Gods, as late as that? As late as that? But Eddie . . . he was so tired, he can never have stayed awake for so l—
The gunslinger turned Jack’s head. The door was still there, but what he saw through it was far worse than he would have imagined.
Standing to one side of the door were two shadows, one that of the wheelchair, the other that of a human being . . . but the human being was incomplete, supporting itself on its arms because its lower legs had been snatched away with the same quick brutality as Roland’s fingers and toe.
The shadow moved.
Roland whipped Jack Mort’s head away at once, moving with the whiplash speed of a striking snake.
She mustn’t look in. Not until I am ready. Until then, she sees nothing but the back of this man’s head.
Detta Walker would not see Jack Mort in any case, because the person who looked through the open door saw only what the host saw. She could only see Mort’s face if he looked into a mirror （although that might lead to its own awful consequences of paradox and repetition）， but even then it would mean nothing to either Lady; for that matter, the Lady’s face would not mean anything to Jack Mort. Although they had twice been on terms of deadly intimacy, they had never seen each other.
What the gunslinger didn’t want was for the Lady to see the Lady.
Not yet, at least.
The spark of intuition grew closer to a plan.
But it was late over there—the light had suggested to him that it must be three in the afternoon, perhaps even four.
How long until sunset brought the lobstrosities, and the end of Eddie’s life?
Three hours?
Two?
He could go back and try to save Eddie . . . but that was exactly what Detta wanted. She had laid a trap, just as villagers who fear a deadly wolf may stake out a sacrificial lamb to draw it into bowshot. He would go back into his diseased body . . . but not for long. The reason he had seen only her shadow was because she was lying beside the door with one of his revolvers curled in her fist. The moment his Roland-body moved, she would shoot it and end his life.
His ending, because she feared him, would at least be merciful.
Eddie’s would be a screaming horror.
He seemed to hear Detta Walker’s nasty, giggling voice: You want to go at me, graymeat? Sho you want to go at me! You ain’t afraid of no lil ole cripple black woman, are you?
“Only one way,” Jack’s mouth muttered. “Only one.”
The door of the office opened, and a bald man with lenses over his eyes looked in.
“How are you doing on that Dorfman account?” the bald man asked.
“I feel ill. I think it was my lunch. I think I might leave.”
The bald man looked worried. “It’s probably a bug. I heard there’s a nasty one going around.”
“Probably.”
“Well . . . as long as you get the Dorfman stuff finished by five tomorrow afternoon . . .”
“Yes.”
“Because you know what a dong he can be—”
“Yes.”
The bald man, now looking a little uneasy, nodded. “Yes, go home. You don’t seem like your usual self at all.”
“I’m not.”
The bald man went out the door in a hurry.
He sensed me, the gunslinger thought. That was part of it. Part, but not all. They’re afraid of him. They don’t know why, but they’re afraid of him. And they’re right to be afraid.