Concepción stripped the pajamas off, then wrapped him briskly in a paper medical gown. She strapped him against the table with a pair of fabric belts. Dr. Mirabi approached him with the soft plastic nozzle of the insert, smeared with a pink paste. "Open widely, don’t taste the anesthetic," he warned. Alex nevertheless got a generous smear of the paste against the root of his tongue, which immediately went as numb as a severed beef tongue on a butcher’s block.