The Ninth Configuration by William Peter Blatty Read Free Book Online Page B

hand.
    “Look at this, sir.” Groper handed Kane the letter, retaining the envelope. “Colonel, read that. Would you read that?”
    Kane looked down at the typewritten letter. He read:
    To my darling, my dearest, my flaming secret love: How I’ve hungered for this moment when I might tear away the mask and unburden my aching, bleeding heart. My sweetest, I saw you but an instant; a semi-instant; yet I knew I was your slave. Wondrous creature, I adore you! You are
    sandalwood from Nineveh, you are truffles from the Moon! In my dreams I am a madman! Yes! I rip away your dress, and then your bra, and then your glasses, and I-
    Kane looked up from the letter. “What is the point of this, Major Groper?”
    “Look at the signature, sir,” said Groper, quelling his uneasiness in
    Kane’s presence. The signature was “Major Marvin Groper.” Beneath it was a postscript that stated: “You know where to find me, baby.” There followed the telephone number of the center.
    “Sir, I got phone call after phone call this morning from broads who got letters like this one,” Groper ranted.
    Kane held up the letter. “Where did you get this?” he asked.
    “Well, some of them—”
    “Some of whom?”
    “Well, I mean, these women, sir.”
    “Which women?”
    “Well, they happened to come by here today and they—”
    “ ‘Happened’?”
    “Well, no, sir; I asked them-the ones with nice voices- and—”
    “Groper?”
    “They’re ugly, sir! Ugly as sin!” erupted Groper in a sudden release of frustration and anger. “And I think that the bastard who wrote all those letters needs some kind of punishment and restriction!”
    “Who wrote them?”
    “Look at the envelope, Colonel.” Groper set it down in front of him.
    “There’s only one mind here that would have done this!”
    The address on the envelope looked carbonish and blurred and it gave the impression of being part of a mass commercial mailing. The addressee was designated simply as “Occupant.”
    “Sir, you’ve got to talk to him!” Groper was extremely distraught.
    Kane said, “All right. I’ll see him. Bring him to me.”
    Both sides of the inmates’ dormitory were neatly lined with wash basins, cots and footlockers. In the aisle between them, Cutshaw paced back and forth nervously while some of the men wrote more letters. Fairbanks approached him, holding one in his hand. “This is a classic,” he said. “Does the best one get a prize?”
    “Leslie, heaven will reward you,” Cutshaw said moodily.
    “I think we should have some kind of incentive.”
    “Leslie Morris, I just gave you one.”
    “Your incentive reeks of socialism. Freaking creeping socialism.”
    Fairbanks’ hand flew swiftly to his sword.
    “You’d draw your sword on Captain Billy?”
    “I am merely holding the hilt.”
    A breathless Reno had burst into the dormitory and now irrupted between them. “Captain Billy, I saw it again!”
    “Saw what again?”
    “The owl that talks to Groper. It wears a party hat; you can’t miss it.”
    “Go to Titus Andronicus, “ Cutshaw growled. “Star in it. Bake yourself in a pie.”
    “That’s blasphemy!”
    Reno saw Groper bearing down on Cutshaw from behind, and pointing imperiously at Cutshaw, he demanded of Groper: “Guard! Seize him!”
    “The Man in the Iron Mask,” snapped Cutshaw. When he turned and saw Groper, he beamed with pleasure. “Damn well about time,” he said.
    Groper led Cutshaw to the office and Kane confronted him with the letter addressed to “Occupant.” “Did you write it?” he asked.
    “Are we going to have a scene, Hud?” Cutshaw spread-eagled his arms in a sacrificial gesture, a forearm striking Groper’s face. “Yes! I wrote the letter! Now shoot me for giving the spinster hope! Love to the loveless! Depravity to the deprived! Never mind the space race, Hud! Feed me to the giant ants! Go ahead! Make widows of five hundred pen pals!”
    “Purely a pleasure,” breathed Groper.
    Cutshaw