by John Misak
Speaking of my head, my tooth started throbbing again, and I knew for sure that the side of my mouth was swelling up. My heart raced a little, which only made the pain throb more. I needed to get to my father as soon as possible.
“No, I guess there is nothing you can do right now, other than finding out what happened to my husband. At least then I will have closure.”
“I’ll do my best, I promise.”
“I have the feeling you will.”
“While I am here, I might as well ask you a few questions.”
“About what?”
“Did you see Harold Chapman’s press conference?”
“No, but I saw the news, and they mentioned it. I saw a small clip. What about it?”
“There were rumors about Ron being against the Onyx merger, did you know anything about that?” I asked.
She looked up at the ceiling for a moment, then back at me. She prepared something to say. I wished I could trust her more, not so much in her guilt in her husband’s murder, but just in that what came out of her mouth was the truth.
“They fought about it for a while. I know Ron was uncertain about Onyx, and he didn’t think they were a good match for Techdata.”
“So, he was against it?”
“I think he was initially, but Harold most likely talked him into that. Harold is a good talker.”
I had seen evidence of that at the press conference. They guy had that smoothness you can’t generate. It comes naturally, and he surely had it.
“You think this could have anything to do with your husband’s death?”
“Oh, I don’t know. They started talking about Onyx almost two years ago, I think. Not too long after Ron told Harold that he wanted to leave.”
“What do you know about Onyx?” I asked.
“I just know that they are a communications company. High!speed access, if I remember correctly. Other than that, I don’t know.”
“Okay.” I stood up, sensing it was time to leave. Actually, I wondered why the Hell I came out there. It was a worthless trip, but I also wasn’t missing anything down at the station. We had nowhere to go. And besides, Sondra wasn’t too hard to look at, unlike the crew down at the station. I had made the right decision. I couldn’t remember the last time I had done that.
“There’s something else, Detective Keegan,” Sondra said, turning to look at me.
“You can call me John.” Cheesy line, I know.
“I didn’t tell you this the first time we spoke because I was flustered, and worried.” She paused. “Ron and I were still having problems, and to be honest, we were going to get a divorce. We probably would have waited until his Senate run was finished.”
“Why are you telling me this now?”
“You would have found out eventually. Someone would have said something. And then you would have thought not to trust me.” Trust? What made her think I trusted her then? I wanted to bang, her, but trust? That wasn’t even part of the equation.
“Okay. Is there anything else you want to tell me?”
“Nothing that I can think of.”
I smiled. “Then don’t worry about it. I really can’t see how your marital problems have any bearing on this investigation. But I appreciate you telling me, anyway.” Of course it had bearing. A lot of it.
I said goodbye, and walked toward the door.
“Let me know of anything else, if it comes up.”
She stood by the window, and looked like she was going to tell me to stay. She looked scared. Sondra Mullins, from what I could tell, was a woman who needed a man around to take care of her. She needed the sense of security. Sure, she could handle herself, walk all over any man she wanted, but she needed things from a man.
I was a man, a man who could take care of her. I doubted she looked at me that way. I wished she did. And that’s all I could do.
“I will,” she said.
I walked out the front door, and Steve flipped me the keys to my car.
“Didn’t need to move it. Thanks,” he said.
“Yeah, no problem.”
I got in the car, and took a quick look around to see if anything was touched. Nothing was. My tooth erupted again, and I started the car, en route to dear old Dad’s.
I was on the Southern State Parkway, almost in Queens, when Geiger came on the radio.
“Keegan,” he said.
“Copy.”
“Where are you?”
“Southern State. Headed for an emergency appointment.”
“For what?”
“Dentist.”
“What?” He didn’t sound happy.
“It’s an emergency, trust me.”
“Jesus, first Calhill gets sick, and now you have a toothache.” “What’s the matter with Calhill?”
“Started throwing up. Had to send him home.”
“Great.” Just what I needed.
“Get back here as soon as you can.”
“I will.”
Maybe someone else, someone smarter, would have thought these events peculiar. I had other things on my mind, mainly my tooth. I didn’t have time to analyze such things.
I should have made the time.
I made it to Dad’s office before two. There were four people sitting in the waiting room, one of them a nine-year-old kid, who looked scared. Dad was pretty good with the kids, except maybe his own sometimes, but this kid probably had to go through his first drilling. It was a fearful experience, even for someone who had it done before, but this kid was going through the worst part. He could hear the drilling going on in the offices, knowing that he was heading for that soon. No fun.
Nancy was behind the window, on the phone. She sat at a desk cluttered with papers and file folders. Before she would leave, the entire desk would be clear and neat. She was one of the best, and that’s why Dad kept her for as long as he did. She smiled at me, and hung up the phone.
“Hello darling,” she said. “In a little pain?”
“A lot,” I said.
“Go into room two, he’ll be right with you.”
I walked through the hallway, and into the room. It hadn’t changed much since I was a kid, except for a new chair, and a new X-Ray machine, which was smaller than the huge contraption he originally had, which reminded me of some alien weapon. I started up the spit sink, took off my jacket, and sat down in the chair.
