Fala Factor (31 page)

“Maybe,” I said.

Shelly was looking glumly at the sidewalk. Another cab came cruising and I stepped into the street in front of it. The cabbie had to stop or face two to five years for manslaughter. He stopped.

We piled in and I told him to take us to the Farraday. He hummed all the way to keep from dealing with us, and I watched Gunther try to maintain his dignity on the jump seat in front of me. Shelly wasn't worrying about his dignity. He bounced and talked to himself.

Back at the Farraday, I checked on the dog, which Jeremy had locked in his office. He was all right. Then I called Carmen, after thanking Gunther and asking Shelly to wait.

Carmen was. angry but we still had time to get to the fights if I moved quickly.

“Shelly,” I said, hanging up. “How about calling Mildred and telling her to meet us at the stadium. Tickets are on me. Gunther and Jeremy are coming too.”

With a little coaxing, Shelly agreed. The idea had come to me without bidding, and as soon as it had come I knew that my chance of getting alone with Carmen for the night was down to nearly nothing. As it turned out, I was right. Alice Palice also joined us for the evening and we easily filled two cars.

By the time I dropped Carmen off and Gunther and I headed back to Mrs. Plaut's, I was flat broke.

“I would like to have offered to drive the car back here,” Gunther said, “so that you might have remained to bid Carmen good night, but I am, as you know, unable to drive any automobile but my own or one—”

“Forget it, Gunther,” I said, looking back at the dog curled asleep in the back seat. “I've got too many bruises for anything more tonight.”

Mrs. Plaut didn't greet us. It was far too late for that. Gunther went to his room. I went to mine, talked to the dog, and shared some puffed rice with him before going to bed. When I turned the lights out I realized that I wouldn't have the dog the next night. Something threatened me with a feeling I didn't like, so I shut my eyes and went over my bill to Mrs. Roosevelt. It was like counting sheep for me. Repair of torn sleeve, two dollars; gas, two dollars; repair of Olson's (now my) pants where shepherd had bitten, eighty cents; taxi from the warehouse where I met Keaton, a buck eighty with tip; five for the manager of the Gaucho Arms; medical bill from Doc Hodgdon, five dollars; wind-breaker zipper, forty cents; car door, twenty dollars; two hot dogs, two pepsis and a taco for the dog, a buck.

In the morning, the dog and I went back to my office after having coffee and some donuts at Manny's. The bodies were gone, and a man was already putting a new pane in my window. Shelly was nowhere around.

It took me about seven calls to find the person I was looking for. and I arranged to meet him in an hour. That was about how long it took me to find the place, a deserted farmhouse on the way to Santa Barbara.

When I pulled into the side road, the dog climbed up to look out the window. We drove about half a mile and then stopped. A pile of dust was moving toward us. When it got close enough, maybe fifty yards away, I could see a man running toward us, arms churning, one hand holding a little hat on his head. Behind him a truck was bouncing along the road with a movie camera mounted in the seat grinding away.

When Buster Keaton was about fifteen yards away, the man in the truck shouted, “Cut!”

Keaton stopped, leaned over, panting, and coughed. I got out of the car, leaving the dog behind, and walked over to him.

“Getting a little old for this,” Keaton said.

“We'll have to do it again,” the man in the truck yelled.

“Like hell we will,” Keaton croaked back.

“That damn car is in the shot,” the director said, pointing to my car.

“Then we'll work it in,” Keaton said, catching his breath. Turning to me, he said, “We'll rent your car for an hour. Twenty bucks.”

“Fifteen,” shouted the director, hearing our conversation.

“Fifteen will be enough for gas and to get me through a few days till a client pays me,” I agreed.

“Fifteen then,” said Keaton. “Wish it could be more.” He shouted back at the director. “We'll go to a point of view shot of me looking at the car parked in front of me. Then a shot of the car and Emil getting out. I'm trapped. I give it a gulp, same shot continues after a point of view. Then I start running again, right over the car. Pull the truck off the road and shoot me from the side, one take.”

“Sounds good,” said the director.

“It'll do,” said Keaton. “Give me a day and I'll come up with better, but for this, it'll have to do What can I do for you, Mr. Peters? I can't offer you a drink. The suitcase is back at the farmhouse. But you're not a drinking man, are you?”

“The dog,” I said.

“You brought the dog? It's not Fala?”

He stood up and looked over at the car while I explained. His eyes were straining. He pulled out a pair of glasses and put them on to see the dog in the window.

“How much you want for him?” said Keaton.

“Nothing,” I said. “Guy he belonged to can't take care of him anymore, and you already paid once.”

“And you don't want to keep him?” Keaton said, walking with me to the car.

“No,” I said. “In my business there's no room for a dog.”

Keaton opened the car door and the dog jumped out and ran circles around us. I watched Keaton's face. His expression didn't change as he took off the glasses and put them under his coat.

“He'll be good in the movie,” Keaton said.

“I'm sure,” I agreed.

“Buster,” shouted the director from the bouncing truck driving off the road.

“Okay,” said Keaton.

I took the dog and moved to the side of the road, out of the frame, and let Keaton and the crew take over. I held the dog and kept him calm while he watched Keaton with fascination. Since the shot was silent, I didn't try to stop him from barking.

After the shot was over, I agreed to stay around for lunch, which consisted of sandwiches back at the farmhouse. I accepted the fifteen bucks for the use of my car and shook Keaton's hand as I got back in after reaching down to pet the dog.

“What's his name?” Keaton said, as I closed the door.

