By the light of the moon

Coyote, the hapless
predator of the Road Runner cartoons. Shoeless, he accompanied the
larger man with reluctance; his right sock appeared to be snugly
fitted, but his loose left sock flapped with each step.
    Although the Wile E. fan shuffled along with his arms dangling
limply at his sides, offering no resistance, Jilly assumed he would
have preferred not to go with the bearish man, because he was being
pulled by his left ear. At first she thought she heard him
protesting this indignity. When the pair drew closer and she could
hear the younger guy more clearly, however, she couldn't construe
his words as a protest.
    '—electroluminescence, cathode luminescence—'
    The bearish one halted in front of Jilly, bringing the smaller
man to a stop as well. In a voice much deeper – but no less
gentle – than that of Pooh, of Pooh Corners, he said, 'Excuse
me, ma'am, I didn't hear what you said.'
    Head tilted under the influence of the hand that gripped his
left ear, the younger man kept talking, though perhaps not either
to his burly keeper or to Jilly: '—nimbus, aureola, halo,
corona, parhelion—'
    She couldn't be certain whether this encounter was in reality as
peculiar as it seemed to be or whether the lingering anesthetic
might be distorting her perceptions. The prudent side of her argued
for silence and for a sprint toward the motel office, away from
these strangers, but the prudent side of her had hardly more
substance than a shadow, so she repeated herself: 'The smiley
bastard stole my car.'
    '—aurora borealis, aurora polaris, starlight—'
    Seeing the focus of Jilly's attention, the giant said, 'This is
my brother, Shep.'
    '—candlepower, foot-candle, luminous flux—'
    'Pleased to meet you, Shep,' she said, not because she was in
fact pleased to meet him, but because she didn't know what else to
say, never having been in precisely this situation before.
    '—light quantum, photon, bougie decimale ,' said
Shep without meeting her eyes, and continued rattling out a
meaningless series of words as Jilly and the older brother
conversed.
    'I'm Dylan.'
    He didn't look like a Dylan. He looked like a Bruno or a Samson,
or a Gentle Ben.
    'Shep has a condition,' Dylan explained. 'Harmless. Don't worry.
He's just... not normal.'
    'Well, who is these days?' Jilly said. 'Normality hasn't been
attainable since maybe 1953.' Woozy, she leaned against one of the
posts that supported the walkway cover. 'Gotta call the cops.'
    'You said "smiley bastard."'
    'Said it twice.'
    'What smiley bastard?' he asked with such urgency that you would
have thought the missing Cadillac had been his, not hers.
    'The smiley, peanut-eating, needle-poking, car-stealing bastard, that's what bastard.'
    'Something's on your arm.'
    Curiously, she expected to see the beetle resurrected. 'Oh. A
Band-Aid.'
    'A bunny,' he said, his broad face cinching with worry.
    'No, a Band-Aid.'
    'Bunny,' he insisted. 'The son of a bitch gave you a bunny, and
I got a dancing dog.'
    The walkway was well enough lighted for her to see that both she
and Dylan sported children's Band-Aids: a colorful capering rabbit
on hers, a jubilant puppy on his.
    She heard Shep say, 'Lumen, candle-hour, lumen-hour,' before she
tuned him out again.
    'I have to call the cops,' she remembered.
    Dylan's voice, thus far earnest, grew more earnest still, and
quite grave, as well: 'No, no. We don't want cops. Didn't he tell
you how it is?'
    'He who?'
    'The lunatic doctor.'
    'What doctor?'
    'Your needle-poking bastard.'
    'He was a doctor? I thought he was a salesman.'
    'Why would you think he was a salesman?'
    Jilly frowned. 'I'm not sure now.'
    'Obviously, he's some sort of lunatic doctor.'
    'Why's he knocking around a motel, attacking people and stealing
Coupe DeVilles? Why isn't he just killing patients in HMOs like
he's supposed to?'
    'Are you all right?' Dylan asked, peering more closely at her.
'You don't look well.'
    'I almost puked, then I didn't, then I almost did again, but
then I didn't. It's the anesthetic.'
    'What anesthetic?'
    'Maybe chloroform. The lunatic salesman.' She shook her head.
'No, you're right, he must be a doctor. Salesmen don't administer
anesthetics.'
    'He just clubbed me on the head.'
    'Now that sounds more like a salesman. I gotta call the
cops.'
    'That's not an option. Didn't he tell you professional killers
are coming?'
    'I'm glad they're not amateurs. If you have to be killed, you
might as well be killed efficiently. Anyway, you believe him ? He's a thug