Dean Koontz - By the Light of the Moon

Through the tinted window, through the heat snakes writhing up from the sun-baked pavement, he saw another black Suburban in front of the motel that stood on the far side of the street.

Finishing the last bite of his lunch, Shep said, 'Shep wants cake.'

From his angle of view, even with his face close to the window, Dylan wasn't able to see the entire Suburban now that it had parked in front of the registration office. Half the vehicle remained in his line of sight, however, and he watched two men get out of the driver's side. Dressed in lightweight, light-colored clothes suitable for a desert resort, they looked like golfers headed for an afternoon on the links: unusually big golfers; unusually big, tough-looking golfers.

'Please,' Shep remembered to say. 'Cake please.'

Dylan was accustomed to being one of the biggest guys in just about any room, but the two hulks who got out of the driver's side of the Suburban looked as if they had spent the morning in a rodeo ring, tossing cowboys in the air and goring them. They disappeared around the car, heading toward the motel office.

'Let's go,' he said, sliding out of the booth, rising to his feet.

Jilly got up at once, but Shep didn't move. Head bowed, staring at his clean plate, he said, 'Cake please.'

Even if served in a wedge instead of a square, the single curved end of a piece of cake could be flattened easily. Otherwise, a wedge was satisfyingly angular, not curvy, not shapey. Shep loved cake.

'We'll get cake,' Dylan lied. 'But first we're going to the men's room, buddy.'

'Pee?' Shep asked.

'Pee,' Dylan confirmed quietly, determined to avoid making a scene.

'Shep doesn't need to pee.'

Fire laws and a need to receive deliveries guaranteed the existence of a back door; but no doubt they would have to go through the kitchen to reach it, a route that would assure too much commotion even if they were permitted to take it. They dared not leave by the front door, for fear of being spotted by the faux golfers. Only one exit remained.

'You may not get another chance for a while, buddy. Better go now,' Dylan explained.

'No pee.'

Their waitress arrived. 'Will that be everything?'

'Cake,' said Shep.

'Could we have menus to look at the desserts?' Dylan asked.

'Cake.'

'I thought you were leaving,' the waitress said.

'Just going to the men's room,' Jilly assured her. When the waitress frowned, Jilly added, 'The men's and the ladies'.'

'Cake.'

Withdrawing their lunch ticket from a pocket of her apron, the waitress said, 'We have some wonderful cakes.' She extracted a pencil from her elaborately piled and pinned red hair. 'Toasted-coconut, Black Forest, lemon, and lemon-walnut.'

'We don't all want cake,' Dylan said. 'We'll need menus.'

'Cake,' said Shepherd.

As the waitress went to get menus, Dylan said, 'Come on, Shep.'

'Cake. Toasted-coconut-'

'Pee first, Shep.'

'-Black Forest-'

By now the men in the Suburban would be at the registration desk in the motel office.

'-lemon-'

If they were carrying law-enforcement credentials, they would be presenting them to the desk clerk.

'-and lemon-walnut.'

If they had no credentials, they would be using intimidation to get the information they wanted.

'No pee,' Dylan quietly informed Shep, 'no cake.'

Licking his lips in anticipation of the cake, Shep considered this ultimatum.

'Dylan,' Jilly said softly but urgently. 'The window.'

The second black Suburban had crossed the street from the other motel. It parked behind the SUV that already stood in front of the registration office next door to the coffee shop.

Unless given absolutely no other option, Dylan didn't want to seize his brother by the arm and haul him out of the booth. In that event, the kid would probably come, although his cooperation was not a certainty. He wouldn't resist violently, but if he set his mind to it, he could become as immovable as a stubborn octopus.

Carrying menus, the waitress began the return trip from the hostess station.

'No pee, no cake?' Shepherd asked.

'No pee, no cake.'

'Pee, then cake?' Shep asked.

'Pee, then cake,' Dylan agreed.

Shepherd slid out of the booth.

Arriving with the menus just as Shepherd stood up, dropping them on the table, the waitress asked, 'Can I get you coffee?'

Dylan saw the front door open. Sun glared on that moving glass panel, and from this oblique angle, he couldn't see who might be entering until they stepped inside.

'Two coffees,' Jilly said.

An elderly couple crossed the threshold. They were probably in their eighties. Not stooped, spry enough, but surely not assassins.

'Milk,' Shep mumbled.

'Two coffees and one milk,' Dylan told the waitress.

The glass that the milk came in would have a round mouth; but the milk itself wasn't round. It wasn't shapey, but shapeless, and Shepherd never harbored a prejudice against any food solely because of the design of the container in which it might be served.

'Cake,' Shepherd said as, head down, he followed Dylan between the tables, with Jilly at the end of their procession. 'Cake. Pee, then cake. Pee, then cake.'

The restrooms lay off a hall at the back of the coffee shop.

Ahead of Dylan, a burly bearded man in a tank-top shirt sported enough colorful tattoos just on his exposed arms and neck, and on his bald head, to qualify as an attraction in a sideshow. He went into the men's room.

As they gathered in the hallway, still in the line of sight of some of the diners in the restaurant, Dylan said to Jilly, 'Check the women's room.'

She stepped into the lavatory and returned before the door had time to fall shut behind her. 'Nobody's in here.'

Dylan urged his brother to step into the women's restroom with Jilly, and followed close behind him.

The doors stood open on each of two stalls. The outer door between the lav and the hallway could not be locked. Someone might walk in on them at any moment.

The only window appeared to be painted shut, and in any event, it was too small to provide escape.

Dylan said, 'Buddy, I need you to do something for me.'

'Cake.'

'Shep, I need you to fold us out of here and back to our room in the motel.'

'But they'll be going to our room,' Jilly objected.

'They won't be there yet. We left the computer running, with the Proctor interview. We don't want them to see that. I don't know where we'll be going from here, but wherever it is, they'll have a better chance of staying on our heels if they realize how much we know and can try to anticipate our moves.'

'Toasted-coconut cake.'

'Besides,' Dylan added, 'there's an envelope of cash in my shaving kit, almost five hundred bucks, and right now all we have is what's in my wallet.' He put one hand under Shep's chin, raised his head. 'Shep, you've got to do this for me.'

Shep closed his eyes. 'Don't pee in public.'

'I'm not asking you to pee, Shep. Just fold us back to our room. Now. Right now, Shep.'

'No Goldfish, no pee, no fold.'

'This is different, Shep.'

'No Goldfish, no pee, no fold.'

'That rule doesn't apply, buddy. We're not in public now.'

Shepherd wasn't buying that line of argument. After all, this was called a public restroom, and he knew it. 'No Goldfish, no pee, no fold.'

'Listen, buddy, you've seen a lot of movies, you know what bad guys are.'

'Pee in public.'

'Worse bad guys than that. Bad guys with guns. Killers like in the movies. We've got some bad guys looking for us, Shep.'

'Hannibal Lecter.'

'I don't know. Maybe they're that bad. I don't know. But if you don't help me here, if you don't fold us when I ask you to, then for sure things are going to get gooey-bloody.'