Текст книги "The Exorcist"

Автор книги: William Peter Blatty

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    Chris walked homeward. She was tired. At the corner of Thirty-sixth and O she signed an autograph for an aging Italian grocery clerk who had hailed her from the doorway of his shop. She wrote her name and "Warm Best Wishes" on a brown paper bag. Waiting to cross, she glanced diagonally across the street to a Catholic church. Holy Something-or-other. Staffed by Jesuits. John F. Kennedy had married Jackie there-, she had heard; had worshiped there. She tried to imagine it: John F. Kennedy among the votive lights and the pious, wrinkled women; John F. Kennedy bowed in prayer; I believe... a detente with the Russians; I believe, I believe... Apollo IV among the rattlings of the beads; I believe... the resurrection and the life ever– That. That's it. That's the grabber.

    She watched as a beer truck lumbered by with a clink of quivering warm, wet promises.

    She crossed. As she walked down O and passed the grade-school auditorium, a priest rushed by from behind her, hands in the pockets of a nylon windbreaker. Young. Very tense. In need of a shave. Up ahead, he took a right, turning into an easement that opened to a courtyard behind the church.

    Chris paused by the easement, watching him, curious. He seemed to be heading for a white frame cottage. An old screen door creaked open and still another priest emerged. He looked glum; very nervous. He nodded curtly toward the young man, and with lowered, eyes, he moved quickly toward a door that led into the Church. Once again the cottage door was pushed open from within. Another priest. It looked–Hey, it is! The one who was smiling when Burke said "fuck"! Only now he looked grave as he silently greeted the new arrival, his arm around his shoulder in a gesture that was gentle and somehow parental. He led him inside and the screen door closed with a slow, faint squeak.

    Chris stared at her shoes. She was puzzled. What's the drill? She wondered if Jesuits went to confession.

    Faint rumble of thunder. She looked up at the sky. Would it rain?... the resurrection of the...

    Yeah. Yeah, sure. Next Tuesday. Flashes of lightning crackled in the distance. Don't call us, kid, we'll call you.

    She tugged up her coat collar and slowly moved on. She hoped it would pour.

In a minute she was home. She made a dash for the bathroom. After that, she walked into the kitchen.

    "Hi, Chris, how'd it go?"

    Pretty blonde in her twenties sitting at the table. Sharon Spencer. Fresh. From Oregon. For the last three years, she'd been tutor to Regan and social secretary to Chris.

    "Oh, the usual crock." Chris sauntered to the table and began to sift message. "Anything exciting?"

    "Do you want to have dinner next week at the White House?"

    "Oh, I dunno, Marty; whadda you feel like doin'?"

    "Eating candy and getting sick."

    Chris chuckled. "Where's Rags, by the way?"

    "Downstairs in the playroom."

    "'What doin'?"

    "Sculpting. She's making a bird, I think. It's for you."

    "Yeah, I need one," Chris murmured. She moved to the stove and poured a cup of hot coffee. "Were you kidding me about that dinner?" she asked.

    "No, of course not," answered Sharon. "It's Thursday."

    "Big party?"

    "No, I gather it's just five or six people."

    "No kidding!"

    She was pleased but not really surprised. They courted her company: cab drivers; poets; professors; kings. What was it they liked about her? Life? Chris sat at the table. "How'd the lesson go?"

    Sharon lit a cigarette, frowning. "Had a bad time with math again."

    "Oh? Gee, that's funny."

    "I know; it's her favorite subject," said Sharon.

    "Oh, well, this 'new math,' Christ, I couldn't make change for the bus if–"

    "Hi, Mom!"

    She was bounding through the door, slim arms outstretched. Red ponytail. Soft, shining face full of freckles.

    "Hi ya, stinkpot!" Beaming, Chris caught her in a bearhug, squeezing, then kissed the girl's cheek with smacking ardor. She could not repress the full flood of her love. "Mmum-mmum-mmum!" More kisses. Then she held Regan out and probed her face with eager eyes. "What'djya do today? Anything exciting?"

    "Oh stuff."

    "So what kinda stuff?"

    "Oh, lemme see." She had her knees against her mother's, swaying gently back and forth. "Well, of -course, I studied."

