Song of Susannah dt-6 Page 8

  The woman on the bench bared her teeth in a gruesome smile that was all Detta Walker.

  “Youcare bout dat chap…and Susannah, she care alittle bout dat chap…but I been mos’ly turned out of this body, and I…don’t…givea shit.”

  A woman pushing a stroller (it looked as divinely lightweight as Susannah’s abandoned wheelchair) gave the woman on the bench a nervous glance and then pushed her own baby onward, so fast she was nearly running.

  “So!” Detta said brightly. “It’s be purty out here, don’t you think? Good weather for talkin. You hear me, mamma?”

  No reply from Mia, daughter of none and mother of one. Detta wasn’t put out of countenance; her grin widened.

  “You hear me, all right; you hear me justfahn. So let’s us have a little chat. Let’s us palaver.”

  STAVE: Commala-come-ko

  Whatcha doin at my do’?

  If you doan tell me now, my friend,

  I’ll lay ya on de flo’.

  RESPONSE: Commala-come fo’!

  I can lay ya low!

  The things I done to such as you

  You never want to know.

  5th Stanza: The Turtle

  One

  Mia said:Talking will be easier—quicker and clearer, too—if we do it face-to-face.

  How can we?Susannah asked.

  We’ll have our palaver in the castle,Mia replied promptly.The Castle on the Abyss. In the banquet room. Do you remember the banquet room?

  Susannah nodded, but hesitantly. Her memories of the banquet room were but recently recovered, and consequently vague. She wasn’t sorry, either. Mia’s feeding there had been…well, enthusiastic, to say the very least. She’d eaten from many plates (mostly with her fingers) and drunk from many glasses and spoken to many phantoms in many borrowed voices. Borrowed? Hell,stolen voices. Two of these Susannah had known quite well. One had been Odetta Holmes’s nervous—and rather hoity-toity—“social” voice. Another had been Detta’s raucous who-gives-a-shit bellow. Mia’s thievery had extended to every aspect of Susannah’s personality, it seemed, and if Detta Walker was back, pumped up and ready to cut butt, that was in large part this unwelcome stranger’s doing.

  The gunslinger saw me there,Mia said.The boy, too.

  There was a pause. Then:

  I have met them both before.

  Who? Jake and Roland?

  Aye, they.

  Where? When? How could y—

  We can’t speak here. Please. Let us go somewhere more private.

  Someplace with a phone, isn’t that what you mean? So your friends can call you.

  I only know a little, Susannah of New York, but what little I know, I think you would hear.

  Susannah thought so, too. And although she didn’t necessarily want Mia to realize it, she was also anxious to get off Second Avenue. The stuff on her shirt might look like spilled egg-cream or dried coffee to the casual passerby, but Susannah herself was acutely aware of what it was: not just blood, but the blood of a brave woman who had stood true on behalf of her town’s children.

  And there were the bags spread around her feet. She’d seen plenty of bag-folkenin New York, aye. Now she felt like one herself, and she didn’t like the feeling. She’d been raised to better, as her mother would have said. Each time someone passing on the sidewalk or cutting through the little park gave her a glance, she felt like telling them she wasn’t crazy in spite of how she looked: stained shirt, dirty face, hair too long and in disarray, no purse, only those three bags at her feet. Homeless, aye—had anyone ever been as homeless as she, not just out of house but out of time itself?—but in her right mind. She needed to palaver with Mia and get an understanding of what all this was about, that was true. What shewanted was much simpler: to wash, to put on fresh clothes, and to be out of public view for at least a little while.

  Might as well wish for the moon, sugar,she told herself…and Mia, if Mia was listening.Privacy costs money. You’re in a version of New York where a single hamburger might cost as much as a dollar, crazy as that sounds. And you don’t have a sou. Just a dozen or so sharpened plates and some kind of black-magic ball. So what are you gonna do?

