Chapter 19 Chapter Eighteen

Knock knock knock. Quesetti woke up from sleep, wanting to go back to continue dreaming, in the dream he and Judy.Foster and Clark.Gable sat side by side on the set, talking about the movie.He winks at Judy because they're listening to Gable's secret that he's not actually dead, waiting for him to explain how he's going to fool the world.At this point in the conversation, there was a rattling sound in the background, and he said he would go and see what it was Knock knock, knock knock, knock knock, knock knock. When he got up, he was in the strange Linton hotel room. In the suburbs of Oxford, Professor March graciously helped him arrange a comfortable room.There was a bay window facing the garden, which was stained black by the night, and the noise at the same time kept him away from sleep.There was another sound of pebbles hitting the glass, and he checked the time: two-thirty in the morning.

He puts on his jeans, goes to the window and pushes it open, grit all over his face.He leaned out of the window while cursing, and saw a black figure on the grass, bending down to pick up small stones full of hands from the path. who is it?He spoke in a breathless voice, not wanting to wake up the sleeping others. The man stood up and said in the same tone: This is Caroline. Caroline.Lori? And which Caroline?Of course it's me.Quesetti, come down and open the door, let me in! He gazed down for a long moment at the upturned, pale, familiar face, then closed the window, put on a shirt and sneakers, left the room, ran back to get the keys before the door closed, and dashed down the short corridor , hop down the stairs, across the bar to the garden gate.He opened the door and there she was, soaked in a long-sleeve black shirt and jeans, her black hair parted in bunches on either side of her face.

She pushed him away and went into the bar. God, I'm so cold.she says.She looked as if she was standing under a dark red emergency exit light, with dark blue lips.She glances at the bar, can you get me a drink? The bar is closed and locked.But I still have a bottle in my room. He did, and he bought a fifth-gallon bottle of The Balvenie for his mother at the duty-free shop.After entering the room, he turned on the hot water in the bathroom, handed her his old bathrobe, and asked her to change out of her soaked clothes.While she was changing in the bathroom, he poured some wine into a water glass. When she appeared wrapped in a bathrobe, her hair wrapped in a towel, he handed her a glass.

She gulped it down, coughed, and sighed again.He was gazing into her face. She met his eyes, why?she says. what?Lori, how many months has it been?I don't even remember, you've been missing since the end of August.Bustrow is dead, did you know that?was killed.And his lawyer came to my living room and a bunch of bad guys broke in, the lawyer shot and killed two bad guys, I was almost kidnapped by the gang, and oh my god, I can't help Lori, you fucking Where did the 's go?Also, what the hell are you looking for? Don't yell at me!She suppressed her voice and said: Please, let me sit down and be quiet for a few minutes.

He pointed to the lounge chair by the window, she sat on it, and he sat on the bed, facing her.She looked impossibly small and youthful now, but with dark circles and blue eyes that had faded, like tarnished metal. She drank the whiskey in silence, raised her glass and asked for another. No, said Quesetti, first tell me what happened. When did you start talking?Since I was born? No, let's start with your marriage. Your ex-husband was named Orud, who lived at 161 Tower Road, Braddock, Pennsylvania. She gasped suddenly, and he saw the familiar rosy hue on her cheekbones.For a successful liar like Luo Li, her control over blushing was a bit weak.

you know?she says. Yes, I have been there, and Emmet and I have a good conversation. Hearing this, she opened her eyes wide and covered her mouth with her hands, oh my god, have you seen him?Is he okay? Fairly healthy, maybe a little skinny, seems like a bright kid.I also saw that girl, although I only saw a little bit, but she should be quite healthy.Their father seemed to be a pretty grumpy guy. You are right, Haran is relentless in his actions. I have seen it.How did you fall in love with him?He seems to be much older than you. He was my brother-in-law, and I was thirteen when my mother died, and it was my older sister, Emily, who took care of me.She was four years older than me, and he was six years older than her.

Where's your dad? She gave a short sneer, God knows who it was.My mom was a small town waitress and barmaid, and she supplemented her income by befriending men, whoever paid her rent for the month got her, and she was called the truck driver's friend.In the end, there was a truck driver who shot her, and the man she was with at the time, and I guess he thought it was a real romance.I came home from middle school that day, the police were at home, and my sister Emily took me back to her house after that, and I lived with them.Do you need to hear this? right.So there's no such thing as Uncle Lowe, right?

