JIM RENNIE’S USED CARS

FOREIGN & DOMESTIC

A$K U$ 4 CREDIT!

YOU’LL BE WHEELIN’ BECAUSE BIG JIM IS DEALIN’!

She passed some kids on bikes and wondered again how long it would be before everyone was riding them. Except it wouldn’t come to that. Someone would figure things out before it did, just like in one of those disaster movies she enjoyed watching on TV while she was stoned: volcanoes erupting in LA, zombies in New York. And when things went back to normal, Frankie and Carter Thibodeau would revert to what they’d been before: smalltown losers with little or no jingle in their pockets. In the meantime, though, she might do well to keep a low profile.

All in all, she was glad she’d kept her mouth shut about Dodee.

Rusty listened to the blood-pressure monitor begin its urgent beeping and knew they were losing the boy. Actually they’d been losing him ever since the ambulance—hell, from the moment the ricochet struck him— but the sound of the monitor turned the truth into a headline. Rory should have been Life-Flighted to CMG immediately, right from where he’d been so grievously wounded. Instead he was in an underequipped operating room that was too warm (the air-conditioning had been turned off to conserve the generator), being operated on by a doctor who should have retired years ago, a physician’s assistant who had never assisted in a neurosurgery case, and a single exhausted nurse who spoke up now.

“V-fib, Dr. Haskell.”

The heart monitor had joined in. Now it was a chorus.

“I know, Ginny. I’m not death.” He paused. “Deaf, I mean. Christ.”

For a moment he and Rusty looked at each other over the boy’s sheet-swaddled form. Haskell’s eyes were clear and with-it—this was not the same stethoscope-equipped time-server who had been plodding through the rooms and corridors of Cathy Russell for the last couple of years like a dull ghost—but he looked terribly old and frail.

“We tried,” Rusty said.

In truth, Haskell had done more than try; he’d reminded Rusty of one of those sports novels he’d loved as a kid, where the aging pitcher comes out of the bullpen for one more shot at glory in the seventh game of the World Series. But only Rusty and Ginny Tomlinson had been in the stands for this performance, and this time there would be no happy ending for the old warhorse.

Rusty had started the saline drip, adding mannitol to reduce brain swelling. Haskell had left the OR at an actual run to do the bloodwork in the lab down the hall, a complete CBC. It had to be Haskell; Rusty was unqualified and there were no lab techs. Catherine Russell was now hideously understaffed. Rusty thought the Dinsmore boy might be only a down payment on the price the town would eventually have to pay for that lack of personnel.

It got worse. The boy was A-negative, and they had none in their small blood supply. They did, however, have O-negative—the universal donor—and had given Rory four units, which left exactly nine more in supply. Giving it to the boy had probably been tantamount to pouring it down the scrub-room drain, but none of them had said so. While the blood ran into him, Haskell sent Ginny down to the closet-sized cubicle that served as the hospital’s library. She came back with a tattered copy ofOn Neurosurgery: A Brief Overview. Haskell operated with the book beside him, an otiscope laid across the pages to hold them down. Rusty thought he would never forget the whine of the saw, the smell of the bone dust in the unnaturally warm air, or the clot of jellied blood that oozed out after Haskell removed the bone plug.

For a few minutes, Rusty had actually allowed himself to hope. With the pressure of the hematoma relieved by the burr-hole, Rory’s vital signs had stabilized—or tried to. Then, while Haskell was attempting to determine if the bullet fragment was within his reach, everything had started going downhill again, and fast.

Rusty thought of the parents, waiting and hoping against hope. Now, instead of wheeling Rory to the left outside the OR—toward Cathy Russell’s ICU, where his folks might be allowed to creep in and see him—it looked like Rory would be taking a right, toward the morgue.

“If this were an ordinary situation, I’d maintain life support and ask the parents about organ donation,” Haskell said. “But of course, if this were an ordinary situation, he wouldn’t be here. And even if he was, I wouldn’t be trying to operate on him using a … a goddam Toyota manual.” He picked up the otiscope and threw it across the OR. It struck the green tiles, chipped one, and fell to the floor.

“Do you want to administer epi, Doctor?” Ginny asked. Calm, cool, and collected … but she looked tired enough to drop in her tracks.

“Was I not clear? I won’t prolong this boy’s agony.” Haskell reached toward the red switch on the back of the respirator. Some wit—Twitch, perhaps—had put a small sticker there that read BOOYA! “Do you want to express a contrary opinion, Rusty?”

Rusty considered the question, then slowly shook his head. The Babinski test had been positive, indicating major brain damage, but the main thing was that there was just no chance. Never had been, really.

Haskell flipped the switch. Rory Dinsmore took one labored breath on his own, appeared to try for a second one, and then gave up.

“I make it …” Haskell looked at the big clock on the wall. “Five fifteen PM. Will you note that as the TOD, Ginny?”

“Yes, Doctor.”

Haskell pulled down his mask, and Rusty noted with concern that the old man’s lips were blue. “Let’s get out of here,” he said. “The heat is killing me.”

But it wasn’t the heat; his heart was doing that. He collapsed halfway down the corridor, on his way to give Alden and Shelley Dinsmore the bad news. Rusty got to administer epi after all, but it did no good. Neither did closed-chest massage. Or the paddles.

Time of death, five forty-nine PM. Ron Haskell outlived his last patient by exactly thirty-four minutes. Rusty sat down on the floor, his back against the wall. Ginny had given Rory’s parents the news; from where he sat with his face in his hands, Rusty could hear the mother’s shrieks of grief and sorrow. They carried well in the nearly empty hospital. She sounded as if she would never stop.

Barbie thought that the Chief’s widow must once have been an extremely beautiful woman. Even now, with dark circles under her eyes and an indifferent choice of clothes (faded jeans and what he was pretty sure was a pajama top), Brenda Perkins was striking. He thought maybe smart people rarely lost their good looks —if they had good ones to begin with, that was—and he saw the clear light of intelligence in her eyes. Something else, too. She might be in mourning, but it hadn’t killed her curiosity. And right now, the object of her curiosity was him.

