was not one Rosie had ever seen since in any book of plants—she had never forgotten the somehow nasty look of them, the pale and waxy flesh swarming with dark spots that did look a little like spiders, she supposed, if your imagination was good ... and hers had been.
A vixen can carry rabies a long time, she thought again. It knocks the dogs down quick, but ...
“Rosie? Are you cold?”
She looked at him, not understanding.
“You were shivering.”
“No, I’m not cold.” She looked at the kids, who did not see her and Bill because they were past the age of twenty-five, and then back to him. “But maybe it’s time to go back.”
He nodded. “I think you’re right.”
5
The traffic was heavier on the return trip, and heavier still once they left the Skyway. It slowed them down but never quite stopped them. Bill darted the big Harley through holes when they appeared, making Rosie feel a little as if she were riding on the back of a trained dragonfly, but he took no unreasonable chances and she never doubted him, even when he took them up the dotted line between lanes, passing big semis on either side, lined up like patient mastodons as they waited for their turn to go through the Skyway tollbooths. By the time they began passing signs which read WATER-FRONT and AQUARIUM and ETTINGER’S PIER & AMUSEMENT PARK, Rosie was glad they had left when they had. She was going to be on time for her shift in the tee-shirt booth, and that was good. She was going to introduce Bill to her friends, and that was even better. She was sure they were going to like him. As they passed beneath a bright pink banner reading SWING INTO SUMMER WITH DAUGHTERS AND SISTERS!, Rosie felt a burst of happiness which she would remember later on that long, long day with sickened horror.
She could see the roller coaster now, all curves and complicated strut-work silhouetted against the sky, could hear the screams drifting off it like vapor. She hugged Bill tighter for a moment, and laughed. Everything was going to be all right, she thought, and when she remembered—for just a moment—the vixen’s dark and watchful eye, she pushed the memory away, as one will push away a memory of death at a wedding.
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 five 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