No, I lied, only Haran.When I was fourteen, he started messing with me, and Emily couldn't stop him because he hit her so hard.I got pregnant with Emmet when I was sixteen, and Molly four years later, but what can I say?I thought that was the way it should be.Harlan had a job at the battery factory, and that fed us, and that was how we lived.I've got Emily, she's got me, we both have kids, and you might be surprised if I told you how many people live like this in Braddock.Then Harlan lost his job and took a part-time job in the warehouse of Wal-Mart Supermarket, Emily died, and then

How did Emily die? She got electrocuted while using the washing machine, an old problem with that machine.Harlan promised us to fix it, but it never happened, and we all have to be careful when using it.I think she wanted to commit suicide on purpose, and he beat her very hard at that time. Right.How does bookbinding have anything to do with this? Her face suddenly became stiff, you want to know the story of my whole life?Why?Because have we done it?Do you think that you have the right to get the whole series of five-CD set Caroline.Lori's life? No, Caroline, said Quesetti, I have no right to ask you to do this, but why did you come here in the middle of the night?Just need a hot shower and a glass of whiskey?Still want to chat about our old days at the bookstore?

No listen, I need your help.I ran away from them and now have nowhere to go and I don't have time to clarify every detail.They'll be here as soon as they wake up and find me gone. who are they? Shavnoff's men, four of them, are about two miles from the hotel, and they know where you are, so I know how to get here. What now?Are we in the same country again?Why should I believe your words? God!Didn't I say it before, I don't know how to interact with real flesh and blood people like you.All I can do is lie, I'm in a frenzy of fear and run away, and God, can't you just pour me another drink?please?

He complied.She took a sip of her wine and said, "Okay, listen, I'll give you the general idea."About Bookbinding The other day I was taking the kids to the doctor, and the school required vaccinations, and I saw the book while waiting in the office.That book is part of the background decoration, you know?Someone with a funky-looking bookshelf filled with hardcover books?That's what the doctor who injected it with.My son, Emmet, and daughter, Molly, were playing with the bookcase, taking the books down and using them as building blocks, and the receptionist said they couldn't do that, so I put the books back on the shelf, and there was a book called The Art of the Book Binder, I stole the book.The book is bound in golden half-calf paper, I don't know why I stole the book, maybe it's because the book feels very detailed, the leather and paper feel, nothing like the town of Braddock brought me Feeling like a piece of paper that accidentally fell from another world is in my hand, like a gem.When I got home I hid the book and read it late at night every night for months.The idea of ​​people handcrafting books to create a beautiful exterior has somehow stuck in my bones.After my sister Emily died, Harlan started punching and kicking me, and I knew that if I didn't run away, I would end up like Emily, either he would kill me or I would kill myself.So I ran away, the first time, he took me back, locked me in the cellar, and beat me to the point where I was nearly crippled; the next time, I waited until his payday, took five hundred bucks in cash while he was still asleep, and left , hitchhiked, and ended up in New York, temporarily staying in an asylum.I got a night job as a building cleaner and through that I found my penthouse, as I told you, it's not legal to live there, but it's super cheap because the owner wants someone to stay there , lest the house be robbed by gangsters.That was the first time I heard Shavnov's name. Why? Because he owns the building, or part of it, Abel Realty Management is his.I stayed in that place, worked as a cleaner for more than two years, worked night shifts, and spent all my free time in the library, reading about bookbinding and the book industry, and learning how to fake a resume.Then I quit my job and found a job as a waiter in a restaurant in the city, watching ordinary people, learning how they