Demons Five, Exorcists Nothing by William Peter Blatty

Author:William Peter Blatty
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781466834774
Publisher: Tom Doherty Associates

CHAPTER THREE

SPRIGHTLY PICKED HIM UP at the airport. Grimly, he got into the car, murmured, “Hi” and then fixedly stared straight ahead through the windshield. On his lap, tightly gripped, was a large brown file folder that he clung to as if for dear life.

“No kiss?” Sprightly frowned.

“Yeah, sure.”

He leaned over and pecked her on the cheek distractedly, then returned to his rigid stare. A shuttle bus that whooshed in and parked in front of them with a gasp of pneumatic brakes was disgorging a band of Japanese tourists, disgruntled and dimly muttering and cursing that they hadn’t met Spock or Captain Kirk and clutching rolled-up hundred-and-fifty-dollar Star Maps that somehow placed Graceland in Pasadena. Sprightly eyed her husband with concern. He seemed tense. She pulled the car out into traffic and then glanced at his lap.

“Is that it?”

“Is that what?”

“Is that the script?”

“Just the first eighty pages,” he said without expression. He continued to stare straight ahead at the road.

“So?” she asked him.

“So what?”

“So how are they?” she demanded.

“I don’t know. I haven’t read them.”

“You haven’t read them?”

“No, I haven’t.”

“You didn’t read them on the plane?”

“I’d like to savor them.”

“But aren’t you anxious?” she marveled.

“Not basically.”

Driving into Malibu they passed Joey’s Ribs. Sprightly grimaced. When they’d rented at the beach years back, they had savored Joey’s ribs as perhaps the world’s best, and most certainly the only decent meal within reach. This time when Sprightly dropped in there one day, she discovered that Joey’s had acquired a new owner, a tall Pakistani with an eagle nose, trim black moustache and lilting accent. Sprightly asked him, “Have you changed the sauce recipe at all?” because she didn’t want to order if they weren’t the same. The Pakistani drew himself up, looking dumbfounded. “What? Change the sauce? What am I, a madman?” Faintly outraged, his black eyes gleamed with incredulity. “Why would I want to change this wonderful sauce?” he huffed. “Why in thunder did I buy this place, for God’s sake!” Sprightly ordered the babybacks and took them home for dinner. The sauce proved disgusting; it had been totally changed.

“Joey’s Ribs.” Sprightly grimaced with distaste as they passed it.

“‘What am I, a madman?’” Hazard absently murmured.

They drove through the Malibu Colony guard gate, parked in the garage and entered the house. As she stepped inside, Sprightly paused and said, “Who changed the furniture around? I’m gone an hour and a half and the guy redecorates.”

She called up the staircase,

“Hey, Ralph, what’d you do here? I liked it like it was!”

She looked down.

“No, it couldn’t have been Ralph,” she remembered. She walked to the open front door and shut it. “It must have been the day maid,” Sprightly guessed. “Ralph went downtown to see a friend.”

“Friends are good,” said Hazard dully.

Sprightly glanced over at her husband. Shoulders slumped, he was standing at a mullioned bay window staring out at the ocean with clammy eyes. Holy shit, he’s got that Norman Maine look, Sprightly fretted. And yet part of her hoped that the script was a disaster so that Hazard would be forced to abandon the film.

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