Текст книги "The Exorcist"

Автор книги: William Peter Blatty

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    " 'Depart, you monster! Your place is in solitude! Your abode is in a nest of vipers! Get down and crawl with them! It is God himself who commands you! The blood of...' "

    The poundings grew louder, began to come ominously faster and faster.

    " 'I adjure you, ancient serpent...' "

    And faster...

    " '... by the judge of the living and the dead, by your Creator, by the creator of all the universe, to...' "

    Sharon cried out, pressing fists against her ears as the poundings grew deafening and now suddenly accelerated and leaped to a terrifying tempo.

    Regan's pulse was astonishing. It hammered at a speed too rapid to gauge. Across the bed, Merrin reached out calmly and with the end of his thumb traced the sign of the cross on Regan's vomit-covered chest. The words of his prayer were swallowed in the poundings.

    Karras felt the pulse rate suddenly drop, and as Merrin prayed and traced the sign of the cross on Regan's blow, the nightmarish poundings abruptly ceased.

    " 'O God of heaven and earth, God of the angels and archangels...' " Karras could now hear Merrin praying as the pulse kept dropping, dropping...

    " 'Prideful bastard, Merrin! Scum! You win lose! She will die! The pig will die!"

    The flickering haze grew gradually brighter. The demonic entity had returned and raged hatefully at Merrin. "Profligate peacock! Ancient heretic! I adjure you, turn and look on me! Now look on me, you scum!" The demon jerked forward and spat in Merrin's face, and then croaked at him, "Thus does your master cure the blind!"

    " 'God and Lord of all creation...' " prayed Merrin, reaching placidly for his handkerchief and wiping away the spittle.

    "Now follow his teaching, Merrin! Do it! Put your sanctified cock in the piglet's mouth and cleanse it, swab it with the wrinkled relic and she will be cured, Saint Merrin! A miracle! A–"

    " '... deliver this servant of...' "

    "Hypocrite! You care nothing at all for the pig. You care nothing! You have made her a contest between us!"

    " '... I humbly...' "

    "Liar! Lying bastard! Tell us, where is your humility, Merrin? In the desert? in the ruins? in the tombs where you fled to escape your fellowman? to escape from your inferiors, from the halt and the lame of mind? Do you speak to men, you pious vomit?..."

    " '... deliver...' "

    "Your abode is in a nest of peacocks, Merrin! your place is within yourself! Go back to the mountaintop and speak to your only equal!"

    Merrin continued with the prayers, unheeding, as the torrent of abuse raged on. "Do you hunger, Saint Merrin? Here, I give to you nectar and ambrosia, I give to you the food of your God!" croaked the demon. It excreted diarrhetically, mocking, "For this is my body! Now consecrate that, Saint Merrin!"

Repelled, Karras focused his attention on the text as Merrin read a passage from Saint Luke: " '..."My name is Legion," answered the man, for many demons had entered into him. And they begged Jesus not to command them to depart into the abyss. Now a herd of swine was there, feeding on the mountain-side. And the demons kept entreating Jesus to let them enter into them. And he gave them leave. And the demons came out from the man and entered into the swine, and the herd rushed down the cliff and into the lake and were drowned. And...' "

    "Willie, I bring you good news!" croaked the demon. Karras glanced up and saw Willie near the door, stopping short with an armload of towels and sheets. I bring you tidings of redemption!" it gloated. "Elvira is alive! She lives! She is..."

    Willie stared in shock and now Karl turned and shouted at her, "No, Willie! No!"

    "... a drug addict, Willie, a hopeless–"

    "Willie, do not listen!" cried Karl.

    "Shall I tell you where she lives?"

    "Do not listen! Do not listen!" Karl was rushing Willie out of the room.

