The Search for the Dice Man (24 page)

The next morning Larry woke up a new man. The simple act of no longer trying to be who he’d been trying so unsuccessfully to be for the last many months gave him an exhilaration he hadn’t felt in years. It helped that he realized that he’d come close to killing himself. As a result, experiencing a new dawn, even through the soot of Manhattan, was bliss.

The dice opted for his taking the subway to work, and though it wasn’t exactly his first choice (not going to work at all had that honour), he found himself chatting inanely with several sleepy New Yorkers pressed flesh to flesh who listened to him in dull-eyed befuddlement, figuring Larry was clearly from out of town and would probably be ripped off four times before he ever got to where he was going.

When he came to his outer office and saw Miss Claybell meticulously applying a thin line of lipstick to her equally thin lips, he felt a surge of love for her, especially when she looked up in embarrassment and sung out her traditional greeting: ‘Oh, good morning, Mr Rhinehart!’

She alone in these last two months had not deserted him, greeting him always the same, whether he lost a million or broke even.

‘My God,’ he said to her, stopping at her desk. ‘I never realized what a beautiful woman you are.’

Miss Claybell’s habitual smile of greeting was frozen on her face by surprise. She blinked but could not speak.

‘I don’t know whether it’s the suit you’re wearing or the incredible glow on your face,’ he went on, peering at her intently. ‘But … beautiful, beautiful.’

Larry strode on past her into his inner office, leaving Miss Claybell, for the rest of the morning, in a state of inefficiency she had never known.

Inside he consulted his monitors, checked some items in
Investor’s Daily,
and ran some data through one of his chart programs tracking gold. Then he stopped, frowned, and leaned back in his chair. So. So what?

For his own account, he decided, he would buy or sell twenty December S&P futures at the market, and let the die tell him whether he should buy the futures or sell them, and where he should place his stop loss order. Theoretically the technical indicators he’d just looked at were bearish on the market, and Larry hoped the die would say ‘sell.’ With odd meaning buy and even sell, the die fell a three: buy. He gave the die a few more options regarding stops and then picked up the phone and got Jeff on the line to give him the order.

‘I don’t get it,’ said Jeff. ‘I thought our indicators were bearish. Didn’t you say the market was going to drop to twenty-five hundred?’

‘Yeah … yeah, but uh,’ Larry began, fingering his dice. ‘I’ve developed some new software,’ he went on, rubbing one die against his belly. ‘Complicated indicator. Tell you all about it at lunch.’

‘But in the BB&P Fund you’re short those same futures!’

‘Details, details.’ said Larry, feeling a little giddy. ‘I follow our base technical indicators for the fund but feel free to experiment with other indicators in my own

‘Got any other brainstorms?’ asked Jeff.

‘I don’t know, let me see,’ Larry answered. He then asked the die whether he had any other brainstorms and it answered with a five: yes. Gold. He’d go long or short gold. Same ballgame. The die said buy gold. That should please Jeff. Maybe he should do this in the BB&P Fund. What did the die think of that idea? The die said with a four that it liked it. Larry told Jeff his new indicator was suggesting they
go long twenty December gold contracts with appropriate stops in the fund.

‘When did we finally get a stronger buy signal?’ asked Jeff, sounding a little nervous. Of course Jeff always sounded nervous.

‘About ten seconds ago,’ answered Larry, grinning.

‘Really?’ asked Jeff. ‘That’s great! I told you we should be buying gold.’

‘Well, my new indicator just agreed with you.’

‘I’m glad you finally upgraded your software,’ said Jeff.

‘So am I,’ said Larry, and they were through.

He spent the next hour going over all the positions in the Futures Fund and letting the dice decide what to do – buy more, sell, sell more, hold – and also let the dice pick the stops. This wasn’t random trading as had been the two positions he’d taken earlier with Jeff. Now Larry was letting the dice choose between options that his indicators themselves took no strong position on. Indicators never said any more than ‘probably’ and it was Larry who decided whether to translate each ‘probably’ into a definite buy or sell, and who decided the extent of the position. Now he let chance decide. On the basis of his trading over the last half-year he guessed that he himself had some inherent flaw that was leading to his consistent slow losses. The dice would eliminate that flaw. Of course, the dice might have a few dozen of their own.

