‘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 & 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.’
13
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.
14
‘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?
15
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.