"Oz-walt."
She nodded, not bothering to correct him, thinking that there was nothing to correct, really. Oz-walt. Oz. It all came around again, didn't it?
"And Johnson took over when Kennedy fell."
"Yep."
"How did he do?"
"Was too early to tell when I left, but he was more the kind of fella used to playing the game. 'Go along to get along,' we used to say. Do yovi ken it?"
"Yes, indeed," he said. "And Susannah, I think we've arrived." Roland brought Ho Fat's Luxury Taxi to a stop. He stood with the handles wrapped in his fists, looking at Le Casse Roi Russe.
TWO
Here The King's Way ended, spilling into a wide cobbled forecourt that had once no doubt been guarded as assiduously by the Crimson King's men as Buckingham Palace was by the Beefeaters of Queen Elizabeth. An eye that had faded only slightly over the years was painted on the cobbles in scarlet.
From ground-level, one could only assume what it was, but from the upper levels of the casde itself, Susannah guessed, the eye would dominate the view to the northwest.
Same damn thing's probably painted at every other point of the compass, too, she thought.
Above this outer courtyard, stretched between two deserted guard-towers, was a banner that looked freshly painted. Stenciled upon it (also in red, white, and blue) was this:
WELCOME, ROLAND AND SUSANNAH!
(OY, TOO!)
KEEP ON ROCKIN' IN THE FREE WORLD!
The castle beyond the inner courtyard (and the caged river which here served as a moat) was indeed of dark red stone blocks that had darkened to near-black over the years. Towers and turrets burst upward from the castle proper, swelling in a way that hurt the eye and seemed to defy gravity. The castle within these gaudy brackets was sober and undecorated except for the staring eye carved into the keystone arch above the main entrance. Two of the overhead walkways had fallen, littering the main courtyard with shattered chunks of stone, but six others remained in place, crisscrossing at different levels in a way that made her think of turnpike entrances and exits where a number of major highways met. As with the houses, the doors and windows were oddly narrow. Fat black rooks were perched on the sills of the windows and lined up along the overhead walkways, peering at them.
Susannah swung down from the rickshaw with Roland's gun stuffed into her belt, within easy reach. She joined him, looking at the main gate on this side of the moat. It stood open. Beyond it, a humped stone bridge spanned the river.
Beneath the bridge, dark water rushed through a stone throat forty feet wide. The water smelled harsh and unpleasant, and where it flowed around a number of fangy black rocks, the foam was yellow instead of white.
"What do we do now?" she asked.
"Listen to those fellows, for a start," he said, and nodded toward the main doors on the far side of the castle's cobbled forecourt. The portals were ajar and through them now came two men-perfectly ordinary men, not narrow funhouse fellows, as she had rather expected. When they were halfway across the forecourt, a third slipped out and scurried along after. None appeared to be armed, and as the two in front approached the bridge, she was not exactly flabbergasted to see they were identical twins. And the one behind looked the same: Caucasian, fairly tall, long black hair. Triplets, then: two to meet, and one for good luck. They were wearing jeans and heavy pea-coats of which she was instantly (and achingly) jealous.
The two in front carried large wicker baskets by leather handles.
"Put spectacles and beards on them, and they'd look exactly like Stephen King as he was when Eddie and I first met him,"
Roland said in a low voice.
"Really? Say true?"
"Yes. Do you remember what I told you?"
"Let you do the talking."
"And before victory comes temptation. Remember that, too."
"I will. Roland, are you afraid of em?"
"I think there's little to fear from those three. But be ready to shoot."
"They don't look armed." Of course there were those wicker baskets; anything might be in those.
"All the same, be ready."
"Count on it," said she.
THREE
Even with the roar of the river rushing beneath the bridge, they could hear the steady tock-tock of the strangers' bootheels.
The two with the baskets advanced halfway across the bridge and stopped at its highest point. Here they put down their burdens side by side. The third man stopped on the castle side and stood with his empty hands clasped decorously before him. Now Susannah could smell the cooked meat that was undoubtedly in one of the boxes. Not long pork, either. Roast beef and chicken all mingled was what it smelled like to her, an aroma that was heaven-sent. Her mouth began to water.
