Rose Madder (53 page)

He got behind the wheel of the Tempo, tossed the mask
onto the seat, then bent and crossed the ignition wires. When he bent over that way, the smell of piss coming off his shirt was so tart and clear that it made his eyes water.
Rosie says you're a kidney man,
he heard Dirty Gertie, the jiggedy-jig from hell, say inside his head. He was terribly afraid she'd
always
be inside his head now—it was as if she had somehow raped him, and left him with the fertilized seed of some malformed and freakish child.

You're one of those shy guys who don't like to leave marks.

No, he thought. No, stop it, don't think about it.

She left you a little message from her kidneys, by way of
my
kidneys . . .
and then it had flooded his face, stinking and as hot as a childhood fever.

“No!” This time he screamed it aloud, and brought his fist down on the padded dashboard. “No, she
can't!
She
can't!
SHE CAN'T DO THAT TO ME!”
He pistoned his fist forward, slamming it into the rear-view mirror and knocking it off its post. It struck the windshield and rebounded onto the floor. He lashed out at the windshield itself, hurting his hand, his Police Academy ring leaving a nest of cracks that looked like an oversized asterisk. He was getting ready to start hammering on the steering wheel when he finally got hold of himself. He looked up and saw the parking-lot ticket tucked under the sun-visor. He focused on that, working to get himself under control.

When he felt he had some, Norman reached into his pocket, took out his cash, and slipped a five from the moneyclip. Then, steeling himself against the smell (except there was really no way you could defend yourself against it), he pulled the Ferdinand mask back down over his head and drove slowly over to the booth. He leaned out of the window and stared at the parking attendant through the eyeholes. He saw the attendant grab for the side of the booth's door with an unsteady hand as he bent forward to take the offered bill, and Norman realized an utterly splendid thing: the guy was drunk.

“Viva ze bool,” the parking-lot attendant said, and laughed.

“Right,” the bull leaning out of the Ford Tempo said. “El toro grande.”

“That'll be two-fifty—”

“Keep the change,” Norman said, and pulled out.

He drove half a block and then pulled over, realizing that if he didn't get the goddam mask off his head right away he was going to make things exponentially worse by puking into it. He scrabbled at it, pulling with the panicky fingers of a man who realizes he has a leech stuck on his face, and then everything was gone for a little while, it was another of those skips, with his mind lifting off from the surface of reality like a guided missile.

When he came back to himself this time he was sitting barechested behind the steering wheel at a red light. On the far corner of the street, a bank clock flashed the time: 2:07 p.m. He looked around and saw his shirt lying on the floor, along with the rear-view mirror and the stolen mask. Dirty Ferdie, looking deflated and oddly out of perspective, stared up at him from blank eyes through which Norman could see the passenger-side floormat. The bull's happy, sappy smile had wrinkled into a somehow knowing grin. But that was all right. At least the goddam thing was off his head. He turned on the radio, not easy with the knob busted off, but perfectly possible, oh yes. It was still tuned to the oldies station, and here were Tommy James and the Shondells singing “Hanky Panky.” Norman immediately began to sing along.

In the next lane, a man who looked like an accountant was sitting behind the wheel of a Camry, looking at Norman with cautious curiosity. At first Norman couldn't understand what the man was so interested in, and then he remembered that there was blood on his face—most of it crusting now, by the feel. And his shirt was off, of course. He'd have to do something about that, and soon. Meanwhile . . .

He leaned over, picked up the mask, slipped one hand into it, and gripped the rubber lips with the tips of his fingers. Then he held it up in the window, moving the mouth with the song, making Ferdinand sing along with Tommy James and the Shondells. He rolled his wrist back and forth, so Ferdinand also appeared to be sort of bopping to the beat. The man who looked like an accountant faced forward again quickly. Sat still for a moment. Then leaned over and banged down the doorlock on the passenger side.

Norman grinned.

