The Fala Factor: A Toby Peters Mystery

by Stuart M. Kaminsky

  “We will begin,” Lyle said louder this time.

  I found Academy Dolmitz about fifteen rows in front of us, hunched down. My eyes must have burned through his collar because he let out a big sigh, turned, looked at me and gave a massive “What am I gonna do?” shrug.

  “Will you all move up,” Lyle said. “It will be easier to talk and will leave space for those who come in late.”

  No one except the man with the sandwich across the aisle from us moved. He struck his brown bag under his arm and, still holding his sandwich—from which an unidentified vegetable now dropped—tromped forward to answer Lyle’s call.

  “See the celebrities better,” the sandwich-eater explained to those in his vicinity as he moved down to sit in front of Lyle, who did not have the talent to hide his distaste. Two well-dressed women seemed to have had enough even before the festivities started. They were in the far aisle from us and headed for the door. Bass hurried to head them off. They saw him coming and scurried back to their seats.

  “The enemies of the Whig Party,” Lyle began, looking down at his notes on the unsteady music stand, “have for more than a hundred years done their best to silence our voice of reason. They murdered us when we earned the highest office in the land.”

  “Murdered?” came a woman’s voice from the back.

  Bass, who now stood, arms folded, in front of the stage, shot a glare of cold fury toward the voice.

  “Yes,” said Lyle looking up. “Murdered. They murdered Harrison They murdered Taylor and they would have murdered Winfield Scott if he had been elected. And, most recently, just a day ago right in this city, they murdered the Dr. Roy Olson who, with me, had devoted his life to the revitilization of the Whig Party. And knowing them”—and with this he looked at Jeremy and me—“I am not at all surprised that they have sent the very murderers to our meeting today. Well, I tell them and I tell you they will not silence us.”

  He clearly wanted to thunder his fist down for emphasis but there was nothing to thunder on but the wire music stand, or Bass’s head. Lyle settled for shaking his fist and waiting for applause. There was none Someone did cough up front.

  “Who’s this ‘they’ he’s going on about?” said another woman, not aware that her voice would carry in the little, nearly empty theater.

  “I’m glad you asked that, madam”, Lyle said, aiming his words in the general direction of the comment “They are the government, the Roosevelts, the Democrats, the Republicans. They are the ones who want to take away your right to be you, to be Americans, to take what you can take within the rightful limits of the law, to expand your horizons, to use the full power of God you were born with. They want to make you all alike, all weak, all dependent, all little wind-up dolls operated by them. They pretend to be against each other, but they hold each others’ hands. And the others, the Socialists, the Communists, they’re just waiting till the Megalops kill each other off so they can put you and your children and me in their prisons and make peace with the Nazis and the Japanese. We don’t need crippled socialists standing in front of us as if we were children. We need strong leaders who stand up to enemies but maintain our borders. Don’t tread on me. Leave me alone and I’ll leave you alone. Responsible for my debts only. We need a Patton, a MacArthur, an Eisenhower.”

  “A General Marshall,” came a voice that might have been touched as much with Petri wine as enthusiasm.

  “Not a Marshall,” said Lyle, shaking his head sadly but glad to have some response “I’m afraid he is one of them. We must choose carefully, find the powerful and the incorruptible to lead us. We must make our platform clear, begin with the dedicated few, and become the powerful many. At this point, are there any questions?”

  The sandwich man now sitting directly in front of Lyle shot up a hand, and since there were no other questions, Lyle had to acknowledge him. The man got up brushing crumbs from his coat and said, “Where are the celebrities?”

  The man solemnly sat down and Lyle said, “I’m glad you asked that. Our ranks right now are, admittedly, small, but among our numbers are the famous and the influential. Some of our strongest supporters are names you would recognize instantly but, because of the pressure of the great them who have opposed and suppressed us, unfortunately many of these famous people in entertainment, sports, and even politics and the military service must remain unknown till they need no longer fear for their lives.”

  “You said there would be celebrities,” came a woman’s cracking voice.

  “We have celebrities,” Lyle said, with a deep sigh; he didn’t give in to despair. “I’ll ask them to stand up and, perhaps, say a few words. Mr. Don Solval, famous radio personality.”

