The Drawing of the Three

galaxies of sun-stars.

He had planned his escape in advance as he planned everything in advance (take only acceptable risks, minimize those which remain, be a Do Bee in all things); such planning was why he had been marked by his colleagues as a man who would go far (and he did intend to go far, but one of the places he did not intend to go was to jail, or the electric chair).

A few people were running along the street into which the alley debouched, but they were on their way to see what the screaming was about, and none of them looked at Jack Mort, who had removed the out-of-season knit cap but not the sunglasses (which, on such a bright morning, did not seem out of place).

He turned into another alley.

Came out on another street.

Now he sauntered down an alley not so filthy as the first two—almost, in fact, a lane. This fed into another street, and a block up there was a bus stop. Less than a minute after he got there a bus arrived, which was also part of the schedule. Jack entered when the doors accordioned open and dropped his fifteen cents into the slot of the coin receptacle. The driver did not so much as glance at him. That was good, but even if he had, he would have seen nothing but a nondescript man in jeans, a man who might be out of work—the sweatshirt he was wearing looked like something out of a Salvation Army grab-bag.

Be ready, be prepared, be a Do-Bee.

Jack Mort's secret for success both at work and at play.

Nine blocks away there was a parking lot. Jack got off the bus, entered the lot, unlocked his car (an unremarkable mid-fifties Chevrolet which was still in fine shape), and drove back to New York City .

He was free and clear.

7

The gunslinger saw all of this in a mere moment. Before his shocked mind could shut out the other images by simply shutting down, he saw more. Not all, but enough. Enough.

8

He saw Mort cutting a piece from page four of The New York Daily Mirror with an Exacto knife, being fussily sure to stay exactly upon the lines of the column. NEGRO GIRL COMATOSE FOLLOWING TRAGIC ACCIDENT, the headline read. He saw Mort apply glue to the back of the clipping with the brush attached to the cover of his paste-pot. Saw Mort position it at the center of a blank page of a scrapbook, which, from the bumpy, swelled look of the foregoing pages, contained many other clippings. He saw the opening lines of the piece: 'Five-year-old Odetta Holmes, who came to Elizabethtown , N.J. , to celebrate a joyous occasion, is now the victim of a cruel freak accident. Following the wedding of an aunt two days ago, the girl and her family were walking toward the railway station when a brick tumbled …'

But that wasn't the only time he'd had dealings with her, was it? No. Gods, no.

In the years between that morning and the night when Odetta had lost her legs, Jack Mort had dropped a great many things and pushed a great many people.

Then there had been Odetta again.

The first time he had pushed something on her.

The second time he had pushed her in front of something.

What sort of man is this that I am supposed to use? What sort of man—

But then he thought of Jake, thought of the push which had sent Jake into this world, and he thought he heard the laughter of the man in black, and that finished him.

Roland fainted.

9

When he came to, he was looking at neat rows of figures marching down a sheet of green paper. The paper had been ruled both ways, so that each single figure looked like a prisoner in a cell.

He thought: Something else.

Not just Walter's laughter. Something—a plan?

No, Gods, no—nothing as complex or hopeful as that.

But an idea, at least. A tickle.

How long have I been out? he thought with sudden alarm. It was maybe nine o' the clock when I came through the door, maybe a little earlier. How long—?

He came forward.

Jack Mort—who was now only a human doll controlled by the gunslinger—looked up a little and saw the hands of the expensive quartz clock on his desk stood at quarter past one.

Gods, as late as that? As late as that? But Eddie … he was so tired, he can never have stayed awake for so I—

The gunslinger turned Jack's head. The door was still there, but what he saw through it was far worse, than he would have imagined.

Standing to one side of the door were two shadows, one that of the wheelchair, the other that of a human being … but the human being was incomplete, supporting itself on its arms because its lower legs had been snatched away with the same quick brutality as Roland's fingers and toe.

The shadow moved.

Roland whipped Jack Mort's head away at once, moving with the whiplash speed of a striking snake.

She mustn't look in. Not until I am ready. Until then, she sees nothing but the back of this man's head.

Detta Walker would not see Jack Mort in any case, because the person who looked through the open door saw only what the host saw. She could only see Mort's face if he looked into a mirror (although that might lead to its own awful consequences of paradox and repetition), but even then it would mean nothing to either Lady; for that matter, the Lady's face would not mean anything to Jack Mort. Although they had twice been on terms of deadly intimacy, they had never seen each other.

What the gunslinger didn't want was for the Lady to see the Lady.

Not yet, at least.

The spark of intuition grew closer to a plan.

But it was late over there—the light had suggested to him that it must be three in the afternoon, perhaps even four.

How long until sunset brought the lobstrosities, and the end of Eddie's life?