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.

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.

Directly ahead of her was the reception desk, and behind it was the most exotic woman Susannah had ever seen in her life. She appeared to be white, black, and Chinese, all whipped together. In 1964, such a woman would undoubtedly have been called a mongrel, no matter how beautiful she might have been. Here she had been popped into an extremely handsome ladies’ suit and put behind the reception desk of a large first-class hotel. The Dark Tower might be increasingly shaky, Susannah thought, and the world might be moving on, but she thought the lovely desk clerk was proof (if any were needed) that noteverything was falling down or going in the wrong direction. She was talking to a customer who was complaining about his in-room movie bill, whatever that might be.

Never mind, it’s the future,Susannah told herself once again.It’s science fiction, like the City of Lud. Best leave it at that.

I don’t care what it is or when,Mia said.I want to be near a telephone. I want to see to my chap.

Susannah walked past a sign on a tripod, then turned back and gave it a closer look.

AS OF JULY 1ST, 1999, THE NEW YORK PLAZA—PARK HYATT

WILL BECOME THE REGAL U.N. PLAZA HOTEL

ANOTHER GREATSOMBRA/NORTH CENTRAL PROJECT!!

Susannah thought,Sombra as in Turtle Bay Luxury Condominiums…which never got built, from the look of that black-glass needle back on the corner. And North Central as in North Central Positronics. Interesting.

She felt a sudden twinge of pain go through her head. Twinge? Hell, a bolt. It made her eyes water. And she knew who had sent it. Mia, who had no interest in the Sombra Corporation, North Central Positronics, or the Dark Tower itself, was becoming impatient. Susannah knew she’d have to change that, or at least try. Mia was focused blindly on her chap, but if she wanted tokeep the chap, she might have to widen her field of vision a little bit.

She fight you ever’ damn step of the way,Detta said. Her voice was shrewd and tough and cheerful.You know dat too, don’t you?

She did.

Susannah waited until the man with the problem finished explaining how he had ordered some movie calledX-Rated by accident, and he didn’t mind paying as long as it wasn’t on his bill, and then she stepped up to the desk herself. Her heart was pounding.

“I believe that my friend, Mathiessen van Wyck, has rented a room for me,” she said. She saw the reception clerk looking at her stained shirt with well-bred disapproval, and laughed nervously. “I really can’t wait to take a shower and change my clothes. I had a small accident. At lunch.”

“Yes, madam. Just let me check.” The woman went to what looked like a small TV screen with a typewriter attached. She tapped a few keys, looked at the screen, and then said: “Susannah Mia Dean, is that correct?”

You say true, I say thank yarose to her lips and she squelched it. “Yes, that’s right.”

“May I see some identification, please?”

For a moment Susannah was flummoxed. Then she reached into the rush bag and took out an Oriza, being careful to hold it by the blunt curve. She found herself remembering something Roland had said to Wayne Overholser, the Calla’s big rancher:We deal in lead. The ’Rizas weren’t bullets, but surely they were the equivalent. She held the plate up in one hand and the small carved turtle in the other.

“Will this do?” she asked pleasantly.

“What—” the beautiful desk clerk began, then fell silent as her eyes shifted from the plate to the turtle. They grew wide and slightly glassy. Her lips, coated with an interesting pink gloss (it looked more like candy than lipstick to Susannah), parted. A soft sound came from between them:ohhhh…

“It’s my driver’s license,” Susannah said. “Do you see?” Luckily there was no one else around, not even a bellman. The late-day checkouts were on the sidewalk, fighting for hacks; in here, the lobby was a-doze. From the bar beyond the gift shop, “Night and Day” gave way to a lazy and introspective version of “Stardust.”

“Driver’s license,” the desk clerk agreed in that same sighing, wondering voice.

“Good. Are you supposed to write anything down?”

“No…Mr. Van Wyck rented the room…all I need is to…to check your…may I hold the turtle, ma’am?”

“No,” Susannah said, and the desk clerk began to weep. Susannah observed this phenomenon with bemusement. She didn’t believe she had made so many people cry since her disastrous violin recital (both first and last) at the age of twelve.

“No, I may not hold it,” the desk clerk said, weeping freely. “No, no, I may not, may not hold it, ah, Discordia, I may not—”

“Hush up your snivel,” Susannah said, and the desk clerk hushed at once. “Give me the room-key, please.”

But instead of a key, the Eurasian woman handed her a plastic card in a folder. Written on the inside of the folder—so would-be thieves couldn’t easily see it, presumably—was the number 1919. Which didn’t surprise Susannah at all. Mia, of course, could not have cared less.