She looked over his shoulder at Julia’s car, backing down the driveway, and raised her hands to it: Where you going?

Julia leaned out the window and called, “I have to make sure the paper gets out! I also have to go by Sweetbriar Rose and give Anson Wheeler the bad news—he’s on sandwich detail tonight! Don’t worry, Bren, Barbie’s safe!” And before Brenda could reply or remonstrate, Julia was off down Morin Street, a woman on a mission. Barbie wished he were with her, his only objective the creation of forty ham-and-cheese and forty tuna sandwiches.

With Julia gone, Brenda resumed her inspection. They were on opposite sides of the screen door. Barbie felt like a job applicant facing a tough interview.

“Are you?” Brenda asked.

“Beg your pardon, ma’am?”

“Are you safe?”

Barbie considered it. Two days ago he would have said yes, of course he was, but on this afternoon he felt more like the soldier of Fallujah than the cook of Chester’s Mill. He settled for saying he was housebroken, which made her smile.

“Well, I’ll have to make my own judgment on that,” she said. “Even though right now my judgment isn’t the best. I’ve suffered a loss.”

“I know, ma’am. I’m very sorry.”

“Thank you. He’s being buried tomorrow. Out of that cheesy little Bowie Funeral Home that continues to stagger along somehow, even though almost everyone in town uses Crosman’s in Castle Rock. Folks call Stewart Bowie’s establishment Bowie’s Buryin Barn. Stewart’s an idiot and his brother Fernald’s worse, but now they’re all we have. All I have.” She sighed like a woman confronting some vast chore. And why not? Barbie thought. The death of a loved one may be many things, but work is certainly one of them.

She surprised him by stepping out onto the stoop with him. “Walk around back with me, Mr. Barbara. I may invite you in later on, but not until I’m sure of you. Ordinarily I’d take a character reference from Julia like a shot, but these are not ordinary times.” She was leading him along the side of the house, over nicely clipped grass raked clear of autumn leaves. On the right was a board fence separating the Perkins home from its next-door neighbor; on the left were nicely kept flowerbeds.

“The flowers were my husband’s bailiwick. I suppose you think that’s a strange hobby for a law enforcement officer.”

“Actually, I don’t.”

“I never did, either. Which makes us in the minority. Small towns harbor small imaginations. Grace Metalious and Sherwood Anderson were right about that.

“Also,” she said as they rounded the rear corner of the house and entered a commodious backyard, “it will stay light out here longer. I have a generator, but it died this morning. Out of fuel, I believe. There’s a spare tank, but I don’t know how to change it. I used to nag Howie about the generator. He wanted to teach me how to maintain it. I refused to learn. Mostly out of spite.” A tear overspilled one eye and trickled down her cheek. She wiped it away absently. “I’d apologize to him now if I could. Admit he was right. But I can’t do that, can I?”

Barbie knew a rhetorical question when he heard one. “If it’s just the canister,” he said, “I can change it out.”

“Thank you,” she said, leading him to a patio table with an Igloo cooler sitting beside it. “I was going to ask Henry Morrison to do it, and I was going to get more canisters at Burpee’s, too, but by the time I got down to the high street this afternoon, Burpee’s was closed and Henry was out at Dinsmore’s field, along with everyone else. Do you think I’ll be able to get extra canisters tomorrow?”

“Maybe,” Barbie said. In truth, he doubted it.

“I heard about the little boy,” she said. “Gina Buffalino from next door came over and told me. I’m terribly sorry. Will he live?”

“I don’t know.” And, because intuition told him honesty would be the most direct route to this woman’s trust (provisional though that might be), he added, “I don’t think so.”

“No.” She sighed and wiped at her eyes again. “No, it sounded very bad.” She opened the Igloo. “I have water and Diet Coke. That was the only soft drink I allowed Howie to have. Which do you prefer?”

“Water, ma’am.”

She opened two bottles of Poland Spring and they drank. She looked at him with her sadly curious eyes. “Julia told me you want a key to the Town Hall. I understand why you want it. I also understand why you don’t want Jim Rennie to know—”

“He may have to. The situation’s changed. You see—”

She held up her hand and shook her head. Barbie ceased.

“Before you tell me that, I want you to tell me about the trouble you had with Junior and his friends.”

“Ma’am, didn’t your husband—?”

“Howie rarely talked about his cases, but this one he did talk about. It troubled him, I think. I want to see if your story matches his. If it does, we can talk about other matters. If it doesn’t, I’ll invite you to leave, although you may take your bottle of water with you.”

Barbie pointed to the little red shed by the left corner of the house. “That your gennie?”

“Yes.”

“If I change out the canister while we talk, will you be able to hear me?”

“Yes.”

“And you want the whole deal, right?”

“Yes indeed. And if you call me ma’am again, I may have to brain you.”

The door of the little generator shed was held shut with a hook-and-eye of shiny brass. The man who had lived here until yesterday had taken care of his things … although it was a shame about that lone canister. Barbie decided that, no matter how this conversation went, he would take it upon himself to try and get her a few more tomorrow.

In the meantime, he told himself, tell her everything she wants to know about that night. But it would be easier to tell with his back turned; he didn’t like saying the trouble had happened because Angie McCain had seen him as a slightly overage boy-toy.

Sunshine Rule, he reminded himself, and told his tale.

What he remembered most clearly about last summer was the James McMurtry song that seemed to be playing everywhere—“Talkin’ at the Texaco,” it was called. And the line he remembered most clearly was the one about how in a small town “we all must know our place.” When Angie started standing too close to him while he was cooking, or pressing a breast against his arm while she reached for something he could have gotten for her, the line recurred. He knew who her boyfriend was, and he knew that Frankie DeLesseps was part of the town’s power structure, if only by virtue of his friendship with Big Jim Rennie’s son. Dale Barbara, on the other hand, was little more than a drifter. In the Chester’s Mill scheme of things, he had no place.

