The Dentist's Wife

In harlem, there once lived a dentist who didn't love his wife. In fact, he was sure she was insane. Even though he'd given her a fantastic wardrobe, a brownstone on the Hill and a cottage on Long Island, she still wasn't satisfied. She wanted one more thing--to cruise around the world. And so he asked her for a divorce.

She refused to give it to him.

He kept asking; she kept refusing; he began to feel trapped. He imagined himself cutting her face up or pouring lye under each eyelid while she slept. He imagined riddding himself of her in many ways, but realized finally only one way was open: He (continued on page 140) The Dentist's Wife continued from page 109 would have to catch her committing adultery.

Not that he was certain she was cheating on him. But he was certain she might be: long before he asked for his divorce, he'd stopped making love to her. Common sense told him that if he was not between her legs, then some other black man could be.

But he could not catch her at it and so decided to hire someone to get under his wife's clothes and to have pictures taken of the event. Someone was Carlyle Bedlow.

Carlyle was sitting in the dentist's chair--two small leather pillows messing his straightened hair--when the dentist made his proposal. Carlyle's mind said yes immediately, but he wanted to see if the dentist was serious and just how much he was offering. He pretended reluctance and also that such a job was beneath him. "Man, you must be crazy. I don't do no shit like that." He pretended to be someone else so well that, for a moment, he forgot the dentist had just pulled his tooth.

"You didn't let me finish." The dentist stood over him. Carlyle's molar clamped between the prongs of his silver pliers. He inspected the tooth, held it so Carlyle could look into its black hole. "You got to take better care of your mouth. Carlyle." He put the pliers and the tooth into a mental dish. "Look, I'm in a spot and it's my only ex-cape. Besides. I ain't mentioned money yet."

"You're hurting me, man, but don't mention it. I don't go in for that kind of stuff. I stick to numbers and warm fur coats." He leaned forward, as if to get up, but the dentist pushed him deeper into his great chair, fingered Carlyle's wound and inserted fresh cotton between cheek and gum.

"The bleeding's stopping." He paused. "Did you ever realize I ain't asking you to do nothing illegal?" He smiled now: the dentist himself had a good dentist. "It's got to be done by somebody and I was just throwing the money your way. All you do is get her clothes off and someone to break in and take pictures."

"Why don't you just ask her for a divorce?" Of course, Carlyle knew, the dentist had already done that.

"You think I hasn't? She won't hear nothing like that. Look, man. I'm in prison with a crazy warden, trying to get me to do all kinds of crazy things." Then he told about his wife's obsession with sailing all around the world.

Carlyle agreed. That did sound crazy. But he still pretended hesitation. "Suppose she really ain't got nobody else? Some women wait. I heard about them. Besides, it ain't my thing."

"She ain't waiting. She's getting some from somewhere. You don't understand how bad it is." He went to the glass door and opened it. "Jean, come in here, will you, baby?"

Entering the office, hand against jaw, Carlyle had noticed Jean's legs even through his pain. He had tried his smile on her, but her lips had not softened, had remained stretched across her teeth. Now she came in almost suspiciously, but smiled at the dentist after she'd closed the door.

"This is my girl."

"Pleased to meet you." Her eyes were black. She was younger, darker and much better built up than the dentist's wife, whom Carlyle had seen once or twice, with the dentist, in Jack O'Gee's Silver Goose Bar and Restaurant.

"I want to marry Jean." The dentist sat down. "And I thought you might help me, out of friendship."

Carlyle nodded, leaned into the small basin beside him and spat. He did not consider the dentist his friend. He did not consider the dentist his friend. He did not even have his home phone number. And if he'd had it. Carlyle would never have listed it among his first five choices as a number to call when he was being arrested. He and the dentist met two or three times a month, by accident only, in the Silver Goose.

The dentist waited for Carlyle to straighten up before he continued. "Now I found me a sane woman and can't live with a crazy one no more. I need those grounds!"

Carlyle glanced at Jean to see if the scheme was new to her. She leaned against the wall near the door, her face empty except for make-up, which was lighter than her skin. "How much you paying?"

"We ain't got no kids." The dentist hesitated and Carlyle knew this, too, was part of the trouble. Carlyle wasn't married, but already he had two children and visited their mothers when he had some money. "That means no support," the dentist hadn't stopped, "and if I get her on adultery, I can cut the alimony down low. So it's worth a thousand if I get my pictures."

It was a better offer than he had expected, but he didn't tell that to the dentist. "Will you throw in my teeth?"

