Song of Susannah (13 page)

Now, like the girls in their green uniforms,
Mats began to weep. “Must I also forget the
sköldpadda?
”

“Yes.” Susannah remembered a hypnotist she’d once seen performing on some TV variety show, maybe even
Ed Sullivan.
“No turtle, but you’re going to feel good the rest of the day, you hear me? You’re going to feel like . . .”
A million bucks
might not mean that much to him, and for all she knew a million kroner wouldn’t buy a haircut. “You’re going to feel like the Swedish Ambassador himself. And you’ll stop worrying about your wife’s fancy-man. To hell with him, right?”

“Yah, to hell wit
dot
guy!” Mats cried, and although he was still weeping, he was now smiling, too. There was something divinely childish in that smile. It made Susannah feel happy and sad at the same time. She wanted to do something else for Mats van Wyck, if she could.

“And your bowels?”

“Yah?”

“Like clockwork for the rest of your life,” Susannah said, holding the turtle up. “What’s your usual time, Mats?”

“I am going yust after breakfast.”

“Then that’s when it’ll be. For the rest of your life. Unless you’re busy. If you’re late for an appointment or something like that, just say . . . um . . .
Maturin,
and the urge’ll pass until the next day.”

“Maturin.”

“Correct. Go on, now.”

“May I not take the
sköldpadda
?”

“No, you may not. Go on, now.”

He started away, then paused and looked back at her. Although his cheeks were wet, his expression was pixie-ish, a trifle sly. “Perhaps I should take it,” he said. “Perhaps it is mine by right.”

Like to see you try, honky
was Detta’s thought, but Susannah—who felt more and more in charge of this wacky triad, at least for the time being—shushed her. “Why would you say that, my friend? Tell, I beg.”

The sly look remained.
Don’t kid a kidder,
it said. That was what it looked like to Susannah, anyway. “Mats, Maturin,” he said. “Maturin, Mats. You see?”

Susannah did. She started to tell him it was just a coincidence and then thought:
Calla, Callahan.

“I see,” she said, “but the
sköldpadda
isn’t yours. Nor mine, either.”

“Then whose?” Plaintive.
Den hoose?
it sounded like.

And before her conscious mind could stop her (or at least censor her), Susannah spoke the truth her heart and soul knew: “It belongs to the Tower, sai. The Dark Tower. And it’s to there I’ll return it, ka willing.”

“Gods be with you, lady-sai.”

“And you, Mats. Long days and pleasant nights.”

She watched the Swedish diplomat walk away, then looked down at the scrimshaw turtle and said, “That was pretty amazing, Mats old buddy.”

Mia had no interest in the turtle; she had but a single object.
This hotel,
she said.
Will there be a telephone?

Susannah-Mia put the turtle into the pocket of her bluejeans and forced herself to wait for twenty minutes on the park bench. She spent much of this time admiring her new lower legs (whoever they belonged to, they were pretty fine) and wiggling her new toes inside her new

(
stolen
)

shoes. Once she closed her eyes and summoned up the control room of the Dogan. More banks of warning lights had gone on there, and the machinery under the floor was throbbing louder than ever, but the needle of the dial marked
S
USANNAH
-M
IO
was still just a little way into the yellow. Cracks in the floor had begun to appear, as she had known they would, but so far they didn’t look serious. The situation wasn’t that great, but she thought they could live with it for now.

What are you waiting for?
Mia demanded.
Why are we just sitting here?

I’m giving the Swede a chance to do his business for us at the hotel and clear out,
Susannah replied.

And when she thought enough time had passed for him to have done that, she gathered her bags, got up, crossed Second Avenue, and started down Forty-sixth Street to the Plaza–Park Hotel.

The lobby was full of pleasant afternoon light reflected by angles of green glass. Susannah had never seen such a beautiful room—outside of St. Patrick’s, that was—but there was something alien about it, too.

Because it’s the future,
she thought.

