CORKY PARKED ON THE WRONG STREET AND walked two blocks through the cold rain to the home of the three-eyed freak.
Windier than Monday’s storm, this one snapped weak fronds1 off queen palms, tumbled an empty plastic trash can down the center of the street, tore a window awning2 and loudly flapped the loose length of forest-green canvas.
Melaleucas lashed3 their willowy branches as though trying to whip themselves to pieces. Stone pines were stripped of dead brown needles that bristled4 through the churning air and gave it the power to prick5, to blind.
As Corky walked, a dead rat bobbed past him on the racing6 water in the gutter8. The lolling head rolled toward him, revealing one dark empty socket9 and one milky10 eye.
The grand and lovely spectacle made him wish that he had time to join in the celebration of disorder11, to spread some prankish13 chaos14 of his own. He longed to poison a few trees, stuff mailboxes with hate literature, spread nails under the tires of parked cars, set a house afire. ...
This was a busy day of a different kind, however, and he had [352] numerous scheduled tasks to which he must attend. Monday he had been a devilish rascal15, an amusing imp16 of nihilism, but this day he must be a serious soldier of anarchy17.
The neighborhood was an eclectic mix of two-story Craftsman18 houses with raised front porches and classic single-story California bungalows21 that borrowed from many styles of architecture. They were maintained with evident pride, enhanced with brick walkways, picket22 fences, beds of flowers.
By contrast, the bungalow20 of the three-eyed freak sat behind a half-dead front lawn, skirted by masses of unkempt shrubbery, at the end of a cracked and hoved concrete walkway. Under the Mexican-tile roof, the filthy23 tangles24 of long-empty birds’ nests dripped from the eaves, and the stucco walls were cracked, chipped, in need of paint.
The structure looked like the residence of a troll who had grown weary of living under bridges, without amenities25, but who had neither the knowledge nor the industry, nor the sense of pride, needed to maintain a house.
Corky rang the doorbell, which produced not sweet chimes but the sputtering26 racket of a broken, corroded27 mechanism28.
He loved this place.
Because Corky had called ahead and promised money, the three-eyed freak was waiting by the door. He answered the tubercular cough of the bell even before the sound finished grating on Corky’s ear.
Yanking the door open, looming29, one great grizzled grimace30 with a pendulous31 gut7 and size-thirteen bare feet, wearing gray sweat pants and a Megadeth concert T-shirt, Ned Hokenberry said, “You look like a damn mustard pot.”
“It’s raining,” Corky observed.
“You look like a pimple32 on Godzilla’s ass19.”
“If you’re worried about getting the carpet wet—”
“Hell, scuzzy as this carpet is, a bunch of pukin’-drunk hobos with bad bladders couldn’t do it any harm.”
[353] Hokenberry turned away, lumbering33 into the living room. Corky stepped inside and closed the door behind himself.
The carpet looked as if previously34 it had been wall-to-wall in a barn.
Should the day arrive when mahogany-finish Formica furniture with green-and-blue-striped polyester upholstery became prized by collectors and museums, Hokenberry would be a wealthy man. The two best items in the living room were a recliner littered with crushed corn chips and a big-screen TV.
The small windows were half covered by drapes. No lamps were aglow35; only the TV screen cast light.
Corky was comfortable with the gloom. In spite of his affinity36 for chaos, he hoped never to see the interior of this house in bright light.
“The last batch37 of information you gave me checks out, as far as I’m able to check it,” Corky said, “and it’s really been helpful.”
“Told you I know the estate better than that candy-ass actor knows his own dick.”
Until he’d been dismissed, with generous severance38 pay, for leaving prank12 messages on the answering machine that his employer had dedicated39 to phone calls from the dead, Ned Hokenberry had been a security guard at Palazzo Rospo.
“You say they got a new security chief. I can’t guarantee he didn’t change some procedures.”
“I understand.”
“You have my twenty thousand?”
