The Fala Factor: A Toby Peters Mystery

by Stuart M. Kaminsky

  Dolmitz was in when I got to the shop. There were a few book-buying customers out front.

  “Peters,” he greeted me sourly. “No threats this a.m., okay? I talked to my lawyer. So, you turn around and march out.” He demonstrated “march out” with two fingers of his right hand on top of the counter.

  One of the customers, a young guy with glasses, tried not to look at us over the old book in his hand.

  “Bass wasn’t at the address you gave me,” I said. “No one but a shoe repair guy was there.’’

  “It’s the address I got for him,” Dolmitz said. “What can I tell you? You think Bass is such a brain he can’t get his own address screwed up? Who knows where he is?”

  “You couldn’t give me another address,” I said, smiling and walking over to the counter.

  “I could give you a lot of them,” he said. “2225 West Washington. That is the Arlington Bowling Center. Or—”

  I eased my .38 out from behind my back and placed it on the counter as gently and discreetly as possible. The young guy with glasses saw the gun, put his book down, and tried to walk to the door as if he were in no hurry.

  “Threats?” said Dolmitz. “I get threats from you? You know what I can have done to you, to what remains of a face on you? Threats? I’ve got in the back room a zlob who’ll tear your heart out for a sawski.”

  “This is big,” I whispered to Dolmitz, leaning over the counter.

  “Touch me and you are carry-out chop suey,” he said, backing away against the wall behind the counter.

  “I’m feeling crazy, Academy,” I said. “I’ll even take on a big political influence like you.”

  “Try the Gaucho Arms on Delospre,” he said, “you crazy bastard you.”

  I put the gun away and smiled.

  “Thanks,” I said. “The best song, 1936?”

  “The hell with you,” Dolmitz said, resuming his seat but still sulking. But I could see it was too much for him to resist. “You mean original song written for the movie?”

  “What else is there?”

  “Nothing,” he agreed. “In 1936 we’re talking “The Way You Look Tonight” from Swing Time. Kern and Fields. I got one for you. The last assistant director to win.”

  “I don’t give a shit, Dolmitz,” I said, sweetly turning to the door. “And if you’ve given me more crap about Bass, I’ll come back and beat you to death with an Oscar.”

  “Ha,” he shouted, “shows what you know. Robert Webb was best assistant director in ’37 before they ended the category. Shows what you know.”

  Dolmitz hadn’t lied about Bass’s address. According to the man with the flannel shirt and suspenders who served as manager of the Gaucho Arms, Bass did have an apartment there.

  “We ain’t what you’d call amigos,” said the manager, a tub-gutted type in his sixties with a pipe clenched in his teeth. “Less I see of him, the better.”

  “You wouldn’t know if he has a dog in his apartment or had had one there recently?” I said, showing a five-dollar bill.

  “You’re overpaying, son,” he said, taking the five and putting it in the shirt pocket next to his suspender strap. “I’d know. Walls are thin here and I keep an eye out. No dog in his place. Not much of anything. Truth to tell, I’d send him packing if I had an excuse and the nerve. ‘Fraid I’m just a dandelion.”

  He chuckled, the pipe still clenched in his yellow teeth. “Got that from the cowardly lion in the Wizard of Oz,” he explained. “Bert Lahr fella is a laugh.”

  “Bass have visitors?” I said.

  “Okay, you paid for a lot of answers,” he said, still chuckling. We were standing on the narrow lawn in front of the Gaucho Arms and he was holding a hose in his hand. He had been about to turn it on when I had come up to him. “Not a social type,” the manager said.

  “Mind if I look around his room?” I said, showing another five-dollar bill.

  The manager rubbed his right palm against his faded pants, looked at the five, sucked in some air between his stained teeth, and said, “No, couldn’t do it. Cash would be nice. Got a granddaughter visiting and I’d like to take her down to Pebble Beach for the glass-bottom-boat trip. Heard lots about it, but much as I got bad feelings about Mr. Bass, I don’t violate his home.”

  “Take the five anyway,” I said, holding it out. “I’m on an expense account.”

  “That don’t give you the right to throw someone else’s money away or me the right to take it,” he said. “I’m not trying to offend you none, son, but that’s the way it is.”

