The Diceman

`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 ru

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 i

`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

i

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.'

She walked over and turned on the television set, fiddling carefully with the dials and adjusting the volume quite high.

When she moved away from the screen three young men were twitching away and playing loudly some rhythmic tune

which was world-famous and which I almost recognized.

I was paying fifty dollars for this? No. Osterflood was paying. I relaxed. - `You want some hash tonight?' she asked

Osterflood. He was brooding into his half-finished drink.

`Yes,' he said.

When Gina returned from the kitchen this time she had a small pipe, apparently fully loaded, since she handed it to Osterflood and he lit up right away.

He passed it up to her and she took a long toke and then sat down on the couch between us, leaning back and reaching out an arm to hand the pipe to me. I'd read someplace that the United States Marines found marijuana and hashish excellent aids to the performance of their duties, so I took a healthy puff and passed the pipe back to her.

After only about three or four puffs by each of us, the pipe seemed to have gone out, but after a few minutes, as I was watching a handsome, sincere American clobber a greasy Latin American type on the TV screen, the pipe appeared under my nose again nicely lit. As I passed the pipe back to Gina, holding the smoke in my lungs, I smiled at her, and her soft baby face and large brown eyes looked sorrowfully and i

When I turned lazily to hand Gina the pipe she was sitting exactly as before, her head back against the couch and eyes ceiling-ward, but nude from the waist up. Her two breasts rose on her chest like two mounds of molded honey, with two neat circular sculpted crowns of brown sugar at the peak of each rounded, honeyed hilt.

Without smoking she passed the pipe on to Osterflood on the other side of her. The pipe went flying off onto the living room floor on top of the buttons, the sweater and the bra. He had bashed at her hand.

`Get up,' Osterflood said.

Slowly, like a sated leopardess, she stood. I could see Osterflood now and he was staring at her bleary-eyed and without expression, neat in his soft, gray suit.

`You bitch,' he said dully. `You cunt-caked bitch.'

'I was smiling to myself without thought, leaning back and examining with aesthetic bliss the curve of Gina's right breast, which stuck out gracefully in front of her right arm like the .prow of a boat nosing out from behind a cliff. An earnest American jawed aggressively with a greasy American just-at the tip of the short bowsprit.