Even though I grew up around dentistry, I couldn’t get rid of the nervous feeling in the pit of my stomach. It was the anticipation of pain, worse than any real pain you’ll experience. That’s why people hated dentists; there was a good chance you were going to be in pain, and the dentist was the one who was going to inflict it. My Dad was good at that, but I don’t know if he was better than anyone else, because I never went to another dentist. Dad was planning on retiring in a few years. I had no idea what I was going to do then.
Seated in the chair, I glanced around the room, at all the ads with smiling people and white teeth. They were ridiculous, but I always stared at them while I was getting drilled. It gave me something to do.
Dad walked in behind me. “Well, well, well.”
“Hey Dad,” I said, twisting my head to look at him.
“Nancy says you’re hurting quite a bit.”
“You could say that.”
He came around to look at me. Dad was a small man, 57”, and looked nothing like a dentist. He had huge forearms, like Popeye almost, a shiny scalp, and thick glasses. That was my future, genetically. I was reminded of that every time I looked at him. Needless to say, it didn’t make me happy. My genetic future was cloudy at best. At least Dad had a strong ticker, but from what I understand, my genetic blueprint comes from my grandparents, all of whom died of either cancer or heart problems. The good money was on me dying before fifty. No one would touch anything over that.
Dad grabbed one of those scraper things and told me to open my mouth. He pressed in the center of the tooth, which made me let him know it hurt.
“Ow
,” I said.
“You been flossing?” Flossing is disgusting, and a waste of time, in my opinion. Dad had tried to instill in me the importance of such oral hygiene, but he had pretty much wasted his time.
“Sometimes.” Bullshit, of course.
“Bullshit. You could feed a small village with what you have wedged in between your teeth.”
“Thanks,” I mumbled. It’s hard to talk with someone’s hand in your mouth.
“They mentioned your name on TV today.” Dad had a habit of repeating things he had said earlier to me.
I replied something that only he and I could understand.
“Got a big case, huh?”
I always wondered why he insisted on having conversations with people who were unable to respond. It was great if you wanted to get a point across without having to hear any flack, but it didn’t do much for two-way conversations.
“Yesh,” I said.
“Shame what happened to that Mullins guy. I have stock in Techdata.”
I wanted to tell him that he told me that already, and that my investigation most likely wasn’t going to affect the value of his portfolio, but, obviously, there was no way to do that.
“You think it was a suicide?”
I shrugged. He began scraping where my teeth met my gums, which sent a chill throughout my entire body.
“You think he was murdered?”
I shrugged again.
He took his hand out of my mouth. My tooth was still throbbing from that poking thing he did, and my gums were a little sore.
“Spit,” he said.
I did, and a good amount of blood came out.
“Thanks,” I said, sarcastically.
“I keep telling you to come for cleanings. Then you wouldn’t have to go through this every six months.”
“I know.”
“I won’t know for sure, until after I do your x-rays, but I think you need a root canal on that tooth. I told you that the filling was only temporary. Most of it has fallen out, and I think you rotted the tooth straight through.”
“Right.”
“What sort of appointment do you have?”
“Interview.”
“Suspect?”
“You know I can’t tell you that.”
He walked over to the counter, opened up a folder, which was my file, and jotted a few things down. I never saw what was in that file. He never let me see it.
“Yeah, that tooth definitely needs a root canal. We drilled down as far as we could last time. A year and a half ago.”
“Well, let’s get it done.”
“Yes, let’s.”
“And give me the gas.”
“Gas?”
“Yes, gas. It’s easier that way.”
“If that’s what you want.” I knew, in his mind, he was saying, “Sissy.” I didn’t care. I liked the gas, especially for a root canal. I had one a few years before, and the tooth had three nerves going to it, instead of one. Dad had to inject the Novocain directly into the two other nerves. That was pain, and if it was going to happen again, I was going to be high. Very high.
Dad went about preparing for the root canal. His other assistant, a new one, came in. I couldn’t see her, just hear her voice. It sounded sweet.
“Jane,” Dad said, “Bring in the nitrous, and let’s get my son here ready for a root canal.”
“Of course,” she said. “Your son?”
She walked around the chair, in front of me. She sounded better than she looked, but she wasn’t too bad, regardless. And she was a redhead. I had a soft spot for them.
“Jane, that’s my son, John. John, this is my new assistant, Jane.” It sounded like a children’s book.
“Hello,” she said. She was a twenty-something. All of Dad’s assistants were, except for Nancy. It was like that Latin group Menudo; once the assistants got past a certain age they were gone. I think the cutoff was 28. Not bad, Dad.
“Hey,” I said. I felt like a dick sitting there with some gauze hanging out of my mouth, and some dumbass apron on. No way to look cool like that.
“A root canal, huh?”
“Yeah. Hurts like a bitch, too.”
She smiled. Dad sighed. “They usually do,” she said. She walked out of the room, and Dad came over, applying some topical anesthetic to the area where he was going to insert that 10-foot long needle in me.
“Jane is single, by the way, and looking.”
“She into one night stands?”
“I don’t know. She won’t go out with me yet.”
