He turned back toward the personnel manager. "Mr. Lamb?" he said.
"What?" the other man said belligerently.
"You're fired."
The change that came over him was immediate. A look of panic crossed his face. "Please!" he said beseechingly. "I'll do anything you say! I won't disagree with you! I won't try to tell you my opinions!"
"Mr. Walker!" Bill called out. "Mr. Keyes!"
The other two men had been standing nearby, trying to be unobtrusive, and they hurried over.
"You're fired. You're all fired."
The three stood trembling and terrified before him.
"No!" Mr. Lamb said. "Please!"
"You gentlemen no longer work for The Store."
Mr. Lamb fell first. His body stiffened and toppled forward. He made no effort to stop his fall, did not put his hands out in front of him, and his face hit the floor with a loud smack. Like dominoes, Walker and Keyes stiffened and fell as well, Walker forward, Keyes backward.
Bill didn't know what to do, didn't know how to react, didn't know what was going on. He dropped to his knees, tried to feel Lamb's wrist for a pulse, but there was none. He wanted to scream for help, wanted to order someone to call an ambulance, but he knew that all three men were dead, that nothing could save them or bring them back.
The Store had been their lives.
Bill stood, backed away. Several directors and their customers looked at the unmoving men as they passed by, but none of them stopped, and none exhibited more than a mild curiosity.
Bill turned toward Holly. She smiled at him. There was no fear on her face, no confusion, only a look of satisfaction. "Ding dong, the witch is dead."
He nodded. He wanted to feel bad, wanted to feel remorse, wanted to feel . . . something, but he shared Holly's satisfaction, and he thought: This is for Ben. An employee Bill didn't know came running up, looked at the men on the floor, then looked over at Bill. "I'll take care of this, sir. Don't worry about it." He ran off the way he'd come, and a moment later his voice sounded over the loudspeaker.
"Cleanup in aisle one!"
He went home after the bodies had been taken away.
He wanted to see Ginny and Shannon.
He'd called first, from The Store, unable to wait, needing to know if everything was all right, and he practically wept when he heard his wife's voice.
_How was he going to face her?_
He'd been supplied with a company car, a boxy black sedan, and he took it, speeding home as quickly as he could. Ginny was waiting for him in the drive, and he threw the car into park, jumped out of the vehicle, and ran into her arms. They were both crying, hugging each other crazily, kissing.
"Where's Shannon?" he asked.
"Over at Diane's." Ginny wiped the tears from her eyes, smiled. "Mr. Lamb fired her."
"I fired Mr. Lamb."
"You're really the manager now?"
"I really am."
"Where's Sam?"
He licked his lips. "She's been transferred to Dallas."
Ginny faced him. "Do you think she'll be all right?"
"I don't know," he admitted.
He suddenly remembered when Sam had been ten years old and he'd taken her hiking and she'd twisted her little ankle and he'd given her a piggyback ride all the way home.
Ginny took a deep breath. "Will we ever see her again?"
He looked at her. "I don't know."
He saw Sam as she'd looked in June, at her graduation, smiling up at them from the field as she'd accepted her diploma.
Ginny reached out, hugged him again. He hugged her back, held her tightly, thought of what had happened last night in his suite. What had he done? Why had he been so stupid? Why couldn't he have been stronger? He blinked back the tears that were welling up in his eyes.
"I'm glad you're back," she said.
"I am, too," he said, starting to cry. "I am, too."
THIRTY-THREE
1
He found that he did not really want to change The Store.
When he was on the outside looking in, he had not realized what being manager of The Store entailed. He had not understood the rigorous demands of the job. There were sales quotas that had to be reached, a payroll that had to be met, people who had to be instructed and guided, a thousand little daily decisions that had to be made. As much as he hated to admit it, The Store was the engine that drove the town, and that meant that the entire economy of Juniper was now resting on his shoulders. He sympathized with his old concerns, but he realized now that the inconvenience of a few individuals had to be weighed against the needs of many.
Of course there was no way he could ever condone what had happened in the past: the disappearances, the fires, the systematic destruction of enemies and rivals. But, as King said, that was all over and done with. This was the beginning of a new day, and he was going to legitimize The Store in Juniper.
He reviewed some of The Store's practices, those that seemed to him somewhat suspect, but on closer examination, he saw that all of them were necessary. He had not liked the idea of having Security monitor every square inch of the floor, letting employees spy even on customers' most intimate acts, but shrinkage -- theft and shoplifting -- were major problems for any retailer and were a primary source of revenue loss. Besides, while people needed privacy at home, there was no reason they needed it when they were on Store property, shopping.
Directors, too, were a concept that had offended him, but he understood that despite his personal prejudice against them, they were a valid retail tool and enabled customers -- elderly customers in particular -- to easily find what they were looking for. The directors made shopping quicker and more efficient.
All the way down the line, the things that had seemed wrong to him proved to be not only legitimate and worthwhile but indispensable.
The Store's policies weren't as bad as he'd thought.
Ginny didn't seem thrilled. She disagreed with his decisions even after he explained them to her, and she seemed to think that he had sold out, that he had been brainwashed back in Dallas.
_The best sex he'd ever had_.
She still loved him, of course, and was grateful to have him back, but she was wary of him, not open and honest the way she had been, and he vowed to himself that after he got The Store shaped up, he would work on repairing their relationship.
He owed her at least that much.
At The Store, he hired new employees to replace Mr. Lamb, Mr. Walker, and Mr. Keyes. He fired some of the clerks who were not fitting in and replaced them with others who would be better able to take orders.
He had not been able to bring himself to meet with the Night Managers. He was still a little afraid of them, and though they seemed to be doing a fine job with their nighttime audits, and the reports they left each morning on his desk were both thorough and easy to follow, he could not help thinking of what he had seen in New Mexico, of the rumors Shannon had told him. He was their boss, yes, but he did not understand them and he did not know how to deal with them or what to do with them.
Still, they were part of his Store, part of his responsibility, and as King had shown him, he had absolute power over them. He should try to utilize their services and incorporate them into his management strategy.
He sat in his office for an entire morning, reading his _Manager's Concordance_, trying to learn everything he could about the Night Managers.
There was no clue as to their origins, of course, but there were examples of how to use them, as well as a detailed description of the commands that would control their actions.
He'd wanted to switch the locations of two departments ever since he'd returned. Shoes and Children's Clothing seemed to him to be in the wrong places.
But swapping them, moving all of the merchandise and fixtures, would take up a lot of time and require a lot of effort. He would either have to disrupt normal operations for a day and inconvenience shoppers or pay overtime to employees who stayed after their regular shift in order to do the job.