The Fala Factor: A Toby Peters Mystery

by Stuart M. Kaminsky

  Beyond the next door, the wonders continued. The sink was still clean, the instruments lined up neatly on a white towel, and Shelly was wearing a freshly scrubbed white jacket buttoned to the neck. He was sitting in the dental chair puffing on the remains of a cigar when I came in. Before he peered up from his magazine through his thick lenses he heard me and cupped the cigar in his palm.

  Coughing and choking, he bolted out of the chair.

  “It’s … you … for God’s sake … for chrissake Toby. I thought it was the inspectors. You could give a man. “He returned his cigar to his mouth, still coughing and pushing his glasses back on his nose.”

  “I thought they were coming tomorrow,” I said, heading for my office.

  “They like to fool you,” he said with a wry smile “You know, come in a day early or a day late. But I’ll be ready. How do you like the place?”

  “Depressing,” I said. “I liked it better the old way.”

  “Mildred likes it better this way,” Shelly said defiantly.

  “Then Mildred can come down and work in it. I think I’ll move out.” The words came out before I had a sense that they were coming.

  “Out?” Shelly choked. “You wouldn’t. We’re friends. Who would I get to rent that closet?”

  “Why is my name off the door?” I said through my teeth.

  “I’ll put it back on as soon as the inspection is over,” he said, looking to heaven for help with my unbending position.

  “You’ve got three days,” I said. “Three days. It goes back on or I move out. And if this hands-off-the-walls stuff continues, out I go.”

  “You’re threatening an old friend,” Shelly said sadly, flipping the pages of his magazine.

  “I’m threatening you,” I said “That’s not quite the same thing.”

  “I was going to ask you a favor,” Shelly said. “But with your present attitude …”

  He paused, waiting for me to ask him what the favor was. I didn’t ask.

  “I was thinking that when the inspector came you could pretend to be a patient. You know, sit in the chair, let me clean your teeth, take an X ray.”

  I laughed. The laugh hurt my ribs.

  “Anyone who lets you x-ray his mouth with that leftover prop from Metropolis deserves the fate that awaits him.”

  “Never mind,” he said, shoving his face into the magazine. “Just forget it. You’ll get your name back on the door. And in case you’re interested, you’ve got a visitor.”

  The visitor was Cawelti, who was looking at the photograph of me, my dad, Phil, and the dog. Cawelti’s hands were behind his back.

  “Nice family portrait,” he said.

  “I don’t want to talk to you, fireman,” I said, getting behind my desk and biting my lower lip to keep from showing the pain in my aching ribs. My feet kicked something under my desk. Shelly had put the coffee pot, cups, and various pieces of junk and magazines in a box and shoved them there. I kicked them and the rattling turned Cawelti’s head toward me.

  “Seidman’s doing better,” he said, pulling out the visitor’s chair and sitting on it after turning it around. I hated people who did that. It would have been nice if the damned chair collapsed, but it didn’t. “No thanks to your friend out there.”

  “Shelly would be happy to work on you for nothing,” I said. “You got business with me, fireman, or is this social chitchat? Should I send out for coffee and cookies?”

  “Jane Poslik is missing,” he said. “You wouldn’t know anything about it, would you?”

  He leaned forward, his arms on the top of the chair, his head resting on his hands. I could see where he had cut his face shaving that morning.

  “You cut yourself shaving,” I said.

  His hand inadvertently shot up to touch his chin and then backed down. His face went bright red.

  “Jane Poslik, prick,” he said, clenching his teeth.

  “I don’t think she’s got one,” I said back through my clenched teeth.

  “You think you’re funny,” said Cawelti, standing and pushing the chair into the corner.

  Shelly’s voice came through the door in a petulant whine.

  “Hold it down in there, will you? There’s a doctor at work out here. Inspectors could be coming in any time now.”

  “Shut up, you hack,” Cawelti shouted back.

  “That’s quack,” Shelly shot back. “Im a quack, not a hack. Get your insults straight at least in there.”

