«We’re going to have to tell these people something,» I said.
Jim opened his mouth to protest.
«Ollie and I will leave out any part you and Myron had in sending Norm out there if you’ll back up what he and I say about… well, about what got him.»
«Sure,» Jim said, pitifully eager. «Sure, if we don’t tell, people might go out there … like that woman … that woman who …» He wiped his hand across his mouth and then drank more beer quickly. «Christ, what a mess.»
«David,» Ollie said. «What-» He stopped, then made himself go on. «What if they get in? The tentacles?»
«How could they?» Jim asked. «You guys shut the door.»
«Sure,» Ollie said. «But the whole front wall of this place is plate glass.»
An elevator shot my stomach down about twenty floors. I had known that, but had somehow been successfully ignoring it. I looked over at where Billy — lay asleep. I thought of those tentacles swarming over Norm. I thought about that happening to Billy.
«Plate glass,» Myron LaFleur whispered. «Jesus Christ in a chariot-driven sidecar.»
I left the three of them standing by the cooler, each working a second can of beer, and went looking for Brent Norton. I found him in sober-sided conversation with Bud Brown at Register 2. The pair of them-Norton with his styled gray hair and his elderly-stud good looks, Brown with his dour New England phiz — looked like something out of a New Yorker cartoon.
As many as two dozen people milled restlessly in the space between the end of the checkout lanes and the long show window. A lot of them were lined up at the glass, looking out into the mist. I was again reminded of the people that congregate at a building site,
Mrs. Carmody was seated on the stationary conveyor belt of one of the checkout lanes, smoking a Parliament in a One Step at a Time filter. Her eyes measured me, found me wanting, and passed on. She looked as if she might be dreaming awake.
«Brent» I said.
«David! Where did you get off to?»
«That’s what I’d like to talk to you about.»
«There are people back at the cooler drinking beer,» Brown said grimly. He sounded like a man announcing that X-rated movies had been shown at the deacons’ party. «I can see them in the security mirror. This has simply got to stop.»
«Brent?»
«Excuse me for a minute, would you, Mr. Brown?»
«Certainly.» He folded his arms across his chest and stared grimly up into the convex mirror. «It is going to stop. I can promise you that.»
Norton and I headed toward the beer cooler in the far corner of the store, walking past the housewares and notions. I glanced back over my shoulder, noticing uneasily how the wooden beams framing the tall, rectangular sections of glass had buckled and twisted and splintered. And one of the windows wasn’t even whole, I remembered. A pie-shaped chunk of glass had fallen out of the upper corner at the instant of that queer thump. Perhaps we could stuff it with cloth or something-maybe a bunch of those $3.59 ladies’ tops I had noticed near the wine
My thoughts broke off abruptly, and I had to put the back of my hand over my mouth, as if stifling a burp. What I was really stifling was the rancid flood of horrified giggles that wanted to escape me at the thought of stuffing a bunch of shirts into a hole to keep out those tentacles that had carried Norm away. I had seen one of those tentacles — a small one-squeeze a bag of dog food until it simply ruptured.
«David? Are you okay?»
«Huh?»
«Your face-you looked like you just had a good idea or a bloody awful one.»
Something hit me then. «Brent, what happened to that man who came in raving about something in the mist getting John Lee Frovin?»
«The guy with the nosebleed?»
«Yes, him.»
«He passed out and Mr. Brown brought him around with some smelling salts from the first-aid kit. Why?»
«Did he say anything else when he woke up?»