He tossed the mask back on the floor, wiping the hand that had been inside it on his bare chest. He knew how weird he must look, how nuts, but he was damned if he was going to put that pissy shirt back on again. The motorcycle jacket
was lying on the seat beside him, and at least that was dry on the inside. Norman put it on and zipped it up to the chin. The light turned green as he was doing it, and the Camry beside him exploded through the intersection like something fired from a gun. Norman also rolled, but more leisurely, singing along with the radio: “I saw her walkin on down the line . . . You know I saw her for the very first time . . .
A
pretty little girl, standin all alone . . . Hey, pretty baby, can I take you home?” It made him think of high school. Life had been good back then. No sweet little Rose around to fuck everything up, cause all this trouble. Not until his senior year, at least.

Where are you, Rose?
he thought.
Why weren't you at the bitch-picnic? Where the fuck are you?

“She's at her own picnic,” ze bool whispered, and there was something both alien and knowing in that voice—as if it spoke not in speculation but with the simple inarguable knowledge of an oracle.

Norman pulled over to the curb, unmindful of the
NO PARKING LOADING ZONE
sign, and snatched the mask up off the floor again. Slid it over his hand again. Only this time he turned it toward himself. He could see his fingers in the empty eyesockets, but the eyesockets seemed to be looking at him, anyway.

“What do you mean, her own picnic?” he asked hoarsely.

His fingers moved, moving the bull's mouth. He couldn't feel them, but he could see them. He supposed the voice he heard was his own voice, but it didn't
sound
like his voice, and it didn't seem to be coming from his throat; it seemed to be coming out from between those grinning rubber lips.

“She likes the way he kisses her,” Ferdinand said. “Wouldn't you know it? She likes the way he uses his hands, too. She wants him to do the hanky panky with her before they have to come back.” The bull seemed to sigh, and its rubber head rocked from side to side on Norman's wrist in a strangely cosmopolitan gesture of resignation. “But that's what all the women like, isn't it? The hanky panky. The dirty boogie. All night long.”

“Who?” Norman shouted at the mask. Veins stood out at his temples, pulsing. “Who's kissing her? Who's feeling her up? And where are they? You tell me that!”

But the mask was silent. If, that was, it had ever spoken at all.

What are you going to do, Normie?
That voice he knew. Dad's voice. A pain in the ass, but not scary. That other voice
had
been scary. Even if it had come out of his own throat, it had been scary.

“Find her,” he whispered. “I'm going to find her, and then I'm going to teach her how to do the hanky panky.
My
version of it.”

Yes, but how?
How
are you going to find her?

The first thought that came to him was their clubhouse on Durham Avenue. There'd be a record of where Rose was living there, he was sure of it. But it was a bad idea, just the same. The place was a modified fortress. You'd need a keycard of some sort—one that probably looked quite a lot like his stolen bank card—to get in, and maybe a set of numbers to keep the alarm system from going off, as well.

And what about the people there? Well, he could shoot the place up, if it came to that; kill some of them and scare the rest off. His service revolver was back at the hotel in the room safe—one of the advantages of traveling by bus—but guns were usually an asshole's solution. Suppose the address was in a computer? It probably was, everyone used those pups these days. He'd very likely still be fucking around, trying to get one of the women to give him the password and file name, when the police showed up and killed his ass.

Then something came to him—another voice. This one drifted up from his memory like a shape glimpsed in cigarette smoke: . . .
sorry to miss the concert, but if I want that car, I can't pass up the . . .

What voice was that, and what couldn't its owner afford to pass up?

After a moment, the answer to the first question came to him. It was Blondie's voice. Blondie with the big eyes and cute little ass. Blondie, whose real name was Pam something. Pam worked at the Whitestone, Pam might well know his rambling Rose, and Pam couldn't afford to pass something up. What might that something be? When you really thought about it, when you put on that old deerstalker hat and put that brilliant detective's mind to work, the answer wasn't all that difficult, was it? When you wanted that car, the only thing you couldn't afford to pass up was a few extra hours at work. And since the concert she was passing up was this evening, the chances were good that she was at the hotel right now. Even if she wasn't, she would be soon. And
if she knew, she would tell. The punk-rock bitch hadn't, but that was only because he hadn't had time enough to discuss the matter with her. This time, though, he'd have all the time he needed.

