The Jezebel Remedy

by Martin Clark

  “Thank you,” Lisa said.

  “Have a seat. You’ll be finished before you even realize it.”

  She slid onto an elongated vinyl chair, swinging her legs in last, crossing them at the ankles. The chair was orange, the room smelled antiseptic, the retractable light above the chair was harsh and clinical, already switched on. Beasley clipped a disposable towel around her neck and adjusted the chair until her head was tilted and slightly higher than her feet. She heard a motor whir while she was being positioned and a forceful, mechanical, pressurized pop when it cut off.

  “Okay, I’m going to numb you,” Beasley said. “Open for me.” He was seated on a roller stool, and he planted a heel and jockeyed between her and a tray full of instruments, agile with the extra three legs despite his size, the movements second nature, ingrained. He came closer to her face, wearing a green mask. “Relax. Turn a bit my way. This is a dose of topical.” He was confident and steady, all the senseless energy gone, his instruction to her calm, practiced, direct. He dabbed at her gum with a Q-tip, all around the tooth he’d be coloring, and she tasted a faint, bitter patch at the tip of her tongue. The very first cotton touch caused her to tense.

  “There we go,” he said. “Nothing to it.”

  “Yeah,” she murmured.

  “It works fairly quick,” he noted. “In case you were wondering, your teeth look great,” he added, killing time, waiting for the topical to dull her. “You’re lucky.”

  Lisa didn’t say anything.

  “Little baby stick,” he warned after returning from another swerve and slide to reach the tray.

  She felt the needle pierce her skin and the lidocaine surge into her gum and trace along her tooth and its roots and fill the socket space, the painkiller cool, strong, rapid, and the dentist jiggled her lip and pressed and massaged and reset the needle and shot in more numbing, and it immediately pushed a path across her cheek and toward her ear, and she caught herself trying to bite down, and she squirmed and she sucked the best breath she could and shut her eyes, moved her hands from her lap to the chair’s arms. Beasley tapped her gum with his sheathed finger, finished with the needle and dropped it on the silver tray, a clank interrupting the silent room when it landed.

  “We okay?” he asked, though he was already reaching for the next tool.

  “Umm-hmmmm,” Lisa replied.

  “Let’s give the lidocaine a little time.”

  He waited a couple minutes, the room still awkwardly quiet, neither of them speaking, and then the analgesic took hold and spread, a creeping, tingling insulation that divided off a portion of her mouth and gum. He tested the effects, probing and pushing. She felt the pressure but nothing else, no sensation.

  “You should be numb. Can you feel that?”

  “Nuh.”

  He instructed her to make sure she kept her mouth open as wide as possible, and she watched as a gold veneer came toward her, disappearing into the light and her watery focus, her eyes stymied by the glare, her vision off-track, myopic, aimed at the ceiling.

  She heard a tool scrape against enamel, and she noticed Beasley’s concentration, his tightly pinched forehead above the mask. He inched closer, and she saw thick eyebrows connected by a scant black isthmus spreading across the top of his nose, the hairs magnified as if she were looking at him in an illuminated makeup mirror.

  “I think we’re good,” he said. “Swallow, please.” He suctioned her mouth with his free hand and wiped her chin with a gauze pad. “I’m going to have to shave the veneer a teeny-tiny bit.” He used a small grinder that sounded like an electric bee when it touched the gold covering, then suctioned all around her mouth again.

  She shifted her eyes to avoid the light.

  Twice he forced the veneer into place and removed it and shaped it with the grinder. “All right,” he finally said after he inserted the covering for the third time and pressed and pushed and pried. “Consider yourself formally grilled.” He handed her a mirror. “How does it feel?”

  “Fine. My mouth’s numb, but that’s about it.” She smiled so she could see the tooth. “Thanks, Blaine.”

  “It’s a temp and might feel a little strange. I didn’t want to rough the enamel for the bonding any more than absolutely necessary, and I didn’t want to damage your other teeth or gum trying to make it fit perfect. And it’s not aligned like it should be, but you said that wasn’t a big concern.” Beasley checked his watch. “We’re under ten minutes,” he said. “Ahead of schedule.” He was already walking out while he spoke, in a hurry, and she could hear his rubber-soled shoes squeaking on the floor as he waddled away.