The dentist agreed.

Carlyle climbed out of the dentist's leather chair. "Then, I guess I'll turn legal for a while."

They agreed to meet that night in the Silver Goose. The dentist would bring his wife. Carlyle would sit at their table. After that, they could only hope that the dentist's wife was ready for another new man.

•••

Carlyle was standing at the bar, over his second drink, when they came in. He had seen her only a few times before and his memory had been kind: She looked even less appetizing than he remembered her--in a dull pink dress that hung loosely from narrow shoulders, drowned high, hard breasts and sharp-edged hips. Her face was the color of milk mixed with orange juice, the features squeezed into its center.

Passing by him on the way to the booths at the rear of the Goose, the dentist had not spoken or nodded. But after helping her into a seat and ordering her drink, he returned to the bar and Carlyle. "Bitch didn't want to come, but I told her I sure didn't want to state at her all night."

Carlyle looked beyond the dentist at his wife. The glass in front of her, a brandy alexander, was already half empty. "What happens to her when she gets drunk?"

"She cries."

Carlyle told the dentist the truth: It couldn't hurt him. "I like your money, but we'll never make it."

"Well, go ahead and try. One thousand dollars is a lot of money."

"You're right." He pushed away from the bar, leaving his drink, which had been stinging the dentist's work, and started toward the booth, the dentist close behind him.

She looked up at them, light-brown eyes in her light-orange face, but she did not speak.

"I ain't seen this nigger in years. Robena." The dentist suddenly pretended great excitement. "We was in the Army together." He introduced them.

Carlyle smiled. "Pleased to meet you." Her hand was cold, filled with tiny bones.

"Have a seat." The dentist motioned him into the booth, next to his wife. As Carlyle was getting settled, she finished her drink, pushed the foamed glass a few inches across the table.

"You want another?" After she nodded, the dentist went on selling Carlyle. "We was in Asia. Right, Carlyle?"

"That's right." But so far, Carlyle had been lucky enough to avoid wearing any uniforms.

She looked at him now, seemed not to believe him.

"So how you been, Carlyle?" The dentist did not let him answer. "You do want another drink, don't you?"

She nodded, continuing to study Carlyle.

"What you been doing, man?"

"A little of a lot of things." He reached for his cigarettes, wishing he had smoked for this meeting, trying to decide what to say if she wanted a more precise definition of his livelihood. But then she turned away.

The dentist did not give up. "Carlyle was a male nurse in the dental corps, even pulled some teeth when we had lots of work. He was pretty good at it. I remember the first time I asked him to swing the hammer while I held the chisel, (continued on page 170) The Dentist's Wife continued from page 110 Cat's tooth'd broken off at the root." He started to laugh, "I had to keep telling Carlyle to hit harder. Finally got that sucker out, though. Right, Carlyle?"

"That's right."

The waiter came with her drink. She drained hall right away.

"She drinks that like lemonade, huh Carlyle?"

He did not know what to answer. The dentist had been stupid to ask it. But he forced himself to speak, watching her eyes. "Some people take it better than others."

"And some get falling-down nasty drunk."

She snorted, a short laugh, leaving Carlyle with a silence to fill. "Your wife don't look like that kind." He tried a broad smile.

"Yeah." The dentist finished his drink, put ten dollars on the table and stood up. "I'll be right back." He went toward the rest rooms: but when, 15 minutes later, he had not returned. Carlyle realized he was on his own.

Weather did not interest her, nor Asia, nor even hemlines. She would not speak, gave him no handle. When the ten-dollar bill had dwindled to seven pennies and a dime, he helped her out of the booth, up the stairs to the street and into a taxi.

On the Hill, she handed him a key and he opened her door. He stepped aside, knowing in this situation she would have to ask him inside. "Can you make it all right?"

She nodded and started into the dark house, with his S1000. Then her heels stopped and turned back, but he could not see her pinched face. "You seem too nice to be his friend. Mr. Bedlow." She closed the door in his face.

•••

The next day, he paid the dentist a visit. "Man, that was the wrongest thing you could've did, leaving like that. I got to sell myself under your nose."

Bent over his worktable, the dentist was inspecting his tools. "What happened?"

"Nothing. She just sat there and filled up on that ten you left." He was in the dentist's chair, and his jaw, remembering, began to throb. "We worse off than when we started."

"How you figure that?"

"Because now she connects me with an unhappy time. I got to have a chance to sympathize with her. But she didn't tell me nothing. I didn't have the chance to call you a bastard."

