The second question is, "How do you play?"

     Then, as fascination overcomes revulsion, the third question is "Who's on the list?"

     And the last question is usually, "Can I play?"

     The answer to the first question is yes — betting on which famous people are going to die in a give year is disgusting.

     "It's morbid and tastless," allowed the Northfield man who started the annual small-stakes wagering event in 1985 and runs it from one of the major downtown trading floors. "But it's an interesting game."

     And, he points out, unlike your office NCAA tournament pool, which you have probably lost already, the death pool lasts all year — from late January until midnight New Year's Eve.

     How do you play? Quietly. The founder and several players I talked to insist that neither they nor their trading floor be named. "It's not a secret," said a player from Forest Park, "but I'm very selective about who I tell."

     At the start of each year, entrants submit a list of 10 names along with a $10 entry fee. The names may not include Death Row inmates, anyone over 100 (the Rose Kennedy rule), anyone known to be on life support, or, the founder said, "your Uncle Louie. I have to have heard of the person."

     The organizers also offer bonus selections, groups of famous people that count as only one pick. An example from this year, Famous Sirs: Sir Alec Guinness, Sir John Gielgud, Sir Georg Solti and Sirhan Sirhan. A bonus group last year consisted of Dick York, Dick Gregory, Dick Butkus and Bruce Willis.

     All players then receive a scoring grid that lists all the picks ranked by their frequency.

     Who's on the list? No. 1 this year is former East German leader Erich Honecker, 80, who is known to be battling liver cancer and was selected by 23 of the 42 participants.

     But being No. 1 is no death sentence. 1991's top pick, Saddam Hussein, not only made it through the year but now has such robust prospects his name is not among the 146 selected by at east one player in 1993.

     The list consists mostly of aging celebs and those whose maladies have been well documented by the media — indeed, though this game may be ghoulish and macabre, it is not inconsistent with the general public's prying obsession with disease and death that is so faithfully served by celebrity journalism.

     The reason Bill Bixby, Jim Valvano and Frank Zappa are high on the list this year is not because players are privy to inside medical information, after all.

     "You watch TV, you read, you keep track," said a North Side trader and veteran death pooler. "Everyone keeps a short list running at all times for next year."

     The winner is the player whose list contains the greatest number of dead people by year's end. He takes home the entire pot, minus the $10 refund awarded to the first person to be the only player to forecast a notable demise. That refund this year went to the only person to put 1st Ward power broker Pat Marcy on his list.

     The founder said he knew of at least one other pool in existencce at the time he started his contest, and he periodically hears rumors of others elsewhere. The concept received national attention in Clint Eastwood's 1988 movie "The Dead Pool," a "Dirty Harry" sequel in which Harry's name appears on a list compiled for an almost identical pool.

     When figures on the list begin to die mysteriously, the character in charge of the betting insists "The dead pool is just a harmless game."

     "It sounds pretty sick to me," responds Dirty Harry, of all people.

     Sick, yes, but consider the context, argued the founder of the Chicago-based game. "The pool is essential just betting on current events," he said, and a natural outgrowth of the gambling mentality that pervades the trading and investment community.

     Investors who spend their days in effect wagering millions of their own and other people's dollars on market reactions to world events are famous for filing their spare time with unusual side bets.

     In your office, employees may put down a few bucks on a basketball tournament. In their offices they put down a few bucks on how much snow will fall in London this winter, the digits they'll find on a random dollar bill, the number of yellow cards given in a soccer match or the breakup date in Princess Di's marriage to Prince Charles.

     "It's a disease," explained a currency trader who is not in the death pool. "Right now, I could get you a price [betting line] on anything. Any election, The number of of base hits this year by any Sox player. Literally anything."

     The answer to the last question about the death pool, "Can I play?" is generally no. The founder said he freely distributes copies of the current score sheet to anyone who wants to "play at home," as he put it, "But we don't want new players," he said. "It gets to be a hassle keeping track."

     Just as well. I guess I'd rather root for Michigan to win than Jim Valvano to die. I hope they both make it all the way, in fact.