“I think so. Right after the part about Tower not permitting any liens or encumbrances on his property, because of Sombra’s ‘stated interest,’ wasn’t it?”

“Right,” Jake said. “The sign I saw in the lot said…” He paused, thinking, then raised his hands and looked between them, as if reading a sign only he could see: “MILLS CONSTRUCTION AND SOMBRA REAL ESTATE ASSOCIATES ARE CONTINUING TO REMAKE THE FACE OF MANHATTAN. And then, COMING SOON, TURTLE BAY LUXURY CONDOMINIUMS.”

“So that’s what they want it for,” Eddie said. “Condos. But—”

“What are condominiums?” Susannah asked, frowning. “It sounds like some newfangled kind of spice rack.”

“It’s a kind of co-op apartment deal,” Eddie said. “They probably had em in your when, but by a different name.”

“Yeah,” Susannah said with some asperity. “We called em coops. Or sometimes we went way downtown and called em apartment buildings.”

“It doesn’t matter because it was never about condos,” Jake said. “Never about the building the sign said they were going to put there, for that matter. All that’s only, you know…shoot, what’s the word?”

“Camouflage?” Roland suggested.

Jake grinned. “Camouflage, yeah. It’s about the rose, not the building! And they can’t get at it until they own the ground it grows on. I’m sure of it.”

“You may be right about the building’s not meaning anything,” Susannah said, “but that Turtle Bay name has a certain resonance, wouldn’t you say?” She looked at the gunslinger. “That part of Manhattan is called Turtle Bay, Roland.”

He nodded, unsurprised. The Turtle was one of the twelve Guardians, and almost certainly stood at the far end of the Beam upon which they now traveled.

“The people from Mills Construction might not know about the rose,” Jake said, “but I bet the ones from Sombra Corporation do.” His hand stole into Oy’s fur, which was thick enough at the billy-bumbler’s neck to make his fingers disappear entirely. “I think that somewhere in New York City—in some business building, probably in Turtle Bay on the East Side—there’s a door marked SOMBRA CORPORATION . And someplace behind that door there’s another door. The kind that takes you here.”

For a minute they sat thinking about it—about worlds spinning on a single axle in dying harmony—and no one said anything.

Four

“Here’s what I think is happening,” Eddie said. “Suze, Jake, feel free to step in if you think I’m getting it wrong. This guy Cal Tower’s some sort of custodian for the rose. He may not know it on a conscious level, but he must be. Him and maybe his whole family before him. It explains the name.”

“Only he’s the last,” Jake said.

“You can’t be sure of that, hon,” Susannah said.

“No wedding ring,” Jake responded, and Susannah nodded, giving him that one, at least provisionally.