The Exorcist (9 page)

"Karl!" Chris snapped. 'Will you get out of here? Get out! Can't you see how he is?"

But the Swiss would not budge until Chris began actually to shove him toward the door.

"Naa-zi pig!" Dennings screamed at his back. And then he turned genially to Chris and rubbed his hands together. "What's dessert?" he asked mildly.

"Dessert!" Chris thumped at her brow with the heel of her hand.

"Well, I'm hungry," he whined.

Chris turned to Sharon. "Feed him! I've got to get Regan up to Bed. And, Burke, for chrissakes," she asked the director, "will you behave yourself! There are priests out there!" She pointed.

He creased his brow as his eyes grew intense with a sudden and apparently genuine interest. "Oh, you noticed that too?" he asked without guile.

Chris left the kitchen and went down to check Regan in the basement playroom, where her daughter had spent the entire day. She found her playing with the Ouija board. She seemed sullen; abstracted; remote. Well, at least she isn't feisty, Chris reflected and hopeful of diverting her, shee brought her to the living room and began to introduce her to her guests.

"Oh, isn't she darling!" said the wife of the senator.

Regan was strangely well behaved, except for a moment with Mrs. Perrin when she would neither speak nor accept her hand. But the seeress made a joke of it.

"Knows I'm a fake," She winked at Chris. But then, with a curious air of scrutiny, she reached forward and gripped Regan's hand with a gentle pressure, as if checking her pulse. Regan quickly shook her off and glared malevolently.

"Oh, dear, dear, dear, she must be tired," Mrs. Perrin said casually; yet she continued to watch Regan with a probing fixity, an anxiety unexplained.

"She's been feeling kind of sick," Chris murmured in apology. She looked down at Regan. "Haven't you, honey?"

Regan did not answer. She kept her eyes on the floor.

There was no one left for Began to meet except the senator and Robert, Mrs. Perrin's son, and Chris thought it best to pass them up. She took Regan up to bed and tucked her in.

"Do you think you can sleep?" Chris asked.

"I don't know," she answered dreamily. She'd turned on her side and was staring at the wall with a distant expsession.

"Would you like me to read to you for a while?"

A shake of the head.

"Okay, then. Try to sleep."

She leaned over and kissed her, and then walked to the door and flicked the light switch.

"Night, my baby."

Chris was almost out the door when Regan called out to her very softly:

"Mother, what's wrong with me?"

So haunted. The tone so despairing. So disproportionate to her condition. For a moment the mother felt shaken and confused. But quickly she righted herself.

"Well, it's just like I said, hon; it's nerves. All you need is those pills for a couple of weeks and I know you'll be feeling just fine. Now then, try to go to sleep, hon, okay?'

No response. Chris waited.

"Okay?" she repeated.

"Okay," whispered Regan.

Chris abruptly noticed goose pimples rising on her forearm. She rubbed it. Good Christ, it gets cold in this room. Where's the draft coming in from?

She moved to the window and checked along the edges. Found nothing. Turned to Regan. "'You warm enough, baby?"

No answer.

Chris moved to the bedside. "Regan? You asleep?" she whispered.

Eyes closed. Deep breathing.

Chris tiptoed from the room.

From the hall she heard singing, and as she walked down the stairs, she saw with pleasure that the young Father Dyer was playing the piano near the livingroom picture window and was leading a group that had gathered around him in cheerful song. As she entered the living room, they had just finished "Till We Meet Again."

Chris started forward to join the group, but was quickly intercepted by the senator and his wife, who had their coats across their arms. They seemed edgy.

"Are you leaving so soon?" Chris asked.

"Oh, I'm really so sorry, and my dear, we've had a marvelous evening," the senator effused "But poor Martha's got a headache."

"Oh, I am so sorry, but I do feel terrible," moaned the senator's wife. "Will you excuse us, Chris? It'd been such a lovely party."

"I'm really sorry you have to go," said Chris.

