The Fala Factor

“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.”