Stuart Kaminsky - The Fala Factor

Olson shook his head sadly and, arm out, came to my side to guide me to the door. “I’m afraid I simply cannot give you solace or help,” he said. “Many people want black or white Scotch terriers. Now, I’ve had a long day with my patients. Between us, Mr. Rosenfeldt, there is no essential difference between what I do and that which is done by an expensive Beverly Hills surgeon who makes incisions into movie stars. The anatomy of the mammal is essentially the same regardless of species. The knowledge needed to treat, to cure, is essentially the same. Ah, but the mystique is different. As a veterinary surgeon, I remove the mystique. For example, I see you have a slight limp. Sore back?”

He guided me with a surprisingly strong arm to the door of the room.

“Sore back,” I agreed, “but it comes and goes.”

“Yes.” He chuckled. “If I were a big downtown surgeon, I could put you right up on that table and have you taken care of within an hour.”

“Taken care of?” I said, pushing the door closed as he opened it.

“Yes.” He smiled. “I could take care of all your problems.”

“I’m determined to get that little black dog, Doc,” I whispered.

“Who are you?” he whispered back, licking his lower lip.

“The name is Peters.” I pushed, feeling that I was getting through to something. “I’m a private investigator looking for a missing dog.”

“A missing dog?”

“You make a nice echo,” I said. “Let’s try for some original material.”

“Leave,” he said, his voice cracking, but the smile still frozen in place. “You’ve come to the wrong place.”

“I don’t think so, Doc,” I said.

“Bass,” Olson said. He hadn’t raised his voice much, so the big blond must have been right outside the door waiting. He came in fast, the door catching me on the shoulder as he pushed through.

“Doc?” he said.

“This man’s name is Peters,” Olson said slowly. “Please look at him.”

Bass looked at me obediently.

“He is not to be allowed in this clinic again,” said Olson, shaking his head sadly. “He is not a lover of animals.”

“He’s not?” said Bass.

“I am too,” I stuck in, but Bass wasn’t listening to my voice. I wondered if he, too, was soothed by baroque music.

“So,” Olson went on, putting an immaculate, paternal hand on Bass’s substantial arm, “I’m afraid he will have to leave now. I would prefer that he not be hurt, but we cannot be responsible if he offers resistance, can we?”

“No, we cannot,” said Bass, grabbing my shoulder as I tried to work my way behind him to the door.

“I’ll leave quietly,” I said, trying to remove my jacket from Bass’s grasp.

“Let us hope so,” sighed Olson. “Alas, Mr. Bass is a former professional wrestler. I would not like you to get hurt on the premises. It might result in some trauma for you, perhaps an emergency situation in which I would have to treat you as a patient.”

“That’s a threat,” I said, unable to free myself from Bass.

“That is a statement of true concern,” said Olson, nodding his head to Bass, who caught the signal, opened the door with his free hand, and pushed me into the narrow white corridor. I slammed against the wall and would have fallen if Bass hadn’t pulled me up. Olson stood in the open door.

“It’s not this easy, Olson,” I said.

The smile on his face almost dropped as he quietly closed the door. Bass gave me a shove down the corridor and I banged off of another wall. The crash of my body sent’a shiver through the walls, and animals all over the place picked it or something up and went jungle-wild. Down in the darkness behind us dogs barked, and a parrot voice screamed, “I’m Henry the Eighth I am.”

I pulled myself up as bloody-coated Bass stalked forward, expressionless.

“Now hold it,” I said, holding up a hand. “I’m going and I don’t need any help.”

He pushed me with an open palm and I staggered back as the sound of Louis Couperin, not to be confused with his nephew Francois Couperin, came from some speaker in the ceiling.

Bass reached out for another push, which would have sent me up against the door to the waiting room. As his hand came out, I pushed it out of the way with my shoulder as I stepped in and threw a solid right at his midsection. I wanted to knock the wind out of him. I never punched at the face. It usually led to a broken hand. The place to hit was the solar plexus. I hit. I know I hit, but Bass’s reaction might have suggested something else to a passing Doberman. Bass looked displeased.

“I don’t like fighting,” he said.

“That’s because you never have to do it,” I said. “Now just let me-”

His left hand caught my neck, and his right arm went around my waist. I could feel his fingers digging in to a catchy passage from Couperin and the increasingly hysterical counterpoint of “I’m Henry the Eighth” and assorted dog howls. Up in the air I went, feeling light and dreamy. I floated through the door to the waiting room, which was now dark, and swooshed across the room to the door. The hand on my neck came loose, opened the door, and then returned to my neck. It was at this point that I had the sensation of defying gravity. The setting sun was above me when I landed against a bush. Something scraped against my arm, and I slid to a sitting position, facing the doorway in which Bass stood.

“Watch your hand,” he said emotionlessly.

I looked down at my dangling left arm and saw that it hovered over a small natural mound probably left by an animal.

“Thanks,” I said, moving away from it.

Bass didn’t answer. He closed the door. I rolled over and stood up, looking down the street, but there was no one watching. My neck hurt, my stomach was sore, and my arm was scratched. That would all heal. The problem was my torn sleeve.

There is, I am sure, an easier way to get information than making people angry, but we each go with our own talents. Mine happens to be that of a class-A, number-one, pain-in-the-ass. I’ve got the wounds to prove it. I’m a walking, or crawling, museum of proof. I could give a tour of my body. Here’s the hole made by a bullet when I got a movie star with a gun in her hand angry. (It was at that point that I should have learned not to go with my talent for provoking when the provokee has a gun in his or her hand.) Here’s a bullet scar earned the following year from a crooked cop under similar circumstances, and my skull is a phrenologist’s nightmare of scar tissue, lumps, and unnatural protuberances. Each success had brought with it a permanent memory for me to wear.

My limbs worked and I was pleased with the results of my sparring with Dr. Olson. Unless I had read him wrong, and I doubted that I had, he was my man. In case I was being watched from the clinic, I limped very slowly to my car, doing my best to look defeated and demolished. I climbed in with a grunt, started the engine, and pulled slowly away after making a U-turn. I went as far as Sherman, turned right, found a driveway where I almost collided with a garbage truck, and pulled back into going-home traffic. A left turn had me back on the cul-de-sac, where I pulled over to watch the clinic from a distance.

The sun was still up but about to drop behind the hills when Bass came out of the front door. He was out of his bloody coat and wearing a light jacket. He carried a little gym bag in one hand as he went massively up the sidewalk and headed for Sherman. I slouched down after a quick adjustment of the mirror, and watched him in its reflection as he came to the corner and turned out of sight.

When I sat up again, the clinic looked dark. My stomach growled and my body throbbed. It would have been nice to get something for my arm and take a hot bath but I couldn’t afford to give Olson time to recover. Without Bass around, I was sure I could break him; well, I was sure I had a chance at it.