The Store

by Bentley Little

  Ben waved dismissively. "That doesn't matter. There's no real money to be made in Juniper. It's a break-even prospect at best. Newtin's been trying to unload it for several years now." He shook his head. "I guess he finally found a buyer."

  "How did you find out?"

  "Fax. You think he'd drive all the way up to Juniper just to tell me that he's sold the paper and my ass is fired? Hell, no. Besides, that pussy's too chickenshit to face me."

  "And they fired you?"

  "First thing. Laura was promoted to editor; I was told to hit the pavement. Herb and Trudy and Al and all the production people were kept on.

  Traitorous brown-nosers."

  "You were fired? Not demoted?"

  "Exactamente."

  "Shit."

  Ben drained his glass. "There goes the election."

  "You think so?"

  "As you said, they had the radio station, we had the newspaper. Now they have both."

  "You think that's why they bought it?"

  "No," Ben said sarcastically. His voice was becoming slurred. "They have no interest whatsoever in controlling the news and information in this town.

  They want to sponsor and subsidize the fourth estate out of the goodness of their corporate hearts."

  The bartender set a glass of beer in front of Bill, who dug the money out of his pocket to pay him.

  He took a sip, turned back toward Ben. "So what are you going to do?" he asked.

  "Hell. My little trailer is paid off. I can live for a while."

  "But what are you going to _do_?"

  "Freelance." Ben looked around, lowered his voice. "I'm thinking of doing a Store expose. I could probably sell it to the _Wall Street Journal_ or _Time_ or _Newsweek_. It's timely. It's of national interest. The Store's an up-and coming corporation, Newman King's a big mystery man -- and you know how the public is fascinated by that shit. I think it could be a really good article."

  He smiled grimly as he poured himself another shot. "Besides, I have scores to settle."

  They sat there for a while, drinking, not talking, listening to the self pitying songs the cowboys had chosen for the jukebox. Bill finished his beer, called for one more. Ben finished his bottle and plunked down bills for another.

  "Take it easy," Bill suggested. "You're already two sheets to the wind."

  "I'm going for five." Ben poured and polished off another glass. "We shoulda monkey-wrenched 'em," he said. "Shoulda spiked some trees, sabotaged some equipment, poured sugar in some gas tanks."

  "The first construction workers were from Juniper," Bill pointed out.

  "Fuck 'em. Besides, The Store woulda taken the financial hit, not our good oF local boys." He closed his eyes, continued to talk. "Local boys. There were trees on that property that were old when their great-greatgrandfathers were nothing more than ambitious sperm, you know that? That fucking hillock was probably millions of years old. And it was demolished by men born less than twenty-five years ago!"

  "You're drunk," Bill said. "And you're getting loud."

  "I don't care!"

  "Come on. Let me drive you home."

  "I don't want to go home."

  The bartender walked over, confiscated his bottle and glass. "Your friend's driving you home. You've had enough."

  Ben nodded docilely, got off his stool, almost fell, then, concentrating hard, walked toward the door. Bill followed him, ready to offer support if necessary. He didn't feel entirely clearheaded himself, but he wasn't drunk, and he led Ben over to the Jeep, buckled him in, and drove him home, making sure that he was safely inside the trailer before driving off.

  The movie they'd been watching had long since ended, and Ginny had turned off the lights in the front of the house and was in the bedroom riding the exercise bike. She told him to get ready for bed, but he wasn't tired and he said that he had some work to do.

  He walked back to his office, sat down in front of his PC, and accessed Freelink. He thought for a moment, then called up a global bulletin board and typed in the heading: "The Store." In the space reserved for message text, he typed: "Is there anyone else out there who's had problems with the discount retail chain The Store?" He gave no name but left his E-mail address, then went out to the kitchen, heated up some old coffee, and sat back down.

  He already had five messages waiting.

  His heart began to race. He'd gotten the coffee because he thought it might help him stay awake, but now he didn't even need the caffeine, and he pushed the coffee cup aside and called up his E-mail.

  The first message was from someone calling himself Big Bob, and it described efforts to get a simple refund for a sprinkler as a cross between _1984_ and _Catch-22_. The second message was from an anonymous Hispanic woman who claimed that The Store discriminated against minorities and that not only had The Store refused to hire her, but it had banned her from shopping there.

  The reason she could not give her name or the name of her town, she explained, was because she had filed suit against The Store and she had reason to believe that her phone lines were tapped, that The Store was listening in on her phone conversations and reading what she wrote online.

  A chill passed through Bill as he read the woman's story. Under other circumstances, he'd probably consider her tale the unfounded allegations of a raving paranoid. But he believed every word she wrote, and he found himself wondering if _his_ phone lines were tapped, if The Store's security people were listening in on his conversations, reading his online messages. He looked around the room. His office seemed suddenly darker, filled with shadows, and he wished he'd turned on both lights instead of just the little desk lamp.

  He called up the third message. This one was from a journalist, Keith Beck, who said that in his town The Store had not only economically decimated the area by killing off local businesses but had instigated feuds among local residents. The Store was a disruptive influence, Beck said, and was completely changing the character of the town. He added that The Store had constructed its building on an environmentally sensitive parcel of land, not waiting for the conclusion of an environmental impact report, buying the cooperation of elected officials.

