Eddie’s initial dismay haddeparted—depaa-aated, Cullum himself would have said—right aroundthe time the man’s wavery recorded voice was telling Eddie that he, Cullum,couldn’t say with any degree of certainty when he’d be back. Because Cullum wasright there, in his hobbity little cottage on the western shore of KeywadinPond, either sitting on his overstuffed hobbity sofa or in one of the twosimilarly overstuffed hobbity chairs. Sitting there and monitoring messages onhis no-doubt-clunky mid-seventies answering machine. And Eddie knew thisbecause… well…

Because he just knew.

The primitive recording couldn’t completelyhide the sly humor that had crept into Cullum’s voice by the end of themessage. “Coss, if you’re still set on talkin to nobody but yours truly, youc’n leave me a message at the beep. Keep it short.” The final word came out shawt.

Eddie waited for the beep and then said,“It’s Eddie Dean, John. I know you’re there, and I think you’ve been waitingfor my call. Don’t ask me why I think that, because I don’t really know,but—”

There was a loud click in Eddie’s ear, andthen Cullum’s voice—his live voice—said, “Hello there, son,you takin good care of my car?”

For a moment Eddie was too bemused toreply, for Cullum’s Downeast accent had turned the question into somethingquite different: You takin good care of my ka?

“Boy?” Cullum asked, suddenly concerned.“You still on the wire?”

“Yeah,” Eddie said, “and so are you. Ithought you were going to Vermont, John.”

“Well, I tell you what. This place ain’tseen a day this excitin prob’ly since South Stoneham Shoe burnt down in 1923.The cops’ve gut all the ruds out of town blocked off.”

Eddie was sure they were letting folksthrough the roadblocks if they could show proper identification, but he ignoredthat issue in favor of something else. “Want to tell me you couldn’t find yourway out of that town without seeing a single cop, if it suited your fancy?”

There was a brief pause. In it, Eddiebecame aware of someone at his elbow. He didn’t turn to look; it was Roland.Who else in this world would smell—subtly but unquestionably—ofanother world?

“Oh, well,” Cullum said at last. “Maybe I doknow a woods road or two that come out over in Lovell. It’s been a dry summer,n I guess I could get m’truck up em.”

“One or two?”

“Well, say three or four.” A pause, whichEddie didn’t break. He was having too much fun. “Five or six,” Cullum amended,and Eddie chose not to respond to this, either. “Eight,” Cullum said at last,and when Eddie laughed, Cullum joined in. “What’s on your mind, son?”

Eddie glanced at Roland, who was holdingout a tin of aspirin between the two remaining fingers of his right hand. Eddietook it gratefully. “I want you to come over to Lovell,” he said to Cullum.“Seems like we might have a little more palavering to do, after all.”

“Ayuh, and it seems like I musta known it,”Cullum said, “although it was never right up on the top of my mind; up there Ikep’ thinkin ‘I’ll be gettin on the road to Montpelier soon,’ and still I kep’findin one more thing and one more thing to do around here. If you’da calledfive minutes ago, you woulda gotten a busy—I ‘us on the phone to CharlieBeemer. It was his wife ‘n sister-in-law that got killed in the market, don’tyou know. And then I thought, ‘What the hell, I’ll just give the whole place agood sweep before I put my gear in the back of the truck and go.’ Nothin up ontop is what I’m sayin, but down underneath I guess I been waitin for your callever since I got back here. Where’ll you be? Turtleback Lane?”

Eddie popped open the aspirin tin andlooked greedily at the little line-up of tablets. Once a junkie, always ajunkie, he reckoned. Even when it came to this stuff. “Ayuh,” he said, with histongue only partly in his cheek; he had become quite the mimic of regionaldialects since meeting Roland on a Delta jet descending into Kennedy Airport.“You said that lane was nothing but a two-mile loop off Route 7, didn’t you?”

“So I did. Some very nice homes alongTurtleback.” A brief, reflective pause. “And a lot of em for sale. There’s beenquite a number of walk-ins in that part of the world just lately. As I may havealso mentioned. Such things make folks nervous, and rich folks, at least, c’nafford to get away from what makes it ha’ad to sleep at night.”

Eddie could wait no longer; he took threeof the aspirin and tossed them into his mouth, relishing the bitter taste asthey dissolved on his tongue. Bad as the pain currently was, he would haveborne twice as much if he could have heard from Susannah. But she was quiet. Hehad an idea that the line of communication between them, chancy at best, hadceased to exist with the coming of Mia’s damned baby.

“You boys might want to keep your shootin ironsclose at hand if you’re headed over to Turtleback in Lovell,” Cullum said. “Asfor me, I think I’ll just toss m’shotgun in m’truck before I set sail.”

“Why not?” Eddie agreed. “You want to lookfor your car along the loop, okay? You’ll find it.”

“Ayuh, that old Galaxie’s ha’ad to miss,”Cullum agreed. “Tell me somethin, son. I’m not goin to V’mont, but I gut afeelin you mean to send me somewhere, if I agree to go. You mind tellin mewhere?”

Eddie thought that Mark Twain might electto call the next chapter of John Cullum’s no doubt colorful life A MaineYankee in the Crimson King’s Court, but elected not to say so. “Have youever been to New York City?”

“Gorry, yes. Had a forty-eight-hour passthere, when I was in the Army.” The final word came out in a ridiculously flatdrawl. “Went to Radio City Music Hall and the Empire State Buildin, that much Iremember. Musta made a few other tourist stops, though, because I lost thirtydollars out of m’wallet and a couple of months later I got diagnosed with a prettyfine case of the clap.”

“This time you’ll be too busy to catch theclap. Bring your credit cards. I know you have some, because I got a look atthe receipts in your glove-compartment.” He felt an almost insane urge to drawthe last word out, make it compaa-aaaatment.

“Mess in there, ennit?” Cullum askedequably.

“Ayuh, looks like what was left when thedog chewed the shoes. See you in Lovell, John.” Eddie hung up. He looked at thebag Roland was carrying and lifted his eyebrows.

“It’s a poorboy sanditch,” Roland said.“With lots of mayo, whatever that is. I’d want a sauce that didn’t look quiteso much like come, myself, but may it do ya fine.”

Eddie rolled his eyes. “Gosh, that’s a realappetite-builder.”

“Do you say so?”

Eddie had to remind himself once more thatRoland had almost no sense of humor. “I do, I do. Come on. I can eat mycome-and-cheese sandwich while I drive. Also, we need to talk about how we’regoing to handle this.”

Seven

The way to handle it, both agreed, was totell John Cullum as much of their tale as they thought his credulity (andsanity) could stand. Then, if all went well, they would entrust him with thevital bill of sale and send him to Aaron Deepneau. With strict orders to makesure he spoke to Deepneau apart from the not entirely trustworthy Calvin Tower.

“Cullum and Deepneau can work together totrack Moses Carver down,” Eddie said, “and I think I can give Cullum enoughinformation about Suze—private stuff—to convince Carver that she’sstill alive. After that, though… well, a lot depends on how convincing thosetwo guys can be. And how eager they are to work for the Tet Corporation intheir sunset years. Hey, they may surprise us! I can’t see Cullum in a suit andtie, but traveling around the country and throwing monkey-wrenches in Sombra’sbusiness?” He considered, head cocked, then nodded with a smile. “Yeah. I cansee that pretty well.”

“Susannah’s godfather is apt to be an oldcodger himself,” Roland observed. “Just one of a different color. Such fellowsoften speak their own language when they’re an-tet. And mayhap I can give JohnCullum something that will help convince Carver to throw in with us.”