Kintyre sat up, feeling sticky. Yamamura gave him a lighted cigarette and he took a few puffs2. "Okay," he said.
The early sunlight and the rushing sound of early traffic whetted3 him as he left the cottage, until he went clear-brained to the shivering, screaming thing on the pool table and said: "I'll take the blindfold4 off when you've talked. Not before."
"Let me go, let me go, let me see!" wept O'Hearn.
"Shut up or I'll leave you for another day or two," said Kintyre.
"Did you help kill Bruce Lombardi?" asked Kintyre.
"No." A cracked whine6. "I mean, I was there. But the others, Silenio, Larkin, they done it. I didn't touch him myself. Let me out of here!"
"Shut up, I told you." Kintyre drew deeply on his cigarette. "I suspect you're lying about your own role," he continued, "but never mind that now, if you don't lie on the next question. Who hired you?"
"I don't know!"
"So long," said Kintyre.
"I don't know! I don't! They never told me! Silenio knows! I don't! I just worked for Joe Silenio! Ask him!"
Yamamura, looking a little sick, said: "That's probably true, Bob. Our kingpin called this Silenio in Chicago, and Silenio rounded up a couple of assistants. The less they know, the better. Silenio gets the kingpin's money and pays off the other two himself."
Kintyre groaned7. "And we had to catch one of the deadheads! Well, let's see what else can be learned."
It came out in harsh automatic sentences. O'Hearn's will, never strong, had altogether failed him. He answered questions without evasions8, but like a robot.
Silenio had contacted him and Larkin the Tuesday of last week. It was to be a well paid job, ten thousand dollars on completion of the first assignment and a hundred dollars a day while they waited for the next. ("No, I didn't know nothing, I don't know who else we'd go after!") The trio caught a plane to San Francisco that night. At intervals9 on Wednesday and Thursday Silenio had conferred with whoever engaged them, while Larkin and O'Hearn looked for a suitable house. Their find was rented on Friday, an old house in a run-down district at the southern end of town; and each of them bought a good used car elsewhere. Meanwhile, on Thursday night, Larkin and O'Hearn had lined up Guido. That had been at Silenio's orders, presumably derived10 from the boss's. The boss himself had arranged for Bruce to come to the house on Saturday, calling him on the phone with some plausible11 story. They captured Bruce very simply, with a gun, and tied him up. Silenio questioned him. Bruce had gotten stubborn with outrage—Kintyre knew how stubborn that could be—and the interrogation took a few hours; even after he broke they continued the pain a while, to make sure. Finally they cut his throat over the bathtub, dressed him in old clothes, and got rid of the body across the Bay on Sunday night.
"The questions, you bastard," snarled12 Kintyre. "Didn't the questions Silenio was asking tell you something?"
"It was all in wop," groaned O'Hearn. "I don't know wop."
Italy again. Though I suppose that our X would have made a special effort to get an Italian-speaking lieutenant13, as another safeguard for himself.
"One thing so far," murmured Yamamura. "Guido is in the clear."
"Is he?" said Kintyre bitterly. "Wouldn't it be a beautiful turnabout, to make himself look like the fall guy for his own scheme?"
"Waited in the house. Played cards. Silenio got the money for this job in the afternoon. Cash. He went out for it. Larkin went to pay off the Lombardi sucker Tuesday evening. That was because he didn't show Monday, account of his brother. Larkin got into a fight. We didn't know what it meant. Silenio called the boss and they talked on the phone in wop. Silenio told me to go pick up Guido Lombardi tonight. I figured we was going to find out how much he knew and then maybe dump him too, but I don't know for sure."
"Did anything else go on, this night?"
"Silenio and Larkin had another job."
"Where?"
"Were you supposed to meet them at the house?"
"I was supposed to wait there with Lombardi till they got back. Silenio wasn't telling either of us more'n he had to."
"Will they be back there now?"
"I dunno."
"Suppose they came back and didn't find you? What would they do?"
"Try and find out what happened, I guess. Wouldn't stay in the house if it looked like something had gone wrong."
"Where would they go?"
"I don't know. Some hotel, I guess."
"And what would you do, if you couldn't find them?"
"Go back to Chi, I guess."
"Not if you're using expendables," said Kintyre. "And this bum18 is expendable. I imagine Larkin is too, though enough more valuable to go with Silenio—where?"
"Over here," said Yamamura.
"Very likely to kill someone else." Kintyre looked dully at the stub of his cigarette on the floor. He didn't remember dropping it. "We'll read in the papers who it was."
"If we aren't the target ourselves," said Yamamura. "Right now anything seems possible." He sighed. "Well, I'd better call the police."
"Wait a bit," said Kintyre.
"But that house—God knows what's going on there, right now!"