When he was working on his computer he called in Miss Claybell and told her to print it out and send copies to Jeff and the other traders.

‘And one other thing,’ he added to her as she was leaving. ‘There’s a woman named Kim Castelli who used to live with the Battles. Call their house and find out how I can get in touch with her. Don’t take no for an answer. Tell them her bonds have matured – that ought to do it.’

‘Yes, sir,’ said Miss Claybell.

‘Gonna be a big day,’ Larry concluded.

‘Oh, yes it is!’ Miss Claybell said, perhaps still in a state of
euphoria from Larry’s earlier references to her beauty. ‘It is!’

It was a big day. Not more than ten minutes after Miss Claybell had sent around his sheet of new orders in all the markets his office began to receive unaccustomed traffic and his phone began to ring, Jeff first, of course, Jeff being able to smell disaster faster than any known creature, even where there was none.

‘Is this your new software?’ he asked without preliminaries after marching into Larry’s office, waving the list of new orders.

‘It is,’ said Larry. ‘What do you think?’

Jeff stopped, lowered the list and began looking at it

‘Interesting,’ he finally said. ‘I don’t really see any pattern in this, but I sure as hell saw it wasn’t our old pattern.’

‘Exactly,’ said Larry.

Two other traders phoned to ask if there were any misprints in the orders, and, being reassured, went about their obedient way. ’Twas not theirs to reason why.

Neither Brad nor Mr Battle phoned or visited. Larry’s orders didn’t interest them, only the results at the end of the day.
Then
they would look at the orders.

But Mr Akito phoned from his East Village bank, and only when Larry recognized his voice did he remember that Miss Claybell had been ordered by Mr Battle to fax him each morning’s orders and each day’s results. Akito, true to the Japanese stereotype, was on the job.

‘You have changed your trading tactics,’ Akito said with no more introduction than Jeff had given.

‘That’s right,’ said Larry. ‘We’ve finally become operational on a system that I’ve been working on for four years.’

‘So … you are changing your … knack.’

‘Exactly. And the drawdowns of the past few months will soon be a thing of the past.’

That would be nice,’ said Akito. ‘Mr Namamuri has not been impressed with what has happened to our fifteen million dollars in your fund.’

‘Absolutely embarrassing,’ agreed Larry. ‘But you have to look at the long-term picture. Every year I’ve ended up with a profit.’

‘Except this year.’

‘This year is not yet over.’

‘You plan to increase asset value almost 16 per cent in a month?’

‘Hey,’ said Larry. ‘I lost that much in a single day.’

‘Ah, yes.’

‘How’s the old tennis?’

‘Six-two, six-three, six-one yesterday,’ answered Akito. ‘I am now ranked number one hundred and fifty-six in my country.’

‘That’s great! Didn’t know Japan had that many players. I think I’m ranked somewhere near the two hundred million level here.’

‘You are strange today,’ said Akito.

‘The new software,’ said Larry. ‘I’m using it in my personal life, too.’

‘Ahhh.’

The BB&P Futures Fund made money that day. Larry’s personal account made even more, since the stock market, for reasons of its own, went up, as the dice had said, and not down, as Larry’s scientific indicators had said. Of course there had been many profitable trading days over Larry’s extended losing period, but not one quite as decisively on the upside as this – 2½ per cent overall. At the end of the day even Mr Battle phoned.

Of course his primary purpose in calling, he explained, was to question Larry as to why he was long stock market futures in his individual discretionary accounts and short such futures in the BB&P Fund.

‘Collecting commissions,’ Larry answered promptly.

Mr Battle thought about that a long time and finally managed: ‘But not churning the accounts, I trust,’ he said

‘Absolutely not,’ said Larry, although it certainly seemed to him that being long and short the same futures in different accounts and thus making money only on commissions couldn’t be anything else.

Miss Claybell. with her usual persistent efficiency, managed to pry out of Hawkins a phone number of Kim’s employer and then even learned from calling there that Kim would probably be at the Big Apple midtown Manhattan salon that afternoon until eight in the evening.

When the day’s trading was over I considered my options. I thought I should probably phone Kim first and find out how the ground lay, but the die, given fifty-fifty odds, said ‘no’, don’t phone. Should I go there right away, or after dinner, or wait for the weekend? The die, more rash than I, chose from those three that I go right away.

