The Fala Factor: A Toby Peters Mystery

by Stuart M. Kaminsky

  “Phil, I’ve got a date tonight and I’d really—”

  His hand came down on the desk. Unfortunately, it still held the cup and even more unfortunately, the cup still had some coffee in it. The brown liquid dotted Phil’s shirt and soaked his hand. He pulled out a handkerchief, wiped his palms, and threw the sopping piece of cloth in the wastebasket.

  “Ruth can clean that,” I volunteered, standing close to the door for a quick getaway.

  “Toby,” Phil said, looking up at me but not moving forward. “You were supposed to hand-deliver a killer, to make this all nice, quiet, neat. And what do I get? Two more corpses and a screwed-up case with too many witnesses. And you want to go off somewhere on a date?”

  He moved toward me and I said quickly, “I’ll stay awhile.”

  He was a foot from me and ready to go to work.

  “I’m going to stay calm,” he said after running his right hand over his bristly head of hair. His left fist was clenched.

  “That’s a good idea,” I agreed.

  “Eleanor Roosevelt,” he said. “How the hell am I supposed to keep her out of this? You know what this is going to do?”

  “You’re a Democrat,” I said.

  “I’m a cop,” he said, holding his left fist up to my face.

  “Captain,” I said, “this has nothing to do with Eleanor Roosevelt. Some confused political loonies got together and convinced themselves they had the president’s dog. Before they could do anything about it, they started bumping each other off and got themselves caught.”

  “That’s simple, huh?” said Phil. “You think that football team out there is going to go along with that story?”

  “Why not? Shelly just wants to go home. Jeremy and Gunther are patriotic, Dolmitz and his daughter will be happy to put most of it on Bass and Lyle, and I’ve got a date.”

  He reached out a hand and shoved me against the wall.

  “I’ve got some bruised ribs,” I said, holding out a hand to keep him back.

  “You think the newspapers are going to drop it that easy?” he said, shaking his head.

  “How do they find out?”

  “Two bodies,” he screamed. “Two bodies. One in your office with two bullets put into it eight hours apart and a tied-up giant with a broken arm who flew out of your office window. You think they might be just a tiny bit curious about that?”

  “You’ll think of something,” I said.

  “The only thing I can think of right now is to smash your face,” he went on.

  “That’ll make you feel better?”

  I reached for the door. Hell, he would probably catch me before I hit the stairway, but I wasn’t going to take a session with Phil without giving escape a fair chance. Then the phone rang, a bell announcing the end of round one.

  Phil picked it up and said, “What is it?”

  Then someone on the other end said something to change his face from rage to bewilderment.

  “Captain Pevsner, sir,” he said. “Yes sir, I recognize your voice. Of course. Yes, I understand.”

  Then he was silent for a good three minutes, just nodding his head. Finally, he looked up at me.

  “Someone wants to talk to you,” he said, holding out the phone.

  I took it and said, “Hello.”

  “Mr. Peters,” said Eleanor Roosevelt. “I’m back in Washington. I have definite proof that Fala is right here and that the dog you retrieved was quite another animal.”

  “I know,” I said.

  “I understand that you have been through a great deal of discomfort over this and under the circumstances I’ve had to inform Franklin. He has just spoken to the officer in charge, and I hope your difficulties are now over. You have my thanks for your efforts and please send me your bill. We must get back to the Peruvian reception now. Good-bye.”

  I was about to say good-bye on my end when the voice of the president came over the phone as clear as if it were a fireside chat.

  “Thank you, Mr. Peters.”

  “You’re welcome, sir,” I said, and he hung up, but a demon took me and I went on talking. “No sir…. Yes … I understand.… If it’s absolutely essential for national morale of course I will, but I don’t know if I’m really qualified to be Mr. Hoover’s assistant…. No, I’m flattered but …”

  Phil pulled the phone out of my hand, put it to his ear and heard nothing.

  “He just hung up,” I said, grinning.

  “Get out,” Phil said, giving me an extra shove across the room. “Just pack your jokes and get out, leave the bodies for me, for the adults to take care of.”

