Rose Madder

6

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  p**n  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 ass**les 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 f**k'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 f**ked-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.

7

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."

8

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 f**king 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.

9

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.

10

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... f**king... 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 ass**le. 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?

11

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 ass**le 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."