"Very okay. Cynthia Smith owes you her life. If you were a cop, I'd put you in for a citation." Gert snorted.
"I'd never pass the physical. Too fat."
"Just the same," Hale said, not smiling, meeting her eyes.
"Well, I appreciate the compliment, but what I really want to hear from you is that you're going to catch the guy."
"We'll catch him," Gustafson said. He sounded absolutely sure of himself and Rosie thought, You don't know my Norman, Officer.
"Are you done with us?" Gert asked.
"With you, yes," Hale said.
"I have a few more questions for Ms McClendon... can you deal with that? If not, they could wait." He paused.
"But they really shouldn't wait. I think we both know that, don't we?" Rosie closed her eyes briefly, then opened them. She looked toward Bill, who was still sitting outside the railing, and then back at Hale.
"Ask what you have to," she said.
"Just finish as soon as you can. I want to go home."
5
This time when he came back into his own head he was getting out of the Tempo on a quiet street he recognized almost at once as Durham Avenue. He was parked a block and a half down from the Pussy Palace. It wasn't dark yet, but getting there; the shadows under the trees were thick and velvety, somehow luscious. He looked down at himself and saw that he must have gone to his room before leaving the hotel. His skin smelled of soap and he was wearing different clothes. They were good clothes for this errand, too: chinos, a white roundneck tee-shirt, and a blue work-shirt with the tails hanging out. He looked like the sort of guy who might turn out on a weekend to check a faulty gas connection or...
"Or to check the burglar alarm," Norman said under his breath, and grinned.
"Pretty brazen, Senor Daniels. Pretty goddam bra-" Panic struck like a thunderclap then, and he slapped at the lefthand rear pocket of the chinos he was now wearing. He felt nothing but the lump of his wallet. He slapped at the righthand rear and let out a harsh sigh of relief as the limp rubber of the mask flopped against his hand. He had forgotten his service revolver, apparently-left it back in the room safe-but he had remembered the mask, and right now the mask seemed a bit more important than the gun. Probably crazy, but there it was. He started up the sidewalk toward 251. If there were only a few cunts there, he'd try to take them all hostage. If there were a lot, he'd hold onto as many as he could-maybe half a dozen-and send the rest scampering for the hills. Then he'd simply start shooting them, one by one, until somebody coughed up Rose's address. If none of them knew it, he'd shoot them all and start checking files... but he didn't think it would come to that. What will you do if the cops are there, Normie? his father asked nervously. Cops out front, cops inside, cops protecting the place from you? He didn't know. And didn't much care. He passed 245, 247, 249. There was a hedge between that last one and the sidewalk, and as Norman reached the end of it he stopped suddenly, looking at 251 Durham Avenue with narrow, suspicious eyes. He had been prepared to see a lot of activity or a little activity, but he had not been prepared for what he was seeing, which was no activity at all. Daughters and Sisters stood at the end of its narrow, deep lawn with the second- and third-story shades pulled against the heat of the day. It was as silent as a relic. The windows to the left of the porch were unshaded but dark. There were no shapes moving in there. No one on the porch. No cars in the driveway. I can't just stand here, he thought, and got moving again. He walked past the place, looking into the vegetable garden where he'd seen the two whores before-one of them the whore he'd grabbed at the comfort station. The garden was also empty this evening. And from what he could see of the back yard, that was empty, too. It's a trap, Normie, his father said. You know that, don't you? Norman walked as far as a Cape Cod with 257 on the door, then turned and began to saunter casually back down the sidewalk. He knew it looked like a trap, the father-voice was right about that, but somehow it didn't feel like a trap. Ferdinand the Bull rose up before his eyes like a cheesy rubber ghost-Norman had pulled the mask out of his back pocket and put it on his hand without even realizing it. He knew this was a bad idea; anyone looking out a window would be sure to wonder why the big man with the swollen face was talking to the rubber mask... and making the mask answer back by wiggling its lips. Yet none of that seemed to matter, either. Life had gotten very... well, basic. Norman sort of liked that.
