Characters in Rose Madder

We almost always get the job of telling people that things aren’t what they’re cracked up to be. Nobody likes that.” “No,” she agreed. “Nobody likes that, Mr.—” “Steiner,” he said. “Bill Steiner. My dad’s Abe Steiner. Here’s our card.” He held one out, but she shook her head, smiling.

… The other was a police artist’s conception (Al Kelly, one talented sonofabitch, had done it on his own time, at Norman’s request) …

… She would begin to slip into that world where Alma St. George was being pursued by her psychotic admirer, Peterson …

… Norman somehow manages to kill Officers Alvin Demers and Lee Babcock. Babcock goes into the shotgun seat, Demers into the trunk.

Chase on over there and slide awhile with Andrea and Paul.” “Slidin’s for babies,” Stan said morosely, but he went. 10 Gert walked up the path which led from the picnic area to the main drag, and when she got there she made her way to the entrance booths.

… Angela Flyte,” she said. It was the name of her best chum in junior high, and the last friend she had ever really made.

… Greetings from Ann Cosso, your local Avon Lady! Didn’t find you at home this time, but will come again! Thanks!

… two of his father’s buddies—men Ramon was supposed to call Uncle Bill and Uncle Carlo—had taken turns blowing him when he was nine years old.

He never called them ladies (that was the word he used when talking about the wives of his colleagues, as in “Bill Jessup’s wife’s a real nice lady”); he never called them women, either. He called them the gals. The gals this and the gals that.

We almost always get the job of telling people that things aren’t what they’re cracked up to be. Nobody likes that.” “No,” she agreed. “Nobody likes that, Mr.—” “Steiner,” he said. “Bill Steiner. My dad’s Abe Steiner. Here’s our card.” He held one out, but she shook her head, smiling.

She drew the damp underground air into her lungs, all the way to the bottom, closed her eyes, and remembered playing Capture the Flag behind Elm Street School or Red Rover and Texas Rangers in Billy Calhoun’s jungly, overgrown back yard.

Felony bust. But you know what bothers me? Leffingwell and Brewster—the cops who busted you—were laughing in the squadroom this morning. They were laughing about you, and that was okay, but I also have this feeling that they were laughing about me, and that’s not okay.

… Her name was Bronwyn O’Hara. Sounds like something out of Margaret Mitchell, doesn’t it?” “It’s a lovely name.” “She was a lovely girl. She died of a brain aneurysm.

There was no hurry, that was the nicest thing; he’d had all those accumulated off-days coming, and Captain Hardaway hadn’t been the slightest bit chintzy about giving them to him when he asked. There were two reasons for that, Norman reckoned.

… two of his father’s buddies—men Ramon was supposed to call Uncle Bill and Uncle Carlo—had taken turns blowing him when he was nine years old.

8 She lay in bed, slipping toward sleep, listening to the sound of crickets coming from Bryant Park. As she drifted she found herself remembering—without pain and seemingly from a great distance—the year 1985 and her daughter, Caroline.

“Lana!” she called. “Hey, Lana!” Lana came back up the path. “I’m looking for Cathy Sparks,” she said. “Have you seen her?” “Sure, she’s throwing horseshoes,” Gert said, cocking a thumb back toward the picnic area. “Saw her not two minutes ago.” “Great!” Lana started in that direction at once.

… The name-tag on the breast pocket of his shirt said CHRIS. Chris stared into the dark moon of Gert Kinshaw’s face, astonished to be touched by a customer.

… the book was written by Richard Racine, but Mr. Lefferts—Rob—says it was actually written by a woman named Christina Bell.

… Robin St. James and Consuelo Delgado had come downstairs and joined them—they were standing behind Cynthia, looking over her narrow, bird-boned shoulders.

… soon a very hard and very heavy brick wall was going to drop onto Craig McClendon’s wayward little daughter, Rosie.

… Curtis Hamilton, the recording engineer, was also nice, although he was at first too busy with his controls to do more than give her hand a quick, abstracted shake.

Samuel Lowe relaxed visibly and took the money. “No prob, bro,” he said. “And I wasn’t kiddin—you ain’t got a bad-lookin head at all. You ain’t Michael, but ain’t nobody Michael.” “ ’Cept Michael,” the newcomer named Dale said. The three black men laughed heartily and nodded at one another.