I look a cab up to the Big Apple Health Spa on Seventh Avenue. I’d only vaguely heard of this particular chain of health clubs but was fairly certain it was not on Mr Battle’s approved list. The very name ‘Big Apple’ had the sort of bluff common man lingo that could only mean down-scale clientele – which probably meant they had muscles.

Although the neighbourhood outside of the building on Seventh near 47th Street was not reassuring, inside there was a pleasant lobby. An attractive receptionist confirmed that Kim was on the premises, probably in the main exercise room. The place had a pool and handball courts and even a computer-simulated golf game. Not bad.

The exercise room was full. Using the machines were a variety of men and women of a surprising range of ages, though most in their thirties, and a few so scantily clad as to take one’s mind off building more than one muscle. As I moved through the maze of machines I felt self-conscious in suit and tie, and rather resented everyone working so hard on their bodies when I didn’t.

Then I finally spotted Kim: she was dressed in a skintight black thongsuit over flesh-coloured leotards that came high up on each hip and revealed enough of the golden globes so that at least three men, theoretically grunting away on their Nautilus machines, were watching her as if her buttocks contained a winning lottery number. I felt a one-two punch to my heart and loins that stopped me dead in my tracks.

She was talking to a man wearing only shorts and a tanktop who looked as if he not only competed in the Mr Universe Contest but probably won. The two of them together looked like a God and Goddess casually discussing which humans they were going to fuck over that day. As the hunk chatted with Kim he was absent-mindedly juggling in one hand a twenty-five-pound weight as if it was a child’s stuffed doll.

After I managed to get fresh control over my legs and came up to her, Kim turned with a polite smile that froze on her face in surprise – she clearly hadn’t been expecting me. Then, the smile disappearing, she flushed and turned back to Mr Universe.

‘Well, thanks for the advice, Ed,’ Kim said to him. ‘I know we have to do something.’ Then she turned back to

‘How can I help you, sir?’ she asked with an exaggeratedly false smile.

Deflated, I looked at her for signs of her usual vitality and warmth. Her hair was tied back on top of her head and she was wearing little make-up. With that leotard on her I guessed no one would ever get to her face anyway.

‘Well, for a starter, by being a bit more friendly,’ I said, wondering what had happened to the Kim of my dreams.

She moved off at an angle away from Mr Universe and I followed.

‘The last time I saw you,’ said Kim, not looking at me. ‘you weren’t even talking to me.’

‘I was being a fool,’ I acknowledged.

Kim came to a halt against an unused Nautilus machine and finally turned to me.

‘And now you’re not?’ she asked.

‘Well – in a new way now,’ I said, smiling.

Kim nodded and smiled at a man who greeted her as he passed by and then turned her attention back to me.

‘And why are you here?’ she asked, looking at me quizzically.

Kim Kim Kim, it’s me! Larry! The man of Lukedom! Your sexual master and untiring lover!

‘To see you,’ I said, wondering if she’d totally forgotten me. ‘To get back together with you. To play dice games with you.’

‘Dice games!?’ she said, and suddenly looked to her right as if afraid someone might overhear.

‘My father’s alive,’ I said, glad to have gotten some response from her other than indifference. ‘The report of his death was apparently exaggerated.’

‘I … that’s wonderful!’ she said, her expression, if not friendly, at least now natural. ‘How’d you find out?’

‘I opened up the bronze die that supposedly held his remains and it contained a note from him that said I was getting closer.’

‘He’s playing games with you,’ she said, appearing concerned.

‘Of course. But for some reason I no longer mind, I think he expects me to do what you suggested – beat him at his own game. So I’m dicing.’

Kim studied me a moment and then laughed, that marvellous glow returning to her face for the first time.

‘You aren’t!’

‘You doubt it?’ I asked, a bit nonplussed at her response.

‘But what about your job? What about Honoria?’

‘Details, details.’

‘Oh, no, you’re in
big
trouble.’

‘Want to join me?’

‘In big trouble?’

‘Whatever.’

She gazed at me for a long moment, the liveliness back in her face and eyes.

