Running with the Demon - Terry Brooks [17]
Derry Howe’s fist crashed down on the table. “If that’s what it takes, hell yes!”
There was sudden silence. A few heads turned. Howe was shaking with anger as he leaned back in his chair, refusing to look away. Al Garcia wiped at his spilled coffee with his napkin and shook his head. Mel Riorden checked his watch.
Penny Williamson folded his arms across his broad chest, regarding Derry Howe the way he might have regarded that postal worker in his dress, fur coat, and gorilla mask. “You better watch out who you say that to.”
“Derry’s just upset,” said a man sitting next to him. Old Bob hadn’t noticed the fellow before. He had blue eyes that were so pale they seemed washed of color. “His job’s on the line, and the company doesn’t even know he’s alive. You can understand how he feels. No need for us to be angry with each other. We’re all friends here.”
“Yeah, Derry don’t mean nothing,” Junior Elway agreed.
“What do you think we ought to do?” Mike Michaelson asked Robert Roosevelt Freemark suddenly, trying to turn the conversation another way.
Old Bob was still looking at the man next to Howe, trying to place him. The bland, smooth features were as familiar to him as his own, but for some reason he couldn’t think of his name. It was right on the tip of his tongue, but he couldn’t get a handle on it. Nor could he remember exactly what it was the fellow did. He was a mill man, all right. Too young to be retired, so he must be one of the strikers. But where did he know him from? The others seemed to know him, so why couldn’t he place him?
His gaze shifted to Michaelson, a tall, gaunt, even-tempered millwright who had retired about the same time Old Bob had. Old Bob had known Mike all his life, and he recognized at once that Mike was trying to give Derry Howe a chance to cool down.
“Well, I think we need a stronger presence from the national office,” he said. “Derry’s right about that much.” He folded his big hands on the table before him and looked down at them. “I think we need some of the government people to do more — maybe a senator or two to intervene so we can get things back on track with the negotiations.”
“More talk!” Deny Howe barely hid a sneer.
“Talk is the best way to go,” Old Bob advised, giving him a look.
“Yeah? Well, it ain’t like it was in your time, Bob Freemark. We ain’t got local owners anymore, people with a stake in the community, people with families that live here like the rest of us. We got a bunch of New York bloodsuckers draining all the money out of Hopewell, and they don’t care about us.” Derry Howe slouched in his chair, eyes downcast. “We got to do something if we expect to survive this. We can’t just sit around hoping for someone to help us. It ain’t going to happen.”
“There was a fellow out East somewhere, one of the major cities, Philadelphia, I think,” said the man sitting next to him, his strange pale eyes quizzical, his mouth quirked slightly, as if his words amused him. “His wife died, leaving him with a five-year-old daughter who was mildly retarded. He kept her in a closet off the living room for almost three years before someone discovered what he was doing and called the police. When they questioned the man, he said he was just trying to protect the girl from a hostile world.” The man cocked his head slightly. “When they asked the girl why she hadn’t tried to escape, she said she was afraid to run, that all she could do was wait for someone to help her.”
“Well, they ain’t shutting me up in no closet!” Derry Howe snapped angrily. “I can help myself just fine!”
“Sometimes,” the man said, looking at no one in particular, his voice low and compelling, “the locks get turned before you even realize that the door’s been closed.”
“I think Bob’s right,” Mike Michaelson said. “I think we have to give the negotiation process a fair chance. These things take time.”
“Time that costs us money and gives them a better chance to break us!” Derry Howe shoved back his chair and came to his feet. “I’m outta here. I got better things to do than sit around