Chapter 21

We met with Gloria dos Santos at the police station in the Brentwood section of LA. It was a one-story concrete building, about as non-descript as a post office. Detective Peter Kim joined us in a small interview room, which was about six by five feet, soundproof, with padded walls. Kim was slender, around six feet, in his late twenties. He dressed well, and seemed more like an up-and-coming Los Angeles business executive than a policeman to me.  Gloria dos Santos obviously knew Kim, and they didn’t seem too fond of each other. She called him’Detective Fuhrman’, and she used the name over and over, until Kim told her to’can it’or he would lock her the hell up.  dos Santos wore a short black dress, high black boots, leather wristbands. There were about a dozen earrings¹ in strategic locations on her body. Her frizzy black hair was piled high, but some also cascaded² down to her shoulders. She was only an inch or two over five feet and had a hard face. Her lashes³ were thick with mascara and she used purple eye shadow. She looked to be in good physical shape - like all the other victims so far.
She stared at Kirn, then at me, and finally at Jamilla Hughes. She shook her head and smirked⁴. She didn’t like us, which was fine - I didn’t much like her either.
She sneered⁵. ‘Can I smoke in this rat-trap? I’m going to smoke, like it or not. If you don’t like it, then I’m going the hell home.’
‘So smoke,’ Kim said. ‘But you’re not going home under any fucking circumstances.’ He took out some David’s ranch-style seeds and started to eat them. Kim was a strange boy himself.  dos Santos lit up a Camel and blew out a thick stream of smoke in Kirn’s face.
‘Detective Fuhrman knows everything that I know. Why don’t you just get it all from him? He’s brilliant, yknow. Just ask him about it.  Graduated with some cumma honors from UCLA.’
‘There are a few things we aren’t clear about,’ I said to her. “That’s why we came all the way from San Francisco to see you. Actually, I came from Washington, DC.’
‘Long trip for nothing. Shaft,’ she said. Gloria dos Santos had a zinger for every occasion. She wiped her hand over her face a few times as if she were trying to wake herself up.  ‘You’re obviously high as a kite/Jamilla cut in. “That doesn’t matter to us. Relax, girl. These men who attacked you hurt you pretty bad.’ dos Santos snorted. ‘Pretty bad? They broke two ribs⁶, broke my arm. They knocked me down ‘bout six times. Fortunately, they knocked me right down a goddamn hill, side of a mountain, actually.  I started rolling. Got up. Ran my ass⁷ off.’
‘The initial report said that you didn’t see either of them very well.
Then you claimed that they were in their forties or fifties.’ She shrugged⁸. ‘I don’t know. It was foggy. That’s an impression I had. Earlier that night, I went to the Fang⁹ Club on West Pico. It’s the only place where you can meet real vampires¹⁰ and live to tell about it.  So they say. I was going to a lot of Goth clubs back then - Stigmata, Coven 13, Vampiricus over in Long Beach. I worked at Necromane.  What’s Necromane?’ she asked, as if it were a question we would want answered. She was right. ‘Necromane is a boutique for people who are really into the dead. You can buy real human skulls¹¹ there. Fingers, toes. A full human skeleton if that’s your thing.’ ‘It’s not,’ Jamilla said. ‘But I’ve been to a shop like that in San Francisco. It’s called the Coroner.’
The girl looked at her contemptuously. ‘So I’m fucking impressed?
You must be very cool. You must live right on the edge.’
I spoke¹² again. ‘We’re trying to help you. We—‘
She cut me off.’Bullshit, you’re trying to help yourselves. You’ve got another big case. Those kinky murders in San Francisco, right? I can read, man. You couldn’t care less about Gloria dos Santos and her problems. I got lots of them. More than you know. Who gives a shit, right?’
Two people were killed in Golden Gate Park. It was a massacre¹³.  Did you read that? We think it might be the same men who attacked you/1 told her.
‘Yeah, well let me tell you something you better get straight. The two men who attacked me were vampires’. Got that? I know this is impossible for you to wrap your little minds around, but there are vampires. They set themselves apart from the human world. That means - they aren’t like you!
‘Two of them almost killed me. They were hunting in Beverly Hills.  They kill people every fucking day in LA! They drink their blood. They call it feeding. They chew on their bones like it’s KFP, that’s Kentucky Fried People, chumps. I can see you don’t believe me. Well, believe me.’
The door to the interview room opened quietly. A uniformed patrolman popped in and whispered something to Detective Kim.  Kim frowned and looked at us, then at dos Santos. “There was a killing¹⁴ on Sunset Boulevard a short time ago. Someone was bitten and then hanged at one of the better hotels.’
Gloria dos Santos’s face twisted horribly. Her eyes grew small and very angry. She flew into a rage, started to scream at the top of her voice. ‘They followed you here, you assholes! Don’t you get it? They followed you! Oh my God, they know I talked to you. Oh Jesus Christ, they’ll get me. You just got me killed!

