Wolves of the Calla dt-5

by Stephen King

  When the word gentlemen crossed Eddie's mind, it brought another pulse of anger with it. That was quite a word for guys who'd break a fat and harmless bookstore owner's glasses, then take him out back and terrorize him. Gentlemen! Fuck-commala!

  He tried the bookshop door. It was locked, but the lock wasn't such of a much; the door rattled in its jamb like a loose tooth. Standing there in the recessed doorway, looking (he hoped) like a fellow who was especially interested in some book he'd glimpsed inside, Eddie began to increase his pressure on the lock, first using just his hand on the knob, then leaning his shoulder against the door in a way he hoped would look casual.

  Chances are ninety-four in a hundred that no one's looking at you, anyway. This is New York, right? Can you tell me how to get to City Hall or should I just go fuck myself?

  He pushed harder. He was still a good way from exerting maximum pressure when there was a snap and the door swung inward. Eddie entered without hesitation, as if he had every right in the world to be there, then closed the door again. It wouldn't latch. He took a copy of How the Grinch Stole Christmas off the children's table, ripped out the last page (Never liked the way this one ended, anyway, he thought), folded it three times, and stuck it into the crack between the door and the jamb. Good enough to keep it closed. Then he looked around.

  The place was empty, and now, with the sun behind the skyscrapers of the West Side, shadowy. No sound-

  Yes. Yes, there was. A muffled cry from the back of the shop. Caution, gentlemen at work, Eddie thought, and felt another pulse of anger. This one was sharper.

  He yanked the tie on Roland's swag-bag, then walked toward the door at the back, the one marked employees only. Before he got there, he had to skirt an untidy heap of paperbacks and an overturned display rack, the old-fashioned drugstore kind that turned around and around. Calvin Tower had grabbed at it as Balazar's gents hustled him toward the storage area. Eddie hadn't seen it happen, didn't need to.

  The door at the back wasn't locked. Eddie took Roland's revolver out of the swag-bag and set the bag itself aside so it wouldn't get in his way at a crucial moment. He eased the storage-room door open inch by inch, reminding himself of where Tower's desk was. If they saw him he'd charge, screaming at the top of his lungs. According to Roland, you always screamed at the top of your lungs when and if you were discovered. You might startle your enemy for a second or two, and sometimes a second or two made all the difference in the world.

  This time there was no need for screaming or for charging. The men he was looking for were in the office area, their shadows once more climbing high and grotesque on the wall behind them. Tower was sitting in his office chair, but the chair was no longer behind the desk. It had been pushed into the space between two of the three filing cabinets. Without his glasses, his pleasant face looked naked. His two visitors were facing him, which meant their backs were to Eddie. Tower could have seen him, but Tower was looking up at Jack Andolini and George Biondi, concentrating on them alone. At the sight of the man's naked terror, another of those pulses went through Eddie's head.

  There was the tang of gasoline in the air, a smell which Eddie guessed would frighten even the most stout-hearted shop owner, especially one presiding over an empire of paper. Beside the taller of the two men-Andolini-was a glass-fronted bookcase about five feet high. The door was swung open. Inside were four or five shelves of books, all the volumes wrapped in what looked like clear plastic dust-covers. Andolini was holding up one of them in a way that made him look absurdly like a TV pitchman. The shorter man-Biondi-was holding up a glass jar full of amber liquid in much the same way. Not much question about what it was.

  "Please, Mr. Andolini," Tower said. He spoke in a humble, shaken voice. "Please, that's a very valuable book."

  "Of course it is," Andolini said. "All the ones in the case are valuable. I understand you've got a signed copy of Ulysses that's worth twenty-six thousand dollars."

  "What's that about, Jack?" George Biondi asked. He sounded awed. "What kind of book's worth twenty-six large?"

  "I don't know," Andolini said. "Why don't you tell us, Mr. Tower? Or can I call you Cal?"

  "My Ulysses is in a safe-deposit box," Tower said. "It's not for sale."

  "But these are," Andolini said. "Aren't they? And I see the number 7500 on the flyleaf of this one in pencil. No twenty-six grand, but still the price of a new car. So here's what I'm going to do, Cal. Are you listening?"

