow. Nurse, leave us; I want to talk with my lawyer."

"No, sir. Dr. Garcia wants a close watch on you at all times."

Smith looked thoughtful. "Miss Bedpan, I acquired my speech habits before the Supreme Court took up writing dirty words on sidewalks. But I will try to use words plain enough for you to understand. I am your employer. I pay your wages. This is my home. I told you to get out. That's an order."

The nurse looked stubborn, said nothing.

Smith sighed. "Jake, I'm getting old—I forget that they follow their own rules. Will you locate Dr. Gar­cia—somewhere in the house—and find out how you and I can have a private conference in spite of this too faithful watchdog?"

Shortly Dr. Garcia arrived, looked over dials and patient, conceded that telemetering would do for the time being. "Miss MacIntosh, shift to the remote displays."

"Yes, Doctor. Will you send for a nurse to relieve me? I want to quit this assignment."

"Now, Nurse—"

"Just a moment, Doctor," Smith put in. "Miss MacIntosh, I apologize for calling you, ‘Miss Bedpan' Childish of me, another sign of increasing senility. But, Doctor, if she must leave—I hope she won't—bill me for a thousand-dollar bonus for her. Her attention to duty has been perfect...despite many instances of unreasonable behavior on my part."

"Oh...see me outside, Nurse."

When doctor and nurse had left Salomon said dryly, "Johann, you are senile only when it suits you."

Smith chuckled. "I do take advantage of age and illness. What other weapons have I left?"

"Money."

"Ah, yes. Without money I wouldn't be alive. But I am childishly bad-tempered these days. You could chalk it up to the fact that a man who has always been active feels frustrated by being imprisoned. But it's simpler to call it senility…since God and my doctor know that my body is senile."

"I call it stinking bad temper, Johann, not senility—since you can control it when you want to. Don't use it on me; I won't stand for it."

Smith chuckled. "Never, Jake; I need you. Even more than I need Eunice—though she's ever so much prettier than you. How about it, Eunice? Has my behavior been bad lately?"

His secretary shrugged—producing complex secondary motions pleasant to see. "You're pretty stinky at times, Boss. But I've learned to ignore it."

"You see, Jake? If Eunice refused to put up with it—as you do—I'd be the sweetest boss in the land. As it is, I use her as a safety valve."

Salomon said, "Eunice, any time you get fed up with this vile-tempered old wreck you can work for me, at the same salary or higher."

"Eunice, your salary just doubled!"

"Thank you, Boss," she said promptly. "I've recorded it. And the time." I'll notify Accounting."

Smith cackled. "See why I keep her? Don't try to outbid me, you old goat, you don't have enough chips."

"Senile," Salomon growled. "Speaking of money, whom do you want to put into Parkinson's slot?"

"No rush, he was a blank file. Do you have a candidate, Jake?"

"No. Although after this last little charade it occurs to me that Eunice might be a good bet."

Eunice looked startled, then dropped all expression. Smith looked thoughtful. "It had not occurred to me. But it might be a perfect solution. Eunice, would you be willing to be a director of the senior corporation?"

Eunice flipped her machine to "NOT RECORDING."

"You're both making fun of me! Stop it."

"My dear," Smith said gently, "you know I don't joke about money. As for Jake, it is the only subject sacred to him—he sold his daughter and his grandmother down to Rio."

"Not my daughter," Salomon objected. "Just Grand­mother...and the old girl didn't fetch much. But it gave us a spare bedroom."

"But, Boss, I don't know anything about running a business!"

"You wouldn't have to. Directors don't manage, they set policy. But you do know more about running it than most ofour directors; you've been on the inside for years. Plus almost inside during the time you were my secretary's secretary before Mrs. Bierman retired. But here are advantages I see in what may have been a playful suggestion on Jake's part. You are already an officer of the corporation as Special Assistant Secretary assigned to record for the board—and I made you that, you'll both remember, to shut up Parkinson when he bellyached about my secretary being present during an executive session. You'll go on being that—and my personal secretary, too; can't spare you—while becoming a director. No conflict, you'll simply vote as well as recording. Now we come to the key question: Are you willing to vote the way Jake votes?"

She looked solemn. "You wish me' to, sir?"