He would make sure of it.

L
ieutenant Hale's partner, John Gustafson, drove Rosie and Gertie Kinshaw to the District 3 police station in Lakeshore. Bill rode behind them on his Harley. Rosie kept turning in her seat to make sure he was still there. Gert noticed but did not comment.

Hale introduced Gustafson as “my better half,” but Hale was what Norman called the alpha-dog; Rosie knew that from the moment she saw the two men together. It was in the way Gustafson looked at him, even in the way he watched Hale get into the shotgun seat of the unmarked Caprice. Rosie had seen these things for herself a thousand times before, in her own home.

They passed a bank clock—the same one Norman had passed not so long before—and Rosie bent her head to read the time. 4:09 p.m. The day had stretched out like warm taffy.

She looked back over her shoulder, terrified that Bill might be gone, sure in some secret part of her mind and heart that he would be. He wasn't, though. He shot her a grin, lifted one hand, and waved at her briefly. She raised her own hand in return.

“Seems like a nice guy,” Gert said.

“Yes,” Rosie agreed, but she didn't want to talk about Bill, not with the two cops in the front seat undoubtedly listening to every word they said. “You should have stayed at the hospital. Let them take a look at you, make sure he didn't hurt you with that taser thing.”

“Shit, it was
good
for me,” Gert said, grinning. She was wearing a huge blue-and-white-striped hospital bathrobe over her split jumper. “First time I've felt absolutely and completely awake since I lost my virginity at Baptist Youth Camp, back in 1974.”

Rosie tried for a matching grin and could manage only a
wan smile. “I guess that's it for Swing into Summer, huh?” she said.

Gert looked puzzled. “What do you mean?”

Rosie looked down at her hands and was not quite surprised to see they were rolled into fists.
“Norman's
what I mean. The skunk at the picnic. One big fucking skunk.” She heard that word, that
fucking,
come out of her mouth and could hardly believe she'd said it, especially in the back of a police car with a couple of detectives in the front seat. She was even more surprised when her fisted left hand shot out sideways and struck the door panel, just above the window crank.

Gustafson jumped a little behind the wheel. Hale looked back, face expressionless, then faced forward again. He might have murmured something to his partner. Rosie didn't know for sure, didn't care.

Gert took her hand, which was throbbing, and tried to soothe the fist away, working on it like a masseuse working on a cramped muscle. “It's all right, Rosie.” She spoke quietly, her voice rumbling like a big truck in neutral.

“No, it's not!” Rosie cried. “No, it's
not,
don't you say it is!” Tears were pricking her eyes now, but she didn't care about that, either. For the first time in her adult life she was weeping with rage rather than with shame or fear. “Why won't he go away? Why won't he leave me
alone?
He hurts Cynthia, he spoils the picnic . . . fucking Norman!” She tried to strike the door again, but Gert held her fist prisoner.
“Fucking skunk Norman!”

Gert was nodding. “Yeah. Fuckin' skunk Norman.”

“He's like a . . . a birthmark! The more you rub and try to get rid of it, the darker it gets! Fucking Norman! Fucking, stinking, crazy Norman! I hate him! I
hate him!”

She fell silent, panting for breath. Her face was throbbing, her cheeks wet with tears . . . and yet she didn't feel exactly bad.

Bill! Where's Bill?

She turned,
certain
he would be gone this time, but he was there. He waved. She waved back, then faced forward again, feeling a little calmer.

“You be mad, Rosie. You've got a goddam right to be mad. But—”

“Oh, I'm mad, all right.”