OUR LADY OF ANGELS HOSPITAL WAS A TALL white structure with ziggurat-style step-backs in its higher floors, crowned with a series of diminishing plinths that supported a final column. Aglow1 in the storm, a dome2 light capped the high column and was itself surmounted3 by a radio mast with a winking4 red aircraft-warning beacon5.
The hospital seemed to signal mercy to sick souls across the Angelean hills and into the densely6 populated flatlands. Its tapered7 shape suggested a rocket ship that might carry to Heaven those whose lives could not be saved either by medicine or by prayer.
Ethan first stopped in the men’s lavatory8 off the ground-floor lobby, where he washed his hands vigorously at one of the sinks. The lab technician had not scraped every trace of blood from under his fingernails.
The liquid soap in the dispenser proved to have a strong orange fragrance9. The lavatory smelled like a citrus orchard10 by the time that he finished.
Much hot water and much rubbing left his skin a boiled red. He could see no slightest stain remaining. Nevertheless Ethan felt that his hands were still unclean.
[45] He was troubled by the disturbing notion that as long as even a few molecules11 of that stigmatic residue12 of his foretold13 death clung to his hands, the Reaper14 would track him down by smell and cancel the reprieve15 that had been granted to him.
Studying his reflection in the mirror, he half expected to see through his body, as through a sheer curtain, but he was solid.
Sensing in himself the potential for obsession16, concerned that he might wash his hands without surcease, until they were scrubbed raw, he quickly dried them on paper towels and left the men’s room.
He shared an elevator with a solemn young couple holding hands for mutual17 strength. “She’ll be all right,” the man murmured, and the woman nodded, eyes bright with repressed tears.
When Ethan got off at the seventh floor, the young couple rode farther up to higher misery18.
Duncan “Dunny” Whistler had been abed here on the seventh floor for three months. Between confinements19 to the intensive care unit—also on this floor—he was assigned to different rooms. During the five weeks since his most recent crisis, he’d been in Room 742.
A nun20 with a kind Irish face made eye contact with Ethan, smiled, and passed by with nary a swish of her voluminous habit.
The order of sisters that operated Our Lady of Angels rejected the modern garb22 of many nuns23, which resembled the uniforms of airline flight attendants. They favored instead the traditional floor-length habits with commodious24 sleeves, guimpes, and winged wimples.
Their habits were radiant white, rather than white and black. When Ethan saw them gliding25 ethereally along these halls, seeming less to walk than to drift like spirits, he could almost believe that the hospital did not occupy only Los Angeles real estate, but bridged this world and the next.
Dunny had existed in a limbo26 of sorts, between worlds, ever since four angry men shoved his head in a toilet bowl once too often and held him under too long. The paramedics had pumped the water out of his lungs, but the doctors hadn’t been able to stir him from his coma27.
[46] When Ethan arrived at Room 742, he found it in deep shadow. An old man rested in the bed nearest the door: unconscious, hooked to a ventilator that pumped air into him with a rhythmic28 wheeze29.
The bed nearest the window, where Dunny had spent the past five weeks, stood unoccupied. The sheets were crisp, fresh, luminous21 in the gloom.
Drowned daylight projected vague gray images of ameboid rain tracks from the window glass onto the bed. The sheets appeared to be acrawl with transparent30 spiders.
When he saw that the patient’s chart was missing, Ethan figured that Dunny had been moved to another room or transferred to the ICU yet again.
At the seventh-floor nurses’ station, when he inquired as to where he might find Duncan Whistler, a young nurse asked him to wait for the shift supervisor31, whom she paged.
Ethan knew the supervisor, Nurse Jordan, from previous visits. A black woman with a drill sergeant’s purposeful carriage and the soft smoky voice of a chanteuse, she arrived at the nurses’ station with the news that Dunny had passed away that morning.
“I’m so sorry, Mr. Truman, but I called both numbers you gave us and left voice-mail messages.”
“When would this have been?” he asked.
“He passed away at ten-twenty this morning. I phoned you about fifteen or twenty minutes later.”
At approximately ten-forty, Ethan had been at Rolf Reynerd’s apartment door, trembling with the memory of his foreseen death, pretending to be looking for the nonexistent Jim Briscoe. He’d left his cell phone in the Expedition.
