On the plus side, Rita had made me some very good soup. She was really very good to me —she deserved better, even though she clearly didn't know that. She thought she had everything, apparently, between me, the children, and our recent trip to Paris. And although she did, in fact, have these things, none of them remotely resembled what she thought they were. She was like a mother lamb in a wolf pack, and she only saw white fluffy wool all around her when in fact the pack was licking its lips and waiting for her to turn her back. Dexter, Cody and Astor were monsters. And Paris —well, they did actually speak French there, just as she had hoped. But Paris had proved to have its own unique kind of monster, too, as our wonderful interval at the art gallery had proved. What was it called? “Jennifer's Leg.” Very interesting; after all my years of toiling in the fields it was still possible for me to see something that surprised me, and for that reason I felt a certain warmth for Paris nowadays.

Between Jennifer and her leg, and Rita's eccentric performance, and whatever it was that Weiss was doing, life was just full of surprises lately, and they all boiled down to one thing: people really deserve whatever happens to them, don't they?

It may not do me very much credit, but I found this thought very comforting, and I drifted back to sleep soon after.

The next morning my head had cleared a great deal; whether it was from Rita's attentions or just my naturally chipper metabolism, I couldn't say. In any case, I jumped out of bed with a fully functioning and powerfully effective brain at my service once again, which was all to the good.

The down side to that, however, was that any effective brain, realizing it was in the situation in which I found myself, would also find itself fighting down a very strong urge to panic, pack a bag, and run for the border. But even with my mental powers in high gear, I could not think of a border that would protect me from the mess I was in.

Still, life gives us very few real choices, and most of them are awful, so I headed for work, determined to track down Weiss, and not to rest until I had him. I still did not understand him, or what he was doing, but that did not mean I couldn't find him. No, indeed; Dexter was part bloodhound and part bulldog, and when he is on your trail you might as well give up and save us all time and bother.

I wondered if there was a way to get that message to Weiss.