dress, how they speak, and the meaning of gestures.I transformed myself into middle class.It was a happier year.Then I got a job at Glaser Books, and that's my sad life story.Now, do you want to hear about those manuscripts? want. I've known Bustrow before, I think I told you before when I was in New York, Glaser introduced us, and I took one of the general studies courses he gave at Columbia, on manuscripts.As soon as I saw the few pages of documents in the mezzanine of Churchill's book, I knew right away that it was a big discovery.She took a sip of her wine and looked out the window into the black night: You still want to know why I lied about the useless book in my hand, why I pretended that the book was worthless, and why I lied that I was on the run, so that you Selling the documents to Boothrow without any hassle? I'm all ears. Well, I was a bookstore clerk and found those manuscripts in my employer's books.I don't have any other channels, but I have to get those things from a legitimate source before they can be auctioned off.If I'd made it public in the first place, Glazer would have come out and fucked, and What do you mean, fuck? Ha, I knew you didn't know Glazer.He would say that the source of those things is not correct, and then these things will immediately become hot potatoes, and no auctioneer will want to touch them.Glaser is a big name in this field, I'm a nobody.So I needed a striker to come forward, and I immediately thought of Buszrow.When you were waiting for me on the street that morning, I was contacting him, telling him what we found, setting up the scene that took place in his office.He said that if it was real, he would buy it from me for five thousand dollars, more than what he bought from you, so it turned out to be Bustrow's manuscript.Although he had been lied to once before, he was still a leading scholar and paleographer with access to a large source of manuscripts, and there would be no involvement between Glaser and me. I see, but, Lori, I still don't understand why you didn't tell me right away. Come on man I don't know you at all you could tell Glaser the next day hey Lori found a priceless Jacobean manuscript hidden in the bag you sold her for scrap Inside the pile of waste books, haha.That's why I'm going to pretend to involve you in this deception, while keeping you from knowing the true nature of the manuscript. I get it, what happened after that, that night was also part of the con? For the first time that night, she looked him directly in the face.Quesetti's father had once told him that pathological liars looked their interrogators straight in the eye, and then stared for an unnaturally long time.He was glad Lori didn't do that.Her eyes quickly moved away, and he thought she was a little embarrassed too. No, she said, that wasn't part of the plan.I know you're disappointed in me I told you about Uncle Lowe I thought you were leaving me but you didn't and you were so nice to me I never had a day like that in my life when someone took me shopping , listen to good music, buy me things, really treat me like a human being, not want to sleep with me I do want to sleep with you. I mean, the one person I'm willing to have sex with is someone my age who treats me well.I was never a kid, I was never a teenager, I never drove to a drive-in movie theater with a boy on a date. So you like me? Oh, I adore you.The way she said it for granted made her sound more convincing than the testimony, and his heart actually beat a little faster.But so what?You are too good for me to even meet my kids.You're really in a lot of trouble, so I thought, well, that's one of those nights that I don't know, like you said, one of those nights that normal people our age do.After that is Cinderella's final stop, but there is no glass shoe and no prince.The next day I went to see Buszrow about what happened after the project, and he said he had a financial backer, so we went to see Shavnov.You met Osip.Shavnov? No, only saw his men. Oh, he's special, with a soft figure, except for his eyes.He reminds me of Er.Rui.Bridger. Who? A criminal, my mom dated him for a while, and I don't want to talk about him now.Anyway, I found out right away that Shavnov was a villain, but poor Buszrow didn't notice it at all, and of course I wasn't going to tell him.He talked to