He found his housekey, started to put it in the lock, and then pulled it out again. His hand went to the doorknob instead, and as his fingers closed over it, he felt a clear certainty that it would rotate easily. Shooter had been here ... had been, or was still. And he wouldn't have needed to force entry, either. Nope. Not this sucker. Mort kept a spare key to the Tashmore Lake house in an old soap-dish on a high shelf in the toolshed, which was where Shooter had gone to get a screwdriver1 in a hurry when the time had come to nail poor old Bump to the garbage cabinet. He was in the house now, looking around ... or maybe hiding. He was
The knob refused to move; Mort's fingers simply slid around it. The door was still locked.
'Okay,' Mort said. 'Okay, no big deal.' He even laughed a little as he socked the key home and turned it. Just because the door was locked didn't mean Shooter wasn't in the house. In fact, it made it more likely that he was in the house, when you really stopped to think about it. He could have used the spare key, put it back, then locked the door from the inside to lull2 his enemy's suspicions. All you had to do to lock it, after all, was to press the button set into the knob. He's trying to psych me out, Mort thought as he stepped in.
The house was full of dusty late-afternoon sunlight and silence. But it did not feel like unoccupied silence.
'You're trying to psych me out, aren't you?' he called. He expected to sound crazy to himself. a lonely, paranoid man addressing the intruder who only exists, after all, in his own imagination. But he didn't sound crazy to himself. He sounded, instead, like a man who has tumbled to at least half the trick. Only getting half a scam wasn't so great, maybe, but half was better than nothing.
He walked into the living room with its cathedral ceiling, its window-wall facing the lake, and, of course, The World-Famous Mort Rainey Sofa, also known as The Couch of the Comatose3 Writer. An economical little smile tugged4 at his cheeks. His balls felt high and tight against the fork of his groin.
'Half a scam's better than none, right, Mr Shooter?' he called.
The words died into dusty silence. He could smell old tobacco smoke in that dust. His eye happened on the battered5 package of cigarettes he had excavated6 from the drawer of his desk. It occurred to him that the house had a smell - almost a stink7 - that was horribly negative: it was an unwoman smell. Then he thought: No. That's a mistake. That's not it. What you smell is Shooter. You smell the man, and you smell his cigarettes. Not yours, his.
He turned slowly around, his head cocked back. A second-floor bedroom looked down on the living room halfway8 up the cream-colored wall; the opening was lined with dark-brown wooden slats. The slats were supposed to keep the unwary from failing out and splattering themselves all over the living-room floor, but they were also supposed to be decorative9. Right then they didn't look particularly decorative to Mort; they looked like the bars of a jail cell. All he could see of what he and Amy had called the guest bedroom was the ceiling and one of the bed's four posts.
'You up there, Mr Shooter?' he yelled.
There was no answer.
'I know you're trying to psych me out!' Now he was beginning to feel just the tiniest bit ridiculous. 'It won't work, though!'
About six years before, they had plugged the big fieldstone fireplace in the living room with a Blackstone jersey10 stove. A rack of fire-tools stood beside
it. Mort grasped the handle of the ash-shovel, considered it for a moment, then let go of it and took the poker11 instead. He faced the barred guest-room overlook and held the poker up like a knight12 saluting13 his queen. Then he walked slowly to the stairs and began to climb them. He could feel tension worming its way into his muscles now, but he understood it wasn't Shooter he was afraid of; what he was afraid of was finding nothing.
'I know you're here, and I know you're trying to psych me out! The only thing I don't know is what it's all about, Alfie, and when I find you, you better tell me!'
He paused on the second-floor landing, his heart pumping hard in his chest now. The guest-room door was to his left. The door to the guest bathroom was to the right. And he suddenly understood that Shooter was here, all right, but not in the bedroom. No; that was just a ploy14. That was just what Shooter wanted him to believe.
Shooter was in the bathroom.
