“I’m surprised to hear you were defending religion,” the police chief said. “That isn’t what we usually get from you. Remember all that nonsense about The Catcher in the Rye?”
“Henry Holborn wanted The Catcher in the Rye taken out of the library, or at least put behind the desk and only loaned to adults or something. I never did get it completely straightened out. And of course, there was a whole slew of things he just wanted out of here completely. All the novels by Stephen King.”
“I’ve read Stephen King novels,” Gregor said, feeling confused. “What’s wrong with Stephen King novels? There wasn’t any sex to speak of in any of the ones I read.”
Naomi Brent burst out laughing. “Oh, dear, Mr. Demarkian. You’re terribly out-of-date. Nobody worries about sex in books anymore.”
“They don’t?”
“Oh, well, they do, a little, of course,” Naomi said. “Especially if it’s unconventional sex, and to Henry Holborn conventional means sex with the person you’re married to, no one else, period.”
“Also sex in the missionary position,” Gregor said, “and—”
But Naomi Brent was shaking her head vigorously. “No, no, Mr. Demarkian. You really are behind the times. Tim and Beverly LaHaye, these enormously big evangelists, wrote a guide to lovemaking a few years back, and trust me, it wasn’t restricted to the missionary position. You’d be amazed what a husband and wife can do together in bed these days and still be holy in the sight of the Lord.”
“I think I’ll decide not to think about it,” Gregor said.
“Anyway,” Naomi said, “the big thing these days is occultism. They see occultism everywhere. And I do mean everywhere. If you ask me, Stephen King is one of the most traditionally Christian writers I’ve ever read. His whole philosophy of life comes straight out of St. Augustine—although I don’t know if he knows it. All they see is that people in these books talk to ghosts and sometimes the hero or the heroine has magical powers, like the little girl in Firestarter who could start fires just by thinking about it. And you know what magical powers mean to them. Somebody must be worshipping the devil.”
“The other day,” Gregor said, “you were warning me about having just this attitude you’re displaying now.”
“I go back and forth, Mr. Demarkian. I don’t think I meant to say that you shouldn’t—dislike—this end-times philosophy Henry Holborn and his people have. Did you know that Henry Holborn thinks we’re about to see the end of the world?”
“At the start of the new millennium, I suppose.”
“That’s right, Mr. Demarkian. Millennial fever. But down here, where so many people believe in very simple, very direct forms of Christianity, it gets into the air. It becomes part of things. If you see what I mean.”
“Not exactly.”
Naomi Brent looked down at her hands. “Sometimes, when Henry Holborn gets to talking, you can almost see the Devil right there at your shoulder, grinning like hell, ready to snatch your soul. I had a girl who used to come in here,” both her parents were practical agnostics, she was never taken to church, and two months after she started her freshman year at Brown, she nearly had a nervous breakdown. She was totally isolated up there. It was crazy.”
“So what was it about Henry Holborn and his people you were defending to me the other day behind the Town Hall?” Gregor asked.
“Oh,” Naomi said, “it was just, I didn’t want you to be like other people and think they were stupid. Or naive. Or ignorant. Brain-dead backwoods hicks, that’s what most of those reporters think of them. But they aren’t stupid and they aren’t hicks and they surely don’t live in the backwoods anymore. I just wish they’d get past all this stuff about the Devil. It’s making me nervous. Even the Catholics are doing it and they used to have more sense.”
“The millennium will come and go,” Gregor said gently, “this time just as it did last time. And when the world hasn’t ended and Christ hasn’t come again in glory, people will calm down.”
“That’s longer than I want to wait, Mr. Demarkian.”
“That’s longer than I want to wait, too,” Gregor said, “but that’s the time we’ve got, and I don’t think anything will really change until it’s over. Do you mind very much if I ask you a few questions about the night that Ginny Marsh’s baby died? I realize that it was a while ago, and that with the new murder you’ve probably been distracted, but—”