from The Book of the Die
Chapter Ninety-four
We know from tapes made on recording devices hidden by agents of the IRS, FBI, SS and AAPP in the apartment of
H. J. Wipple, the fuzzy-minded, deluded financier whose millions have helped Rhinehart's various diseased schemes, exactly what transpired the afternoon and evening of the Great TV Raid.
Much of it is not relevant to Rhinehart's desperate efforts to escape the law, but a summary is valuable as an indication of the sick structures and values being developed by him and his followers.
Wipple's living room contains a pleasant overstuffed Victorian couch, an oriental desk with a French provincial chair; two Danish-modern chairs, an upholstered navy-surplus raft, a large boulder, and a ten-foot area of white sand on one side of the early American fireplace. The living room is thus furnished in styles ranging from early Neolithic to what J.
E. has joshingly called Fire Island eternal. It is recorded that Wipple claims that everything was chosen by the Die. It seems probable.
A cube of Trustees meeting of the DICELIFE Foundation had been scheduled there for after Rhinehart's appearance on the television program. Such meetings occur in such random places and at such random times that few have ever been recorded. Present that afternoon were Wipple, an essentially conservative man whose keen capitalist mind has somehow been poisoned by the atmosphere of dicepeople; Mrs. Lillian Rhinehart, who had recently passed the New York State Bar Examination despite allegedly casting a die to choose answers to several of the multiple-choice questions; Dr. Jacob Ecstein, the deeply compromised associate of many of Rhinehart's ventures, who is reportedly acting in an increasingly eccentric and irresponsible manner (he is up for a Special Condemnation from the AAPP); Linda Reichman, Rhinehart's sporadic mistress and incorrigible whore; and Joseph Fineman and his wife, Faye, both active dice theorists. Attendance varies at these meetings, since apparently trustees determine whether they will attend by consulting their dice.
These six people had all gathered at Wipple's by 5 P.M. that afternoon an hour after the conclusion of `Religion for Our Time' - but only Mrs. Rhinehart appeared to have watched the Program; she informed the others about what had happened. A long discussion of the possible consequences of Rhinehart's behavior took place, some of it sickeningly frivolous (e.g., Ecstein suggested they hide Rhinehart by burying him in the sand). While Miss Reichman made phone calls trying to find out what had happened to him, Wipple indicated repeated concern over the effect Rhinehart's association with such dregs as Cannon and Jones might have on the public image enjoyed by the Dicelife Foundation, but he found little support from the others. Joe Fineman noted that since two green dice had been found in a prominent place near the bombing of the army munitions depot in New Jersey and Senator Easterman's attack in the Senate on Dice Centers and dicepeople, there had been a sudden flood of incompetent dicetherapists creating stupid and dangerous options for dicestudents; he suggested that the FBI might be infiltrating and trying to discredit the movement. Dr. Ecstein squashed this dangerous speculation by noting that dicepeople could do perfectly all right discrediting themselves without outside help. He went on to suggest perhaps ironically that The DICELIFE Foundation issue a formal statement dissociating itself from any and all bad acts of dicepeople throughout the earth and adjoining planets - to save the trouble of having to issue a new statement `every other day.'
Miss Reichman and the two Finemans left the apartment at this point to try to find out at the television studio and from the police what had happened to Rhinehart; it was almost two hours since the end of the program and no word had yet been received from or about Rhinehart.
The discussion continued in our desultory manner among the remaining three, Wipple doing most of the talking. He complained that the Internal Revenue -Service was trying to deny the DICELIFE Foundation its previously granted tax-exempt status on the grounds that the religion of the Die doesn't fall within the generally accepted continuum of religions, that their educational programs seem aimed at unlearning of generally accepted knowledge, that their scientific studies seem often to contain fictional material and fictional research as evidence (Ecstein remarked here, `Well, nobody's perfect'), and that their nonprofit Dice Centers can't be conceived of as therapeutic in any traditional sense since their successfully treated dicestudents, as they themselves claim, are often maladapted and subversive of the society.
When Mrs. Rhinehart and Ecstein indicated a lack of interest in what IRS did, Wipple noted that he deducted three hundred thousand dollars a year from his income, which partly accounted for his generous contributions to the foundation. He added that according to the latest treasurer's report, prepared by a reliable dice-accountant whom the dice had permitted to be accurate, the foundation's failure to charge reasonable fees for presence at the Dice Centers, for group therapy, for their children's dice games and for their various publications was meaning a net loss of over one hundred thousand dollars a month (Ecstein commented 'Right-on!').
[We begin our verbatim report at this point (HJW behavouralism: 4.17.71.7.22. 7.39)]
`[The voice of Wipple) Sooner or later we've simply got to start getting some more income. Don't you people realize that other businesses throughout the country are cashing in for incredible amounts on Diceboy and Dicegirl T-shirts, green-dice sports shirts, cufflinks, necklaces, tie clips, bracelets, bikinis, earrings, diaper pins, love beads, candy bars? That dice manufacturers have quadrupled their sales in the last year?'
`Sure,' said Jake Ecstein. `I bought a hundred shares of Hot Toys Co., Inc. at 21 about a year ago and just sold out
yesterday at 681. `But what about us?' Wipple exclaimed. `Other dicelife games, selling for four times what we charge for ours and, you tell me, totally missing the whole point of diceliving, are making millions, while we sell ours for less than cost. And bars and discotheques with a five-dollar cover charge, are advertising dice-dice girls who strip at random, while our Dice Centers Sodom and Gommorah are practically free. Everyone's making money out of the dice except us!'
'That's the way the cubes cool,' said Ecstein.
`We keep giving the Die options to make us some profit and It keeps turning us down,' said Mrs. Rhinehart.
