Wolves of the Calla

firm copperplate hand:

Roland Deschain, of Giliad.

The line of ELD

GUNSLINGER

THIRTEEN

There was more talk, about fifteen minutes' worth, and Eddie supposed at least some of it was important, but the real deal had gone down when he'd told Tower the name his three-times-great-grandfather had written on a slip of paper fourteen years before the Civil War got rolling.

What Eddie had discovered about Tower during their palaver was dismaying. He harbored some respect for the man (for any man who could hold out for more than twenty seconds against Balazar's goons), but didn't like him much. There was a kind of willful stupidity about him. Eddie thought it was self-created and maybe propped up by his analyst, who would tell him about how he had to take care of himself, how he had to be the captain of his own ship, the author of his own destiny, respect his own desires, all that blah- blah. All the little code words and terms that meant it was all right to be a selfish fuck. That it was noble, even. When Tower told Eddie that Aaron Deepneau was his only friend, Eddie wasn't surprised. What surprised him was that Tower had any friends at all. Such a man could never be ka-tet, and it made Eddie uneasy to know that their destinies were so tightly bound together.

You'll just have to trust to ka. It's what ka's for, isn't it?

Sure it was, but Eddie didn't have to like it.

FOURTEEN

Eddie asked if Tower had a ring with Ex Liveris on it. Tower looked puzzled, then laughed and told Eddie he must mean Ex Libris . He rummaged on one of his shelves, found a book, showed Eddie the plate in front. Eddie nodded.

'No,' Tower said. 'But it'd be just the thing for a guy like me, wouldn't it?' He looked at Eddie keenly. 'Why do you ask?'

But Tower's future responsibility to save a man now exploring the hidden highways of multiple Americas was a subject Eddie didn't feel like getting into right now. He'd come as close to blowing the guy's mind as he wanted to, and he had to get back through the unfound door before Black Thirteen wore Roland away to a frazzle.

'Never mind. But if you see one, you ought to pick it up. One more thing and then I'm gone.'

'What's that?'

'I want your promise that as soon as I leave, you'll leave.'

Tower once more grew shifty. It was the side of him Eddie knew he could come to outright loathe, given time. 'Why… to tell you the truth, I don't know if I can do that. Early evenings are often a very busy time for me… people are much more prone to browse once the workday's over… and Mr. Brice is coming in to look at a first of The Troubled Air , Irwin Shaw's novel about radio and the McCarthy era… I'll have to at least skim through my appointment calendar, and…'

He droned on, actually gathering steam as he descended toward trivialities.

Eddie said, very mildly: 'Do you like your balls, Calvin? Are you maybe as attached to them as they are to you?'

Tower, who'd been wondering about who would feed Sergio if he just pulled up stakes and ran, now stopped and looked at him, puzzled, as if he had never heard this simple one-syllable word before.

Eddie nodded helpfully. 'Your nuts. Your sack. Your stones. Your cojones . The old sperm-firm. Your testicles .'

'I don't see what—'

Eddie's coffee was gone. He poured some Half and Half into the cup and drank that, instead. It was very tasty. 'I told you that if you stayed here, you could look forward to a serious maiming. That's what I meant. That's probably where they'll start, with your balls. To teach you a lesson. As to when it happens, what that mostly depends on is traffic.'

'Traffic.' Tower said it with a complete lack of vocal expression.

'That's right,' Eddie said, sipping his Half and Half as if it were a thimble of brandy. 'Basically how long it takes Jack Andolini to drive back out to Brooklyn and then how long it takes Balazar to load up some old beater of a van or panel truck with guys to come back here. I'm hoping Jack's too dazed to just phone. Did you think Balazar'd wait until tomorrow? Convene a little brain-trust of guys like Kevin Blake and 'Cimi Dretto to discuss the matter?' Eddie raised first one finger and then two. The dust of another world was beneath the nails. 'First, they got no brains; second, Balazar doesn't trust em.'

'What he'll do, Cal, is what any successful despot does: he'll react right away, quick as a flash. The rush-hour traffic will hold em up a little, but if you're still here at six, half past at the latest, you can say goodbye to your balls. They'll hack them off with a knife, then cauterize the wound with one of those little torches, those Bernz-O-Matics—'

'Stop,' Tower said. Now instead of white, he'd gone green. Especially around the gills. 'I'll go to a hotel down in the Village. There are a couple of cheap ones that cater to writers and artists down on their luck, ugly rooms but not that bad. I'll call Aaron, and we'll go north tomorrow morning.'

'Fine, but first you have to pick a town to go to,' Eddie said. 'Because I or one of my friends may need to get in touch with you.'

'How am I supposed to do that? I don't know any towns in New England north of Westport, Connecticut!'

'Make some calls once you get to the hotel in the Village,' Eddie said. 'You pick the town, and then tomorrow morning, before you leave New York, send your pal Aaron up to your vacant lot. Have him write the zip code on the board fence.' An unpleasant thought struck Eddie. 'You have zip codes, don't you? I mean, they've been invented, right?'

Tower looked at him as if he were crazy. 'Of course they have.'

' 'Kay. Have him put it on the Forty-sixth street side, all the way down where the fence ends. Have you got that?'

'Yes, but—'

'They probably won't have your bookshop staked out tomorrow morning—they'll assume you got smart and blew—but if they do, they won't have the lot staked out, and if they have the lot staked out, it'll be the Second Avenue side. And if they have the Forty-sixth Street side staked out, they'll be looking for you, not him.'

Tower was smiling a little bit in spite of himself. Eddie relaxed and smiled back. 'But… ? If they're also looking for Aaron?'

'Have him wear the sort of clothes he doesn't usually wear. If he's a blue jeans man, have him wear a suit. If he's a suit man—'

'Have him wear blue jeans.'

'Correct. And sunglasses wouldn't be a bad idea, assuming the day isn't cloudy enough to make them look odd. Have him use a black felt-tip. Tell him it doesn't have to be artistic. He just walks to the fence, as if to read one of the posters. Then he writes the numbers and off he goes. And tell him for Christ's sake don't fuck