Bentley Little - The Store

should any problems arise." One of the yes-men placed an _Employee's Bible_ and a _Manager's Concordance_ on the desk. "And here's your contract." The CEO

handed Bill a copy of one of the multipage documents he'd signed back in Dallas.

"Take care of my store," King said. "Don't fuck it up."

He strode out of the office, the other men following close behind, and Bill stood at the window and watched as they emerged from the door in the wall below and moved purposely down the main aisle of The Store toward the entrance.

He stayed by the window, staring, looking at all of the different people in all of the different departments of the store.

_His_ store.

A few minutes after King and his cronies had gone, Mr. Lamb emerged from his office behind the Customer Service counter. He stared up at the window, and though Bill knew the personnel manager could not see him, could see only mirrored glass, it felt as though Lamb was looking right at him, and he had to force himself not to move aside and hide.

Mr. Lamb disappeared back into his office, and a moment later the phone on Bill's desk rang.

He walked over, answered the phone. It was Mr. Lamb. In a voice so obsequious that it had to be sarcastic, the personnel manager told Bill how excited he was to be working with him and how honored he was to have him as his manager. "I've taken the liberty of asking all of The Store's employees to gather in the assembly corridor downstairs so that you can meet with them and lay out the groundwork for your regime."

"Not downstairs," Bill said. "Tell them to line up by the front entrance.

Next to the shopping carts."

"I think the assembly corridor is better --"

"Who's manager here, Mr. Lamb? You or me?" He was gratified to hear silence on the other end of the line. "I'll be down in five minutes."

A moment later, the personnel manager's voice echoed over the PA system:

"All employees will gather at the front entrance of The Store immediately. This is not a drill. Repeat. All employees will gather at the front entrance of The Store immediately. This is not a drill."

Bill looked around his office one more time, then walked downstairs. On the floor, employees were already scurrying toward the front of the store. He smiled to himself. He was the manager here; he was the boss. Everyone in this building worked for him.

He liked that.

He reached the front entrance, and everyone immediately snapped to attention. His troops were before him, clad all in black, and he felt an involuntary rush of power as he scanned their faces. They were his to command in any way that he saw fit, and he could use them to make his Store run perfectly, the way he wanted. The real world was messy, chaotic, but here, in the world of The Store, that didn't have to be the case. Here in _Juniper_, that didn't have to be the case. He could remake this town in his own image, he could He shook his head, closed his eyes.

What was he thinking? That wasn't why he had done this. That wasn't why he was here. He did not want to remake Jumper in his own image. He wanted to return it to the town it had been before The Store's arrival. He wanted to use his new power for good.

He opened his eyes, saw the employees all staring at him, some with fear, some with hope, some with a fanatic determination that made him extremely uncomfortable.

"Get back to work," he said quietly.

Mr. Lamb stepped forward. "Mr. Davis --" he began.

"Get back to work," he ordered. "Everybody."

Once again, there was scurrying as employees returned to their departments.

The personnel manager walked up to him. "I must say, Mr. Davis, that I do not approve of this sort of micromanagement. I have always been in charge of --"

"I don't want to talk to you, Mr. Lamb."

"Mr. King himself appointed me --"

"I don't want to talk to you, Mr. Lamb."

"If it's about your daughters --"

"Of course it's about my daughters!" Bill turned on him, enraged. "What the fuck do you think it's about, you little prick?"

"Hey! Language!"

He turned to see Holly, from the old cafй, standing next to the shopping carts, smiling at him. She was wearing a Store uniform, but she still looked like the same Holly, unchanged, untouched, and there was a mischievous gleam in her eye. He stared at her, and it was like unexpectedly coming across a friend in a foreign land. He found himself smiling back at her. "Holly," he said.

"How've you been?"

"As well as can be expected, I guess."

Customers had been let in by this time -- on whose orders he did not know -- and he glanced around at them. They seemed nervous, cowed, intimidated. None were walking alone; directors were leading them through The Store as though they were the docile residents of a nursing home.

I can change that, he thought. I'm the manager. I can change that policy.

He turned back toward the personnel manager. "Mr. Lamb?" he said.

"What?" the other man said belligerently.

"You're fired."

The change that came over him was immediate. A look of panic crossed his face. "Please!" he said beseechingly. "I'll do anything you say! I won't disagree with you! I won't try to tell you my opinions!"

"Mr. Walker!" Bill called out. "Mr. Keyes!"

The other two men had been standing nearby, trying to be unobtrusive, and they hurried over.

"You're fired. You're all fired."

The three stood trembling and terrified before him.

"No!" Mr. Lamb said. "Please!"

"You gentlemen no longer work for The Store."

Mr. Lamb fell first. His body stiffened and toppled forward. He made no effort to stop his fall, did not put his hands out in front of him, and his face hit the floor with a loud smack. Like dominoes, Walker and Keyes stiffened and fell as well, Walker forward, Keyes backward.

Bill didn't know what to do, didn't know how to react, didn't know what was going on. He dropped to his knees, tried to feel Lamb's wrist for a pulse, but there was none. He wanted to scream for help, wanted to order someone to call an ambulance, but he knew that all three men were dead, that nothing could save them or bring them back.

The Store had been their lives.

Bill stood, backed away. Several directors and their customers looked at the unmoving men as they passed by, but none of them stopped, and none exhibited more than a mild curiosity.

Bill turned toward Holly. She smiled at him. There was no fear on her face, no confusion, only a look of satisfaction. "Ding dong, the witch is dead."

He nodded. He wanted to feel bad, wanted to feel remorse, wanted to feel . . . something, but he shared Holly's satisfaction, and he thought: This is for Ben. An employee Bill didn't know came running up, looked at the men on the floor, then looked over at Bill. "I'll take care of this, sir. Don't worry about it." He ran off the way he'd come, and a moment later his voice sounded over the loudspeaker.

"Cleanup in aisle one!"

He went home after the bodies had been taken away.

He wanted to see Ginny and Shannon.

He'd called first, from The Store, unable to wait, needing to know if everything was all right, and he practically wept when he heard his wife's voice.

_How was he going to face her?_

He'd been supplied with a company car, a boxy black sedan, and he took it, speeding home as quickly as he could. Ginny was waiting for him in the drive, and he threw the car into park, jumped out of the vehicle, and ran into her arms. They were both crying, hugging each other crazily, kissing.

"Where's Shannon?" he asked.

"Over at Diane's." Ginny wiped the tears from her eyes, smiled. "Mr. Lamb fired her."

"I fired Mr. Lamb."

"You're really the manager now?"

"I really am."

"Where's Sam?"

He licked his lips. "She's been transferred to Dallas."