"Nah, it's not a trap," Ferdinand said.
"Are you sure?" he asked. He was almost in front of 251 again.
"Yeah," Ferdinand said, nodding his garlanded horns.
"They just went on with their picnic, that's all. Right now they're probably all sitting around toasting marshmallows while some dyke in a granny dress sings
"Blown" in the Wind." You didn't amount to any more than a temporary wrinkle in their day." He stopped in front of the walk leading up to Daughters and Sisters, looking down at the mask, thunderstruck.
"Hey-sorry, guy," ze bool said apologetically, "but I don't make the news, you know, I only report it." Norman was stunned to discover there was something almost as bad as coming home to find out your wife had absconded for parts unknown with your bank card in her purse: there was being ignored. Being ignored by a bunch of women.
"Well, then, teach them not to do that," Ferd said.
"Teach them a lesson. Go on, Norm. Teach them who you are. Teach them so they'll never forget it." "so they'll never forget it," Norman muttered, and the mask nodded enthusiastically on his hand. He stuffed it into his back pocket again and pinched Pam's keycard and the slip of paper he'd taken from her address book out of his left front one as he went up the walk. He climbed the porch steps, glancing up once-casually, he hoped-at the TV camera mounted over the door. He held the keycard against his leg. Eyes might be watching, after all. He would do well to remember that, lucky or not, Ferdinand was only a rubber mask with Norman Daniels's hand for a brain. The keycard slot was just where he had expected it would be. There was a talkbox beside it, complete with a little sign instructing visitors to press and speak. Norman pressed the button, leaned forward, and said:
"Midland Gas, checking for a leak in the neighborhood, ten-four?" He let go of the button. Waited. Glanced up at the camera. Black-and-white, probably wouldn't show how swollen his face was... he hoped. He smiled to show he was harmless as his heart pumped away in his chest like a small, vicious engine. No answer. Nothing. He pushed the button again.
"Anybody home, gals?" He gave them time, counting slowly to twenty. His father whispered that it was a trap, exactly the sort of trap he himself would have set in this situation, lure the scumbucket in, make him believe the place was empty, then land on him like a load of bricks. And yes, it was the kind of trap he himself would have set... but there was no one here. He was almost sure of it. The place felt as empty as a discarded beercan. Norman put the keycard into the slot. There was a single loud click. He pulled the card out, turned the doorknob, and stepped into the front hall of Daughters and Sisters. From his left came a low, steady sound: meep-meep-meep-meep. It was a keypad burglar alarm. The words FRONT DOOR were flashing on and off in its message window. Norman looked at the slip of paper he'd brought with him, took a second to pray the number on it was what he thought it was, and punched 0471. For one hearts topping moment the alarm continued to meep, and then it stopped. Norman let out his breath and closed the door. He reset the alarm without even thinking about it, just cop instinct at work. He looked around, noted the stairs going up to the second floor, then walked down the main hall. He poked his head into the first room on the right. It looked like a schoolroom, with chairs set up in a circle and a blackboard at one end. Written on the blackboard were the words DIGNITY, RESPONSIBILITY, and FAITH.
"Words of wisdom, Norm," Ferdinand said. He was back on Norman's hand again. He'd gotten there like magic.
"Words of wisdom."
"If you say so; looks like the same old shit to me." He looked around, then raised his voice. It seemed almost sacrilegious to shout into this somehow dusty silence, but a man had to do what a man had to do.
"Hello? Anybody here? Midland Gas!"
"Hello?" Ferd shouted from the end of his arm, looking brightly around with his empty eyes. He spoke in the comic-German voice Norman's father had sometimes used when he was drunk.
"Hello, vas you dere, Cholly?" Shut up, you idiot," Norman muttered.