  It was Juniper's story exactly. Bill couldn't believe his good fortune.

  This was what he'd been looking for, and he wished that Ben was here to read this with him. He printed out a hard copy, then sent Beck a message directly, typing out a description of The Store's doings in Juniper. He left out the weird stuff -- the deaths and disappearances -- but he described the arson at Richardson's store, and he explained the problems he'd run into trying to extricate his daughters from The Store's clutches. He also told Beck about what had happened to Ben.

  After sending off the message, he printed copies of the rest of the mail in his in box, now up to eight messages. All were horror stories of dealings with The Store that had led to business failures or firings or lawsuits or other sorts of personal hardship.

  Bill printed the last message, then checked his in box again. Sure enough, Beck had already sent a reply.

  He eagerly called it up. The journalist expressed sympathy for Juniper's problems, said he understood what was going on, but he was not particularly encouraging about efforts to combat The Store.

  "We tried," he wrote, "in our own little way, to fight The Store, but we were defeated. The outcome of our battle was a foregone conclusion. The Store is a powerful enemy."

  Bill sent another message. "Any suggestions?" he typed.

  The reply, when it arrived, was short and to the point: "Local, county, and state governments do not have the financial resources to fight The Store.

  The federal government _should_ get involved, but interstate commerce regulations have been defanged over the past two decades and allocating resources to go after a major employer is not politically feasible in these antigovernment, pro-business times. You're on your own."

  _You're on your own_.

  The words jumped out at him, resonating in his brain. Beck had apparently tried go
ing through the proper channels in his fight against The Store and had exhausted those possibilities, coming up a loser.

  What was left? Using The Store's own tactics? Arson? Terrorism?

  Bill stared for a moment at the screen. The journalist was obviously burnt-out and discouraged, but maybe there were other people out there, in other communities, with different backgrounds, who had ideas and suggestions.

  He decided to try again, taking a different tack, posting another message on the bulletin board. "I am looking for information concerning activities and practices of the discount retail chain The Store," he typed. "Specifically, I am looking for ways to prevent The Store from completely taking over the town of Juniper, Arizona. If anybody has any ideas, please let me know."

  He posted the message, the screen went blank for several seconds, then a one-line statement appeared: "This communication has been deleted."

  What? He frowned. How could the message have been deleted? That made no sense.

  He typed the words again, tried to post them on the bulletin board, and once more the statement "This communication has been deleted" appeared on his screen.

  He thought of the Hispanic woman's claim that The Store was eavesdropping on her computer conversations, and he quickly fired off a note to Keith Beck, asking the journalist if anything like this had ever happened to him.

  A new message appeared onscreen: "This communication cannot be transmitted. It is in violation of Paragraph 4 of your Freelink online service agreement."

  Online service agreement?

  He searched through the shelf above his desk until he found the box containing the diskettes and instruction book for Freelink. He took out the book, opened it, and before he could even find Paragraph 4, saw on the inside of the front cover, in tiny letters, words he had never noticed but that now sent a chill through his heart.

  He immediately turned off his PC.

  Mouth dry, heart pounding, he reread the notice inside the book's front cover: "Freelink is a subsidiary of The Store, Inc."

  In his dream The Store was alive and sentient, walking around with giant brick legs, leaning over as it walked, looking behind other buildings, looking behind hills.

  Looking for him.

  2

  There was a board meeting on Tuesday afternoon at five, and though Ginny usually attended meetings only during salary negotiations, word had come down that the district was going to be in dire financial straits next school year again -- and that layoffs were being considered.

  Bill had been cloistered all day in his office, working, and she popped her head in and told him that he and the girls were on their own for dinner, she was going to the meeting. He nodded absently, and she wasn't sure he'd understood what she said, but she assumed he'd figure it out when his stomach started to growl, and she grabbed her keys from the bedroom and yelled an unanswered "Good-bye!"

  The district offices were located in a flat stretch of weedy ground between the elementary school and the junior high. The small lot was already filled with other teachers' cars and trucks, so she parked in her usual spot at the elementary school and walked over.

  The boardroom was crowded. All of the folding chairs were taken, and Eleanor Burrows and the other cafeteria and clerical workers were seated on too small plastic chairs that had been brought in from some classroom and arranged along the side aisle against the wall.

  There were a few baby chairs left, but Ginny preferred to stand, and she moved to the left of the door, where two male high school teachers were already leaning against the cheaply paneled wall.

  The board wasted no time in getting down to it. Immediately after calling the meeting to order, Paul Fancher, the superintendent, announced that unless drastic steps were taken, there would have to be wholesale teacher layoffs from all three schools. "We simply cannot afford to continue on as is," the superintendent explained.

  "There goes our raise," someone said.

  Nervous laughter greeted the remark.

  "Now, we have several options," Fancher said. "Everyone can take an across-the-board ten percent pay cut --"

  A chorus of angry words erupted from the gathered employees.

