Chapter 113

  BY FIVE THAT EVENING, Conklin and I were back at our desks in the squad¹ room. Conklin clicked around the Internet, researching Atkinson and Vetter - and I couldn’t stop turning the pages of their novel.

  I was hooked.

  The drawings were stark² black and white. The figures had huge eyes, and called to mind the manga style of violent borderline pornography imported from Japan. The dialogue was edgy³, all-American slang punctuated⁴ by Latin sayings. And the story was actually crazy but somehow compelling.

  In this book, “Pidge” was both the brains and the muscle. “Hawk⁵” was the dreamer. They were depicted⁶ as righteous avengers, their mission to save America from what they viewed as an obscene fantasy world for the very rich. They referred to this American “piggishness” as 7th Heaven and described it as a never-ending spiral of gluttony, gratification, and waste. The Pidge-Hawk solution was to kill the rich and the greedier wannabes, to show them what real consumption was - consumption by fire.

  Pidge and Hawk dressed all in black: T-shirts, jeans, riding boots, and sleek⁷ black leather waist jackets with logos of their name-birds front and back. Sparks flew from their fingertips. And their motto was “Aut vincere aut mori.”

  Either conquer or die.

  Hawk - the boy, not the character - had done both.

  My guess? They never expected any of their victims to live long enough to give away their pseudonyms⁸.

  The motives⁹ and the methods the killers¹⁰ used were clearly drawn¹² in their book, but it was all disguised as make-believe. And that was making me crazy with anger. Eight real people had died because of this arrogant¹³ nonsense, and we had virtually no evidence to prove that the real-life Hawk and Pidge were their killers.

  I flipped¹⁴ the book to the back cover, scanned the rave¹⁵ reviews from social critics and the high-profile bloggers. I said to Rich, “The sickest part yet? This book has been picked up by Bright Line.”

  “Hmmm?” Rich muttered, still tapping his keyboard.

  “Bright Line is an indie studio,” I said. “One of the best. They’re turning this screed¹⁶ into a movie.”

  “Brett Atkinson,” Rich said, “is a junior at Stanford U, majoring in English lit. Hans Vetter also goes to Stanford. He’s in the computer department. These creeps both live at home, only two blocks apart in Mountain View, a couple of miles from Stanford.”

  Rich turned his computer monitor around, saying, “Check out Brett Atkinson’s yearbook photo.”

  Brett Atkinson was Hawk, the boy Connor Campion had shot, the handsome, blond-haired boy with patrician¹⁷ features we’d seen in the hospital just before he died.

  “And now,” Rich said, “meet Pidge.”

  Hans Vetter was a good-looking tough, an illustrator, computer sciences major, now polishing his extracurricular activities as a serial¹⁸ killer¹¹.

  “We will get warrants,” I croaked¹⁹. I cleared my throat and said, “I don’t care who I have to beg.”

  Rich looked as serious as I’d ever seen him.

  “Absolutely. No mistakes allowed.”

  “Aut vincere aut mori,” I said.

  Rich smiled, reached over the desk, and bopped my fist. I called Jacobi, and he called Chief Tracchio, who called a judge, who reportedly said, “You want an arrest warrant based on a comic book?”

  I barely slept that night, and in the morning Rich and I went to the judge’s chambers²⁰ with 7th Heaven, the crime scene photos of the Malones, the Meachams, and the Jablonskys, and the morgue photos of the Chus. I brought Connor Campion’s statement that the boys who’d come to his house with a gun and fishing line had said their names were Hawk and Pidge, and I showed the judge their yearbook photos, captioned²¹ with their real names.

  By ten a.m. we had signed warrants and all the manpower we’d need.

1 squad   

n.班，小队，小团体；vt.把…编成班或小组

参考例句：

• The squad leader ordered the men to mark time.班长命令战士们原地踏步。
• A squad is the smallest unit in an army.班是军队的最小构成单位。

2 stark   

adj.荒凉的；严酷的；完全的；adv.完全地

参考例句：

• The young man is faced with a stark choice.这位年轻人面临严峻的抉择。
• He gave a stark denial to the rumor.他对谣言加以完全的否认。

3 edgy   

adj.不安的；易怒的

参考例句：

• She's been a bit edgy lately,waiting for the exam results.她正在等待考试结果，所以最近有些焦躁不安。
• He was nervous and edgy, still chain-smoking.他紧张不安，还在一根接一根地抽着烟。

4 punctuated   

v.（在文字中）加标点符号，加标点( punctuate的过去式和过去分词 )；不时打断某事物

参考例句：

• Her speech was punctuated by bursts of applause. 她的讲演不时被阵阵掌声打断。
• The audience punctuated his speech by outbursts of applause. 听众不时以阵阵掌声打断他的讲话。 来自《简明英汉词典》

5 hawk   

n.鹰，骗子；鹰派成员

参考例句：

• The hawk swooped down on the rabbit and killed it.鹰猛地朝兔子扑下来,并把它杀死。
• The hawk snatched the chicken and flew away.老鹰叼了小鸡就飞走了。