"Nothing, I'm sure. If only because Silenio and Larkin will be worried by O'Hearn's absence. Let's have breakfast, at least, before calling. You devise a story that won't make us quite such lawbreakers. I'm going to try and sort out my thoughts. I have an idea. It's driving me crackers19, Trig. I feel I know what this is all about and still there's some kind of wall between me and the knowledge. A wall I've built myself!"
"Hm," said Yamamura. He gave the other man a meditative20 stare. "Yes, it might be worth while waiting till after we eat."
Kintyre went out, beating a fist softly into his palm. Yamamura paused to release O'Hearn's eyes. O'Hearn lay and wept.
While the detective made breakfast in the cottage, Kintyre took a shower. Then a shave, clean clothes, tee shirt, khaki pants, tennis shoes, brought him physically21 closer to humanness.
Inside, he was afraid, and he did not know why.
Guido appeared in the kitchen as Kintyre re-entered. He looked at the others with deer shyness. "Good morning," he ventured.
"Hello," said Yamamura. "Pull up an egg and sit down."
Guido perched on a chair's edge. No one spoke22 until coffee and food were within them. Somehow, the blue and green planet beyond the windows had become alien; they sat in a private darkness.
"I—" began Guido. He stopped.
"Go ahead," said Yamamura. Kintyre listened with a fractional ear. Mostly he was inside his own skull23, shouting for something which did not answer.
"I'd like to say thanks, is all," offered Guido.
"It's okay," said Yamamura.
"Look, are you sitting and worrying about me?"
"In a way. The trouble is, you see, if we take your story at face value, we have no plausible suspects left. But two more killers24 and their chief are loose, probably arranging another murder. If it hasn't already been done."
"Whose?" whispered Guido.
"If we knew that," said Yamamura gloomily, "we could get a police guard for him. But until we've identified the chief, there's no way of figuring who the next victim might be."
"No," said Kintyre.
He sat up straight, feeling how cold his hands were. It came to him, through a great hollowness—each instant he seemed more remote from himself—that he could have found his enemy before now. He had enough facts to reason on. He was still feeling his way a step at a time, but he felt there would be an end to his journey.
And he felt, without yet knowing why, that the horror waited for him there.
"It has to be someone who knew Bruce at least fairly well. He went to that house because of a telephone call. He didn't own a car and wouldn't borrow Margery's. That's a long awkward trip, by street train and bus. He wouldn't make it casually26. He'd want to know why he was being asked to come to this address he'd never heard of before, without telling anyone. The person who called (and could have been right in Berkeley, of course) had to be somebody who could give Bruce a strong, convincing reason. What it was, I don't know. It doesn't matter now, it was surely a lie. But a lie he would accept! From a person he trusted."
He stopped. Guido said with a certain boy-eagerness: "Who knew him best? His girl friend!"
"Nope," said Yamamura. "Too much lets her out; hell, the simple fact that she doesn't speak Italian. That she hasn't the money, or the connections, or anything."
"I haven't the money either," said Guido defensively.
"For all I know, you could have ten million dollars hoarded," said Yamamura.
The anger in Guido's face reminded Kintyre of Corinna. He snatched for the memory, it warmed him a minute and was torn away again. He shivered.
"Guido's story has to be accepted, I think," he said. There was no color in his words, but they came fast. "All the psychological quirks28 he's shown. He bopped me with a stool to let Larkin get away, because he was deathly afraid. But he cried at having hurt me, even so trivially. Also: could that parcel of marijuana have been in the drawer by sheer coincidence? And even if he planned some complicated misdirection that made him his own fall guy, it would not have involved something as serious as dope. He could have gone to jail for that, or been deported29. And why? What reason? Insane jealousy30 won't fit such an elaborate procedure. It would have to be money. And where would he, drifting between minor31 night club engagements, sponging off his parents when he isn't shacked32 up with some tart33, where would he find time for a million-dollar enterprise?"
Guido reddened. "Hey!" he protested.
"You had that coming," said Yamamura. He turned his back on Guido, who slumped34, pouting35. "It doesn't look as if X really believed an accessory-to-murder rap could be hung on the boy," he remarked. "Not when you demolish36 it so fast."
"Perhaps not." Kintyre struggled for clarity within himself. "But Guido would have wriggled37 and evaded38 much more if the police had questioned him, dug in his heels at every step, for fear of the dope charge. When he finally realized the situation and confessed, if he did at all, it would have been too late. He would have served X's purpose of holding up the police for days.
"And the fact that he fell so neatly39 into the slot clinches40 the proof that X knows the Lombardi family well."
"You've ruled out Michaelis & Son," said Yamamura. "That's confirmed by the gangsters41 still operating with them in clink. Who's left, the writer?"
