Stephen King - Song of Susannah

I need no symbol, Callahan thought; and then: Is that why God let me live? Was He giving me a second chance to learn that?

It was possible, he thought as his hands settled on the lid of the box. Second chances were one of God’s specialties.

“Folks, you got to shut your dog up. ” The querulous voice of a hotel maid, but very distant. Then it said: “ Madre de Dios, why’s it so dark in here? What’s that… what’s that… n… n…”

Perhaps she was trying to say noise. If so, she never finished. Even Oy now seemed resigned to the spell of the humming, singing ball, for he gave up his protests (and his post at the door) to come trotting into the room. Callahan supposed the beast wanted to be at Jake’s side when the end came.

The Pere struggled to still his suicidal hands. The thing in the box raised the volume of its idiot’s song, and the tips of his fingers twitched in response. Then they stilled again. I have that much of a victory, Callahan thought.

“Ne’mine, I’ll do it.” The voice of the maid, drugged and avid. “I want to see it. Dios! I want to hold it!”

Jake’s arms seemed to weigh a ton, but he forced them to reach out and grab the maid, a middle-aged Hispanic lady who couldn’t have weighed more than a hundred and five pounds.

As he had struggled to still his hands, so Callahan now struggled to pray.

God, not my will but Thine. Not the potter but the potter’s clay.

If I can’t do anything else, help me to take it in my arms and jump out the window and destroy the gods-damned thing once and for all. But if it be Your will to help me make it still, instead - to make it go back to sleep - then send me Your strength. And help me to remember.

Drugged by Black Thirteen he might have been, but Jake still hadn’t lost his touch. Now he plucked the rest of the thought out of the Pere’s mind and spoke it aloud, only changing the word Callahan used to the one Roland had taught them.

“I need no sigul,” Jake said. “Not the potter but the potter’s clay, and I need no sigul! ”

“God,” Callahan said. The word was as heavy as a stone, but once it was out of his mouth, the rest of them came easier. “God, if You’re still there, if You still hear me, this is Callahan. Please still this thing, Lord. Please send it back to sleep. I ask it in the name of Jesus.”

“In the name of the White,” Jake said.

“ Ite! “Oy yapped.

“Amen,” said the maid in a stoned, bemused voice.

For a moment the droning idiot’s song from the box rose another notch, and Callahan understood it was hopeless, that not even God Almighty could stand against Black Thirteen.

Then it fell silent.

“God be thanked,” he whispered, and realized his entire body was drenched with sweat.

Jake burst into tears and picked up Oy. The chambermaid also began to weep, but had no one to comfort her. As Pere Callahan slid the meshy (and oddly heavy) material of the bowling bag back around the ghostwood box, Jake turned to her and said, “You need to take a nap, sai.”

It was the only thing he could think of, and it worked. The maid turned and walked across to the bed. She crawled up on it, pulled her skirt down over her knees, and appeared to fall unconscious.

“Will it stay asleep?” Jake asked Callahan in a low voice. “Because… Pere… that was too close for comfort.”

Perhaps, but Callahan’s mind suddenly seemed free-freer than it had been in years. Or perhaps it was his heart that had been freed. In any case, his thoughts seemed very clear as he lowered the bowling bag to the folded dry-cleaning bags on top of the safe.

Remembering a conversation in the alley behind Home. He and Frankie Chase and Magruder, out on a smoke-break. The talk had turned to protecting your valuables in New York, especially if you had to go away for awhile, and Magruder had said the safest storage in New York… the absolute safest storage…

"Jake, there’s also a bag of plates in the safe.”

“Orizas?”

“Yes. Get them.” While he did, Callahan went to the maid on the bed and reached into the left skirt pocket of her uniform. He brought out a number of plastic MagCards, a few regular keys, and a brand of mints he’d never heard of-Altoids.

He turned her over. It was like turning a corpse.

“What’re you doing?” Jake whispered. He had put Oy down so he could sling the silk-lined reed pouch over his shoulder. It was heavy, but he found the weight comforting.

“Robbing her, what does it look like?” the Pere replied angrily. “Father Callahan of the Holy Roman Catholic Church is robbing a hotel maid. Or would, if she had any… ah!”

In the other pocket was the little roll of bills he’d been hoping for. She had been performing turndown service when Oy’s barking had distracted her. This included flushing the john, pulling the shades, turning down the bed, and leaving what the maids called “pillow candy.” Sometimes patrons tipped for the service. This maid was carrying two tens, three fives, and four ones.

“I’ll pay you back if our paths cross,” Callahan told the unconscious maid. “Otherwise, just consider it your service to God.”

“ Whiiiite, “ the maid said in the slurred whisper of one who talks and yet sleeps.

Callahan and Jake exchanged a look.

In the elevator going back down, Callahan held the bag containing Black Thirteen and Jake carried the one with the ’Rizas inside. He also carried their money. It now came to a total of forty-eight dollars.

“Will it be enough?” It was his only question after hearing the Pere’s plan for disposing of the ball, a plan which would necessitate another stop.

“I don’t know and I don’t care,” Callahan replied. They were speaking in the low voices of conspirators, although the elevator was empty save for them. “If I can rob a sleeping chambermaid, stiffing a cab driver should be a leadpipe cinch.”

“Yeah,” Jake said. He was thinking that Roland had done more than rob a few innocent people during his quest for the Tower; he’d killed a good many, as well. “Let’s just get this done and then find the Dixie Pig.”

“You don’t have to worry so much, you know,” Callahan said. “If the Tower falls, you’ll be among the very first to know.”

Jake studied him. After a moment or two of this, Callahan cracked a smile. He couldn’t help it.

“Not that funny, sai,” Jake said, and they went out into the dark of that early summer’s night in the year of ’99.

It was quarter to nine and there was still a residue of light across the Hudson when they arrived at the first of their two stops. The taximeter’s tale was nine dollars and fifty cents. Callahan gave the cabbie one of the maid’s tens.

“Mon, don’t hurt yose’f,” the driver said in a powerful Jamaican accent. “I dreadful ’fraid you might leave yose’f shote. ”

“You’re lucky to get anything at all, son,” Callahan said kindly. “We’re seeing New York on a budget.”

“My woman got a budget, too,” said the cabbie, and then drove away.

Jake, meanwhile, was looking up. “Wow,” he said softly. “I guess I forgot how big all this is."

Callahan followed his glance, then said: “Let’s get it done.” And, as they hurried inside: “What are you getting from Susannah? Anything?”

“Man with a guitar,” Jake said. “Singing… I don’t know. And I should. It was another one of those coincidences that aren’t coincidences, like the owner of the bookstore being named Tower or Balazar’s joint turning out to be The Leaning Tower. Some song… I should know.”