Luke Rheinhart - The Diceman

'None of your business,' he answered quickly.

`Frank, I'm trying to help you. Someone may be trying to murder you tonight.'

He looked back at me uncertainly.

`I … I've got a date,' he said.

`Ahhhh,' I said. `But it's a woman that I . . . that . . . she likes money.'

`Where are you to meet her?'

'In … er … Harlem.'

His eyes flickered off hopefully at a bus stopped beside us, as if it might contain a plainclothesman or CIA man or FBI

man. There were undoubtedly a few of each, but they were out of his reach.

`Does she live alone?' I asked. It was six forty-eight.

`Uh . . . Well, yes.'

`What is she like?'

`She's disgusting!' he spit out emphatically. `Flesh, flesh, flesh - a woman,' he added.

'Ahh,' I said, disappointed. `Do you think there's any chance at all that she might be involved in a plot?'

`I've known her three months. She thinks I'm a professional wrestler. No. No. She's horrible, but she's not - it's not her.'

`Look,' I said impulsively. `Tonight the place for you to be is away from your apartment and out of public places.

We'll have dinner in this out-of-the-way restaurant I know of and then we can all stay with this lady of yours.'

`Are you sure…?'

`if anyone is going to try to kill you tonight, you can depend on me.'

Chapter Seventy-nine

When Jake Ecstein was walking through a Dice Center one day he overheard a conversation between two people.

`Show me the best role you have,' said the first person.

`All my roles are the best,' replied the second. `You can't find in me any piece of behavior which isn't the best.'

`That's conceited,' said the first.

`That's diceliving,' replied the second.

At these words Jake Ecstein became enlightened.

from The Book of the Die

Chapter Eighty

It occurred to me on my drive to Harlem with Frank Osterflood after our uneventful dinner at an obscure restaurant in Queens that I might try to `take him for a ride' to some dimly lit nowheres where mobsters drive to put other less successful mobsters away, but I didn't know any dimly lit nowheres, and besides, I was beginning to worry that Osterflood might turn his paranoiac tendencies toward me and attack.

We arrived at the apartment house of Osterflood's `date' at a little after eight thirty-four that evening. We seemed to be somewhere near Lenox Avenue on 143rd Street or 145th Street - I never did find out which. My victim paid the cabby, Who looked resentful at being stuck in the middle of no-man's land when he might be at the Hilton or Park Avenue. No one came close to us when we walked the thirty feet or so from the sidewalk to the door of the elegant and crumbling apartment building, although I sensed dozens of dark faces glaring at us in the deep dusk.

We clumped up the three flights of stairs together like a man and his shadow, I fingering my gun and Osterflood telling me to be careful of my footing. The sound of galloping horses and shouts came out of a first-floor apartment, high-pitched hysterical female laughter from the second floor, but from the third, silence. As Osterflood knocked, I reminded him firmly that my name was Lou Smith. I was a fellow professional wrestler. The incongruity of two professional wrestlers showing up to court a lady, one of them dressed with Brooks Brothers immaculateness and the other like a down-and-out hood escaped me at the time.

The woman who came to the door was a middle-aged fat-lady with stringy hair, a double chin and jolly smile. She

barely seemed a Negress.

`I'm Lou Smith, professional wrestler,' I said quickly, offering my hand.

`Good for you,' she said and walked out past us and waddled on down the stairs.

`Is Gina here?' Osterflood called after her, but she stomped on down unheeding.

I followed him inside, through a small entranceway and into a fairly large living room, dominated by a huge television

set squatting against one wall directly opposite a long, Danish-modern couch. There was wall-to-wall carpeting, thick

and soft and a pretty tan color, but badly spotted is front of the television set and the couch. The splash of running

water came from a room off to the right, which, from the bulk of white I could make out, seemed to be a kitchen.

Osterflood called in that direction `Gina?'

`Yeahhh,' came a high-pitched feminine voice.

While I was squinting at two photo portraits on one wall they looked, so help me, like Sugar Ray Robinson and Al

Capone - the woman came to the living room and confronted us. She was a young, full-figured, dark-haired woman,

with the face of a child. Big, brown eyes exuded innocence, and her dark complexion was flawlessly smooth.

`What's this?' she said shrilly and coldly in a voice that, while high-pitched like a child's, had a `what's-in-it-for-me?'

cynicism that was totally incongruous with the child's face.

'Ah, this is Dr. Luke Rh-'

`SMITH!' I shouted, 'Lou Smith, professional wrestler.'

I advanced and stuck out a hand.

`Gina,' she said coldly; her hand was lifeless in mine.

She moved past us into the living room and said over her shoulder `You guys want a drink?'

We both asked for Scotch and while she was kneeling and then standing before an abundantly supplied liquor cabinet

in the corner to the left of the television set, Osterflood and I sat down on opposite ends of the couch, he staring at the

gray lifeless screen of the television set and I at the brown leather miniskirt and tan, creamy legs of Gina.

She came and handed each of us a nice stiff Scotch on the rocks, staring into my eyes with that same incongruous

innocent child's face and saying coldly: `You want the same as him?'

I looked over at Osterflood, who was staring down at the rug. He seemed sullen.

`What do you mean?'

I asked, looking back up at her. She was wearing a tan, v-neck sweater that buttoned down the front and her breasts

ballooned out at me distractingly.

`What are you here for?' she asked, not taking her eyes off me.

`I'm just an old friend,' I said. `Just here to watch.'

'That type,' she said. `Fifty bucks.'

'50 bucks?'

'You heard me.'

'I see. It must be quite a show: I looked back at Osterflood, he still stared at the subliminal floor show on the rug. `I'll

need to think about it.'

`I'd like another drink,' Osterflood said and, head lowered, reached out his long, nicely tailored arm with his glass and

two ice cubes.

'The money,' she said to him without moving.

He pulled out his wallet and peeled out four bills of undetermined denomination. She ambled over to him, took the

bills, fingered each of them carefully, then took his glass and disappeared back into the kitchen. She moved like a

sleepy leopardess.

Osterflood said without looking over at me: 'can't you stand guard outside?'

`Can't take the chance. The killer might already be inside the apartment.'

He glanced up and around nervously.

`I thought you said your date was disgusting?' I said.

`She is,' he said, and shuddered.

The disgusting flesh flesh flesh returned and fixed Osterflood his second drink and freshened her own. I was only

sipping at mine, determined to keep my mind alert for the clean, aesthetic moment of truth. It was eight forty-eight by

my watch.

`Look, mister,' Gina was saying in front of me again. `Fifty bucks or out. This isn't a waiting room.'

Her voice! If only she would never say a word.

`I see.'

I turned to my friend. `Better give her a fifty, Frank.'

He took out his wallet a second time and pulled off a single bill. She fingered it and stuffed it into a tiny pocket in her

tiny leather skirt.

`Okay,' she said. `Let's go.'