Rose Madder

VII. PICKNICKERS

Norman had been trolling for her. He lay awake late in his hotel room on Thursday night and across midnight’s dark knife-edge into Friday morning. He turned off all the lights except for the fluorescent bar over the bathroom sink; it threw a diffuse glow across the room that he liked. It made him think of the way streetlights looked when you saw them through a heavy mist. He lay almost exactly as Rosie had lain before falling asleep on that same Thursday night, only with just one hand under his pillow instead of both. He needed the other to smoke with, and to convey the bottle of Glenlivet standing on the floor to his lips. Where are you, Rosie? he asked the wife who was no longer there. Where are you and where did you ever find the nerve to cut and run, a scared little creepmouse like you? It was this second question he cared about the most-how she had dared. The first one didn’t matter all that much, not in any practical sense, because he knew where she was going to be on Saturday. A lion doesn’t have to bother himself about where the zebra feeds; all he has to do is wait by the waterhole where it drinks. So far, so good, but still… how had she ever dared leave him in the first place? Even if there was no life for him beyond their final conversation, he wanted to know that. Had it been planned? An accident? An aberration born of a single impulse? Had anyone helped her (besides, that was, the late Peter Slowik and the Cavalcade of Cunts on Durham Avenue)? What had she been doing since she’d hit the bricks of this charming little city by the lake? Waitressing? Shaking farts out of sheets in some fleabag like this? He didn’t think so. She was too lazy to do menial work, you only had to look at the way she kept house to see that, and she had no skills to do anything else. If you wore tits, that left just one other choice. She was out there someplace right now, selling it on some streetcorner. Of course she was; what else? God knew she was a lousy lay, screwing her had been about as exciting as fucking mud, but pussy was something men would pay for even if it didn’t do anything but lie there and drool a little after the rodeo was over. So yes, sure, she was probably out there selling it. He’d ask her about it, though. He would ask her everything. And when he had all the answers he needed, all the answers he ever wanted from the likes of her, he would wrap his belt around her neck so she couldn’t scream, and then he would bite… and bite… and bite. His mouth and jaws still ached from what he had done to Thumper the Amazing Urban Jewboy, but he wouldn’t let that stop him, or even slow him down. He had three Percodans at the bottom of his traveling bag, and he would take them before he went to work on his lost lamb, his sweet little rambling Rose. As for afterward, after it was over, after the Percs wore off… But he couldn’t see that, and he didn’t want to see that. He had an idea that there was going to be no after, only darkness. And that was all right. In fact, a long dose of darkness might be just what the doctor ordered. He lay in bed and drank the best Scotch in the world and burned one cigarette after another, watching the smoke drift up to the ceiling in silky reefs that turned blue when they passed through the soft white radiance from the bathroom, and he trolled for her. He trolled for her, and his hook slipped through nothing but water. There was nothing there and it was driving him crazy. It was as if she had been abducted by aliens, or something. At one point, quite drunk by then, he had dropped a live cigarette into his hand and clenched his fist around it, imagining it was her hand instead of his, that he was holding his hands over hers, clamping hers tight on the heat. And as the pain bit in and wisps of smoke curled out around his knuckles, he whispered, “Where are you, Rose? Where are you hiding, you thief?” Not long after that he drifted off. He woke up around ten on Friday morning, unrested and hungover and vaguely frightened. He had dreamed peculiar dreams all night long. In them he was still awake and still lying in his bed here on the ninth fioor of the Whitestone, and the light from the bathroom was still cutting softly through the darkness of his room, and the cigarette smoke was still rising through it in shifting blue membranes. Only in his dreams, he could see pictures like movies in the smoke. He could see Rose in the smoke. There you are, he thought as he watched her walk through a dead garden in a pelting rainstorm. Rose was naked for some reason, and he felt an unexpected bite of lust. He hadn’t felt anything at the sight of her nakedness but weary revulsion for eight years or more, but now she looked different. Pretty good, in fact. It isn’t that she’s lost weight, he thought in the dream, although it looks like she has… a little, anyway. Mostly it’s something about the way she’s moving what she’s got. What is it? Then it came to him. She had the look of a woman who’s fucking someone and hasn’t had anywhere near enough just yet. If it had even crossed his mind to doubt this assessment-to say What, Rosie? You got to be kidding, cousin-one look at her hair would have been enough to settle the question once and for all. She’d dyed it slut-blonde, as if she thought she was Sharon Stone, or maybe Madonna. He watched the smoke-Rose leave the weird dead garden and approach a stream so dark it looked more like ink than water. She crossed it on a path of stepping-stones, holding her arms out for balance, and he saw that she had some sort of wet, crumpled rag in one hand. It looked like a nightgown to Norman and he thought: Why don’t you put it on, you brazen bitch? Or are you expecting your boyfriend to come by and give your ticket a punch? I’d like to see that. I really would. Tell you one thing-if I so much as catch you holding hands with a guy when I finally track you down, the cops are going to find his goddam trouser-rat sticking out of his asshole like a birthday candle. No one came by, though-not in the dream, anyway. The Rose over his bed, the smoke-Rose, walked down a path through a grove of trees that looked as dead as… well, as dead as Peter Slowik. At last she came into a clearing where there was one tree which still looked alive. She knelt down, picked up a bunch of seeds, and wrapped them in what looked like another piece of her nightgown. With that done she got up, went to a set of stairs near the tree (in dreams you never knew what fucked-up thing was going to happen next), and disappeared down them. He was waiting around for her to come back up when he began to feel a presence behind him, something as cold and chill as a draft from an open meat-locker. He’d handled some fairly scary people during his years as a cop-the PCP addicts he and Harley Bissington had had to deal with from time to time were probably the scariest-and you developed a sense of their presence after awhile. Norman was feeling that now. Someone was coming up behind him, and he never doubted for a moment that it was someone dangerous.

“I repay,” a woman’s voice whispered. It was a sweet voice, and soft, but it was terrifying, just the same. There was no sanity in it.

“Good for you, bitch,” Norman said in his dream.

“You try to repay me and I’ll change your whole fucking outlook.” She screamed, a sound that seemed to go directly to the center of his head without even passing through his ears, and he sensed her lunging toward him with her hands out. He drew in a deep breath and blew the cigarette smoke apart. The woman disappeared. Norman felt her go. For a little while after that there was only darkness, with him floating peacefully in the middle of it, untouched by the fears and desires which haunted him when he was awake. He woke up at ten past ten on Friday morning and shifted his eyes from the clock by the bed to the hotel room ceiling, almost expecting to see phantom figures moving through decaying stacks of cigarette smoke. There were no figures, of course, phantom or otherwise. No smoke, for that matter-just the lingering smell of Pall Malls, in hoc signo vinces. There was only Detective Norman Daniels, lying here in a sweaty bed that smelled of tobacco and used booze. His mouth tasted as if he had spent the previous evening sucking the end of a freshly polished cordovan shoe, and his left hand hurt like a mad bastard. He opened it and saw a shiny blister in the center of his palm. He looked at it for a long time, while pigeons fluttered and cooed at each other on the shit-encrusted ledge that ran past his window. At last the memory of blistering himself with the cigarette came back, and he nodded. He’d done it because he couldn’t see Rose no matter how hard he tried… and then, as if in compensation, he’d had crazy dreams about her all night long. He placed two fingers on the sides of the blister and squeezed, slowly increasing the pressure until it popped. He wiped his hand on the sheet, relishing the waves of stinging pain. He lay looking at his hand-watching it throb, almost-for a minute or so. Then he reached under his bed for his traveling bag. There was a Sucrets tin at the bottom, and in it were a dozen or so assorted pills. A few were speedy, but most were downers. As a general rule, Norman found he could get up with no pharmacological help at all; it was getting back down again that sometimes presented a problem. He took a Percodan with a small swallow of Scotch, then lay back, looking up at the ceiling and once again smoking one cigarette after another, stubbing them out in the overflowing ashtray when they were done. This time it wasn’t Rose he was thinking of, at least not directly; this time it was the picnic he was considering, the one being thrown by her new friends. He had been to Ettinger’s Pier, and what he saw there wasn’t encouraging. It was large-a combination beach, picnic area, and amusement park-and he didn’t see any way he could stake it out with any confidence of seeing her arrive or leave. If he’d had six men (even four, if they knew what they were doing), he would have felt differently, but he was on his own. There were three ways in, assuming she didn’t come by boat, and he could hardly watch all three of them at the same time. That meant working the crowd, and working the crowd would be a bitchkitty. He wished he could believe that Rose would be the only one there tomorrow who would recognize him, but if wishes were pigs, bacon would always be on sale. He had to assume they would be looking for him, and he would also have to assume they had received pictures of him from one of their sister groups back home. He didn’t know about the x, but he was coming to believe that the first two letters in fax stood for Fucked Again. That was one part of the problem. The other part was his own belief, backstopped by more than one bitter experience, that disguises were a recipe for disaster in situations like this. The only quicker, surer route to failure in the field was probably wearing the ever-popular wire, where you could lose six months” worth of surveillance and setup if a kid happened to be running a radio-controlled boat or racecar in the area where you were planning to bring the hammer down on some shitbag. All right, he thought. Don’t bitch about it. Remember what old Whitey Slater used to say-the situation is what the situation is. How you’re going to work around it is the only question. And don’t even think of putting it off. Their goddam party is just twenty-four hours away, and if you miss her there, you could hunt for her until Christmas and not find her. In case you hadn’t noticed, this is a big city. He got up, walked into the bathroom, and showered with his blistered hand stuck out through the shower curtain. He dressed in faded jeans and a nondescript green shirt, putting on his CHISOX cap and tucking the cheap sunglasses into his shirt pocket, at least for the time being. He took the elevator down to the lobby and went to the newsstand to get a paper and a box of Band-Aids. While he was waiting for the dope behind the counter to figure out his change, he looked over the guy’s shoulder and through a glass panel at the back of the newsstand alcove. He could see the service elevators through this panel, and as he watched, one of them opened. Three chattering, laughing chambermaids stepped out. They were carrying their bags, and Norman guessed they were on their way to lunch. He had seen the one in the middle-slim, pretty, fluffy blonde hair-someplace else. After a moment it came to him. He had been on his way to check out Daughters and Sisters. The blonde had walked beside him for a little while. Red slacks. Cute little ass.

“Here you are, sir,” the counterman said. Norman stuffed his change into his pocket without looking at it. Nor did he look at the trio of maids as he shouldered past them, not even at the one with the cute tush. He had cross-referenced her automatically, that was all-it was a cop reflex, a knee that jerked on its own. His conscious mind was fixed on one thing and one thing only: the best way to spot Rose tomorrow without being spotted himself. He was heading up the corridor toward the doors when he heard two words which he at first thought must have come out of his own head: Ettinger’s Pier. His stride faltered, his heart kicked into overdrive, and the blister in the palm of his hand began to throb fiercely. It was a single missed step, that was all-that one little hesitation, and then he went on heading toward the revolving doors with his head down. Someone looking at him might have thought he’d felt a brief muscle-twinge in his knee or calf, no more than that, and that was good. He didn’t dare falter, that was the hell of it. If the woman who’d spoken was one of the cunts from their clubhouse over on Durham Avenue, she might recognize him if he drew attention to himself… might have already recognized him, if the speaker of those two magic words was the little honey he’d crossed the street beside the other day. He knew it was unlikely-as a cop he’d had first-hand experience of how amazingly, numbingly unobservant most civilians were-but from time to time it did happen. Killers and kidnappers and bank-thieves who had eluded capture long enough to make the FBI’s Ten Most Wanted List suddenly found themselves back in the slam, dropped by a 7-Eleven clerk who read True Detective or a meter maid who watched all the reality-crime shows on TV. He didn’t dare stop, but- but he had to stop. Norman knelt abruptly to the left of the swinging door with his back to the women. He dropped his head and pretended to tie his shoe.

“-sorry to miss the concert, but if I want that car, I can’t pass up the-” Out the door they went, but what Norman had heard convinced him: it was the picnic the woman was talking about, the picnic and the concert that was going to round off the day, some group called the Indian Girls, probably lezzies. So there was a chance that this woman knew Rosie. Not a good chance-lots of people who weren’t tight with Daughters and Sisters would be at Ettinger’s Pier tomorrow-but a chance, just the same. And Norman was a man who believed emphatically in the fickle finger of fate. The hell of it was, he did not yet know which of the three had been talking. Let it be Blondie, he prayed as he got quickly to his feet and went out through the swinging door. Let it be Blondie with the big eyes and the cute ass. Let it be her, what do you say? It was dangerous to follow, of course-you could never tell when one of them might glance idly around and win the super bonus round of Place the Face-but at this point he could do nothing else. He sauntered along behind them, his head casually turned to one side, as if the junkola in the shop windows he was passing was of vital interest to him.

“How are you making out on pillowcases today?” the tub of guts walking on the inside asked the other two.

“For once, they’re all there,” the older woman walking on the outside said.

“How about you, Pam?”

