The Search for the Dice Man

by Luke Rhinehart

  ‘Hey, wait for me!’ said Kim, hurrying towards the closet, but I swung open the door and headed down the stairs.

  In the heat of the Indian summer day I became aware that with my car gone and taxis unavailable fleeing Lukedom might not be easy. On the other hand, if I wanted to avoid being involved with the FBI and any scandal their arrests made, I’d better get out of the centre of the town.

  As I tried to decide whether to hike out of town. Kim, lugging two light bags, came up beside me. ‘Do you have a car?’ she asked.

  I ignored her, squinting off in the direction of the gate, vaguely hoping it would approach me rather than I have to approach it.

  An Oldsmobile 88 pulled up beside us and came to a halt. It was Rick, wearing an incongruous grey fedora with his black leather outfit and dark glasses.

  ‘You folks need a lift?’ he asked, in a deeper voice than normal.

  ‘Where’s my car, you bastard!?’ I said, wondering what past Karma had linked me with this archetypal source of chaos.

  ‘Oh, sorry, Larry, it’s still at the Wickstown airport.’

  ‘It figures. And whose car have you stolen this time?’ I asked, noticing that Kim had opened the rear door of the car and was wrestling her two large suitcases on to the back seat.

  ‘Not sure,’ said Rick. ‘I found it hidden off the dirt road outside town when I was hitch-hiking back to Lukedom yesterday. Some cop’s, I think.’

  I moved around the front of the car to get in the passenger seat.

  ‘Dare I ask where you’re going?’ I said, getting into the front seat.

  ‘Well, I think I better be getting out of town to begin with,’ he said as Kim and I slammed our respective doors. The FBI may be looking for your daddy, but there’s also a federal warrant out for some hotshot who landed a plane on the Long Island Expressway. Where do you want to go?’

  To the airport,’ I said. ‘Or wherever you left my car.’

  With a shower of stones Rick accelerated away.

  Back at the Hazard Inn, Nathanial Putt was trying to maintain his dignity. He didn’t relish having to explain to his superiors what he had hoped to achieve and have it compared with this comic fiasco. As he marched out with the other agents towards their cars he decided that the best solution was to change what he’d hoped to achieve. If he hadn’t come to capture Rhinehart then it was no failure not to have captured Rhinehart. What if he had come to gather evidence against other miscreants for other violations of federal law, thus laying the groundwork for a future massive raid? For example, what about all those Lukedomites impersonating law enforcement officers? What about those who had resisted arrest? What about their universal failure to collect state sales taxes? Desecration of a church? Operating premises for obscene purposes? Promoting probable orgies? Permitting teepees without proper sanitation? Why, in the Hazard Inn alone there must be enough crimes to fill a court docket for a decade. And what about lying to FBI agents and thus obstructing justice? Or operating eating establishments with improperly trained personnel? Charging $56.00 for a hamburger? My God, the whole of Lukedom was one vast network of crimes against the state! He had come to catch a bothersome flea but instead could gather the evidence for a future raid that would ensnare a whole pack of mad dogs that the flea had set to marauding! If he later was able to get indictments on a set of mad dogs, who would notice that he’d missed the flea?

  ‘Macavoy!’ Pull barked. ‘Hayes! Rogers! It’s time to take some depositions and photographs.’

  ‘Sir?’ said Rogers.

  ‘Sir,’ said Macavoy, ‘someone’s stolen my car.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘My car’s missing, sir,’ explained Macavoy. ‘Uh, and I’m afraid my bureau papers were, uh, inside. Someone said it just left a few minutes ago.’

  Putt glared at him.

  ‘Good.’ he finally said. ‘We’ll add car theft to their crimes. Take Rogers’s car and go after the bastards.’

  While Macavoy scurried off to begin pursuit, Putt turned to the other agents.

  ‘We came here today for two purposes,’ he said with great dignity. ‘One was to see if Rhinehart was here and, if he was, to apprehend him. The second, more important purpose,’ he went on after a brief pause, ‘was to gather evidence against this community of criminals so that we soon will be able to put a final end to this travesty of the American way, by coming back later and arresting everyone here who has been breaking the law.’

