Читать книгу The Search for the Dice Man - Luke Rhinehart - Страница 23

After meeting Arlene Ecstein I confess I began to have some doubts about my quest. Arlene was so harmless that it rubbed off on to Luke: I seemed to be making a mountain out of a molehill. Besides, I didn’t see how I could spare the time to go down into the southern wilderness to search for a man who probably wasn’t there. And a pan of me was equally afraid he would be there. I passed over the first weekend I might have gone by escorting Honoria to a gala charity ball given by several old-line Wall Streeters as a way of showing their commitment to the needy – whether the ‘needy’ referred to those to whom a bit of the money raised eventually trickled down or to the socialites themselves was unclear.

The following week was a hectic one, marked primarily by Jeff’s ‘hunch’ on bonds and bond futures proving to be a good one; our BB&P Futures Fund soared almost 6 per cent in one day. Akito phoned and complained he couldn’t tell from my indicators why I’d taken such a large bond futures position and then, after making good profits in just two days, gone flat. I hemmed and hawed and concocted a series of mostly fictitious variables to disguise the fact that I’d taken a large position because one of my most unstable traders had a hunch, and gone flat for the same reason.

In his new strange state Jeff seemed to want to go flat in almost everything. It was like pulling teeth to get the poor man to go long or short anything, Jeff inevitably muttering darkly about risks and ‘challenging the Gods’, and only going away to execute the orders because he knew I’d have to fire him if he didn’t.

But even as I pretended to throw myself into my trading and my life with Honoria I felt the pull of Lukedom. I finally decided that if I went the weekend before election day then even if I had to stay longer than two days at least the Tuesday of the election the markets would be closed and I’d miss only one day of trading.

Honoria didn’t want to go with me. For one thing she couldn’t afford to take any days off from Salomon Brothers, not even the Monday before election day. For another, that part of Virginia was the pits as far as she could tell. Lukedom appeared to be located at the far southern end of the stale, buried in barren stripmine hills, probably surrounded by people who had starred in the film Deliverance. Kim seemed interested in going, but I knew that Honoria might not take too kindly to my travelling alone with Kim, so I pretended I didn’t notice her interest.

Still, I decided to make one last effort to get Honoria to come with me. I arranged to meet her at ‘Wipples’, a fashionable financial district bar best known for having one whole wall on which customers had over the years written various stock, bond and futures recommendations. They also dated and signed them. ‘Wipples’ then saw to it that the best always remained, despite the efforts of their authors to remove them. Hence customers were able to note that one well-known Wall Street guru had urged clients to ‘sell everything’ in August 1982 just before stock were to lake off like a missile launch. Another wrote in September 1987 that the market would hit 3,000 by mid-October Instead it hit 1,750. But except for the wall – to which I’d wisely never contributed – the place was a simple, unpretentious bar that humbly charged all the traffic would bear.

Which was considerable The bar had a reputation for being the place one went after a particularly brilliant or lucky financial coup, so going there implied one was brilliant or lucky. At any rate it implied you could afford to pay ten dollars for a shot of whisky, which certainly showed something.

When I arrived Kim was with Honoria, and wearing a dress, one of those new short spandex things, black, that hugged the body and begged you to watch each vibration. Since it was mid-thigh-length Kim’s black-stockinged legs stuck invitingly out beneath the table. I hadn’t seen much of her since she’d gotten a part-time job promoting some Upper East Side health club.

Honoria, like most of the other female patrons, was dressed in a more sedate and stylish manner, a mauve and white business suit which, with her blonde hair, was dramatic. As I sat down at the booth with them I couldn’t help feel my male ego swell – the two foxiest ladies in the joint.

Kim, as far as I knew, normally avoided Wall Street types – except maybe the rebels and losers – and couldn’t usually spend much time with Honoria, their lifestyles overlapping only in that both ate, slept and peed. As Honoria waved at me, I wondered vaguely why Kim was here.

I ordered the cheapest drink on the menu: I hated overpaying for a drink as much as overpaying for a security. Then I again urged Honoria to accompany me on my drive south to find my father.

‘As I understand it,’ Honoria responded, shaking her head with a mock groan, ‘I am being asked to visit a hippie commune caught in some time warp left over from the sixties. Is that right?’

‘Maybe,’ I said. ‘But I really don’t care one way or another.’

‘That Arlene Ecstein certainly didn’t turn out to be a hippie,’ suggested Kim.

‘That’s true,’ said Honoria. ‘If your father has degenerated into the male equivalent of Mrs Ecstein, then I suppose our worst worry would be that we’ll be bored to death.’

‘But it would be nice if some of the sixties was still alive today,’ Kim went on. ‘That two or three people still existed who weren’t chained to chasing money and ripping each other off.’

‘In those days,’ said Honoria, ‘parents were so stupidly liberal, their rebellious children didn’t have to worry about money – doting parents sent moneygrams. Today we know better. Rebellious youth are disinherited before their hair even reaches the back of their neck. Reserve your compassion for condors and spotted owls.’

‘Actually it’s that we know better now,’ I said, thinking that the sixties and my father were part of the same sickness. ‘We want to make something of our lives instead of drifting with some flow that eventually strands us in a bog.’

‘Yes, but the flowing and the bogs often seem so much more interesting than the upward march on the treadmill,’ said Kim, grinning a challenge at me.

‘Nonsense,’ snapped Honoria, wriggling her bottom on the chair in annoyance. ‘What’s wrong with minding the store? Perhaps for you and the sixties the treadmill symbolizes repetitious drudgery. For us it symbolizes staying in shape and getting ahead.’

