The Drawing of the Three (The Dark Tower #2)(25)

Eddie didn't reply.

"If you're clean, why won't you take a blood-test?" This was the first guy again, the guy with the cigarette in the corner of his mouth. It had almost burned down to the filter.

Eddie was suddenly angry―white-hot angry. He listened inside.

Okay, the voice responded at once, and Eddie felt more than agreement, he felt a kind of go-to-the-wall approval. It made him feel the way he felt when Henry hugged him, tousled his hair, punched him on the shoulder, and said You done good, kid―don't let it go to your head, but you done good.

"You know I'm clean." He stood up suddenly―so suddenly they moved back. He looked at the smoker who was closest to him. "And I'll tell you something, babe, if you don't get that coffin-nail out my face I'm going to knock it out."

The guy recoiled.

"You guys have emptied the crap-tank on that plane already. God, you've had enough time to have been through it three times. You've been through my stuff. I bent over and let one of you stick the world's longest finger up my ass. If a prostate check is an exam, that was a motherf*cking safari. I was scared to look down. I thought I'd see that guy's fingernail sticking out of my cock."

He glared around at them.

"You've been up my ass, you've been through my stuff, and I'm sitting here in a pair of Jockies with you guys blowing smoke in my faces. You want a blood-test? Kay. Bring in someone to do it."

They murmured, looked at each other. Surprised. Uneasy.

"But if you want to do it without a court order," Eddie said, "whoever does it better bring a lot of extra hypos and vials, because I'll be damned if I'm gonna piss alone. I want a Federal marshal in here, and I want each one of you to take the same goddam test, and I want your names and IDs on each vial, and I want them to go into that Federal marshal's custody. And whatever you test mine for―cocaine, heroin, bennies, pot, whatever―I want those same tests performed on the samples from you guys. And then I want the results turned over to my lawyer."

"Oh boy, YOUR LAWYER," one of them cried. "That's what it always comes down to with you shitbags, doesn't it, Eddie? You'll hear from MY LAWYER. I'll sic MY LAWYER on you. That crap makes me want to puke!"

"As a matter of fact I don't currently have one," Eddie said, and this was the truth. "I didn't think I needed one. You guys changed my mind. You got nothing because I have nothing, but the rock and roll just doesn't stop, does it? So you want me to dance? Great. I'll dance. But I'm not gonna do it alone. You guys'll have to dance, too."

There was a thick, difficult silence.

"I'd like you to take down your shorts again, please, Mr. Dean," one of them said. This guy was older. This guy looked like he was in charge of things. Eddie thought that maybe―just maybe―this guy had finally realized where the fresh tracks might be. Until now they hadn't checked. His arms, his shoulders, his legs ... but not there. They had been too sure they had a bust.

"I'm through taking things off, taking things down, and eating this shit," Eddie said. "You get someone in here and we'll do a bunch of blood-tests or I'm getting out. Now which do you want?"

That silence again. And when they started looking at each other, Eddie knew he had won.

WE won, he amended. What's your name, fella?

Roland. Yours is Eddie. Eddie Dean.

You listen good.

Listen and watch.

"Give him his clothes," the older man said disgustedly. He looked at Eddie. "I don't know what you had or how you got rid of it, but I want you to know that we're going to find out."

The old dude surveyed him.

"So there you sit. There you sit, almost grinning. What you say doesn't make me want to puke. What you are does."

"I make you want to puke."

"That's affirmative."

"Oh boy," Eddie said. "I love it. I'm sitting here in a little room and I've got nothing on but my underwear and there's seven guys around me with guns on their hips and make you want to puke? Man, you have got a problem."

Eddie took a step toward him. The Customs guy held his ground for a moment, and then something in Eddie's eyes―a crazy color that seemed half-hazel, half-blue―made him step back against his will.

"I'M NOT CARRYING!" Eddie roared. "QUIT NOW! JUST QUIT! LET ME ALONE!"

The silence again. Then the older man turned around and yelled at someone, "Didn't you hear me? Get his clothes!"

And that was that.

2

"You think we're being tailed?" the cabbie asked. He sounded amused.

Eddie turned forward. "Why do you say that?"

"You keep looking out the back window."

"I never thought about being tailed," Eddie said. This was the absolute truth. He had seen the tails the first time he looked around. Tails, not tail. He didn't have to keep looking around to confirm their presence. Outpatients from a sanitarium for the mentally retarded would have trouble losing Eddie's cab on this late May afternoon; traffic on the L.I.E. was sparse. "I'm a student of traffic patterns, that's all."

"Oh," the cabbie said. In some circles such an odd statement would have prompted questions, but New York cab drivers rarely question; instead they assert, usually in a grand manner. Most of these assertions begin with the phrase This city! as if the words were a religious invocation preceding a sermon ... which they usually were. Instead, this one said: "Because if you did think we were being tailed, we're not. I'd know. This city! Jesus! I've tailed plenty of people in my time. You'd be surprised how many people jump into my cab and say 'Follow that car.' I know, sounds like something you only hear in the movies, right? Right. But like they say, art imitates life and life imitates art. It really happens! And as for shaking a tail, it's easy if you know how to set the guy up. You ..."