“I have it right here.” Corky withdrew his right arm from the voluminous sleeve of the slicker, and reached to an interior pocket for the packet of cash, his second payment to Hokenberry.
Even framed by the snugly40 buttoned yellow collar of his slicker and the drooping41 yellow brim of his rain hat, Corky’s face must have revealed more of his contempt than he intended.
Hokenberry’s bloodshot eyes blurred42 with self-pity, and his doughy43 face kneaded itself into more and deeper folds as he said, “I wasn’t always a sorry damn wreck44, you know. Didn’t used to have [354] this gut. Shaved every day, cleaned up real nice. Front lawn used to be green. Bein’ fired by that son of a bitch is what ruined me.”
“I thought you said Manheim gave you lots of severance pay?”
“That was soul-buyin’ money, I now understand. Anyway, Manheim wasn’t man enough to fire me himself. He had his creepy guru do it.”
“Ming du Lac.”
“That’s the one. Ming, he takes me to the rose garden, pours tea, which I’m polite enough to drink even if it tastes like piss.”
“You’re a gentleman.”
“We’re sittin’ at this table surrounded by roses, got this white lace cloth and fancy china—”
“Sounds lovely.”
“—while he talks at me about gettin’ my spiritual house in order. I’m not just bored shitless, but thinkin’ he’s even a bigger fruitcake than I ever figured, when after fifteen minutes I realize I’m bein’ fired. If he’d made that clear at the start, I wouldn’t have had to drink his piss-poor tea.”
“That does sound traumatizing,” Corky said, pretending sympathy.
“It wasn’t traumatizin’, you ass pimple. What do you think I am, some pansy gets his dainties all puckered45 just ’cause someone looks at him wrong? I wasn’t traumatized, I was hexed.”
“Hexed?”
“Hexed, cursed, hoodooed, diabolized, spellcast by the evil eye—whatever you want to call it. Ming du Lac, he’s got hell power in him, the creepy runt, and he ruined me forever in that rose garden. I’ve been slidin’ downhill ever since.”
“He sounds like the usual Hollywood fraud to me.”
“I’m tellin’ you, that little weasel’s the real juju, and I been spell-struck.”
Corky held out the package of cash, but then pulled it back as the hexed wreckage46 of a man reached for it. “One more thing.”
“Don’t screw with me,” Hokenberry said, hulking over Corky and [355] glowering47 as if he’d come down a beanstalk, angry and looking for whoever had stolen his hen’s eggs.
“You’ll get your money,” Corky assured him. “I’d just like to hear how you acquired your third eye.”
Hokenberry had-only two eyes of his own, but around his neck, on a pendant, hung the eye of a stranger.
“I already told you twice how I got it.”
“I just like to hear it,” Corky said. “You tell it so well. It tickles48 me.”
Scrunching49 his face until he resembled a Shar-Pei, Hokenberry considered the concept of himself as a raconteur50, and he seemed to like it. “Twenty-five years ago, I started doin’ road security for rock groups, tour security. I don’t mean I planned it or managed it. That’s not my zone.”
“You’ve always been just beef,” Corky said, anticipating him.
“Yeah, I’ve always been just beef, been out front to intimidate51 the crazier fans, the totally wired meth freaks and PCP spongebrains. Been beef for Rollin’ Stones tours, Megadeth, Metallica, Van Halen, Alice Cooper, Meat Loaf, Pink Floyd—”
“Queen, Kiss,” Corky added, “even for Michael Jackson when he still was Michael Jackson.”
“—Michael Jackson back when he still was Michael Jackson if he ever really was,” Hokenberry agreed. “Anyway I had this three-week gig with ... My memory’s fuzzy about this. I think it was either the Eagles or could’ve been Peaches and Herb.”
“Or it could’ve been the Captain and Tennille.”
