Doc - Mary Doria Russell [99]
And it wasn’t easy, either. There were a shitload of words he had to look up or ask Doc about. Not just foreign ones like dvornik or batuchka, either. Hypochondria. Subterfuge. Torpor. And, damn, the names! Raskolnikoff. Lebeziatnikoff. Amalia Fedorovna Lippevechzel. Who in hell could get his mouth around words like that? Even Doc had trouble with a lot of them, and sometimes they asked Kate about how to say something.
“Don’t worry about the names,” Doc advised. “Just read. People are people, in St. Petersburg or Dodge.”
So Morg kept on, and Doc was right. The people in the book were all familiar. Drunks, prostitutes, politicians, policemen. Rich and poor, side by side. Men who beat horses and men who beat women. Good women gone bad. Bad women who weren’t so terrible when you got to know them.
“It’s like you can listen inside everybody’s mind,” Morg told Wyatt. “You can hear them think in this story. The fella it’s about—Raskolnikoff? I can’t work out if he’s got a fever or if he’s plain crazy, but his thinking’s all mixed up. And you find out about people’s lives, and how they got that way. I was about ready to turn temperance by page thirty.”
“Wouldn’t hurt you none.” Wyatt finished his coffee and stood. “Tell Fat Larry I’ll be a few minutes late.”
Deacon Cox wasn’t behind the desk at Dodge House, so Wyatt went down to Doc’s office and then upstairs to check his room on the second floor. No one answered the knocks. He tried Delmonico’s next, and found the dentist having dinner there, with his woman practically in his lap. When the whore saw Wyatt through the window, she sat up straight and looked like she wanted to spit.
Wyatt stepped inside. “Doc, I need a word.”
“Bring with thee airs from heaven or blasts from hell?” the dentist inquired warily. “If you have come to accuse me of some new crime, sir, you may do so in front of my companion. If I am to be locked up, she will consult an attorney on my behalf.”
“No, it’s nothing like that. Everything you said checked out.”
“I am pleased to hear it,” Doc said tightly.
“Could we go outside?”
Doc got to his feet and turned to Kate. “If you will excuse us, darlin’?”
They left the restaurant. Wyatt waited for the passersby to clear the boardwalk before he said, “Look, Doc, I’m sorry about the other day.”
“You were doin’ your job. Let us put it behind us.”
“Yeah. Good. Anyways … About my teeth. I have other debts,” Wyatt said. “Could you take two dollars a week for fifteen weeks? I want to do all of it.”
The dentist seemed surprised, then pleased. “A wise decision,” he said warmly, “and one you won’t regret. Come by my office after your shift. Bring your brother Morgan, too, if you will. I’ll need to take a few measurements from his front teeth. Say eight o’clock tomorrow mornin’?”
Wyatt nodded and looked away. Needing something always bothered him, even if it was dentistry. He noticed Kate, still sitting at the table, glaring at him through the plate glass. What’d I ever do to her? he wondered.
“Didn’t expect to see you two back together,” he said.
“Miss Kate is possessed of a passionate Hungarian nature,” Doc murmured. “Our reunions are compensation for her occasional lapses in good taste.”
Just then, a burst of laughter from across the tracks took their attention. Bat Masterson was telling some story to his cronies, using his gold-topped walking stick to mime a rifle. The men around him were loudly appreciative.
Eyes narrowed against another brilliant sunset, Wyatt said nothing for a time, watching pink light flash off Bat’s fancy chromed Colts. Even at this distance, you could see the stone in his cravat sparkle.
“Doc, if you don’t mind me asking, how much did that diamond of yours cost?”
“I haven’t the slightest idea.” Doc’s fingers went to the stickpin he always wore. “It was a gift from someone dear to me. I will die before I part with it,” he said. “But I take your meanin’. Sheriff Masterson appears to be prosperin’ in public service. You hear he just bought a half interest in the Lone Star Dance Hall? Now, what do you suppose that