One evening she had reached around his hip and given his crotch a light squeeze. He reacted, and he saw by her mischievous grin that she’d felt him react.

“You can have one back, if you want,” she said. They’d been in the kitchen, and she’d twitched the hem of her skirt, a short one, up a little, giving him a quick glimpse of frilly pink underwear. “Fair’s fair.”

“I’ll pass,” he said, and she stuck her tongue out at him.

He’d seen similar hijinks in half a dozen restaurant kitchens, had even played along from time to time. It might have amounted to no more than a young girl’s passing letch for an older and moderately good-looking co-worker. But then Angie and Frankie broke up, and one night when Barbie was dumping the swill in the Dumpster out back after closing, she’d put a serious move on him.

He turned around and she was there, slipping her arms around his shoulders and kissing him. At first he kissed her back. Angie unlocked one arm long enough to take his hand and put it on her left breast. That woke his brain up. It was good breast, young and firm. It was also trouble. She was trouble. He tried to pull back, and when she hung on one-handed (her nails now biting into the nape of his neck) and tried to thrust her hips against him, he pushed her away with a little more force than he had intended. She stumbled against the Dumpster, glared at him, touched the seat of her jeans, and glared harder.

“Thanks! Now I’ve got crap all over my pants!”

“You should know when to let go,” he said mildly.

“You liked it!”

“Maybe,” he said, “but I don’t like you.” And when he saw the hurt and anger deepen on her face, he added: “I mean I do, just not that way.” But of course people have a way of saying what they really mean when they’re shaken up.

Four nights later, in Dipper’s, someone poured a glass of beer down the back of his shirt. He turned and saw Frankie DeLesseps.

“Did you like that, Baaarbie ? If you did, I can do it again—it’s two-buck pitcher night. Of course, if you didn’t, we can take it outside.”

“I don’t know what she told you, but it’s wrong,” Barbie said. Thejukebox had been playing—not the McMurtry song, but that was what he heard in his head: We all must know our place.

“What she told me is she said no and you went ahead and fucked her anyway. What do you outweigh her by? Hunnert pounds? That sounds like rape to me.”

“I didn’t.” Knowing it was probably hopeless.

“You want to go outside, motherfuck, or are you too chicken?”

“Too chicken,” Barbie said, and to his surprise, Frankie went away. Barbie decided he’d had enough beer and music for one night and was getting up to go when Frankie returned, this time not with a glass but a pitcher.

“Don’t do that,” Barbie said, but of course Frankie paid no attention. Splash, in the face. A Bud Light shower. Several people laughed and applauded drunkenly.

“You can come out now and settle this,” Frankie said, “or I can wait. Last call’s comin, Baaarbie. ”

Barbie went, realizing it was then or later, and believing that if he decked Frankie fast, before a lot of people could see, that would end it. He could even apologize and repeat that he’d never been with Angie. He wouldn’t add that Angie had been coming on to him, although he supposed a lot of people knew it (certainly Rose and Anson did). Maybe, with a bloody nose to wake him up, Frankie would see what seemed so obvious to Barbie: this was the little twit’s idea of payback.

At first it seemed that it might work out that way. Frankie stood flat-footed on the gravel, his shadow cast two different ways by the glare of the sodium lights at either end of the parking lot, his fists held up like John L. Sullivan. Mean, strong, and stupid: just one more smalltown brawler. Used to putting his opponents down with one big blow, then picking them up and hitting them a bunch of little ones until they cried uncle.

He shuffled forward and uncorked his not-so-secret weapon: an uppercut Barbie avoided by the simple expedient of cocking his head slightly to one side. Barbie countered with a straight jab to the solar plexus. Frankie went down with a stunned expression on his face.

“We don’t have to—” Barbie began, and that was when Junior Rennie hit him from behind, in the kidneys, probably with his hands laced together to make one big fist. Barbie stumbled forward. Carter Thibodeau was there to meet him, stepping from between two parked cars and throwing a roundhouse. It might have broken Barbie’s jaw if it had connected, but Barbie got his arm up in time. That accounted for the worst of his bruises, still an unlovely yellow when he tried to leave town on Dome Day.

He twisted to one side, understanding this had been a planned ambush, knowing he had to get out before someone was really hurt. Not necessarily him. He was willing to run; he wasn’t proud. He got three steps before Melvin Searles tripped him up. Barbie sprawled in the gravel on his belly and the kicking started. He covered his head, but a squall of bootleather pounded his legs, ass, and arms. One caught him high in the rib cage just before he managed to knee-scramble behind Stubby Norman’s used-furniture panel truck.

His good sense left him then, and he stopped thinking about running away. He got up, faced them, then held out his hands to them, palms up and fingers wiggling. Beckoning. The slot he was standing in was narrow. They’d have to come one by one.

Junior tried first; his enthusiasm was rewarded with a kick in the belly. Barbie was wearing Nikes rather than boots, but it was a hard kick and Junior folded up beside the panel truck, woofing for breath. Frankie scrambled over him and Barbie popped him twice in the face—stinging shots, but not quite hard enough to break anything. Good sense had begun to reassert itself.

Gravel crunched. He turned in time to catch incoming from Thibodeau, who had cut behind him. The blow connected with his temple. Barbie saw stars. (“Or maybe one was a comet,” he told Brenda, opening the valve on the new gas canister.) Thibodeau moved in. Barbie pistoned a hard kick to his ankle, and Thibodeau’s grin turned to a grimace. He dropped to one knee, looking like a football player holding the ball for a field goal attempt. Except ball-holders usually don’t clutch their ankles.

Absurdly, Carter Thibodeau cried: “Fuckin dirty-fighter!”