`But I can't keep covering these losses.'
`No one's asking you to.'
`But the Die keeps telling me to!'
['The sound of Ecstein and Mrs. Rhinehart laughing.]
`So far we're the only religion in world history that's losing money hand-over-fist,' said Ecstein. `I don't know why,
but it makes me feel good.'
`Look H.J.,' said Mrs. Rhinehart. `Money, power. Diceboy T-shirts, green-dice love beads, the Church of the Die #161;
everything people are doing with the dice - all are irrelevant. Diceliving is Only our game to promote multiple game-
playing; our theater to Promote multiple theater. Profits aren't part of our act.'
'You're playing the saint, Lil,' said Ecstein. `If we're beginning to take pride in our novelty, I'm for trying to loot the
public.'
I tell you we've got to do something about this IRS business or I'm through,' said Wipple. `We must hire the best
lawyers in the country to fight this ruling - to the Supreme Court if necessary.
'It'll be a waste of money, H.J.'
Still,' said Mrs. Rhinehart. `It might be educational to have the issues debated in the courts. "What is religion?"
"What is therapeutic?"
"What is education?"
I'm fairly certain I could make a strong case that the IRS would be the last organization likely to have the answers.'
I suggest we hire you to appeal the IRS decision,' said Ecstein.
`We need the best money lawyers can buy,' said Wipple.
`We need a dicelawyer,' said Ecstein. `No one else would know what he was trying to defend.'
'Dicepeople are unreliable,' said Wipple.
[Again there is laughte
r, in, which a nervous guffaw of Wipple can be heard too. The buzzing sound of the inter-
building telephone is heard and Wipple apparently leaves the room to answer it.]
'I hope Luke's all right,' Mrs. Rhinehart said.
`Nothing can hurt Luke,' said Ecstein.
'Mmmmm.'
'What are you consulting the Die about?' Ecstein asked.
`I just wanted to see how I should react to news of his death.'
`What did the Die say?'
'It said joy.'
Chapter Ninety-five
It had been an interesting program, with significant talk, action audience participation: a thoughtful dramatization of
some of the key issues of our time. The sponsor would be pleased.
Such were not my thoughts as I choked and gasped and staggered out the door opposite the control room, through
which I'd seen Eric pull the body of Arturo. In the hallway I tried breathing again for the first time in fifteen minutes,
but my eyes, nose and throat still felt as if they were supporting carefully tended bonfires. Eric was crouched over
Arturo, but when I knelt beside him to examine the wound, I saw that Arturo was dead.
'To the roof,' Eric said quietly, standing. His dark eyes were streaming tears and seemed not to see me. I hesitated,
glanced at a die and saw I couldn't follow him but was to seek my own way. We could hear sirens wailing outside in the street.
`I'm going down,' I said.
He was trembling and seemed to be trying to focus his eyes on me `Well, go ahead and play your games,' he said. 'Too
bad you don't care about winning.'
He shivered again. 'If you want to find me, call Peter Thomas, Brooklyn Heights.'
`All right,' I said.
`No good-bye kiss?' he asked, and turned away to trot down the hall toward a fire exit.
As he began opening the window at the end of the hall, I knelt beside Arturo to check a last time for a pulse. The door
opened beside me and a policeman with twisted face hopped grotesquely into the hallway and fired three shots down
the hall; Eric disappeared out the window and up the fire escape.
'Thou shalt not kill!' I shouted, rising stiffly. Another policeman came through the door, the two of them stared at me
and the first one edged cautiously down the hall after Eric.
`Who are you?' the man beside me asked.
'I am Father Forms of the Holy Roaming Catholic Church.'
I pulled out my canceled AAPP card and flashed it briefly at him.
`Where's your collar?' he asked.
'In my pocket,' I answered, and with dignity removed the white clerical collar I'd brought with me to-wear on the inter view show but which the Die had vetoed at the last moment to attach it around my black turtleneck sweater.
`Well, get outa here, Father,' he said.
'Bless You, I suppose.' I moved nervously past him back into the smoke-filled studio and with a lumbering gallop made it without breathing to the main exit in back. I stumbled to a stairwell and began staggering downward. At the foot of the first flight two other policemen were squatting oil either side with guns drawn; another was holding three giant police dogs who barked viciously as I neared. I made the sign of the cross and passed them to the next flight downward.
And downwards I went, blessing the sweating policemen who surged past me after the villains, blessing the sweating reporters who surged past me after the heroes, blessing the freezing crowds which surged around outside the building, and generally blessing everyone within finger-shot or blessing, especially, myself, who I felt needed it most.
It was snowing outside: the sun shining brightly out of the west and snow swirling down at blizzard pace out of the southeast, stinging the forehead and cheeks to give my head a uniform system of bonfires. The sidewalks were clogged with immobile people staring dumbly up at the smoke billowing out of the ninth-floor windows, blinking into the snow, using their sunglasses against the glare of the sun, turning off their ears to the din of horns coming from the immobile cars clogging the streets, and finally pointing and ahh-ing as a helicopter swept away from the roof far above accompanied by a fusillade of gunshots. Just another typical mid-April day in Manhattan.
Chapter Ninety-six
Lil held herself against me for about fifteen seconds, snow falling from my head and getting tangled in her blonde hair. I was exhausted. Arms about each other, we turned and staggered down the hall toward the living room.
`Are you all right?' she asked.
`Probably,' I answered. `But I sometimes get the impression the world is disintegrating even faster than I am.'
As we entered, H.J. arose from a chair and came over to pump my hand.
`Incredible show, Luke,' he said, blowing cigar smoke against my chest and placing a chubby hand reassuringly on my shoulder. `Don't see how you do it sometimes.'
`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 lea
ning 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.'
The Diceman Page 44