“Yeah, it could’ve been. One of them three acts. This crowd gets all jammed up, gonads gone nuclear, too much of some bad juice bein’ toked and poked52 that night.”
“You could feel they might rush the stage.”
“I could feel they might rush the stage. All you need is one idiot punk with spunk53 for brains, he decides to bolt for the band, and he starts a riot.”
“You’ve got to anticipate him,” Corky encouraged.
[356] “Anticipate him, put him down like the instant he makes his move, or another two hundred headcases will follow him.”
“So this punk with blue hair—”
“Who’s tellin’ this story?” Hokenberry grumbled54. “Me or you?”
“You are. It’s your story. I love this story.”
To express his disgust with these interruptions, Hokenberry spat55 on the carpet. “So this punk with blue hair tenses to make his move, gonna climb the stage, try to get to Peaches and Herb—”
“Or the Captain.”
“Or Tennille. So I call him out, move in on him fast, and the little butthead flips56 me the finger, which gives me absolute license57 to pop him.” Hokenberry raised one fist the size of a ham. “I planted Bullwinkle as deep in his face as it would go.”
“You call your right fist Bullwinkle.”
“Yeah, and my left is Rocky. Didn’t even need Rocky. Bullwinkled him so hard one of his eyes popped out. Startled me, but I caught it in midair. Glass eye. The punk went down cold, and I kept the eye, had it made into this pendant.”
“It’s a terrific pendant.”
“Glass eyes aren’t really glass, you know. They’re thin plastic shells, and the iris58 is hand-painted on the inside. Way cool.”
“Way, “Corky agreed.
“Had an artist friend make this little glass sphere to hold the eye, stop it deteriorating59. That’s the story, gimme my twenty grand.”
Corky passed to him the plastic-wrapped packet of cash.
As he had done with his initial twenty thousand on the first of their three previous meetings, Hokenberry turned away from Corky and took the bundle to the table in the adjacent dinette area to count every crisp hundred-dollar bill.
Corky shot him three times in the back.
When Hokenberry hit the floor, the bungalow shook.
The big man’s fall was much louder than the shots because the pistol was fitted with a sound suppressor that Corky had purchased [357] from an anarchic survivalist with deep ties to an aggressive group of anti-veal activists60 who manufactured the suppressors both for their own use and as a fund-raising activity. Each of the shots made a quiet sound like someone pronouncing the word supper with a lisp.
This was the weapon with which he had shot Rolf Reynerd’s mother in the foot.
Considering Hokenberry’s intimidating61 size, Corky hadn’t trusted the ice pick to do the job.
He moved closer to the beef and shot him three more times, just to be certain no punch remained in Rocky and Bullwinkle.
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1
fronds
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| n.蕨类或棕榈类植物的叶子( frond的名词复数 ) | |
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awning
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| n.遮阳篷；雨篷 | |
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lashed
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| adj.具睫毛的v.鞭打( lash的过去式和过去分词 )；煽动；紧系；怒斥 | |
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bristled
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| adj. 直立的，多刺毛的 动词bristle的过去式和过去分词 | |
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prick
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| v.刺伤，刺痛，刺孔；n.刺伤，刺痛 | |
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racing
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| n.竞赛，赛马；adj.竞赛用的，赛马用的 | |
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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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gutter
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| n.沟，街沟，水槽，檐槽，贫民窟 | |
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socket
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| n.窝，穴，孔，插座，插口 | |
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milky
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| adj.牛奶的，多奶的；乳白色的 | |
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disorder
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| n.紊乱，混乱；骚动，骚乱；疾病，失调 | |
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prank
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| n.开玩笑，恶作剧；v.装饰；打扮；炫耀自己 | |
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prankish
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| adj.爱开玩笑的，恶作剧的；开玩笑性质的 | |
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chaos
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| n.混乱，无秩序 | |
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rascal
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| n.流氓；不诚实的人 | |
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imp
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| n.顽童 | |
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anarchy
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| n.无政府状态；社会秩序混乱，无秩序 | |
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craftsman
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| n.技工，精于一门工艺的匠人 | |
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ass
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| n.驴；傻瓜，蠢笨的人 | |
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bungalow
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| n.平房，周围有阳台的木造小平房 | |
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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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picket
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| n.纠察队；警戒哨；v.设置纠察线；布置警卫 | |