    "Uh-huh."

    "An' I painted."

    "Wha'djya paint?"

    "Oh, well, flowers, ya know. Daisies? Only pink. An' then–Oh, yeah! This horse!" She grew suddenly excited, eyes widening. "This man had a horse, ya know, down by the river? We were walking, see, Mom, and then along came this horse, he was beautiful! Oh, Mom, ya should've seen him, and the man let me sit on him! Really! I mean, practically a minute!"

    Chris twinkled at Sharon with secret amusement. "Himself?" she asked, lifting an eyebrow. On moving to Washington for the shooting of the film, the blonde secretary, who was now virtually one of the family, had lived in the house, occupying an extra bedroom upstairs. Until she'd met the "horseman" at a nearby stable. Sharon needed a place to be alone, Chris then decided, and had moved her to a suite in an expensive hotel and insisted on paying the bill.

    "Himself." Sharon smiled in response to Chris.

    "It was a gray horse!" added Regan. "Mother, can't we get a horse? I mean, could we?"

    "We'll see, baby."

    "When could I have one?"

    "We'll see. Where's the bird you made?"

    Regan looked blank for a moment; then turned around to Sharon and grinned, her mouth full of braces and shy rebuke. "You told." Then, "It was a surprise," she snickered to her mother.

    "You mean...?"

    "With the long funny nose, like you wanted!"

    "Oh, Rags, that's sweet. Can I see it?"

    "No, I still have to paint it. When's dinner, Mom?"

    "Hungry?"

    "I'm starving."

    "Gee, it s not even five. When was lunch?" Chris asked Sharon.

    "Oh, twelvish," Sharon answered.

    "When are Willie and Karl coming back?"

    She had given their the afternoon off.

    "I think seven," said Sharon.

    "Mom, can't we go to the Hot Shoppe?" Regan pleaded. "Could we?"

    Chris lifted her daughter's hand; smiled fondly; kissed it. "Run upstairs and get dressed and we'll go."

    "Oh, I love you!"

    Regan ran from the room.

    "Honey, wear the new dress!" Chris called out after her.

    "How would you like to be eleven?" mused Shalom.

    "That an offer?"

    Chris reached for her mail, began listlessly sorting through scrawled adulation, "Would you take it?" asked Sharon.

    "With the brain I've got now?" All the memories?"

    "Sure."

    "No deal."

    "Think it over."

    "I'm thinking." Chris picked up a script with a covering letter clipped neatly to the front of it. Jarris. Her agent. "Thought I told them no scripts for a while."

    "You should read it," said Sharon.

    "Oh, yeah?"

    "Yes, I read it this morning."

    "Pretty good?"

    "It's great."

    "And I get to play a nun who discovers she's a lesbian, right?"

    "No, you get to play nothing."

    "Shit, movies are better than ever. What the hell are you talking about, Sharon? What's the grin for?"

    "They want you to direct," Sharon exhaled coyly with the smoke from her cigarette.

    "What!"

    "Read the Letter."

    "My God, Shar, you're kidding!"

    Chris pounced on the letter with eager eyes snapping up the words in hungry chunks: "... new script... a triptych... studio wants Sir Stephen Moore... accepting role provided–"

    "I direct his segment!"

    Chris flung up her arms, letting loose a hoarse, shrill cry of joy. Then with both her hands she cuddled the letter to her chest. "Oh, Steve,– you angel, you remembered!" Filming in Africa. Drunk. In camp chairs. Watching the blood-hush end of day. "Ah, the business is bunk! For the actor it's crap, Steve!"

    "Oh, I like it."

    "It's crap! Don't you know where it's at in this business? Directing!"

    "Ah, yes."

    "Then you've done something, something that's yours; I mean, something that lives!"

    "Well, then do it."

    "I've tried; they won't buy it."

    "Why not?"

    "Oh, come on, you know why: they don't think I can cut it." Warm remembrance. Warm smile. Dear Steve...

    "Mom, I can't find the dress!" Regan called from the landing.

    "In the closet!" Chris answered.

    "I looked!"

    "I'll be up in a second!" Chris called. For a moment she examined the script. Then gradually wilted. "So its probably crap."