“Look who’s ta—” Barbie got that far before Melvin Searles locked an elbow around his throat. Barbie drove his own elbow back into Searles’s midsection and heard the grunt of escaping air. Smelled it, too: beer, cigarettes, Slim Jims. He was turning, knowing that Thibodeau would probably be on him again before he could fight his way entirely clear of the aisle between vehicles into which he had retreated, no longer caring. His face was throbbing, his ribs were throbbing, and he suddenly decided—it seemed quite reasonable—that he was going to put all four of them in the hospital. They could discuss what constituted dirty fighting and what did not as they signed each other’s casts.

That was when Chief Perkins—called by either Tommy or Willow Anderson, the roadhouse proprietors— drove into the parking lot with his jackpots lit and his headlights winking back and forth. The combatants were illuminated like actors on a stage.

Perkins hit the siren once; it blipped half a whoop and died. Then he got out, hitching his belt up over his considerable girth.

“Little early in the week for this, isn’t it, fellas?”

To which Junior Rennie replied

Brenda didn’t need Barbie to tell her that; she’d heard it from Howie, and hadn’t been surprised. Even as a

child, Big Jim’s boy had been a fluent confabulator, especially when his self-interest was at stake.

“To which he replied, ‘The cook started it.’ Am I right?”

“Yep.” Barbie pushed the gennie’s start button and it roared into life. He smiled at her, although he could feel a flush warming his cheeks. What he’d just told was not his favorite story. Although he supposed he’d pick it over the one of the gym in Fallujah any day. “There you go—lights, camera, action.”

“Thank you. How long will it last?”

“Only a couple of days, but this may be over by then.”

“Or not. I suppose you know what saved you from a trip to the county lockup that night?”

“Sure,” Barbie said. “Your husband saw it happening. Four-onone. It was kind of hard to miss.”

“Any other cop might not have seen it, even if it was right in front of his eyes. And it was just luck Howie was on that night; George Frederick was supposed to have the duty, but he called in with stomach flu.” She paused. “You might call it providence instead of luck.”

“So I might,” Barbie agreed.

“Would you like to come inside, Mr. Barbara?”

“Why don’t we sit out here? If you don’t mind. It’s pleasant.”

“Fine by me. The weather will turn cold soon enough. Or will it?”

Barbie said he didn’t know.

“When Howie got you all to the station, DeLesseps told Howie that you raped Angie McCain. Isn’t that how it went?”

“That was his first story. Then he said maybe it wasn’t quite rape, but when she got scared and told me to stop, I wouldn’t. That would make it rape in the second degree, I guess.”

She smiled briefly. “Don’t let any feminists hear you say there are degrees of rape.”

“I guess I better not. Anyway, your husband put me in the interrogation room—which seems to be a broom closet when it’s doing its day job—”

Brenda actually laughed.

“—then hauled Angie in. Sat her where she had to look me in the eye. Hell, we were almost rubbing elbows. It takes mental preparation to lie about something big, especially for a young person. I found that out in the Army. Your husband knew it, too. Told her it would go to court. Explained the penalties for perjury. Long story short, she recanted. Said there’d been no intercourse, let alone rape.”

“Howie had a motto: ‘Reason before law.’ It was the basis for the way he handled things. It will not be the way Peter Randolph handles things, partially because he’s a foggy thinker but mostly because he won’t be able to handle Rennie. My husband could. Howie said that when news of your … altercation … got back to Mr. Rennie, he insisted that you be tried for something. He was furious. Did you know that?”

“No.” But he wasn’t surprised.

“Howie told Mr. Rennie that if any of it made it into court, he’d see that all of it made it into court, including the four-on-one in the parking lot. He added that a good defense attorney might even be able to get some of Frankie and Junior’s high school escapades into the record. There were several, although nothing quite like what happened to you.”

She shook her head.

“Junior Rennie was never a great kid, but he used to be relatively harmless. Over the last year or so, he’s changed. Howie saw it, and was troubled by it. I’ve discovered that Howie knew things about both the son and the father …” She trailed off. Barbie could see her debating whether or not to go on and deciding not to. She had learned discretion as the wife of a small-town police official, and it was a hard habit to unlearn.

“Howie advised you to leave town before Rennie found some other way to make trouble for you, didn’t he? I imagine you got caught by this Dome thing before you could do it.”

“Yes to both. Can I have that Diet Coke now, Mrs. Perkins?”

“Call me Brenda. And I’ll call you Barbie, if that’s what you go by. Please help yourself to a soft drink.”

Barbie did.

“You want a key to the fallout shelter so you can get the Geiger counter. I can and will help you there. But it sounded like you were saying Jim Rennie has to know, and with that idea I have trouble. Maybe it’s grief clouding my mind, but I don’t understand why you’d want to get into any kind of head-butting contest with him. Big Jim freaks out when anybody challenges his authority, and you he doesn’t like to begin with. Nor does he owe you any favors. If my husband were still Chief, maybe the two of you could go see Rennie together. I would rather have enjoyed that, I think.” She leaned forward, looking at him earnestly from her dark-circled eyes. “But Howie’s gone and you’re apt to wind up in a cell instead of looking around for some mystery generator.”

“I know all that, but something new has been added. The Air Force is going to shoot a Cruise missile at the Dome tomorrow at thirteen hundred hours.”

“Oh-my-Jesus.”

“They’ve shot other missiles at it, but only to determine how high the barrier goes. Radar doesn’t work. Those had dummy warheads. This one will have a very live one. A bunker-buster.”

She paled visibly.

“What part of our town are they going to shoot it at?”

“Point of impact will be where the Dome cuts Little Bitch Road. Julia and I were out there just last night. It’ll explode about five feet off the ground.”

Her mouth dropped open in an unladylike gape. “Not possible!”

“I’m afraid it is. They’ll release in from a B-52, and it’ll fly a preprogrammed course. I meanreally programmed. Down to every ridge and dip, once it descends to target height. Those things are eerie. If it explodes and doesn’t break through, it means everyone in town just gets a bad scare—it’s going to sound like Armageddon. If it does break through, though—”

Her hand had gone to her throat. “How much damage? Barbie, we have no firetrucks!”

“I’m sure they’ll have fire equipment standing by. As to how much damage?” He shrugged. “The whole area will have to be evacuated, that’s for sure.”