  Before she could get any further in her thinking, New York was swept away and she was back in the Doorway Cave. She’d been barely aware of her surroundings on her first visit—Mia had been in charge then, and in a hurry to make her getaway through the door—but now they were very clear. Pere Callahan was here. So was Eddie. And Eddie’s brother, in a way. Susannah could hear Henry Dean’s voice floating up from the cave’s depths, both taunting and dismayed: “I’m in hell, bro! I’m in hell and I can’t get a fix andit’s all your fault! ”

  Susannah’s disorientation was nothing to the fury she felt at the sound of that nagging, hectoring voice. “Most of what was wrong with Eddie wasyour fault! ” she screamed at him. “You should have done everyone a favor and died young, Henry!”

  Those in the cave didn’t even look around at her. What was this? Had she come here todash from New York, just to add to the fun? If so, why hadn’t she heard the chimes?

  Hush. Hush, love.That was Eddie’s voice in her mind, clear as day.Just watch.

  Do you hear him?she asked Mia.Do you—

  Yes! Now shut up!

  “How long will we have to be here, do you think?” Eddie asked Callahan.

  “I’m afraid it’ll be awhile,” Callahan replied, and Susannah understood she was seeing something that had already happened. Eddie and Callahan had gone up to the Doorway Cave to try to locate Calvin Tower and Tower’s friend, Deepneau. Just before the showdown with the Wolves, this had been. Callahan was the one who’d gone through the door. Black Thirteen had captured Eddie while the Pere was gone. And almost killed him. Callahan had returned just in time to keep Eddie from hurling himself from the top of the bluff and into the draw far below.

  Right now, though, Eddie was dragging the bag—pink, yes, she’d been right about that, on the Calla side it had been pink—out from underneath the troublesome sai Tower’s bookcase of first editions. They needed the ball inside the bag for the same reason Mia had needed it: because it opened the Unfound Door.

  Eddie lifted it, started to turn, then froze. He was frown-

  “What is it?” Callahan asked.

  “There’s something in here,” Eddie replied.

  “The box—”

  “No, in the bag. Sewn into the lining. It feels like a little rock, or something.” Suddenly he seemed to be looking directly at Susannah, and she was aware that she was sitting on a park bench. It was no longer voices from the depths of the cave she heard, but the watery hiss and plash of the fountain. The cave was fading. Eddie and Callahan were fading. She heard Eddie’s last words as if from a great distance: “Maybe there’s a secret pocket.”

  Then he was gone.

  Two

  She hadn’t gone todash at all, then. Her brief visit to the Doorway Cave had been some kind of vision. Had Eddie sent it to her? And if he had, did it mean he’d gotten the message she’d tried to send him from the Dogan? These were questions Susannah couldn’t answer. If she saw him again, she’d ask him. After she’d kissed him a thousand times or so, that was.

  Mia picked up the red bag and ran her hands slowly down its sides. There was the shape of the box inside, yes. But halfway down there was something else, a small bulge. And Eddie was right: it felt like a stone.

  She—or perhaps it was they, it no longer mattered to her—rolled the bag down, not liking the intensified pulse from the thing hidden inside but setting her mind against it. Here it was, right in here…and something that felt like a seam.

  She leaned closer and saw not a seam but some kind of a seal. She didn’t recognize it, nor would Jake have done, but Eddie would have known Velcro when he saw it. Shehad heard a certain Z.Z. Top tribute to the stuff, a song called “Velcro Fly.” She got a fingernail into the seal and pulled with her fingertip. It came loose with a soft ripping sound, revealing a small pocket on
the inside of the bag.

  What is it?Mia asked, fascinated in spite of herself.

  Well, let’s just see.

  She reached in and brought out not a stone but a small scrimshaw turtle. Made of ivory, from the look of it. Each detail of the shell was tiny and precisely executed, although it had been marred by one tiny scratch that looked almost like a question-mark. The turtle’s head poked halfway out. Its eyes were tiny black dots of some tarry stuff, and looked incredibly alive. She saw another small imperfection in the turtle’s beak—not a scratch but a crack.

  “It’s old,” she whispered aloud. “So old.”

  Yes,Mia whispered back.

  Holding it made Susannah feel incredibly good. It made her feel…safe,somehow.

