Drugged by Black Thirteen he might have been, but Jake still hadn’t lost his touch. Now he plucked the rest of the thought out of the Pere’s mind and spoke it aloud, only changing the word Callahan used to the one Roland had taught them.
“I need no sigul,” Jake said. “Not the potter but the potter’s clay,
“God,” Callahan said. The word was as heavy as a stone, but once it was out of his mouth, the rest of them came easier. “God, if You’re still there, if You still hear me, this is Callahan. Please still this thing, Lord. Please send it back to sleep. I ask it in the name of Jesus.”
“In the name of the White,” Jake said.
“
“Amen,” said the maid in a stoned, bemused voice.
For a moment the droning idiot’s song from the box rose another notch, and Callahan understood it was hopeless, that not even God Almighty could stand against Black Thirteen.
Then it fell silent.
“God be thanked,” he whispered, and realized his entire body was drenched with sweat.
Jake burst into tears and picked up Oy. The chambermaid also began to weep, but had no one to comfort her. As Pere Callahan slid the meshy (and oddly heavy) material of the bowling bag back around the ghostwood box, Jake turned to her and said, “You need to take a nap, sai.”
It was the only thing he could think of, and it worked. The maid turned and walked across to the bed. She crawled up on it, pulled her skirt down over her knees, and appeared to fall unconscious.
“Will it stay asleep?” Jake asked Callahan in a low voice. “Because… Pere… that was too close for comfort.”
Perhaps, but Callahan’s mind suddenly seemed free-freer than it had been in years. Or perhaps it was his heart that had been freed. In any case, his thoughts seemed very clear as he lowered the bowling bag to the folded dry-cleaning bags on top of the safe.
Remembering a conversation in the alley behind Home. He and Frankie Chase and Magruder, out on a smoke-break. The talk had turned to protecting your valuables in New York, especially if you had to go away for awhile, and Magruder had said the safest storage in New York… the absolute safest storage…
'Jake, there’s also a bag of plates in the safe.”
“Orizas?”
“Yes. Get them.” While he did, Callahan went to the maid on the bed and reached into the left skirt pocket of her uniform. He brought out a number of plastic MagCards, a few regular keys, and a brand of mints he’d never heard of-Altoids.
He turned her over. It was like turning a corpse.
“What’re you doing?” Jake whispered. He had put Oy down so he could sling the silk-lined reed pouch over his shoulder. It was heavy, but he found the weight comforting.
“Robbing her, what does it look like?” the Pere replied angrily. “Father Callahan of the Holy Roman Catholic Church is robbing a hotel maid. Or would, if she had any… ah!”
In the other pocket was the little roll of bills he’d been hoping for. She had been performing turndown service when Oy’s barking had distracted her. This included flushing the john, pulling the shades, turning down the bed, and leaving what the maids called “pillow candy.” Sometimes patrons tipped for the service. This maid was carrying two tens, three fives, and four ones.
“I’ll pay you back if our paths cross,” Callahan told the unconscious maid. “Otherwise, just consider it your service to God.”
“
Callahan and Jake exchanged a look.
ELEVEN
In the elevator going back down, Callahan held the bag containing Black Thirteen and Jake carried the one with the ’Rizas inside. He also carried their money. It now came to a total of forty-eight dollars.
“Will it be enough?” It was his only question after hearing the Pere’s plan for disposing of the ball, a plan which would necessitate another stop.
“I don’t know and I don’t care,” Callahan replied. They were speaking in the low voices of conspirators, although the elevator was empty save for them. “If I can rob a sleeping chambermaid, stiffing a cab driver should be a leadpipe cinch.”
“Yeah,” Jake said. He was thinking that Roland had done more than rob a few innocent people during his quest for the Tower; he’d killed a good many, as well. “Let’s just get this done and then find the Dixie Pig.”
“You don’t have to worry so much, you know,” Callahan said. “If the Tower falls, you’ll be among the very first to know.”
Jake studied him. After a moment or two of this, Callahan cracked a smile. He couldn’t help it.
“Not that funny, sai,” Jake said, and they went out into the dark of that early summer’s night in the year of ’99.
TWELVE
It was quarter to nine and there was still a residue of light across the Hudson when they arrived at the first of their two stops. The taximeter’s tale was nine dollars and fifty cents. Callahan gave the cabbie one of the maid’s tens.
“Mon, don’t hurt yose’f,” the driver said in a powerful Jamaican accent. “I dreadful ’fraid you might leave yose’f
“You’re lucky to get anything at all, son,” Callahan said kindly. “We’re seeing New York on a budget.”
“My woman got a budget, too,” said the cabbie, and then drove away.
Jake, meanwhile, was looking up. “Wow,” he said softly. “I guess I forgot how
Callahan followed his glance, then said: “Let’s get it done.” And, as they hurried inside: “What are you getting from Susannah? Anything?”
“Man with a guitar,” Jake said. “Singing… I don’t know. And I should. It was another one of those coincidences that aren’t coincidences, like the owner of the bookstore being named Tower or Balazar’s joint turning out to be The Leaning Tower. Some song… I should know.”
“Anything else?'|
Jake shook his head. “That’s the last thing I got from her, and it was just after we got into the taxi outside the hotel. I think she’s gone into the Dixie Pig and now she’s out of touch.” He smiled faintly at the unintentional pun.
Callahan veered toward the building directory in the center of the huge lobby. “Keep Oy close to you.”
“Don’t worry.”
It didn’t take Callahan long to find what he was looking for.
THIRTEEN
The sign read:
Below, in a framed box, was a list of rules and regulations, which they both scanned closely. From beneath their feet came the rumble of a subway train. Callahan, who hadn’t been in New York for almost twenty years, had no idea what train it might be, where it might go, or how deep in the city’s intestine it might run. They’d already come down two levels by escalator, first to the shops and then to here. The subway station was deeper still.
Jake shifted the bag of Orizas to his other shoulder and pointed out the last line on the framed notice. “We’d get a discount if we were tenants,” he said.
“Count!” Oy cried sternly.
