Legion by William Peter Blatty Read Free Book Online Page A

fanned out the match and tossed it lightly into an ashtray. “I’ve been getting these dumb little dizzy spells lately.”
    “Seen a doctor?”
    “I did, but he couldn’t find a thing. It could be anything. An allergy. A virus.” Dyer shrugged. “My brother Eddie had the same thing for years. It was emotional. Anyway, I’m checking in tomorrow morning for some tests.”
    “Checking in?”
    “Georgetown General. Father President insists. He’s got a sneaking suspicion I’m allergic to exam papers, frankly, and he wants some scientific confirmation.”
    Kinderman’s wristwatch alarm began to buzz. He turned it off and checked the time. “Half past five,” he murmured. His expressionless gaze flicked up to Dyer. “The carp is sleeping,” Kinderman intoned.
    Dyer lowered his face into his hands and laughed.
    Kinderman’s beeper sounded. He plucked it from his belt and turned it off. “You’ll excuse me a moment, Father Joe?” He was wheezing, pushing up from the table.
    “Don’t leave me with the check,” said Dyer.
    The detective did not answer. He went to a telephone, called the precinct and spoke to Atkins.
    “Something peculiar here, Lieutenant.”
    “Oh, really?”
    Atkins related two developments. The first concerned subscribers on Kintry’s route. No one had complained of not receiving a paper; all had received one, even those to whom Kintry would have delivered one after his stop at the Potomac Boathouse. All had received one after he was dead.
    The second development concerned the old woman. Kinderman had ordered a routine comparison of her hair to strands of other hair that were found clutched tightly in Kintry’s hand.
    They matched.

 
     
     
     
    3
     
     
    WHEN SHE SAW HIM THROUGH THE WINDOW he’d been gone for only minutes but she gave a little gasp of delight and started running. She tore through the door with her arms outstretched to him, her laughing young face a fond radiance. “Love of my life!’’ she cried out to him joyously. And in a moment, the sun was in his arms.
    “Mornin’, Doc. The same as usual?”
    Amfortas did not hear it. His mind was in his heart.
    “The same as usual, Doc?”
    He came back. He was standing in a narrow little grocery and sandwich shop around the corner from Georgetown University. He looked around. The other customers had gone. Charlie Price, the old grocer behind the counter, was studying his face with a gentle look. “Yes, Charlie, the same,” Amfortas said absently. His voice was dark and soft. He looked and saw Lucy, the grocer’s daughter, resting in a chair by the storefront window. He wondered how his turn had come so quickly.
    “One chop suey for the doctor,” murmured Price. The grocer bent over to the windowed compartments where the morning’s fresh donuts and sweet rolls were stored, and he extracted a large glazed bun filled with cinnamon and raisins and nuts. He stood up and slapped a square of wax paper around it and then placed it in a bag which he set on the counter. “And one black coffee.” He shuffled toward the Silex and the Styrofoam cups.
    They had bicycled halfway around Bora Bora and suddenly he spurted swiftly ahead and around a sharp curve where he knew she couldn’t see him. He braked and jumped off and quickly gathered up a clutch of the vivid red poppies growing wild by the road in blazing swarms like the love of angels massed before God; and when she rounded the corner he was waiting for her, standing in the middle of the road with the burning flowers held out to her gaze. She braked in surprise and looked at them, stunned; and then tears began to slip from her eyes and down her face. “I love you. Vincent.”
    “You been working in the lab all night again, Doc?”
    A paper bag was being folded and closed at the top. Amfortas looked up. His order was ready and waiting on the counter. “Not all night. A few hours.”
    The grocer examined the haggard face, met the umber eyes as dark as forests. What were