I will fear no Evil by Robert Heinlein

In this copy of his novel titled “I will fear no Evil”, Robert Heinlein uses 2,914 hyphens, 567 three dot ellipses, 1752 pairs of brackets 133 sentences ending with commas, and the three M mumble of M, m, m 41 times.
And, of course, 924 exclamation marks!
As always, the attempt here to reformat the novel into Machine Readable English is only a partial success.
He had been ill for over a year, and this was one of his last works.

One.
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 and 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, Mister 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 I wrote it before you learned to read.
“But”, Smith looked around at the others, ”I do have news. As you heard from Mister 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, Mister 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?”
“Um, I suppose not.”
“Thank you. I’m resigning as president of Smith Enterprises, and Mister 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 ‘Mister Smith’ or ‘Mister 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, I 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, Mister Smith?”
“No, just tell Mister Parkinson where he stands.”
“Yes, sir. Mister 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: “I 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 Doctor 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 Ritter looked back and grinned. “I’d be delighted!”
“Thought so. Thanks, Hans. Good 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 fiftyfathom 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. Doctor 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 Doctor 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 Doctor 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.”
“Uh … 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 of our directors; you’ve been on the inside for years. Plus Almost inside during the time you were my secretary’s secretary before Missus 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 Jake 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 Ritter 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 heartbeat. 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 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. “Mister 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 Maclntosh! Is Missus 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 Mister Smith, “May I 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. “Touche! 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 versus 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 settled 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, Mister 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, Mister 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 fall 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.”
“Doctor 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,’ Mister 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, Jake, 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 fair 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, Mister 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 A-B-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, A-B-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 A-B-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 A-B-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.”
“Mister Salomon, don’t listen to him!”
“Johann, do you want that million to revert to you if by any long chance you outlive Eunice?”
“Um … 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 … Mister 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, ” Missus 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, Mister Smith?” came a voice from the bed console.
“Get your team in; I want to go to bed.”
“Yes, sir. I’ll tell Doctor 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, Mister 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.”

Two.
Mister Salomon helped her into her cloak, rode down with her to the basement, waved his guards aside and handed her into his car. Shotgun locked them in, got in by driver-guard and locked that compartment. As she sat down Missus Branca said, “Oh, how big! Mister Salomon, I knew a Rolls was roomy, but I’ve never been in one before.”
“A Rolls only by courtesy, my dear, body by Skoda, power plant by Imperial Atomics, then Rolls-Royce pretties it and backs it with their reputation and service. You should have seen a Rolls fifty years ago, before gasoline engines were outlawed. There was a dream car!”
“This one is dreamy enough. Why, my little Gadabout would fit inside this compartment.”
A voice from the ceiling said, “Orders, sir?”
Mister Salomon touched a switch. “One moment, Rockford.” He lifted his hand. “Where do you live, Eunice? Or the coordinates of wherever you want to go?”
“Oh. I’ll go home. North one one eight, west thirty-seven, then up to level nineteen, though I doubt that this enormous car will fit into the vehicle lift.”
“If not, Rocky and his partner will escort you up the passenger lift and to your door.”
“That’s nice. Joe doesn’t want me to ride passenger lifts by myself.”
“Joe is right. So we’ll deliver you like a courier letter. Eunice, are you in a hurry?”
“Me? Joe expects me when I get there, Mister Smith’s working hours being so irregular now. Today I’m quite early.”
“Good.” Mister Salomon again touched the intercom switch. “Rockford, we’re going to kill some time. Uh, Missus Branca, what zone for those coordinates? Eighteen something?”
“Nineteen-B, sir.”
“Find a cruising circle near nineteen-B; I’ll give you coordinates later.”
“Very good, sir.”
Salomon went on to Eunice. “This compartment is soundproof unless I thumb this switch; they can talk to me but can’t hear us. Which is good as I want to discuss things with you and make phone calls about that insurance policy.”
“Oh! Surely that was a joke?”
“Joke, eh? Missus Branca, I have been working for Johann Smith for twenty-six years, the last fifteen with his affairs as my sole practice. Today he made me de-facto chairman of his industrial empire. Yet if I failed to carry out his orders about that insurance policy, tomorrow I would be out of a job.”