  “He’s right,” I agreed. “He is a quack.” Then I whispered to Cawelti. “I’d say you get half credit for your answer Any more questions?”

  Cawelti’s hand came across the desk toward my neck, but I was ready for him. I came up with the coffee pot in my hand and swiped at his advancing arm. I caught him at the elbow.

  “You son of a bitch,” he yelped, jumping back holding his arm.

  “I’ll be sure to tell my brother what you called our mother the next time I see him,” I said, still holding the coffee pot like a hammer.

  He turned and left, slamming the door behind him. In the outer office I could hear Shelly say, “Hey, try to stay away from here a few days, will you? I’ve got some classy people coming through. Hey, hey, what are you—” The door slammed and Cawelti was gone.

  “Some caliber of people you’ve got coming to see you, Toby,” he shouted at me. “Spitting on the floor. My patients don’t even do that.”

  I put the coffee pot back in the cardboard box under my desk, pulled the box out. and carried it into Shelly s office. He was settled in his chair, the LA. Times covering his face.

  “Where the hell is Madagascar?” he said from behind the open paper. A puff of smoke popped over the back page.

  “A French island, I think. Somewhere near Africa.” I said, walking toward him slowly.

  “British occupied it over the weekend,” he said. “About time our side occupied something instead of moving out of somewhere.”

  Shelly was still behind his newspaper as he flipped the pages.

  “Mildred and I didn’t get away over the weekend,” he said. “We were in here cleaning up, but I think we’ll take in The Man Who Came to Dinner over at the Bliss-Hayden Theater. You know, a reward for passing the inspection. Right here Katherine Van Blau says Doris Day as Maggie the secretary ‘proved herself to be an actress of scope and fine sincerity.’ You think that’s the same Doris Day who stole Cal Applebaum’s mother’s candleholders? Couldn’t be. She wouldn’t come back here with the same—”

  I dropped the carton on the floor and cut off Shelly’s babbling. The newspaper came down and Shelly’s eyes focused on the floor as an ash fell on his recently washed white jacket.

  “What the hell?” he said. “Toby. I can’t have that stuff in here with the inspection.”

  “Find another place for it Take it home. Put it in the trunk of your car. Put it out in the hall. Someone will steal it within five minutes. I don’t care where you put it, but not in my office.”

  “You don’t plan on cooperating with me on this crisis, do you?” he said, nodding his head knowingly, a man who finally recognizes betrayal.

  “You’re beginning to understand that, are you?”

  “All right. All right. Just leave it there. I’ll take care of it,” he said, looking down at the carton. “Just go on with whatever you were doing. It doesn’t matter that I might lose my license, that I might not be able to help all those people out there who rely on me.”

  “Like Steve Seidman,” I said. “You could at least go see him in the hospital or call.”

  “Me?” Shelly said, putting his newspaper aside and pointing to his chest. “I didn’t do anything to him. If he has an infection or something, it’s because …”

  “Good-bye Shel,” I said sweetly and left the office.

  I had a hard time finding Jeremy. He wasn’t in his office. He wasn’t in the elevator recleaning the mirror. He wasn’t Lysoling the stairs or polishing the name plates in the lobby. I went back up to Alice Pa
lice’s “suite” and found him there. Alice’s suite consisted of much the same space Shelly occupied two floors above. In the center of the main room was a large oak dining room table. On the table was Alice’s printing press. Surrounding the printing press were cans of ink, towels, and stacks of paper. In fact the room was a mess filled with paper and books. It looked like moving day on the Island of Yap just before the invasion. The smell of ink hit hard and not unpleasantly. Jeremy was standing and shaking his head over something he was reading, which had probably been printed on the press.

  “Toby,” he said, “one should be careful about one’s promises. I told Alice I would keep an eye on things for her, she is expecting a delivery. She and Miss Poslik have gone downtown to a sale at Bullocks. They are getting along very well.” He put the printed material down and looked around the room. “I would be very willing to put all this in order, but Alice and I have an agreement.”

  “Think you could close up shop and keep me company while I keep an eye on the guy who I think has the dog?” I said.

