Bucking the Tiger/Chapter 3

ET US—" Macdonald began, and was suddenly silent.

"Let's what?" asked Andy Walsh.

For several dragging seconds Macdonald studied the eager faces about him. He said to himself that it would be a good deed to put a puppy with hydrophobia out of its pain, though it would probably struggle for the miserable tatters of its life while it was being killed, and that it would be as deserving a deed to do away with these rotten human failures around him. Still, a great scientist might extract some life- giving serum from the puppy's stark corpse, so why not—

He smiled.

"Let's what?" Walsh asked again.

Macdonald leaned forward eagerly, gathering eyes like a hostess who is about to rise from table.

"Let's discount our own death!" he said.

There was a patch of silence. Hillyer closed his eyes, and opened his mouth in the manner of an aged, but dissolute sturgeon.

"I say, old chap," he ejaculated, "you aren't spoofing by any chance?"

"Not in the least." Macdonald turned to Hayes. "Tell me, my Native Son, how much premium does your company charge for an insurance, straight life, of a hundred thousand dollars?"

Hayes took a long, slim booklet from his pocket, and commenced turning over the pages.

"It all depends, Mac," he replied. "The cheapest insurance the Western Crown writes is one—well, it's meant for suckers. It don't cost so very much for the first year, nor the second. But the premiums rise gradually, year after year, and by the tenth year you got to hand over a pretty penny. And you got to keep on coming across until you die; the longer you live, the more you got to pay. It ain't the right sort of insurance for a healthy man. Nor can you borrow a single cent on it, and, of course, if at any time you fall down on a single premium, you don't get back a cent and you lose your whole ante."

"That doesn't matter. How much is the first year's premium?"

"What age?"

Macdonald glanced around the company, quickly striking an average.

"About thirty years, I guess.

"One hundred thousand bones, you said?"

"Yes."

Hayes pointed at the book.

"There you are, Mac. Two thousand bones premium the first year. What do you want to know for?" He laughed. "You aren't thinking of taking out any insurance, are you?"

"Perhaps I am," Macdonald said enigmatically. "Perhaps I am, Hayes. Perhaps you are," he added. "Perhaps Graham is, perhaps Walsh, perhaps—"

He ignored a somewhat wild expression on the faces of the others, and continued with eminent cheerfulness.

"You see, it's funny. You pay your little premium the first year—two thousand bones, you said. Well, suppose you die right after you've taken out your policy! At once your weeping heirs collect the one hundred thousand plunks! Damned good investment, if you ask me."

Graham laughed.

"A lot of good it will do you when you're dead and buried."

"Right-oh!" chimed in his cherub-faced satellite, emphasising the point, as usual. "A blooming lot of good!"

Macdonald planted the points of his ten long fingers on his knees after the manner of a visiting clergyman come to console the widow and the orphans. He smiled reflectively.

"That's just what I said. It's too bad that there isn't a way by which a man can discount his own death; collect the insurance while he is still alive."

Traube and the Frenchman looked at each other. The century-old hatred of Continental neighbours fell away before this transatlantic madness. The two Englishmen looked frankly bored.

But Hayes and Walsh, being Americans, were even willing to discuss the impossible.

"Say," it was the cowpuncher who spoke, "that would be a hell of a fat proposition for the company."

Macdonald replied in a low voice, and yet violently.

"And what of that? If it's right for the company to bet against your death, is it wrong for me to bet against the company?"

"Sure it ain't," laughed Walsh. "But the company deals—always; and the company stacks the deck—always!"

Macdonald stuck to his position. He spoke solidly.

"Well, suppose I show you a way of stacking the cards against the company, of cutting the deck and of dealing yourself? Suppose I show you a way of making some money—real money? Are you with me, all of you?"

Money? There was a sweet sound to the word, sweet and soothing. Even the Europeans showed interest once more. The six men knew that Macdonald was no fool. They could sense that he had a concrete idea in the back of his brain. But they feared that the idea had something to do with fraud. They were not averse to fraud on any moral ground, but they feared the legal consequences.

Hayes voiced their sentiments.

"Say, Mac, your little game has been tried. The Walla-Walla jail's full of impetuous promoters who've tried to stack the deck against life insurance people. Say, those companies wouldn't believe you dead even if they saw you buried in your grave. You got to die before five notary publics and three witnesses—and they appoint the witnesses!"

Then he hedged.

"Still, if your scheme's really worth while, I guess we'd all be willing to—to—" he paused, and looked at the others. "Say, fellows, wouldn't we?"

There was a feebly fluttering murmur of assent. It was not very hearty, They did not want to commit themselves. Yet Macdonald had spoken of "real money"! Why, yes, they declared, they were willing to be shown.

Macdonald congratulated himself. He saw that they would not be reluctant if he could show them how to break the law without rude interference on the part of the district attorney. And he had no intention of breaking the law at all.

He spoke very slowly.

"Suppose we all chip in together. Suppose we buy a heavy insurance—say a hundred thousand dollars—for one of our number?"

"Vell, wot good would dat do?" inquired Traube. "De fellow wot's insured ain't going to die chust to oblige de oders, iss he?"

"Why not?" Macdonald asked casually, and was silent.

The others looked at him aghast They drew a little away from him as if he was a dangerous maniac. Macdonald continued in a quiet, but ugly voice.

"Why shouldn't you die, Traube? Why shouldn't Graham die, or the count, or I myself—or any one of us, for that matter? Will there be any one to regret us, to mourn us, our nasty, lounging ways, our ineffective kicking and snarling, our rotten little failures, our filthy little joys?"