6 depicted   

描绘，描画( depict的过去式和过去分词 )； 描述

参考例句：

• Other animals were depicted on the periphery of the group. 其他动物在群像的外围加以修饰。
• They depicted the thrilling situation to us in great detail. 他们向我们详细地描述了那激动人心的场面。

7 sleek   

adj.光滑的，井然有序的；v.使光滑，梳拢

参考例句：

• Women preferred sleek,shiny hair with little decoration.女士们更喜欢略加修饰的光滑闪亮型秀发。
• The horse's coat was sleek and glossy.这匹马全身润泽有光。

8 pseudonyms   

n.假名，化名，（尤指）笔名( pseudonym的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• But on newspaper websites, pseudonyms are allowed and are widely used. 但在报纸的网站上，读者可用假名评论且普遍会这么做。 来自互联网
• All materials should bear the writer's name, address and phone number andbe published under pseudonyms. 文章可用笔名发表，惟投稿者须附真实姓名、地址及联络电话。 来自互联网

9 motives   

n.动机，目的( motive的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• to impeach sb's motives 怀疑某人的动机
• His motives are unclear. 他的用意不明。

10 killers   

凶手( killer的名词复数 )； 消灭…者； 致命物； 极难的事

参考例句：

• He remained steadfast in his determination to bring the killers to justice. 他要将杀人凶手绳之以法的决心一直没有动摇。
• They were professional killers who did in John. 杀死约翰的这些人是职业杀手。

11 killer   

n.杀人者，杀人犯，杀手，屠杀者

参考例句：

• Heart attacks have become Britain's No.1 killer disease.心脏病已成为英国的头号致命疾病。
• The bulk of the evidence points to him as her killer.大量证据证明是他杀死她的。

12 drawn   

v.拖，拉，拔出；adj.憔悴的，紧张的

参考例句：

• All the characters in the story are drawn from life.故事中的所有人物都取材于生活。
• Her gaze was drawn irresistibly to the scene outside.她的目光禁不住被外面的风景所吸引。

13 arrogant   

adj.傲慢的，自大的

参考例句：

• You've got to get rid of your arrogant ways.你这骄傲劲儿得好好改改。
• People are waking up that he is arrogant.人们开始认识到他很傲慢。

14 flipped   

轻弹( flip的过去式和过去分词 )； 按（开关）； 快速翻转； 急挥

参考例句：

• The plane flipped and crashed. 飞机猛地翻转，撞毁了。
• The carter flipped at the horse with his whip. 赶大车的人扬鞭朝着马轻轻地抽打。

15 rave   

vi.胡言乱语；热衷谈论；n.热情赞扬

参考例句：

• The drunkard began to rave again.这酒鬼又开始胡言乱语了。
• Now I understand why readers rave about this book.我现明白读者为何对这本书赞不绝口了。

16 screed   

n.长篇大论

参考例句：

• The screed tired the audience.那篇冗长的演说使听众厌烦了。
• The pro-whaling screed was approved by a much thinner margin:33 votes to 32.关于捕鲸的冗长决议是以33票对32票的微弱差数通过的。

17 patrician   

adj.贵族的，显贵的；n.贵族；有教养的人；罗马帝国的地方官

参考例句：

• The old patrician was buried in the family vault.这位老贵族埋在家族的墓地里。
• Its patrician dignity was a picturesque sham.它的贵族的尊严只是一套华丽的伪装。

18 serial   

n.连本影片，连本电视节目；adj.连续的

参考例句：

• A new serial is starting on television tonight.今晚电视开播一部新的电视连续剧。
• Can you account for the serial failures in our experiment?你能解释我们实验屡屡失败的原因吗？

19 croaked   

v.呱呱地叫( croak的过去式和过去分词 )；用粗的声音说

参考例句：

• The crow croaked disaster. 乌鸦呱呱叫预报灾难。 来自《现代英汉综合大词典》
• 'she has a fine head for it," croaked Jacques Three. “她有一个漂亮的脑袋跟着去呢，”雅克三号低沉地说。 来自英汉文学 - 双城记

20 chambers   

n.房间( chamber的名词复数 )；（议会的）议院；卧室；会议厅

参考例句：

• The body will be removed into one of the cold storage chambers. 尸体将被移到一个冷冻间里。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• Mr Chambers's readable book concentrates on the middle passage: the time Ransome spent in Russia. Chambers先生的这本值得一看的书重点在中间：Ransome在俄国的那几年。 来自互联网

21 captioned   

a.标题项下的； 标题所说的

参考例句：

• This paper reviews the production, development and nationalization of the captioned materials. 本文就铜系合金引线框架材料的生产、发展和国产化进程作一论述。
• Please advise other considerable hotels for this captioned group. 请推荐其它一些高级的旅馆给这一群打标语的人。