  “You need company?”

  “I may run into Bass,” I explained.

  “Then it will be my pleasure to join you.”

  We took my car, which proved to be a mistake. Since the passenger door wouldn’t open, Jeremy had to slide in on the driver’s side. It was a tight fit past the steering wheel and we almost had to give up. We didn’t think of what might happen getting out. Fifteen minutes later we were parked in front of Lyle’s building on Broadway. I left Jeremy and found by listening at the door that Lyle was still in his office. Then it was back downstairs and more waiting while Jeremy tried to educate me with poetry and a lecture on modern literature. At one point a guy who looked like an old George Brent came out of the shoe store we were parked in front of. He looked like he was going to tell us to move. Then he got close enough to see my face and Jeremy’s body and decided instead to pretend he was looking for stray customers.

  Around noon, just when I was going to suggest that I pick up some sandwiches, Lyle came out of the front door of the building followed by Bass. I could feel Jeremy sitting up next to me. Lyle wore a thin coat, which he pulled around his neck. He looked up at the sky and saw a wave of clouds coming that I hadn’t paid attention to. Rain was on the way.

  Lyle and Bass went down the street and I started the engine. They didn’t go far. They got in a big Chrysler parked near the corner. Lyle got in back. Bass drove. The New Whigs didn’t fool around with any of this equality stuff.

  Following them was no problem. I was good at it and they didn’t know enough to even suspect that I might be there.

  It was a long ride. We followed the Chrysler west to Sepulveda and then stayed safely behind as we took Sepulveda up through the hills into the valley past Tarzana. A turn on Reseda and in two more blocks, Bass and Lyle pulled into the small parking lot next to the Midlothian Theater, a small neighborhood cigar box.

  I kept driving, made a turn in a driveway where a man in a baseball cap was watering his lawn, an effort that struck me as particularly dumb since Helen Keller could have told him that the rain would be coming down dark and heavy and not in minutes or hours. But the man didn’t seem to care. He nodded at us as I pulled out of his driveway, somewhat relieved, I think, that we weren’t coming to visit him, and went on with his watering.

  We parked across from the Midlothian in front of a candy shop and watched Lyle and Bass as they were let into the theater. We already knew why we were there. The marquee read WHIG PARTY RALLY TODAY AT ONE. Then, below this sign in those little black letters was CELEBRITIES-CELEBRITIES-CELEBRITIES. The ts in the last two celebrities were red instead of black. Jeremy thought that was an interesting, eye-catching design concept that he might suggest to Alice for their book. I thought the kid who had put up the announcement had just run out of small black ts.

  From where we sat we could see both the front entrance to the theater and Lyle’s car. For the next hour we talked about design graphics, oriental healing (which Jeremy was learning), and the people who straggled into the theater. We didn’t keep count but Jeremy, who was accustomed to gauging wrestling crowds, put the final total at forty-seven, mostly women. We also guessed that most of the crowd had been drawn by the promise of celebrities, none of whom I could identify going in. The most interesting attendee, as far as I was concerned, was Academy Dolmitz, who drove up a few minutes before one, parked in the gravel lot, and got into the theater as fast as he could, apparently hoping that no one would see him. Academy’s pride in his political party was touching. Then Jeremy thought he recognized Hugh Herbert. I said the guy didn’t look much like Herbert to me but maybe he was right.

  At a minute or two after one, Lyle stuck his head out the door and looked both ways, either for the celebrities who hadn’t arrived or in the hope of grabbing unwary housewives from the street to fill a few seats. His scanning of the street brought him quickly to me. With Jeremy at my side there wasn’t any room to hide, so I threw a cool smile on my lips and looked straight back at the gleaming lenses of Lyle’s glassses. Lyle’s face went through a mess of emotions that would have been the envy of a starlet on her first screen test: surprise, curiosity, anger, mock confidence, smirk, shaken, superiority, and controlled but quivering anger. Then he pulled his head back in. It was replaced about a minute later by the bulk of Bass, who found us and began to cross the street, ignoring an Olds driven by a guy in overalls who almost ran him down.