… Dawn was Dawn Verecker, who gave rudimentary clerking lessons on a cash register that was kept in one of the back rooms.

… Go back, find Dorcas and your man. She has something for you, and I would have more talk with you . . . but only a little.

… Erinyes was standing quietly now in one of the passages ahead, its horns tipped forward. Listening for her. Waiting for her.

… He had once asked Father O’Brian back in Aubreyville about that and Father had told him that pets had no souls …

… “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.”

… Norman could hear them through the nearest vent, laughing and talking about someone named Fred. Fred did this, Fred did that, Fred did the other thing.

She had a paperback in her lap, but she was watching Gert Kinshaw …

For gals like these, paranoia was a lot more than a way of life; it was full state-of-the-art. The cap and dark glasses would serve his purpose; all he had planned for this early evening was what Gordon Satterwaite, his first detective partner, would have called “a little rekky.”

It made her think of something else, as well, something which was light-years from Gramma Weeks’s kitchen with its faded linoleum and Currier & Ives prints: of how she had felt when Bill’s hip brushed against hers as they were walking back to the Corn Building.

… of your own in the drug, old man Gregory had snorted and told you to come back when you could grow a moustache? Smoking had been a big deal at fifteen, a very big deal, something that had made up for all the stuff he hadn’t been able to have …

… he picked up the turkey and threw it at his brother Hal. I can’t remember for sure what the argument was about …

“Her husband was the one who did this. Rosie, this is Lieutenant Hale.” They were all turning to look at her now, to look at the cop’s wife who’d had the deadly impudence to steal her husband’s bank card and then try to flee from his life.

Name Richie Bender. He a bad nigger. Sell crack out of his motel room down there.” He had pointed vaguely east, toward the train station. “What motel might that be?” Harley Bissington asked. Harley had been partnered with Norman on that unfortunate day. “Ray’road Motel,” the black man said.

He picked up a pamphlet called Women Have Estate Rights, Too and told the lesbo queen minding the booth he was going to send it to his sister Jeannie in Topeka. The lesbo queen smiled and told him to have a nice day. Norman smiled and said right back atcha.

… since Leo and Jessica Stevenson had opened the place in 1974, and the average length of stay was four weeks.

… “Go on, Jiminy,” she said. “Be a good boy and hop. See the park over there? Tall grass, plenty of dew to drink, lots of girl crick—” …

A little over an hour had elapsed since Rosie’s original 911 call. The wounded upstairs tenant, John Briscoe by name, had been taken to East Side Receiving with what one of the EMTs had described as “a flesh-wound with pretensions.” Now things had finally quieted down a little.

He would make sure of it. 2 Lieutenant 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.

She had seen the bald biker in the wheelchair hanging around the picnic, though, talking to several people, most of them women. Lana Kline had even brought him something to eat. Ice cream, it had looked like.

… Norman somehow manages to kill Officers Alvin Demers and Lee Babcock. Babcock goes into the shotgun seat, Demers into the trunk.

Felony bust. But you know what bothers me? Leffingwell and Brewster—the cops who busted you—were laughing in the squadroom this morning. They were laughing about you, and that was okay, but I also have this feeling that they were laughing about me, and that’s not okay.

… since Leo and Jessica Stevenson had opened the place in 1974, and the average length of stay was four weeks.

“Guy in there told me to come over here and see you. He said maybe you could help me with my problem.” “Was it Lieutenant Morelli?” the man with the tennis ball asked. “Yeah. That was his name.” “And what problem do you have?”

… Marilyn Delaney was as good a name as any. He would probably not be asked to tell his life’s story by any of the women from Daughters and Sisters …

There was a bumper sticker on the back-support of his wheelchair. I AM A MAN WHO RESPECTS WOMEN, it said. You’re also a man who looks familiar, Gert thought. Or is it just that you look like some movie actor? “Come on, Gert!” Melanie Huggins’s little boy commanded. “Push!

Would he perhaps hit her hard enough to deaden some vital connection, so she could no longer raise one of her arms or legs, or perhaps leave one side of her face hanging slack and expressionless, like poor Mrs. Diamond, who clerked in the Store 24 at the bottom of …

… Mrs. Pratt (white as snow she had been, except for her lips, which were the color of blueberries) had come to the door and told her that her family, her whole family, had been killed in a highway wreck …

… “Nella didn’t realize she was being followed by the man in the ragged gray topcoat until she was between streetlights and a garbage-strewn alley yawned open on her left like the jaws of an old man who has died with food in his mouth. By then it was too late.