‘Hey, Kim, when you get a moment I could use some help,’ interrupted another muscular man as he sauntered by wearing a weightlifting leotard that exposed almost as much buttock as Kim’s. What was this place, a soft-porn show?

‘You know if you realty play your father’s dice game,’ she finally said with great seriousness, ‘your old life is over.’

‘I hope so,’ I said, suddenly laughing.

‘And you won’t be exactly able to control what happens to us,’ she added.

Considering this, I frowned.

‘I think it was you who said if we’re really meant for each other, then we’ll survive whatever temptations the dice throw us into.‘

She shook her head.

‘I never used a cliché like “meant for each other“,’ she said. ‘And it was
me
who was being a fool then. Both about the dice and maybe about you.’

‘Maybe?’ I said, moving closer to her. ‘I’m at least still a maybe?’

Still shaking her head, Kim moved slightly away.

‘I’m probably a one-in-six shot, right? You promise to love honour and obey until the dice falls a “four”. I’m not sure what you think you’re offering.’

‘I’m diceplaying until I find my father or he finds me. After that, who knows? The world! Or maybe even dinner and a night out.’

‘And your job? Honoria?’ Kim asked again.

‘I’m a free man now. Let the chips fall where they may.’

‘That you can count on,’ said Kim, again studying me. Then, for no reason I could see, she suddenly softened and moved closer to me.

‘But it’s good to see you,’ she added in a whisper.

‘I’ve really missed you,’ I said. We stood as close together as possible without touching, I not daring to let my hands go around her since I knew I couldn’t stop them diving for her buttocks. Then Kim stepped back and smiled at me with her usual mischievousness.

‘So what’s on the dice agenda today?’ she asked.

‘I don’t know,’ I said, ‘but I’d like to give thirty-five chances out of thirty-six that it involves you, me and a bed.’

‘And I thought you were a risk-taker,’ she said with a smile. ‘But I’ve got a room-mate,’ she added, suddenly frowning, ‘and I’m dating another guy. And … I’m not quite as … sure of us as I was that night in Lukedom.’

I confess, dear reader, that my heart sank at those words. Having lost Honoria, had I now lost Kim too?

But I managed to nod.

‘I suppose that’s … fair enough,’ I said. ‘But I’d still like to see you.’

‘Sure,’ she said, and unexpectedly came up and kissed me on the cheek before walking away towards the exit from the exercise area. As she left she gave her behind one exaggerated swing and as she did, added over her shoulder: ‘Take a good look.’

I followed, noting as I walked another muscular behemoth straining under a machine but managing to follow Kim’s passage.

‘Eat your heart out, fella,’ I said and sauntered on.

Kim couldn’t get off work until 7.30, a two-hour wait that I managed to survive only by leaving the health club and following a lot of trivial dice choices that had me making random purchases from random shops – I ended up with a hand calculator, a five-dollar packet of underwear and a small .22 automatic – and seeing ten minutes of random movies – one of them X-rated, which didn’t help my ability to wait calmly for Kim. At 7.30 she emerged into the lobby of the Big Apple
dressed casually in a deep-brown pants suit and a raggedy-looking winter coat. I was awfully glad to see her.

We had a romantic candlelit dinner in a small Italian restaurant Kim knew, three blocks from the spa. She explained that the die back in Lukedom had chosen an option that she
proposition
Michael Way, not that she actually sleep with him. If he’d accepted her proposition, which he didn’t, then she would still have been free to leave, or to consult a die about whether she should leave.

Frankly I was feeling too much joy in her presence to hear much of what she was saying. The glow in her eyes – from joy in being with me, I felt – made her words irrelevant. And for some reason the only thing that mattered from Lukedom was the marvellous day and night we’d spent together there.

But at ten o’clock, as we were standing outside the restaurant, Kim came up and planted a soft kiss on my cheek. I didn’t let her escape, grabbing her in my arms and squeezing her to me.

‘Ahhhh,’ I groaned and, when I felt her hugging me in return, whispered: ‘God, it’s so good to hold you again.’

We remained embracing against a dingy wall next to the restaurant, the few passers-by eyeing us with Manhattan’s customary indifference. Then Kim sighed and gently moved to separate herself, looking up at me as starry-eyed as I assumed I was, but then, after giving me another soft kiss on the cheek, she broke away.