    "Oh, come on, now. I really think it's good."

    "Oh, you thought Psycho needed a laugh track."

    Sharon laughed.

    "Mommy?"

    "I'm coming!"

    Chris got up slowly. "Got a date, Shar?"

    "Yes."

    Chris motioned at the mail. "You go on, then. We can catch all this stuff in the morning."

    Sharon got up.

    "Oh, no, wait," Chris amended, remembering something. "There's a letter that's got to go out tonight."

    "Oh, okay." The secretary reached for her dictation pad.

    "Moth-therrr!" A whine of impatience.

    "Wait'll I comes down," Chris told Sharon. She started to leave the kitchen, but stepped as Sharon eyed her watch.

    "Gee; it's time for me to meditate, Chris," she said.

    Chris looked at her narrowly with mute exasperation. In the last six mouths, she had watched her secretary suddenly turn "seeker after serenity." It had started in Los Angeles with self-hypnosis, which then yielded to Buddhistic chanting. During the last few weeks that Sharon was quartered in the room upstairs, the house had reeked of incense, and lifeless dronings of "Nam myoho renge kyo" ("See, you just keep on chanting that, Chris, just that, and you get your wish, you got everything you want...") were heard at unlikely and untimely hours, usually when Chris was studying her lines. "You can turn on TV," Sharon had generously told her employer on one of these occasions, "It's fine. I can chant when there's all kinds of noise. It won't bother me a bit." Now it was transcendental meditation.

    "You really think that kind of stuff is going to do you any good, Shar?" Chris asked tonelessly.

    "It gives me peace of mind," responded Sharon.

    "Right," Chris said dryly. She turned away and said good-night. She said nothing about the letter, and as she left the kitchen, she murmured, "Nam myoho renge kyo."

    "Keep it up about fifteen or twenty minutes," said Sharon. "Maybe for you it would work."

    Chris halted and considered a measured response. Then gave it up. She went upstairs to Regan's bedroom, moving immediately to the closet. Regan was standing in the middle of the room staring up at the ceiling.

    "What's doin'?" Chris asked her, hunting for the dress. It was a pale-blue cotton. She'd bought it the week before, and remembered hanging it in the closet.

    "Funny noises," said Regan.

    "I know. We've got friends."

    Regan looked at her. "Huh?"

    "Squirrels, honey; squirrels in the attic." her daughter was squeamish and terrified of rats. Even mice upset her.

    The hunt for the dress proved fruitless.

    "See, Mom, it's got there."

    "Yes, I see. Maybe Willie picked it up with the cleaning."

    "It's gone."

    "Yeah, well, put on the navy. It's pretty."

They went to the Hot Shoppe. Chris ate a salad while Regan had soup, four rolls, fried chicken, a chocolate shake, and a helping and a half of blueberry pie with coffee ice cream. Where does she put it, Chris wondered fondly, in her wrists? The child was slender as a fleeting hope.

    Chris lit a cigarette over her coffee and looked through the window on her right. The river was dark and currentless, waiting.

    "I enjoyed my dinner, Mom."

    Chris turned to her, and as often happened, caught her breath and felt again that ache on seeing Howard's image in Regan's face. It was the angle of the light. She dropped her glance to Regan's plate.

    "Going to leave that pie?" Chris asked her.

    Regan lowered her eyes. "I ate some candy."

    Chris stubbed out her cigarette and chuckled. "Let's go."

They were back before seven. Willie and Karl had already returned. Regan made a dash for the basement playroom, eager to finish the sculpture for her mother. Chris headed for the kitchen to pick up the script. She found Willie brewing coffee; coarse; open pot. She looked irritable and sullen.

    "Hi, Willie, how'd it go? Have a real nice time?"

    "Do not ask." She added an eggshell and a pinch of salt to the bubbling contents of the pot. They had gone to a movie, Willie explained. She had wanted to see the Beatles, but Karl had insisted on an art-house film about Mozart. "Terrible," she simmered as she lowered the flame. "That dumbhead!"

    "Sorry 'bout that." Chris tucked the script underneath her arm. "Oh, Willie, have you seen that dress that I got for Rags last week? The blue cotton?"