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filthy
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| adj.卑劣的；恶劣的，肮脏的 | |
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tangles
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| （使）缠结， （使）乱作一团( tangle的第三人称单数 ) | |
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amenities
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| n.令人愉快的事物；礼仪；礼节；便利设施；礼仪( amenity的名词复数 )；便利设施；（环境等的）舒适；（性情等的）愉快 | |
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26
sputtering
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| n.反应溅射法；飞溅；阴极真空喷镀；喷射v.唾沫飞溅( sputter的现在分词 )；发劈啪声；喷出；飞溅出 | |
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corroded
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| 已被腐蚀的 | |
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mechanism
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| n.机械装置；机构，结构 | |
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looming
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| n.上现蜃景（光通过低层大气发生异常折射形成的一种海市蜃楼）v.隐约出现，阴森地逼近( loom的现在分词 )；隐约出现，阴森地逼近 | |
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grimace
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| v.做鬼脸，面部歪扭 | |
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pendulous
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| adj.下垂的；摆动的 | |
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pimple
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| n.丘疹，面泡，青春豆 | |
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lumbering
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| n.采伐林木 | |
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previously
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| adv.以前，先前（地） | |
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aglow
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| adj.发亮的；发红的；adv.发亮地 | |
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affinity
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| n.亲和力，密切关系 | |
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batch
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| n.一批(组，群)；一批生产量 | |
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severance
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| n.离职金；切断 | |
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dedicated
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| adj.一心一意的；献身的；热诚的 | |
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snugly
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| adv.紧贴地；贴身地；暖和舒适地；安适地 | |
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drooping
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| adj. 下垂的，无力的 动词droop的现在分词 | |
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42
blurred
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| v.（使）变模糊( blur的过去式和过去分词 )；（使）难以区分；模模糊糊；迷离 | |
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43
doughy
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| adj.面团的，苍白的，半熟的；软弱无力 | |
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44
wreck
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| n.失事，遇难；沉船；vt.(船等)失事，遇难 | |
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45
puckered
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| v.（使某物）起褶子或皱纹( pucker的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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46
wreckage
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| n.（失事飞机等的）残骸，破坏，毁坏 | |
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47
glowering
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| v.怒视( glower的现在分词 ) | |
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48
tickles
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| （使）发痒( tickle的第三人称单数 )； （使）愉快，逗乐 | |
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49
scrunching
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| v.发出喀嚓声( scrunch的现在分词 )；蜷缩；压；挤压 | |
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50
raconteur
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| n.善讲故事者 | |
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51
intimidate
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| vt.恐吓，威胁 | |
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52
poked
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| v.伸出( poke的过去式和过去分词 )；戳出；拨弄；与（某人）性交 | |
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53
spunk
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| n.勇气，胆量 | |
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54
grumbled
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| 抱怨( grumble的过去式和过去分词 )； 发牢骚； 咕哝； 发哼声 | |
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55
spat
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| n.口角，掌击；v.发出呼噜呼噜声 | |
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56
flips
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| 轻弹( flip的第三人称单数 )； 按（开关）； 快速翻转； 急挥 | |
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57
license
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| n.执照，许可证，特许；v.许可，特许 | |
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58
iris
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| n.虹膜，彩虹 | |
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deteriorating
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| 恶化，变坏( deteriorate的现在分词 ) | |
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activists
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| n.（政治活动的）积极分子，活动家( activist的名词复数 ) | |
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intimidating
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| vt.恐吓，威胁( intimidate的现在分词) | |
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