Rose Madder by Stephen King Page A

you’re not a thief, are you?”
    Rosie shook her head. “Just my husband’s bank card, that’s all, and I only used it once. To make sure I could get away.”
    â€œYou’ll work at the Whitestone until you find something that suits you better, as you almost certainly will—Providence, remember.”
    â€œWith a capital P .”
    â€œYes. While you’re at the Whitestone, we ask only that you do your best—in order to protect the jobs of all the women who’ll come after you, if for no other reason. Do you follow me?”
    Rosie nodded. “Don’t spoil it for the next person.”
    â€œDon’t spoil it for the next person, just so. It’s good to have you here, Rose McClendon.” Anna stood up and extended both hands in a gesture which held more than a little of the unconscious arrogance Rosie had already sensed in her. Rosie hesitated, then stood and took the offered hands. Now their fingers were linked above the clutter of the desk. “I have three more things to tell you,” Anna said. “They’reimportant, so I want you to clear your mind and listen carefully. Will you do that?”
    â€œYes,” Rosie said. She was fascinated by Anna Stevenson’s clear blue gaze.
    â€œFirst, taking the bank card doesn’t make you a thief. That was your money as well as his. Second, there’s nothing illegal about resuming your maiden name—it will belong to you your whole life. Third, you can be free if you want to.”
    She paused, looking at Rosie with her remarkable blue eyes from above their clasped hands.
    â€œDo you understand me? You can be free if you want to. Free of his hands, free of his ideas, free of him. Do you want that? To be free?”
    â€œYes,” Rosie said in a low, wavering voice. “I want that more than anything in the world.”
    Anna Stevenson bent across the desk and kissed Rosie softly on the cheek. At the same time she squeezed Rosie’s hands. “Then you’ve come to the right place. Welcome home, dear.”
8
    I t was early May, real spring, the time when a young man’s fancy is supposed to lightly turn to thoughts of love, a wonderful season and undoubtedly a great emotion, but Norman Daniels had other things on his mind. He had wanted a break, one little break, and now it had come. It had taken too long—almost three goddam weeks—but it had finally come.
    He sat on a park bench eight hundred miles from the place where his wife was currently changing hotel sheets, a big man in a red polo shirt and gray gabardine slacks. In one hand he held a fluorescent green tennis ball. The muscles of his forearm flexed rhythmically as he squeezed it.
    A second man came across the street, stood at the edge of the sidewalk looking into the park, then spotted the man on the bench and began walking toward him. He ducked as a Frisbee sailed close by, then stopped short as a large German Shepherd charged past him, chasing it. This second man was both younger and slighter than the man on the bench. He had a handsome, unreliable face and a tiny ErrolFlynn moustache. He stopped in front of the man with the tennis ball in his right hand and looked at him uncertainly.
    â€œHelp you, bro?” the man with the tennis ball asked.
    â€œIs your name Daniels?”
    The man with the tennis ball nodded that it was.
    The man with the Errol Flynn moustache pointed across the street at a new highrise loaded with glass and angles. “Guy in there told me to come over here and see you. He said maybe you could help me with my problem.”
    â€œWas it Lieutenant Morelli?” the man with the tennis ball asked.
    â€œYeah. That was his name.”
    â€œAnd what problem do you have?”
    â€œYou know,” the man with the Errol Flynn moustache said.
    â€œTell you what, bro—maybe I do and maybe I don’t. Either way, I’m the man and you’re just a greasy little