SIX WEEKS INTO PRE-PRODUCTION, Hazard was manically attached to a desk in his office at Prep ’n’ Save Productions, a provocative office rental complex on Hollywood’s bustling Fairfax Avenue. No space was available at Zelig’s studio lot where three features were currently shooting; they were scheduled to move there in two or three weeks. In the meantime, the dankness of the company’s encampment—its soiled gray walls and rickety furnishings—added a dullness to the temper of the air. Hazard’s mood was one of restiveness and annoyance. For one thing, he had just had a bitter encounter with the number-one sandwich maker at Canter’s Delicatessen, who’d refused to put mustard and Russian dressing on a hot pastrami-chopped liver combo on rye. “Vat de hell, are you crazy?” he’d huffed. “Dot vould ruin it! Normal people vouldn’t even tink of such a ting! What am I having here already, Conversation vit de Vempire?” The waiter brought the sandwich to Hazard undressed, with separate sides of mustard and Russian and a note reading, “Try to find another place to eat.”
The other hound nipping at Hazard’s soul was the worrisome lack, thus far, of a script. Open on his desk was a copy of the novel. The director had been marking off sections and scenes that he believed to be essential for inclusion in the film, and certain work, such as set design and special effects, had already been launched and was well underway. But Jonathan Drood had not been in touch with him, nor had Hazard been able to find him. “Listen here, Jason,” Zelig had soothed him, “the school of genius has always been solitude. The lad [Drood was only twenty-eight] wants to make the thing perfect, his best. So be grateful. And be calm. We are destiny’s tots. The script will be ready whenever it is ready. In the meantime, the movie is the novel—work from that.”
Hazard looked up from the book and out a window, brooding at the CBS Television Building as it pinkly drowsed in the morning sun. His creative instincts were feverishly churning just as if the project were entirely his own; now embarked, he was determined that the film should have grace, and he would give it his usual obsessive attention down to the finest detail of craft. All the heads of department, chosen by Zelig, had been hired and some were already at work: a British production designer, Dennis Reek, was creating the look of the Georgetown house wherein most of the film would most likely be shot; and a special-effects man from Europe, Franz Detritus, was devising levitation and other effects in reliance, like Reek, upon events in the novel, which was deeply preoccupied with things in midair.
“So.”
Hazard turned to the whiskey voice, ruddy face and perpetual scowl of Tommy Gruff, the white-haired, crusty production manager planted by the desk with fists on hips in his customary vaguely truculent manner as he scrutinized Hazard with testy eyes that glowered under bushy Falstaffian brows. Stubby and muscular, he had recently given up alcohol and a heavy smoking habit and thus was constantly on edge. Yet he gave Hazard comfort: the first to be selected and hired by Zelig, Gruff had worked with the finest of the world’s directors and on countless classic films.
Hazard turned around in his chair.
“What’s up?”
“Look, about the location stuff in Georgetown. I had a conversation with Mrs. Mahoney this morning and…”
“Who?” Hazard interrupted him.
“Mrs. Mahoney,” Gruff erupted on him irritably. “Jesus, try to take a stab at listening now and then! She’s the owner of that house by the steps,” he ended sullenly.
“Oh.”
“Yeah, oh. Well, she says it’s okay for us to shoot and all that, but we’ll have to build a dummy east wall out in front so the window looks closer to the steps. That okay?”
“Better check it with Dennis.”
“What the hell do you think I just did?”
“Well, I think it’s okay, then.”
“You think or you know?”
“I know.”
“Let’s hope,” Gruff rumbled darkly. He turned and walked out with a shake of his head, his shoes scraping carpet with a sound like grumbles. Hazard’s secretary entered with a thick white porcelain mug of hot coffee that she set on his desk.
“Oh, good,” Hazard told her. “Any Equal?”
“I put it in already.”
“Thanks, Millie.”
Frowning, she leaned over the desk and spoke softly. “Someone’s waiting to see you,” she imparted uneasily. “It’s a Jesuit priest. His name is Vogel.”
