340
RICHARD STERN
of that. There may have been a psychic trigger, but the somatic
twinges were genuine. Now there was absolutely nothing. Could
it
be
that sitting beside this gentle fool, this
beau sabreur de la bouche,
was enough to soothe her uproarious gums?
At the Bank Building, all was dark. Dr. Hobbie's keys got them
into the elevator and his office. He lit up his little workshop of
analgesia, put a smock over his short-sleeved shirt, flipped a few
switches, and before she'd summoned the strength to tell him how
fine she felt, he'd sat her in the chair and stared into her mouth.
"Whew. Good you called me. This must have been killing you.
Can't remember a worse-looking abcess. We'll lance it and see what
we can do."
Sir Percival. He was over her, touching, spearing, dabbing,
in-and-out of her mouth, his beaky head swimming in a kind blue
light. There was music-the hi-fi-"Is
It
True What They Say About
Dixie?" Time flew.
It
was bitter dark, bitter cold, the iron February
cold; she was lying down, face up, staring at the wicked ice smother–
ing the earth. Above her head, the whacking, cracking blade opened
up the ice. Hobbie's terrible lit face, a starving bird's, gleamed in the
white air. His talons, fierce Swedish tools, reached for her mouth.
"Berenice," he screamed, "Berenice." And out, out they came, one
by one, her thirty glorious crowns, roots, rapt from her yielding
jaws. Oh it was over. She lay back, vacant, depleted, fulfilled.
Dr. Hobbie leaned over, a bloody three-pronged crown caught
in his silver forceps. "There's your trouble-maker. He won't bother
you ever again. How do you feel, Ethel?"
She nodded. Her face felt shot away by the novocaine. The
nod was like shifting a boulder.
"We'll pick up a little pain-killer and chloroseptic for you, and
I'll take you home."
She raised his good dentist's hand and patted it for thanks.
For more than thanks.
In the car, she asked him if he'd seen some good shows.
"Not a one. Went dancing most of the time. Those places that
sell you tickets. They're not bad. You get some fine dancers. And then
last Saturday who showed up at the hotel but old Suzanne. I knew
she'd smell out the old man's dough."
It was wickedly dark out. They were on Cottage Grove, a five-
