Chapter 33

I PUSHED THE SITUATION with Jill to the back of my mind as best I could; I phoned and managed to catch Roger Lemouz in his office. We spoke¹ briefly² and he agreed to see me.

Just getting out of the Hall was a breath of fresh air. These days, I rarely went over to this part of the bay. I parked my Explorer near the stadium off of Telegraph Avenue and headed past the street rats hawking³ pot and bumper⁴ stickers. The sun was beating onto Sproul Plaza⁵, students in back-packs and sandals sitting around, reading on the steps.

Lemouz's office was in Dwinelle Hall, an official-looking concrete structure just off the main quad⁶. "Please, it's open," a strong, Mediterranean⁷ accent answered my knock. A hint of something more formal, educated. British?

Professor Lemouz leaned back behind a chaotic⁸ desk in the small office cluttered⁹ with books and papers. He was large-shouldered and swarthy, with curly black hair falling over his forehead, a shadowy growth on his face.

"Ah, Police Inspector¹⁰ Boxer," he said. "Please sit, be my guest. Sorry the surroundings are not so plush." The room was musty and smelled of books and smoke. An ashtray¹¹ and a pack of unfiltered Rothmans were on the desk.

I lowered myself into a seat across from him and pulled out my pad. I handed him a card.

"Homicide," Lemouz read, bunching his lips, seemingly impressed. "So I suspect it's not some rogue¹² etymological¹³ nuance¹⁴ that brings you here?"

"Perhaps another interest of yours," I said. "You're aware, of course, of the events going on across the bay?"

He sighed. "Yes. Even a man with his nose in his books most of the time brings it out now and then. Tragic¹⁵. Totally counterproductive. Fanon said, `Violence is its own judge and jury.' Yet, one cannot find it completely surprising."

Lemouz's phony sympathy appealed to me about as much as a dentist's drill. "You mind telling me just what you mean by that, Mr. Lemouz?"

"Of course, Madam Inspector, if you would be so kind as to tell me just why you are here."

"It's Lieutenant¹⁶," I corrected him. "I head up the Homicide detail. And I was given your name as someone who might have some firsthand knowledge of what's going on here. The ideological¹⁷ scene. People who might find blowing up three sleeping people and almost killing¹⁸ two innocent children as well as virtually imploding¹⁹ someone's vascular²⁰ system an acceptable form of protest."

"By `over here,' I assume you mean the peaceful, academic groves²¹ of Berkeley," Lemouz said.

"By `over here,' I mean wherever someone would want to do these awful things, Mr. Lemouz."

"Professor," he replied. "The Lance Hart Professor of Romance Languages" - I saw the glimmer²² of a smile - "as long as we're spouting²³ credentials²⁴."

"You said you didn't find these murders surprising."

"Why should they be?" Lemouz shrugged²⁵. "Should the patient be surprised he is ill when his body is covered in lesions? Our society is infected, Lieutenant, and the very people who transmit the disease look around and go, `Who, me?'

"Do you know," he said, raising his eyes, "that the power-ful multinational²⁶ corporations now have an output larger than the GNP of ninety percent of the countries around the globe? They have supplanted²⁷ governments as the system of social responsibility in our world.

"Why is it," he laughed cynically²⁸, "we are so quick to rail against the moral outrage²⁹ of apartheid when it threatens our racial sensibilities, but are so asleep to recognize it when it is economic. It is because we do not see it through the eyes of the subjugated³⁰. We see it through the culture of the power-ful. The corporation. On TV."

"Excuse me," I interrupted, "but I'm here about four gruesome murders. People are dying."

"Yes they are, Lieutenant. That's exactly my point."

There was a part of me that would like to have grabbed Lemouz by the lapels and shaken him. Instead, I pulled out the photo of the au pair on Wendy Raymore's ID and a police artist's sketch³¹ of the woman videotaped walking into the Clift Hotel with George Bengosian. "Do you know either of these women, Professor?"

Lemouz almost started to laugh. "Why would I want to help you? It's the state who is the architect of this injustice³², not these two women. Please tell me, who has committed the larger injustice? The two women suspects" - he threw the front page of the Chronicle across the desk at me - "or these sparkling examples of our system?"

I was staring at photos of Lightower and Bengosian.

"If these people are signaling the start of a war," Lemouz laughed, "I say, let it unfold. What is the new phrase, Lieu-tenant?" He smiled. "The one Americans have embraced with all their moral imperative³³? Let's roll."

I picked up the pictures, closed my pad, and placed it back in my bag. I stood up, feeling tired and soiled. I walked out on the Lance Hart Professor of Romance Languages before I blew him up.

