Chapter 7 Chapter Five: The First Love Buried in the Basement

Kevin leaned lazily on the railing, watching him being abandoned because he was too young when he was a child, and could only stare at the direction of our departure, but he had an extra mobile phone in his hand and was sending text messages at a fast speed. "Girlfriend?" I pouted my chin towards the phone and asked him. He shrugged. "Maybe, but no. I don't want to settle down yet." "It means you have more than one partner. Xiao Kai, you bitch." He grinned. "So what? They know what's going on, and they don't want to settle down. It's just fun, not breaking the law."

"Yeah," I agreed, "I just thought you were supposed to help me get my mom over there instead of fingering love to have fun tonight. How are you doing?" "I'm here to help you with Mom. She's driving me nuts. If she tries to go out and find the Dalys, I'm going to catch her." "I don't want her calling the world, and Daly's wife." "She doesn't know how to fight. She won't act until she visits Mrs. Daley herself to get all the information. She is washing dishes and exhausting her energy. I want to help, but she scolds me, saying that my fork is not in the right direction. What if someone walks near the drainer and falls and pokes their eyes out, so I flashed. Where have you been? Looking for Mandy Brophy?"

I said, "Suppose you wanted to get from apartment three to the end of Loyalty, but couldn't go through the front door, what would you do?" "Back door," Kevin answered without thinking, and continued texting. "Over the wall of the backyard, I don't know how many times I have overturned it." "Me too," I pointed at the house, stretching from number three to number fifteen at the end, "six back yards." Seven, plus the Dalys' yard.Rosie might be waiting for me in one of the yards. "Wait," Kevin put down his phone and looked up, "Do you mean the present, or the past?"

"Is there a difference?" "Of course, Rambo, the dead dog of Holly's family, that little bastard once bit my ass, remember?" "God," I said, "I forgot about that bitch, I kicked him once." Lanbo is a mongrel dog with the blood of a dog, and it only weighs more than two kilograms when it is soaked.Taking this name gave it a Napoleon complex, coupled with a strong regional concept. "The idiots live in number five now, plus the Teletubbies paint, and I'll go the route you said," Kevin pointed to the same line I compared. "But in the past, there was Lanbo hiding and watching, and there was no door. I will go here." He turned around after speaking, and I looked along his fingertips: passing No. 1, along the high road at the entrance of the Land of Loyalty Wall all the way to No. 11, climb over the wall of No. 16 to the street lamp.

I asked, "Why don't you just go around the entrance and onto the road? Why bother walking our side of the backyard?" Kevin grinned and said, "I can't believe you don't know the way? Haven't you ever thrown a rock through Rosie's window?" "Mr. Daly wasn't there when he lived in the next room, and I wanted to save my life." "I've been chasing Linda Doyer for a while, around sixteen. Do you remember Doyer's at number one? We used to meet at night in her backyard so she could stop me from groping The hand on her chest. The wall—” he said, pointing to the beginning of the road, “the other side of the wall is very slippery, there is no place to step on it, you can only turn over the corner and climb up by another wall, so You can go into the backyard."

"You're an encyclopedia," I said, "and did you break into Linda Doyle's bra?" Kevin rolled his eyes and began to explain the intricate relationship between Linda and the Legion of Mary, while I fell into deep thought.It's hard for me to imagine a psychopath or a sexual predator hiding in a backyard on a Sunday night, alone, waiting for a victim to show up.If someone took Rosie, he knew her, knew she would come, and had at least a plan to do it. Over the back wall is Capo Lane, which is similar to Loyalty Field, but bigger and more lively.If I were to arrange a secret meeting or raid along the route Kevin pointed out, especially one involving fighting and dumping, I would choose number sixteen.