She accompanied them to the door and she could hear Father Dyer in the background asking, "Does anyone else know the words to 'I'll Bet You're Sorry Now, Tokyo Rose'?"

She bade them good night. On her way back to the living room, Sharon stepped quietly out from the study.

"Where's Burke?" Chris asked her.

"In there," Sharon answered with a nod toward the study. "He's sleeping it off. Say, what did the senator say to you? Anything?"

"What do you mean?" asked Chris. "They just left."

"Well, I guess it's as well."

"Sharon, what do you mean?"

"Oh, Burke," sighed Sharon. In a guarded tone, she described an encounter between the senator and the director. Dennings, had remarked to him, in passing, said Sharon, that there appeared to be "an alien pubic hair floating round in my gin." Then he'd turned to the senator and added in a tone that was vaguely accusatory, "Never seen it before in my life! Have you?"

Chris giggled as Sharon went on to describe how the senator's embarrassed reaction had triggered one of Dennings' quixotic rages, in which he'd expressed his "boundless gratitude" for the existence of politicians, since without them "one couldn't distinguish who the statesmen were, you see."

When the senator had moved away in a huff, the director turned to Sharon and said proudly, "There, you see? I didn't curse. Now then, don't you think I handled that rather demurely?"

Chris couldn't help laughing. "Oh, well, let him sleep. But you'd better stay in there in case he wakes up. Would you mind?"

"Not at all." Sharon entered the study.

In the living room, Mary Jo Perrin sat alone and thoughtful in a corner chair. She looked edgy; disturbed. Chris started to join her, but changed her mind when one of the neighbors drifted over to the corner.

Chris headed for the piano instead. Dyer broke off his playing of chords and looked up to greet her. "Yes, young lady, and what can we do for you today? We're running a special on novenas."

Chris chuckled with the others. "I thought I'd get the scoop on what goes on at Black Mass," she said, "Father Wagner said you were the expert."

The group at the piano fell silent with interest.

"No, not really," said Dyer, lightly touching some chords. "Why'd you mention Black Mass?" he askd her soberly.

"Oh, well; some of us were talking before about--- well... about those things that they found at Holy Trinity, and---"

"Oh, you mean the desecrations?" Dyer interrupted.

"Hey, somebody give us a clue. what' going on," demanded the astronaut.

"Me too," said Ellen Cleary. "I'm lost."

"Well, they found some desecrations at the church down the street," explained Dyer.

"Well, like what?" asked the astronaut.

"Forget it," Father, Dyer advised him. "Let's just say obscenities, okay?"

"Father Wagner says you told him it was like at Black Mass," prompted Chris, "and I wonderded what went on at those things?"

"Oh, I really don't know all that much," he protested. "In fact, most of what I know is what I've heard from another Jeb."

"What's a Jeb?" Chris asked.

"Short for Jesuit., Father Karras is the expert on all this stuff."

Chris was suddenly alert "Oh, the dark priest at Holy Trinity?"

"You know him?" asked Dyer.

"No, I just heard him mentioned, that's all."

"Well, I think he did a paper on it once. You know, just from the psychiatric side."

"Whaddya mean?" asked Chris.

"Whaddya mean, whaddya mean?"

"Are you telling me he's a psychiatrist?"

"Oh, well, sure. Gee, I'm sorry. I just assumed that you knew."

"Listen, somebody tell me something!" the astronaut demanded impatiently. "What does go on at Black Mass?"

"Let's just say perversions." Dyer shrugged. "Obscenities. Blasphemies. It's an evil parody of the Mass, where instead of God they worshiped Satan and sometimes offered human sacrifice."

Ellen Cleary shook her head and walked away. "This is getting too creepy for me." She smiled thinly.

Chris paid her no notice. The dean joined the group unobtrusively. "But how can you know that?" she asked the young Jesuit. "Even if there was such a thing as Black Mass, who's to say what went on there?"

"Well, I guess they got most of it," answered Dyer, "from the people who were caught and then confessed."

