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Eddie akened by an announce at Kennedy International, where the visibility was unlimited, the winds out of the west at ten rees, in forty-five et another chance, he wanted to thank the Detta

He looked around and saw people checking their duty declaration cards and their proofs of citizenship�Dco in from Nassau your driver&039;s license and a credit card with a stateside bank listed on it was supposed to be enough, but most still carried passports�Dand Eddie felt a steel wire start to tighten inside hione to sleep, and so soundly

He got up and went to the restroos of coke under his ar as nicely to the contours of his sides as they had in the hotel room where a soft-spoken A the strapping operation, the man whose name Poe had made famous ( Wilson had only looked blankly at Eddie when Eddie made some allusion to this) handed over the shirt Just an ordinary paisley shirt, a little faded, the sort of thing any frat-boya short pre-exams holidayexcept this one was specially tailored to hide unsightly bulges

&039;&039;You check everything once before you set down just to be sure," Wilson said, "but you&039;re gonna be fine"

Eddie didn&039;t know if he was going to be fine or not, but he had another reason for wanting to use the John before the FASTEN SEATBELTS light caht it hadn&039;t been teed to hold onto the last little bit of what the sallow thing had had the te custo custoota , but there were still people watching Trained people He needed any and every edge he could get If he could go in there a little cooled out, just a little, itthat put him over the top

He snorted the powder, flushed the little twist of paper it had been in down the John, then washed his hands

Of course, if you ht No He wouldn&039;t And wouldn&039;t care

On his way back to his seat he saw the stewardess who had brought him the drink he hadn&039;t finished She smiled at him He sht es, and looked at pictures and words Neither hten around his gut, and when the FASTEN SEATBELTS light did coht

The heroin had hit�Dhe had the sniffles to prove it�Dbut he sure couldn&039;t feel it

One thing he did feel shortly before landing was another of those unsettling periods of blanknessshort, but most definitely there

The 727 banked over the water of Long Island Sound and started in

2

Jane Dorning had been in the business class galley, helping Peter and Anne stow the last of the after-e kid went into the first class bathroo to his seat when she brushed aside the curtain between business and first, and she quickened her step without even thinking about it, catching hi hiain

All right, all right He went into the John and took theain afterwards For Christ&039;s sake, Janey! You&039;re being a goose!

She wasn&039;t, though It was nothing she could put her finger on, but she was not being a goose

He&039;s too pale

So what? Thousands of people are too pale, including your own all bladder went to hell

He had very arresting blue eyes�Dmaybe not as cute as the hazel contacts�Dbut certainly arresting So why the bother and expense?

Because he likes designer eyes Isn&039;t that enough?

No

Shortly before FASTEN SEATBELTS and final cross-check, she did soh old battle-axe of an instructor in mind She filled a Thermos bottle with hot coffee and put on the red plastic top without first pushing the stopper into the bottle&039;s throat She screwed the top on only until she felt it catch the first thread

Susy Douglas was eese to extinguish their cigarettes, telling the the them to check and make sure they had their duty-declaration cards and proofs of citizenship, telling thelasses and speaker sets

I&039;m surprised we don&039;t have to check to ht distractedly She felt her own steel rapping itself around her guts, cinching the up the lanced at the Thermos, then at Jane&039;s face "Jane? Are you sick? You look as white as a�D"

"I&039;et back" Jane glanced briefly at the juun"

"Jane�D"

"Get ht, Jane No proble sat down in the jump-seat closest to the aisle She held the Thermos in her hands and made no move to fasten the web-harness She wanted to keep the Thermos in complete control, and that meant both hands

Susy thinks I&039;ve flipped out

Jane hoped she had

IfCaptain McDonald lands hard, I&039; to have blisters all over my hands

She would risk it

The plane was dropping The man in 3A, the man with the two-tone eyes and the pale face, suddenly leaned down and pulled his travelling bag froht This is where he brings out the grenade or the autoot

And theto flip the red top off the Ther to be one very surprised Friend of Allah rolling around on the aisle floor of Detta Flight 901 while his skin boiled on his face

3A unzipped the bag

Jane got ready

3

The gunslinger thought this man, prisoner or not, was probably better at the fine art of survival than any of the other s, for the most part, and even those who looked reasonably fit also looked open, unguarded, their faces those of spoiled and cosseted children, the faces of ht - eventually�Dbut ould whine aluts out onto their shoes and their last expressions would not be rage or agony but stupid surprise

The prisoner was betterbut not good enough Not at all

The ar I don&039;t knohat, but she saw so She&039;s awake to him in a way she&039;s not to the others

The prisoner sat down Looked at a lih who Magda ht have seen er did not want to look at a book, as were; he wanted to look at the woe to coainst itat least for the tiotten a drug Not the drug he hier&039;s sick body, but one that people paid a lot of ive this drug to his brother, ould in turn give it to a man named Balazar The deal would be co they took for this one�Dif, that was, the prisoner was able to correctly perfore as this e rituals); it was called Clearing the Customs

But the wo the Custoht the ansas probably yes And then? Gaol And if the prisoner were gaoled, there would be no place to get the sort ofbody needed

He o with his brother to this man Balazar It&039;s not in the plan, the brother won&039;t like it, but he s would either know a man or be a man who also cured the sick Aand thener thought

The ansas so large and simple, so close to hi the prisonerthe Custoht be soht be consulted in the cases of people who see cere a friendly border was in his oorld One doesture�Dand was allowed to pass

He was able to take things from the prisoner&039;s world to his own The tooter-fish popkin proved that He would take the bags of drugs as he had taken the popkin The prisoner would Clear the Custos back

Can you?