“I know you weren’t that close to Mr. Whistler,” said Nurse Jordan, “but it’s still something of a shock, I’m sure. Sorry you had to learn this way—the empty bed.”
“Was the body taken down to the hospital garden room?” Ethan asked.
[47] Nurse Jordan regarded him with new respect. “I didn’t realize you were a police officer, Mr. Truman.”
Garden room was cop lingo32 for morgue. All those corpses34 waiting to be planted.
“Robbery/Homicide,” he replied, not bothering to explain that he had left the force, or why.
“My husband’s worn out enough uniforms to retire in March. I’m workin’ overtime35 so I don’t go crazy.”
Ethan understood. Cops often went through long law-enforcement careers without worrying much about the dust-to-dust-ashes-to-ashes business, only to tighten36 with tension so much in the last months before retirement37 that they needed to eat Metamucil by the pound to stop retaining. The worry could be even worse for spouses38.
“The doctor signed a certification of death,” Nurse Jordan said, “and Mr. Whistler went down to cold holding pending39 mortuary pickup40. Oh ... actually, it won’t be a mortuary, will it?”
“It’s a murder now,” Ethan said. “The medical examiner’s office will want him for an autopsy41.”
“Then they’ll have been called. We’ve got a foolproof system.” Checking her watch, she said, “But they probably haven’t had time to take custody42 of the body yet, if that’s what you’re wondering.”
Ethan rode the elevator all the way down to the dead. The garden room was in the third and lowest level of the basement, adjacent to the ambulance garage.
Descending43, he was serenaded by an orchestrated version of an old Sheryl Crow tune44 with all the sex squeezed out of it and with a perkiness squeezed in, retaining only the skin of the melody to wrap a different and less tasty variety of sausage. In this fallen world, even the most insignificant45 things, like pop tunes46, were inevitably47 corrupted48.
He and Dunny, both thirty-seven now, had been each other’s best friends from the age of five until they were twenty. Raised in the [48] same worn-down neighborhood of crumbling49 stucco bungalows50, each had been an only child, and they’d been as close as brothers.
Shared deprivation51 had bonded52 them, as had the emotional and the physical pain of living under the thumb of alcoholic53 fathers with fiery54 tempers. And a fierce desire to prove that even the sons of drunks, of poverty, could be someone, someday.
Seventeen years of estrangement55, during which they had rarely spoken, dulled Ethan’s sense of loss. Yet even with everything else that weighed on his mind right now, he was drawn56 into a melancholy57 consideration of what might have been.
Dunny Whistler cut the bond between them with his choice of a life outside the law even as Ethan had been training to enforce it. Poverty and the chaos58 of living under the rule of a selfish drunk had given birth in Ethan to a respect for self-discipline, for order, and for the rewards of a life lived in service to others. The same experiences had made Dunny yearn59 for buckets of money and for power sufficient to ensure that no one would ever again dare to tell him what to do or ever again make him live by rules other than his own.
In retrospect60, their responses to the same stresses had been diverging61 since their early teens. Maybe friendship had too long blinded Ethan to the growing differences between them. One had chosen to seek respect through accomplishment62. The other wanted that respect which comes with being feared.
Furthermore, they had been in love with the same woman, which might have split up even blood brothers. Hannah had come into their lives when they were all seven years old. First she had been one of the guys, the only kid they admitted to their previously63 two-boy games. The three had been inseparable. Then Hannah gradually became both friend and surrogate sister, and the boys swore to protect her. Ethan could never mark the day when she ceased to be just a friend, just a sister, and became for both him and Dunny ... beloved.
Dunny desperately64 wanted Hannah, but lost her. Ethan didn’t merely want Hannah; he cherished her, won her heart, married her.
[49] For twelve years, he and Dunny had not spoken, not until the night that Hannah died in this same hospital.
Leaving the ruination of Sheryl Crow in the elevator, Ethan followed a wide and brightly lighted corridor with white painted-concrete walls. In place of ersatz music, the only sound was the faint but authentic65 buzz of the fluorescent66 tubes overhead.
Double doors with square portholes opened onto the reception area of the garden room.
