Bentley Little - The Store

Ordinarily, construction projects dragged on for months around here -- the local contractors were notoriously slow -- but The Store must have offered some sort of early completion bonus, because it had been less than a month since he'd found the body and already the ground had been graded, the unusually deep foundation dug, the cement poured.

There was something creepy about that.

He turned onto Granite, jogged down the street a mile or so to where the houses ended, then took Wilbert back up to Main. His cheeks were burning with the cold, the brisk air harsh in his lungs. The sun was rising but was little more than a bright spot in the uniform gray cloud cover that filled the sky.

Turning left onto Main, his back to the highway, Bill jogged up onto the sidewalk that ran the length of downtown. Instantly, he slowed his pace. Across the street, there was a banner hung in the window of the empty storefront between Yummy Ice Cream and the Video Barn:

NOW ACCEPTING APPLICATIONS FOR THE STORE.

Even in this weather, at this hour of the morning, a line of people stood on the sidewalk. Not just teenagers but adults. Well-dressed women and able bodied men.

He stopped in front of the newspaper office, pretending to tie his shoe but glancing across the street instead. It looked like a recruiting office, he thought. There was something vaguely militaristic about the setup of the empty storefront, about the precise lineup of people and the stoic manner in which they were standing. He could see their breath in the cold air, but he could hear no voices, and he realized that no one was talking.

That was odd.

What made it even odder was that he recognized most of the people. Many of them were neighbors -- hell, many of them were friends -- but they were all grimly, uniformly silent, staring fixedly at the empty storefront, not even engaging in the polite, idle chitchat of strangers.

Paul Mitchell, the KFC manager, glanced across the street, caught his eye, and Bill straightened, smiled and waved, but the other man did not respond and refocused his attention on the banner.

Bill began jogging, heading quickly through downtown Juniper. The sweat was cold on his skin, and his heart was pounding. He was more unnerved by the waiting applicants than he wanted to admit, and he could not help noticing that there were large shadowed sections of the street, dark areas untouched by the dim, cloud-shrouded sunrise where night still held sway, and he did not relax until he had turned off Main and was heading past Godwin's meadow toward home.

2

Christmas was not the holiday it should have been.

Ginny surveyed the damage in the living room as Bill gathered up all the boxes and wrapping paper and carried them to the trash can outside. Christmas vacation had started late this year, and she hadn't had much time to go shopping for presents. They'd gotten up to Flagstaff but hadn't made it down to Phoenix, and they'd had to choose from what was available, making compromises on their gifts for just about everyone. Next year, she thought, it would be easier. She'd be able to shop in town, at The Store, and they wouldn't have to worry about traveling to a bigger city in order to buy presents.

Both Samantha and Shannon were in their rooms, listening to the new CDS they'd gotten, looking at or putting away their other presents. For the first time, none of their grandparents had been able to make it -- Bill's parents spending the holiday with his sister in San Francisco, her parents visiting her brother in Denver -- and both girls had obviously missed their presence. The mood this year had been subdued, and they'd all unwrapped their gifts rather perfunctorily, without the usual greedy gusto.

Bill hadn't been himself, either, but then he hadn't really been himself since he'd found the body of that transient. That was understandable, she supposed, although she didn't really understand this phobia he seemed to have in regard to The Store. Yes, the body had probably freaked him, and she understood his anger toward The Store for raping that beautiful piece of land, but she didn't understand this almost pathological grudge he seemed to have against the place. She'd been feeling out of sorts herself lately, and although she put that down to the usual holiday pressures and Bill's one-note Store complaints, there was another, missing element as well, and she couldn't quite figure out what it was.

Bill returned, picked up his presents from the living room floor, and put them on the kitchen counter. He took her in his arms, kissed her, smiled at her.

"Thanks for the presents," he said. "It was a wonderful Christmas."

It wasn't, and she knew it, but she smiled back, kissed him. "I love you,"

she told him.

"I love you, too."

Next year would be better, she thought. She'd make sure it was better.

SIX

1

There was something about The Store building that he didn't like.

Ted Malory stood up straight, wincing as his back unbent. He'd been up here for three days now, with his usual crew and a group of four pickup workers.

He'd never landed a job this big before, and he'd been pretty damn excited when he'd gotten the contract. Every roofing company in Gila, Coconino, and Yavapai counties had bid on this one, and when he'd learned that The Store had awarded it to him, he'd been ecstatic. Not only would this mean big bucks, but if they pulled off this baby, he'd be able to parlay it into other, bigger jobs. He saw them roofing NAU buildings and Little America in Flagstaff, the El Tovar at the Grand Canyon.

Who knew where this might lead?

But it hadn't worked out the way he'd planned.

For one thing, he discovered, there wasn't as much money to be made as he'd originally thought. Or as much as the size of the job warranted. The Store had a take-it-or-leave-it standard contract and did not negotiate. They set the terms, and if he didn't like it, there were plenty of others who would jump at the opportunity to do the work.

So he'd taken it. He didn't like it, but he'd agreed to it.

Part of the deal was that he was responsible for all costs. The Store was paying a flat fee, and out of that, he had to pay labor expenses and purchase all materials for the job. He had no problem with that. His price quotes usually included supplies, and he got a good deal from his buddy Rod Hawkins in Mesa.

But the terms of this agreement specified that he had to buy all material from The Store's wholesale supplier, and those prices were much higher than Rod's.

The Store's representative also seriously undercalculated the time it would take to roof the building, considering the time of year and the total square footage of the project. They'd already lost two days because of snow.

The way he figured it, after this was all over, he'd barely be breaking even. But that wasn't all.

That wasn't even half of it.

Ted looked over the raised edge of the roof toward the mountains. Snow still covered Hunter's Peak, and the other mountains closer in were also swathed in white. He took a deep breath, glancing over at the northwest corner of the roof and the black plastic garbage sack. He quickly looked away. Each morning when they'd arrived, there'd been dead birds on the roof. Crows. They hadn't been shot, they seemed to have no injuries, they'd just . . . died.

And fallen out of the sky onto the roof of The Store.

It was unsettling and a little creepy, but Joe Walking Horse thought it was more than that, and the second time it happened, he quit. On the spot. He'd simply turned and stepped back down the ladder the way he'd come up.

Joe was his best man, his most experienced worker and fastest shingler, but Ted had been so pissed off that he'd told the Indian that if he left now he'd never work for his company again. Joe had not even hesitated as he'd continued down the ladder. He'd simply called out to Ted that it had been a pleasure working with him and had walked across the open ground to his pickup, gotten in and driven off.