And he didn’t want to die. It wasn’t worth it, no matter how much they paid! He must have been crazy, absolutely insane to agree to such a thing…

But he knew that wasn’t true. And he remembered just how sane he had been.

ONE week ago, he had been on The Prize of Peril stage, blinking in the spotlight, and Mike Terry had shaken his hand.

“Now, Mr. Raeder,” Terry had said solemnly, “do you understand the rules of the game you are about to play?”

Raeder nodded.

“If you accept, Jim Raeder, you will be a hunted man for a week. Killers will follow you, Jim. Trained killers, men wanted by the law for other crimes, granted immunity for this single killing under the Voluntary Suicide Act. They will be trying to kill you, Jim. Do you understand?”

“I understand,” Raeder said. He also understood the two hundred thousand dollars he would receive if he could live out the week.

“I ask you again, Jim Raeder. We force no man to play for stakes of death.”

“I want to play,” Raeder said.

Mike Terry turned to the audience. “Ladies and gentlemen, I have here a copy of an exhaustive psychological test which an impartial psychological testing firm made on Jim Raeder at our request. Copies will be sent to anyone who desires them for twenty-five cents to cover the cost of mailing. The test shows that Jim Raeder is sane, well-balanced and fully responsible in every way.” He turned to Raeder.

“Do you still want to enter the contest, Jim?”

“Yes, I do.”

“Very well!” cried Mike Terry. “Jim Raeder, meet your would-be killers!”

The Thompson gang moved onstage, booed by the audience.

“Look at them, folks,” said Mike Terry, with undisguised contempt. “Just look at them! Antisocial, thoroughly vicious, completely amoral. These men have no code but the criminal’s warped code, no honor but the honor of the cowardly hired killer. They are doomed men, doomed by our society, which will not sanction their activities for long, fated to an early and unglamorous death.”