The Search for the Dice Man Read Online Free PDF

both of whom looked upon the estate as roughing it. After all, trees could be seen, grass, wild animals (rabbits and an occasional deer) and even mountains – the distant Catskills looming across the river in the distance. The fact that they usually viewed these wonders past the heads of the household help waiting on them hand and foot didn’t interfere at all with their sense of roughing it.
    The mansion was ornate, the grounds gracious, the view of the Hudson River and distant mountains spectacular, and Mr Battle pointed all this out to every new guest and then never noticed any of it again. But someday, I hoped, if I could just stay on the straight and narrow path of upward mobility, it would all be mine!
    But as I drove up the winding drive that Saturday morning in a cab from the train station I knew that chance was always trying to upset the applecart of my personal life with the same arbitrary interventions that ruined some of my most scientific trades. Accidental meetings, absurd attractions, arbitrary diseases, suddenly exposed secrets – life had a horrible tendency to undermine the orderly man with sudden chaos. The unexpected appearance of the FBI and my having to confess my father’s existence to Mr Battle was a tiny tremor ofwarning that accident, like death and taxes, was always with us.
    Now as the cab slowed to a halt opposite the ornate columns of the formal entrance, and the tall and lugubrious Hawkins came with slow dignity down the steps to greet me, I was both pleased by the opulence and a little depressed by it. I knew that the place would be so crawling with well-dressed people that life would seem as formal as a tea party. Mr Battle even insisted that Honoria and I sleep in separate bedrooms, whether from the illusion that we hadn’t yet slept together, or to maintain the façade of Victorianism, I couldn’t tell.
    I got slowly out of the cab, paid off the cabbie and watched Hawkins pick up my suitcase and lead me up the steps. The ‘family’, Hawkins announced solemnly, was out back on the patio.
    Although my whole march up the ladder of success led to precisely this elegant mansion owned by my boss and future father-in-law, something about it made me feel out of place. What was it? Why didn’t I feel comfortable with the people who shared my vision of a life of reason, rapaciousness and riches? Why didn’t I care more about the things I was supposed to care about? Why did Brad Burner’s enthusiasm for various numbered or named Porsches or BMWs seem so trivial? I owned a Mercedes but only as part of my uniform of success. I honestly couldn’t tell the difference between driving my Mercedes and driving a Honda Accord or Chevy Corsica, but knew if I began driving around in a Corsica I would soon be seen as on the way out.
    I continued through the huge lower hallway to follow the formal and funereal man in black, then up the long winding stairs towards my guest bedroom. Along the staircase were hung paintings and drawings: a Matisse next to a Norman Rockwell; an oil portrait of a grinning Ronald Reagan next to what looked like a giant Rubens nude.
    Why couldn’t I appreciate my colleagues’ obsession with their clothing, furniture, cars and connoisseurship of art? I myself owned three original oils by a famous avant-garde artist whose name I could never pronounce, but I thought of them like my car and suits – pan of my necessary uniform. And I derived less pleasure from looking at my an – or anyone else’s – than I did at looking at a sunset over the river. Since I hated spending a cent more than I had to, it pained me considerably to have to pay thousands of dollars for things I didn’t really want. Looking at them as necessary business expenses, I deeply resented the IRS for not letting me deduct them from my income tax.
    And the subtle differences between suits, sports cars, vacation spots, athletic clubs somehow escaped me. Mr Battle had almost ordered me to quit the Red