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like he had just awakened with something on his mind. Something to do with her, a middle-aged widow woman, living alone, except when her daughter visited, which was practically never.
    For his own part, Dallas became aware of two things simultaneously: first, that he had no clothes on; and second, that Mrs. Nicolelia was no teeth thief. The expression on her face was ample testimony. “My teeth,” Dallas tried to explain, having difficulty with the
th
sound.
    “Your what?” said Mrs. Nicolelia, confused, expecting from the naked man another sort of communication entirely.
    “Teeth,” Dallas repeated. This time the sound he made more closely approximated his meaning, and he succeeded in reducing at least one level of his neighbor’s confusion.
    “You aren’t wearing any,” she reported. Then, seeing that he still eyed her purse, his brain refusing to surrender completely the sound it had first recognized asthat of falling teeth, she opened the purse wide so he could see. No teeth.
    Back in his apartment, Dallas commenced a thorough search of the premises, though he knew in advance it would be futile. He was thinking more clearly now and the former certainty that his teeth had been stolen began to seem rash. His two-room flat was easy to search. Once he examined the sink and shower, stripped the sofa sleeper and plunged his hands down along the seams, he was more or less finished. His quest was not without its immediate rewards, however, for he found, among other things, his nail clippers, a dollar and a half in change, and a paperback Mickey Spillane, its spine broken and pages falling out. But nothing even vaguely porcelain. He gathered up the Spillane and put it in the trash, figuring that if the urge to finish the book ever became unbearable he could pick up another copy. This particular edition had disappeared months ago without his noticing, so that was unlikely. In the long run he would probably worry more about how his unfinished dream was supposed to come out. In the closet by the hall door he went through the pockets of all his clothes, clean and dirty, finding a number of interesting things but not what he was looking for. Giving up, he put on the only clean workshirt in the closet—this one happened to have
Cal
stitched in script over the pocket—and made a mental note that it was time to do his laundry. The last two days he had worn shirts with other people’s names on them, and that was a sure sign he was running low on everything.
    Actually, the loss of his teeth was not tragic this time, since he had displayed uncustomary foresight in ordering a spare set the last time he woke up toothless. The spares he found in their pink case in the medicinecabinet where he had stashed them behind the bottle of Old Spice someone had given him two Christmases ago and which he’d been meaning to use. He slipped the bridge in place and it fit perfectly, even better than the old one. Instead of angry and embarrassed, he began to feel pleased with himself for the way he had providently provided against mischance.
    Since he was already late for work, he decided to stop and see his brother’s widow, remembering, for some reason, that today was his niece’s birthday. Mother and daughter lived in a small, square house on the outskirts of town near Mohawk Sand and Gravel. Dallas parked at the curb, since the driveway was strewn with children’s toys. Although they had been married in their teens, Loraine and Dallas’s younger brother David didn’t have their child until they were in their late twenties, after they had just about given up. David was so excited about the baby that he spent every spare penny on his daughter, not that there were so many pennies to spare. When Dawn was one and he discovered he had cancer, David went a little crazy, taking out a substantial loan so he could buy the little girl twenty years’ worth of presents. They filled up the walk-in closet of the spare bedroom, each package wrapped and