Stephen King - Under the Dome

“What matters right now, pal, is keeping things on an even keel. That means law and order and oversight. Our oversight, because we’re not grasshoppers. We’re ants. Soldier ants.”

Big Jim considered. When he spoke again, his tone was all business. “I’m rethinking our decision to let Food City continue on a business-as-usual basis. I’m not saying we’re going to shut it down—at least not yet—but we’ll have to watch it pretty closely over the next couple of days. Like a cotton-picking hawk. Same with the Gas and Grocery. And it might not be a bad idea if we were to appropriate some of the more perishable food for our own personal—”

He stopped, squinting at the Town Hall steps. He didn’t believe what he saw and raised a hand to block the sunset. It was still there: Brenda Perkins and that gosh-darned troublemaker Dale Barbara. Not side by side, either. Sitting between them, and talking animatedly to Chief Perkins’s widow, was Andrea Grinnell, the Third Selectman. They appeared to be passing sheets of paper from hand to hand.

Big Jim did not like this.

At all.

He started forward, meaning to put a stop to the conversation no matter the subject. Before he could get half a dozen steps, a kid ran up to him. It was one of the Killian boys. There were about a dozen Killians living on a ramshackle chicken farm out by the Tarker’s Mills town line. None of the kids was very bright—which they came by honestly, considering the parents from whose shabby loins they had sprung—but all were members in good standing at Holy Redeemer; all Saved, in other words. This one was Ronnie… at least Rennie thought so, but it was hard to be sure. They all had the same bullet heads, bulging brows, and beaky noses.

The boy was wearing a tattered WCIK tee-shirt and carrying a note. “Hey, Mr. Rennie!” he said. “Gorry, I been lookin all over town for you!”

“I’m afraid I don’t have time to talk right now, Ronnie,” Big Jim said. He was still looking at the trio sitting on the Town Hall steps. The Three Gosh-Darn Stooges. “Maybe tomor—”

“It’s Richie, Mr. Rennie. Ronnie’s my brother.”

“Richie. Of course. Now if you’ll excuse me.” Big Jim strode on.

Andy took the note from the boy and caught up to Rennie before he could get to the trio sitting on the steps. “You better look at this.”

What Big Jim looked at first was Andy’s face, more pinched and worried than ever. Then he took the note.

James —

I must see you tonight. God has spoken to me. Now I must speak to you before I speak to the town. Please reply. Richie Killian will carry your message to me.

Reverend Lester Coggins

Not Les; not even Lester. No. Reverend Lester Coggins. This was not good. Why oh why did everything have to happen at the same time?

The boy was standing in front of the bookstore, looking in his faded shirt and baggy, slipping-down jeans like a gosh-darn orphan. Big Jim beckoned to him. The kid raced forward eagerly. Big Jim took his pen from his pocket (written in gold down the barrel: YOU’LL LUV THE FEELIN’ WHEN BIG JIM’S DEALIN’) and scribbled a three-word reply: Midnight. My house. He folded it over and handed it to the boy.

“Take that back to him. And don’t read it.”

“I won’t! No way! God bless you, Mr. Rennie.”

“You too, son.” He watched the boy speed off.

“What’s that about?” Andy asked. And before Big Jim could answer: “The factory? Is it the meth—”

“Shut up.”

Andy fell back a step, shocked. Big Jim had never told him to shut up before. This could be bad.

“One thing at a time,” Big Jim said, and marched forward toward the next problem.

Watching Rennie come, Barbie’s first thought was He walks like a man who’s sick and doesn’t know it. He also walked like a man who has spent his life kicking ass. He was wearing his most carnivorously sociable smile as he took Brenda’s hands and gave them a squeeze. She allowed this with calm good grace.

“Brenda,” he said. “My deepest condolences. I would have been over to see you before now… and of course I’ll be at the funeral… but I’ve been a little busy. We all have.”

“I understand,” she said.

“We miss Duke so much,” Big Jim said.

“That’s right,” Andy put in, pulling up behind Big Jim: a tugboat in the wake of an ocean liner. “We sure do.”

“Thank you both so much.”

“And while I’d love to discuss your concerns… I can see that you have them….” Big Jim’s smile widened, although it did not come within hailing distance of his eyes. “We have a very important meeting. Andrea, I wonder if you’d like to run on ahead and set out those files.”

Although pushing fifty, Andrea at that moment looked like a child who has been caught sneaking hot tarts off a windowsill. She started to get up (wincing at the pain in her back as she did so), but Brenda took her arm, and firmly. Andrea sat back down.

Barbie realized that both Grinnell and Sanders looked frightened to death. It wasn’t the Dome, at least not at this moment; it was Rennie. Again he thought: This is not as bad as it gets.

“I think you’d better make time for us, James,” Brenda said pleasantly. “Surely you understand that if this wasn’t important— very —I’d be at home, mourning my husband.”

Big Jim was at a rare loss for words. The people on the street who’d been watching the sunset were now watching this impromptu meeting instead. Perhaps elevating Barbara to an importance he did not deserve simply because he was sitting in close proximity to the town’s Third Selectman and the late Police Chief’s widow. Passing some piece of paper among themselves as if it were a letter from the Grand High Pope of Rome. Whose idea had this public display been? The Perkins woman’s, of course. Andrea wasn’t smart enough. Nor brave enough to cross him in such a public way.

“Well, maybe we can spare you a few minutes. Eh, Andy?”

“Sure,” Andy said. “Always a few minutes for you, Mrs. Perkins. I’m really sorry about Duke.”

“And I’m sorry about your wife,” she said gravely.

Their eyes met. It was a genuine Tender Moment, and it made Big Jim feel like tearing his hair out. He knew he wasn’t supposed to let such feelings grip him—it was bad for his blood pressure, and what was bad for his blood pressure was bad for his heart—but it was hard, sometimes. Especially when you’d just been handed a note from a fellow who knew far too much and now believed God wanted him to speak to the town. If Big Jim was right about what had gotten into Coggins’s head, this current business was piddling by comparison.

Only it might not be piddling. Because Brenda Perkins had never liked him, and Brenda Perkins was the widow of a man who was now perceived in town—for absolutely no good reason—as a hero. The first thing he had to do—

“Come on inside,” he said. “We’ll talk in the conference room.” His eyes flicked to Barbie. “Are you a part of this, Mr. Barbara? Because I can’t for the life of me understand why.”

“This may help,” Barbie said, holding out the sheets of paper they’d been passing around. “I used to be in the Army. I was a lieutenant. It seems that I’ve had my term of service extended. I’ve also been given a promotion.”

Rennie took the sheets, holding them by the corner as if they might be hot. The letter was considerably more elegant than the grubby note Richie Killian had handed him, and from a rather more well-known correspondent. The heading read simply: FROM THE WHITE HOUSE.It bore today’s date.