By the light of the moon

agreed.
    'I loved those tastefully subdued tail fins.'
    'Elegant.'
    'Its howitzer-shell front bumper.'
    'Very howitzery.'
    'They put the name, Coupe DeVille , in gold script on the
sides. That was such a sweet detail. Now it's all blown up, burned,
and stinking of one toasted Frankenstein. Who forgets such a
thing?'
    Shep said, 'Manure. Ordure.'
    Jilly asked, 'What's he doing now?'
    'A while ago,' Dylan reminded her, 'you told me I was crude. You
suggested I find polite synonyms for a certain word that offended
you. Shep accepted your challenge.'
    'Crap. Coprolite.'
    'But that was back before we left the motel,' she said.
    'Shep's sense of time isn't like yours and mine. Past, present,
and future aren't easily differentiated for him, and sometimes he
acts as if they're all the same thing and happening
simultaneously.'
    'Poopoo,' said Shep. 'Kaka.'
    'My point about the Caddy,' Dylan continued, 'is that when those
thugs in polo shirts discover it doesn't belong to Frankenstein,
that it's registered to one Jillian Jackson, then they're going to
come looking for you. They'll want to know how he got your
car, whether you gave it to him willingly.'
    'I knew I should've gone to the cops. Should've filed a
stolen-vehicle report like a good citizen would. Now I look
suspicious.'
    'Doodoo. Diaper dump.'
    'If Frankenstein was right,' Dylan warned, 'maybe the cops can't
protect you. Maybe these people can pull rank on the cops.'
    'Then I guess we'd have to go to – who? The FBI?'
    'Maybe you can't escape these guys. Maybe they can pull rank on
the FBI, too.'
    'Who in God's name are they – the Secret Service, the CIA,
Santa Claus's elf gestapo out making their who's-been-naughty
list?'
    'Cow pie. Waste.'
    'Frankenstein didn't say who they were,' Dylan reported. 'He
just said if they find the stuff in our blood, we'll be as dead as
dinosaurs and buried where our bones won't ever be found.'
    'Yeah, maybe that's what he said, but why should we believe him
anyway? He was a mad scientist.'
    'Evacuation. Voidance. Toilet treasure.'
    'He wasn't mad,' Dylan averred.
    'You called him a lunatic.'
    'And you called him a salesman. We've called him a lot of things
in the heat of the moment—'
    'Potty packing. Outhouse input. Excreta.'
    '—but given his options,' Dylan continued, 'considering
that he knew those guys were on his tail and were going to
kill him, he took the most logical, rational action available to
him.'
    Her mouth opened as wide as if she were assuming the cooperative
position for a root canal. 'Logical? Rational?' She reminded
herself that she didn't really know Mr. Dylan O'Conner. In the end,
he might prove to be more peculiar than his brother. 'Okay, let me
get this straight. The smiley creep chloroforms me, shoots Dr.
Jekyll juice or something into my veins, steals my fabulous car,
gets himself blown up – and in your enlightened view, that
behavior qualifies him to coach the university debating team?'
    'Obviously, they'd pushed him into a corner, time was running
out, and he did the only thing he could do to save his
life's work. I'm sure he didn't intend to get himself blown
up.'
    'You're as insane as he was,' Jilly decided.
    'Dejecta. Bulldoody.'
    'I'm not saying that what he did was right ,' Dylan
clarified. 'Only that it was logical. If we operate under the
assumption that he was just nuttier than a one-pound jar of Jif,
we're making a mistake that could get us killed. Think about it: If
we die, he loses. So he wants us to stay alive, if only because
we're his... I don't know... because we're his living experiments
or something. Consequently, I have to assume that everything he
told me was meant to help us stay alive.'
    'Filth. Dung. A withdrawal from the bowel bank.'
    Immediately to the north and south of the interstate lay plains
as black as ancient hearthstones stained by the char of ten
thousand fires, with isolated mottlings as gray as ashes where
moonlight and starlight glimmered off the reflective surfaces of
desert vegetation and mica-flecked rock formations. Directly east,
but also curving toward the highway with viselike relentlessness
from the northeast and the southeast, the Peloncillo Mountains
presented a barren and forbidding silhouette: hard, black, jagged
slabs darker than the night sky into which they thrust.
    This wasteland offered no comfort to the mind, no consolation to
the heart, and except for the interstate, it provided no evidence
that it existed on a populated planet. Even along these