Kintyre said: "He blew into town less than two weeks ago, having never met Bruce in his life before. Their time together was a few meetings devoted42 to professional arguments. How could he know Guido? And his only motive43 would have been to eliminate Bruce. Simple murder would have sufficed, not calling in three expensive sadists to do a job of kidnaping and interrogation. Also, I proved to myself, without meaning to, that he's a physical coward. I doubt if he could have asked someone like Larkin the time of day. Or run the risk of detection. No, there was just one way Owens helped the killers, and that was unintentional."
"How?" asked Yamamura.
Kintyre looked at his hands. They were clasped together, as if to hold the safe nonmurderer, Jabez Owens, tightly to him. But the wind streamed and the sea ramped44 beneath it, Owens was whirled from his fingers and drowned with all the rest, all the rest. He said from the noise of great waters:
"Owens was after the Book of Witches, yes. First he tried bribery45. Then, the minute he heard Bruce was dead, he went over to the history building, I suppose trying to get up nerve to go in and see if the volume was there. He saw me instead, and urged me to take Margery out that night; he did know, like everyone else, that she'd been living with Bruce. He burgled the apartment. An amateur job. If he'd used his brains, he would at least have taken some valuables. But he didn't even bother to open places where the book couldn't possibly be. That alone pretty well shows who did it. He tried again yesterday, in my office, actually pulled it off, but Clayton—well, all it accomplished46 was to divert our attention."
He wondered remotely how they could fail to see what was happening to him; and how long before it broke his shell and they could not escape seeing.
"Bruce's immediate47 family?" said Yamamura. "No motive, no money, no connections, no opportunity. Write 'em off. Can you think of any of his friends at the University who aren't eliminated by the same reasoning?"
"No."
"But who's left? Clayton? What motive? And in all the months he's been here, I'd have an inkling if he weren't honest. No hint of underworld tie-ins. Who's left?"
"If I knew why," he said, holding his voice utterly49 planar, "I think the how would follow. Why was Bruce killed? Because of something he knew. It could only be that. He was tortured to get out of him the precise extent of his knowledge, and who else might share it. That other person is the next victim. But what was in Bruce's background? A knowledge of history—the Book of Witches—correspondence with—" His throat seemed to swell50, it would not let the words out for a moment—"with an uncle in Italy, who told him something—"
"Something about the Mafia?" snorted Yamamura. "Come, now!"
"Bruce didn't realize the significance of what he knew," said Kintyre. Iron bands lay across his chest. "He couldn't have kept a secret like that. He went to X, I suppose—with—a warning? Or mere51 gossip, as he thought? What about? Surely not Cousin Giovanni, or the Albigensians. What else was there? Some information on crime in the Mediterranean52 countries. And—God help us!"
The table went over with a crash as Kintyre stood up. It was not himself who screamed: "Margery! She's next in line!" Himself stood among breakers and heard the mainmast split.
Yamamura looked at him, cursed, and reached for the telephone.
"I'm going over there," rattled53 Kintyre. "I might get there first. I might, it might not be too late."
"They had all night," said Yamamura. His finger stabbed the dial.
Kintyre blundered into the door. He thought vaguely54 that he ought to open it. Someone stood at his elbow. He shoved. "Take it slow," said Guido. "Let me help you."
Yamamura said in the phone: "Tim? This is Trig. Never mind formalities. Get a car to the apartment of Margery Towne. She may still be alive.... No, I don't remember the damned address! What's the directory for?"
Kintyre sat shaking all the way over. Guido drove with a Cossack will to arrive at which a part of Kintyre, drowning among the reefs of Taputenea, knew dim surprise.
They did not beat the police, though. Officer Moffat met them on the front steps. Blankness lay in his gaze.
"We came too late," he said. "Her throat's cut."
"I expected that," said Kintyre.
The horror rose up and took him.
