Wolves of the Calla - Stephen King [47]
“A bibliophile,” Susannah said.
“Yeah, one of those. And George Biondi may not be Einstein, but he said at least one smart thing while we were eavesdropping. He said Tower’s place wasn’t a real shop but just a hole you poured money into. What’s going on with him is a pretty old story where we come from, Roland. When my Ma used to see some rich guy on TV—Donald Trump, for instance—”
“Who?” Susannah asked.
“You don’t know him, he would’ve been just a kid back in ’64. And it doesn’t matter. ‘Shirtsleeves to shirtsleeves in three generations,’ my mother would tell us. ‘It’s the American way, boys.’
“So here’s Tower, and he’s sort of like Roland—the last of his line. He sells off a piece of property here and a piece there, making his taxes, making his house payments, keeping up with the credit cards and the doctor bills, paying for his stock. And yeah, I’m making this up…except somehow it doesn’t feel that way.”
“No,” Jake said. He spoke in a low, fascinated voice. “It doesn’t.”
“Perhaps you shared his khef,” Roland said. “More likely, you touched him. As my old friend Alain used to. Go on, Eddie.”
“And every year he tells himself the bookstore’ll turn around. Catch on, maybe, the way things in New York sometimes do. Get out of the red and into the black and then he’ll be okay. And finally there’s only one thing left to sell: lot two-ninety-eight on Block Nineteen in Turtle Bay.”
“Two-nine-eight adds up to nineteen,” Susannah said. “I wish I could decide if that means something or if it’s just Blue Car Syndrome.”
“What’s Blue Car Syndrome?” Jake asked.
“When you buy a blue car, you see blue cars everywhere.”
“Not here, you don’t,” Jake said.
“Not here,” Oy put in, and they all looked at him. Days, sometimes whole weeks would go by, and Oy would do nothing but give out the occasional echo of their talk. Then he would say something that might almost have been the product of original thought. But you didn’t know. Not for sure. Not even Jake knew for sure.
The way we don’t know for sure about nineteen, Susannah thought, and gave the bumbler a pat on the head. Oy responded with a companionable wink.
“He holds onto that lot until the bitter end,” Eddie said. “I mean hey, he doesn’t even own the crappy building his bookstore’s in, he only leases it.”
Jake took over. “Tom and Jerry’s Artistic Deli goes out of business, and Tower has it torn down. Because part of him wants to sell the lot. That part of him says he’d be crazy not to.” Jake fell silent for a moment, thinking about how some thoughts came in the middle of the night. Crazy thoughts, crazy ideas, and voices that wouldn’t shut up. “But there’s another part of him, another voice—”
“The voice of the Turtle,” Susannah put in quietly.
“Yes, the Turtle or the Beam,” Jake agreed. “They’re probably the same thing. And this voice tells him he has to hold onto it at all costs.” He looked at Eddie. “Do you think he knows about the rose? Do you think he goes down there sometimes and looks at it?”
“Does a rabbit shit in the woods?” Eddie responded. “Sure he goes. And sure he knows. On some level he must know. Because a corner lot in Manhattan…how much would a thing like that be worth, Susannah?”
“In my time, probably a million bucks,” she said. “By 1977, God knows. Three? Five?” She shrugged. “Enough to let sai Tower go on selling books at a loss for the rest of his life, provided he was reasonably careful about how he invested the principal.”
Eddie said, “Everything about this shows how reluctant he is to sell. I mean Suze already pointed out how little Sombra got for their hundred grand.”
“But they did get something,” Roland said. “Something very important.”
“A foot in the door,” Eddie said.
“You say true. And now, as the term of their agreement winds down, they send your world’s version of the Big Coffin Hunters. Hard-caliber boys. If greed or necessity doesn’t compel Tower to sell them the land with the rose on it, they’ll terrify him into it.”
“Yeah,” Jake said. And who would stand on Tower’s side? Maybe Aaron