"Yah, to hell witdot 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 thesk?ldpadda ?"
"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, honkywas 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 thesk?ldpadda 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?
Three
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 SUSANNAH-MIO 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.
Four
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 seemedbigger. 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 aturban ) 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 (whatskirts, 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 theirsixties, 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 itwas only the middle of the afternoon. All this was a decided relief.