He stopped. He had the look of something isolated and hostile amid the subdued excitement of the others.

Subconsciously they knew what Macdonald meant; subconsciously they were afraid of it. So there was little surprise at Macdonald's next words.

"The man whose life we insure will have to commit suicide. That's all." There was a great gust of awed silence; but Macdonald continued without giving them breathing space, turning loose his whole forcible personality like a cyclone,

"I am perfectly serious," he shouted. "We're broke! We are down-and-outers! Nobody gives a damn for us, and we don't give a damn for each other or for ourselves! We're sick of being broke. We're sick of earning a measly little three or four bones now and again. We want real money—three, four, five thousand dollars—enough to give us a chance; enough to give us a new start!"

"You bet yer life," Walsh chimed in, and the others agreed in a rumbling chorus.

"You see you agree with me," Macdonald continued enthusiastically. "There's exactly one way, and I've pointed it out to you. We'll chip in, all of us—all but one—we buy a heavy insurance for that one. He kills himself—and we divide the money."

Hillyer burst in with a laugh.

"Right-oh! Ripping idea! Regular sizzler, what?"

But Hayes shook his head.

"There's a little nigger in your little woodpile, Mac. For, you see, my company don't pay in case of suicide unless—"

Macdonald smiled. He had known the objection, and had already discounted it.

"Unless what?" he asked.

"Unless a year has elapsed between the date when the man takes out his policy and the date on which he commits suicide."

"And that's all right, too," Macdonald replied. "It simply amounts to this, that we'll have to chip in a little more, all of us." Hayes was going to raise another objection, but Macdonald cut him short impatiently. "Good heavens, man, can't you see? It's as clear as pea-soup. We got to stump up enough money to pay the first year's premium. That's the main proposition. But it appears that our suicidal appointee has to live a year before he can make the grand kick-off which allows us to collect his insurance.

"All right. So all we've got to do is to chip in a little more cash. The man has to live a year before we can realise on our investment. Don't you see? If a fellow's kind enough to cut his throat so as to line our pockets, we got to be sports and make that last year one grand little spree for him. We got to chip in more. We got to make that last year worth while for him. No work for him, eh? No worry. Just a continuous alcoholic bliss, and then—at the end of the year—the kick-off!"

Again awed silence swept through the room. Only Hillyer, at the thought of a whole year's alcoholic bliss, ejaculated a loud "Hurrah"; but was instantaneously quiet when he noticed the rather tragic expressions of the others.

But the silence lasted only a few moments. There were excited whispers and exclamations. Gold, gold! they thought. A chance and a start, a new start! Traube thought of the café. Hayes thought of an orange grove in Southern California, Walsh of a riotous and plutocratic descent upon his former fellow-cowpunchers in Alberta, while the Frenchman was considering vaguely how long it would take him to finish his book and how much it would cost him to be his own publisher.

Only Graham struck a discordant note. He disliked the American instinctively.

"What is it, Mac?" he said with a smile which seemed moulded in marble. "The survival of the fittest, or the extinction of the one of us who is most unfit?"

Macdonald hardly heard him. He rose to his feet, gesticulating, excited, carried away by his own eloquence.

"What does death amount to after all," he cried, "and what does life amount to for that matter? The difference between the two is nothing but a wrong calculation. Don't you see that unless you've rich and carefree you're paying too big a price for the privilege of living? We're broke! The world's against us! And here's one way to get the best of that beast of a world, to make life worth while, to put us on our feet. Here's the way for all of us—for all of us but one!"

"Yes," the Frenchman said softly, "but what about that one?"

Macdonald laughed.

"Well, count, it's the old story of the sailors who were shipwrecked on a desert isle. They got hungry, very hungry. They didn't like the idea—didn't care much for roasted sailor—but they had to do it. They had to eat one of their number to keep alive. We, too, are shipwrecked sailors, shipwrecked in the gales of life. Let's turn cannibals. Let's eat one of ourselves. What do you say? Quick! Decide! Come on! Don't be pikers!"

There was an uncomfortable silence. Suddenly each of the six men decided that he would be the one who'd have to commit suicide at the end of the year and the thought dampened their enthusiasm. Macdonald sensed their hesitation, and he proceeded to whip them into line once more.

"Come on!" he shouted furiously. "Let's see if you've got two ounces of sporting blood left. Don't be afraid. This is as straight a gamble as ever was. We have all the same chance; for six of us a substantial sum of money at the end of the year, enough for a new chance, a fresh start in life; and for the seventh one year of peace and plenty—no worry, no hunger, no thirst, no tramping the streets, no hunting for jobs, no dirty, nasty lodging houses—and at the end of the year—" he lowered his voice "—at the end of the year a quiet, quick, clean death, and the comedy is finished! Good God, what more do you want, you cowards? Do you want to live forever?"

Walsh jumped up as if raised by a spring.

"I'll go you, old sport," he shouted; then he turned to the others. "Come on in; the water's fine!"

And the next moment, with shouts and yells and sporadic spurts of hysterical laughter, they had all agreed to the crazy proposal.

Even Graham lost some of his sneering composure. Faint red spots appeared on his pallid cheeks.

"All right," he said, and his voice trembled a little.

"All blooming right, you mean," broke in his countryman and faithful satellite. Then he turned to Macdonald and shook his hand, pumphandle-fashion.

"Colossal brain you've got, old top. Corking idea! Extraordinarily feasible! Very sporty, in fact! Only—" he scratched his curly hair, "if you will pardon me for introducing sordid details, how much will this little escapade cost us apiece—and who's going to be the blooming goat?"