'Suicide. I'm on the cell phone, and I'm looking at them right now. You've got to come out here. You've gotta see this.'
'Where are you?' Bill asked, though he was afraid he knew the answer.
'The parking lot of The Store,' Ben said. 'Better hurry. The ambulance just arrived.'
He didn't want to go. Or part of him didn't. But another part of him had to see what had happened, and he grabbed his wallet and keys from the bedroom and told Ginny he was going out, he'd be back in a half hour or so.
'Where are you going?' she asked. 'It's almost time to eat.'
He didn't answer but dashed out the door, hopped in the Jeep, and took off. He was at The Store five minutes later, and he sped across the parking lot toward the flashing blue and red police lights until he was stopped by a cop putting up yellow crime scene ribbon to cordon off the area.
Bill parked the Jeep, jumped out, and was almost stopped again by the same policeman, but Ben came to his rescue. 'That's my reporter!' the editor yelled.
'He's with me!'
The cop nodded, waved him through, and Bill followed his friend across the asphalt, between the ambulance and police cars.
To where the council lay.
He was not sure what he'd expected, but it had not been this. There was no blood, no guns, no weapons of any kind, only the nude bodies of the mayor and the other council members, lying faceup in a circle, holding hands. Their eyes were all open, staring upward, reflecting the light of the parking lot streetlamps.
For the first time in a long while, he thought about the deer, the animals, the transient.
He looked toward Ben. 'Suicide?'
The editor shrugged. 'What else could it be? Pills, I figure. Poison. They won't know for sure until they do the autopsies, though.'
Bill shook his head. 'I don't think it was pills. I don't think it was poison.'
'Then what was it?'
He shivered. 'I don't know.'
Ben was silent for a moment. 'It was suicide, though. This had to be intentional. Right?'
Bill looked at him. 'I don't know.'
On _20/20_ that night, there was a report on Newman King and his growing Store empire. There were token references to the rash of shootings that had been plaguing The Store for the past year, but the report was basically a fluff piece and King was portrayed not as a whacked-out loon but as a down-to-earth self made millionaire.
Or billionaire.
The exact numbers could not be substantiated.
King had not agreed to a sit-down interview, but he did allow _20/20's_
cameras to follow him around on a 'typical workday,' and the reporter went with the CEO to a series of meetings in the black tower, a surprise inspection of a Store in Bottlebrush, Texas, a tour of a factory that was making generic Store products, and a negotiating session with a textile manufacturer.
Finally, at the end of the day, King went home, but the camera was not allowed to follow him to his house, and the last shot of the report was of King getting into a chauffeur-driven limousine in front of the black tower.
He waved good-bye as he smiled folksily at the camera. 'God bless America,' he said.
TWENTY-ONE
1
Doreen Hastings closed her eyes as she held Merilee to her breast. The baby suckled happily, and Doreen thought how different this felt than when Clete did it. Of course, that was a sex thing and this wasn't, but the physical act was basically the same. Now, however, there was milk flowing through her nipple, feeding her child, and somehow that bond made the entire act more intimate, more satisfying, more fulfilling. Sex seemed juvenile compared to this, like child's play, and she understood that her relationship with Clete, as great as it was, could never be as important to her or as emotionally gratifying as her relationship with this baby.
She would never be as close to Clete as she was to Merilee.
She opened her eyes. It was late, after midnight, and the hospital room was dark. Even the corridor outside was dark, the fluorescent lights dimmed so as not to disturb sleeping patients. She heard no sound, but neither was there silence. Instead, there was white noise, the hum of the hospital's twenty-four hour activity: machines, nurses, patients, doctors.
She closed her eyes again, smiling as Merilee's little fingers pressed instinctively against the fatty flesh of her breast.
'Mrs. Hastings,' a deep-voiced man said. 'Room 120.'
Doreen opened her eyes and looked toward the doorway.
Her heart lurched in her chest.
Outside, in the corridor, were five men dressed entirely in black, pale men who stared at her with blank, expressionless faces.
They were accompanied by Mr. Walker from The Store.
Mr. Walker smiled at her and strode into her room, flipping the light switch next to the door. The lights in the ceiling blinked on, but they did not appreciably illuminate the figures who followed the Customer Service manager toward her bed. Their garb was still blacker than black, their skin as pale as if they'd been dusted with flour. Mr. Walker himself continued to smile at her, but there was something in that smile that caused her to press the button on the side of her bed and call for the nurse.
She held Merilee tighter.
'Is that your new baby?' the Customer Service manager asked. He stopped next to her bed as the black-clad men kept circling around.
She continued to frantically press the call button with one hand while she clasped Merilee with the other.
Mr. Walker's fingers, strong and cold, pried hers away from the button.
'No one's coming,' he said. 'The hospital knows why we're here.'
'Why?' She looked around the ring of faces surrounding her bed, saw only blank expressions on snow-colored skin.
'Several months ago, you and your husband bought a microwave from The Store using our very generous layaway plan. You took possession of the microwave, but you did not make the last two monthly payments.'
Her voice was high, squeaky. 'Clete lost his job! We were having the baby --'
'We are taking the baby.'
Her heart was pounding as though it was about to burst. It suddenly seemed impossible to breathe.
'The baby is ours.'
She was finally able to suck in air. 'No,' she got out.
'Yes,' Mr. Walker said.
'No!' She screamed it, screamed again: 'No!'
'It was part of your agreement. You signed it.' He withdrew from behind his back a copy of the layaway plan and pointed to a paragraph of fine print buried in the middle of the page. ' 'In the event that payment is not made on time,'' he read, ' 'the signee's first-born child will be accepted by The Store as payment of the unpaid portion of -- ' '
'No!' She struggled, tried to sit up, but the men in black were suddenly holding her arms, pressing down on her legs, restraining her from their positions surrounding the bed.
Mr. Walker reached for Merilee, took her.
'Help!' Doreen screamed, struggling against the restraining hands.
'They're stealing my baby! They're kidnapping my baby! Nurse! Nurse!'
'It's a legally binding agreement,' Mr. Walker said. 'There's nothing any nurse can do about it.' He passed the baby to one of the pale men.
'Clete!' she cried. Tears of anger and frustration were pooling in her eyes, overflowing onto her face, blurring her vision. 'Don't let them take our baby!' She jerked her head toward the door as the men holding Merilee began walking away. Through her tears, she thought she saw white-robed doctors and nurses standing in the corridor,
