'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 #161;
everything people are doing with the dice - all are irrelevant. Diceliving is Only our game to promote multiple game-
playing; 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 inter-
building 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.'
Chapter Ninety-five
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.
