MICK SACHATONE, THE ANARCHIST1 multimillionaire, didn’t live in a glitzy neighborhood of multimillionaires because he never wanted to have to explain the origins of his wealth to the tax authorities. When you make it in cash, you live without flash.
He laundered2 enough income to justify3 a spacious4 four-bedroom, two-story house of no architectural distinction in a clean and pleasant upper-middle-class neighborhood in Sherman Oaks.
Only a handful of Mick’s most trusted customers of long standing5 knew his address. Mostly he transacted6 business on public beaches and in public parks, coffee shops, and churches.
Without stopping at the garage in Santa Monica to change from his Robin7 Goodfellow costume into his regular-guy clothes and yellow slicker, Corky went directly from Jack9 Trotter’s funky10 digs in Malibu to Sherman Oaks. Thanks to Queeg von Hindenburg, collector of broken porcelains11, Corky’s schedule was screwed up. He had much yet to do on this most important but fast-vanishing day of his life.
He parked in the driveway and ran a few quick steps through the rain to the cover of the front porch.
Mick’s voice came from an intercom speaker beside the bell push, [436] “Be right there,” and Mick Sachatone himself came to the door with unusual alacrity12. Sometimes, you had to wait here on the porch two or three minutes, or longer, between when Mick spoke13 to you via the intercom and when he greeted you in person, so routinely preoccupied14 was he with work or with other interests.
As usual when at home, Mick was barefoot and dressed in pajamas15. Today the jammies were red, decorated with images of the cartoon character Bart Simpson. Mick bought some peejays off the rack but had others custom tailored.
Even before Mick had achieved puberty, he had been enchanted16 by the story of Hugh Hefner, founder17 of Playboy. Hef had discovered a way to grow up, be a success, and yet remain a big child, indulging any whim18 or desire to whatever degree he wished, making of his life one long party, living more days than not in pajamas.
Mick, who worked mostly at home, owned more than 150 pairs of peejays. He slept in the nude19 but sported pajamas during the day.
He considered himself an acolyte20 of Hef. A mini-Hef. Mick was forty-two going on thirteen.
“Hey, Cork8, super-hip threads,” Mick declared when he opened the door and saw Corky dressed as Robin Goodfellow.
This might have sounded like mockery to a stranger; but Mick’s friends knew that he had long ago stopped picking up new slang in an effort to be more in the Hef groove21.
“Sorry I’m late,” Corky said, stepping inside.
“No sweat, my man. I’d run this pad clockless if I could.”
The living room contained as little furniture as necessary. The plush sofa, plump armchairs, footstools, coffee table, end tables, and lamps had been bought as a set at a warehouse22 outlet23. The quality was good; but everything had been chosen for comfort, not for looks.
Mick had no pretensions24. In spite of his wealth, he remained a man of simple if sometimes obsessive25 needs.
The primary decor statement in Casa Sachatone had nothing to do with furniture or art. Except for a suite26 of work rooms that Mick had [437] added to the original structure, all but two walls in the house were lined with shelves on which were stored a collection of thousands of pornographic videotapes and DVDs. Shelves had even been added to the stairwell and hallway walls.
Mick preferred videotapes to DVDs because the cassettes came in boxes with wide, colorful spines27 that blazed with obscene titles and sometimes with hard-core photographs. The effect was of one continuous erotic mosaic28 that flowed from end to end and top to bottom of the residence, achieving almost psychedelic impact.
Only the work wing, this living room, and the master bedroom contained any furniture. Other chambers29, including the dining room, were not merely lined with videocassettes but were filled with aisles30 of shelves, as in a library.
Mick ate all his meals either at his computer or in bed: lots of microwave dinners, as well as home-delivery pizza and Chinese.
Of the two walls not fitted with floor-to-ceiling shelves, one was here in the living room. This space had been reserved for four big top-of-the-line plasma31-screen TVs and associated equipment. The other such wall was in the bedroom.
A pair of plasma screens hung side by side, and a second pair hung side by side above the first. A DVD player and a videocassette machine served each screen; that equipment, plus eight speakers and associated amplifiers were racked in low cabinets under the screens.
Mick could run four movies simultaneously32 and switch, as whim struck him, from one soundtrack to the other. Or he could—and often did—play all four soundtracks simultaneously.
Usually when you stepped into the Sachatone living room, you were greeted by a rude symphony of sighs, grunts33, groans34, squeals35, squeaks36, hisses37, and cries of pleasure, by whispered and growled38 obscenities, and by a rhythmic39 rush of heavy breathing in one degree of urgency or another. With eyes closed, you could almost believe that you were in a riotously40 inhabited jungle, albeit41 a jungle in which all the tropical species were simultaneously copulating.
[438] This afternoon, sound accompanied none of the four porn films. Mick had muted all of them.