  “Fucking Seth Garrison,” she mumbled, but not loud enough for Beasley to hear, and she trailed him down the hall, toward the door.

  “That’s it, I suppose,” Beasley told her when they reached the exit.

  “Blaine, please let me pay you,” she said. “I brought cash. I can’t let you go in the hole because you’re doing me a favor. I realize gold’s expensive, though you can have it back once I’m through.”

  He smiled. “It’s not real gold, Lisa. And I’ll charge you the exact same you charged me for all the mother henning and mitten tying and hours of midnight counseling. Or better yet, perhaps this will bring us even.”

  “More than even,” she said.

  “Promise me this, please.” He leaned toward her. “You…take care of yourself, okay?”

  “Definitely.”

  “And I can’t help saying it, and it’ll never go past these walls, but Lord help us all, don’t raise Lettie VanSandt from the dead any longer than absolutely necessary.” He twisted the dead bolt. “I’m sorry; I just couldn’t resist.” He smiled, and somehow even that was round. “Let’s have one more quick peek at how everything fits before you leave—open for me.” He clicked a penlight and aimed it at her mouth.

  —

  Wearing sunglasses, she stepped from Beasley’s office onto the sidewalk and immediately spotted the truck, a white Ford F-150 with a trailer hitch and Harley decals displayed across the cab’s rear window. She walked to the passenger side and climbed in. “Hey, Lloyd,” she said.

  “Long time no see, Mrs. Stone,” Lloyd Burnette answered. His voice was deep, a salted, drawling baritone. “Can’t say I’m unhappy ’bout that. No offense.” He cranked the engine, and they drove toward the highway.

  “None taken.”

  “Danville Holiday Inn? That still the plan?”

  “Yes,” she said.

  “Okeydokey.” Burnette was barely forty, but he looked considerably older, his face so lined and creased it appeared crosshatched in spots. “Fair to say I ain’t never been to no motel with a woman looks as nice as you.”

  “Thanks for the compliment.”

  “The truth is the truth,” he said, keeping his eyes directly on the road. “Your car safe at the mall?”

  “I parked near the gym. It’s open twenty-four hours a day, so people are usually around and the car won’t be too noticeable.”

  “I shoulda knowed you were on top of that.”

  “So can you do the tattoos?” she asked. “I mean, how closely can you imitate them?”

  Burnette’s hair was pulled into a graying ponytail. He was wearing a black T-shirt from a motorcycle rally in Sturgis. The shirt was full and tight at his belly. “Well, I done my stencils. Some of them designs you want me to copy is quality. Some is crap. A few pieces I’ll just do freehand. My big problem is havin’ it not look brand spankin’ new, ’specially what with me airbrushin’ it. From the pictures you sent me, there’s a few parts and designs that I can’t see how they finish; as I understand it, I can just leave ’em blank. The nose rings is clip-ons, but you can’t tell unless you was to yank on ’em or come right up to a person’s face.”

  “On a one to ten, how similar will it be? Your best guess.”

  He chuckled. “The designs and the art, I’ll give you an eight, maybe nine. If you or someone who don’t know the trade was to look at it, yo
u probably ain’t gonna notice no difference. A pro’d see it. The color’s the bitch. But I got some tricks, okay? I worked on my paints, and we’ll wash ’em good, and the dragon—the dragon is real old, best I can tell—him we’ll scrub with a little mineral oil.”

  “I appreciate your coming,” she told him.

  “No problem.” He grinned. “Nice tooth.”

  “How long will it take you?” she asked.

  “Good long stretch. Three hours, maybe four. I’ll let everything cure and finish it early of a morning. I can spend the night in my truck and keep a lookout for you.”

  “No, please, I booked a separate room for you. I’d feel awful if you stayed all night in your truck.”

  “Like I said, I’ll be in the truck. I wouldn’t want somethin’ happenin’ to you, not on my watch, and I figure this is at least a little risky. Some favor that’d be, me lettin’ you wind up in a bad spot.”

  “Thank you.” Lisa was watching the car beside them, checking her surroundings, on alert for any kind of tail or surveillance. “Please, Lloyd, this stays between us. That’s important. Not even Joe can know.”

  “What the hey, Mrs. Stone. Yeah. You done told me once. That’s all the remindin’ I need. I’m with the program.”

