Wolves of the Calla - Stephen King [236]
“Stole it,” Jake said in a low voice. He was staring at his knees.
“You took what you needed to survive,” Susannah said. “There’s a big difference. Listen, sugar—you’re not planning to shoot anyone, are you?”
“Not planning to, no.”
“Be careful,” she said. “I don’t know what you’ve got in your head, but you be careful.”
“And whatever it is, you better get it settled in the next week or so,” Eddie told him.
Jake nodded, then looked at Roland. “When are you planning to call the town meeting?”
“According to the robot, we have ten days left before the Wolves come. So…” Roland calculated briefly. “Town gathering in six days. Will that suit you?”
Jake nodded again.
“Are you sure you don’t want to tell us what’s on your mind?”
“Not unless you ask as dinh,” Jake said. “It’s probably nothing, Roland. Really.”
Roland nodded dubiously and began rolling another smoke. Having fresh tobacco was wonderful. “Is there anything else? Because, if there isn’t—”
“There is, actually,” Eddie said.
“What?”
“I need to go to New York,” Eddie said. He spoke casually, as if proposing no more than a trip to the mercantile to buy a pickle or a licorice stick, but his eyes were dancing with excitement. “And this time I’ll have to go in the flesh. Which means using the ball more directly, I guess. Black Thirteen. I hope to hell you know how to do it, Roland.”
“Why do you need to go to New York?” Roland asked. “This I do ask as dinh.”
“Sure you do,” Eddie said, “and I’ll tell you. Because you’re right about time getting short. And because the Wolves of the Calla aren’t the only ones we have to worry about.”
“You want to see how close to July fifteenth it’s getting,” Jake said. “Don’t you?”
“Yeah,” Eddie said. “We know from when we all went todash that time is going faster in that version of New York, 1977. Remember the date on the piece of The New York Times I found in the doorway?”
“June second,” Susannah said.
“Right. We’re also pretty sure that we can’t double back in time in that world; it’s later every time we go there. Right?”
Jake nodded emphatically. “Because that world’s not like the others…unless maybe it was just being sent todash by Black Thirteen that made us feel that way?”
“I don’t think so,” Eddie said. “That little piece of Second Avenue between the vacant lot and maybe on up to Sixtieth is a very important place. I think it’s a doorway. One big doorway.”
Jake Chambers was looking more and more excited. “Not all the way up to Sixtieth. Not that far. Second Avenue between Forty-sixth and Fifty-fourth, that’s what I think. On the day I left Piper, I felt something change when I got to Fifty-fourth Street. It’s those eight blocks. The stretch with the record store on it, and Chew Chew Mama, and The Manhattan Restaurant of the Mind. And the vacant lot, of course. That’s the other end. It…I don’t know…”
Eddie said, “Being there takes you into a different world. Some kind of key world. And I think that’s why time always runs one way—”
Roland held up his hand. “Stop.”
Eddie stopped, looking at Roland expectantly, smiling a little. Roland was not smiling. Some of his previous sense of well-being had passed away. Too much to do, gods damn it. And not enough time in which to do it.
“You want to see how near time has run to the day the agreement becomes null and void,” he said. “Have I got that right?”
“You do.”
“You don’t need to go to New York physically to do that, Eddie. Todash would serve nicely.”
“Todash would do fine to check the day and the month, sure, but there’s more. We’ve been dumb about that vacant lot, you guys. I mean really dumb.”
Ten
Eddie believed they could own the vacant lot without ever touching Susannah’s inherited fortune; he thought Callahan’s story showed quite clearly how it could be done. Not the rose; the rose was not to be owned (by them or anyone) but to be protected. And they could do it. Maybe.
Frightened or not, Calvin Tower had been waiting in that deserted laundrymat to save Pere Callahan’s bacon. And frightened or not, Calvin Tower had refused