On an entirely normal, beautiful fall day in Chester’s Mill, Maine, the town is inexplicably and suddenly sealed off from the rest of the world by an invisible force field.
Авторы: King Stephen Edwin
a tinny testimonial to smalltown prestige and smalltown power.
‘I wasn’t aware you had anyone’s permission to go poking around in our supply shed,’ Big Jim remarked to the ceiling. His hammy fingers were still laced together behind his head. ‘Perhaps you’re a town official, and I wasn’t: aware of it? If so, my mistake—my bad, as Junior says. I thought you were basically a nurse with a prescription pad.’
Rusty thought this was mostly technique—Rennie trying to piss him off. To divert him.
‘I’m not a town official,’ he said, ‘but I am a hospital employee. And a taxpayer.’
‘So?’
Rusty could feel blood rushing to his face.
‘So those things make it partly my supply shed.’ He waited to see if Big Jim would respond to this, but the man behind the desk remained impassive. ‘Besides, it was unlocked. Which is all beside the point, isn’t it? I saw what I saw, and I’d like an explanation. As a hospital employee.’
‘And a taxpayer. Don’t forget that.’
Rusty sat looking at him, not even nodding.
‘I can’t give you one,’ Rennie said.
Rusty raised his eyebrows. ‘Really? I thought you had your fingers on the pulse of this town. Isn’t that what you said the last time you ran for Selectman? And now you’re telling me you can’t explain where the town’s propane went? I don’t believe it.’
For the first time, Rennie looked nettled. ‘I don’t care if you believe it or not. This is news to me.’ But his eyes darted fractionally to one side as he said it, as if to check that his autographed photo of Tiger Woods was still there; the classic liars’ tell.
Rusty said, ‘The hospital’s almost out of LP. Without it, the few of us who are still on the job might as well be working in a Civil War battlefield surgery tent. Our current patients—including a post-coronary and a serious case of diabetes that may warrant amputation—will be in serious trouble if the power goes out. The possible amp is Jimmy Sirois. His car is in the parking lot. It’s got a sticker on the bumper that says ELECT BIG JIM.’
‘I’ll investigate,’ Big Jim said. He spoke with the air of a man conferring a favor. ‘The town’s propane is probably stored in some other town facility. As for yours, I’m sure I can’t say.’
‘ What other town facilities? There’s the FD, and the sand-and-salt pile out on God Creek Road—not even a shed there—but those are the only ones I’m aware of.’
‘Mr Everett, I’m a busy man. You’ll have to excuse me now.’
Rusty stood. His hands wanted to ball into fists, but he wouldn’t let them. ‘I’m going to ask you one more time,’ he said. ‘Straight out and straight up. Do you know where those missing tanks are?’
‘No.’This time it was Dale Earnhardt Rennie’s eyes flickered to. ‘And I’m not going to read any implication into that question, son, because if I did I’d have to resent it. Now why don’t you run along and check on Jimmy Sirois? Tell bim Big Jim sends his best, and he’ll stop by as soon as the nitpickery slows down a little.’
Rusty was still battling to hold onto his temper, but this was a fight he was losing. ‘Run along? I think you forgot that you’re a public servant, not a private dictator. For the time being I’m this town’s chief medical officer, and I want some an—’
Big Jim’s cell rang. He snared it. Listened. The lines around his drawn-down mouth grew grimmer. ‘Cyoshdam it! Every time I turn my darn hutk.. .’ He listened some more, then said: ‘If you’ve got people with you in the office, Pete, shut your trap before you open it too wide and fall right the heck in. Call Andy. I’ll be right there, and the three of us’ll clean this ^vp.’
He killed the phone and got to his feet.
‘I have to go to the police station. It’s either an emergency or more nitpickery, I won’t be able to tell which until I get there. And you’ll be wanted at either the hospital or the Health Center, I believe. There seems to be a problem with the Reverend Libby.’
‘Why? What happened to her?’
Big Jim’s cold eyes surveyed him from hard little sockets. ‘I’m sure you’ll hear her story. I don’t know how true it’ll be, but I’m sure you’ll hear it. So go do your job, young fella, and let me do mine.’
Rusty walked down the front hall and out of the house, his temples throbbing. In the west, the sunset was a lurid bloodshow. The air was almost completely still, but bore a smoky stench just the same. At the foot of the steps, Rusty raised a finger and pointed it at the public servant waiting for him to leave his property before he, Rennie, left himself. Rennie scowled at the finger, but Rusty did not drop it.
‘Nobody needs to tell me to do my job. And I’m going to make looking for that propane part of it. If I find it in the wrong place, someone else is going to be doing your job, Selectman Rennie. That’s
