The Fala Factor

12

I considered offering the killer a chair, but there was none available unless we threw Lyle’s body on the floor or out the window or I stood up. So the killer stood while I talked.

“You fooled me,” I admitted. “I was hot on the trail of Bass and Lyle, just where you put me. The way I figure it, you planned to put Lyle away from the start, and if Bass got me at Olson’s, you’d get rid of him too.”

“So far,” said the killer, “there’s nothing very interesting in this.”

“You wanted the fifty thousand and the dog to make another pitch for more money,” I said.

The dog watched the gun on my midsection and whimpered, head down in his paws. I reached over very slowly and patted his head.

“Accurate,” said the killer, “but …”

“I’m coming to it,” I said. “But it’s got to be a trade. I’ll tell you something you need to know if you tell me why you killed Olson and Lyle.”

The killer considered the request, decided there was nothing to lose, and said, “I only killed Lyle. He was on his way here to talk to you. We had tried to make a deal with him, but Lyle was a fanatic, all politics, the money didn’t mean a thing. The kidnapping of the dog had been his idea, not for money, but in the hope that it would be used to force Roosevelt into some kind of deal. He forced Olson to go along with it. We brought Bass in to keep an eye on things, watch, wait, see if there was some way to profit from it. Mrs. Olson found out. We didn’t want to kill her, but Bass got carried away with loyalty.”

“He’s just a big, loyal, dumb dog, is that it?” I asked.

“Something like that,” the killer agreed.

“Fifty thousand isn’t all that much for a possible murder rap,” I said.

“It wasn’t supposed to turn out like this,” the killer said. “There weren’t supposed to be any killings. Bass started it.”

“And Anne Lyle?” I asked, trying to think of something I could use to stall for the thirty minutes I needed before help arrived.

“We were waiting for Olson,” the killer explained, “when he came to the house with her. We didn’t want her to see us so we went upstairs and hid while he got ready for his bath. Then we heard you come and Anne Lyle go into her story. That didn’t give us much time. The idea was to scare Olson, but Bass panicked and Olson started to yell. You know the rest.”

Maybe my hearing was better than that of my visitor, but I knew someone was coming down the hall outside. I started to talk and talk fast.

“Stupid,” I said, hitting the desk with the palm of my hand. “All this for-”

“Enough, Peters,” said the killer, pulling back the hammer of the pistol. “What is the information you have that’s kept you alive an extra few minutes?”

“The information,” I said with satisfaction as I saw the doorknob turn slowly, “is that you are about to take a trip downtown to explain all this to the police.”

The room was nearly dark, but a band of moonlight through the clouds showed the determined jaw of the killer. The door opened and the pistol turned from me to the new arrival.

“Look out.” I shouted, standing, bad ribs or no, to take a leap at the killer with the gun. But the surprise was mine and I stopped.

“Sit down, Peters,” Academy Dolmitz said, stepping into the small office and closing the door. “After what you’ve been through, you think you can just go jumping over desks and grabbing guns like the Cisco Kid? You know, Warner Baxter in Old Arizona, best actor 1929? Over-rated performance, but what the hell, sound was just coming in and he yelled and whooped and had that farcockta accent.”

“Dad,” said the killer impatiently, “why did you come up here? I told you I’d take care of it.”

“That’s the kind of father you think I am?” he said, pointing to his chest. “I’d let my daughter come in here and shoot a man who might get violent back. You got kids, Peters?”

“No,” I said “Not married, not any more.”

“Too bad,” sighed Dolmitz. “It’s good to have kids, you know what I’m talking about here? Your brother the cop, he would know. But it’s not so good sometimes to let the kids in on your business. You want to, but it doesn’t always work out.”

“Dad,” Jane Poslik pleaded, her gun back on me. “Let’s just get this over and get out.”

“A minute more,” I said. “I just want to get this straight. Lyle came to you looking for someone to keep an eye on Olson, some muscle, so you gave him Bass and decided to see if you could make a few bucks on the deal.”

“You blame a guy?” asked Dolmitz, scratching his scalp through his mop of hair.

“And you had your daughter go to work for Olson to find out what profits you could make from the deal. After all, Lyle had a lot of money and he must have had some reason for wanting to keep an eye on Olson.”

“I didn’t send her,” Dolmitz said. “On that I could cross my heart. It was her idea. She was between jobs. More like a regular job it was.”