  The other agents were staring at him with some awe, but Putt, stern-faced, went on.

  ‘Now before we leave, here’s what I want you to do …’

  After Agent Macavoy had picked up speed to ninety-five and set his red light flashing, he switched on his radio and in a sober staccato voice snapped out an All Points Bulletin.

  ‘Attention, all Virginia State Police officers and local sheriff patrols in the vicinity of and south of Wickstown. A grey FBI Oldsmobile 88 has been stolen and is believed now to be heading north on Highway 295. This car may be being driven by a bogus person who may claim to be a bureau agent named Macavoy. He is probably unarmed but may be dangerous. Please apprehend. I repeal …’

  Sitting again in his favourite pull-off spot on 295, Sheriff Hiram Pennaker listened to the APB and, a few minutes later, grinned as a grey Oldsmobile suddenly roared past him at ninety, its red light flashing. Sheriff Pennaker took off in persuit.

  Five minutes later he pulled the car over and cautiously approached.

  Behind the wheel of the grey Oldsmobile was a dishevelled, nervous-looking guy, a little wild-eyed.

  Sheriff Pennaker carefully unholstered his revolver.

  ‘For God’s sake, Officer,’ the man shouted as he approached. ‘I’m an FBI agent in hot pursuit!’

  ‘I see,’ said the sheriff. ‘And your name?’

  ‘I’m Agent James Macavoy, Washington Bureau,’ Macavoy replied rapidly, squirming in his seat in impatience. ‘I’m after –’

  ‘And your identification?’ Sheriff Pennaker asked, tightening his grip on his revolver.

  The man suddenly stopped squirming and looked out at the sheriff with sudden fear.

  ‘… Identification?’ he asked in a suddenly weak voice.

  ‘Yeah,’ said Sheriff Pennaker, backing away from the car and holding his aim tightly on the bogus FBI agent. ‘Identification.’

  ‘Oh.’

  Larry’s downhill day reached its nadir after they arrived at the Wickstown airport. He and Kim had not exchanged a word on the drive, Larry dozing off and on most of the way. It was after four when they arrived and found Larry’s car was actually where Rick had left it, undoubtedly benefiting from Rick’s being elsewhere during its brief stay. In his fatigued state Larry now felt the Mercedes to be a burden; he wanted to board a plane and be whisked painlessly back to Manhattan. And in fact as he stood gasping for breath from a brief sprint to the airport’s single ticket window he discovered he was just in time for the last flight to Washington, DC and a connecting flight to New York.

  ‘Can I hire you to drive my car back to New York?’ he asked Rick, who had ambled up to the window in less haste.

  ‘Sure,’ said Rick. ‘The Olds is a little hot anyway.’

  Kim had arrived also and when Larry turned to her she met his gaze without expression.

  ‘What are your plans?’ he asked her coldly.

  She simply continued to gaze at him, the only change in her expressionless demeanour being the watering of her eyes. Then she turned to Rick.

  ‘Can I hitch a ride with you?’ she asked.

  ‘Hey, sure,’ said Rick, grinning. And then, to Larry he added: ‘Hey, man, I’m glad you got such good taste in women. Hope you don’t mind I keep stealing them.’

  ‘My pleasure,’ said Larry, turning angrily back to the ticket lady to book a flight for one to New York.

  As he stood with his back to them Larry became aware of Rick and Kim moving away, their voices fading towards the main set of doors. When he could stand it no
longer he turned to sneak a peek.

  He saw Rick holding open the door for Kim who, as she was about to exit, looked back. Larry had a fierce impulse to shout, run to her, beat her brains in, make wonderful love to her and totally ignore her until she apologized. He nodded vaguely in her direction and turned back to the ticket lady.

  FROM LUKE’S JOURNAL

  Somehow somewhere human beings seem to have built into them an unhappiness-creating mechanism. A few people seem to have escaped the mechanism, either because they never had it or they do something to eliminate it or override it or ignore it. But finding the mechanism isn’t easy. Since the sickness permeates everything we do it must be inherent in everything we do – in the very way we think about ourselves and our lives, in the way we make or don’t make decisions, in the way we see or experience life, in the very way we try to cure ourselves. There is something fundamentally wrong with the way we normally live our lives and we’d sort of like to find out what it is.

