Song of Susannah - Stephen King [82]
Calvin Tower licked his lips and said, “Are you telling the truth about Andolini? Is he really in this town?”
“Yes,” Eddie said. Now he could hear the whuppa-whuppa-whup of an approaching helicopter. A TV news chopper? Wasn’t this still about five years too early for such things, especially up here in the boondocks?
The bookstore owner’s eyes shifted to Roland. Tower had been surprised, and he’d been guilt-tripped with a vengeance, but the man was already regaining some of his composure. Eddie could see it, and he reflected (not for the first time) on how much simpler life would be if people would stay in the pigeonholes where you originally put them. He did not want to waste time thinking of Calvin Tower as a brave man, or as even second cousin to the good guys, but maybe he was both those things. Damn him.
“You’re truly Roland of Gilead?”
Roland regarded him through rising membranes of cigarette smoke. “You say true, I say thank ya.”
“Roland of the Eld?”
“Yes.”
“Son of Steven?”
“Yes.”
“Grandson of Alaric?”
Roland’s eyes flickered with what was probably surprise. Eddie himself was surprised, but what he mostly felt was a kind of tired relief. The questions Tower was asking could mean only two things. First, more had been passed down to him than just Roland’s name and trade of hand. Second, he was coming around.
“Of Alaric, aye,” Roland said, “him of the red hair.”
“I don’t know anything about his hair, but I know why he went to Garlan. Do you?”
“To slay a dragon.”
“And did he?”
“No, he was too late. The last in that part of the world had been slain by another king, one who was later murdered.”
Now, to Eddie’s even greater surprise, Tower haltingly addressed Roland in a language that was a second cousin to English at best. What Eddie heard was something like Had heet Rol-uh, fa heet gun, fa heet hak, fa-had gun?
Roland nodded and replied in the same tongue, speaking slowly and carefully. When he was finished, Tower sagged against the wall and dropped his bag of books unheeded to the floor. “I’ve been a fool,” he said.
No one contradicted him.
“Roland, would you step outside with me? I need…I…need…” Tower began to cry. He said something else in that not-English language, once more ending on a rising inflection, as if asking a question.
Roland got up without replying. Eddie also got up, wincing at the pain in his leg. There was a slug in there, all right, he could feel it. He grabbed Roland’s arm, pulled him down, and whispered in the gunslinger’s ear: “Don’t forget that Tower and Deepneau have an appointment at the Turtle Bay Washateria, four years from now. Tell him Forty-seventh Street, between Second and First. He probably knows the place. Tower and Deepneau were…are…will be the ones who save Don Callahan’s life. I’m almost sure of it.”
Roland nodded, then crossed to Tower, who initially cringed away and then straightened with a conscious effort. Roland took his hand in the way of the Calla, and led him outside.
When they were gone, Eddie said to Deepneau, “Draw up the contract. He’s selling.”
Deepneau regarded him skeptically. “You really think so?”
“Yeah,” Eddie said. “I really do.”
* * *
Seven
Drawing the contract didn’t take long. Deepneau found a pad in the kitchen (there was a cartoon beaver on top of each sheet, and the legend DAM IMPORTANT THINGS TO DO ) and wrote it on that, pausing every now and then to ask Eddie a question.
When they were finished, Deepneau looked at Eddie’s sweat-shiny face and said, “I have some Percocet tablets. Would you like some?”
“You bet,” Eddie said. If he took them now, he thought—hoped—he would be ready for what he wanted Roland to do when Roland got back. The bullet was still in there, in there for sure, and it had to come out. “How about four?”
Deepneau’s eyes measured him.
“I know what I’m doing,” Eddie said. Then added: “Unfortunately.”
* * *
Eight
Aaron found a couple of children’s Band-Aids in the cabin’s medicine chest (Snow White on one, Bambi on another) and put them over the hole in Eddie’s arm after pouring another shot of