"therefore" and "clearly" when it wasn't clear at all, and their circumlocutions could never be challenged. They could never be stopped for a shrewdly disarming, "Hold it, I'm dumb. Could I have that again?" They could never be pinned; made to wriggle; dissected. Books were like Karl.
"Darling, all you really need is a brilliant cutter," the director cackled, rounding it off. "I mean someone who really knows his doors."
He'd grown charming and bubbly, and seemed to have passed the threatened danger pointy.
"Beg pardon, madam. You wish something?"
Karl stood attentively at the door to the study.
"Oh, hullo, Thorndike," Dennings giggled. "Or is it Heinrich? I can't keep it straight." "It is Karl."
"Yes, of course it is. Damn. I'd forgotten. Tell me, Karl, was it public relations you told me you did for the Gestapo, or was it community relations? I believe there's a difference."
Karl spoke politely. "Neither one, sir. I am Swiss."
"Oh, yes, of course." The director guffawed. "And you never went bowling with Goebbels, I suppose."
Karl, impervious, turned to Chris.
"And never went flying with Rudolph Hess!"
"Madam wishes?"
"Oh, l don't know. Burke, you want coffee?"
"Fuck it!"
The director stood up abruptly and strode belligerently from the room and the house.
Chris shook her head, and then turned to Karl. "Unplug the phones," she ordered expressionlessly.
"Yes, madam. Anything else?"
"Oh, maybe some Sanka. Where's Rags?"
"Down in playroom. I call her?"
"Yeah, it's bedtime. Oh, no, wait a second, Karl. Never mind. I'd better go see the bird. Just get me the Sanka, please."
"Yes, madam."
"And for the umpty-eighth time, I apologize for Burke."
"I pay no attention."
"I know. That's what bugs him."
Chris walked to the entry hall of the house, pulled open the door to the basement staircase and started downstairs.
"Hi ya, stinky, whatchya doin' down there? Got the bird?"
"Oh, yes, come see! Come on down, it's all finished!"
The playroom was paneled and brightly decorated. Easels. Paintings. Phonograph. Tables for games and a table for sculpting. Red and white bunting left over from a party for the previous tenant's teenaged son.
"Hey, that's great!" exclaimed Chris as her daughter handed her the figure. It was not quite dry and looked something like a "worry bird," painted orange, except for the beak, which was laterally striped in green and white. A tuft of feathers was glued to the head.
"Do you like it?" asked Regan.
"Oh, honey, I do, I really .do. Got a name for it?"
"Uh-uh."
"What's a good one?"
"I dunno," Regan shrugged.
"Let me see, let me see." Chris tapped fingertips to teeth. "I don't know. Whaddya think?
Wqiaddya think about 'Dumbbird'? Huh? just 'Dumbbird.' "
Regan was snickering, hand to her mouth to conceal the braces. Nodding.
" 'Dumbbird' by a landslide! I'll leave it here to dry and then I'll put him in my room."
Chris was setting flown the bird when she noticed the Ouija board. Close. On the table. She'd forgotten she had it. Almost as curious about herself as she was about others, she'd originally bought it as a possible means of exposing clues to her subconscious. It hadn't worked. She'd used it a time or two with Sharon, and once with Dennings, who had skillfully steered the plastic planchette ("Are you the one who's moving it, ducky?") so that all of the "messages"
were obscene, and then afterward blamed it on the "fucking spirits!"
