Under the Dome

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!”

Big Jim gestured to it and smiled sadly. “You see what Barbara’s friends on the outside are doing to me? Well, what’s the surprise? When Christ came to redeem mankind, they made him carry His own cross to Calvary Hill, where He died in blood and dust.”

Rusty reflected, and not for the first time, what a strange drug Valium was. He didn’t know if there really was veritas in vino, but there was plenty of it in Valium. When you gave it to people—especially by IV—you often heard exactly what they thought of themselves.

Rusty pulled up a chair and readied the stethoscope for action. “Lift your shirt.” When Big Jim put down his cell phone to do it, Rusty slipped it into his breast pocket. “I’ll just take this, shall I? I’ll leave it at the lobby desk. That’s an okay area for cell phones. The chairs aren’t as well padded as these, but they’re still not bad.”

He expected Big Jim to protest, maybe explode, but he didn’t so much as peep, only exposed a bulging Bhudda-belly and large soft manbreasts above it. Rusty bent forward and had a listen. It was far better than he’d expected. He would have been happy with a hundred and ten beats a minute plus moderate premature ventriculation. Instead, Big Jim’s pump was loping along at ninety, with no misbeats at all.

“I’m feeling a lot better,” Big Jim said. “It was stress. I’ve been under terrible stress. I’m going to take another hour or two to rest right here—do you realize you can see all of downtown from this window, pal?—and I’m going to visit with Junior one more time. After that I’ll just check myself out and—”

“It isn’t just stress. You’re overweight and out of shape.”

Big Jim bared his upper teeth in that bogus smile. “I’ve been running a business and a town, pal—both in the black, by the way. That leaves little time for treadmills and StairMasters and such.”

“You presented with PAT two years ago, Rennie. That’s paroxysmal atrial tachycardia.”

“I know what it is. I went to WebMD and it said healthy people often experience—”