Legion by William Peter Blatty

today in Cuba and you answer, ‘Never mind, today is Sun–Shall–Not–Rise–in–Cuba–Day’? That explains it? Give a label and it’s curtains now for miracles, correct? Let me tell you, I am also not impressed by words like ‘gravity.’ Okay, that’s a whole other tsimmis altogether. In the meantime, the hunting wasp, Atkins. It’s amazing. It’s a part of my theory.”
    “Your theory on the case?” Atkins asked him.
    “I don’t know. It could be. Maybe not. I’m just talking. No, another case, Atkins. Something bigger.” He gestured globally. “It’s all connected. As regards the old lady, in the meantime …” His voice trailed away and a distant thunder rumbled faintly. He stared at a window where a light fall of rain was beginning to splatter in hesitant touches. Atkins shifted in his chair. “The old lady,” breathed Kinderman, his eyes dreamy. “She is leading us into her mystery, Atkins. I hesitate to follow her. I do.”
    He continued staring inwardly for a time. Then abruptly he crumpled his empty cup and tossed it away. It thudded in the wastebasket near the desk. He stood up. “Go and visit with your sweetheart, Atkins. Chew bubble gum and drink lemonade. Make fudge. As for me, I am leaving. Adieu.” But for a moment he stood there, looking around.
    “Lieutenant, you’re wearing it,” said Atkins.
    Kinderman felt at the brim of his hat. “Yes, I am. This is true. Good point. Well taken.’’
    Kinderman continued to brood by the desk. “Never trust in the facts,” he wheezed. “Facts hate us. They stink. They hate men and they hate the truth.” Abruptly he turned and waddled away.
    In a moment he was back and ransacking pockets of his coat for books. “One more thing,” he said to Atkins. The sergeant stood up. “Just a minute.” Kinderman riffled through the books, and then he murmured, “Aha!” and from the pages of a work by Teilhard de Chardin, he extracted a note that was written on the back of a Hershey Bar wrapper. He held it to his chest. “Don’t look,” he said sternly.
    “I’m not looking,” said Atkins.
    “Well, don’t.” Kinderman guardedly held the note and began to read: “ ‘Another source of conviction in the existence of God, connected with the reason and not with feelings, is the extreme difficulty or rather impossibility of conceiving this immense and wonderful universe as the result of blind chance or necessity.’ “ Kinderman breasted the note and looked up. “Who wrote that, Atkins?”
    “You.”
    “The test for lieutenant is not till next year. Guess again.”
    “I don’t know.”
    “Charles Darwin,” said Kinderman. “In The Origin of Species.” And with that, he stuffed the note into his pocket and left.
    And again came back. “Something else,’’ he told Atkins. He stood with his nose an inch away from the sergeant’s, hands stuffed deep in the pockets of his coat. “What does Lucifer mean?”
    “Light Bearer.”
    “And what is the stuff of the universe?”
    “Energy.”
    “What is energy’s commonest form?”
    “Light.”
    “I know.” And with that, the detective walked away, listing slowly through the squad room and down the stairs.
    He didn’t come back.
    ***
    Policewoman Jourdan sat in shadow in a corner of a room in the holding ward. The old woman was bathed in the eerie rays of an amber nightlight above her bed. She lay motionless and silent, arms at her sides, and her eyes stared blankly into her dreams. Jourdan could hear her regular breathing, that and the patter of rain against a window. The policewoman shifted in her chair, getting comfortable. She drowsily closed her eyes. And then suddenly opened them. An odd sound was in the room. Something brittle and crackling. It was faint. Uneasy, Jourdan scanned the room, and didn’t know that she was frightened until she instinctively sighed with relief on discovering the sound had been caused by ice cubes shifting in a glass beside the bed.
    She saw the