Under the Dome: A Novel (96 page)

“Take it easy, Manuel,” Barbie said.

“That’s Officer Ortega to you, motherfucker!”

“Fine. Officer Ortega.” Barbie was sitting on the bunk and thinking about just how easy it would be for Ortega to unholster the elderly.45 Schofield on his belt and start shooting. “I’m in here, Rennie’s out there. As far as he’s concerned, I’m sure it’s all good.”

“SHUT UP!”
Manuel screamed. “We’re
ALL
in here! All under the fucking Dome! Alden don’t do nothing but drink, the boy that’s left won’t eat, and Miz Dinsmore never stops crying over Rory. Jack Evans blew his brains out, do you know that? And those military pukes out there can’t think of anything better to do than sling mud. A lot of lies and trumped-up stories while you start supermarket riots and then burn down our newspaper! Probably so Miz Shumway couldn’t publish
WHAT YOU ARE!
”

Barbie kept silent. He thought that one word spoken in his own defense would get him shot for sure.

“This is how they get any politician they don’t like,” Manuel said. “They want a serial killer and a rapist—one who rapes the
dead
—in charge instead of a Christian? That’s a new low.”

Manuel drew his gun, lifted it, pointed it through the bars. To Barbie the hole at the end looked as big as a tunnel entrance.

“If the Dome comes down before you been stood up against the nearest wall and ventilated,” Manuel continued, “I’ll take a minute to do the job myself. I’m head of the line, and right now in The Mill, the line waiting to do you is a long one.”

Barbie kept silent and waited to die or keep on drawing breath. Rose Twitchell’s BLTs were trying to crowd back up his throat and choke him.

“We’re trying to survive and all
they
can do is dirty up the man who’s keeping this town out of chaos.” He abruptly shoved the oversized pistol back into its holster. “Fuck you. You’re not worth it.”

He turned and strode back toward the stairs, head down and shoulders hunched.

Barbie leaned back against the wall and let out a breath. There was sweat on his forehead. The hand he lifted to wipe it off was shaking.

3

When Romeo Burpee’s van turned into the McClatchey driveway, Claire rushed out of the house. She was weeping.

“Mom!” Joe shouted, and was out even before Rommie could come to a complete stop. The others piled out after. “Mom, what’s wrong?”

“Nothing,” Claire sobbed, grabbing him and hugging him. “There’s going to be a Visitors Day! On Friday! Joey, I think we might get to see your dad!”

Joe let out a cheer and danced her around. Benny hugged Norrie … and took the opportunity to steal a quick kiss, Rusty observed. Cheeky little devil.

“Take me to the hospital, Rommie,” Rusty said. He waved to Claire and the kids as they backed down the driveway. He was glad to get away from Mrs. McClatchey without having to talk to her; Mom Vision might work on PAs, as well. “And could you do me a favor and talk English instead of that comic-book
on parle
shit while you do it?”

“Some people have no cultural heritage to fall back on,” Rommie said, “and are thus jealous of those who do.”

“Yeah, and your mother wears galoshes,” Rusty said.

“Dat’s true, but only when it rains, her.”

Rusty’s cell phone chimed once: a text message. He flipped it open and read: MEETING AT 2130 CONGO PARSONAGE B THERE OR B SQUARE JW

“Rommie,” he said, closing his phone. “Assuming I survive the Rennies, would you consider attending a meeting with me tonight?”

4

At the hospital, Ginny met him in the lobby. “It’s Rennie Day at Cathy Russell,” she announced, looking as if this did not exactly displease
her. “Thurse Marshall has been in to see them both. Rusty, that man is a gift from God. He clearly doesn’t like Junior—he and Frankie were the ones who roughed him up out at the Pond—but he was totally professional. The guy’s wasted in some college English department—he should be doing this.” She lowered her voice. “He’s better than me. And
way
better than Twitch.”

“Where is he now?”

“Went back to where he’s living to see that young girlfriend of his and the two children they took on. He seems to genuinely care about the kids, too.”

“Oh my goodness, Ginny’s in love,” Rusty said, grinning.

“Don’t be juvenile.” She glared at him.

“What rooms are the Rennies in?”

“Junior in Seven, Senior in Nineteen. Senior came in with that guy Thibodeau, but must have sent him off to run errands, because he was on his own when he went down to see his kid.” She smiled cynically. “He didn’t visit long. Mostly he’s been on that cell phone of his. The kid just sits, although he’s rational again. He wasn’t when Henry Morrison brought him in.”

