By the light of the moon

– a soggy wad large
enough to make his entire face ache from the strain of containing
it – prevented him from working his jaws as aggressively as
he would have liked. Nevertheless, by persistently flexing his
facial muscles, he loosened the strips of tape, which slowly began
to peel up at the ends and to unravel like a mummy's wrappings.
    He drew his tongue out from under the gag, contracted it behind
that ball of cloth, and strove to press the foreign material out of
his mouth. The extruding rag put pressure on the half-undone tape,
which caused twinges of mild pain when, at a few points, the
adhesive strips separated from his lips with a tiny prize of
skin.
    Like a giant human-moth hybrid regurgitating a disagreeable
dinner in a low-budget horror movie, he steadily expelled the vile
cloth, which slid wetly over his chin, onto his chest. Looking
down, he recognized the saliva-soaked ejecta: one of his nearly
knee-length white athletic socks, which Doc apparently had found in
a suitcase. At least it had been a clean sock.
    Half the tape had fallen away, but two strips remained, one
dangling from each corner of his mouth, like catfish whiskers. He
twitched his lips, shook his head, but the drooping lengths of tape
clung fast.
    At last he could shout for help, but he kept silent. Whoever
came to free him would want to know what had happened, and some
concerned citizen would call the police, who would arrive before
Dylan could throw his gear – and Shep – into the SUV
and hit the road. If killers were coming, any delay could be
deadly.
    Point in pine, gleaming brightly, the pocketknife awaited
use.
    He leaned forward, lowered his head, and clamped the
rubber-coated handle of the knife in his teeth. Got a firm grip.
Carefully worked the little instrument back and forth, widening the
wound in the arm of the chair until he freed the blade.
    'Doodle-deedle-doodle.'
    Dylan once more sat up straight in the chair, biting on the
handle of the pocketknife, staring cross-eyed at the point, on
which a star of light twinkled. He was armed now, but he didn't
feel particularly dangerous.
    He dared not drop the knife. If it fell on the floor, Shepherd
wouldn't pick it up for him. To retrieve it, Dylan would have to
rock the chair, topple it sideways, and risk injury. Risking injury
remained always near the top of his list of Things That Smart
People Don't Do. Even if he toppled the chair without catastrophe,
from that new and more awkward position, he might have a hard time
getting his mouth around the handle again, especially if the knife
bounced under the bed.
    He closed his eyes and brooded on his options for a moment
before making another move.
    'Doodle-deedle-doodle.'
    Because he was an artist, brooding was supposed to come easily
to Dylan; however, he had never been that kind of artist,
never one to wallow in bleak thoughts about the human condition or
to despair over man's inhumanity to man. On an individual level,
the human condition changed day by day, even hour by hour, and
while you were soaking in self-pity over a misfortune, you might
miss an opportunity for a redeeming triumph. And for every act of
inhumanity, the species managed to commit a hundred acts of
kindness; so if you were the type to brood, you would be more
sensible if you dwelt on the remarkable goodwill with which most
people treated others even in a society where the cultural elites
routinely mocked virtue and celebrated brutality.
    In this case, his options were so severely limited that although
he might be an unskilled brooder, he was able quickly to arrive at
a plan of action. Leaning forward again, he brought the cutting
edge of the blade to one of the loops of glossy black tape that
fixed his left wrist to an arm of the chair. Much like a goose
bobbing its head, much as Shep sometimes spent hours imitating a goose bobbing its head, Dylan sawed with the
pocketknife. The bonds began to part, and once his left hand was
freed, he transferred the knife from teeth to fingers.
    As Dylan quickly cut away the remaining restraints, the jigsaw
junkie – now locking pieces in the picture at a frenetic pace
that even methamphetamine could not have precipitated –
altered his nonsense chant: 'Deedle-doodle-diddle.'
    'I feel a pressure in my middle.'
    'Deedle-doodle-diddle.'
    'I think I have to piddle.'

6
    Jilly opened her eyes and saw, blearily, the salesman
and his identical twin bending over the bed on which she
reclined.
    Although she knew that she