“Why am I not surprised? And it takes six months?”

“Some dentists will put the restoration on right away, but the chances of failure are higher that way.”

“What about option two?”

“A fixed bridge. It’s easier, less painful, less expensive.”

“That sounds right by me.”

“But its long-term prognosis is not quite as good.”

“Still, I find myself strangely attracted to easier, less painful, and less expensive. Am I alone in seeking in dental reconstruction the same traits I look for in a woman?”

“I noticed you don’t have dental insurance.”

“That’s right,” I said.

“Still, you mustn’t think of dental work the way you think of suits, Victor. Cheaper is not always better. But okay, then. We’ll go with the bridge. Next time we’ll get started with the grinding.”

“Grinding?”

“Don’t worry, Victor, it’s relatively pain-free.”

“Relatively?”

“I’d like to take another set of X-rays to see how the bone looks without the tooth. Tilda,” he called.

She appeared quick as a ghost in the doorway, her huge hands dangling like boiled hams at her side.

“A set of bite wings and a periapical X-ray, please, Tilda. Make sure to get a good shot of the lower right.”

“Of course, Doctor,” she said. “Anything else?”

“No, that’s it, thank you,” he said, standing. He ripped off his gloves, tossed them into the container, took up my chart, and started scribbling his notes. “Victor, I’ll see you in another week.”

“Thanks for taking me on such short notice.”

“We all must do our part,” he said.

“What happened to them, the Baltimore people?”

“Married,” he said. “Two children. They’re as happy as mussels. Don’t you find the mussel a far more cheerful bivalve than the clam?”

“How did you get them together?”

“Oh, you know. I have my ways. What’s the Latin expression? Minutus cantorum, minutus balorum, minutus carborata descendum pantorum.”

“We didn’t learn that one in law school.”

“It means: ‘A little song, a little dance, a little seltzer down your pants.’ I push here, pull there, I reach in and help mold the clay of reality. It is what I do when I am not molding teeth. I slip horizontally through people’s lives and change them for the better. Check your shirt pocket, Victor.”

I patted my pocket, reached in, pulled out a slip of paper. On it was written “Carol Kingsly” in script and then a phone number.

“You saw her in the waiting room,” said Dr. Bob, “remember? She’s a lovely woman, with very refined tastes, not your normal cup of tea, I suppose, but a woman who, fortunately for you, also answered question sixteen in the new-patient questionnaire with a no. She’s waiting for your call.”

“My call?”

“Yes, your call, Victor. Do try to be pleasant, won’t you? And take my advice, dress sharp and never ever talk politics on your first date.”

As I watched him leave, Tilda stepped forward. She draped my chest with a heavy lead apron. I pulled it low enough so that it covered my groin. Tilda noticed the gesture and shook her head.

“What kind of men do you fancy, Tilda?” I said.

“Hockey players and prison guards,” she said.

“I guess I’ll have to lose a few more teeth.”

“It can be arranged, bucko. Now, open up, ja.”

I opened my mouth. She slipped a white piece of plastic-covered film over my teeth.

“Close.”

I closed. The edges of the plastic bladed painfully into the floor of my mouth. Tilda wrapped my face in her muscular hands and twisted my head until my neck cracked.

Inside the old YMCA building that served now as the district attorney’s offices, I pulled at my lower lip to expose the gap in my teeth. Beth, sitting next to me, grimaced at the sight. Mia Dalton leaned over her desk to get a better view.

“It’s gone, all right,” said Mia Dalton. “What’s the brown gunk in the hole?”

“A dressing. I accidentally removed the scab and exposed the bone.”

“Does it hurt?”

“It did, like someone jabbing a red-hot knife into my chops. But not anymore. My dentist took care of that.”

“He any good?” said Detective Torricelli, standing behind Dalton’s desk. “I might be in the market for a molar masher.”

Detective Torricelli was short and round, with the pug nose and swollen eyes of an angry porker. He had looked at my display with enough interest, and he was running his tongue along the inside of his cheek with enough determination to indicate that he might indeed have dental problems of his own.

“Oh, he’s terrific, Detective, absolutely,” I said, putting on my most trustworthy expression. “And painless, too.”

“Painless?”

“Oh, yes. Painless. Such gentle hands. You should give him a try.”

“Tell me why I don’t swallow the painless part, Carl?” said Torricelli.

“Because you are a cynic with an irrational fear of dentists.”

“I might be a cynic,” said Tommy Torricelli, “but ain’t nothing more rational than my fear of dentists.”

“Do you mind if we get down to business?” said Beth. “We want to know if you’ve given any consideration to a plea offer for François.”

“What are you looking for?” said Mia Dalton.

“Something that would take into account the constitutional violation that underlay his prior conviction,” said Beth, her voice stellar with righteous indignation, “that would take into account the years he spent in jail as a result of the unjust conviction only a few days ago reversed by Judge Armstrong, that would recognize the price he has paid and allow him to walk out of jail with a sentence of time served.”

“Yeah,” I added, “something like that.”

As Beth spoke, Mia Dalton began hunting around her office, as if she had misplaced an item of great importance.

“What are you searching for?” said Beth with some impatience.

“The reporters that must be hidden here. Or why else would you be giving me a speech.”

Torricelli snorted. Beth’s features collapsed with disappointment.

“You’re not going to let him plea his way out of jail?” she said.

Mia leaned back, crossed her arms. “Look at my face.”

We both did. Mia Dalton was short and stocky, with the sharp eyes of a fighter. She had worked her way up the ladder in the district attorney’s office, from municipal court bench trials to homicide, based not on her flirtatious manner, because it wasn’t, or her pleasing personality, because she was more sandpaper than silk, but instead on her sheer willpower and dogged determination to prevail. The cops all hated working for her, because she worked them as hard as she worked herself, but they still fought to have her assigned to their cases, because she would invariably give them a win. In the hard-knuckled world of criminal law, nothing succeeded like success, and Mia Dalton was still rising. She was honest and smart and generally intolerant of fools, which was why I always felt a little uncomfortable in her presence.

“Do I look like François Dubé’s fairy godmother?” she said.

“I don’t see a wand,” I said.

“Then there you go. Second-degree murder, twenty years, out in thirteen, three of which he already served. Let me know within forty-eight hours.”

I turned to Beth and raised an eyebrow.

She shook her head. “I can let you know right now. He won’t accept it. He wants out now.”

“Then I guess we’re going to try this puppy,” said Dalton, not visibly displeased. “In all the time I’ve known Victor here, we’ve never gone up against each other in front of a jury. It should be interesting.”

“We’ll need to examine the physical evidence as soon as possible,” I said. “That is, if you haven’t lost it after all these years.”

“It’s all there,” said Torricelli. “Good to go.”

“You both are welcome to examine it at your leisure,” said Dalton. “Everything that was let in in the last trial will be presented here.”