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 assassin…"
"More than one, I'd think," Forry put in. "… 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 job—one 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.