Shavnoff about Shakespeare's plays, and he said that the Bracegodo paper itself was worth between five and a hundred thousand dollars, but if we found Shakespeare's manuscript, there's no way to calculate how much it would be worth.100 million?150 million?And Shavnoff wouldn't take any chances, because even if we got nothing on the manuscript, he could still sell the Brace Godo papers.In short, Shavnoff gave him about twenty thousand, and told him to set off to England immediately to study Bracegard and the Duke of Dumbarton.He did and I followed him Didn't even say goodbye.Don't you think that's impolite? That's the best way, so I know you won't have anything to do with that goddam bastard. Do you think you are protecting me? I think I am.She admitted, and then added defensively, don't think it's unnecessary, you have no idea how terrifying this person is. Speaking of him, how could a British scholar happen to know such a gangster as Shafnov? I don't know, they were introduced by mutual friends, I think it's a usury business.God, I'm so tired!Where did I say it? Fly away, don't know when will come back.Also, don't say goodbye. right.Well, we got to England, straight to Oxford, and Oliver.Horses stay together.Buszrow said that I had to be with them, and Marcus didn't like this arrangement very much, but he insisted that it was for safety reasons, and that I had to come forward to take the manuscript to authenticate the date, so that no one would know about Buszrow's relationship with this piece. related.Later, the appraisal results proved that the manuscript was genuine, and Buszrow’s whole person changed. He was not allowed to answer the phone, suspected that I had reached the point of madness, suspected that I was working for Shafnov, and revealed our real purpose, our research. , and everything else. But you didn't do that. But I am, of course I work for Shavnov, and I still help Shavnov, at least Shavnov still thinks so.Before I left New York, he gave me a cell phone and told me to keep in touch with him. How should I answer that kind of person?Do not want? Seeing the rebellious look on her face, Quesetti said nothing.She took the towel off her head and dried it vigorously, much to his intimidation.After a while, he asked her: What did Buszrow say when you told him about those encrypted letters? She blushed again.I didn't tell him, it was Shavnov who said it. But you told Shavnov. I clarified his doubts, and she quickly admitted: he knows a little detail, Quesetti.His subordinates are all over the place, obviously he found out about you from Bustreau, he must have been asking everywhere.You don't think he's capable of finding out what's going on in the New York Public Library?Hell, he can even find out what's going on in the CIA! Thank you for taking so much trouble to get me out.He said. I'm very sorry.I'm a coward, and he scares me, I can't lie to him.Anyway, when Buszrow knew about the encrypted letter, he lost his mind.I had to stay by his side to let him calm down.He learned that the password is the key to unlocking the script script. If Shafnov gets the encrypted letter from you, then Shafnov will no longer need us, which may not be good for our health.I said we should try to find out if the copy of the cipher that Brace Godou had sent to Dumbarton was still on the recipient's side. That's why you went to Dutton Hall. Yes, but the stuff wasn't there, or we didn't find it at all.But we did find a Geneva Bible, do you know what that is? I know, said Quesetti, the Tudor bible, published in the 1560s, nine by seven inches, which we think is the basis for the Bracegrave cipher, but how do you know that?You don't have the text of the password. No, but we found a geneva bible with holes in it, it's in the library in Dumbarton, and Bustreau knows that the letters that show through the holes are the answer to the code, and Kadange is part of the code .He knows a lot of ancient codes. That's why you stole Kadange from the church. how do you know thatHer voice sounded wary. I know everything.Why don't you just steal the Bible? Bustra stole it, and then he sent me to steal the Katange Tablet.God, he was so on edge back then, he thought there was a bunch of rogue academics looking for the same thing as us, and he was trying to delay them.He assumes you've given the