The Search for the Dice Man (7 page)

It had taken Miss Claybell more than a half dozen calls to locate Agent Nathaniel Putt. He worked in the Washington bureau. When Larry got back from his less than successful trip to Mr Lyman he phoned Putt and told him who he was and what he wanted. Putt said it might be helpful if they could meet. Larry derided this was too important to delegate to Miss Claybell, and Honoria was tied up, so he flew alone to Washington.

Putt turned out to be quite different from the image conjured up by Detective Cooper’s stories. He was a large florid man in his fifties with a face that looked as if it had seen every crime ever committed and was therefore a bit sceptical about the human race. But he seemed subdued and only marginally interested in Luke Rhinehart.

‘You’re his son, are you?’ Putt asked, after seeming to browse through some of the file he had brought out on Rhinehart.

‘Yes, I am,’ said Larry. ‘I’d like to locate him.’

‘Well, I can’t see how we can help you,’ said Putt. ‘The bureau was on the case for a few years but didn’t come up with anything. Then Carter got into office and discouraged us from chasing kooks and suggested we consider crooks instead. The file’s been inactive for fifteen years – not closed but inactive.’

‘But I thought –’ Larry began.

‘Actually, old Luke here is still wanted on about a half dozen federal charges. But he’s probably long dead and buried. We got two or three reports of his death No corpse unfortunately.’

‘But I thought – two weeks ago two agents who questioned me said he was wanted for what he was doing now!’

Putt peered at Larry over his thick horn-rimmed glasses. ‘What agents?’ he asked.

‘FBI agents,’ Larry countered. ‘Two tall skinny guys. One of them left me his card. Here …’ He took out his wallet. ‘See. A man named Hayes.’

Putt leaned forward to accept the card from Larry, sniffed at it, turned it over, and then shook his head.

‘Oh, them,’ he said. ‘Just routine. The bureau has to follow up on every open case at least once every three years. They were just going through the motions.’

‘It didn’t seem that way to me,’ Larry said.

‘Nevertheless,’ said Putt, slipping the card into the file. ‘I’m afraid we can’t help you locate Rhinehart.’

‘What about his followers?’ asked Larry. ‘Didn’t they form communities around the country – little dicedoms or something like that?’

‘Oh, yeah,’ said Putt, looking down at his file and then slipping back into his chair. ‘According to the file here we sent agents into two or three of them.’ As Putt perused the file the furrows on his brow grew and his flushed face flushed further. ‘Seems that two of the agents left the agency without ever filing a report. The one agent who did file one claimed that nothing anyone ever said at this place was reliable so he had no new idea where Rhinehart might be.’ A nervous tic rubberbanded twice across Putt’s cheek and then subsided.

‘But do you have the addresses of some of these places?’

Putt looked a long time at Larry and then excused himself for a few minutes. He was away half an hour.

When he returned he again stared a long moment at Larry.

‘You’re determined to find your father, are you?’

‘I am,’ said Larry.

‘OK then,’ said Pull. ‘Maybe we can be of help. We’re
pretty sure that there’s one of these dice centres still in existence. It’s, ah, it’s a place called Lukedom – but it’s not on any map. We’re not actually sure where it is – someplace in West Virginia or Tennessee we think, but since the case is inactive we haven’t pursued it. You interested?’

‘Of course,’ said Larry. ‘But that’s not much to go on.’

‘There’s a lady,’ said Putt. ‘An Arlene Ecstein. She might know. She was Rhinehart’s mistress or something back when everyone was crazy. Her husband was a big deal in the movement. We even think the husband, Jake Ecstein, might be behind some of these dice communes. Anyway, if I were trying to find Rhinehart I’d question her.’

‘I remember Mrs Ecstein,’ said Larry, frowning. ‘My God, she became the flakiest of them all.’

‘Yeah,’ said Putt. ‘I think you’re right. She’s probably not too reliable.’

‘You know where she is?’

‘Got an address,’ Putt replied, looking down at his file. ‘It’s five or six years old. Might help.’

After Agent Putt had escorted Larry to his door, walking with a big slow lumbering waddle, he closed the door slowly behind him. Then he slammed one fist into another and his eyes blazed. He almost leapt to his desk and punched out a number.

‘Get me Macavoy!!’ he barked. ‘Get him in here!’

While he waited, he phoned to reserve a car for Macavoy and then began pacing back and forth. For fifteen years – ever since he’d been denied a promotion because of his failures on the case – he’d been after this guy Rhinehart and come up blank every time. He’d watched as the man’s influence had waxed and waned, but always spreading pornography, promiscuity, Aids, herpes, dope, violence, unwed mothers and welfare cheats. Now his kid, who must be as nutty as his father but seemed to hide it better, had finally decided to try to find his old man. It
could well be the break Putt had been looking for all these years.

When Macavoy entered he stood at polite attention until Putt turned to him. Macavoy was a deadly serious young man, an agent for only two years and convinced that two-thirds of being a successful agent lay in being steadily sombre and serious.

