Treasure Box Page 0,69

inside, and began wandering around in search of the police department. Apparently this was one of those small towns that lived by the principle that if you didn't know where something was, you had no business finding it. He would have asked for directions, but the place was deserted. Somewhere, though, somebody was typing. He finally found the source of the sound in the basement, behind an unmarked door. He knocked.

"Come in," said a woman.

He stuck his head in the room. "Just looking for the police department, ma'am."

"You found it."

"This? Right here?"

"Said so, didn't I?"

"I have an appointment with Chief Bolt."

She pointed toward a closed door behind her, then went back to her typing. Quentin hadn't realized that New York manners extended so far north.

Quentin knocked on the chief's door - which also had no sign. This time a man's voice told him to come in.

Bolt was a burly man with military-short hair, but he didn't have the air of rigidity about him that Quentin had always associated with that look. His uniform was a little tight on him, a little rumpled. And his face looked to have some warmth, as if he might just have a sense of humor. Not usually a cop thing.

"Hi, I'm Quentin Fears."

Bolt nodded, but didn't look up from the form he was filling out. So much for the warmth.

After a moment, Quentin realized that it wasn't a form at all, it was a crossword puzzle.

"Five-letter word for anxiety, has a G in the middle," said Bolt.

"Angst," said Quentin instantly.

"Spelled?"

"A-N-G-S-T."

"Oh, angst," said Bolt, pronouncing the A to rhyme with the vowel in rang.

"Need help with any others?" said Quentin.

"I would've got it eventually." He looked up at Quentin. "Younger than you sounded on the phone."

"No, I sounded like a guy my age," said Quentin. Once again, as he had on the phone, Quentin picked up Bolt's offhand manner, his bantering style.

Bolt grinned. The warmth Quentin had seen wasn't an illusion. "I figured I'd never see you, we got off to such a good start on the phone."

"Yeah, well, once you visit Mixinack, you keep on coming back."

"We ought to have that as a slogan. Put it on a sign out at the city limits."

"I got a million of 'em."

"Sit down, Mr. Fears." His tone was friendly now. Quentin's instinct had been right. Bolt liked a man who gave as good as he got.

Quentin sat down and looked around a little. The office was meticulously clean, despite the tattiness of it. And contrary to what Bolt had said on the phone, his desk had only a few papers on it.

"Looks like you're all caught up with your work," Quentin said.

"We're doing OK for the middle of a crime wave."

"Chief Bolt, I just wanted to ask you a couple of questions."

"Really? Just a couple? Couldn't you phone?"

"I figured fair was fair, and you'd have some questions to ask me."

"Still, there's a phone. Why are you here?"

"Because when I get the answers to my questions, I want to be able to act on them immediately."

Bolt nodded. "I always feel that way, too. Found your wife yet?"

"As a matter of fact, I saw her last night. She's not missing anymore."

Bolt nodded more slowly. "Well, good. Why didn't she come along?"

"I didn't say she was back with me. Just that she wasn't missing."

Bolt sighed and recited:

The ways of love are strange and hard:

The love you want is always barred;

The love you have you want to change.

The ways of love are hard and strange.

"I didn't want to change my love," said Quentin.

"Did you like the poem? I wrote it."

"Did you? I thought I'd heard it before."

"Yeah, well, that's why I'm working in a police department in Mixinack instead of being lionized in the New York literary scene."

"You want to hear my questions?"

"I'm all ears."

"Where is Anna Laurent Tyler?"

"In a rest home."

"And where is that rest home?"

Bolt nodded slowly. "Well, now, what are you going to do when you locate it?

"Go see her."

"Won't do you any good," said Bolt.

"You don't know what I want to say to her."

"I don't care if you want to sing her the 'Anvil Chorus'."

"I hope you know the tenor part," said Quentin.

"She's pretty much a vegetable, son," said Bolt. "So you can talk to her all you want, but I don't see how it'll do you much good."

Quentin felt as if the air had been knocked out of his chest. "Can't be," he said.

"Can so," said the chief. "Well, look at that. The word that crosses angst