Fala Factor (6 page)

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, François 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.”

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 François 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.

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.