Impossible to hide goods on an airplane.
Impossible to ditch them.
Of course it was also impossible to escape from certain prisons, rob certain banks, beat
certain raps. But people did. Harry Houdini had escaped from strait-jackets, locked trunks,
fucking bank vaults. But Eddie Dean was no Houdini.
Was he?
He could have had Henry killed in the apartment, could have had Eddie cut down on the
L.I.E. or, better yet, also in the apartment, where it would look to the cops like a couple of junkies who got desperate enough to forget they were brothers and killed each other. But it
would leave too many questions unanswered.
He would get the answers here, prepare for the future or merely satisfy his curiosity,
depending on what the answers were, and then kill both of them.
A few more answers, two less junkies. Some gain and no great loss.
In the other room, the game had gotten around to Henry again. “Okay, Henry,” George
Biondi said. “Be careful, because this one is tricky. The category is Geography. The
question is, ‘What is the only continent where kangaroos are a native form of life?’ ”
A hushed pause.
“Johnny Cash,” Henry said, and this was followed by a bull-throated roar of laughter.
The walls shook.
‘Cimi tensed, waiting for Balazar’s house of cards (which would become a tower only if
God, or the blind forces that ran the universe in His name, willed it), to fall down.
The cards trembled a bit. If one fell, all would fall.
None did.
Balazar looked up and smiled at ‘Cimi. “Piasan,” he said. “II Dio est bono; il Dio est malo; temps est poco-poco; tu est une grande peeparollo.”
‘Cimi smiled. “Si, senor,” he said. “lo grande peeparollo; lo va fanculo por tu.”
“None va fanculo, catzarro,”Balazar said. “Eddie Dean va fanculo.” He smiled gently, and began on the second level of his tower of cards.
11
When the van pulled to the curb near Balazar’s place, Col Vincent happened to be looking
at Eddie. He saw something impossible. He tried to speak and found himself unable. His
tongue was stuck to the roof of his mouth and all he could get out was a muffled grunt.
He saw Eddie’s eyes change from brown to blue.
12
This time Roland made no conscious decision to come forward. He simply leaped without
thinking, a movement as involuntary as rolling out of a chair and going for his guns when
someone burst into a room.
The Tower!he thought fiercely. It’s the Tower, my God, the Tower is in the sky, the Tower!
I see the Tower in the sky, drawn in lines of red fire! Cuthbert! Alan! Desmond! The Tower!
The T—
But this time he felt Eddie struggling—not against him, but trying to talk to him, trying
desperately to explain some- thing to him.
The gunslinger retreated, listening—listening desper- ately, as above a beach some
unknown distance away in space and time, his mindless body twitched and trembled like
the body of a man experiencing a dream of highest ecstasy or deepest horror.
13
Sign!Eddie was screaming into his own head . . . and into the head of that other.
It’s a sign, just a neon sign, I don’t know what tower it is you’re thinking about but this is
just a bar, Balazar’s place, The Leaning Tower, he named it that after the one in Pisa! It’s
just a sign that’s supposed to look like the fucking Leaning Tower of Pisa! Let up! Let up!
You want to get us killed before we have a chance to go at them?
Pitsa?the gunslinger replied doubtfully, and looked again.
A sign. Yes, all right, he could see now: it was not the Tower, but a Signpost. It leaned to one side, and there were many scalloped curves, and it was a marvel, but that was all. He
could see now that the sign was a thing made of tubes, tubes which had somehow been
filled with glowing red swamp-fire. In some places there seemed to be less of it than others;
in those places the lines of fire pulsed and buzzed.
He now saw letters below the tower which had been made of shaped tubes; most of them
were Great Letters. TOWER he could read, and yes, LEANING. LEANING TOWER. The
first word was three letters, the first T, the last E, the middle one which he had never seen.
Tre?he asked Eddie.
THE. It doesn’t matter. Do you see it’s just a sign? That’s what matters!
I see, the gunslinger answered, wondering if the prisoner really believed what he was
saying or was only saying it to keep the situation from spilling over as the tower depicted in
those lines of fire seemed about to do, wondering if Eddie believed any sign could be a
trivial thing.