“I haven’t counted yet, it’s too depressing,” Blondie replied, and they all laughed-those high, giggly sounds that always made Norman feel as if his fillings were cracking in his mouth. He stopped at once, looking in a window at a bunch of sporting goods, letting the maids pull ahead. It was her, all right-no question about it. Blondie was the one who had said the magic words Ettinger’s Pier. Maybe it changed everything, maybe it changed nothing. Right now he was too excited to figure it out. It was certainly an amazing stroke of luck, though-the kind of miraculous, coincidental break you always hoped for when you were working a longshot case, the break that happened more often than anyone would ever believe. For now he would file this in the back of his mind and proceed with Plan A. He wouldn’t even ask about Blondie back at the hotel, at least not yet. He knew her name was Pam, and that was plenty to start with. Norman walked to the bus stop, waited fifteen minutes for the airport shuttle, and then hopped on board. It was a long ride; the terminal was on the edge of the city. When he finally disembarked in front of Terminal A, he slipped on his dark glasses, crossed the street, and made his way to the longterm parking area. The first car he tried jumping had been there so long the battery was dead. The second one, a nondescript Ford Tempo, started all right. He told the man in the collection booth that he’d been in Dallas for three weeks and had lost the ticket. He was always losing them, he said. He lost laundry tickets, too, and he was always having to show his driver’s license at Photomat when he stopped in to pick up his snapshots. The man in the collection booth nodded and nodded, the way you do at a boring story you’ve already heard about ten thousand times. When Norman humbly offered him an extra ten dollars in lieu of the ticket, the man in the collection booth perked up a little. The money disappeared. Norman Daniels drove out of longterm parking at almost exactly the same moment that Robbie Lefferts was offering his fugitive wife what he termed “a more solid business arrangement.” Two miles down the road, Norman parked behind a beat-to-shit Le Sabre and swapped license plates. Another two miles on, he stopped at a Robo-Wash. He had a bet with himself that the Tempo would turn out to be dark blue, but he lost. It was green. He didn’t think it mattered-the man in the collection booth had only taken his eyes off his little black-and-white TV when the tenspot had appeared under his nose-but it was best to play safe. It increased the comfort level. Norman turned on the radio and found an oldies station. Shirley Ellis was on, and he sang along as Shirley instructed, “If the first two letters are ever the same / Drop them both and say the name / Like Barry-Barry, drop the B, oh-Arry / That’s the only rule that is contrary.” Norman realized he knew every word of that stupid old song. What kind of world was it where you couldn’t remember the fucking quadratic equation or the various forms of the French verb avoir two years after you got out of high school, but when you were getting on for forty years old you could still remember Nick-Nick-bo-bick, banana-fanna-fo-fick, fee-fi-mo-mick, Nick? What kind of world was that? One that’s slipping behind me now, Norman thought serenely, and yes, that seemed to be the truth. It was like in those science fiction movies where the spacemen saw Earth dwindling in the viewscreens, first a ball, then a coin, then a tiny glowing dot, then all gone. That was what the inside of his head was like now-a spacecraft headed out on a five-year mission to explore new worlds and go where no man had gone before. The Starship Norman, approaching warp-speed. Shirley Ellis finished up and something by the Beatles came on. Norman twisted the radio’s volume knob off so hard he broke it. He didn’t want to listen to any of that hippy-dippy

“Hey Jude” crap today. He was still a couple of miles from where the real city began when he saw a place called The Base Camp ARMY SURPLUS LIKE YOU NEVER FIND! the sign out front read, and for some reason that made him burst out laughing. He thought it was in some ways the single most peculiar motto he’d seen in his whole life; it seemed to mean something, but it was impossible to say just what. Anyway, the sign didn’t matter. The store probably had one of the things he was looking for, and that did. There was a big banner reading ALWAYS BE SAFE, NEVER BE SORRY over the middle aisle. Norman inspected three different kinds of “stun-gas,” pepper-gas pellets, a rack of Ninja throwing-stars (the perfect weapon for home defense if you should happen to be attacked by a blind quadriplegic), gas guns that fired rubber bullets, slingshots, brass knuckles both plain and studded, blackjacks and bolas, whips and whistles. Halfway down this aisle was a glass case containing what Norman considered to be the only really useful item in The Base Camp. For sixty-three-fifty he purchased a taser which produced a large (although probably not the 90,000 volts promised on the label) wallop of juice between its two steel poles when the triggers were pushed. Norman considered this weapon every bit as dangerous as a small-caliber pistol, and the best part was that one did not have to sign one’s name anywhere in order to purchase one.

“You wah niy-vole baddery widdat?” the clerk asked. He was a bullet-headed young man with a harelip. He wore a teeshirt which said BETTER TO HAVE A GUN AND NOT NEED ONE THAN NEED ONE AND NOT HAVE ONE. To Norman he looked like the sort of fellow whose parents might have been blood relatives. “dass waddit runs on-a niy-vole.” Norman realized what the young man with the harelip was trying to say and nodded.

“Give me two,” he said.

“Let’s live a little.” The young man laughed as if this was the funniest line he’d ever heard, even funnier than Army Surplus Like You Never Find!, and then he bent down, got two nine-volt batteries from under the counter, and slapped them down beside Norman’s Omega taser. “dull-feetcha!” the young man cried, and laughed some more. Norman figured this one out, too, after a moment, and laughed right along with Young Mister Harelip and later he thought that was the exact moment when he hit warp-speed and all the stars turned into lines. All ahead, Mr Sulu-this time we’re going way past the Klingon Empire. He drove the stolen Tempo back into the city and in a part of town where the smiling models on the cigarette billboards started being black rather than white, he found a barber shop by the charming name of Cut Me Some Slack. He went in and found a young black man with a cool moustache sitting in an old-fashioned barber chair. There were Walkman earphones on his head and a copy of Jet in his lap.

“Whatchoo want?” the black barber asked. He spoke perhaps more brusquely than he would have to a black man, but not discourteously, either. You weren’t discourteous to a man like this without a damned good reason, especially when you were alone in your shop. He was six-two at least, with broad shoulders and big, thick legs. Also, he smelled like a cop. Above the mirror were photographs of Michael Jordan, Charles Barkley, andjalen Rose. Jordan was wearing a Birmingham Barons baseball uniform. Above his picture was a slip of paper with THE ONCE amp; FUTURE BULL typed on it. Norman pointed. “do me like that,” he said. The black barber looked at Norman carefully, first making sure he wasn’t drunk or stoned, then trying to make sure he wasn’t joking. The second was harder than the first.

“Whatchoo saying, brother? Are you saying you want a cleanhead?”

“That’s exactly what I’m saying.” Norman ran a hand through his hair, which was a thick black just starting to show flecks of gray at the temples. It was neither exceptionally short nor exceptionally long. He had worn it at this same length for almost twenty years. He looked at himself in the mirror, trying to imagine what he was going to look like, as bald as Michael Jordan, only white. He couldn’t do it. With luck, Rose and her new friends wouldn’t be able to, either.

“You sure?” Suddenly Norman felt almost sick with the desire to knock this man down and drop both knees onto his chest and lean over and bite his entire upper lip, cool moustache and all, right off his face. He supposed he knew why, too. He looked like that memorable little cocksucker, Ramon Sanders. The one who had tried to cash in on the ATM card his lying bitch of a wife had stolen. Oh, barber, Norman thought. Oh barber, you’re so close to being nothing but taillights. Ask one more question, say one more wrong word in my face, and that’s all you’ll be. And I can’t say anything to you; I couldn’t warn you even if I wanted to, because right now my own voice is all the firing-pin I’d need. So here we are, and here we go. The barber gave him another long, careful look. Norman stood where he was and let him do it. Now he felt composed. What happened would be what happened. It was all in this jiggedy-jig’s hands.

“All right, I guess you are,” the barber said at last. His voice was mild and disarming. Norman relaxed his right hand, which had been shoved deep into his pocket and gripping the handle of the laser. The barber put his magazine on the counter beside his bottles of tonic and cologne (there was a little brass sign there that said SAMUEL LOWE), then got up and shook out a plastic apron.

“You wanna be like Mike, let’s do it.” Twenty minutes later, Norman was staring at himself thoughtfully in the minor. Samuel Lowe stood beside his chair, watching him look. Lowe seemed apprehensive, but he also seemed interested. He looked like a man seeing something familiar from an entirely new perspective. Two new customers had come in. They were also looking at Norman look at himself, and they wore identical expressions of appraisal.

“The man be handsome,” one of the newcomers said. He spoke in a tone of faint surprise, and mostly to himself. Norman couldn’t get entirely straight in his mind the fact that the man in the minor was still him. He winked and the minor-man winked, he smiled and the minor-man smiled, he turned and the mirror-man turned, but it didn’t help. Before he’d had the brow of a cop; now he had the brow of a mathematics professor, a brow that went into the stratosphere. He couldn’t get over the smooth, somehow sensuous curves of his bald skull. And its whiteness. He hadn’t thought he had anything like a tan, but compared to his pallid skull, the rest of his skin was as brown as a lifeguard’s. His head looked strangely fragile, and too weirdly perfect to belong to the likes of him. To belong to any human being, especially a male. It looked like a piece of Delft china.

“You ain’t got a bad head “tall, man,” Lowe said. He spoke tentatively, but Norman had no sense he was trying to flatter him, and that was good, because Norman was in no mood to have someone blow smoke up his ass.

“Look good. Look younger. Don’t he, Dale?”

“Ain’t bad,” the other newcomer agreed.

“Nossir, not half.”

“How much did you say?” Norman asked Samuel Lowe. He tried to turn away from the minor and was distressed and a little frightened to find that his eyes tried to follow the top of his head, to see how it looked in the back. That sense of disassociation was stronger within him than ever. He wasn’t the man in the minor, the man with the scholar’s bald head rising above heavy black eyebrows; how could he be? This was some stranger, that was all, some fantastic Lex Luthor up to no good in Metropolis, and the things he did from here on out didn’t matter. From here on out, nothing mattered. Except catching Rose, of course. And talking to her. Up close. Lowe was giving him that cautious look again, breaking it off to dart glances at the other two patrons, and Norman suddenly realized he was checking to see if they’d help him, if the big white man-the big bald white man-suddenly went berserk.

“I’m sorry,” he said, trying to make his voice soft and conciliatory.

“You were talking, weren’t you? What did you say?”

“I said thirty sounds about right to me. How’s it sound to you?” Norman took a folded-over packet of bills out of his left front pocket, slid two twenties out from under the tarnished old moneyclip, and held them out.

“Thirty sounds too low,” he said.

“Take forty, along with my apologies. You did a great job. I’ve just had a bitch of a week, that’s all.” You don’t know the half of it, buddy, he thought. Samuel Lowe relaxed visibly and took the money.

“No prob, bro,” he said.

“And I wasn’t kiddin-you ain’t got a bad-lookin head at all. You ain’t Michael, but ain’t nobody Michael.”

“Cept Michael,” the newcomer named Dale said. The three black men laughed heartily and nodded at one another. Although he could have killed all three of them without turning a hair, Norman nodded and laughed along with them. The newcomers in the barber shop had changed things. It was time to be careful again. Still laughing, he went out. A trio of teenagers, also black, were leaning against a fence near the Tempo, but they hadn’t bothered doing anything to the car, possibly because it was too much of a dog to bother with. They eyed Norman’s pallid white head with interest, then glanced at each other and rolled their eyes. They were fourteen or so, boys without much trouble in them. The one in the middle started to say

“You lookin at me?” like Robert De Niro in Taxi Driver. Norman seemed to sense this and stared at him-just at him, it seemed, ignoring the other two completely. The one in the middle decided that maybe his De Niro imitation needed a little more work and quit it. Norman got into his freshly washed stolen car and drove away. Six blocks in toward the center of the city, he went into a used-clothing store called Play It Again, Sam. There were several browsers in the store, and they all looked at him, but that was okay. Norman didn’t mind being looked at, especially if it was his freshly shaven skull they were paying attention to. If they were looking at the top of his head, they wouldn’t have the slightest fucking idea what his face looked like five minutes after he left. He found a motorcycle jacket that gleamed with studs and zippers and small silver chains and creaked in every fold when he took it off its hanger. The clerk opened his mouth to ask two hundred and forty dollars for the jacket, looked at the haunted eyes peering out from beneath the awesome white desert of that freshly shaven skull, and told Norman the jacket was one-eighty, plus tax. He would have gone lower had Norman dickered, but Norman didn’t. He was tired now, his head was throbbing, and he wanted to go back to the hotel and go to sleep. He wanted to sleep right through until tomorrow. He needed all the rest he could get, because tomorrow was going to be a busy day. He made two more stops on the way back. The first was at a store which sold ostomy supplies. Here Norman bought a motorless second-hand wheelchair which would fit, folded up, into the trunk of the Tempo. Then he went to the Women’s Cultural Center and Museum. Here he paid six dollars to get in but looked at no exhibits and did not so much as peer into the auditorium, where a panel discussion on natural childbirth was being held. He made a quick trip to the gift shop, then left. Back at the Whitestone, he went upstairs without asking anyone about Blondie with the cute little ass. He would not have trusted himself to ask for a glass of club soda in his current condition. His newly shaven head was pounding like a steel-forge, his eyes were beating in their sockets, his teeth hurt and his jaws throbbed. Worst of all, his mind now seemed to be bobbing along above him like a float in the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade; it felt as if it were tethered to the rest of him by a single fragile thread and might break away at any moment. He had to lie down. To sleep. Maybe then his mind would go back inside his head, where it belonged. As for Blondie, his best course would be to treat her as an ace in the hole, something to be used only if absolutely necessary. Break Glass in Case of Emergency. Norman went back to bed at four o’clock on Friday afternoon. The throbbing behind his temples was no longer anything resembling a hangover; it was now one of the headaches he called his “specials.” He got them frequently when he was working hard, and since Rose had left and his big drug-case had heated up, two a week weren’t unusual. As he lay in bed looking up at the ceiling, his eyes ran and his nose leaked and he could see funny bright zigzag patterns pulsing around the edges of things. The pain had reached the point where it felt like there was some horrible fetus in the middle of his head, trying to be born; the point where there was nothing to do but hunker down and wait for it to be over, and the way you did that was by getting through the moments one at a time, going from one to the next the way a person might use stepping-stones to cross a stream. That tugged some hazy memory far back in his mind, but it couldn’t get past the relentless throbbing, and Norman let it go. He rubbed his hand back and forth across the top of his head. The smoothness up there felt like nothing that could be a part of him; it was like touching the hood of a freshly waxed car.

“Who am I?” he asked the empty room.

“Who am I? Why am I here? What am I doing? Who am I?” Before he could stab at an answer to any of these questions he fell asleep. The pain followed him for quite a distance into its dreamless depths, like a bad idea that won’t let go, but finally Norman left it behind. His head sagged to one side on his pillow, and a wetness which was not precisely tears ran out of his left eye and left nostril and trickled down his cheek. He began to snore thickly. When he woke up twelve hours later, at four o’clock on Saturday morning, his headache was gone. He felt fresh and energized, as he almost always did after one of his specials. He sat up, put his feet on the floor, and looked out the window at darkness. The pigeons were out there on the ledge, cooing to each other even in their sleep. He knew, completely and surely and without any doubt, that this day was going to see the end of it. Probably the end of him, as well, but that was a minor matter. Just knowing there would be no more headaches, not ever, made that seem like a fair trade. Across the room, his new motorcycle jacket hung over a chair like a black and headless ghost. Wake up early, Rose, he thought almost tenderly. Wake up early, honeybunch, and get a good look at the sunrise, why don’t you? You ought to get the best look you can, because it’s the last one you’re ever going to see.

Rosie woke at a few minutes past four on Saturday morning and fumbled for the lamp by the bed, terrified, sure that Norman was in the room with her, sure she could smell his cologne, all my men wear English Leather or they wear nothing at all. She almost knocked the lamp onto the floor in her panicky efforts to make a light, but when it was finally on (with the base hanging halfway over oblivion) her fear subsided quickly. It was just her room, small and neat and sane, and the only thing she could smell was the faint, bedwarm fragrance of her own skin. No one was here but her… and Rose Madder, of course. But Rose Madder was safely put away in the closet, where she undoubtedly still stood with one hand raised to shade her eyes, looking down at the ruins of the temple. I was dreaming about him, she thought as she sat up. I was having another nightmare about Norman, that’s why I woke up so scared. She pushed the lamp back on the table. It clinked against the armlet. Rose picked it up and looked at it. Strange, how hard it was to remember (what you have to remember) how she’d come by this trinket. Had she bought it in Bill’s shop, because it looked like the one the woman in her picture was wearing? She didn’t know, and that was troubling. How could you forget (what you need to forget) a thing like that? Rosie lifted the circlet, which felt as heavy as gold but was probably just gilded potmetal, and looked across the room through it, like a woman looking through a telescope. As she did, a fragment of her dream came back, and she realized it hadn’t been about Norman at all. It had been about Bill. They had been on his motorcycle, but instead of taking her to a picnic place by the lake, he had driven her down a path that wound deeper and deeper into a sinister forest of dead trees. After awhile they came into a clearing, and in the clearing was a single live tree, laden with fruit the color of Rose Madder’s chiton. Oh, what a great first course! Bill had cried cheerily, hopping off his motorcycle and hurrying toward the tree. I’ve heard about these-eat one and you can see out of the back of your head, eat two and you live forever! That was where the dream had crossed the line from the merely unsettling into real nightmare country. She knew somehow that the fruit of that tree wasn’t magic but horribly poisonous and she ran to him, wanting to stop him before he could bite into one of the tempting fruits. But Bill wouldn’t be convinced. He merely put an arm around her, gave her a little hug, and said, Don’t be silly, Rosie-I know pomegranates, and these aren’t them. That was when she’d awakened, shivering madly in the dark and thinking not about Bill but about Norman… as if Norman were lying in bed someplace near and thinking about her. This idea made Rosie cross her arms over her breasts and hug herself. It was all too possible that he was doing just that. She put the armlet back down on the table, hurried into the bathroom, and turned on the shower. Her troubling dream of Bill and the poisoned fruit, her questions about where or how she might have come by the armlet, and her confused feelings about the picture she’d bought, then unframed, then hidden away in the closet like a secret… all these things faded behind a larger and more immediate concern: her date. It was today, and every time she thought of that she felt something like a hot wire in her chest. She was both afraid and happy, but more than anything else she was curious. Her date. Their date. If he even comes, a voice inside whispered ominously. It could have all been a joke, you know. Or you might have scared him off. Rosie started to step into the water, and realized just in the nick of time that she was still wearing her panties.

