She grew pale beneath her powder and did as he said without uttering another word. A birdlike clatter of disapproval followed Jake and Roland into Corbett Hall, but it didn't start until the gunslinger was out of their view and they no longer had to fear falling beneath the unsettling gaze of his blue eyes. The Breakers reminded Jake of some kids with whom he'd gone to school at Piper, classroom nitwits willing to shout out stuff like this test sucks or bite my bag... but only when the teacher was out of the room.
The first-floor hallway of Corbett was bright with fluorescent lights and smelled strongly of smoke from Damli House and Feveral Hall. Dinky Earnshaw was seated in a folding chair to the right of the door marked PROCTOR's SUITE, smoking a cigarette.
He looked up as Roland and Jake approached, Oy trotting along in his usual position just behind Jake's heel.
"How is he?" Roland asked.
"Dying, man," Dinky said, and shrugged.
"And Susannah?"
"Strong. Once he's gone-" Dinky shrugged again, as if to say it could go either way, any way.
Roland knocked quietly on the door.
"Who is it?" Susannah's voice, muffled.
"Roland and Jake," the gunslinger said. "Will you have us?"
The question was met with what seemed to Jake an unusually long pause. Roland, however, didn't seem surprised. Neither did Dinky, for that matter.
At last Susannah said: "Come in."
They did.
FIVE
Sitting with Oy in the soothing dark, waiting for Roland's call,
Jake reflected on the scene that had met his eyes in the darkened room. That, and the endless three-quarters of an hour before Roland had seen his discomfort and let him go, saying he'd call Jake back when it was "time."
Jake had seen a lot of death since being drawn to Mid-World; had dealt it; had even experienced his own, although he remembered very little of that. But this was the death of a kamate, and what had been going on in the bedroom of the proctor's suite just seemed poindess. And endless. Jake wished with all his heart that he'd stayed outside with Dinky; he didn't want to remember his wisecracking, occasionally hot-tempered friend this way.
For one thing, Eddie looked worse than frail as he lay in the proctor's bed with his hand in Susannah's; he looked old and
(Jake hated to think of it) stupid. Or maybe the word was senile. His mouth had folded in at the corners, making deep dimples. Susannah had washed his face, but the stubble on his cheeks made them look dirty anyway. There were big purple patches beneath his eyes, almost as though that bastard Prentiss had beaten him up before shooting him. The eyes themselves were closed, but they rolled almost ceaselessly beneath the thin veils of his lids, as though Eddie were dreaming.
And he talked. A steady low muttering stream of words.
Some of the things he said Jake could make out, some he couldn't. Some of them made at least minimal sense, but a lot of it was what his friend Benny would have called ki'come: utter nonsense. From time to time Susannah would wet a rag in the basin on the table beside the bed, wring it out, and wipe her husband's brow and dry lips. Once Roland got up, took the basin, emptied it in the bathroom, refilled it, and brought it back to her. She thanked him in a low and perfectly pleasant tone of voice. A little later Jake had freshened the water, and she thanked him in the same way. As if she didn't even know they were there.
We go for her, Roland had told Jake. Because later on she'll remember who was there, and be grateful.
But would she? Jake wondered now, in the darkness outside the Clover Tavern. Would she be grateful? It was down to Roland that Eddie Dean was lying on his deathbed at the age of twentyfive or -six, wasn't it? On the other hand, if not for Roland, she would never have met Eddie in the first place. It was all too confusing.
Like the idea of multiple worlds with New Yorks in every one, it made Jake's head ache.
Lying there on his deathbed, Eddie had asked his brother Henry why he never remembered to box out.
He'd asked Jack Andolini who hit him with the ugly-stick.