Then ease off! Do you hear me? Ease off!
Be cool?Roland asked, and both felt Roland smile a little in Eddie’s mind.
Be cool, right. Let me handle things.
Yes. All right.He would let Eddie handle things.
For awhile.
14
Col Vincent finally managed to get his tongue off the roof of his mouth. “Jack.” His voice was as thick as shag carpet.
Andolini turned off the motor and looked at him, irritated.
“His eyes.”
“What about his eyes?”
“Yeah, what about my eyes?” Eddie asked.
Col looked at him.
The sun had gone down, leaving nothing in the air but the day’s ashes, but there was light
enough for Col to see that Eddie’s eyes were brown again.
If they had ever been anything else.
You saw it,part of his mind insisted, but had he? Col was twenty-four, and for the last
twenty-one of those years no one had really believed him trustworthy. Useful sometimes.
Obe- dient almost always… if kept on a short leash. Trustworthy? No. Col had eventually
come to believe it himself.
“Nothing,” he muttered.
“Then let’s go,” Andolini said.
They got out of the pizza van. With Andolini on their left and Vincent on their right, Eddie
and the gunslinger walked into The Leaning Tower.
CHAPTER 5
SHOWDOWN AND
SHOOT-OUT
1
In a blues tune from the twenties Billie Holiday, who would one day discover the truth for
herself, sang: “Doctor tole me daughter you got to quit it fast/Because one more rocket
gonna be your last.” Henry Dean’s last rocket went up just five minutes before the van pulled up in front of The Leaning Tower and his brother was herded inside.
Because he was on Henry’s right, George Biondi—known to his friends as “Big George”
and to his enemies as “Big Nose”—asked Henry’s questions. Now, as Henry sat nodding
and blinking owlishly over the board, Tricks Postino put the die in a hand which had
already gone the dusty color that results in the extremities after long-term heroin addiction,
the dusty color which is the precursor of gangrene.
“Your turn, Henry,” Tricks said, and Henry let the die fall from his hand.
When he went on staring into space and showed no intention of moving his game piece, Jimmy Haspio moved it for him. “Look at this, Henry,” he said. “You got a chance to score a piece of the pie.”
“Reese’s Pieces,” Henry said dreamily, and then looked around, as if awakening. “Where’s Eddie?”
“He’ll be here pretty soon,” Tricks soothed him. “Just play the game.”
“How about a fix?”
“Play the game, Henry.”
“Okay, okay, stop leaning on me.”
“Don’t lean on him,” Kevin Blake said to Jimmy.
“Okay, I won’t,” Jimmy said.
“You ready?” George Biondi said, and gave the others an enormous wink as Henry’s chin
floated down to his breast- bone and then slowly rose once more—it was like watching a
soaked log not quite ready to give in and sink for good.
“Yeah,” Henry said. “Bring it on.”
“Bring it on!” Jimmy Haspio cried happily.
“You bring that fucker!” Tricks agreed, and they all roared with laughter (in the other room Balazar’s edifice, now three levels high, trembled again, but did not fall).
“Okay, listen close,” George said, and winked again. Although Henry was on a Sports
category, George announced the category was Arts and Entertainment. “What popular
country and western singer had hits with ‘A Boy Named Sue,’ ‘Folsom Prison Blues,’ and
numerous other shitkicking songs?”
Kevin Blake, who actually could add seven and nine (if you gave him poker chips to do it
with), howled with laughter, clutching his knees and nearly upsetting the board.
Still pretending to scan the card in his hand, George continued: “This popular singer is also known as The Man in Black. His first name means the same as a place you go to take a piss
and his last name means what you got in your wallet unless you’re a fucking needle freak.”
There was a long expectant silence.
“Walter Brennan,” Henry said at last.
Bellows of laughter. Jimmy Haspio clutched Kevin Blake. Kevin punched Jimmy in the shoulder repeatedly. In Balazar’s office, the house of cards which was now becoming a