The voice I heard that day.I kept stepping on my feet to get rid of the cold, and waited under the street lamp, when I suddenly heard a man growling, a girl screaming, and collisions.The teenage boy in love is a jerk and wears rose-colored glasses for everything.I thought love between men and women was everywhere.I think I must have thought that Rosie and I were so infatuated with each other that an aphrodisiac would fill the air. That night, everything comes together and circles the Free Zone, driving everyone caught in a frenzy: tired workers hugging each other in their sleep, teenagers on the street suddenly kissing each other as if they couldn't live without kissing.Elderly couples spit out their dentures and tear at each other's flannel pajamas.I thought the voice I heard must be a couple doing that thing, but it wasn't necessarily so.

It took me a long time to convince myself that maybe Rosie wanted to meet me.If so, the note indicated that she probably followed Kevin's route to Number 16, and the box indicated that she never left. "Come on," I interrupted Kevin, who was still texting ("...don't care, it's just that she has big tits..."). "Let's go where mother won't let us go." No. 16 is even more dilapidated than I thought. The big hole extends all the way to the outside steps, because the construction workers dragged the fireplace away from here, and the cast iron railings on both sides were also stolen, or the house king even sold the railings .The big sign that said "Levari Engineering Company" was broken, and it fell from the patio to the basement window, and no one bothered to pick it up.

Kevin asked, "What are we doing here?" "Not sure yet," I said, and it was true.All I know is that we follow Rosie, step by step, to see where she takes us. "You'll know when you find it, right?" Kevin pushed the door open with his fingers, and carefully peeked forward. "If I hadn't been injured and sent to the hospital first," he said. Inside the gate, the shadows were intertwined and intertwined, layer upon layer, and faint light seeped in from all directions.From empty rooms with half-opened doors and dirty windows at the corner of the stairs, or the entryway with the cold wind blowing from the high stairwell.I pulled out my flashlight, probably outrageous, but I like to be on the lookout.

I love a leather jacket, not only because it's comfortable and almost never breaks, but also because it has plenty of pockets for all the basic essentials: Fifi photos for fingerprints, three small plastic evidence bags, pens and notepad, swiss knife, handcuffs and a mini Megalight flashlight.My . 38 revolver is in a special holster, safe and secure in the waistband of my jeans behind my back, where no one sees it. "I'm not kidding," Kevin said, squinting up the dark stairs. "I hate it, one sneeze and the whole house is on top of us." "The team put a GPS around my neck and they're going to dig us out."

"real?" "It's fake. It's a bit masculine, Xiao Kai, it's going to be fine." I said, turned on the flashlight and walked into No. 16, feeling the dust of decades floating in the air, constantly moving and churning, spiraling around us Up, like a small, icy whirlpool. The stairs buckled and creaked under our weight, but held up.I start with the living room upstairs.This is where I found Rosie's note and, according to Mum and Dad, where the two Polish boys found the suitcase.They removed the fireplace, leaving a large, jagged hole in a wall surrounded by faded graffiti about who loves whom, who is gay and who dies.The fireplace was going to someone's house at Boothbridge, and the initials Me and Rosie were still on it. Things were thrown everywhere on the floor, and I wondered what they were.The jars, cigarette butts and wrappers, all thick with dust - now that children have better places to go, and money to go - are among the used condoms, which adds to the charm of the place.In my day, condoms were still illegal.If you are lucky, there is a chance to use it (but not get it).Otherwise, you have to count on your luck and sit on pins and needles for a few weeks.All the corners of the ceiling are covered with cobwebs, and the weak cold wind penetrates into the gaps at the edge of the windows that open upwards, making a whistling sound.These windows could disappear at any moment and be sold to unscrupulous businessmen because his wife wanted to add a