“More than one,” Phil said, working on his coffee. “But you in particular.”
I pushed Blackstone’s invitation to the dinner in front of him. Phil had already seen it, but he looked at it again. “I think I should have a talk with Calvin Ott,” he said.
Blackstone didn’t know, but I did, that “a little talk” to Phil was a few questions and then, if he didn’t like the answers, woe to the other guy.
“Why don’t I do that?” I said. “You stay with Mr. Blackstone and….”
There was a knock at the door, and a short, pudgy man with thick glasses, very little hair and a half-smoked cigar stepped in without being invited. Shelly Minck was wearing a once-white short smock with small but distinct splotches of blood in a decorative line across his chest.
Shelly was a dentist. At least he had a dental degree. There were those who called him less respectful things than “dentist.” His technique was clumsy, his office less than clean, his manner insensitive, and his enthusiasm unbridled. Until a month ago, when my brother joined me, I had rented a small cubbyhole inside Shelly’s office down the hall.
Shelly had spent years inventing devices to improve the dental health of the world while, on a personal one- on-one level, he did his best to undermine the mouths of those who mistakenly let themselves be drawn into his chair. One of Shelly’s inventions had actually paid off. He had sold it to a medical products manufacturer in Iowa or Nebraska. He wasn’t quite rich, but he was close to it. I had tried to persuade him to retire and devote himself to inventing. I had failed and, in so doing, doomed who knows how many innocent and guilty mouths.
“I can’t abandon my patients,” he had explained. “They count on me. They trust me. My skills are legendary. You know that, Toby.”
He was right, but the legend was Sleepy Hollow.
“I’m interrupting?” Shelly asked, looking at Blackstone.
“Yes,” said Phil.
“Just take a minute,” Shelly said, moving forward, adjusting his glasses on his nose before they slipped off.
“Shelly,” I tried.
He held up a hand and said, “Grieg.”
“Grieg?” said Phil, turning his body in his chair to look at the dentist.
“Edvard, the composer,” said Shelly.
“You’ve got Grieg in your office?” I asked.
“No, no,” Shelly said, sitting down uninvited and glancing at Blackstone.
It was clear Shelly was trying to place the magician. I prayed to whatever gods might be that recognition didn’t come.
“I think Grieg is dead,” said Shelly. “Good point though. I’ll check. Maybe we can go into partnership. Toby, like all great discoveries, the telephone, penicillin, liverwurst, it came to me by accident. Had the radio on. That guy who plays the piano in the afternoon. Had Mrs. Westermanchen in the chair. She just closed her eyes. Music played.”
“Grieg,” said Blackstone, intrigued by this rotund vision.
“Yep,” said Shelly, pointing at Blackstone. “Worked on her cavity. Molar. Deep. Not a peep. Not a scream.”
Patients, except for the most stoic and those who enjoyed pain, frequently screamed under Shelly’s care.
“Tried it again with three other patients,” he said. “Worked. Grieg knocks them out. There’s a fortune here somewhere and a medical breakthrough and … the possibilities are goddamn staggering and.…”
He stopped suddenly and looked at Blackstone.
“Can I trust this guy?”
“Minck, go away,” said Phil.
Shelly got up.
“I just told the biggest secret of my life to a stranger,” Shelly bleated.
“I’m accustomed to keeping secrets,” Blackstone said, obviously amused.
“I can believe this guy?” Shelly asked, looking at me and readjusting his glasses.
“You can.”
Shelly turned to the magician, looked at him, and suddenly placed him.
“Blackstone,” he said.
Blackstone nodded.
“The magician. Hey, wait a minute. Wait a minute. Maybe we’ve got something here. Fate. Something. You’re here. Fate. I figure out the Grieg stuff. Fate. Juanita says when things like this happen, it means something.”
“Juanita?” questioned Blackstone.
Shelly ignored him and said,
“I’ve got it. Magical dentistry. The Blackstone amp; Minck secret of painless dentistry.”
“Minck, get the hell out of here,” Phil said, rising from his chair.
Phil’s face was pink. Soon it would turn red. When it did, it would mean disaster for one babbling dentist.
“Go,” I said. “Now, Sheldon.”
“But …”
“Now,” I insisted.
“Fine, fine, fine,” he said, moving to the door. “A revolution in dentistry comes through your portals and you turn it away.”
Phil was standing and facing him now.
“I’m going,” said Shelly, his hand palm out at Phil to hold him back. “Mr. Blackstone, I’m right down the hall. Let’s talk.”
And Shelly was gone.
“Sorry,” I said.
“No,” said Blackstone. “That was the funniest performance I’ve seen since I was on a bill with Raymond Hooey, the comic chiropractor, in Provo, Utah.”
Phil refilled his coffee cup and mine and offered Blackstone some. Blackstone declined, lost in thought.
“A dental illusion,” he said. “A man, no, a woman strapped into a dental chair. A few people from the audience onstage. A dental drill making that familiar drilling sound. It looks as if I’m drilling. They would swear I was drilling or even removing teeth. Yes, I remove the teeth, show them, and put them in a small urn. The patient opens his mouth to a few people from the audience who have come onstage. Front teeth are missing. The patient’s mouth is closed and when it opens, the teeth are all back, no longer in the urn and then the patient.…”
Blackstone stopped, suddenly out of his reverie and said, “That’s a ridiculous idea. That dentist is infectious.”
“He can be,” I said. “I suggest when you leave here you hurry past his door before he convinces you that you need bridgework.”
We fixed a fee, forty dollars a day plus expenses plus a two hundred-dollar retainer, shook hands, and Blackstone and Phil headed for the door. As they were about to leave, I said,
“Sure you don’t want to just call off Ott’s party?”
“I’m looking forward to it,” Blackstone said, with more than just a twinkle in his eye.
Chapter 3
Place a saucer and a drinking glass 1/4 full of water on a table. Drop a coin in the saucer. Pour 1/2-inch of water from the glass into the saucer. Ask a member of your audience to remove the coin with his or her fingers and not get the fingers wet without lifting the saucer. Solution: Take a piece of paper. Hold it over the empty glass. Strike a match. Drop the burning paper in the glass. As soon as the paper is finished burning, place the inverted
