"Gee, I'm really not sure I know what you mean."
'Would you have any letters she's written? Compositions? A recording of her voice would be-
-"
"Yes, there's a tape of her talking to her father," she interrupted. "She was making it to send to him as a letter but she never got it finished. You want it?"
"Yes, I do, and I'll also need her medical records, especially the file from Barringer."
"Look, Father, I've been that route and I---"
"Yes, yes, I know, but I'll have to see the records for myself."
"So you're still against an exorcism."
"I'm only against the chance of doing your daughter more harm than good."
"But you're talking now strictly as a psychlatnst, right?"
"No, Im talking now also as a priest. If I go to the Chancery Office, or wherever it is I have to go, to get their permission to perform an exorcism, the first thing I'd have to have is a pretty substantial indication that your daughter's condition isn't a purely psychiatric problem. After that, I'd need evidence that the Church would accept as signs of possession."
"like what?"
"I don't know. I'll have to go and look it up."
"Are you kidding? I thought you were supposed to be an expert."
"You probably know more about demonic possession right now than most priests. In the meantime, when can you get me the Barringer records?"
"I'll charter a plane if I have to!"
"And that tape?"
She stood up. "I'll go see if I can find it."
"And just one other thing," he added. She paused beside his chair. "That book you mentioned with the section on possession: do you think you can remember now if Regan ever read it prior to the onset of the illness?"
She concentrated, fingernails scraping at teeth. "Gee, I seem to remember her reading something the day before the shi--- before the trouble really started," she amended, "but I really just can't be sure. But she did it sometime, I think. I mean, I'm sure. Pretty sure."
"I'd like to see it. May I have it?'
"It's yours. It's overdue at your library. I'll get it." She was moving from the study. "That tape's in basement, I think. I'll look. Be right back in a second."
Karras nodded absently, staring at a pattern in the rug, and then after many minutes he got up, walked slowly to the entry hall and stood motionless in the darkness, stood without expression, in another dimension, staring into nothing with his hands in his pockets as he listened to the grunting of a pig from upstairs, to the yelping of a jackal, to hiccups, to hissing.
"Oh, you're there! I went looking in the study."
Karras turned to see Chris flicking on the light.
"Are you leaving?" She came forward with the book and the tape.
"I'm afraid I've got a lecture to prepare for tomorrow."
"Oh? Where?"
"At the med school." He accepted the book and the tape from her hands. "I'll try to get by here sometime tomorrow afternoon or evening. In the meantime, if anything urgent develops, you be sure that you call me, no matter what time. I'll leave word at the switchboard to let your ring through." She nodded. The Jesuit opened the door. "Now how are you fixed for medication?"
he asked.
"Okay," she said. "It's all on refillable prescription."
"You won't call your doctor in again?"
The actress closed her eyes and very slightly shook her head.
"You know, I'm not a GP," he cautioned.
"I can't," she whispered. "I can't."
He could feel her anxiety pounding like waves on an unknown beach. "Well, now, sooner or later, I'm going to have to tell one of my superiors what I'm up to, especially if I'm going to be coming by here at various unusual hours of the night." "Do you have to?" She frowned at him worriedly.
"Well, otherwise, it might look a little bit odd, don't you think?"
She looked down. "Yeah, I see what you mean," she murmured.
"Do you mind? I'll tell him only what I have to. Don't worry," he assured her. "It won't get around."
She lifted a helpless; tormented face to the strong, sad eyes; saw strength; saw pain.