I laughed.
“Maybe you should ask Mom how to go about it.”
No, my parents weren’t divorced, and no, my mother wasn’t a lesbian. It was a wiseass comment. Leave it at that.
“Do me a hell of a lot more good than asking you.”
Another wiseass comment, if you are paying attention.
“She ain’t bad looking.”
“I know how to pick them. You should ask her out. I think she likes cops.”
“Yeah, this is the place to do it. With my mouth being treated like an oil dig, and spit rolling down my chin. Maybe some other time.”
“A good looking girl like her isn’t going to stay single long.” “Neither is a good looking guy like me.”
Dad produced the needle. I know that sounded sexual, but leave your perversions at the door please. It’s my fucking father for Christ’s sake. Anyway, he normally kept the needle out of sight when he injected patients. He didn’t bother doing that with me. Just shoved it into my mouth, and injected me. I could feel the damn thing hitting my bone, but just as the pain struck, it got numbed. That weird sort of numb only Novocain can give you. It just amazed me how much pressure was needed to inject it.
“There. You should be numb in about ten minutes, so if you have something to say, now’s the time to do it.”
“Nah.”
My jaw tingled. I never could get used to that feeling. It felt chemical, almost toxic. Dad always said it was nothing to worry about. Then again, very little fit that category for him.
“Jane will be in here in about five minutes to give you your gas.”
“I already have gas.”
“You might want to get rid of that before you get high. I don’t want you embarrassing me.”
“Aw, don’t worry Pop. I’ll be alright.”
Ten
The Novocain didn’t take long to set in, and the left side of my face felt like it was made of lead in no time. I sat in the chair for a few minutes, thinking about the case, and thinking about Sondra. Could she have been playing me? Was she behind what happened to her husband, and playing seductress with me to avert my attention to other things? It was possible, but not probable, in my opinion. I mean, things certainly did point in her direction, a lot of things, but she just didn’t seem capable. She was just too pretty. Well, actually, that worked more against her than for her. Pretty women were capable of such things even more so than unattractive ones. On top of that, she did inherit the business, which would certainly go to motive, but the making the death look like a suicide didn’t benefit her at all, considering what she had lost on the insurance. Chalk that up to her plus side.
With the Novocain setting in, the toothache went away, and it felt like a tremendous amount of pressure was lifted from my head. I still anticipated the throbbing pain, the same way you anticipate hiccups when they stop, but nothing was there. Relief, beautiful. I knew the worst was yet to come, but I had my good friend, Nitrous Oxide, in my comer. My father could use a jackhammer in my mouth, so long as I had the gas.
Jane walked in, a gas tank on wheels in front of her. “Here’s the sweet air,” she said, hooking the gas up to the contraption on the wall. I heard some hissing. It was almost ready. “You numb yet?”
“Yesh,” I said, dribbling on myself a little.
“I see we’ll need a little suction here,” she said, almost giggling. Damn right we did. I half hoped for her to unzip me and go to town. Did
n’t think Dad would mind. He was a man too. She reached for the thing my father used to call, Mr. Slurpee, a white plastic tube with a hole at the end of it. The thing always grossed me out. After all, it collected spit. Lots of it. She took the tube, put it in my mouth, and turned it on. It got caught on my cheek, so she adjusted it, brushing her hand against my face as she did so. Her skin was soft. “Is that better?”
I nodded. It really wasn’t, but there was no use in dribbling all over myself telling her that. She left Mr. Slurpee and me alone, and I waited for Dad to come in.
It took him about five minutes to return.
“Numb?” he asked.
I nodded.
He reached for the gas mask.
“Alright, I’m gonna put this on you. You know the drill.”
Yeah Dad, suck that shit in as deep as you can. Got it.
I nodded.
“Let me check that tooth first.”
He grabbed that poking tool again and pushed hard on the tooth. I didn’t feel a damn thing.
“It’s pretty bad. I hope I can salvage it.”
“Uh,” I said, which meant “I hope so too.”
“You should have let me take care of this sooner.”
“Uh,” I said, which mean, “Yeah, whatever.”
He kept poking. His fingers smelled like hospital soap. They always did. It reminded me of when I was a kid. I didn’t get to see him all that much because he was so busy building his practice. My routine cleanings were really the only opportunity I had to talk to him. So, basically, I got all the lectures about grades and staying out of trouble while getting my teeth scraped. What a pleasure.
He put the mask on. “I’ll be back in a second.”
As soon as he put the thing over my nose, I started inhaling, deeply. Nothing happens right away. It’s not like sucking in Nitrous from a whipped cream can. This stuff is mixed with Oxygen, so it takes a little longer to take effect. After a few minutes, my head felt light, and I didn’t give a crap about anything. Not the case, not Sondra, not my tooth. I was only concerned with the group of people in an ad on the counter, who were smiling at me. They were my friends. One of the women winked at me, I think. I winked back.
Dad and Jane came back in the room, and went to the business of fixing my poor tooth. I really didn’t pay much attention to them. They were inconsequential. All that mattered was the small piece of rubber on my nose, which flowed so sweetly into my nose and lungs.