THE ARMENIAN RESTAURANT ON PICO Boulevard had the atmosphere of a Jewish delicatessen, a menu featuring food so delicious that it would inspire a condemned1 man to smile through his last meal, and more plainclothes cops and film-industry types together in one place than you would find anywhere outside of the courtroom devoted2 to the trial of the latest spouse-murdering celebrity3.
When Ethan arrived, Hazard Yancy waited in a booth by a window. Even seated, he loomed4 so large that he would have been well advised to audition5 for the title role in The Incredible Hulk if Hollywood ever made a black version.
Hazard had already been served a double order of the kibby appetizer6 with cucumbers, tomatoes, and pickled turnip8 on the side.
As Ethan sat across the table from the big detective, Hazard said, “Somebody told me they saw in the news your boss got twenty-seven million bucks9 for his last two movies.”
“Twenty-seven million each. He’s the first to break through the twenty-five-million ceiling.”
“Up from poverty,” Hazard said.
“Plus he’s got a piece of the back end.”
[58] “That kind of money, he can get a piece of anybody’s back end he wants.”
“It’s an industry phrase. Means if the picture is a big hit, he gets a share of the profits, sometimes even a percentage of gross.”
“How much might that amount to?”
“According to Daily Variety, he’s had worldwide hits so big he sometimes walks away with fifty million, thereabouts.”
“You read the show-biz press now?” Hazard asked.
“Helps me stay aware of how big a target he’s making himself.”
“You got your work cut out for you, all right. How many movies does the man do a year?”
“Never fewer than two. Sometimes three.”
“I was planning to chow down so much on his dime10, Mr. Charming Manheim himself would notice, and you’d get fired for abusing your credit-card privileges.”
“Even you can’t eat a hundred thousand bucks’ worth of kibby.”
Hazard shook his head. “Chan the Man. Maybe I’m not hip11 anymore, but I don’t see him being fifty million cool.”
“He also owns a TV-production company with three shows currently on major networks, four on cable. He pulls in a few million a year from Japan, doing TV commercials for their top-selling beer. He has a line of sports clothes. Lots more. His agents call the nonacting income ‘additional revenue streams.’ ”
“People just pissing money on him, huh?”
“He’ll never need to shop for bargains.”
When the waitress came to the table, Ethan ordered Moroccan salmon12 with couscous, and iced tea.
Taking Hazard’s order, she wore the point off her pencil: lebne with string cheese and extra cucumbers, hummus, stuffed grape leaves, lahmajoon flatbread, seafood13 tagine. ... “Plus give me two of those little bottles of Orangina.”
“Only person I ever saw eat that much,” Ethan said, “was this bulimic ballerina. She went to the John to puke after every course.”
[59] “I’m just sampling, and I never wear a tutu.” Hazard cut his last kibby in two. “So how big an asshole, is Chan the Man?”
The masking roar of other lunchtime conversations provided Ethan and Hazard with privacy nearly equal to that on a remote Mojave hill.
“It’s impossible to hate him,” Ethan said.
“That’s your best compliment?”
“It’s just that in person he doesn’t have the impact he does on the screen. He doesn’t stir your emotions one way or the other.”
Hazard forked half a kibby into his mouth and made a small sound of pleasure. “So he’s all image, no substance.”
“That’s not quite it. He’s so ... bland15. Generous to employees. Not arrogant16. But there’s this ... this weightlessness about him. He’s sort of careless how he treats people, even his own son, but it’s a benign17 indifference18. He’s not an actively19 bad guy.”
“That money, that much adoration20, you expect a monster.”
“With him, you don’t get it. You get ...”
Ethan paused to think. In the months he’d worked for Manheim, he had not spoken this much or this frankly22 about the man to anyone.
He and Hazard had been shot at together, and each had trusted his life to the other. He could speak his mind and know that nothing he said would be repeated.
With such a confidential23 sounding board, he wanted to describe the Face not only as honestly as possible but as perceptively24. In explaining Manheim to Hazard, he also might be able more fully25 to explain the actor to himself.
After the waitress brought iced tea and the Oranginas, Ethan at last said, “He’s self-absorbed but not in the usual movie-star way, not in any way that makes him appear egotistical. He cares about the money, I guess, but I don’t think he cares what anyone thinks of him or that he’s famous. He’s self-absorbed, all right, totally self-absorbed, but it’s like this ... this Zen state of self-absorption.”
[60] “Zen state?”
“Yeah. Like life is about him and nature, him and the cosmos26, not him and other people. He always seems to be half in a meditative27 state, not entirely28 here with you, like some con-man yogi pretending to be otherworldly, except he’s sincere. If he’s always contemplating29 the universe, then he’s also confident the universe is contemplating him, that their fascination30 is mutual31.”