charming old-fashioned atmosphere to the home.I said (the place made me whisper): "I lost my virginity here." I feel like Kevin glanced at me, wanted to ask me something but hesitated to say anything, just said, "I can think of a bunch of places at random, which are much more comfortable than here." “We have blankets, and comfort is not the point. If I could go to a loft in Shelburne, Dublin, I wouldn’t want it.” After a while, Kevin shuddered: "God, this place is so gloomy." "Take it as an atmosphere and walk into Memory Lane." "Fuck you, I'm going to stay out of memory alley. Didn't you hear the Dalys just now? How fucking miserable were Sundays in the eighties? First mass, then some fucking Sunday dinner, I said sure Boiled bacon, baked potatoes and cabbage, would you bet?" "Don't forget the pudding." I shone my flashlight on the floor, a few holes and a few splinters, no signs of patching.If there's a repair here, it's as obvious as a sore thumb. "There's also angel sugar, which is always there. It tastes like strawberry-flavored chalk, but if you don't eat it, you will starve the black baby to death." "God, that's right. Then there's nothing to do all day, just sit in the corner and stare blankly, unless there's a way to sneak off to the movies or stand up to Mom and Dad. There's no TV, just Father So-and-so preaching, saying Birth control blinds people. Even watching a priest preach, it takes hours to adjust the goddamn antenna to get the signal right... I swear, there are a few Sundays when I'm so bored that I might as well go to school." There was nothing in the place in front of the fireplace, nor in the chimney, except for a bird's nest at the top and the white guano that had trickled down over the years clinging to the inside.Chimney Fortress suitcase is very reluctant, let alone the body of an adult woman, even temporarily hiding it is impossible.I said, "Dude, I'm telling you, you should come here, it's got everything, sex, drugs, sex." "By the time I was old enough to have fun, no one came here anymore, except the rats." "Rats are always there, add to the atmosphere. Let's go." I walked to another room. Kevin followed me and said, "It's to increase the germs. You were not there, someone must have poisoned here. I guess it was Johnny the Crazy, you know he hates rats because of his previous experience in the trenches. Anyway, a A bunch of rats crawled up the walls to die. Jesus, I kid you, it smells. Worse than a pig farm. We'd probably die of typhoid if we were here." "It tastes good to me." I searched around with the flashlight again, wondering if I was doing the most useless research in the world.After spending the whole evening with my family, my impulses were all gone now. "Well, that's right, the smell went away after a while. But when the smell went away, we moved to the open space on the corner of Capo Lane to fool around. Do you know where it is? The open space is also rotten, and it's too cold in winter Both will drop, and it's full of nettles and barbed wire. However, the kids from Caber Lane and Smith Road go there too, so there's a better chance of mixing drinks, kisses, hugs, whatever you want. So we later Almost never come back here again." "You missed it." "Yeah," Kevin looked around, not convinced.He put his hands in his pockets, keeping the coat close to his body so it wouldn't touch anything. "But I can live with it. It's the kind of thing that makes me sick of people thinking about the 80's when kids were either bored to death and playing next to barbed wire or shooting guns in goddamn rat nests...what's the matter I miss you so much?" I look at Kevin, with his Ralph Lauren, smart watches, expensive hairdos, and justifiable rage, and it's a million miles away from here.In my eyes, he is still the skinny kid, wearing old clothes I have worn and patched, and his hair is not combed. He runs in and out of this room, completely unaware that there is nothing special here.I said, "There's more here than that." "Like? What's so great about losing your virginity in this shit?" "I'm not saying I wish I could go back to the 80s, but I don't have to throw a stick over a boat. I don't know about you, but I'm never bored. Never. You might think about that .” Kevin shrugged and muttered something like: I don't understand what you're talking about. "Keep thinking about it, I'll remember." I left him and headed for the back