Under the Dome

child, no matter his size. The other could only be a Killian; that bullet head was as distinctive as a commemorative stamp. “Mickey. Richie. Get these two women off the scene.”

Horace was crouched at the end of his leash, growling at Big Jim. Big Jim gave the little dog a contemptuous look.

“And if they won’t go voluntarily, you have my permission to pick them up and throw them over the hood of the nearest police car.”

“This isn’t finished,” Julia said, pointing a finger at him. Now she was beginning to cry herself, but the tears were too hot and painful to be those of sorrow. “This isn’t done, you son of a bitch.”

Big Jim’s smile reappeared. It was as shiny as the finish on his Hummer. And as black. “Yes it is,” he said. “Done deal.”

6

Big Jim started back toward the fire—he wanted to watch it until there was nothing left of the noseyparker’s newspaper but a pile of ashes—and swallowed a mouthful of smoke. His heart suddenly stopped in his chest and the world seemed to go swimming past him like some kind of special effect. Then his ticker started again, but in a flurry of irregular beats that made him gasp. He slammed a fist against the left side of his chest and coughed hard, a quick-fix for arrhythmia that Dr. Haskell had taught him.

At first his heart continued its irregular galloping (beat… pause… beatbeatbeat… pause), but then it settled back to its normal rhythm. For just a moment he saw it encased in a dense globule of yellow fat, like a living thing that has been buried alive and struggles to get free before the air is all gone. Then he pushed the image away.

I’m all right. It’s just overwork. Nothing seven hours of sleep won’t cure.

Chief Randolph came over, an Indian pump strapped to his broad back. His face was running with sweat. “Jim? You all right?”

“Fine,” Big Jim said. And he was. He was. This was the high point of his life, his chance to achieve the greatness of which he knew he’d always been capable. No dickey ticker was going to take that away from him. “Just tired. I’ve been running pretty much nonstop.”

“Go home,” Randolph advised. “I never thought I’d say thank God for the Dome, and I’m not saying it now, but at least it works as a windbreak. We’re going to be all right. I’ve got men on the roofs of the drugstore and the bookstore in case any sparks jump, so go on and—”

“Which men?” His heartbeat smoothing out, smoothing out. Good.

“Henry Morrison and Toby Whelan on the bookstore. Georgie Frederick and one of those new kids on the drug. A Killian brat, I think. Rommie Burpee volunteered to go up with em.”

“Got your walkie?”

“Course I do.”

“And Frederick’s got his?”

“All the regulars do.”

“Tell Frederick to keep an eye on Burpee.”

“Rommie? Why, for Lord sake?”

“I don’t trust him. He could be a friend of Barbara’s.” Although it wasn’t Barbara Big Jim was worried about when it came to Burpee. The man had been a friend of Brenda’s. And the man was sharp.

Randolph’s sweaty face was creased. “How many do you think there are? How many on the sonofabitch’s side?”

Big Jim shook his head. “Hard to say, Pete, but this thing is big. Must’ve been in the planning stages for a long time. You can’t just look at the newbies in town and say it’s got to be them. Some of the people in on it could have been here for years. Decades, even. It’s what they call deep cover.”

“Christ. But why, Jim? Why, in God’s name?”

“I don’t know. Testing, maybe, with us for guinea pigs. Or maybe it’s a power grab. I wouldn’t put it past that thug in the White House. What matters is we’re going to have to beef up security and watch for the liars trying to undermine our efforts to keep order.”

“Do you think she—” He inclined his head toward Julia, who was watching her business go up in smoke with her dog sitting beside her, panting in the heat.

“I don’t know for sure, but the way she was this afternoon? Storming around the station, yelling to see him? What does that tell you?”

“Yeah,” Randolph said. He was looking at Julia Shumway with flat-eyed consideration. “And burning up your own place, what better cover than that?”

Big Jim pointed a finger at him as if to say You could have a bingo there. “I have to get off my feet. Get on the horn to George Frederick. Tell him to keep his good weather eye on that Lewiston Canuck.”

“All right.” Randolph unclipped his walkie-talkie.

Behind them, Fernald Bowie shouted: “Roof’s comin down! You on the street, stand back! You men on top of those other buildings at the ready, at the ready!”

Big Jim watched with one hand on the driver’s door of his Hummer as the roof of the Democrat caved in, sending a gusher of sparks straight up into the black sky. The men posted on the adjacent buildings checked that their partners’ Indian pumps were primed and then stood at parade rest, waiting for sparks with their nozzles in their hands.

The expression on Shumway’s face as the Democrat ’s roof let go did Big Jim’s heart more good than all the cotton-picking medicines and pacemakers in the world. For years he’d been forced to put up with her weekly tirades, and while he wouldn’t admit he had been afraid of her, he surely had been annoyed.

But look at her now, he thought. Looks like she came home and found her mother dead on the pot.

“You look better,” Randolph said. “Your color’s coming back.”

“I feel better,” Big Jim said. “But I’ll still go home. Grab some shuteye.”

“That’s a good idea,” Randolph said. “We need you, my friend. Now more than ever. And if this Dome thing doesn’t go away…” He shook his head, his basset-hound eyes never leaving Big Jim’s face. “I don’t know how we’d get along without you, put it that way. I love Andy Sanders like a brother but he doesn’t have much in the way of brains. And Andrea Grinnell hasn’t been worth a tin shit since she fell and hurt her back. You’re the glue that holds Chester’s Mill together.”

Big Jim was moved by this. He gripped Randolph’s arm and squeezed. “I’d give my life for this town. That’s how much I love it.”

“I know. Me too. And no one’s going to steal it out from under us.”

“Got that right,” Big Jim said.

He drove away, mounting the sidewalk to get past the roadblock that had been placed at the north end of the business district. His heart was steady in his chest again (well, almost), but he was troubled, nonetheless. He’d have to see Everett. He didn’t like the idea; Everett was another noseyparker bent on causing trouble at a time when the town had to pull together. Also, he was no doctor. Big Jim would almost have felt better about trusting a vet with his medical problems, except there was none in town. He’d have to hope that if he needed medicine, something to regularize his heartbeat, Everett would know the right kind.

Well, he thought, whatever he gives me, I can check it out with Andy.

Yes, but that wasn’t the biggest thing troubling him. It was something else Pete had said: If this Dome thing doesn’t go away…

Big Jim wasn’t worried about that. Quite the opposite. If the Dome did go away— too soon, that was—he could be in a fair spot of trouble even if the meth lab wasn’t discovered. Certainly there would be cotton-pickers who would second-guess his decisions. One of the rules of political life that he’d grasped