    "Go and visit her on Mother's Day, Willie! Surprise her! Go and–"

    Abruptly the demon broke off and fixed its eyes on Karras. He had again checked the pulse and found it strong, which meant it was safe to give Regan more Librium. Now he moved to Sharon to instruct her to prepare another injection. "Do you want her?" leered the demon. "She is yours! Yes, the stable whore is yours! You may ride her as you wish! Why, she fantasizes nightly concerning you, Karras! She masturbates, dreaming of your great priestly..."

    Sharon crimsoned and kept her eyes averted as Karras gave instructions for the Librium.

    "And a Compazine suppository is use there's more vomiting," he added.

    Sharon nodded at the floor and started stiffly away. As she walked by the bed with her head still lowered, Regan croaked at her, "Slut!" then jerked up and hit her face with a flung bolt of vomit, and while Sharon stood paralyzed and dripping, the Dennings personality appeared, rasping, "Stable whore! Cunt!"

    Sharon bolted from the room.

    The Dennings personality now grimaced with distaste, glance around and asked, "Would someone crack a window open, please? It bloody stinks in this room! Its simply–!

    "No no no, don't!" it then amended. "No for heaven's sake, don't, or someone else might be bloody well dead!" And then it cackled, winked monstrously at Karras and vanished.

    " 'It is He who expels you...' "

    "Does he, Merrin? Does he?"

    Now the demon returned and Merrin continued the adjurations, the applications of the stole and the constant tracings of the sign of the cross while it lashed him again obscenely. Too long, worried Karras: the fit was continuing far too long.

    "Now the saw comes! The mother of the piglet!" mocked the demon.

    Karras turned and saw Chris coming toward him with a swab and disposable syringe. She kept her head down as the demon hurled abuse, and Karras went to her, frowning.

    "Sharon's changing her clothes," Chris explained, "and Karl's–"

    Karras cut her short with "All right," and they approached the bed.

    "Ah, yes, come see your handiwork, sow-mother! Come!"

    Chris tried desperately not to listen, not to look, while Karras pinned Regan's unresisting arms.

    "See the puke! see the murderous bitch!" the demon raged. "Are you pleased? It is you who have done it! Yes, you with your career before anything; your career before your husband, before her, before..."

    Karras glanced around. Chris stood paralyzed, "Go ahead!" he ordered. "Don't listen! Go ahead!"

    "... your divorce! Go to priests, will you? Priest will not help!" Chris's hand began to shake, "She mad! She is mad! The piglet is mad! You have driven her to madness and to murder and..."

    "I can't!" Face contorted, Chris was staring at the quivering syringe. Shook her head. "I can't do it!"

    Karras plucked it from her fingers. "All right, swab it! Swab the arm! Over here!" he told her firmly.

    "... in her coffin, you bitch, by..."

    "Don't listen!" cautioned Karras again, and now the -demon jerked its head around, its eyes bulging fury, "And you, Karras!"

    Chris swabbed Regan's arm. "Now, get out!" Karras ordered her, flicking the needle into wasted flesh.

    She fled.

    "Yes, we know of your kindness to mothers, dear Karras!" croaked the demon. The Jesuit blenched and for a moment did not move. Then slowly he drew the needle out and looked into eyes that rolled upward into their sockets. Out of Regan's mouth came a slow, lilting singing, almost chanting, in a sweet clear voice like a choirboy's. " 'Tantum ergo sacramentum veneremur cerniu...' "

    It was a hymn sung at Catholic benediction. Karras stood bloodlessly as it continued. Weird and chilling, the singing was a vacuum into which Karras felt the horror of the evening rushing with a horrible clarity. He looked up and saw Merrin with a towel in his hands. With weary, tender movements he wiped away the vomit from Regan's face and neck.

    " '... et antiquum documentum...' "

    The singing. Whose voice? wondered Karras. And then fragments: Dennings... The window... Haunted, he saw Sharon come back in and take the towel from Merrin. "I'll finish that, Father," she told him. "I'm all right now. I'd like to change her and get her cleaned up before I give her the Compazine; all right? Could you both wait outside for awhile?"

    The two priests stepped into the warmth and the dimness of the hall and leaned wearily against the wall.

