a shame …’ and so on.
He reported his meeting with Putt and his follow-up phone call to Arlene and his memories of her to Honoria and Kim at the Battles’ Upper East Side luxury apartment. Luke’s seduction of Arlene had been his first dice decision, his first step on his ‘downward path to self-destruction’ as Larry put it, or ‘first test of the malleability of the human soul’ as Luke’s followers had since put it. In any case, as Larry explained, Arlene had soon become a fanatic practitioner of the dicelife, blossoming from a frustrated and unfulfilled childless housewife to an earthy mother, career woman and ‘slut’ – the last word being Larry’s interpretation of her subsequent dicelife. Larry hadn’t seen her since he was a boy. At first Honoria had seemed put off by Larry’s recitation, but when Kim seemed eager to meet Arlene, Honoria wisely decided she would go with her fiancé.
It turned out that Arlene lived in one half of a somewhat run-down duplex in a mostly white neighbourhood that looked as if it was struggling to maintain its dignity. The doorbell didn’t work, so Larry had to bang several times on the old wooden door.
When it opened, Larry and a tense, wary Honoria found themselves facing a large, white-haired lady wearing a long brown dress with a black shawl thrown over her upper half. She peered at them through thick glasses and then smiled warmly.
‘My, how you’ve grown,’ she said, as if imitating every ancient relative since the beginning of time. ‘I’d never have recognized you if you hadn’t phoned first. How’s your father?’
Of course that’s what Larry wanted to know, so her asking was a bit of a setback. But Arlene didn’t seem to expect an answer and went babbling happily on about the good old days and wasn’t it a shame and sugar? milk? or lemon? in the tea. As Arlene bustled away towards her tiny kitchen Larry and Honoria exchanged discouraged looks from the deep ancient armchairs they found themselves buried in.
When Arlene had returned she served them lukewarm tea with some stale Stella Dora biscuits. Then with a loud groan she settled herself down into the overstuffed couch.
‘The arthritis does get to one over the years,’ she said. ‘I hope it hasn’t hit poor Luke.
‘We were wondering where Dr Rhinehart might be,’ said Honoria, wanting to get to the point. ‘Have you heard from him recently?’
‘Oh, no,’ said Arlene ‘Luke hasn’t written or phoned me in years and years. He has to lie low, you know. The police are after him.’
‘We know,’ said Honoria. ‘Where was he the last time he wrote or phoned?’
‘Oh, that was years ago,’ said Arlene, looking off into space. ‘I’m sure he’s moved since then.’
‘Where was it?’ asked Larry.
‘Oh, here in New York, I guess,’ Arlene answered. ‘It’s all rather vague now. He wasn’t much for precision.’
‘Where’s your husband?’ Honoria asked.
‘Oh, Jake’s down south, I think,’ said Arlene. ‘He’s become a guru or priest or something, I hear, but still writing books. He’ll never stop writing books.’
‘I see,’ said Honoria.
‘He always wanted to be a king or a president, but I guess he’s had to settle for a smaller kingdom.’
‘And where exactly in the south?’ asked Larry.
‘Well, now, let me see,’ said Arlene, frowning. ‘A little town in Virginia I think. Not even on the map. Lukedom. Jake named it after your father.’
Larry and Honoria both sat up straighter in their chairs.
‘Do you know where it is?’ asked Honoria.
‘Oh, my, no,’ said Arlene. ‘Jake says it’s not on any map. That’s why he had to send me instructions about how to get there.’
‘You have instructions about how to get there!?’ said Larry.
Arlene looked surprised.
‘My goodness, that’s right,’ she said. ‘I guess I do. I never went, so I never even bothered to read them, but I know he sent them. I wonder what I did with that letter.’
While Larry and Honoria sat on the edge of their chairs – or as close as the deep, broken-springed chairs would permit – and exchanged glances, Arlene bumbled up off the couch to putter around her desk, mumbling happy apologies for her sloppiness and finally returning with a big smile and a letter.
‘See,’ she said. ‘I told you Jake had written instructions and here they are.’ She adjusted her glasses and peered down at the paper. ‘Lukedom. Dirt-road route to Lukedom. Were you thinking of visiting Jake?’
‘Yes,’ said Honoria. ‘Larry is interested in seeing his father and we thought this tittle village might have some people in it – Dr Ecstein, for example – who might have some idea where he is.’
‘How nice!’ said Arlene. ‘You’re going to see your father! Do say hello to him for me and tell that naughty man to write.’
Larry nodded, and a few minutes later, sketchmap in hand, he and Honoria said goodbye to Arlene. She wanted to have them take some of the stale Stella Dora cookies and offered to throw in some son of frozen pie she had made the previous year, but they politely declined. She told them to give Jake a big kiss for her and tell him she was getting along just fine. She said she’d like to find Lukie too and give him a piece of her mind. She was still babbling away when they finally managed to leave.
Larry and Honoria edged carefully down the old wooden stairs into the smelly night of Hempstead and were soon back in Larry’s Mercedes speeding towards Manhattan.
After Arlene had closed the door behind her two visitors, she grinned, shook her head, and began to shuffle back into the living room. Then she stopped in front of an old full-length mirror and looked at herself. She stretched and smiled again.
Then she reached up and began pulling at her white hair until, with a sudden wrench, the entire white wig came sliding off, revealing a mass of jet-black hair pinned down. After putting the white wig in a cardboard box with others on a closet shelf, she reached back and unpinned her hair, sending a cascade of touched-up black hair down on to her shoulders. She shook her head and smiled.
She checked her watch, frowned and took off her black shawl. Then, as she began to walk with a decidedly younger step towards the bathroom she flipped her shawl into a bedroom as she passed. On the way she took off her thick glasses and left them on a shelf in the hall. In front of the mirror in the bathroom she began to insert contact lenses into her eyes. When she’d finished she began to apply ‘the works’, as she called the creams, mascaras, eyeshadow, line erasers, blushers that were any woman’s staple when she wanted to look younger. This done, she left for the bedroom to change her clothes and prepare for her evening out.
But twenty minutes after Larry and Honoria had left there was a knock on the door of Arlene’s duplex. It was Agent Macavoy. He had dutifully followed Larry’s Mercedes and knew, when they had arrived at Browning Street in Hempstead, that the two were questioning Arlene Ecstein. After they’d left, he decided it might be worthwhile if he had a few words with the lady. If she told him what she’d told them it would simplify his surveillance.
The door was finally opened. A big-busted woman wearing a low-cut flaming-red dress and high heels greeted him with a slow smile. If Arlene had looked well into her fifties for Larry and Honoria, she looked closer to a well-preserved and heavily endowed forty now.
‘Hi,’ she said. ‘What can I do for you?’
Agent Macavoy pulled out his FBI identification and held it in front of her face.
‘Mrs Ecstein?’ he said coldly. ‘Macavoy, FBI. A few questions.’
Arlene didn’t even glance at his ID, but simply swung the door open wide and invited him in.
‘Sure,’