The dentist turned around, a small knife in his hand. "I couldn't sit there with that crazy bitch no more. I went to Jean's."

"You have to hold that back if you want this to work. You educated and all, but that was dumb."

"I couldn't help it." looked unhappy. "So you didn't make progress?"

"Nothing, man. As a matter of fact, I think she knows we ain't Army buddies, because at the end, she sticks her head out the door and tells me I'm too nice to be your friend--Mr. Bedlow."

"She did?" The dentist brightened. "Goddamn! You made it. Carlyle." He jumped, the knife shining in his fist. "Why didn't you tell me that before?"

Carlyle cleared his throat. "Remember you said you wanted to get out before you got crazy, too?" He shook his head. "You too late."

"Listen." The dentist came toward him, waving the knife. "You're too nice to be my friend. That's a compliment."

Just then, Carlyle very much wished he was on his way to a steady customer with a fur coat fresh from some white woman's unlocked car, perfume still strong in its silk lining. "That ain't no compliment. Not the way she said it. She was just getting you."

"You're wrong. I know my wife, man. I'm a bad guy. But you're too nice to be my friend. She's going for it. Time for stage number two." The weekend was coming, he went on. Friday night, Caryle. Jean, the dentist and his wife would go down to the cottage at the end of Long Island. Jean would pretend to be Carlyle's date. But once they had arrived, Jean and the dentist would have lots of paperwork. Carlyle would be free to seduce the dentist's wife. He was so sure it would work that he told Carlyle to arrange to have someone there to take pictures on Saturday night. He would put the photographer up at a small motel nearby.

There was no arguing with him. Carlyle agreed to come to the office at six that Friday with a suitcase full of attractive sports clothes, the better to trap the dentist's wife.

•••

The dentist owned a very big automobile. Carlyle and Jean--her big, beautiful thighs crossed--sat in the back. The dentist's wife stared out of the open right front window at cemeteries, airports, rows of pink and gray houses and, finally, sandy hills covered with stubby Christmas trees and hard, dull-green bushes. Two hours from Harlem, they turned onto a dirt road. Then, even over the engine, Carlyle heard the music, as if they had made a giant circle and returned to the summer jukeboxes of the Avenue.

The community was crowded in the dusk light around a small, bright bay. It did not look like Harlem, but if he had come on it by accident. Carlyle would've known that black people lived there. The music was loud and there was the smell of good food, barbecuing ribs, frying chickens. Carlyle had always believed that black people like the dentist and his wife tried very hard to act white. If so, their music and food gave them away.

The dentist's house was glass and lacquered wood, 30 yards from the beach. They sat around an empty yellow-brick fireplace, flicking their ashes into ceramic trays, while the dentist's wife fixed dinner. Behind her back, the dentist winked, smiled, waved at Jean. Carlyle read a magazine, trying to give them privacy--and wondered if the dentist's wife actually did not know about Jean and the dentist. They ate, drank two or three Scotches apiece, tried to talk and, at 11, gave up and went to bed.

Carlyle had not been in bed at 11 in years, and he awoke in the middle of the night. Listening to the waves, he missed Harlem: cars racing lights on the Avenue, drunks indicating the white man, someone still up and playing music. Unable to get sleep back, he climbed out of bed, removed his black pressing rag and went out into the front yard. Something made him look up and he discovered the stars. In Harlem, he could see only the brightest, strongest ones. But now he saw more stars than sequins on a barmaid's dress, and liked them. He sat, then lay down, careful to keep his hands between the wet grass and his hair.

At first he did not hear her thumping toward him. Then her pinched orange-gray face was peering down at him, her hair wrapped around tiny spiked metal rollers. "You didn't like your bed?" She wore only a nightgown, drab in the star-light.

He sat up quickly. "I couldn't sleep, not enough noise." That sounded funny to him and he laughed quietly.

"I know what you mean." She hesitated for a moment, then sat down next to him. It was going to work, after all. The man did know his wife. Maybe she had some men but was very careful about it.

Lowering herself down beside him, she'd gathered up the nightgown to show him knees as square and hard as fist-sized ivory dice. "It's a nice night, though."

"Yeah." He had not finished judging her legs.

"They're not much, are they? Maybe what's why----" She stopped. "No. that's not why." Then she looked at him. "Mr. Bedlow--"

He did not let her finish, had pushed her onto her back while his name was still soft in the air. It was business, like opening a car door, going through a glove compartment, tossing the road maps aside, hoping to find a portable radio or a wallet. She wrapped her thin arms and legs around him, gasping as if in pain.

