Under the Dome

'Pretty,' Roger agreed, which probably meant he'd been smoking glass, but what the fuck.

'Get down here to town. Meet me n Fern at the motor pool. We're gonna take two of the big trucks—the ones with the hoists—out there to WCIK. All the propane's got to be moved back to town. We can't do it in one day, but Jim says we gotta make a start. Tomorrow I'll recruit six or seven more guys we can trust—some of Jim's goddam private army, if he'll spare em—and we'll finish up.'

'Aw, Stewart, no—I got to feed these chickens! The boys I got left has all gone to be cops!'

Which means, Stewart thought, you want to sit in that little office of yours, smoking glass and listening to shit music and looking at lesbian makeout videos on your computer. He didn't know how you could get horny with the aroma of chickenshit so thick you could cut it with a knife, but Roger Killian managed.

'This is not a volunteer mission, my brother. I got ordered, and I'm ordering you. Half an hour. And if you do happen to see any of your kids hanging around, you shanghai em along.'

He hung up before Roger could recommence his whiny shit and for a moment just stood there, fuming. The last thing on earth he wanted to do with what remained of this Wednesday afternoon was muscle propane tanks into trucks… but that was what he was going to be doing, all right. Yes he was.

He snatched the spray hose from the sink, stuck it between Arietta Coombs's dentures, and triggered it. It was a high-pressure hose, and the corpse jumped on the table.'Wash them crackers down, gramma,' he snarled. 'Wouldn't want you to choke.'

'Stop!' Fern cried. 'It'll squirt out the hole in her—'

Too late.

9

Big Jim looked at Rusty with a see what it gets you smile. Then he turned to Carter and Freddy Denton. 'Did you fellows hear Mr Everett try to coerce me?'

'We sure did,' Freddy said.

'Did you hear him threaten to withhold certain lifesaving medication if I refused to step down?'

'Yeah,' Carter said, and favored Rusty with a black look. Rusty wondered how he ever could have been so stupid.

It's been a long day—chalk it up to that.

'The medication in question might have been a drug called verapamil, which that fellow with the long hair administered by IV.' Big Jim exposed his small teeth in another unpleasant smile.

Verapamil. For the first time, Rusty cursed himself for not taking Big Jim's chart from its slot on the door and examining it. It would not be the last.

'What kind of crimes have we got here, do you suppose?' Big Jim asked. 'Criminal threatening?'

'Sure, and extortion,' Freddy said.

'Hell with that, it was attempted murder,' Carter said.

'And who do you suppose put him up to it?'

'Barbie,' Carter said, and slugged Rusty in the mouth. Rusty had no sense of it coming, and didn't even begin to get his guard up. He staggered backward, hit one of the chairs, and fell into it sideways with his mouth bleeding.

'You got that resisting arrest,' Big Jim remarked. 'But it's not enough. Put him on the floor, fellows. 1 want him on the floor.'

Rusty tried to run but barely got out of the chair before Carter grabbed one of his arms and spun him around. Freddy put a foot behind his legs. Carter pushed. Like kids in the schoolyard, Rusty thought as he toppled over.

Carter dropped down beside him. Rusty got in one blow. It landed on Carter's left cheek. Carter shook it off impatiently, like a man ridding himself of a troublesome fly. A moment later he was sitting on Rusty s chest, grinning down at him. Yes, just like in the schoolyard, only with no playground monitor to break things up.

He turned his head to Rennie, who was now on his feet. 'You don't want to do this,' he panted. His heart was thudding hard. He could barely get enough breath to feed it. Thibodeau was very heavy. Freddy Denton was on his knees beside the two of them. To Rusty he looked like the ref in one of those put-up-job—wrestling matches.

'But I do, Everett,' Big Jim said. 'In fact, God bless you, I have to. Freddy, snag my cell phone. It's in his breast pocket, and I don't want it getting broken. The cotton-picker stole it. You can add that to his bill when you get him to the station.'

'Other people know,' Rusty said. He had never felt so helpless. And so stupid. Telling himself that he wasn't the first to underestimate James Rennie Senior did not help. 'Other people know what you did.'

'Perhaps,' Big Jim said.'But who are they? Other friends of Dale Barbara, that's who. The ones who started the food riot, the ones who burned down the newspaper office.The ones who set the Dome going! in the first place, I have no doubt Some sort of government experiment, that's what I think. But we're not rats in a box, are we? Are we, Carter?'

'No.'

'Freddy, what are you waiting for?'