I lifted myself slowly to my hands and knees, sat down on the floor, reached again to my cheek. Something was sticking out, some shard. I took hold and pulled, and after an initial tug of resistance out it came, with little slurp. A wedge of glass, slightly curved. I wasn’t the first person skewered by television, but all in all I would have preferred it be on 60 Minutes.

I thought about climbing to my feet, staggering down the steps, seeing if I could spot my attacker, but as the nausea started blossoming like a beastly flower in my gut, I thought better of it. And I already knew, didn’t I?

Tilda. It rhymes with Brunhilda. The fat lady had sung.

71

I entered Dr. Pfeffer’s waiting room with great wariness. I almost expected Tilda to be guarding the entrance with a baseball bat and a sign saying NO TWO-BIT LAWYERS ALLOWED, but everything was as it was before. The walls were still beige, pretty Deirdre behind the desk was still smiling. The same bright lights, same jaunty Muzak, same oppressive sense of cheer.

And I, apparently, was still more than welcome.

“Oh, Mr. Carl, we’re so glad you’ve come for a visit. Is that a new tie? And what’s that on your cheek? I hope it’s nothing serious.”

“Just a little too much television,” I said, not mentioning the hours spent in the emergency room, the needles of Novocain, the fourteen stitches.

“I don’t see you down as having an appointment today. Are we mistaken?”

“No, Deirdre, your book is right. I thought I’d drop in for a friendly little chat with the doctor. Is he in?”

“Dr. Pfeffer is seeing another patient right now, but he’ll certainly be glad to see you. You’re one of his favorites.”

“Tell me about it.”

“I think one of the examination rooms is available. If you want, Mr. Carl, you can wait for the doctor in Examination Room B. As a rule we don’t let visitors in the operational part of the office, but I’m sure that’s a rule we can bend for you.”

I looked at the closed door that led to the hallway that led to the examination rooms and the examination chairs and the picks and the drills and the… I looked at the door and I shuddered.

“No, thank you,” I said. “To tell you the truth, you couldn’t drag me back there with a chain and a backhoe.”

She smiled, unsure of what to say to that. “Then please take a seat. I’m sure the doctor will be out shortly.”

I sat in a beige chair, picked up an old magazine, tried to calm my nerves. It was unsettling enough to be there in the first place – it was the waiting room to a dentist’s office, after all – but it was doubly so since this dentist seemed to be after more than the usual amount of my blood. He wanted me to leave him out of the Dubé case, and the pressure was accelerating at an alarming rate. It had to stop, somehow, and that was the purpose of my visit. I could back off, sure, but as much as I had decided to do just that the night before, as the doctor was tying up the stitches in my cheek, one after the other after the other, I’m not built that way. I don’t have much of a spine, it’s a wonder I can stand up in the morning, but push me like he had been pushing me and whatever is actually there stiffens with doggedness. So I figured the way to get it over with was to get it over with, to drop the damn subpoena on his lap and end the suspense.

The door to the examination room opened. I jumped to my feet. Tilda stood in the doorway, bent stiffly to the right, her left eye swollen shut. She stared at me with malice in her one open eye before she moved to the side and Dr. Bob and his patient, a lovely young woman, brushed past her to the desk.

Dr. Bob stopped suddenly when he saw me, his face startled for a moment before recovering into a smile. “Victor, hello. What an unexpected pleasure.”

He squinted at the bandage on my cheek, as if he were actually surprised to see it, then turned to take in Tilda’s sorry condition.

“Have you two been seeing each other behind my back?” he said, his voice wide with amusement.

I waited as he spoke to his patient while writing a note in her file. She looked nervously at the bandage on my cheek before leaving. When the door closed, I stepped over to the reception desk with the subpoena in my hand.

“I have something for you, Doctor,” I said, and then, quick as that, I served him. I felt suddenly lighter, as if, instead of a few official pages backed with blue cardboard, I had shed a couple barbells and a curling iron.

He looked the subpoena over briefly, shrugged. “I’ll see if I’m available on that date,” he said flatly. “But on to something far more worthwhile.” His face abruptly brightened, his voice turned hearty and cheerful. “I seem to remember I wanted to give you a thorough cleaning before I installed your new bridge. Well, I have good news. A hole has opened in my schedule. I have time to do the cleaning right now. Come on back.”

“I don’t think so,” I said.

“Oh, don’t be worried, Victor, this is the easiest part of the process. Sometimes I have Tilda do the cleanings, she’s very thorough, as you can imagine, but you I’ll take care of myself.”

I glanced over at the now open doorway, from where Tilda glared. “I’m not going back there.”

“Of course you are,” he said. “I noticed your gums are quite spongy. A cleaning will do wonders. Your smile will shine, I promise you.”

“I’ll find someone else to do it, and to fill the hole, too.”

“But that’s such a waste. Your bridge will be here any day. Oh, don’t be such a chicken boy. Cluck, cluck, cluck. We’re both professionals, are we not? If we are to trust anything in each other, we at least must trust that. Can I have Victor’s file, please, Deirdre?”

I watched nervously as Deirdre left the front office to retrieve the file, leaving me alone with Dr. Bob and Tilda, who continued to stare with one eye swollen shut and the other eye evil.

“Come on back, now,” said Dr. Bob as he headed past Tilda and through the door. “This won’t take much time. And while I’m scraping the tartar and buffing the enamel, I have some interesting news to tell you. That address you were looking for? I found it.”

“The key for me was Rex,” said Dr. Bob as he slipped his metal pick between my tooth and gum and scraped and scraped and scraped.

“You remember Rex, of course, the rather large man with the unfortunate teeth stationed outside the Hotel Latimore. Loosen your lower lip, please. Don’t fight me here, Victor. I need to get beneath the gum line. Whoever taught you to floss should be shot. Once I figured that Rex was my key to entering the Hotel Latimore, it was only a matter of finding a way to reach him. Lucky me, I have rarely seen a man more in need of a dentist.”

Frankly, I was having a hard time concentrating on Dr. Bob’s story. I was having a hard time not bolting out of the examination chair and running for my life. But Dr. Bob had an address and a story to tell, and I needed both, not to mention that my teeth could always use a good cleaning. So I decided to gut it out, even though my nerves were so hyperalert that every time the metal of his pick touched tooth or gum, I jumped. But, surprisingly, Dr. Bob was being uncharacteristically gentle. In fact, the most pain I was experiencing was the cramping in my hands as I gripped tight the arms of the chair.

“I must say he was a better patient than you, Victor. A higher tolerance for pain, or maybe he simply doesn’t know me as well as you do. Well, Rex led me to a young woman named Claire, who worked in the office with the formidable Miss Elise, the Reverend Wilkerson’s unlikely-looking paramour. I first tried with Miss Elise and got nowhere. Such a dried-up old spinster, immune to all my charms, imagine that. But Claire was something different. Very beautiful, idealistic, a truly spiritual young woman. I think Rex has a thing for her. Wouldn’t it be nice if I could get those two together? I think I’ll make that my next mission. Why don’t you spit?”