  40

  As the intelligent reader knows, New York City and Lukedom, although similar in some ways, have their differences. For one thing I was expected to show up for the same job every day at the same time and in the same place. And with the same personality. For another, in New York people tend to turn up in the same clothes and saying and doing the same things each time you meet them. In New York when you meet the vice president of a bank you can be pretty sure he’s a vice president of a bank and will remain so for at least a few more months, a security lacking in Lukedom.

  In New York when you pick up the daily newspaper and read that a Palestinian has killed a Jew or a Jew a Palestinian, you can be sure that the death has occurred within the last few days and not two years ago, or ten, or fifty, as in the papers at Lukedom. And when you turn on your television set you can be pretty sure that Cliff Clayburn will not suddenly be involved in a six-second orgy with several licentious mailman groupies. And if a woman declares her love for you you can be certain that it was because at least for the moment she felt that way, and not because some damn die told her to say so and will tell her to go after someone else the next day.

  On one level I felt a sense of relief at escaping Lukedom and being back with the regularity and reliability – such as it is – of the madness of Manhattan. When Jeff greeted me that first Thursday morning biting his nails and bemoaning the fact that the President still hadn’t declared his peace initiative and that we were thus losing money on our positions, I felt like embracing him – it was like refinding a favourite teddy bear. When Miss Claybell briskly handed me a typed summary of every transaction in our various managed accounts since I’d been gone, I wanted to hug her too: the world was rounding into order again.

  I was even glad to see Mr Battle, though Mr Battle was not his usual pompous, friendly self. He was now merely pompous. After making me wait in the outer office for twenty minutes he greeted me with distinct chilliness. He was not pleased that I’d been away from the trading desk for almost a week and thus lost the firm money. He was also not pleased that I hadn’t monitored more carefully my most important single position – Honoria.

  I have to confess, dear reader, that Mr Battle’s frowning lecture frightened me. The simple fact of being back at my old job in the hyperkinetic rat-race of Manhattan was making me desperate to get things right with my job and my fiancée. I felt as I did when I sensed a magnificent investment opportunity slipping away: I had to grab it now before I ‘missed the boat.’

  When I invited Honoria to my apartment that night and she came, I was tremendously relieved to see her. Dressed with her usual simple elegance, she listened quietly as I poured out an apology for having deserted her when she left Lukedom. I climaxed this by pulling out my (flawed) engagement ring and offering it to her, begging her to accept me back in her good graces.

  Honoria sat silently for what felt like a long time, her left hand resting lifelessly in mine, the ring still held in my right.

  Finally, she gave my hand a small squeeze and assured me how happy she was that we were back together, even how much she’d missed me. But when she finally took the ring she said perhaps we should wait a week or two before she actually began wearing it: I was expected to suffer a bit more before being pronounced fully rehabilitated.

  We sat side by side and hand in hand on the couch and she listened with uncharacteristic interest to my story about Lukedom – my initial clues about Luke, the gift of my father’s ashes, and the FBI’s arrival. Although I left Kim out of the story, Honoria didn’t at first ask about her. When I’d finished, she squeezed my hand.

  ‘I’m so happy your father turned out dead,’ she said. ‘Aren’t you?’

  Actually it was a question I’d been studiously avoiding since receiving the urn from Jake. Since rushing away from Lukedom I’d thrown myself compulsively back into my old life.

  ‘Well, yes,’ I said after a pause. ‘It ends my quest.’

  ‘And it ends any concern we may have about his making an embarrassing re-entry into your life.’

  ‘Yes,’ I said, although I knew I still had doubts about the truth of the matter.

  ‘And psychologically,’ continued Honoria, giving my hand its fifth squeeze, ‘your encounter in Lukedom with your father’s follies has probably liberated you from his influence just as completely as meeting him in the flesh would have.’

  ‘… Yes.’

  ‘What do you plan to do with his ashes?’

