"As for you, know that the mark of Gilead is on this man. If you ever touch him again - if you ever even step foot in this shop again - I'll come to Brooklyn and kill your wife and children. Then I'll find your mother and father, and I'll kill them. Then I'll kill your mother's sisters and your father's brothers. Then I'll kill your grandparents, if they're still alive. You I'll save for last. Do you believe me?"
Jack Andolini went on staring into the face above him - the bloodshot eyes, the grinning, snarling mouth - but now with mounting horror. The fact was, he did believe. And whoever he was, he knew a great deal about Balazar and about this current deal. About the current deal, he might know more than Andolini knew himself.
"There's more of us," Eddie said, "and we're all about the same thing: protecting..." He almost said protecting the rose . "... protecting Calvin Tower. We'll be watching this place, we'll be watching Tower, we'll be watching Tower's friends - guys like Deepneau." Eddie saw Andolini's eyes flicker with surprise at that, and was satisfied. "Anybody who comes here and even raises his voice to Tower, we'll kill their whole families and them last. That goes for George, for 'Cimi Dretto, Tricks Postino... for your brother Claudio, too."
Andolini's eyes widened at each name, then winced momentarily shut at the name of his brother. Eddie thought that maybe he'd made his point. Whether or not Andolini could convince Balazar was another question. But in a way it doesn't even matter , he thought coldly. Once Tower's sold us the lot, it doesn't really matter what they do to him, does it ?
"How do you know so much>" Andolini asked.
"That doesn't matter. Just pass on the message. Tell Balazar to tell his friends at Sombra that the lot is no longer for sale. Not to them, it isn't. And tell him that Tower is now under the protection of folk from Gilead who carry hard calibers."
"Hard - ?"
"I mean folk more dangerous than any Balazar has ever dealt with before," Eddie said, "including the people from the Sombra Corporation. Tell him that if he persists, there'll be enough corpses in Brooklyn to fill Grand Army Plaza. And many of them will be women and children. Convince him."
"I... man, I'll try."
Eddie stood up, then backed up. Curled in the puddles of gasoline and the strews of broken glass, George Biondi was beginning to stir and mutter deep in his throat. Eddie gestured to Jack with the barrel of Roland's pistol, telling him to get up.
"You better try hard," he said.
NINE
Tower poured them each a cup of black coffee, then couldn't drink his. His hands were shaking too badly. After watching him try a couple of times (and thinking about a bomb-disposal character in UXB who lost his nerve), Eddie took pity on him and poured half of Tower's coffee into his own cup.
"Try now," he said, and pushed the half-cup back to the bookshop owner. Tower had his glasses on again, but one of the bows had been twisted and they sat crookedly on his face. Also, there was the crack running across the left lens like a lightning bolt. The two men were at the marble counter, Tower behind it, Eddie perched on one of the stools. Tower had carried the book Andolini had threatened to burn first out here with him, and put it down beside the coffee-maker. It was as if he couldn't bear to let it out of his sight.
Tower picked up the cup with his shaking hand (no rings on it, Eddie noticed - no rings on either hand) and drained it. Eddie couldn't understand why the man would choose to drink such so-so brew black. As far as Eddie himself was concerned, the really good taste was the Half and Half. After the months he had spent in Roland's world (or perhaps whole years had been sneaking by), it tasted as rich as heavy cream.
"Better?" Eddie asked.
"Yes." Tower looked out the window, as if expecting the return of the gray Town Car that had jerked and swayed away just ten minutes before. Then he looked back at Eddie. He was still frightened of the young man, but the last of his outright terror had departed when Eddie stowed the huge pistol back inside what he called "my friend's swag-bag." The bag was made of a scuffed, no-color leather, and closed along the top with lacings rather than a zipper. To Calvin Tower, it seemed that the young man had stowed the more frightening aspects of his personality in the "swag-bag" along with the oversized revolver. That was good, because it allowed Tower to believe that the kid had been bluffing about killing whole hoodlum families as well as the hoodlums themselves.
"Where's your pal Deepneau today?" Eddie asked.
"Oncologist. Two years ago, Aaron started seeing blood in the toilet bowl when he moved his bowels. A younger man, he thinks 'Goddam hemorrhoids' and buys a tube of Preparation H. Once you're in your seventies, you assume the worst. In his case it was bad but not terrible. Cancer moves slower when you get to be his age; even the Big C gets old. Funny to think of, isn't it? Anyway, they baked it with radiation and they say it's gone, but Aaron says you don't turn your back on cancer. He goes back every three months, and that's where he is. I'm glad. He's an old cockuh but still a hothead."