Under the Beetle's Cellar Read Online Free Page B

tried not to think about him. But Mordecai was everywhere—his face, his name, his words, assaulted her from every television screen, every radio, every newspaper. It was impossible to ignore him.
    Now, against her will, she saw his image: Samuel Mordecai, born Donnie Ray Grimes, standing in front of her, running his long, graceful fingers through his sun-streaked blond curls as he ranted about computers and calamity, beasts and apocalypse. It was an interview from the lowest reaches of hell. She had not gotten him to answer a single question. He just opened his mouth and started preaching, preaching and strutting, as if that was what she had come for. He gushed words at her nonstop, incoherently, ungrammatically, spewing them all over her. She made one or two feeble attempts to stop him, but on he raved. She had felt trapped and abused and mesmerized by the droning male voice that had kept her pinned to her chair far past the time she should have gotten up and walked out. There were things about that interview that still haunted her, things she had never told anyone. Finally, after enduring two hours of it, she had pushed her way out of the room and driven away from Jezreel convinced the man was dangerous.
    “Molly,” Richard said, “Molly, when your boss asks you a civil question, it’s customary to answer him. I asked you what more could you expect of yourself?”
    “Nothing. You’re right, Richard. Apparently nothing more could be expected.”
    “Good. Now here’s a problem: I get a dozen calls a day from editorsand writers around the country who read your cult story and want to talk with you. They tell me they’ve tried to reach you, but you won’t return their calls.”
    She had been afraid this was coming. “I know. I’m sorry about that, but I’ve been busy. And I didn’t want to talk about it.”
    “I can see that. And if you want, I’ll continue to field the calls so you can work. Now, I know this is distasteful, but I’d like to encourage you to go ahead and write this story. Most of your homework for it is already done. All you need to do, really, is trot out your old interview tapes and listen to them in light of what’s happened. You know how that works. You’ll get interested again, in spite of your reluctance right now. You’ll get caught up. You’ll find some quotes and material you didn’t use the first time. You can show how prophetic you were. You can follow the news as it breaks. Hell, you’re doing it anyway. So just watch whatever is going to happen out there in the next five days, and write your story. You don’t even need to go to Jezreel if you don’t want to. I hear it’s a madhouse, anyway. Just watch it all on CNN. You can do it without breaking a sweat.”
    “Oh, no, I can’t.” She held a hand out to him with the palm turned up. “Feel. It makes me sweat just to talk about it.”
    Richard Dutton leaned forward and rested his fingers on her damp palm. Then he looked up at her with interest. “I am amazed,” he said. “I’ve seen you talking to serial rapists and crazed killers without batting an eye. What is it about this that rattles you so much?”
    “I’m not sure,” she said, knowing even as she replied that this was only half true. “He’s a lunatic, but, as you say, I’ve known lots of lunatics, and none of them made my hands sweat.” She lowered her voice because she was embarrassed by what she was about to say. “It has to do maybe with a certain power he has. Charisma. Energy. I don’t know. You have to see it.”
    Richard leaned forward, watching her, his small deep-set eyes glowing amber the way they did when he was excited. “Just how crazy do you think Mordecai is, Molly?”
    The image of him pacing the room, shouting and grabbing at his crotch as he preached, flashed before her. “Stark raving bonkers,” she said. “Crazy enough to—” That old feeling of dread and disgust squeezed her stomach. “Crazy enough to do something like