He pushed Tower’s pudgy hand away when it tried to take the book back. Then Eddie used his own finger to count the letters in the author’s name. There were, of course, nineteen.
TEN
He swallowed another cup of Tower’s coffee, this time without the Half and Half. Then he took the plastic-wrapped volume in hand once more.
“What makes it special?” he asked. “I mean, it’s special to me because I met someone recently whose name is the same as the name of the guy who wrote this. But—”
An idea struck Eddie, and he turned to the back flap, hoping for a picture of the author. What he found instead was a curt two-line author bio: “BENJAMIN SLIGHTMAN, JR. is a rancher in Montana. This is his second novel.” Below this was a drawing of an eagle, and a slogan: buy war bonds!
“But why’s it special to you? What makes it worth seventy-five hundred bucks?”
Tower’s face kindled. Fifteen minutes before he had been in mortal terror for his life, but you’d never know it looking at him now, Eddie thought. Now he was in the grip of his obsession. Roland had his Dark Tower; this man had his rare books.
He held it so Eddie could see the cover. ” The Dogan, right?”
“Right.”
Tower flipped the book open and pointed to the inner flap, also under plastic, where the story was summarized. “And here?”
” ‘ TheDogan,’ ” Eddie read. ” ‘A thrilling tale of the old west and one Indian brave’s heroic effort to survive.’
So?”
“Now look at this!” Tower said triumphantly, and turned to the title page. Here Eddie read: The Hogan
Benjamin Slightman Jr.
“I don’t get it,” Eddie said. “What’s the big deal?”
Tower rolled his eyes. “Look again.”
“Why don’t you just tell me what—”
“No, look again. I insist. The joy is in the discovery, Mr. Dean. Any collector will tell you the same. Stamps, coins, or books, the joy is in the discovery.”
He flipped back to the cover again, and this time Eddie saw it. “The title on the front’s misprinted, isn’t it?
Dogan instead of Hogan”
Tower nodded happily. “A hogan is an Indian home of the type illustrated on the front. A dogan is… well, nothing. The misprinted cover makes the book somewhat valuable, but now… look at this…”
He turned to the copyright page and handed the book to Eddie. The copyright date was 1943, which of course explained the eagle and the slogan on the author-bio flap. The title of the book was given as The Hogan, so that seemed all right. Eddie was about to ask when he got it for himself.
“They left the ‘Jr.’ off the author’s name, didn’t they?”
“Yes! Yes!” Tower was almost hugging himself. “As if the book had actually been written by the author’s father! In fact, once when I was at a bibliographic convention in Philadelphia, I explained this book’s particular situation to an attorney who gave a lecture on copyright law, and this guy said that Slightman Jr.’s father might actually be able to assert right of ownership over this book because of a simple typographical error! Amazing, don’t you think?”
“Totally,” Eddie said, thinking Slightman the Elder. Thinking Slightman the Younger. Thinking about how Jake had become fast friends with the latter and wondering why this gave him such a bad feeling now, sitting here and drinking coffee in little old Calla New York.
At least he took the Ruger, Eddie thought.
“Are you telling me that’s all it takes to make a book valuable?” he asked Tower. “One misprint on the cover, a couple more inside, and all at once the thing’s worth seventy-five hundred bucks?”
“Not at all,” Tower said, looking shocked. “But Mr. Slightman wrote three really excellent Western novels, all taking the Indians’ point of view. The Hogan is the middle one. He became a big bug in Montana after the war—some job having to do with water and mineral rights—and then, here is the irony, a group of Indians killed him. Scalped him, actually. They were drinking outside a general store—”
A general store named Took’s, Eddie thought. I’d bet my watch and warrant on it.
“—and apparendy Mr. Slightman said something they took objection to, and… well, there goes your
ballgame.”
“Do all your really valuable books have similar stories?” Eddie asked. “I mean, some sort of coincidence makes them valuable, and not just the stories themselves?”
Tower laughed. “Young man, most people who collect rare books won’t even open their purchases. Opening and closing a book damages the spine. Hence damaging the resale price.”
“Doesn’t that strike you as slightly sick behavior?”
“Not at all,” Tower said, but a tell tale red blush was climbing his cheeks. Part of him apparently took Eddie’s point. “If a customer spends eight thousand dollars for a signed first edition of Hardy’s Tess of the D’Urbervilles, it makes perfect sense to put that book away in a safe place where it can be admired but not touched. If the fellow actually wants to read the story, let him buy a Vintage paperback.”
“You believe that,” Eddie said, fascinated. “You actually believe that.”
“Well… yes. Books can be objects of great value. That value is created in different ways. Sometimes just the author’s signature is enough to do it. Sometimes—as in this case—it’s a misprint. Sometimes it’s a first print-run—a first edition—that’s extremely small. And does any of this have to do with why you came here, Mr.
Dean? Is it what you wanted to… to palaver about?”
“No, I suppose not.” But what exactly had he wanted to palaver about? He’d known—it had all been perfectly clear to him as he’d herded Andolini and Biondi out of the back room, then stood in the doorway watching them stagger to the Town Car, supporting each other. Even in cynical, mind-your-own-business New York, they had drawn plenty of looks. Both of them had been bleeding, and both had had the same stunned What the hell HAPPENED to me look in their eyes. Yes, then it had been clear. The book—and the name of the author—had muddied up his thinking again. He took it from Tower and set it facedown on the counter so he wouldn’t have to look at it. Then he went to work regathering his thoughts.
“The first and most important thing, Mr. Tower, is that you have to get out of New York until July fifteenth.
Because they’ll be back. Probably not those guys specifically, but some of the other guys Balazar uses. And they’ll be more eager than ever to teach you and me a lesson. Balazar’s a despot.” This was a word Eddie had learned from Susannah—she had used it to describe the Tick-Tock Man. “His way of doing business is to always escalate. You slap him, he slaps back twice as hard. Punch him in the nose, he breaks your jaw. You toss a grenade, he tosses a bomb.”
Tower groaned. It was a theatrical sound (although probably not meant that way), and under other circumstances, Eddie might have laughed. Not under these. Besides, everything he’d wanted to say to Tower was coming back to him. He could do this dicker, by God. He would do this dicker.
“Me they probably won’t be able to get at. I’ve got business elsewhere. Over the hills and far away, may ya say so. Your job is to make sure they won’t be able to get at you, either.”
“But surely… after what you just did… and even if they didn’t believe you about the women and children…”
Tower’s eyes, wide behind his crooked spectacles, begged Eddie to say that he had really not been serious about creating enough corpses to fill Grand Army Plaza. Eddie couldn’t help him there.
“Cal, listen. Guys like Balazar don’t believe or disbelieve. What they do is test the limits. Did I scare Big Nose? No, just knocked him out. Did I scare Jack? Yes. And it’ll stick, because Jack’s got a little bit of imagination. Will Balazar be impressed that I scared Ugly Jack? Yes… but just enough to be cautious.”
Eddie leaned over the counter, looking at Tower earnestly.
“I don’t want to kill kids, okay? Let’s get that straight. In… well, in another place, let’s leave it at that, in another place me and my friends are going to put our lives on the line to save kids. But they’re human kids.
People like Jack and Tricks Postino and Balazar himself, they’re animals. Wolves on two legs. And do wolves raise human beings? No, they raise more wolves. Do male wolves mate with human women? No, they mate with female wolves. So if I had to go in there—and I would if I had to—I’d tell myself I was cleaning out a pack of wolves, right down to the smallest cub. No more than that. And no less.”
“My God he means it,” Tower said. He spoke low, and all in a breath, and to the thin air.