Skeleton Crew

'Hey, you want to watch who you're calling a hick,' Myron said.

'I'm glad that tree fell on your boathouse, if you want to know the truth. Glad.' Norton was grinning savagely at me. 'Stove it in pretty well, didn't it? Fantastic. Now get out of my way.' He tried to push past me. I grabbed him by the arm and threw him against the beer cooler. A woman cawed in surprise. Two six-packs of Bud fell over.

'You dig out your ears and listen, Brent. There are lives at stake here. My kid's is not the least of them. So you listen, or I'll swear I'll knock the shit out of you.'

'Go ahead,' Norton said, still grinning with a kind of insane palsied bravado. His eyes, bloodshot and wide, bulged from their sockets. 'Show everyone how big and brave you are, beating up a man with a heart condition who is old enough to be your father.'

'Sock him anyway!' Jim exclaimed. 'Fuck his heart condition. I don't even think a cheap New York shyster like him has got a heart.'

'You keep out of it,' I said to Jim, and then put my face down to Norton's. I was kissing distance, if that had been what I had in mind. The cooler was off, but it was still radiating a chill. 'Stop throwing up sand. You know damn well I'm telling the truth.'

'I know... no... such thing,' he panted.

'If it was another time and place, I'd let you get away with it. I don't care how scared you are, and I'm not keeping score. I'm scared, too. But I need you, goddammit!

Does that get through? I need you!'

'Let me go! ' I grabbed him by the shirt and shook him. 'Don't you understand anything?

People are going to start leaving and walk right into that thing out there! For Christ's sake, don't you understand ?'

'Let me go!'

'Not until you come back there with me and see for yourself.'

'I told you, no! It's all a trick, a joke, I'm not as stupid as you take me for—”

'Then I'll haul you back there myself.' I grabbed him by the shoulder and the scruff of his neck. The scam of his shirt under one arm tore with a soft purring sound. I dragged him toward the double doors.

Norton let out a wretched scream. A knot of people, fifteen or eighteen, had gathered, but they kept their distance. None showed any signs of wanting to interfere.

'Help me!' Norton cried. His eyes bulged behind his glasses. His styled hair had gone awry again, sticking up in the same two little tufts behind his ears. People shuffled their feet and watched.

'What are you screaming for?' I said in his ear. 'It's just a joke, right? That's why I took you to town when you asked to come and why I trusted you to cross Billy in the parking lot-because I had this handy fog all manufactured, I rented a fog machine from Hollywood, it cost me fifteen thousand dollars and another eight thousand dollars to ship it, all so I could play a joke on you. Stop bullshitting yourself and open your eyes!'

'Let... me... go!' Norton bawled. We were almost at the doors.

'Here, here! What is this? What are you doing?' It was Brown. He bustled and elbowed his way through the crowd of watchers.

'Make him let me go,' Norton said hoarsely. 'He's crazy.

'No. He's not crazy. I wish he were, but he isn't.' That was Ollie, and I could have blessed him. He came around the aisle behind us and stood there facing Brown.

Brown's eyes dropped to the beer Ollie was holding. 'You're drinking!' he said, and his voice was surprised but not totally devoid of pleasure. 'You'll lose your job for this.'

'Come on, Bud,' I said, letting Norton go. 'This is no ordinary situation.'

'Regulations don't change,' Brown said smugly. 'I'll see that the company hears of it. That's my responsibility.' Norton, meanwhile, had skittered away and stood at some distance, trying to straighten his shirt and smooth back his hair. His eyes darted between Brown and me nervously.

'Hey!' Ollie cried suddenly, raising his voice and producing a bass thunder I never would have suspected from this large but soft and unassuming man. 'Hey!

Everybody in the store! You want to come up back and hear this! It concerns all of you!' He looked at me levelly, ignoring Brown altogether. 'Am I doing all right?'

'Fine.' People began to gather. The original knot of spectators to my argument with Norton doubled, and then trebled.

'There's something you all had better know—” Ollie began.

'You put that beer down right now,' Brown said.

'You shut up right now,' I said, and took a step toward him.

Brown took a compensatory step back. 'I don't know what some of you think you are doing,' he said, 'but I can tell you it's going to be reported to the Federal Foods Company! All of it! And I want you to understand-there may be charges!' His lips drew nervously back from his yellowed teeth, and I could feel sympathy for him. Just trying to cope; that was all he was doing. As Norton was by imposing a mental gag order on himself. Myron and Jim had tried by turning the whole thing into a macho charade-if the generator could be fixed, the mist would blow over. This was Brown's way. He was...

Protecting the Store.

'Then you go ahead and take down the names,' I said. 'But please don't talk.'