The Dark Tower (Page 62)

"Nothing," Eddie said. "What’s that smell? Any idea?"

Dinky shook his head, but pointed beyond the prison compound in a direction that might or might not be south or east.

"Something poison out there is all I know," he said. "Once I asked Finli and he said there used to be factories in that direction.

Positronics business. You know that name?"

"Yes. But who’s Finli?"

"Finli O’Tego. The top security guy, Prentiss’s number one boy, also known as The Weasel. A taheen. Whatever your plans are, you’ll have to go through him to make them work. And he won’t make it easy for you. Seeing him stretched out dead on the ground would make me feel like it was a national holiday.

By the way, my real name’s Richard Earnshaw. Pleased as hell to meetcha." He put out his hand. Eddie shook it.

"I’m Eddie Dean. Known as Eddie of New York out here west of the Pecos. The woman’s Susannah. My wife."

Dinky nodded. "Uh-huh. And the boy’s Jake. Also of New York."

"Jake Chambers, right. Listen, Rich-"

"I salute the effort," he said, smiling, "but I’ve been Dinky too long to change now, I guess. And it could be worse. I worked for awhile at the Supr Savr Supermarket with a twentysomething guy known as JJ the Fuckin Blue Jay. People will still be calling him that when he’s eighty and wearing a pee-bag."

"Unless we’re brave, lucky, and good," Eddie said, "nobody’s gonna see eighty. Not in this world or any of the others."

Dinky looked startled, then glum. "You got a point."

"That guy Roland used to know looks bad," Eddie said.

"Did you see his eyes?"

Dinky nodded, glummer than ever. "I think those little spots of blood in the whites are called petechiae. Something like that." Then, in a tone of apology Eddie found rather bizarre, under the circumstances: "I don’t know if I’m saying that right."

"I don’t care what you call them, it’s not good. And him pitching a fit like that-"

"Not a very nice way to put it," Dinky said.

Eddie didn’t give a shit if it was or wasn’t. "Has it ever happened to him before?"

Dinky’s eyes broke contact with Eddie’s and looked down at his own shuffling feet, instead. Eddie thought that was answer enough.

"How many times?" Eddie hoped he didn’t sound as appalled as he felt. There were enough pinprick-sized bloodspots in the whites of Sheemie’s eyes to make them look as if someone had flung paprika into them. Not to mention the bigger ones in the corners.

Still without looking at him, Dinky raised four fingers.

"Four times?"

"Yuh," Dinky said. He was still studying his makeshift mocs.

"Starting with the time he sent Ted to Connecticut in 1960. It was like doing that ruptured something inside him." He looked up, trying to smile. "But he didn’t faint yesterday, when the three of us went back to the Devar."

"Let me make sure I’ve got this right. In the prison down there, you guys have all sorts of venial sins, but only one mortal one: teleportation."

Dinky considered this. The rules certainly weren’t that liberal for the taheen and the can-toi; they could be exiled or lobotomized for all sorts of reasons, including such wrongs as negligence, teasing the Breakers, or the occasional act of outright cruelty. Once-so he had been told-a Breaker had been raped by a low man, who was said to have explained earnestly to the camp’s last Master that it was part of his becoming-the Crimson King himself had appeared to this fellow in a dream and told him to do it. For this the can-toi had been sentenced to death. The Breakers had been invited to attend his execution (accomplished by a single pistol-shot to the head), which had taken place in the middle of Pleasantville’s Main Street.

Dinky told Eddie about this, then admitted that yes, for the inmates, at least, teleportation was the only mortal sin. That he knew of, anyway.

"And Sheemie’s your teleport," Eddie said. ‘You guys help him-facilitate for him, to use the Tedster’s word-and you cover up for him by fudging the records, somehow-"

"They have no idea how easy it is to cook their telemetry,"

Dinky said, almost laughing. "Partner, they’d be shocked. The hard part is making sure we don’t tip over the whole works."

Eddie didn’t care about that, either. It worked. That was the only thing that mattered. Sheemie also worked… but for how long?

"-but he’s the one who does it," Eddie finished. "Sheemie."

"Yuh."

"The only one who can do it."

"Yuh."