“He’ll come,” she murmured as she bent and slipped them off.

“He’ll come, all right. I know he will.” As she ducked under the spray and reached for the shampoo, a voice far back in her mind-a very different voice, this time-whispered, Beasts will fight.

“What?” Rosie froze with the plastic bottle in one hand. She was frightened and didn’t quite know why.

“What did you say?” Nothing. She couldn’t even remember exactly what it was that she’d thought, only that it was something else about that damned picture, which had gotten into her head like the chorus of a song you can’t forget. As she began to lather her hair, Rosie decided abruptly to get rid of it. The thought of doing that made her feel better, like the thought of quitting some bad habit-smoking, drinking at lunch-and by the time she stepped out of the shower, she was humming.

Bill didn’t torture her with doubt by being late. Rosie had pulled one of the kitchen chairs over by the window so she could watch for him (at quarter past seven she had done this, three full hours after she’d stepped out of the shower), and at twenty-five past eight a motorcycle with a cooler strapped to the carrier-rack pulled into one of the spaces in front of the building. The driver’s head was covered by a big blue helmet and the angle was wrong for her to see his face, but she knew it was him. Already the line of his shoulders was unmistakable to her. He gunned the engine once, then killed it and used a booted heel to drop the Harley’s kickstand. He swung one leg off, and for a moment the line of his thigh was clearly visible against his faded jeans. Rosie felt a tremor of timid but unmistakable lust go through her and thought: That’s what I’ll be thinking about tonight while I’m waiting to go to sleep; that’s what I’m going to see. And if I’m very, very lucky, it’s what I’ll dream about. She thought of waiting for him up here, of letting him come to her the way a girl who is comfortable in the home of her parents might wait for the boy who is going to take her to the Homecoming Dance, waiting even after he has come, watching in her strapless party dress from behind the curtain of her bedroom window, smiling a small secret smile as he gets out of his father’s newly washed and waxed car and comes to the door, self-consciously adjusting his bowtie or tugging on his cummerbund. She thought of it, then opened the closet door, reached in, and snatched out her sweater. She hurried down the hall, slipping into it as she went. It crossed her mind as she came to the head of the stairs and saw him already halfway up, his head raised to look at her, that she had reached the perfect age: too old to be coy for the sake of coyness, but still too young not to believe that some hopes-the ones that really matter-may turn out against all odds to be justified.

“Hi,” she said, looking down from her place.

“You’re on time.” “sure,” he said, looking up from his. He seemed faintly surprised.

“I’m always on time. It’s the way I was raised. I think it might have been bred in my genes, too.” He held one gloved hand up to her, like a cavalier in a movie. He smiled.

“Are you ready?” This was a question she didn’t yet know how to answer, so she just met him where he was and took his hand and let him lead “her down and out into the sunlight washing over the first Saturday of June. He stood her on the curb beside the leaning bike, looked her critically up and down, then shook his head.

“Nope, nope, the sweater doesn’t make it,” he said.

“Luckily, my Boy Scout training has never deserted me.” There were saddlebags on either side of the Harley’s carrier-rack. He unbuckled one of them and pulled out a leather jacket similar to his own: zipper pockets high and low on either side, but otherwise black and plain. No studs, epaulets, lightning bolts, or geegaws. It was smaller than the one Bill wore. She looked at it hanging flat in his hands like a pelt, troubled by the obvious question. He saw the look, understood it at once, and shook his head.

“It’s my dad’s jacket. He taught me to ride on an old Indian hammerhead he took in trade for a dining-room table and a bedroom set. The year he turned twenty-one, he rode that bike all over America, he says. It was the kind you had to kick-start, and if you forgot to put the gearshift in neutral, it was apt to go tearing right out from under you.”

“What happened? Did he crash it?” She smiled a little. “did you crash it?”

“Neither one. It died of old age. Since then they’ve all been Harleys in the Steiner family. This is a Heritage softail, thirteen-forty-five cc.” He touched the nacelle gently. “dad hasn’t ridden for five years or so now.” “did he get tired of it?” Bill shook his head.

“No, he got glaucoma.” She slipped into the jacket. She guessed that Bill’s father must be at least three inches shorter and maybe forty pounds lighter than his son, but the jacket still hung comically on her, almost to her knees. It was warm, though, and she zipped it up to her chin with a kind of sensuous pleasure.

“You look good,” he said.

“Kind of funny, like a kid playing dress-up, but good. Really.” She thought she could now say what she hadn’t been able to when she and Bill had been sitting on the bench and eating hotdogs, and it suddenly seemed very important that she should say it.

“Bill?” He looked at her with that little smile, but his eyes were serious.

“Yeah?” “don’t hurt me.” He considered this, the little smile staying on, his eyes still grave, and then he shook his head.

“No. I won’t.” “do you promise?”

“Yeah. I promise. Come on, climb aboard. Have you ever ridden an iron pony before?” She shook her head.

“Well, those little pegs are for your feet.” He bent over the back of the bike, rummaged, and came up with a helmet. She observed its red-purple color with absolutely no surprise.

“Have a brain-bucket.” She slipped it on over her head, bent forward, looked solemnly at herself in one of the Harley’s side-mirrors, then burst out laughing.

“I look like a football player!”

“Prettiest one on the team, too.” He took her by the shoulders and turned her around.

“It buckles under your chin. Here, let me.” For a moment his face was kissing distance from hers, and she felt light-headed knowing that if he wanted to kiss her, right here on the sunny sidewalk with people going about their leisurely Saturday-morning errands, she would let him. Then he stepped back.

“That strap too tight?” She shook her head. “sure?” She nodded. “say something, then.”

“Iss sap’s ot ooo ite,” she said, and burst out laughing at his expression. Then he was laughing with her.

“Are you ready?” he asked her again. He was still smiling, but his eyes had returned to their former look of serious consideration, as if he knew that they had embarked on some grave enterprise, where any word or movement might have far-reaching consequences. She made a fist, rapped the top of her helmet, and grinned nervously.

“I guess I am. Who gets on first, you or me?”

“Me.” He swung his leg over the saddle of the Harley.

“Now you.” She swung her leg over carefully, and put her hands on his shoulders. Her heart was beating very fast.

“No,” he said.

“Around my waist, okay? I have to keep my arms and hands free to run the controls.” She slipped her hands in between his arms and sides and clasped them in front of his flat stomach. All at once she felt as if she were dreaming again. Had all of this come out of one small drop of blood on a sheet? An impulse decision to walk out of her front door and just keep going? Was that even possible? Dear God, please let this not be a dream, she thought.

“Feet up on the pegs, check?” She put them there, and was fearfully enchanted when Bill rocked the bike upright and booted back the kickstand. Now, with only his feet holding them steady, it felt to her like the moment when a small boat’s last mooring is slipped and it floats beside the dock, nodding more freely on the waves than previously. She leaned a little closer to his back, closed her eyes, and inhaled deeply. The smell of sunwarmed leather was pretty much as she had imagined it would be, and that was good. It was all good. Scary and good.

“I hope you like this,” Bill said.

“I really do.” He pushed a button on the right handlebar and the Harley went off like a gun beneath them. Rosie jumped and slipped closer to him, her grip tightening and becoming a little less self-conscious.

“Everything okay?” he called. She nodded, realized he couldn’t see that, and shouted back that yes, everything was fine. A moment later the curb to their left was rolling backward. He snatched a quick glance over her shoulder for traffic, then swung across Trenton Street to the right side. It wasn’t like a turn in a car; the motorcycle banked, like a small airplane lining itself up with the runway. Bill twisted the throttle and the Harley scooted forward, blowing a rattle of wind into her helmet and making her laugh.

“I thought you’d like it!” Bill called back over his shoulder as they stopped at the traffic light on the corner. When he put his foot down it was as if they were tethered to solid land once more, but by the thinnest of lines. When the light turned green the engine roared under her again, with more authority this time, and they swung onto Deering Avenue, running beside Bryant Park, rolling through the shadows of old oaks that were” printed on the pavement like inkblots. She looked up over his right shoulder and saw the sun leading them through the trees, flashing in her eyes like a heliograph, and when he leaned the bike onto Calumet Avenue, she leaned with him. I thought you’d like it, he’d said as they started off, but she only liked it while they were crossing the north side of the city, hopscotching through increasingly suburban neighborhoods where the hip-to-hip frame houses made her think of All in the Family and there seemed to be a Wee Nip on every corner. By the time they were on the Skyway out of the city she was not just liking it but loving it, and when he left the Skyway for Route 27, two-lane blacktop which traced the edge of the lake all the way up into the next state, she felt she would have been happy to go on forever. If he’d asked her what she thought about going all the way to Canada, maybe catch a Blue Jays game in Toronto, she would simply have laid her helmeted head against the leather between his shoulderblades so he could feel her nod. Highway 27 was the best. Later in the summer it would be heavy with traffic even at this hour of the morning, but today it was almost empty, a black ribbon with a yellow stitch running down the middle. On their right, the lake winked a fabulous blue through the running trees; on their left they passed dairy farms, tourist cabins, and souvenir shops just opening for the summer. She felt no need to talk, was not sure she could have talked, even if called upon to do so. He gradually twisted the Harley’s throttle until the red speedometer needle stood straight up from its pin like a clock hand indicating noon, and the wind rattled harder in her helmet. To Rosie, it was like the dreams of flying she’d had as a young girl, dreams in which she had gone racing with fearless exuberance over fields and rock walls and rooftops and chimneys with her hair rippling like a flag” behind her. She had awakened from those dreams shaking, sweat-drenched, both terrified and delighted, and she felt that way now. When she looked to her left, she saw her shadow flowing along beside her as it had in those dreams, but now there was another shadow with it, and that made it better. If she had ever in her whole life felt as happy as she did at that moment, she didn’t know when it had been. The whole world seemed perfect around her, and she perfect within it. There were delicate fluctuations of temperature, cold as they flew through wide swales of shadow or descended into dips, warm when they passed into the sun again. At sixty miles an hour the smells came in capsules, so concentrated it was as if they were being fired out of ramjets: cows, manure, hay, earth, cut grass, fresh tar as they blipped by a driveway repaying project, oily blue exhaust as they came up behind a laboring farm truck. A mongrel dog lay in the back of the truck with its muzzle on its paws, looking at them without interest. When Bill swung out to pass on a straight stretch, the farmer behind the wheel raised a hand to Rosie. She could see the crow’s feet around his eyes, the reddened, chapped skin on the side of his nose, the glint of his wedding ring in the sunshine. Carefully, like a tightrope walker doing a stunt without a net, she slid one hand out from under Bill’s arm and waved back. The farmer smiled at her, then slipped behind them. Ten or fifteen miles out of the city, Bill pointed ahead at a gleaming metal shape in the sky. A moment later she could hear the steady beat of the helicopter’s rotors, and a moment after that she could see two men seated in the Perspex bubble. As the chopper flashed over them in a clattery rush, she could see the passenger leaning over to shout something in the pilot’s ear. I can see everything, she thought, and then wondered why that should seem so amazing. She really wasn’t seeing anything she couldn’t see from a car, after all. Except I am, she thought. I am because I’m not looking at it through a window and that makes it stop being just scenery. It’s the world, not scenery, and I’m in it. I’m flying across the world, just like in the dreams I used to have, but now I’m not doing it alone. The motor throbbed steadily between her legs. It wasn’t a sexy feeling, exactly, but it made her very aware of what was down there and what it was for. When she wasn’t looking at the passing countryside, she found herself looking with fascination at the small dark hairs on the nape of Bill’s neck, and wondering how it would feel to touch them with her fingers, to smooth them down like feathers. An hour after leaving the Skyway they were in deep country. Bill walked the Harley deliberately down through the gears to second, and when they came to a sign reading SHORJELAND PICNIC AREA CAMPING BY PERMIT ONLY, he dropped to first and turned onto a gravel lane.

“Hang on,” he said. She could hear him clearly now that the wind was no longer blowing a hurricane through her helmet.

“Bumps.” There were bumps, but the Harley rode them easily, turning them into mere swells. Five minutes later they pulled into a small dirt parking area. Beyond it were picnic tables and stone barbecue pits spotted on a wide, shady expanse of green grass which dropped gradually down to a rocky shingle which could not quite be termed a beach. Small waves came in, running up the shingle in polite, orderly procession. Beyond them, the lake opened out all the way to the horizon, where any line marking the point where the sky and the water met was lost in a blue haze. Shoreland was entirely deserted except for them, and when Bill switched the Harley off, the silence took her breath away. Over the water, gulls turned and turned, crying toward the shore in their high-pitched, frantic voices. Somewhere far to the west there was the sound of a motor, so dim it was impossible to tell if it was a truck or a tractor. That was all. He scraped a flat rock toward the side of the bike with the toe of his boot, then dropped the kickstand so the foot would rest on the rock. He got off and turned toward her, smiling. When he saw her face, the smile turned to an expression of concern.

“Rosie? Are you all right?” She looked at him, surprised.

“Yes, why?”

“You’ve got the funniest look-” I’ll bet, she thought. I’ll just bet.

“I’m fine,” she said.

“I feel a little bit like all of this is a dream, that’s all. I keep wondering how I got here.” She laughed nervously.

“But you’re not going to faint, or anything?” Rosie laughed more naturally this time.

“No, I’m fine, really.”

“And you liked it?”

“Loved it.” She was fumbling at the place where the strap wove through the helmet’s locking rings, but without much success…

“Those’re hard the first time. Let me help you.” He leaned close to slip the strap free, kissing distance again, only this time he didn’t draw away. He used the palms of his hands to lift the helmet off her head and then kissed her mouth, letting the helmet dangle by its straps from the first two fingers of his left hand while he put his right against the small of her back, and for Rosie the kiss made everything all right, the feel of his mouth and the pressure of his palm was like coming home. She felt herself starting to cry a little, but that was all right. These tears didn’t hurt. He pulled back from her a little, his hand still on the small of her back, the helmet still bumping softly against her knee in little pendulum strokes, and looked into her face.