"Yessir, Cap'n," ze bool replied, and fell silent at once. Norman turned slowly around and then went on down the hall. There were other rooms along the way-a parlor, a dining room, what looked like a little library-but they were all empty. The kitchen at the end of the hall was empty, too, and now he had a new problem: where did he go to find what he was looking for? He drew in a breath and closed his eyes, trying to think (and trying to stave off the headache, which was trying to come back). He wanted a cigarette but didn't dare light one; for all he knew, they might have the smoke detectors turned up enough to shriek at the first whiff of tobacco. He drew in another deep breath, drew it all the way down to the floor of his lungs, and now recognized the smell in here for what it was-not the smell of dust but the smell of women, women who had been long entrenched with their own kind, women who had knitted themselves into a communal shroud of self-righteousness in an effort to block out the real world. It was a smell of blood and douche and sachet and hair spray and roll-on deodorant and perfumes with f**k-me names like My Sin and White Shoulders and Obsession. It was the vegetable smell of what they liked to eat and the fruity smell of the teas they liked to drink; that smell was not dust but something like yeast, a fermentation, and it produced a smell cleaning could never remove: the smell of women without men. All at once that smell was filling his nose, filling his throat, filling his heart, gagging him, making him feel faint, almost suffocating him.
"Get hold of yourself, Cholly," Ferdinand said sharply.
"All you smell is last night's spaghetti sauce! I mean, Cheezus-pleezus!" Norman blew out a breath, took in another one, opened his eyes. Spaghetti sauce, yes. A red smell, like blood. But spaghetti sauce was really all it was. "sorry, got a little flaky there for a minute," he said.
"Yup, but who wouldn't?" Ferd said, and now his empty eyes seemed to express both sympathy and understanding.
"This is where Circe turns men into pigs, after all." The mask swivelled on Norman's wrist, scanning with its blank eyes.
"Yas, dis be de place."
"What are you talking about?"
"Nothing. Never mind."
"I don't know where to go," Norman said, also looking around.
"I've got to hurry, but Christ, the place is so big! There must be twenty rooms, at least." The bull pointed its horns at a door across the kitchen.
"Try that one."
"Hell, that's probably just the pantry."
"I don't think so, Norm. I don't think they'd put a sign that says PRIVATE on the pantry, do you?" It was a point. Norman crossed the room, stuffing the bullmask back into his pocket as he did (and noticing the spaghetti colander which had been left to drip-dry in the rack beside the sink), then rapped on the door. Nothing. He tried the knob. It turned easily. He opened the door, felt inside on the right, and flipped a switch. The overhead fixture illuminated a dinosaur of a desk heaped high with clutter. Balanced atop one pile was a gold plaque which read ANNA STEVENSON and BLESS THIS MESS. On the wall was a framed picture of two women Norman recognized. One was the late great Susan Day. The other was the white-haired bitch from the newspaper photo, the one who looked like Maude. They had their arms around each other and were smiling into each other's eyes like true lesbos. The side of the room was lined with filing cabinets. Norman walked over to them, dropped to one knee, started to reach for the cabinet labelled D-E, then stopped. She wasn't using Daniels anymore. He couldn't remember if that was something Ferdinand had told him or something he'd either found out or intuited for himself, but he knew it was true. She had gone back to her maiden name.