    "Yes, I see it in her closet. This morning."

    "Where'd you put it?"

    "It is there."

    "You didn't maybe pick it up by mistake with the cleaning?"

    "It is there."

    "With the cleaning?"

    "In the closet."

    "No, it isn't. I looked."

    About to speak, Willie tightened her lips and scowled at the coffee. Karl, had walked in.

    "Good evening, madam." He went to the sink for a glass of water.

    "Did you set those traps?" asked Chris.

    "No rats."

    "Did you set them?"

    "I set them, of course; but the attic is clean."

    "Tell me, how was the movie, Karl?"

    "Exciting." His back, like his face, was a resolute blank.

    Chris started from the kitchen, humming a song made famous by the Beatles. But the she turned. Just one more shot!

    "Did you have any trouble getting the traps, Karl?"

    "No; no trouble."

    "At six in the morning?"

    "All-night market."

    Jesus!

Chris took a long and luxurious bath, and why she went to the closet in her bedroom for her robe, she discovered Regan's missing dress. It lay crumpled in a heap on the floor of the closet.

    Chris picked it up. What's it doing in here?

    The tags were still on it. For a moment, Clues thought back. Then remembered that the day that she'd purchased the dress, she had also bought two or three items for herself. Must've put 'em all together.

    Chris carried the dress into Regan's bedroom, put it on a hanger and slipped it on the rack. She glanced at Regan's wardrobe. Nice. Nice clothes. Yeah, Rags, look here, not there at the daddy who never writes.

    As she turned from the closet, she stubbed her toe against the base of a bureau. Oh, Jesus, that smarts! As she lifted her foot and massaged her toe, she noticed that the bureau was out of position by about three feet. No wonder I bumped it, Willie must have vacuumed.

    She went down to the study with the script from her agent.

    Unlike the massive double living room with its large bay windows and view, the study had a feeling of whispered density; of secrets between rich uncles. Raised brick fireplace; oak paneling; crisscrossed beams of a wood that implied it had once been a drawbridge. The room's few hints of a time that was present were the added bar, a few bright pillows, and a leopardskin rug that belonged to Chris and was spread on the pinewood floor by the fire where she now stretched out with her head and shoulders propped on the front of a downy sofa.

    She took another look at the letter from her agent. Faith, Hope and Charity: three distinct segments, each with a different cast and director. Hers would be Hope. She liked the idea. And she liked the title. Possibly dull, she thought; but refined. They'll probably change it to something like "Rock Around the Virtues."

    The doorbell chimed. Burke Dennings. A lonely man, he dropped by often. Chris smiled ruefully, shaking her head, as she heard him rasp an obscenity at Karl, whom he seemed to detest and continually baited.

    "Yes, hullo, where's a drink!" he demanded crossly, entering the room and moving to the bar with eyes averted, hands in the pockets of his wrinkled raincoat.

    He sat on a barstool. Irritable. Shifty-eyed. Vaguely disappointed.

    "On the prowl again?" Chris asked.

    "What the hell do you mean?" he sniffed.

    "You've got that funny look. " She had seen it before when they'd worked on a picture together in Lausanne. On their first night there, at a staid hotel overlooking Lake Geneva, Chris had difficulty sleeping. At 5 A. M., she flounced out of bed and decided to dress and go down to the lobby in search of either coffee or some company. Waiting far an elevator out in the hall, she glanced through a window and saw the director walking stiffly along the lakeside, hands deep in the pockets of his coat against the glacial winter cold. By the time she reached the lobby, he was entering the hotel. "Not a hooker in sight!" he snapped bitterly, passing her with eyes cast down; and then entered the elevator and went up to bed. When she'd laughingly mentioned the incident later, the director had, grown furious and accused her of promulgating "gross hallucinations" that people were "likely to believe just because you're a star!" He had also referred to her as "simply canting mad," but then pointed out soothingly, in an effort to assuage her feelings, that "perhaps" she had seen someone after all, and had simply mistaken him for Dennings. "After all," he'd pointed out at the time, "my great-great-grandmother happens to have been Swiss."

    Chris moved behind the bar now and reminded him of the incident.