And, as he stood there on the landing with the poker clutched tightly in his right hand and sweat running out of his hair and down his cheeks, Mort heard him. A faint shuffle-shuffle. He was in there, all right. Standing15 in the tub, by the sound. He had moved the tiniest bit. Peekaboo, Johnny-boy, I hear you. Are you armed, fuckface?
Mort thought he probably was, but he didn't think it would turn out to be a gun. Mort had an idea that the man's pen name was about as close to firearms as he had ever come. Shooter had looked like the sort of guy who would feel more at home with instruments of a blunter nature. What he had done to Bump seemed to bear this out.
I bet it's a hammer, Mort thought, and wiped sweat off the back of his neck with his free hand. He could feel his eyes pulsing in and out of their sockets16 in time with his heartbeat. I'm betting it's a hammer from the toolshed.
He had no more thought of this before he saw Shooter, saw him clearly, standing in the bathtub in his black round-crowned hat and his yellow shitkicker work-shoes, his lips split over his mail-order dentures in a grin which was really a grimace17, sweat trickling18 down his own face, running down the deep lines grooved19 there like water running down a network of galvanized tin gutters20, with the hammer from the toolshed raised to shoulder height like a judge's gavel. just standing there in the tub, waiting to bring the hammer down. Next case, bailiff.
I know you, buddy21. I got your number. I got it the first time I saw you. And guess what? You picked the wrong writer to fuck with. I think I've been wanting to kill somebody since the middle of May, and you'll do as well as anybody.
He turned his head toward the bedroom door. At the same time, he reached out with his left hand (after drying it on the front of his shirt so his grip wouldn't slip at the crucial moment) and curled it around the bathroom doorknob.
'I know you're in there!' he shouted at the closed bedroom door. If you're under the bed, you better get out! I'm counting to five! If you're not out by the time I get there, I'm coming in . . . and I'll come in swinging! You hear me?'
There was no answer ... but, then, he hadn't really expected one. Or wanted one. He tightened22 his grip on the bathroom doorknob, but would shout the numbers toward the guest-room door. He didn't know if Shooter would hear or sense the difference if he turned his head in the direction of the bathroom, but he thought Shooter might. The man was obviously clever. Hellishly clever.
In the instant before he started counting, he heard another faint movement in the bathroom. He would have missed it, even standing this close, if he hadn't been listening with every bit of concentration he could muster23.
'One!'
Christ, he was sweating! Like a pig!
'Two!'
The knob of the bathroom door was like a cold rock in his clenched24 fist.
'Thr -'
He turned the knob of the bathroom door and slammed in, bouncing the door off the wall hard enough to chop through the wallpaper and pop the door's lower hinge, and there he was, there he was, coming at him with a raised weapon, his teeth bared in a killer's grin, and his eyes were insane, utterly25 insane, and Mort brought the poker down in a whistling overhand blow and he had just time enough to realize that Shooter was also swinging a poker, and to realize that Shooter was not wearing his round-crowned black hat, and to realize it wasn't Shooter at all, to realize it was him, the madman was him, and then the poker shattered the mirror over the washbasin and silver-backed glass sprayed every whichway, twinkling in the gloom, and the medicine cabinet fell into the sink. The bent26 door swung open like a gaping27 mouth, spilling bottles of cough syrup28 and iodine29 and Listerine.
'I killed a goddam fucking mirror!' he shrieked30, and was about to sling31 the poker away when something did move in the tub, behind the corrugated32 shower door. There was a frightened little squeal33. Grinning, Mort slashed34 sideways with the poker, tearing a jagged gash35 through the plastic door and knocking it off its tracks. He raised the poker over his shoulder, his eyes glassy and staring, his lips drawn36 into the grimace he had imagined on Shooter's face.
Then he lowered the poker slowly. He found he had to use the fingers of his left hand to pry37 open the fingers of his right so that the poker could fall to the floor.
'Wee sleekit cowerin' beastie,' he said to the fieldmouse scurrying38 blindly about in the tub. 'What a panic's in thy breastie.' His voice sounded hoarse39 and flat and strange. It didn't sound like his own voice at all. It was like listening to himself on tape for the first time.