“Is it wise? Is what they’re planning wise?”

“It’s a moot question, Mrs.—Brenda. They’ve made their decision. But it gets worse, I’m afraid.” And, seeing her expression: “For me, not the town. I’ve been promoted to Colonel. By Presidential order.”

She rolled her eyes. “How nice for you.”

“I’m supposed to declare martial law and basically take over Chester’s Mill. Won’t Jim Rennie enjoy hearing that?”

She surprised him by bursting into laughter. And Barbie surprised himself by joining her.

“You see my problem? The town doesn’t have to know about me borrowing an old Geiger counter, but they do need to know about the bunker-buster coming their way. Julia Shumway will spread the news if I don’t, but the town fathers ought to hear it from me. Because—”

“I know why.” Thanks to the reddening sun, Brenda’s face had lost its pallor. But she was rubbing her arms absently. “If you’re to establish any authority here … which is what your superior wants you to do …”

“I guess Cox is more like my colleague now,” Barbie said.

She sighed. “Andrea Grinnell. We’ll take this to her. Then we’ll talk to Rennie and Andy Sanders together. At least we’ll outnumber them, three to two.”

“Rose’s sister? Why?”

“You don’t know she’s the town’s Third Selectman?” And when he shook his head: “Don’t look so chagrined. Many don’t, although she’s held the job for several years. She’s usually little more than a rubber-stamp for the two men—which means for Rennie, since Andy Sanders is a rubber-stamp himself—and she has … problems … but there’s a core of toughness there. Or was.”

“What problems?”

He thought she might keep that to herself too, but she didn’t. “Drug dependency. Pain pills. I don’t know how bad it is.”

“And I suppose she gets her scrips filled at Sanders’s pharmacy.”

“Yes. I know it’s not a perfect solution, and you’ll have to be very careful, but … Jim Rennie may be forced by simple expediency to accept your input for a while. Your actual leadership?” She shook her head. “He’ll wipe his bottom with any declaration of martial law, whether it’s signed by the President or not. I—”

She ceased. Her eyes were looking past him, and widening.

“Mrs. Perkins? Brenda? What is it?”

“Oh,” she said. “Oh, my God. ”

Barbie turned to look, and was stunned to silence himself. The sun was going down red as it often did after warm, fair days unsullied by late showers. But never in his life had he seen a sunset like this one. He had an idea the only people who ever had were those in the vicinity of violent volcanic eruptions.

No, he thought. Not even them. This is brand new.

The declining sun wasn’t a ball. It was a huge red bowtie shape with a burning circular center. The western sky was smeared as if with a thin film of blood that shaded to orange as it climbed. The horizon was almost invisible through that blurry glare.

“Good Christ, it’s like trying to look through a dirty windshield when you’re driving into the sun,” she said.

And of course that was it, only the Dome was the windshield. It had begun to collect dust and pollen.

Pollutants as well. And it would get worse.

We’ll have to wash it, he thought, and visualized lines of volunteers with buckets and rags. Absurd. How were they going to wash it forty feet up? Or a hundred and forty? Or a thousand?

“This has to end,” she whispered. “Call them and tell them to shoot the biggest missile they can, and damn the consequences. Because this has to end.”

Barbie said nothing. Wasn’t sure he could have spoken even if he had something to say. That vast, dusty glare had stolen his words. It was like looking through a porthole into hell.

NYUCK-NYUCK-NYUCK

Jim Rennie and Andy Sanders watched the weird sunset from the steps of the Bowie Funeral Home. They were due at the Town Hall for another “Emergency Assessment Meeting” at seven o’clock, and Big Jim wanted to be there early to prepare, but for now they stood where they were, watching the day die its strange, smeary death.

“It’s like the end of the world.” Andy spoke in a low, awestruck voice.

“Bull-pucky!” Big Jim said, and if his voice was harsh—even for him—it was because a similar thought had been going through his own mind. For the first time since the Dome had come down, it had occurred to him that the situation might be beyond their ability to manage—his ability to manage—and he rejected the idea furiously. “Do you see Christ the Lord coming down from the sky?”

“No,” Andy admitted. What he saw were townspeople he’d known all his life standing in clumps along Main Street, not talking, only watching that strange sunset with their hands shading their eyes.

“Do you see me ?” Big Jim persisted.

Andy turned to him. “Sure I do,” he said. Sounding perplexed. “Sure I do, Big Jim.”

“Which means I haven’t been Raptured,” Big Jim said. “I gave my heart to Jesus years ago, and if it was End Times, I wouldn’t be here. Neither would you, right?”

“Guess not,” Andy said, but he felt doubtful. If they were Saved—washed in the Blood of the Lamb—why had they just been talking to Stewart Bowie about shutting down what Big Jim called “our little business”? And how had they gotten into such a business to start with? What did running a meth factory have to do with being Saved?

If he asked Big Jim, Andy knew what the answer would be: the ends sometimes justify the means. The ends in this case had seemed admirable, once upon a time: the new Holy Redeemer Church (the old one had been little more than a clapboard shack with a wooden cross on top); the radio station that had saved only God knew how many souls; the ten percent they tithed—prudently, the contribution checks issued from a bank in the Cayman Islands—to the Lord Jesus Missionary Society, to help what Pastor Coggins liked to call “the little brown brothers.”

But looking at that huge blurry sunset that seemed to suggest all human affairs were tiny and unimportant, Andy had to admit those things were no more than justifications. Without the cash income from the meth, his drugstore would have gone under six years ago. The same with the funeral home. The same—probably, although the man beside him would never admit it—with Jim Rennie’s Used Cars.

“I know what you’re thinking, pal,” Big Jim said.

Andy looked up at him timidly. Big Jim was smiling … but not the fierce one. This one was gentle, understanding. Andy smiled back, or tried to. He owed Big Jim a lot. Only now things like the drugstore and Claudie’s BMW seemed a lot less important. What good was a BMW, even one with self-parking and a voice-activated sound system, to a dead wife?

