“I was also at the time doing dental work in the American embassy,” said Dr. Bob. “The usual services for embassy personnel, you understand, scaling and filling, picking out bits of jalapeño. Foreign Service types tend to trust only Americans with their teeth, and it merely takes a few brisk walks in Bogotá to understand. After my visit with the farmer, I began sifting through my embassy clientele. You get a sense of a person when he or she is in the chair. Grip a tooth, I often say, and you get a grip on a soul. Steady now, yes.”
My head rose up under his pull, my neck strained to stay attached, and then my head snapped back into the headrest. Another sliver of bone, another clink.
“I knew what I was looking for. A certain nonchalance, a certain lack of evident responsibility, usage of last names only in hearty greetings, oversize laterals and cuspids. It didn’t take long to find him. A doughy-faced man with a rumpled suit and blasé gaze, who said, whenever he spied me, ‘Good to see you again, Pfeffer.’ We got to talking, the usual dentist-to-patient pleasantries, as we are doing now, Victor. Offhand conversation about the weather, the wine. And then I mentioned a trip I had recently taken, a hike and a climb, a chance to see the real Colombia. And a strange sight I had come upon, a clearing, a château heavily guarded, trucks rumbling in and out at all hours – yes, that part I added, a little color to keep up interest – and a plane. Let me tell you, Victor, his gaze wasn’t so blasé anymore. Brace yourself, boy.”
A grunt from me, a gasp of satisfaction from him. Clink.
“Open up, open up, we’re almost done. Yes. I see you.” He dug once again into my jaw. “When he left the office, his teeth were bright and shiny, and in his shirt pocket lay a map, complete with GPS coordinates. And so I had done all I could do. Nothing left but to hope. Hold tight. Ah, yes.”
Clink.
“We’re almost done. I see another shard. Hold on, this one’s deep. Just before I was about to leave Bogotá, the farmer came back to have his teeth inserted. He was very happy with his new mouth and happy that the prob lem with his daughter had been solved. Apparently there had been a secret military operation, bombs had been dropped – bombs, Victor, and napalm – the entire clearing had been turned to cinder. The drug lord’s reign of terror was over, and the farmer’s daughter was now engaged to a local butcher. To show his gratitude, the farmer brought me a sack of green coffee beans and a live chicken. Have you ever tasted chicken, Victor, cooked up just moments after it has been killed and cleaned? It tastes different, richer. A little like snake. Grab hold, Tilda, I need some help.”
It felt like a winch was raising my jaw. My eyes rolled, I almost blacked out before my head snapped back. Clink.
“I think we’re done. Open up once more and let me check. Yes. Yes. Clean. Done. And the blood is flowing nicely. That wasn’t so bad, now, was it?”
I was about to answer with a spicy bit of invective when Dr. Bob said, “Spit.”
I spat.
“This is why I became a dentist. To be able to aid patients in need, to stop their suffering, to make their lives just a little bit better. I want you to know this, Victor, I need you to know this. All I ask for in the world is a chance to help. You’ll have to come back in a week.”
I tried to say something, but it came out like mush, and after a while I just stopped.
“Absolutely,” said Dr. Bob, as if he had understood every word. “Now, Victor, I need to warn you. The blood will clot over the hole. That is good. It protects the wound, it aids in the healing. Do nothing to disturb the clot, or the consequences can be dire. Do not prod it with a toothpick, do not worry it with your tongue. Cigarettes, alcohol, carbonated beverages like pop can all disturb the clot. Do you understand?”
I nodded, felt for the wound with my tongue.
“Good,” he said. “Tilda will finish up. See you in a week.”
He ripped off his bloodstained gloves, tossed them gallantly into the biohazard bin on his way out of the office.
Tilda, whose broad back was to me as she worked over a counter, spun around. In each hand, wielded like weapons, were little boxes covered in cellophane.
“Stop your whimpering and make a decision, ja,” she said. “Which color for your toothbrush, green or blue?”
22
I was still licking my wound, literally, when the social worker assigned to my pro bono case, Isabel Chandler, pulled up in front of my office building in her jaunty yellow Volkswagen. She smiled brightly at me and said those sweet words all men are longing to hear.
“What happened to your face?”
“Let’s just go,” I said.
We were off to visit my four-year-old client, Daniel Rose, and his mother, Julia, to check out their living conditions, to ensure that Julia was taking proper care of her son, and to impress upon her the need to show up in court at the assigned times and to follow all recommendations of Children’s Services.
“She should be home this time,” said Isabel. “I called just before I left to make sure she remembered. She said she’s waiting for us.”
“Which means she won’t be there,” I said.
“Excuse me?”
“She won’t be there,” I said slowly.
“What’s with your mouth?”
“I lost a tooth.”
“You ought to find it, before the rest of your mouth collapses.”
“Thank you for that.”
“Julia better be there,” said Isabel. “The judge is losing patience.”
“I’d say the judge’s patience with Julia is already lost.”
“I meant with you,” said Isabel.
“Hey, I’m here, aren’t I?”
“The judge wants more from you in this case than just showing up. She wants you to give her a solid recommendation about what’s best for your client.”
“I’m having a hard enough time keeping my own life straight. How would I know what’s best for a four-year-old?”
“That’s the trick, isn’t it?”
“I’ll just do whatever you tell me to do.”
“No, see, Victor, that’s not good enough. I have to consider the best interests of everyone involved, including Julia and the state. You, on the other hand, have only Daniel’s interests to consider. And you have enough time to learn what you need to learn, that is if you’re willing to put in the effort. Are you, Victor?”
“He’s my client,” I said.
“What does that mean?”
“Pretty much everything,” I said.
“Okay, then. So this tooth thing, did it hurt much?”
“Like two squirrels fighting in my mouth.”
“Yikes.”
“Yeah,” I said.
We weren’t headed too far away, just over the Schuylkill River, past the University of Pennsylvania, into the heart of West Philly.
Isabel parked on the street, near a small bodega and a Chinese take-out place, its counter swathed in Plexiglas. It was a crowded, jaunty West Philly neighborhood, some of the row houses cracked and run-down, some brightly painted, with AstroTurf on their porches. Kids played, old ladies sat on folding chairs and surveyed their domain, a dragon on the sign of a tattoo parlor sneered at passersby.
Down the street we walked together, in our suits, with our briefcases. We would have looked less out of place in hula skirts.
“Here,” she said when we reached a corner bar called Tommy’s High Ball.
“What, are we going for a drink first?”
“That might not be a bad idea, but no.” She motioned to a door next to the tavern entrance. “Julia lives with her boyfriend and Daniel in a single room above the bar.”
“Nice wholesome environment.”
“It’s a home,” she said as she rang a buzzer beside the door.
While Isabel waited for an answer, I opened the door to Tommy’s High Ball and glanced inside. Not too crowded, not too smoky, not too dark. It wasn’t quite a clean, well-lighted place, but it seemed friendly enough. A few men sat at the bar, a group of men played cards in a booth in the rear. And just to the left of the door, beneath the neon signs in the window, two men hunched over a chessboard while a third man stood and watched. One of the players pushed a piece forward before turning his head and looking at me.