The Dice Man (56 page)

`I didn't plan any of it,' I said. `Didn't know it was going to happen When Eric asked me for tickets to the program, I thought he and his friends had become my fans. Hypocrites!'

'Not too good for our image, though. Did you consider that?'

`Was anyone killed?' Lil asked from beside me.

I moved over to the couch and with a groan collapsed beside Jake, who, dressed in white T-shirt and black Bermuda shorts, smiled warmly at me. His feet were bare and his' hair looked as if it had last been cut two months ago, by Edgarina.

'Yes,' I answered. `Can I have something to drink?'

`Sure,' Lil said. `What would you like?'

`Hot chocolate.' `You're beautiful, Luke baby,' Jake said, smiling benevolently. Lil headed for the kitchen.

`Thanks.'

`It's the white collar. You on a religious kick again?'

`It's a disguise. People trust priests.'

`I'm a little high,' Jake said, still smiling blissfully.

`Or at least they trust priests a little more than they do dicepeople.'

'But not so high that it interferes with my brilliance,' Jake added.

`You're melting on my couch,' H.J. said, staring down at me.

`Oh, I'm sorry,' I said.

As I stood up, a buzzer sounded off from somewhere and H.J. hustled off to answer it while I brushed off some snow.

`Are the police after you for the TV show?' Jake asked.

`I would guess so.'

`You ought to consider changing your personality,' he said.

I looked back at him and he burst into a grin.

`You're melting on his rug,' he added.

`Oh, sorry,' I said and moved toward the hallway, where I met H. J. returning.

`The police are on their way up,' he said neutrally.

I drew out a die.

`I'd like to try to get out of here and think things over,' I said. `Is there a way?'

`What's happening?' asked Lil, coming from the kitchen.

`You can go down the service stairs to the basement garage,' H. J.- said.

`What's happening?' Lil asked again.

`Is there a car I can use?'

`My Lincoln Continental is-there. I'll phone down and tell the man to have it ready for a friend.'

A loud knocking came from the end of the hallway.

`Be sure to make a note of the mileage,' H.J. said. `For income-tax purposes. I consider this a foundation business expense.'

'I've got to run, Lil,' I said. `I'll phone when I get wherever I go.' I hurried off to where H. J. had pointed to the service doorway, exchanging a last wink with Jake. Outside the apartment I began creeping with all deliberate stealth down the service stairwell to the cellar, and from there I moved like a cat - a large cat admittedly - to the door leading to the underground garage. Slowly, so slowly that I felt a thrill at the James Bond cunning of it all, I opened the door and looked into the brightly lighted garage. Except for a sloppily dressed, but cleancut-looking garage attendant leaning in a chair back against the wall near the entrance, the garage seemed empty.

It took me only five minutes to pick out H. J.'s big Lincoln Continental from the eleven other Lincoln Continentals: I finally figured out it must be the one standing ready to go near the entrance. I checked the license plate again and, with cool nonchalance, slipped open the front door and slid smoothly into the driver's seat.

A young man in his thirties, handsome and earnest, was sitting in front also.

`I'm sorry to disturb you,' he said.

`That's all right,' I said. `I just came down to the basement for a breath of fresh air.'

`I'm John Holcome of the Federal Bureau of Investigation,' he said. He reached into his suit-jacket pocket and leaned toward me to show a little card that looked like my membership card in the AAPP. I squinted aggressively at it.

`What took you so long?' I asked.

He replaced his card in his jacket pocket, leaned back against his seat and looked into my eyes earnestly.

`After learning through certain means that you were at Wipple's, we had to decide what to do with you.'

`Ahhh,' I said.

`And traffic in Manhattan is clogged in several places tonight.'

He smiled slightly at me like a bright student reciting a lesson. `You're Dr. Lucius Rhinehart,' he finished.

`That's true, I often am,' I replied. `What can I do for you?'

I sprawled back against my headrest and tried to appear relaxed. My forearm sounded the horn.

Mr. Holcome's pale blue eyes searched my unearnest face earnestly and he said `As you may know, Dr. Rhinehart, in the course of your television performance this afternoon you broke several state and federal laws.'

`I was afraid I might have.'

I looked vaguely out the window to my left for the Lone Ranger or Dicewoman to come rescue me.

`Assault and battery on Dr. Dart,' he said. `Brandishing a firearm in a public place. Larceny of Dr. Dart's gun. Resisting arrest. Aiding and abetting known criminals. Conspiracy to overthrow the government of the United States. Illegal impersonation of a cleric in a public place. Illegal use of a sponsor's time to give a personal message over public media. And infringement of twenty-three other FCC rulings regarding decorous and proper behavior on a television-media performance. In addition, we are aiding Inspector Putt in amassing evidence for a possible future prosecution of you on a charge of murder in the first degree of Franklin Osterflood.'

'What about hitchhiking within the city limits?'

`Conservatively speaking - and we had no time to check this without computers - we believe that these various crimes would lead to a sentence of something in the neighborhood of two hundred and thirty-seven years.'

`Ahhh.'

`The government, however, believes that you are actually the harmless dupe of more important subversive forces.'

`Exactly.'

'We know, although we could prove otherwise if we wished, that you were not in on the conspiracy to raid the TV station'

`Good job.'

