Song of Susannah (The Dark Tower #6)(101)

Dad-a-chum, dad-a-chee, give this boy a plastic key.

A couple of years before, his mother and father had given him a Tyco Chemistry Set for Christmas. Using the instruction booklet, he'd whipped up a batch of invisible ink. The words written in the stuff had faded almost as quickly as these words were fading now, only if you looked very closely, you could still read the message written in chemistry set ink. This one, however, was authenticallygone, and Jake knew why. Its purpose had been served. There was no more need for it. Ditto the line about the key being red, and sure enough, that was fading, as well. Only the first line remained, as if he needed reminding:

Dad-a-chum, dad-a-chee, not to worry, you've got the key.

HadStephen King sent this message? Jake doubted it. More likely one of the other players in the game - perhaps even Roland or Eddie - had used the name to get his attention. Still, he'd run upon two things since arriving here that encouraged him enormously. The first was the continued singing of the rose. It was stronger than ever, really, even though a skyscraper had been built on the vacant lot. The second was that Stephen King was apparently still alive twenty-four years after creating Jake's traveling companion. And no longer just a writer but afamous writer.

Great. For now things were still rattling precariously along the right set of tracks.

Jake grabbed Father Callahan's arm and led him toward the gift shop and tinkling cocktail piano. Oy followed, padding at Jake's knee. Along the wall they found a line of house phones. "When the operator answers," Jake said, "tell her you want to talk to your friend Susannah Dean, or toher friend, Mia."

"She'll ask me what room," Callahan said.

"Tell her you forgot, but it's on the nineteenth floor."

"How do you - "

"It'll be the nineteenth, just trust me."

"I do," Callahan said.

The phone rang twice and then the operator asked how she could help. Callahan told her. He was connected, and in some room on the nineteenth floor, a telephone began to ring.

Jake watched the Pere begin to speak, then subside into listening again with a small, bemused smile on his face. After a few moments, he hung up. "Answering machine!" he said. "They have amachine that takes guests' calls and then tapes messages! What a wonderful invention!"

"Yeah," Jake said. "Anyway, we know for sure that she's out and for pretty sure she didn't leave anyone behind to watch her gunna. But, just in case..." He patted the front of his shirt, which now concealed the Ruger.

As they crossed the lobby to the elevator bank, Callahan said: "What do we want in her room?"

"I don't know."

Callahan touched him on the shoulder. "I think you do."

The doors of the middle elevator popped open and Jake got on with Oy still at heel. Callahan followed, but Jake thought he was all at once dragging his feet a little.

"Maybe," Jake said as they started up. "And maybe you do, too."

Callahan's stomach suddenly felt heavier, as if he'd just finished a large meal. He supposed the added weight was fear. "I thought I was rid of it," he said. "When Roland took it out of the church, I really thought I was rid of it."

"Some bad pennies just keep turning up," Jake said.

Eight

He was prepared to try his unique red key in every door on the nineteenth floor if he had to, but Jake knew 1919 was right even before they reached it. Callahan did, too, and a sheen of sweat broke on his forehead. It felt thin and hot. Feverish.

Even Oy knew. The bumbler whined uneasily.

"Jake," Callahan said. "We need to think this over. That thing is dangerous. Worse, it'smalevolent. "

"That's why we gotta take it," Jake said patiently. He stood in front of 1919, drumming the MagCard between his fingers. From behind the door - and under it, and through it - came a hideous drone like the singing voice of some apocalyptic idiot. Mixed in was the sound of jangling, out-of-tune chimes. Jake knew the ball had the power to send you todash, and in those dark and mostly doorless spaces, it was all too possible to become lost forever. Even if you found your way to another version of Earth, it would have a queer darkness to it, as if the sun were always on the verge of total eclipse.

"Have you seen it?" Callahan asked.

Jake shook his head.

"I have," Callahan said dully, and armed sweat from his forehead. His cheeks had gone leaden. "There's an Eye in it. I think it's the Crimson King's eye. I think it's a part of him that's trapped in there forever, and insane. Jake, taking that ball to a place where there are vampires and low men - servants of the King - would be like giving Adolf Hitler an A-bomb for his birthday."

Jake knew perfectly well that Black Thirteen was capable of doing great, perhaps illimitable, damage. But he knew something else, as well.

"Pere, if Mia left Black Thirteen in this room and she's now going to wherethey are, they'll know about it soon enough. And they'll be after it in one of their big flashy cars before you can say Jack Robinson."

"Can't we leave it for Roland?" Callahan asked miserably.

"Yes," Jake said. "That's a good idea, just like taking it to the Dixie Pig is a bad one. But we can't leave it for himhere. " Then, before Callahan could say anything else, Jake slid the blood-red MagCard into the slot above the doorknob. There was a loud click and the door swung open.