God knew there were enough signs of that. The cars looked smaller, and entirely different. Many of the younger women she saw were walking around with their lower bellies exposed and their bra-straps showing. Susannah had to see this latter phenomenon four or five times on her stroll down Forty-sixth Street before she could completely convince herself that it was some sort of bizarre fashion fillip, and not a mistake. In her day, a woman with a bra-strap showing (or an inch of slip,
snowing down south
they used to say) would have ducked into the nearest public restroom to pin it up, and at once. As for the deal with the nude bellies . . .

Would have gotten you arrested anywhere but Coney Island,
she thought.
No doubt about it.

But the thing which made the biggest impression was also the hardest thing to define: the city just seemed
bigger.
It thundered and hummed all around her. It vibrated. Every breath of air was perfumed with its signature smell. The women waiting for taxis outside the hotel (with or without their bra-straps showing) could only be New York women; the doormen (not one but two) flagging cabs could only be New York doormen; the cabbies
(she was amazed by how many of them were dark-skinned, and she saw one who was wearing a
turban
) could only be New York cabbies, but they were all . . . different. The world had moved on. It was as if her New York, that of 1964, had been a triple-A ball-club. This was the major leagues.

She paused for a moment just inside the lobby, pulling the scrimshaw turtle out of her pocket and getting her bearings. To her left was a parlor area. Two women were sitting there, chatting, and Susannah stared at them for a moment, hardly able to credit how much leg they were showing under the hems of their skirts (
what
skirts, ha-ha?). And they weren’t teenagers or kollege kuties, either; these were women in their thirties, at least (although she supposed they might be in their
sixties,
who knew what scientific advances there might have been over the last thirty-five years).

To the right was a little shop. Somewhere in the shadows behind it a piano was tinkling out something blessedly familiar—“Night and Day”—and Susannah knew if she went toward the sound, she’d find a lot of leather seats, a lot of sparkling bottles, and a gentleman in a white coat who’d be happy to serve her even if it
was
only the middle of the afternoon. All this was a decided relief.

Directly ahead of her was the reception desk, and behind it was the most exotic woman Susannah had ever seen in her life. She appeared to be white, black, and Chinese, all whipped together. In 1964, such a woman would undoubtedly have been called a mongrel, no matter how beautiful she might have been. Here she had been popped into an extremely handsome
ladies’ suit and put behind the reception desk of a large first-class hotel. The Dark Tower might be increasingly shaky, Susannah thought, and the world might be moving on, but she thought the lovely desk clerk was proof (if any were needed) that not
everything
was falling down or going in the wrong direction. She was talking to a customer who was complaining about his in-room movie bill, whatever that might be.

Never mind, it’s the future,
Susannah told herself once again.
It’s science fiction, like the City of Lud. Best leave it at that.

I don’t care what it is or when,
Mia said.
I want to be near a telephone. I want to see to my chap.

Susannah walked past a sign on a tripod, then turned back and gave it a closer look.

AS OF JULY 1ST, 1999, THE
NEW YORK PLAZA–PARK HYATT
WILL BECOME THE REGAL
U.N. PLAZA HOTEL
ANOTHER GREAT SOMBRA/
NORTH CENTRAL PROJECT!!

Susannah thought,
Sombra as in Turtle Bay Luxury Condominiums . . . which never got built, from the look of that black-glass needle back on the corner. And North Central as in North Central Positronics. Interesting.

She felt a sudden twinge of pain go through her head. Twinge? Hell, a bolt. It made her eyes water. And she knew who had sent it. Mia, who had no interest in the Sombra Corporation, North Central
Positronics, or the Dark Tower itself, was becoming impatient. Susannah knew she’d have to change that, or at least try. Mia was focused blindly on her chap, but if she wanted to
keep
the chap, she might have to widen her field of vision a little bit.

She fight you ever’ damn step of the way,
Detta said. Her voice was shrewd and tough and cheerful.
You know dat too, don’t you?

She did.

Susannah waited until the man with the problem finished explaining how he had ordered some movie called
X-Rated
by accident, and he didn’t mind paying as long as it wasn’t on his bill, and then she stepped up to the desk herself. Her heart was pounding.

