The Ninth Configuration by William Peter Blatty & Mark Kermode

Author:William Peter Blatty & Mark Kermode
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Tags: Fiction:Suspense
ISBN: 9781933618593
Publisher: Centipede Press
Published: 2010-08-17T05:04:55+00:00

10

Stripped to the waist, Kane sat on the edge of the examination table in the clinic. Fell continued with the physical checkup Kane had submitted to at his nagging insistence.

“Any blurring of the vision? Any feeling of just generally seeming unglued?”

“No.”

Fell grunted and shone a penlight into Kane’s eyes. Then he clicked it off and slipped it into a pocket of his white jacket. Folding his arms, he leaned back against a wall and looked up at Kane. “If you don’t take to locking your bedroom door at night and scheduling regular office hours for consultation with the inmates, I’m recommending Rest and Reassignment, Doctor, and it won’t take long to process, believe me. I’ve got all kinds of juice where it counts.”

Over the past ten days the inmates, especially Cutshaw, had subjected Kane to barrages and sallies by day and by night.

“I’m serious,” said Fell. “You’re just plain driving yourself too hard.

On the level. I can do that. You want that done? Reassignment?”

Kane’s eyebrows knitted together. “What’s wrong with me?”

“Chronic fatigue, for one thing. Rapid pulse rate. Your blood pressure’s fine for an attacking rhino. What the hell are you trying to prove?”

Kane lowered his head and was silent. Then he murmured, “Maybe so.”

“Maybe what?”

“We might do with a few restrictions. A couple. I’ll think about it.”

“Hooray. Now you’re getting some sense.”

Neither man could see Cutshaw eavesdropping out in the hall, a little to the side of the open clinic door. Hearing footsteps coming down the stairs, Cutshaw hurried away, pale and troubled.

“Picking up any insights?” asked Fell. “Any answers?”

Kane slipped his shirt off a hanger on a tree pole. “Maybe Cutshaw,” he said, looking thoughtful.

“What about him?”

“He keeps after me on God, on metaphysical questions.” He slipped on the shirt and began to button it. “There are some of us who feel that the root of all neuroses lies in the failure of an individual to perceive any meaning in his life, or in the universe. A religious experience is the answer to that.”

“That’s what Cutshaw wants? Religion?”

“He wants his father to be Albert Einstein and Albert Einstein to believe in God.”

“Then the men aren’t faking it. Is that what you believe? I mean, is that your instinct?”

Kane said simply, “I don’t know.”

They left it at that.

The following day, Kane was standing in the hall alone, examining a painting by one of the inmates, when Fell came up beside him. “How’s the boy?”

“I’m fine,” said Kane, his eyes still fixed on the painting. It was the one with the needle through the finger.

Fell gestured at it with a move of his head. “Does that mean something?”

“All of them do. They’re clues to a man’s unconscious. Like dreams.”

Fell lit a cigarette. “And what about your dream?” he asked. “Still having it?”

Kane did not respond. Instead he said, “Cutshaw doesn’t paint. That’s too bad.” He looked thoughtfully at Fell. He studied him intently. A troubled look had furrowed the skin around his eyes. “I dreamed about you last night,” he said.

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