‘Rhinehart’s son has decided to try to find his father,’ Putt announced gruffly, his bloodshot eyes blazing.

‘How is this going to help us?’ Macavoy asked.

‘These dicequeers won’t talk to cops or reporters or us,’ Putt answered. ‘But they may be willing to talk to someone whose last name is Rhinehart and happens to be the bastard’s son. Putt stopped pacing and made a facial expression which may have been a smile.

‘I want you to put a loose tail on this kid,’ he went on. ‘Stick with him for as long as he’s going after Rhinehart senior. Stick with him until he leads us to the old madman himself.’

‘You mean Rhinehart senior?’

‘That’s right. Rhinehart. The worst threat to American society since Karl Marx.’ Macavoy nodded soberly.

Arlene Ecsiein’s phone number was in the Queens phone book, and it turned out she lived in Hempstead, Long Island, not exactly a bastion of kookiness. Larry was surprised on phoning her to find himself talking to a gentle grandmotherly woman who tended to babble on a bit about ‘dear old Luke’ and ‘your wonderful mother’, and ‘wasn’t it a shame …’ and so on.

He reported his meeting with Putt and his follow-up phone call to Arlene and his memories of her to Honoria and Kim at the Battles’ Upper East Side luxury apartment. Luke’s seduction of Arlene had been his first dice decision, his first step on his ‘downward path to self-destruction’ as Larry put it, or ‘first test of the malleability of the human soul’ as Luke’s followers had since put it. In any case, as Larry explained, Arlene had soon become a fanatic practitioner of the dicelife, blossoming from a frustrated and unfulfilled childless housewife to an earthy mother, career woman and ‘slut’ – the last word being Larry’s interpretation of her subsequent dicelife. Larry hadn’t seen her since he was a boy. At first Honoria had seemed put off by Larry’s recitation, but when Kim seemed eager to meet Arlene, Honoria wisely decided she would go with her fiancé.

It turned out that Arlene lived in one half of a somewhat run-down duplex in a mostly white neighbourhood that looked as if it was struggling to maintain its dignity. The doorbell didn’t work, so Larry had to bang several times on the old wooden door.

When it opened, Larry and a tense, wary Honoria found themselves facing a large, white-haired lady wearing a
long brown dress with a black shawl thrown over her upper half. She peered at them through thick glasses and then smiled warmly.

‘My, how you’ve grown,’ she said, as if imitating every ancient relative since the beginning of time. ‘I’d never have recognized you if you hadn’t phoned first. How’s your father?’

Of course that’s what Larry wanted to know, so her asking was a bit of a setback. But Arlene didn’t seem to expect an answer and went babbling happily on about the good old days and wasn’t it a shame and sugar? milk? or lemon? in the tea. As Arlene bustled away towards her tiny kitchen Larry and Honoria exchanged discouraged looks from the deep ancient armchairs they found themselves buried in.

When Arlene had returned she served them lukewarm tea with some stale Stella Dora biscuits. Then with a loud groan she settled herself down into the overstuffed couch.

‘The arthritis does get to one over the years,’ she said. ‘I hope it hasn’t hit poor Luke.

‘We were wondering where Dr Rhinehart might be,’ said Honoria, wanting to get to the point. ‘Have you heard from him recently?’

‘Oh, no,’ said Arlene ‘Luke hasn’t written or phoned me in years and years. He has to lie low, you know. The police are after him.’

‘We know,’ said Honoria. ‘Where was he the last time he wrote or phoned?’

‘Oh, that was years ago,’ said Arlene, looking off into space. ‘I’m sure he’s moved since then.’

‘Where was it?’ asked Larry.

‘Oh, here in New York, I guess,’ Arlene answered. ‘It’s all rather vague now. He wasn’t much for precision.’

‘Where’s your husband?’ Honoria asked.

‘Oh, Jake’s down south, I think,’ said Arlene. ‘He’s become a guru or priest or something, I hear, but still writing books. He’ll never stop writing books.’

‘I see,’ said Honoria.

‘He always wanted to be a king or a president, but I guess he’s had to settle for a smaller kingdom.’

‘And where exactly in the south?’ asked Larry.

‘Well, now, let me see,’ said Arlene, frowning. ‘A little town in Virginia I think. Not even on the map. Lukedom. Jake named it after your father.’

Larry and Honoria both sat up straighter in their chairs.

‘Do you know where it is?’ asked Honoria.

‘Oh, my, no,’ said Arlene. ‘Jake says it’s not on any map. That’s why he had to send me instructions about how to get there.’

‘You have instructions about how to get there!?’ said Larry.

Arlene looked surprised.

‘My goodness, that’s right,’ she said. ‘I guess I do. I never went, so I never even bothered to read them, but I know he sent them. I wonder what I did with that letter.’

While Larry and Honoria sat on the edge of their chairs – or as close as the deep, broken-springed chairs would permit – and exchanged glances, Arlene bumbled up off the couch to putter around her desk, mumbling happy apologies for her sloppiness and finally returning with a big smile and a letter.