“Oh, surely not! He depends on you.”
“He depends on me as long as he can depend on me and not one minute longer. That policy must be written tonight. I thought you had quit fretting when you learned that you could step aside for the Rare Blood Club?”
“Well, yes. Except that I’m afraid I might get greedy and take it. When the time comes.”
“And why not? The Rare Blood Club has done nothing for him; you have done much.”
“I’m well paid.”
“Listen, you silly child, don’t be a silly child. He wanted you to have a million dollars in his will. And he wanted you to know it so that he could enjoy seeing your face. I pointed out that it is too late to change his will. Even this insurance gimmick is chancy if his natural heirs get a look at the books and discover it, which I shall try to prevent, as a judge might decide it was just a dodge, as it is, and require the insurance company to pay it to his estate. Which is where the Rare Blood Club comes in handy; they would probably fight it and win, if you cut them in for half.
“But there are other ways. Suppose you knew nothing about this and were invited to the reading of his will and discovered that your deceased employer had bequeathed you a lifetime income ‘in grateful appreciation of long and faithful service.’ Would you turn it down?”
“Uh, ” she said, and stopped.
” ‘Uh,’ ” he repeated.

“Exactly ‘uh.’ Of course you wouldn’t turn it down. He’d be gone and you’d be out of a job and there would be no reason to refuse it. So, instead of a lump sum so big it embarrasses you, I’m going to write a policy that sets up a trust to pay you an annuity.” He paused to think. “A safe return, after taxes, on a trust is about four percent. What would you say to around seven hundred and fifty a week? Would that upset you?”
“Well … no. I understand seven hundred and fifty dollars much better than I understand a million.”
“The beauty of it is that we can use the principal to insure against inflation, and you can still leave that million, or more, to the Rare Blood Club when your own Black Camel kneels.”
“Really? How wonderful! I never will understand high finance.”
“That’s because most people think of money as something to pay the rent. But a money man thinks of money in terms of what he can do with it. Never mind, I’ll fix it so that all you need to do is spend it. I’ll use a Canadian insurance company and a Canadian bank, as each will be stuffy about letting a U.S. court look at its records. In case his granddaughters find out what I’ve done, I mean.”
“Oh. Mister Salomon, shouldn’t this money go to them?”
“Again, don’t be silly. They are harpies. Snapping turtles. And had nothing to do with making this money. Do you know anything about Johann’s family? Outlived three wives, and his fourth married him for his money and it cost him millions to get shut of her. His first wife gave him a son and died in doing so, then Johann’s son was killed trying to capture a worthless hill. Two more wives, two divorces, a daughter by each of those two wives resulting in a total of four granddaughters, and those ex-wives and their daughters are all dead, and their four carnivorous descendants have been waiting for Johann to die and sore at him because he hasn’t.”
Salomon grinned. “They’re in for a shock. I wrote his will so as to give them small lifetime incomes, and chop them off with a minimal dollar if they contest. Now excuse me; I must make phone calls, then take you home and run over to Canada and nail this down.”
“Yes, sir. Do you mind if I take off my cloak? It’s rather warm.’”
“Want the cooling turned up?”
“Only if you are too warm. But this cloak is heavier than it looks.”
“I noticed it was heavy. Body armor?”
“Yes, sir. I’m out by myself quite a lot.”
“No wonder you’re too warm. Take it off. Take off anything you wish to.”
She grinned at him. “I wonder if you are a dirty old man, too. For another million?”
“Not a durned dime! Shut up, child, and let me phone.”
“Yes, sir.” Missus Branca wiggled out of her cloak, then raised the leg rest on her side, stretched out, and relaxed.