On hands and knees, he pulled away from her and discovered she had begun to cry. "Oh, this is bad. This is bad. But ... I was so hot!" She rolled onto her stomach, muffling sobs in the grass. "This is really bad. I can't do this."

He patted her shoulder blades, pulled her nightgown over her buttocks, realizing, as he tried to comfort her, that the dentist had lied to him. If she had been cheating. Carlyle could hope to be President of the United States. Of course, it did not matter, only that he did not want it known that he believed everything people told him.

Finally, he got her to stop crying and sit up. She would not look at him but huddled on the grass, her back to him. "I'm sorry. Mr. Bedlow. I guess you could tell we was having troubles. But I didn't mean to bring you into it."

"Come on, Robena, the sky won't fall down. And call me Carlyle. Mr. Bedlow don't make it now." He moved closer to her, spoke over her shoulder. "What kind of trouble you people got? You own everything, two houses, a big car and all that. So it can't be money." He believed what he said but had asked because now he wanted to know the dentist's weaknesses.

She lowered her chin to her chest. "No, it's not money. Yes, it's money." She raised her head and turned toward him. "How old are you?"

He gave himself a few years.

"I'm thirty-six." She waited, let the number die. "Me and my husband, when we went to school, in Washington, it was different, even from your time. We always thought, at least I did--I mean, now I don't know what he really thought--I mean, we thought it was enough for him to be a dentist. You know what I mean?"

All this had little to do with marriage, the kind he knew. He had expected the usual story, the dentist in the street, running after the many Jeans he'd had before this one. Or perhaps she would think the dentist cheap. He waited.

"But that's not enough anymore. I mean, he's a good dentist, he really is, but they don't care if he's good or not. I always thought they'd care."

They? Carlyle thought. Then he realized she was talking about white people.

"But they don't. It took me a long time to see that: and after. I didn't want to believe it." She paused. "We was raised to believe we had to be best. My momma was always telling me, you got to be best in your class."

Carlyle, too, remembered those words.

"But I was a girl and was only supposed to be the best wife I could be. So when we got married. I worked so he could go to school full time. He's a good dentist, but it didn't do any good. When he should've been on the staff of a good clinic, he ended up in Harlem. And when he should've--" She stopped, shook her head. "This isn't very interesting, is it?"

One quality Carlyle had developed in his work was patience; he told her to go on, still hoping she would give him something important.

"The point is, when I saw they was lying about caring, I looked into everything they said, and you know what? They lied about everything." She spoke as if still bewildered by her discovery.

"Hell, I known that since I was seven."

She shook her head several times. "No, listen, everything. Even about food. You ever read the small print on a box of ice cream? It's not even ice cream."

"You sound like my little brother." He started to laugh. "He's a Black Jesuit. And you know they crazy."

She ignored him. "What I want is for him to stop working for a year and go around the world. I want to see if what I think is true really is. And I want him to see it. And if it is, maybe we can do just something small. It's not enough for us to sit out here on a little pile of money. I mean, we was supposed to do something good for our race, too." She stopped talking then, sat with her chin on her knees, her nightgown bunched around her thighs, leaving Carlyle disappointed.

Then she stood up. "Well, that's my sad tale. Maybe you'll tell me yours one time." She smiled, for the first time.

In the kitchen, she gave him a cup of instant coffee. He read the label and wondered what kind of chemicals the Xs and Ys were and what they did to his stomach. When he had finished the coffee, he returned to his room, retied his head and climbed into bed.

•••

The dentist knocked at his door at nine the next morning but did not wait for Carlyle to ask him in. "You made it, didn't you? I knew you could crack it open. Been done before. I hope your man is a good picture taker. My prints got to come out clear!"

Carlyle propped himself against the bed's headboard. "She may not do it again." He had decided he would let the dentist think himself still in charge.

"Go on, man. Everybody knows the first nut is the hardest."

"Maybe so. How you know, anyway?"

"I woke up at three and she wasn't in bed. And neither was you. I figured you was together someplace. What'd you think of it?"

"Ain't the best I ever had."

"Me, too." The dentist came to the bed's foot. "But with the money, you can buy something better." The dentist smiled, good even white teeth, one gold covered--then closed his lips. "You better drive over to that motel and tell your friend to load his camera."

Carlyle nodded. "What's your plan for today?"