"Or the way I do if I'm present, which comes to the same thing. Think back and you'll see that Jake and I have always voted the same way on basic policy—settling it ahead of time—while wrangling and voting against each other on things that don't matter. Read the old minutes, you'll spot it."

"I noticed it long ago," she said simply, "but didn't think it was my place to comment."

"Jake, she's our new director. One more point, my dear: If it turns out that we need your spot, will you resign? You won't lose by it."

"Of course, sir. I don't have to be paid to agree to that."

"You still won't lose by it. I feel better. Eunice, I've had to turn management over to Teal; I'll be turning policy over to Jake—you know the shape I'm in. I want lake to have as many sure votes backing him as possible. Oh we can always fire directors... but it is best not to have to do so, a fact von Bitter rubbed my nose in. Okay, you're a director. We'll formalize it at that stockholders' meeting. Welcome to the ranks of the Establishment. Instead of a wage slave, you have sold out and are now a counterrevolutionary, warmongering, rat-fink, fascist dog. How does it feel?"

"Not ‘dog," Eunice objected. "The rest is lovely but ‘dog' is the wrong sex; I'm female. A bitch."

"Eunice, I not only do not use such words with ladies around, you know that I do not care to hear them from ladies."

"Can a ‘rat-fink fascist' be a lady? Boss, I learned that word in kindergarten. Nobody minds it today."

"I learned it out behind the barn and let's keep it there."

Salomon growled. "I don't have time to listen to amateur lexicologists. Is the conference over?"

"What? Not at all! Now comes the top-secret part, the reason I sent the nurse out. So gather ye round."

"Johann, before you talk secrets, let me ask one question. Does that bed have a mike on it? Your chair may be bugged, too."

"Eh?" the old man looked thoughtful. "I used a call button... until they started standing a heel-and-toe watch on me."

"Seven to two you're bugged. Eunice my dear, can you trace the circuits and make sure?"

"Uh... I doubt it. The circuitry isn't much like my stenodesk. But I'll look." Eunice left her desk, studied the console on the back of the wheelchair. "These two dials almost certainly have mikes hooked to them; they're respiration and heart beat. But they don't show voices as my voice does not make the needles jiggle. Filtered out, I suppose. "But"—she looked thoughtful—"voice could be pulled off either circuit ahead of a filter. I do something like that, in reverse, whenever I record with a high background db. I don't know what these dials do. Darn it, I, might spot a voice circuit...but I could never be sure that there was not one. Or two. Or three. I'm sorry."

"Don't be sorry, dear," the lawyer said soothingly. "There hasn't been real privacy in this country since the middle of the twentieth century—why, I could phone a man I know of and have you photographed in your bath I and you would never know it."

"Really? What a dreadful idea. How much does this person charge for such a job?"

"Plenty. Depends on difficulty and how much chance he runs of being prosecuted. Never less than a couple of thousand and then up like a kite. But he can do it."

"Well!" Eunice looked thoughtful, then smiled. "Mr. Salomon, if you ever decide that you must have such a picture of me, phone me for a competitive bid. My husband has an excellent Chinese camera and I would rather have him photograph me in my bath than some stranger."

"Order, please," Smith said mildly. "Eunice, if you want to sell skin pictures to that old lecher, do it on your own time. I don't know anything about these gadgets but I know how to solve this. Eunice, go out to where they telemeter me—I think it's next door in what used to be my upstairs lounge. You'll find Miss MacIntosh there. Hang around three minutes. I'll wait two minutes; then I'll call out: Miss Macintosh! Is Mrs. Branca there?' If you hear me, we'll know she's snooping. If you don't, come back at the end of three minutes."

"Yes, sir. Do I give Miss MacIntosh any reason for this?"

"Give the old battle-ax any stall you like. I simply want to know if she is eavesdropping."

"Yes, sir." Eunice started to leave the room. She pressed the door switch just as its buzzer sounded. The door snapped aside, revealing Miss MacIntosh, who jumped in surprise.

The nurse recovered and said bleakly, to Mr. Smith, "May 1 come in for a moment?"

"Certainly."

"Thank you, sir." The nurse went to the bed, pulled its screen aside, touched four switches on its console, replaced the screen. Then she planted herself in front of her patient and said, "Now you have complete privacy, so far as my equipment is concerned. Sir."

