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THREE
Roland considered for a moment, then let it pass. If the number nineteen was somehow part of this, its meaning would declare itself in time. For now there were other matters.
"The paper," he said. "Let's stay with that for now. Tell me everything about it you can remember."
"Well, it was a legal agreement, with the seal at the bottom and everything." Eddie paused, struck by a fairly basic question. Roland probably got this part of it-he'd been a kind of law enforcement officer, after all-but it wouldn't hurt to be sure. "You know about lawyers, don't you?"
Roland spoke in his driest tone. "You forget that I came from Gilead, Eddie. The most i
Susa
"It would be a fairish way to start," Roland said, and Eddie found his thoughtful tone rather chilling. Then the gunslinger turned to him again. "Go on. If you can add anything, Jake, please do. And relax, both of you, for your fathers' sakes. For now I only want a sketch."
Eddie supposed he'd known that, but hearing Roland say it made him feel better. "All right. It was a Memorandum of Agreement. That was right at the top, in big letters. At the bottom it said Agreed to, and there were two signatures. One was Calvin Tower. The other was Richard someone. Do you remember, Jake?"
"Sayre," Jake said. "Richard Patrick Sayre." He paused briefly, lips moving, then nodded. "Nineteen letters."
"And what did it say, this agreement?" Roland asked.
"Not all that much, if you want to know the truth," Eddie said. "Or that's what it seemed like to me, anyway. Basically it said that Tower owned a vacant lot on the corner of Forty-sixth Street and Second Avenue-"
"The vacant lot," Jake said. "The one with the rose in it."
"Yeah, that one. Anyway, Tower signed this agreement on July 15th, 1976. Sombra Corporation gave him a hundred grand. What he gave them, so far as I could tell, was a promise not to sell the lot to anyone but Sombra for the next year, to take care of it-pay the taxes and such-and then to give Sombra first right of purchase, assuming he hasn't sold it to them by then, anyway. Which he hadn't when we were there, but the agreement still had a month and a half to run."
"Mr. Tower said the hundred thousand was all spent," Jake put in.
"Was there anything in the agreement about this Sombra Corporation having a topping privilege?" Susa
Eddie and Jake thought it over, exchanged a glance, then shook their heads.
"Sure?" Susa
"Not quite, but pretty sure," Eddie said. "You think it matters?"
"I don't know," Susa
"You're forgetting something," Roland said mildly.
"What?" Susa
"This Sombra is no ordinary law-abiding combination. Ask yourself if an ordinary law-abiding combination would hire someone like Balazar to carry their messages."
"You have a point," Eddie said. "Tower was mucho scared."
"Anyway," Jake said, "it makes at least a few things clearer. The sign I saw in the vacant lot, for instance. This Sombra Company also got the right to 'advertise forthcoming projects' there for their hundred thousand. Did you see that part, Eddie?"
"I think so. Right after the part about Tower not permitting any liens or encumbrances on his property, because of Sombra's 'stated interest,' wasn't it? "
"Right," Jake said. "The sign I saw in the lot said…" He paused, thinking, then raised his hands and looked between them, as if reading a sign only he could see: "Mills construction AND SOMBRA REAL ESTATE ASSOCIATES ARE CONTINUING TO REMAKE THE FACE OF MANHATTAN. And then, COMING SOON, TURTLE BAY LUXURY CONDOMINIUMS."
"So that's what they want it for," Eddie said. "Condos. But-"
"What are condominiums?" Susa
"It's a kind of co-op apartment deal," Eddie said. "They probably had em in your when, but by a different name."
"Yeah," Susa
"It doesn't matter because it was never about condos," Jake said. "Never about the building the sign said they were going to put there, for that matter. All that's only, you know… shoot, what's the word?"
"Camouflage?" Roland suggested.
Jake gri
"You may be right about the building's not meaning anything," Susa
He nodded, unsurprised. The Turtle was one of the twelve Guardians, and almost certainly stood at the far end of the Beam upon which they now traveled.
"The people from Mills Construction might not know about the rose," Jake said, "but I bet the ones from Sombra Corporation do." His hand stole into Oy's fur, which was thick enough at the billy-bumbler's neck to make his fingers disappear entirely. "I think that somewhere in New York City-in some business building, probably in Turtle Bay on the East Side- there's a door marked sombra corporation. And someplace behind that door there's another door. The kind that takes you here."
For a minute they sat thinking about it-about worlds spi
FOUR
"Here's what I think is happening," Eddie said. "Suze, Jake, feel free to step in if you think I'm getting it wrong. This guy Cal Tower's some sort of custodian for the rose. He may not know it on a conscious level, but he must be. Him and maybe his whole family before him. It explains the name."
"Only he's the last," Jake said.
"You can't be sure of that, hon," Susa
"No wedding ring," Jake responded, and Susa
"Maybe at one time there were lots of Torens owning lots of New York property," Eddie said, "but those days are gone. Now the only thing standing between the Sombra Corporation and the rose is one nearly broke fat guy who changed his name. He's a… what do you call someone who loves books?"
"A bibliophile," Susa
"Yeah, one of those. And George Biondi may not be Einstein, but he said at least one smart thing while we were eavesdropping. He said Tower's place wasn't a real shop but just a hole you poured money into. What's going on with him is a pretty old story where we come from, Roland. When my Ma used to see some rich guy on TV-Donald Trump, for instance-"
"Who?" Susa
"You don't know him, he would've been just a kid back in '64. And it doesn't matter. 'Shirtsleeves to shirtsleeves in three generations,' my mother would tell us. 'It's the American way, boys.'