Treasure Box Page 0,88

front door, the snow blowing around him. He could hear the sirens of the approaching emergency vehicles. "Sally," he said, "I kept my word and did no harm. When you want me back here, just call me. I'll come."

Sannazzaro closed the door in his face and locked it.

Bolt was already waiting beside the car. "Get in, bonehead, we don't want to be here all night answering questions."

Quentin didn't want to stay with Bolt, but there wasn't much choice right now. There was only one car that would get him away from here before the police arrived, and Bolt had to be in it. Quentin had a hard time opening the door, trembling as he was with rage and frustration and weariness and fear at the things that Mrs. Tyler had told him, at Sannazzaro's unfairness. No, it wasn't that at all. He was trembling from the cold. That's all.

He backed the car out of the stall and headed for the parking lot entrance.

"Don't turn right, you fool, turn left!"

"But that's where the sirens are coming from."

"We don't want to look like we're running away from them, Quentin. Do we?"

"Fine, whatever, you're the cop." Quentin pulled out onto the snowy road and drove back the way he had come. They were passed by an ambulance and a firetruck. But no police. Sannazzaro hadn't called the police after all. Or else the police were slower than the others. He didn't linger to find out.

Not till they got back on the freeway did Bolt finally ask the obvious question. "Now do you mind telling me what the hell happened?"

"I should ask you, Bolt. What got into you back there?"

"What are you talking about?" said Bolt. "I didn't do anything. You were the one who got to talk to the old lady. Fill me in."

Back when they were eating chili together, Quentin had told him everything he knew up till then. But now, having seen the way he acted with Sally Sannazzaro, wondering if there might be something to Sally's belief that he had tried to smother the old lady - now Quentin didn't feel like telling him anything.

"She didn't make any sense," he said. "She was delusional. I don't know what she thought I was, but she got frightened and screamed."

"Well, since she's been a turnip for several years now, do we count screaming as an improvement or a deterioration?" asked Bolt. The wry tone was back in his voice, now. He was himself again. Or maybe he had been himself back in the rest home. How could Quentin know?

"I liked Sally," said Quentin.

"Yeah, she's a real charmer."

Quentin looked up at the freeway sign announcing the next exit. Only it didn't say the name of a town.

GO AHEAD

Go ahead?

"I got news for you, Quentin," said Bolt. "From what I know of women, Sannazzaro doesn't like you."

She did, though, for a little while.

The sign that should have announced restaurants at the next exit had also been altered.

OPEN THE BOX

"Of course, what do I know about women?" said Bolt.

The sign promising gas stations now said:

I WANT YOU TO

Go ahead, open the box, I want you to. Gee, thanks, Grandmother.

The little exit sign had also been changed.

DIE

"By the way, have you been noticing the signs?" said Bolt.

"Have you?"

"Somebody doesn't like you," said Bolt. "Can Sannazzaro do that?"

"I doubt it," said Quentin. "It's the old lady. She's a witch. Rowena's a witch. My wife Madeleine was a succubus."

For a moment Bolt was angry. "Rowena's not a witch!"

"Just think about it for a second," said Quentin. "Those words aren't going up on those signs by themselves."

"It's the old lady."

"Yes, it's the old lady. But the other stuff wasn't her. Rowena's the one who keeps her tied down to that bed. It's a war between witches, fighting over a dragon, flinging succubuses around to win the cooperation of the occasional man. Don't think for a minute that just because you loved Rowena, she isn't one of them."

"Yeah, well, what do you know about Rowena?"

"Nothing. I know absolutely nothing about anything, Bolt."

"Me too."

"You can say that again. If you hadn't been acting like a prick back at the rest home, Sannazzaro wouldn't have gotten so angry at me."

"I don't know what gets into me when I'm around that woman," said Bolt. "If there's any witch in this whole business, it's her."

I'm not calling them witches metaphorically, Quentin wanted to say. I'm telling you that the woman you love probably had you enthralled, under control. That's probably what was happening to