would close. And we'd be trapped on that side."
"Can't you prop the damn thing open with a stone or a bone or something?"
"No," Roland said. "It wouldn't work. The ball is powerful."
And it's working on you, Eddie thought. Roland's face looked haggard, the way it had when the lobstrosities'
poison had been inside him.
"All right," he said.
"Be as quick as you can."
"I will."
TWELVE
When he turned around, Tower was looking at him quizzically. "Who were you talking to?"
Eddie stood aside and pointed at the doorway. "Do you see anything there, sai?"
Calvin Tower looked, started to shake his head, then looked longer. "A shimmer," he said at last. "Like hot air
over an incinerator. Who's there? What's there?"
"For the time being, let's say nobody. What have you got in your hand?"
Tower held it up. It was an envelope, very old. Written on it in copperplate were the words Stephen Toren and
Dead Letter. Below, carefully drawn in ancient ink, were the same symbols that were on the door and the
box:
New we might be getting somewhere, Eddie thought.
"Once this envelope held the will of my great-great-great grandfather," Calvin Tower said. "It was dated
March 19th, 1846. Now there's nothing but a single piece of paper with a name written upon it. If you can tell
me what that name is, young man, I'll do as you ask."
And so, Eddie mused, it comes down to another riddle. Only this time it wasn't four lives that hung upon the
answer, but all of existence.
Thank God it's an easy one, he thought.
"It's Deschain," Eddie said. "The first name will be either Roland, the name of my dinh, or Steven, the name
of his father."
All the blood seemed to fall out of Calvin Tower's face. Eddie had no idea how the man was able to keep his
feet. "My dear God in heaven," he said.
With trembling fingers, he removed an ancient and brittle piece of paper from the envelope, a time traveler
that had voyaged over a hundred and thirty-one years to this where and when. It was folded. Tower opened it
and put it on the counter, where they could both read the words Stefan Toren had written in the same 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
up."
"And how are you going to find us once you get to Zip Code Whatever?"
Eddie thought of Took's, and their palaver with the folken as they sat in the big porch rockers. Letting anyone
who wanted to have a look and ask a question.
"Go to the local general store. Have a little conversation, tell anyone who's interested that you're in town to
write a book or paint pictures of the lobster-pots. I'll find you."
"All right," Tower said. "It's a good plan. You do this well, young man."
I was made for it, Eddie thought but didn't say. What he said was, "I have to be going. I've stayed too long as
it is."
"There's one thing you have to help me do before you go," Tower said, and explained.
Eddie's eyes widened. When Tower had finished—it didn't take long—Eddie burst out, "Aw, you're shittin!"
Tower tipped his head toward the door to his shop, where he could see that faint shimmer. It made the
passing pedestrians on Second Avenue look like momentary mirages. "There's a door there. You as much as
said so, and I believe you. I can't see it, but I can see something."
"You're insane," Eddie said. "Totally gonzo." He didn't mean it—not precisely—but less than ever he liked
having his fate so firmly woven into the fate of a man who'd make such a request. Such a demand.
"Maybe I am and maybe I'm not," Tower said. He folded his arms over his broad but flabby chest. His voice
was soft but the look in his eyes was adamant. "In either case, this is my condition for doing all that you say.
For falling in with your madness, in other words."
"Aw, Cal, for God's sake! God and the Man Jesus! I'm only asking you to do what Stefan Toren's will told
you to do."
The eyes did not soften or cut aside as they did when Tower was waffling or preparing to fib. If anything,
they grew stonier yet. "Stefan Toren's dead and I'm not. I've told you my condition for doing what you want.
The only question is whether or not—"
"Yeah, yeah, YEAF!" Eddie cried, and drank off the rest of the white stuff in his cup. Then he picked up the
carton and drained that, for good measure. It looked like he was going to need the strength. "Come on," he
said. "Let's do it."
FIFTEEN
Roland could see into the bookshop, but it was like looking at things on the bottom of a fast-running stream.
He wished Eddie would hurry. Even with the bullets buried deep in his ears he could hear the todash chimes,
and nothing blocked the terrible smells: now hot metal, now rancid bacon, now ancient melting cheese, now
burning onions. His eyes were watering, which probably accounted for at least some of the wavery look of
things seen beyond the door.
Far worse than the sound of the chimes or the smells was the way the ball was insinuating itself into his
already compromised joints, filling them up with what felt like splinters of broken glass. So far he'd gotten
nothing but a few twinges in his good left hand, but he had no illusions; the pain there and everywhere else
would continue to increase for as long as the box was open and Black Thirteen shone out unshielded. Some
of the pain from the dry twist might go away once the ball was hidden again, but Roland didn't think all of it
would. And this might only be the beginning.
As if to congratulate him on his intuition, a baleful flare of pain setded into his right hip and began to throb
there. To Roland it felt like a bag filled with warm liquid lead. He began to massage it with his right hand…
as if that would do any good.
"Roland!" The voice was bubbly and distant—like the things he could see beyond the door, it seemed to be
underwater—but it was unmistakably Eddie's. Roland looked up from his hip and saw that Eddie and Tower
had carried some sort of case over to the unfound door. It appeared to be filled with books. "Roland, can you
help us?"
The pain had settled so deeply into his hips and knees that Roland wasn't even sure he could get up… but he
did it, and fluidly. He didn't know how much of his condition Eddie's sharp eyes might have already seen, but
Roland didn't want them to see any more. Not, at least, until their adventures in Calla Bryn Sturgis were over.
"When we push it, you pull!"
Roland nodded his understanding, and the bookcase slid forward. There was one strange and vertiginous
