Treasure Box Page 0,76

I tell you that nobody likes a smug bastard with a badge?"

"I don't want to be liked, Quentin, I just want to get some of this chili out of my system."

"How far are we from the rest home?"

"They put these things close to the main highways so the families won't have any trouble visiting. Not that many of them do. Left at the next light. Then the next right and it's on the right."

"What's it called?"

"I don't remember. It's the only rest home there. Looks like a big motel, only less parking and no neon."

"It looks more like a prison than a motel," said Quentin, when it came into view.

"Yeah, well, you haven't seen many prisons, then."

"I meant except for no bars on the windows."

"And no twenty-foot fences and guard towers and floodlights and checkpoints."

"So when did I say I was an expert on anything?" said Quentin. He pulled the car to a stop in a parking place. At least he was pretty sure it was a parking place. There were plenty of choices but no visible lines. Now that he was here, he wasn't sure what he hoped to accomplish. Bolt said she was in a coma, or at least not coherent. If that was true, there was no hope of learning anything useful from her. Yet she had called him, asked him to find her. Or had she? How did he know the message was really from her? Up against an illusionist like the User, how could he ever be sure what was real?

The snow was real, he was confident of that. Thick and cold as it worked its way up his pantlegs and down into his running shoes.

The front door of the rest home was unlocked, but there was no one at the reception desk. There was a bell. Chief Bolt rang it, but nobody came.

"Hello?" called Bolt. Quentin walked on into the main hallway and looked left and right. Nobody.

"They can't all be out on a field trip," said Bolt.

"Probably shorthanded, in this storm," said Quentin. "It's four o'clock. Maybe everybody's fixing dinner."

"Dining hall's straight ahead, kitchen's off to the left," said Bolt.

Sure enough, the cook and two attendants were frantically making dinner. "Forget looking for people and pitch in and cut up lettuce for the salad!" cried the cook.

"Yeah, right," said Bolt.

"Why not?" said Quentin. "It's not like we have an appointment."

"I could do this at home!" Bolt protested.

"Yes, but here we'll be doing it out of pure virtue." He was already washing his hands.

"Thank you!" cried the harried cook.

"Does this mean I can go back to bedpan duty now?" said one of the attendants.

"Break's over, back on your heads!" said the other. Nobody laughed.

Quentin took a big knife and started hacking at the lettuce. Soon Bolt was beside him, peeling and slicing cucumbers. "I always feel like I'm emasculating something when I do this," said Bolt.

"Didn't know you cops lived such metaphorical lives."

"Told you I was a poet."

They chopped for a while in silence, except for the songs the cook began but never finished. A line or two of some Elvis song or a Four Seasons tune in full falsetto, and then she'd peter out, humming and getting the melody wronger and wronger until it was some other song which she would drift into singing till she ran out of lyrics.

"I know why we're doing this," said Bolt.

"Oh?"

"Because you're scared of the old lady and you're putting off meeting her."

"That's why I'm doing this," said Quentin.

"Yeah, well, I have no will of my own."

"No wonder you send the other cops out to run your speed traps. 'No, Officer, I was only going twenty-five.' 'Oh, sorry, my mistake, what was I thinking?' "

It took longer than Quentin thought it would. Ten minutes, twenty, thirty, but finally it was done, three huge bowls of green salad, with cucumbers, radishes, cherry tomatoes sliced in half, carrot shavings, and garbanzo beans. It actually looked pretty good.

"If only some of the customers had teeth," said Bolt.

"They all have teeth," said an attendant, "if they remember to bring 'em." By now he was in full sweat, taking trays of chicken out of the oven and putting more in.

"Hate to chop and run," said Bolt.

"You were a great help," said the cook. "I was really joking when I asked you to help, and I probably broke sixty regulations by letting you do it, but I usually do this with a staff of four, some of which know what they're doing."

"Bon appetit,"