Having finished the last of his kibby, Hazard said, “Spencer Tracy, Clark Gable, Jimmy Stewart, Bogart—were they all airheads, and nobody knew it, or in those days were movie stars real men with their feet on the ground?”
“Some real people are still in the business. I met Jodie Foster, Sandra Bullock. They seem real.”
“They seem like they could kick ass14, too,” Hazard said.
Two waitresses were required to bring all the food to the table.
Hazard grinned and nodded as each dish was placed before him: “Nice. Nice. That’s nice. Real nice. Oh, very nice.”
The memory of being shot in the gut32 spoiled Ethan’s appetite. As he picked at his Moroccan salmon and couscous, he delayed bringing up the issue of Rolf Reynerd. “So you said you’ve got one foot on some snot-wad’s neck. What’s the case?”
“Twenty-two-year-old blond cutie strangled, dumped in a sewage-treatment slough33. We call it Blonde in the Pond.”
Any cop who works homicides is changed forever by his job. The victims haunt him with the quiet insistence34 of spirochetes spinning poison in the blood.
Humor is your best and often only defense35 against the horror. Early in the investigation36, every killing37 is given a droll38 name, which is thereafter used within the Homicide Division.
Your ranking officer would never ask, Are you making progress on the Ermitrude Pottlesby murder? It would always be, Anything new with Blonde in the Pond?
When Ethan and Hazard worked the brutal39 murders of two [61] lesbians of Middle Eastern descent, the case had been called Lezzes in Fezzes. Another young woman, tied to a kitchen table, had choked to death on steel-wool pads and Pine-Sol-soaked sponges that her killer40 had forced into her mouth and down her throat; her case was Scrub Lady.
Outsiders would probably be offended to hear the unofficial case names. Civilians41 didn’t realize that detectives often dreamed about the dead for whom they sought justice, or that a detective could occasionally become so attached to a victim that the loss felt personal. No disrespect was ever intended by these case names—and sometimes they expressed a strange, melancholy42 affection.
“Strangled,” Ethan said, referring to Blonde in the Pond. “Which suggests passion, a good chance it was someone romantically involved with her.”
“Ah. So you haven’t gone entirely soft in your expensive leather jackets and your Gucci loafers.”
“I’m wearing Rockports, not loafers. Dumping her in a sewage slough probably means he caught her screwing around, so he considers her filthy43, a worthless piece of crap.”
“Plus maybe he had knowledge of the treatment plant, knew an easy way to get the body in there. Is that a cashmere sweater?”
“Cotton. So your perp works at the plant?”
Hazard shook his head. “He’s a member of the city council.”
At once losing his appetite altogether, Ethan put down his fork. “A politician? Why don’t you just find a cliff and jump?”
Shoving a stuffed grape leaf in his maw, Hazard managed to grin while he chewed, without once opening his mouth. After swallowing, he said, “I’ve already got a cliff, and I’m pushing him off.”
“Anybody winds up broken on the rocks, it’ll be you.”
“You’ve just taken the cliff metaphor44 one step too far,” said Hazard, spooning hummus into a pita wedge.
After a half-century of squeaky-clean public officials and honest administration, California itself had lately become a deep sewage [62] slough not seen since the 1930s and ’40s when Raymond Chandler had written about its dark side. Here in the early years of the new millennium45, on a state level and in too many local jurisdictions46, corruption47 had attained48 a degree of rot seldom seen outside a banana republic, though in this case a banana republic without bananas and with pretensions49 to glamour50.
A significant percentage of the politicians here operated like thugs. If the thugs saw you going after one of their own, they would assume you’d come after them next, and they would use their power to ruin you one way or another.
In another gangster-ridden era, in a crusade against corruption, Eliot Ness had led a force of law-enforcement agents so beyond reach by bribery51 and so undeterred by bullets that they became known as the Untouchables. In contemporary California, even Ness and his exemplary crew would be destroyed not by bribes52 or bullets, but by bureaucracy wielded53 as ruthlessly as an ax and by slander54 eagerly converted to libel by a feeding-frenzy media with a sentimental55 affection for the thugs, both the elected and unelected varieties, upon whom they daily reported.
“If you were still doing real work like me,” Hazard said, “you’d handle this no different than I’m handling it.”
“Yeah. But I sure wouldn’t sit there grinning about it.”
Indicating Ethan’s sweater, Hazard said, “Cotton—like Rodeo Drive cotton?”
“Cotton like Macy’s on-sale cotton.”
