"Ing, Dean - Deathwish World" - читать интересную книгу автора (Ing Dean)

Forrest Brown thought about it, squinting through curls of smoke. He said finally, "You've got to have enough money to buy Tri-Di time, but above all, you've got to be newsworthy. You've got to have something that makes people want to listen to you, watch you."
"Great," Roy said sarcastically. "And how do I accomplish that?"
The newsman, half joking, said, "Start a religion. Become a Tri-Di star. Take out a Deathwish Policy."
The Wobbly organizer scowled at him. "What for?"
"You'd have the credits to buy Tri-Di time. Deathwishers are news. Everybody'd be in a tizzy wondering how long it'd be before you got hit. There'd be standing room only at your hall lectures. You'd be out in the open and they'd come in hopes that they'd be there when the Graf's boys, or whoever, got to you. Something like in the old days in Spain and Latin
America, where they'd pony up for bullfight tickets in hopes they'd see the matador gored to death."
"What the hell are you talking about?" Roy said. "What's a Deathwish Policy?"
Forry grunted and dialed another two whiskeys before lighting a new smoke off the old. "Oh," he said, "just a jargon term we use in the news game. You've probably never heard it. You have your life insured in return for having an international drawing account for a million pseudo-dollar credits continually at your disposalЧfor as long as you live."
"Never heard ofЕ oh, wait a minute. I guess I did. Something in the news about six months ago. Somebody was blown up with a grenade or something. His life had been insured for something like five million pseudo-dollars only a few days before. I forget the details. I don't usually follow crime news."
"It's crime, all right," Forry said, putting his thumbprint on the table's payment screen to pay for the new drinks. His credit card was still in the slot. "The thing is, so far, the law hasn't been able to get at them. It's too complicated. Most of the insured are Americans. But you never sign the policy with an American company. The outfit that's going to collect the benefits is usually based in the Bahamas, or Malta, or Tangier, or somewhere else where practically anything goes. They shop out the deal to Lloyd's of London, where they'll insure anythingЧdancer's legs, a violinist's fingers. Hell, they'll insure an outdoor entertainment against loss due to rain. So you've got four countries involved: the insured is usually a citizen of the States, the beneficiary is in the Bahamas or wherever, Lloyds of London is in England, and your credits come from Switzerland. For that matter, you might say five different countries are involved, since it's said that the Graf has his headquarters in Liechtenstein."
"Now, wait a minute," Roy Cos said, taking up his new drink and swallowing part of it. For the first time in years, he felt the itch of intrigue. "Start at the beginning."
Forry shrugged thin shoulders. "You sign a contract that grants you what amounts to an unlimited credit account for as long as you live. If and when you die, the beneficiary collects the benefits. The company you've signed with pays huge daily premiums. It's a gamble, as all insurance has always been since the days when Phoenician ships set sail from Tyre to Cadiz for a cargo of tin. The insurer was gambling that the ship would get back safely and the insuree was gambling that the ship would sink. Well, in this case, the insuree is gambling that you'll die before the premiums paid mount up to more than the benefits he'll collect when you kick off. Lloyd's is gambling the other way: that you'll live so long that the premiums accumulated are higher than the life insurance benefits."
Roy looked at him blankly. "But suppose you lived for years? And you have a million pseudo-dollar account to draw on to any extent you wish? Hell, the company that's the beneficiary would go broke paying the premiums plus your expenditures."
Forry Brown laughed shortly. "Don't be a dizzard. From the moment that policy goes into effect, you're on the run. Some of the insured don't live the first day out."
Roy stared, then tried a tenative smile. "You're kidding, of course."
"Yeah? The Grafs hit men are the best-trained pros in the world. He usually gets the contract, I understand."
Roy slumped down into his chair. "Jesus," he said. "Who'd be silly enough to sign up for that?"
The newsman let smoke dribble from his nostrils. "Somebody who had already decided to commit suicide but couldn't bring himself to do it and decided he might as well go out in a burst of glory, living in one of the biggest hotels in one of the swankest resorts in the world, drinking champagne and gorging himself with caviar.''
"I can see that, but nobody else would sign."
