Luke Rheinhart - The Diceman

`Was he in good health?'

`Mmmm. No. He was overweight, had eaten too much that night. Had digestive problems. Was exhausting himself in

acts of atonement.'

Inspector Putt stared coldly at Dr. Rhinehart and then asked abruptly 'Who prepared the drinks for everyone that night?'

'Ahh. The drinks.'

'Yes, the drinks.'

Dr. Rhinehart bounced the die on the desk a second time. He smiled.

'Mr. Osterflood prepared the drinks.'

'Osterflood!' `I found several of my Scotches unfriendlily watered-down, but the service was otherwise fine.'

The inspector's face and eyes became exceptionally cold as he stared at Dr. Rhinehart.

'Did the die tell you to murder Osterflood that night?'

'Oh I doubt it. But it's an interesting question. Let's see.'

Dr. Rhinehart dribbled the die a third time, and then looked up brightly at his questioner. 'Nope.'

'I see. I suppose that's the truth,' Inspector Putt sneered.

`It's what the die told me to say.'

The two men looked at each other and then the inspector, tight-lipped, pushed a button on the side of his desk and told

the detective who came to the door to 'bring her in.'

Gina entered, dressed conservatively in a knee-length skirt, a heavy blouse and an ill-fitting jacket.

`That's the man,' she said.

'Sit down,' said the inspector.

`That's him.'

'Hi, Gina,' Dr. Rhinehart said.

`He admits it See, he admits it'

'Sit down, Gina,' the detective said.

`Miss Potrelli to you, fuzz-face.'

'Please briefly repeat your story of how the evening with Osterflood went,' said the inspector.

This guy and Frank came to my apartment and I gave them both a fuck. This guy served the drinks. Osterflood began

to act as if he'd been drugged and was getting woozy and this guy dragged him off.' 'Dr. Rhinehart?'

Inspector Putt said coldly.

'Mr. Osterflood and I paid a social call on Miss Potrelli. Frank made us all several drinks while we watched television

and engaged in sexual congresses. I left with Frank lying on the floor with a blissful smile on his face. Where is old

Frank, by the way?'

'He's dead, damn you,' said Gina.

'Shuttup,' said the inspector and then went on quietly: 'The body of Frank Osterflood was discovered on November 15

in the East River under the Triborough Bridge. An autopsy has revealed that he'd been dead about two days. He was poisoned with strychnine.'

He looked only at Rhinehart. 'You or Gina here - one of you - was the last one to see Osterflood alive.' `Maybe he just took a midnight swim in the East River and accidentally swallowed some water,' suggested Dr. Rhinehart.

`The percentage solution of strychnine in the East River,' said Inspector Putt soberly, 'is still at acceptable levels.'

'But then I wonder what happened to him,' said Dr. Rhinehart.

`Traces of strychnine have been found on the shelf above Gina's liquor cabinet and in the rug in front of the TV set.'

'How interesting.'

'You mixed the drinks!' Gina said shrilly.

'I did? No, my story is that Osterflood mixed them.'

Dr. Rhinehart scowled in concentration. 'Maybe a dice decision made him decide to kill himself in retribution for his

sins. He showed certain masochistic tendencies.'

'You mixed the drinks and you left with him,' Gina said again shrilly.

'Not according to my story, Miss Potrelli. According to my story I left first and he left later.'

'Oh,' she said. 'You're a liar.'

'Let's just say we have different stories. This confuses the inspector and makes him uneasy.'

'There are already four other witnesses who claim that they saw you leave with Osterflood, Rhinehart" said the

detective.

'Ahh, four! That shows initiative, Gina. It would be a shame to waste those witnesses.'

Dr. Rhinehart retrieved his die from the desk and dropped it onto the couch beside his thigh.

'I left with Osterflood, Inspector.'

'Where did you go?'

'Where did we go, Gina?'

`You took a tax-'

`Shuttup! Get her out of here.'

Gina was removed from the room by the detective.

`We got in a taxi, I believe. I got off at the Lexington Avenue subway stop at 125th Street. I needed to relieve myself.

Osterflood went on. He was quite drunk and I felt slightly guilty about leaving him with a suspiciously cheerful cabby,

but I was drunk too. I found a urinal near-'

'Why did you lie to us the first time?'

`Who says I lied to you the first time?'

`You've just changed your story.'

'Details.'

'Gina's witnesses exposed your lie.'

`Come now, Inspector, you know full well that her four witnesses are even less reliable than the dice, and that's going

some.'

`Shuttup!'

'And besides, the Die told me to change the story.'

The inspector was glaring at Dr. Rhinehart.

`You'd better consult your dice again,' he said. 'No cabby in the city remembers picking up two big white men in

Harlem that evening, or for that matter any evening in the last five years. You, as a doctor, would have recognized the symptoms of strychnine poisoning as different from simple drunkenness. We know Gina and her four witnesses are lying. We know you're lying. We know Osterflood was murdered at Gina's and never left there alive.

Inspector Putt and Dr. Rhinehart stared at each other.

`Wow!' Dr. Rhinehart said after awhile. He leaned forward on the couch, wide-eyed, attentive, interested, and asked intently: `Who killed him?'

Chapter Ninety

Dear Doc, The Die told me to write you. Can't think of much to say. Die bless you, Fred Weedmuller, Porksnout, Texas. Chapter Ninety-one A week after my interview with him, Inspector Putt announced to anyone who was interested that new evidence

(undisclosed) indicated conclusively that Osterflood must have committed suicide probably. Privately, he informed friends and informers that it was clear he couldn't possibly get a conviction against either Gina or me. Gina wouldn't have murdered Osterflood so premeditatedly in her own apartment with another white man present, and strychnine, he noted, is not the usual mode of murder of `abused Harlem whores' Moreover, her four witnesses, while obviously they were lying, nevertheless would raise a shadow of doubt in the minds of a few radlib jurors.

Dr. Rhinehart would be impossible to convict because no jury, radlib or one hundred and ten percent American, could be expected to understand Rhinehart's motivation. The inspector admitted he himself wasn't certain he understood it. 'He did it because the dice told him to,' the D.A. would proclaim and the defense attorneys would lead the general laughter which would follow. The world was changing too rapidly for the typical juror, no matter, how American, to keep up. Moreover, even inspector Putt was beginning to doubt that Rhinehart had done it, for, though he was certainly capable of murder, Rhinehart, if the Die had told him to do it, would clearly not have done such a debauched, confused, messy, unaesthetic, incompetent job of it.

Nevertheless, Inspector Putt had called me for one last confrontation and had concluded a long lecture with the ringing words 'Someday Rhinehart, the law is going to catch up with you. Someday the furies are going to come home to roost. Someday the sins you are committing in the name of your dice games are going to be taken out of the bank. Someday, you will learn, crime, even in the United States; does not pay.'

'I'm sure you're right,' I said, shaking his hand as I left. 'But is there any hurry ?'

So my dicelife went on. I gave the Die one chance in six that I do everything in my power to bring Osterflood back to life again, but the option lost out to another one-in-six shot: that I spend three days in mourning for Frank, and that I compose a few prayers and parables for the occasion.