Davis. I really would. But both of your daughters are excellent employees and we have no cause to let them go. We are prohibited by company policy from terminating employees without justification.'
'I'm not _asking_ you to fire them. I'm _telling_ you that they will no longer be working here.'
'I'm afraid they will.'
'No. They won't.'
The personnel manager laughed. 'Mr. Davis, this isn't nursery school. You didn't enroll your daughters here, and you cannot withdraw them whenever the whim suits you. Both Samantha and Shannon have an employment contract with The Store, and they are legally bound by the strictures of that contract.'
'I'm their father. I know nothing about this so-called contract, and I did not give my consent.'
'I understand that, Mr. Davis. But Samantha is eighteen. She is legally an adult. Shannon is not yet a legal adult, but she is protected under the umbrella of The Store from any attempt to infringe on her rights or civil liberties, whether that be from customers, coworkers, or her family.'
Bill stood. 'This is bullshit.'
Mr. Lamb's eyes narrowed, grew hard. 'No, Mr. Davis. It is business.'
'I want to talk to the manager.'
'I'm afraid that authority for all personnel-related matters rests with me.'
'I still want to talk to someone above you.'
'That won't be possible.'
'And why not?'
'Our store manager has been transferred to another location and a replacement has not yet been assigned. Until we get a new manager, I am in charge of the day-to-day operation of this Store.'
'Then I want to talk to your district manager.'
'Very well.' Mr. Lamb opened the top right drawer of his desk and withdrew a card. 'This is Mr. Smith's business card. His telephone and fax numbers are listed on there.' He paused. 'But if you think that you can somehow bully or cajole Mr. Smith into releasing either Samantha or Shannon from their employment contracts, you are sadly mistaken. Like myself, Mr. Smith does not make the rules, he follows them. What I have stated to you is not my own personal decision. It is corporate policy.' He smiled disingenuously. 'If it was up to me, of course, I would not hesitate to release them from their obligations.'
'Bullshit,' Bill repeated. He started toward the door. 'You'll hear from my lawyers. My daughters are not working here and that is that.'
'That is _not_ that, Mr. Davis.' The personnel manager's voice was authoritative, edged with steel, and Bill stopped, turned around. 'The contract we have with your daughters is legally binding.'
'A court will determine that.'
'A court _has_ determined that. Ventura versus The Store, Inc. The case went all the way to the Supreme Court in 1994. We won in a five-two ruling.' Mr. Lamb fixed him with a cold stare. 'I can provide you with documentation if you wish.' 'Yes,' Bill said. 'I wish.' He believed Mr. Lamb, was sure the personnel manager was telling the truth, but he still wanted to cause that little prick as much inconvenience as possible, even if it only meant making him hunt up some Xeroxed copies of a legal brief.
Mr. Lamb opened another drawer, withdrew a sheaf of stapled pages, handed them across the desk.
Bill walked over, took them.
'Local law enforcement authorities have always been willing to uphold the law,' the personnel manager said. 'Simply stated, the police could make your daughters work. I don't think either of us want that, now, do we?'
Bill did not answer. If Juniper had had an autonomous police force, he would have told the man to fuck himself. But the fact was that with the police department privatized and The Store controlling the purse strings, the police probably would do whatever the hell The Store ordered them to do.
'I think our meeting is done,' Mr. Lamb said, smiling again. 'Thank you for taking the time to stop by. Have a nice day.'
Bill looked it up online when he got home: Ventura versus The Store, Inc.
It had gone down exactly the way Lamb said it had.
He performed an online search for all court cases in which The Store was either plaintiff or defendant and came up with a whopping six hundred and fifty four suits that had gone to trial.
No wonder the country's legal system was so backed up. The Store was hogging half of the available court time.
He did not have the time right now to read the details of each suit, so he simply called up a list of the cases that The Store had won.
The company had triumphed in all six hundred and fifty-four.
An asterisk next to the case numbers indicated that twelve others besides Ventura had gone all the way to the Supreme Court.
How could he hope to fight something like that? He exited Freelink, turned off his PC, and walked dejectedly out to the kitchen. Shannon was lying on the living room carpet, watching a talk show. She looked up. 'Do I still have a job?' she asked meekly.
Bill nodded silently, not trusting himself to answer without going on the attack.
'Told you so,' Sam said from the hallway entrance.
He looked over at her, wanting to hit her, wanting to slap her.
She smiled.
TWENTY
1
An hour before the council meeting, Bill and Ben stopped by Street's house.
They did not play chess this time, merely drank beer.
According to Street, Doane was MIA, hadn't been seen for nearly a week.
And Kirby Allen, over at the Paperback Trader, was going to close his doors at the end of the month. Apparently, no one was interested in buying or trading used books anymore when they could get new books so cheaply at The Store.
'Whole fucking downtown's disappearing,' he said.
'What about Doane?' Bill asked. 'What do you make of that? It's not like him to just . . . vanish.'
'Like Jed McGill?' Ben said softly.
All three of them were silent, the only sound the chirping of crickets somewhere outside.
Street started to say something, cleared his throat, then loudly slurped his beer, mumbling something incoherent.
'You think Doane's dead?' Bill asked.
Ben shrugged. 'You think Jed's dead?'
'I don't know.'
'What are we talking about here?' Street shook his head, slammed his beer can down on the coffee table. 'You honestly think that in the United States of America, in the 1990s, workers at a discount store killed a grocer and a record shop owner so they could make a few more bucks?'.
'That doesn't sound as implausible as you probably thought it would,' Ben said.
'No,' Street admitted. 'It doesn't.'
Bill turned toward him. 'Have you been approached at all? Has anyone from The Store pressured you to quit or tried to put you out of business?'
'No.'
'Not even any hints?'
'Maybe I'm just too dumb to get them.'
'Your place might burn down,' Ben said. 'Like Richardson's.'
'Thanks for the encouraging words.'
They were quiet again.
'You realize what's happening?' Ben said finally.
'What?'
'For all intents and purposes, there's only one place to shop anymore. And I don't know if you've noticed, but our choices in products have been considerably narrowed since The Store's early days.'