"We're invited to a party. In the late afternoon. We get her drunk, you bring her home, naked, and in bed. I'll make sure you got the house to yourselves." He smiled again. "Me and my Jean'll make sure, someplace." He laughed, turning to the door. "Get your hook in deep."

"I might toss this one back."

He opened the door. "Not in my creek, you won't."

But Carlyle was not so sure.

As he dressed--in short-sleeved pink silk shirt, white bell-bottoms--he tried to decide exactly what to do. Obviously, he wanted to come out the other end with the dentist's $1000. But then the dentist would have to get his pictures. What Carlyle most wanted was to get his money but leave the dentist married to his crazy wife. That would sound good when told in the bars. "That dentist thought he had Carlyle, but then Carlyle Bedlow got down to business, do you hear, business!" That meant he had to get the money before the dentist saw the pictures, bad ones. Pictures in which the woman's face was not quite clear. When he paid the money, the dentist would have to believe the pictures were good. Carlyle heard himself talking: "She passed out, man. I just sat there beside her in my shorts: we pulled back the covers and Hondo snapped away. They so good we might even sell some." But the pictures wouldn't show a thing. He rehearsed his speech while he finished dressing.

He avoided breakfast, wanting the dentist to suffer through a morning with both of his women, imaging that as he drove between the trees on his way to see his friend, the photographer, Hondo Johnson.

"Wait a minute. You saying you don't want the pictures to come out?"

"Right."

"Well, why don't you just give him a blank roll?" Hondo was still in his pajamas, a pullover top, shorts. They were lemon yellow and his legs were brown and shiny. He was sitting on the edge of his motel bed.

"Because, if he ever finds me, I can tell him it was a surprise to me too. I'll offer to do it again." He was looking into Hondo's mirror, checking his hair. "But he won't go for it, because no man could do it two times to the same woman. And I'm sorry. Doc, but I already spent that money. He ain't got no boys to send after me."

"Come on, man. Why can't we just do it simple? Take the pictures and get the money." Once Hondo thought it was going one way, he did not like to change his plans. He couldn't improvise. But if he knew exactly what to do, it was done. "We'll mess up, man. And I could've used the money."

"We won't lose the money. We'll take insurance pictures. Good ones, with her legs open and all. I know a man down-town'll buy them." And it would be good to have the pictures, just in case the dentist did have some boys. "You satisfied now?"

Hondo nodded but did not look happy. His lips were poked out under his mustache. "Tell me the signal."

"When I turn out the lights." Carlyle hadn't really thought about it.

Hondo started to laugh. "And how'm I supposed to shoot pictures in the dark?" He was pleased to have caught Carlyle.

"You're all right, man." He adjusted his shirt, turned from the mirror. "What about the blinds?"

"That's good. Pull down the blinds, and if they already down, pull them up. Just do something with them blinds." He stood up. "You got that?"

"OK." He liked Hondo. "But I'll try to get her falling-down so we'll have plenty of time and she won't know nothing. Then we leave. I don't like no drunken broads anyway."

•••

It was working. She might even pass out before he got her off the dirt road, into the house and out of her clothes. The party had started at five and now, at ten, was still going. They had eaten--potato salad, fried chicken and greens, on paper plates--drinking steadily. The doctors, lawyers, dentists, big-time hustlers got very loud about baseball, the white man, Harlem after the War, when they were all starting careers. Their children, teenagers, had finally gained control of the phonograph and were dancing hard on the lawn. Carlyle had filled her empty glasses. Finally, he asked her if she wanted to go home. Winking at the dentist, he led her out of the house.

In the moonlight, the dirt of the road, half sand, shone gray. He was supporting her with a hand on her bony rib cage. "How you doing?" He did not really want her to answer and disturb herself.

"I'm doing fine. What did you say?"

"Nothing." They were on the dentist's grass now, circling a clump of lawn chairs and an umbrella table, a few steps from the porch. He saw the bushes move and waved at Hondo.

Taking her straight to her bedroom, he turned on the dim table lamp and began to undress her. She did not resist but was so still that he was not sure she was awake. He put her clothes onto a chair, returned to the bed and pulled the bedcovers from under her. "Thanks, baby." It sounded strange the way she said it. It was meant not for him but for the dentist.

He undressed to his shorts, went to the window and pulled down the blinds.

"What's that?" She raised her head, but it weighed too much.

He tried to imitate the dentist. "Northing baby. We need some air, is all."