“All right?” Yes, she tried to say, but her voice had deserted her. She nodded instead.

“Great,” he said, and then, gravely, like a man doing a job, he kissed her cool wet cheeks high up and in toward her nose-first under her right eye and then under her left. His kisses were as soft as fluttering eyelashes. She had never felt anything like them, and she suddenly put her arms around his neck and hugged him fiercely, with her face against the shoulder of his jacket and her eyes, still trickling tears, shut tight. He held her, the hand which had been pressed against her back now stroking the plait of her hair. After awhile she pulled back from him and rubbed her arm across her eyes and tried to smile.

“I don’t always cry,” she said.

“You probably don’t believe that, but it’s true.”

“I believe it,” he said, and took off his own helmet.

“Come on, give me a hand with this cooler.” She helped him unsnap the elastic cords which held it, and they carried it down to one of the picnic tables. Then she stood looking down at the water.

“This must be the most beautiful place in the world,” she said.

“I can’t believe there’s nobody here but us.”

“Well, Highway 27’s a little off the regular tourist-track. I first came here with my folks, when I was just a little kid. My dad said he found it almost by accident, rambling on his bike. Even in August there aren’t many people here, when the rest of the lakeside picnic areas are jammed.” She gave him a quick glance.

“Have you brought other women here?”

“Nope,” he said.

“Would you like to take a walk? We could work up an appetite for lunch, and there’s something I could show you.”

“What?”

“It might be better to just show you,” he said.

“All right.” He led her down by the water, where they sat side by side on a big rock and took off their footgear. She was amused by the fluffy white athletic socks he had on under the motorcycle boots; they were the kind she associated with junior high school.

“Leave them or take them?” she asked, holding up her sneakers. He thought about it.

“You take yours, I’ll leave mine. Damn boots are almost impossible to put back on even when your feet are dry. If they’re wet, you can forget it.” He stripped off the white socks and laid them neatly across the blocky toes of the boots. Something in the way he did it and the prim way they looked made her smile.

“What?” She shook her head.

“Nothing. Come on, show me your surprise.” They walked north along the shore, Rosie with her sneakers in her left hand, Bill leading the way. The first touch of the water was so cold it made her gasp, but after a minute or two it felt good. She could see her feet down there like pale shimmering fish, slightly separated from the rest of her body at the ankles by refraction. The bottom felt pebbly but not actually painful. You could be cutting them to pieces and not know, she thought. You’re numb, sweetheart. But she wasn’t cutting them. She felt he would not let her cut them. The idea was ridiculous but powerful. About forty yards along the shore they came to an overgrown path winding up the embankment, grainy white sand amid low, tough juniper bushes, and she felt a small shiver of deja vu, as if she had seen this path in a barely remembered dream. He pointed to the top of the rise and spoke in a low voice.

“We’re going up there. Be as quiet as you can.” He waited for her to slip into her sneakers and then led the way. He stopped and waited for her at the top, and when she joined him and started to speak, he first put a finger on her lips and then pointed with it. They were at the edge of a small brushy clearing, a kind of overlook fifty feet or so above the lake. In the center was a fallen tree. Beneath the tangle of the soil-encrusted roots lay a trim red fox, giving suck to three cubs. Nearby a fourth was busily chasing his own tail in a patch of sunlight. Rosie stared at them, entranced. He leaned close to her, his whisper tickling her ear and making her feel shivery.

“I came down day before yesterday to see if the picnic area was still here, and still nice. I hadn’t been here in five years, so I couldn’t be sure. I was walking around and found these guys. Vulpes fulva-the red fox. The little ones are maybe six weeks old.”

“How do you know so much about them?” Bill shrugged.

“I like animals, that’s all,” he said.

“I read about them, and try to see them in the wild when I can.” “do you hunt?”

“God, no. I don’t even take pictures. I just look.” The vixen had seen them now. Without moving she grew even more still within her skin, her eyes bright and watchful. Don’t you look straight at her, Rosie thought suddenly. She had no idea of what this thought meant; she only knew it wasn’t her voice she was hearing in her head. Don’t you look straight at her, that’s not for the likes of you.

“They’re beautiful,” Rosie breathed. She reached out for his hand and enfolded it in both of hers.

“Yes, they are,” he said. The vixen turned her head to the fourth cub, who had given up on his tail and was now pouncing at his own shadow. She uttered a single high-pitched bark. The cub turned, looked impudently at the newcomers standing at the head of the path, then trotted to his mother and lay down beside her. She licked the side of his head, grooming him quickly and competently, but her eyes never left Rosie and Bill. “does she have a mate?” Rosie whispered.

“Yeah, I saw him before. A good-sized dog.”

“Is that what they’re called?”

“Uh-huh, dogs.”

“Where is he?” “somewhere around. Hunting. The little ones probably see a lot of gulls with broken wings dragged home for dinner.” Rosie’s eyes drifted to the roots of the tree beneath which the foxes had made their den, and she felt deja vu touch her again. A brief image of a root moving, as if to clutch, came to her, shimmered, then slipped away.

“Are we scaring her?” Rosie asked.

“Maybe a little. If we tried to get closer, she’d fight.”

“Yes, Rosie said.

“And if we messed with them, she’d repay.” He looked at her oddly.

“Well, I guess she’d try, yeah.”

“I’m glad you brought me to see them.” His smile lit his whole face.

“Good.”

“Let’s go back. I don’t want to scare her. And I’m hungry.”

“All right. I am, too.” He raised one hand and waved solemnly. The vixen watched with her bright, still eyes… and then wrinkled back her muzzle in a soundless growl, showing a row of neat white teeth.

“Yeah,” he said, “you’re a good mama. Take care of them.” He turned away. Rosie started to follow, then looked back once, into those bright, still eyes. The vixen’s muzzle was still rolled back, exposing her teeth as she suckled her cubs in the silent sunshine. Her fur was orange rather than red, but something about that shade-its violent contrast to the lazy green around it-made Rosie shiver again. A gull swooped overhead, printing its shadow across the brushy clearing, but the vixen’s eyes never left Rosie’s face. She felt them on her, watchful and deeply concentrated in their stillness, even when she turned to follow Bill.

“Will they be all right?” she asked when they reached the waterside again. She held his shoulder, balancing, as she removed first her left sneaker and then her right.

“You mean will the cubs be hunted down?” Rosie nodded.

“Not if they stay out of gardens and henhouses, and Mom and Pop'11 be wise enough to keep them away from farms-if they keep normal, that is. The vixen’s four years old at least, the dog maybe seven. I wish you’d seen him. He’s got a brush the color of leaves in October.” They were halfway back to the picnic area, ankle deep in the water. She could see his boots up ahead on the rock where he’d left them with the prim white socks lying across the square toes.

“What do you mean, “if they keep normal"?”

“Rabies,” he said.

“More often than not it’s rabies that leads them to gardens and henhouses in the first place. Gets them noticed. Gets them killed. The vixens get it more often than the dogs, and they teach the cubs dangerous behavior. It knocks the dogs down quick, but a vixen can carry rabies a long time, and they keep getting worse.” “do they?” she asked.

“What a shame.” He stopped, looked at her pale, thoughtful face, then gathered her into his arms and hugged her.

“It doesn’t have to happen,” he said.

“They’ve got along fine so far.”

“But it could happen. It could.” He considered this, and nodded. “sure, yeah,” he said at last.

“Anything could. Come on, let’s eat. What do you say?”

“I say that sounds like a good idea.” But she thought she wouldn’t eat much, that she’d been haunted out of her appetite by the vixen’s bright regard. When he began laying out the food, however, she was instantly ravenous. Breakfast had been orange juice and a single slice of dry toast; she’d been as excited (and fearful) as a bride on the morning of her wedding. Now, at the sight of bread and meat, she forgot all about the foxes” earth north of the beach. He kept taking food out of the cooler-cold beef sandwiches, tuna sandwiches, chicken salad, potato salad, coleslaw, two cans of Coke, a Thermos of what he said was iced tea, two pieces of pie, a large slab of cake-until it made her think of clowns piling out of the little car at the circus, and she laughed. It probably wasn’t polite, but she had enough confidence in him now not to feel she had to be merely polite. That was good, because she wasn’t sure she could have helped herself, anyway. He looked up, holding a salt shaker in his left hand and a pepper shaker in his right. She saw he had carefully put Scotch tape over the holes in case they fell over, and that made her laugh harder than ever. She sat down on the bench running down one side of the picnic table and put her hands over her face and tried to get a grip. She’d almost made it when she peeked through her fingers and saw that amazing stack of sandwiches-half a dozen for two people, each cut on the diagonal and neatly sealed in a Baggie. That set her off again.

“What?” he asked, smiling himself.

“What, Rosie?”

“Were you expecting friends to drop by?” she asked, still giggling.

“A Little League team, maybe? Or a Boy Scout troop?” His smile widened, but his eyes continued to hold that serious look. It was a complicated expression, one that said he understood both what was funny here and what was not, and in it she finally saw that he really was her own age, or close enough not to matter.

“I wanted to make sure you’d have something that you liked, that’s all.” Her giggles were tapering off, but she continued to smile at him. What struck her most was not his sweetness, which made him seem younger, but his openness, which now made him seem somehow older.

“Bill, I can eat just about anything,” she said.

“I’m sure you can,” he said, sitting down beside her, “but that’s not what this is about. I don’t care so much about what you can stand or what you can manage as I do about what you like and want to have. Those are the kinds of things I want to give to you, because I’m crazy about you.” She looked at him solemnly, the laughter gone, and when he took her hand, she covered it with her other one. She was trying to get what he’d just said straight in her mind and finding it hard going-it was like trying to get a bulky, balky piece of furniture through a narrow doorway, turning it this way and that, trying to find an angle where everything would finally work.

“Why?” she asked.

“Why me?” He shook his head.

“I don’t know. Fact is, Rosie, I don’t know very much about women. I had a girlfriend when I was a junior in high school, and we probably would have slept together eventually, but she moved away before it could happen. I had a girlfriend when I was a freshman in college, and I did sleep with her. Then, five years ago, I got engaged to a wonderful girl I met in the city zoo, of all places. Her name was Bronwyn O'Hara. Sounds like something out of Margaret Mitchell, doesn’t it?”

“It’s a lovely name.” “she was a lovely girl. She died of a brain aneurysm.”

“Oh, Bill, I’m so sorry.” ’since then, I’ve dated a couple of girls, and I’m not exaggerating-I’ve dated a couple of girls, period, end of story. My parents fight over me. My father says I’m dying on the vine, my mother says

“Leave the boy alone, stop scolding.” Only she says it scoldink.” Rosie smiled.

“Then you walked into the shop and found that picture. You knew you had to have it from the word go, didn’t you?”

“Yes.”

“That’s how I felt about you. I just wanted you to know that. Nothing that’s happening here is happening out of kindness, or charity, or duty. None of what’s happening here is happening because poor Rosie has had such a hard, hard life.” He hesitated and then said, “It’s happening because I’m in love with you.”

“You can’t know that. Not yet.”

“I know what I know,” he said, and she found the gentle insistence in his tone a little frightening.

“Now that’s enough soap opera. Let’s eat.” They did. When they were done and Rosie’s stomach felt stretched drumhead-tight against the waistband of her pants, they repacked the cooler and Bill strapped it onto the Harley’s carrier again. No one had come; Shoreland was still all theirs. They went back down to the waterside and sat on the big rock again. Rosie was starting to feel very strongly about this rock; it was, she thought, the kind of rock you could come to visit once or twice a year, just to say thanks… if things turned out well, that was. And she thought they were, at least so far. She could not, in fact, think of a day that had been better. Bill put his arms around her, then placed the fingers of his left hand on her right cheek, turning her face toward him. He began kissing her. Five minutes later she did feel close to fainting, half in a dream and half out, excited in a way she had never conceived of, excited in a way that made sense of all the books and stories and movies she hadn’t really understood before but had taken on faith, the way a blind person will take on faith a sighted person’s statement that a sunset is beautiful. Her cheeks were burning, her breasts felt flushed and tender from his gentle touch through her blouse, and she found herself wishing that she hadn’t worn a bra. The thought made her cheeks flush brighter than ever. Her heart was racing, but that was good. It was all good. Over the line and into wonderful, in fact. She put her hand on him down there, felt how hard he was. It was like touching stone, except stone would not have throbbed beneath her palm like her own heart. He left her hand where it was for a minute, then raised it gently and kissed the palm.

“No more now,” he said.

“Why not?” She looked at him candidly, without artifice. Norman was the only man she had known sexually in her entire life, and he was not the sort of man who got hot simply because you touched him there through his pants. Sometimes-increasingly, in the last few years-he didn’t get hot at all.

“Because I won’t be able to stop without suffering a most severe case of blue balls.” She looked at him with such frowning, earnest puzzlement that he burst out laughing.

“Never mind, Rosie. It’s just that I want everything to be right the first time we make love-no mosquitoes biting our butts, no rolling in the poison oak, no kids from U.C. showing up at a vital moment. Besides, I promised to have you back by four so you could sell tee-shirts, and I don’t want you to have to race the clock.” She looked down at her watch and was startled to see it was ten past two. If they had been sitting on the rock and making out for only five or ten minutes, how was that possible? She came to the reluctant but rather marvellous conclusion that it wasn’t. They had been here for half an hour at least, maybe closer to forty-five minutes.

“Come on,” he said, sliding off the rock. He grimaced as the soles of his feet splashed into the cold water, and she caught just a glimpse of the bulge in his pants before he turned away. I did that, she thought, and was astonished at the feelings which came with the thought: pleasure, amusement, even a slight smugness. She slipped off the rock next to him and was holding his hand in hers before she realized she had taken it.

“Okay; what now?”

“How about a little walk before we start back? Cool off.”

“All right, but let’s stay away from the foxes. I don’t want to disturb them again.” Her, she thought, I don’t want to disturb her again.

“All right. We’ll walk south.” He started to turn away. She squeezed his hand to make him turn back again and when he did, Rosie stepped into his arms and slipped her own arms around his neck. The hardness below his waist wasn’t gone entirely, not yet, and she was glad. She’d had no idea until today that there was something in that hardness a woman could really like-she’d honestly thought it a fiction of those magazines whose main job it was to sell clothes and makeup and hair-care products. Now she knew a little more, perhaps. She pressed herself firmly against that hard place and looked into his eyes. “do you mind if I say something my mother taught me to say when I went to my first birthday party? I was four or five, I think.”

“Go ahead,” he said, smiling.

“Thank you for a lovely time, Bill. Thank you for the most lovely day I’ve had since I grew up. Thank you for asking me.” Bill kissed her.

