Wolves of the Calla

loss. If it had been a smell, Roland thought, it would have been sour and a bit stale. The smell of failure. Maybe of good dreams that never grew. Which made it the perfect lever for someone like Enrico 'Il Roche 'Balazar.

'Seen enough?' Eddie asked.

'Yes. Let's go.'

EIGHT

For Roland, the eight-block journey from Second and Fifty-fourth to Second and Forty-sixth was like visiting a country in which he had until that moment only half-believed. How much stranger must it be for Jake ? he wondered. The bum who'd asked the boy for a quarter was gone, but the restaurant he'd been sitting near was there: Chew Chew Mama's. This was on the corner of Second and Fifty-second. A block farther down was the record store, Tower of Power. It was still open—according to an overhead clock that told the time in large electric dots, it was only fourteen minutes after eight in the evening. Loud sounds were pouring out of the open door. Guitars and drums. This world's music. It reminded him of the sacrificial music played by the Grays, back in the city of Lud, and why not? This was Lud, in some twisted, otherwhere-and- when way. He was sure of it.

'It's the Rolling Stones,' Jake said, 'but not the one that was playing on the day I saw the rose. That one was 'Paint It Black.' '

'Don't you recognize this one?' Eddie asked.

'Yeah, but I can't remember the title.'

'Oh, but you should,' Eddie said. 'It's 'Nineteenth Nervous Breakdown.''

Susannah stopped, looked around. 'Jake?'

Jake nodded. 'He's right.'

Eddie, meanwhile, had fished a piece of newspaper from the security-gated doorway next to Tower of Power Records. A section of The New York Times , in fact.

'Hon, didn't your ma ever teach you that gutter-trolling is generally not practiced by the better class of people?' Susannah asked.

Eddie ignored her. 'Look at this,' he said. 'All of you.'

Roland bent close, half-expecting to see news of another great plague, but there was nothing so shattering. At least not as far as he could tell.

'Read me what it says,' he asked Jake. 'The letters swim in and out of my mind. I think it's because we're todash—caught in between—'

'RHODESIAN FORCES TIGHTEN HOLD ON MOZAMBIQUE VILLAGES,' Jake read, ' TWO CARTER AIDES PREDICT A SAVING OF BILLIONS IN WELFARE PLAN. And down here, CHINESE DISCLOSE THAT 1976 QUAKE WAS DEADLIEST IN FOUR CENTURIES.

Also—'

'Who's Carter?' Susannah asked. 'Is he the President before… Ronald Reagan ?' She garnished the last two words with a large wink. Eddie had so far been unable to convince her that he was serious about Reagan's being President. Nor would she believe Jake when the boy told her he knew it sounded crazy, but the idea was at least faintly plausible because Reagan had been governor of California. Susannah had simply laughed at this and nodded, as if giving him high marks for creativity. She knew Eddie had talked Jake into backing up his fish story, but she would not be hooked. She supposed she could see Paul Newman as President, maybe even Henry Fonda, who had looked presidential enough in Fail-Safe , but the host of Death Valley Days? Not on your bottom.

'Never mind Carter,' Eddie said. 'Look at the date .'

Roland tried, but it kept swimming in and out. It would almost settle into Great Letters that he could read, and then fall back into gibberish. 'What is it, for your father's sake?'

'June second,' Jake said. He looked at Eddie. 'But if time's the same here and over on the other side, shouldn't it be June first ?'

'But it's not the same,' Eddie said grimly. 'It's not . Time goes by faster on this side. Game on. And the game-clock's running fast.'

Roland considered. 'If we come here again, it's going to be later each time, isn't it?'

Eddie nodded.

Roland went on, talking to himself as much as to the others. 'Every minute we spend on the other side —the Calla side—a minute and a half goes by over here. Or maybe two.'

'No, not two,' Eddie said. 'I'm sure it's not going double-time.' But his uneasy glance back down at the date on the newspaper suggested he wasn't sure at all.

'Even if you're right,' Roland said, 'all we can do now is go forward.'

'Toward the fifteenth of July,' Susannah said. 'When Balazar and his gentlemen stop playing nice.'

'Maybe we ought to just let these Calla-folk do their own thing,' Eddie said. 'I hate to say that, Roland, but maybe we should.'

'We can't do that, Eddie.'

'Why not?'

'Because Callahan's got Black Thirteen,' Susannah said. 'Our help is his price for turning it over. And we need it.'

Roland shook his head. 'He'll turn it over in any case—I thought I was clear about that. He's terrified of it.'

'Yeah,' Eddie said. 'I got that feeling, too.'

'We have to help them because it's the Way of Eld,' Roland told Susannah. 'And because the way of ka is always the way of duty.'

He thought he saw a glitter far down in her eyes, as though he'd said something funny. He supposed he had, but Susannah wasn't the one he had amused. It had been either Detta or Mia who found those ideas funny. The question was which one. Or had it been both?

'I hate how it feels here,' Susannah said. 'That dark feeling.'

'It'll be better at the vacant lot,' Jake said. He started walking, and the others followed. 'The rose makes everything better. You'll see.'

NINE

When Jake crossed Fiftieth, he began to hurry. On the downtown side of Forty-ninth, he began to jog. At the corner of Second and Forty-eighth, he began to run. He couldn't help it. He got a little walk help at Forty-eighth, but the sign on the post began to flash red as soon as he reached the far curb.

'Jake, wait up!' Eddie called from behind him, but Jake didn't. Perhaps couldn't. Certainly Eddie felt the pull of the thing; so did Roland and Susannah. There was a hum rising in the air, faint and sweet. It was everything the ugly black feeling around them was not.

To Roland the hum brought back memories of Mejis and Susan Delgado. Of kisses shared in a mattress of sweet grass.

Susannah remembered being with her father when she was little, crawling up into his lap and laying the smooth skin of her cheek against the rough weave of his sweater. She remembered how she would close her eyes and breathe deeply of the smell that was his smell and his alone: pipe tobacco and winter-green and the Musterole he rubbed into his wrists, where the arthritis first began to bite him at the outrageous age of twenty-five. What these smells meant to her was that everything was all right.

Eddie found himself remembering a trip to Atlantic City when he'd been very young, no more than five or six. Their mother had taken them, and at one point in the day she and Henry had gone off to get ice cream cones. Mrs. Dean had pointed at the boardwalk and had said, You put your fanny right there, Mister Man, and keep it there until we get back . And he did. He could have sat there all day, looking down the slope of the beach at the gray pull and flow of the ocean. The gulls rode just above the foam, calling to each other. Each time the waves drew back, they left a slick expanse of wet brown sand so bright he could hardly look at it without squinting. The sound of the waves was both large and lulling. I could stay here forever , he remembered thinking. I could stay here forever because it's beautiful and peaceful and… and all