    Karras listened to the eerie, muffled singing from within. After some moments, he spoke softly to Merrin. "You said–you said earlier there was only... one entity."

    "Yes."

    The hushed tones, the lowered heads, were confessional.

    "All the others are but forms of attack," continued Merrin. "There is one... only one. It is a demon." There was a silence. Then Merrin stated simply, "I know you doubt this. But you see, this demon... I have met once before. And he is powerful... powerful...."

    A silence. Karras spoke again. "We say the demon... cannot touch the victim's will."

    "Yes, that is so... that is so... There is no sin."

    "Then what would be the purpose of possession?" Karras said, frowning. "What's the point?"

    "Who can know?" answered Merrin. "Who can really hope to know?" He thought for a moment. And then probingly continued: "Yet I think the demon's target is not the possessed; it is us... the observers... every person in this house. And I think–I think the point is to make us despair; to reject our own humanity, Damien: to see ourselves as ultimately bestial; as ultimately vile and putrescent; without dignity; ugly; unworthy. And there lies the heart of it, perhaps: in unworthiness. For I think belief in God is not a matter of reason at all; I think it finally is matter of love; of accepting the possibility that God could love us..."

    Again Merrin paused. He continued more slowly and with a hush of introspection: 'He knows... the demon knows where to strike...." He was nodding. "Long ago I despaired of ever loving my neighbor. Certain people... repelled me. How could I love them? I thought. It tormented me, Damien; it led me to despair of myself... and from that, very soon, to despair of my God. My faith was shattered...."

    Karras looked up at Merrin with interest. "And what happened?" he asked.

    "Ah, well... at last I realized that God would never ask of me that which I know to be psychologically impossible; that the love which He asked was in my will and not meant to be felt as emotion at all. Not at all. He was asking that I act with love; that I do unto others; and that I should do it unto those who repelled me, I believe, was a greater act of love than any other." He shook his head. "I know that all of this must seem very obvious, Damien. I know. But at the time I could not see It. Strange blindness. How many husbands and wives," he uttered sadly, "must believe they have fallen out of love because their hearts no longer race at the sight of their beloveds! Ah, dear God!" He shook his head; and then nodded. "There it lies, I think, Damien... possession; not in wars, as some tend to believe; not so much; and very seldom in extraordinary interventions such as here... this girl... this poor child. No, I see it most often in the little things, Damien: in the senseless, petty spites; the misunderstandings; the cruel and cutting word that leaps unbidden to the tongue between friends. Between lovers. Enough of these," Merrin whispered, "and we have no need of Satan to manage our wars; these we manage for ourselves... for ourselves...."

    The lilting singing could still be heard in the bedroom. Merrin looked up at the door and listened for a moment. "And yet even from this–from evil–will come good. In some way. In some way that we may never understand or ever see." Merrin paused. "Perhaps evil is the crucible of goodness," he brooded. "And perhaps even Satan–Satan, in spite of himself–somehow serves to work out the will of God."

    He said no more, and for a time they stood in silence while Karras reflected. Another objection came to mind. "Once the demon's driven out," he probed, "what's to keep it from coming back in?"

    "I don't know," Merrin answered. "I don't know. And yet it never seems to happen. Never. Never." Merrin put a hand to his face, tightly pinching at the corners of his eyes. "Damien... what a wonderful name," he murmured. Karras heard exhaustion in the voice. And something else. Some anxiety. Something like repression of pain.

    Abruptly, Merrin pushed himself away from the wall, and with his face still hidden in his hand; he excused himself and hurried down the hall to the bathroom. What was wrong? wondered Karras. He felt a sudden envy and admiration for the exorcist's strong and simple faith. He turned toward the door. The singing. It had stopped. Had the night at last ended?

    Some minutes later, Sharon came out of the bedroom with a foul-smelling bundle of bedding and clothing. "She's sleeping now," she said. She looked away quickly and moved off down the hall.