1 earrings   

n.耳环( earring的名词复数 )；耳坠子

参考例句：

• a pair of earrings 一对耳环
• These earrings snap on with special fastener. 这付耳环是用特制的按扣扣上去的。 来自《简明英汉词典》

2 cascaded   

级联的

参考例句：

• His money cascaded away in a couple of years. 他的钱在三两年内便滚滚流失了。
• The water cascaded off the roof in the thunderstorm. 雷雨中水象瀑布一样从屋顶泻下。

3 lashes   

n.鞭挞( lash的名词复数 )；鞭子；突然猛烈的一击；急速挥动v.鞭打( lash的第三人称单数 )；煽动；紧系；怒斥

参考例句：

• Mother always lashes out food for the children's party. 孩子们聚会时，母亲总是给他们许多吃的。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• Never walk behind a horse in case it lashes out. 绝对不要跟在马后面，以防它突然猛踢。 来自《简明英汉词典》

4 smirked   

v.傻笑( smirk的过去分词 )

参考例句：

• He smirked at Tu Wei-yueh. 他对屠维岳狞笑。 来自子夜部分
• He smirked in acknowledgement of their uncouth greetings, and sat down. 他皮笑肉不笑地接受了他的粗鲁的招呼，坐了下来。 来自辞典例句

5 sneered   

讥笑，冷笑( sneer的过去式和过去分词 )

参考例句：

• He sneered at people who liked pop music. 他嘲笑喜欢流行音乐的人。
• It's very discouraging to be sneered at all the time. 成天受嘲讽是很令人泄气的。

6 ribs   

n.肋骨( rib的名词复数 )；（船或屋顶等的）肋拱；肋骨状的东西；（织物的）凸条花纹

参考例句：

• He suffered cracked ribs and bruising. 他断了肋骨还有挫伤。
• Make a small incision below the ribs. 在肋骨下方切开一个小口。

7 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。

8 shrugged   

vt.耸肩（shrug的过去式与过去分词形式）

参考例句：

• Sam shrugged and said nothing. 萨姆耸耸肩膀，什么也没说。
• She shrugged, feigning nonchalance. 她耸耸肩，装出一副无所谓的样子。 来自《简明英汉词典》

9 fang   

n.尖牙，犬牙

参考例句：

• Look how the bone sticks out of the flesh like a dog's fang.瞧瞧,这根骨头从肉里露出来，象一只犬牙似的。
• The green fairy's fang thrusting between his lips.绿妖精的尖牙从他的嘴唇里龇出来。

10 vampires   

n.吸血鬼( vampire的名词复数 )；吸血蝠；高利贷者；（舞台上的）活板门

参考例句：

• The most effective weapon against the vampires is avampire itself. 对付吸血鬼最有效的武器就是吸血鬼自己。 来自电影对白
• If vampires existed, don`t you think we would`ve found them by now? 如果真有吸血鬼，那我们怎么还没有找到他们呢？ 来自电影对白

11 skulls   

颅骨( skull的名词复数 )； 脑袋； 脑子； 脑瓜

参考例句：

• One of the women's skulls found exceeds in capacity that of the average man of today. 现已发现的女性颅骨中，其中有一个的脑容量超过了今天的普通男子。
• We could make a whole plain white with skulls in the moonlight! 我们便能令月光下的平原变白，遍布白色的骷髅！

12 spoke   

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

参考例句：

• They sourced the spoke nuts from our company.他们的轮辐螺帽是从我们公司获得的。
• The spokes of a wheel are the bars that connect the outer ring to the centre.辐条是轮子上连接外圈与中心的条棒。

13 massacre   

n.残杀，大屠杀；v.残杀，集体屠杀

参考例句：

• There was a terrible massacre of villagers here during the war.在战争中，这里的村民惨遭屠杀。
• If we forget the massacre,the massacre will happen again!忘记了大屠杀，大屠杀就有可能再次发生！

14 killing   

n.巨额利润；突然赚大钱，发大财

参考例句：

• Investors are set to make a killing from the sell-off.投资者准备清仓以便大赚一笔。
• Last week my brother made a killing on Wall Street.上个周我兄弟在华尔街赚了一大笔。