Treasure Box

Roz is not the enemy. Roz is being fooled by the beast as surely as I was fooled by Madeleine.

And truth to tell, in the contest between Roz and the dragon, Quentin might not even qualify as a pawn. Even as the game unfolded, he wouldn't understand what he was seeing. They were out of his league.

At La Guardia he rented another car—from a different company this time, because he didn't want to think again about what he might or might not have done to that clerk. He drove north on roads now banked with snow like canyon walls on either side, where the plows had pushed it all. No scenery, just the white lights of oncoming cars, the red lights of the cars ahead, and the looming walls of filthy snow.

As he neared Mixinack, he read Mike Bolt's number off his card and phoned him. Maybe it was crazy to go back to him, knowing that he had been under Roz's control. But now that Rowena was more aware of what was going on, Roz wouldn't have such free access to him. As long as Bolt stayed away from the rest home, he was a good man. A friend. And he had a right to know how this all came out.

Bolt answered the phone.

"This is Quentin. I'm about five minutes out of Mixinack. You offered me a place to stay. The couch in the den or something."

"It's midnight," said Bolt. "Are you serious?"

"I met Rowena today. She's living in Virginia."

"Is she... what you said? Is she your enemy?"

"She's a witch, Bolt. But I'm not good at picking out bad guys and good guys today. We'll talk about it when I get there."

"Is she coming here? Will she come to Mixinack?"

"I think so," said Quentin. "For all I know they beat me here."

"You really drove back to DC last night in that storm? They said nobody was getting through."

"They were off by at least one. They always are."

"And you're already back."

"Yeah, well, I'm a frequent flier."

"So come on over." Bolt reminded him of how to get there. And then: "Is she still beautiful?"

"Rowena?"

"No, her dog."

"Mike, you're married."

The joking tone was gone when he answered. "Please. Tell me."

"She's beautiful, yes." Though Quentin was quite certain that she would look even more beautiful to Bolt than she looked to him.

"I wasn't crazy to love her, was I?"

"Bolt, we're all crazy to love anybody. But it drives us even crazier if we don't."

"Was that, like, a wise and pithy saying?"

"You better have it posted on your fridge before I arrive."

As he negotiated the side streets of Mixinack, which hadn't been as thoroughly plowed as the highways, Quentin finally found the moral certainty he had been wishing for and despairing of all the way there. It was Lizzy. Lizzy held hostage. The right and wrong of it just didn't matter in the face of that. He would do what it took to get Lizzy out. And that meant staying alive himself, alive and free. Because he was pretty sure that whether the beast won or Roz did, Lizzy's bright spirit would be forgotten in her prison cell if Quentin wasn't there to find her and let her go.

Bolt's wife was up when he got there. Quentin saw at once that she had been asleep; her hair was tousled despite the brush that had been passed over it a couple of times, and her eyes were heavy with weariness. But she met him with a smile when Bolt introduced them. "My Leda," he said, casting an arm across her shoulder.

"Caf or decaf?" she asked, shrugging off her husband's arm and playfully jabbing at him with her elbow.

"No coffee," said Quentin. "You shouldn't have gotten up, I didn't want to be any trouble."

"If you didn't want to be trouble, you'd've stayed in a motel," said Bolt. "Come on, Quentin, how many times you think we have millionaires sleeping on our couch? Let us play the openhearted host."

"You're very kind. Decaf then, or hot chocolate."

"Which? Got 'em both," said Leda.

"Chocolate then."

She made hot chocolate for all three of them, and then pulled a half-finished quart of vanilla ice cream out of the freezer. They all put a dollop of the ice cream into the hot chocolate and then took spoonfuls of it, ice cold and scalding hot at the same time. As he ate, Quentin noticed the swans all over the kitchen. Swans of wicker, porcelain, stuffed fabric, wood; painted on pots, printed on paper and framed, embroidered on cloth, patterned in the wallpaper.

"Leda and the swan," said Quentin. "I guess that means the swan is you, right, Mike?"

"The god in disguise who comes and carries off the beautiful damsel," said Bolt. "Zeus. God of lightning and thunder. Thunder bolts, right?"

"Careful," said Quentin. "It makes Hera jealous."

"Yeah, well, there is no Hera," said Bolt. "The woman who gets up at night with my kids, she's the only woman for me."

She smiled at him, wan with fatigue, but pleased nonetheless at what he said. "Look at him, this is my romancer," she said. "The swan could pick me up, I don't think it could fly. God never made no swan that big."

Quentin could hear how she exaggerated the Bronx in her speech as she modestly refused her husband's worshipful words. A sweet woman, a good woman. And Bolt did love her. Too bad how he was in thrall to a witch whose daughter now had control of her and of the men she happened to possess. If Rowena wanted him, he'd walk away from Leda without a backward glance. And yet he'd know that he had done it. Could he bear living with that? Roz certainly wouldn't care; would Rowena?

They finished the chocolate. Quentin refused to talk about his plans. He didn't have any. He couldn't afford to have any. Drive to the rest home? Stay here waiting for Roz to arrive?

Leda went back to bed after rinsing the mugs. Bolt showed Quentin to his room. Not a couch, a fold-out bed, nicely made. A TV with a remote. "Not the Ritz," said Bolt.

"Beats Motel Six, though," said Quentin.

"Good night, then. You won't need no alarm in this house. We'll keep the door closed, but the pitter-patter of little feet will probably sound like World War II."

"I won't mind."

Bolt turned to go.

"Mike. Would I be wasting my time if I asked you for the loan of a gun?"

"You don't need a gun. Guns just go off and hurt people."

"You know what I'm up against."

"You can't shoot women who don't leave footprints, Quentin."

"The ones I'll be with, they leave footprints."

"Have you ever fired a gun?" asked Bolt.

"I promise you I won't shoot it around any civilians."

"What's to stop them from taking it away from you and shooting you with it?"

"I've got to have something, Mike."

"I'll get you something for self-defense. But don't even think about lethal force, Quentin. If there's any lethal force needed, I'll do it."

"You plan to be there?"

"Wouldn't miss it."

"But will you be a free man, Mike?"

"What do you mean?"

"Rowena owns you, Mike. Her mother said so."

"Her mother's lying," said Bolt cheerfully. "I owe her a lot, but what she says about Rowena, you just got to consider the source."

No point in arguing with him. Maybe Mike would be an asset, maybe he wouldn't. But since Quentin refused to think of any plan besides to wing it, he didn't let himself consider the question.

"Aw, don't look so glum, Quentin. Just think—you've been seduced by a succubus and now you get to have a showdown between the witches and the macho guys."

"Sweet of you to include me with the macho guys," said Quentin.

"That's what it means to be... pals." Bolt gri

"Not just guys, but pals." Quentin laid his hand on his heart. "I'm touched."

Bolt shook his head. "Yeah, well, just remember that if one of us has to die in that house tomorrow, I sure hope it's you."

"I know Leda wouldn't have it any other way," said Quentin.