  ‘I haven’t decided,’ I said, feeling uncomfortable. ‘Everything’s happened so fast I’m still at sea on a lot of things.’

  Honoria hesitated, but then went in for another squeeze.

  ‘I hope you’re not at sea about us,’ she said softly, looking demurely down at our linked hands.

  ‘Uh … no.’

  ‘And I hope Kim didn’t pester you down there,’ she added.

  At the first mention of Kim I evaded Honoria’s eyes, especially since at first I thought her reference to ‘down there’ referred to my loins and not to Lukedom.

  ‘No’, I replied. ‘She came and went her own way.’

  ‘She began pursuing you from the first time you met,’ said Honoria. ‘But I never thought she’d stoop to running after you to Lukedom.’

  ‘I guess she thought you and I had broken up.’

  ‘That’s no excuse for diving at your cock the first time it appears unprotected.’

  I blinked in astonishment, having, in the subdued mood created by her feminine softness, forgotten her penchant for the salty, if slightly stilted, comment.

  ‘… Yes,’ I managed.

  That night our remarkably nice lovemaking made me feel flattered, depressed and guilty, but whether my guilt was towards Honoria because of Kim in Lukedom, or towards Kim for what I was doing that night, I wasn’t then capable of knowing.

  That next morning, Friday, Kim phoned me at my office. When Miss Claybell told me she was on the line I felt a strange surge of sadness and didn’t know whether I should take the call or not, but did.

  ‘I wanted to see what you were up to,’ said Kim. ‘I take it you’re returning to your old life.’

  ‘I … I wasn’t aware I’d left it,’ I said, at the sound of her voice again feeling that strange surge of sadness.

  ‘You weren’t? Funny. I remember someone who let his fiancée go packing and seemed rather giddy when he thought he was rid of her.’

  I let a silence hang on the line. I knew I hadn’t really confronted my strange elation at Honoria’s hanging up on me in Lukedom. On the other hand, Kim was chaos. No matter how much I might feel for her she could only mean the end of what my whole life had been aiming at.

  ‘Lukedom has a tendency to make people act in unusual ways,’ I finally said. ‘I … wanted you, and Lukedom let us … enjoy each other.’

  ‘Really?’ said Kim. ‘I thought it was a lot more than that … a lot more, and I’m sorry that my going to Michael’s that morning has soured you on what we were creating. It was stupid of m
e, and I owe you an apology, but you should have known that even if the dice had chosen a one-in-thirty-six shot and I’d decided to follow it and slept with him it wouldn’t have changed what we’d discovered the night before. Nothing can change that.’

  That fucking sadness began flowing through me like some fast-acting depressant and I sensed my stupid eyes tearing.

  ‘I’m engaged to Honoria,’ I managed. ‘I shouldn’t have … done what I did.’

  This time there was a silence from Kim.

  ‘Well,’ she finally said in a soft voice that I sensed was close to cracking, ‘if you and Honoria are back together … then I guess I’m gone. I … I never intended to … interfere … even if your relationship with her seems phoney … and built on quicksand.’

  Again there was a long silence on the line.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ I finally said.

  Another silence.

  ‘Me too,’ her almost inaudible voice said, and she hung up.

  The moment the line went dead I wanted her back, wanted to shout not just my apology but acknowledge that it was her I loved, that it was her –

  Suddenly Jeff was in the office, looking not just frightened – he always looked frightened – but in a state of catatonia: eyes glazed and bulging, mouth agape, shoulders hunched, spittle in the corner of his mouth.

  ‘What’s the matter!?’ I shouted.

  Jeff stood there just inside the office door, the frenzied trading floor a frenetic blur behind him, and slowly shook his head, eyes still glazed, the saliva now definitely advancing to the drool stage.

  ‘The sky has fallen …’ he managed.

  Oh, well, was that all, I thought – just another minor freakout. I went around my desk towards Jeff to comfort him.

  ‘The President has betrayed us,’ Jeff added in a mumble, bringing me to a halt.

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘His peace initiative …’ mumbled Jeff, still staring nowhere at no one, ‘is sending four hundred thousand troops to Arabia.’