"You'll be Rose Daniels until the day you die," he said, and reached for the M cabinet instead. He tugged. Nothing. It was locked. A problem, but not a big one. He'd get something in the kitchen to pry it open with. He turned, meaning to go back out, then stopped, his eye caught by a wicker basket standing on the corner of the desk. There was a card hanging from the basket's handle. GO THEN, LITTLE LETTER was written on it in Old English script. There was a small stack of what looked like outgoing mail in the basket, and below a billpayers envelope addressed to Lakeland Cable TV, he saw this poking out: [image of the corner of a partially obscured envelope with only the words "endon, renton Street" visible]-endon? McClendon? He snatched the letter up, overturning the basket and dumping most of the outgoing mail on the floor, his eyes wide and greedy. Yes, McClendon, by God-Rosie McClendon! And right below it, firmly and legibly printed, the address he'd gone through hell to get: 897 Trenton Street. There was a long, chrome-plated letter-opener lying half under a stack of leftover Swing into Summer fliers. Norman grabbed it, slit the letter open, and shoved the opener into his back pocket without even thinking about it. He pulled out the mask again at the same time and slid it onto his hand. The single sheet of paper bore an embossed letterhead which read ANNA STEVENSON in big letters and Daughters and Sisters in slightly smaller ones. Norman gave this small ego-signal a quick glance, then began to cruise the mask over the paper, letting Ferdinand read it for him. Anna Stevenson's handwritten script was large and elegant-arrogant, some might have termed it. Norman's sweaty fingers shook and tried to clench inside Ferdinand's head, sending the rubber mask through a series of convulsive winces and leers as it moved.
Dear Rosie, I just wanted to send you a note in your new "digs" (I know how important those first few letters can be!), telling you how glad I am that you came to us at Daughters and Sisters, and how glad I am we could help you. I also want to say how pleased I am with your new job-I have an idea you won't be living on Trenton Street for long! Every woman who comes to Daughters and Sisters renews the lives of all the others-those there with her during her first period of healing and all those who come after she's left, for each one leaves a bit of her experience, strength, and hope behind. My hope is to see you here often, Rosie, not just because your recovery is a long way from complete and because you have many feelings (chiefly anger, I should surmise) which you haven't yet dealt with, but because you have an obligation to pass on what you've learned here. I probably don't need to tell you these things, but -
A click, not much of a sound but loud in the silence. This was followed by another sound: meep-meep-meep-meep. The burglar alarm. Norman had company.
6
Anna never noticed the green Tempo parked by the curb a block and a half down from Daughters and Sisters. She was deep in a private fantasy, one she had never told anyone, not even her therapist, the necessary fantasy she saved for horrible days like today. In it she was on the cover of Time magazine. It wasn't a photo but a vibrant oil painting which showed her in a dark blue shift (blue was her best color, and a shift would obscure the depressing way she had been thickening around the middle these last two or three years). She was looking over her left shoulder, giving the artist her good side to work with, and her hair spilled over her right shoulder in a snowdrift. A sexy snowdrift. The caption beneath the picture read simply: AMERICAN WOMAN, She turned into the driveway, reluctantly putting the fantasy away (she had just reached the point where the writer was saying, "Although she has reclaimed the lives of over fifteen hundred battered women, Anna Stevenson remains surprisingly, even touchingly, modest...'). She turned off the engine of her Infiniti and just sat there for a moment, delicately rubbing at the skin beneath her eyes. Peter Slowik, whom she had usually referred to at the time of their divorce as either Peter the Great or Rasputin the Mad Marxist, had been a promiscuous babbler when alive, and his friends had seemed determined to remember him in that same spirit. The talk had gone on and on, each "remembrance bouquet" (she thought that she could cheerfully machine-gun the politically correct buttholes who spent their days thinking such smarmy phrases up) seemingly longer than the last, and by four o'clock, when they'd finally gotten up to eat the food and drink the wine-domestic and dreadful, just what Peter would have picked if he'd been the one doing the shopping-she was sure the shape of the folding chair on which she'd been sitting must have been tattooed into her ass. The idea of leaving early-perhaps slipping out after one finger-sandwich and a token sip of wine-had never crossed her mind, however. People would be watching, evaluating her behavior. She was Anna Stevenson, after all, an important woman in the political structure of this town, and there were certain people she had to speak to after the formal ceremonies were over. People she wanted other people to see her talking to, because that was how the carousel turned. And, just to add to the fun, her pager had gone off three times in a space of forty-five minutes. Weeks went by when it sat mutely in her bag, but this afternoon, during a meeting where there were long periods of silence broken by people who seemed incapable of speaking above a tearful mutter, the gadget had gone crazy. After the third time she got tired of the swivelling heads and turned the Christing thing off. She hoped nobody had gone into labor at the picnic, that nobody's kid had taken a thrown horseshoe in the head, and most of all she hoped Rosie's husband hadn't shown up. She doubted that he had, though; he would know better. In any case, anyone who'd called her pager would have called D amp; S first, and she'd make the answering machine in her study stop number one. She could listen to the messages through the bathroom door while she peed. In most cases, that would be fitting. She got out of the car, locked it (even in a good neigborhood like this you couldn't be too careful), and went up the porch steps. She used her keycard and silenced the meep-meep-meep of the security system without even thinking of it; sweet shreds of her daydream (only woman of her time to be loved and respected by all factions of the increasingly divergent women's movement) still swirled in her head.
