He ended the call and considered this new problem. He could take a bunch of cops out there tonight. In some ways it was an attractive idea: whip them up at Food City, then lead the raid himself. If Andy died, so much the better. That would make James Rennie, Senior, the entire town government.
On the other hand, the special town meeting was tomorrow night. Everyone would come, and there would be questions. He was sure he could lay the meth lab off on Barbara and the Friends of Barbara (in Big Jim’s mind, Andy Sanders had now become an official Friend of Barbara), but still… no.
No.
He wanted his flock scared, but not in an outright panic. Panic wouldn’t serve his purpose, which was to establish complete control of the town. And if he let Andy and Bushey stay where they were for a little while, what harm? It might even do some good. They’d grow complacent. They might fancy themselves forgotten, because drugs were full of Vitamin Stupid.
Friday, on the other hand—the day after tomorrow—was that cotton-picker Cox’s designated Visitors Day. Everybody would stream out to the Dinsmore farm again. Burpee would no doubt set up another hotdog stand. While that clustermug was going on, and while Cox was conducting his one-man press conference, Big Jim himself could lead a force of sixteen or eighteen police up to the radio station and wipe those two troublesome stoners out.
Yes. That was the answer.
He called Stewart back and told him to leave well enough alone.
“But I thought you wanted the propane,” Stewart said.
“We’ll get it,” Big Jim said. “And you can help us take care of those two, if you want to.”
“You’re damn right I want to. That sonofabitch—sorry, Big Jim—that sonofabuck Bushey needs a payback.”
“He’ll get it. Friday afternoon. Clear your schedule.”
Big Jim felt fine again, heart beating slowly and steadily in his chest, nary a stutter or flutter. And that was good, because there was so much to do, starting with tonight’s police pep talk at Food City: just the right environment in which to impress the importance of order on a bunch of new cops. Really, there was nothing like a scene of destruction to get people playing follow-the-leader.
He started out of the room, then went back and kissed his sleeping son’s cheek. Getting rid of Junior might become necessary, but for the time being, that too could wait.
16
Another night is falling on the little town of Chester’s Mill; another night under the Dome. But there is no rest for us; we have two meetings to attend, and we also ought to check up on Horace the Corgi before we sleep. Horace is keeping Andrea Grinnell company tonight, and although he is for the moment biding his time, he has not forgotten the popcorn between the couch and the wall.
So let us go then, you and I, while the evening spreads out against the sky like a patient etherized upon a table. Let us go while the first discolored stars begin to show overhead. This is the only town in a four-state area where they’re out tonight. Rain has overspread northern New England, and cable-news viewers will soon be treated to some remarkable satellite photographs showing a hole in the clouds that exactly mimics the sock-shape of Chester’s Mill. Here the stars shine down, but now they’re dirty stars because the Dome is dirty.
Heavy showers fall in Tarker’s Mills and the part of Castle Rock known as The View; CNN’s meteorologist, Reynolds Wolf (no relation to Rose Twitchell’s Wolfie), says that while no one can as yet be
Suzanne Malveaux, the anchor, asks him what the long-term weather under the Dome might be like, if the crisis continues.
“Suzanne,” Reynolds Wolf says, “that’s a great question. All we know for sure is that Chester’s Mill isn’t getting any rain tonight, although the surface of the Dome is permeable enough so that some moisture may be seeping through where the showers are heaviest. NOAA meteorologists tell me the long-term prospects of precip under the Dome aren’t good. And we know their principal waterway, Prestile Stream, has pretty much dried up.” He smiles, showing a great set of TV teeth. “Thank God for artesian wells!”
“You bet, Reynolds,” Suzanne says, and then the Geico gekko appears on the TV screens of America.
That’s enough cable news; let us float through certain half-deserted streets, past the Congo church and the parsonage (the meeting there hasn’t started yet, but Piper has loaded up the big coffee urn, and Julia is making sandwiches by the light of a hissing Coleman lamp), past the McCain house surrounded by its sad sag of yellow police tape, down Town Common Hill and past the Town Hall, where janitor Al Timmons and a couple of his friends are cleaning and sprucing up for the special town meeting tomorrow night, past War Memorial Plaza, where the statue of Lucien Calvert (Norrie’s great-grandfather; I probably don’t have to tell you that) keeps his long watch.
We’ll stop for a quick check on Barbie and Rusty, shall we? There’ll be no problem getting downstairs; there are only three cops in the ready room, and Stacey Moggin, who’s on the desk, is sleeping with her head pillowed on her forearm. The rest of the PD is at Food City, listening to Big Jim’s latest stemwinder, but it wouldn’t matter if they were all here, because we are invisible. They would feel no more than a faint draft as we glide past them.
There’s not much to see in the Coop, because hope is as invisible as we are. The two men have nothing to do but wait until tomorrow night, and hope that things break their way. Rusty’s hand hurts, but the pain isn’t as bad as he thought it might be, and the swelling isn’t as bad as he feared. Also, Stacey Moggin, God bless her heart, snuck him a couple of Excedrin around five PM.
For the time being, these two men—our heroes, I suppose—are sitting on their bunks and playing Twenty Questions. It’s Rusty’s turn to guess.
“Animal, vegetable, or mineral?” he asks.
“None of them,” Barbie replies.
“How can it be none of them? It
“It’s not,” Barbie says. He is thinking of Poppa Smurf.
“You’re jacking me up.”
“I’m not.”
“You
“Quit bitching and start asking.”
“Can I have a hint?”
“No. That’s your first no. Nineteen to go.”
“Wait a goddam minute. That’s not fair.”
We’ll leave them to shift the weight of the next twenty-four hours as best they can, shall we? Let us make our way past the still-simmering heap of ashes that used to be the
The supermarket’s big front windows have been covered with plywood requisitioned from Tabby Morrell’s lumberyard, and the worst of the gluck on the floor has been mopped up by Jack Cale and Ernie Calvert, but Food City is still a godawful mess, with boxes and dry goods strewn from hell to breakfast. The remaining merchandise (what hasn’t been carted away to various town pantries or stored in the motor pool behind the PD, in other words) is scattered helterskelter on the shelves. The soft-drink cooler, beer cooler, and ice cream freezer are busted in. There’s the high stink of spilled wine. This leftover chaos is exactly what Big Jim Rennie wants his new—and awfully young, for the most part—cadre of enforcement officers to see. He wants them to realize the whole town could look
