Eddie gaped at him.

“These are things Calvin says,” Deepneau continued in that same calm voice, “but they are not necessarily the things Calvin believes.”

“What in hell do you mean?”

“Calvin has issues with letting go of things,” Deepneau said. “He is quite good at finding rare and antiquarian books, you know—a regular literary Sherlock Holmes—and he is compulsive about acquiring them. I’ve seen him hound the owner of a book he wants—I’m afraid there’s no other word that really fits—until the book’s owner gives in and sells. Sometimes just to make Cal stop calling on the telephone, I’m sure.

“Given his talents, his location, and the considerable sum of money to which he gained complete access on his twenty-sixth birthday, Cal should have been one of the most successful antiquarian book-dealers in New York, or in the whole country. His problem isn’t with buying but selling. Once he has an item he’s really worked to acquire, he hates to let it go again. I remember when a book collector from San Francisco, a fellow almost as compulsive as Cal himself, finally wore down Cal enough to sell him a signed first of Moby-Dick. Cal made over seventy thousand dollars on that one deal alone, but he also didn’t sleep for a week.

“He feels much the same way about the lot on the corner of Second and Forty-sixth. It’s the only real property, other than his books, which he still has. And he’s convinced himself that you want to steal it from him.”

There was a short period of silence. Then Roland said: “Does he know better, in his secret heart?”

“Mr. Deschain, I don’t understand what—”

“Aye, ya do,” Roland said. “Does he?”

“Yes,” Deepneau said at last. “I believe he does.”

“Does he understand in his secret heart that we are men of our word who will pay him for his property, unless we’re dead?”

“Yes, probably. But—”

“Does he understand that, if he transfers ownership of the lot to us, and if we make this transfer perfectly clear to Andolini’s dinh—his boss, a man named Balazar—”

“I know the name,” Deepneau said dryly. “It’s in the papers from time to time.”

“That Balazar will then leave your friend alone? If, that is, he can be made to understand that the lot is no longer your friend’s to sell, and that any effort to take revenge on sai Tower will cost Balazar himself dearly?”

Deepneau crossed his arms over his narrow chest and waited. He was looking at Roland with a kind of uneasy fascination.

“In short, if your friend Calvin Tower sells us that lot, his troubles will be over. Do you think he knows that in his secret heart?”

“Yes,” Deepneau said. “It’s just that he’s got this … this kink about letting stuff go.”

“Draw up a paper,” Roland said. “Object, the vacant square of waste ground on the corner of those two streets. Tower the seller. Us the buyer.”

“The Tet Corporation as buyer,” Eddie put in.