Hondo was coming. He had banged open the front door, was making his way through the living room, bumping into things. He slid the coffee table out of his way. Carlyle went to the bedroom door. "Hey, man, quiet down. Follow my voice."

"Why didn't you turn on some lights, nigger?" He had almost reached the hallway. Carlyle was at the other end.

Follow my voice, man."

Now Hondo ran toward him, appeared, in Bermuda shorts and sneakers. Carlyle backed into the room.

Hondo popped into the doorway, stopped. "You expect me to take pictures in this light?" He was disgusted.

"Quiet down, man." Carlyle whispered. "She ain't out yet."

"I got to have more light. I ain't got no infrared attachment." He began to focus his camera on the dentist's naked wife.

"Baby?" She rolled to her side, then back. "Who's that?"

"Ain't nobody. Close your eyes. I'm turning on the top light."

She did not answer. He waited, then switched it on. It was very bright. For a few seconds, he could not see Hondo. "OK now?"

"I think so." He put the camera to his face again. "But I can't be sure until I read the meter."

"Come on, man. We ain't got time for that." She was going to wake up. Somehow he knew it.

"Always got time. What if we ain't got our insurance pictures?" He took a light meter from his pocket, advanced on her, held it over her navel.

Carlyle sat down on the bed. "How you doing, baby?" He patted her shoulder.

Her eyes were closed. "Who was that just now?"

"Just a guy." He leaned over, kissed her cheek.

"I got it now, man." Hondo had moved to the foot of the bed. "One point four. But I got to do it in seconds, so you can't move."

"Who's that voice?" She raised herself to her elbows, looked up into Hondo's lens. "Who's he?"

"OK, now hold it."

But she was already moving, realizing she was with Carlyle, scrambling to the edge of the bed. "He got you to do this."

Carlyle reached out for her, but she broke away and jumped for the closet. "He'll never get one now." She pulled the door behind her.

Carlyle did not follow her. He could easily open the closet door, but that would be useless. She had to be in bed with a man, looking either surprised or happy, but not struggling. "You better come out of there, Robena." He put a threat into his voice but did not mean it. She had to imprison herself while he thought. He knew what he had to do now: convince her to pose for the pictures.

He looked at Hondo, still busy with final adjustments, then stood up. "Listen, baby, you can't stay in there all night. And nobody's coming to rescue you." His mouth was close to the door.

"And nobody's getting a divorce, either." She started to scold him. "I thought you was nice."

"I am. We ain't even into how nice I really am. Come on out."

Hondo sat down on the bed, camera waiting.

"You're not nice." She paused, cleared her nose. "You make love to women for money." She sniffled again.

"That ain't the way it is. I came out here with Jean. Your husband's nurse?"

"I know her. She got a crush on him."

"No, she don't." He waited; she did not speak. "She's with me, but then last night you and me got into something special. But your husband found out. And he said he'd make a lot of trouble for me if I didn't get his pictures. He got me in a terrible spot."

She paused for a moment. "First of all, you didn't even talk to Jean all the way out in the car. And second, where did you get a cameraman so fast?"

The dentist's wife was very smart. "You being real stupid. What you want with a man who don't want you?"

"He does so want me." She did not believe herself.

"No, he don't. He wants Jean. He wants to marry Jean." His voice was cold, the way he talked to white policemen as long as their guns were buried under blue winter coats. "And he's paying me lots of money to get him a divorce."

She waited again, crying behind the closet door. "Well, he's not getting one."

"Listen to me. Robena." He bent closer, softened his tone. "Face it, baby. He don't want you. He don't want anything about you. He don't want to go around the world with you. He thinks you're crazy to want to do that. Give the man his pictures."

And she did.

•••

They were the clearest pictures any judge would ever see. The woman sat on the bed, bare to the waist. She looked sad, her infidelity uncovered. The young black hoodlum, his hair shiny and slightly waved, was certainly not her husband.

Hondo took no others. Carlyle had decided against trying for the extra money. One thousand was enough. The dentist paid him, in cash, the following Monday evening.

Carlyle had long since turned the money into clothes, a good camel's-hair overcoat, shoes, a few suits, when next he heard from the dentist's wife. She had mailed a postcard to him, care of the Silver Goose. It came from Europe:

Hello. We're here on our honeymoon. My husband is a dentist from [the ink had been smudged] in Africa. Best wishes. Robena (the dentist's wife, remember?).

At first Carlyle did not remember. When he did, he thought about it for a while... .