Gone Girl 消失的爱人Chapter 6

NICK DUNNE

THE NIGHT OF

事发当日

Boney and Gilpin moved our interview to the police station, which looks like a failing community bank. They left me alone in a little room for forty minutes, me willing myself not to move. To pretend to be calm is to be calm, in a way. I slouched over the table, put my chin on my arm. Waited.

‘Do you want to call Amy’s parents?’ Boney had asked.

‘I don’t want to panic them,’ I said. ‘If we don’t hear from her in an hour, I’ll call.’

We’d done three rounds of that conversation.

Finally, the cops came in and sat at the table across from me. I fought the urge to laugh at how much it felt like a TV show. This was the same room I’d seen surfing through late-night cable for the past ten years, and the two cops – weary, intense – acted like the stars. Totally fake. Epcot Police Station. Boney was even holding a paper coffee cup and a manila folder that looked like a prop. Cop prop. I felt giddy, felt for a moment we were all pretend people: Let’s play the Missing Wife game!

‘You okay there, Nick?’ Boney asked.

‘I’m okay, why?’

‘You’re smiling.’

The giddiness slid to the tiled floor. ‘I’m sorry, it’s all just—’

‘I know,’ Boney said, giving me a look that was like a hand pat. ‘It’s too strange, I know.’ She cleared her throat. ‘First of all, we want to make sure you’re comfortable here. You need anything, just let us know. The more information you can give us right now, the better, but you can leave at any time, that’s not a problem, either.’

‘Whatever you need.’

‘Okay, great, thank you,’ she said. ‘Um, okay. I want to get the annoying stuff out of the way first. The crap stuff. If your wife was indeed abducted – and we don’t know that, but if it comes to that – we want to catch the guy, and when we catch the guy, we want to nail him, hard. No way out. No wiggle room.’

‘Right.’

‘So we have to rule you out real quick, real easy. So the guy can’t come back and say we didn’t rule you out, you know what I mean?’

I nodded mechanically. I didn’t really know what she meant, but I wanted to seem as cooperative as possible. ‘Whatever you need.’

‘We don’t want to freak you out,’ Gilpin added. ‘We just want to cover all the bases.’

‘Fine by me.’ It’s always the husband, I thought. Everyone knows it’s always the husband, so why can’t they just say it: We suspect you because you are the husband, and it’s always the husband. Just watch Dateline.

‘Okay, great, Nick,’ Boney said. ‘First let’s get a swab of the inside of your cheek so we can rule out all of the DNA in the house that isn’t yours. Would that be okay?’

‘Sure.’

‘I’d also like to take a quick sweep of your hands for gun shot residue. Again, just in case—’

‘Wait, wait, wait. Have you found something that makes you think my wife was—’

‘Nonono, Nick,’ Gilpin interrupted. He pulled a chair up to the table and sat on it backward. I wondered if cops actually did that. Or did some clever actor do that, and then cops began doing it because they’d seen the actors playing cops do that and it looked cool?

‘It’s just smart protocol,’ Gilpin continued. ‘We try to cover every base: Check your hands, get a swab, and if we could check out your car too …’

‘Of course. Like I said, whatever you need.’

‘Thank you, Nick. I really appreciate it. Sometimes guys, they make things hard for us just because they can.’

I was exactly the opposite. My father had infused my childhood with unspoken blame; he was the kind of man who skulked around looking for things to be angry at. This had turned Go defensive and extremely unlikely to take unwarranted shit. It had turned me into a knee-jerk suckup to authority. Mom, Dad, teachers: Whatever makes your job easier, sir or madam. I craved a constant stream of approval. ‘You’d literally lie, cheat, and steal – hell, kill – to convince people you are a good guy,’ Go once said. We were in line for knishes at Yonah Schimmel’s, not far from Go’s old New York apartment – that’s how well I remember the moment – and I lost my appetite because it was so completely true and I’d never realized it, and even as she was saying it, I thought: I will never forget this, this is one of those moments that will be lodged in my brain forever.

We made small talk, the cops and I, about the July Fourth fireworks and the weather, while my hands were tested for gunshot residue and the slick inside of my cheek was cotton-tipped. Pretending it was normal, a trip to the dentist.