When this is over and Dodee comes back, I’ll give the Beemer to her, Andy decided. It’s what Claudie would have wanted.

Big Jim raised a blunt-fingered hand to the declining sun that seemed to be spreading across the western sky like a great poisoned egg. “You think all this is our fault, somehow. That God is punishing us for propping up the town when times were hard. That’s just not true, pal. This isn’t God’s work. If you wanted to say getting beat in Vietnam was God’s work—God’s warning that America was losing her spiritual way— I’d have to agree with you. If you were to say that nine-eleven was the Supreme Being’s response to our Supreme Court telling little children they could no longer start their day with a prayer to the God Who made them, I’d have to go along. But God punishing Chester’s Mill because we didn’t want to end up just another moribund wide spot in the road, like Jay or Millinocket?” He shook his head. “Nosir. No.”

“We also put some pretty good change in our own pockets,” Andy said timidly.

This was true. They had done more than prop up their own businesses and extend a helping hand to the little brown brothers; Andy had his own account in the Cayman Islands. And for every dollar Andy had—or the Bowies, for that matter—he was willing to bet that Big Jim had put away three. Maybe even four.

“‘The workman is worthy of his hire,’” Big Jim said in a pedantic but kindly tone. “Matthew ten-ten.” He neglected to cite the previous verse: Provide neither gold, nor silver, nor brass in your purses.

He looked at his watch. “Speaking of work, pal, we better get moving. Got a lot to decide.” He started walking. Andy followed, not taking his eyes off the sunset, which was still bright enough to make him think of infected flesh. Then Big Jim stopped again.

“Anyway, you heard Stewart—we’re shut down out there. ‘All done and buttoned up,’ as the little boy said after he made his first wee. He told the Chef himself.”

“That guy,” Andy said dourly.

Big Jim chuckled. “Don’t you worry about Phil. We’re shut down and we’re going to stay shut down until the crisis is over. In fact, this might be a sign that we’re supposed to close up shop forever. A sign from the Almighty.”

“That would be good,” Andy said. But he had a depressing insight: if the Dome disappeared, Big Jim would change his mind, and when he did, Andy would go along. Stewart Bowie and his brother Fernald would, too. Eagerly. Partly because the money was so unbelievable—not to mention tax-free—and partly because they were in too deep. He remembered something some long-ago movie star had said: “By the time I discovered I didn’t like acting, I was too rich to quit.”

“Don’t worry so much,” Big Jim said. “We’ll start moving the propane back into town in a couple of weeks, whether this Dome situation resolves itself or not. We’ll use the town sand-trucks. You can drive a standard shift, can’t you?”

“Yes,” Andy said glumly.

“And”—Big Jim brightened as an idea struck him—“we can use Stewie’s hearse! Then we can move some of the canisters even sooner!”

Andy said nothing. He hated the idea that they had appropriated (that was Big Jim’s word for it) so much propane from various town sources, but it had seemed the safest way. They were manufacturing on a large scale, and that meant a lot of cooking and a lot of venting the bad gasses. Big Jim had pointed out that buying propane in large amounts could raise questions. Just as buying large amounts of the various over­the-counter drugs that went into the crap might be noticed and cause trouble.

Owning a drugstore had helped with that, although the size of his orders for stuff like Robitussin and Sudafed had made Andy horribly nervous. He’d thought that would be their downfall, if their downfall came. He had never considered the huge cache of propane tanks behind the WCIK studio building until now.

“By the way, we’ll have plenty of electricity in the Town Hall tonight.” Big Jim spoke with the air of one springing a pleasant surprise. “I had Randolph send my boy and his friend Frankie over to the hospital to grab one of their tanks for our gennie.”

Andy looked alarmed. “But we already took—”

“I know,” Rennie said soothingly. “I know we did. Don’t you worry about Cathy Russell, they’ve got enough for the time being.”

“You could have gotten one from the radio station … there’s so much out there …”

“This was closer,” Big Jim said. “And safer. Pete Randolph’s our guy, but that doesn’t mean I want him to know about our little business. Now or ever.”

This made Andy even more certain that Big Jim didn’t really want to give up the factory.

“Jim, if we start sneaking LP back into town, where will we say it was? Are we going to tell folks the Gas Fairy took it, then changed his mind and gave it back?”

Rennie frowned. “Do you think this is funny, pal?”

“No! I think it’s scary !”

“I’ve got a plan. We’ll announce a town fuel supply depot, and ration propane from it as needed. Heating oil too, if we can figure out how to use it with the power out. I hate the idea of rationing—it’s un-American to the core—but this is like the story of the grasshopper and the ant, you know. There are cotton-pickers in town who’d use up everything in a month, then yell at us to take care of em at the first sign of a cold snap!”

“You don’t really think this will go on for a month, do you?”

“Of course not, but you know what the oldtimers say: hope for the best, prepare for the worst.”

Andy thought of pointing out that they’d already used a fair amount of the town’s supplies to make crystal meth, but he knew what Big Jim would say: How could we possibly have known?

They couldn’t have, of course. Who in their right mind would ever have expected this sudden contraction of all resources? You planned for more than enough. It was the American way. Not nearly enough was an insult to the mind and the spirit.

Andy said, “You’re not the only one who won’t like the idea of rationing.”

“That’s why we have a police force. I know we all mourn Howie Perkins’s passing, but he’s with Jesus now and we’ve got Pete Randolph. Who’s going to be better for the town in this situation. Because he listens. ” He pointed a finger at Andy. “The people in a town like this—people everywhere, really—aren’t much more than children when it comes to their own self-interest. How many times have I said that?”

“Lots,” Andy said, and sighed.

“And what do you have to make children do?”

“Eat their vegetables if they want their dessert.”

“Yes! And sometimes that means cracking the whip.”

“That reminds me of something else,” Andy said. “I was talking to Sammy Bushey out at Dinsmore’s field —one of Dodee’s friends? She said some of the cops were pretty rough out there. Darn rough. We might want to talk to Chief Randolph about that.”

