Chapter 28

He picked up the telephone. 'Greg?'

'I'm here.'

'Did Tom seem all right when you talked to him?'

'He was exhausted,' Greg said promptly¹. 'Foolish old man has got no business crawling² around on a scaffold and painting all day in a cold wind. Not at his age. He looked ready to fall into the nearest pile of leaves, if he couldn't get to a bed in a hurry. I see what you're getting at, Mort, and I suppose that if he was tired enough, it could have slipped his mind, but -'

'No, that's not what I'm thinking about. Are you sure exhaustion³ was all it was? Could he have been scared?'

Now there was a long, thinking silence at the other end of the line. Impatient⁴ though he was, Mort did not break it. He intended to allow Greg all the thinking time he needed.

'He didn't seem himself,' Greg said at last. 'He seemed distracted⁵ ... off, somehow. I chalked it up to plain old tiredness, but maybe that wasn't it. Or not all of it.'

'Could he have been hiding something from you?'

This time the pause was not so long. 'I don't know. He might have been. That's all I can say for sure, Mort. You're making me wish I'd talked to him longer and pressed him a little harder.'

'I think it might be a good idea if we went over to his place,' Mort said.

'Now. It happened the way I told you, Greg. If Tom said something different, it could be because my friend scared the bejesus out of him. I'll meet you there.'

'Okay.' Greg sounded worried all over again. 'But, you know, Tom isn't the sort of man who'd scare easy.'

'I'm sure that was true once, but Tom's seventy-five if he's a day. I think that the older you get, the easier to scare you get.'

'Why don't I meet you there?'

'That sounds like a good idea.' Mort hung up the telephone, poured the rest of his bourbon down the sink, and headed for Tom Greenleafs house in the Buick.

1 promptly   

adv.及时地，敏捷地

参考例句：

• He paid the money back promptly.他立即还了钱。
• She promptly seized the opportunity his absence gave her.她立即抓住了因他不在场给她创造的机会。

2 crawling   

n.表面涂布不均v.爬( crawl的现在分词 )；（昆虫）爬行；缓慢行进；巴结

参考例句：

• You should be ashamed of yourself, crawling to the director like that. 你那样巴结董事，应该感到羞耻。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• Stubborn, self-confident Guo Zhenshan has never gone crawling to anyone. 坚强、自信、有气魄的郭振山，实在说，永远也不会向人低三下四啊！ 来自《现代汉英综合大词典》

3 exhaustion   

n.耗尽枯竭，疲惫，筋疲力尽，竭尽，详尽无遗的论述

参考例句：

• She slept the sleep of exhaustion.她因疲劳而酣睡。
• His exhaustion was obvious when he fell asleep standing.他站着睡着了，显然是太累了。

4 impatient   

adj.不耐烦的，急躁的；热切的，急切的

参考例句：

• He was so impatient that I could hardly hold him back.他是那样急躁，我简直拉不住他。
• With an impatient gesture he thrust the food away from him.他不耐烦地把吃的东西猛地推开。

5 distracted   

a.注意力分散的，思想不集中的

参考例句：

• When working, one should concentrate and not allow oneself to be distracted. 工作时要集中精力，不要分心。
• Noise outside distracted her mind from her studies. 门外的噪音使她心神不宁，无法集中注意力学习。