Mean Woman Blues

about her to make her extremely cautious when dealing with him. Besides, the two of them loved each other. Always had.
    Feeling cocky the next day, he waited a few blocks from her house, on the route he knew she’d have to take, and the sight of her driving by in her big sleek white Lexus made him happier than anything had in months. In fact, it made him feel like a million dollars. Bulletproof. Absolutely on top of the world.
    He decided to abandon the charade of waiting by the down escalator and in fact caught her as she was coming in the door and planted a big one on her just as she opened her mouth to say his birth name: “Earl Jackson! What the devil do you think you’re doing?” He could just hear her saying his first name, the one he’d had when he married her, in that phony British accent of hers, but anything to keep his name quiet.
    “Rosemarie. You’re looking pretty.”
    “Well, you look like hell.”
    * * *
    Rosemarie Owens let him take her arm and stroll her around the store, pretending now and then to admire an expensive bauble. Running wasn’t going to help anything. She figured he probably wanted money; she could just give him some and send him on his way. “The whole world’s chasin’ me,” he said. “— or haven’t you heard?”
    Mmm hmm. Definitely money.
She said, “Earl, that wasn’t nice what you did to me— having me kidnapped that time.”
    “Well, the guy let you go, didn’t he? I wouldn’t let anything happen to you.”
    She was silent, for once at a loss for words. What kind of man had you kidnapped and didn’t even say he was sorry?
    “Now, Rosemarie, we may have both done a few things— regarding each other— that we regret…”
    “Like getting married, you mean?” They had gotten married when she was fifteen, he sixteen. She was Daniel’s mother.
    “You hurt me, baby. You really hurt me.”
    She turned to him, smiling, and hugged his neck. “Oh, Earl, you know I’m kidding. I’ve still got a soft spot for you, damn your eyes.” The sad thing about it was, she did.
    “‘Damn your eyes.’ Americans don’t talk like that, Rosemarie.”
    She shrugged. “What can I do for you, Earl Jackson, former husband and the FBI’s second-most-wanted man?”
    “I thought you’d never ask, rich lady. First off, I need to talk different. More like you do.”
    What in hell?
she thought. She gave him a look meant to convey that she’d just realized she was dealing with a being from a different solar system. And that she saw what he was getting at. “Ah. You need a disguise.”
    “You’ve got one. I figure you know where to get ’em.”
    Rosemarie was perfectly aware that people said she reminded them of Ivana Trump. She knew she had a certain brassy attractiveness they couldn’t quite place. Her former husband was one of few who remembered she’d once been Mary Rose Markey of Savannah, Georgia.
    She weighed her words carefully, not wanting to give him ideas. “You want me to help you get away.”
    “Well, not exactly, honey bunch. I’ve kind of got plans to stick around.”
    Bad news. No good could come of this. But she couldn’t let him know she was afraid of him, had to make the monster eat out of her hand. She did her best to look concerned for him and hoped it didn’t come off as frightened for herself. She said, “Earl, it’s too dangerous.”
    He nuzzled her neck to test the waters, and it took all her will power, but she didn’t flinch. “I think you need some champagne to steady your nerves.”
    Really good idea
, she thought, and made up her mind to seduce him. Hell, she still thought he was attractive. Not good-looking— not for a second. Earl Jackson always had been a warty little toad, and time hadn’t improved him. But he had something. An energy or something. She needed time to think, and sex would put him in a good mood.
    They went and drank some champagne and then they checked into a hotel. And then, for the first time in forty years, she made love to her ex-husband. What he said in the afterglow was kind of interesting: “Know what Baby? You’re the only woman I ever loved. I mean that.”
    She doubted it, but there was a kind of respect between them; there was definitely something there. “Come on, Earl,” she said. “You just slept with me to see if I was wearing a wire. Like some people I know.”
    It was a reference to a little insurance policy he’d bought for himself, a recording he’d made of a certain conversation