  “Sorry.”

  “Happy to help. You and your old man damn well done me good. I’d probably still be inkin’ cons and learnin’ gang tats if it wasn’t for you. I owe you guys. You was court-appointed too. Most times, people in my situation get a lick and a promise. I ain’t so much as smoked a joint since. Married to a fine lady. Bought me a house. My tattoo shop is keepin’ me fed. I started a little seamless-gutter business on the side. I learnt my damn lesson.”

  “Glad to hear it.”

  “Not many people woulda give me a hundred bucks, either. Did you know that? I was broke as a joke. Mr. Stone was fearful I’d wind up in another mistake, and he handed me the cash last time I was in your office. October ninth, 2007. Day I walked free. Yep. Took me damn near three months, but I repaid it.” Burnette held up the arm closest to Lisa. The date was tattooed on his biceps in elaborate script, an eagle perched on the O in October.

  “Has it been four years?” Lisa said quietly.

  “We’re gettin’ old,” Burnette said. They passed a church and a convenience store made entirely of field rock. “Joe still pussyfootin’ ’round on his little scooter?” He grinned.

  “Uh, yeah.”

  “Damn, ma’am, that needs correctin’.”

  That night, after Burnette finished painting her and returned to his truck, Lisa couldn’t sleep, but she didn’t dare take a pill, not even a partial Ativan, was determined to be alert and focused for the DNA session. She stretched out on the hotel bed, wearing a tank top and pajama bottoms, underneath a coarse sheet, her iPod playing Donna the Buffalo songs, a dingy hotel mug full of hot tea on the floor beside her, and she leafed through an old photo album she’d brought along to keep her company, pictures of Joe and her from law school, Joe and puppy Brownie posing in front of a Christmas tree, a Mardi Gras party at Chatmoss Country Club, and several pages of Joe as a child, her favorite shot an off-center, black-and-white snap of him, knee-high to his grandpa, the two of them standing on a rural stoop, a screen door behind them, a wrought-iron S dead in the heart of the door, the 1960s, Joe the boy beaming, pointing joyously at a bag of rock salt and an honest-to-goodness ice-cream churn.

  She called Joe and told him she was in Manassas at her hotel with nothing unusual to report. She mentioned the sweet photo of him, he and his grandfather getting ready to make ice cream, and told him he was adorable when he was a lad. She loved him; she told him that, too.

  She dozed for a couple hours at most, woke when it was barely dawn and started the in-room coffee, jittery as she’d ever been in her life, and as she was reaching into the minifridge for creamer, she registered her cartooned arm and the crazy black and chartreuse nails she’d painted, her own arm foreign, a changeling limb. She checked her watch. “Please, Derek,” she said aloud. “Come on.” According to their schedule, he was supposed to have called before now, last night at the absolute latest.

  —

  Hansen had assured her he was smarter than Garrison’s flunkies and that his call to her BlackBerry would be secure. He’d doctored the software in his own cell, and even if Benecorp somehow managed to penetrate his “moats and catapults,” he promised her the crooks would be listening to gibberish. “We’ll be long gone, and they’ll still be campaigning in Eberron, lost and bewildered,” he boasted.

  Her phone rang at 7:15, but it was Robert Williams letting her know that Judge Klein’s law clerk had heard—yesterday—from a woman claiming to be Lettie VanSandt, though even the caller’s gender was up in the air, because whoever it was had used a voice modulator and sounded, according to the judge’s mordant explanation, “like Satan in the fourth installment of a horror movie franchise, when all the original actors are gone and the budget’s kaput.”

  “He seemed entirely skeptical,” Williams said. “He also wasn’t happy that a witness in a high-stakes suit had contacted his office, even just to confirm the time.”

  “At least she’s still on schedule,” Lisa said. “Thank heavens. But how the heck would she have a voice modulator? And why? That’s weird. And suspicious.”

  “Not really. You can download the software onto your phone for free. My grandkids love it.”

  “That still doesn’t explain why.”

  “Are we a hundred percent committed to this, Lisa?” he asked. “Is Joe positive it was her on the phone?”

  “He is. And now she’s contacted the judge, so we’re as good as can be expected. We’ll see how the day goes and hope for the best.”

