The Drawing of the Three

out or he'd yell for a cop when the fare looked up and said mildly, 'I'd like you to take me to Seventh Avenue and Forty-Ninth street . For this trip I will pay you ten dollars over the fare on your taxi meter, no matter what your tribe.'

A weirdo, the driver (a WASP from Vermont trying to break into showbiz) thought, but maybe a rich weirdo. He dropped the cab into gear. 'We're there, buddy,' he said, and pulling into traffic he added mentally, And the sooner the better.

4

Improvise. That was the word.

The gunslinger saw the blue-and-white parked down the block when he got out, and read Police as Posse without checking Mort's store of knowledge. Two gunslingers inside, drinking something—coffee, maybe—from white paper glasses. Gunslingers, yes—but they looked fat and lax.

He reached into Jack Mort's wallet (except it was much too small to be a real wallet; a real wallet was almost as big as a purse and could carry all of a man's things, if he wasn't travelling too heavy) and gave the driver a bill with the number 20 on it. The cabbie drove away fast. It was easily the biggest tip he'd make that day, but the guy was so freaky he felt he had earned every cent of it.

The gunslinger looked at the sign over the shop.

CLEMENTS GUNS AND SPORTING GOODS, it said. AMMO, FISHING TACKLE, OFFICIAL FACSIMILES.

He didn't understand all of the words, but one look in the window was all it took for him to see Mort had brought him to the right place. There were wristbands on display, badges of rank … and guns. Rifles, mostly, but pistols as well. They were chained, but that didn't matter.

He would know what he needed when—if— he saw it.

Roland consulted Jack Mort's mind—a mind exactly sly enough to suit his purposes—for more than a minute.

5

One of the cops in the blue-and-white elbowed the other. 'Now that,' he said, 'is a serious comparison shopper.'

His partner laughed. 'Oh God,' he said in an effeminate voice as the man in the business suit and gold-rimmed glasses finished his study of the merchandise on display and went inside. 'I think he jutht dethided on the lavender handcuffths.'

The first cop choked on a mouthful of lukewarm coffee and sprayed it back into the styrofoam cup in a gust of laughter.

6

A clerk came over almost at once and asked if he could be of help.

'I wonder,' the man in the conservative blue suit replied, 'if you have a paper …' He paused, appeared to think deeply, and then looked up. 'A chart, I mean, which shows pictures of revolver ammunition.'

'You mean a caliber chart?' the clerk asked.

The customer paused, then said, 'Yes. My brother has a revolver. I have fired it, but it's been a good many years. I think I will know the bullets if I see them.'

'Well, you may think so,' the clerk replied, 'but it can be hard to tell. Was it a .22? A .38? Or maybe —'

'If you have a chart, I'll know,' Roland said.

'Just a sec.' The clerk looked at the man in the blue suit doubtfully for a moment, then shrugged. Fuck, the customer was always right, even when he was wrong … if he had the dough to pay, that was. Money talked, bullshit walked. 'I got a Shooter's Bible. Maybe that's what you ought to look at.'

'Yes.' He smiled. Shooter's Bible. It was a noble name for a book.

The man rummaged under the counter and brought out a well-thumbed volume as thick as any book the gunslinger had ever seen in his life—and yet this man seemed to handle it as if it were no more valuable than a handful of stones.

He opened it on the counter and turned it around. 'Take a look. Although if it's been years, you're shootin' in the dark.' He looked surprised, then smiled. 'Pardon my pun.'

Roland didn't hear. He was bent over the book, studying pictures which seemed almost as real as the things they represented, marvellous pictures the Mortcypedia identified as Fottergraffs.

He turned the pages slowly. No … no … no …

He had almost lost hope when he saw it. He looked up at the clerk with such blazing excitement that the clerk felt a little afraid.

'There!' he said. 'There! Right there!'

The photograph he was tapping was one of a Winchester .45 pistol shell. It was not exactly the same as his own shells, because it hadn't been hand-thrown or hand-loaded, but he could see without even consulting the figures (which would have meant almost nothing to him anyway) that it would chamber and fire from his guns.

'Well, all right, I guess you found it,' the clerk said, 'but don't cream your jeans, fella. I mean, they're just bullets.'

'You have them?'

'Sure. How many boxes do you want?'

'How many in a box?'

'Fifty.' The clerk began to look at the gunslinger with real suspicion. If the guy was planning to buy shells, he must know he'd have to show a Permit to Carry photo-I.D. No P.C., no ammo, not for handguns; it was the law in the borough of Manhattan . And if this dude had a handgun permit, how come he didn't know how many shells came in a standard box of ammo?

'Fifty!' Now the guy was staring at him with slack-jawed surprise. He was off the wall, all right.

The clerk edged a bit to his left, a bit nearer the cash register … and, not so coincidentally, a bit nearer to his own gun, a .357 Mag which he kept fully loaded in a spring clip under the counter.

'Fifty!' the gunslinger repeated. He had expected five, ten, perhaps as many as a dozen, but this … this …

How much money do you have? he asked the Mortcypedia. The Mortcypedia didn't know, not exactly, but thought there was at least sixty bux in his wallet.

'And how much does a box cost?' It would be more than sixty dollars, he supposed, but the man might be persuaded to sell him part of a box, or—

'Seventeen-fifty,' the clerk said. 'But, mister—'