room—if he stepped on the rotting floor in the shadows, it was his own fault.Not long after, he followed with a displeased expression on his face. Nothing in the back, nothing in the first-floor rooms, except for a pile of empty vodka bottles that someone obviously couldn't put away in their trash bags at home.When we got to the stairs in the basement, Kevin stopped suddenly: "No, I'm definitely not going down, really, Franco." "Every time you say no to your brother, God will kill a kitten. Let's go." Kevin said, "Shay shut us down once, you and I—I was a little kid, remember?" "Don't remember. Is that why you're bubbling with fear?" "Damn it, I'm not bubbling with fear. I just don't know why I want to be buried alive for no reason." I said, "Then wait for me outside." After a while, he shook his head and decided to follow me for the same reason as why I came to him: old habits die hard. Back and forth, I've only been to the basement three times.It was rumored locally that a man named "Big Sword Higgins" had cut the throat of his deaf-mute brother and buried him here.Just step into Lame Higgins' territory and he'll come to you, waving his rotting hands, making horrible grunting noises, and hitting people with a pole.The Higgins Brothers are supposed to be a fabricated story by worried parents. We don't believe it at all, but we still stay away from it.Shay and his friends would go down occasionally, trying to be manly.Couples who want sex but don't have room to fuck might come too, but the good things are concentrated upstairs: ten-packs of Marlboros, cheap two-litre ciders, joints as thin as matchsticks and strip poker that's never half played.Chippy Horn and I used to have a competition when we were about nine years old, who dared touch the back wall of the basement.Also, I have a vague memory of taking Michelle Nugent down a few years later, hoping she'd be too scared to hold me tight and maybe even earn me a kiss.I wasn't so lucky though, because at such a young age, I already liked bold girls. The last time Shay locked me and Kevin in the basement for about an hour that felt like days.Kevin was only two or three years old at the time, so scared that he couldn't make a sound and wet his pants.I comforted him, tried to kick the door open, and slammed my fingers on the wooden boards that sealed the window, all the while swearing to myself that one day I'd beat the crap out of Shay. I moved the flashlight slowly, and the basement was similar to what I remembered, but now I can understand why the parents hated us coming here to fool around.The windows were still boarded up, loosely, and streaks of light shone through the boards.The unevenness of the ceiling is worrying, with a large amount of plaster peeling off, exposed beams and columns, all bent and cracked.The walls deformed and collapsed, and it felt like the basement had become one big room.In many places, the floor collapsed and was directly pressed against the foundation. Maybe the ground has subsided, and the corners of the townhouses have nothing to support them.Someone tried this reluctantly long ago, and ended up putting concrete slabs in to fill the hole, praying to God.The smell here is similar to what I remember, still musty, dusty and urine smell, but it has become stronger. "Oh, please," Kevin hesitated by the stairs, muttering bitterly, "Oh, my God." His voice bounced off the wall at a strange angle, and disappeared into a distant corner, as if Someone whispered in the dark.He shivered and stopped talking. Two of the concrete slabs were the size of a person, and the person who placed them still piled cement on the edges of the slabs, obviously very satisfied with their results.The third piece is much more casual, about four feet by three feet, and it is stuck obliquely. As for the cement, let's save it. "Okay," Kevin said behind me, a little louder, "See? Everything is there, it's still a mess, can we go, huh?" I walked cautiously to the center of the floor and stomped on the corner of the concrete slab with the toe of my boot, years of dust holding it in place.But when I use my full body weight, I feel a slight jerk and the board moves.Just find something to act as a lever, such as an iron bar or a metal rod from the wreckage in the corner, to lift the concrete slab. "Xiao Kai," I said, "help me recall, did the mouse die in the wall in the winter of the year I