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
‘I don’t know for sure, but the way she was this afternoon? Storming around the station, yelling to see him? What does that tell you?’
‘Yeah,’ Randolph said. He was looking at Julia Shumway with flat-eyed consideration. ‘And burning up your own place, what better cover than that?’
Big Jim pointed a finger at him as if to say You could have a bingo there. ‘I have to get off my feet. Get on the horn to George Frederick. Tell him to keep his good weather eye on that Lewiston Canuck.’
‘All right.’ Randolph undipped his walkie-talkie.
Behind them, Fernald Bowie shouted: ‘Roof’s comin down [You on the street, stand back! You men on top of those other buildings at the read], at the ready!’
Big Jim watched with one hand on the driver’s door of his Hummer as the roof of the Democrat caved in, sending a gusher of sparks straight up into the black sky. The men posted on the adjacent buildings checked that their partners’ Indian pumps ‘were primed and then stood at parade rest, waiting for sparks with their nozzles in their hands.
The expression on Shumway’s face as the Democrats roof let go did Big Jim’s heart more good than all the cotton-picking medicines and pacemakers in the world. For years he’d been forced to put up with her weekly tirades, and while he wouldn’t admit he had been afraid of her, he surely had been annoyed
But look at her now, he thought. Looks like she came home and found her mother dead on the pot.
‘You look better,’ Randolph said. ‘Your color’s coming back.’
‘I feel better,’ Big Jim said. ‘But I’ll still go home. Grab some shuteye.’
‘That’s a good idea,’ Randolph said. ‘We need you, my friend. Now more than ever. And if this Dome thing doesn’t go away…’
He shook his head, his basset-hound eyes never leaving Big Jim’s face. ‘I don’t know how we’d get along without you, put it that way. I love Andy Sanders like a brother but he doesn’t have much in the way of brains. And Andrea Grinnell hasn’t been worth a tin shit since she fell and hurt her back. You’re the glue that holds Chester’s Mill together.’
Big Jim was moved by this. He gripped Randolph’s arm and squeezed. ‘I’d give my life for this town. That’s how much I love it.’
‘I know. Me too. And no one’s going to steal it out from under us.’
‘Got that right,’ Big Jim said.
He drove away, mounting the sidewalk to get past the roadblock that had been placed at the north end of the business district. His heart was steady in his chest again (well, almost), but he was troubled, nonetheless. He’d have to see Everett. He didn’t like the idea; Everett was another noseyparker bent on causing trouble at a time when the town had to pull together. Also, he was no doctor. Big Jim would almost have felt better about trusting a vet with his medical problems, except there was none in town. He’d have to hope that if he needed medicine, something to regularize his heartbeat, Everett would know the right kind.
Well, he thought, whatever he gives me, I can check it out with Andy.
Yes, but that wasn’t the biggest thing troubling him. It was something else Pete had said: If this Dome thing doesn’t go away…
Big Jim wasn’t worried about that. Quite the opposite. If the Dome did go away—too soon, that was—he could be in a fair spot of trouble even if the meth lab wasn’t discovered. Certainly there would be cotton-pickers who would second-guess his decisions. One of the rules of political life that he’d grasped early was Tliose who can, do; those who can’t, question the decisions of those who can. They might not understand that everything he’d done or ordered done, even the rock-throwing at the market this morning, had been of a caretaking nature. Barbara’s friends on the outside would be especially prone to misunderstanding, because they would not want to understand. That Barbara had friends, powerful ones, on the outside was a thing Big Jim hadn’t questioned since seeing that letter from the President. But for the time being they could do nothing. Which was the way Big Jim wanted it to stay for at least a couple of weeks. Maybe even a month or two.
The truth was, he liked the Dome.
Not for the long term, of course, but until the propane out there at the radio station was redistributed? Until the lab was dismantled and the supply barn that had housed it had been burned to the ground (another crime to be laid at the door of Dale Barbara’s coconspirators)? Until Barbara could be tried and executed by police firing squad? Until any blame for how things were done during the crisis could be spread around to as many people as possible, and the credit accrued to just one, namely himself?
Until then, the Dome was just fine.
Big Jim decided he’d get kneebound and pray on it before