“I don't know. I thought I knew for a while, but …”

“Give him a name,” Keaton said, watching the little black dog run back toward the farmhouse. Beyond the building, weeds and grass waved in the May wind. “I was going to call him Fella, but the honor's yours.”

“Murphy or Kaiser Wilhelm,” I said.

Keaton looked at me blankly. “Kaiser Wilhelm?”

I turned the key, pulled the choke, and stepped on the gas. “I once had a dog with both names.”

“Then that's it,” Keaton said, stepping back and waving. “Kaiser Wilhelm.”

I drove down the dusty dirt road and watched Keaton in my rearview mirror turn and follow the dog toward the farmhouse. I found a gas station as fast as I could and used a few of the fifteen dollars to fill the tank. Then I headed back to Los Angeles.

I got back late in the afternoon and called the office. Shelly said he was busy, that the sign painters were coming in to put the names on the door, and that I had had a call from Anne.

I found some change and the number of Lyle's house and called. Anne Lyle answered the phone.

“This is Toby Peters,” I said.

“Martin's dead,” she said.

“I know. I'm sorry.”

“Why, you didn't do it, did you?”

I could tell from the way she said it that if she wasn't drunk, she was as close to it as a person could be without getting credit.

“I didn't kill him,” I said. The truth was that maybe I helped to get him killed, but she was in no condition and I was in no mood to go into that.

“Police won't tell me much,” she said. “Ha. I'm a very rich widow, Toby. You want to come on over and be nice to a very rich widow?”

“Some other time,” I said. “Anne, you didn't kill him either.”

“I didn't even like him,” she said. “And he knew it. Am I going to see you again?”

“Sure,” I said, but I wasn't sure at all.

“Is that why you called?”

“I just returned your call,” I explained.

“I didn't call you. At least I don't remember calling you. I've …”

“It's all right,” I said. “You didn't call. I made a mistake. Take care of yourself.”

I hung up and dropped another coin in the phone. I was standing in a Rexall and a man with a cap who looked like a trucker flipped a quarter nearby and looked at me to let me know he wanted the phone. I turned my back to him and told the operator the number. It was the other Anne, the real Anne, who had called me.

My palms were wet as the phone rang. I wiped them on my pants and looked at my dark reflection in the polished wood of the phone booth.

The trucker tapped his watch. I watched him tap and waited. Finally, someone answered.

“Howard residence,” said a woman's voice.

“Mrs. Howard,” I said. I didn't think I would ever be able to say Mrs. Howard, but when the moment arrived, I had managed.

“Who is calling?” the woman said.

“Her husband,” I said. “Her first husband.”

“I'll tell her you are on the phone,” the woman said, unmoved by my revelation. “And your name?”

“Toby. She won't need the last name. Her memory will almost certainly cover that period of her life.”

The phone was put down gently and I waited, giving the trucker a shrug to show I couldn't help the insolence and delay of others.

“Toby,” came Anne's voice.

“It's me,” I said.

“How have you been?” she said.

“Fine,” I told her and the trucker. “Just finished a job for Mrs. Roosevelt; the president called personally to thank me.”

“Toby,” she said in familiar exasperation, “I'm not up for your games. I never found them funny. Not then and certainly not now.”

“I know,” I agreed. “You couldn't tell the difference between my serious moments and the comic ones.”

“Was there a difference?” she countered.

“Come on, buddy,” said the trucker, “I've got a call to make.”

“Anne,” I said, “you called me, remember. And I'm calling back. You told me to stay away. Okay. You got married, okay. I didn't call to start it all again, but it comes. It just comes automatically, like a—”

“I need your help,” she said. “But I don't want it unless you keep this on a business level.”

“No more work for Hughes,” I jumped in. “The last time I worked for him I got too little thanks, too little money, and almost killed.”

“Which was just what you wanted,” she said. She knew me too well. “It's not Hughes. It's Ralph, my husband. I can't talk about it on the phone. Will you come over, please?”

“Anne,” I said, “I'll go wherever you want me to go.”

“That's today. It wasn't always like that.”

She gave me the address and I pretended to write it down. I knew where she lived in Santa Monica. I had driven by there twice at night just to see the place.

“It'll take me a while to get there,” I said. “I've got to stop off and pick up a report on a client.”

I hung up the phone, got out of the way of the trucker, and stood back to look down at myself while he barked at the operator.

In the next two hours, I borrowed fifty dollars from Gunther and, while Arnie worked on my car, charging me thirty for the inconvenience of having to put aside another job, I found a store and bought a new suit, shirt, and tie, and had my shoes polished.

When Arnie found I didn't have the cash to pay him and saw that I had just gotten a complete wardrobe, he upped the price by another five.

Car shined, door fixed, sun bright, and new clothes on my back, I took a Doc Hodgdon magic pill, scratched at my itching chest, and headed for Santa Monica.

The house was on the beach, separated from its nearest neighbor by a few hundred yards. A trio of gulls swooped down to greet me as I turned and let my Ford glide down the driveway. I parked next to the three-floor white wooden house and got out to look around and give my ribs one last scratch. It was then I noticed the body on the shore and the man standing over it.

I ran down the slope and through the sand, ruining the shine on my shoes. When I was about thirty yards away I recognized both the corpse and the standing man. The corpse was my ex-wife's husband, Ralph, and the bewildered man standing over him wearing only a gold bathing suit was the heavyweight champion of the world, Joe Louis.

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copyright © 1984 by Stuart M. Kaminsky

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