Lifetime President of his mother’s garden club—had found time to put on a fairly heavy
coat of makeup: powder, rouge, and lipstick as red as the side of a Devar fire engine. She
introduced herself as Grace Rumbelow (formerly of Aldershot, Hampshire, England) and
demanded to know what was going to happen next—where they would go, what they
would do, who would take care of them. The same questions the rooster-headed taheen had
asked, in other words.
“For we havebeen taken care of,” said Grace Rumbelow in ringing tones (Jake had been
fascinated with how she said “been,” so it rhymed with “seen”), “and are in no position, at
least for the time being, to care for ourselves.”
There were calls of agreement at this.
Roland looked her up and down, and something in his face had robbed the lady of her
measured indignation. “Get out of my road,” said the gunslinger, “or I’ll push you down.”
She grew pale beneath her powder and did as he said without uttering another word. A
birdlike clatter of disapproval followed Jake and Roland into Corbett Hall, but it didn’t
start until the gunslinger was out of their view and they no longer had to fear falling
beneath the unsettling gaze of his blue eyes. The Breakers reminded Jake of some kids with
whom he’d gone to school at Piper, classroom nitwits willing to shout out stuff likethis test sucks orbite my bag …but only when the teacher was out of the room.
The first-floor hallway of Corbett was bright with fluorescent lights and smelled strongly
of smoke from Damli House and Feveral Hall. Dinky Earnshaw was seated in a folding
chair to the right of the door markedPROCTOR’S SUITE , smoking a cigarette. He looked
up as Roland and Jake approached, Oy trotting along in his usual position just behind
Jake’s heel.
“How is he?” Roland asked.
“Dying, man,” Dinky said, and shrugged.
“And Susannah?”
“Strong. Once he’s gone—” Dinky shrugged again, as if to say it could go either way, any
way.
Roland knocked quietly on the door.
“Who is it?” Susannah’s voice, muffled.
“Roland and Jake,” the gunslinger said. “Will you have us?”
The question was met with what seemed to Jake an unusually long pause. Roland,
however, didn’t seem surprised. Neither did Dinky, for that matter.
At last Susannah said: “Come in.”
They did.
Five
Sitting with Oy in the soothing dark, waiting for Roland’s call, Jake reflected on the scene
that had met his eyes in the darkened room. That, and the endless three-quarters of an hour
before Roland had seen his discomfort and let him go, saying he’d call Jake back when it
was “time.”
Jake had seen a lot of death since being drawn to Mid-World; had dealt it; had even
experienced his own, although he remembered very little of that. But this was the death of
a ka-mate, and what had been going on in the bedroom of the proctor’s suite just seemed
pointless. Andendless . Jake wished with all his heart that he’d stayed outside with Dinky;
he didn’t want to remember his wisecracking, occasionally hot-tempered friend this way.
For one thing, Eddie looked worse than frail as he lay in the proctor’s bed with his hand in
Susannah’s; he looked old and (Jake hated to think of it) stupid. Or maybe the word
wassenile . His mouth had folded in at the corners, making deep dimples. Susannah had
washed his face, but the stubble on his cheeks made them look dirty anyway. There were
big purple patches beneath his eyes, almost as though that bastard Prentiss had beaten him
up before shooting him. The eyes themselves were closed, but they rolled almost
ceaselessly beneath the thin veils of his lids, as though Eddie were dreaming.
And he talked. A steady low muttering stream of words. Some of the things he said Jake
could make out, some he couldn’t. Some of them made at least minimal sense, but a lot of it
was what his friend Benny would have called ki’come: utter nonsense. From time to time
Susannah would wet a rag in the basin on the table beside the bed, wring it out, and wipe
her husband’s brow and dry lips. Once Roland got up, took the basin, emptied it in the
bathroom, refilled it, and brought it back to her. She thanked him in a low and perfectly
pleasant tone of voice. A little later Jake had freshened the water, and she thanked him in
the same way. As if she didn’t even know they were there.
