Part 36 (2/2)

3.

For one single moment Jack Mort lost the thin strong arrow of his concentration. On the edge of leaping forward and shoving the kid into the traffic, he felt something which his mind mistranslated just as the body may refer pain from one part of itself to another.

When the gunslinger came forward, came forward, Jack thought some sort of bug had landed on the back of his neck. Not a wasp or a bee, nothing that actually Jack thought some sort of bug had landed on the back of his neck. Not a wasp or a bee, nothing that actually stung, stung, but something that bit and itched. Mosquito, maybe. It was on this that he blamed his lapse in concentration at the crucial moment. He slapped at it and returned to the boy. but something that bit and itched. Mosquito, maybe. It was on this that he blamed his lapse in concentration at the crucial moment. He slapped at it and returned to the boy.

He thought all this happened in a bare wink; actually, seven seconds pa.s.sed. He sensed neither the gunslinger's swift advance nor his equally swift retreat, and none of the people around him (going-to-work people, most from the subway station on the next block, their faces still puffy with sleep, their half-dreaming eyes turned inward) noticed Jack's eyes turn from their usual deep blue to a lighter blue behind the prim gold-rimmed gla.s.ses he wore. No one noticed those eyes darken to their normal cobalt color either, but when it happened and he refocused on the boy, he saw with frustrated fury as sharp as a thorn that his chance was gone. The light had changed.

He watched the boy crossing with the rest of the sheep, and then Jack himself turned back the way he had come and began shoving himself upstream against the tidal flow of pedestrians.

”Hey, mister! Watch ou-”

Some curd-faced teenaged girl he barely saw. Jack shoved her aside, hard, not looking back at her caw of anger as her own armload of schoolbooks went flying. He went walking on down Fifth Avenue and away from Forty-Third, where he had meant for the boy to die today. His head was bent, his lips pressed together so tightly he seemed to have no mouth at all but only the scar of a long-healed wound above his chin. Once clear of the bottleneck at the corner, he did not slow down but strode even more rapidly along, crossing Forty-Second, Forty-First, Fortieth. Somewhere in the middle of the next block he pa.s.sed the building where the boy lived. He gave it barely a glance, although he had followed the boy from it every school-morning for the last three weeks, followed him from the building to the corner three and a half blocks further up Fifth, the corner he thought of simply as the Pus.h.i.+ng Place.

The girl he b.u.mped was screaming after him, but Jack Mort didn't notice. An amateur lepidopterist would have taken no more notice of a common b.u.t.terfly.

Jack was, in his way, much like an amateur lepidopterist.

By profession, he was a successful C.P.A.

Pus.h.i.+ng was only his hobby.

4.

The gunslinger returned to the back of the man's mind and fainted there. If there was relief, it was simply that this man was not the man in black, was not Walter.

All the rest was utter horror... and utter realization.

Divorced of his body, his mind-his ka ka-was as healthy and acute as ever, but the sudden knowing knowing struck him like a chisel-blow to the temple. struck him like a chisel-blow to the temple.

The knowing didn't come when he went forward went forward but when he was sure the boy was safe and slipped back again. He saw the connection between this man and Odetta, too fantastic and yet too hideously apt to be coincidental, and understood what the but when he was sure the boy was safe and slipped back again. He saw the connection between this man and Odetta, too fantastic and yet too hideously apt to be coincidental, and understood what the real real drawing of the three might be, and drawing of the three might be, and who who they might be. they might be.

The third was not this man, this Pusher; the third named by Walter had been Death.

Death... but not for you. That was what Walter, clever as Satan even at the end, had said. A lawyer's answer... so close to the truth that the truth was able to hide in its shadow. Death was not for him; death was That was what Walter, clever as Satan even at the end, had said. A lawyer's answer... so close to the truth that the truth was able to hide in its shadow. Death was not for him; death was become become him. him.

The Prisoner, the Lady.

Death was the third.

He was suddenly filled with the certainty that he himself was the third.

5.

Roland came forward came forward as nothing but a projectile, a brainless missile programmed to launch the body he was in at the man in black the instant he saw him. as nothing but a projectile, a brainless missile programmed to launch the body he was in at the man in black the instant he saw him.

Thoughts of what might happen if he stopped the man in black from murdering Jake did not come until later-the possible paradox, the fistula in time and dimension which might cancel out everything that had happened after he had arrived at the way station... for surely if he saved Jake in this world, there would have been no Jake for him to meet there, and everything which had happened thereafter would change.

What changes? Impossible even to speculate on them. That one might have been the end of his quest never entered the gunslinger's mind. And surely such after-the-fact speculations were moot; if he had seen the man in black, no consequence, paradox, or ordained course of destiny could have stopped him from simply lowering the head of this body he inhabited and pounding it straight through Walter's chest. Roland would have been as helpless to do otherwise as a gun is helpless to refuse the finger that squeezes the trigger and flings the bullet on its flight.

If it sent all to h.e.l.l, the h.e.l.l with it.

He scanned the people cl.u.s.tered on the corner quickly, seeing each face (he scanned the women as closely as the men, making sure there wasn't one only pretending pretending to be a woman). to be a woman).

Walter wasn't there.

Gradually he relaxed, as a finger curled around a trigger may relax at the last instant. No; Walter was nowhere around the boy, and the gunslinger somehow felt sure that this wasn't the right when. when. Not quite. That Not quite. That when when was close-two weeks away, a week, maybe even a single day-but it was not quite yet. was close-two weeks away, a week, maybe even a single day-but it was not quite yet.

So he went back. went back.

On the way he saw... saw...

6.

... and fell senseless with shock: this man into whose mind the third door opened, had once sat waiting just inside the window of a deserted tenement room in a building full of abandoned rooms-abandoned, that was, except for the winos and crazies who often spent their nights here. You knew about the winos because you could smell their desperate sweat and angry p.i.s.s. You knew about the crazies because you could smell the stink of their deranged thoughts. The only furniture in this room was two chairs. Jack Mort was using both: one to sit in, one as a prop to keep the door opening on the hallway closed. He expected no sudden interruptions, but it was best not to take chances. He was close enough to the window to look out, but far enough behind the slanted shadow-line to be safe from any casual viewer.

He had a crumbly red brick in his hand.

He had pried it from just outside the window, where a good many were loose. It was old, eroded at the corners, but heavy. Chunks of ancient mortar clung to it like barnacles.

The man meant to drop the brick on someone.

He didn't care who; when it came to murder, Jack Mort was an equal-opportunity employer.

After a bit, a family of three came along the sidewalk below: man, woman, little girl. The girl had been walking on the inside, presumably to keep her safely away from the traffic. There was quite a lot of it this close to the railway station but Jack Mort didn't care about the auto traffic. What he cared about was the lack of buildings directly opposite him; these had already been demolished, leaving a jumbled wasteland of splintered board, broken brick, glinting gla.s.s.

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