1 spoke   

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

参考例句：

• They sourced the spoke nuts from our company.他们的轮辐螺帽是从我们公司获得的。
• The spokes of a wheel are the bars that connect the outer ring to the centre.辐条是轮子上连接外圈与中心的条棒。

2 briefly   

adv.简单地，简短地

参考例句：

• I want to touch briefly on another aspect of the problem.我想简单地谈一下这个问题的另一方面。
• He was kidnapped and briefly detained by a terrorist group.他被一个恐怖组织绑架并短暂拘禁。

3 hawking   

利用鹰行猎

参考例句：

• He is hawking his goods everywhere. 他在到处兜售他的货物。
• We obtain the event horizon and the Hawking spectrumformula. 得到了黑洞的局部事件视界位置和Hawking温度以及Klein—Gordon粒子的Hawking辐射谱。

4 bumper   

n.(汽车上的)保险杠；adj.特大的，丰盛的

参考例句：

• The painting represents the scene of a bumper harvest.这幅画描绘了丰收的景象。
• This year we have a bumper harvest in grain.今年我们谷物丰收。

5 plaza   

n.广场，市场

参考例句：

• They designated the new shopping centre York Plaza.他们给这个新购物中心定名为约克购物中心。
• The plaza is teeming with undercover policemen.这个广场上布满了便衣警察。

6 quad   

n.四方院；四胞胎之一；v.在…填补空铅

参考例句：

• His rooms were on the left-hand side of the quad.他的房间位于四方院的左侧。
• She is a 34-year-old mother of quads.她是个生了四胞胎的34岁的母亲。

7 Mediterranean   

adj.地中海的；地中海沿岸的

参考例句：

• The houses are Mediterranean in character.这些房子都属地中海风格。
• Gibraltar is the key to the Mediterranean.直布罗陀是地中海的要冲。

8 chaotic   

adj.混沌的，一片混乱的，一团糟的

参考例句：

• Things have been getting chaotic in the office recently.最近办公室的情况越来越乱了。
• The traffic in the city was chaotic.这城市的交通糟透了。

9 cluttered   

v.杂物，零乱的东西零乱vt.( clutter的过去式和过去分词 )；乱糟糟地堆满，把…弄得很乱；（以…） 塞满…

参考例句：

• The room is cluttered up with all kinds of things. 零七八碎的东西放满了一屋子。 来自《现代汉英综合大词典》
• The desk is cluttered with books and papers. 桌上乱糟糟地堆满了书报。 来自《现代汉英综合大词典》

10 inspector   

n.检查员，监察员，视察员

参考例句：

• The inspector was interested in everything pertaining to the school.视察员对有关学校的一切都感兴趣。
• The inspector was shining a flashlight onto the tickets.查票员打着手电筒查看车票。

11 ashtray   

n.烟灰缸

参考例句：

• He knocked out his pipe in the big glass ashtray.他在大玻璃烟灰缸里磕净烟斗。
• She threw the cigarette butt into the ashtray.她把烟头扔进烟灰缸。

12 rogue   

n.流氓；v.游手好闲

参考例句：

• The little rogue had his grandpa's glasses on.这淘气鬼带上了他祖父的眼镜。
• They defined him as a rogue.他们确定他为骗子。

13 etymological   

adj.语源的，根据语源学的

参考例句：

• The etymological closeness of the Sanskrit and English words is striking. 梵语和英语的词源的连结性是如此地惊人。 来自互联网
• But the Chinese have often ignored this etymological hint. 但中国人经常忽略这一词根上隐含的意义。 来自互联网

14 nuance   

n.(意义、意见、颜色)细微差别

参考例句：

• These users will easily learn each nuance of the applications they use.这些用户会很快了解他们所使用程序的每一细微差别。
• I wish I hadn't become so conscious of every little nuance.我希望我不要变得这样去思索一切琐碎之事。

15 tragic   

adj.悲剧的，悲剧性的，悲惨的

参考例句：

• The effect of the pollution on the beaches is absolutely tragic.污染海滩后果可悲。
• Charles was a man doomed to tragic issues.查理是个注定不得善终的人。

16 lieutenant   

n.陆军中尉，海军上尉；代理官员，副职官员

参考例句：

• He was promoted to be a lieutenant in the army.他被提升为陆军中尉。
• He prevailed on the lieutenant to send in a short note.他说动那个副官，递上了一张简短的便条进去。

17 ideological   

a.意识形态的

参考例句：

• He always tries to link his study with his ideological problems. 他总是把学习和自己的思想问题联系起来。
• He helped me enormously with advice on how to do ideological work. 他告诉我怎样做思想工作，对我有很大帮助。

18 killing   

n.巨额利润；突然赚大钱，发大财

参考例句：

• Investors are set to make a killing from the sell-off.投资者准备清仓以便大赚一笔。
• Last week my brother made a killing on Wall Street.上个周我兄弟在华尔街赚了一大笔。

