"Sir," he said. "You have so misread the situation here." He ran a hand through his hair. His ear was throbbing from the goddamned cell phone. "It's as if you can comprehend the idea of the Dome, but not what's happening in this town as a result of it. And it's been less than thirty hours."
"Help me understand, then."
"You say the President wants me to do this. Suppose I were to call him up and tell him he can kiss my rosy red ass?"
Julia was looking at him, horrified, and this actually inspired him.
"Suppose, in fact, I said I was a sleeper Al Qaeda agent, and I was planning to kill him--pow, one to the head. How about that?"
"Lieutenant Barbara--Colonel Barbara, I mean--you've said enough."
Barbie did not feel this was so. "Could he send the FBI to come and grab me? The Secret Service? The goddam Red Army? No, sir. He could not."
"We have plans to change that, as I have just explained." Cox no longer sounded loose and good-humored, jest one ole grunt talkin to another.
"And if it works, feel free to have the federal agency of your choice come and arrest me. But if we stay cut off, who in here's going to listen to me? Get it through your head: this town has seceded. Not just from America but from the whole world. There's nothing we can do about it, and nothing you can do about it either."
Quietly, Cox said: "We're trying to help you guys."
"You say that and I almost believe you. Will anybody else around here? When they look to see what kind of help their taxes are buying them, they see soldiers standing guard with their backs turned. That sends a hell of a message."
"You're talking a whole lot for someone who's saying no."
"I'm not saying no. But I'm only about nine feet from being arrested, and proclaiming myself the commandant pro tem won't help."
"Suppose I were to call the First Selectman ... what's his name ... Sanders ... and tell him ..."
"That's what I mean about how little you know. It's like Iraq all over again, only this time you're in Washington instead of boots on the ground, and you seem as clueless as the rest of the desk soldiers. Read my lips, sir: some intelligence is worse than no intelligence at all."
"A little learning is a dangerous thing," Julia said dreamily.
"If not Sanders, then who?"
"James Rennie. The Second Selectman. He's the Boss Hog around here."
There was a pause. Then Cox said, "Maybe we can give you the Internet. Some of us are of the opinion that cutting it off's just a knee-jerk reaction, anyway."
"Why would you think that?" Barbie asked. "Don't you guys know that if you let us stay on the Net, Aunt Sarah's cranberry bread recipe is sure to get out sooner or later?"
Julia sat up straight and mouthed, They're trying to cut the Internet? Barbie raised one finger toward her--Wait.
"Just hear me out, Barbie. Suppose we call this Rennie and tell him the Internet's got to go, so sorry, crisis situation, extreme measures, et cetera, et cetera. Then you can convince him of your usefulness by changing our minds."
Barbie considered. It might work. For a while, anyway. Or it might not.
"Plus," Cox said brightly, "you'll be giving them this other information. Maybe saving some lives, but saving people the scare of their lives, for sure."
Barbie said, "Phones stay up as well as Internet."
"That's hard. I might be able to keep the Net for you, but ... listen, man. There are at least five Curtis LeMay types sitting on the committee presiding over this mess, and as far as they're concerned, everyone in Chester's Mill is a terrorist until proved otherwise."
"What can these hypothetical terrorists do to harm America? Suicide-bomb the Congo Church?"
"Barbie, you're preaching to the choir."
Of course that was probably the truth.
"Will you do it?"
"I'll have to get back to you on that. Wait for my call before you do anything. I have to talk to the late Police Chief's widow first."
Cox persisted. "Will you keep the horse-trading part of this conversation to yourself?"
Again, Barbie was struck by how little even Cox--a freethinker, by military standards--understood about the changes the Dome had already wrought. In here, the Cox brand of secrecy no longer mattered.
Us against them, Barbie thought. Now it's us against them. Unless their crazy idea works, that is.
"Sir, I really will have to get back to you on that; this phone is suffering a bad case of low battery." A lie he told with no remorse. "And you need to wait to hear from me before you talk to anybody else."
"Just remember, the big bang's scheduled for thirteen hundred tomorrow. If you want to maintain viability on this, you better stay out front."
