Roland made a slight bow. "Thankee-sai."
"But sit a few moments longer, if you will. We have gifts for you, Roland. Not enough to pay you back for all you've done-whether doing it was your first purpose or not-but things you may want, all the same. One's news from our good-mind folk in Taos. One's from more..." She considered. "... more normal researchers, folks who work for us in this very building. They call themselves the Calvins, but not because of any religious bent. Perhaps it's a little homage to Mr. Tower, who died of a heart attack in his new shop nine years ago. Or perhaps it's only a joke."
"A bad one if it is," Moses Carver grumped.
"And then there are two more... from us. From Nancy, and me, and my Dad, and one who's gone on. Will you sit a little longer?"
And although he was anxious to be off, Roland did as he was asked. For the first time since Jake's death, a true emotion other than sorrow had risen in his mind.
Curiosity.
ELEVEN
"First, the news from the folks in New Mexico," Marian said when Roland had resumed his seat. "They have watched you as well as they can, and although what they saw Thunder-side was hazy at best, they believe that Eddie told Jake Chambers something-perhaps something of importance-not long before he died. Likely as he lay on the ground, and before he... I don't know..."
"Before he slipped into twilight?" Roland suggested.
"Yes," Nancy Deepneau agreed. "We think so. That is to say, they think so. Our version of the Breakers."
Marian gave her a little frown that suggested this was a lady who did not appreciate being interrupted. Then she returned her attention to Roland. "Seeing things on this side is easier for our people, and several of them are quite sure-not positive but quite sure-that Jake may have passed this message on before he himself died." She paused. "This woman you're traveling with, Mrs. Tannenbaum-"
"Tassenbaum," Roland corrected. He did it without thinking, because his mind was otherwise occupied. Furiously so.
"Tassenbaum," Marian agreed. "She's undoubtedly told you some of what Jake told her before he passed on, but there may be something else. Not a thing she's holding back, but something she didn't recognize as important. Will you ask her to go over what Jake said to her once more before you and she part company?"
"Yes," Roland said, and of course he would, but he didn't believe Jake had passed on Eddie's message to Mrs. Tassenbaum.
No, not to her. He realized that he'd hardly thought of Oy since they'd parked Irene's car, but Oy had been with them, of course; would now be lying at Irene's feet as she sat in the little park across the street, lying in the sun and waiting for him.
"All right," she said. "That's good. Let's move on."
Marian opened the wide center drawer of her desk. From it she brought out a padded envelope and a small wooden box.
The envelope she handed to Nancy Deepneau. The box she placed on the desktop in front of her.
"This next is Nancy's to tell," she said. "And I'd just ask you to be brief, Nancy, because this man looks very anxious to be off."
"Tell it," Moses said, and thumped his cane.
Nancy glanced at him, then at Roland... or in the vicinity of him, anyway. Color was climbing in her cheeks, and she looked flustered. "Stephen King," she said, then cleared her throat and said it again. From there she didn't seem to know how to go on. Her color burned even deeper beneath her skin.
"Take a deep breath," Roland said, "and hold it."
She did as he told her.
"Now let it out."
And this, too.
"Now tell me what you would, Nancy niece of Aaron."
"Stephen King has written nearly forty books," she said, and although the color remained in her cheeks (Roland supposed he would find out what it signified soon enough), her voice was calmer now. "An amazing number of them, even the very early ones, touch on the Dark Tower in one way or another.
It's as though it was always on his mind, from the very first."
"You say what I know is true," Roland told her, folding his hands, "I say thankya."
This seemed to calm her even further. "Hence the Calvins,"
she said. "Three men and two women of a scholarly bent who do nothing from eight in the morning until four in the afternoon but read the works of Stephen King."
"They don't just read them," Marian said. "They crossreference them by settings, by characters, by themes-such as they are-even by mention of popular brand-name products."