  I pocketed the added five and shook the manager’s hand.

  “I’ll find another way,” I said. “Thanks for the information.”

  He went back to watering the Gaucho Arms lawn and I found a place on Santa Monica Boulevard for a couple of grilled cheese sandwiches and an order of fries. It made my back feel better and I was starting to prepare myself for the showdown with Bass or whoever was going to show up at Olson’s clinic with Fala.

  Carmen was just coming on at Levy’s when I called. She had the message from Sol.

  “You said wrestling,” she said blandly.

  “We can wrestle after the fight,” I answered. “Henry Armstrong, we can see Henry Armstrong, right there in the ring.”

  “The Mad Russian of Minsk is wrestling,” she countered.

  “The Mad Russian of Minsk is an ex-pug named Madigan,” I explained. “He takes off the beard and he’s Irish Joe Flannagan. He puts on a wig and he’s The Wild Kentucky Hillbilly.”

  “All right,” she said, not fully convinced. “Sol says Armstrong’s fighting two guys.”

  “Two guys. One at a time,” I said. “I’ll pick you up at seven,”

  “Regular food this time,” she said before I could hang up.

  “All food is regular,” I reasoned.

  “Manny’s tacos is not date food,” she said.

  “Regular food,” I agreed.

  I hung up and drove back to the Farraday.

  I was halfway up to the first floor when Jeremy appeared from two floors above and called to me. His voice echoed, and I looked up to see him.

  “Toby,” he said evenly. “She is gone.”

  “Gone? Who?” I answered, but I knew it wasn’t Alice.

  “Jane,” he answered. “Alice left her to go out for groceries at the apartment and when she came back, Jane was gone.”

  “Bass,” I said.

  “We must find him,” Jeremy said softly, but the Farraday echo picked it up and sent his determined words echoing out of dark corners.

  “Not so easy,” I called back. “I just tried, but I think I know where he’ll be tonight.”

  “And where will that be?” a voice said behind me.

  I almost slipped on the marble steps as I turned to face Cawelti.

  “What?” I asked.

  “Jane Poslik,” he spat. “You’ve had her someplace and now you’ve lost her. You think you’ve got troubles, dirty pants. Let’s tag on obstructing justice, suspicion of kidnapping.”

  “John,” I said, almost putting a hand on his shoulder. “Save that for the next Laurel and Hardy short you’re in or for old ladies who heist shopping bags from Ralph’s.”

  “Toby,” Jeremy called down, seeing the exchange, but not hearing it. “Do you need some help?”

  Cawelti looked up at Jeremy and something like worry touched his mouth. He had survived one run-in with Jeremy a few months earlier, and didn’t want another, but I had to give him credit, he covered his fear and looked back at me.

  “Let’s talk down at the station,” he said.

  “I’ll meet you there,” I said, taking another step up.

  “You’ll come down and get in your car and drive and I’ll be right up your ass all the way,” he said.

  “Well,” I said, turning with a big fake smile, “if you put it like that, you old smoothie, how can a guy resist.”

  On the eastern end of Hancock Park, which we drove past on the way to the Wilshi
re Station, are the La Brea tar pits, ugly black bogs where oil and tar bubble up from underground pools. When it rains, a thin layer of water covers the gunk, setting up a trap for the dolts who climb the stone wall out of curiosity. At least the dinosaurs who got oozed in were looking for something to drink, not a cheap thrill. Usually, the screaming tourist is saved by a nearby cop, but once in a while a hotshot meets the same fate as the saber-toothed tigers and ground sloths. When I was a kid I was told that the bones of flesh-eaters were sometimes found nearly touching those of the smaller victims they had leaped into the pits to eat, only to find themselves as trapped as their prey. Los Angeles hadn’t changed much in a few million years.

  Cawelti gave me an impatient horn blast when I drove slowly past the station entrance. He wanted me to park on the curb, but I had picked up enough parking tickets in front of the station to know his game. If he wanted me that badly, he’d have to jump into the pit. I parked around the corner, and he pulled in behind me. I slowly locked my car, turned to look at him, stretched, and held out my right hand to indicate that he should lead the way. He decided to let me go a step ahead.