cipher file to someone else, say your buddy from the library, so there has to be a chase, which is why he's back in New York.He wants to go directly to you and get the password file from you.He already had the Katange Tablet, after Shavnov caught him, tortured him to death, and for what? He thought Buscher had lied to him.Somebody, I don't know who, contacted Shafnov and told him that Buszrow had hooked up with another group of people who were looking for script manuscripts, Shafnov was furious Another faction?You mean us?Mishkin? She thought about this sentence for a moment, biting her lip, no, it was another gang, a guy named Harry, also Russian, and Russian Jew, who had something to do with Shavnov, was an enemy or a former partner .They mainly talk in Russian, so I know very little Miranda, whom Mishkin often mentioned.Where is Kellogg?What about her background? I only met her once, and she said: I don't know who she is, some actress or model, Shavnoff hired her to get the original Bracelet fight from Mishkin, they played a trick first The free-tour gimmick sends away the real heir and casts an actress as Kellogg. What's up with her? I think, after she got the stuff, she wanted to extort more money from Shafnov, so he got rid of her. kill her? Oh, of course, she died and disappeared.She trembled slightly and hung up like Busch-joo.Shavnov doesn't like having people playing tricks on his back. Buszrow really lied to Shavnov? no doubt.But at least as far as I know, he has no relationship with other people, but if he really finds the script, he will definitely not hand it over.What a joke.Horse District told me that he intends to hand it over to the country, with the proviso that only he can use it and has the right to do the research of the first edition. The country will lock him and the script on the top of the tower, and Shafnov can roll away. Cool off.That fellow Buszrow is a Shakespeare scholar from head to toe, and when he talks about it there's a goddamn twinkle in his eye, poor old bastard! So, as far as I know, we haven't found the punched Bible, so we must assume that Shavnov has got it. What about the real Katange? It was Shavnoff who took it, too, because Buszrow took the board with him when he left England.When they tortured him, Buszrow must have told him that Mishkin had the original letter, and he had already learned that you had the original coded letter with you.Is there no one who wants to touch you? Oh yes, they tried.Quisetti said, briefly explaining the shootout that happened at his house in Queens not long ago, and then said: So the basic situation is, we only have passwords, and he only has Katange, a typical impasse.Or, am I missing something? There was a strange expression on her face, which disappeared in an instant.She opened her mouth and said: Do you have a password with you now?I mean is it in this room? Well, the password is in the vault of the New York Public Library, but I have an electronic file on my laptop, digitally encrypted of course, and I also have a Geneva Bible, and Mishkin bought two.I also have an electronic file of the 1560 edition that I deposited while I was in New York, just before we I have that board.she says. you have?where? She stood up and took off her gown, and spread her feet on the arm of the chair, revealing her inner thighs, and there it was.she said, pointing to the tiny blue dots on the smooth white skin.He knelt and stared, his face inches from her thigh.Her skin smelled of rose soap, and her knees quivered slightly.At first the dots seemed random, but then he saw a pattern: a naturally formed weeping willow tree, a symbol of mourning.He cleared his throat, but the voice was still stuck in his throat, Lori, is that a tattoo? Yes, after I snatched the Katange tablet, I punctured it in the room of the horse district's house, using pins and ballpoint pen ink, with a total of eighty-nine pinholes. OMG!Is this picture accurate? Yeah, I transferred it to tracing paper first, then compared it with the Bible I got from Dutton Hall, and the number of holes matched. Why are you doing this? Because I think I will meet you sooner or later, and you may still have a password with you.We all know that the manuscript could disappear, or be stolen, not to mention that the goddamn thing searched me almost fifty times.Of