The Drawing of the Three

been tempted to believe the lady had come most of the way around the globe, changing planes at every stop along the way) in the other.

'There's a lady who may never fly Detta's big jets again,' Susy murmured.

'I don't give a fuck if she flies stuffed down the front of Superman's Jockies,' McDonald said. 'She the last?'

Jane darted past them, glanced at the seats in business class, then poked her head into the main cabin. It was deserted.

She came back and reported the plane empty.

McDonald turned to the jetway and saw two uniformed Customs agents fighting their way through the crowd, excusing themselves but not bothering to look back at the people they jostled aside. The last of these was the old lady, who dropped her ticket-folder. Papers flew and fluttered everywhere and she shrilled after them like an angry crow.

'Okay,' McDonald said, 'you guys stop right there.'

'Sir, we're Federal Customs officers?'

'That's right, and I requested you, and I'm glad you came so fast. Now you just stand right there because this is my plane and that guy in there is one of my geese. Once he's off the plane and into the jetway, he's your goose and you can cook him any way you want.' He nodded to Deere. 'I'm going to give the son of a bitch one more chance and then we're going to break the door in.'

'Okay by me,' Deere said.

McDonald whacked on the bathroom door with the heel of his hand and yelled, 'Come on out, my friend! I'm done asking!'

There was no answer.

'Okay,' McDonald said. 'Let's do it.'

17

Dimly, Eddie heard an old woman say: 'Well, pardon me for living! I guess I just fell off the hearse!'

He had parted half the strapping tape. When the old woman spoke his hand jerked a little and he saw a trickle of blood run down his belly.

'Shit,' Eddie said.

'It can't be helped now,' the gunslinger said in his hoarse voice. 'Finish the job. Or does the sight of blood make you sick?'

'Only when it's my own,' Eddie said. The tape had started just above his belly. The higher he cut the harder it got to see. He got another three inches or so, and almost cut himself again when he heard McDonald speaking to the Customs agents: 'Okay, you guys stop right there.'

'I can finish and maybe cut myself wide open or you can try,' Eddie said. 'I can't see what I'm doing. My fucking chin's in the way.'

The gunslinger took the knife in his left hand. The hand was shaking. Watching that blade, honed to a suicidal sharpness, shaking like that made Eddie extremely nervous.

'Maybe I better chance it mys?'

'Wait.'

The gunslinger stared fixedly at his left hand. Eddie didn't exactly disbelieve in telepathy, but he had never exactly believed in it, either. Nevertheless, he felt something now, something as real and palpable as heat baking out of an oven. After a few seconds he realized what it was: the gathering of this strange man's will.

How the hell can he be dying if I can feel the force of him that strongly?

The shaking hand began to steady down. Soon it was barely shivering. After no more than ten seconds it was as solid as a rock.

'Now,' the gunslinger said. He took a step forward, raised the knife, and Eddie felt something else baking off him?rancid fever.

'Are you left-handed?' Eddie asked.

'No,' the gunslinger said.

'Oh Jesus,'' Eddie said, and decided he might feel better if he closed his eyes for a moment. He heard the harsh whisper of the masking tape parting.

'There,' the gunslinger said, stepping back. 'Now pull it off as far as you can. I'll get the back.'

No polite little knocks on the bathroom door now; this was a hammering fist. The passengers are out, Eddie thought. No more Mr. Nice Guy. Oh shit.

'Come on out, my friend! I'm done asking!'

'Yank it!' the gunslinger growled.

Eddie grabbed a thick tab of strapping tape in each hand and yanked as hard as he could. It hurt, hurt like hell. Stop bellyaching, he thought. Things could be worse. You could be hairy-chested, like Henry.

He looked down and saw a red band of irritated skin about seven inches wide across his sternum. Just above the solar plexus was the place where he had poked himself. Blood welled in a dimple and ran down to his navel in a scarlet runnel. Beneath his armpits, the bags of dope now dangled like badly tied saddlebags.

'Okay,' the muffled voice beyond the bathroom door said to someone else. 'Let's d?'

Eddie lost the rest of it in the unexpected riptide of pain across his back as the gunslinger unceremoniously tore the rest of the girdle from him.

He bit down against a scream.

'Put your shirt on,' the gunslinger said. His face, which Eddie had thought as pallid as the face of a living man could become, was now the color of ancient ashes. He held the girdle of tape (now sticking to itself in a meaningless tangle, the big bags of white stuff looking like strange cocoons) in his left hand, then tossed it aside. Eddie saw fresh blood seeping through the makeshift bandage on the gunslinger's right hand. 'Do it fast.'

There was a thudding sound. This wasn't someone pounding for admittance. Eddie looked up in time to see the bathroom door shudder, to see the lights in there flicker. They were trying to break it in.

He picked his shirt up with fingers that suddenly seemed too large, too clumsy. The left sleeve was turned inside out. He tried to stuff it back through the hole, got his hand stuck for a moment, then yanked it out so hard he pulled the sleeve back again with it.

Thud, and the bathroom door shivered again.

'Gods, how can you be so clumsy?' the gunslinger moaned, and rammed his own fist into the left sleeve of Eddie's shirt. Eddie grabbed the cuff as the gunslinger pulled back. Now the gunslinger held the shirt for him as a butler might hold a coat for his master. Eddie put it on and groped for the lowest button.

'Not yet!' the gunslinger barked, and tore another piece away from his own diminishing shirt. 'Wipe your gut!'

Eddie did the best he could. The dimple where the knife had actually pierced his skin was still welling blood. The blade was sharp, all right. Sharp enough.

He dropped the bloody wad of the gunslinger's shirt on the sand and buttoned his shirt.

Thud. This time the door did more than shudder; it buckled in its frame. Looking through the doorway on the beach, Eddie saw the bottle of liquid soap fall from where it had been standing beside the basin. It landed on his zipper bag.

He had meant to stuff his shirt, which was now buttoned (and buttoned straight, for a wonder), into his