He turned and walked slowly out of the bathroom past the leaning door with its popped hinge, his shoes gritting40 on broken mirror glass.
All at once he wanted to go downstairs and lie on the couch and take a nap. All at once he wanted that more than anything else in the world.
收听单词发音 |
1
screwdriver
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| n.螺丝起子；伏特加橙汁鸡尾酒 | |
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lull
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| v.使安静，使入睡，缓和，哄骗；n.暂停，间歇 | |
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3
comatose
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| adj.昏睡的，昏迷不醒的 | |
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tugged
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| v.用力拉，使劲拉，猛扯( tug的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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battered
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| adj.磨损的；v.连续猛击；磨损 | |
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excavated
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| v.挖掘( excavate的过去式和过去分词 )；开凿；挖出；发掘 | |
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stink
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| vi.发出恶臭；糟透，招人厌恶；n.恶臭 | |
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halfway
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| adj.中途的，不彻底的，部分的；adv.半路地，在中途，在半途 | |
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decorative
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| adj.装饰的，可作装饰的 | |
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jersey
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| n.运动衫 | |
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poker
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| n.扑克；vt.烙制 | |
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knight
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| n.骑士，武士；爵士 | |
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saluting
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| v.欢迎，致敬( salute的现在分词 )；赞扬，赞颂 | |
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ploy
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| n.花招，手段 | |
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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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sockets
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| n.套接字，使应用程序能够读写与收发通讯协定(protocol)与资料的程序( Socket的名词复数 )；孔( socket的名词复数 )；（电器上的）插口；托座；凹穴 | |
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grimace
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| v.做鬼脸，面部歪扭 | |
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trickling
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| n.油画底色含油太多而成泡沫状突起v.滴( trickle的现在分词 )；淌；使)慢慢走；缓慢移动 | |
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19
grooved
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| v.沟( groove的过去式和过去分词 )；槽；老一套；（某种）音乐节奏 | |
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gutters
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| （路边）排水沟( gutter的名词复数 )； 阴沟； （屋顶的）天沟； 贫贱的境地 | |
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21
buddy
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| n.（美口）密友，伙伴 | |
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tightened
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| 收紧( tighten的过去式和过去分词 )； （使）变紧； （使）绷紧； 加紧 | |
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23
muster
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| v.集合，收集，鼓起，激起；n.集合，检阅，集合人员，点名册 | |
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24
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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utterly
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| adv.完全地，绝对地 | |
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bent
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| n.爱好，癖好；adj.弯的；决心的，一心的 | |
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27
gaping
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| adj.口的；张口的；敞口的；多洞穴的v.目瞪口呆地凝视( gape的现在分词 )；张开，张大 | |
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syrup
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| n.糖浆，糖水 | |
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iodine
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| n.碘，碘酒 | |
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30
shrieked
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| v.尖叫( shriek的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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31
sling
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| vt.扔；悬挂；n.挂带；吊索，吊兜；弹弓 | |
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32
corrugated
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| adj.波纹的；缩成皱纹的；波纹面的；波纹状的v.（使某物）起皱褶(corrugate的过去式和过去分词) | |
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33
squeal
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| v.发出长而尖的声音；n.长而尖的声音 | |
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slashed
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| v.挥砍( slash的过去式和过去分词 )；鞭打；割破；削减 | |
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gash
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| v.深切，划开；n.(深长的)切(伤)口；裂缝 | |
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36
drawn
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| v.拖，拉，拔出；adj.憔悴的，紧张的 | |
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37
pry
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| vi.窥(刺)探，打听；vt.撬动(开，起) | |
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38
scurrying
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| v.急匆匆地走( scurry的现在分词 ) | |
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39
hoarse
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| adj.嘶哑的，沙哑的 | |
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40
gritting
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| v.以沙砾覆盖（某物），撒沙砾于( grit的现在分词 )；咬紧牙关 | |
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