Stuart Kaminsky - The Fala Factor

Darkness came in about an hour and I slipped out of the car and stood to keep my back from locking. I felt awful. I felt tired. I felt like great things were about to happen, but where the hell was Doc Olson? Was he working late doing a Bach-accompanied appendectomy on a dancing bear? Do animals have appendixes?

I gave it another ten minutes and then moved across the dark street toward the clinic. Lights shone through the trees from some of the houses set back from the street. Some of the lights came from a house directly behind the clinic and down a driveway. I circled the clinic, careful of where I was stepping, found no lights on and heard no sounds of music, only a crying dog and the parrot, who had stopped talking and was now croaking.

I moved back to the driveway and began to make my way down the gravel path to the house behind the clinic. There was still a final flare of light from the sun, which merged with the house lights to let me make my way to the front door of a two-story brick house of no great distinction.

No one answered my first knock or my second. The knocker was large, cast iron, and in the shape of a tiger’s head. It was loud. I tried again and something stirred inside.

“Coming, coming, coming, for chrissake, coming,” a woman’s voice said from inside.

There was a fumbling and grumbling behind the door and it came open to reveal a very ample and not sober woman in her thirties in a red silk blouse and matching skirt.

“Mrs. Olson?” I said with a gentle smile, which, I guessed, would make my pushed-in face less jarring.

She was all right for quantity though I couldn’t say much for quality at that point. She was dark, her hair black and straight, down to her shoulders. She was made up for a night out rather than a night in and she was coming out of the red thing she was wearing. She looked at me without answering, so I repeated, “Mrs. Olson?”

“Right,” she said.

“Can I come in?”

She shrugged, opened the door wider, and gestured with a free hand with bright red nails that I should step through. I did and she closed the door behind me.

“I’ve got some business with your husband,” I said.

She looked at me again and said, “Someone bit a hole in your arm.”

Before I could make up a lie, she turned and moved into a room to the left of the little hallway we were standing in. I followed her and found myself in a living room with old-fashioned furniture and one table lamp that gave off enough light to see everything dimly. Mrs. Olson moved nicely to a small table, where she picked up a glass of something amber and took a sip.

“A drink?” she said, holding out the glass.

“I recognize it,” I said.

“You want one?”

“Maybe after I talk to your husband,” I said.

She moved out of the darkness and stood in front of me, her mouth open in a little smile. Her hand came out and touched my sleeve.

“Why don’t you take that jacket off,” she said with clear mischief playing around her mouth. “Roy is taking a bath. Roy takes long, long baths. You know why Roy takes long baths?”

“Because he gets dirty,” I tried.

“Because he dreads smelling like the clinic. He is constantly cleaning, scrubbing,” she said. “He’ll be in the tub for an hour.” Her eyebrows went up as if it was my turn and I could see that she was swaying slightly, as if she heard music too high-pitched for human ears.

“I’ll wait,” I said.

“Maybe we can do something while you wait,” she said, the smell of alcohol coming from her breath as she moved close to me. “Roy’s usual callers are not very interesting and not very friendly. Are you interesting and friendly?”

“I am interesting and friendly,” I said. “Let’s talk.”

“My name is Anne,” she said.

“My wife’s name was Anne too,” I said.

“Was? Is she dead?”

“No, remarried.”

“Poor man,” she said, showing mock sympathy and taking another sip. “Maybe we can help you to forget. What’s your name?”

“Toby,” I said.

“Roy treated a schnauzer named Toby last year in Washington,” she said. “He had cataracts.”

“Terrific,” I said as she reached up to touch my cheek. “Tell me about Washington.”

“People were too busy to pay attention to each other,” she said. “Are you too busy to pay attention, Toby?”

What the hell. I kissed her while her husband was upstairs washing away the day’s blood. It felt good. It felt more than good and it was going to get a lot more complicated if I didn’t do something, but I couldn’t do anything except think that she tasted great, that her name was Anne, and that the world didn’t make much sense.

While we were pressed together, I felt her right hand move under my jacket and travel down my chest. My eyes were closed and I didn’t give a damn about the sound from far away. I told it to go away, to wait, to turn into music.

“Water,” I said, pulling my mouth from her, but not too far.

“Huh,” she said dreamily.

“Water,” I repeated.

“We can’t, honey,” she said opening her eyes. “Roy’s up there taking a bath.”

“I hear water dripping from upstairs. Listen.”

She gave me a look of impatience, blew out some air from puffed cheeks, and listened.

“You’re right,” she said without great interest. “Water dripping.”

“It’s dripping on my head,” I added.

Anne Olson looked up at the low ceiling, a move that almost made her lose her already unstable balance. There was a distinct spot on the ceiling.

“Bathroom?” I said.

She tried to figure out the layout of the house and then, coming to a conclusion, said, “Bathroom.”

“I’m going up,” I said as she reached for me again, moving forward, her lips open in that smile. I jumped past her, went for the hall, took the stairs two at a time, turned the corner, and moved down a small hallway to the bathroom door.

“Olson,” I called. “Are you all right?”

There was no answer but something moved behind the door.

“Olson?” I tried again, my hand on the knob. More silence. Water was coming through the opening under the door. I turned the handle and stepped in, trying not to slip on the wet tile.

Doc Olson was in the bathtub, pink and nude but not smiling. His neck was purple and the water flowed slowly and steadily over the rim of the tub. His eyes were open. His mouth was open. And I could see that he was dead.

A sloshy brown bath towel floated over my foot and I glanced down. Something moved behind me and I knew I had made a mistake. Doc Olson and I were not alone in the bathroom.

The order of events that followed is still a matter of speculation for those who delve into the blotters of the Los Angeles Police Department for tidbits, tales, and history. I’m not even sure of what happened. I know I turned. I know that when turning I stepped on the floating towel and slipped. What I don’t know is whether the hand that pushed me struck before I slipped or was the cause of my slipping. A minor point, you might say, but if I could have managed to keep my balance while others were losing theirs, at least one more murder might have been prevented, not to mention what happened to me.

So I tripped backwards, seeing ceiling and the right arm of a murderer as it went through the bathroom door attached to the man himself. That told me one thing that should have been of comfort. He wasn’t sticking around to do to me what he had done to Olson. But I wasn’t thinking about that at the moment, or about the fact that for the second time in a few hours I was up in the air after being roughed up by someone associated with the late Doc Olson, upon whom I now found myself lying.