The outer-office door was open. I went in. The lights were on. Bad sign. Shelly was here. Price had probably talked to him. The tiny waiting room was relatively clean, the magazines-Life, Colliers, Woman's Day, and Look- were piled on the small table hi front of the three chairs.
I went through the inner door and found Sheldon Minck sleeping in his dental chair, his arms folded over one of his magazines, his stained white smock bunched under his neck. His thick glasses had slipped perilously toward the end of his nose and his cigar looked like a dark springboard, bouncing with each breath. Shelly must have sensed my presence. He dropped the magazine and swatted the top of his head.
"Ugg," he cried, staggering forward out of the chair, opening his eyes, swinging at some real or imagined insect with his fluttering magazine. He tottered back into my arms.
"You were dreaming, Shel," I said, straightening him up.
"Wha?"
"Dreaming," I repeated, turning him around to face me.
I straightened his smock, marveling at his ability to keep his glasses on his nose and cigar in his teeth while hi full flight from a nightmare.
"Toby," he said.
"Yes, Shel."
He took the cigar from his mouth and said, "Publishing."
"Publishing, Shel?"
"Came to me in the dream," he said, slapping the magazine and moving to the sink, where he turned on the cold-water tap, cupped his hand, and took a drink.
"A dream?"
"Yeah," he said, turning back to me, a trickle of water on his chin, his cigar back in his mouth. "Tooth Talk, a magazine, and here's the beauty part, for patients, people who have something wrong with their teeth. Everybody's got something wrong with their teeth. We'll have articles on celebrities with great teeth. Who's got great teeth?"
"Lassie," I said.
"Joking," he said, returning to his dental chair, "but why not? Keeping the teeth of movie animals clean and cavity-free. Great article. Short stories about teeth. Poetry about teeth. Ads, we'll fill it with ads."
Shelly's eyes, huge behind the thick glasses, got even wider in anticipation of the ad revenue.
"Coloring your teeth, a new beauty concept," he said, looking up at the ceiling. "Remember my idea about that?"
"Vividly," I said.
"Dentists who wanted to write would have a place to send their ideas, their creative work. Even, why not, drawings, paintings. By dentists, for dentists."
Shelly was out of his chair now, shaking his head as new ideas sprang from whatever he had eaten for breakfast.
"Sounds like a good idea to me, Shel," I said.
"Yeah," he said with a grin. "How about this? Special section at the end of each issue for kids. Cartoon. Jimmy Chew versus Sammy Grinder. Jimmy's a handsome white incisor who takes care of himself. Sammy Grinder is covered in buildup, maybe even has a kind of five-o'clock shadow. Ideas like this. Start small. Work it up. Maybe get a few of those movie clients of yours to invest."
"Worth a try," I said.
"Yeah," he said, dreamily rubbing his palms together as if he were trying to start a tire.
Then he stopped suddenly and a new look appeared as he turned his head to me.
"You've never agreed with any idea I've ever had."
"This is an exception," I answered. "It's so…"
"You want something," he said, advancing on me, a roly-poly ball of white-smocked suspicion. "What?"
"Small favor," ladmitted.
"Small?" He was a foot away now, a good eighteen inches closer than I wanted nun. "Ah," he said.
"You hired me on a contingency basis to collect a bill for dental work from a guy named Al Ramone," I said, walking to the sink, turning on the water, and ignoring the pile of grimy coffee cups and dental-surgery instruments. I washed my face, my back to Sheldon Minck, and shook myself almost dry.
"I did not," Shelly said.
I turned to face him. He was watching my eyes to see where all this was going and how much he could get out of it.
"You did. Mr. Ramone has met an untimely death," I explained.
"Tell me a timely one," Shelly fought back.
"I'd rather not. I need a favor, Shel," I continued. "Someone asks you, you hired me to get your payment. Al Ramone. Okay?"
"Can't be done," Shelly said, removing the cigar from his face and looking down at it as if it were some vile wet thing, which it was.
"I think your dental magazine is a great idea," I tried.
"No, you don't, Toby," he said.
"I think it's one of your best ideas," I said.
He looked at me again. "Can't be done," he repeated.
"What, the dental magazine or the favor?"
"Favor," he said. "Guy named Price already called. Asked if you were working for me, asked if I was interested in becoming a Glendale policeman."
"And you told him?…"
"You weren't doing any work for me. I'm a dentist and not interested in a career change."
I started toward my office.
"You're in trouble?"
I shrugged. He followed me.
"You shouldn't tell lies," he said behind me.
"Shelly, you tell more lies than Tojo."
"Well, yes, maybe, but that doesn't make it right."
I went into my office, a cubbyhole with a door, a box big enough for a small desk with a chair behind it, two small chairs in front of it. Behind the desk chair was a window, six floors above the alley. On the wall across from the desk, next to the door, was a framed photograph of my father, me, my brother Phil, and our dog Kaiser Wilhelm. I was about ten when the picture was taken. Phil was fourteen or fifteen. Our father was wearing his grocer's apron and the look of a man smiling through pain. Kaiser Wilhelm was expressionless. On the wall to our right as we came in was a painting that covered the entire available space, the painting of a woman cradling two identical children on her lap. The painting had been done by Salvador Dali.
"You should have called," Shelly said, closing the door behind him as I moved behind the desk and sat.
"I did," I said, looking at the top envelope of my morning mail. "You weren't here."
"How was I to know?"
"You weren't," I said. "Now, if you'll leave me alone, I've got a suicide note to write."
Shelly leaned over the desk at me.
"I'm for chrissake sorry, Toby," he said.
"You're for chrissake forgiven, Sheldon," I said.
"Does this mean you think my magazine idea stinks?"
"No," I said. "It's better than your Bernie the Bicuspid children's book."
"Tony the Tooth. Tony the Tooth," he corrected, shaking his head. "That was a good idea, Toby. A great idea whose time hasn't come. That's why I want to ease it into the new magazine. The grinder and incisor."
The outer door to the dental office opened and closed behind Shelly. He turned as someone walked in.
"New patient," he whispered, turning back. "Ten o'clock. Almost forgot."
He walked out, closing the door behind him.
I worked on a new lie while I opened my mail.
The first letter was from the Barbizon-Plaza Hotel in New York City. I'd stayed there on a case. The Barbizon told me it was famous for its continental breakfast, which came with rooms as low as three bucks a day. All rooms with private baths and radios.
I could tell Price that Shelly was lying. That he was afraid of bad publicity.
The second letter was from the San Diego Book Club, promising me a choice of / Saw the Fall of the Philippines, by Carlos P. Romulo, or Congo Song, by Stuart Cloete, for a nickel.
I could deny I had told Price anything. I'd never be able to return to Glendale, but there are worse exiles.
The last of my mail was a postcard with a map on the front that told me how to get to the Old Hickory Barbecue off of Echo Park Avenue. Two free parking lots. Open all night. Two minutes from downtown. There wasn't much room for the message on the front because the preprinted P.S. filled the bottom half with a message that the Old Hickory was the most unusual eating place in America.