Eddie shrugged his right shoulder, settling the strap of Roland's swag-bag there more firmly, then looked behind him. The door back to Calla Bryn Sturgis was there. He could see Roland sitting at the mouth of the cave with the box open on his lap.
Those f**king chimes must be driving him crazy , Eddie thought. And then, as he watched, he saw the gunslinger remove a couple of bullets from his gunbelt and stick them in his ears. Eddie grinned. Good move, man . At least it had helped to block out the warble of the thinny back on 1-70. Whether it worked now or whether it didn't, Roland was on his own. Eddie had things to do.
He turned slowly on his little spot of the sidewalk, then looked over his shoulder again to verify the door had turned with him. It had. If it was like the other ones, it would now follow him everywhere he went. Even if it didn't, Eddie didn't foresee a problem; he wasn't planning on going far. He noticed something else, as well: that sense of darkness lurking behind everything was gone. Because he was really here, he supposed, and not just todash. If there were vagrant dead lurking in the vicinity, he wouldn't be able to see them.
Once more shrugging the swag-bag's strap further up on his shoulder, Eddie set off for The Manhattan Restaurant of the Mind.
FIVE
People moved aside for him as he walked, but that wasn't quite enough to prove he was really here; people did that when you were todash, too. At last Eddie provoked an actual collision with a young guy toting not one briefcase but two - a Big Coffin Hunter of the business world if Eddie had ever seen one.
"Hey, watch where you're going!" Mr. Businessman squawked when their shoulders collided.
"Sorry, man, sorry," Eddie said. He was here, all right. "Say, could you tell me what day - "
But Mr. Businessman was already gone, chasing the coronary he'd probably catch up to around the age of forty-five or fifty, from the look of him. Eddie remembered the punchline of an old New York joke: "Pardon me, sir, can you tell me how to get to City Hall, or should I just go f**k myself?" He burst out laughing, couldn't help it.
Once he had himself back under control, he got moving again. On the corner of Second and Fifty-fourth, he saw a man looking into a shop window at a display of shoes and boots. This guy was also wearing a suit, but looked considerably more relaxed than the one Eddie had bumped into. Also he was carrying only a single briefcase, which Eddie took to be a good omen.
"Cry your pardon," Eddie said, "but could you tell me what day it is?"
"Thursday," the window-shopper said. "The twenty-third of June."
"1977?"
The window-shopper gave Eddie a little half-smile, both quizzical and cynical, plus a raised eyebrow. "1977, that's correct. Won't be 1978 for... gee, another six months. Think of that."
Eddie nodded. "Thankee-sai."
"Nothing," Eddie said, and hurried on.
Only three weeks to July fifteenth, give or take , he thought. That's cutting it too goddam close for comfort .
Yes, but if he could persuade Calvin Tower to sell him the lot today, the whole question of time would be moot. Once, a long time ago, Eddie's brother had boasted to some of his friends that his little bro could talk the devil into setting himself on fire, if he really set his mind to it. Eddie hoped he still had some of that persuasiveness. Do a little deal with Calvin Tower, invest in some real estate, then maybe take a half-hour time-out and actually enjoy that New York groove a little bit. Celebrate. Maybe get a chocolate egg-cream, or -
The run of his thoughts broke off and he stopped so suddenly that someone bumped into him and then swore. Eddie barely felt the bump or heard the curse. The dark-gray Lincoln Town Car was parked up there again - not in front of the fire hydrant this time, but a couple of doors down.
Balazar's Town Car.
Eddie started walking again. He was suddenly glad Roland had talked him into taking one of his revolvers. And that the gun was fully loaded.
SIX
The chalkboard was back in the window (today's special was a New England Boiled Dinner consisting of Nathaniel Hawthorne, Henry David Thoreau, and Robert Frost - for dessert, your choice of Mary McCarthy or Grace Metalious), but the sign hanging in the door read sorry we're closed. According to the digital bank-clock up the street from Tower of Power Records, it was 3:14 p.m. Who shut up shop at quarter past three on a weekday afternoon?
Someone with a special customer, Eddie reckoned. That was who.
He cupped his hands to the sides of his face and looked into The Manhattan Restaurant of the Mind. He saw the small round display table with the children's books on it. To the right was the counter that looked as if it might have been niched from a turn-of-the-century soda fountain, only today no one was sitting there, not even Aaron Deepneau. The cash register was likewise unattended, although Eddie could read the words on the orange tab sticking up in its window: no sale.