  “Fireman,” I said, holding the front door open for him to step in and for an overweight cop in uniform to step out, “did you ever take an hour off and look at the tar pits?”

  His pock-marked face reddened and his eyes went narrow. He wasn’t about to set himself up for an insult.

  “Shut your mouth and get up the stairs,” he said.

  I obeyed, giving a nod to the old cop at the desk, who recognized me and nodded back without taking his attention from the pretty young Mexican woman holding the hand of a boy of about two and going nonstop in Spanish.

  “When you maracas dry out,” the desk sergeant shouted over her attack, “we’ll try it in something like English, comprende?”

  On the second floor, I automatically turned right to the squadroom door, but Cawelti’s hand came down hard on my shoulder.

  “Captain’s office,” he said, helping me in the right direction with more enthusiasm than was needed.

  There was no name written on Phil’s door now, which was a step in the right direction. Cawelti knocked, his eyes fixed on my face.

  “Come in,” Phil shouted, and in we came.

  Phil was on the phone at his desk. He glanced up at us, gave a sour look to the desk, ran his free hand through his steely short hair, and went on with his conversation. Standing in the corner looking even more cadaverous than usual was Sergeant or Lieutenant Steve Seidman.

  “How’s the mouth?” I asked Seidman.

  “You think I’m a violent cop, Toby?” he mumbled, the right side of his mouth rigid. I could barely understand him.

  “No Steve,” I said. It was the truth.

  “Then,” said Seidman, saying the words carefully and not hiding a wince of pain, “you can believe me if I tell you that if I ever run into that mouth butcher again, I’m going to pull out two of his teeth with rusty pliers, the same ones he used on me if I can find them.”

  Cawelti bounced slightly, a near grin on his face. Seidman looked at him evenly.

  “Something funny, John?” he said.

  “Nothing,” said Cawelti, still smiling. “I was just thinking about something a guy said on the radio.”

  “Get out of here,” Seidman mumbled.

  “Sorry, Lieutenant,” Cawelti taunted. “I didn’t understand you.”

  “Get … out … of … here,” Seidman said slowly.

  “I got you that time, Lieutenant,” Cawelti said. He turned and left, closing the door behind him.

  “He’s got a great future,” I said.

  “Cawelti doesn’t want a future,” Seidman said, touching his cheek gingerly and gritting his teeth to keep from whimpering. “He just wants to make other people’s presents miserable.”

  Behind me, Phil’s voice droned on and Steve motioned to me to take the seat across from my brother. I took it and Seidman leaned back in the corner, his dark jacket open.

  “Yes, Mr. Maltin,” Phil said, still looking down at the desk. “We will. I’ll see to it. You’re right. It shouldn’t have happened and it won’t again. You have my word. I’ll have a patrol there every night till we catch whoever’s doing it. Pevsner. My name’s Pevsner, not Posner. That’s quite all right. Good-bye, Mr. Maltin.”

  He hung up the black phone and looked up in a black mood.

  “Responsibilities of a promotion,” I said solemnly. “Keep the public happy.”

  “We got a rape-murder,” he said, folding his hands on the desk, “a strong-arm pair breaking into homes, missing kids, assaults, and I’ve got to talk to a shoe-store owner on Figueroa who complains about kids running off with his sale signs. While I have a patrolman checking out the local seven year olds, someone could be at the storekeeper’s house eating his wife for lunch.”

  “Well put,” I said. Hell, he could have suggested that we surrender to the Japanese and I would have told him it was a good idea. He had just been handed a glob of frustration and he needed someone to throw it on. Having been the garbage can for Phil in the past, I wanted to keep it from coming, but I had a lot to hold out against: Phil’s temper and my own tongue.

  “Where is she?” Phil said, looking at me calmly.

  “Phil,” I said, “no wisecrack intended, but who are we talking about?”

  “Jane Poslik,” he said, quite calmly, unclasping his hands.

  “How should I know?” I said, with an innocent smile, looking over my shoulder to Seidman for sympathy, which Steve was not ready to deliver.