  “Come on, Phil,” I said, adjusting my windbreaker. “We caught the bad guys.”

  “And you’re going on a date while I put my career on the line to cover all this up,” he said, getting behind his desk. “What are you risking, junior G-man?”

  “Nothing,” I said.

  “Nothing,” he agreed. “Because you’ve got nothing to lose. Because you haven’t invested in anything.”

  “That’s the way I wanted it, Phil,” I said, waiting for him to get up and go for me again. He didn’t get up.

  “I’m going, Phil,” I went on. No answer. He picked up the phone, pushed a button, told Seidman and Cawelti to come in, and waved me away as if I were a fly on a hot day.

  Cawelti and Seidman passed me in the hall, the former giving me a look of hatred, the latter ignoring me. I found Shelly, Jeremy, and Gunther in the squadroom, told them to follow me, and we made a package exit that would have been pointed out by tourists if we were on the street. But in the Wilshire Station we were part of an average day.

  “And we are free?” said Gunther. “No more questions?”

  “No more questions,” I said. “The president thanked us and closed the case.”

  “Dolmitz and Jane,” said Jeremy, trying to hail a cab. One slowed down, looked us over, and sped away. “She is really a very good illustrator. Perhaps she can work on the children’s book from prison. I don’t know the rules.”

  “Maybe,” I said.

  Shelly was looking glumly at the sidewalk. Another cab came cruising and I stepped into the street in front of it. The cabbie had to stop or face two to five years for manslaughter. He stopped.

  We piled in and I told him to take us to the Farraday. He hummed all the way to keep from dealing with us, and I watched Gunther try to maintain his dignity on the jump seat in front of me. Shelly wasn’t worrying about his dignity. He bounced and talked to himself.

  Back at the Farraday, I checked on the dog, which Jeremy had locked in his office. He was all right. Then I called Carmen, after thanking Gunther and asking Shelly to wait.

  Carmen was. angry but we still had time to get to the fights if I moved quickly.

  “Shelly,” I said, hanging up. “How about calling Mildred and telling her to meet us at the stadium. Tickets are on me. Gunther and Jeremy are coming too.”

  With a little coaxing, Shelly agreed. The idea had come to me without bidding, and as soon as it had come I knew that my chance of getting alone with Carmen for the night was down to nearly nothing. As it turned out, I was right. Alice Palice also joined us for the evening and we easily filled two cars.

  By the time I dropped Carmen off and Gunther and I headed back to Mrs. Plaut’s, I was flat broke.

  “I would like to have offered to drive the car back here,” Gunther said, “so that you might have remained to bid Carmen good night, but I am, as you know, unable to drive any automobile but my own or one—”

  “Forget it, Gunther,” I said, looking back at the dog curled asleep in the back seat. “I’ve got too many bruises for anything more tonight.”

  Mrs. Plaut didn’t greet us. It was far too late for that. Gunther went to his room. I went to mine, talked to the dog, and shared some puffed rice with him before going to bed. When I turned the lights out I realized that I wouldn’t have the dog the next night. Something threatened me with a feeling I didn’t like, so I shut my eyes and w
ent over my bill to Mrs. Roosevelt. It was like counting sheep for me. Repair of torn sleeve, two dollars; gas, two dollars; repair of Olson’s (now my) pants where shepherd had bitten, eighty cents; taxi from the warehouse where I met Keaton, a buck eighty with tip; five for the manager of the Gaucho Arms; medical bill from Doc Hodgdon, five dollars; windbreaker zipper, forty cents; car door, twenty dollars; two hot dogs, two pepsis and a taco for the dog, a buck.

  In the morning, the dog and I went back to my office after having coffee and some donuts at Manny’s. The bodies were gone, and a man was already putting a new pane in my window. Shelly was nowhere around.

  It took me about seven calls to find the person I was looking for. and I arranged to meet him in an hour. That was about how long it took me to find the place, a deserted farmhouse on the way to Santa Barbara.

  When I pulled into the side road, the dog climbed up to look out the window. We drove about half a mile and then stopped. A pile of dust was moving toward us. When it got close enough, maybe fifty yards away, I could see a man running toward us, arms churning, one hand holding a little hat on his head. Behind him a truck was bouncing along the road with a movie camera mounted in the seat grinding away.

