called Cuba, and he was just as brave as... well, let's just say you would have been pleased to ride with him. When some folks saw just how serious he was, the motherfucks hired the nut to shoot him."
"Oz-walt."
She nodded, not bothering to correct him, thinking that there was nothing to correct, really. Oz-walt. Oz. It all came around again, didn't it?
"And Johnson took over when Kennedy fell."
"Yep."
"How did he do?"
"Was too early to tell when I left, but he was more the kind of fella used to playing the game. 'Go along to get along,' we used to say. Do yovi ken it?"
"Yes, indeed," he said. "And Susannah, I think we've arrived." Roland brought Ho Fat's Luxury Taxi to a stop. He stood with the handles wrapped in his fists, looking at Le Casse Roi Russe.
TWO
Here The King's Way ended, spilling into a wide cobbled forecourt that had once no doubt been guarded as assiduously by the Crimson King's men as Buckingham Palace was by the Beefeaters of Queen Elizabeth. An eye that had faded only slightly over the years was painted on the cobbles in scarlet.
From ground-level, one could only assume what it was, but from the upper levels of the casde itself, Susannah guessed, the eye would dominate the view to the northwest.
Same damn thing's probably painted at every other point of the compass, too, she thought.
Above this outer courtyard, stretched between two deserted guard-towers, was a banner that looked freshly painted. Stenciled upon it (also in red, white, and blue) was this:
WELCOME, ROLAND AND SUSANNAH!
(OY, TOO!)
KEEP ON ROCKIN' IN THE FREE WORLD!
The castle beyond the inner courtyard (and the caged river which here served as a moat) was indeed of dark red stone blocks that had darkened to near-black over the years. Towers and turrets burst upward from the castle proper, swelling in a way that hurt the eye and seemed to defy gravity. The castle within these gaudy brackets was sober and undecorated except for the staring eye carved into the keystone arch above the main entrance. Two of the overhead walkways had fallen, littering the main courtyard with shattered chunks of stone, but six others remained in place, crisscrossing at different levels in a way that made her think of turnpike entrances and exits where a number of major highways met. As with the houses, the doors and windows were oddly narrow. Fat black rooks were perched on the sills of the windows and lined up along the overhead walkways, peering at them.
Susannah swung down from the rickshaw with Roland's gun stuffed into her belt, within easy reach. She joined him, looking at the main gate on this side of the moat. It stood open. Beyond it, a humped stone bridge spanned the river.
Beneath the bridge, dark water rushed through a stone throat forty feet wide. The water smelled harsh and unpleasant, and where it flowed around a number of fangy black rocks, the foam was yellow instead of white.
"What do we do now?" she asked.
"Listen to those fellows, for a start," he said, and nodded toward the main doors on the far side of the castle's cobbled forecourt. The portals were ajar and through them now came two men-perfectly ordinary men, not narrow funhouse fellows, as she had rather expected. When they were halfway across the forecourt, a third slipped out and scurried along after. None appeared to be armed, and as the two in front approached the bridge, she was not exactly flabbergasted to see they were identical twins. And the one behind looked the same: Caucasian, fairly tall, long black hair. Triplets, then: two to meet, and one for good luck. They were wearing jeans and heavy pea-coats of which she was instantly (and achingly) jealous.
The two in front carried large wicker baskets by leather handles.
"Put spectacles and beards on them, and they'd look exactly like Stephen King as he was when Eddie and I first met him,"
Roland said in a low voice.
"Really? Say true?"
"Yes. Do you remember what I told you?"
"Let you do the talking."
"And before victory comes temptation. Remember that, too."
"I will. Roland, are you afraid of em?"
"I think there's little to fear from those three. But be ready to shoot."
"They don't look armed." Of course there were those wicker baskets; anything might be in those.
"All the same, be ready."
"Count on it," said she.
THREE
Even with the roar of the river rushing beneath the bridge, they could hear the steady tock-tock of the strangers' bootheels.
The two with the baskets