  Eddie was moving closer, and although he strove to be quiet, he made no effort whatever to conceal himself. And still none of them saw him. Had he been this stupid when he'd been of this world? This vulnerable to what was not even an ambush, properly speaking? He supposed he had been, and knew it was no wonder Roland had at first held him in contempt.

  "I… I'm listening."

  "You've got something Mr. Balazar wants as badly as you want your copy of Ulysses. And although these books in the glass cabinet are technically for sale, I bet you sell damned few of them, because you just… can't… bear… to part with them. The way you can't bear to part with that vacant lot. So here's what's going to happen. George is going to pour gasoline over this book with 7500 on it, and I'm going to light it on fire. Then I'm going to take another book out of your little case of treasures, and I'm going to ask you for a verbal commitment to sell that lot to the Sombra Corporation at high noon on July fifteenth. Got that?"

  "If you give me that verbal commitment, this meeting will come to an end. If you don't give me that verbal commitment, I'm going to burn the second book. Then a third. Then a fourth. After four, sir, I believe my associate here is apt to lose patience."

  "You're fucking A," George Biondi said. Eddie was now almost close enough to reach out and touch Big Nose, and still they didn't see him.

  "At that point I think we'll just pour gasoline inside your little glass cabinet and set all your valuable books on f-"

  Movement at last snagged Jack Andolini's eye. He looked beyond his partner's left shoulder and saw a young man with hazel eyes looking out of a deeply tanned face. The man was holding what looked like the world's oldest, biggest prop revolver. Had to be a prop.

  "Who the fuck're-" Jack began.

  Before he could get any further, Eddie Dean's face lit up with happiness and good cheer, a look that vaulted him way past handsome and into the land of beauty. "George!" he cried. It was the tone of one greeting his oldest, fondest friend after a long absence. "George Biondi! Man, you still got the biggest beak on this side of the Hudson! Good to see you, man!"

  There is a certain hardwiring in the human animal that makes us respond to strangers who call us by name. When the summoning call is affectionate, we seem almost compelled to respond in kind. In spite of the situation they were in back here, George "Big Nose" Biondi turned, with the beginning of a grin, toward the voice that had hailed him with such cheerful familiarity. That grin was in fact still blooming when Eddie struck him savagely with the butt of Roland's gun. Andolini's eyes were sharp, but he saw little more than a blur as the butt came down three times, the first blow between Biondi's eyes, the second above his right eye, the third into the hollow of his right temple. The first two blows provoked hollow thudding sounds. The last one yielded a soft, sickening smack. Biondi went down like a sack of mail, eyes rolling up to show the whites, lips puckering in a restless way that made him look like a baby who wanted to nurse. The jar tumbled out of his relaxing hand, hit the cement floor, shattered. The smell of gasoline was suddenly much stronger, rich and cloying.

  Eddie gave Biondi's partner no time to react. While Big Nose was still twitching on the floor in the spilled gas and broken glass, Eddie was on Andolini, forcing him backward.

  SEVEN

  For Calvin Tower (who had begun life as Calvin Toren), there was no immediate sense of relief, no Thank God I'm saved feeling. His first thought was They're bad; this new one is worse.

  In the dim light of the storage room, the newcomer seemed to merge with his own leaping sh
adow and become an apparition ten feet tall. One with burning eyeballs starting from their sockets and a mouth pulled down to reveal jaws lined with glaring white teeth that almost looked like fangs. In one hand was a pistol that appeared to be the size of a blunderbuss, the kind of weapon referred to in seventeenth-century tales of adventure as a machine. He grabbed Andolini by the top of his shirt and the lapel of his sport-coat and threw him against the wall. The hoodlum's hip struck the glass case and it toppled over. Tower gave a cry of dismay to which neither of the two men paid the slightest attention.

  Balazar's man tried to wriggle away to his left. The new one, the snarling man with his black hair tied back behind him, let him get going, then tripped him and went down on top of him, one knee on the hoodlum's chest. He shoved the muzzle of the blunderbuss, the machine, into the soft shelf under the hoodlum's chin. The hoodlum twisted his head, trying to get rid of it. The new one only dug it in deeper.

  In a choked voice that made him sound like a cartoon duck, Balazar's torpedo said, "Don't make me laugh, slick-that ain't no real gun."