“Janelle was so special,” Mick said tenderly, nodding toward the video wall, referring to his lost girlfriend. “One cool swingin’ chick.”
Although his Bart Simpson pajamas might seem frivolous42, Mick dwelt in a somber43 memorial mood. All four screens featured classics from Janelle’s extensive filmography.
Pointing to the upper-right-hand screen in the four-screen stack, Mick said, “That thing she’s doing right there, no one—no one—ever did that in film before or since.”
“I doubt anyone else could,” Corky said, because the eye-popping trick in which Janelle was vigorously engaged involved her legendary44 flexibility45, for which perhaps she alone among all humanity carried the necessary gene46.
Referring to his gal’s costars in the upper-right-hand video, Mick said, “Those four guys love her. See that? Every one of those guys just loves her. Men loved Janelle. She was truly groovy.”
Mick’s voice swelled47 with wistful longing48. In spite of all his Hefnerian hipness49, he had a sentimental50 streak51.
“I just got back from Trotter’s in Malibu,” Corky revealed.
“You kill the son of a bitch yet?”
“Not yet. You know I need him for a while.”
“Oh, look at that.”
“She’s really something.”
“You’d think that would hurt.”
“Maybe it did,” Corky said.
“Janelle said no, it was fun.”
“She do a lot of stretching exercises?”
“Her work was stretching exercises. You will kill him?”
“Promised you, didn’t I?”
“I expected to grow old with her,” Mick said.
“Really?”
“Well, older, anyway.”
[439] “I shot up his current collection of porcelains.”
“Expensive?”
“Lladro.”
“Will you torture him before you kill him?”
“Sure.”
“You’re a good friend, Cork. You’re a pal52.”
“Well, we go back a long way.”
“More than twenty years,” Mick said.
“The world was a worse place then,” Corky said, meaning from an anarchist’s point of view.
“A lot has fallen apart in our time,” Mick agreed. “But not as fast as we dreamed it would when we were crazy kids.”
They smiled at each other.
Had they been different men, they might have hugged.
Instead, Mick said, “I’m ready to execute the Manheim package,” and led Corky to the back of the house, into his work rooms.
Instead of video porn, the walls here were lined with computers, a compact printing press, lamination machines, a laser holography imprinter, and other high-tech53 equipment necessary for the production of the finest quality forged documents.
At his central work station, Mick had already positioned two chairs before the computer screen. He settled in the one directly in front of the keyboard.
Corky took off his leather jacket, hung it on the back of the second chair, and sat down.
Eyeing the bolstered54 Glock, Mick said, “Is that the rod you’ll use to waste Trotter?”
“Yeah.”
“Can I have it after?”
“The gun?”
“I’ll be discreet,” Mick promised. “I’ll never use it. And I’ll drill out the barrel so it can’t be matched to any of the rounds you kill him with. I don’t want it for a gun, see, it’ll just be like a sacred object to [440] me. Part of my private memorial wall to Janelle, on the shelves where I keep all her films.”
“All right,” Corky said, “It’s yours when I’ve done him.”
“You’re a champ, Cork.” Indicating the computer and the data on it, the keeper of Janelle’s flame said, “This was a nut-buster job.”
As a hacker55 of exceptional achievement, Mick customarily implied or boldly stated that for him, self-named Ultimate Master of Digital Data and Ruler of the Virtual Universe, all came as easily as bees to a flower; therefore, this admission that the Manheim job had taxed his talents must mean that it had been a formidable task, indeed.
“At precisely56 eight-thirty this evening,” Mick continued, “the telephone company’s computer will shut down all twenty-four of the lines serving the Manheim estate.”
“Won’t that alert Paladin Patrol, the off-site security company? One dedicated57 line maintains a twenty-four-hour link between Paladin and the estate, for alarm transmissions.”
“Yeah. If the line goes dead, Paladin treats the interruption in service the same as an alarm signal. But they won’t know a thing.”
“It’s an armed-response company,” Corky worried. “Their guards aren’t Barney Fifes with pepper spray. They respond fast, with guns.”
“Part of the package I’ve worked up for you is a breach58 of the Paladin computer immediately before the Manheim phones go down. It pulls the plug on their whole system.”
“They’ll have redundancy.”
“I know their redundancy like I know my own crotch,” Mick said with impatience59. “I’m pulling the plug on the redundancy, too.”
“Impressive.”
“You won’t have to worry about the off-site security company. But what about the private guards on the estate, Manheim’s own boys?”
“Two on the evening shift,” Corky said. “I know their routine. I’ve got that covered. What about cell phones?”
“That’s part of the package you’re buying from me. I checked out [441] the information you got from Ned Hokenberry, and Manheim still uses the same cell-service provider as before Hokenberry was fired.”
Corky said, “Two cellular60 units are used by the on-duty guards. A third goes everywhere with the security chief, Ethan Truman.”