19 imploding   

v.（使）向心聚爆( implode的现在分词 )

参考例句：

• He has nightmares about the tanks imploding. 他老是做油箱爆炸的噩梦。 来自辞典例句
• Just like silver stars imploding we absorb the light of day. 身披白昼之圣光光没银星俱裂亡。 来自互联网

20 vascular   

adj.血管的，脉管的

参考例句：

• The mechanism of this anomalous vascular response is unknown.此种不规则的血管反应的机制尚不清楚。
• The vascular changes interfere with diffusion of nutrients from plasma into adjacent perivascular tissue and cells.这些血管变化干扰了营养物质从血浆中向血管周围邻接的组织和细胞扩散。

21 groves   

树丛，小树林( grove的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• The early sun shone serenely on embrowned groves and still green fields. 朝阳宁静地照耀着已经发黄的树丛和还是一片绿色的田地。
• The trees grew more and more in groves and dotted with old yews. 那里的树木越来越多地长成了一簇簇的小丛林，还点缀着几棵老紫杉树。

22 glimmer   

v.发出闪烁的微光；n.微光，微弱的闪光

参考例句：

• I looked at her and felt a glimmer of hope.我注视她，感到了一线希望。
• A glimmer of amusement showed in her eyes.她的眼中露出一丝笑意。

23 spouting   

n.水落管系统v.（指液体）喷出( spout的现在分词 )；滔滔不绝地讲；喋喋不休地说；喷水

参考例句：

• He's always spouting off about the behaviour of young people today. 他总是没完没了地数落如今年轻人的行为。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• Blood was spouting from the deep cut in his arm. 血从他胳膊上深深的伤口里涌出来。 来自《简明英汉词典》

24 credentials   

n.证明，资格，证明书，证件

参考例句：

• He has long credentials of diplomatic service.他的外交工作资历很深。
• Both candidates for the job have excellent credentials.此项工作的两个求职者都非常符合资格。

25 shrugged   

vt.耸肩（shrug的过去式与过去分词形式）

参考例句：

• Sam shrugged and said nothing. 萨姆耸耸肩膀，什么也没说。
• She shrugged, feigning nonchalance. 她耸耸肩，装出一副无所谓的样子。 来自《简明英汉词典》

26 multinational   

adj.多国的，多种国籍的；n.多国籍公司，跨国公司

参考例句：

• The firm was taken over by a multinational consulting firm.这家公司被一个跨国咨询公司收购。
• He analyzed the relationship between multinational corporations and under-developed countries.他分析了跨国公司和不发达国家之间的关系。

27 supplanted   

把…排挤掉，取代( supplant的过去式和过去分词 )

参考例句：

• In most offices, the typewriter has now been supplanted by the computer. 当今许多办公室里，打字机已被电脑取代。
• The prime minister was supplanted by his rival. 首相被他的政敌赶下台了。

28 cynically   

adv.爱嘲笑地，冷笑地

参考例句：

• "Holding down the receiver,'said Daisy cynically. “挂上话筒在讲。”黛西冷嘲热讽地说。 来自英汉文学 - 盖茨比
• The Democrats sensibly (if cynically) set about closing the God gap. 民主党在明智（有些讽刺）的减少宗教引起的问题。 来自互联网

29 outrage   

n.暴行，侮辱，愤怒；vt.凌辱，激怒

参考例句：

• When he heard the news he reacted with a sense of outrage.他得悉此事时义愤填膺。
• We should never forget the outrage committed by the Japanese invaders.我们永远都不应该忘记日本侵略者犯下的暴行。

30 subjugated   

v.征服，降伏( subjugate的过去式和过去分词 )

参考例句：

• The prince had appeared and subjugated the poor little handmaid. 王子出现了，这使穷苦的小丫头不胜仰慕。 来自辞典例句
• As we know, rule over subjugated peoples is incompatible with the gentile constitution. 我们知道，对被征服者的统治，是和氏族制度不相容的。 来自英汉非文学 - 家庭、私有制和国家的起源

31 sketch   

n.草图；梗概；素描；v.素描；概述

参考例句：

• My sister often goes into the country to sketch. 我姐姐常到乡间去写生。
• I will send you a slight sketch of the house.我将给你寄去房屋的草图。

32 injustice   

n.非正义，不公正，不公平，侵犯（别人的）权利

参考例句：

• They complained of injustice in the way they had been treated.他们抱怨受到不公平的对待。
• All his life he has been struggling against injustice.他一生都在与不公正现象作斗争。

33 imperative   

n.命令，需要；规则；祈使语气；adj.强制的；紧急的

参考例句：

• He always speaks in an imperative tone of voice.他老是用命令的口吻讲话。
• The events of the past few days make it imperative for her to act.过去这几天发生的事迫使她不得不立即行动。