  The new one-the one who had seemed to merge with his own shadow and become as tall as a giant-pulled his machine out from under the hoodlum's chin, cocked it with his thumb, and pointed it deep into the storage area. Tower opened his mouth to say something, God knew what, but before he could utter a word there was a deafening crash, the sound of a mortar shell going off five feet from some hapless G.I.'s foxhole. Bright yellow flame shot from the machine's muzzle. A moment later, the barrel was back under the hoodlum's chin.

  "What do you think now, Jack?" the new one panted. "Still think it's a fake? Tell you whatI think: the next time I pull this trigger, your brains are going all the way to Hoboken."

  EIGHT

  Eddie saw fear in Jack Andolini's eyes, but no panic. This didn't surprise him. It had been Jack Andolini who'd collared him after the cocaine mule-delivery from Nassau had gone wrong. This version of him was younger-ten years younger-but no prettier. Andolini, once dubbed Old Double-Ugly by the great sage and eminent junkie Henry Dean, had a bulging caveman's forehead and a jutting Alley Oop jaw to match. His hands were so huge they looked like caricatures. Hair sprouted from the knuckles. He looked like Old Double-Stupid as well as Old Double-Ugly, but he was far from dumb. Dummies didn't work their way up to become the second-in-command to guys like Enrico Balazar. And while Jack might not be that yet in this when, he would be by 1986, when Eddie would come flying back into JFK with about two hundred thousand dollars' worth of Bolivian marching-powder under his shirt. In that world, that where and when, Andolini had become Il Roche's field-marshal. In this one, Eddie thought there was a very good chance he was going to take early retirement. From everything. Unless, that was, he played it perfectly.

  Eddie shoved the barrel of the pistol deeper under Andolini's chin. The smell of gas and gunpowder was strong in the air, for the time being overwhelming the smell of books. Somewhere in the shadows there was an angry hiss from Sergio, the bookstore cat. Sergio apparently didn't approve of loud noises in his domain.

  Andolini winced and twisted his head to the left. "Don't, man… that thing's hot!"

  "Not as hot as where you'll be five minutes from now," Eddie said. "Unless you listen to me, Jack. Your chances of getting out of this are slim, but not quite none. Will you listen?"

  "I don't know you. How do you know us?"

  Eddie took the gun out from beneath Old Double-Ugly's chin and saw a red circle where the barrel of Roland's revolver had pressed. Suppose I told you that it's your ka to meet me again, ten years from now? And to be eaten by lobstrosities? That they'll start with the feet inside your Gucci loafers and work their way up? Andolini wouldn't believe him, of course, any more than he'd believed Roland's big old revolver would work until Eddie had demonstrated the truth. And along this track of possibility-on this level of the Tower-Andolini might not be eaten by lobstrosities. Because this world was different from all the others. This was Level Nineteen of the Dark Tower. Eddie felt it. Later he would ruminate on it, but not now. Now the very act of thinking was difficult. What he wanted right now was to kill both of these men, then head over to Brooklyn and tune up on the rest of Balazar's tet. Eddie tapped the barrel of the revolver against one of Andolini's jutting cheekbones. He had to restrain himself from really going to work on that ugly mug, and Andolini saw it. He blinked and wet his lips. Eddie's knee was still on his chest. Eddie could feel it going up and down like a bellows.

  "You didn't answer my question," Eddie said. "What you did instead was ask a question of your own. The next time you do that, Jack, I'm going to use the barrel of this gun to break your face. Then I'll shoot out one of your kneecaps, turn you into a jackhopper for the rest of your life. I can shoot off a good many parts of you and still leave you able to talk. And don't play dumb with me. You're not dumb-except maybe in your choice of employer-and I know it. So let me ask you again: Will you listen to me?"

  "What choice do I have?"

  Moving with that same blurry, spooky speed, Eddie swept Roland's gun across Andolini's face. There was a sharp crack as his cheekbone snapped. Blood began to flow from his right nostril, which to Eddie looked about the size of the Queens Midtown Tunnel. Andolini cried out in pain, Tower in shock.

  Eddie socked the muzzle of the pistol back into the soft place under Andolini's chin. Without looking away from him, Eddie said: "Keep an eye on the other one, Mr. Tower. If he starts to stir, you let me know."