Maintain viability. Another meaningless phrase under the Dome. Unless it applied to keeping your gennie supplied with propane.
"We'll talk," Barbie said. He closed the phone before Cox could say more. 119 was almost clear now, although DeLesseps was still there, leaning against his vintage muscle car with his arms folded. As Julia drove past the Nova, Barbie noted a sticker reading ASS, GAS, OR GRASS--NOBODY RIDES FOR FREE. Also a police bubblegum light on the dash. He thought the contrast summed up everything that was now wrong in Chester's Mill.
As they rode, Barbie told her everything Cox had said.
"What they're planning is really no different than what that kid just tried," she said, sounding appalled.
"Well, a little different," Barbie said. "The kid tried it with a rifle. They've got a Cruise missile lined up. Call it the Big Bang theory."
She smiled. It wasn't her usual one; wan and bewildered, it made her look sixty instead of forty-three. "I think I'm going to be putting out another paper sooner than I thought."
Barbie nodded. "Extra, extra, read all about it."
7
"Hello, Sammy," someone said. "How are you?"
Samantha Bushey didn't recognize the voice and turned toward it warily, hitching up the Papoose carrier as she did. Little Walter was asleep and he weighed a ton. Her butt hurt from falling on it, and her feelings were hurt, too--that damn Georgia Roux, calling her a dyke. Georgia Roux, who had come whining around Sammy's trailer more than once, looking to score an eightball for her and the musclebound freak she went around with.
It was Dodee's father. Sammy had spoken with him thousands of times, but she hadn't recognized his voice; she hardly recognized him. He looked old and sad--broken, somehow. He didn't even scope out her boobs, which was a first.
"Hi, Mr. Sanders. Gee, I didn't even see you at the--" She flapped her hand back toward the flattened-down field and the big tent, now half collapsed and looking forlorn. Although not as forlorn as Mr. Sanders.
"I was sitting in the shade." That same hesitant voice, coming through an apologetic, hurting smile that was hard to look at. "I had something to drink, though. Wasn't it warm for October? Golly, yes. I thought it was a good afternoon--a real town afternoon--until that boy ..."
Oh crispy crackers, he was crying.
"I'm awful sorry about your wife, Mr. Sanders."
"Thank you, Sammy. That's very kind. Can I carry your baby back to your car for you? I think you can go now--the road's almost clear."
That was an offer Sammy couldn't refuse even if he was crying. She scooped Little Walter out of the Papoose--it was like picking up a big clump of warm bread dough--and handed him over. Little Walter opened his eyes, smiled glassily, belched, then went back to sleep.
"I think he might have a package in his diaper," Mr. Sanders said.
"Yeah, he's a regular shit machine. Good old Little Walter."
"Walter's a very nice old-fashioned name."
"Thanks." Telling him that her baby's first name was actually Little didn't seem worth the trouble ... and she was sure she'd had that conversation with him before, anyway. He just didn't remember. Walking with him like this--even though he was carrying the baby--was the perfect bummer end to a perfect bummer afternoon. At least he was right about the traffic; the
automotive mosh pit had finally cleared out. Sammy wondered how long it would be before the whole town was riding bicycles again.
"I never liked the idea of her in that plane," Mr. Sanders said. He seemed to be picking up the thread of some interior conversation. "Sometimes I even wondered if Claudie was sleeping with that guy."
Dodee's Mom sleeping with Chuck Thompson? Sammy was both shocked and intrigued.
"Probably not," he said, and sighed. "In any case, it doesn't matter now. Have you seen Dodee? She didn't come home last night."
Sammy almost said Sure, yesterday afternoon. But if the Dodester hadn't slept at home last night, saying that would only worry the Dodester's dadster. And let Sammy in for a long conversation with a guy who had tears streaming down his face and a snotrunner hanging from one nostril. That would not be cool.
They had reached her car, an old Chevrolet with cancer of the rocker panels. She took Little Walter and grimaced at the smell. That wasn't just mail in his diaper, that was UPS and Federal Express combined.
"No, Mr. Sanders, haven't seen her."
