A sign. Yes, all right, he could see now: it was not the Tower, but a Signpost. It leaned to one side, and there were many scalloped curves, and it was a marvel, but that was all. He could see now that the sign was a thing made of tubes, tubes which had somehow been filled with glowing red swamp-fire. In some places there seemed to be less of it than others; in those places the lines of fire pulsed and buzzed.

He now saw letters below the tower which had been made of shaped tubes; most of them were Great Letters. TOWER he could read, and yes, LEANING. LEANING TOWER. The first word was three letters, the first T, the last E, the middle one which he had never seen.

Tre? he asked Eddie.

THE. It doesn’t matter. Do you see it’s just a sign? That’s what matters!

I see, the gunslinger answered, wondering if the prisoner really believed what he was saying or was only saying it to keep the situation from spilling over as the tower depicted in those lines of fire seemed about to do, wondering if Eddie believed any sign could be a trivial thing.

Then ease off! Do you hear me? Ease off!

Be cool? Roland asked, and both felt Roland smile a little in Eddie’s mind.

Be cool, right. Let me handle things.

Yes. All right. He would let Eddie handle things.

For awhile.

14

Col Vincent finally managed to get his tongue off the roof of his mouth. “Jack.” His voice was as thick as shag carpet.

Andolini turned off the motor and looked at him, irritated.

“His eyes.”

“What about his eyes?”

“Yeah, what about my eyes?” Eddie asked.

Col looked at him.

The sun had gone down, leaving nothing in the air but the day’s ashes, but there was light enough for Col to see that Eddie’s eyes were brown again.

If they had ever been anything else.

You saw it, part of his mind insisted, but had he? Col was twenty-four, and for the last twenty-one of those years no one had really believed him trustworthy. Useful sometimes. Obedient almost always . . . if kept on a short leash. Trustworthy? No. Col had eventually come to believe it himself.

“Nothing,” he muttered.

“Then let’s go,” Andolini said.

They got out of the pizza van. With Andolini on their left and Vincent on their right, Eddie and the gunslinger walked into The Leaning Tower.

CHAPTER 5

Showdown and Shoot-Out

1

In a blues tune from the twenties Billie Holiday, who would one day discover the truth for herself, sang: “Doctor tole me daughter you got to quit it fast/Because one more rocket gonna be your last.” Henry Dean’s last rocket went up just five minutes before the van pulled up in front of The Leaning Tower and his brother was herded inside.

Because he was on Henry’s right, George Biondi—known to his friends as “Big George” and to his enemies as “Big Nose”—asked Henry’s questions. Now, as Henry sat nodding and blinking owlishly over the board, Tricks Postino put the die in a hand which had already gone the dusty color that results in the extremities after long-term heroin addiction, the dusty color which is the precursor of gangrene.