Song of Susannah (The Dark Tower #6)(29)
She started across the lobby, walking with an educated stagger. The desk clerk spoke after her in a voice expressing pleasant regret, no more than that.
"When the King comes and the Tower falls, sai, all such pretty things as yours will be broken. Then there will be darkness and nothing but the howl of Discordia and the cries of the can toi."
Susannah made no reply, although the gooseflesh was now all the way up the nape of her neck and she could feel her scalp tightening on her very skull. Her legs (someone'slegs, anyway) were rapidly losing all feeling. If she'd been able to look at her bare skin, would she have seen her fine new legs going transparent? Would she have been able to see the blood flowing through her veins, bright red going down, darker and exhausted heading back up to her heart? The interwoven pigtails of muscle?
She thought yes.
She pushed the UP button and then put the Oriza back into its bag, praying one of the three elevator doors would open before she collapsed. The piano player had switched to "Stormy Weather."
The door of the middle car opened. Susannah-Mia stepped in and pushed 19. The door slid shut but the car went nowhere.
The plastic card,she reminded herself.You have to use the card.
She saw the slot and slid the card into it, being careful to push in the direction of the arrows. This time when she pushed 19, the number lit up. A moment later she was shoved rudely aside as Miacame forward.
Susannah subsided at the back of her own mind with a kind of tired relief. Yes, let someone else take over, why not? Let someone else drive the bus for awhile. She could feel the strength and substance coming back into her legs, and that was enough for now.
Five
Mia might have been a stranger in a strange land, but she was a fast learner. In the nineteenth-floor lobby she located the arrow with 1911 - 1923 beneath it and walked briskly down the corridor to 1919. The carpet, some thick green stuff that was delightfully soft, whispered beneath her
(their)
stolen shoes. She inserted the key-card, opened the door, and stepped in. There were two beds. She put the bags on one of them, looked around without much interest, then fixed her gaze on the telephone.
Susannah!Impatient.
What?
How do I make it ring?
Susannah laughed with genuine amusement.Honey, you aren't the first person to ask thatquestion, believe me. Or the millionth. It either will or it won't. In its own good time. Meanwhile, why don't you have a look around. See if you can't find a place to store your gunna.
She expected an argument but didn't get one. Mia prowled the room (not bothering to open the drapes, although Susannah very much wanted to see the city from this height), peeked into the bathroom (palatial, with what looked like a marble basin and mirrors everywhere), then looked into the closet. Here, sitting on a shelf with some plastic bags for dry-cleaning on top, was a safe. There was a sign on it, but Mia couldn't read it. Roland had had similar problems from time to time, but his had been caused by the difference between the English language alphabet and In-World's "great letters." Susannah had an idea that Mia's problems were a lot more basic; although her kidnapper clearly knew numbers, Susannah didn't think the chap's mother could read at all.
Susannahcame forward, but not all the way. For a moment she was looking through two sets of eyes at two signs, the sensation so peculiar that it made her feel nauseated. Then the images came together and she could read the message:
THIS SAFE IS PROVIDED FOR YOUR PERSONAL BELONGINGS
THE MANAGEMENT OF THE PLAZA - PARK HYATT ASSUMES NO
RESPONSIBILITY FOR ITEMS LEFT HERE
CASH AND JEWELRY SHOULD BE DEPOSITED IN THE HOTEL SAFE
DOWNSTAIRS
TO SET CODE, PUNCH IN FOUR NUMBERS PLUS ENTER
TO OPEN, ENTER YOUR FOUR-NUMBER CODE AND PUSH OPEN
Susannah retired and let Mia select four numbers. They turned out to be a one and three nines. It was the current year and might be one of the first combinations a room burglar would try, but at least it wasn't quite the room number itself. Besides, they were theright numbers. Numbers of power. Asigul. They both knew it.
Mia tried the safe after programming it, found it locked tightly, then followed the directions for opening it. There was a whirring noise from somewhere inside and the door popped ajar. She put in the faded red MIDTOWN LANES bag - the box inside just fit on the shelf - and then the bag of Oriza plates. She closed and locked the safe's door again, tried the handle, found it tight, and nodded. The Borders bag was still on the bed. She took the wad of cash out of it and tucked it into the right front pocket of her jeans, along with the turtle.
Have to get a clean shirt,Susannah reminded her unwelcome guest.
Mia, daughter of none, made no reply. She clearly caredbupkes for shirts, clean or dirty. Mia was looking at the telephone. For the time being, with her labor on hold, the phone was all she cared about.
Now we palaver,Susannah said.You promised, and it's a promise you're going to keep. But not in that banquet room. She shuddered.Somewhere outside, hear me I beg. I want fresh air. That banqueting hall smelled of death.
Mia didn't argue. Susannah got a vague sense of the other woman riffling through various files of memory - examining, rejecting, examining, rejecting - and at last finding something that would serve.
How do we go there?Mia asked indifferently.
The black woman who was now two women (again) sat on one of the beds and folded her hands in her lap.Like on a sled, the woman's Susannah part said.I'll push, you steer. And remember, Susannah-Mio, if you want my cooperation, you give me some straight answers.