He nodded, then wiped his nose with the back of his hand. The snotrunner disappeared, or at least went somewhere else. That was a relief. "She probably went to the mall with Angie McCain, then to her aunt Peg's in Sabattus when she couldn't get back into town."
"Yeah, that's probably it." And when Dodee turned up right here in The Mill, he'd have a pleasant surprise. God knew he deserved one. Sammy opened the car door and laid Little Walter on the passenger side. She'd given up on the child-restraint seat months ago. Too much of a pain in the ass. And besides, she was a very safe driver.
"Good to see you, Sammy." A pause. "Will you pray for my wife?"
"Uhhh ... sure, Mr. Sanders, no prob."
She started to get in the car, then remembered two things: that Georgia Roux had shoved her tit with her goddam motorcycle boot--probably hard enough to leave a bruise--and that Andy Sanders, brokenhearted or not, was the town's First Selectman.
"Mr. Sanders?"
"Yes, Sammy?"
"Some of those cops were kinda rough out there. You might want to do something about that. Before it, you know, gets out of hand."
His unhappy smile didn't change. "Well, Sammy, I understand how you young people feel about police--I was young myself once--but we've got a pretty bad situation here. And the quicker we establish a little authority, the better off everyone will be. You understand that, don't you?"
"Sure," Sammy said. What she understood was that grief, no matter how genuine, did not seem to impede a politician's flow of bullshit. "Well, I'll see you."
"They're a good team," Andy said vaguely. "Pete Randolph will see they all pull together. Wear the same hat. Do ... uh ... the same dance. Protect and serve, you know."
"Sure," Samantha said. The protect-and-serve dance, with the occasional tit-kick thrown in. She pulled away with Little Walter once more snoring on the seat. The smell of babyshit was terrific. She unrolled the windows, then looked in the rearview mirror. Mr. Sanders was still standing in the makeshift parking lot, which was now almost entirely deserted. He raised a hand to her.
Sammy raised her own in turn, wondering just where Dodee had stayed last night if she hadn't gone home. Then she dismissed it--it was really none of her concern--and flipped on the radio. The only thing she could get clearly was Jesus Radio, and she turned it off again.
When she looked up, Frankie DeLesseps was standing in the road in front of her with his hand up, just like a real cop. She had to stomp the brake to keep from hitting him, then put her hand on the baby to keep him from falling. Little Walter awoke and began to blat.
"Look what you did!" she yelled at Frankie (with whom she'd once had a two-day fling back in high school, when Angie was at band camp). "The baby almost went on the floor!"
"Where's his seat?" Frankie leaned in her window, biceps bulging. Big muscles, little dick, that was Frankie DeLesseps. As far as Sammy was concerned, Angie could have him.
"None of your beeswax."
A real cop might have written her up--for the lip as much as the child-restraint law--but Frankie only smirked. "You seen Angie?"
"No." This time it was the truth. "She probably got caught out of town." Although it seemed to Sammy that the ones in town were the ones who'd gotten caught.
"What about Dodee?"
Sammy once again said no. She practically had to, because Frankie might talk to Mr. Sanders.
"Angie's car is at her house," Frankie said. "I looked in the garage."
"Big whoop. They probably went off somewhere in Dodee's Kia."
He seemed to consider this. They were almost alone now. The traffic jam was just a memory. Then he said, "Did Georgia hurt your booby, baby?" And before she could answer, he reached in and grabbed it. Not gently, either. "Want me to kiss it all better?"
She slapped his hand. On her right, Little Walter blatted and blatted. Sometimes she wondered why God had made men in the first place, she really did. Always blatting or grabbing, grabbing or blatting.
Frankie wasn't smiling now. "You want to watch that shit," he said. "Things are different now."
"What are you going to do? Arrest me?"
"I'd think of something better than that," he said. "Go on, get out of here. And if you do see Angie, tell her I want to see her."
She drove away, mad and--she didn't like to admit this to herself, but it was true--a little frightened. Half a mile down the road she pulled over and changed Little Walter's diaper. There was a used diaper bag in back, but she was too mad to bother. She threw the shitty Pamper onto the shoulder of the road instead, not far from the big sign reading:
JIM RENNIE'S USED CARS
FOREIGN & DOMESTIC
A$K U$ 4 CREDIT!
