You’re not hearing voices that aren’t there,the voice inside his head returned. No, not
Henry’s voice—older, dryer . . . stronger. But like Henry’s voice. . . and impossible not to believe. That’s the first thing. You’re not going crazy. I AM another person.
This is telepathy?
Eddie was vaguely aware that his face was completely expressionless. He thought that,
under the circumstances, that ought to qualify him for the Best Actor of the Year Academy
Award. He looked out the window and saw the plane closing in on the Delta section of
Kennedy’s International Arrivals Building.
I don’t know that word. But I do know that those army women know you are carrying…
There was a pause. A feeling—odder beyond telling—of phantom fingers rummaging
through his brain as if he were a living card catalogue.
. . . heroin or cocaine. I can’t tell which except—except it must be cocaine because you’re
carrying the one you don’t take to buy the one you do.
“What army women?” Eddie muttered in a low voice. He was completely unaware that he
was speaking aloud. “What in the hell are you talking ab—”
That feeling of being slapped once more… so real he felt his head ring with it.
Shut your mouth, you damned jackass!
All right, all right! Christ!
Now that feeling of rummaging fingers again.
Army stewardesses,the alien voice replied. Do you under- stand me? I haveno time to con
your every thought, prisoner!
“What did you—” Eddie began, then shut his mouth. What did you call me?
Never mind. Just listen. Time is very, very short. They know. The army stewardesses know you have this cocaine.
How could they? That’s ridiculous!
I don’t know how they came by their knowledge, and it doesn’t matter. One of them told
the drivers. The drivers will tell whatever priests perform this ceremony, this Clearing of
Customs—
The language of the voice in his head was arcane, the terms so off-kilter they were almost
cute . . . but the message came through loud and clear. Although his face remained
expressionless, Eddie’s teeth came together with a painful click and he drew a hot little hiss
in through them.
The voice was saying the game was over. He hadn’t even gotten off the plane and the game
was already over.
But this wasn’t real. No way this could be real. It was just his mind, doing a paranoid little
jig at the last minute, that was all. He would ignore it. Just ignore it and it would go awa—
You will NOT ignore it or you will go to jail and I will die!the voice roared.
Who in the name of Godare you? Eddie asked reluctantly, fearfully, and inside his head he heard someone or something let out a deep and gusty sigh of relief.
10
He believes,the gunslinger thought. Thank all the gods that are or ever were, he believes!
11
The plane stopped. The FASTEN SEAT BELTS light went out. The jetway rolled forward
and bumped against the for- ward port door with a gentle thump.
They had arrived.
12
There is a place where you can put it while you perform the Clearing of Customs,the voice
said. A safe place. Then, when you are away, you can get it again and take it to this man
Balazar.
People were standing up now, getting things out of the overhead bins and trying to deal
with coats which were, according to the cockpit announcement, too warm to wear.
Get your bag. Get your jacket. Then go into the privy again.
Pr—
Oh. Bathroom. Head.
If they think I’ve got dope they’ll think I’m trying to dump it.
But Eddie understood that part didn’t matter. They wouldn’t exactly break down the door,
because that might scare the passengers. And they’d know you couldn’t flush two pounds of
coke down an airline toilet and leave no trace. Not unless the voice was really telling the
truth . . . that there was some safe place. But how could there be?
Never mind, damn you! MOVE!
Eddie moved. Because he had finally come alive to the situation. He was not seeing all
Roland, with his many years and his training of mingled torture and precision, could see,
but he could see the faces of the stews—the real faces, the ones behind the smiles and the helpful passing of garment bags and cartons stowed in the forward closet. He could see the
way their eyes flicked to him, whiplash quick, again and again.
He got his bag. He got his jacket. The door to the jetway had been opened, and people were
already moving up the aisle. The door to the cockpit was open, and here was the Captain,
also smiling. . . but also looking at the passengers in first class who were still getting their
things together, spotting him—no, targeting him—and then looking away again, nod- ding
to someone, tousling a youngster’s head.
He was cold now. Not cold turkey, just cold. He didn’t need the voice in his head to make
him cold. Cold—sometimes that was okay. You just had to be careful you didn’t get so cold
you froze.
Eddie moved forward, reached the point where a left turn would take him into the
jetway—and then suddenly put his hand to his mouth.
“I don’t feel well,” he murmured. “Excuse me.” He moved the door to the cockpit, which
slightly blocked the door to the first class head, and opened the bathroom door on the right.
“I’m afraid you’ll have to exit the plane,” the pilot said sharply as Eddie opened the
bathroom door. “It’s—”
“I believe I’m going to vomit, and I don’t want to do it on your shoes,” Eddie said, “or mine, either.”
A second later he was in with the door locked. The Cap- tain was saying something. Eddie
couldn’t make it out, didn’t want to make it out. The important thing was that it was just talk, not yelling, he had been right, no one was going to start yelling with maybe two hundred
and fifty passengers still waiting to deplane from the single forward door. He was in, he
was temporarily safe . . . but what good was it going to do him?
If you’re there,he thought, you better do something very quick, whoever you are.
For a terrible moment there was nothing at all. That was a short moment, but in Eddie
Dean’s head it seemed to stretch out almost forever, like the Bonomo’s Turkish Taffy
Henry had sometimes bought him in the summer when they were kids; if he were bad,
Henry beat the shit out of him, if he were good, Henry bought him Turkish Taffy. That was
the way Henry handled his heightened responsibilities during summer vacation.
God, oh Christ, I imagined it all, oh Jesus, how crazy could I have b—
Get ready,a grim voice said. Ican’t do it alone. I can COME FORWARD but I can’t make
you COME THROUGH. You have to do it with me. Turn around.
Eddie was suddenly seeing through two pairs of eyes, feeling with two sets of nerves (but
not all the nerves of this other person were here; parts of the other were gone, freshly gone,
screaming with pain), sensing with ten senses, thinking with two brains, his blood beating
with two hearts.
He turned around. There was a hole in the side of the bathroom, a hole that looked like a
doorway. Through it he could see a gray, grainy beach and waves the color of old athletic
socks breaking upon it.
He could hear the waves.
He could smell salt, a smell as bitter as tears in his nose.
Go through.
Someone was thumping on the door to the bathroom, telling him to come out, that he must
deplane at once.
Go through, damn you!
Eddie, moaning, stepped toward the doorway . . . stum- bled . . . and fell into another world.
13
He got slowly to his feet, aware that he had cut his right palm on an edge of shell. He
looked stupidly at the blood welling across his lifeline, then saw another man rising slowly
to his feet on his right.
Eddie recoiled, his feelings of disorientation and dreamy dislocation suddenly supplanted
by sharp terror: this man was dead and didn’t know it. His face was gaunt, the skin stretched
over the bones of his face like strips of cloth wound around slim angles of metal almost to
the point where the cloth must tear itself open. The man’s skin was livid save for hectic
spots of red high on each cheekbone, on the neck below the angle of jaw on either side, and
a single circular mark between the eyes like a child’s effort to replicate a Hindu caste
symbol.
Yet his eyes—blue, steady, sane—were alive and full of terrible and tenacious vitality. He
wore dark clothes of some homespun material; the shirt, its sleeves rolled up, was a black