Forry finished his second drink and said slowly, "You underestimate human desperation. Take some prole who's fed up with living right at the edge of poverty on GAS. He figures he might as well live it up for a few weeks, or hopefully months. Frankly, this guy's a dreamer. His chances of lasting for any length of time at all are just about nil. Most of them think they've figured out some dodge to beat the odds, some special gimmick. They haven't. They can't."
"Now wait a minute," Roy said, increasingly intrigued by one more example of the degeneracy of the present system. "What you're saying is that an assassinЕ"
"More than one, I'd think," Forry put in. "Е is immediately sent after the person who's signed this contract. All right, what happens if the killer's caught?"
"He's arrested, of course, and they throw the book at him. But they can't prove anything except his own guilt. None of the advanced countries have capital punishment any more. If he's caught in America, he's subject to deportation. If they nail him in, say, Common Europe, he's thrown into the banger for, say, twenty years. But the Graf takes care of his own. Who ever heard of one of the Grafs boys spending much time in jail? One way or the other, he's soon out, usually legally, since the Graf keeps the best criminal lawyers in the world. But if not legally, then illegally. His escape is greased and he drops out of sight, possibly to Tangier, where there are no extradition laws. He remains on pension for the rest of his life, unless they get him some local job. One of the Graf's big centers is Tangier."
"Who the hell's this Graf?" Roy Cos said. "It's a German title, something like a British earl. He's the boss of Mercenaries, Incorporated," the little man told him. "Haven't you ever heard of the Graf?"
"No, I told you I didn't bother with crime news. But this thing fascinates me. What are some of the tricks the victims try to pull to remain alive?"
"Oh, I've heard of various scams. Often they'll try to hole up in some manner so that the hit men can't get at them. They'll rent the whole top floor of some luxury hotel and try to seal themselves in, like Howard Hughes in the old days. Bodyguards and all. But in those cases, the assassin usually bribes one of the poor bastard's hirelings to slip a cyanide mickey into one of his drinks, or whatever. Once or twice, it turned out that one of the bodyguards was a Graf man. Curtains."
Roy Cos shook his head in amazement. "A million pseudo-dollars, always available. But suppose he spent that much in one day, and then the next day spent that much again, and so on?"
"It'd be damned hard to do," the newsman told him. "There are clauses in the contract. He's not allowed to buy presents that cost more than two hundred pseudo-dollars. He's not allowed to donate to any cause. Once a crackpot religious fanatic decided to sign up and donate hundreds of thousands to the United Church, but that wasn't allowed. On top of that, the company becomes your heir. Everything you buy reverts to them, after your death. You buy something expensive, like a luxury car, or a big house, or jewelry, and they take it over when you die."
Roy shook his head. "I'd think the Lloyd's underwriters would get leery."
Fony shrugged again. "Like I said, it's a gamble. To keep it that way, the daily premium is sky high. If the insured lives more than a few days, Lloyd's wins. As usual, the computers of both the policyholders and the insurers have figured it out down to a hairline."
Roy finished his drink, thought about it some more, shook his head again. Then he scowled and looked over at the other. He said, "What was that you mentioned about my taking out one of these Deathwish Policies?"
And Fony Brown said softly, "A million pseudo-dollars. Like I said, you'd have plenty to buy yourself premium Tri-Di time. Every day, until they got you. And you'd also be top news. Everybody and his cousin would listen in. You'd have your chance to put your Wobbly message across such as no minority organization has ever had."
There was a prolonged blank silence until Roy Cos said finally, "Where do you come in on this, Forry Brown?"
Forry looked him straight in the eye, squinting through his cigarette smoke. "Somebody's got to run interference for you, keep you alive long enough to do your thing. And I need a jobЧone that doesn't have to match the computers of the National Data Banks."
"You must think I'm drivel-happy," Roy said in disgust.
"No, I think you're a dedicated Wobbly and as things stand now you'll spend your life trying to put over a message that no one hears. Have you ever read of Sacco and Vanzetti?"
Roy frowned. "Vaguely. A couple of early 20th century radicals."
"That's right. They were railroaded, charged with a payroll robbery where two men were killed. Because they were philosophical anarchists, they were sentenced to death. You wouldn't believe the reaction that went up all over the world. American consulates and embassies in a dozen countries were marched upon. There were riots and demonstrations everywhere. Tens of thousands of letters of protest, ranging from students to world-famous intellectuals; hundreds of petitions, signed by hundreds of thousands. American officials were astonished. The President, getting reports from his ambassadors, is reported to have asked, 'Who in the hell are Sacco and Vanzetti?' But in spite of it all, after going through all possible appeals, they were executed." A pause. "I'll put it more strongly: they were martyred."
