Bentley Little: The Store

But no more.

He saw The Store now for what it was, for what it always had been, and he hated himself for swerving from the path, for going against what he knew was right. He had betrayed not only Ginny, but Ben, Street, the town.

Himself.

He wasn't going to resign, though. He wasn't going to quit. He was going back to his original plan. King had given him complete autonomy over the Juniper Store and he was going to use it to return things to the way they were. He was going to strip The Store of its power and reverse the changes it had made to the town. He was going to downsize The Store until it was what it should have been in the first place -- a discount retail outlet. No more, no less.

It was Ben who had brought him to this point, who had made him realize what he was doing, and he stared at his friend, feeling again the emptiness, the sadness.

He moved forward, put a hand on Ben's shoulder, felt the cold even through the layers of black material.

"Thank you," he said softly.

The Night Manager did not respond.

He called a meeting that afternoon of every Store employee. Every department manager, director, stock boy, secretary, clerk, custodian, cook, waitress, security monitor. The first thing he told them was that there would be no more uniforms. Everyone was expected to wear nice clothes -- skirts for the females, shirt and tie for the males -- but uniforms were out. Instead, everyone would be issued a simple name tag.

There were murmurs and whispers, expressions of surprise and disbelief. He caught Holly's eye, saw her smile and give him a thumbs-up sign.

There would be no more directors, he told them. There were cries of protest against this, but he explained that there would be no layoffs, either.

Not for those employees who wanted to work for the new Store. The directors would be reassigned to other positions. Jobs would be found for them.

The meeting lasted most of the afternoon. It was not merely a speech to the troops, but a true dialogue, and though there was some reluctance at first, he got almost all of them involved in the discussion, making them believe that he really was going to change the way The Store operated and letting them know that their input was valuable, necessary, that he did not know the details of how everything worked and would appreciate their comments, suggestions, and help in modifying the workplace.

That night, tired but happy, he returned home and told Ginny what had happened. She was horrified by the story of Ben but was thrilled that he was finally going to start loosening The Store's grip on the town and dismantling its fiefdom.

"Do you think you can do it?" she asked.

"Watch me."

It would take some time to sort through all of the tangled webs woven by The Store, discover all of the city services that it had taken over, all of the work that had been contracted out to it, all of the other businesses that were being bankrolled and overseen by the corporation, but Bill vowed to track everything down and put it right.

He closed The Store for a week while they took inventory. The employees, in teams of two, cataloged every item on every shelf, entering the data into hand-held computers, and he himself sorted the information on his own PC. He wiped whole sections off The Store map, returning items to The Store's corporate warehouse, replaced them with more appropriate stock from traditional distributors until The Store's inventory more closely approximated that of ordinary discount retailers.

"You don't think King's going to put a stop to this?" Ginny asked him one night. "You don't think he's going to find out and come after you?"

"He'll try."

She hugged him close. "You can't hope to fight someone like that.

_Something_ like that. He's way out of your league."

"Don't worry," he told her.

"I just don't want anything to happen to you." She paused. "Or to Sam."

He looked at her.

"She's working at his corporate offices. God knows what he'll do to her when he finds out."

"He told me I could do this," Bill said. "It's how he suckered me into working for him. He said the store was mine to do anything I want with."

"What if he changes his mind?"

"I'll deal with that when I come to it."

He fired twenty-six people over the next three days, fully a third of lite Store's workforce. He did not trust them, did not feel they could adapt, was sure they preferred King's ways, and he did not want them working for him. That was one advantage of having absolute power over his Store. He did not have to give legitimate reasons for firing someone, did not have to have valid cause. He could simply kick someone out and banish them from the premises. He felt a small thrill of satisfaction, a return of the old sense of power, as he told some of the more belligerent employees to get out, they were through, but he refused to allow himself to enjoy it, forced himself to remain impartial and above it all, to think only about the good of the town and not his own petty emotional gratification.

Some things remained unresolved. The transients, for example. No one would tell him where the homeless people who had been rounded up by the sweeps had been taken or what had happened to them. He questioned everyone, but they all claimed ignorance.

Perhaps it was just as well.

He was not sure he wanted to know.

Then there were the Night Managers.

They were one of the big problems. He had not gone down to their lunchroom since finding Ben, had purposely stayed away, but he knew he could not avoid them forever. They continued to roam The Store at night, to audit and report on what was happening, and their reports were becoming increasingly less objective.

There were no conclusions drawn, no adjectives used, only facts and figures, but the way those facts and figures were presented bespoke criticism, and he knew that he was going to have to confront the Night Managers sometime.

On Friday, he went down there again, this time with Ginny, and though she wanted to see Ben, he made her stay by the elevator door and did not tell the Night Managers to move from their stationary positions at the tables. He had read and reread _The Manager's Concordance_, but there was nothing in it about firing or getting rid of the Night Managers, and he knew that if he was going to get rid of them, he'd have to figure something out on his own.

The two of them stood next to the wall, staring across the long, dimly lit room.

Ginny shivered. "They're spookier than I thought they'd be."

He nodded.

"Are they . . . dead?"

"I don't know," he admitted. "I don't think so, but . . . I don't know what they are."

"Maybe we should try to talk to Ben, try to jog his memory or something."

"No," Bill said.

"Have you looked at all of them? Maybe some of the others are people we know . . . knew."

Now it was Bill's turn to shiver. "Let's just do this and get out of here." He cleared his throat, took a deep breath. "You're fired," he announced loudly. "All of you."

The Night Managers remained unmoving.

"You no longer work for The Store!"

No response.

"I relieve you of your duties!"

Nothing.

"Get out of here! Hit the road! Get off The Store's property! Fuck off!"

"It's not working," Ginny said.

"I know that!" he snapped at her.

She pulled away from him, and he apologized immediately. "I'm sorry. I

just . . . I'm sorry."

She nodded, obviously understanding.

"You have any ideas?" he asked.

" 'Leave?' " she said.

"Leave!" he repeated loudly.

Nothing.

He continued shouting orders, screaming at them, but only succeeded in making a contingent of Night Managers in the middle of the group walk over to the steel counter next to the kitchen.

"Let's go," Ginny said. "I don't like it down here."