remain on her feet, let alone keep walking. She felt a lift when she came to Durham Avenue, but it was only temporary. Had Mr. Slowik told her to turn right or left on Durham? She couldn’t remember. She tried right and found the numbers going up from the mid-four hundreds.
“Par for the course,” she muttered, and turned around again. Ten minutes later she was standing in front of a very large white frame house (which was indeed in serious need of paint), three stories high and set back behind a big, well-kept lawn. The shades were pulled. There were wicker chairs on the porch, almost a dozen of them, but none was currently occupied. There was no sign reading Daughters and Sisters, but the street-number on the column to the left of the steps leading to the porch was 251. She made her way slowly up the flagged walk and then the steps, her purse now hanging at her side.
They’re going to send you away, a voice whispered. They’ll send you away, then you can head on back to the bus station. You’ll want to get there early, so you can stake out a nice piece of floor.
The doorbell had been covered over with layers of electrician’s tape, and the keyhole had been plugged with metal. To the left of the door was a keycard slot that looked brand-new, and an intercom box above it. Below the box was a small sign which read VISITORS PRESS AND SPEAK.
Rosie pressed. In the course of her long morning’s tramp she had rehearsed several things she might say, several ways she might introduce herself, but now that she was actually here, even the least clever and most straightforward of her possible opening gambits had gone out of her head. Her mind was a total blank. She simply let go of the button and waited. The seconds passed, each one like a little chunk of lead. She was reaching for the button again when a woman’s voice came out of the speaker. It sounded tinny and emotionless.
“Can I help you?”
Although the man with the moustache outside The Wee Nip had frightened her and the pregnant woman had amazed her, neither had made her cry. Now, at the sound of this voice, the tears came—there was nothing at all she could do to stop them.
“I hope someone can,” Rosie said, wiping at her cheeks with her free hand. “I’m sorry, but I’m in the city all by myself, I don’t know anyone, and I need a place to stay. If you’re all full I understand, but could I at least come in and sit for awhile and maybe have a glass of water?”
There was more silence. Rosie was reaching for the button again when the tinny voice asked who had sent her.
“The man in the Travelers Aid booth at the bus station. David Slowik.” She thought that over, then shook her head. “No, that’s wrong. Peter. His name was Peter, not David.”
“Did he give you a business card?” the tinny voice asked.
“Yes.”
“Please find it.”
She opened her purse and rummaged for what felt like hours. Just as fresh tears began to prick at her eyes and double her vision, she happened on the card. It had been hiding beneath a wad of Kleenex.
“I have it,” she said. “Do you want me to put it through the letter-slot?”
“No,” the voice said. “There’s a camera right over your head.”
She looked up, startled. There was indeed a camera mounted over the door and looking down at her with its round black eye.
“Hold it up to the camera, please. Not the front but the back.”
As she did so, she remembered the way Slowik had signed the business card, making his signature as large as he possibly could. Now she understood why.
“Okay,” the voice said. “I’m going to buzz you inside.”
“Thanks,” Rosie said. She used the Kleenex to wipe at her cheeks but it did no good; she was crying harder than ever, and she couldn’t seem to stop.
7
That evening, as Norman Daniels lay on the sofa in his living room, looking up at the ceiling and already thinking of how he might begin the job of finding the bitch (a break, he thought, I need a break to start with, just a little one would probably be enough), his wife was being taken to meet Anna Stevenson. By then Rosie felt a strange but welcome calm—the sort of calm one might feel in a recognized dream. She half-believed she