Under the Dome

Big Jim's eyes gleamed with amusement or paranoia or both. 'I have my little ways, pal. So what's the price? What would you like me to trade you for the drug that will keep me from having a heart attack?' And before Rusty could respond: 'Let me guess. You want Barbara's freedom, don't you?'

'No. This town would lynch him the minute he stepped outside.'

Big Jim laughed. 'Every now and then you show a lick of sense.'

'I want you to step down. Sanders, too. Let Andrea Grinnell take over,—with Julia Shumway to help her out until Andi kicks her drug habit.'

Big Jim laughed louder this time, and slapped his thigh for good measure. T thought Cox was bad—he wanted the one with the big tiddies to help Andrea—but you're ever so much worse. Shumway! That rhymes-with-witch couldn't: administrate herself out of a paper bagF

'I know you killed Coggins.'

He hadn't meant to say that, but it was out before he could pull it back. And what harm? It was just the two of them, unless you counted CNN's John Roberts, looking down from the TV on the wall. And besides, the results were worth it. For the first time since he had accepted the reality of the Dome, Big Jim was rocked. He tried to keep his face neutral and failed.

'You're crazy'

'You know I'm not. Last night I went to the Bowie Funeral Home and examined the bodies of the four murder victims.'

'You had no right to do that! You're no pathologist! You're not even a cotton-picking doctor!'

'Relax, Rennie. Count to ten. Remember your heart.' Rusty paused. 'On second thought, I were your heart. After the mess you left behind, and the one you're making now, fuck your heart. There were marks all over Coggins's face and head. Very atypical marks, but easily identifiable. Stitch marks. I have no doubt they'll match the souvenir baseball I saw on your desk.'

'That doesn't mean anything.' But Rennie glanced toward the open bathroom door.

'It means plenty. Especially when you consider the other bodies were dumped in the same place. To me that suggests the killer of Coggins was the killer of the others. I think it was you. Or maybe you and Junior. Were you a father-and-son tag-team? Was that it?'

T refuse to listen to this!' He started to get up. Rusty pushed him back down. It was surprisingly easy.

'Stay where you are!' Rennie shouted. 'Gosh-dammit, just stay where you are!'

Rusty said, 'Why did you kill him? Did he threaten to blow the whistle on your drug operation? Was he part of it?'

'Stay where you are!' Rennie repeated, although Rusty had already sat back down. It did not occur to him—then—that Rennie might not have been speaking to him.

'I can keep this quiet,' Rusty said. 'And I can give you something that will take care of your PAT better than Valium. The quid pro quo is that you step down. Announce your resignation—for medical reasons—in favor of Andrea tomorrow night at the big meeting. You'll go out a hero.'

There was no way he could refuse, Rusty thought; the man was backed into a corner.

Rennie turned to the open bathroom door again and said,'Now you can come out.'

Carter Thibodeau and Freddy Denton emerged from the bathroom where they had been hiding—and listening.

8

'Goddam,' Stewart Bowie said.

He and his brother were in the basement workroom of the funeral parlor. Stewart had been doing a makeup job on Arietta Coombs, The Mill's latest suicide and the Bowie Funeral Home's latest customer. 'Goddam sonofabitch fucking shitmonkey!

He dropped his cell phone onto the counter, and from the—wide front pocket of his rubberized green apron removed a package of peanut butter-flavored Ritz Bits. Stewart always ate when he was upset, he had always been messy with food ('The pigs ate here,' their dad was wont to say when young Stewie left the table), and now Ritz crumbs showered down on Arietta's upturned face, which was far from peaceful; if she'd thought quaffing Liquid-Plumr would be a quick and painless way to escape the Dome, she had been badly deceived. Darn stuff had eaten all the way through her stomach and out through her back.

'What's wrong?' Fern asked.

'Why did I ever get involved with fucking Rennie?'

'For money?'

'What good's money now?' Stewart raved. 'What'm I gonna do, go on a fuckin shopping spree at Burpee^s Department Store? That'd give me a fuckin hardon for sure!'

He yanked open the elderly widows mouth and slammed the remaining Ritz Bits inside. 'There you go, bitch, it's fucking snack-time.'

Stewart snatched up his cell, hit the CONTACTS button, and selected a number. 'If he isn't there,' he said—perhaps to Fern, more likely to himself—'I'm going to go out there, find him, and stick one of his own chickens right up his fucking a—'

But Roger Killian was there. And in his goddam chickenhouse. Stewart could hear them clucking. He could also hear the swooping violins of Mantovani coming through the chickenhouse sound system. When the kids were out there, it was Metallica or Pantera.

'Lo?'

'Roger. It's Stewie. Are you straight, brother?'