    Karras took a deep breath and returned to the bedroom. Felt the cold. Smelled the stench. He walked slowly to the bedside. Regan. Asleep. At last. And at last, thought Karras, he could rest.

    He reached down and gripped Regan's thin wrist, looking at the sweep-second hand of his watch.

    "Why you do this to me, Dimmy?"

    His heart froze.

    "Why you do this?"

    The priest could not move, did not breathe, did not dare to glance over to that sorrowful voice, did not dare see those eyes really there: eyes accusing, eyes lonely. His mother. His mother!

    "You leave me to be priest, Dimmy; and send me institution...."

    Don't look!

    "Now you chase me away?..."

    It's not her!

    "Why you do this?..."

    His head throbbing, heart in his throat, Karras shut his eyes tightly as the voice grew imploring, grew frightened, grew, tearful. "You always good boy, Dimmy. Please! I am 'fraid! Please no chase me outside, Dimmy! Please!"

    ... not my mother!

    "Outside nothing! Only dark, Dimmy! Lonely!" Now tearful.

    "You're not my mother!" Karras vehemently whispered.

    "Dimmy. please!..."

    "You're not my–"

    "Oh, for heaven's sake, Karras!"

    Dennings.

    "Look, it simply isn't fair to drive us out of here! Really!

    I mean, speaking for myself it's only justice I should be here! Little bitch! She took my body and I think it only right that I ought to be allowed to stay in hers, don't you think? Oh, for Christ's sake, Karras, look at me, now would you? Come along! It isn't very often I get out to speak my piece. Just turn around -now."

    Karras opened up his eyes and saw the Dennings personality.

    "There, that's better. Look, she killed me. Not our innkeeper, Karras–she! Oh, yes, indeed!" It was nodding affirmation. "She! I was minding my business at the bar, you see, when I thought I heard her moaning. Upstairs. Well, now, I had to see what ailed her, after all, so up I went and don't you know, she bloody took me by the throat, the little cunt!" The voice was whiny now; pathetic. "Christ, I've never in my life seen such strength! Began to scream that I was diddling her mother or something, or that I caused the divorce. Some such thing. It wasn't dear. But I tell you, love, she pushed me out the bloody fucking window!" Voice cracking. High-pitched now. "She killed me! Fucking killed me! Now you think it's bloody fair to throw me out? Come along, now, Karras, answer me! You think it really fair? I mean, do you?"

    Karras swallowed.

    "Yes, or no," it prodded "Is it fair?"

    "How was... the head turned around?" asked Karras hoarsely.

    Dennings shifted his gaze around evasively. "Oh, well, that was an accident... a freak... I hit the steps, you know.... It was freaky."

    Karras pondered, a dryness in his throat. Then he picked up Regan's wrist again; And glanced at his watch in a move of dismissal.

    "Dimmy, Please! Don' make me be alone!"

    His mother.

    "If instead of be priest, you was doctor, I Live in nice house, Dimmy, not wit' da cockroach, not all by myself in da apartment! Then..."

    He was straining to block it all out, but the voice began to weep again.

    "Dimmy, please!"

    "You're not my–"

    "Won't you face the truth, stinking scum?" It was the demon. "You believe what Merrin tells you?" It seethed. "You believe him to be holy and good? Well, he is not! He is proud and unworthy! I will prove it to you, Karras I will prove it by killing the piglet!"

    Karras opened up his eyes. But still dared not look.

    "Yes, she will die and Merrin's God will not save her, Karras! You will not save her! She will die from Merrin's pride and your incompetence! Bungler! You should not have given her the Librium!"

    Karras turned now and looked at the eyes. They were shining with triumph and piercing spite.

    "Feel her pulse!" The demon grinned "Go ahead, Karras! Feel it!"

    Regan's wrist was still gripped in his hand, and now he frowned worriedly. The pulse beat was rapid and...

    "Feeble?" croaked the demon. "Ah, yes. A trifle. For the moment, just a bit."

    Karras fetched his medical bag and took out his stethoscope. The demon rasped, "Listen, Karras! Listen well!"