“How much you pay for a pair of socks these days?”
Ethan said, “Ten thousand dollars.”
He’d been hesitant to bring up the Rolf Reynerd situation. Now he figured he could do nothing better for Hazard than distract him from this suicidal mission to nail a city councilman for murder.
“Take a look at these.” He opened a nine-by-twelve manila envelope, withdrew the contents, and passed them across the table.
[63] As Hazard reviewed what he’d been given, Ethan told him about the five black boxes delivered by Federal Express and the sixth thrown over the gate.
“They came by Federal Express, so you know who sent them.”
“No. The return addresses were fake. They were dropped off at different mom-and-pop mailbox shops that collect for FedEx and UPS. The sender paid cash.”
“How much mail does Channing get a week?”
“Maybe five thousand pieces. But almost all of it is sent to the studio where it’s known he has offices. A publicity56 firm reviews it and responds. His home address isn’t a secret, but it’s not widely known, either.”
In the envelope were high-resolution computer printouts of six digital photographs taken in Ethan’s study, the first of which showed a small jar standing57 on a white cloth. Beside the jar lay the lid. Spread across the cloth were what had been the contents of the jar: twenty-two beetles58 with black-spotted orange shells.
“Ladybugs?” Hazard asked.
“The entomological name is Hippodamia convergens, of the family Coccinellidae. Not that I think it matters, but I looked it up.”
Hazard’s shrewd expression spoke21 clearly enough without words, but he said, “You’re stumped61 worse than a quadruple amputee.”
“This guy thinks I’m Batman, he’s the Riddler62.”
“Why twenty-two bugs59? Is the number significant?”
“I don’t know.”
“They alive when you received them?” Hazard asked.
“All dead. Whether they were alive when he sent them, I don’t know, but they looked like they’d been dead for a while. The shells were intact, but the more delicate bug60 parts were withered63, crumbly.”
In the second photo, a collection of different, spirally coiled, light brown shells were canted at angles in a gray pile of sludge that had been emptied from a black box onto a sheet of waxed paper.
[64] “Ten dead snails,” Ethan said. “Well, actually, two were alive but feeble when I opened the box.”
“That’s a fragrance64 Chanel won’t be bottling.”
Hazard paused to fork up some seafood tagine.
The third photo was of a small, clear-glass, screw-top jar. The label had been removed, but the lid indicated that the container had once held pickle7 relish65.
Because the photograph wasn’t clear enough to reveal the murky66 contents of the jar, Ethan said, “Floating in formaldehyde were these ten pieces of translucent67 tissue with a pale pinkish tint68. Tubelike structures. Hard to describe. Like tiny exotic jellyfish.”
“You took ’em to a lab?”
“Yeah. When they gave me the analysis, they also gave me a weird69 look. What I had in the jar were foreskins.”
Hazard’s jaws70 locked in midchew, as if the seafood tagine had hardened like a dental mold.
“Ten foreskins from grown men, not infants,” Ethan amplified71.
After chewing mechanically, not with his former relish, and after swallowing with a grimace72, Hazard said, “Ouch. How many grown men get themselves circumcised?”
“They’re not standing in line for it,” Ethan agreed.
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condemned
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| adj. 被责难的, 被宣告有罪的 动词condemn的过去式和过去分词 | |
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devoted
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| adj.忠诚的，忠实的，热心的，献身于...的 | |
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celebrity
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| n.名人，名流；著名，名声，名望 | |
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loomed
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| v.隐约出现，阴森地逼近( loom的过去式和过去分词 )；隐约出现，阴森地逼近 | |
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audition
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| n.(对志愿艺人等的)面试(指试读、试唱等) | |
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appetizer
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| n.小吃，开胃品 | |
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pickle
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| n.腌汁，泡菜；v.腌，泡 | |
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turnip
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| n.萝卜，芜菁 | |
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bucks
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| n.雄鹿( buck的名词复数 )；钱；（英国十九世纪初的）花花公子；（用于某些表达方式）责任v.（马等）猛然弓背跃起( buck的第三人称单数 )；抵制；猛然震荡；马等尥起后蹄跳跃 | |
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dime
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| n.（指美国、加拿大的钱币）一角 | |
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hip
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| n.臀部，髋；屋脊 | |
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salmon
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| n.鲑，大马哈鱼，橙红色的 | |
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seafood
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| n.海产食品，海味，海鲜 | |
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ass
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| n.驴；傻瓜，蠢笨的人 | |
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bland
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| adj.淡而无味的，温和的，无刺激性的 | |
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arrogant
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| adj.傲慢的，自大的 | |
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benign
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| adj.善良的，慈祥的；良性的，无危险的 | |
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indifference
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| n.不感兴趣，不关心，冷淡，不在乎 | |
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actively
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| adv.积极地，勤奋地 | |
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adoration
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| n.爱慕，崇拜 | |
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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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frankly
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| adv.坦白地，直率地；坦率地说 | |
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confidential
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| adj.秘（机）密的，表示信任的，担任机密工作的 | |
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perceptively
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| adv.洞察力强地，敏锐地 | |
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fully
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| adv.完全地，全部地，彻底地；充分地 | |