We go for her,Roland had told Jake.Because later on she’ll remember who was there, and
be grateful .
But would she? Jake wondered now, in the darkness outside the Clover Tavern.Would she
be grateful? It was down to Roland that Eddie Dean was lying on his deathbed at the age of
twenty-five or -six, wasn’t it? On the other hand, if not for Roland, she would never have
met Eddie in the first place. It was all too confusing. Like the idea of multiple worlds with New Yorks in every one, it made Jake’s head ache.
Lying there on his deathbed, Eddie had asked his brother Henry why he never remembered
to box out.
He’d asked Jack Andolini who hit him with the ugly-stick.
He’d shouted, “Look out, Roland, it’s Big-Nose George, he’s back!”
And “Suze, if you can tell him the one about Dorothy and the Tin Woodman, I’ll tell him
all the rest.”
And, chilling Jake’s heart: “I do not shoot with my hand; he who aims with his hand has
forgotten the face of his father.”
At that last one, Roland had taken Eddie’s hand in the gloom (for the shades had been
drawn) and squeezed it. “Aye, Eddie, you say true. Will you open your eyes and see my
face, dear?”
But Eddie hadn’t opened his eyes. Instead, chilling Jake’s heart more deeply yet, the
young man who now wore a useless bandage about his head had murmured, “All is
forgotten in the stone halls of the dead. These are the rooms of ruin where the spiders spin
and the great circuits fall quiet, one by one.”
After that there was nothing intelligible for awhile, only that ceaseless muttering. Jake had refilled the basin of water, and when he had come back, Roland saw his drawn white face
and told him he could go.
“But—”
“Go on and go, sugarbunch,” Susannah said. “Only be careful. Might still be some of em
out there, looking for payback.”
“But how will I—”
“I’ll call you when it’s time,” Roland said, and tapped Jake’s temple with one of the
remaining fingers on his right hand. “You’ll hear me.”
Jake had wanted to kiss Eddie before leaving, but he was afraid. Not that he might catch
death like a cold—he knew better than that—but afraid that even the touch of his lips might
be enough to push Eddie into the clearing at the end of the path.
And then Susannah might blame him.
Six
Outside in the hallway, Dinky asked him how it was going.
“Real bad,” Jake said. “Do you have another cigarette?”
Dinky raised his eyebrows but gave Jake a smoke. The boy tamped it on his thumbnail, as
he’d seen the gunslinger do with tailor-made smokes, then accepted a light and inhaled
deeply. The smoke still burned, but not so harshly as the first time. His head only swam a
little and he didn’t cough.Pretty soon I’ll be a natural, he thought.If I ever make it back to New York, maybe I can go to work for the Network, in my Dad’s department. I’m already
getting good at The Kill.
He lifted the cigarette in front of his eyes, a little white missile with smoke issuing from
the top instead of the bottom. The wordCAMEL was written just below the filter. “I told
myself I’d never do this,” Jake told Dinky. “Never in life. And here I am with one in my
hand.” He laughed. It was a bitter laugh, anadult laugh, and the sound of it coming out of
his mouth made him shiver.
“I used to work for this guy before I came here,” Dinky said. “Mr. Sharpton, his name was.
He used to tell me thatnever ’s the word God listens for when he needs a laugh.”
Jake made no reply. He was thinking of how Eddie had talked about the rooms of ruin.
Jake had followed Mia into a room like that, once upon a time and in a dream. Now Mia
was dead. Callahan was dead. And Eddie was dying. He thought of all the bodies lying out
there under blankets while thunder rolled like bones in the distance. He thought of the man
who’d shot Eddie snap-rolling to the left as Roland’s bullet finished him off. He tried to
remember the welcoming party for them back in Calla Bryn Sturgis, the music and dancing
and colored torches, but all that came clear was the death of Benny Slightman, another