"Hello, the house!" she called, walking down the hall. Silence replied, which was what she'd expected... and, let's face it, hoped for. With any luck, she might have two or even three hours of blessed silence before the commencement of that night's giggling, hissing showers, slamming doors, and cackling sitcoms. She walked into the kitchen, wondering if maybe a long leisurely bath, Calgon and all, wouldn't smooth off the worst of the day. Then she stopped, frowning across at her study door. It was standing ajar.
"Goddammit," she muttered.
"God damn it!" If there was one thing she disliked above all others-except maybe for touchy-huggy-feely people-it was having her privacy invaded. She had no lock on her study door because she did not believe she should be reduced to that. This was her place, after all; the girls and women who came here came through her generosity and at her sufferance. She shouldn't need a lock on that door. Her desire that they should stay out unless invited in ought to have been enough. Mostly it was, but every now and then some woman would decide she really needed some piece of her documentation, that she really needed to use Anna's photocopier (which warmed up faster than the one downstairs in the rec room), that she really needed a stamp, and so this disrespectful person would come in, she'd track through a place that wasn't hers, maybe look at things that weren't hers to look at, junk up the air with the smell of some cheap drugstore perfume... Anna paused with one hand on the study doorknob, looking into the dark room which had been a pantry when she was a little girl. Her nostrils flared slightly and the frown on her face deepened. There was a smell, all right, but it wasn't quite perfume. It was something that reminded her of the Mad Marxist. It was... All my men wear English Leather or they wear nothing at all. Jesus! Jesus Christ! Her arms crawled with gooseflesh. She was a woman who prided herself on her practicality, but suddenly it was all too easy to imagine Peter Slowik's ghost waiting for her inside her study, a shade as insubstantial as the stink of that ludicrous cologne he'd worn... Her eyes fixed on a light in the darkness: the answering machine. The little red lamp was stuttering madly, as if everyone in the city had called today. Something had happened. All at once she knew it. It explained the pager, too... and like a dummy she'd turned it off so people would stop staring at her. Something had happened, probably at Ettinger's Pier. Someone hurt. Or, God forbid-She stepped into the office, feeling for the light-switch beside the door, then stopped, puzzled by what her fingers had found. The switch was already up, which meant the overhead light should be on, but it wasn't. Anna flipped the switch up and down twice, started to do it a third time, and then a hand dropped on her right shoulder. She screamed at that settling touch, the sound coming out of her throat as full and frantic as any scream ever voiced by a horror-movie heroine, and as another hand clamped on her upper left arm and turned her around on her heels, as she saw the shape silhouetted against the flooding light from the kitchen, she screamed again. The thing which had been standing behind the door and waiting for her wasn't human. Horns sprouted from the top of its head, horns which appeared to be swollen with strange, tumorous growths. It was-"Viva ze bool," a hollow voice said, and she realized it was a man, a man wearing a mask, but that didn't make her feel any better because she had a very good idea of who the man was. She tore out of his grip and backed toward the desk. She could still smell English Leather, but she could smell other things now, as well. Hot rubber. Sweat. And urine. Was it hers? Had she wet herself? She didn't know. She was numb from the waist down. "don't touch me," she said in a trembling voice utterly unlike her usual calm and authoritative tone. She reached behind her and felt for the button that summoned the police. It was there someplace, but buried under drifts of paper. "don't you dare touch me, I'm warning you."
