The Dice Man (55 page)

And the black body disappears, leaving on the screen only the image of an empty chair and a small table with a cup of un-drunk liquid and beside the cup a blurred white speck, like the compressed feather of an angel.

In the beginning was Chance, and Chance was with God and Chance was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things were made by Chance and without him not anything made that was made. In Chance was life and the life was the light of men.

Them was a man sent by Chance, whose name was Luke. The same came for a witness, to bear witness of Whim, that all men through him might believe. He was not Chance, but was sent to bear witness of Chance. That was the true Accident, that randomizes every man that cometh into the world. He was in the world and the world was made by him, and the world knew him not. He came unto his own, and his own received him not. But as many as received him, to them gave he power to become the sons of Chance, even to them that believe accidentally, they which were born, not of blood, nor of, the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of Chance. And Chance was made flesh (and we beheld his glory; the glory as of the only begotten of the Great Fickle Father), and he dwelt among us, full of chaos and falsehood and whim.

from The Book of the Die

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 everything people are doing with the dice - all are irrelevant. Diceliving is Only our game to promote multiple gameplaying; 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 laughter, in, which a nervous guffaw of Wipple can be heard too. The buzzing sound of the interbuilding 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.'

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.

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.'