  A man, white-haired, lots of pretend teeth, stood up, turned around, and waved at the crowd. The wino in the back applauded alone.

  “Who is that?” Jeremy asked me.

  “Never heard of him,” I whispered.

  “Martin Lyle is a man of honor and integrity,” Solval said in a deep bass voice that reeked of radio. I didn’t recognize the voice. “In the years I have worked for him and his family in Maine, I have come to not only accept his political beliefs but to become a strong advocate of them.”

  He showed his teeth, waved again, and sat down. This time only Lyle applauded.

  “Thank you, Don.”

  “That was no goddamn celebrity,” said the sandwich man in the front row. Bass took two steps toward the man, leaned over, whispered something, and the man went white and silent. Bass returned to his position below Lyle and looked around the audience for more trouble, his eyes stopping significantly at Jeremy and me.

  “We have other celebrities,” Lyle said, placating the now resdess little crowd with his upturned hands. “Mr. Robert Benchley.”

  “I heard of him,” said the wino in back, clapping. There was a round of polite clapping as Lyle smiled and everyone looked around to find Benchley. Eventually a man who had been slouched over a few rows in front of Academy Dolmitz stood up and turned to the audience with a small, embarrassed grin. His face was round and his little mustache gave a twitch.

  “Um,” Benchley began, rubbing his hands together. “Urn,” he repeated and then let out a small laugh as if he had been caught eating the last cookie in the jar. “There seems to be some slight mistake here. I wasn’t aware that this was a political rally.” He laughed again. “I was told by my agent, or maybe I should say former agent or soon-to-be former agent, that this was a war-bond promotion. I’m not even a registered voter in this state. Thank you.”

  Benchley gathered up his coat and ambled down the aisle past us with a small, constipated grin as Lyle applauded furiously and a few others joined him.

  “Thank you, Robert Benchley,” Lyle said, applauding.

  “Wait a minute,” came the wino’s voice. “He ain’t even on your side.”

  “We promised celebrities,” Lyle said patiently. “We never said they would support us. We begin by having them present and then the truth of our cause convinces them and you. Now that we have heard from our celebrities—”

  “Hold it,” called the wino standing. “You mean that’s it? No more celebrities? No free coffee, nothing?”

  “Just truth,” said Lyle, almost giving in to exasperation.

  Bass was moving up the aisle now in search of the troublesome wino. While his back was turned, four women, probably a bridge club, escaped out of a side emergency exit. Bass found the wino and carried him at arm’s length out of the theater.

  “I want a refund,” screamed the wino.

  “You paid nothing and got much,” shouted Lyle. “You got the truth and the truth will work on your conscience.” The crowd was mumbling and considering following the valiant bridge club. One woman actually stood, but she had waited too long to make up her mind, and Bass, now returning, fixed his eyes on her coldly, and she sat.

  “We have one more speaker,” Lyle said clearly, sensing that he could hold the group no longer without a real celebrity or refreshme
nts or, possibly, a good idea or two. “With the assassination of Dr. Olson I have had to go through the difficult task of assessing the qualities of the many qualified members of our party to select a successor as party organizer. I’ve agonized over this decision, consulted our leadership in Washington, New York, and Dallas, and come up with the name of a member of your own community, Mr. Morris Dolmitz.”

  Five rows ahead of us, Academy Dolmitz sank deeper in his seat and failed to hold back a gurgled “Shit.”

  Lyle applauded, and the crowd paused with minimal curiosity, looking for the one in their midst who had been selected by Lyle to make a fool of himself.

  “Mr. Dolmitz is a prominent businessman in Los Angeles,” Lyle said. “A man of great political knowledge who has much to say. Mr. Dolmitz. a few words please.”

  Bass applauded and grinned like a kid and Lyle beamed, waving for Academy to get up and speak.

  “Go on. Academy, I called. “Your new career awaits.”