‘I’ve really enjoyed seeing you again,’ she said simply, ‘but I’d like to go home now, and alone.’

I was in that male state of anticipatory euphoria when a man thinks an evening is going to end just the way he wants with the woman he wants, and so was stunned into momentary silence. I fell vaguely outraged: how dare she act like a normal woman instead of like the girl of my dreams?

‘You’ll survive,’ said Kim with a sudden smile at my surprise. ‘And I hope you’ll call again. It’s just I don’t want to move quite as fast as we moved in Lukedom.’

‘Maybe we should check your decision with the dice,’ I suggested with sudden animation.

She responded by cocking her head to one side and examining me carefully with a sceptical half-smile.

‘Well, you can let chance have a say,’ she finally said. ‘My dice are in temporary retirement.’

‘Fine,’ I said, pulling out a green die. ‘If it’s odd I insist on sleeping in your apartment tonight – with you or without you.’

I rubbed the die between my palms, took it in my right fist and then opened my fingers palm up to see how the die lay. A one.

‘Shall we take a cab?’ I asked, smiling.

Kim’s apartment in Brooklyn was a mess. There were not only clothes and books and cassettes scattered all over but several cats playing with happy abandon with these clothes, books and cassettes. Kim assured me that most of the stuff belonged to her room-mate, but Kim’s bedroom wasn’t much of an improvement. Here it was mostly books and magazines that seemed to have no home, the single wooden bookcase overflowing. Clothes were stacked neatly on top of the one bureau and the small closet was so full it looked as if the door couldn’t close.

‘All my worldly possessions,’ she announced, gesturing extravagantly at the mess. ‘I keep trying to simplify my life but keep spotting blouses or books I can’t resist.’

‘You need to hire a new maid,’ I said.

‘Oh I will, I will,’ said Kim, coming towards me ‘The poor girl’s impossible.’

And then we kissed, the kind of long deep kiss that leaves strong men weak-kneed and weak women on their backs. Somehow we both remained standing. Kim broke away.

‘We’ve got a futon in the living-room closet,’ she said staggering away from me

‘Mmmm,’ I said and took out the green die. ‘Odd I sleep on the futon, even I sleep in your bed.’

‘What about me?’

The die bless it, fell a four: Kim’s bed.

‘I decide for me, you have to decide for you,’ I said and cheerfully began to undress.

Shaking her head with a small smile, Kim left the bedroom, returning five minutes later with a tray with a pot of tea and a pint of brandy. With me naked under the covers, she peeled down to panties and a long oversized t-shirt and sat on her side of the bed. While my loin system stirred restlessly we talked about what had happened to us since Lukedom.

She told me that after getting back she’d moved out of the Battle household without telling anyone where she was going, and tried drowning her sorrow in work. Her job involved whisking herself around three boroughs visiting the eight clubs and encouraging clients to sign up for everything the clubs had to offer: yoga, aerobics, meditation, guided weightlifting, Nautilus, swimming, handball, golf lessons, whirlpool treatments, volleyball.

She said she’d first been intrigued by me when she saw me sitting out there alone in my sailboat on the Hudson that first afternoon; anyone who would use lack of wind as an excuse to avoid the Battles could not be all bad, she said. I said I’d first been intrigued by her when she leaned over to look down the companionway hatch into the boat’s salon. I didn’t elaborate, but she grinned knowingly.

She admitted she resented me for being such a fool about Way and the love we’d found that first night in Lukedom, a love which I seemed to suppress when confronted with the possible loss of several million dollars. What was a few million dollars to a man who really loved her? Nothing, she said playfully.

After leaving the Battles without saying where she was going or what she was doing, she had felt martyrish, hoping that I was missing her, yearning for her, desperate for her, perhaps even launching a major quest for her. After two weeks, however, she began to feel like the lover
who kills herself to make the beloved suffer. Lying in the grave of Brooklyn she began to have second thoughts. She decided that a trip back to the Battle penthouse where she might accidentally leave a phone number or address might perhaps be in order. Although lovers were expected to overcome numerous obstacles before winning the beloved, they needed occasional clues along the way. Women have been dropping handkerchiefs for millennia, who was she to break the tradition? Together we laughed.