尼克·邓恩

事发当晚

波尼和吉尔平把我带到警察局继续录口供，该警局看上去像一座垮掉的社区银行。他们把我一个人扔在一间小屋里过了四十分钟，于是我强令自己不要乱动——在某种程度上，假装冷静便是冷静。我无精打采地趴在桌子上，用胳膊枕着下巴，等待着下一回合。

“你要给艾米的父母打个电话吗？”在此之前波尼曾经问道。

“我不想吓到他们，”我说，“如果过一个小时她还没有消息的话，我再打电话给她的父母。”

我们已经把同一番谈话重复了三遍。

警察们终于进屋在我对面的桌边坐下，整个场面像极了一场电视节目，我拼命忍住不让自己笑出声来。在过去十年里，每当我漫不经心地浏览夜间有线电视节目时，便会在各种节目上一眼看到眼前这种房间，此刻的波尼和吉尔平一脸疲态却又专心致志，一举一动像极了电视明星，整个场面假透了，活像一幕大戏。波尼的手里还端着一杯咖啡，拿着一个看上去道具味十足的文件夹，那可是警察专用的道具哪。我顿时觉得有些飘飘然如在云端，不禁咀嚼着眼前这种演戏的滋味——警察和我都在扮演角色，让我们一起玩一场“太太失踪”的游戏吧！

“你还好吧，尼克？”波尼问道。

“我没事，怎么啦？”

“你在笑。”

我冷不丁从半空中一跤跌回了瓷砖铺成的地面上，“对不起，只是这一切太……”

“我明白，”波尼给了我一个安抚的眼神，仿佛伸出一只手拍了拍我，“这场面太奇怪了，我明白。”她清了清嗓子，说：“首先，我们要确保你在这里待得舒服，你需要什么尽管告诉我们。你给我们越多信息越好，但你也可以随时离开，没有人会拦着你。”

“悉听尊便。”

“好，非常好，谢谢你。”她说，“嗯，我想还是先把破事给解决了吧，把没用的绊脚石先搬开。如果你的妻子确实被人绑架了……我们还不清楚她是不是被人绑架了，不过如果事情真到了那一步，那我们想要捉住犯事的家伙，而当我们捉住这家伙的时候，我们想让他无法翻身，没有办法脱罪，没有回旋的余地。”

“没错。”

“因此我们必须尽快先把你洗脱嫌疑，洗脱得干干净净，这样犯事的家伙才找不到借口脱罪，无法指控我们没有考虑过你的嫌疑，你明白我的意思吗？”

我机械般地点了点头。我并不十分清楚她的意思，但我希望尽可能地做出配合的模样，“悉听尊便。”

“我们不希望吓着你，”吉尔平说，“我们只是希望把事情做得滴水不漏。”

“我这边没意见。”我说。“在这种故事里，犯事的总是那位丈夫。”我暗自心想，每个人都认为凶手总是那位丈夫，你们两个警察为什么不明明白白地把话说出口呢：“我们怀疑你，因为你是她的丈夫，凶手总是那位丈夫，不信的话去看看罪案新闻节目好了。”

“那好，太好了，尼克。”波尼说，“首先我们要用棉签从你的口腔里取样，这样才可以筛除你家那些不属于你的DNA，这样做你不会介意吧？”

“当然不会。”

她说：“我还打算快速查一查你手上有没有火药残留，这也是以防万一的措施……”

“等等，等等，等一下，你们是不是已经有了什么发现，让你觉得我的太太……”

“不不，不是这样，尼克。”吉尔平打断了我的话，将一张椅子拉到桌边一屁股坐了下去，把椅背一侧放在身前。我暗自好奇警察们私底下到底是不是这副坐姿，难道一些灵气逼人的演员在节目里上演了这一套，警察们觉得电影电视里的警员用这副坐姿看上去非常酷，于是从节目上借鉴了过来？

“这只是走一遍程序，以防万一嘛。”吉尔平继续说道，“我们想要把事情做得滴水不漏，查一查你的手、取个 DNA样本，如果可以我们还要查一查你的车……”

“当然可以，就像我刚才说的，悉听尊便。”

“谢谢你，尼克，真的很感谢。有些时候有些家伙非要为难我们，只不过因为他们有能力让我们为难。”

我属于截然相反的那种人。在我的童年时期，我的父亲整天无声地苛责我们，他从早到晚偷偷摸摸地到处挑刺，好借此发上一顿脾气。他这个毛病把玛戈变成了一个戒心很强的“刺儿头”，简直受不了一句胡说八道的屁话，却把我变成了一个对权威唯命是从的“软骨头”。爸爸、妈妈，还有老师们——“先生女士们，只要能让你的活计变得容易一些，那就悉听尊便吧。”我巴望着人们源源不断地认可我。“毫不夸张地讲，为了让人们相信你是个好人，你这家伙会撒谎、骗人、偷东西……妈的，还会杀人……”玛戈曾经这么说过。当时我们正在一家炸饼店等着买犹太馅饼，那家店紧挨着玛戈原来在纽约住的公寓（我还清清楚楚地记得当时的情形）。听见她的那些话，我顿时没了胃口，因为玛戈的话是如此千真万确，我却从来没有意识到。就在她说这句话时，我还在想：我永远不会忘记这一刻，这一刻将永远铭刻在我的回忆中。

警察们测试了我手上的火药残留，用一根棉签在我的嘴里取了样，在此过程中我们闲聊了一会儿，谈了谈天气和国庆礼花。我们假装一切正常，仿佛不过是去看了一次牙医。