"Oh, come on," said the dean. "Those confessions were worthless, Joe. They were tortured."

"No, only the snotty ones," Dyer said blandly.

There was a ripple of vaguely nervous laughter. The dean eyed his watch. "Well, I really should be going," he said to Chris. "I've got the six-o'clock Mass in Dahlgren Chapel."

"I've got the banjo Mass." Dyer beamed. Then his eyes shifted to a point in the room behind Chris, and he sobered abruptly. "Well, now, I thick we have a visitor, Mrs. MacNeil," he cautioned, motioning with his head.

Chris turned. And gasped on seeing Regal in her nightgown, urinating gushingly onto the rug. Staring fixedly at the astronaut, she intoned in a lifeless voice, "You're going to die up there."

"Oh, my God!" cried Chris in pain, rushing to her daughter. "Oh, God, oh, my baby, oh, come on, come with me!"

She took Regan by the arms and led her quickly away with a tremulous apology over her shoulder to the ashen astronaut: "Oh, I'm so sorry! She's been sick, she must be walking in her sleep! She's didn't know what she was saying!"

"Gee, maybe we should go," she heard Dyer say to someone.

"No, no, stay," Chris protested, turning around for a moment. "Please, stay! It's okay! I'll be back in just a minute!"

Chris paused by the kitchen, instructing Willie to see to the rug before the stain became indelible, and then she walked Regan upstairs to her bates bathroom, bathed her and changed her nightgown. "Honey, why did you say that?" Chris asked her repeatedly, but Regan appeared not to understand and mumbled non sequiturs. Her eyes were vacant and clouded.

Chris tucked her into bed, and almost immediately Regan appeared to fall asleep. For a time Chris waited, listening to her breathing. Then left the room.

At the bottom of the stairs, she encountered Sharon and the young director of the second unit assisting Dennings out of the study. They had called a cab and were going to shepherd him back to his suite at the Sheraton-Park.

"Take it easy," Chris advised as they left the house with Dennings between them.

Barely conscious, the director said, "Fuck it," and slipped into fog and the waiting cab.

Chris returned to the living room, where the guests who still remained expressed their sympathy as she gave them a brief account of Regan's illness. When she mentioned the rappings and the other "attention-getting" phenomena, Mrs. Perrin stared at her intently. Once Chris looked at her, expecting her to comment, but she said nothing and Chris continued.

"Does she walk in her sleep quite a bit?" asked Dyer.

"No, tonight's the first time. Or at least, the first time I know of, so I guess it's this hyperactivity thing. Don't you think?"

"Oh, I really wouldnt know," said the priest. "I've heard sleepwalking's common at puberty, except that---" Here he shrugged and broke off. "I don't know. Guess you'd better ask your doctor."

Throughout the remainder of the discussion, Mrs. Perrin sat quietly, watching the dance of flames in the living room fireplace: Almost as subdued, Chris noticed, was the astronaut, who was scheduled for a flight to the moon within the year. He stared at his drink with a now-and-then grunt meant to signify interest and attention. As if by tacit understanding, no one made reference to what Regan had said to him.

"Well, I do have that Mass" said the dean at last, rising to leave.

It triggered a general departure. They all stood up and expressed their thanks for dinner and the evening.

At the door, Father Dyer took Chris's hand and probed her eyes earnestly. "Do you think there's a part in one of your movies for a very short priest who can play the piano?" he asked.

"Well, if there isn't"--- Chris laughed--- "then I'll have one written in for you, Father."

"I was thinking of my brother," he told her solemnly.

"Oh, you!" she laughed again, and bade him a fond and warm good night.

The last to leave were Mary Jo Perrin and her son. Chris held them at the door with idle chatter. She had the feeling that Mary Jo had something on her mind, but was holding it back. To delay her departure, Chris asked her opinion on Regan's continued use of the Quija board and her Captain Howdy fixation. "Do you think there's any harm in it?" she asked.