"No, I wanted to ask you - "
"This is the part about Samson's Riddle," Mid-World Jake said. "I don't think it matters. Although the Deepneau guy sings a pretty good song, if you want to hear it."
"I'll pass," Eddie said. "Come on."
They went out. And although things on Second Avenue were still wrong - that sense of endless dark behind the scenes, behind the very sky - it was somehow better than in The Manhattan Restaurant of the Mind. At least there was fresh air.
"Tell you what," Jake said. "Let's go down to Second and Forty-sixth right now." He jerked his head toward the version of him listening to Aaron Deepneau sing. "I'll catch up with us."
Eddie considered it, then shook his head.
Jake's face fell a little. "Don't you want to see the rose?"
"You bet your ass I do," Eddie said. "I'm wild to see it."
"Then - "
"I don't feel like we're done here yet. I don't know why, but I don't."
Jake - the Kid Seventy-seven version of him - had left the door open when he went back inside, and now Eddie moved into it. Aaron Deepneau was telling Jake a riddle they would later try on Blaine the Mono: What can run but never walks, has a mouth but never talks. Mid-World Jake, meanwhile, was once more looking at the notice-board in the bookstore window
(Pan-Fried William Faulkner, Hard-Boiled Raymond Chandler) . He wore a frown of the kind that expresses doubt and anxiety rather than ill temper.
"That sign's different, too," he said.
"How?"
"I can't remember."
"Is it important?"
Jake turned to him. The eyes below the furrowed brow were haunted. "I don't know. It's another riddle. I hate riddles!"
Eddie sympathized. When is a Beryl not a Beryl ? "When it's a Claudia," he said.
"Huh?"
"Never mind. Better step back, Jake, or you're going to run into yourself."
Jake gave the oncoming version of John Chambers a startled glance, then did as Eddie suggested. And when Kid Seventy-seven started on down Second Avenue with his new books in his left hand, Mid-World Jake gave Eddie a tired smile. "I do remember one thing," he said. "When I left this bookstore, I was sure I'd never come here again. But I did."
"Considering that we're more ghosts than people, I'd say that's debatable." Eddie gave the back of Jake's neck a friendly scruff. "And if you have forgotten something important, Roland might be able to help you remember. He's good at that."
Jake grinned at this, relieved. He knew from personal experience that the gunslinger really was good at helping people remember. Roland's friend Alain might have been the one with the strongest ability to touch other minds, and his friend Cuthbert had gotten all the sense of humor in that particular ka-tet, but Roland had developed over the years into one hell of a hypnotist. He could have made a fortune in Las Vegas.
"Can we follow me now?" Jake asked. "Check out the rose?" He looked up and down Second Avenue - a street that was somehow bright and dark at the same time - with a kind of unhappy perplexity. "Things are probably better there. The rose makes everything better."
Eddie was about to say okay when a dark gray Lincoln Town Car pulled up in front of Calvin Tower's bookshop. It parked by the yellow curb in front of a fire hydrant with absolutely no hesitation. The front doors opened, and when Eddie saw who was getting out from behind the wheel, he seized Jake's shoulder.
"Ow!"Jake said. "Man, that hurts!"
Eddie paid no attention. In fact the hand on Jake's shoulder clamped down even tighter.
"Christ," Eddie whispered. "Dear Jesus Christ, what's this? What in hell is this ?"
EIGHT
Jake watched Eddie go past pale to ashy gray. His eyes were bulging from their sockets. Not without difficulty, Jake pried the clamping hand off his shoulder. Eddie made as if to point with that hand, but didn't seem to have the strength. It fell against the side of his leg with a little thump.
The man who had gotten out on the passenger side of the Town Car walked around to the sidewalk while the driver opened the rear curbside door. Even to Jake their moves looked practiced, almost like steps in a dance. The man who got out of the back seat was wearing an expensive suit, but that didn't change the fact that he was basically a dumpy little guy with a potbelly and black hair going gray around the edges. Dandrufjy black hair, from the look of his suit's shoulders.
To Jake, the day suddenly felt darker than ever. He looked up to see if the sun had gone behind a cloud. It hadn't, but it almost seemed to him that there was a black corona forming around its brilliant circle, like a ring of mascara around a startled eye.
Half a block farther downtown, the 1977 version of him was glancing in the window of a restaurant, and Jake could remember the name of it: Chew Chew Mama's. Not far beyond it was Tower of Power Records, where he would think Towers are selling cheap today . If that version of him had looked back, he would have seen the gray Town Car... but he hadn't. Kid Seventy-seven's mind was fixed firmly on the future.
"It's Balazar," Eddie said.