Mick nodded. “They’ll be shut down at eight-thirty along with the hard-wired phones. The couple that runs the estate also receive cell phones as part of their job—”
“The McBees.”
“Yeah,” Mick said. “And Hachette, the chef, and also William Yorn ...”
“The groundskeeper. None of them will be there tonight,” Corky noted61. “It’s just Truman and the kid.”
“You don’t want to take any chances, do you, that somebody might decide to work late or maybe come back early from vacation? If I shut them all down, there’s no chance anyone on that estate can dial nine-one-one. At the same time, service will be discontinued to those members of the staff who carry personal pagers.”
Previously62 they had talked about the Internet and ways in which it could be used to issue a call for help.
Anticipating Corky, Mick said, “Cable-direct Internet access from the Manheim estate will also be terminated at eight-thirty.”
“And the on-duty guards won’t know any of this has happened?”
“Not unless they try to use a phone or go on the Internet.”
“There won’t be a system-interrupt warning on their computers?”
“Got that covered. But like I warned you, I can’t shut down the cameras, the perimeter63 heat sensors64, or the motion detectors65 in the house itself. If I did any of that, they’d see their system going blind, and they’d know something was up.”
Corky shrugged66. “When I get in the house, I want the motion detectors operative, anyway. I might need them. As for the cameras and the perimeter heat sensors, Trotter will get me past all that.”
“And then you’ll kill him,” Mick said.
“Not right then. Later. So what do you have left to do?”
[442] Raising his right hand high in ceremonial fashion, Mick said, “Just this.” Slowly, with a goofy sense of drama, he brought his index finger straight down to the keyboard and tapped ENTER.
The data on the computer vanished. The screen clicked to a soft, unblemished field of blue.
Corky clenched67. “What went wrong?”
“Nothing. I’ve initiated68 the delivery of the package.”
“How long’s it take?”
Mick pointed69 at three words that had appeared in the center of the screen: GETTING IT ON. “When that changes, the job is done. You want a Coke or something?”
“No thanks,” Corky said.
He never ate or drank anything in the Sachatone house, and he tried not to touch anything, either. You had to figure that Mick had touched everything in the place, at one time or another, and you never knew where Mick’s hands had recently been. Actually, you pretty much did know where Mick’s hands had recently been, which was the problem.
Most of Mick’s friends would have avoided shaking his hand if he had offered it; but he seemed to understand their concern, if only subconsciously70, and never suggested hand-to-hand contact.
Bart Simpson ran across a field of wrinkles, jumped in and out of folds of fabric71, and made numerous faces as Mick got a Coke from an office refrigerator and returned to his chair at the computer.
They talked about a rare adult video, supposedly produced in Japan, which was legendary among aficionados72 of sleaze; the film involved two men, two women, and one hermaphrodite, all costumed as Hitler. Mick had been chasing after this item for twelve years.
The video didn’t sound all that interesting to Corky, but he didn’t have a chance to be bored by the conversation because in less than four minutes, the words on the computer screen changed from GETTING IT ON to the succinct73 SATISFACTION.
“Package delivered,” Mick said.
[443] “That’s it?”
“Yeah. The seeds have been planted in the phone-company, cable-company, and security-company computers. Later today, just when you want it to happen, everything will go down.”
“Without any more attention from you?”
Mick grinned. “Slick, huh?”
“Amazing,” Corky said.
Mick tipped his head back to take a long swallow of Coke, and Corky drew the Glock, and when Mick lowered his head again, Corky blew him away.