  When Buster Keaton was about fifteen yards away, the man in the truck shouted, “Cut!”

  Keaton stopped, leaned over, panting, and coughed. I got out of the car, leaving the dog behind, and walked over to him.

  “Getting a little old for this,” Keaton said.

  “We’ll have to do it again,” the man in the truck yelled.

  “Like hell we will,” Keaton croaked back.

  “That damn car is in the shot,” the director said, pointing to my car.

  “Then we’ll work it in,” Keaton said, catching his breath. Turning to me, he said, “We’ll rent your car for an hour. Twenty bucks.”

  “Fifteen,” shouted the director, hearing our conversation.

  “Fifteen will be enough for gas and to get me through a few days till a client pays me,” I agreed.

  “Fifteen then,” said Keaton. “Wish it could be more.” He shouted back at the director. “We’ll go to a point of view shot of me looking at the car parked in front of me. Then a shot of the car and Emil getting out. I’m trapped. I give it a gulp, same shot continues after a point of view. Then I start running again, right over the car. Pull the truck off the road and shoot me from the side, one take.”

  “Sounds good,” said the director.

  “It’ll do,” said Keaton. “Give me a day and I’ll come up with better, but for this, it’ll have to do What can I do for you, Mr. Peters? I can’t offer you a drink. The suitcase is back at the farmhouse. But you’re not a drinking man, are you?”

  “The dog,” I said.

  “You brought the dog? It’s not Fala?”

  He stood up and looked over at the car while I explained. His eyes were straining. He pulled out a pair of glasses and put them on to see the dog in the window.

  “How much you want for him?” said Keaton.

  “Nothing,” I said. “Guy he belonged to can’t take care of him anymore, and you already paid once.”

  “And you don’t want to keep him?” Keaton said, walking with me to the car.

  “No,” I said. “In my business there’s no room for a dog.”

  Keaton opened the car door and the dog jumped out and ran circles around us. I watched Keaton’s face. His expression didn’t change as he took off the glasses and put them under his coat.

  “He’ll be good in the movie,” Keaton said.

  “I’m sure,” I agreed.

  “Buster,” shouted the director from the bouncing truck driving off the road.

  “Okay,” said Keaton.

  I took the dog and moved to the side of the road, out of the frame, and let Keaton and the crew take over. I held the dog and kept him calm while he watched Keaton with fascination. Since the shot was silent, I didn’t try to stop him from barking.

  After the shot was over, I agreed to stay around for lunch, which consisted of sandwiches back at the farmhouse. I accepted the fifteen bucks for the use of my car and shook Keaton’s hand as I got back in after reaching down to pet the dog.

  “What’s his name?” Keaton said, as I closed the door.

  “I don’t know. I thought I knew for a while, but …”

  “Give him a name,” Keaton said, watching the little black dog run back toward the farmhouse. Beyond the building, weeds and grass waved in the May wind. “I was going to call him Fella, but the honor’s yours.”

  “Murphy or Kaiser Wilhelm,” I said.

  Keaton looked at me blankly. “Kaiser Wilhelm?”

  I turned the key, pulled the choke, and stepped on the gas. “I once had a dog with both names.”

  “Then that’s it,” Keaton said, stepping back and waving. “Kaiser Wilhelm.”

  I drove down the dusty dirt road and watched Keaton in my rearview mirror turn and follow the dog toward the farmhouse. I found a gas station as fast as I could and used a few of the fifteen dollars to fill the tank. Then I headed back to Los Angeles.

  I got back late in the afternoon and called the office. Shelly said he was busy, that the sign painters were coming in to put the names on the door, and that I had had a call from Anne.

  I found some change and the number of Lyle’s house and called. Anne Lyle answered the phone.

  “This is Toby Peters,” I said.

  “Martin’s dead,” she said.

  “I know. I’m sorry.”

  “Why, you didn’t do it, did you?”

  I could tell from the way she said it that if she wasn’t drunk, she was as close to it as a person could be without getting credit.

