This time Roland made no conscious decision to come forward. He simply leaped without thinking, a movement as involuntary as rolling out of a chair and going for his guns when someone burst into a room.
The Tower! he thought fiercely. It’s the Tower, my God, the Tower is in the sky, the Tower! I see the Tower in the sky, drawn in lines of red fire! Cuthbert! Alan! Desmond! The Tower! The T—
But this time he felt Eddie struggling—not against him, but trying to talk to him, trying desperately to explain something to him.
The gunslinger retreated, listening—listening desperately, as above a beach some unknown distance away in space and time, his mindless body twitched and trembled like the body of a man experiencing a dream of highest ecstasy or deepest horror.
13
Sign! Eddie was screaming into his own head . . . and into the head of that other.
It’s a sign, just a neon sign, I don’t know what tower it is you’re thinking about but this is just a bar, Balazar’s place, The Leaning Tower, he named it that after the one in Pisa! It’s just a sign that’s supposed to look like the fucking Leaning Tower of Pisa! Let up! Let up! You want to get us killed before we have a chance to go at them?
Pitsa? the gunslinger replied doubtfully, and looked again.
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.