Jim frowned at him. “What did you expect, pal? Kid gloves? There was darn near a riot out there. We almost had a cotton-picking riot right here in Chester’s Mill !”

“I know, you’re right, it’s just that—”

“I know the Bushey girl. Knew her whole family. Drug users, car thieves, scofflaws, loan-dodgers and tax-dodgers. What we used to call poor white trash, before it became politically incorrect. Those are the people we have to watch out for right now. The very people. They’re the ones who’ll tear this town apart, given half a chance. Is that what you want?”

“No, course not—”

But Big Jim was in full flight. “Every town has its ants—which is good—and its grasshoppers, which aren’t so good but we can live with them because we understand them and can make them do what’s in their own best interests, even if we have to squeeze em a little. But every town also has its locusts, just like in the Bible, and that’s what people like the Busheys are. On them we’ve got to bring the hammer down. You might not like it and I might not like it, but personal freedom’s going to have to take a hike until this is over. And we’ll sacrifice, too. Aren’t we going to shut down our little business?”

Andy didn’t want to point out that they really had no choice, since they had no way of shipping the stuff out of town anyway, but settled for a simple yes. He didn’t want to discuss things any further, and he dreaded the upcoming meeting, which might drag on until midnight. All he wanted was to go home to his empty house and have a stiff drink and then lie down and think about Claudie and cry himself to sleep.

“What matters right now, pal, is keeping things on an even keel. That means law and order and oversight. Our oversight, because we’re not grasshoppers. We’re ants. Soldier ants.”

Big Jim considered. When he spoke again, his tone was all business. “I’m rethinking our decision to let Food City continue on a business-as-usual basis. I’m not saying we’re going to shut it down—at least not yet—but we’ll have to watch it pretty closely over the next couple of days. Like a cotton-picking hawk. Same with the Gas and Grocery. And it might not be a bad idea if we were to appropriate some of the more perishable food for our own personal—”

He stopped, squinting at the Town Hall steps. He didn’t believe what he saw and raised a hand to block the sunset. It was still there: Brenda Perkins and that gosh-darned troublemaker Dale Barbara. Not side by side, either. Sitting between them, and talking animatedly to Chief Perkins’s widow, was Andrea Grinnell, the Third Selectman. They appeared to be passing sheets of paper from hand to hand.

Big Jim did not like this.

At all.

He started forward, meaning to put a stop to the conversation no matter the subject. Before he could get half a dozen steps, a kid ran up to him. It was one of the Killian boys. There were about a dozen Killians living on a ramshackle chicken farm out by the Tarker’s Mills town line. None of the kids was very bright— which they came by honestly, considering the parents from whose shabby loins they had sprung—but all were members in good standing at Holy Redeemer; all Saved, in other words. This one was Ronnie … at least Rennie thought so, but it was hard to be sure. They all had the same bullet heads, bulging brows, and beaky noses.

The boy was wearing a tattered WCIK tee-shirt and carrying a note. “Hey, Mr. Rennie!” he said. “Gorry, I been lookin all over town for you!”

“I’m afraid I don’t have time to talk right now, Ronnie,” Big Jim said. He was still looking at the trio sitting on the Town Hall steps. The Three Gosh-Darn Stooges. “Maybe tomor—”

“It’s Richie, Mr. Rennie. Ronnie’s my brother.”

“Richie. Of course. Now if you’ll excuse me.” Big Jim strode on.

Andy took the note from the boy and caught up to Rennie before he could get to the trio sitting on the steps. “You better look at this.”

What Big Jim looked at first was Andy’s face, more pinched and worried than ever. Then he took the note.

James—

I must see you tonight. God has spoken to me. Now I must speak to you before I speak to the town. Please reply. Richie Killian will carry your message to me.

Reverend Lester Coggins

Not Les; not even Lester. No. Reverend Lester Coggins. This was not good. Why oh why did everything have to happen at the same time?

The boy was standing in front of the bookstore, looking in his faded shirt and baggy, slipping-down jeans like a gosh-darn orphan. Big Jim beckoned to him. The kid raced forward eagerly. Big Jim took his pen from his pocket (written in gold down the barrel: YOU’LL LUV THE FEELIN’ WHEN BIG JIM’S DEALIN’) and scribbled a three-word reply: Midnight. My house. He folded it over and handed it to the boy.

“Take that back to him. And don’t read it.”

“I won’t! No way! God bless you, Mr. Rennie.”

“You too, son.” He watched the boy speed off.

“What’s that about?” Andy asked. And before Big Jim could answer: “The factory? Is it the meth—”

“Shut up.”

Andy fell back a step, shocked. Big Jim had never told him to shut up before. This could be bad.

“One thing at a time,” Big Jim said, and marched forward toward the next problem.

Watching Rennie come, Barbie’s first thought wasHe walks like a man who’s sick and doesn’t know it. He also walked like a man who has spent his life kicking ass. He was wearing his most carnivorously sociable smile as he took Brenda’s hands and gave them a squeeze. She allowed this with calm good grace.

“Brenda,” he said. “My deepest condolences. I would have been over to see you before now … and of course I’ll be at the funeral … but I’ve been a little busy. We all have.”

“I understand,” she said.

“We miss Duke so much,” Big Jim said.

“That’s right,” Andy put in, pulling up behind Big Jim: a tugboat in the wake of an ocean liner. “We sure do.”

“Thank you both so much.”

“And while I’d love to discuss your concerns … I can see that you have them….” Big Jim’s smile widened, although it did not come within hailing distance of his eyes. “We have a very important meeting. Andrea, I wonder if you’d like to run on ahead and set out those files.”

Although pushing fifty, Andrea at that moment looked like a child who has been caught sneaking hot tarts off a windowsill. She started to get up (wincing at the pain in her back as she did so), but Brenda took her arm, and firmly. Andrea sat back down.

