Fire Read Free Page B

anyway? What are you?”
    The creature still didn’t answer, but its hand started toward him again, reaching through the bars of its cage, fingers probing the air between it and Ron —
    “No. Don’t do that. It’s . . . weird. I don’t like it.”
    A cough — no, a throat, clearing — from behind Ron. From the doorway.
    Bonner. Oh God, it’s Bonner.
    “And what, pray tell, is that, Mr. Hawkins? What’s ‘. . . weird’?”
    Ron didn’t know what to say; he wanted to curl up and hide someplace, anyplace. He tried to answer Bonner, but he didn’t have an answer, and all that came out of his throat was a choking sound.
    “The Beast isn’t a pet, Mr. Hawkins. Not your pet. Not my pet. Not anyone’s pet, not even the institute’s. He isn’t something to play with. I trust you’ll remember that in the future?”
    Ron nodded, because that was the only thing he could do. But Bonner didn’t look like he was done with him, not by half. Hell. Now I bet I’m going to lose my job without letting the poor thing out of its cage.
    “Do you have any idea, Mr. Hawkins, what kind of danger you’re placing yourself in? What kind of danger your irresponsibility creates for everyone here in the institute? Let me tell you —”
    Then, mercifully, the paging system crackled and hissed, and the voice of Ralph Hernandez, the night supervisor, came through the overhead speaker.
    “Attention, everybody. We got a bomb threat situation going on.” Ralph wasn’t real professional where it came to using the PA system. Not that it did him any harm. It wasn’t something he did often, and none of the dozen people who’d be in the institute at this hour were likely to care much about his manner. “This probably ain’t going to amount to anything, but all the same I’ve got to ask you all to evacuate the buildings. If you can all meet me in the front parking lot so that we can get a head count against the sign-in log, it’ll be much appreciated.”
    Bonner scowled and hissed. “I’ll have you on your way now, Mr. Ron Hawkins. I’ve business to attend to before I leave the building, and no time in which to attend to it. I’m sure the same is true of yourself. I’ll rely on your good sense to ensure that in the future you tend to your mops and brooms, and leave important business in more capable hands.”
    Bonner nodded sharply and turned away, like to say Ron ought to know he was dismissed. Ron couldn’t decide whether he ought to feel insulted or relieved — but he turned and walked from the room anyway. By the time he was out the door it dawned on him that he was feeling both those things at the same time. Which was pretty damned strange.
    Ron hadn’t laid hands on another man in sixteen years, not since that night with Billy Wallace and Joey Harris at the all-night convenience store. After that night, and what followed after it, Ron had sworn off violence. There weren’t many times he’d regretted it, either; life doesn’t give a man that much call to go knocking other peoples’ heads together. Herman Bonner, on the other hand . . . he was a man who needed taking down a peg. Ron pictured himself hauling off and slugging the little weasel, and the thought warmed him.
    And remembered that he was a grown man, pushing thirty past, and that resolution or not there was no excuse for a grown man to resort to that kind of behavior. And sighed, kind of sad-like.
    In the hall he realized that while he’d got the trash from both of Bonner’s smaller baskets, he’d forgot to put a fresh liner in the second one. To hell with him. To hell with his goddamn trash. Of course, the lack of a liner wouldn’t stop Bonner from using the wastebasket, and that would mean that tomorrow night Ron might have a mess on his hands — no. The thought of a mess tomorrow night was a lot less to cope with right then than the idea of having to go back into Bonner’s office. Ron hung the plastic bag over the push-handle of the trash cart and