left?" Kevin's eyes widened slowly, and a faint gray light beam shone on him, making him seem transparent, like a shaking projection on the screen. "Oh, my God, Franco, no way." "I'm asking you a question. After I left, the mouse died in the wall, right or wrong?" "Franco..." "Right or wrong?" "Just rats, Franco, they're everywhere. We've seen them, several times." That way, when the weather warms up, there will be nothing to stink and cause residents to complain to their landlords or the city. "And it smelled of them, rancid." Kevin was silent for a while before saying, "Yes." "Come on," I said, grabbing him by the arm (very hard, but I couldn't let go), and hurried him up the stairs, and I felt the planks twist and snap under our feet.As soon as I walked out of the house and came to the steps, facing the cold and clammy breeze and drizzle, I took out my mobile phone and dialed a number to the forensics department. The forensic officer caught by me was not very happy, either because he still came to work on weekends, or because I dragged him out of his warm and comfortable house.I told him I had a clue that someone had dumped a body under the concrete slab in the basement of 16 Faithful.I didn't go into details, such as when the body was dumped, except that I needed a forensics team and two or three police officers, and that I might not be there when they arrived.The forensic officer muttered about needing a search warrant, but I told him whoever the suspect was must be an intruder, so I didn't care about privacy.But he kept complaining, so I told him that everyone had used this room for at least 30 years, and that it was "essentially" a public place according to the Land Tenure Law, and there was no need for a search warrant, so I shut him up.I'm mentally classifying him as a useless jerk, for future reference. Kevin and I sat on the doorstep of number 11, which had been turned into a student dormitory, and waited for the forensic officer and his partner to arrive.It's enough here for me to observe the movements without the residents associating me with what's going to happen.If things go my way, I want people in the Land of Allegiance to see me as a homecoming kid, not a cop. I lit a cigarette and handed the case to Kevin. He shook his head and asked, "What are we doing?" "keep distance." "Don't you need to be there?" "Forensic people are grown-ups," I said, "and I don't need to hold their hand to get things done." He still looked hesitant. "Shouldn't we... you know, make sure there's nothing in there before calling the police?" I have long wanted to lift the board.In the basement before, I tried my best not to lift it up.I held back my temper and didn't get angry with him. "The forensics guys have the proper digging equipment, we don't. If there's something in there, the last thing they want is us messing with it." Kevin moved to check his hips.The steps were wet, and he was still wearing the best clothes he had worn to work the day before."But you said it emphatically on the phone," he said. I glanced out of the corner of my eye and found Xiao Kai squinting at me, confused and wary.Afterwards, he stopped talking and lowered his head to pat off the dust and cobwebs on his pants.I do not mind.This job takes patience, and I've always thought I was very talented, but I waited and waited, and it felt like a week had passed, which made me want to kill the forensic department and grab the forensic staff's underdeveloped balls , Capture him from "World of Warcraft". Shay walked up the steps and walked towards us picking his teeth. "Any news?" he asked. Kevin wanted to say something, but I stopped him. "nothing." "I see you went to Cullen's house." "possible." Shay looked up and down the road, and I caught him noticing that the door to Number Sixteen was ajar. "What are you waiting for?" "Stay here," I grinned at him and patted the steps beside me. "Maybe I'll find out soon." Shay snorted, but soon went up the steps and sat at the top, feet to my face. "Mom is looking for you," he said to Kevin.Kevin wailed and Shay smiled, straightening his collar against the wind. At this moment, I heard the sound of tires on the gravel road from the corner of the street.I lit a cigarette and leaned back on the steps to conceal my identity and add a little "not kind" feeling.Thanks to Shay for this, he doesn't have to do anything, as long as people are there.But