Such a strange day! … am I really going to be rich? … doesn’t seem real … well, I’m not going to spend a dime, or let Joe spend it, unless it’s safe in the bank … learned that the hard way first year we were married … some men understand money, such as Mister Salomon, or Boss, and some don’t, such as Joe … but as sweet a husband as a girl could wish … as long as I never again let him share a joint account …
Dear Joe! … those are pretty ‘gams’ if you do say so as shouldn’t, you bitch … ‘Bitch, ’ … how quaint Boss is with his old-fashioned taboos … always necessary not to shock him, not too much, that is; Boss enjoys a slight flavor of shock, like a whiff of garlic … especially necessary not to annoy him with language everybody uses nowadays … Joe is good for a girl, never have to be careful around him … except about money, Wonder what Joe would think if he could see me locked in this luxurious vault with this old goat? … probably be amused but best not to tell him, dearie; men’s minds don’t work the way ours do, men are not logical … wrong to think of Mister Salomon as an ‘old goat’ though; he certainly has not acted like one … you had to reach for that provocative remark, didn’t you, dear? … just to see what he would say … and found out! … got squelched, Is he too old? … hell, no, dear, the way they hike ‘em up with hormones a man is never ‘too old’ until he’s too feeble to move … the way Boss is … not that Boss ever made the faintest pass even years back when he was still in fair shape …
Did Boss really expect to regain his youth by transplanting his brain? … arms and legs and kidneys and even hearts, sure, sure, but a brain? …
Salomon switched off the telephone. “Done,” he announced. “All but signing papers, which I’ll do in Toronto this evening.”
“I’m sorry to be so much trouble, sir.”
“My pleasure.”
“I do appreciate it. And I must think about how to thank Boss, didn’t thank him today but didn’t think he meant it.”
“Don’t thank him.”
“Oh, but I must. But I don’t know how. How does one thank a man for a million dollars? And not seem insincere?”
“Um! There are ways. But, in this case, don’t. My dear, you delighted Johann when you showed no trace of gratitude; I know him. Too many people have thanked him in the past … then figured him as an easy mark and tried to bleed him again. Then tried to knife him when he turned out not to be. So don’t thank him. Sweet talk he does not believe; he figures it’s always aimed at his money. I notice you’re spunky with him.”
“I have to be, sir, or he tromps on me. He had me in tears a couple of times, years back, before I found out he wanted me to stand up to him.”
“You see? The old tyrant is making bets with himself as to whether you’ll come trotting in tomorrow and lick his hand like a dog. So don’t even mention it. Tell me about yourself,
Eunice, age, how long you’ve been married, and how often, number of children, childhood diseases, why you aren’t on video, what your husband does, how you got to be Johann’s secretary, number of arrests and for what, Or tell me to go to hell; you are entitled to privacy. But I would like to know you better; we are going to be working together from here on.”
“I don’t mind answering”, (I’ll tell just want I want to tell!), ”but does this work both ways?” She stopped to let down the leg rest, straightened up. “Do I quiz you the same way?”
He chuckled. “Certainly. I may take the Fifth. Or lie.”
“I could lie, too, sir. But I don’t need to. I’m twenty-eight and married once and still am. No children, no children yet; I’m licensed for three. As for my job, well, I won a beauty contest at eighteen, the sort that offers a one-year contract making appearances around your home state, plus a video test with an option for a seven-year contract, ”
“And they didn’t pick up your option. I’m astonished.”
“Not that, sir. Instead I took stock of myself, and quit. Winning that state contest and then losing the national contest made me realize how many pretty girls there are. Too many.
And some things I heard from them about what you have to go through to get into video and stay there… well, I didn’t want it that much. And went back to school and took an associate’s degree in secretarial electronics, with a minor in computer language and cybernetics, and went looking for a job.” (And I’m not going to tell you how I got through school!) “And eventually filled in as Missus Bierman’s secretary while her regular secretary had a baby … then she didn’t come back and I stayed on … and when Missus Bierman retired, Boss let me fill in. And kept me on. So here I am, a very lucky girl.”
“A very smart girl. But I’m sure your looks had much to do with Johann’s decision to keep you on.”
“I know they did,” she answered quietly. “But he would not have kept me had I not been able to do his work. I know how I look but I’m not conceited about it; appearance is a matter of heredity.”
“So it is,” he agreed, “but there are impressive data to show that beautiful women are, on the average, more intelligent than homely ones.”
“Oh, I don’t think so! Take Missus Bierman, downright homely. But she was terribly smart.”