Ah, here was a question disturbing enough to distract hione over what looked like a huge ocean and were now turning back toward the coastline As they did, the water grew steadily closer The air-carriage was counslinger&039;s as rapt as the child seeing his first snowfall) He could take things froain? That was a thing of which he as yet had no knowing He would have to find out

The gunslinger reached into the prisoner&039;s pocket and closed the prisoner&039;s fingers over a coin

Roland went back through the door

4

The birds flehen he sat up They hadn&039;t dared come as close this ti how much even a little bit of nourishment had revived hiht back with him this tie suggested it was really made of some baser ested nobility, courage, stubbornness His hair, both curled at the base of the skull and pigged at the nape of the neck, suggested a bit of vanity as well He turned the coin over and saw so it caused hi voice

On the back was an eagle, the device which had decorated his own banner, in those didoms and banners to symbolize them

Time&039;s short Go back Hurry

But he tarried aIt was harder to think inside this head�Dthe prisoner&039;s was far from clear, but it was, temporarily at least, a cleaner vessel than his own

To try the coin both as only half the experiment, wasn&039;t it?

He took one of the shells froe belt and folded it over the coin in his hand

Roland stepped back through the door

5

The prisoner&039;s coin was still there, firmly curled within the pocketed hand He didn&039;t have to come forward to check on the shell; he knew it hadn&039;t made the trip

He ca he had to know Had to see

So he turned, as if to adjust the little paper thing on the back of his seat (by all the gods that ever were, there was paper everywhere in this world), and looked through the doorway He saw his body, collapsed as before, noith a fresh trickle of blood flowing from a cut on his cheek�Da stone must have done it when he left hie he had been holding along with the coin lay at the base of the door, on the sand

Still, enough was answered The prisoner could Clear the Custoht search hiain

They&039;d find nothing

The gunslinger settled back, content, unaware, at least for the tirasped the extent of his problem

6

The 727 ca Island , leaving sooty trails of spent fuel behind The landing gear came doith a rumble and a thump

7

3A, the htened up and Jane saw�Dactually saw�Da snub-nosed Uzi in his hands before she realized it was nothing but his duty declaration card and a little zipper bag of the sort which men sometimes use to hold their passports

The plane settled like silk

Letting out a deep, shaking shudder, she tightened the red top on the Thermos

"Callthe cross-over belts now that it was too late She had told Susy what she suspected on the final approach, so Susy would be ready "You have every right"

"No," Susy said "You did the right thing"

"I over-reacted And dinner&039;s on me"

"Like hell it is And don&039;t look at him Look at me Smile, Janey"

Jane s on now

"You atching his hands," Susy said, and laughed Jane joined in "I atching what happened to his shirt when he bent over to get his bag He&039;s got enough stuff under there to stock a Woolworth&039;s notions counter Only I don&039;t think he&039;s carrying the kind of stuff you can buy at Woolworth&039;s"

Jane threw back her head and laughed again, feeling like a puppet "Hoe handle it?" Susy had five years&039; seniority on her, and Jane, who only a o had felt she had the situation under solad to have Susy beside her

"We don&039;t Tell the Captain while we&039;re taxiing in The Captain speaks to custoets in line like everyone else, except then he gets pulled out of line by so to be the first in a very long succession of little roo, but chills, alternately hot and cold, were racing through her

She hit the pop-release on her harness when the reverse thrusters began to wind down, handed the Therot up and rapped on the cockpit door

Not a terrorist but a drug-sler Thank God for small favors Yet in a way she hated it He had been cute

Not much, but a little

8

He still doesn&039;t see, the gunslinger thought with anger and dawning desperation Gods!

Eddie had bent to get the papers he needed for the ritual, and when he looked up the ar, her cheeks as white as the paper things on the backs of the seats The silver tube with the red top, which he had at first taken for so it up between her breasts now Roland thought that in a moment or two she would either throw it or spin off the red top and shoot him with it

Then she relaxed and buckled her harness even though the thue had already landed She turned to the ar The other wounslinger thought, he was a river-toad

The gunslinger wondered how the er&039;s own ka, could be so stupid So into his body, of courseone of this world&039;s versions of devil-weed Some, but not all He was not soft and unobservant like the others, but in tiht be

They are as they are because they live in the light, the gunslinger thought suddenly That light of civilization you were taught to adore above all other things They live in a world which has not moved on

If this hat people became in such a world, Roland was not sure he didn&039;t prefer the dark "That was before the world moved on," people said in his oorld, and it was always said in tones of bereft sadnessbut it was, perhaps, sadness without thought, without consideration