    Karras listened. The heart tones sounded distant and inefficient.

    "I will not let her sleep!"

    Karras flicked up his glance to the demon. Felt chilled.

    "Yes, Karras!" it croaked. "She will not sleep! Do you hear? I will not let the piglet sleep!"

    As Karras stared numbly, the demon put its head back in gloating laughter. He did not hear Merrin come back into the room.

    The exorcist stood by him at the side of the bed and studied his face. "What is it?" he asked.

    Karras answered dully, "The demon... said he wouldn't let her sleep." He turned haunted eyes on Merrin. "Her heart's begun to work inefficiently, Father. If she doesn't get rest pretty soon, she'll die of cardiac exhaustion."

    Merrin looked grave. "Can you give her drugs? Some medicine to make her sleep?"

    Karras shook his head. "No, that's dangerous. She might go into coma." He turned as Regan clucked like a hen. "If her blood pressure drops any more..." He trailed off.

    "What can be done?" Merrin asked.

    "Nothing... nothing..." Karras answered. "But I don't know–maybe new advances–" He said abruptly to Merrin, "I'm going to call in a cardiac specialist, Father."

    Merrin nodded.

    Karras went downstairs. He found Chris keeping vigil in the kitchen and from the room off the Pantry he heard Willie sobbing, heard the sound of Karras consoling voice. He explained the need for consultation, carefully not divulging the full extent of Regan's danger. Chris gave him permission, and Karras telephoned a friend, a noted specialist at the Georgetown University Medical School, awakening him and briefing him tersely.

    "Be right there," said the specialist.

    He was at the house in less than half an hour. In the bedroom he reacted with bewilderment to the cold and the stench and with horror and compassion to Regan's condition. She was now croaking gibberish. While the specialist examined her, she alternately sang and made animal noises. Then Dennings appeared.

    "Oh, it's terrible,"' it whined at the specialist. "Just awful! Oh, I do hope there's something you can do! Is there something? We'll have no place to go, you see, otherwise, and all because... Oh, damn the stubborn devil!" As the specialist stared oddly while taking Regan's blood pressure, Dennings looked to Karras and complained, "What the hell are you doing! Can't you see the little bitch should be in hospital? She belongs in a madhouse, Karras! Now you know that! Really! Now let's stop all this cunting mumbo-jumbo! If she dies, you know, it's your fault! All yours! I mean, just because he's stubborn doesn't mean you should behave like a snot! You're a doctor! You should know better, Karras! Now come along; there's just a terrible shortage of housing these days. If we're–"

    Back came the demon now, howling like a wolf. The specialist, expressionless, undid the sphygmomanometer wrapping. Then he nodded at Karras. He was finished.

    They went out into the hall, where the specialist looked back at the bedroom door for a moment, and then turned to Karras. "What the hell's going on in there, Father?"

    The Jesuit averted his face. "I can't say," he said softly.

    "Okay."

    "What's the story?"

    The specialist's manner was somber. "She's got to stop that activity... sleep... go to sleep before the blood pressure drops...."

    "Is there anything I can do, Bill?"

    The specialist looked directly at Karras and said, "Pray."

    He said good night and walked away. Karras watched him, every artery and nerve begging rest, begging hope, begging miracles though he knew none could be. "... You should not have given her the Librium!"

    He turned back to the room and pushed open the door with a hand that was heavy as his soul.

    Merrin stood by the bedside, watching while Regan neighed shrilly like a horse. He heard Karras enter -and looked at him inquiringly. Karras shook his head. Merrin nodded. There was sadness in his face; then acceptance; and as he turned back to Regan, there was grim resolve.

    Merrin knelt by the bed. "Our Father..." he began.

    Regan splattered him with dark and stinking bile, and then croaked, "You will lose! She will die! She will die!"

    Karras picked up his copy of the Ritual. Opened it. Looked up and stared at Regan.

    " 'Save your servant,' " prayed Merrin.