"Thank you."

"I am not supposed to cut the voice monitors except on Doctor's orders. But you had privacy anyhow. I am as bound to respect a patient's privacy as .a doctor is, I never listen to sickroom conversation. I don't even hear it! Sir."

"Get your feathers down. If you weren't listening, how did you know we were discussing the matter?"

"Oh! Because my name was mentioned. Hearing my name triggers me to listen. It's a conditioned reflex. Though I don't suppose you believe me?"

"On the contrary, I do. Nurse—please switch on whatever you switched off. Then bear in mind that I must talk privately...and I'll remember not to mention your name. But I'm glad to know that I can reach you so promptly. To a man in my condition that is a comfort."

"Uh—very well, sir."

"And I want to thank you for putting up with my quirks. And bad temper."

She almost smiled. "Oh, you're not so difficult, sir. I once put in two years in an N.P. hospital."

Smith looked startled, then grinned. "Touché! Was that where you acquired your hatred for bedpans?"

"It was indeed! Now if you will excuse me, sir—"

When she was gone, Salomon said, "You really think she won't listen?"

"Of course she will, she can't help it, she's already triggered and will be trying too hard not to listen. But she's proud, Jake, and I would rather depend on pride than gadgetry. Okay, I'm getting tired, so here it is in a lump. I want to buy a body. A young one."

Eunice Branca barely showed reaction; Jake Salomon's features dropped into the mask he used for poker and district attorneys. Presently Eunice said, "Am I to record, sir?"

"No. Oh, hell, yes. Tell that sewing machine to make one copy for each of us and wipe the tape. File mine in my destruct file; file yours in your destruct file—and, Jake, hide your copy in the file you use to outwit the Infernal Revenue Service."

"I'll file it in the still safer place I use for guilty clients. Johann, anything you say to me is privileged but I am bound to point out that the Canons forbid me to advise a client in how to break the law, or to permit a client to discuss such intention. As for Eunice, anything you say to her or in her presence is not privileged."

"Oh, come off it, you old shyster; you've advised me in how to break the law twice a week for years. As for Eunice, nobody can get anything out of, her short of all-out brainwash."

"I didn't say I always followed the Canons; I merely told you what they called for. I won't deny that my professional ethics have a little stretch in them—but I won't be party to anything smelling of bodysnatching, kidnapping, or congress with slavery. Any self-respecting prosti­tute—meaning me—has limits."

"Spare me the sermon, Jake; what I want is both moral and ethical. I need your help to see that all of it is legal—utterly legal, can't cut corners on this!—and practical."

"I hope so."

"I know so. I said I wanted to buy a body—legally. That rules out bodysnatching, kidnapping, and slavery. I want to make a legal purchase."

"You can't."

"Why not? Take this body," Smith said, pointing to his chest, "it's not worth much even as manure; nevertheless I can will it to a medical school. You know I can, you okayed it."

"Oh. Let's get our terms straight. In. the United States there can be no chattel ownership of a human being. Thirteenth Amendment. Therefore your body is not your property because you can't sell it. But a cadaver is property—usually of the estate of the deceased although a cadaver is not often treated the way other chattels are treated. But it is indeed property. If you want to buy a cadaver, it can be arranged—but who were you calling a ghoul earlier?"

"What is a cadaver, Jake?"

"Eh? A dead body, usually of a human. So says Webster. The legal definition is more complicated but comes to the same thing."

"It's that ‘more complicated' aspect I'm getting at. Okay, once it is dead, it is property and maybe we can buy it. But what is ‘death,' Jake, and when does it take place? Never mind Webster; what is the law?"

"Oh. Law is what the Supreme Court says it is. Fortunately this point was nailed down in the seventies—'Estate of Henry M. Parsons v. Rhode Island.'

For years, many centuries, a man was dead when his heart quit beating. Then for about a century he was dead when a licensed M.D. examined him for heart condition action and respiration and certified that he was dead—and sometimes that turned out grisly, as doctors do make mistakes. And then along came the first heart transplant and oh, mother, what a legal snarl that stirred up!

