The Waste Lands (The Dark Tower #3)(138)
Her foot caught beneath one of the rugs and she tumbled forward. Once more the Tick-Tock Man moved with that spooky speed, pulling back the foot which had been dangling over the arm of the chair and then driving it forward again like a piston. It buried itself in the pit of the dark-haired woman’s stomach and she went flying backward. Blood spewed from her mouth and splattered the furniture. She struck the wall, slid down it, and ended up sitting with her chin on her breastbone. To Jake she looked like a movie Mexican taking a siesta against an adobe wall. It was hard for him to believe she had gone from living to dead with such terrible speed. Neon tubes turned her hair into a haze that was half red and half blue. Her glazing eyes stared at the Tick-Tock Man with terminal amazement.
“I told her about that laugh,” Tick-Tock said. His eyes shifted to the other woman, a heavyset redhead who looked like a long-haul trucker. “Didn’t I, Tilly?”
“Ay,” Tilly said at once. Her eyes were lustrous with fear and excite-ment, and she licked her lips obsessively. “So you did, many and many a time. I’ll set my watch and warrant on it.”
“So you might, if you could reach up your fat ass far enough to find them,”
Tick-Tock said. “Bring me my knife, Brandon, and mind you wipe that slut’s stink off it before you put it in my hand.”
A short, bandy-legged man hopped to do as he had been bidden. The knife wouldn’t come free at first; it seemed caught on the unfortu-nate dark-haired woman’s breastbone. Brandon threw a terrified glance over his shoulder at the Tick-Tock Man and then tugged harder.
Tick-Tock, however, appeared to have forgotten all about both Bran-don and the woman who had literally laughed herself to death. His bril-liant green eyes had fixed on something which interested him much more than the dead woman. “Come here, cully,” he said. “I want a better look at you.” Gasher gave him a shove. Jake stumbled forward. He would have fallen if Tick-Tock’s strong hands hadn’t caught him by the shoulders. Then, when he was sure Jake had his balance again, Tick-Tock grasped the boy’s left wrist and raised it. It was Jake’s Seiko which had drawn his interest. “If this here’s what I think it is, it’s an omen for sure and true,” Tick-Tock said. “Talk to me, boy—what’s this sigul you wear?” Jake, who hadn’t the slightest idea what a sigul was, could only hope for the best. “It’s a watch. But it doesn’t work, Mr. Tick-Tock.” Hoots chuckled at that, then clapped both hands over his mouth when the Tick-Tock Man turned to look at him. After a moment, Tick-Toc looked back at Jake, and a sunny smile replaced the frown. Looking at that smile almost made you forget that it was a dead woman and not a movie Mexican taking a siesta over there against the wall. Looking at it almost made you forget that these people were crazy, and the Tick-Tock Man was likely the craziest inmate in the whole asylum.
“Watch,” Tick-Tock said, nodding. “Ay, a likely enough name for such; after all, what does a person want with a timepiece but to watch it once in a while? Ay, Brandon? Ay, Tilly? Ay, Gasher?”
They responded with eager affirmatives. The Tick-Tock Man favored them with his winning smile, then turned back to Jake again. Now Jake noticed that the smile, winning or not, stopped well short of the Tick-Tock Man’s green eyes. They were as they had been throughout: cool, cruel, and curious. He reached a finger toward the Seiko, which now proclaimed the time to be ninety-one minutes past seven—A.M. and P.M.—and pulled it back just before touching the glass above the liquid crystal display. “Tell me, dear boy—is this ‘watch’ of yours boobyrigged?”
“Huh? Oh! No. No, it’s not boobyrigged.” Jake touched his own finger to the face of the watch.
“That means nothing, if it’s set to the frequency of your own body,” the Tick-Tock Man said. He spoke in the sharp, scornful tone Jake’s father used when he didn’t want people to figure out that he didn’t have the slightest idea what he was talking about. Tick-Tock glanced briefly at Brandon, and Jake saw him weigh the pros and cons of making the bowlegged man his designated toucher. Then he dismissed the notion and looked back into Jake’s eyes. “If this thing gives me a shock, my little friend, you’re going to be choking to death on your own sweetmeats in thirty seconds.”
Jake swallowed hard but said nothing. The Tick-Tock Man reached out his finger again, and this time allowed it to settle on the face of the Seiko. The moment that it did, all the numbers went to zeros and then began to count upward again. Tick-Tock’s eyes had narrowed in a grimace of potential pain as he touched the face of the watch. Now their corners crinkled in the first genuine smile Jake had seen from him. He thought it was partly pleasure at his own courage but mostly simple wonder and interest.
“May I have it?” he asked Jake silkily. “As a gesture of your goodwill, shall we say? I am something of a clock fancier, my dear young cully— so I am.” “Be my guest.” Jake stripped the watch off his arm at once and dropped in onto the Tick-Tock Man’s large waiting palm.
“Talks just like a little silk-arse gennelman, don’t he?” Gasher said happily.
“In the old days someone would have paid a wery high price for the return o’such as him, Ticky, ay, so they would. Why, my father—” “Your father died so blowed-out-rotten with the mandrus that not even the dogs would eat him,” the Tick-Tock Man interrupted. “Now shut up, you idiot.” At first Gasher looked furious . . . and then only abashed. He sank into a nearby chair and closed his mouth.