收听单词发音 |
1
anarchist
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| n.无政府主义者 | |
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laundered
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| v.洗（衣服等），洗烫（衣服等）( launder的过去式和过去分词 )；洗（黑钱）（把非法收入改头换面，变为貌似合法的收入） | |
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justify
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| vt.证明…正当(或有理)，为…辩护 | |
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spacious
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| adj.广阔的，宽敞的 | |
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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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transacted
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| v.办理（业务等）( transact的过去式和过去分词 )；交易，谈判 | |
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robin
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| n.知更鸟，红襟鸟 | |
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cork
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| n.软木，软木塞 | |
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jack
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| n.插座，千斤顶，男人；v.抬起，提醒，扛举；n.（Jake）杰克 | |
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funky
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| adj.畏缩的，怯懦的，霉臭的；adj.新式的，时髦的 | |
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porcelains
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| n.瓷，瓷器( porcelain的名词复数 ) | |
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alacrity
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| n.敏捷，轻快，乐意 | |
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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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preoccupied
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| adj.全神贯注的，入神的；被抢先占有的；心事重重的v.占据（某人）思想，使对…全神贯注，使专心于( preoccupy的过去式) | |
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pajamas
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| n.睡衣裤 | |
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enchanted
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| adj. 被施魔法的，陶醉的，入迷的 动词enchant的过去式和过去分词 | |
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Founder
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| n.创始者，缔造者 | |
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whim
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| n.一时的兴致，突然的念头；奇想，幻想 | |
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nude
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| adj.裸体的；n.裸体者，裸体艺术品 | |
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acolyte
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| n.助手，侍僧 | |
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groove
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| n.沟，槽；凹线，（刻出的）线条，习惯 | |
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warehouse
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| n.仓库；vt.存入仓库 | |
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outlet
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| n.出口/路；销路；批发商店；通风口；发泄 | |
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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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obsessive
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| adj. 着迷的, 强迫性的, 分神的 | |
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suite
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| n.一套(家具)；套房；随从人员 | |
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spines
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| n.脊柱( spine的名词复数 )；脊椎；（动植物的）刺；书脊 | |
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mosaic
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| n./adj.镶嵌细工的，镶嵌工艺品的，嵌花式的 | |
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chambers
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| n.房间( chamber的名词复数 )；（议会的）议院；卧室；会议厅 | |
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aisles
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| n. (席位间的)通道, 侧廊 | |
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plasma
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| n.血浆，细胞质，乳清 | |
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simultaneously
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| adv.同时发生地，同时进行地 | |
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grunts
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| （猪等）作呼噜声( grunt的第三人称单数 )； （指人）发出类似的哼声； 咕哝着说； 石鲈 | |
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groans
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| n.呻吟，叹息( groan的名词复数 )；呻吟般的声音v.呻吟( groan的第三人称单数 )；发牢骚；抱怨；受苦 | |
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squeals
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| n.长而尖锐的叫声( squeal的名词复数 )v.长声尖叫，用长而尖锐的声音说( squeal的第三人称单数 ) | |
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squeaks
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| n.短促的尖叫声，吱吱声( squeak的名词复数 )v.短促地尖叫( squeak的第三人称单数 )；吱吱叫；告密；充当告密者 | |
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hisses
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| 嘶嘶声( hiss的名词复数 ) | |
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growled
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| v.（动物）发狺狺声， （雷）作隆隆声( growl的过去式和过去分词 )；低声咆哮着说 | |
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rhythmic
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| adj.有节奏的，有韵律的 | |
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riotously
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| adv.骚动地，暴乱地 | |
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albeit
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| conj.即使；纵使；虽然 | |
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frivolous
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| adj.轻薄的；轻率的 | |
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somber
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| adj.昏暗的，阴天的，阴森的，忧郁的 | |
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legendary
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| adj.传奇（中）的，闻名遐迩的；n.传奇（文学） | |
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flexibility
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| n.柔韧性，弹性，（光的）折射性，灵活性 | |
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gene
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| n.遗传因子，基因 | |
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swelled
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| 增强( swell的过去式和过去分词 )； 肿胀； （使）凸出； 充满（激情） | |
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longing
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| n.（for）渴望 | |
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hipness
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| n.hip（使知晓，使了解）的变形 | |
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sentimental
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| adj.多愁善感的，感伤的 | |
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51
streak
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| n.条理，斑纹，倾向，少许，痕迹；v.加条纹，变成条纹，奔驰，快速移动 | |
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52
pal
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| n.朋友，伙伴，同志；vi.结为友 | |
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high-tech
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| adj.高科技的 | |
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bolstered
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| v.支持( bolster的过去式和过去分词 )；支撑；给予必要的支持；援助 | |
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hacker
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| n.能盗用或偷改电脑中信息的人，电脑黑客 | |
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precisely
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| adv.恰好，正好，精确地，细致地 | |
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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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breach
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| n.违反，不履行；破裂；vt.冲破，攻破 | |
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impatience
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| n.不耐烦，急躁 | |
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cellular
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| adj.移动的；细胞的，由细胞组成的 | |
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61
noted
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| adj.著名的，知名的 | |
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previously
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| adv.以前，先前（地） | |
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perimeter
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| n.周边，周长，周界 | |
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sensors
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| n.传感器，灵敏元件( sensor的名词复数 ) | |
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detectors
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| 探测器( detector的名词复数 ) | |
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66
shrugged
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| vt.耸肩（shrug的过去式与过去分词形式） | |
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67
clenched
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| v.紧握，抓紧，咬紧( clench的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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68
initiated
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| n. 创始人 adj. 新加入的 vt. 开始，创始，启蒙，介绍加入 | |
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69
pointed
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| adj.尖的，直截了当的 | |
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70
subconsciously
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| ad.下意识地，潜意识地 | |
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71
fabric
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| n.织物，织品，布；构造，结构，组织 | |
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72
aficionados
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| n.酷爱…者，…迷( aficionado的名词复数 )； 爱看斗牛的人 | |
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73
succinct
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| adj.简明的，简洁的 | |
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