"But the Parsons case sealed it; a man is dead when all brain activity has stopped, permanently,"

"And what does that mean?" Smith persisted.

"The Court declined to define it. But in application— look, Johann, I'm a corporation lawyer, not a specialist in medical jurisprudence nor in forensic medicine—and I would have to research before I—"

"Okay, so you're not God. You can revise your remarks later. What do you know now?"

"When the exact moment of death is important, as it sometimes is in estate cases, as it often is in accident, manslaughter, and murder cases, as it always is in an organ, transplant case, some doctor determines that the brain has quit and isn't going to start up again. They use various tests and talk about ‘irreversible coma' and ‘complete absence of brain wave activity' and ‘cortical damage beyond possibility of repair' but it all comes down to some M.D. laying his reputation and license on the line to certify that this brain is dead and won't come alive again. Heart and lungs are now irrelevant; they are classed with hands and feet and gonads and other parts that a man can do without or have replaced. It's the brain that counts. Plus a doctor's opinion about the brain. In transplant cases there are almost always at least two doctors in no way connected with the operation and probably a coroner as well. Not because the Supreme Court requires it—in fact only a few of the fifty-four states have legislated in re thanatotic requirements—but—"

"Just a moment, Mr. Salomon—that odd word. My typewriter has placed a query after it." Eunice kept her hand over the "Hold" light.

"How did your typer spell it?"

"T-H-A-N-A-T-O-T-I-C."

"Smart machine. It's the technical adjective referring to death. From the Greek god Thanatos, Death."

"Half a second while I tell it so." Eunice touched the "Memory" switch with her other hand, whispered briefly, then said, "It feels better if I reassure it at once. Go ahead." She lifted her hand from the "Hold" light.

"Eunice, are you under the impression that that machine is alive?"

She blushed, then touched "Erase" and covered "Hold."

"No, Mr. Salomon. But it does behave better with me than with any other operator. It can get downright sulky if it doesn't like the way it is handled."

"I can testify to that," Smith agreed. "If Eunice takes a day off, her relief had better fetch her own gadgets, or fell back on shorthand. Listen, dear, knock off the chatter. Talk with Jake about the care and feeding of machines some other time; great-grandfather wants to go to bed."

"Yes, sir." She lifted her hand.

"Johann, I was saying that in transplant cases the medical profession has set up tight rules or customs, both to protect themselves from criminal and civil actions and also, I am sure, to forestall restrictive legislation. They have to get that heart out while it's still alive and nevertheless protect themselves from indictments for murder, cum multimillion-dollar damage suits. So they spread the responsibility thin and back each other up."

"Yes," agreed Smith. "Jake, you haven't told me a thing I didn't know—but you have relieved my mind by confirming facts and law. Now I know it can be done. Okay, I want a healthy body between ages twenty and forty, still warm, heart still working and no other damage too difficult to repair...but with the brain legally dead, dead, dead. I want to buy that cadaver and have this brain—mine-—transplanted into it."

Eunice held perfectly still. Jake blinked. "When do you want this body? Later today?"

"Oh, next Wednesday ought to be soon enough. Garcia says he can keep me going."

"I suggest later today. And get you a new brain at the same time—that one has quit functioning."

"Knock it off, Jake; I'm serious. My body is falling to pieces. But my mind is clear and my memory isn't bad—ask me yesterday's closing prices on every stock we are interested in. I can still do logarithmic calculations without tables; I check myself every day. Because I know how far gone I am. Look at me—worth so many megabucks that it's silly to count them. But with a body held together with Scotch tape and string—I ought to be in a museum.

"Now all my life I've heard ‘You can't take it with you.' Well, eight months ago when they tied me down with all this undignified plumbing and wiring, having nothing better to do I started thinking about that old saw. I decided that, if I couldn't take it with me, I wasn't going to go!"

"Humph! ‘You'll go when the wagon comes."

"Perhaps. But I'm going to spend as much as necessary of that silly stack of dollars to try to beat the game. Will you help?"

"Johann, if you were talking about a routine heart transplant, I would say ‘Good luck and God bless you!' But a brain transplant—have you any idea what that entails?"