“It’s been nice for me too, Rosie. It’s been years since I felt this happy. Come on, let’s walk.” They went south along the shore this time, walking hand in hand. He led her up another path and into a long, narrow hayfield that looked as if it hadn’t been touched in years. The afternoon light lay across it in dusty beams, and butterflies skittered through the timothy grass, weaving aimless courses. Bees droned, and off to their left, a woodpecker tackhammered a tree relentlessly. He showed her flowers, naming most of them. She thought he got a couple wrong but didn’t tell him. Rosie pointed out a cluster of fungi around the base of an oak at the edge of the field, and told him they were toadstools, but not too dangerous because they were bitter. It was the ones that didn’t taste bitter that could get you in trouble, or get you killed. By the time they got back to the picnic area, the college kids Bill had spoken of had arrived-a van and a four-wheel-drive Scout full of them. They were amiable but noisy as they went about carrying coolers filled with beer into the shade and then setting up their volleyball net. A boy of about nineteen was carrying his girlfriend, clad in khaki shorts and a bikini top, around on his shoulders. When he broke into a trot, she began to scream happily and beat the top of his crewcut head with the palms of her hands. As she watched them, Rosie found herself wondering if the girl’s screams carried to the vixen in her clearing, and supposed they did. She could almost see her lying there with her brush curled over her sleeping, milk-stuffed cubs, listening to the human screams from down the beach, her ears cocked, her eyes bright and crafty and all too capable of madness. It knocks the dogs down quick, but a vixen can carry it a long time, Rosie thought, and then recalled the toadstools she’d spotted on the edge of the overgrown meadow, growing in the shadows where it was damp. Spider toadstools, her grandmother had called them when she pointed them out to Rosie one summer, and while that was a name that must have been special to Gramma Weeks-certainly it was not one Rosie had ever seen since in any book of plants-she had never forgotten the somehow nasty look of them, the pale and waxy flesh swarming with dark spots that did look a little like spiders, she supposed, if your imagination was good… and hers had been. A vixen can carry rabies a long time, she thought again. It knocks the dogs down quick, but…

“Rosie? Are you cold?” She looked at him, not understanding.

“You were shivering.”

“No, I’m not cold.” She looked at the kids, who did not see her and Bill because they were past the age of twenty-five, and then back to him.

“But maybe it’s time to go back.” He nodded.

“I think you’re right.”

The traffic was heavier on the return trip, and heavier still once they left the Skyway. It slowed them down but never quite stopped them. Bill darted the big Harley through holes when they appeared, making Rosie feel a little as if she were riding on the back of a trained dragonfly, but he took no unreasonable chances and she never doubted him, even when he took them up the dotted line between lanes, passing big semis on either side, lined up like patient mastodons as they waited for their turn to go through the Skyway tollbooths. By the time they began passing signs which read WATERFRONT and AQUARIUM and ETTINGER’s PIER amp; AMUSEMENT PARK, Rosie was glad they had left when they had. She was going to be on time for her shift in the tee-shirt booth, and that was good. She was going to introduce Bill to her friends, and that was even better. She was sure they were going to like him. As they passed beneath a bright pink banner reading SWING INTO SUMMER WITH DAUGHTERS AND SISTERS!, Rosie felt a burst of happiness which she would remember later on that long, long day with sickened horror. She could see the roller coaster now, all curves and complicated strutwork silhouetted against the sky, could hear the screams drifting off it like vapor. She hugged Bill tighter for a moment, and laughed. Everything was going to be all right, she thought, and when she remembered-for just a moment-the vixen’s dark and watchful eye, she pushed the memory away, as one will push away a memory of death at a wedding.

While Bill Steiner was negotiating his motorcycle carefully up the lane leading to Shoreland, Norman Daniels was negotiating his stolen car into a huge parking lot on Press Street. This lot was about jive blocks from Ettinger’s Pier, and served half a dozen lakeside attractions-the amusement park, the aquarium, the Old Towne Trolley, the shops and restaurants. There was parking closer in to all these points of interest and refreshment, but Norman didn’t want to get closer in. He might feel it necessary to leave this area at some speed, and he didn’t want to find himself mired in traffic if that turned out to be the case. The front half of the Press Street lot was nearly deserted at quarter to ten on Saturday morning, not good for a man who wanted to keep a low profile, but there were plenty of vehicles in the day- and week-rate section, most the property of ferry customers who were off somewhere up north, on day trips or weekend fishing expeditions. Norman eased the Ford Tempo into a space between a Winnebago with Utah plates and a gigantic RoadKing RV from Massachusetts. The Tempo was all but invisible between these big guys, and that suited Norman fine. He got out, then took his new leather jacket off the seat and put it on. From one of its pockets he took a pair of sunglasses-not the same ones he’d worn the other day-and slipped these on, as well. Then he walked to the rear of the car, took a look around to make sure he was unobserved, and opened the trunk. He took out the wheelchair and unfolded it. He had pasted the bumper stickers he’d bought in the gift shop of the Women’s Cultural Center all over it. They might have lots of smart people giving lectures and attending symposia upstairs in the meeting rooms and the auditorium, but downstairs in the gift shop they sold exactly the sort of shrill, nonsensical shit Norman had been hoping for. He had no use for keychains with the female sign on them, or the poster of a woman being crucified (JESUSINA DIED FOR YOUR SINS) on Golgotha, but the bumper stickers were perfect. A WOMAN NEEDS A MANLIKE A FISH NEEDS A BICYCLE, said one. Another, obviously written by someone who’d never seen a bimbo with her eyebrows and half her hair singed off by a malfunctioning crackpipe, read WOMEN ARE NOT FUNNY! There were stickers that said I’M PRO-CHOICE AND I VOTE, SEX IS POLITICAL, and R-E-S-P-E-C-T, FIND OUT WHAT IT MEANS TO ME. Norman wondered if any of these braless wonders knew that song had been written by a man. He bought them all, though. His favorite was the one he had carefully pasted in the center of the wheelchair’s imitation leather backrest, next to the little customized holster for his Walkman: I AM A MAN WHO RESPECTS WOMEN, it said. And that’s true enough, he thought, taking another quick check of the parking lot to make sure there was no one observing the cripple as he climbed spryly into his wheelchair. As long as they behave themselves, I respect them fine. He saw no one at all, let alone anyone watching him specifically. He pivoted the wheelchair and looked at his reflection in the side of the freshly washed Tempo. Well? he asked himself. What do you think? Will it work? He thought it would. Since disguise was out of the question, he had tried to go beyond disguise-to create a real person, the way a good actor can create a real person on stage. He had even come up with a name for this new guy: Hump Peterson. Hump was an army vet who’d come back home and ridden with an outlaw biker gang for ten years or so, one of the ones where the women have only two or three very limited uses. Then the accident had happened. Too many beers, wet pavement, a bridge abutment. He’d been paralyzed from the waist down, but had been nursed back to health by a saintly young woman named…

“Marilyn,” Norman said, thinking of Marilyn Chambers, who for years had been his favorite porn star. His second favorite was Amber Lynn, but Marilyn Lynn sounded fake as hell. The next name to occur to him was McCoo, but that was no good, either; Marilyn McCoo was the bitch who had sung with the Fifth Dimension, back in the seventies, when life hadn’t been as weird as it was these days. There was a sign in a vacant lot across the street-ANOTHER QUALITY DELANEY CONSTRUCTION PROJECT WILL GO UP IN THIS SPACE NEXT YEAR! it said-and Marilyn Delaney was as good a name as any. He would probably not be asked to tell his life’s story by any of the women from Daughters and Sisters, but to paraphrase the sentiment on the shirt the clerk in The Base Camp had been wearing, it was better to have a story and not need one than to need one and not have one. And they would believe in Hump Peterson. They would have seen more than a few guys just like him, guys who’d had some sort of life-changing experience and were trying to atone for their past behavior. And the Humps of the world, of course, atoned the way they had done everything else in their lives, by going right to the firewall. Hump Peterson was trying to turn himself into a kind of honorary woman, that was all. Norman had similar scagbags turn themselves into passionate anti-drug advocates, Jesus freaks, and Perotistas. At the bottom they were really just the same one-note assholes they’d always been, singing the same old tune in a different key. That wasn’t the important thing, though. The important thing was that they were always around, hanging on the fringes of whatever scene it was they wanted to be in. They were like tumbleweeds in the desert or icicles in Alaska. So yes-he thought Hump would be accepted as Hump, even if they were on the lookout for Inspector Daniels. Even the most cynical of them would be apt to dismiss him as no more than a horny crip using the old “sensitive, caring man” routine to get himself laid on a Saturday night. With just a smidge of luck, Hump Peterson would be both as visible and as little noticed as the guy on stilts who plays Uncle Sam in the Fourth of July parade. Beyond this, his plan was simplicity itself. He would find the main concentration of women from the group home, and he would watch them as Hump from the sidelines-their games and conversational groups, their picnic. When someone brought him a hamburger or a corndog or a slice of pie, as some helpful cunt undoubtedly would (you couldn’t propagandize their deep need to bring food to the menfolks out of them-that was instinct, by God), he’d take it with thanks, and he’d eat every bite. He would speak when spoken to, and if he should chance to win a stuffed animal playing ringtoss or Pitch Til U Win, he’d give it to some little kid… always being careful not to pat the rugmuffin on the head; even that could get you busted for molestation these days. But mostly he’d just watch. Watch for his rambling Rose. He could do that with no problem at all, once he had been accepted as a valid part of the scene; he was a champ at the art of surveillance. After he spotted her, he could take care of his business right here on the Pier, if he wanted to; just wait until she had to use the potty, follow her, and snap her neck like a chickenbone. It would be over in seconds, and that, of course, was just the problem. He didn’t want it to be over in seconds. He wanted to be able to take his time. Have a nice, leisurely chat with her. Get a complete rundown on her activities since she’d walked out on him with his ATM card in her pocket. The full report, so to speak, from chowder to cashews. He could ask her how it had felt to punch in his pin-number, for instance, and find out if she’d gotten off when she’d bent down to scoop the cash out of the slot-the cash he’d worked for, the cash he’d earned by staying up until all hours and busting scumholes who'A do anything to anybody if there weren’t guys like him around to stop them. He wanted to ask her how she’d ever thought she could get away with it. How she’d thought she could get away from him. And after she’d told him everything he wanted to hear, he would talk to her. Except maybe talk wasn’t exactly the right word for what he had in mind. Step one was to spot her. Step two was to keep an eye on her from a discreet distance. Step three was to follow her when she’d finally had enough and left the party… probably after the concert,but maybe earlier if he was lucky. He could ditch the wheelchair once he was clear of the amusement park. There would be fingerprints on it (a pair of studded biker gauntlets would have taken care of that problem and also added to the Hump Peterson image, but he’d only had so much time, not to mention one of his horrible headaches, his specials), but that was all right. He had an idea that fingerprints were going to be the least of his problems from here on out. He wanted her at her place, and Norman thought he was probably going to get what he wanted. When she got on the bus (and it would be the bus; she had no car and wouldn’t want to waste money on a cab), he would get on right behind her. If she happened to spot him at some point along the line between Ettinger’s Pier and the crib where she was turning her tricks, he’d kill her on the spot, and devil take the consequences. If things went well, though, he’d follow her right in through her door, and on the other side of that door she was going to suffer as no woman on the face of the earth had ever suffered before. Norman wheeled his way to the booth marked ALL-DAY PASSES, saw that adult admission was twelve bucks, handed the money to the guy in the booth, and started into the park. The way was clear; it was early and Ettinger’s wasn’t really bustling yet. Of course, that had its downside, too. He’d have to be very careful not to attract the wrong sort of attention. But he could do that. He-“Buddy! Hey, buddy! Come back here!” Norman stopped at once, his hands frozen on the wheels of his chair, blank eyes staring at the Haunted Ship and the giant robot in old-time ship’s captain’s clothes that stood out in front.

“Ahoy for terror, matey!” the robot ship’s captain called over and over again in his mechanical drone of a voice. No, he didn’t want to attract the wrong sort of attention… and here he was, doing precisely that.

“Hey baldy! You in the wheelchair!” People turning to look at him. One was a fat black bitch in a red jumper who looked about half as bright as The Base Camp clerk with the harelip. She also looked vaguely familiar, but Norman dismissed that as plain paranoia-he didn’t know anyone in this city. She turned and walked on, clutching a bag the size of a briefcase, but plenty of other people were still looking. Norman’s crotch suddenly felt humid with sweat.

“Hey, man, come back here! You gave me too much!” For a moment the sense of this didn’t come through to him-it was like something spoken in a foreign language. Then he understood, and an enormous sense of relief-mingled with feelings of disgust at his own stupidity-washed over him. Of course he had given the guy in the booth too much. He had forgotten he was not an Adult Male but a Handicapped Person.

He pivoted and wheeled back to the booth. The guy leaning out of it was fat, and he looked as disgusted with Norman as Norman felt with himself. He was holding out a five-dollar bill. “seven bucks handicap, can’tcha read?” he asked Norman, first pointing at the sign on the booth with the bill and then shoving it in Norman’s face. Norman entertained a brief vision of jamming the fivespot into the fat fuck’s left eye, then took it and stuffed it into one of his jacket’s many pockets. “sorry,” he said humbly.

“Yeah, yeah,” the man in the booth said, and turned away. Norman began wheeling himself into the park again, his heart pounding. He had carefully constructed a character… made simple but adequate plans to accomplish his aims… and then, at the outset,had done something not just stupid but incredibly stupid. What was happening to him? He didn’t know, but from this point on he was going to have to work around it.

“I can do that,” he muttered to himself.

“Goddam right I can.”

“Ahoy for terror, matey!” the robot sailor droned down at him as Norman rolled past. In one hand he waved a corncob pipe the size of a toilet bowl.

“Ahoy for terror, matey! Ahoy for terror, matey!”

“Whatever you say, Cap'n,” Norman muttered under his breath, and kept rolling. He came to a three-way intersection with arrows pointing to the Pier, the midway, and the picnic area. Beside the one pointing to the picnic area was a small sign which read GUESTS AND FRIENDS OF DAUGHTERS AND SISTERS EAT AT NOON, EAT AT SIX, CONCERT AT EIGHT ENJOY! REJOICE! You bet, Norman thought, and began to roll his bestickered wheelchair down one of the concrete flower-bordered paths which led into the picnic area. It was actually a park, and a good one. There was playground equipment for children who had tired of the rides or found them too stressful. There were jolly topiary animals like the ones at Disney World, horseshoe pits, a softball diamond, and lots of picnic tables. An open-sided canvas tent had been set up and Norman could see men in cooks” whites inside, preparing to barbecue. Beyond the tent was a row of booths which had clearly been put up just for today’s events-at one you could buy chances on a couple of hand-made quilts, at another you could buy tee-shirts (many bearing the same sentiments which decorated

“Hump’s” wheelchair), at another you could get any sort of pamphlet you wanted… as long as you wanted to find out how to leave your husband and find joy with your lesbian soul-sisters. If I had a gun, he thought, something heavy and fast like a Mac-10, I could make the world a much better place in just twenty seconds. Much better. Most of the people here were women, but there were enough men that Norman did not feel particularly conspicuous. He rolled past the booths, being pleasant, nodding when nodded to, smiling when smiled at. He bought a chance on the snowflake quilt, putting his name down as Richard Peterson. It might not be such a good idea to call himself Hump-not here. He picked up a pamphlet called Women Have Estate Rights, Too and told the lesbo queen minding the booth he was going to send it to his sister Jeannie in Topeka. The lesbo queen smiled and told him to have a nice day. Norman smiled and said right back atcha. He looked at everything in general and for one person in particular: Rose. He didn’t see her yet, but that was okay; the day was young. He felt almost positive that she’d be here for the sitdown meal at noon, and once he’d gotten a confirmed sighting of her, all would be well, all would be well, and all manner of things would be well. Okay, he had screwed up a little at the All-Day booth, but so what? That was behind him now and he wouldn’t screw up again. Absolutely not.

