The hotel lobby was empty. There was no sign saying anyone was out to lunch. Turning to leave, Jim ran into Crazy Cal who was coming in out of the rain. The man was wearing a yellow rain slicker and hat, boots and an open umbrella over his shoulder.

"Oh," Jim said. "Slow down."

"Sorry," the man said, sounding scolded.

Jim stepped back to give the man room. "Getting wet out there?"

He nodded as he fumbled with the big black buttons of his yellow rain slicker.

"You know where Lucy went off to?" Jim asked.

"Home," he said, as if common knowledge.

"Home?"

The man nodded again. He had his slicker off now and was shaking it over the floor mat. "She goes home for dinner everyday," he corrected himself.

"Who watches the hotel when she's gone?"

The man looked at Jim as if the question should have been so obvious and simple that it didn't even need to be asked. For a few awkward seconds, the two men eyed each other. There was a measure of tension in the air before the man they called Crazy Cal finally looked away and said, "She'll come back to put the night coffee on. She'll come back for sure."

Jim noticed that the rain subsided. He looked past Crazy Cal and saw sharp sunrays piercing through the breaking cloud cover. The hard hitting storm had moved past them and on to another small town. "Can you tell me where the sheriff's office is located?"

Excited, Crazy Cal walked around behind the counter and pulled out a blank pad. He found a pen and started jotting something down. He worked fast as Jim looked on. He didn't see where the man was called crazy unless there was more to the story than what Lucy had told him.

"Here," Crazy Cal mumbled as he tore off the sheet of paper from the pad.

Jim studied the scribble. It was a map. There was the hotel with the caption "Hotel" scribbled over it. He had drawn the roads crossing as they were in real life just outside. By this sketch, the office of the sheriff was to the north. It was further up the road on Route 12 and then turning to the east on Route 59. It looked to be a good distance away. There were added landmarks such as a square labeled "Food" which must have been a grocery or convenience store. There were tree outcrops and homes, a gas station and a pawn shop.

"Well, this is nice. You ever think about going into map making?"