  “Out, quickly,” said Jeremy, touching my arm.

  I opened the door and got out, almost falling into the path of another car. Had my passenger door been working, which it was not thanks to Bass, Jeremy could have gotten out with dignity untested, but he did a fairly good job of it in any case and managed to be at my side just as Bass reached out a hand in the general direction of my throat.

  I didn’t back away. I couldn’t back away without hitting my car or stepping into traffic, but backing away wasn’t necessary. Jeremy’s hand shot out and pushed Bass’s down.

  Bass looked at Jeremy, whom he seemed to be seeing for the first time, and said, “Butler. You’re through. You quit.”

  “We both did,” Jeremy said evenly, understanding what made little sense to me.

  A woman of about fifty, dead black mink around her neck and a hat with a long black feather, had stopped on the sidewalk as she came out of the candy store. The sight of two giants in the street was enough to get her attention. I looked at her and shrugged as if I had been recruited as a reluctant referee.

  “What are you looking at?” Bass said to the woman.

  I gave her credit. She managed to keep from dropping her purse and candy as her heels clacked down the street.

  “Go back across the street, Bass,” Jeremy said calmly.

  “I’ve got to do him,” Bass said, nodding at me as if I were a package he had been assigned to gift-wrap.

  “No,” said Jeremy gently, as a guy in a black Buick stopped his car to complain about our standing in the street and then changed his mind and sped away.

  “I’ll do him and I’ll do you again,” Bass said, his eyes wide and his lips dry.

  “You didn’t beat me,” Jeremy said.

  “Two out of three,” Bass hissed.

  “I won the two,” Jeremy said, his huge hands slightly away from his body, ready.

  “Bass, I think you better go back and ask Lyle about this,” I said. “He didn’t count on Jeremy being here and I don’t think he wants the two of you messing up Reseda. It wouldn’t do the party any good.”

  “He’s right,” said Jeremy. “We’re already attracting attention.”

  We gave Bass time to react to the argument. He didn’t seem capable of fixing his attention on more than one major problem at a time, but the blast of a horn from a skidding car and the blue speck of a policeman about a block away got through to him. He clenched his fists, looked at me and Jeremy, and then pounded a dent into the top of a passing car. The driver just kept on driving and pretend
ed he hadn’t been attacked by the Minotaur of Crete.

  We followed Bass across the street, let him go through the door ahead of us, and entered the Midlothian Theater. The small lobby behind the ticket booth smelled like stale popcorn. Posters hung on the wall inside framed glass scratched by the nails of maybe a million Saturday matinee kids. One poster promised a future with Olivia de Havilland, who wore an off-the-shoulder gown and looked toward the candy stand as if she was waiting for a seltzer delivery that was very late. Behind her, Dennis Morgan smelled her hair for remnants of eau de Milk Duds.

  My foot caught in a strand of frayed, oncered lobby carpet, but I pulled it out before I fell, and followed Jeremy into the theater. There were about fifty people in a place that could have easily held three hundred or more, and they were scattered all over, only a few in front. Lyle was on the stage and the house lights were up. He had no microphone, but he did have a portable metal podium, the kind violinists use for solos. If he had leaned on the damned thing, his political career would have ended.

  Jeremy and I found seats on the right about ten rows from the back. I moved inside. Jeremy took the aisle, which allowed him to put his feet out. Across from us a gray-faced man was eating a sandwich he had taken out of a brown paper bag. Something yellow dribbled out of the sandwich. I turned my attention to Lyle, who was getting the whispered message from Bass that I still existed. Lyle looked around, found me, eyed Jeremy, and nodded to Bass.

  “Get started,” shouted the sandwich man across the aisle.

  “We will begin,” Lyle said softly and cleared his throat. Behind him, pinned to the curtain, were big posters of McArthur, Patton, and Eisenhower, all in full uniform. The right top corner of the Ike poster had come loose but Lyle had his back to it and never noticed.