  See the Turtle,she thought.See the Turtle of enormous girth, on his shell he holds the earth. Was that how it went? She thought it was at least close. And of course that was the Beam they had been following to the Tower. The Bear at one end—Shardik. The Turtle at the other—Maturin.

  She looked from the tiny totem she’d found in the lining of the bag to the one beside the fountain. Barring the difference in materials—the one beside her bench was made of dark metal with brighter coppery glints—they were exactly the same, right down to the scratch on the shell and the tiny wedge-shaped break in the beak. For a moment her breath stopped, and her heart seemed to stop, also. She went along from moment to moment through this adventure—sometimes even from day to day—without thinking much but simply driven by events and what Roland insisted was ka. Then something like this would happen, and she would for a moment glimpse a far bigger picture, one that immobilized her with awe and wonder. She sensed forces beyond her ability to comprehend. Some, like the ball in the ghostwood box, were evil. But this…this…

  “Wow,” someone said. Almost sighed.

  She looked up and saw a businessman—a very successful one, from the look of his suit—standing there by the bench. He’d been cutting through the park, probably on his way to someplace as important as he was, some sort of meeting or a conference, maybe even at the United Nations, which was close by (unless that had changed, too). Now, however, he had come to a dead stop. His expensive briefcase dangled from his right hand. His eyes were large and fixed on the turtle in Susannah-Mia’s hand. On his face was a large and rather dopey grin.

  Put it away!Mia cried, alarmed.He’ll steal it!

  Like to see him try,Detta Walker replied. Her voice was relaxed and rather amused. The sun was out and she—all parts of she—suddenly realized that, all else aside, this day was beautiful. And precious. And gorgeous.

  “Precious and beautiful and gorgeous,” said the businessman (or perhaps he was a diplomat), who had forgotten all about his business. Was it the day he was talking about, or the scrimshaw turtle?

  It’s both,Susannah thought. And suddenly she thought she understood this. Jake would have understood, too—no one better! She laughed. Inside her, Detta and Mia also laughed, Mia a bit against her will. And the businessman or diplomat, he laughed, too.

  “Yah, it’s both,” the businessman said. In his faint Scandinavian accent,both came outboad. “What a lovely thing you have!”Whad a loffly thing!

  Yes, itwas lovely. A lovely little treasure. And once upon a time, not so long ago, Jake Chambers had found something queerly similar. In Calvin Tower’s bookshop, Jake had bought a book calledCharlie the Choo-Choo, by Beryl Evans. Why? Because it had called to him. Later—shortly before Roland’s ka-tet had come to Calla Bryn Sturgis, in fact—the author’s name had changed to Claudia y Inez Bachman, making her a member of the ever-expanding Ka-Tet of Nineteen. Jake had slipped a key into that book, and Eddie had whittled a double of it in Mid-World. Jake’s version of the key had both fascinated the folks who saw it and made them extremely suggestible. Like Jake’s key, the scrimshaw turtle had its double; she was sitting beside it. The question was if the turtle was like Jake’s key in other ways.

  Judging from the fascinated way the Scandinavian businessman was looking at it, Susannah was pretty sure the answer was yes. She thought,Dad-a-chuck, dad-a-churtle, don’t worry, girl, you got the turtle! It was such a silly rhyme she almost laughed out loud.

  To Mia she said,Let me handle this.

  Handle what? I don’t understand—

  I know you don’t. So let me handle it. Agreed?

  She didn’t wait for Mia’s reply. She turned back to the businessman, smiling brightly, holding the turtle up where he could see it. She floated it from right to left and noted the way his eyes followed it, although his head, with its impressive mane of white hair, never moved.

  “What’s your name, sai?” Susannah asked.

  “Mathiessen van Wyck,” he said. His eyes rolled slowly in their sockets, watching the turtle. “I am second assistant to the Swedish Ambassador to the United Nations. My wife has taken a lover. This makes me sad. My bowels are regular once again, the tea the hotel masseuse recommended worked for me, and this makes me happy.” A pause. Then: “Yoursköldpadda makes me happy.”