course the bitch who frisked me didn't know the details of the target, but I couldn't cover the holes with something, but then again, a lot of people have tattoos.do you have tracing paper No, but I have the magic pen, and we can use the glass in the small picture frame, which is about the same size. She lay on the edge of the bunk with her left thigh flattened, and Quesetti knelt on the floor, between her outstretched legs.All the lights in the room are on.Holding the glass in his hand, he was close to her skin, and carefully painted red dots on every blue dot on her skin with the magic pen.He had to control his left hand to avoid touching the steaming skin, and his cheek was quite close to her when he was working.It was the most heart-wrenching moment of his life, and he almost giggled.They didn't talk, and Luo Li's body was as stiff as a corpse. When everything was finished, Luo Li adjusted the bathrobe on her body and said: Buszrow learned from the arrangement of the piercing holes in the Geneva Bible that the order should start from the second page of Genesis and move forward.You put the outermost hole of the Katange tablet on the lower left and lower right of each page, covering the first and last letters of the last line, that is the index mark, and then you look for the letters under each hole in the usual reading order, by Left to right, top to bottom. Quesetti was already sitting at the table, opened the ancient Bible in front of him, plugged in the laptop, and ran the document processing program.He placed the glass plate over the chapters of Genesis, arranging the index dots on the correct letters, the translucent ink marks allowing him to easily see the letters underneath. I read the letters, you type them.He said, D, a, v, o, v This job is surprisingly boring. Of course, Quesetti has already counted the letters in the encrypted letter. There are more than 35,000 letters in it, not including blank spaces. Each letter is matched with a non-repeating Bible letter to decode, He quickly calculated in his mind, and said that the dictation speed can reach one word per second, then 35,000 letters would take nearly ten hours, not including the time for rest and inspection.This would take too much time, and if the people Lori escaped were looking for her, they were running out of time, so they should leave immediately.As soon as he thought about it, he thought of a wonderful hiding place, so he stopped dictating. What's wrong?Lori asked. What's wrong?That's gross, there must be an easier way, we're not Jacobean spies.bastard!There is a computer in front of me, and I never thought of it What the hell are you babbling about, Quesetti? I figured it out, look at that tablet, the first letter decoded is the third letter of the first line, then the fifteenth letter, then the twentieth letter; the next line is the second letter , then the seventh, and the fourteenth.Each page conforms to the pattern pattern of the tablet.They didn't use the title page of the Bible, did they? Yes, only the page numbers of the plain text are marked, and of course the other pages are the same, so that they will not be confused with the perforated page numbers. Of course, they only used the non-title pages on the right hand side, so what we're going to do is, pull up the electronic file of the 1560 Bible from the computer, remove the page numbers that list chapter titles and the page numbers on the left, and then By issuing a short search command and having the calculator bar list the letters indicated by the tablet, we can have the decoding appear automatically.I also have a Virginia decoding program on my computer. 【Note】If it goes well, we can see the secret of Bryce Gradle in the morning. 