“Cool wheelchair, my friend,” a young woman in leopardskin shorts said cheerfully. She was leading a little boy by the hand. The little boy had a cherry Sno-Kone in his free hand and appeared to be trying to coat his entire face with it. To Norman he looked like a world-class booger.

“Cool sentiments, too.” She held out a hand for Norman to slap, and Norman wondered-just for a moment-how fast that stupid little I-brake-for-cripples smirk would disappear from her face if he bit off a couple of her fingers instead of giving her the low five she was expecting. It was her left hand she was holding out and Norman wasn’t surprised to see there was no wedding ring on it, although the rugrat with the cherry shit all over his face looked just like her. You slut, he thought. I look at you and I see everything that’s wrong with this fucked-up world. What did you do? Get one of your dyke friends to knock you up with a turkey-baster? He smiled and slapped her outstretched hand lightly.

“You the best, girl,” he said. “do you have a friend here?” the woman asked.

“Well, you,” he said promptly. She laughed, pleased.

“Thanks. But you know what I mean.”

“Nope, just diggin the scene,” he said.

“If I’m in the way, or if it’s a private gig, I can always head out.”

“No, no!” she said, looking horrified at the idea… as Norman had known she would. “stay. Hang out. Enjoy. Could I bring you something to eat? It would be my pleasure. Cotton candy? A hotdog, maybe?”

“No, thanks,” Norman said.

“I was in a motorcycle accident awhile back-that’s how I lucked into the wonderful wheelchair.” The bitch was nodding sympathetically; he could have her bawling in about three minutes, if he felt like it.

“I don’t seem to have much appetite since then.” He grinned tremulously at her.

“But I enjoy life, by God!” She laughed.

“Good for you! Have a great day.” He nodded.

“Goes back double. You have a good day too, son.” “sure,” the kid said noncommittally, and looked at Norman with hostile eyes from above his cherry-lathered cheeks. Norman had a moment of real panic, a sense that the boy was looking into him and seeing the Norman who was hiding behind Hump Peterson’s studhorse cleanhead and many-zippered jacket. He told himself it was simple garden-variety paranoia he was feeling, no more and no less-he was, after all, an impostor in the court of his enemies and it was perfectly normal to feel paranoid under such circumstances-but he went on his way quickly just the same. He thought he would start to feel better again once he was away from the kid with the hostile eyes, but he didn’t. His brief burst of optimism had been replaced by an antsy feeling. The noon meal was close now, people would be sitting down in fifteen minutes or so, and there was still no sign of her. Some of the women were off doing the rides, and it was possible that Rose was among them, but he didn’t think it was very likely. Rose wasn’t a Crack the Whip kind of gal. No, you’re right, she never was… but maybe she’s changed, a voice inside whispered. It started to say something else, but Norman muzzled it savagely before it could get a single word out. He didn’t want to hear that crap, even though he knew that something in Rose must have changed, or she’d still be at home, ironing his shirts every Wednesday, and none of this would be happening. The idea of Rose’s changing enough to walk out of the house with his goddam ATM card took hold again in his mind, took hold in a gnawing, beavery way he could hardly stand. Thinking about it made him feel panicky, as if there were a weight on his chest. Stay in control, he told himself. That’s what you’ve got to do. Think of it as being on stakeout, as a job you’ve done a thousand times before. If you can think of it just that way, everything will be fine. Tell you what you do, Normie: forget it’s Rose you’re looking for. Forget it’s Rose until you actually see her. He tried. It helped that things were going pretty much as he had expected; Hump Peterson had been accepted as a valid part of the scene. Two dykes wearing tee-shirts cut off to display their overbuilt arms included him briefly in their Frisbee game, and an older woman with white hair on top and really ugly varicose veins down below brought him a Yogurt Pop because, she said, he looked really hot and uncomfortable, stuck in that chair.

“Hump” thanked her gratefully and said yes, he was a little hot. But you’re not, sweetie, he thought as the woman with the graying hair started away. No wonder you’re with these lesbo queens-you couldn’t get a man if your life depended on it. The Yogurt Pop was good, though-cool-and he ate it down greedily. The trick was never to stay in one place for too long. He moved from the picnic area to the horseshoe pit, where two inept men were playing doubles against two equally inept women. To Norman it looked as if the game might go on until the sun went down. He rolled past the cook-tent, where the first hamburgers were coming off the grill and potato salad was being dished into serving bowls. Finally he headed for the midway and the rides, wheeling along with his head down, sneaking little peeks at the women who were now heading for the picnic tables, some pushing strollers, some carrying trumpery prizes under their arms. Rose was not among them. She did not seem to be anywhere.

Norman was too busy looking for Rose to see that the black woman who had noticed him earlier was noticing him again. This was an extremely large woman, one who actually did bear a slight resemblance to William “refrigerator” Perry. Gert was in the playground, pushing a little boy on a swing. Now she stopped and shook her head, as if to clear it. She was still looking at the cripple in the motorcycle jacket, although now she could only see him from behind. There was a bumper sticker on the back-support of his wheelchair. I AM A MAN WHO RESPECTS WOMEN, it said. You’re also a man who looks familiar, Gert thought. Or is it just that you look like some movie actor?

“Come on, Gert!” Melanie Huggins’s little boy commanded.

“Push! I wanna go high! I wanna loop the loop!” Gert pushed higher, although little Stanley wasn’t going to get anywhere near looping the loop-not in this litigious age, thank you very much. Still, his laughter was a kick; it made her grin herself. She pushed him a little higher, dismissing the man in the wheelchair from her mind. From the front of her mind.

“I wanna loop the loop, Gert! Please! Come on, pleeeese!” Well, Gert thought, maybe once wouldn’t hurt.

“Hold on tight, hero,” she said.

“Here we go.”

Norman kept rolling even after he knew he’d gone by the last incoming picknickers. He felt it wise to make himself scarce while the women from Daughters and Sisters and their friends were eating. Also, his sense of panic had continued to grow, and he was afraid someone might notice something wrong with him if he stuck around. Rose should be here, and he should have seen her by now, but he hadn’t. He didn’t think she was here, and that made no sense. She was a mouse, for Christ’s sake, a mouse, and if she wasn’t here with her fellow Mouska-Cunts, where was she? Where did she have to go, if not here? He wheeled beneath an arch reading WELCOME TO THE MIDWAY and traveled along the broad paved way, not paying much attention to where he was going. The best thing about riding in a wheelchair, he was discovering, was people watched out for you. The park was filling up, and he supposed that was good, but nothing else was good. His head was throbbing again, and the hurrying crowds made him feel strange, like an alien inside his own skin. Why were so many of them laughing, for instance? What in God’s name did they have to laugh about? Didn’t they understand what the world was like? Didn’t they see that everything-everything!-was on the verge of going down the tubes? He realized with dismay that they all looked like lovergirls and fagboys to him now, all of them, as if the world had degenerated into a cesspool of one-sex lovers, women who were thieves, men who were liars, none of them with any respect for the glue that held society together. His headache was getting worse, and the bright little zigzags had started to show around the edges of things again. The noises of this place had grown maddeningly loud, as if some cruel gnome inside his head had taken over the controls and was gradually turning the volume all the way up to max decibels. The rumble of the cars mounting the first slope of the roller-coaster track sounded like an avalanche, and the screams of the riders as the cars fell into the first drop tore at his ears like shrapnel. The calliope farting out its steamy tunes, the electronic chatter from the video arcade, the buglike whine of go-karts speeding around the Rally Racer track… these sounds converged inside his confused and frightened mind like hungry monsters. Worst of all, pervading everything and digging into the meat of his brain like the blade of a dull auger, was the chant of the mechanical sailor in front of the Haunted Ship. He felt that if he had to listen to it bellow

“Ahoy for terror, matey!” just one more time, his mind would snap like a dry stick of kindling. Either that or he would simply bolt out of this dumb fucking chair and go screaming through-Stop, Normie. He wheeled into a small empty space between the booth selling fried dough and the one selling pizza by the slice, and there he did stop, facing away from the milling crowds. When that particular voice came, Norman always listened. It was the voice which had told him nine years ago that the only way to shut Wendy Yarrow up was to kill her, and it was also the voice which had finally persuaded him to take Rose to the hospital the time she’d broken a rib.

Normie, you’ve gone crazy, that calm, lucid voice said now. By the standards of the courtrooms where you’ve testified thousands of times, you’re as nutty as a Payday candybar. You know that, don’t you? Faintly, blowing to him on the breeze off the lake:

“Ahoy for terror, matey!” Normie?

“Yeah,” he whispered. He began to massage his aching temples with the tips of his fingers.

“Yeah, I guess I do know that.” All right; a person can work with his handicaps… if he’s willing to acknowledge them. You have to find out where she is, and that means taking a risk. But you took a risk just coming here, right?

“Yeah,” he said.

“Yeah, Daddy, I did.” Okay, the bullshit stops here. Listen up, Normie. Norman listened up.

Gert pushed Stan Huggins on the swings for a little while longer, his cries for her to “loop him around the loop some more” becoming steadily more tiresome. She had no intention of doing that again; the first time he’d damned near fallen out, and for one second Gert had been sure she was going to drop dead of a heart attack. Also, her mind had returned to the guy. The bald guy. Did she know him from somewhere? Did she? Could it have been Rosie’s husband? Oh, that’s insane. Paranoia deluxe. Probably, yeah. Almost certainly. But the idea nibbled. The size looked about right… although when you were looking at a guy in a wheelchair it was hard to tell, wasn’t it? A man like Rosie’s husband would know that, of course. Quit it. You’re jumping at shadows. Stan tired of the swings and asked Gert if she’d climb on the jungle gym with him. She smiled and shook her head.

“Why not?” he asked, pouting.

“Because your old pal Gert hasn’t had a jungle gym body since she ditched the diapers and rubber pants,” she said. She saw Randi Franklin over by the slide and suddenly made a decision. If she didn’t chase this a little, it would drive her nuts. She asked Randi if she’d keep an eye on Stan for awhile. The young woman said sure and Gert called her an angel, which Randi definitely was not… but a little positive reinforcement never hurt anyone.

“Where you goin, Gert?” Stan asked, clearly disappointed.

“Got to run an errand, big boy. Chase on over there and slide awhile with Andrea and Paul.”

“Slidin’s for babies,” Stan said morosely, but he went.

Gert walked up the path which led from the picnic area to the main drag, and when she got there she made her way to the entrance booths. There were long lines at both the All-Day and the Half-Day, and she was nearly positive the man she wanted to talk to would not be helpful-she had already seen him in operation. The back door of the All-Day booth was open. Gert stood where she was a moment longer, gathering her resolve, and then marched toward it. She had no official capacity at Daughters and Sisters, never had, but she loved Anna, who had helped her out of a relationship with a man who had sent her to the emergency room nine times when Gert had been between the ages of sixteen and nineteen. Now she was thirty-seven, and had been Anna’s informal second-in-command for almost fifteen years. Teaching battered newcomers what Anna had taught her-that they didn’t have to keep going back to abusive husbands and boyfriends and fathers and step-parents-was only one of her functions. She taught self-defense skills (not because they saved lives but because they salvaged dignity); she helped Anna plan fundraisers like this one; she worked with Anna’s frail and elderly accountant to keep the place on something which resembled a paying basis. And when there was security work to be done, she tried her best to do it. It was in this capacity that she moved forward now, unsnapping the clasp of her handbag as she did so. It was Gert’s traveling office.

“Beg pardon, sir,” she said, leaning in the open back door.

“Could I speak to you a second?”

“Customer Service booth is to the left of the Haunted Ship,” he said without turning around.

“If you have a problem, go there.”

“You don’t understand,” Gert said. She took a deep breath and worked to speak evenly.

“This is a problem only you can help me with.”

“That’s twenty-four dollars,” the ticket-agent said to the young couple on the other side of the window, “and six is your change. Enjoy your day.” To Gert, still without turning his head:

“I’m busy here, lady, in case you didn’t notice. So if you want to complain about how the games are rigged, or something of that nature, you just toddle on down to Customer Service and-” That was it; Gert had no intention of listening to this guy tell her to toddle anywhere, especially not in that insufferable the-world-is-full-of-fools voice. Maybe the world was full of fools, but she wasn’t one of them, and she knew something this self-important idiot didn’t: Peter Slowik had been bitten over eighty times, and it wasn’t impossible that the man who had done it was here right now, looking around for his wife. She stepped into the booth-it was a squeeze, but she made it-and seized the agent by the shoulders of his blue uniform shirt. She turned him around. The name-tag on the breast pocket of his shirt said CHRIS. Chris stared into the dark moon of Gert Kinshaw’s face, astonished to be touched by a customer. He opened his mouth, but Gert spoke before he got a chance. “shut up and listen. I think there’s a chance that you sold a day-pass to a very dangerous man this morning. A murderer. So don’t bother telling me how tough your day’s been, Chris, because I don’t… fucking… care.” Chris looked at her, bug-eyed with surprise. Before he could recover either his voice or his attitude, Gert had taken a slightly blurred fax photograph from her oversized bag and shoved it under his eyes. Detective Norman Daniels, who led the drug-busting undercover task force, read the caption beneath.

“You want Security,” Chris said. His tone was both injured and apprehensive. Behind him, the man now at the head of the line-he was wearing an idiotic Mr Magoo hat and a tee-shirt reading WORLD’s GREATEST GRANDPA-abruptly raised a videocam and began to shoot, possibly anticipating a confrontation that would land his footage on one of the network reality shows. If I’d known how much fun this was going to be, I never would have hesitated at all, Gert thought.

“No, I don’t want them, not yet, anyway; I want you. Please. Just take one good look and tell me-”

“Lady, if you knew how many people I see in a single d-”

“Think about a guy in a wheelchair. Early. Before the rush, okay? Big guy. Bald. You leaned out of the booth and yelled after him. He came back. He must have forgotten his change, or something.” A light had gone on in Chris’s eyes.

“No, that wasn’t it,” he said.

“He thought he was giving me the right money. I know he did, because it was a ten and two ones. He either forgot the handicapped price of an all-day pass, or he never noticed it.” Yeah, Gert thought. Just the kind of thing a man who’s only pretending to be a cripple might forget, if his mind was on other things. Mr Magoo, apparently deciding there wasn’t going to be a punchup after all, lowered his videocam.

“Would you sell me a ticket for me and my grandson, please?” he asked through the speaker-hole.

“Hold your water,” Chris said. He was an all-around charmer if Gert had ever met one, but this was not the time to offer him helpful hints on how he could upgrade his performance. This was a time for diplomacy. When he turned back to her, looking weary and put-upon, she held out the picture again and spoke in a soft tell-me-o-wise-one voice.