    " 'In the face of the enemy.' "

    In Karras' heart there was a desperate torment. Go to sleep! Go to sleep! roared his will in a frenzy.

    But Regan did not sleep.

    Not by dawn.

    Not by noon.

    Not by nightfall.

    Not by Sunday, when the pulse rate was one hundred and forty, and ever threadier, while the fits continued unremittingly, while Karras and Merrin kept repeating the ritual, never sleeping, Karras feverishly groping for remedies: a restraining sheet to hold Regan's movements to a minimum; keeping everyone out of the bedroom for a time to see if lack of provocation might terminate the fits. It did not. And Regan's shouting was as draining as her movements. Yet the blood pressure held. But how much longer? Karras agonized. Ah, God, don't let her die! he cried repeatedly to himself. Don't let her die! Let her sleep! Let her sleep! Never was he conscious that his thoughts were prayers; only that the prayers were never answered.

    At seven o'clock that Sunday evening, Karras sat mutely next to Merrin in the bedroom, exhausted and racked by the demonic attacks: his lack of faith; his incompetence; his flight from his mother in search of status. And Regan. His fault. "You should not have given her the Librium..."

    The priests had just finished a cycle of the ritual. They were resting, listening to Regan singing "Panis Angelicus." They rarely left the room, Karras once to change clothes and to shower. But in the cold it was easier to stay wakeful; in the stench that since morning had altered in character to the gorge-raising odor of decayed, rotted flesh.

    Staring feverishly at Regan with red-veined eyes, Karras thought he heard a sound. Something creaked. Again: As he blinked. And then he realized it was coming from his own crusted eyelids. He turned toward Merrin. Through the hours, the exorcist had said very little: now and then a homely story of his boyhood; reminiscences; little things; a story about a duck he owned named Clancy. Karras worried about him. The lack of sleep. The demon's attacks. At his age. Merrin closed his eyes and let his chin rest on his chest. Karras glanced around at Regan, and then wearily stood up and moved over to the bed. He checked her pulse and then began to take a blood pressure reading. As he wrapped the black sphygmomanometer cloth around the arm, he blinked repeatedly to clear the blurring of his vision.

    "Today Muddir Day, Dimmy."

    For a moment; he could not move; felt his heart wrenched from his chest. Then he looked into those eyes that seemed not Regan's anymore, but eyes sadly rebuking. His mother's.

    "I not good to you? Why you leave me to die all alone, Dimmy? Why? Why you..."

    "Damien!"

    Merrin clutching tightly at his arm. "Please go and rest for a little now, Damien."

    "Dimmy, please! Why you..."

    Sharon came in to change the bedding.

    "Go, rest for a little, Damien!" urged Merrin.

    With a lump rising dry to his throat, Karras turned and left the bedroom. Stood weak in the hall. Then he walked down the stairs, and stood indecisively. Coffee? He craved it. But a shower even more, a change of clothing, a shave.

    He left the house and crossed the street to the Jesuit residence hall. Entered. Groped to his room. And when he looked at his bed... Forget the shower. Sleep. Half an hour. As he reached for the telephone to tell Reception to awaken him, it rang.

    "Yes, hello," he answer hoarsely.

    "Someone waiting here to see you, Father Karras: a Mr. Kinderman."

    For a moment, Karras held his breath and then, weakly, he answered, "Please tell him I'll be out in just a minute."

    As he hung up the telephone, Karras saw the carton of Camels on his desk A note from Dyer was attached. He read blearily.

    A key to the Playboy Club has been found on the chapel kneeler in front of the votive lights. Is it yours? You can claim it at Reception.

    Without expression, Karras set down the note, dressed in fresh clothing and walked out of the room. He forgot to take the cigarettes.

    In Reception, he saw Kinderman at the telephone switchboard counter, delicately rearranging the composition of a vase full of flowers. As he turned and saw Karras, he was holding the stem of a pink camellia.