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cosmos
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| n.宇宙；秩序，和谐 | |
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meditative
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| adj.沉思的，冥想的 | |
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entirely
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| ad.全部地，完整地；完全地，彻底地 | |
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contemplating
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| 深思，细想，仔细考虑( contemplate的现在分词 )； 注视，凝视； 考虑接受（发生某事的可能性）； 深思熟虑，沉思，苦思冥想 | |
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fascination
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| n.令人着迷的事物，魅力，迷恋 | |
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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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gut
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| n.[pl.]胆量；内脏；adj.本能的；vt.取出内脏 | |
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slough
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| v.蜕皮，脱落，抛弃 | |
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insistence
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| n.坚持；强调；坚决主张 | |
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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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investigation
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| n.调查，调查研究 | |
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killing
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| n.巨额利润；突然赚大钱，发大财 | |
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droll
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| adj.古怪的，好笑的 | |
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brutal
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| adj.残忍的，野蛮的，不讲理的 | |
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killer
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| n.杀人者，杀人犯，杀手，屠杀者 | |
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civilians
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| 平民，百姓( civilian的名词复数 )； 老百姓 | |
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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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filthy
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| adj.卑劣的；恶劣的，肮脏的 | |
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metaphor
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| n.隐喻，暗喻 | |
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millennium
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| n.一千年，千禧年；太平盛世 | |
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jurisdictions
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| 司法权( jurisdiction的名词复数 )； 裁判权； 管辖区域； 管辖范围 | |
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corruption
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| n.腐败，堕落，贪污 | |
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attained
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| （通常经过努力）实现( attain的过去式和过去分词 )； 达到； 获得； 达到（某年龄、水平、状况） | |
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pretensions
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| 自称( pretension的名词复数 )； 自命不凡； 要求； 权力 | |
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glamour
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| n.魔力，魅力；vt.迷住 | |
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bribery
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| n.贿络行为，行贿，受贿 | |
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bribes
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| n.贿赂( bribe的名词复数 )；向（某人）行贿，贿赂v.贿赂( bribe的第三人称单数 )；向（某人）行贿，贿赂 | |
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53
wielded
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| 手持着使用（武器、工具等）( wield的过去式和过去分词 )； 具有； 运用（权力）； 施加（影响） | |
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slander
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| n./v.诽谤，污蔑 | |
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sentimental
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| adj.多愁善感的，感伤的 | |
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publicity
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| n.众所周知，闻名；宣传，广告 | |
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standing
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| n.持续，地位；adj.永久的，不动的，直立的，不流动的 | |
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beetles
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| n.甲虫( beetle的名词复数 ) | |
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bugs
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| adj.疯狂的，发疯的n.窃听器( bug的名词复数 )；病菌；虫子；[计算机]（制作软件程序所产生的意料不到的）错误 | |
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bug
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| n.虫子；故障；窃听器；vt.纠缠；装窃听器 | |
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61
stumped
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| 僵直地行走，跺步行走( stump的过去式和过去分词 )； 把（某人）难住； 使为难； （选举前）在某一地区作政治性巡回演说 | |
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62
riddler
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| n.出迷(语)的人 | |
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63
withered
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| adj. 枯萎的，干瘪的，（人身体的部分器官）因病萎缩的或未发育良好的 动词wither的过去式和过去分词形式 | |
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64
fragrance
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| n.芬芳，香味，香气 | |
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relish
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| n.滋味，享受，爱好，调味品；vt.加调味料，享受，品味；vi.有滋味 | |
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66
murky
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| adj.黑暗的，朦胧的；adv.阴暗地，混浊地；n.阴暗；昏暗 | |
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translucent
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| adj.半透明的；透明的 | |
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68
tint
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| n.淡色，浅色；染发剂；vt.着以淡淡的颜色 | |
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weird
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| adj.古怪的，离奇的；怪诞的，神秘而可怕的 | |
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jaws
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| n.口部；嘴 | |
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amplified
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| 放大，扩大( amplify的过去式和过去分词 )； 增强； 详述 | |
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grimace
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| v.做鬼脸，面部歪扭 | |
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