Here she moved slowly back and forth like a bubble, faintly aware of the diesel engine’s steady hum, the sound of the tires on the pavement, of a kid four or five rows up asking his mother when they were going to get to Aunt Norma’s.

… Oliver Robbins here.” Robbins. Robbins. The name was familiar, but— “From Continental Express? I sold a bus ticket to a woman you’re looking for.

… When Rosie and Pam Haverford came down in the service elevator after work on the following Wednesday, Pam looked pale and unwell.

And although Caroline is and always will be her secret name, the one that goes on the birth certificate is Pamela Gertrude.

Chase on over there and slide awhile with Andrea and Paul.” “Slidin’s for babies,” Stan said morosely, but he went. 10 Gert walked up the path which led from the picnic area to the main drag, and when she got there she made her way to the entrance booths.

And, she saw, his eyes were kind. Weak and swimmy behind the thick lenses of his glasses . . . but kind. “I’m sorry, but can you help me?” she asked. 3 The Travelers Aid volunteer introduced himself as Peter Slowik, and he listened to Rosie’s story in attentive silence.

She would begin to slip into that world where Alma St. George was being pursued by her psychotic admirer, Peterson, and then be hauled out of it by one of the voices from last night: Anna’s telling her that her ex-husband, the man who had sent her to Daughters and …

… Ramon Sanders said nothing. It seemed by far the wisest course. “I don’t mind hitting,” the cop named Daniels said.

he asked, pouting. “Because your old pal Gert hasn’t had a jungle gym body since she ditched the diapers and rubber pants,” she said. She saw Randi Franklin over by the slide and suddenly made a decision. If she didn’t chase this a little, it would drive her nuts.

Meanwhile, his mind shrieked in the voice of his father, the world-class crotchgrabber (and, on at least one memorable hunting trip, world-class cockgobbler, as well). It was a woman! Ray Daniels was screaming. How could you let your clock get cleaned by some cunt, Normie?

Rhoda Simons, the fortyish woman who was to be her director, was also nice to her, but . . . director! Such a strange word to think of in connection with Rosie McClendon, who hadn’t even tried out for her senior class play.

“Bender,” she murmured in the dark, listening to the low creak of the crickets. “Richie Bender. That was his name.”

“He’s the one who offered me the job. His name is Robbie Lefferts. But never mind him right now—want to see my new picture?” “Aw, come on an do it!” Gert said from the middle of the room. She sounded both amiable and irritated. “This ain’t the school dance, sugar.”

It’s just how we do things at D & S. After twenty years of working with abused women, I’m convinced it’s the only way to do things.” Pam had explained all this to Rosie; so had Consuelo Delgado and Robin St. James.

… before her practical, sensible mother had begun the weighty task of teaching Rose Diana McClendon what was ladylike and what was not …

… Rose Madder did not ask her to put it on. Instead she reached out with her mottled hand and pointed toward the olive tree.

It had been known to happen. And it was Daniels they were talking about, not Trzewski or Beauschatz. He had also faxed the cops side-by-side pictures of Rose. One was a photo of her sitting on the back steps, taken by Roy Foster, a cop friend of his, last August.

… was a little brass sign there that said SAMUEL LOWE), then got up and shook out a plastic apron. “You wanna be like Mike, let’s do it.” Twenty minutes later, Norman was staring at himself thoughtfully in the mirror. Samuel Lowe stood beside his chair, watching him look. Lowe seemed …

Before she could go any further with that, the phone was picked up. “Detective Division, Sergeant Williams.” She gave him Hale’s name and was put on hold. Outside her room and down the hallway, the murmuring and the groaning replies continued. The sirens were much closer now. 4 “Hello, Hale!”

“Yeah,” he said. “Yeah, Daddy, I did.” Okay, the bullshit stops here. Listen up, Normie. Norman listened up. 9 Gert pushed Stan Huggins on the swings for a little while longer, his cries for her to “loop him around the loop some more” becoming steadily more tiresome.

… a woman named Wendy Yarrow has been making trouble for him, and what Norman does with trouble is share the wealth.

… Remember what old Whitey Slater used to say—the situation is what the situation is. How you’re going to work around it is the only question.