【Annotation】Virginia cipher is an encryption algorithm that uses a series of Caesar ciphers to form a cipher alphabet. It is also a replacement encryption technology. Although it is simple and easy to use, it is difficult for beginners to crack, so it is called undecipherable password. Can I take a nap while you work? You can do whatever you want.As he spoke, he returned to the table. Although all the deciphering work was handled by computer, it still took longer than expected.The first morning light appeared in front of the bay window, and Quesetti pressed the execute button hard, sending what he hoped was a long string of decoded letters into the Virginia decoding program, which had entered Brace Godo's All the password letters, the computer screen shows that decoding is in progress, a long blank space appears below, and a series of small rectangles appear one after another, like a long queue of neatly arranged trucks on the track.Quesetti smacked his lips feeling dry after drinking the hotel's self-serve coffee all night. Quesetti God, what time is it? A murmur came from under the quilt. It's almost seven, I think I'm done, want to see? I smell coffee. There's some left over, but it's hard to drink.Come and see, this may be the result of decoding. She got out of the quilt and stood beside him.Finally a small rectangle appears and is replaced by a single file icon displayed on the screen: A plain text file of Brice Grace's password. txt Quesetti put the cursor on it and said: You deserve this honor, press the button to view it. She did.The screen transitions to a single-spaced long paragraph, with the first line displaying: mylfrdithdsnowpassedtwowereksandsomedaiitssincgilefmyouphowsa Oh, no!She yelled, to no avail. No, we made it.Remember, they used two different bibles for the encryption, Bracegaud's and Dumbarton's, the average print quality was poor, especially as the Geneva bible has a huge distribution market, and no two copies will be exactly the same , they must have had the same problem in the past.Tablets based on the Brace Fight copy will be slightly different from the letters uploaded by Dumbarton's copy, but it's close enough.Here, I copy the file to a new file, okay, then separate it with spaces and put punctuation, and then correct the obvious mistakes, okay, then the first line appears. Your Excellency: It has been two weeks and many days since I left your mansion. Oh my gosh!Quesetti, you are amazing. There was a delighted smile on her face, the same smile that had been in his dreams for months, and he felt a similar expression on his own.Nope, he said, for the true geniuses, the answer is just around the corner.Are you going to give me a kiss now? She kissed him.She kissed him again.After a while he suddenly pushed her away and made eye contact with her. You will stay, right?He said, I mean, you'll be here tomorrow, and the day after tomorrow I think I can promise to meet you on a special day. But what about normal days?Do we have to negotiate every day? quesetti please no Hey, Luo Li, you want to execute me Ling Chi.He sighed, if you insist on doing this, I will really die.He would have been immersed in this mood all the time, but she stopped his mouth with the tip of her tongue, and Richard.Brace Godou's long-lost cipher tablet was placed in his groin. So fast.He said. Yeah, fast and hot. I love when you suddenly open your eyes when you're excited. That's the way to be reliable, she agrees, so I can remember who it is. clever.Now, as much as I'd love to go on, never stop You're going to study those codes, oh, I think so too, I just don't want to say it. So as not to solve the wrong password.I know.Now that we've agreed, let's hang out in the bathroom before we get to that. She gave him a quick kiss and slid out of bed, he thought, what could be better than watching a woman you've just loved walk across the room, the way her back and hips move in the morning light ?He was thinking about how to shoot this scene in the movie so that it looked as vivid as real life, when he suddenly heard Luo Li scream. What's wrong? Here they come! The expression on Luo Li's face showed animal-like fear, and his mood fell instantly. Who?Although the answer is self-explanatory. One is standing in the garden, called Shanya, and the others must be at the front door.Oh my God, what should we do? Suit up!Stay away from windows!She slipped into the bathroom like a lizard, and Quesetti approached the window, puffing out her stomach and scratching it again, like a fearless man who just woke up from a good night's sleep.There was indeed a man in the garden, a broad-shouldered man in a knee-length black fur coat and a knitted hat over his head.He looked up and saw Quesetti, his eyes stayed on him briefly, and then his attention turned elsewhere, that is to say, even though they knew his exact location, even if they knew that Luo Li would come to him, they still