Eddie took the bill of sale and gazed at it as grimly as any Hamlet in the history of drama had ever stared upon the skull of poor Yorick. Then he looked back at Roland. "This gives us title to the vacant lot with the rose in it. We need to get it to Moses Carver of Holmes Dental Industries. And where is he? We don't know."
"For that matter, Eddie, we don't even know if he's still alive."
Eddie voiced a wild laugh. "You say true, I say thankya!
Why don't I turn us around, Roland? I'll drive us back to Stephen King's house. We can cadge twenty or thirty bucks off him-because, brother, I don't know if you noticed, but we don't have a crying dime between the two of us-but more important, we can get him to write us a really good hardboiled private eye, someone who looks like Bogart and kicks ass like Clint Eastwood. Let him track down this guy Carver for us!"
He shook his head as if to clear it. The hum of the voices sounded sweetly in his ears, the perfect antidote to the ugly todash chimes.
"I mean, my wife is in bad trouble somewhere up the line, for all I know she's being eaten alive by vampires or vampire bugs, and here I sit beside a country road with a guy whose most basic skill is shooting people, trying to work out how I'm going to start a f**king corporation!"
"Slow down," Roland said. Now that he was resigned to staying in this world a little longer, he seemed calm enough.
"Tell me what it is you feel we need to do before we can shake the dirt of this where and when from our heels for good."
So Eddie did.
THREE
Roland had heard a good deal of it before, but hadn't fully understood what a difficult position they were in. They owned the vacant lot on Second Avenue, yes, but their basis for ownership was a holographic document that would look mighty shaky in a court o' legal, especially if the powers-that-be from the Sombra Corporation started throwing lawyers at them.
Eddie wanted to get the writ of trade to Moses Carver, if he could, along with the information that his goddaughter, Odetta Holmes-missing for thirteen years by the summer of 1977-was alive and well and wanted above all things for Carver to assume guardianship, not just of the vacant lot itself, but of a certain rose growing wild within its borders.
Moses Carver-if still alive-had to be convinced enough by what he heard to fold the so-called Tet Corporation into Holmes Industries (or vice-versa). More! He had to dedicate what was left of his life (and Eddie had an idea Carver might be Aaron Deepneau's age by now) to building a corporate giant whose only real purpose was to thwart two other corporate giants, Sombra and North Central Positronics, at every turn. To strangle them if possible, and keep them from becoming a monster that would leave its destroyer's track across all the dying expanse of Mid-World and mortally wound the Dark Tower itself.
"Maybe we should have left the writ O'Trade with sai Deepneau,"
Roland mused when he had heard Eddie through to the end. "At least he could have located this Carver and sought him out and told our tale for us."
"No, we did right to keep it." This was one of the few things of which Eddie was completely sure. "If we'd left this piece of paper with Aaron Deepneau, it'd be ashes in the wind by now."
"You believe Tower would have repented his bargain and talked his friend into destroying it?"
"I know it," Eddie said. "But even if Deepneau could stand up to his old friend going yatta-yatta-yatta in his ear for on end-'Burn it, Aaron, they coerced me and now they mean to screw me, you know it as well as I do, burn it and we'll call die cops on those momsers'-do you think Moses Carver would believe such a crazy story?"
Roland smiled bleakly. "I don't diink his belief would be an issue, Eddie. Because, think thee a moment, how much of our crazy story has Aaron Deepneau actually heard)"
"Not enough," Eddie agreed. He closed his eyes and pressed the heels of his hands against them. Hard. "I can only think of one person who could actually convince Moses Carver to do the things we'd have to ask, and she's otherwise occupied. In the year of '99. And by then, Carver's gonna be as dead as Deepneau and maybe Tower himself."
"Well, what can we do without her? What will satisfy you?"
Eddie was thinking that perhaps Susannah could come back to 1977 without them, since she, at least, hadn't visited it yet. Well... she'd come here todash, but he didn't think that exactly counted. He supposed she might be barred from 1977
solely on the grounds that she was ka-tet with him and Roland.
Or some other grounds. Eddie didn't know. Reading the fine print had never been his strong point. He turned to ask Roland what he thought, but Roland spoke before he got a chance.
"What about our dan-tete?" he asked.
Although Eddie understood the term-it meant baby god or little savior-he did not at first understand what Roland meant by it. Then he did. Had not their Waterford dan-tete loaned them the very car they were sitting in, say thankya?
"Cullum? Is that who you're talking about, Roland? The guy with the case of autographed baseballs?"
"You say true," Roland replied. He spoke in that dry tone which indicated not amusement but mild exasperation. "Don't overwhelm me with your enthusiasm for the idea."