Treasure Box Page 0,31

"Why would I be testing you?"

"I don't know," she murmured.

"Well I wasn't. I love you whether you care about music or not. I was just trying to think what would have been current when you came of age. People usually know the music that was hot when they were about fifteen or so, and then for a few years till they get married. I got into it early because Lizzy took me with her when she was that age. And I never stopped because I didn't get married till now. You have friends in DC, didn't they play any music?"

"It never sounded like music to me. Nine Inch Nails." She shuddered.

"But they didn't play you any Counting Crows? Martin Page? Natalie Merchant?"

"We were bureaucrats. And what I cared about was government." She turned back to face him. "The Beatles. They were rich, weren't they? Famous, right?"

"More popular than Jesus Christ, I think the saying was."

"Yeah, well, what did they do with it?"

"Do?"

"With their money and fame. What was it for?"

"Music, I guess. Songs."

"No, that's what it was from. What was it for?"

"For itself." He studied her face, wondering if someone he loved so much could be so blind to something as simple as this. "They did music because they loved the songs. Writing them and singing them."

"Like you loved the programming, is that it?"

"Sure. You do what you love, and sometimes money happens or fame happens, but mostly it doesn't happen but that's OK because you were doing what you loved."

She shook her head. "Like a kid who's given this big wonderful present, only when he unwraps it, all he can think to do is play with the box it came in. With the wrapping paper and ribbon."

"OK, so what's the present?"

She leaned toward him and spoke with such intensity that her words scoured his heart. "Running things."

He remembered what she had said in the garden. About power.

"But that's just the box, too," he said. "Power, I mean."

"No it isn't."

"Sure it is. What's power for?"

"I don't get what you're asking me."

"You asked the same question about money and fame - what are they for? Well, what about power? Running things? Running them for what? To accomplish what?"

"Whatever you want." The answer was so obvious to her that she clearly didn't understand a word he was saying.

"That's the point? What do you want?"

"To run things," she said.

"But all these candidates we've been encouraging, Mad, didn't we pick them out because they had purposes? Causes?"

"They had causes," she said. "That doesn't mean I have to."

This attitude was so baffling and unpleasant that Quentin wished he hadn't got into the conversation. "I thought you chose these people for their causes."

"I did," she said. "Nobody's easier to control than a politician with a cause."

He shuddered. "That doesn't make any sense."

"Sure it does," she said. "I assumed you understood that. As long as he's accomplishing his cause, he'll do everything else you tell him to. Like you do with the people you got into partnerships with."

"What is it you think I'm doing with them?"

"They have their dream - as long as they get to accomplish that, then you get everything else your way."

He could certainly see how it might seem like that to someone with her perspective. His partners brought their dream, their drive, their expertise - but everything else was done Quentin's way, which is why he never lost much money with even the worst failures. He had control. And as soon as they weren't accomplishing his purpose, he cut them off and set them adrift. Uninjured, but they were no longer useful to him and so he had nothing more to do with them.

That's how it looked, yes, if you chose to see it that way. But that wasn't what he meant, or who he was. He wasn't using these people, he was helping them.

"Get real," said Madeleine. "Nobody ever helps anybody except in order to help themselves. Not even you. Not even when you do your best lying to yourself about it."

"I don't like this conversation," said Quentin.

"It's your conversation, Tin. But I thought we both understood this. I haven't lied to you. I told you from the start it was power that I wanted most. You knew that's what you were signing on to when we went into partnership."

"Partnership?" The word was sour in his mouth.

"I don't mean our marriage. I mean our partnership. The candidates. We're building up a network of people we can control without their even guessing we're