"Hile, Roland of Gilead!" said the dark-haired man on their right. "Hile, Susannah of New York! Hile, Oy of Mid-World! Long days and pleasant nights!"
"One's ugly and the others are worse," his companion remarked.
"Don't mind him," said the righthand Stephen King lookalike.
"'don't mind him,'" mocked the other, screwing his face up in a grimace so purposefully ugly that it was funny.
"May you have twice the number," Roland said, responding to the more polite of the two. He cocked his heel and made a perfunctory bow over his outstretched leg. Susannah curtsied in the Calla fashion, spreading imaginary skirts. Oy sat by Roland's left foot, only looking at the two identical men on the bridge.
"We are uffis," said the man on the right. "Do you ken uffis,
Roland?"
"Yes," he said, and then, in an aside to Susannah: "It's an old word... ancient, in fact. He claims they're shape-changers." To this he added in a much lower voice that could surely not be heard over the roar of the river: "I doubt it's true."
"Yet it is," said the one on the right, pleasantly enough.
"Liars see their own kind everywhere," observed the one on the left, and rolled a cynical blue eye. Just one. Susannah didn't believe she had ever seen a person roll just one eye before.
The one behind said nothing, only continued to stand and watch with his hands clasped before him.
"We can take any shape we like," continued the one on the right, "but our orders were to assume that of someone you'd recognize and trust."
"I'd not trust sai King much further than I could throw his heaviest grandfather," Roland remarked. "As troublesome as a trousers-eating goat, that one."
"We did the best we could," said the righthand Stephen King. "We could have taken the shape of Eddie Dean, but felt that might be too painful to the lady."
"The 'lady' looks as if she'd be happy to f**k a rope, could she make it stand up between her thighs," remarked the lefthand Stephen King, and leered.
"Uncalled-for," said the one behind, he with his hands crossed in front of him. He spoke in the mild tones of a contest referee. Susannah almost expected him to sentence Badmouth King to five minvxtes in the penalty box. She wouldn't have minded, either, for hearing Badmouth King crack wise hurt her heart; it reminded her of Eddie.
Roland ignored all the byplay.
"Could the three of you take three different shapes?" he inquired of Goodmouth King. Susannah heard the gunslinger swallow quite audibly before asking this question, and knew she wasn't the only one struggling to keep from drooling over the smells from the food-basket. "Could one of you have been sai King, one sai Kennedy, and one sai Nixon, for instance?"
"A good question," said Goodmouth King on the right.
"A stupid question," said Badmouth King on the left. "Nothing at all to the point. Off we go into the wild blue yonder. Oh well, was there ever an action hero who was an intellectual?"
"Prince Hamlet of Denmark," said Referee King quietly from behind them. "But since he's the only one who comes immediately to mind, he may be no more than the exception that proves the rule."
Goodmouth and Badmouth both turned to look at him.
When it was clear that he was done, they turned back to Roland and Susannah.
"Since we're actually one being," said Goodmouth, "and of fairly limited capabilities at that, the answer is no. We could all be Kennedy, or we could all be Nixon, but-"
"'Jam yesterday, jam tomorrow, but never jam today,'" said Susannah. She had no idea why this had popped into her head
(even less why she should have said it out loud), but Referee King said "Exactly!" and gave her a go-to-the-head-of-the-class nod.
"Move on, for your father's sake," said Badmouth King on the left. "I can barely look at these traitors to the Lord of the Red wi'out puking."
"Very well," said his partner. "Although calling them traitors seems rather unfair, at least if one adds ka to the equation.
Since the names we give ourself would be unpronounceable to you-"
"Like Superman's rival, Mr. Mxyzptlk," said Badmouth.
"-you may as well use those Los' used. Him being the one you call the Crimson King. I'm ego, roughly speaking, and go by the name of Feemalo. This fellow beside me is Fumalo. He's our id."
"So the one behind you must be Fimalo," Susannah said, pronouncing it i^-ma-lo. "What's he, your superego?"
"Oh brilliant!" Fumalo exclaimed. "I bet you can even say Freud so it doesn't rhyme with lewd!" He leaned forward and gave her his knowing leer. "But can you spell it, you shor'-leg New York blackbird?"