“Big Jim’s arrhythmia? Where are we with that?”

“Thurston got it quieted down.”

For the time being,
Rusty thought, and not without satisfaction.
When the Valium wears off, he’ll recommence the old cardiac jitterbug.

“Go see the kid first,” Ginny said. They were alone in the lobby, but she kept her voice low-pitched. “I don’t like him, I’ve never liked him, but I feel sorry for him now. I don’t think he’s got long.”

“Did Thurston say anything about Junior’s condition to Rennie?”

“Yes, that the problem was potentially serious. But apparently not as serious as all those calls he’s making. Probably someone told him about Visitors Day on Friday. Rennie’s pissed about it.”

Rusty thought of the box on Black Ridge, just a thin rectangle with an area of less than fifty square inches, and still he hadn’t been able to lift it. Or even budge it. He also thought of the laughing leatherheads he’d briefly glimpsed.

“Some people just don’t approve of visitors,” he said.

5

“How are you feeling, Junior?”

“Okay. Better.” He sounded listless. He was wearing a hospital johnny and sitting by the window. The light was merciless on his haggard face. He looked like a rode-hard forty-year-old.

“Tell me what happened before you passed out.”

“I was going to school, then I went to Angie’s house instead. I wanted to tell her to make it up with Frank. He’s been majorly bummin.”

Rusty considered asking if Junior knew Frank and Angie were both dead, then didn’t—what was the point? Instead he asked, “You were going to school? What about the Dome?”

“Oh, right.” The same listless, affectless voice. “I forgot about that.”

“How old are you, son?”

“Twenty … one?”

“What was your mother’s name?”

Junior considered this. “Jason Giambi,” he said at last, then laughed shrilly. But the listless, haggard expression on his face never changed.

“When did the Dome drop down?”

“Saturday.”

“And how long ago was that?”

Junior frowned. “A week?” he said at last. Then, “Two weeks? It’s been awhile, for sure.” He turned at last to Rusty. His eyes were shining with the Valium Thurse Marshall had injected. “Did
Baaarbie
put you up to all these questions? He killed them, you know.” He nodded. “We found his gog-bags.” A pause. “
Dog
tags.”

“Barbie didn’t put me up to anything,” Rusty said. “He’s in jail.”

“Pretty soon he’ll be in hell,” Junior said with dry matter-offactness. “We’re going to try him and execute him. My dad said so. There’s no death penalty in Maine, but he says these are wartime conditions. Egg salad has too many calories.”

“That’s true,” Rusty said. He had brought a stethoscope, a blood-pressure cuff, and ophthalmoscope. Now he wrapped the cuff around Junior’s arm. “Can you name the last three presidents in order, Junior?”

“Sure. Bush, Push, and Tush.” He laughed wildly, but still with no facial expression.

Junior’s bp was 147 over 120. Rusty had been prepared for worse. “Do you remember who came in to see you before I did?”

“Yeah. The old guy me and Frankie found at the Pond just before we found the kids. I hope those kids are all right. They were totally cute.”

“Do you remember their names?”

“Aidan and Alice Appleton. We went to the club and that girl with the red hair jerked me off under the table. Thought she was gonna fair it right off before she was fun.” A pause.
“Done.”

“Uh-huh.” Rusty employed the ophthalmoscope. Junior’s right eye was fine. The optic disc of the left was bulging, a condition known as papilledema. It was a common symptom of advanced brain tumors and the attendant swelling.

“See anything green, McQueen?”

“Nope.” Rusty put the ophthalmoscope down, then held his index finger in front of Junior’s face. “I want you to touch my finger with your finger. Then touch your nose.”

Junior did so. Rusty began to move his finger slowly back and forth. “Keep going.”

Junior succeeded in going from the moving finger to his nose once. Then he hit the finger but touched his cheek instead. The third time he missed the finger and touched his right eyebrow. “Booya. Want more? I can do it all day, you know.”

Rusty pushed his chair back and stood up. “I’m going to send Ginny Tomlinson in with a prescription for you.”

“After I get it, can I go roam? Home, I mean?”

“You’re staying overnight with us, Junior. For observation.”

“But I’m all right, aren’t I? I had one of my headaches before—I mean a real blinder—but it’s gone. I’m okay, right?”

“I can’t tell you anything right now,” Rusty said. “I want to talk with Thurston Marshall and look at some books.”