  "Who are you?" Tower almost bleated.

  "A friend. The only one you've got who can save your bacon. Now watch him and let me work."

  "A-All right."

  Eddie Dean turned his full attention back to Andolini. "I laid George out because George is stupid. Even if he could carry the message I need carried, he wouldn't believe it. And how can a man convince others of what he doesn't believe himself?"

  "Got a point there," Andolini said. He was looking up at Eddie with a kind of horrified fascination, perhaps finally seeing this stranger with the gun for what he really was. For what Roland had known he was from the very beginning, even when Eddie Dean had been nothing but a wetnose junkie shivering his way through heroin withdrawal. Jack Andolini was seeing a gunslinger.

  "You bet I do," Eddie said. "And here's the message I want you to carry: Tower's off-limits."

  Jack was shaking his head. "You don't understand. Tower has something somebody wants. My boss agreed to get it. He promised. And my boss always-"

  "Always keeps his promises, I know," Eddie said. "Only this time he won't be able to, and that's not going to be his fault. Because Mr. Tower has decided not to sell his vacant lot up the street to The Sombra Corporation. He's going to sell it to the… mmm… to the Tet Corporation, instead. Got that?"

  "Mister, I don't know you, but I know my boss. He won't stop."

  "He will. Because Tower won't have anything to sell. The lot will no longer be his. And now listen even more closely, Jack. Listen ka-me, not ka-mai." Wisely, not foolishly.

  Eddie leaned down. Jack stared up at him, fascinated by the bulging eyes-hazel irises, bloodshot whites-and the savagely grinning mouth which was now the distance of a kiss from his own.

  "Mr. Calvin Tower has come under the protection of people more powerful and more ruthless than you could ever imagine, Jack. People who make Il Roche look like a hippie flower-child at Woodstock. You have to convince him that he has nothing to gain by continuing to harass Calvin Tower, and everything to lose."

  "I can't-"

  "As for you, know that the mark of Gilead is on this man. If you ever touch him again-if you ever even step foot in this shop again-I'll come to Brooklyn and kill your wife and children. Then I'll find your mother and father, and I'll kill them. Then I'll kill your mother's sisters and your father's brothers. Then I'll kill your grandparents, if they're still alive. You I'll save for last. Do you believe me?"

  Jack Andolini went on staring into the face above him-the bloodshot eyes, the grinning,
snarling mouth-but now with mounting horror. The fact was, he did believe. And whoever he was, he knew a great deal about Balazar and about this current deal. About the current deal, he might know more than Andolini knew himself.

  "There's more of us," Eddie said, "and we're all about the same thing: protecting…" He almost said protecting the rose. "… protecting Calvin Tower. We'll be watching this place, we'll be watching Tower, we'll be watching Tower's friends-guys like Deepneau." Eddie saw Andolini's eyes flicker with surprise at that, and was satisfied. "Anybody who comes here and even raises his voice to Tower, we'll kill their whole families and them last. That goes for George, for 'Cimi Dretto, Tricks Postino… for your brother Claudio, too."

  Andolini's eyes widened at each name, then winced momentarily shut at the name of his brother. Eddie thought that maybe he'd made his point. Whether or not Andolini could convince Balazar was another question. But in a way it doesn't even matter, he thought coldly. Once Tower's sold us the lot, it doesn't really matter what they do to him, does it?

  "How do you know so much»" Andolini asked.

  "That doesn't matter. Just pass on the message. Tell Balazar to tell his friends at Sombra that the lot is no longer for sale. Not to them, it isn't. And tell him that Tower is now under the protection of folk from Gilead who carry hard calibers."

  "Hard-?"

  "I mean folk more dangerous than any Balazar has ever dealt with before," Eddie said, "including the people from the Sombra Corporation. Tell him that if he persists, there'll be enough corpses in Brooklyn to fill Grand Army Plaza. And many of them will be women and children. Convince him."

  "I… man, I'll try."

  Eddie stood up, then backed up. Curled in the puddles of gasoline and the strews of broken glass, George Biondi was beginning to stir and mutter deep in his throat. Eddie gestured to Jack with the barrel of Roland's pistol, telling him to get up.