William Lashner - Falls The Shadow

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?”

Spit, splot, splat.

“It was Claire who finally located for me the address. A rather simple operation in the end. Only had to break a few minor laws. But it wasn’t the address I found most interesting in the whole affair. It was Rex.

“We seem to be a little jumpy today. Why is that? You know, you’re going to have to come in more frequently, Victor, if we are to avoid such problems in the future. Considering the state of your teeth and gums, you should come in every three months. As we always say at the A.D.A. convention, the two things you can never have too much of are anal sex and dental care.

“Okay, I think we’re finished with the bottoms. Open wide, and we’ll attack your uppers. What kind of toothbrush do you use? Maybe you need something new. It helps if you don’t use the same brush two years running.”

Pick, scrape, jab, scrape, pick pick pick.

“I’m always on the lookout for new talent, a pure soul with the heart, the muscle, the determination to make a difference in the world. I could point you to a woman in Baltimore, to a couple in Albuquerque, to a man in Mexico City who can move mountains. All of us, all we want to do is to help. And I think Rex might be another. He is very much a raw talent, he so lacks confidence in anything except his size, but his heart is pure, and he’s much sharper than he lets on. I think he’ll be a fine recruit, if I only have the time to properly work with him. But in this business one never knows when the time will run out.

“Oh, I’m sorry, I maybe dug a little too deep. From your reaction it looks like I hit a nerve. Hold on a second, and let me get some suction in there.”

Awhoosh-ashiga-awhoosh-ashiga-ashiga-ashiga-awhoosh.

“My, you are quite the bleeder, aren’t you?” said Dr. Bob as he went back to picking and scraping. “I once considered recruiting you, too, Victor. Your wisecracking, hard-bitten cover is so obviously a false front. I hoped inside wasn’t simply the usual dark recess of selfish indifference. But no, I’ve discovered something remarkable in you, something I had hoped to work with. Look at the way you are helping that boy, Daniel, and your crusade on behalf of his half sister. And even your work for that horrid waste of humanity, Mr. Frog, the short-order chef. Yes, you have so much potential, and your empathy would have been your greatest strength. Yet, as so often happens, there is a flaw.

“Well, now, I think I’m finished.” He stuck a mirror in my mouth, whipped it around. “Yes, all done. That wasn’t too bad, was it?”

Shockingly, it wasn’t. Except for the minor incident when he drew blood while he was talking obliquely about the subpoena, the whole cleaning was relatively pain-free, relative to kidney surgery, maybe, but still.

“Time to polish,” he said cheerily.

As the round brush whirred across my teeth, Dr. Bob continued. “Some recruits never make the final leap. It all becomes too personal. I look at your face, and I look at Tilda’s eye, and I feel that I have failed her. She is a wonderful woman, strong and fearless, and surprisingly agile in bed, but her impulses are all wrong. It is always better to be Loki than Thor. Now, hold on, I’m almost finished. Yes. Done. A fine job, if I do say so myself. Rinse carefully and spit.”

Splish, splosh, splish, splosh – splat.

“Is that it?” I said hopefully.

“Not yet. Tilda,” he called out. The wounded Valkyrie appeared. “Mr. Carl needs his fluoride. What flavor do you take, Victor? Chocolate, piña colada, or mint?”