I'm superfluous, neither the two cops who stepped out of the patrol car nor the three forensic officers who jumped out of the van, I don't know. "God," Kevin said in a low voice, with an uneasy tone, "There are a lot of people here, don't they always..." "It's still a small number. There may be more people later, depending on the situation." Xie Yi gave a long whistle, with an expression of great battle. It's been a while since I've stood outside the cordon watching a crime scene as an undercover agent or as a petty bourgeois, and I've almost forgotten what forensics is like.The young man from the forensics department was covered in white from head to toe, shaking the heavy box containing the evil tricks, put down his mask and walked up the steps with a snap, and disappeared into Room 16, making my hair stand on end and I looked like a dog. Shay sang in a low voice: "Three strong men came to knock on the door, wah wah wah wah, two policemen plus operators, came to the bank of the Sale River..." The police had just pulled the tape along the handrail of the steps, and the scene hadn't been completely sealed off. Residents had already heard about it and wanted to taste the blood.Older women with curly hair and turbans poured out of the door, huddled together to discuss and add insult to injury (“A young girl gave birth and threw the baby away.” “God, that’s terrible! Speaking of this , Fiona Morley put on a lot of weight afterwards, you think it might be..."). The man suddenly realized that he needed to go to the front steps to get a cigarette and see what the weather was like.The pimple-faced guy and the bad girl leaned against the rear wall, pretending not to care.Five or six punks slid around on their skateboards, staring at Sixteen with their mouths open, until one of them bumped into Sally Horn and gave her a good slap in the back of the leg before they recovered. Come.The Daly family of three came to the steps, and Mr. Daly held out his hand to prevent his wife from going any further.The whole scene made me uneasy, and I don't like the feeling of not knowing how many people are around me. The free zone hears gossip like a piranha finds its prey.In Dai Qi, the investigative team broke into the local area without permission. You will not see anyone on the street who is curious to inquire and make such a vulgar act. At most, one or two women with a little adventurous spirit suddenly Thinking of pruning the flowers and trees in the front yard, and sharing her knowledge with friends while sipping herbal tea afterwards, most residents learned the whole story from the newspaper the next morning.But in the place of loyalty, everyone rushed to the scene of the incident immediately.The old Mrs. Nolan firmly grasped the sleeve of a policeman, asking him to explain clearly.From the look on the policeman's face, it was obvious that his basic training did not include this. "Franco," Kevin said, "there's probably nothing there." "Maybe." "Really, it might be my fantasy. Isn't it too late? Just now..." Shay asked, "What fantasy?" "fine." "Xiao Kai?" "It's all right, that's all I'm going to say, maybe it's just my fantasy—" "What are they looking for?" "My dick," I told him. "Wish they had a microscope." "Go to hell," Kevin said in a displeased tone, he frowned and looked at the policeman, "I don't want to play games anymore, I really hope..." "Be careful," Shay said suddenly, "Mom." The three of us slid down the steps at once, in quick unison, with our heads lowered, well below the sight of the crowd.I glimpsed the figure of my mother among the residents. She stood on the steps with her arms folded on her chest, scanning the street with eyes like a drill, as if she knew that all the chaos was caused by me, and she wanted me to pay the price.Dad stood behind her, took out a cigarette, and looked at the disturbance in front of him expressionlessly. There was a commotion in the house.An forensic officer came out, raised his thumb to his back, said a few words, and the police snickered.He opened the van, rummaged in it, grabbed a handful of sleds and ran up the steps. "With that, the whole house would come down," Shay said. Kevin still fidgets, as if the steps hurt his ass. "What if they get nothing?" "That would put our Franco on the blacklist," Shay said, "wasting everyone's time. Isn't that pathetic?" "Thank you for your concern, nothing will