Barbie realized that both Grinnell and Sanders looked frightened to death. It wasn’t the Dome, at least not at this moment; it was Rennie. Again he thought: This is not as bad as it gets.

“I think you’d better make time for us, James,” Brenda said pleasantly. “Surely you understand that if this wasn’t important—very—I’d be at home, mourning my husband.”

Big Jim was at a rare loss for words. The people on the street who’d been watching the sunset were now watching this impromptu meeting instead. Perhaps elevating Barbara to an importance he did not deserve simply because he was sitting in close proximity to the town’s Third Selectman and the late Police Chief’s widow. Passing some piece of paper among themselves as if it were a letter from the Grand High Pope of Rome. Whose idea had this public display been? The Perkins woman’s, of course. Andrea wasn’t smart enough. Nor brave enough to cross him in such a public way.

“Well, maybe we can spare you a few minutes. Eh, Andy?”

“Sure,” Andy said. “Always a few minutes for you, Mrs. Perkins. I’m really sorry about Duke.”

“And I’m sorry about your wife,” she said gravely.

Their eyes met. It was a genuine Tender Moment, and it made Big Jim feel like tearing his hair out. He knew he wasn’t supposed to let such feelings grip him—it was bad for his blood pressure, and what was bad for his blood pressure was bad for his heart—but it was hard, sometimes. Especially when you’d just been handed a note from a fellow who knew far too much and now believed God wanted him to speak to the town. If Big Jim was right about what had gotten into Coggins’s head, this current business was piddling by comparison.

Only it might not be piddling. Because Brenda Perkins had never liked him, and Brenda Perkins was the widow of a man who was now perceived in town—for absolutely no good reason—as a hero. The first thing he had to do—

“Come on inside,” he said. “We’ll talk in the conference room.” His eyes flicked to Barbie. “Are you a part of this, Mr. Barbara? Because I can’t for the life of me understand why.”

“This may help,” Barbie said, holding out the sheets of paper they’d been passing around. “I used to be in the Army. I was a lieutenant. It seems that I’ve had my term of service extended. I’ve also been given a promotion.”

Rennie took the sheets, holding them by the corner as if they might be hot. The letter was considerably more elegant than the grubby note Richie Killian had handed him, and from a rather more well-known correspondent. The heading read simply: FROM THE WHITE HOUSE. It bore today’s date.

Rennie felt the paper. A deep vertical crease had formed between his bushy eyebrows. “This isn’t White House stationery.”

Of course it is, you silly man, Barbie was tempted to say. It was delivered an hour ago by a member of the FedEx Elf Squad. Crazy little fucker just teleported through the Dome, no problem.

“No, it’s not.” Barbie tried to keep his voice pleasant. “It came by way of the Internet, as a PDF file. Ms. Shumway downloaded it and printed it out.”

Julia Shumway. Another troublemaker.

“Read it, James,” Brenda said quietly. “It’s important.”

Big Jim read it.

Benny Drake, Norrie Calvert, and Scarecrow Joe McClatchey stood outside the offices of the Chester’s Mill Democrat. Each had a flash-light. Benny and Joe held theirs in their hands; Norrie’s was tucked into the wide front pocket of her hoodie. They were looking up the street at the Town Hall, where several people— including all three selectmen and the cook from Sweetbriar Rose—appeared to be having a conference.

“I wonder what that’s about,” Norrie said.

“Grownup shit,” Benny said, with a supreme lack of interest, and knocked on the door of the newspaper office. When there was no response, Joe pushed past him and tried the knob. The door opened. He knew at once why Miz Shumway hadn’t heard them; her copier was going full blast while she talked with the paper’s sports reporter and the guy who had been taking pictures out at the field day.

She saw the kids and waved them in. Single sheets were shooting rapidly in the copier’s tray. Pete Freeman and Tony Guay were taking turns pulling them out and stacking them up.

“There you are,” Julia said. “I was afraid you kids weren’t coming. We’re almost ready. If the damn copier doesn’t shit the bed, that is.”

Joe, Benny, and Norrie received this enchanting bon mot with silent appreciation, each resolving to put it to use as soon as possible.

“Did you get permission from your folks?” Julia asked. “I don’t want a bunch of angry parents on my neck.”

“Yes, ma’am,” Norrie said. “All of us did.”

Freeman was tying up a bundle of sheets with twine. Doing a bad job of it, too, Norrie observed. She herself could tie five different knots. Also fishing flies. Her father had shown her. She in turn had shown him how to do nosies on her rail, and when he fell off the first time he’d laughed until tears rolled down his face. She thought she had the best dad in the universe.

“Want me to do that?” Norrie asked.

“If you can do a better job, sure.” Pete stood aside.

She started forward, Joe and Benny crowding close behind her. Then she saw the big black headline on the one-sheet extra, and stopped. “Holy shit!”

As soon as the words were out she clapped her hands to her mouth, but Julia only nodded. “It’s an authentic holy shit, all right. I hope you all brought bikes, and I hope they all have baskets. You can’t haul these around town on skateboards.”

“That’s what you said, that’s what we brought,” Joe replied. “Mine doesn’t have a basket, but it’s got a carrier.”

“And I’ll tie his load on for him,” Norrie said.

Pete Freeman, who was watching with admiration as the girl quickly tied up the bundles (with what looked like a sliding butter-fly), said, “I bet you will. Those are good.”

“Yeah, I rock,” Norrie said matter-of-factly.

“Got flashlights?” Julia asked.

“Yes,” they all said together.

“Good. The Democrat hasn’t used newsboys in thirty years, and I don’t want to celebrate the reintroduction of the practice with one of you getting hit on the corner of Main or Prestile.”

“That would be a bummer, all right,” Joe agreed.

“Every house and business on those two streets gets one, right? Plus Morin and St. Anne Avenue. After that, spread out. Do what you can, but when it gets to be nine o’clock, go on home. Drop any leftover papers on streetcorners. Put a rock on them to hold them down.”

Benny looked at the headline again:

Date: 2015-12-17; view: 684