"Anna-Anna-bo-Banna, banana-fanna-fo-Fanna," the creature in the horned mask said in a tone of deep meditation, and then swept the door shut behind it. Now they were in total darkness. "stay away," she said, moving along the desk, sliding along the desk. If she could get into the bathroom, lock the door-"Fee-fi-mo-Manna..." From her left. And close. She lunged to the right, but not soon enough. Strong arms enfolded her. She tried to scream again, but the arms tightened, and her breath came out in a silent rush. If I were Misery Chastain, I'd-she thought, and then Norman's teeth were on her throat, he was nuzzling her like a horny kid parked on Lovers" Lane, and then his teeth were in her throat, and something was spraying warm all down the front of her, and she thought no more.
7
By the time the final questions were asked and the final statement was signed, it was long past dark. Rosie's head spun, and she felt a little unreal to herself, as she had after those occasional all-day tests they threw at you in high school. Gustafson went off to file his paperwork, bearing it before him as if it were the Holy Grail, and Rosie got to her feet. She began moving toward Bill, who was also getting up. Gert had gone in search of the ladies" room.
"Ms McClendon?" Hale asked from her elbow. Rosie's weariness was supplanted by a sudden, horrid premonition. It was just the two of them; Bill was too far away to overhear anything Hale might say to her, and when he began to speak, he would do so in a low, confidential voice. He would tell her that she would stop all this foolishness about her husband right now, while there was still time, if she knew what was good for her. That she would keep her mouth shut around cops from here on out, unless one of them either (a) asked her a question, or (b) unzipped his fly. He would remind her that this was a family thing, that-"I am going to bust him," Hale said mildly.
"I don't know if I can completely convince you of that no matter what I say, but I need you to hear me say it, anyway. I am going to bust him. It's a promise." She looked at him with her mouth open.
"I'm going to do it because he's a murderer, and crazy, and dangerous. I'm also going to do it because I don't like the way you look around the squadroom and jump every time a door slams somewhere. Or the way you cringe a little every time I move one of my hands."
"I don't..."
"You do. You can't help it and you do. That's all right, though, because I understand why you do. If I was a woman and I'd been through what you've been through..." He trailed off, looking at her quizzically.
"Has it ever occurred to you how magic-goddam-lucky you are just to be alive?"
"Yes," Rosie said. Her legs were trembling. Bill was standing at the gate, looking at her, clearly concerned. She forced a smile for him and raised a single finger-one more minute.
"You bet you are," Hale said. He glanced around the squadroom, and Rosie followed his eyes. At one desk, a cop was writing up a weeping teenager in a high-school letter-jacket. At another, this one by the chickenwired floor-to-ceiling windows, a uniformed cop and a detective with his jacket off so you could see the.38 Police Special clipped to his belt were examining a stack of photos, their heads close together. At a row of VDT screens all the way across the room, Gustafson was discussing his reports with a young bluesuit who looked no older than sixteen to Rosie.
"You know a lot about cops," Hale said, "but most of what you know is wrong." She didn't know how to answer that, but it was okay; he didn't seem to require an answer.
"You want to know what my biggest motivation for busting him is, Ms McClendon? Numero uno on the old hit parade?" She nodded.
"I'm going to bust him because he's a cop. A hero cop, for God's sake. But the next time his puss is on the front page of the old hometown paper, he's either going be the late Norman Daniels or he's going to be in legirons and an orange tracksuit."
"Thank you for saying that," Rosie said.
"It means a lot." He led her over to Bill, who opened the gate and put his arms around her. She hugged him tight, her eyes shut. Hale asked, "Ms McClendon?" She opened her eyes, saw Gert come back into the room, and waved. Then she looked at Hale shyly but not fearfully.
"You can call me Rosie, if you want." He smiled briefly at that.