"No, and neither do you. But I know more about it than you do; I've had endless time to read up. No need to tell me that no successful transplant of a human brain has ever been made; I know it. No need to tell me that the Chinese have tried it several times and failed—although they have three basket cases still alive if my informants are correct."

"Do you want to be a basket case?"

"No. But there are two chimpanzees climbing trees and eating bananas this very day—and each has the brain the other one started with."

"Oho! That Australian."

"Dr. Lindsay Boyle. He's the surgeon I must have."

"Boyle. There was a scandal, wasn't there? They ran him out of Australia."

"So they did, Jake. Ever hear of professional jealousy? Most neurosurgeons are wedded to the notion that a brain transplant is too complicated. But if you dig into it, you will find the same opinions expressed fifty years ago about heart transplants. If you ask neurosurgeons about those chimpanzees, the kindest thing any of them will say is that it's a fake—even though there are motion pictures of both operations. Or they talk about the many failures Boyle had before he learned how. Jake, they hate him so much they ran him out of his home country when he was about to try it on a human being. Why, those bastards—excuse me, Eunice."

"My machine is instructed to spell that word as ‘scoundrel,' Mr. Smith."

"Thank you, Eunice."

"Where is he now, Johann?"

"In Buenos Aires."

"Can you travel that far?"

"Oh, no! Well, perhaps I could, in a plane big enough for these mechanical monstrosities they use to keep me alive. But first we need that body. And the best possible medical center for computer-assisted surgery. And a support team of surgeons. And all the rest. Say Johns Hopkins. Or Stanford Medical Center."

"I venture to say that neither one will permit this unfrocked surgeon to operate."

"Jake, lake, of course they will. Don't you know how to bribe a university?"

"I've never tried it."

"You do it with really big chunks of money, openly, with an academic procession to give it dignity. But first you find out what they want—football stands, or a particle accelerator, or an endowed chair. But the key is plenty of money. From, my point of view it is better to be alive and young again, and broke, than it is to be the richest corpse in Forest Lawn." Smith smiled. "It would be exhilarating to be young—and broke. So don't spare the shekels.

"I know you can set it up for Boyle; it's just a question of whom to bribe and how—in the words of Bill Gresham, a man I knew a long time ago: ‘Find out what he wants—he'll geek!'

"But the toughest problem involves no bribery but simply' a willingness to spend money. Locating that warm body. Jake, in this country over ninety thousand people per year are killed in traffic accidents alone—call it two hundred and fifty each day—and a lot of those victims die of skull injuries. A far percentage are between twenty and forty years old and in good health aside from a broken skull and a ruined brain. The problem is to find one while the body is still alive, then keep it alive and rush it to surgery."

"With wives and relatives and cops and lawyers chasing along behind."

"Certainly. If money and organization weren't used beforehand. Finders' fees—call them something else. Life ­support teams and copters equipped for them always standing by, near the worst concentrations of dangerous traffic. Contributions to highway patrol relief funds, thousands of release forms ready to sign, lavish payment to the estate of the deceased—oh, at least a million dollars. Oh, yes, nearly forgot—I've got an odd blood type and any transplant is more likely to take if they don't have to fiddle with swapping blood. There are only about a million people in this country with blood matching mine. Not an impossible number when you cut it down still further by age span—twenty to forty—and good health. Call it three hundred thousand, tops. Jake, if we ran big newspaper ads and bought prime time on video, how many of those people could we flush out of the bushes? If we dangled a million dollars as bait? One megabuck in escrow with Chase Manhattan Bank for the estate of the accident victim whose body is used? With a retainer to any prospective donor and his spouse who will sign up in advance."

"Johann, I'm durned if I know. But I would hate to be married to a woman who could collect a million dollars by ‘accidentally' hitting me in the head with a hammer."

"Details, Jake. Write it so that no one can murder and benefit by it—and suicide must be excluded, too; I don't want blood on my hands. The real problem is to locate healthy young people who have my blood type, and feed their names and addresses into a computer."

"Excuse me, Mr. Smith, but have you thought of consulting the National Rare Blood Club?"

"Be darned! I am growing senile. No, I hadn't, Eunice—and how do you happen to know about it?"

"I'm a member, sir."

"Then you're a donor, dear?" Smith sounded pleased and impressed.

"Yes, sir. Type AB-Negative."