“I believe that my friend, Mathiessen van Wyck, has rented a room for me,” she said. She saw the reception clerk looking at her stained shirt with well-bred disapproval, and laughed nervously. “I really can’t wait to take a shower and change my clothes. I had a small accident. At lunch.”

“Yes, madam. Just let me check.” The woman went to what looked like a small TV screen with a typewriter attached. She tapped a few keys, looked at the screen, and then said: “Susannah Mia Dean, is that correct?”

You say true, I say thank ya
rose to her lips and she squelched it. “Yes, that’s right.”

“May I see some identification, please?”

For a moment Susannah was flummoxed. Then she reached into the rush bag and took out an Oriza, being careful to hold it by the blunt curve. She found herself remembering something Roland
had said to Wayne Overholser, the Calla’s big rancher:
We deal in lead.
The ’Rizas weren’t bullets, but surely they were the equivalent. She held the plate up in one hand and the small carved turtle in the other.

“Will this do?” she asked pleasantly.

“What—” the beautiful desk clerk began, then fell silent as her eyes shifted from the plate to the turtle. They grew wide and slightly glassy. Her lips, coated with an interesting pink gloss (it looked more like candy than lipstick to Susannah), parted. A soft sound came from between them:
ohhhh . . .

“It’s my driver’s license,” Susannah said. “Do you see?” Luckily there was no one else around, not even a bellman. The late-day checkouts were on the sidewalk, fighting for hacks; in here, the lobby was a-doze. From the bar beyond the gift shop, “Night and Day” gave way to a lazy and introspective version of “Stardust.”

“Driver’s license,” the desk clerk agreed in that same sighing, wondering voice.

“Good. Are you supposed to write anything down?”

“No . . . Mr. Van Wyck rented the room . . . all I need is to . . . to check your . . . may I hold the turtle, ma’am?”

“No,” Susannah said, and the desk clerk began to weep. Susannah observed this phenomenon with bemusement. She didn’t believe she had made so many people cry since her disastrous violin recital (both first and last) at the age of twelve.

“No, I may not hold it,” the desk clerk said, weeping freely. “No, no, I may not, may not hold it, ah, Discordia, I may not—”

“Hush up your snivel,” Susannah said, and the desk clerk hushed at once. “Give me the room-key, please.”

But instead of a key, the Eurasian woman handed her a plastic card in a folder. Written on the inside of the folder—so would-be thieves couldn’t easily see it, presumably—was the number 1919. Which didn’t surprise Susannah at all. Mia, of course, could not have cared less.

She stumbled on her feet a little. Reeled a little. Had to wave one hand (the one holding her “driver’s license”) for balance. There was a moment when she thought she might tumble to the floor, and then she was okay again.

“Ma’am?” the desk clerk inquired. Looking remotely—
very
remotely—concerned. “Are you feeling all right?”

“Yeah,” Susannah said. “Only . . . lost my balance there for a second or two.”

Wondering,
What in the blue hell just happened?
Oh, but she knew the answer. Mia was the one with the legs,
Mia.
Susannah had been driving the bus ever since encountering old Mr. May I Not Take The
Sköldpadda,
and this body was starting to revert to its legless-below-the-knee state. Crazy but true. Her body was going Susannah on her.

Mia, get up here. Take charge.

I can’t. Not yet. As soon as we’re alone I will.

And dear Christ, Susannah recognized that tone of voice, recognized it very well. The bitch was
shy.

To the desk clerk, Susannah said, “What’s this thing? Is it a key?”

“Why—yes, sai. You use it in the elevator as well
as to open your room. Just push it into the slot in the direction the arrows point. Remove it briskly. When the light on the door turns green, you may enter. I have slightly over eight thousand dollars in my cash drawer. I’ll give it all to you for your pretty thing, your turtle, your
sköldpadda,
your
tortuga,
your
kavvit,
your—”

“No,” Susannah said, and staggered again. She clutched the edge of the desk. Her equilibrium was shot. “I’m going upstairs now.” She’d meant to visit the gift shop first and spend some of Mats’s dough on a clean shirt, if they carried such things, but that would have to wait.
Everything
would have to wait.