“I said ‘On the average,’” he repeated. “What is ‘Beauty’? A lady hippopotamus must look beautiful to her boyfriend, or we would run out of hippopotamuses, potami, in one generation. What we think of as ‘Physical beauty’ is almost certainly a tag for a complex of useful survival characteristics. Smartness, intelligence, among them. Do you think that a male hippopotamus would regard you as beautiful?”
She giggled. “Not likely!”
“You see? In reality you’re no prettier than a female hippopotamus; you are simply an inherited complex of survival characteristics useful to your species.”
“I suppose so.” (Humph! Give me one opening and I’ll show you what I am.)
“But since Johann, and I, are of your species, what that means to us is ‘Beauty.’ Which Johann has always appreciated.”
“I know he does,” she said quietly. She straightened her scarlet-covered leg in full extension and looked at it. “I dress this way to amuse Boss. When I first went to work for Smith Enterprises I wore as little as the other girls in the outer offices, you know, skin paint and not much else. Then when I went to work for Missus Bierman I started dressing quite modestly because she did, covered up all over, I mean, like Nurse MacIntosh, not even a see-through. Uncomfortable. I went on dressing that way when Missus Bierman left. Until one morning I had only one such outfit, I wore disposables, cheaper than having them cleaned, and spilled coffee down the front and was caught with nothing to wear.
“And no time to buy anything for I was more afraid of being late, you know how impatient Mister Smith is, than I was that he might disapprove of my dress. Or lack of it. So I gritted my teeth and got out an office-girl bikini and asked Joe to paint me and hurry it up! Joe’s an artist, did I say?”
“I don’t believe so.”
“He is. He does my skin painting, even styles my face. But I was late anyhow that morning as Joe really is an artist and refused to let it go with just spraying me the background color. The two-piece was white with assorted sizes of big blue polka dots … and Joe insisted on continuing the pattern all over me, with me cussing and telling him to hurry and him insisting on painting just one more big polka dot. I was so late that I cut through an Abandoned Area I ordinarily circled around.”
“Eunice, you should never go into an Abandoned Area. God, God, child, even the police don’t risk it other than in a car as well armored as this one. You could be mugged, raped, and murdered and no one would ever know.”
“Yes, sir. But I was scared of losing my job. I tried to explain to Boss why I was late, and he told me to shut up and go to work. Nevertheless he was unusually mellow that day. The next day I wore the sort of full cover-up I have been wearing, and he was downright mean all day. Mister Salomon, I don’t have to be slapped in the face with a wet fish; from then on I quit trying to look like a nun, and dressed and painted to enhance what I’ve got, as effectively as possible.”
“It’s effective. But, dear, you should be more careful. It’s all very well to wear sexy clothes for Johann; that’s charity, the old wretch can’t get much pleasure out of life and is no threat to you, the shape he is in.”
“He never was a threat, sir. In all the years I’ve worked for Mister Smith he has never so much as touched my hand. He just makes flattering remarks about each new getup, sometimes quite salty and then I sass him and threaten to tell my husband, which makes him cackle. All innocent as Sunday School.”
“I’m sure it is. But you must be more careful going to and from work. I don’t mean just stay out of Abandoned Zones. Dressed the way you dress and looking as you do, you are in danger anywhere. Don’t you realize it? Doesn’t your husband know it?”
“Oh. I’m careful, sir; I know what can happen, I see the news. But I’m not afraid. I’m carrying three unregistered illegal weapons, and know how to use them. Boss got them for me and had his gaurds train me.”
“Um. As an officer of the Court I should report you. As a human being who knows what a deadly jungle this city is, I applaud your good sense. If you really do know how to use them. If you have the courage to use them promptly and effectively. If, having defended yourself, you’re smart enough to get away fast and say nothing to cops. That’s a lot of ‘ifs,’ dear.”
“Truly, I’m not afraid. Uh, if you were my attorney, anything I told you would be privileged, would it not?”
“Yes. Are you asking me to be your attorney?”
“Uh … yes, sir.”
“Very well, I am. Privileged. Go ahead.”