  "I know," the superintendent said loudly. "I don't think that's fair, either. But that's one option we're considering. Another option is reducing services. Eliminating bus service, for example, and forcing parents to provide their children's transportation. Or we could eliminate selective positions and double up the workload for senior employees -- without overtime or additional compensation, of course." He paused. "Or we could privatize and contract out all non-teaching positions."

  People were yelling at the board members now, all of whom were sitting in smug silence, watching and apparently enjoying the commotion caused by their plans.

  Fancher raised his hands for silence. "These are hard choices we have to make for this coming school year." he said above the noise of the crowd. "That's why we're here today."

  Ginny felt sick. She glanced over at Eleanor, who was in her late fifties and had been working for Juniper Elementary School since its inception. Most of the board members, Fancher included, were in their early thirties and had only moved to Juniper within the last five years. How dare they eliminate the jobs of people who had given the best years of their lives to Juniper's schoolchildren?

  There was another man seated to the left of the board at the table in the front of the room, a youngish business-suited man who stared idly up at the ceiling, obviously bored. She did not know who he was, but there was a sinking feeling in the pit of her stomach, and she was pretty sure she knew whose interests the man represented.

  Sure enough, after a heated discussion between Fancher, two other board members, and the most vocal employees in the audience, the superintendent called for order. He said a privatization proposal that should satisfy both sides had already been presented to the district by The Store.

  Fancher introduced the man at the end of the table as Mr. Keyes, and Ginny watched as The Store representative stood, walked in front of the table, and addressed the assembled employees.

  So this was the famous Mr. Keyes, she thought. This was the man Bill had ranted and railed against.

  In a loud, clear voice, Keyes explained the privatization proposal. At this time, he said, only food and transportation services would be contracted out. And since The Store did not have any qualified employees of its own, it would keep on all existing school workers in their present positions. The only difference they would notice would be a technicality -- their paychecks would now come from The Store rather than the district.

  The angry tone of the crowd's noise subsided.

  Should the financial crunch continue, The Store had contingency plans to fund all district operations. But, he emphasized, The Store would only provide funding and would not attempt to influence classroom subject matter or dictate curriculum.

  Keyes smiled reassuringly, and Ginny wanted to throw a tomato right into the middle of his smug, duplicitous face.

  "What about pensions?" Ginny couldn't see the woman speaking, but she recognized Meg's voice. "If The Store takes over, will you still contribute money toward our retirement? And will it be the same amount now contributed by the district?"

  Keyes's smile remained constant. "I'm afraid there will be no more pension fund. Those monies will be absorbed into our operating costs. We encourage all of you to open your own individual retirement accounts."

  Debate started up again. Ginny listened for a few moments, then slipped outside. This could go on for hours.

  And it didn't make any difference.

  The board had already reached its decision.

  Back home, the girls were gone and Bill was making Rice-A-Roni.

  "That's the last straw!" she said, slamming her purse down on the counter.

  Bill looked up. "What is it?"

  "The board's talking about letting it take over the district!"

  "It?" he said, though he knew exactly what she meant.
r />   "The Store!" She opened the refrigerator, grabbed a Diet Coke, popped open the tab, and took a long drink. "Elections are coming up, and they're supporting this tax cut, which'll gut the district, and in order to save money they're thinking of contracting out not only transportation and food services but clerical and teaching positions as well. The Store, of course, has graciously offered to provide funding for those services, no strings attached."

  His jaw tightened. "How's it flying with the troops?"

  "It's being presented as the only feasible option. It's a done deal."

  "Goddamn it. Park maintenance . . . street maintenance . . . fire . . .

  police . . . schools. The Store owns this town." He shook his head. "That's it.

  I'm running for council."

  Ginny's heart rate suddenly accelerated. "No," she said. "Don't run. Let Ben run. Or Street."

  "Why?"

  "I'm afraid."

  He was silent, looking at her, and she realized that he was afraid, too.

  "We can't let ourselves be intimidated," he said quietly.

  She put her Diet Coke down on the counter, moved next to him, and hugged him tightly, burying her face in his shoulder. "I'm getting so tired of this," she said.

  "Who isn't?"

  "There just doesn't seem to be anything we can do."

  "Maybe there isn't," he admitted. "But that doesn't mean we stop trying."

  "We can't let them take control of education."

  "We won't," he said.

  It felt good, standing here like this, hugging him. It felt reassuring, and she reached behind him and turned down the burner on the stove so his dinner wouldn't burn.

  They were still hugging when the girls returned home.

  TWENTY-THREE

  1

  SUPPORT THE STORE

  VOTE LAMB-KEYES-WALKER

  Ben tore the sign down from the telephone pole, ripping it in half before dumping it in the trash can in front of Street's shop.

  That's what it came down to this time: pro-Store candidates and anti-Store candidates.

  And most people seemed to be siding with The Store.

  There'd been a sea change in American politics since the first time he'd run for council in the late seventies. He'd lost then, by a large margin, and that had kept him away ever since, but he'd lost to a man he respected, a man who had turned out to be a decent councilman and later a decent mayor.