    "Oh, now, don't be so silly!" snapped Dennings. "It so happens that I've spent the entire evening at a bloody tea, a faculty tea!"

    Chris leaned on the bar. "You were just at a tea?"

    "Oh, yes, go ahead; smirk!"

    "You got smashed at a tea," she said dryly, "with some Jesuits."

    "No, the Jesuits were sober."

    "They don't drink?"

    "Are you out of your cunting mind?'" he shouted. "They swilled! Never seen such capacities in all my life!"

    "Hey, come on, hold it down, Burke! Regan!"

    "Yes, Regan," Dennings whispered "Where the hell is my drink?"

    "Will you tell me what you were doing at a faculty tea?"

    "Bloody public relations; something you should be doing."

    Chris handed him a gin on the rocks.

    "God, the way we've been mucking their grounds," the director muttered; pious; the glass to his lips. "Oh, yes, go ahead, laugh! That's all that you're good for, laughing and showing a bit of bum."

    "I'm just smiling."

    "Well, someone had to make a good show."

    "And how many times did you say 'fuck,' Burke?"

    "Darling, that's crude," he rebuked her gently. "Now tell me, how are you?"

    She answered with a despondent shrug.

    "Are you glum? Come on, tell me."

    "I dunno."

    "Tell your uncle."

    "Shit, I think I'll have a drink," she said, reaching for a glass.

    "Yes, it's good for the stomach. Now, then, what?"

    She was slowly pouring vodka. "Ever think A dying?"

    "I beg your–"

    "Dying," she interrupted. "Ever think about it, Burke? What it means? I mean, really what it means?"

    Faintly edgy, he answered, "I don't know. No, I don't. I don't think about it at all. I just do it. What the hell'd you bring it up for?"

    She shrugged. "I don't know," she answered softly. She plopped ice into her glass; eyed it thoughtfully. "Yeah... yeah, I do," she amended. "I sort of... well, I thought about it this morning... like a dream... waking up. I don't know. I mean, it just sort of hit me... what it means. I mean, the end–the end!–like I'd never even heard of it before." She shook her head. "Oh, Jesus, did that spook me! I felt like I was falling off the goddamn planet at a hundred million miles an hour."

    "Oh, rubbish. Death's a comfort," Dennings sniffed.

    "Not for me it isn't, Charlie."

    'Well, you live through your children."

    "Oh, come off it! My children aren't me."

    "Yes, thank heaven. One's entirely enough."

    "I mean, think about it, Burke! Not existing–forever! It's–"

    "Oh, for heaven sakes! Show your bum at the faculty tea next week and perhaps those priests can give you comfort!"

    He banged down his glass. "Let's another."

    "You know, I didn't know they drank?"

    "Well, you're stupid."

    His eyes had grown mean. Was he reaching the point of no return? Chris wondered. She had the feeling she had touched a nerve. Had she?

    "Do they go to confession?" she asked him.

    "How would I know!" he suddenly bellowed.

    "Well, weren't you studying to be a–"

    "Where's the bloody drink!"

    "Want some coffee?"

    "Don't be fatuous. I want another drink."

    "Have some coffee."

    "Come along, now. One for the road."

    "The Lincoln Highway?"

    "That's ugly, and I loathe an ugly drunk. Come along, dammit, fill it!"

    He shoved his glass across the bar and she poured more gin.

    "I guess maybe I should ask a couple of them over," Chris murmured.

    "Ask who?"

    "Well, whoever." She shrugged. 'The big wheels; you know, priests."

    "They'll never leave; there fucking plunderers," he rasped, and gulped his gin.

    Yeah, he's starting to blow, thought Chris and quickly changed the subject: she explained about the script and her chance to direct.

    "Oh, good," Dennings muttered.

    "It scares me."

    "Oh, twaddle. My baby, the difficult thing about directing is making it seem as if the damned thing were difficult. I hadn't a clue my first time out, but here I am, you see. It's child's play."

    "Burke, to be honest with you, now that they've offered me my chance, I'm really not sure I could direct my grandmother across the street. I mean, all of that technical stuff."