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收听单词发音
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1
busted
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| adj. 破产了的，失败了的，被降级的，被逮捕的，被抓到的 动词bust的过去式和过去分词 | |
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2
puffs
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| n.吸( puff的名词复数 )；（烟斗或香烟的）一吸；一缕（烟、蒸汽等）；（呼吸或风的）呼v.使喷出( puff的第三人称单数 )；喷着汽（或烟）移动；吹嘘；吹捧 | |
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3
whetted
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| v.（在石头上）磨（刀、斧等）( whet的过去式和过去分词 )；引起，刺激（食欲、欲望、兴趣等） | |
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4
blindfold
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| vt.蒙住…的眼睛；adj.盲目的；adv.盲目地；n.蒙眼的绷带[布等]； 障眼物，蒙蔽人的事物 | |
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5
gasped
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| v.喘气( gasp的过去式和过去分词 )；喘息；倒抽气；很想要 | |
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6
whine
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| v.哀号，号哭；n.哀鸣 | |
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7
groaned
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| v.呻吟( groan的过去式和过去分词 )；发牢骚；抱怨；受苦 | |
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8
evasions
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| 逃避( evasion的名词复数 )； 回避； 遁辞； 借口 | |
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9
intervals
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| n.[军事]间隔( interval的名词复数 )；间隔时间；[数学]区间；（戏剧、电影或音乐会的）幕间休息 | |
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10
derived
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| vi.起源；由来；衍生；导出v.得到( derive的过去式和过去分词 )；（从…中）得到获得；源于；（从…中）提取 | |
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11
plausible
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| adj.似真实的，似乎有理的，似乎可信的 | |
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12
snarled
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| v.（指狗）吠，嗥叫， （人）咆哮( snarl的过去式和过去分词 )；咆哮着说，厉声地说 | |
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13
lieutenant
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| n.陆军中尉，海军上尉；代理官员，副职官员 | |
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14
crooked
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| adj.弯曲的；不诚实的，狡猾的，不正当的 | |
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15
afterward
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| adv.后来；以后 | |
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16
rattling
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| adj. 格格作响的, 活泼的, 很好的 adv. 极其, 很, 非常 动词rattle的现在分词 | |
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17
doctrine
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| n.教义；主义；学说 | |
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18
bum
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| n.臀部；流浪汉，乞丐；vt.乞求，乞讨 | |
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19
crackers
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| adj.精神错乱的，癫狂的n.爆竹( cracker的名词复数 )；薄脆饼干；（认为）十分愉快的事；迷人的姑娘 | |
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20
meditative
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| adj.沉思的，冥想的 | |
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21
physically
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| adj.物质上，体格上，身体上，按自然规律 | |
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22
spoke
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| n.（车轮的）辐条；轮辐；破坏某人的计划；阻挠某人的行动 v.讲，谈（speak的过去式）；说；演说；从某种观点来说 | |
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23
skull
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| n.头骨；颅骨 | |
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24
killers
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| 凶手( killer的名词复数 )； 消灭…者； 致命物； 极难的事 | |
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25
resonance
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| n.洪亮；共鸣；共振 | |
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26
casually
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| adv.漠不关心地，无动于衷地，不负责任地 | |
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27
smite
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| v.重击；彻底击败；n.打；尝试；一点儿 | |
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28
quirks
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| n.奇事，巧合( quirk的名词复数 )；怪癖 | |
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29
deported
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| v.将…驱逐出境( deport的过去式和过去分词 )；举止 | |
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30
jealousy
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| n.妒忌，嫉妒，猜忌 | |
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31
minor
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| adj.较小(少)的，较次要的；n.辅修学科；vi.辅修 | |
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32
shacked
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| vi.未婚而同居（shack的过去式与过去分词形式） | |
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33
tart
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| adj.酸的；尖酸的，刻薄的；n.果馅饼；淫妇 | |
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34
slumped
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| 大幅度下降，暴跌( slump的过去式和过去分词 )； 沉重或突然地落下[倒下] | |
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35
pouting
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| v.撅（嘴）( pout的现在分词 ) | |
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36
demolish
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| v.拆毁(建筑物等)，推翻(计划、制度等) | |
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37
wriggled
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| v.扭动，蠕动，蜿蜒行进( wriggle的过去式和过去分词 )；（使身体某一部位）扭动；耍滑不做，逃避（应做的事等） | |
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38
evaded
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| 逃避( evade的过去式和过去分词 )； 避开； 回避； 想不出 | |
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39
neatly
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| adv.整洁地，干净地，灵巧地，熟练地 | |
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40
clinches
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| n.（尤指两人）互相紧紧抱[扭]住( clinch的名词复数 )；解决（争端、交易），达成（协议）v.（尤指两人）互相紧紧抱[扭]住( clinch的第三人称单数 )；解决（争端、交易），达成（协议） | |
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41
gangsters
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| 匪徒，歹徒( gangster的名词复数 ) | |
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42
devoted
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| adj.忠诚的，忠实的，热心的，献身于...的 | |
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43
motive
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| n.动机，目的；adv.发动的，运动的 | |
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44
ramped
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| 土堤斜坡( ramp的过去式和过去分词 )； 斜道； 斜路； （装车或上下飞机的）活动梯 | |
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45
bribery
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| n.贿络行为，行贿，受贿 | |
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46
accomplished
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| adj.有才艺的；有造诣的；达到了的 | |
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47
immediate
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| adj.立即的；直接的，最接近的；紧靠的 | |
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48
tilted
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| v. 倾斜的 | |
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49
utterly
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| adv.完全地，绝对地 | |
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50
swell
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| vi.膨胀，肿胀；增长，增强 | |
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51
mere
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| adj.纯粹的；仅仅，只不过 | |
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52
Mediterranean
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| adj.地中海的；地中海沿岸的 | |
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53
rattled
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| 慌乱的，恼火的 | |
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54
vaguely
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| adv.含糊地，暖昧地 | |
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55
steer
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| vt.驾驶，为…操舵；引导；vi.驾驶 | |
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