‘Maybe so, but getting ahead for what?’ countered Kim, her eyes getting brighter and a flush appearing on her cheeks. ‘Staying in shape for what? As far as I can see people stay in shape in order to do better on the treadmill, and get ahead in order to get further ahead. Where’s the joy? Where’s the payoff?’

‘The payoff is a six-figure income,’ said Honoria. ‘Not to mention that you yourself are being paid to get people to pay good money to use the treadmills.’

‘Touché,’ said Kim with a grin. ‘But I’d still like to know if a place exists where people don’t care about the amount of their income.’

‘Oh, I’m sure you can find them all over,’ conceded Honoria. ‘And they’re undoubtedly living in wrecks and hovels. You know, Kim, you might be living in one yourself if it weren’t for us treadmill types.’

‘Touché again!’ Kim said. ‘But remember, I often have lived in tents, teepees, shacks and hovels. I just visit you and Uncle Willy every now and then to get back to my roots.’

‘You’d probably be right at home in Lukedom, then,’ commented Honoria, signalling to a passing waiter for another drink.

‘This is all very nice,’ I interrupted, shaking my head at the sparring, and then addressing Honoria. ‘But I’d still like you to come with me.’ I reached across and took her hand and went on with an exaggerated seriousness. ‘Come and console me as I plunge into the lower depths in an effort to redeem my long-lost father and win your hand in marriage.’

‘Silly boy,’ said Honoria, mollified. ‘I think the myth insists the prince go off by himself and slay the dragon. He doesn’t drag the princess along with him.’

‘That’s right,’ agreed Kim. ‘Maybe you should take me instead. I’ll be Sancho Panza to your Don Quixote. And then maybe I’ll stay in Lukedom and become a cube or whatever you call your father’s followers.’

‘I call them jerks,’ I said.

‘Yes, take Kim,’ said Honoria, stiffening. ‘She won’t mind a little mud and diarrhoea and, fitting in, she might find out things you couldn’t.’

‘I’m not taking Kim,’ I said firmly, fighting the racing of my pulse at the prospect. ‘I want you to go – just for a few days. It’ll certainly be more interesting than another trek upstate.’

‘Perhaps,’ said Honoria. As she paused to reconsider, she finished the last of her drink. ‘Just until Sunday night. You promise?’

‘Hey, I either find my father or get a lead or I don’t. How long can it take to get an address?’

‘You don’t love me,’ moped Kim exaggeratedly. ‘You prefer your fiancée to me.’

‘It can take a long lime to get an address – as the FBI has discovered,’ commented Honoria, her mind on the business trip and ignoring Kim’s taunt.

‘Well?’ I persisted, still holding Honoria’s hand.

‘I suppose I’ll have to come along just to keep you out of trouble,’ sighed Honoria.

I smiled and released her hand.

‘Good,’ I announced, having managed to keep chaos again at bay.

Although also smiling, Kim shook her head.

‘Lukedom will be wasted on you two,’ said Kim. ‘It’ll be like sending two nuns to a Playboy mansion.’

‘Or two Kims to a meeting of securities analysts.’ countered Honoria, standing up to leave. ‘But duty calls.’

‘Says who?’ said Kim.

On our drive south, Honoria and I stayed that first night at a small motel in northern Virginia, arriving at about ten, Honoria a trifle irritated that we’d passed up a Holiday Inn a half-hour earlier and had to settle for something called ‘The Molvadian Motel’ on the outskirts of nowhere. Actually the room was indistinguishable from one in a Holiday Inn – except perhaps to the two architects involved – and the television offerings were absolutely identical.

Being young and engaged, and intelligent and well brought up, we got right to it after quick showers and made hot and horny love for forty minutes. Then we found our attentions wandering to a PBS special on the greenhouse effect. This led us naturally to a serious discussion of the investment possibilities inherent in Long Island and Miami being three feet under water and the Berkshires becoming the new sun belt – possibly the new east coast line as well. We were both annoyed that the greenhouse effect would apparently take effect only very slowly over the next half-century, thus minimizing the possibilities of dramatic short-term capital gains.

Nevertheless, we concluded that we should be bullish on the American midwest and sell short the south east, since the latter was likely to become either a desert or part of the Atlantic Ocean, either of which alternatives would decrease its value. We discussed ways of selling short the south east but could think of nothing better than shorting the stock of Disney whose Disney World in Orlando, unless convened to an underwater theme park, would suffer a pronounced decrease in both gross and net. Cotton prices would soar. Companies involved in building bridges would do well. Perhaps boat-building would make a comeback.

We were soon as deeply engrossed in our speculations about how to play the greenhouse effect as we had been earlier in our lovemaking, the only difference being we reached no climax in our discussion. Instead Honoria suddenly found our speculations the most boring and unproductive thing she’d done in weeks and announced she was going to sleep. I made a few tentative pokes with various parts of my anatomy at various parts of hers, but receiving nothing more encouraging than a rather unsexy mooing sound, I soon rolled over to go to sleep. However, I spent the next fifteen minutes daydreaming about cornering the market in sugar beets just before the millions of acres of sugar beet fields were flooded, thus becoming the richest man in the world since the Hunt family. Vaguely, just as I fell asleep, I remembered that the Hunt brothers had recently declared bankruptcy.

FROM LUKE’S JOURNAL

In the beginning was Chance, and Chance was with God and Chance was God: of this much we and sophisticated twentieth-century scientists are certain. While the old physics saw purpose, the new sees chance. When the old saw reassuring and ubiquitous causal nexus, the new sees ubiquitous randomness. When the old probed deeper they always found cause; when the modern physicist probes deeper he always finds chance.

‘Was God playing dice when he created the universe?’ The New York Times asked a Nobel Prize-winning biologist.

‘Yes,’ was the reply.