the threatening rainstorm.
Instead I made the move, opened the inner door, and stepped into Shelly’s office.
11
The scene: Shelly’s spick and span, squeaky clean, falsely antiseptic office. In it, behind the dental chair that occupies the position of power in the room-the electric chair, the throne-stands Shelly in a clean white dental smock buttoned at the collar, cigar nowhere in evidence. Next to Shelly, flanking him, are a man and a woman. The woman, about sixty, is dressed in a dark blue dress with big white flowers on it. She looks like Marjorie Main wrapped in wallpaper designed for the women’s room of a Dolly Dainty restaurant. The man is small, mustached, with a determined little chin, and losing his hair. He is like Porter Hall, the actor who snivels and makes a living by betraying Gary Cooper.
All three of them look at me and the dog, who wags his tail. Shelly looks bewildered, confused, and then an idea comes into his eyes. I can see it from where I stand and decide to break for my door, but the demon has taken over and the drama begins.
“Mr. Peters,” Shelly said, holding out an arm and grinning. The sweat was trickling down his nose and giving him a hell of a time keeping his glasses from falling to the floor. “You are a bit late for your appointment.”
“Wait a minute,” I said, holding up my own hand as Shelly advanced.
“Sorry,” Shelly chuckled, taking my arm. “But I’m afraid you’ll have to use the washroom later, Mr. Peters. Drs. Ferzetti and Vaughan are from the Dental Association and they would like to observe me with a patient.”
“Look,” I said, but Shelly whispered quickly, his back to the stony inspectors: “You can’t go in your office and give it away. You can’t, for chrissake, bring a dog in here. You can’t let me down on this, Toby.”
I grinned over Shelly’s shoulder at the two dentists, who did not grin back, and I talked to Shelly through my teeth like a third-rate ventriloquist.
“You are not getting me in that chair,” I said. “You are not working on my mouth, Minck. I’ve seen too many disasters crawl out of this office never to be heard from again, at least among the living.”
“Be with you in just a moment,” Shelly said to the two dentists. “Mr. Peters is just a bit shy about having people observe.” And then, whispering back to me, “That’s just what I’m telling you. They have complaints, for God’s sake. You know what kind of trouble I can be in if I don’t prove something here?”
“No more than you deserve to be in,” I said, tugging at the rope around the dog’s collar to keep him from sniffing Marjorie Main.
“My career,” Shelly said, putting a fat hand to his heart. “My life.” He was close enough for me to smell his cigar breath and sweat. The tears in his eyes were fogging his glasses.
“Our names go on the door the same size,” I said.
“Never,” said Shelly.
“Dr. Minck,” Porter Hall said, looking at his watch impatiently.
“Same size,” Shelly whispered to me.
“And-” I began.
“No ands, no ands here, Toby, this is blackmail,” Shelly said, almost weeping.
“You think I don’t know blackmail when I’m engaged in it?” I said. “I’m a detective. And … you keep the sink clean.”
“Dr. Minck,” the man said again. “We really must …”
“Here we come,” said Shelly, taking my arm and hissing to me. “All right.”
I should have asked for more. I knew it when I sat in the chair and watched Shelly lead the dog to my office door, open it, close the dog inside, and turn to me with a grin like Karloff as Fu Manchu.
“Now just what kind of dental work does this man need?” said Marjorie Main, looking down at me as if I were a fraud.
Shelly was pinning a clean sheet around my neck. I felt as if I were in a barber shop with W. C. Fields about to drop a scalding towel on my face to keep his own hands from burning.
“A great deal,” said Shelly, touching his chin and selecting an instrument to begin with.
“Doctor,” I said ominously.
“But,” Shelly went on, “today we are simply going to begin. We’ve got to take the X rays first.”
Before I could protest, Shelly had rolled out his X ray machine and placed a black metal cone from it against my cheek, then turned out the lights and filled my mouth with film. I tried with little success to breathe while three of us watched Shelly put on his dark goggles and heavy lead coat and unreel the extra long electrical cord.
“We’ll go behind the barricade in the corner,” he told the other doctors and headed over, looking like a field colonel directing his adjutants to safety during an attack.
“Hold it.” I said, pulling the boards out of my mouth. Shelly flicked the lights back on.
“Mr. Peters,” he said, removing his goggles. “You’ve exposed the goddamn film.”
“Better the film than me, Minck,” I said threateningly.
“Dr. Minck,” Marjorie Main stepped in. “We haven’t time to wait while you get the X rays developed. Can’t you simply do a visual examination now and some preliminary work so we can observe your procedures?”
“Dr. Ferzetti is right,” said the man. “We have other stops to make.”
Reluctantly, Shelly took off the lead coat and hung it, along with the goggles, in the closet. Then he turned to me.
“Open wide. Mr Peters,” he said leaning over, a recently cleaned mirror in his hand. He was breathng heavily as he put his weight on my chest and explored my mouth with a series of “Ah-ha’s” and “Well, well, wells.”
When he stepped back, he had a satisfied look on his face. Shelly cleaned the mirror on his smock, put it down on the clean white towel on his work tray, and asked me, “Do you brush your teeth regularly, Mr. Peters?”
“Regularly,” I said. “With Teel, or Dr. Lyon’s.”
“You’ve got some cavities,” Shelly said, picking up something with a sharp point and tapping it against his palm. “Let’s take care of one or two of them now.”
“Let’s,” sighed Porter Hall with more than a touch of impatience.
As soon as he had my mouth propped open and little blocks put in, Shelly turned to the two inspectors and said, “Mr. Peters is a well-known radio personality, aren’t you, Mr. Peters?”
I gargled and almost choked.
“Yes?” said the woman with some incredulity.
“Mr. Peters is the voice of Captain Midnight,” Shelly said, leaning over on the drill, which began to spin evilly just beyond the range of my right eye, which was straining toward it.
Shelly worked quickly, dripping sweat on me and singing a medley of Cole Porter tunes. He paused during “Anything Goes” to smile grimly and shrug. “Stubborn little yentz, but we’ll get him.”
Pain and I are not strangers, but even so, Shelly redefined it for me. It wasn’t the intensity but the duration. Shelly had the touch of a blind hippo and a tastefully matching manner and odor. But he was on his best behavior, which resulted in his failing to maim or kill me in the chair.
“That should do it,” he said, packing the silver filling into the two holes he had excavated in my teeth. “Have a look, colleagues.”
Shelly stepped back, and the two unfamiliar faces leaned forward to examine my mouth.
“Captain Midnight,” the woman said, after pursing her lips with doubt. “Can I have your autograph for my grandson?”
Shelly stuck a piece of paper and a pencil in my hand. I felt my tingling teeth with my torpid tongue and signed Tobias Leo Pevsner, parent-given name, adding, “With good wishes from your pal, Captain Midnight.”
“Okay, so what do you think?” Shelly said, turning to the two inspectors, his hands wringing.
“Well,” said the man. “You seem minimally competent.”
“Your office is clean if not modern,” the woman added.
“Your technique is very old-fashioned,” the man went on, taking out a notebook to write something. Shelly craned his neck to try to see what the man was carefully noting, but had no success.