Eddie thought about their two tasks: freeing the Breakers

(or killing them, if there was no other way to make them stop)

and keeping the writer from being struck and killed by a minivan while taking a walk. Roland thought they might be able to accomplish both things, but they’d need Sheemie’s teleportation ability at least twice. Plus, their visitors would have to get back inside the triple run of wire after today’s palaver was done, and presumably that meant he’d have to do it a third time.

"He says it doesn’t hurt," Dinky said. "If that’s what you’re worried about."

Inside the cave the others laughed at something, Sheemie back to consciousness and taking nourishment, everyone the best of friends.

"It’s not," Eddie said. "What does Ted think is happening to Sheemie when he teleports?"

"That he’s having brain hemorrhages," Dinky said promptly.

"Little tiny strokes on the surface of his brain." He tapped a finger at different points on his own skull in demonstration.

"Boink, boink, boink."

"Is it getting worse? It is, isn’t it?"

"Look, if you think him jaunting us around is my idea, you better think again."

Eddie raised one hand like a traffic cop. "No, no. I’m just trying to figure out what’s going on." And what our chances are.

"I hate using him that way!" Dinky burst out. He kept his voice pitched low, so those in the cave wouldn’t hear, but Eddie never for a moment considered that he was exaggerating.

Dinky was badly upset. "He doesn’t mind-he wants to do it-and that makes it worse, not better. The way he looks at Ted…" He shrugged. "It’s the way a dog’d look at the best master in the universe. He looks at your dinh the same way, as I’m sure you’ve noticed."

"He’s doing it for my dinh," Eddie said, "and that makes it okay. You may not believe that, Dink, but-"

"But you do."

"Totally. Now here’s the really important question: does Ted have any idea how long Sheemie can last? Keeping in mind that now he’s got a little more help at this end?"

Who you tryin to cheer up, bro? Henry spoke up suddenly inside his head. Cynical as always. Him or yourself?

Dinky was looking at Eddie as if he were crazy, or soft in the head, at least. "Ted was an accountant. Sometimes a tutor. A daylaborer when he couldn’t get anything better. He’s no doctor."

But Eddie kept pushing. "What does he think?"

Dinky paused. The wind blew. The music wafted. Farther away, thunder mumbled out of the murk. At last he said:

"Three or four times, maybe… but the effects are getting worse. Maybe only twice. But there are no guarantees, okay? He could drop dead of a massive stroke the next time he bears down to make that hole we go through."

Eddie tried to think of another question and couldn’t.

Ihat last answer pretty well covered the waterfront, and when Susannah called them back inside, he was more than glad to go.

FOUR

Sheemie Ruiz had rediscovered his appetite, which all of them took as a good sign, and was tucking in happily. The bloodspots in his eyes had faded somewhat, but were still clearly visible. Eddie wondered what the guards back in Blue Heaven would make of those if they noticed them, and also wondered if Sheemie could wear a pair of sunglasses without exciting comment.

Roland had gotten the Rod to his feet and was now conferring with him at the back of the cave. Well… sort of. The gunslinger was talking and the Rod was listening, occasionally sneaking tiny awed peeks at Roland’s face. It was gibberish to Eddie, but he was able to pick out two words: Chevin and Chayven. Roland was asking this one about the one they’d met staggering along the road in Lovell.

"Does he have a name?" Eddie asked Dink and Ted, taking a second plate of food.

"I call him Chucky," Dinky said. "Because he looks a little bit like the doll in this horror movie I saw once."

Eddie grinned. "Child’s Play, yeah. I saw that one. After your when, Jake. And way after yours, Suziella." The Rod’s hair wasn’t right, but the chubby, freckled cheeks and the blue eyes were. "Do you think he can keep a secret?"

"If no one asks him, he can," Ted said. Which was not, in Eddie’s view, a very satisfactory answer.

After five minutes or so of chat, Roland seemed satisfied and rejoined the others. He hunkered-no problem doing that now that his joints had limbered up-and looked at Ted.

"This fellow’s name is Haylis of Chayven. Will anyone miss him?"

"Unlikely," Ted said. "The Rods show up at the gate beyond the dorms in littie groups, looking for work. Fetching and carrying, mostly. They’re given a meal or something to drink as pay. If they don’t show up, no one misses them."

"Good. Now-how long are the days here? Is it twentyfour hours from now until tomorrow morning at this time?"