happen." "Yeah, no, you'll never be okay. What are they looking for?" "Why don't you ask them?" A student with messy hair and wearing a Limp Bazkit T-shirt came out of Apartment 11, scratched his head with a hungover look, and asked, "What happened?" I said, "Go back to the house." "This is our step." I took out my police ID, and he just said, "Oh, damn it!" and then shuffled back into the house, finding it hard to accept that there was such an unfair thing in the world. "Yeah," Shay said, "intimidating with a police badge." But it was a reflex, his eyes narrowed slightly against the fading sunlight, still staring at Sixteen. At this time, a loud bang like artillery fire shook the entire street and houses, echoing in the dark free zone.It was the concrete slab, it fell to the ground.Nora shuddered and screamed under her breath, and Sally Horne pulled up the collar of her cardigan and crossed herself. At that moment, I felt a vibration in the air, and the electricity burst from the bottom of Sixteen, bursting from the inside out.The forensic officer's voice grew and faded, the police turned their heads to watch, the crowd pushed forward, and dark clouds gathered over the roof. Kevin said something behind my back, I heard him mention me, and suddenly realized that we had stood up, and he had one hand on my arm.I said, "Let go." "Franco..." Someone in the room growled sharply, ordering urgently.I no longer cared about people knowing that I was a policeman, so I said to Kevin, "Stay here." The policeman who blocked the railing was short and fat, with the face of an aunt. "Stand aside, kid," he told me, with an accent as muddy as mud. "There's nothing to see." I pulled out my police ID and he read it with wriggling lips.There were people going up and down the stairs in the house, a face flashed past the corner window, and Mr. Daly yelled loudly, but it felt far away and gradually slowed down, as if coming from the other end of a long iron pipe. "It says on the certificate," the policeman said back to me, "you are an undercover agent, but I haven't heard of any undercover agents coming." "You know now." "You have to talk to the responsible police officer, it may be our small captain, or it may be the crime team, it depends—" I said, "Get out of the way, get out of the way." The policeman raised his mouth and said, "You don't have to speak to me in that tone. You can wait here, where you are, until you get permission—" I said, "Get out of here, or I'll beat you so badly." He widened his eyes, realized that I was not joking, and stepped back.I jumped up the steps in two or three steps, knocking away his colleague who was standing at the door with a surprised face, and he was still muttering that he would report me to his superiors. Laugh, folks: deep down, I don't think they'll find anything at all.As a clever and cynical undercover king, I often brag about my insights to rookies, saying that the world is twice as evil as they think, but I never thought I would have such a day.I hadn't thought about it until I opened that suitcase and felt the concrete slabs of the dark basement shake slightly and the electricity run through the evening air. No matter what I knew before and after, deep down, in the deepest corners of my heart, I still believed in Rosie.Even when I ran down the crumbling stairs to the basement and saw a group of masks turn their heads to look at me, white light was shot at me, the board was dug up, stuck between the wire and the crowbar at an exaggerated angle, when I smelled the The stench in the ground, when I knew something was wrong, I still believed her.I believed Rosie until I pushed past the squatting forensic officers to see what they were looking at. Large irregular holes, a tangle of blackened hair, fragments of what should be jeans, and smooth brown bones with tiny tooth marks.When I saw a slightly curved palm turned into white bones, I immediately knew that when they found nails among the layers of dirt, dead insects and rotting water, the right index finger should have bitten the finger flesh. I clenched my jaw so hard that my teeth were about to shatter, but I don't care, it's okay to be shattered.Inside the cave she was curled up like a sleeping child, her face buried in her arms.Maybe that saved my heart.I heard Rosie say, Franco, clearly in my ear, when we first made love. Someone suddenly said something about