“Was this the man in the wheelchair? Imagine him without hair.”

“Aw, lady, come on! He was wearing sunglasses, too.”

“Try. He’s dangerous. If there’s even a chance he’s here, I will have to talk to your Security people.” Boink, a mistake. She knew it almost at once, but that was still a couple of seconds too late. The flicker in his eyes was brief but still hard to misunderstand. If she wanted to go to Security about some problem that didn’t concern him, that was fine. If it did concern him, even tangentially, it wasn’t fine. He’d had trouble with Security before, maybe, or maybe he’d just been reprimanded about being a short-tempered asshole. In either case, he had decided this whole business was an aggravation he didn’t need.

“It isn’t the guy,” he said. He’d taken the photo for a closer look. Now he attempted to hand it back. Gert raised her hands with her palms against her chest, above the formidable swell of her bosom, refusing to take it, at least for the time being.

“Please,” she said.

“If he’s here, he’s looking for a friend of mine, and not because he wants to take her on the Ferris Wheel.”

“Hey!” someone shouted from the growing All-Day line.

“Let’s go, let’s go!” There were cries of agreement, and Monsieur-World’s Greatest Grandpa raised his videocam again. This time he seemed interested only in capturing Gert’s new friend, Mr Congeniality, on tape. Gert saw Chris look at him, saw the color mounting into his cheeks, saw the abortive move to cover the side of his face with his hand, like a crook coming out of the county courthouse after his arraignment. Any chance she might have had of finding something out here had now passed.

“It’s not the guy!” Chris snapped.

“Completely different! Now get your fat ass out of here, or I’ll have you tossed out of the park.”

“Look who’s talking,” Gert sniffed.

“I could set a twelve-course meal on what you’re carrying behind you and never drop a single fork down the crack in the middle.”

“Get out! Right now!” Gert stalked back toward the picnic area, her cheeks flaming. She felt like a fool. How could she have blown that so badly? She tried to tell herself it was the place-too loud, too confusing, too many people running around like lunatics, trying to have fun-but it wasn’t the place. She was scared, that was why it had happened. The idea that Rosie’s husband might have killed Peter Slowik was bad, but the idea that he might be right here today, masquerading as a paralyzed iron horseman, was a thousand times worse. She had run into craziness before, but craziness combined with this degree of craft and obsessive determination… Where was Rosie, anyhow? Not here, that was all Gert knew for sure. Not here yet, she amended to herself.

“I blew it,” she muttered aloud, and then remembered what she told almost all the women who came to D amp; S: If you know it, own it. All right, she’d own it. That meant Pier Security was out, at least for the time being-convincing them might be impossible, and even if she succeeded, it might take too long. She had seen the bald biker in the wheelchair hanging around the picnic, though, talking to several people, most of them women. Lana Kline had even brought him something to eat. Ice cream, it had looked like. Gert hurried back to the picnic area, needing to pee now but ignoring it. She looked for Lana or for any of the women who’d been talking to the bald guy, but it.was like looking for a cop-there was never one around when you needed one. And now she really had to go; it was killing her. Why had she drunk so goddam much iced tea?

Norman rolled slowly back down the amusement park midway and toward the picnic area. The women were still eating, but not for much longer-he could see the first dessert trays being passed. He’d have to move fast if he wanted to act while most of them were still in one place. He wasn’t worried, though; the worry had passed. He knew just where to go in order to find one woman alone, one woman he could talk to up close. Women can’t stay away from bathrooms, Normie, his father had once told him. They’re like dogs that can’t pass a single damn lilac bush without stopping to squat and piddle. Norman wheeled his chair briskly past the sign reading TO COMFORT STATIONS. Just one, he thought. Just one walking by herself, one who can tell me where Rose has gone if she’s not here. If it’s San Francisco, I’ll follow her there. If it’s Tokyo, I’ll follow her there. And if it’s hell, I’ll follow her there. Why not? That’s where we’re going to end up, anyway, and probably keeping house together. He passed through a little grove of ornamental firs and went freewheeling down a mild slope toward a windowless brick building with a door at either end-men on the right, women on the left. Norman rolled his chair past the door marked WOMEN and parked on the far side of the building. This was a very satisfactory location, in Norman’s view-a narrow strip of bare earth, a line of plastic garbage cans, and a high stake privacy fence. He got out of the wheelchair and peered around the corner of the building, sliding his head out farther and farther until he could see the path. He felt all right again, calm and settled. His head still ached, but the pain had receded to a dull throb. A pair of women came out of the toy grove-no good. That was the worst thing about his current stakeout position, of course, the way women so often went to the John in pairs. What did they do in there, for Chrissake? Finger each other? These two went in. Norman could hear them through the nearest vent, laughing and talking about someone named Fred. Fred did this, Fred did that, Fred did the other thing. Apparently Fred was quite the boy. Every time the one doing most of the talking paused for breath the other one would giggle, a sound so jagged it made Norman feel as if someone were rolling his brain in broken glass the way a baker would roll a doughnut in sugar. He stood where he was, though, so he could watch the path, and he stood perfectly still, except for his hands, which opened and closed, opened and closed. At last they came out, still talking about Fred and still giggling, walking so close together that their hips brushed and their shoulders touched, and Norman found himself hard-put to keep from rushing after them and seizing their slutwhore heads, one head for the palm of each hand, so he could bring them together and shatter them like a couple of pumpkins stuffed full of high explosive. “don’t,” he whispered to himself. Sweat ran down his face in large, clear droplets and stood out all over his freshly shaven skull.

“Oh don’t, not now, for Christ’s sake don’t lose it now.” He was shivering, and his headache had come back full force, pounding like a fist. The bright zigzags boogied and hustled around the edges of his vision, and his nose had begun to leak from the right nostril. The next woman who came into view was alone, and Norman recognized her-white hair on top, ugly varicose veins on the bottom. The woman who’d given him the Yogurt Pop. I got a pop for you, he thought, tensing as she started down the concrete path. I got a pop for you, and if you don’t give me the answers I’m looking for, and right away, you’re apt to find yourself eating every goddam inch of it. Then someone else came out of the little grove of trees. Norman had seen her, too-the fat, nosy bitch in the red jumper, the one who had looked him over when the guy in the booth called him back. Once again he felt that maddening sense of recognition, like a name that dances impudently on your tongue, darting back every time you try to catch it. Did he know her? If only his head wasn’t aching-She still had her oversized bag, the one which looked more like a briefcase, and she was pawing around in it. What you looking for, Fat Girl? Norman thought. Couple of Twinkies? A few Mallow Cremes? Maybe a-And suddenly, just like that, he had it. He’d read about her in the library, in a newspaper article about Daughters and Sisters. There had been a picture of her crouched down in some asshole karate posture, looking more like a doublewide trailer than Bruce Lee. She was the bitch who told the reporter men weren’t their enemies…'but if they hit, we hit back.” Gert. He didn’t remember the last one, but her first name had been Gert. Get out of here, Gert, Norman thought at the big black woman in the red jumper. His hands were tightly clenched, the nails digging into his palms. But she didn’t.

“Lana!” she called instead.

“Hey, Lana!” The white-haired woman turned, then walked back to Fat Girl, who looked like The Fridge in a dress. He watched the white-haired woman named Lana lead old Dirty Gertie back into the trees. Gertie was holding something out to her as they went. It looked like a piece of paper. Norman armed sweat out of his eyes and waited for Lana to finish her confab with Gert and come down to the toilet. On the other side of the grove, in the picnic area, desserts were now being finished up, and when they were gone, the trickle of women coming down here to use the bathroom would become a flood. If his luck didn’t change, and change soon, this could turn into a real mess.

“Come on, come on,” Norman muttered under his breath, and as if in answer, someone came out of the trees and started down the path. It was neither Gert nor Lana the Yogurt Pop lady, but it was someone else Norman recognized, just the same-one of the whores he’d seen in the garden on the day he’d reconned Daughters and Sisters. It was the one with the tu-tone rock-star hair. The bold bitch had even waved at him. Scared the hell out of me, too, he thought, but turnabout’s fair play, isn’t it? Come on, now. Just come on down here to Papa. Norman felt himself getting hard, and his headache was entirely gone. He stood as still as a statue, with one eye peeking around the corner of the building, praying that Gert would not pick this particular moment to come back, praying that the girl with the half-green, half-orange hair wouldn’t change her mind. No one came out of the trees and the girl with thefucked-up hair kept approaching. Ms Punky-Grungy Scumbucket of 1994, come into my parlor said the spider to the fly, closer and closer, and now she was reaching out for the doorhandle but the door never opened because Norman’s hand closed on Cynthia’s thin wrist before she could touch the handle. She looked at him, startled, her eyes opening wide.

“Come around here,” he said, dragging her after him.

“Come on around here so I can talk to you. So I can talk to you up close.”

Gert Kinshaw was hurrying for the bathroom, almost running, when-wonder of wonders-she saw the very woman she’d been looking for just ahead. She immediately opened her capacious bag and began hunting for the photograph.

“Lana!” she called.

“Hey, Lana!” Lana came back up the path.

“I’m looking for Cathy Sparks,” she said.

“Have you seen her?” “sure, she’s throwing horseshoes,” Gert said, cocking a thumb back toward the picnic area. “saw her not two minutes ago.”

“Great!” Lana started in that direction at once. Gert cast one yearning glance at the comfort station, then fell in beside her. She guessed her bladder would hold a little longer.

“I thought maybe she’d had one of her panic attacks and just fired on out of here,” Lana was saying.

“You know how she gets.”

“Uh-huh.” Gert handed Lana the fax photo just before they reentered the trees. Lana studied it curiously. It was her first look at Norman, because she wasn’t a D amp; S resident. She was a psychiatric social worker who lived in Crescent Heights with her pleasant, non-abusive husband and her three pleasant, non-dysfunctional kids.

“Who’s this?” Lana asked. Before Gert could answer, Cynthia Smith walked by. As always, even under these circumstances, her weird hair made Gert grin.

“Hi, Gert, love your shirt!” Cynthia said smartly. This was not a compliment but just something the girl said, a little Cynthia-ism.

“Thanks. I like your shorts. But I bet if you really tried, you could find a pair that let even more of your cheeks hang out.”

“Hey, tell me about it,” Cynthia said, and went on her way with her small but undeniably cute fanny ticking back and forth like the pendulum of a clock. Lana looked at her with amusement, then turned her attention back to the photo. As she studied it she absently stroked her long white hair, which she had tied into a ponytail. “do you know him?” Gert asked. Lana shook her head, but Gert thought she was expressing doubt rather than saying no.

“Imagine him without the hair.” Lana did better than that; she covered the photo from the hairline up. Then she studied it more closely than ever, her lips moving, as if she were reading it rather than looking at it. When she looked up at Gert again, her face was both puzzled and concerned.

“I gave a Yogurt Pop to a guy this morning,” she began hesitantly.

“He was wearing sunglasses, but-”

“He was in a wheelchair,” Gert said, and although she knew this was where the work really began, she felt a great weight slip off her shoulders, just the same. It was better to know than not to know. Better to be sure.

“Yes. Is he dangerous? He is, isn’t he? I’m here with a couple of women who’ve been through a great deal of trauma in the last few years. They’re pretty delicate. Is there going to be trouble, Gert? I’m asking for them, not me.” Gert thought it over carefully before saying, “I think everything’s going to be all right. I think the scary part’s almost over.”

Norman tore off Cynthia’s sleeveless blouse, baring her teacup-sized breasts. He damped one hand over her mouth, simultaneously pinning her to the wall and muzzling her. He rubbed his crotch against hers.” He felt her trying to pull back, but of course there was no way she could do that and that excited him more, how he had her trapped here. But it was only his body that was excited. His mind was floating about three feet over his head, watching serenely as Norman leaned forward and clamped his teeth on Miss Punky-Grungy’s shoulder. He battened on her like a vampire and began drinking her blood when it burst through the skin. It was hot and salty, and when he ejaculated in his pants, he was hardly aware of it, any more than he was aware of her screaming against his hard palm.

“Go on back and hang with your patients until I give you the all-clear,” Gert told Lana.

“And do me a favor-don’t mention this to anyone, not yet. Your friends aren’t the only women here today who are psychologically delicate.”

“I know.” Gert squeezed her arm.

“It’ll be fine. I promise.”

“Okay, you know best.”

“Yeah, right, dream on. But I do know he shouldn’t be hard to find, if he’s still cruising around in that wheelchair. If you see him, keep away from him. Do you understand? Keep away from him!” Lana looked at her with deep dismay.

“What are you going to do?”

“Take a leak before I die of uremic poisoning. Then go to the Security office and tell them that a man in a wheelchair tried to snatch my purse. We’ll go from there, but step one is getting him the hell away from our picnic.” Rosie wasn’t here, she might have a date, or some other appointment, and Gert had never been so grateful for anything in her life. She was his trigger; with Rosie not around, they had a chance of neutralizing him before he did any damage. “do you want me to wait for you while you go to the toilet?” Lana asked nervously.

“I’ll be fine.” Lana frowned at the path leading back through the grove.

“Maybe I’ll wait anyway,” she said. Gert smiled.

“Okay. This won’t take long, believe me.” She had almost reached the comfort station when a sound impinged on her thoughts: someone panting, and hard. No-two someones. A smile curved the corners of Gert’s large mouth. Someone was enjoying a little afternoon delight behind the toilets, from the sound. Just having a nice little-“Talk to me, you bitch!” The voice, so low it sounded almost like the growl of a dog, froze the smile on Gert’s lips.

“Tell me where she is, and do it right now?

Gert ran around the side of the squat brick building so fast she barely avoided hitting the abandoned wheelchair and going ass over teakettle. The bald man in the motorcycle jacket-Norman Daniels-was standing with his back to her, holding Cynthia so tightly by her thin upper arms that his thumbs had nearly disappeared into her scant flesh. His face was jammed down against hers, but Gert could see the peculiar cant to Cynthia’s nose. She’d seen that before, once in her own mirror. The girl’s nose had been broken.

“Tell me where she is or you’ll never have to bother with lipstick again, because I’ll bite your fucking kisser right off your fa-” Gert stopped thinking then, stopped hearing. She went on autopilot. Two steps took her to where Daniels was. As she took them, she laced the fingers of both hands together to make a cudgel. She raised this over her right shoulder, getting as much height as she could; she wanted all the velocity she could muster. Just before she brought her hands down, Cynthia’s terrified eyes shifted to her, and Rosie’s husband saw it happen. He was quick, Gert had to give him that. He was terribly quick. Her locked hands caught him and caught him hard, but not on the nape of the neck, where she had wanted to hit him. He had already started to wheel around, and her hands caught him on the side of his face and the angle of his jaw instead. Her chance for a quick no-fuss, no-muss knockout had passed. As he turned to face her, Gert’s first thought was that he had been eating strawberries. He grinned at her with teeth that were still dripping blood. The grin horrified Gert, and filled her with the certainty that she had only managed to make sure two women were going to die back here instead of one. This wasn’t a man at all. This was Grendel in a motorcycle jacket.