Hazard glanced out the open door to Millie’s office. On the sofa sat a redheaded priest in his forties. With a long and sensitive face and sharp features, he was quietly absorbed in The Hollywood Reporter.
“He says that Mr. Zelig told him to see you,” Millie continued in her hushed, troubled tone. “He’s going to be the technical advisor on the film.”
Hazard quickened. The Satanist’s references were Catholic, but before he left New York the director was frustrated when, in the course of his intensive research, he found himself unable to locate any Catholic priests who had actually performed an exorcism, or even witnessed one. Maybe Zelig had finally found one for him.
“Show him in, Millie,” Hazard said eagerly.
“Yes, I will, sir.” Millie seemed doubtful.
From his desk Hazard watched as the secretary minced to the outer office and approached the priest. “You may go in now, Father Vogel,” she told him.
The Jesuit looked up, set down the paper and said softly in a quavery voice, “That’s right.” His tone had been vaguely defensive and combative, and he held her stare for a moment challengingly before peering in mutely at Hazard. Then he rose and walked slowly into the office, his wary gaze taking in the room before he stopped near the desk and appraised the director with cold green eyes that bored like lasers and ceaselessly shifted from side to side in minute and rapid, nervous darts, as if constantly searching for offense to be taken, if not a grievous and mortal wound. He exuded an aura of paranoid danger.
“Father Vogel, I’m Jason Hazard. Glad to know you.”
The director had stood up and come around his desk with his hand outstretched to shake the priest’s hand. Vogel looked down at the hand without comment, then appraised the director’s face for a moment, nodding slightly and then tremulously breathing out, “Right,” in a tone that suggested some troubling reservation, some haunting shadow of a doubt. He reminded the director of the actor Scott Wilson doing his In Cold Blood killer act.
The priest reached out and took Hazard’s hand, held it absolutely motionless for a time as he stared at it silently and inscrutably and then dropped it without any comment.
Hazard paused, uncertain what to make of this, and then gestured toward a sofa facing his desk. “Please sit down, Father Vogel,” he offered uncertainly. He turned, went back to his desk, sat down, then looked up to see the priest hadn’t moved. He was immobile, fixedly staring at the sofa.
“Is this where you want me to sit?” he asked tonelessly.
“Sit wherever you feel comfortable, Father.”
Vogel turned and appraised the director unreadably, then looked back at the mango-colored sofa and finally nodded his head, breathing, “Right.” After sitting, he looked down to the side at the cushion, pushed into it twice with stiffened fingertips as if checking out its firmness and then turned his lowered head to the front and mutely shook it.
“Is the sofa uncomfortable, Father?”
“I’m here now.”
“How about that chair by the window?”
“I’m here.”
The priest then lifted a stare at Hazard that seemed to suggest he had abetted the Fall. The director was beginning to feel uneasy. “Well, now, listen, it’s good to have you with us,” he essayed. “I’m going to be needing lots of help.”
“That’s right.”
The director took a beat. “I’ll want the saying of the Mass to be impeccably correct: the proper vestments of the day, the right moves, the whole thing. Then of course there’s the exorcism itself. Have you ever done or seen one, Father Vogel?”
The priest’s kaleidoscopic green gaze searched the air for a time with their darting, rapid flits. Then he said, “Yes.”
“Oh, that’s wonderful. I mean—that’s really good; that’s a help. Have you read the novel, Father?”
“Why should I?”
The director was momentarily speechless.
Vogel leaned menacingly forward toward the desk with his eyes jigging madly as they searched Hazard’s face. “Any reason why I should?” he rumbled dangerously.
Hazard stared at him mutely, flustered. “Gee, I guess that was a pretty dumb question,” he fumbled. “Hey, of course you wouldn’t need to read the book; why, you’re extremely well versed in these matters.”
“I’m extremely well what?”
“Well versed—you’re an expert on possession.”