At a battered68 desk sat a fortyish, acne-scarred man in hospital greens. A desk plaque69 identified him as VIN TOLEDANO. He looked up from a paperback70 novel that featured a grotesque71 corpse33 on the cover.
Ethan asked how he was doing, and the attendant said he was alive so he must be doing all right, and Ethan said, “Little over an hour ago, you received a Duncan Whistler from the seventh floor.”
“Got him on ice,” Toledano confirmed. “Can’t release him to a mortuary. Coroner gets him first ’cause it’s a homicide.”
Only one chair was provided for visitors. Transactions involving perishable72 cadavers74 were generally conducted expeditiously75, with no need of waiting-room comfort and dog-eared old magazines.
“I’m not with a mortuary,” said Ethan. “I was a friend of the deceased. I wasn’t here when he died.”
“Sorry, but I can’t let you see the body right now.”
Sitting in the visitors’ chair, Ethan said, “Yeah, I know.”
To prevent defense76 attorneys from challenging autopsy results in court, an official chain of custody for the cadaver73 had to be maintained, ensuring that no outsider could tamper77 with it.
“There’s no family left to ID him, and I’m the executor of the estate,” Ethan explained. “So if they’re going to want me to confirm identity, I’d rather do it here than later at the city morgue.”
Putting aside his paperback, Toledano said, “This guy I grew up with, last year he gets himself thrown out of a car at like ninety miles an hour. It’s hard losing a good friend young.”
Ethan couldn’t pretend to grieve, but he was grateful for any [50] conversation that took his mind off Rolf Reynerd. “We hadn’t been close in a long time. Didn’t talk for twelve years, then only three times in the past five.”
“But he made you executor?”
“Go figure. I didn’t know about that till Dunny was here two days in the ICU. Got a call from his lawyer, tells me not only I’m the executor if Dunny dies, but meanwhile I have power of attorney to handle his affairs and make medical decisions on his behalf.”
“Must’ve still been something special there between you.”
Ethan shook his head. “Nothing.”
“Must’ve been something,” Vin Toledano insisted. “Childhood friendships, they’re deeper than you know. You don’t see each other forever, then you meet, and it’s like no time passed.”
“Wasn’t that way with us.” But Ethan knew that the something special between him and Dunny had been Hannah and their love for her. To change the subject, he said, “So how does your friend come to be pushed out of a car doing ninety?”
“He was a great guy, but he always thought more with his little head than his big one.”
“That’s not an exclusive club.”
“He’s in a bar, sees three hotties, no guys with them, so he moves in. All three come on to him, say let’s go back to our place, and he figures he’s so Brad Pitt they want to three-on-one him.”
“But it’s a robbery setup,” Ethan guessed.
“Worse. He leaves his car, rides in theirs. Two girls get him hot in the backseat, half undress him—then push him out for fun.”
“So the hotties were hopped78 on something.”
“Maybe so, maybe not,” said Toledano. “Turns out they’d done it twice before. This time they got caught.”
Ethan said, “I came across this old movie on TV the other night. Frankie Avalon, Annette Funicello. One of those beach-party flicks79. Women sure were different back then.”
[51] “So was everybody. Nobody’s got better or nicer since the mid-sixties. Wish I’d been born thirty years sooner. So how’d yours die?”
“Four guys thought he’d cheated them out of some money, so they thumped80 him a little, taped his wrists behind his back, and submerged his head in a toilet long enough to cause brain damage.”
“Man, that’s ugly.”
“It’s not Agatha Christie,” Ethan agreed.
“But you’re dealing81 with all this, it proves there must’ve been something left between you and your buddy82. Nobody has to be executor of an estate, they don’t want to be.”
Two meat haulers from the medical examiner’s office pushed open the double doors and entered the garden-room reception area.
The first guy was tall, in his fifties, and obviously proud about having kept all his hair. He wore it in a pompadour elaborate enough that it should have been finished with bows.
Ethan knew Pomp’s partner. Jose Ramirez was a stocky Mexican-American with myopic83 eyes and with the sweet dreamy smile of a koala bear.
Jose lived for his wife and four children. While Pomp dealt with the paperwork supplied by the attendant, Ethan asked Jose to see the latest wallet photographs of Maria and the kids.
