The Dark Tower

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. And endless. 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 was senile. 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?”