For some moments Vogel seemed to think it over, his head at an angle and tilted upward while his eyes darted rapidly back and forth in a scan of the infinite possibilities. Then he nodded and looked back down and told the director tersely, “Right.”
Something cataclysmic had just been avoided.
Hazard uneasily shifted in his chair.
“Where’d you study for the priesthood, Father?”
Once again Vogel’s eyes probed the wounded air while his right hand fumbled in a jacket pocket. “Maybe Woodstock,” he quaveringly offered. “Or St. Andrews-on-Hudson. Does it matter?” From his pocket he extracted a can of Dos Equis beer and popped the lid with a flick of his thumb. “Does the laity really even give a good damn?”
“No, maybe not,” the director said hastily.
“Right.”
Vogel tilted back his head, gulped beer and then wiped away froth from his mouth with a sleeve.
“I didn’t think so.”
The priest set the can on a coffee table while his other hand groped in a pocket and then fished out a package of Marlboro filters.
“Every seminary’s just like every other,” he said testily. He tapped out the last cigarette in the pack.
“I would think so,” said Hazard in a toneless voice.
“Same thing all over. They’re all alike.”
Vogel popped the cigarette into his mouth and then lit it with a flame-throwing yellow Bic that bore the logo of the Universal Studio Tour. Now Hazard saw the 82nd Airborne tattoo—there was a tiny blue parachute above the inscription—vivid on the back of the Jesuit’s hand. The empty packet’s cellophane crackled thinly as the priest crushed it up and stuffed it into a pocket.
“I’ve been told that possession in America is rare,” the director said numbly, utterly transfixed.
“That’s a crock,” Vogel sneered. “Total crud. There are exorcisms going on all of the time.”
“In America?”
“Where are we sitting now, jughead? Right now, this very second, you can bet there’s an exorcism happening somewhere in the U.S. of A.!”
The director leaned back in a wary flinch. “I’ve been told,” he said cautiously, “there’ve been maybe only three formal exorcisms by the Church since the nineteen twenties.”
Vogel grabbed the beer can and put it to his lips. “Huh-uh,” he grunted, his eyes still on Hazard.
“You’re kidding me.”
Vogel shook his head, still gulping, then lowered the empty can of Dos Equis and effortlessly crumpled it up in his hand. “I am?” He leaned forward with a baleful stare. “Well, let me tell you something, wiseass,” he began with a smolder: “I do exorcisms every freaking day of the week. I do them constantly, my theater is never dark. Blacks, whites, Hispanics—I don’t give a rat’s ass, if I find out there’s a demon in the creeps, I throw him out. At the start I sort of slap ’em around once or twice.” He exhibited a fist: “Death without the sacraments. But if they’re tough I try the old rubber hose and then hit ’em with the prayers in the Roman Ritual and flush ’em from the victim like a dose of salts. And that’s the whole thing, that’s the drill, that’s how I do it.”
He tossed the crumpled can into a wastepaper basket. “Two,” he breathed softly. He stood up. “Guess I’ll see you ’round the set,” he told Hazard menacingly, his eyes alive in a deadpan face. Then he exited the office, pausing in the doorway to ask, “You want this open, chief?”
Hazard quickly shook his head.
“Whatever Lola wants,” said the priest. He then pulled the door shut in silent slow motion, his burning green gaze fixed on Hazard to the end.
Hazard slumped. Then through the door he heard the Jesuit’s voice: “Do you keep any beer around this place? Cigarettes?”
“No, Father, we don’t,” Hazard heard Millie answer.
“Well, then, next time get some,” Vogel admonished her; “I’ve done my time in the missions.”
Hazard heard the priest walk out into the hall and then stop as another set of steps came his way.
“Can I mooch a coupla smokes or a beer from you, pal?”
“Listen, don’t get wise with me, Father,” came the voice of Tommy Gruff, “or I’ll knock you on your ass. Who the hell put you up to this crap? Some asshole?”