    "Come along; leave all that to the editor, the cameraman and the script girl, darling. Get good ones and they’ll see you through. What's important is handling the cast, and, you'd be marvelous, just marvelous at that. You could not only tell them how to move and read a line, my baby, you could show them. Just remember Paul Newman and Rachel, Rachel and don't be so hysterical."

    She still looked doubtful. "Well, about this technical stuff," she worried. Drunk or sober, Dennings was the best director in the business. She wanted his advice.

    "For instance," he asked her.

    For almost an hour she probed to the barricades of minutiae. The data were easily found in tests, but reading tended to fray her patience. Instead; she read people. Naturally inquisitive, she juiced them; wrung them out. But books were unwringable. Books were glib. They said "therefore" and "clearly" when it wasn't clear at all, and their circumlocutions could never be challenged. They could never be stopped for a shrewdly disarming, "Hold it, I'm dumb. Could I have that again?"

    They could never be pinned; made to wriggle; dissected. Books were like Karl.

    "Darling, all you really need is a brilliant cutter," the director cackled, rounding it off. "I mean someone who really knows his doors."

    He'd grown charming and bubbly, and seemed to have passed the threatened danger pointy.

    "Beg pardon, madam. You wish something?"

    Karl stood attentively at the door to the study.

    "Oh, hullo, Thorndike," Dennings giggled. "Or is it Heinrich? I can't keep it straight."

    "It is Karl."

    "Yes, of course it is. Damn. I'd forgotten. Tell me, Karl, was it public relations you told me you did for the Gestapo, or was it community relations? I believe there's a difference."

    Karl spoke politely. "Neither one, sir. I am Swiss."

    "Oh, yes, of course." The director guffawed. "And you never went bowling with Goebbels, I suppose."

    Karl, impervious, turned to Chris.

    "And never went flying with Rudolph Hess!"

    "Madam wishes?"

    "Oh, l don't know. Burke, you want coffee?"

    "Fuck it!"

    The director stood up abruptly and strode belligerently from the room and the house.

    Chris shook her head, and then turned to Karl. "Unplug the phones," she ordered expressionlessly.

    "Yes, madam. Anything else?"

    "Oh, maybe some Sanka. Where's Rags?"

    "Down in playroom. I call her?"

    "Yeah, it's bedtime. Oh, no, wait a second, Karl. Never mind. I'd better go see the bird. Just get me the Sanka, please."

    "Yes, madam."

    "And for the umpty-eighth time, I apologize for Burke."

    "I pay no attention."

    "I know. That's what bugs him."

    Chris walked to the entry hall of the house, pulled open the door to the basement staircase and started downstairs.

    "Hi ya, stinky, whatchya doin' down there? Got the bird?"

    "Oh, yes, come see! Come on down, it's all finished!"

    The playroom was paneled and brightly decorated. Easels. Paintings. Phonograph. Tables for games and a table for sculpting. Red and white bunting left over from a party for the previous tenant's teenaged son.

    "Hey, that's great!" exclaimed Chris as her daughter handed her the figure. It was not quite dry and looked something like a "worry bird," painted orange, except for the beak, which was laterally striped in green and white. A tuft of feathers was glued to the head.

    "Do you like it?" asked Regan.

    "Oh, honey, I do, I really. do. Got a name for it?"

    "Uh-uh."

    "What's a good one?"

    "I dunno," Regan shrugged.

    "Let me see, let me see." Chris tapped fingertips to teeth. "I don't know. Whaddya think? Whaddya think about 'Dumbbird'? Huh? just 'Dumbbird.' "

    Regan was snickering, hand to her mouth to conceal the braces. Nodding.

    " 'Dumbbird' by a landslide! I'll leave it here to dry and then I'll put him in my room."

    Chris was setting flown the bird when she noticed the Ouija board. Close. On the table. She'd forgotten she had it. Almost as curious about herself as she was about others, she'd originally bought it as a possible means of exposing clues to her subconscious. It hadn't worked. She'd used it a time or two with Sharon, and once with Dennings, who had skillfully steered the plastic planchette ("Are you the one who's moving it, ducky?") so that all of the "messages" were obscene, and then afterward blamed it on the "fucking spirits!"

    "You playin' with the Ouija board?"