‘See,’ she said. ‘I told you Jake had written instructions and here they are.’ She adjusted her glasses and peered down at the paper. ‘Lukedom. Dirt-road route to Lukedom. Were you thinking of visiting Jake?’

‘Yes,’ said Honoria. ‘Larry is interested in seeing his father and we thought this tittle village might have some people in it – Dr Ecstein, for example – who might have some idea where he is.’

‘How nice!’ said Arlene. ‘You’re going to see your father! Do say hello to him for me and tell that naughty man to write.’

Larry nodded, and a few minutes later, sketchmap in hand, he and Honoria said goodbye to Arlene. She wanted
to have them take some of the stale Stella Dora cookies and offered to throw in some son of frozen pie she had made the previous year, but they politely declined. She told them to give Jake a big kiss for her and tell him she was getting along just fine. She said she’d like to find Lukie too and give him a piece of her mind. She was still babbling away when they finally managed to leave.

Larry and Honoria edged carefully down the old wooden stairs into the smelly night of Hempstead and were soon back in Larry’s Mercedes speeding towards Manhattan.

After Arlene had closed the door behind her two visitors, she grinned, shook her head, and began to shuffle back into the living room. Then she stopped in front of an old full-length mirror and looked at herself. She stretched and smiled again.

Then she reached up and began pulling at her white hair until, with a sudden wrench, the entire white wig came sliding off, revealing a mass of jet-black hair pinned down. After putting the white wig in a cardboard box with others on a closet shelf, she reached back and unpinned her hair, sending a cascade of touched-up black hair down on to her shoulders. She shook her head and smiled.

She checked her watch, frowned and took off her black shawl. Then, as she began to walk with a decidedly younger step towards the bathroom she flipped her shawl into a bedroom as she passed. On the way she took off her thick glasses and left them on a shelf in the hall. In front of the mirror in the bathroom she began to insert contact lenses into her eyes. When she’d finished she began to apply ‘the works’, as she called the creams, mascaras, eyeshadow, line erasers, blushers that were any woman’s staple when she wanted to look younger. This done, she left for the bedroom to change her clothes and prepare for her evening out.

But twenty minutes after Larry and Honoria had left there was a knock on the door of Arlene’s duplex. It
was Agent Macavoy. He had dutifully followed Larry’s Mercedes and knew, when they had arrived at Browning Street in Hempstead, that the two were questioning Arlene Ecstein. After they’d left, he decided it might be worthwhile if he had a few words with the lady. If she told him what she’d told them it would simplify his surveillance.

The door was finally opened. A big-busted woman wearing a low-cut flaming-red dress and high heels greeted him with a slow smile. If Arlene had looked well into her fifties for Larry and Honoria, she looked closer to a well-preserved and heavily endowed forty now.

‘Hi,’ she said. ‘What can I do for you?’

Agent Macavoy pulled out his FBI identification and held it in front of her face.

‘Mrs Ecstein?’ he said coldly. ‘Macavoy, FBI. A few questions.’

Arlene didn’t even glance at his ID, but simply swung the door open wide and invited him in.

‘Sure,’ said Arlene. ‘I was just going out, but I love answering questions.’ She walked over to her desk and, with her back to Macavoy – for a moment he worried that she might be going for a weapon – she seemed to fiddle with something there before turning. As she came towards him he saw that it was just a couple of dice.

‘So,’ she said, coming back up to him with a smile. ‘What can I do for you?’

Macavoy halted at her approach and looked at her severely, hoping to put her in a properly respectful if not fearful frame of mind.

Arlene ran her tongue around her lips and idly routed her shoulders so that her breasts momentarily swelled up towards the neckline of her low-cut dress then receded – two round white tides swelling and receding.

‘Few questions,’ said Macavoy. ‘Like did you tell your recent visitors where they might find –’

‘My God, you’re a hunk,’ said Arlene, reaching her two
hands up briefly to knead each of Macavoy’s shoulders and eyeing him up and down. ‘You work out every day?’

‘Uh, every other day,’ said Macavoy, taken aback and actually retreating a step. ‘Uh, Luke Rhinehart, Mrs Ecstein. Did you –’

‘No, no, more than that,’ said Arlene, moving her hands inside his suit jacket to his chest and squeezing through his shirt the muscles around his nipples. ‘You must have played football or lifted weights, right?’

Macavoy was retreating sideways now, into the living room.

‘Basketball actually,’ said Macavoy ‘But, uh, what did you tell –’

‘And a belly like a steel wall.’ said Arlene, whose fingers were kneading his abdomen as the two of them danced slowly from the hallway across the living room, Macavoy retreating, Arlene effortlessly advancing.

‘Look, Mrs Ecstein, I –’

‘And thighs like –’

‘Aghhhh!!’ said Macavoy as Arlene’s fingers probed his inner thighs so suddenly he actually jumped, almost breaking their physical contact.

‘Great hard haunches of bullmeat,’ concluded Arlene.