Chapter 74

TWO BULLETS IN THE BRAIN.
Wearing his Kevlar chest protector and conscious of what an easy target his lionesque head would make, Hazard closed the car door and crossed the street.
The house of the mother-killer seemed to attract the incoming fog, which moved not in a monolithic¹ bank but in curious eddies² and lithe³ plumes⁴: one quick-footed vaporous slinkiness after another, tail following tail of Angora mist, as though here were a thousand cats drawn⁵ home by the scent⁶ of tuna fresh from the can.
The aura of the house so entranced Hazard that he had crossed the street and followed the private walkway while remaining oblivious⁷ of the rain. Only when he reached the foot of the front-porch steps did he realize that he had approached with such deliberation that he had gotten wet to the skin.
Ascending⁸ the porch steps, he felt something in his hand—and discovered the cell phone on which he had spoken to Dunny Whistler.
I’m dead and alive, Dunny had said, and Hazard at the moment was of much that same sentiment.
At the top of the steps, instead of proceeding⁹ straight to the door and ringing the bell, he paused, realizing that he had neglected to do a [486] standard bit of follow-up to Dunny’s call that he would have done had he received a menacing message from anyone else who should not have had his mobile number. He pressed *69.
The call was answered on the second ring, but the person at the far end of the line said nothing.
“Somebody there?” Hazard asked.
A hard voice came back at him: “Oh, somebody here. Somebody here, sure enough, you hook nigger.”
Gang talk: hook meaning phony, imitation.
“I be here, got lit up by you, punched twice, and still taste pencil.”
Pencil meaning lead, meaning bullets.
Hazard had never heard this voice before, but he knew to whom it might belong. He could not speak.
“When you come across after me, you wannabe ofay, better get ready for a million nightmares of eastlies. You know eastly, man?”
“Yeah. An ugly person,” Hazard said, surprised that he had spoken, sensing at once that responding was a bad idea, that it was an invitation.
“Worse than ugly, man. Extreme butt-ugly. This crib ain’t got nothin’ but eastlies. I be here when you come across, ofay. I be first in line.”
Hazard wanted to press END, clip the phone to his belt, but grim fascination¹⁰ held it to his ear.
He was standing¹¹ ten feet from Vladimir Laputa’s front door. This wasn’t a wise place to engage in a phone chat with one of the restless dead.
“Ofay, you know that four-five I shoulda capped you with last night?”
In his mind’s eye, Hazard saw Calvin Roosevelt, alias¹² Hector X, on the lawn outside Reynerd’s apartment house, both hands around a .45, squeezing off a shot, the muzzle¹³ spitting fire in the rain.
“Check this out, queerboy. You get here, I have me somethin’ [487] bigger than my four-five I’ll shove up your ass¹⁴, and then all the eastlies can jam you, too. Gonna see you soon.”
Hazard pressed END, and at once the phone rang in his hand. No need to answer it, no way to answer it, knowing who it would be.
He was wet. Cold. … Scared.
The phone continued to ring.
He needed either to think hard about this or to think about it never again, and he couldn’t make up his mind which way to go while he stood here, on the mother-killer’s porch.
He shoved the ringing phone into a jacket pocket, turned his back to the door, and descended¹⁵ the steps, into the rain once more.

1 monolithic   

adj.似独块巨石的；整体的

参考例句：

• Don't think this gang is monolithic.不要以为这帮人是铁板一块。
• Mathematics is not a single monolithic structure of absolute truth.数学并不是绝对真理的单一整体结构。

2 eddies   

（水、烟等的）漩涡，涡流( eddy的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• Viscosity overwhelms the smallest eddies and converts their energy into heat. 粘性制服了最小的旋涡而将其能量转换为热。
• But their work appears to merge in the study of large eddies. 但在大旋涡的研究上，他们的工作看来却殊途同归。

3 lithe   

adj.(指人、身体)柔软的，易弯的

参考例句：

• His lithe athlete's body had been his pride through most of the fifty - six years.他那轻巧自如的运动员体格，五十六年来几乎一直使他感到自豪。
• His walk was lithe and graceful.他走路轻盈而优雅。

4 plumes   

羽毛( plume的名词复数 )； 羽毛饰； 羽毛状物； 升上空中的羽状物

参考例句：

• The dancer wore a headdress of pink ostrich plumes. 那位舞蹈演员戴着粉色鸵鸟毛制作的头饰。
• The plumes on her bonnet barely moved as she nodded. 她点点头，那帽子的羽毛在一个劲儿颤动。

5 drawn   

v.拖，拉，拔出；adj.憔悴的，紧张的

参考例句：

• All the characters in the story are drawn from life.故事中的所有人物都取材于生活。
• Her gaze was drawn irresistibly to the scene outside.她的目光禁不住被外面的风景所吸引。

6 scent   

n.气味，香味，香水，线索，嗅觉；v.嗅，发觉

参考例句：

• The air was filled with the scent of lilac.空气中弥漫着丁香花的芬芳。
• The flowers give off a heady scent at night.这些花晚上散发出醉人的芳香。

7 oblivious   

adj.易忘的，遗忘的，忘却的，健忘的

参考例句：

• Mother has become quite oblivious after the illness.这次病后，妈妈变得特别健忘。
• He was quite oblivious of the danger.他完全没有察觉到危险。

8 ascending   

adj.上升的，向上的

参考例句：

• Now draw or trace ten dinosaurs in ascending order of size.现在按照体型由小到大的顺序画出或是临摹出10只恐龙。

9 proceeding   

n.行动，进行，(pl.)会议录，学报

参考例句：

• This train is now proceeding from Paris to London.这次列车从巴黎开往伦敦。
• The work is proceeding briskly.工作很有生气地进展着。

10 fascination   

n.令人着迷的事物，魅力，迷恋

参考例句：

• He had a deep fascination with all forms of transport.他对所有的运输工具都很着迷。
• His letters have been a source of fascination to a wide audience.广大观众一直迷恋于他的来信。

11 standing   

n.持续，地位；adj.永久的，不动的，直立的，不流动的

参考例句：

• After the earthquake only a few houses were left standing.地震过后只有几幢房屋还立着。
• They're standing out against any change in the law.他们坚决反对对法律做任何修改。

12 alias   

n.化名；别名；adv.又名

参考例句：

• His real name was Johnson,but he often went by the alias of Smith.他的真名是约翰逊，但是他常常用化名史密斯。
• You can replace this automatically generated alias with a more meaningful one.可用更有意义的名称替换这一自动生成的别名。

13 muzzle   

n.鼻口部；口套；枪(炮)口；vt.使缄默

参考例句：

• He placed the muzzle of the pistol between his teeth.他把手枪的枪口放在牙齿中间。
• The President wanted to muzzle the press.总统企图遏制新闻自由。

14 ass   

n.驴；傻瓜，蠢笨的人

参考例句：

• He is not an ass as they make him.他不象大家猜想的那样笨。
• An ass endures his burden but not more than his burden.驴能负重但不能超过它能力所负担的。

15 descended   

a.为...后裔的，出身于...的

参考例句：

• A mood of melancholy descended on us. 一种悲伤的情绪袭上我们的心头。
• The path descended the hill in a series of zigzags. 小路呈连续的之字形顺着山坡蜿蜒而下。