Russel, he thought, and Eddie Dean’s head shook, as if in disbelief.

Then the gunslinger retreated again.

6

Nerves, the great oracle and eminent junkie assured him. Just nerves. All part of the cool turkey experience, little brother.

But if nerves was what it was, how come he felt this odd sleepiness stealing over him—odd because he should have been itchy, ditsy, feeling that urge to squirm and scratch that came before the actual shakes; even if he had not been in Henry’s “cool turkey” state, there was the fact that he was about to attempt bringing two pounds of coke through U.S. Customs, a felony punishable by not less than ten years in federal prison, and he seemed to suddenly be having blackouts as well.

Still, that feeling of sleepiness.

He sipped at his drink again, then let his eyes slip shut.

Why’d you black out?

I didn’t, or she’d be running for all the emergency gear they carry.

Blanked out, then. It’s no good either way. You never blanked out like that before in your life. Nodded out, yeah, but never blanked out.

Something odd about his right hand, too. It seemed to throb vaguely, as if he had pounded it with a hammer.

He flexed it without opening his eyes. No ache. No throb. No blue bombardier’s eyes. As for the blank-outs, they were just a combination of going cool turkey and a good case of what the great oracle and eminent et cetera would no doubt call the smuggler’s blues.

But I’m going to sleep, just the same, he thought. How ’bout that?

Henry’s face drifted by him like an untethered balloon. Don’t worry, Henry was saying. You’ll be all right, little brother. You fly down there to Nassau, check in at the Aquinas, there’ll be a man come by Friday night. One of the good guys. He’ll fix you, leave you enough stuff to take you through the weekend. Sunday night he brings the coke and you give him the key to the safe deposit box. Monday morning you do the routine just like Balazar said. This guy will play; he knows how it’s supposed to go. Monday noon you fly out, and with a face as honest as yours, you’ll breeze through Customs and we’ll be eating steak in Sparks before the sun goes down. It’s gonna be a breeze, little brother, nothing but a cool breeze.

But it had been sort of a warm breeze after all.

The trouble with him and Henry was they were like Charlie Brown and Lucy. The only difference was once in awhile Henry would hold onto the football so Eddie could kick it—not often, but once in awhile. Eddie had even thought, while in one of his heroin dazes, that he ought to write Charles Schultz a letter. Dear Mr. Schultz, he would say. You’re missing a bet by ALWAYS having Lucy pull the football up at the last second. She ought to hold it down there once in awhile. Nothing Charlie Brown could ever predict, you understand. Sometimes she’d maybe hold it down for him to kick three, even four times in a row, then nothing for a month, then once, and then nothing for three or four days, and then, you know, you get the idea. That would REALLY fuck the kid up, wouldn’t it?