"Would you like to hear something that'll maybe make you feel a little better about your first less-than-enthusiastic reaction to this place?"
"I... I guess so."
"Let me guess," Bill said.
"You're having problems with the cops back in Rosie's hometown." Hale smiled sourly.
"Indeed we are. They're being shy about faxing us what they know about Daniels's blood-medicals, even his prints. We're already dealing with police lawyers. Cop-shysters!"
"They're protecting him," Rosie said.
"I knew they would." "so far, yes. It's an instinct, like the one that tells you to drop everything and go after the killer when a cop gets gunned down. They'll stop trying to throw sand in the gears when they finally get it through their heads that this is real." "do you really believe that?" Gert asked. He thought this over, then nodded.
"Yes. I do."
"What about police protection for Rosie until this is over?" Bill asked. Hale nodded again.
"There's already a black-and-white outside your place on Trenton Street, Rosie." She looked from Gert to Bill to Hale, dismayed and frightened all over again. The situation kept sandbagging her. She'd start to feel she was getting a handle on it, and then it would whop her flat all over again, from some new direction.
"Why? Why? He doesn't know where I live, he can't know where I live! That's why he came to the picnic, because he thought I'd be there. Cynthia didn't tell him, did she?" "she says not." Hale accented the second word, but so lightly Rosie didn't catch it. Gert and Bill did, and they exchanged a look.
"Well, there! And Gert didn't tell him, either! Did you, Gert?"
"No, ma'am," Gert said.
"Well, I like to play safe-leave it at that. I've got the guys in front of your building, and backup cars-at least two-in the neighborhood. I don't want to scare you all over again, but a nut who knows police procedure is a special nut. Best not to take chances."
"If you think so," Rosie said in a small voice.
"Ms Kinshaw, I'll send someone around to take you wherever you want to go-"
"Ettinger's," Gert said, and stroked her robe.
"I'm going to make a fashion statement at the concert." Hale grinned, then put his hand out to Bill.
"Mr Steiner, good to meet you." Bill shook it. "same here. Thanks for everything."
"It's my job." He glanced from Gert to Rosie.
"Good night, girls." He looked back at Gert, fast, and his face broke into a grin that knocked fifteen years off his age in an instant.
"Gotcha," he said, and laughed. After a moment's thought, Gert laughed with him.
8
On the steps outside, Bill and Gert and Rosie huddled together a little. The air was damp, and fog was drifting in off the lake. It was still thin, really no more than a nimbus around the streetlights and low-lying smoke over the wet pavement, but Rose guessed that in another hour it would be almost thick enough to cut.
"Want to come back to D and S tonight, Rosie?" Gert asked.
"They'll be coming in from the concert in another couple of hours; we could have the popcorn all made." Rosie, who most definitely did not want to go back to D amp; S, turned to Bill.
"If I go home, will you stay with me?" "sure," he said promptly, and took her hand.
"It'd be a pleasure. And don't worry about the accommodations-I never saw a couch yet that I couldn't sleep on."
"You haven't seen mine," she said, knowing that her sofa wasn't going to be a problem, because Bill wasn't going to be sleeping there. Her bed was a single, which meant they'd be cramped, but she thought they would still manage quite nicely. Close quarters might even add something.
"Thanks again, Gert," she said.
"No problem." Gert gave her a brief, hard hug, then leaned forward and put a healthy smack on Bill's cheek. A police car came around the corner and stopped, idling.
"Take care of her, guy."
"I will." Gert went to her ride, then stopped to point at Bill's Harley, heeled over on its kickstand in one of the parking spaces stencilled POLICE BUSINESS ONLY.
"And don't dump that thing in the goddam fog."
"I'll take it easy, Ma, I promise." She drew back one big fist, mock-scowling, and Bill stuck out his chin with half-closed eyes and a longsuffering expression that made Rosie laugh hard. She had never expected to be laughing on the steps of a police station, but a lot of things she'd never expected had happened this year. A lot.