YOU'LL BE WHEELIN' BECAUSE BIG JIM
IS DEALIN'!
She passed some kids on bikes and wondered again how long it would be before everyone was riding them. Except it wouldn't come to that. Someone would figure things out before it did, just like in one of those disaster movies she enjoyed watching on TV while she was stoned: volcanoes erupting in LA, zombies in New York. And when things went back to normal, Frankie and Carter Thibodeau would revert to what they'd been before: smalltown losers with little or no jingle in their pockets. In the meantime, though, she might do well to keep a low profile.
All in all, she was glad she'd kept her mouth shut about Dodee.
8
Rusty listened to the blood-pressure monitor begin its urgent beeping and knew they were losing the boy. Actually they'd been losing him ever since the ambulance--hell, from the moment the ricochet struck him--but the sound of the monitor turned the truth into a headline. Rory should have been Life-Flighted to CMG immediately, right from where he'd been so grievously wounded. Instead he was in an underequipped operating room that was too warm (the air-conditioning had been turned off to conserve the generator), being operated on by a doctor who should have retired years ago, a physician's assistant who had never assisted in a neurosurgery case, and a single exhausted nurse who spoke up now.
"V-fib, Dr. Haskell."
The heart monitor had joined in. Now it was a chorus.
"I know, Ginny. I'm not death." He paused. "Deaf, I mean. Christ."
For a moment he and Rusty looked at each other over the boy's sheet-swaddled form. Haskell's eyes were clear and with-it--this was not the same stethoscope-equipped time-server who had been plodding through the rooms and corridors of Cathy Russell for the last couple of years like a dull ghost--but he looked terribly old and frail.
"We tried," Rusty said.
In truth, Haskell had done more than try; he'd reminded Rusty of one of those sports novels he'd loved as a kid, where the aging pitcher comes out of the bullpen for one more shot at glory in the seventh game of the World Series. But only Rusty and Ginny Tomlinson had been in the stands for this performance, and this time there would be no happy ending for the old warhorse.
Rusty had started the
saline drip, adding mannitol to reduce brain swelling. Haskell had left the OR at an actual run to do the bloodwork in the lab down the hall, a complete CBC. It had to be Haskell; Rusty was unqualified and there were no lab techs. Catherine Russell was now hideously understaffed. Rusty thought the Dinsmore boy might be only a down payment on the price the town would eventually have to pay for that lack of personnel.
It got worse. The boy was A-negative, and they had none in their small blood supply. They did, however, have O-negative--the universal donor--and had given Rory four units, which left exactly nine more in supply. Giving it to the boy had probably been tantamount to pouring it down the scrub-room drain, but none of them had said so. While the blood ran into him, Haskell sent Ginny down to the closet-sized cubicle that served as the hospital's library. She came back with a tattered copy of On Neurosurgery: A Brief Overview. Haskell operated with the book beside him, an otiscope laid across the pages to hold them down. Rusty thought he would never forget the whine of the saw, the smell of the bone dust in the unnaturally warm air, or the clot of jellied blood that oozed out after Haskell removed the bone plug.
For a few minutes, Rusty had actually allowed himself to hope. With the pressure of the hematoma relieved by the burr-hole, Rory's vital signs had stabilized--or tried to. Then, while Haskell was attempting to determine if the bullet fragment was within his reach, everything had started going downhill again, and fast.
Rusty thought of the parents, waiting and hoping against hope. Now, instead of wheeling Rory to the left outside the OR--toward Cathy Russell's ICU, where his folks might be allowed to creep in and see him--it looked like Rory would be taking a right, toward the morgue.
"If this were an ordinary situation, I'd maintain life support and ask the parents about organ donation," Haskell said. "But of course, if this were an ordinary situation, he wouldn't be here. And even if he was, I wouldn't be trying to operate on him using a ... a goddam Toyota manual." He picked up the otiscope and threw it across the OR. It struck the green tiles, chipped one, and fell to the floor.