"What does thee taste?" Roland asked, honestly curious.
"The years, gunslinger," Moses Carver said. "So I do." And with that he held the gun out to the woman again, butt first.
She handed it back to Roland as if glad to be rid of its grave and killing weight, and he wrapped it once more in its belt of shells.
"Come in," she said. "And although our time is short, we'll make it as joyful as your grief will allow."
"Amen to that!" the old man said, and clapped Roland on the shoulder. "She's still alive, my Odetta-she you call Susannah.
There's that. Thought you'd be glad to know it, sir."
Roland was glad, and nodded his thanks.
"Come now, Roland," Marian Carver said. "Come and be welcome in our place, for it's your place as well, and we know the chances are good that you'll never visit it again."
TEN
Marian Carver's office was on the northwest corner of the ninety-ninth floor. Here the walls were all glass unbroken by a single strut or muntin, and the view took the gunslinger's breath away. Standing in that corner and looking out was like hanging in midair over a skyline more fabulous than any mind could imagine. Yet it was one he had seen before, for he recognized yonder suspension bridge as well as some of the tall buildings on this side of it. He should have recognized the bridge, for they'd almost died on it in another world. Jake had been kidnapped off it by Gasher, and taken to the Tick-Tock Man. This was the City of Lud as it must have been in its prime.
"Do you call it New York?" he asked. 'You do, yes?"
"Yes," Nancy Deepneau said.
"And yonder bridge, that swoops?"
"The George Washington," Marian Carver said. "Or just the GWB, if you're a native."
So yonder lay not only the bridge which had taken them into Lud but the one beside which Pere Callahan had walked when he left New York to start his wandering days. That Roland remembered from his story, and very well.
"Would you care for some refreshment?" Nancy asked.
He began to say no, took stock of how his head was swimming, and changed his mind. Something, yes, but only if it would sharpen wits that needed to be sharp. "Tea, if you have it," he said. "Hot, strong tea, with sugar or honey. Can you?"
"We can," Marian said, and pushed a button on her desk.
She spoke to someone Roland couldn't see, and all at once the woman in the outer office-the one who had appeared to be talking to herself-made more sense to him.
When the ordering of hot drinks and sandwiches (what Roland supposed he would always think of as popkins) was done, Marian leaned forward and captured Roland's eye.
"We're well-met in New York, Roland, so I hope, but our time here isn't... isn't vital. And I suspect you know why."
The gunslinger considered this, then nodded. A trifle cautiously, but over the years he had built a degree of caution into his nature. There were others-Alain Johns had been one, Jamie DeCurry another-for whom a sense of caution had been inbred, but that had never been the case with Roland, whose tendency had been to shoot first and ask questions later.
"Nancy told you to read the plaque in the Garden of the Beam," Marian said. "Did-"
"Garden of the Beam, say Gawd!" Moses Carver interjected.
On the walk down the corridor to his daughter's office, he had picked a cane out of a faux elephant-foot stand, and now he thumped it on the expensive carpet for emphasis. Marian bore this patiently. "Say Gawd-bomb!"
"My father's recent friendship with the Reverend Harrigan, who holds court down below, has not been the high point in my life," Marian said with a sigh, "but never mind. Did you read the plaque, Roland?"
He nodded. Nancy Deepneau had used a different word-sign or sigul-but he understood it came to the same. "The letters changed into Great Letters. I could read it very well."
"And what did it say?"
"GIVEN BY THE TET CORPORATION, IN HONOR OF EDWARD CANTOR DEAN AND JOHN "JAKE" CHAMBERS." He paused. "Then it said 'Cam-a-cam-mal, Pria-toi, Gan delah,' which you might say as WHITE OVER RED, THUS GAN WILLS EVER."
"And to us it says GOOD OVER EVIL, THIS IS THE WILL OF GOD," Marian said.
"God be praised!" Moses Carver said, and thumped his cane. "May the Prim rise!"