  “Blow it out the wrong way,” Academy spat out through his clenched teeth loud enough for everyone to hear, but he was trapped. He shuffled into the aisle cursing that he was ever born, brushed his mane of white hair back, and went to the steps leading up to the low, small stage. Bass, clearly protective, hovered behind him to help in case his former boss and inspiration fell. Clearly uncomfortable, Dolmitz stood next to Lyle, who held out his hand. Dolmitz shook the offered hand and looked over at Jeremy and me apologetically as if to say, “See the things you have to go through to turn a dishonest buck?”

  Academy stepped in front of the music stand, glared out at the uneasy audience, and said, “I’ve got nothing to say.”

  He turned and Lyle whispered to him urgently while someone in the audience started coughing and a voice, female, said, “Dorothy, are you all right? You want a glass of water or something?” But Dorothy stopped and Academy bit his lower lip, trying to think of something to say.

  “I didn’t expect this … honor,” he finally said. “Did you know Robert Benchley won an Oscar in 1935, best short subject?”

  “How to Sleep,” I said. “MGM”

  Academy nodded his head, one-upped by me again.

  “I’ve met Oscar winners before,” Academy went on, warming to his favorite subject outside of making money. “Lyle Wheeler, the art director who won the award for Gone With the Wind,” Academy said quickly so I wouldn’t get a chance to identify Wheeler from the audience, though I wouldn’t have been able to do it “Wheeler came into my bookshop one day and bought a couple of books by French writers, Flaubert, Zola, Balzac, that crowd. Wheeler was a nice guy. I tried to get him to put down a few bucks on a sure thing I had going out of Santa Anita, a two-year-old named Sidewalk, but Wheeler didn’t go for it. That’s all I’ve got to say.”

  Bass applauded furiously again as Academy climbed down from the stage and Lyle stepped forward as his political world seemed to be crumbling around him, but he had been through it before.

  “Mr. Dolmitz has assured me that he fully supports the aims of the Whig Party,” Lyle said as feet shuffled and Dorothy attempted to control her returning cough.

  “No more states in the Union…. God meant us to have forty-eight adjacent states that we can protect and can protect each other. Peace with our enemies in Europe, peace with honor or we crush them. No quarter for the Japanese. The elimination of sales taxes. Establishment of a new cabinet position. Secretary of Women’s Affairs.”

  “Right, right,” said Academy, sinking back into his chair and trying to hide.

  “My secretary will be in the lobby as you leave with written information on the New Whig Party, membership applications, and answers to questions you may have. Now, if you will put your heads down, we will have a full minute of silent non-denominational prayer.”

  Lyle looked at everyone in the auditorium as he clapped his hands and heads went down, even mine, Jeremy’s, Dolmitz’s, and the cowered sandwich man’s in the first row a few feet from Bass.

  Head down, eyes closed, I whispered to Jeremy, “You going to join the Whigs?”

  “The line between dedication and madness is as thin as the space between two thoughts,” said Jeremy. “The madman who bears away our faith is labeled a saint and the saint who fails to gather our faith is labeled mad.”

  “And?” I said, eyes still down, listening beyond Jeremy’s voice to shuffling feet and clearing thoughts.

  “And,” he said, “you had best open your eyes and see where your moment of feigned faith has brought you.”

  I opened my eyes and looked up at nothing The stage was empty. Lyle and Bass were gone. Jeremy was already in the aisle. I joined him noisily and eyes opened around us. When others saw that Lyle and Bass were gone they headed for the exit. I almost collided with the sandwich man, since I was going in the opposite direction.

  Jeremy leaped on the stage. I was a beat behind him. He went for the curtain, pulled it open and disappeared behind it. I followed, finding myself in the darkness feeling my way across the movie screen on which Olivia de Havilland would soon be pining away. I followed the sound of Jeremy’s feet going to the right and, at the right side of the screen, found a small door and stepped through.

  Jeremy was ahead of me, standing on the cement floor in a room behind the screen. Light was coming in through a dirty window. The room was a storage area: tables, old theater seats, boxes of light bulbs and electrical equipment, sacks of popping corn, a pile of movie posters, and a box of lobby cards. A few of the cards in sickly colors, with Lash Larue and Fuzzy St. John looking up at me, were on the floor. All very interesting, but not nearly as interesting as the wire cage in the corner, the door of which stood open. There was a small bowl of water in the cage and a general faint smell of dog.