    "Yep."

    "You know how?"

    "Oh, well, sure. Here, I'll show you." She was moving to sit by the board.

    "Well, I think you need two people, honey."

    "No ya don't, Mom; I do it all the time."

    Chris was pulling up a chair. "Well, let's both play, okay"

    Hesitation. "Well, okay." She had her fingertips positioned on the white planchette and as Chris reached out to position hers, the planchette made a swift, sudden move to the position on the board marked No.

    Chris smiled at her slyly. "Mother, I'd rather do it myself? Is that it? You don't want me to play?"

    "No, I do! Captain Howdy said 'no.' "

    "Captain who?"

    "Captain Howdy."

    "Honey, who's Captain Howdy?"

    "Oh, ya know. I make questions and he does the answers."

    "Oh?"

    "Oh, he's nice."

    Chris tried not to frown as she felt a dim and sudden concern. The child had loved her father deeply, yet never had reacted visibly to her parents' divorce. And Chris didn't like it. Maybe she cried in her room; she didn't know. But Chris was fearful she was repressing and that her emotions might one day erupt in some harmful form. A fantasy playmate. It didn't sound healthy. Why "Howdy"? For Howard? Her father? Pretty close.

    "So how come you couldn't even come up with a name for a dum-dum bird, and then you hit me with something like 'Captain Howdy'? Why do you call him 'Captain Howdy'?"

    " 'Cause that's his name, of course," Regan snickered.

    "Says who?"

    "Well, him."

    "Of course."

    "Of course."

    "And what else does he say to you?"

    "Stuff."

    "What stuff?"

    Regan shrugged. "Just stuff."

    "For instance."

    "I'll show you. I'll ask him some questions."

    "You do that"

    Her fingertips on the planchette, Regan stared at the board with eyes drawn tight in concentration. "Captain Howdy, don't you think my mom is pretty?"

    A second... five... ten... twenty...

    "Captain Howdy?"

    More seconds. Chris was surprised. She'd expected her daughter to slide the planchette to the section marked Yes. Oh, for pete's sake, what now? An unconscious hostility? Oh, that's crazy.

    "Captain Howdy, that's really not very polite," chided Regan.

    "Honey, maybe he's sleeping."

    "Do you think?"

    "I think you should be sleeping."

    "Already?"

    "C'mon, babe! Up to bed!" Chris stood up.

    "He's a poop," muttered Regan, then followed her mother up the stairs.

    Chris tucked her into bed and then sat on the bedside. "Honey, Sunday's no work. You want to do somethin'?"

    "What?"

    When they'd first come to Washington, Chris had made an effort to find playmates for Regan. She'd uncovered only one, a twelve-year-old girl named Judy. But Judy's family was away for Easter, and Chris was concerned now that Regan might be lonely.

    "Oh, well, I don't know," Chris replied. "Somethin'. You want to go see the sights? Hey, the cherry blossoms, maybe! That's right, they're out early! You want to go see 'em?"

    "Oh, yeah, Mom!"

    "And tomorrow night a movie! How's that?"

    "Oh, I love you!"

    Regan gave her a hug and Chris hugged her back with an extra fervor, whispering, "Oh, Rags, honey, I love you."

    "You can bring Mr. Dennings if you like."

    Chris pulled back for an appraisal. "Mr. Dennings?"

    "Well, I mean, it's okay."

    Chris chuckled. "No, it isn't okay. Honey, why would I want to bring Mr. Dennings?"

    "Well, you like him."

    "Oh, well, sure I like him, honey; don't you?"

    She made no answer.

    "Baby, what's going on?" Chris prodded her daughter.

    "You're going to many him, Mommy, aren't you." It wasn't a question, but a sullen statement.

    Chris exploded into a laugh. "Oh, my baby, of course not! What on earth are you talking about? Mr. Dennings? Where'd you get that idea?"

    "But you like him."

    "I like pizzas, but I wouldn't ever marry one! Honey, he's a friend, just a crazy old friend!"

    "You don't like him like Daddy?"

    "I love your daddy, honey; I'll always love your daddy. Mr. Dennings comes by here a lot 'cause he's lonely, that's all; he's a friend."