Once formalities were completed, Toledano led them through an inner door, into the garden room. Instead of a vinyl-tile floor as in the reception area, this chamber84 featured white ceramic85 tile with only sixteenth-inch grout joints86: an easy surface to sterilize87 in the event that it became contaminated with bodily fluids.
Although continually cycled through sophisticated filters, the cold air carried a faint but unpleasant scent67. Most people didn’t die smelling of shampoo, soap, and cologne.
Four standard stainless-steel morgue drawers might have held bodies, but two cadavers on gurneys made an immediate88 impression. Both were draped with sheets.
[52] A third gurney stood empty, trailing a tangled89 shroud90, and to this one Toledano proceeded with a stupefied expression. “This was him. Right here.”
Frowning with confusion, Toledano peeled the sheets back from the heads of the other two cadavers. Neither was Dunny Whistler.
One at a time, he pulled open the four stainless-steel drawers. They were empty.
Because the hospital sent the vast majority of its patients home rather than to funeral services, this garden room was small by the standards of the city morgue. All possible hiding places had already been explored.
收听单词发音 |
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aglow
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| adj.发亮的；发红的；adv.发亮地 | |
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dome
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| n.圆屋顶，拱顶 | |
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surmounted
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| 战胜( surmount的过去式和过去分词 )； 克服（困难）； 居于…之上； 在…顶上 | |
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winking
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| n.瞬眼，目语v.使眼色( wink的现在分词 )；递眼色（表示友好或高兴等）；（指光）闪烁；闪亮 | |
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beacon
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| n.烽火，（警告用的）闪火灯，灯塔 | |
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densely
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| ad.密集地；浓厚地 | |
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tapered
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| adj. 锥形的，尖削的，楔形的，渐缩的，斜的 动词taper的过去式和过去分词 | |
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lavatory
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| n.盥洗室，厕所 | |
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fragrance
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| n.芬芳，香味，香气 | |
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orchard
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| n.果园，果园里的全部果树，(美俚)棒球场 | |
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molecules
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| 分子( molecule的名词复数 ) | |
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residue
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| n.残余，剩余，残渣 | |
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foretold
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| v.预言，预示( foretell的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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reaper
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| n.收割者，收割机 | |
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reprieve
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| n.暂缓执行（死刑）；v.缓期执行；给…带来缓解 | |
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obsession
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| n.困扰，无法摆脱的思想(或情感) | |
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mutual
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| adj.相互的，彼此的；共同的，共有的 | |
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misery
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| n.痛苦，苦恼，苦难；悲惨的境遇，贫苦 | |
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confinements
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| 限制，被监禁( confinement的名词复数 )； 分娩 | |
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nun
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| n.修女，尼姑 | |
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luminous
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| adj.发光的，发亮的；光明的；明白易懂的；有启发的 | |
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garb
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| n.服装，装束 | |
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nuns
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| n.（通常指基督教的）修女， （佛教的）尼姑( nun的名词复数 ) | |
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commodious
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| adj.宽敞的；使用方便的 | |
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gliding
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| v. 滑翔 adj. 滑动的 | |
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limbo
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| n.地狱的边缘；监狱 | |
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coma
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| n.昏迷，昏迷状态 | |
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rhythmic
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| adj.有节奏的，有韵律的 | |
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wheeze
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| n.喘息声，气喘声；v.喘息着说 | |
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transparent
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| adj.明显的，无疑的；透明的 | |
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supervisor
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| n.监督人，管理人，检查员，督学，主管，导师 | |
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lingo
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| n.语言不知所云，外国话，隐语 | |
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corpse
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| n.尸体，死尸 | |
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corpses
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| n.死尸，尸体( corpse的名词复数 ) | |
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overtime
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| adj.超时的，加班的；adv.加班地 | |
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tighten
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| v.(使)变紧；(使)绷紧 | |
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retirement
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| n.退休，退职 | |
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spouses
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| n.配偶，夫或妻( spouse的名词复数 ) | |
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pending
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| prep.直到，等待…期间；adj.待定的；迫近的 | |
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pickup
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| n.拾起，获得 | |
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autopsy
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| n.尸体解剖；尸检 | |
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custody
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| n.监护，照看，羁押，拘留 | |