  Susannah was fascinated. If she asked this man to drop his trousers and evacuate his newly regularized bowels on the sidewalk, would he do it? Of course he would.

  She looked around quickly and saw no one in the immediate vicinity. That was good, but she thought it would still behoove her to transact her business here as quickly as she could. Jake had drawn quite the little crowd with his key. She had no urge to do the same, if she could avoid it.

  “Mathiessen,” she began, “you mentioned—”

  “Mats,” he said.

  “Beg your pardon?”

  “Call me Mats, if you would. I prefer it.”

  “All right, Mats, you mentioned a—”

  “Do you speak Swedish?”

  “No,” she said.

  “Then we will speak English.”

  “Yes, I’d prefer—”

  “I have quite an important position,” Mats said. His eyes never left the turtle. “I am meeting many important peoples. I am going to cocktail parties where good-looking women are wearing ‘the little black dress.’ ”

  “That must be quite a thrill for you. Mats, I want you to shut your trap and only open it to speak when I ask you a direct question. Will you do that?”

  Mats closed his mouth. He even made a comical little zipping gesture across his lips, but his eyes never left the turtle.

  “You mentioned a hotel. Do you stay at a hotel?”

  “Yah, I am staying at the New York Plaza—Park Hyatt, at the corner of First and Forty-sixth. Soon I am getting the condominium apartment—”

  Mats seemed to realize he was saying too much again and shut his mouth.

  Susannah thought furiously, holding the turtle in front of her breasts where her new friend could see it very well.

  “Mats, listen to me, okay?”

  “I listen to hear, mistress-sai, and hear to obey.” That gave her a nasty jolt, especially coming out as it did in Mats’s cute little Scandihoovian accent.

  “Do you have a credit card?”

  Mats smiled proudly. “I have many. I have American Express, MasterCard, and Visa. I have the Euro-Gold Card. I have—”

  “Good, that’s good. I want you to go down to the—” For a moment her mind blanked, and then it came. “—to the Plaza—Park Hotel and rent a room. Rent it for a week. If they ask, tell them it’s for a friend of yours, a lady friend.” An unpleasant possibility occurred to her. This was New York, thenorth, in the year 1999, and a person liked to believe that things continued to go in the right direction, but it was best to be sure. “Will they make any unpleasantness about me being a Negro?”

  “No, of course not.” He looked surprised.

  “Rent the room in your name and tell the clerk that a woman named Susannah Mia Dean will be using it. Do you understand?”

  “Yah, Susannah Mia Dean.”

  What else? Money, of course. She asked him if he had any. Her new friend removed his wallet and handed it to h
er. She continued to hold the turtle where he could see it in one hand while she riffled through the wallet, a very nice Lord Buxton, with the other. There was a wad of traveler’s checks—no good to her, not with that insanely convoluted signature—and about two hundred dollars in good old American cabbage. She took it and dropped it into the Borders bag which had lately held the pair of shoes. When she looked up she was dismayed to see that a couple of Girl Scouts, maybe fourteen years old and both wearing backpacks, had joined the businessman. They were staring at the turtle with shiny eyes and wet lips. Susannah found herself remembering the girls in the audience on the night Elvis Presley had playedThe Ed Sullivan Show.

  “Toocoooool, ” one of them said, almost in a sigh.

  “Totally awesome,” said the other.

  “You girls go on about your business,” Susannah said.

  Their faces tucked in, assuming identical looks of sorrow. They could almost have been twins from the Calla. “Do we have to?” asked the first.

  “Yes!”Susannah said.

  “Thankee-sai, long days and pleasant nights,” said the second. Tears had begun to roll down her cheeks. Her friend was also crying.

  “Forget you saw me!” Susannah called as they started away.

  She watched them nervously until they reached Second Avenue and headed uptown, then turned her attention back to Mats van Wyck. “You get a wiggle on, too, Mats. Hoss your freight down to that hotel and rent a room. Tell them your friend Susannah will be right along.”

  “What is this freight-hossing? I do not understand—”