"I guess I have read something about it," Roy said vaguely, still scowling.
The newsman brought forth his wallet and fished in it. "This is one of the final things Bartolomeo Vanzetti wrote. He was self-educated."
Forry Brown read softly from the tattered clipping: "If it had not been for this thing, I might have lived out my life talking at street corners to scorning men. I might have died unmarked, unknown, a failure. Now we are not a failure. This is our career and our triumph. Never in all our full life could we hope to do such work for tolerance, for justice, for man's understanding of man, as now we do by accident.
' 'Our wordsЧour livesЧour pains: nothing! The taking of our livesЧlives of a good shoemaker and a poor fish peddler-all! That last moment belongs to us. That agony is our triumph."
Forry Brown looked up from the clipping. "Their deaths weren't the end. Hundreds of articles about them were published for years. Best-selling books were written about the Sacco-Vanzetti case. There was even a long-running play on Broadway, and a hit movie film. In becoming martyrs, Bartolomeo Vanzetti and Nicola Sacco at long last put over their message. Decades later, they were vindicated by the State of Massachussetts. They hadn't even been guilty." Across the table, the eyes of Roy Cos were shining.
Chapter Four: Horace Hampton
Horace Greeley Hampton looked about appreciatively at the Mini-city of Greenpoint when he emerged from the vacuum tube metro station. He had been in similar towns before, but never this one. Located scenically in the rolling hills of Eastern Pennsylvania, it was composed of four ultra-modern high-rise apartment buildings, the condominiums of the 21st century. Each seemed approximately fifty stories in height, twin-towered and sheathed in aluminum and glass. Not as imposing as the hundred-floor apartment buildings of the big cities, yet large enough to contain all the amenitiesЧan ultra-market, automated kitchens, parking areas, theatres, auditoriums, sports arenas. Much of it lay in the several basement levels below ground. The restaurants throughout each of the buildings would be in wide variety, ranging from Malay and Polynesian to vegetarian, by the way of every well-known cuisine the world offered. Greenpoint offered all of the amenities, far beyond those available to the high-rises devoted to proles.
In the early days of the mini-cities, there had been comparatively little class discrimination. An ultra-condo would house five thousand or more families, ranging from proles on GAS in apartments on the lower levels, to the extremely wealthy in the rarefied heights, in swank penthouses and terrace apartments. The higher you ascended in the towering buildings, the larger and more expensive became the apartments. Needless to say, the more posh became the restaurants, nightclubs, and theatres.
Around each of the four apartment towers of Greenpoint lay a square mile of gardens, lakes, small streams, carefully tended woods. It was complete with bridle and bike paths, sports and picnic grounds, playgrounds, sidewalk cafes, and skating areas. Very attractive indeed.
Greenpoint was a new development in the progress of the mini-city. Hamp doubted that a single prole family was in residence, not even in the lowest levels. The only proles in Green-point would be service workers commuting from other nearby towns. Private cars and even hovercabs were, of course, prohibited on the surface; small electric buses wound slowly around the narrow roads that connected all points, all buildings. Hamp looked again at his note, checked a bus schedule on a bulletin board next to the entry to the metro terminal, and waited to be taken to the William Penn Building.
It was late afternoon and he hoped to be in Manhattan by evening. This line of League work was strange to him. In the years that he had been active in the organization, he had never been utilized for making initial contacts with possible recruits. He was aware of the continuing necessity of the work and the League system. Someone would attend a lecture and sign the card handed around at its end. Or someone would hear a League Tri-Di broadcast and write in for more information. Or someone would read a League pamphlet or book and be moved to request a visit from a member for discussion. But Hamp had quickly risen from the ranks, had been sent to the training school for field operatives, and had participated in trouble-shooting ever since.
But it would seem that Lee Garrett was a possible recruit worthy of special attention. Max Finklestein had said the new contact was white, which was easy to believe. Hamp doubted that there were many blacks or other racial minorities residing in Greenpoint. Not that there would be any restriction, theoretically. The nation's laws wouldn't stand for that, but non-whites would be made to feel less than welcome.