  “I didn’t kill him,” I said. The truth was that maybe I helped to get him killed, but she was in no condition and I was in no mood to go into that.

  “Police won’t tell me much,” she said. “Ha. I’m a very rich widow, Toby. You want to come on over and be nice to a very rich widow?”

  “Some other time,” I said. “Anne, you didn’t kill him either.”

  “I didn’t even like him,” she said. “And he knew it. Am I going to see you again?”

  “Sure,” I said, but I wasn’t sure at all.

  “Is that why you called?”

  “I just returned your call,” I explained.

  “I didn’t call you. At least I don’t remember calling you. I’ve …”

  “It’s all right,” I said. “You didn’t call. I made a mistake. Take care of yourself.”

  I hung up and dropped another coin in the phone. I was standing in a Rexall and a man with a cap who looked like a trucker flipped a quarter nearby and looked at me to let me know he wanted the phone. I turned my back to him and told the operator the number. It was the other Anne, the real Anne, who had called me.

  My palms were wet as the phone rang. I wiped them on my pants and looked at my dark reflection in the polished wood of the phone booth.

  The trucker tapped his watch. I watched him tap and waited. Finally, someone answered.

  “Howard residence,” said a woman’s voice.

  “Mrs. Howard,” I said. I didn’t think I would ever be able to say Mrs. Howard, but when the moment arrived, I had managed.

  “Who is calling?” the woman said.

  “Her husband,” I said. “Her first husband.”

  “I’ll tell her you are on the phone,” the woman said, unmoved by my revelation. “And your name?”

  “Toby. She won’t need the last name. Her memory will almost certainly cover that period of her life.”

  The phone was put down gently and I waited, giving the trucker a shrug to show I couldn’t help the insolence and delay of others.

  “Toby,” came Anne’s voice.

  “It’s me,” I said.

  “How have you been?” she said.

  “Fine,” I told her and the trucker. “Just finished a job for Mrs. Roosevelt; the president called personally to thank me.”<
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  “Toby,” she said in familiar exasperation, “I’m not up for your games. I never found them funny. Not then and certainly not now.”

  “I know,” I agreed. “You couldn’t tell the difference between my serious moments and the comic ones.”

  “Was there a difference?” she countered.

  “Come on, buddy,” said the trucker, “I’ve got a call to make.”

  “Anne,” I said, “you called me, remember. And I’m calling back. You told me to stay away. Okay. You got married, okay. I didn’t call to start it all again, but it comes. It just comes automatically, like a—”

  “I need your help,” she said. “But I don’t want it unless you keep this on a business level.”

  “No more work for Hughes,” I jumped in. “The last time I worked for him I got too little thanks, too little money, and almost killed.”

  “Which was just what you wanted,” she said. She knew me too well. “It’s not Hughes. It’s Ralph, my husband. I can’t talk about it on the phone. Will you come over, please?”

  “Anne,” I said, “I’ll go wherever you want me to go.”

  “That’s today. It wasn’t always like that.”

  She gave me the address and I pretended to write it down. I knew where she lived in Santa Monica. I had driven by there twice at night just to see the place.

  “It’ll take me a while to get there,” I said. “I’ve got to stop off and pick up a report on a client.”

  I hung up the phone, got out of the way of the trucker, and stood back to look down at myself while he barked at the operator.

  In the next two hours, I borrowed fifty dollars from Gunther and, while Arnie worked on my car, charging me thirty for the inconvenience of having to put aside another job, I found a store and bought a new suit, shirt, and tie, and had my shoes polished.

  When Arnie found I didn’t have the cash to pay him and saw that I had just gotten a complete wardrobe, he upped the price by another five.

  Car shined, door fixed, sun bright, and new clothes on my back, I took a Doc Hodgdon magic pill, scratched at my itching chest, and headed for Santa Monica.

  The house was on the beach, separated from its nearest neighbor by a few hundred yards. A trio of gulls swooped down to greet me as I turned and let my Ford glide down the driveway. I parked next to the three-floor white wooden house and got out to look around and give my ribs one last scratch. It was then I noticed the body on the shore and the man standing over it.