“And then,” I went on, “when she found out and people, the FBI, others, started asking questions, she decided to cover herself by writing the letters, claiming that Olson had kidnapped the president’s dog.”

“We figured they were going to check anyway.” Dolmitz shrugged. “So she might as well push a little and sit back and see how far they took it. What the hell, if the FBI or the cops moved in and took the dog then we were out a little time. Jane collected her salary. I got paid a commission for Bass’s services. You lose once in a while on an investment, but let me tell you, you cover yourself. Right? Is it a bad idea to cover yourself? That was Walter Brennan’s mistake in The Westerner, you know, Judge Roy Bean, best supporting actor. He walked into that theater where Gary Cooper could get him. You gotta learn from a good performance like that.”

“But things went bad?” I asked.

“Bad?” he asked, looking around the room. “What are you, the crown prince of understatement? Bad? If my daughter weren’t here, I’d use a word to tell you how bad it got. Killing, shooting. Let me tell you, I thought I got out of all that many years ago back East. You think I want my daughter involved in this dreck?”

“She’s up to her neck in it,” I said, as the dog leaped off the table and went to the door.

“It was all accidents,” Dolmitz said. “Bass got carried away with the Olsons. I, I must admit, got a little nervous when I saw Lyle coming in here. Bass hadn’t come back last night with the pooch or the fifty grand, so Janey and me came looking for you and who should we see prancing in the doorway downstairs like the best supporting actress of 1936, who was?”

“Gale Sondergaard for Anthony Adverse,” I answered. He had picked another Warner Brothers production.

“He’s good,” Dolmitz said to his daughter. “You are very good. You know how hard it’s going to be to shoot you?”

“Very hard I hope,” I said.

“Pa,” Jane sighed in little girl exasperation.

“Lyle came prancing into the Farraday like Gale Sondergaard,” I jumped in.

“Right,” said Dolmitz. “We stopped him, asked him where he was going and he tells us he is going to see you, tell you what he knows, which is not all that much, but enough to get me in trouble maybe, especially with you knowing Bass is connected to me. We follow him up the elevator trying to talk him out of it but he’s not listening, just goes on like a meshuganeh about generals and presidents. So I shot him when we got to the fourth floor, which, by the way, took forever. Our mistake was we left him there and didn’t make sure he was dead, but it was morning, people might come. You know how it is. Listen, in my imagination I may be a Spencer Tracy, a two-time winner, but when it comes to shooting real people, I’ll confess to you, I’m not such a brave character.”

“That’s enough, Pa,” Jane interjected.

Dolmitz held up his hands as if to say, What are you going to do with kids? I wasn’t sure how much time I had to stall. I’d have to use my last trick, which would give me perhaps a minute or two extra.

“Has any animal ever won an Oscar?” I asked.

“No animal,” Dolmitz said, “but you may remember in ’37 Charlie McCarthy was given a special wooden Oscar. What’s with the animal question?”

“The dog over there deserves a nomination,” I said.

Dolmitz scratched his chin, looked at his daughter, and then back at the dog.

“Pa,” Jane said. “How long do you think I can hold this gun up like this?”

“What’s the cryptic comment on the dog?” Dolmitz asked. “You’ve got a point here or just making conversation? That’s the way you want to die, saying something stupid about a dog?”

“That’s not Fala,” I said.

“It’s Fala,” Jane said.

“No Fala, no fifty thousand bucks,” I said. “You did a lot of killing for nothing. Any performance ever been good enough to get people to kill themselves over it?”

“No,” said Dolmitz suspiciously, “but a few years ago when Cable took his shirt off in It Happened One Night and wasn’t wearing a T-shirt, the undershirt business went to hell. I think, Mr. Private Detective, you are lying to us.”

“I put it together this way,” I said, ignoring his insult. “Olson was told by Lyle to snatch the dog in Washington, but Olson was too scared or smart to do it. He switched dogs. He did something to the real Fala, prescribed some medicine, vitamin, gave him some spiked food, who knows, but enough to make the real Fala act strange so there might be some concern about it, some doubt if and when Lyle followed through with his threat to use the dog to get some political foothold.”

“So you are telling us that the real Fala is in Washington right now?” said Jane, putting the gun into her other hand.

“In the White House where he’s always been,” I said.

“I don’t believe you,” Jane said.

“It’s hard, Peters,” Dolmitz agreed. “Put yourself in my place.”