“Well, one night I had to go out on a blood-donor call. By myself, Joe wasn’t home. Didn’t worry me, I’ve made donations at night many times and often alone. I keep my Gadabout in our flat and stay in it until I’m inside the hospital or whatever. But, Do you know that old, old hospital on the west side, Our Lady of Mercy?”
“I’m afraid not.”
“No matter. It’s old, built before the government gave up trying to guarantee safety in the streets. No vehicle lift, no indoor parking. Just a lot with a fence and a guard at the gate.
Happened when I came out. This frog tried to hop me between the parked cars. Don’t know whether he was after my purse. Or me. Didn’t wait to find out, don’t even know if it was a man, could have been a woman, ”
“Unlikely.”
“As may be. Stun bomb in his face with my left hand as I zapped with my right and didn’t wait to see if he was dead. Buzzed out of there and straight home. Never told the police, never told Joe, never told anybody until just now.” But it took a triple dose of Narcotol to stop your shakes, didn’t it, dearie, oh, shut up, that’s not the point.
“So you’re a brave girl and can shoot if you have to. But you are a silly girl, too, and very lucky. Um. Johann has an armored car much like this and two shifts of guards to go with it.”
“Of course he has guards, sir, but I know nothing about his cars.”
“He has a Rolls-Skoda. Eunice, we are no longer going to depend on how fast you are with weapons. You can sell your Gadabout or plant flowers in it; from here on you’ll have mobile guards and an armored car. Always.”
Missus Branca looked startled. “But, Mister Salomon! Even with my new salary I couldn’t begin to, ”
“Switch off, dear. You know that Johann will never again ride in a car. Chances are he will never leave that room. But he still owns his personal defense car; he still keeps a double crew, two drivers, two Shotguns, and maybe they run an errand once a week. Eating their heads off and playing pinochle the rest of the time. Tomorrow morning my car will pick you up; tomorrow afternoon your own car, Johann’s, will take you home. And will be on call for you at all other times, too.”
“I’m not sure Boss is going to like this.”
“Forget it. I’m going to chew him out for letting you take risks. If he gives me any back talk, he’ll find I have enough chips to hire you away from him. Be sensible, Eunice; this doesn’t cost him a dollar; it’s a business expense that he is already incurring. Change of subject. What do you think of his plans for this soi-disant ‘warm body’?”
“Is a brain transplant possible? Or is he grabbing at a straw? I know he’s not happy tied down to all that horrid machinery, goodness. I’ve been combing the shops for the naughtiest styles I can find but it gets harder and harder to get a smile out of him. Is it practical, this scheme?”
“That’s beside the point, dear; he’s ordered it and we are going to deliver. This Rare Blood Club, does it have all the A-B-Negatives?”
“Heavens, no. The last club report showed less than four thousand A-B-Negs enrolled out of a nationwide probability of about million.”
“Too bad. What do you think of his notion of page ads and prime time on video?”
“It would cost a dreadful lot of money. But I suppose he can afford it.”
“Certainly. But it stinks.”
“Sir?”

“Eunice, if this transplant is to take place, there must be no publicity. Do you remember the fuss when they started freezing people? No, you’re too young. It touched a bare nerve which set off loud howls, and the practice was very nearly prohibited, on the theory that, since most people can’t afford it, no one should be allowed to have it. The Peepul, bless ‘em, our country has at times been a democracy, an oligarchy, a dictatorship, a republic, a socialism, and mixtures of all of those, without changing its basic constitution, and now we are a defacto anarchy under an elected dictator even though we still have laws and legislatures and Congress. But through all of this that bare nerve has always been exposed: the idea that if everyone can’t have something, then no one should have it. So what will happen when one of the richest men in the country advertises that he wants to buy another man’s living body, just to save his own stinking, selfish life?”
“I don’t think Boss is all that bad. If you make allowances for his illness, he’s rather sweet.”
“Beside the point. That bare nerve will jump like an ulcerated tooth. Preachers will denounce him and bills will be submitted in legislatures and the A.M.A. will order its members to have nothing to with it and Congress might even pass a law against it. Oh, the Supreme Court would find such a law unconstitutional I think, but by then Johann would be long dead. So no publicity. Does the Rare Blood Club know who these other A-B-Negatives are who are not members?”