“Why, it’s Dirty Gertie!” Norman exclaimed.

“You wanna rassle, Gertie? Is that what you want? To rassle? Gonna whip me into submission with those 52-Ds of yours, is that what you’re gonna do?” He laughed, patting the flat of one hand against his chest to communicate how tickled he was by the idea. The zippers on his jacket jingled. Gert snatched a glance at Cynthia, who was looking down at herself as if wondering where her shirt had gone.

“Cynthia, run!” Cynthia gave her a dazed look, took two hesitant steps backward, then simply leaned against the comfort station, as if just the thought of escape had tired her out. Gert could already see bruises rising on her cheeks and forehead, like fresh dough.

“Gert-Gert-bo-Bert,” Norman crooned, starting toward her.

“Banana-fanna-fo-Fert, fee-fi-mo-Mert… Gert!” He laughed like a child at this, then armed some of Cynthia’s blood off his mouth. Gert could see beads of sweat clinging to his naked skull. They looked like sequins.

“Oooh, Gertie,” Norman crooned, and now his upper body began to sway from side to side, like the body of a cobra emerging from a snake-charmer’s basket.

“Oooh, Gertie. I’m gonna roll you like a doughnut. I’m gonna turn you inside out like a pair of gloves. I’m-”

“Then why don’t you come on and do it?” she barked at him.

“This ain’t the high-school prom, you chickenshit asshole! If you want me, come and get me!” Daniels stopped weaving and gaped at her, seemingly unable to believe that this tub of guts had shouted at him. Had taunted him. Behind him, Cynthia retreated another two or three tired stumble-steps, the seat of her shorts whispering against the brick of the comfort station, then leaned against the wall again. Gert cocked her arms and held them out in front of her. The palms of her hands faced each other, about twenty inches apart. Her fingers were splayed. She dropped her head between her shoulders, hulking like a mother bear. Norman observed this defensive posture, and his expression of surprise dissolved into amusement.

“What you gonna do, Gert?” he asked her.

“You think you’re gonna run some Bruce Lee moves on me? Hey, I got news for you, he’s dead, Gertie. Just like you’re gonna be in about fifteen seconds-just a fat old nigger bitch lying dead on the ground.” He laughed. Gert suddenly thought of Lana Kline, glancing nervously around and saying that maybe she would wait for Gert to use the bathroom.

“Lana!” she screamed at the top of her voice.

“He’s here! If you’re still there, run and get help!” Rosie’s husband looked startled again for a moment, then relaxed. His smile resurfaced. He snatched a quick glance over his shoulder to make sure Cynthia was still there, then looked back at Gert. His upper body resumed its back-and-forth swaying.

“Where’s my wife?” he asked.

“Tell me that and maybe I’ll only break one of your arms. Hell, I might even let you go. She stole my bank card. I want it back, that’s all.” Can’t rush him, Gert thought. He has to come to me-there’s no other way I have even a chance of handling him. But just how am I supposed to make him do that? Her thoughts turned to Peter Slowik-the parts that had been missing, and the places where the concentration of bite-marks had been the heaviest-and thought she might know.

“You give the term eat me a whole new meaning, don’t you, fagboy? Just sucking his cock wasn’t enough for you, was it? So what do you say? Are you coming for me, or do women scare you too much?” The smile did not just slip from his face this time; when she called him a fagboy it fell off so suddenly that Gert almost heard it shatter like an icicle on the steel toes of his boots. The weaving stopped.

“I’ll KILL YOU, YOU BITCH;” Norman screamed, and charged. Gert turned sideways, just as she had when Cynthia charged her on the day Rosie had brought her new picture down to the basement rec room at D amp; S. She kept her hands lowered longer than she did when she was teaching throw-holds to the girls, knowing that not even his blind rage was enough to guarantee her success-this was a powerful man, and if she didn’t suck him all the way in, she’d be chewed up like a rat in a threshing machine. Norman reached for her, his lips already peeling back from his teeth, getting ready to bite. Gert tucked even further, her fanny slapping against the brick wall, and thought, Help me, God. Then she seized both of Norman’s thick, hairy wrists. Don’t spoil it by thinking about it, she told herself, and turned back toward him, socking one big hip into his side and then snap-pivoting to her left. Her legs spread, then bunched, and her corduroy jumper never had a chance; it split up the back almost all the way to her waist with a sound like a pineknot exploding in a fireplace. The move worked like a charm. Her hip had become a ball-bearing and Norman went flying helplessly across it, his expression of rage turning to a faceful of shock. He crashed headfirst into the wheelchair. It overturned and landed on top of him.

“Wheee,” Cynthia said in a husky little croak from where she was leaning against the wall. Lana Kline’s brown eyes peered cautiously around the side of the building.

“What is it? What are you shouting ab-” She saw the bleeding man trying to crawl out from beneath the overturned wheelchair, saw the bright malevolence in his eyes, and stopped talking.

“Run and get help,” Gert snapped at her. “security. Right now. Scream your head off.” Norman shoved the wheelchair away. His forehead was only dripping blood, but his nose was gushing like a fountain.

“I’m going to kill you for that,” he whispered. Gert had no intention of giving him a chance to try. As Lana turned and fled, howling at the top of her lungs, Gert landed on Norman Daniels in a flying drop that Hulk Hogan would have envied. There was a lot of her to drop-two hundred and eighty pounds at last count-and Norman’s efforts to get to his feet ceased at once. His arms collapsed like the legs of a card-table that has been asked to hold a truck engine, his already wounded nose slammed into the hard-packed dirt between the brick wall and the fence, and his balls were driven into one of the wheelchair footrests with paralyzing force. He tried to scream-his face certainly looked like the face of a man who is screaming-and produced only a harsh wheezing sound. Now she was sitting on top of him, the jumper’s split skirt hiked almost all the way to her hips, and as she sat there, wondering what to do next, she found herself remembering the first two or three times in Therapy Circle when Rosie had finally mustered enough courage to speak. The first thing she told them was that she had terrible backaches, backaches that even lying down in a hot bath could sometimes not ease. And when she had told them why, many of the women had nodded in recognition and understanding. Gert had been one of the nodders. Now she reached down and pulled the split skirt higher, revealing a pair of vast blue cotton underpants.

“Rosie says you’re a kidney man, Norman. She says that’s because you’re one of those shy guys who don’t like to leave marks. Also, you like the way she looks when you hit her there, don’t you? That sick look. All the color goes out of her face, doesn’t it? Even her lips. I know, because I had a boyfriend who was that way. When you see that sick look on her face, it fixes something inside you, doesn’t it? At least temporarily.”

“… bitch…” he whispered.

“Yeah, you’re a kidney man, sure, I can tell a lot from faces, it’s a talent I have.” She was using her knees to wriggle her way up his body. She had made it almost to his shoulders. ’some guys are leg men, some guys are ass men, some guys are tit men, and then there are some guys, weirded-out assholes like you, Norman, who are kidney men. Well, you probably know the old saying-“To each her own, said the old maid as she kissed the cow.”

“… off me…” he whispered.

“Rosie’s not here, Norm,” she said, ignoring him and wriggling a little higher, “but she left you a little message from her kidneys, by way of my kidneys. I hope you’re ready, because here it comes.” She knee-walked one final step, positioned herself over his upturned face, and let go. Ah, sweet relief. At first Norman didn’t appear to realize what was happening. Then understanding came. He screamed and tried to buck her off. Gert felt herself rising and used her buttocks to thump herself back down on top of him. She was surprised he was able to make as much of an effort as he had, after the pounding he had taken.

“No, you don’t, me foine bucko,” she said, and went on voiding her bladder. He was in no danger of drowning, but she had never seen such revulsion and anger on a human face. And over what? A little hot water. And if anyone in the history of the world had ever needed pissing on, it was this sick fu-Norman gave a vast, inarticulate cry, reached up with both hands, grabbed her forearms, and sank his nails into them. Gert screamed (mostly in surprise, although it did hurt like hell) and shifted her weight backward. He timed her move perfectly and flung himself up again as she made it, harder than before this time, and succeeded in tipping her over. She went sprawling against the brick wall to her left. Norman stumble-staggered to his feet, his face and bald head running with moisture, his motorcycle jacket dripping with it, the plain white tee-shirt beneath the jacket plastered to his body.

“You pissed on me, you cunt,” he wheezed, and lunged for her. Cynthia stuck her foot out. Norman tripped over it and went sprawling face-first into the wheelchair again. He scrambled away from it on his hands and knees, then turned. He tried to get up, almost made it, then fell back, panting, looking at Gert with his bright gray eyes. Crazy eyes. Gert started toward him, meaning to put him down and keep him down. She would break his back like a snake if that was what it took, and this was the time to do it, before he found enough strength to get on his feet again. He reached into one of the motorcycle jacket’s many pockets, and for one stomach-freezing moment she was sure he had a gun, that he was going to shoot her two or three times in the gut. At least I’ll die with an empty bladder, she thought, and stopped where she was. It wasn’t a gun, but it was bad enough: he had a taser. Gert knew a crazy homeless woman downtown who had one and used it to kill rats with, the ones so big they thought they were cocker spaniels who just didn’t happen to have pedigree papers.

“You want some of this?” Norman asked, still on his knees. He waved the taser back and forth in front of him.

“You want a little, Gertie? You might as well come and get it, because you’re gonna get some of it whether you want it or…” He trailed off, looking doubtfully toward the corner of the building. Cries of female excitement and dismay drifted from that direction. They were still distant, but they were getting closer. Gert used his moment of distraction to take a step backward, grab the handles of the fallen wheelchair, and jerk it upright. She stepped behind it, the chair’s push handles completely lost in her big brown fists. She darted it at him in quick little pushes.

“Yeah, come on,” she said.

“Come on, kidney-man. Come on, chickenshit. Come on, fagboy. You want to zap me? Got your phazer set to stun, do you? Come on, then. I think we got time for one more tango before the men in the white coats show up to take you away to Sunnydale Acres, or wherever they store weird fucks like y-” He got to his feet, glancing again toward the sound of the approaching voices, and Gert thought, What the fuck, I only have one life, let me live it as a blonde and shoved the wheelchair at him as hard as she could. It struck him dead-center and he went over again with a yell. Gert lunged after him, hearing Cynthia’s teary, wavering scream just one instant too late:

“Look out Gert he’s still got it!” There was a small but vicious crackling sound-ziiittttt!-and a bolt of chrome-plated agony shot up from Gert’s ankle, where he had applied the taser, all the way to her hip. The fact that her skin was wet with urine probably made Norman’s weapon even more effective. All the muscles in her left leg clenched eye-wateringly tight, then let go completely. Gert spilled to the ground. As she went, she grabbed onto the wrist of the hand with the taser in it and twisted it as hard as she could. Norman howled with pain and kicked out both booted feet. One missed completely, but the heel of the other caught her high up in the diaphragm, just below her breasts. The pain was so sudden and so strong that Gert forgot all about her leg, at least temporarily, but she held onto the taser, twisting his wrist until his fingers opened and the nasty gadget fell to the ground. He scrambled back from her, blood bubbling from his mouth and snorting out of his nose in fine droplets. His eyes were wide and disbelieving; the idea that a woman had administered this beating hadn’t sunk in, perhaps couldn’t sink in. He staggered up, glanced in the direction of the approaching voices-they were very close now-and then fled along the board fence, back toward the amusement park. Gert didn’t think he would get far before attracting the interest of Park Security; he looked like an extra from a Friday the 13th movie.

“Gert…” Cynthia was crying and attempting to crawl to where Gert lay on her side, watching Norman disappear from view. Gert turned her attention to the girl and saw she’d taken a much worse beating than Gert had thought at first. A bruise like a thundercloud was puffing up over her right eye, and her nose would probably never be the same. Gert struggled to her knees and crawled toward Cynthia. They met and held each other that way, arms locked around necks to keep them from tumbling over. Speaking with enormous effort through her puffy lips, Cynthia said:

“I would have thrown him myself… like you taught us… only he took me by surprise.”

“That’s all right,” Gert said, and kissed her gently on the temple.

“How bad are you hurt?” “don’t know… not coughing up blood… step in the right direction.” She was trying to smile. It was clearly painful, but she was trying, anyway.

“Pissed on him.”

“Yes. I did.”

“Bitchin-good,” Cynthia whispered, and then began to cry again. Gert took her in her arms, and that was how the first group of women, closely followed by a pair of Pier Security guards, found them: on their knees between the back of the bathroom and the abandoned, overturned wheelchair, each with her head against the shoulder of the other, clinging together like shipwrecked sailors.

Rosie’s first blurred impression of the East Side Receiving Hospital Emergency Room was that everyone from Daughters and Sisters was there. As she crossed the room toward Gert (barely registering the men clustered around her), she saw at least three were missing: Anna, who might still be at the memorial service for her ex-husband; Pam, who was working; and Cynthia. It was this last which most sparked her dread.

“Gert!” she cried, pushing through the men with barely a glance at them.

“Gert, where’s Cynthia? Is she-”

“Upstairs.” Gert tried to give Rosie a reassuring smile, but it wasn’t much of a success. Her eyes were swollen and red with tears.

“They admitted her and she’s probably going to be here awhile, but she’ll be okay, Rosie. He beat her up pretty bad, but she’ll be okay. Do you know you’re wearing a. motorcycle helmet? It’s sort of… cute.” Bill’s hands were on the buckle under her chin again, but Rosie was hardly even aware of the helmet’s being removed. She was looking at Gert… Consuelo… Robin. Looking for eyes that said she was infected, that she had brought a plague into their previously clean house. Looking for the hate.

“I’m sorry,” she said hoarsely.

“I’m so sorry for everything.”

“Why?” Robin asked, sounding honestly surprised.

“You didn’t beat Cynthia up.” Rosie looked at her uncertainly, then back to Gert. Gert’s eyes had shifted, and when Rosie followed them, she felt a surge of dread. For the first time she consciously registered the fact that there were cops here as well as women from D amp; S. Two in plainclothes, three in uniform. Cops. She reached out with a hand that felt numb and grasped Bill’s fingers.

“You have to talk to this woman,” Gert was telling one of the cops.

“Her husband was the one who did this. Rosie, this is Lieutenant Hale.” They were all turning to look at her now, to look at the cop’s wife who’d had the deadly impudence to steal her husband’s bank card and then try to flee from his life. Norman’s brothers, looking at her.

“Ma’am?” the plainclothes cop named Hale said, and for a moment he sounded so much like Harley Bissington she thought she might scream. “steady, Rosie,” Bill murmured.

“I’m here and I’m staying here.”

“Ma’am, what can you tell us about this?” At least he didn’t sound like Harley anymore. That had only been a trick of her mind. Rosie looked out the window toward a freeway entrance ramp. She looked east-the direction from which night would come rising out of the lake not so many hours from now. She bit her lip, then looked back at the cop. She placed her other hand over Bill’s and spoke in a husky voice she hardly recognized as her own.

“His name is Norman Daniels,” she told Lieutenant Hale. You sound like the woman in the painting, she thought. You sound like Rose Madder.

“He’s my husband, he’s a police detective, and he’s crazy.”