“Even with the gun on me,” I said. “I think I’d rather be in mine. No one, Lyle, you, Jane here, bothered to take a good look at this dog. You didn’t have to. You thought it was Fala, but a friend of mine went to the library and looked up the pictures in the Times, even got a print made from a negative and blown up, and an old guy in the park gave me a dog lecture. Our friend shivering in the corner-not Lyle, the black furry one-is bigger, curlier, has longer legs.”

“Dogs like this look alike,” said Dolmitz. “A cocker’s a cocker.”

“I don’t know anything about dogs, but it doesn’t take an expert to check,” I said. “Face it, Academy, you got taken by a second-rate performance.”

“The dog’s?” he said, shaking his head.

“Not just his,” I said, getting up slowly and nodding toward the door. “Mine.”

The door shot open, this time hitting Dolmitz. The dog let out a yowl and ran under the desk as Jane let go with a shot that went through Lyle’s corpse, giving him an extra bullet he did not need.

Bass, still tied, lurched into the room and against the wall with Jeremy behind him. My office was now three people beyond its maximum occupancy. Jane’s gun came up, leveled at Jeremy’s massive chest, and Dolmitz staggered away from the door, kicking it shut and moaning.

“Don’t move, anyone,” Jane said, now holding the pistol in two hands. “Pa, are you all right?”

“No,” groaned Dolmitz, holding his right hand to his face. “Do I go around groaning like Lionel Barrymore when I’m feeling all right? I’ll survive, but I’m not all right.”

“Toby, they haven’t-” Jeremy began.

“I’m fine,” I said.

“Cut me loose,” said Bass. “I’ve got things to do to these two.”

He looked first at Jeremy and then at me.

Dolmitz examined his hand to see if there was any blood on it from his nose and said, “More killing, putz? You know why we’re all crowded in here instead of reading a book or off at Loews’? Because you kill. You are the last person in California I would untie.”

“Mr. Dolmitz,” Bass whined.

Dolmitz held up a finger and said, “Shah, still.”

“So,” I said. “You going to shoot me, Jeremy, Bass, and the dog? You up for mass murder, Academy?”

“You’ve got a point, Peters, but I tell you, what am I going to do? I shot the poor yetz in the corner. Now Janey’s shot him. I don’t want to see my only daughter get, God forbid, the gas chamber, and I don’t want it to happen to me.”

“You can make a deal,” I said. “My brother’s a cop, a captain, you know that. You give him Bass and the two of you get a few years. It’s that or you start shooting and I can tell you that as soon as that gun in Jane’s hand goes off, the person it doesn’t hit is going to be all over her. The way she shoots, even in this little box she might wind up hitting you or nothing. Now I don t want to risk that, but it’s better than just sitting and waiting to let her take aim.”

“Pa?” Jane said, backing into Lyle’s body as Jeremy took a short step toward her. The body, already off balance, toppled over and into her. She let out a scream and another bullet. This one went through my window, shattering glass into the dark alley.

Dolmitz took the pistol from her and the door opened again. This time Gunther walked in.

“Toby,” he began, finding a small spot of floor in the corner under the photograph of me, my old man, Phil, and our dog. “I know I wasn’t supposed to but I heard the shots.”

“Who’s this?” Dolmitz demanded.

“Another person you’ll have to shoot,” I said.

“Mr. Dolmitz,” Bass pleaded “Let me go and I’ll just step on him, squash him.”

“Did you get it?” I asked Gunther.

“I’ve got it,” he said, “but I-”

“Got what?” said Dolmitz. “What’s this, got it? You got a gun, dwarf?”

“Gunther’s not a dwarf,” Jeremy corrected. “He is perfectly formed, better, in fact, than you. He’s a little person.”

“Look,” Dolmitz said, “I’m not in the business here of insulting people or being polite. What is this thing he’s got?”

“Transcription,” I said, easing over so Bass could have a little more space in the corner.

“I see,” said Dolmitz. “You’re going to let us hear the real president’s dog and I’m supposed to compare it to the little cocker here.”

“Better,” I said. “Gunther’s an electronics wizard. I’m going to show you something, so don’t shoot.” I opened the drawer to my desk slowly.

“Pa,” shouted Jane. “Don’t let him.”

My hand came out slowly with the microphone and I said, “Gunther was in an office recording everything we’ve been saying in here. Now you’ve got another problem. First, you’ve got three people to shoot and only four bullets left in that gun.”

