“If I can’t, I guess I better goddam retire,” Cullum said with some spirit, and tossed the Yaz ball to Eddie, who held it in his right hand and ran the tips of his lefthand fingers over the red stitches. The feel of them raised a wholly unexpected lump in his throat. If a baseball didn’t tell you that you were home, what did? Only this world wasn’t home anymore. John was right, he was a walk-in.

“What do you mean?” Roland asked. Eddie tossed him the ball and Roland caught it without ever taking his eyes off John Cullum.

“I don’t bother with names, but I know most everyone who comes into this town just the same,” he said. “Know em by sight. Same with any other caretaker worth his salt, I s’pose. You want to know who’s in your territory.” Roland nodded at this with perfect understanding. “Tell me what this guy looks like.”

Eddie said, “He stands about five-nine and weighs … oh, I’m gonna say two-thirty.”

“Heavyset, then.”

“Do ya. Also, most of his hair’s gone on the sides of his forehead.” Eddie raised his hands to his own head and pushed his hair back, exposing the temples (one of them still oozing blood from his near-fatal passage through the Unfound Door). He winced a little at the pain this provoked in his upper left arm, but there the bleeding had already stopped. Eddie was more worried about the round he’d taken in the leg. Right now Cullum’s Percodan was dealing with the pain, but if the bullet was still in there—and Eddie thought it might be—it would eventually have to come out.

“How old is he?” Cullum asked.

Eddie looked at Roland, who only shook his head. Had Roland ever actually seen Tower? At this particular moment, Eddie couldn’t remember. He thought not.

“I think in his fifties.”

“He’s the book collector, ain’t he?” Cullum asked, then laughed at Eddie’s expression of surprise. “Told you, I keep a weather eye out on the summah folk. You never know when one’s gonna turn out to be a deadbeat. Maybe an outright thief. Or, eight or nine years ago, we had this woman from New Jersey who turned out to be a firebug.” Cullum shook his head. “Looked like a small-town librarian, the sort of lady who wouldn’t say boo to a goose, and she was lightin up barns all over Stoneham, Lovell, and Waterford.”

“How do you know he’s a book dealer?” Roland asked, and tossed the ball back to Cullum, who immediately tossed it to Eddie.

“Didn’t know that,” he said. “Only that he collects em, because he told Jane Sargus. Jane’s got a little shop right where Dimity Road branches off from Route 5. That’s about a mile south of here. Dimity Road’s actually where that fella and his friend are stayin, if we’re talking about the right ones. I guess we are.”

“His friend’s name is Deepneau,” Eddie said, and tossed the Yaz ball to Roland. The gunslinger caught it, tossed it to Cullum, then went to the fireplace and dropped the last shred of his cigarette onto the little pile of logs stacked on the grate.