“No, we can do better than that,” Jake said, looking serious. “I’ve got five or six dollars in my knapsack, I’m pretty sure.” He grinned. “And we can offer him more, later on. When things kind of settle down on this side.”

“If we’re still alive,” Susannah said, but she also looked excited. “You know what, Eddie? You just might be a genius.”

“Balazar and his friends won’t be happy if sai Tower sells us his lot,” Roland said.

“Yeah, but maybe we can persuade Balazar to leave him alone,” Eddie said. A grim little smile was playing around the corners of his mouth. “When it comes right down to it, Roland, Enrico Balazar’s the kind of guy I wouldn’t mind killing twice.”

“When do you want to go?” Susannah asked him.

“The sooner the better,” Eddie said. “For one thing, not knowing how late it is over there in New York is driving me nuts. Roland? What do you say?”

“I say tomorrow,” Roland said. “We’ll take the ball up to the cave, and then we’ll see if you can go through the door to Calvin Tower’s where and when. Your idea is a good one, Eddie, and I say thankya.”

Jake said, “What if the ball sends you to the wrong place? The wrong version of 1977, or…” He hardly knew how to finish. He was remembering how thin everything had seemed when Black Thirteen had first taken them todash, and how endless darkness seemed to be waiting behind the painted surface realities around them. “…or someplace even farther?” he finished.

“In that case, I’ll send back a postcard.” Eddie said it with a shrug and a laugh, but for just a moment Jake saw how frightened he was. Susannah must have seen it, too, because she took Eddie’s hand in both of hers and squeezed it.

“Hey, I’ll be fine,” Eddie said.

“You better be,” Susannah replied. “You just better.”

Chapter II

The Dogan, Part 1

One

When Roland and Eddie entered Our Lady of Serenity the following morning, daylight was only a distant rumor on the northeast horizon. Eddie lit their way down the center aisle with a ’sener, his lips pressed tightly together. The thing they had come for was humming. It was a sleepy hum, but he hated the sound of it just the same. The church itself felt freaky. Empty, it seemed too big, somehow. Eddie kept expecting to see ghostly figures (or perhaps a complement of the vagrant dead) sitting in the pews and looking at them with otherworldly disapproval.

But the hum was worse.

When they reached the front, Roland opened his purse and took out the bowling bag which Jake had kept in his knapsack until yesterday. The gunslinger held it up for a moment and they could both read what was printed on the side: NOTHING BUT STRIKES AT MID-WORLD LANES.