`We also know that, should you plead insanity, you would be able to make a very strong case.'

Silence.

`Therefore; we have decided to make a deal with you.'

Silence.

`If you will tell us where we can find Eric Cannon, we will do one of two things: we will so arrange our charges that the most incompetent attorney in New York can get you off with only about three years, or-'

`Unnn!'

`-secondly, give you thirty minutes to get out of here and take your chances with the law in the future.'

'Ummmm.'

'This offer is contingent, of course, upon our actually being able to capture Cannon and his crowd where you direct us. It is also contingent upon the New York Police not locating and arresting or killing you before we do. Not being a party to our arrangement, they might make it impossible for us to lessen the charges.'

'Mmmm.'

He paused and looked, if possible, even more sincerely into my face.

`Where is Eric Cannon, Dr. Rhinehart?'

'Ah Eric?'

I flipped a die onto the seat between us and looked at it.

`I'm sorry, Mr. Holcome,' I said. `The Die feels I ought to think about whether I betray Eric and consult It in an hour. It has asked me to ask you to give me until tomorrow morning?'

'I doubt you have that much time. And we may not have that much time. I will give you exactly forty minutes. After that we come to make our arrest. If you tell us then, we'll keep this place staked out until we've caught Cannon or not. You can tell us whether you want three years or thirty minutes to run. Otherwise it's four walls till doomsday.'

`I see.'

`Now if you'd like, sir, you can go back to Mr. Wipple's apartment and meditate there.' He opened the door on his side and got out. The garage attendant materialized suddenly outside my door and looked in at me earnestly.

`Yes. Yes, it would be messy driving tonight,' I said and lifted my heavy, burden out of the car. `I suppose we may be seeing each other again?'

`In thirty-eight minutes. Yes.'

Mr. Holcome smiled, and his earnest eyes beamed into mine their unremitting sincerity. `Good evening, Dr. Rhinehart.'

`That's your theory,' I mumbled and walked with little enthusiasm back the way I had come.

I climbed up the ten flights of stairs with considerable less stealth and self-esteem than I had come down them. It was getting to be a long day.

Lil was the one who came to the door to let me in.

`What happened?' she asked as we moved down the hall toward the living room.

`Red light,' I said.

`What are you going to do?'

I collapsed in total exhaustion on the couch. Jake was seated in the sand in a half-lotus position, staring into the red glow of a fake fire in Wipple's early American fireplace and smoking lazily on a homemade cigarette. H. J. wasn't around.

`They've got mad Lucifer really running,' I said. `Do you think, Lil, the Die intended you to remain married to a man whom it may ask to spend the next two hundred and thirty seven years in prison?'

`Probably,' she said. `What happened?'

I began telling Lil and Jake about my conversation in the basement and all the options I suddenly found myself confronted with. They listened attentively, Lil leaning against the boulder, Jake staring into the fire.

`If I betray Eric, it will seem,' I concluded wearily, `I don't know, as if I had betrayed someone.'

`Don't worry about it,' said Jake. `We never know what's good for us. Betrayal might be just what Eric's looking for.'

`On the other hand, two hundred and thirty-seven years in prison seems like an unduly long time.'

`The sage can fulfil himself anyplace.'

`I think I might feel confined.

'Dicedust,' Jake said. `You'd probably discover a whole new universe in prison.'

I'd like to try to escape from here, but I'm not sure there's a helicopter on the roof.'

Jake, cross-legged in the sand, staring into the red glow of the fake fire, smiled again like a child.

`Create the options, shake the dice,' he said. `I don't know why you keep talking.' `But I like you people,' I said. `I'm not sure I'd like prison as much.'

`That's a hang-up, Luke baby,' he said. `You gotta fight it.'

'So give good odds for trying to escape,' said Lil. `Or good odds for hiring me as your lawyer. That'll keep you free.'

`I'm worried about my image,' I said. `The Father of dice living has an obligation always to shake true.'

`Dicedung,' said Jake lazily. `If you're worried about your image you're neither a Father or a child; you're just another man.'

`But I have to help people.'

`Dicesnot. If you think you gotta help people, you're just another man.'

`But I want to help people.'

`Dicepiss,' said Jake. `If you want anything, you're just another man.'

`What's with these new obscenities?' I asked.

`Diced if I know.'

`You're being silly.'

`Not half as silly as you're being.'

He beamed into the fake fire. `Create the options. Shake the dice. All else is nonsense.'

`But I'm worried. It's me that may get two hundred and thirty-seven years.'

`Who're you?' Jake asked lazily.

There was a long pause and by now all three of us were staring into the redglow.

`Oh yeah, I keep forgetting,' I said, pulling out a green die, sitting up erect and becoming aware that I was sitting on someone's snow. `I am

One day when Luke was being chased by two FBI men with .45's he came to a cliff and leapt off, just catching the roof to a wild vine twenty yards below the ridge and dangling there. Looking down, he saw fifty feet below six policemen with machineguns, mace, tear gas canisters and two armored cars. Just above him he saw two mice, one white and one black, beginning to gnaw away at the vine to which he clung. Suddenly he saw just in front of him a cluster of luscious ripe, strawberries.

`Ah,' he said. `A new option.'

from The Book of the Die