There next came the thwack of a slap on someone’s face. “Step One,” growled the voice of Father Vogel. “And now I am speaking to the demon inside you…”
Hazard stared. Poe’s raven had just perched on his shoulder. Listening to the sounds of scuffling from the hall, he reflected on his introduction that morning to Zelig’s selection as unit publicist, a grotesquely obese young woman who’d attempted to communicate with him in sign. Something from The Satanist was rubbing off: he was beginning to pay attention to omens.
He buzzed his secretary.
“Mr. Hazard?”
“Millie, get me Arthur Zelig, would you, please?”
* * *
When the call came, Zelig was in his office listening to a tape of La Bohéme. The mogul’s bandages were gone, replaced by a Phantom of the Opera mask for which Zelig had given no explanation, although garlands of rumors had been tossed on the waters concerning a scheduled second operation and the mogul was frequently observed to be studying eight-by-ten head shots of Desi Arnaz.
The intercom buzzed.
“Yes, Muffy, my pet; what is it?”
“Jasnhazumnthree.”
“Have him hold.”
Zelig waited for the end of his favorite aria, the one by the slut, “Musetta’s Waltz,” then with a push of a button he stopped the tape. In the silence a thudding sharp rap was heard, Jules bumping his head against a wall. Zelig held still for a moment, listening. “That cabinet’s knocking again,” he said quietly. “It never used to happen ’til we started these spook films.”
Zelig groped and found the speakerphone button.
“Yes, Jason?”
“Where’s the script, Arthur? When can I see it?”
A quiet tension could be heard in Hazard’s voice.
“Drood is working, don’t worry,” the mogul reassured him. “In fact, I just spoke to him, Jason. He called.”
“How’s it coming?”
“Does it matter to you, Jason?”
“Does it matter? We’re making a movie.”
“My movie.”
“And my reputation, goddammit!”
“Drood told me it’s the best he’s ever done.”
“Can I talk to him?”
“No, he’s holed up somewhere.”
“What’s his number?”
“I didn’t think to get it.”
Silence. Then, “What page is he on?” asked Hazard tightly.
“What page?”
“Yes, how far is he along?”
“He didn’t say.”
“You didn’t ask him?”
“No.”
“Why the fuck is he taking so long? It’s his book.”
“Is there any need to raise your voice, Jason?”
“Is there?”
“Of course not. Drood is just having some problems.”
“What kind?”
“Well, emotional problems.”
“What?”
“Nothing serious.”
“Emotional problems?”
“That’s all.”
“What kind of emotional problems?”
“I don’t know,” Zelig answered. “I just didn’t think to ask. In the meantime no one’s forcing you to do this, Jason. You can quit at any time and forget the three pictures.”
Silence. Zelig heard only heavy breathing and hoisted a thumbs-up sign toward the tank. The snake, unused to the strange new mask, lay coiled in a corner on full alert. Something else was disturbing Jeff that day: Zelig had taken to calling him Toto.
“Shouldn’t we be thinking of alternatives, Arthur?” came Hazard’s voice in a strange, drugged monotone. “I could do the adaptation myself. “I’m fast. I could have it done in weeks.”
“No, we’ve got to be faithful to the novel.”
“I’d be faithful.”
“No, you wouldn’t. I know you. You’d wander.”
“I’ve changed.”
“But you’re not what the audience wants.”
“I’m not?” Hazard’s voice held a tiny squeal.
“No, the people want Drood and the novel straight up. Here and there a few changes, of course.”
The hairs on Hazard’s voice stood on end.
“What changes?”
“Now you’re shouting again.”
“What changes?”
“Nothing big.”
“Well, what are they? Are you sitting on the pages, you fuck? Have you got them already?”
“This is shameful.”
“What changes, goddammit? Tell me now!”
“A slight shift in the character of the exorcists. They’re no longer of the Jesuit order.”
“Not Jesuits?”
“No.”
“And that’s it?”
“That’s it.”
“So what order are they going to be?”
“No order. They’ll be rabbis who were formerly Beverly Hills plastic surgeons.”
Zelig immediately disconnected, but not before hearing the beginning of the shriek.