“Did you sleep?” she asked.

“A little. Will we go on?”

Fifteen

They could have been in Manhattan by threeo’clock in the afternoon, and the drive into the city on a Sunday would havebeen far easier than during the Monday morning rush hour, but hotel rooms inNew York were expensive and even doubling up would have necessitated breakingout a credit card. They stayed at a Motel 6 in Harwich, Connecticut, instead.She took only a single room and that night he made love to her. Not because heexactly wanted to, she sensed, but because he understood it was what shewanted. Perhaps what she needed.

It was extraordinary, although she couldnot have said precisely how; despite the feel of all those scars beneath herhands—some rough, some smooth—there was the sense of making love toa dream. And that night she did dream. It was a field filled with rosesshe dreamed of, and a huge Tower made of slate-black stone standing at the farend. Partway up, red lamps glowed… only she had an idea they weren’t lamps atall, but eyes.

Terrible eyes.

She heard many singing voices, thousands ofthem, and understood that some were the voices of his lost friends. She awokewith tears on her cheeks and a feeling of loss even though he was still besideher. After today she’d see him no more. And that was for the best. Still, shewould have given anything in her life to have him make love to her again, eventhough she understood it had not been really her he had been making love to;even when he came into her, his thoughts had been far away, with those voices.

Those lost voices.

Chapter III:

New York Again(Roland Shows ID)

One

On the morning of Monday the 21st of Junein the year of ‘99, the sun shone down on New York City just as if JakeChambers did not lie dead in one world and Eddie Dean in another; as if StephenKing did not lie in a Lewiston hospital’s Intensive Care ward, drifting out intothe light of consciousness only for brief intervals; as if Susannah Dean didnot sit alone with her grief aboard a train racing on ancient, chancy tracksacross the dark wastes of Thunderclap toward the ghost-town of Fedic. Therewere others who had elected to accompany her on her journey at least that far,but she’d asked them to give her space, and they had complied with her wish.She knew she would feel better if she could cry, but so far she hadn’t beenable to do that—a few random tears, like meaningless showers in thedesert, was the best she had been able to manage—although she had aterrible feeling that things were worse than she knew.

Fuck, dat ain’t no “feelin,” Dettacrowed contemptuously from her place deep inside, as Susannah sat looking outat the dark and rocky wastelands or the occasional ruins of towns and villagesthat had been abandoned when the world moved on. You havin a jenna-wineintuition, girl! Only question you cain’t answer is whether it be ole longtall and ugly or Young Master Sweetness now visitin wit’ yo man in the clearin.

“Please, no,” she murmured. “Please noteither of them, God, I can’t stand another one.”

But God remained deaf to her prayer, Jakeremained dead, the Dark Tower remained standing at the end of Can’-Ka No Rey,casting its shadow over a million shouting roses, and in New York the hotsummer sun shone down on the just and the unjust alike.

Can you give me hallelujah?

Thankee-sai.

Now somebody yell me a big old God-bombamen.

Two

Mrs. Tassenbaum left her car at SirSpeedy-Park on Sixty-third Street (the sign on the sidewalk showed a knight inarmor behind the wheel of a Cadillac, his lance sticking jauntily out of thedriver’s window), where she and David rented two stalls on a yearly basis. Theykept an apartment nearby, and Irene asked Roland if he would like to go thereand clean up… although the man actually didn’t look all that bad, she had toadmit. She’d bought him a fresh pair of jeans and a white button-up shirt whichhe had rolled to the elbows; she had also bought a comb and a tube ofhair-mousse so strong its molecular makeup was probably closer to Super-Gluethan it was to Vitalis. With the unruly mop of gray-flecked hair combedstraight back from his brow, she had revealed the spare good looks and angularfeatures of an interesting crossbreed: a mixture of Quaker and Cherokee waswhat she imagined. The bag of Orizas was once more slung over his shoulder. Hisgun, the holster wrapped in its shell-belt, was in there, too. He had coveredit from enquiring eyes with the Old Home Days tee-shirt.

Roland shook his head. “I appreciate theoffer, but I’d as soon do what needs doing and then go back to where I belong.”He surveyed the hurrying throngs on the sidewalks bleakly. “If I belonganywhere.”

“You could stay at the apartment for acouple of days and rest up,” she said. “I’d stay with you.” And fuck thybrains out, do it please ya, she thought, and could not help a smile. “Imean, I know you won’t, but you need to know the offer’s open.”

He nodded. “Thankee, but there’s a womanwho needs me to get back to her as soon as I can.” It felt like a lie to him,and a grotesque one at that. Based on everything that had happened, part of himthought that Susannah Dean needed Roland of Gilead back in her life almost asmuch as nursery bah-bos needed rat poison added to their bedtime bottles. IreneTassenbaum accepted it, however. And part of her was actually anxious to getback to her husband. She had called him last night (using a pay phone a milefrom the motel, just to be safe), and it seemed that she had finally gottenDavid Seymour Tassenbaum’s attention again. Based on her encounter with Roland,David’s attention was definitely second prize, but it was better than nothing,by God. Roland Deschain would vanish from her life soon, leaving her to findher way back to northern New England on her own and explain what had happenedas best she could. Part of her mourned the impending loss, but she’d had enoughadventure in the last forty hours or so to last her for the rest of her life,hadn’t she? And things to think about, that too. For one thing, it seemed thatthe world was thinner than she had ever imagined. And reality wider.

“All right,” she said. “It’s Second Avenueand Forty-sixth Street you want to go to first, correct?”

“Yes.” Susannah hadn’t had a chance to tellthem much about her adventures after Mia had hijacked their shared body, butthe gunslinger knew there was a tall building—what Eddie, Jake, andSusannah called a skyscraper—now standing on the site of the formervacant lot, and the Tet Corporation must surely be inside. “Will we need atack-see?”

“Can you and your furry friend walkseventeen short blocks and two or three long ones? It’s your call, but Iwouldn’t mind stretching my legs.”

Roland didn’t know how long a long block orhow short a short one might be, but he was more than willing to find out nowthat the deep pain in his right hip had departed. Stephen King had that painnow, along with the one in his smashed ribs and the right side of his splithead. Roland did not envy him those pains, but at least they were back withtheir rightful owner.

“Let’s go,” he said.

Three

Fifteen minutes later he stood across fromthe large dark structure thrusting itself at the summer sky, trying to keep hisjaw from coming unhinged and perhaps dropping all the way to his chest. Itwasn’t the Dark Tower, not his Dark Tower, at least (although itwouldn’t have surprised him to know there were people working in yonsky-tower—some of them readers of Roland’s adventures—who called 2Hammarskjöld Plaza exactly that), but he had no doubt that it was theTower’s representative in this Keystone World, just as the rose represented afield filled with them; the field he had seen in so many dreams.