Miller nodded. “Mort, I think if you just—”
“Now, I’m getting letters. Bushels of letters. More every day. Letters from crackpots. Letters from people who are out to get me anyway. But, more important, Miller, letters from sensible people here in West Condon. They don’t like this Bruno outfit. They’re getting nervous about what might happen next week. They don’t like the bad name the town is going to get if this thing gets out of hand. They’re good hardworking Christian people, Miller, who just want to be left the fuck alone.”
“Yes, I know. I’m getting letters, too.”
“All right, let’s face it, Miller. Bruno is a goddamn nut. I don’t give a shit about your big line that if Bruno’s a nut, Christ was a nut, that don’t mean nothing to me. I got a feeling everybody in that whole fucking outfit is a nut, but no offense. I admit, sometimes people can get carried away by this or that. Anyhow, I don’t give a good goddamn if Bruno thinks he’s the Virgin Mary, but what I don’t like is for the law and order in this town to get disturbed, see? People can belong to any goddamn religion they like, that’s their business, that’s their right, but what they can’t do, by God, is turn a goddamn town upsidedown!”
“Yes, but, Mayor—”
“Don’t but-Mayor me, Miller! Goddamn it! I want to make it clear how I feel. I ain’t the mayor to set on my fat ass and let the town go to hell. I got a duty, I got my duty here, and I think it’s pretty goddamn clear. I gotta nip this outfit in the butt.”
“In the bud.”
“I said butt! Now look, here’s what, Miller. Let me be clear. I don’t want to interfere with religion, see—”
“Yes, I’ve got that.”
“Now, just listen! I ain’t asking you to do a goddamn thing except just listen. And then tell me what you think I oughta do. I don’t want to interfere with religion, but I gotta stop this pack of screwballs from blowing the lid off here. Now, wait! I don’t mean stop, I mean, well, more like just hold them where they are. Jesus! if they’d only forget about this doom scare, so the people in this town could get settled down—”
“Mort, they can’t forget, not if that’s what they believe—”
“Oh, Jesus Christ, Miller! I know they can’t! I just said, if only. Why can’t you listen? I don’t want to interfere in any way with the freedom of the press neither. I mean that, Miller. It don’t mean a goddamn thing to me, to tell you the truth, but I don’t want to interfere, not if it’s in the Constitution. So you can go and write your goddamn stories and in fact the whole fucking world can write all the goddamn stories they want for all I care, but I don’t want to give them stupid embarrassing things to write about!”
“Listen, Mort, calm down. You’ll—”
“Don’t calm-down me, Miller! I’m telling you! I don’t want to give you bastards stupid embarrassing things to write about! Can’t you understand that? I don’t want stupid embarrassing things to happen here in West Condon!”
The mayor was so red in the face, Miller had to smile. “But we’re all human here, Mort. You can’t expect—”
“Jesus Christ, I know we’re all humans, Miller — what the shit do you take me for? But, see, I’m the goddamn mayor of these humans, and some of the humans think certain other humans are stepping over their rights as citizens of this town, and it’s going to get worse. That’s the point! That’s what I’ve been trying to tell you! They want me to arrest Bruno and have him examined by a state psychiatrist and get him locked in a nutbin somewhere. But I don’t want to interfere with religion, see?” His chubby face drooped, the anger flush draining away. He looked like a sad fat little dog. “Miller, please, what the fuck should I do?”
Miller stood, rammed his hands in his pockets, turned his back to Whimple. Might be the way out at that. If the guy were arrested and proven mad, even if only a few hard doubts were raised … It would be one hell of a shock for her, but isn’t she to get that shock sooner or later anyway? But she’d probably see it as some kind of affirmation. Some of the others might quit, but not Marcella. Could even push her over the line for good. Besides, all this time he’d put into this thing, and now just as it seemed ready to pay off, could he let them pull the plug on him? No, he couldn’t. “It wouldn’t work, Mort,” he said, turning to face the mayor. “I know them. If anything, it’d only make them more agitated, more fanatic than ever. They expect things like this to happen as the date—”
“But, Miller, if we had that sonuvabitch in the jug—”
“You’d have twice the trouble you’ve got now. Bruno’s not the whole team, Mort. You’d have to arrest the whole lot, and then Himebaugh would raise a storm, and there’d be hell to pay in the nation’s press. God, you’d have every occult fanatic in the country piling in here!”
“I dunno, I got a feeling they’re packing their bags and are on the way, as it is.” Collapse was setting in. “Oh boy, sometimes I wish I was just a plain old smoke-eater again.”
“Mort, let me give you the best advice I know how. No matter what Cavanaugh or the other people here in town tell you, your best move is to sit it out. I mean it. Anything else will only give you more trouble in the long run. Bruno expects the end to come on the nineteenth. That’s just eleven days away, Mort. What can happen in eleven days? And, after that, it should all be over. Besides the Bruno family, there are only ten adults in this group. Why all this fuss about ten people?”
Mort Whimple sat like a waddy ball of bright-colored yarn on the leather sofa. He was quiet for some time, scratched his bur head out of habit. To the right of Whimple, the door of the darkroom was open, and Miller could see a photo of the Brunist banner hung up to dry. “But you really think we ought to just let them—?”
“I think it’s all you can do. I’m afraid anything else will get your neck in a noose, Mort.”
The mayor stared glumly at his pointed black shoes, his several chins beetling over his buttoned sportshirt collar. Finally, he stood. “Okay. Maybe you’re right,” he said. “But the first sign of any goddamn public disturbance, and I’m taking him in.” And he stamped authoritatively out of the plant.
She breaks open the crackly package of white underwear, purchased out of the community treasury in response to the new regulations, selects white socks and a fresh white blouse, the coffee-colored skirt he likes. Entering the bathroom with these things, she perceives, out of the corner of her eye, a shadow — but when she looks more closely, there is nothing there. This sensation of being pursued by something incorporeal has been with Marcella for two or three weeks now. Shapes in dark rooms. Shadows falling across her path. Disembodied sounds on stairways and under her bed at night. Sense always of a second presence, spectral and foreboding. It has worried Eleanor, who believes they must be manifestations of the powers of darkness — she, too, has been troubled more than a few times in the course of her long life. But Marcella wonders if Eleanor really grasps the intensity of her feeling, the oppressive frequency of the sensations. Frightened, she has asked Ben Wosznik to put hooks on all the bathroom and bedroom doors — but once already she has even hooked her own door at night and waked in the morning to find it unhooked. She has mentioned it to Justin a couple times, but he only smiles at her fears. Well, perhaps she is being childish. Yes, she laughs, she has been a child about too many things. Drying, she sings to herself. The water gurgles gaily from the tub. Over her glistening body, alive and tingling to its least touch, dances the towel, a white flutter like the beating of wings. She will not be afraid.