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descending
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| n. 下行 adj. 下降的 | |
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tune
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| n.调子；和谐，协调；v.调音，调节，调整 | |
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insignificant
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| adj.无关紧要的，可忽略的，无意义的 | |
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tunes
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| n.曲调，曲子( tune的名词复数 )v.调音( tune的第三人称单数 )；调整；（给收音机、电视等）调谐；使协调 | |
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inevitably
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| adv.不可避免地；必然发生地 | |
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48
corrupted
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| （使）败坏( corrupt的过去式和过去分词 )； （使）腐化； 引起（计算机文件等的）错误； 破坏 | |
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crumbling
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| adj.摇摇欲坠的 | |
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bungalows
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| n.平房( bungalow的名词复数 )；单层小屋，多于一层的小屋 | |
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deprivation
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| n.匮乏；丧失；夺去，贫困 | |
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bonded
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| n.有担保的，保税的，粘合的 | |
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53
alcoholic
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| adj.（含）酒精的，由酒精引起的；n.酗酒者 | |
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54
fiery
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| adj.燃烧着的，火红的；暴躁的；激烈的 | |
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estrangement
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| n.疏远，失和，不和 | |
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drawn
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| v.拖，拉，拔出；adj.憔悴的，紧张的 | |
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57
melancholy
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| n.忧郁，愁思；adj.令人感伤（沮丧）的，忧郁的 | |
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58
chaos
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| n.混乱，无秩序 | |
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59
yearn
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| v.想念；怀念；渴望 | |
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60
retrospect
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| n.回顾，追溯；v.回顾，回想，追溯 | |
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61
diverging
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| 分开( diverge的现在分词 )； 偏离； 分歧； 分道扬镳 | |
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62
accomplishment
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| n.完成，成就，（pl.）造诣，技能 | |
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63
previously
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| adv.以前，先前（地） | |
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desperately
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| adv.极度渴望地，绝望地，孤注一掷地 | |
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authentic
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| a.真的，真正的；可靠的，可信的，有根据的 | |
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66
fluorescent
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| adj.荧光的，发出荧光的 | |
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67
scent
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| n.气味，香味，香水，线索，嗅觉；v.嗅，发觉 | |
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68
battered
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| adj.磨损的；v.连续猛击；磨损 | |
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69
plaque
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| n.饰板，匾，(医)血小板 | |
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70
paperback
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| n.平装本，简装本 | |
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71
grotesque
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| adj.怪诞的，丑陋的；n.怪诞的图案，怪人（物） | |
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72
perishable
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| adj.（尤指食物）易腐的，易坏的 | |
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73
cadaver
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| n.尸体 | |
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cadavers
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| n.尸体( cadaver的名词复数 ) | |
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75
expeditiously
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| adv.迅速地，敏捷地 | |
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defense
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| n.防御，保卫；[pl.]防务工事；辩护，答辩 | |
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tamper
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| v.干预，玩弄，贿赂，窜改，削弱，损害 | |
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hopped
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| 跳上[下]( hop的过去式和过去分词 )； 单足蹦跳； 齐足（或双足）跳行； 摘葎草花 | |
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79
flicks
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| （尤指用手指或手快速地）轻击( flick的第三人称单数 )； （用…）轻挥； （快速地）按开关； 向…笑了一下（或瞥了一眼等） | |
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80
thumped
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| v.重击， （指心脏）急速跳动( thump的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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81
dealing
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| n.经商方法，待人态度 | |
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buddy
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| n.（美口）密友，伙伴 | |
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83
myopic
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| adj.目光短浅的，缺乏远见的 | |
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84
chamber
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| n.房间，寝室；会议厅；议院；会所 | |
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ceramic
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| n.制陶业，陶器，陶瓷工艺 | |
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86
joints
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| 接头( joint的名词复数 )； 关节； 公共场所（尤指价格低廉的饮食和娱乐场所） （非正式）； 一块烤肉 （英式英语） | |
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87
sterilize
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| vt.使不结果实；使绝育；使无效；杀菌，消毒 | |
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immediate
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| adj.立即的；直接的，最接近的；紧靠的 | |
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89
tangled
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| adj. 纠缠的，紊乱的 动词tangle的过去式和过去分词 | |
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90
shroud
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| n.裹尸布，寿衣；罩，幕；vt.覆盖，隐藏 | |
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