    "Ah, Father! Father Karras!" glowed Kinderman, his expression changing to concern at the exhaustion in the Jesuit's face. He quickly replaced the camellia and came forward to meet Karras. "You look awful! What's the matter? That's what comes of all this schlepping around the track? Give it up! Listen, come!" He gripped Karras by the elbow and propelled him toward the street. "You've got a minute?" he asked as they passed through the entry doors.

    "Barely," murmured Karras. "What is it?"

    "A little talk. I need advice, nothing more, just advice."

    "What about?"

    "In just a minute," waved Kinderman in dismissal.

    "Now we'll walk. We'll take air. We'll enjoy." He linked his arm through the Jesuit's and guided him diagonally across Prospect Street. " Ah, now, look at that! Beautiful! Gorgeous!" He was pointing to the sun sinking low on the Potomac, and in the stillness rang the laughter and the talking-all-together of Georgetown undergraduates in front of a drinking hall near the corner of Thirty-sixth Street. One punched another one hard on the arm, and the two began wrestling amicably. "Ah, college, college..." breathed Kinderman ruefully, nodding as he stared. "I never went... but I wish... I wish..." He saw that Karras was watching the sunset. "I mean, seriously, you really look bad," he repeated. "What's the matter? You've been sick?"

    When would Kinderman come to the point? Karras wondered. "No, just busy," he answered.

    "Slow it down, then," wheezed Kinderman. "Slow. You know better. You saw the Bolshoi Ballet, incidentally, at the Watergate?"

    "No."

    "No, me neither. But I wish. They're so graceful... so cute!"

    They had come to the Car Barn wall. Resting a forearm, Karras faced Kinderman, who had clasped his hands atop the wall and was staring pensively across the river. "Well, what's on your mind, Lieutenant?" asked Karras.

    "Ah, well, Father," sighed Kinderman, "I'm afraid I've got a problem."

    Karras flicked a brief glance up at Regan's shuttered window. "Professional?"

    "Well, partly... only partly."

    "What is it?"

    "Well, mostly it's..." Hesitant, Kinderman squinted. "Well, mostly it's ethical, you could say, Father Karras... a question...." The detective turned around and leaned his back against the wall. He frowned at the sidewalk. Then he shrugged. "There's just no one I could talk to about it; not my captain in particular, you see. I just couldn't. I couldn't tell him. So I thought..." His face lit with sudden animation. "I had an aunt... you should hear this; it's funny. She was terrified–terrified–for years of my uncle. Never dared to say a word to him. Wouldn't dare to raise her voice. Never! So whenever she got mad at him for something–for whatever–right away, she'd run quick to the closet in her bedroom, and then there in the dark–you won't believe this!–in the dark, by herself, and the moths and the clothes hanging up, she mould curse–she would curse!–at my uncle for maybe twenty minutes! Tell exactly what she thought of him! Really! I mean, yelling! She'd come out, she'd feel better, she'd go kiss him on the cheek. Now what is that, Father Karras? That's good therapy or not!"

    "It's very good," said Karras, smiling bleakly. "And I'm your closet now? Is that what you're saying?"

    "In a way," said Kinderman. Again he looked down. "In a way. But more serious, Father Karras." He paused. "And the closet must speak," he added heavily.

    "Got a cigarette?" asked Karras with shaking hands.

    The detective looked up at him, blankly incredulous. "A condition like mine and I would smoke?"

    "No, you wouldn't," murmured Karras, clasping hands atop the wall and staring at them. Stop shaking!

    "Some doctor! God forbid I should be sick in some jungle and instead of Albert Schweitzer, there is with me only you! You cure warts still with frogs, Doctor Karras?"

    "It's toads," Karras answered, subdued.

    "You're not laughing today," worried Kinderman. "Something's wrong?"

    Mutely Karras shook his head. Then, "Go ahead," he said softly.

    The detective sighed and faced out to the river. "I was saying..." he wheezed. He scratched his brow with his thumbnail. "I was saying–well, lets say I'm working on a case, Father Karras. A homicide."