"Be darned twice. Used to be a donor myself—until they told me I was too old, long before you were born. And your type—AB-Negative."

"I thought you must be, sir, when you mentioned the number. So small. Only about a third of one percent of us in the population. My husband is AB-Negative, too, and a donor. You see—well, I met Joe early one morning when we were both called to give blood to a newborn baby and its mother."

"Well, hooray for Joe Branca! I knew he was smart—he grabbed you, didn't he? I had not known that he was an Angel of Mercy as well. Tell you what, dear—when you get home tonight, tell Joe that all he has to do is to dive into a dry swimming pool... and you'll be not only the prettiest widow in town—but the richest."

"Boss, you have a nasty sense of humor. I wouldn't swap Joe for any million dollars—money won't keep you warm on a cold night."

"As I know to my sorrow, dear. Jake, can my will be broken?"

"Any will can be broken. But I don't think yours will be. I tried to build fail-safes into it."

"Suppose I make a new will along the same general lines but with some changes—would it stand up?"

"No."

"Why not?"

"You said it yourself. Senility. Any time a rich man dies at an advanced age with a new will anyone with an interest in breaking it—your granddaughters, I mean—will try to break it, alleging senility and undue influence. I think they would succeed."

"Darn. I want to put Eunice down for a million so she won't be tempted to kill her AB-Negative husband."

"Boss, you're making fun of me again. Nasty fun."

"Eunice, I told you that I do not joke about money. How do we handle it, Jake? Since I'm too senile to make a will."

"Well, the simplest way would be an insurance policy with a paid-up single premium...which would cost, in view of your age and health, slightly more than a million, I surmise. But she would get it even if your will was broken."

"Mr. Salomon, don't listen to him!"

"Johann, do you want that million to revert to you if by any long chance you outlive Eunice?"

"Mmm...no, if it did, a judge might decide to look at the matter—and God himself doesn't know what a judge will do these days. Make the Red Cross the residuary. No, make it the National Rare Blood Club."

"Very well."

"Get it paid up first thing in the morning. No, do it tonight. I may not live till morning. Get an underwriter—Jack Towers, maybe—get Jefferson Billings to open that pawnshop of his and get a certified check. Use my power of attorney, not your own money, or you might be stuck for it. Get the signature of a responsible officer of the insurance company; then you can go to bed."

"Yes, Great Spirit. I'll vary that; I'm a better lawyer than you are. But the policy will be in force before night—with your money, not mine. Eunice, be careful not to kick those hoses and wires as you go out. But tomorrow you needn't be careful—as long as you don't get caught."

She sniffed. "You each have a nasty sense of humor! Boss, I'm going to erase this. I don't want a million dollars. Not from Joe dying, not from you dying."

"If you don't want it, Eunice," her employer said gently, "You can step aside and let the Rare Blood Club have it."

"Uh... Mr. Salomon, is that correct?"

"Yes, Eunice. But money is nice to have, especially when you don't have it. Your husband might be annoyed if you turned down a million dollars."

"Uh—" Mrs. Branca shut up.

"Take care of it, Jake. While thinking about how to buy a warm body. And how to get Boyle here and get him whatever permission he needs to do surgery in this country. And so forth. And tell—no, I'll tell her. Miss MacIntosh!"

"Yes, Mr. Smith?" came a voice from the bed console.

"Get your team in; I want to go to bed."

"Yes, sir. I'll tell Dr. Garcia."

Jake stood up. "Good day, Johann. You're a crazy fool."

"Probably. But I do have fun with my money."

"So you do. Eunice, may I run you home?"

"Oh, no, sir, thank you. My Gadabout is in. the basement."

"Eunice," said her boss, "can't you see that the old goat wants to take you home? So be gracious. One of my guards will take your Gadabout home."

"Uh... thank you, Mr. Salomon. I accept. Get a good night's sleep, Boss." They started to leave.

"Wait, Eunice," Smith commanded. "Hold that pose.

Jake, pipe those gams! Eunice, that's obsolete slang meaning that you have pretty legs."

"So you have told me before, sir—and so my husband often tells me. Boss you're a dirty old man."

He cackled. "So I am, my dear... and have been since I was six, I'm happy to say."