“Man, that guy’s no doctor. He’s an English teacher.”

“Maybe so, but he treated you okay. Better than you and Frank treated him, is my understanding.”

Junior waved a dismissing hand. “We were just playin. Besides, we treated those rids kite, didn’t we?”

“Can’t argue with you there. For now, Junior, just relax. Watch some TV, why don’t you?”

Junior considered this, then asked, “What’s for supper?”

6

Under the circumstances, the only thing Rusty could think of to reduce the swelling in what passed for Junior Rennie’s brain was IV mannitol. He pulled the chart out of the door and saw a note attached to it in an unfamiliar looping scrawl:

Dear Dr. Everett: What do you think about manitol for this patient? I cannot order, have no idea of the correct amount.

Thurse

Rusty jotted down the dose. Ginny was right; Thurston Marshall was good.

7

The door to Big Jim’s room was open, but the room was empty. Rusty heard the man’s voice coming from the late Dr. Haskell’s favorite snoozery. Rusty walked down to the lounge. He did not think to take Big Jim’s chart, an oversight he would come to regret.

Big Jim was fully dressed and sitting by the window with his phone to his ear, even though the sign on the wall showed a bright
red cell phone with a red
X
over it for the reading-impaired. Rusty thought it would give him great pleasure to order Big Jim to terminate his call. It might not be the most politic way to start what was going to be a combination exam-discussion, but he meant to do it. He started forward, then stopped. Cold.

A clear memory arose: not being able to sleep, getting up for a piece of Linda’s cranberry-orange bread, hearing Audrey whining softly from the girls’ room. Going down there to check the Js. Sitting on Jannie’s bed beneath Hannah Montana, her guardian angel.

Why had this memory been so slow in coming? Why not during his meeting with Big Jim, in Big Jim’s home study?

Because then I didn’t know about the murders; I was fixated on the propane. And because Janelle wasn’t having a seizure, she was just in REM sleep.
Talking
in her sleep.

He has a golden baseball, Daddy. It’s a bad baseball.

Even last night, in the mortuary, that memory hadn’t resur-faced. Only now, when it was half-past too late.

But think what it means: that gadget up on Black Ridge may only be putting out limited radiation, but it’s broadcasting something else. Call it induced precognition, call it something that doesn’t even have a name, but whatever you call it, it’s there. And if Jannie was right about the golden baseball, then all the kids who’ve been making Sybil-like pronouncements about a Halloween disaster may be right, too. But does it mean on that exact day? Or could it be earlier?

Rusty thought the latter. For a townful of kids overexcited about trick-or-treating, it was Halloween already.

“I don’t
care
what you’ve got on, Stewart,” Big Jim was saying. Three milligrams of Valium didn’t seem to have mellowed him out; he sounded as fabulously grumpy as ever. “You and Fernald get up there, and take Roger with y … huh? What?” He listened. “I shouldn’t even have to tell you. Haven’t you been watching the cotton-picking TV? If he gives you any sass, you—”

He looked up and saw Rusty in the doorway. For just a moment Big Jim had the startled look of a man replaying his conversation
and trying to decide how much the newcomer might have overheard.

“Stewart, someone’s here. I’ll get back to you, and when I do, you better tell me what I want to hear.” He broke the connection without saying goodbye, held the phone up to Rusty, and bared his small upper teeth in a smile. “I know, I know, very naughty, but town business won’t wait.” He sighed. “It’s not easy to be the one every-body’s depending on, especially when you’re not feeling well.”

“Must be difficult,” Rusty agreed.

“God helps me. Would you like to know the philosophy I live by, pal?”

No.
“Sure.”

“When God closes a door, He opens a window.”

“Do you think so?”

“I
know
so. And the one thing I always try to remember is that when you pray for what you
want,
God turns a deaf ear. But when you pray for what you need, He’s
all
ears.”

“Uh-huh.” Rusty entered the lounge. On the wall, the TV was tuned to CNN. The sound was muted, but there was a still photo of James Rennie, Sr., looming behind the talking head: black-and-white, not flattering. One of Big Jim’s fingers was raised, and so was his upper lip. Not in a smile, but in a remarkably canine sneer. The super beneath read WAS DOME TOWN DRUG HAVEN? The picture switched to a Jim Rennie used car ad, the annoying one that always ended with one of the salespeople (never Big Jim himself) screaming
“You’ll be WHEELIN, because Big Jim’s DEALIN!”