She thought I/he�Det the papers When she saw the papers she relaxed and did what everyone else did before the carriage caain Now she and her friend are talking and laughing but their faces�Dher face especially, the face of the wo, all right, but they are only pretending to laugh and that is because what they are talking about is I/hi what see concrete road, one of es of his vision the gunslinger could see other air-carriagesother roads Some lues at all but like projectiles fired fro to leap into the air As desperate as his own situation had become, part of him wanted very much to come forward and turn his head so he could see these vehicles as they leaped into the sky They were man-made but every bit as fabulous as the stories of the Grand Featherex which had supposedly once lived in the distant (and probably dom of Garlan�Dmore fabulous, perhaps, simply because these were ht him the popkin unfastened her harness (this less than a minute since she had fastened it) and went forward to a ser thought, but when the door was opened and she stepped in he saw it apparently took three drivers to operate the air-carriage, and even the brief glimpse he was afforded of what seehtsat all but seeing nothing�DCort would have first sneered, then driven hih the nearest wall The prisoner&039;sunder the seat and his light jacket fro the ordeal of the ritual

The prisoner saw nothing; the gunslinger saw everything

The woht him a thief or a h�Ddid soed her ed it back only now I think they knohat&039;s really wrong They know he&039;s going to try to profane the ritual

Then, in a thunderclap, he saw the rest of his probles into his world as he had the coin; the coin hadn&039;t been stuck to the prisoner&039;s body with the glue-string the prisoner had wrapped around and around his upper body to hold the bags tight to his skin This glue-string was only part of his problem The prisoner hadn&039;tmany, but when he realized that whatever it was he had risked his life for was suddenly gone, he was surely going to raise the racksand what then?

It was in to behave in a aol as quickly as being caught in the act of profanation The loss would be bad enough; for the bags under his ar would probably one e, ox-like now that it was on the ground, labored its way through a left turn The gunslinger realized that he had no tiht He had to do more than come forward; he ht now

9

Eddie tucked his declaration card and passport in his breast pocket The steel as now turning steadily around his guts, sinking in deeper and deeper,his nerves spark and sizzle And suddenly a voice spoke in his head

Not a thought; a voice

Listen to me, fellow Listen carefully And if you would reht further rouse the suspicions of those arh already

Eddie first thought he was still wearing the airline earphones and picking up some weird transmission from the cockpit But the airline headphones had been picked up five ht was that so He almost snapped his head to the left, but that was absurd Like it or not, the raw truth was that the voice had co sos in his teeth He had heard of such th�D

Straighten up,as if you&039;ve gone crazy!

Eddie sat up fast, as if he had been whacked That voice wasn&039;t Henry&039;s, but it was so much like Henry&039;s when they had been just a couple of kids growing up in the Projects, Henry eight years older, the sister who had been between thehost of memory; Selina had been struck and killed by a car when Eddie o and Henry ten That rasping tone of coht end with Eddie occupying a pine box long before his tioing on here?

You&039;re not hearing voices that aren&039;t there, the voice inside his head returned No, not Henry&039;s voice�Dolder, dryerstronger But like Henry&039;s voiceand i You&039;re not going crazy I AM another person

This is telepathy?

Eddie was vaguely aware that his face was coht that, under the circuht to qualify him for the Best Actor of the Year Acade in on the Detta section of Kennedy&039;s International Arrivals Building

Idon&039;t know that word But I do know that those ar

There was a pause A feeling�Dodder beyond telling�Dof phanto card catalogue

heroin or cocaine I can&039;t tell which except�Dexcept itthe one you don&039;t take to buy the one you do

"What army women?" Eddie muttered in a low voice He was co aloud "What in the hell are you talking ab�D"

That feeling of being slapped oncewith it

Shut your ht! Christ!

Now that feeling of ruain

Army stewardesses, the alien voice replied Do you understand ht, prisoner!

"What did you�D" 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&039;s ridiculous!

I don&039;t kno they cae, and it doesn&039;t matter One of them told the drivers The drivers will tell whatever priests perfor of Custoe of the voice in his head was arcane, the tere cah his face reether with a painful click and he drew a hot little hiss in through theaotten off the plane and the game was already over

But this wasn&039;t real No way this could be real It was just hisat the last nore it and it would go awa�D

You will NOT ignore it or you will go to jail and I will die! the voice roared

Who in the name of God are you? Eddie asked reluctantly, fearfully, and inside his head he heard soh 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 SEATBELTS light went out The jetway rolled forward and buentle thump

They had arrived

12

There is a place where you can put it while you perfor of Customs, the voice said A safe place Then, when you are away, you can get it again and take it to thisthings out of the overhead bins and trying to deal with coats which were, according to the cockpit announce Get your jacket Then go into the privy again

Pr�D

Oh Bathrooot dope they&039;ll think I&039; to dump it

But Eddie understood that part didn&039;t matter They wouldn&039;t exactly break down the door, because that ers And they&039;d know you couldn&039;t flush two pounds of coke down an airline toilet and leave no trace Not unless the voice was really telling the truththat there was some safe place But how could there be?