  “My instincts tell me this’ll end badly for us. I’m worried that Benecorp might’ve staged this and had a plant call so you’d seem devious and unreliable when your absurd tale falls apart.”

  “Hell, Robert, we’re already so far behind, why would they bother?”

  “Garrison’s a schemer—we’ve certainly learned that much. At any rate, this stinks to high heaven. And assuming the state somehow botched the autopsy and the DNA match, and assuming she’s still alive, she’s such a blatant lunatic we can’t count on her. She might think the Purple Whore has broken the last seal, or ever how all that unfolds, and disappear off the charts again. I’d say the odds of her acting rationally aren’t in our favor.”

  “We’re far too invested now,” Lisa said. “No other choices left. She’s alive and, yeah, she’s crazy, but our best and only chance is getting her spit on a lab slide. Simple as that.” Lisa glanced at her coffee. “No hard feelings,” she said. “I understand completely if you want to withdraw, Robert. We don’t want to drag you down with us if Lettie doesn’t show.”

  He made a sound that was equal parts sigh and snort. “I bought the round-trip ticket. I’m planning on taking the whole ride, regardless of where it goes. Anyway, Klein will rain on you guys more than he will on me. I’m only the mouthpiece.”

  “I’m trying to be optimistic,” Lisa said.

  “If that changes, call me first, you hear?” Williams said. “Oh—also learned yesterday that Benecorp’s expert determined the handwriting on Joe’s letter isn’t Lettie’s. Just so you’ll know.”

  “Handwriting experts are a dime a dozen and easy to buy,” she said. “Especially if you’re Benecorp. Nothing new there. Doesn’t mean a thing to me. Joe said it looked genuine to him. I saw her, and Joe talked to her, so their hired-gun flunky can say whatever the hell he wants.”

  She microwaved her coffee, and added more creamer, and lit a cigarette in the bathroom and switched on the wheezing exhaust fan to suck away the smoke, and then her phone rang again and the ID showed 800 in the area code, the word SEARS beneath the string of numbers.

  “Hello?” she said tentatively, dropping the cigarette in the john.

  “Mrs. Stone?”

  “Yes.”

  “This is
Overbyte.”

  “Overbyte? Is it safe to talk?”

  “No worries—we’re completely Bat-phoned and secure.”

  “How do I know it’s really you?” Lisa asked.

  “Esquivel, fried chicken, cabbage and mayo. Poplin suits. Nifty socks. You wore a peacock pin to the diner in Fieldale, different-colored stones in the tail. Satisfied?”

  “How much are we paying you?” she asked.

  “Four-oh-one. As in hundred per hour. Five now. I don’t see why we couldn’t just meet face-to-face like we did before.”

  “I have my reasons,” she said. “The face part might be a bit tricky.”

  “Whatever,” he said. “You’re the ringmaster.”

  “Okay. So are you done?” she asked. “Please tell me you are.”

  “Done,” Hansen answered.

  “And?”

  “Well, I have the classic good-news, bad-news report.”

  “Oh, damn, Derek, we’re out of time. You were supposed to call last night.”

  “Hold your pee, okay? Quit freaking. I have the prize. Plus lagniappe I really didn’t need to discover.”

  “Bad news first,” she said. “How bad?” she added without waiting for him to respond. She searched the room for her purse, spotted it on the bathroom counter next to the sink.

  “The bad news is that Hamburglar was caught. Not caught caught, but they know they’ve been hacked. There’ll be digital footprints. To translate it for your purposes, imagine a couple of tower guards were shooting at me as I fled in my Aston Martin.”

  “But you know what the Wound Velvet does?” she asked. She grabbed her pack of Marlboro Ultra Lights from the purse, shook one from the opening, lit it, inhaled. She tossed the pack on the counter.

  “I do,” Hansen said emphatically. “But I have to hand it to Garrison, or whoever designed their system, it’s a superior mousetrap. Of course I was rushed and in a hurry, thanks to your deadline. I’m embarrassed to have set off the damn alarms. It’s clichéd, but I was to the ‘cut the blue wire or cut the red wire’ point and was tired as hell and running out of time, so I guessed, and the fifty percent probability didn’t trend my way. Another week—or three days even—and I would’ve been invisible.”