“I don’t know. I don’t think so.”
“We’ll check. I would hazard that at least eighty percent of the people in this country have had their blood typed at some time. Does blood type ever change?”
“Oh, no, never. That’s why we rares, that’s what we call ourselves, are so in demand.”
“Good. Almost all of the population who have been typed have the fact listed in computers somewhere, and with computers so interlinked today it is a matter of what questions to ask and how and where, and I don’t know how, but I know the firm to hire for it. We progress, my dear. I’ll get that started and off-load the details onto you, and then get other phases started and leave you to check on them while I go to South America and see this butcher Boyle. And, ”
“Mister Salomon! Bad turf coming up.”
Salomon thumbed his intercom. “Roger.” He added, “Damn them. Those two beauties like to go through Abandoned Areas. They hope somebody will shoot so that they will have legal excuse to shoot back. I’m sorry, my dear. With you aboard I should have given orders to stay out of A.A.s no matter what.”
“It’s my fault,” Missus Branca said meekly. “I should have told you that it is almost impossible to circle near Nineteen-B without crossing a bad zone. I have to detour way around to reach Boss’s house. But we’re safe inside, are we not?”
“Oh, yes. If we’re hit, this old tank has to be prettied up, that’s all. But I should not have to tell them. Rockford isn’t so bad; he’s just a Syndicate punk, an enforcer who took a fall. But Charlie, the one riding Shotgun, is mean. An XYZ. Committed his first murder at eleven. He, ” Steel shutters slid up around them and covered the bulletproof glass. “We must be entering the A.A.”
Inside lights came on as shutters darkened windows. Missus Branca said, “You make it sound as if we were in more danger from your mobiles than we are from the bad zone.”
He shook his head. “Not at all, my dear. Oh, I concede that any rational society would have liquidated them, but since we don’t have capital punishment I make use of their flaws.
Both are on probation paroled to me, and they like their jobs. Plus some other safe, ” The rap-rap-rap! of an automatic weapon stitched the length of the car.
In that closed space the din was ear-splitting. Missus Branca gasped and clutched at her host. A single explosion, still louder, went POUNGK! She buried her face in his shoulder, clung harder. “Got ‘im!” a voice yelped. The lights went out.
“They got us?” she asked, her voice muffled by the ruffles of his shirt.
“No. no.” He patted her and put his right arm firmly around her. “Charlie got them. Or thinks he did. That last was our turret gun. You’re safe, dear.”
“But the lights went out.”
“Sometimes happens. The concussion. I’ll find the switch for the emergency lights.” He started to take his arms from around her.
“Oh, no! Just hold me, please, I don’t mind the dark. Feel safer in it, if you hold me.”
“As you wish, my dear.” He settled himself more comfortably, and closer.
Presently he said softly, “My goodness, what a snuggly baby you are.”
“You’re pretty snuggly yourself … Mister Salomon.”
“Can’t you say ‘Jake’? Try it.”
“‘Jake.’ Yes, Jake. Your arms are so strong. How old are you, Jake?”
“Seventy-one.”
“I can’t believe it. You seem ever so much younger.”
“Old enough to be your grandfather, little snuggle puppy. I simply look younger … in the dark. But one year into borrowed time according to the Bible.”
“I won’t let you talk that way; you’re young! Let’s not talk at all, Jake. Dear Jake.”
“Sweet Eunice.”
Some minutes later the driver’s voice announced, “All clear, sir,” as the shutters started sliding down, and Missus Branca hastily disentangled herself from her host.
She giggled nervously. “My goodness!”
“Don’t fret. It’s one-way glass.”
“That’s a comfort. Just the same, that light is like a dash of cold water.”
“Um, yes. Breaks the mood. Just when I was feeling young.”
“But you are young, Mister Salomon.”
“Jake.”
“‘Jake.’ Years don’t count, Jake. Goodness me, I got skin paint all over your shirt ruffles.”
“Fair enough, I mussed your hair.”
“My hair I can comb. But what will your wife say when she sees that shirt?”
“She’ll ask why I didn’t take it off. Eunice dear, I have no wife. Years ago she turned me in on a newer model.”
“A woman of poor tast