By the light of the moon

squirm against the palm of Dylan's
hand.
    He didn't release the knob in revulsion because simultaneously
he sensed the appealing traces of another and better personality
layered with the spoor of the sick soul. He received impressions of
a shining but anxious heart whose refuge, curiously, was in the
same place as the dragon's lair.
    Cautiously he pushed open the door.
    A large bedroom had been partitioned exactly at the midpoint as
clearly as though a line had been painted across the floor, up the
left-hand wall, across the ceiling, and down the right-hand wall.
The division had been effected not with any boundary markers,
however, but by the dramatic contrast between the interests and the
characters of the two residents who shared these lodgings.
    In addition to a bed and nightstand, the nearer half of the room
featured bookshelves stocked with paperbacks. Wall space remained
for an eclectic collection of three posters. In the first, a 1966
A.C. Shelby Cobra convertible rocketed along a highway toward a
dazzling red sunset; with its low profile, sensuously rounded
lines, and a silver finish that reflected the Technicolor sky, this
sports car was the embodiment of speed, joy, freedom. Beside the
Cobra hung a solemn portrait of a grumpy-looking C. S. Lewis. The
third was a poster of the famous photograph of U.S. Marines raising
Old Glory at the summit of a battle-scarred hill on Iwo Jima.
    Furnished with another bed and nightstand, the farther half of
the room had no books, no posters. There, the walls served as
display racks for a bristling collection of edge weapons. Thin
poniards and wider daggers, dirks, stilettos, one saber, one
scimitar, kukris and katars from India, a skean dhu from Scotland,
a short-handled halberd, bayonets, falchions, bowies, yataghans...
Many blades were etched with elaborate designs, handles ornately
carved and painted, pommels and quillons sometimes plain but often
elaborately decorated.
    In the nearer half of the room stood a small desk. On it, neatly
arranged, were a blotter, a pen set, a canister of pencils, a thick
dictionary, and a scale model of the 1966 A. C. Shelby Cobra.
    In the far zone, a work table held a plastic replica of a human
skull and a collapsed stack of pornographic videos.
    The nearer realm was dusted, swept, more elaborately appointed
than a monk's cell but every bit as neat as any friar's
habitat.
    Disorder ruled in the far kingdom. The bedclothes were tangled.
Dirty socks, discarded shoes, empty soda and beer cans, and
crumpled candy wrappers littered the floor, the nightstand, and the
shelf atop the headboard of the bed. Only the knives and other edge
weapons had been arranged with care – if not with loving
calculation – and judging by the mirror-bright gleam of every
blade, much time had been devoted to their maintenance.
    A pair of suitcases stood side by side in the center of the
room, on the border between these rival encampments. A black cowboy
hat with a green feather in the band was perched atop the
luggage.
    All this Dylan noted in one quick survey of the scene lasting
but three or four seconds, much as he had long been accustomed to
absorbing entire landscapes in vivid detail with an initial
sweeping gaze, in order to assess at first glance, before his head
overruled his heart, whether the subject merited the time and the
energy that he would have to expend to paint it and to paint it
well. The talent with which he'd been born included instant
photographic perception, but he dramatically enhanced it with
training, as he imagined that a gifted young cop consciously honed
his natural skills of observation until he earned detective
status.
    As any good cop would have done, Dylan began and ended this
initial sweep with the detail that most immediately and strikingly
denned the scene: a boy of about thirteen sat in the nearest bed,
wearing jeans and a New York City Fire Department T-shirt, shackled
at the ankles, cruelly gagged, and handcuffed to the brass
headboard.
    * * *
    Marj did her immovable-object shtick far better than Jilly could
pull off her irresistible-force act. Still anchored to the porch at
the top of the steps, she said worriedly, 'We've got to get
him.'
    Although Dylan wasn't her fella, Jilly didn't know how otherwise
to refer to him, since she didn't want to use his real name in
front of this woman and because she didn't know what food he had ordered earlier. 'Don't worry. My fella will get him,
Marj.'
    'I don't mean get Kenny,' Marj