He would get the answers here, prepare for the future or merely satisfy his curiosity, depending on what the answers were, and then kill both of them.

A few more answers, two less junkies. Some gain and no great loss.

In the other room, the game had gotten around to Henry again. “Okay, Henry,” George Biondi said. “Be careful, because this one is tricky. The category is Geography. The question is, ‘What is the only continent where kangaroos are a native form of life?’ ”

A hushed pause.

“Johnny Cash,” Henry said, and this was followed by a bull-throated roar of laughter. The walls shook.

’Cimi tensed, waiting for Balazar’s house of cards (which would become a tower only if God, or the blind forces that ran the universe in His name, willed it), to fall down.

The cards trembled a bit. If one fell, all would fall. None did.

Balazar looked up and smiled at ’Cimi. “Piasan,” he said. “Il Dio est bono; il Dio est malo; temps est poco-poco; tu est une grande peeparollo.”

’Cimi smiled. “Si, senor,” he said. “Io grande peeparollo; Io va fanculo por tu.”

“None va fanculo, catzarro,” Balazar said. “Eddie Dean va fanculo.” He smiled gently, and began on the second level of his tower of cards.

11

When the van pulled to the curb near Balazar’s place, Col Vincent happened to be looking at Eddie. He saw something impossible. He tried to speak and found himself unable. His tongue was stuck to the roof of his mouth and all he could get out was a muffled grunt.

He saw Eddie’s eyes change from brown to blue.

12

This time Roland made no conscious decision to come forward. He simply leaped without thinking, a movement as involuntary as rolling out of a chair and going for his guns when someone burst into a room.

The Tower! he thought fiercely. It’s the Tower, my God, the Tower is in the sky, the Tower! I see the Tower in the sky, drawn in lines of red fire! Cuthbert! Alan! Desmond! The Tower! The T—

But this time he felt Eddie struggling—not against him, but trying to talk to him, trying desperately to explain something to him.

The gunslinger retreated, listening—listening desperately, as above a beach some unknown distance away in space and time, his mindless body twitched and trembled like the body of a man experiencing a dream of highest ecstasy or deepest horror.

13

Sign! Eddie was screaming into his own head . . . and into the head of that other.

It’s a sign, just a neon sign, I don’t know what tower it is you’re thinking about but this is just a bar, Balazar’s place, The Leaning Tower, he named it that after the one in Pisa! It’s just a sign that’s supposed to look like the fucking Leaning Tower of Pisa! Let up! Let up! You want to get us killed before we have a chance to go at them?

Pitsa? the gunslinger replied doubtfully, and looked again.