“I shoot the little guy last,” Dolmitz said.

“Second,” I went on, trying to ignore the offense to Gunther’s dignity, “you have a record to find in a very big building. There’s no percentage in it. Make a deal, put the gun down.”

The lights suddenly went on in the outer office and light trickled in under the door.

“Toby, is that you in there?” screamed Shelly. “This place smells like someone’s been eating hot dogs on the floor. What’re you-”

Shelly opened the door, reached in, turned on the single overhead light and, mouth open, looked around the room. He took in Bass, Jeremy, Gunther, Jane, Dolmitz with the gun, me, and the corpse on the floor.

“You’re busy now,” he said politely. “We can talk about this tomorrow.”

“Get in here,” Dolmitz shouted.

“There’s no place for him to get,” I observed. “What do you want him to do, stand on the corpse?”

“I’d rather not,” Shelly said, forcing himself in. “Look, I just stopped by to pick up those tickets for the show. I left them-”

“Shut up,” shouted Jane, running her hand through her hair. “Shut up.”

Shelly shut up.

“Mr. Dolmitz,” Bass whispered, but Dolmitz didn’t answer.

“This is enough,” Jeremy said after a few beats. “Give me the gun.” He stepped forward one pace, which was all he had room for, his hand out.

“Take it easy, Jeremy,” I said, ready, ribs or no ribs, to go over the desk and for Dolmitz’s gun.

Academy looked at me and took a step back away from the huge poet. When he too tripped over Lyle, hell broke loose again. A shot went off, hitting the light bulb, as Jeremy lunged for the fallen Dolmitz and Jane kicked out at Jeremy. Then there was a second shot, which brought an “Oh my god” from Shelly.

It brought something else too. Something filled the space of the broken window behind me and went through, taking the remaining glass with it. I went around the desk, pulled Jane off of Jeremy, and told Jeremy that he had better get up off of both Dolmitz and Lyle. His bulk would mean nothing to the corpse of Lyle but a few seconds of it would mean the end for Dolmitz.

Gunther opened the door to let in light, and Jeremy stood up, holding Dolmitz by the neck with one hand and the gun with the other. He handed the gun to me and we looked around the room. Bass was missing. I knew where he was, but I didn’t want to look out the window and down to the alley below. Instead, I reached under the desk, pulled the pooch out, and petted him reassuringly.

We filed into Shelly’s office, leaving Lyle behind. I had also left the gun on my desk. I’d retrieve my.38 some other time. I wasn’t worried about Jane and Academy while Jeremy was in the room.

“Shel,” I said, “call the cops.”

“Me?” said Shelly, his hand to his chest. He was wearing his best suit. “Why don’t I just walk out of here and pretend I never came back? Who would that hurt? I ask you?” He looked around the room for sympathy, but got none.

“I will make the call,” said Gunther, going back into my office.

Jeremy placed Dolmitz in the dental chair and motioned for Jane to back up.

“He’s not bleeding, is he?” Shelly said, stepping forward. “I don’t want him bleeding on that chair. I just cleaned it,” Then to me: “Toby, this is it. Our deal is off. No dishes, no equal billing on the door. You’ve violated our agreement here with killers, shooting … Wait a minute. Where’s the big guy, the one what was all tied up. He …” And then it struck Shelly. He sat back against the wall and moaned, “Mildred. Mildred’s downstairs waiting for me in the car.”

“Just go down and tell her to go to the play alone,” I said gently. “I’ll drive you home later.”

Gunther came out, said he had called the police, and went downstairs with Shelly to be sure he’d be back and to help him talk to Mildred.

Jane looked dazed, beaten. I held the dog in my arms and petted it while I walked over to her. Her thin blond hair dangled down her forehead.

“You’ll probably be out on the streets before the war is over,” I said. “Your father’ll take the big rap. The two of you might even be able to pin it all on Bass, except the Lyle shooting. Bass was tied up downstairs when that happened.”

“The record,” she said looking up. “The little man made a record.”

“No,” I said. “Microphone’s not attached to anything. We just made it up.”

Dolmitz, sitting in the dental chair, groaned. He had heard my nearby whisper. “Taken in by the performance of fools,” he said.

“I think Preston Foster said that in The Informer,” I said.

“Who gives a crap,” said Dolmitz.