There were voices beyond the waiting room: Shelly's, though it seemed unnatural somehow. The other voice was a woman's. I opened the door and found Shelly standing next to a girl who stood a good six niches taller than him. She was slender, dark, with a short Louise Brooks haircut and wearing a green dress with fluffy sleeves. She also wore a smile and too much makeup.
Shelly was showing her drawings and trying to keep his glasses from slipping off as he pointed to details with the dead end of his cigar.
"… in your office," he said, pointing back at my office.
She saw me first. Then Shelly's eyes came up, filled with magnified guilt behind the thick lenses. The girl smiled. She was cute, maybe a little empty, but cute.
"Oh, Toby," Shelly said, quickly dropping his drawings on the dental chair. "This is Mrs. Gonsenelli, Violet."
Violet Gonsenelli held out her hand. I stepped forward to take it. It was slender, warm, and definitely did not belong, along with that face and body, in the less-than-spotless offices of Minck and Peters.
"Pleasure," she said.
"Mrs. Gonsenelli applied for the receptionist job," Shelly explained. "I told her the ad was old, but she has some great ideas and she needs the job."
"Husband's in Europe," she explained."Fighting the Nazis."
"Best reason to be there," I said.
"Business is growing, Toby," Shelly said nervously. "Wouldn't be bad to have someone keep track of things, straighten up."
"You were talking about my office," I said.
"Your…" Shelly began, looking at my office door as if he had never seen it before. "Well, it was just a possibility, you know. Violet would need an office and…"
Violet looked confused.
"Mildred," I said. "Mildred gets one look at Violet and she's on the way to Reno."
"This is business," Shelly said with indignation. "Mildred would just have to understand."
"Mildred?" Violet asked.
"Mrs. Minck," I explained.
Violet nodded in understanding. I had the feeling this was not the first job interview foiled by a Mildred Minck.
"Maybe I'd better go," Violet said.
"Wait," said Shelly. "Toby?"
"Your marriage, Dr. Minck," I said. "We can clear out the waiting room for Violet, put in a small desk. Patients and clients can wait in the hall. You put two or three chairs out there and maybe, who knows, if you're lucky, they won't get stolen. You'd better check with Jeremy and Alice to see if they'll let you do it."
Shelly was beaming.
"I don't…" Violet began.
"You don't have to," Shelly said. "You just make appointments, answer the phone, straighten up, learn about the dental business. I tell you what. I'll train you to be a dental assistant. Clean teeth, X rays. A career."
"What about Mrs. Minck?" Violet said, looking at me.
I shrugged.
"I got it," said Shelly, snapping his pudgy ringers. 'Toby hires you. You're his idea. I pay my share of your salary, but…"
"You pay all of Mrs. Gonsenelli's salary and she works for both of us," I said.
"But…"
"And I give you permission to tell Mildred I hired her," I threw in.
"It's a deal," said Shelly.
"I don't know," said Violet.
Violet was cute. Violet could be more than cute. This was probably a rotten idea.
"Forty a month, plus a free white smock," said Shelly. "Good pay, career opportunity. Flexible working hours."
Violet looked at me.
"Can we make it a kind of trial?" she said, looking back at Shelly again. "Till I can ask Angelo."
"Angelo?"
"My husband. I'll write to him tonight"
"Angelo Gonsenelli?" Shelly said to himself.
"Middleweight contender," I said. "Went six rounds with Tony Zale in '42. Zale couldn't put him down."
"Angelo has heart," Violet said, nodding her head.
"And a wonderful nickname," I added. "Mad Angelo Gonsenelli."
"When do I start?" she asked brightly, her bright-red lips parted to show amazingly white and even teeth that would be the envy of any potential patient.
"Start?" said Shelly in a daze.
"Tomorrow will be fine," I said. "Dr. Minck will help you get things in shape."
"Nine?" she asked.
"Perfect," I said.
And Violet Gonsenelli, wife of Mad Angelo Gonsenelli, was out the door, heels clicking as she headed for the elevator.
"You knew," Sheldon said, moving to his dental chair and sitting on top of Ms drawings.
"When I heard her name," I said brightly.
"Cruel, Toby," he said.
"Sheldon, you were about to give her my office. Where the hell did you think I was going to go?"
Shelly adjusted his glasses, looked at his cigar, and shrugged.
"I like your idea about turning the waiting room into a reception area-office."
"Thanks," I said. "Give Mildred my best tonight."
"She hates you, Toby," Shelly said.
"Lucky for you, Shel," I said. "I'm mad about her. I'd steal her out from under you and run with her in my arms all the way to Tijuana if she'd have me." Mildred was odds-on favorite to win the witch-in-the-middle contest, if the May Company sponsored a Halloween event.
"You're being sarcastic," Shelly said, lighting his cigar.
I took a step toward Shelly and said, "I want to know about Spelling."
Shelly blinked at me. "What's to know? A few rules but mostly memorizing," he said. "You got a problem, keep a dictionary on your desk. Sometimes, Toby, you come up with the damndest… what happened to your head?"
He pointed to the small Band-aid on my forehead. I pulled it off and threw it toward the overflowing white trash can near the sink.
"This morning," I said, "someone you know tried to kill me."
"Mildred?"
"Your patient. A guy named Spelling."
"Good teeth," said Shelly.
"And good aim," I went on. "He shot a man this morning. Stabbed one last night and killed another one three days ago. I think he's also planning to kill me and Clark Gable."
"Just because I made a little mistake with a novocaine injection?" asked Shelly.
"No, Shel, because he's out of his mind. I think he came here this morning to find me, to follow me. I think he's playing a game."
"No wonder his teeth were in such good shape," said Shelly with a stroke of understanding that made no sense to me.
"Shel, I doubt if it win do any good, but I'd like to see your card on Mr. Spelling."
"That's confidential information, Toby," Shelly said seriously. "Patient-doctor, priest-confessional, lawyer-client, that sort of thing."
"Give me the card, Shel, or I'll call Mildred and tell her about your hiring a receptionist who looks better than Rita Hayworth."
Shelly leapt from his chair in indignation and stumbled forward, almost falling to the floor.
"Blackmail," he sputtered.
"The card, Sheldon," I said.
Shelly gathered his dignity, adjusted his soiled smock, and moved to the file cabinet next to the cluttered, dripping sink. He opened it, looked at me hi the hope that I would change my mind, and then came up with a card.
"Right here on top," he said. "Chronological system. Latest patient on top."
He pushed the drawer shut and came to me with the card held out.
"Thanks, Shel," I said, looking at the card.
The name he had given was Victor Spelling. There was something vaguely familiar about the address. There was something very familiar about the place of birth. I turned the card to Shelly.
"Read it, Shel."
"Tara, Twelve Oaks, Georgia," he read. Then he looked up. "So?"
I went on reading. According to the card, Spelling was thirty-one, was five-eleven, weighed 190, and had no cavities.
I brushed past Shelly, went to my office.
Behind me Shelly was mumbling, "What did I do?"