Stuart Kaminsky - The Fala Factor

I didn’t like thinking about that so I turned on the radio when I got back in the car and headed for Hope. One hour later, after having lost three straight games to Hodgdon, I was showered, resuited, and heading for Sherman Oaks singing “I Came Here To Talk For Joe.”

I was refreshed, unshaved, and unworried as the gas gauge in front of me bounced happily from full to empty. I was ready to do my part for victory by confronting what might be the most important dognapper in history.

A collie with a bad cough, a white Persian cat with a missing ear, a whimpering spaniel, and a white parrot in a cage with what looked like a bandage on his right leg, were ahead of me in Dr. Olson’s waiting room. The people who had accompanied the patients were a silent lot: a thin, chain-smoking woman in a cloth coat had the collie, a teenage girl wearing a jacket with the letter L on it comforted the spaniel, an old couple holding hands guarded the Persian in the woman’s lap, and a birdlike man with a straight back wearing glasses, a small smile, and a white suit rested his hand protectively on the cage of the white parrot at his side.

Dr. Olson’s Sherman Oaks Hospital for Pets was on a cul-de-sac one block off Sherman Avenue. It was a new one-story brick building. The street itself had a number of driveways with houses set back beyond the trees. The only building near the street was Dr. Olson’s place. There was no parking lot, but finding a place on the street had been no trouble.

My trouble came when a door opened off the waiting room and the sound of barking and whining accompanied the appearance of a white-coated giant who looked like a block of ice. His face was bland and dreamy under straight blond hair that tumbled across his eyes. The white coat was generously dappled with blood, some of it still moist.

“Mrs. Retsch,” he announced in a surprisingly high voice. The woman with the collie stood up nervously, looked for someplace to put her cigarette, found an ashtray, and, head down, moved past the huge blond man and through the door, her collie coughing docilely at her side.

“You,” the man said looking at me. “You got no animal.”

He was observant.

“That’s what I want to see the doctor about,” I said. “I’m looking for a pet. My name’s Rosenfeldt. I made an appointment.”

“But you got no pet,” he repeated.

“Mr …?”

“I’m Bass,” he said. “You’ve got an appointment and no pet.”

“That’s about it,” I agreed.

Though I didn’t see that anything had been settled, Bass nodded, wiped his hands on his coat, and looked at the others waiting.

“You’re next,” he said, pointing at the parrot man. He turned and disappeared through the door.

Amidst the smell of blood and animal I passed an hour with Collier’s , enjoying particularly a story about Chiang Kai-shek’s vow that China would never fall to the Japanese. He certainly looked determined in the pictures, and his wife at his side looked even better.

At five, one hour later, the door to the interior of the building opened and the teen with the spaniel emerged and sped past and out. Bass stood looking down at me, so I assumed since I was alone that it was my turn. I stood up and put Collier’s and the Orient aside.

“Doctor’s ready,” he said.

“I’m ready,” I said and followed Bass down a narrow corridor. The walls were white and the little surgery-examining rooms we passed were white and stainless steel and looked clean. The blood smell, however, was strong, as was the sound of whining animals.

Bass stopped and put out a hand. I almost ran into it.

“In there,” he said. “Doctor will be with you.”

I went into the room he was pointing to, and he closed the door behind me. It was like the others we had passed, one chair in a corner, a cabinet, a sink, a counter against the wall with bottles and instruments on it, and in the center of the room, firmly bolted to the floor, a stainless steel table with lipped sides. The table was big enough to hold a fair-sized dog or a very short man. I didn’t think I could fit comfortably on it. I didn’t think anyone, even my friend Gunther, who doesn’t top four feet, could be comfortable on that table.

My thoughts were on the table when the door opened and a man who looked like Guy Kibbe came in, rosy-cheeked and rubbing his hands together rapidly. His freckled balding head was fringed with white hair that grew down over both ears. He wore an open white jacket over a very neat, three-piece suit with a matching blue striped tie.

Without looking at me, he moved to the counter, opened a cabinet, turned a knob, and music filled the room. It sounded like a tinny piano.

“Harpsichord,” explained Dr. Olson, turning to me with a benevolent smile, rubbing his palms together. “Louis Couperin, Suite in D Major,” he said. “‘Le Tombeau de M. Blancrocher.’ Seventeenth century. Louis Couperin lived from 1626 to 1661. Some people confuse him with his nephew, Francois Couperin, who was sometimes called Le Grand Couperin. This is Louis. Listen.”

We listened for a minute or two with Olson leaning back against the wall, arms folded.

“Animals like music,” he said. “Most animals anyway. Not orchestras, not the big loud stuff like Beethoven. That scares them, but baroque they go for every time. Bach, Mozart, Haydn. Cats even like Vivaldi sometimes. Don’t know what to make of that. What can I do for you Mr. Rosenfeldt? Bass says its something about a dog?”

“I’m looking for a dog.” I said.

“Wait, wait, listen to this part.” Olson said, holding a finger up to his lips. His hands were clean and looked as if they had just been powdered. “That trill, holding back, the undulation. What can you compare it to, Mr. Rosenfeldt?”

“Sex?”

Olson looked at me seriously.

“Why not,” he said. “Heightened emotion, combination of mind and body like good music. The animals have it. They are not inferior to us, not at all. We’ve just moved away from our origins, made things more artificial. That makes us think we’re better. Is thinking better than feeling, Mr. Rosenfeldt?”

“I came about a dog,” I said.

Olson scratched the inside of his ear with a clean pinky and with a sigh moved to the cabinet, reached in, and turned off the record.

“I’m attentive,” he said, turning to me.

“My dog is sick,” I said.

“So Bass told me, though it seemed a bit cryptically stated to him when you called.”

“My dog is dying,” I said without emotion. “I’d like another just like it, a small black Scotch terrier, just like the president’s Fala. You familiar with the dog?”

“Alas,” sighed Olson, “I’m not in the business of selling dogs, only in keeping them healthy. Perhaps if you bring your dog in there might be something we can do to help him or, if you are correct, make his final days less painful.”

“Alas?” I said.

“I beg your pardon?” Olson said, beaming at me.

“I never met anyone before who used alas in normal conversation,” I pushed. Olson was not unsettling as easily as I hoped he might, which suggested that he was one hell of a liar or had nothing to hide.

“Well, you have now and may your life be enriched for the experience, Mr. Rosenfeldt,” Olson went on. “I’m afraid we have no business together unless you or your missus wishes to bring your pet into the clinic. Believe me, if anything can be done, I will do it.”

He put out a friendly hand across the small room to guide me to the door. I pushed away from the wall and took a step toward it before turning.

“You sure you wouldn’t know where I could pick up a dog to replace Fala,” I said. “It would save me and other people a lot of trouble.”