  Phil found a pencil, considered breaking it in half, decided not to, put it down, and then stood up slowly. I wished he had broken the pencil.

  “You were in the house when Olson was sponged,” he said. “And you say some woman who called herself Mrs. Olson was there with you. Now she’s missing. You wouldn’t know where she is, would you?”

  “No, Phil,” I said. “I swear to you …”

  “And then you go to see this Jane Poslik who used to work for Olson,” he went on. “A few hours later she disappears. Cawelti tells me you have her hidden some place.”

  “And Cawelti is an honorable man,” I said.

  “I want to know where people are and who killed the Olsons,” Phil said, coming around the desk. His tie was open and he gave it an extra tug to get it all the way off. “And who shot the head off a goddamn parrot and did a goddamn Van Gogh on a German shepherd.”

  I looked up at him and shook my head.

  “If I knew, I’d tell you. I would. But I’m pledged to secrecy. You’ll just have to go to Eleanor Roosevelt.”

  “And you,” he said, reaching down to put a hand on my jacket, “will be on a tour of hell by the time I’m through with you.”

  Something possessed me. It had been in me for a lifetime. Maybe a lot of things brought it out. Phil’s promotion, his fiftieth birthday, my realization that I had finally lost the real Anne, the one I’d been married to and always expected to get back, my chronically sore back that would some day give up, the memory of Lucy on Sunday crawling into my lap. I pushed Phil’s hand away and stood up fast, kicking the chair back.

  “Enough,” I said. “I’ve had a lifetime of you mashing my face and using me for a whoopie cushion. You hit me and so help me the second you turn your back I’ll bring the closest chair down on your head so hard you’ll wind up downstairs picking splinters out of your desk sergeant.”

  “You don’t talk to me like that, you, you wasted, useless—” he started.

  Seidman finally came out of the corner and mumbled, “Okay, Phil. Enough.”

  We both pushed Seidman out of the way and stood eye to eye.

  “You know why you do that, huh? You know why you’ve been beating on me for forty years?” I said.

  “Because you’re a wise-ass, worthless bum,” he shouted. “A bum who wasted his damned life, lost his wife, never had any kids, doesn’t have a dime, and acts like a dumb kid even though he’s
pushing fifty. You know what it looks like, for—”

  “Face it, Phil,” I shouted back. “I’m going to say the dirty word. You love me, but you dumb lard-fist, the only way you can show it is by trying to kill me because you don’t like what you feel for me. But I know it’s there because I feel the same thing. You use your fists and feet and I use words. Which hurts worse, brother? So for a change why don’t you just put your fists down and talk to me like people? When did you ever get anything out of me by kicking my ass? Don’t you know by now I come back like a well-watered victory garden when I get corked? It runs in the damn family.”

  I’m a very persuasive person when I put my mind to it. Someone once told me that, but I don’t remember who. Unfortunately, Phil had never heard it.

  My brother’s right hand grabbed my jacket and tugged me forward, tearing my zipper. His left hand shot forward, a short jab, his specialty, that caught me in the ribs. My lungs answered with a taco air. I slumped back trying to tighten up for the next shot, but it didn’t come. Seidman was between us, whispering, “Phil. Phil, come on.”

  It was, apparently, a persuasive argument. Phil let go of my jacket and the metal end of the zipper tinkled across the floor. I sat back in the chair and Phil went back to his own chair. Seidman stood guarding the space between us.

  We sat like that for about a minute or two with me panting softly and wondering if my rib was broken. Phil’s chest rose and fell more than usual. His brows were down and he found the pencil to play with again. He turned it over and over again.

  “Feel better?” I finally said.

  “Yeah,” said Phil.

  “Good,” I said, touching the tender flesh over the raw rib. “Shall we go on?”

  Phil smiled. It was a genuine smile. He tried to hide it behind an open palm over his mouth, but he couldn’t. His hand came down and he shook his head, smiling.

  “I knew I could cheer you up,” I said seriously. “What’s a brother for?”

  Seidman kicked the desk, which apparently sent a shiver of pain into his jaw. He let out a little grunt and walked back to the corner saying, “You’re both nuts, crazy nuts. I’m not getting between you again. You both remember that. I wash my hands of you.”