infection, and then handed the mask to me with one hand.I stepped back and put my wrist over my mouth.Cracks in the ceiling bounced around like broken TV screens.I remember hearing myself say softly, "Oh shit." A forensic officer asked, "Are you okay?" He stood a little too close to me, speaking as if he had asked two or three times. I said: "Yeah." "It's scary at first sight, isn't it?" said one of his colleagues triumphantly. "We've seen worse." "Did you call?" the forensic officer asked. "Yes, I'm Detective Franco Mackey." "Are you from the Crime Squad?" I paused for a second to understand what he was asking, and my head almost stopped. "No." I said. The forensic officer looked at me strangely.He looks like an otaku, half the age and figure of me, he should be the useless bastard from before. "We've contacted the Major Crimes Unit," he said, "and the coroner." "I bet," said his assistant cheerfully, "that she didn't come down by herself." He was carrying an evidence bag.If any of them touch her in front of me, I know I'm going to blow the other's brains out. "Well done," I said, "I think they're coming soon, I'll help the police." I climbed the stairs, and heard the otaku saying that the residents were not free, and several assistants hissed and snickered, feeling like a group of teenagers.At that moment, I really thought that the people in the basement were Shay and his buddies, smoking joints and telling cheap jokes, and I thought I would go back to my original life when I walked out of the house, and none of this happened. Outside the house, the crowd was bigger and tighter, everyone stretched their necks, only a few steps away from my police friend who was a watchdog.His companion had descended from the door to the railing and stood beside him.The clouds on the roof were lower and the light was different, an unsettling bruising purple-white. There was movement behind the crowd, and Mr. Daly drove straight in, waving his arms and pushing the residents away, staring at me as if no one else was there. "Munchie—" he wanted to shout, but his throat suddenly became hoarse, and he only made a rough voice, "what's inside?" The mud monster said angrily, "I'm in charge here, stand back." I just want them to beat me up, whether it's the monster or his co-workers. "You can't even hold on to your own dick," I said to the big limp pudding face.He avoided my sight and I pushed him away and walked over to Mr. Daly. As soon as I stepped out of the gate, he grabbed my collar and pressed against me hard, his chin pressed against my face, and my blood suddenly surged like ecstasy.Either he's better than the cops, or he just won't bow to the Mackeys, whichever makes me happy. "What's in there? What did you find?" An old man screamed in excitement, and teenagers in hooded sweatshirts started clamoring.I warned him loud enough for everyone to hear, "Dude, you better get your hands off of that." "Don't you think, you little bastard, you don't even try to order me—my Rosie's in there, do you?" "My Rosie, man, my girl, mine. I'll say it to you again: Get your hands off." "It's your fault, you nasty boy. If she's in it, it's because of you." His forehead rests on my head, the palm of his hand is so hard that I feel my shirt cut through the back of my neck like a knife.The group of teenagers yelled: "Hit! Hit! Hit!" I firmly grasped his wrist, and was about to break it, I could smell his smell in my nose, the sweat and breath, the hot and stinky animal smell, I will always remember it.The guy was terrified and nearly lost his mind.At that moment, I saw Holly in front of me.我肌肉里的狂躁瞬间消退，胸膛深处啪的一声，仿佛有东西绷裂了。 “戴利先生，”我尽可能放轻语气，对他说，“他们一有发现就会通知您，但在此之前，您必须回家等候。” 两名警察想将他从我身上拉开，叽哩呼噜说了一堆，但我们谁也没有理睬。戴利先生眼眶四周泛出几近疯狂的白光，仿佛在说：是我的萝西吗？ 我拇指压着他手腕神经用力一摁，他喘息一声，双手松开我的领子。但警察还来不及将他拖走，他已经用下颚顶着我的脸，有如情侣一般紧贴我耳边说：“是你的错。” 戴利太太不知从哪里冒了出来，发出难以形容的呜咽声，扑向戴利先生和警察。戴利先生身体一软，两人将他拖走，回到交头接耳的居民之间。 泥浆怪兽莫名其妙粘在我背后，贴着我的皮衣。我狠狠一肘将他推开，接着靠回栏杆整理衬衫，按摩脖子。我呼吸急促。 “事情还没完，小子，”泥浆怪兽脸庞胀成不健康的紫色，威胁我说，“我告诉你，我要向上级检举你。” 我说：“我叫弗朗科·麦奇，奇怪的奇。别忘了叫他们排队。” 警察像生气的老女佣一样哼了一声，随即转头将怒气发在探头探脑的群众身上，猛力挥舞双手，大声叫他们后退。我瞥见曼蒂怀里和手边各一个小女孩，三个人眼睛睁得又大又圆。戴利夫妇牵着手蹒跚走上三号台阶，消失在屋里。诺拉靠在门边墙上，一手捂着嘴巴。 我走回十一号，这里看来也好不到哪里去。谢伊在卷第二根烟，凯文一脸病容。 “他们找到什么了，”他说，“对吧？” 法医和殡仪车随时会来。“嗯，”我说，“没错。” “是……”沉默良久，“是什么？” 我掏出烟，谢伊或许出于同情，递了打火机给我。不久，凯文说：“你还好吧？” 我说：“我很好。” 我们三人安静了很久。凯文抽了我一根烟，群众缓缓平静下来，开始分享警察滥用暴力的传闻，讨论戴利先生能不能提告。不少人聚在一起窃窃私语，偶尔瞄我一眼，我发现了就瞪回去，但人数很快多得让我应接不暇。 “小心，”谢伊抬头对着阴沉的天空低声说，“麦奇小子回来了。”