  I found the door to the outside before Jeremy. It was behind a painted Chinese screen with a gold dragon. It was a double door and I pushed it open with Jeremy at my side. We were in the back of the theater. The gravel parking lot was to our right. We ran the few steps and turned the corner in time to see Lyle’s Chrysler shooting little rocks from its rear tires as it hit the driveway, almost hit a woman and a small boy, and barely make it into traffic in front of a delivery truck.

  Jeremy and I ran for my car and lost additional time as Jeremy slid across the driver’s seat and I followed him. By the time we pulled into traffic on Reseda a few seconds later, Lyle and Bass were out of sight.

  “You got a suggestion?” I asked Jeremy, who sat placidly, eyes forward, thinking about a poem or another world, or a rematch with Bass.

  “Intuition,” he said. “Let your hands tell you. Let your mind go.”

  “Thanks,” I said.

  “You have a better plan?” He smiled.

  I smiled back. “I’m taking a chance that he likes the same big streets and doesn’t know we followed him to the theater,” I said. “I’ll cut ahead of him on Sepulveda.”

  Five minutes later I was cruising south on Sepulveda when Jeremy said softly, “Ahead, about two blocks.”

  I didn’t see anything, but I trusted his eyes and kept going. Before we hit the hills, I spotted the Chrysler, slowed down, and kept my distance, trying not to think about how much gas I had left. Fifteen minutes later, we hit downtown Los Angeles. I reached over to turn on the radio but I changed my mind. Jeremy was not a radio fan.

  Lyle and Bass drove down Broadway to Central, took Ninth across to Long Beach Road, and then went down Long Beach to Slauson Avenue. They pulled into a dirt driveway next to something that looked like an old warehouse just off Holmes Avenue across from the Santa Fe Railroad tracks. I parked half a block ahead and looked back to see them getting out of the Chrysler. The clouds had rolled in and were rumbling as Bass and Lyle moved to the trunk of their car, opened it, and removed a wooden crate that Bass hoisted to his shoulder.

  They took the crate into the warehouse and just as I was deciding to follow them, they reappeared without it and got back into the car.

  “Jeremy,” I said
, getting out of the car. “Stay with them. I’m going to find out if they just delivered what I think they delivered.”

  Jeremy nodded and, with great difficulty, squeezed himself behind the wheel.

  “I’ll make my own way back to the office,” I shouted as he made a U-turn and darted off after the Chrysler, which was now a good block away.

  The sky broke and the rain began to come down. I ran across Slauson ahead of a truck and found the door Bass and Lyle had gone through. Behind and above me, a tidal wave fell, sending up a wet dusty smell that lasted only a second or two.

  The building was a gigantic warehouse. Beyond a pile of ceiling-high shelves filled with wooden crates I could hear voices. People were arguing. Murder seemed to be in progress. I moved slowly along the shelves toward the sound and turned a corner.

  A pretty young woman with too much make-up and a ribbon in her hair and a man with a thin mustache and sagging jaw each had an end of rope that was tied around the neck of a man who looked slightly bewildered. They pulled and shouted and the man in the middle gulped, the center knot of a strange, deadly tug of war.

  Then a voice called out, “Cut, cut, cut, cut, cut. Damn it, cut.”

  That was when I saw, beyond the bright lights blasting down on the trio of actors, a camera and a small group of people.

  The man who had shouted “Cut” had a light mustache, a receding hairline, and wore no shirt. A towel was draped around his neck.

  “What’s wrong, Jules?” asked the man who had been holding one end of the rope.

  “The noise,” said Jules, pointing over his shoulder to the ceiling. “It’s raining. We can’t do sound in here with that.” Jules put his hands on his hips and shook his head.

  “Let’s shoot the scene silent,” said the man who was being strangled, the rope still around his neck. “Cut to a close-up of me and we can add rattling sounds later. You know, like my brains are getting scrambled. Then we do a point of view shot and I can see them moving their mouths, but the rope is so tight around my neck that it’s cutting off my hearing.”