couldn't recognize him.Which was odd, because on the streets of Queens, they should have seen him pretty clearly.Unless it's a completely different group of people, as Lori mentioned, there are two opposing factions He didn't have time to think about it now, so he pulled a few clothes and put them on, pulled the phone line from the wall, plugged it into the British system's phone adapter, connected it to his computer, and compressed the encrypted Brise For Ge Dou's information, dial up and connect to his mailbox.He hadn't used a dial-up connection in years, but of course it still worked.It felt like it had taken centuries to get that thing connected to the Internet, maybe five minutes later, and once connected, he used a hard drive wipe program to delete the code letters, code words, Bibles, and plain text from the hard drive. Text file.He looked up and saw Lori standing in the bathroom aisle. What are you doing?She whispered to him in a high-pitched voice. Protect our confidentiality.I've seen this scene in a lot of movies and now it's like I'm following a script where the hero and heroine are running away from the villains Fuck you, Quesetti, this isn't your goddamn movie!Once they catch us, they torture us till we tell them all our secrets That's not in my script, forget it. He sat in front of the computer and worked for a while, then turned off the machine and put it in the briefcase, now we have to pack you up too, he said, dumping the contents of the travel bag on the floor, hoping your muscles are soft enough. She could barely fit into the big bag.Quesetti knew that in real life, dragging a woman who weighed about fifty-seven kilograms in a travel bag down the stairs was much more difficult than he had imagined.When he reached the lobby, he was sweating and having trouble breathing. He looked around, and there were two big men standing there.He was very cautious and didn't look at them carefully, but he roughly saw that they were wearing leather clothes, they were all big, calm and determined.At the front desk of the hotel, he handed the staff a note that he had prepared: Please don't say my name out loud, someone is asking about my whereabouts, I don't want people to find out.Thanks. 這封訊息裡面附有一張摺疊起來的二十英鎊鈔票。那個職員是一個年輕的亞洲面孔，點點頭，無聲無息地辦好離房手續，最後簡單說了一句：先生再見，希望很快可以再見到你。 奎塞提打開旅行袋，拿出防雨夾克、厚手套，還有他剛才壓到羅莉頭上的帽子。他穿戴起來，那些暴徒看到他，對他完全不感興趣，視線緊緊盯著主要通道，還有大廳另一側的緊急逃生通道。他拎起旅行袋，大步通過他們面前，走到街道上。他從網上安排好的出租轎車正在等候他，後頭則停了一輛豪華轎車，一個穿皮衣的暴徒靠在擋泥板旁邊正在抽煙。出租轎車的司機是一個纏著頭巾的印度錫克教徒，幫他把旅行袋搬到汽車行李箱內，他坐進車內，告訴司機載他到最近的百貨公司。 然後他帶著買好的東西回到車內，請司機把後車廂打開，把羅莉弄出那個旅行袋。她呻吟著坐進後座，身上聞起來有霉味，像塊帆布。車子再度開動，他拿給她一個購物袋，她查看裡頭的衣物。 你總是幫我買衣服，奎塞提，連內衣褲都買了，買的時候一定很刺激吧。 只是潔癖，是我的壞習慣，妳喜歡嗎？ 我討厭這些衣服，穿起來像小牌明星或業餘妓女，還有這頂像桃莉．芭頓的假髮是怎麼回事？我以為重點是要避免引人注目。 既然妳老是穿著黑衣服，又是一頭棕髮，這就是避免引人注意的方法。妳該把衣服換上。 她發了幾句牢騷，但是還是照他的要求做了，穿起淡紫色毛衣，緊身黃色牛仔褲，大了一號的白色派克大衣，上面附著假毛領子，腳上套著羊毛靴。 很合身，她說，真厲害。你還買了什麼？ 化妝品，在這裡轉彎然後停一下。 車子加速衝上高速公路，他幫她上粉底、腮紅，畫了個濃密眼妝，擦上暗紅色唇蜜。他拿出剛買的化妝盒上面那面小鏡子，讓她看見她在鏡中的模樣。 她看著鏡子說：奎塞提，你到底從哪學來這招的？ 我有三個姊姊，而且我正在籌劃開拍一堆非常非常低成本的電影。奎塞提回答，還有，不用謝我，我們離開前，米希金把他的美國運通卡給了我。 我們用他的美國運通卡要去哪？ 奎塞提很快瞄司機一眼。 卡薩布蘭卡，我們到摩洛哥的卡薩布蘭卡去，去找水，【註】我一直都很想去那裡。在事情平靜下來之前，我們在那應該很安全。我們可以研究布瑞斯葛斗的密碼，想想看密碼要帶領我們去何處，任何地方都可以。 【譯註】電影《北非諜影》的原文片名是摩洛哥西邊的城市卡薩布蘭卡，劇中男主角告訴別人自己來到卡薩布蘭卡是為了這裡的水，但事實上該城市位於沙漠。 如果他們在機場堵人呢？ 不太可能，我們又不是要逃離政府密探或黑道教父。追我們的人只是小幫派而已。現在他們可能已經闖進我們的房間，正在查看那堆衣服、書本，然後發現他們被騙了。他們知道我們要到機場去，因為他們看到我們坐進前往機場的出租汽車，他們會追著我們跑，但我們應該還是會沒事。 她大大嘆了口氣，躺回座位，闔起雙眼。他握著她的手，既溫暖又潮濕，像孩子般的手，然後也閉上眼睛，車子一路向南疾駛。 第六封加密信（殘篇之四） 從他抽屜拿出抄寫好的作品，說：你來把它燒掉吧！我走過去，將它拿到火旁，但最後卻燒不下手，不知道為什麼，對我來說彷彿是要殺死一位嬰兒。因為我愛他，而且我心裡知道他非常愛這部作品。但這件事我只放在心裡，沒有說出口。我只說：我又想一想，覺得我們不如把它收好，當作這邪惡陰謀的證據。他望著火光良久良久，不發一語，喝著酒。最後他說：不如這樣吧，理查，我有一個好主意。我們不燒它，也不用它來阻止任何法案或引發爭端，它要如被沉入水中一般。也許未來有一天會浮出水面，也許那時，眾人會以不一樣的眼光看這些事。然後他大笑一陣說：我想這齣可憐、難見天日的劇，從現在算起一百年後，會是眾人唯一聽過威廉所寫的劇，而且還是拿來見笑的。我說：不會的，大家確實都愛看你寫的劇，你一定是最會寫劇的人。他聽到這個就板起臉，彷彿咬到一口爛掉的魚說：狗屁，你怎麼講這麼孩子氣的話，理查，戲劇算什麼！星期二，或過了一個星期，他們就開始大叫，沒有新的嗎？這我們已經看過了。這事根本毫無價值，說也奇怪，戲劇大概也只能取悦妓女及笨蛋而已。真是無足輕重的東西，渺如空氣、形如影。不，如果人要在入土後還能活著的話，一定要寫一些更重要的東西，詩或故事，或用胯下生個兒子。我沒有寫故事，詩也只寫了兩部，還有一些雜七雜八的。如果我有地有錢，或有讀書的話，我可能可以成為另一位大文豪，但我從小就必須賺錢、賺錢，一枝筆只能從不成氣候的小小環球劇院賺些現金。而我的兒子也死了。 我們那天晚上之後就沒有再討論了。後來，我們去了華威克郡，路途相當辛苦，當時已是冬天，滿地泥濘。我們在二月十八日抵達史特拉福，我們到某個特別的地方，把那本劇本好好藏好。劇本在哪裡我有寫下來，但解碼方法只有我跟莎士比亞先生知道。爵爺，我另外和莎士比亞先生新創了一種加密法，跟這個解碼方式不一樣，因為他說：我想用我寫的東西藏我的作品，麻煩你現在寫出關鍵詞。這項關鍵詞將會永遠由我保管。知道關鍵詞的人，就能知道密碼，若再了解我的測量公式，就能找到劇本所在的地方。 爵爺，如果您需要看這齣蘇格蘭瑪莉女王的劇，只消寫封信來，您只要有所要求，不無論何事，我都樂意服從。 我是爵爺您最謙卑、忠順的僕人 Richard.布瑞斯葛斗 一六一一年二月二十二日，於倫敦