“We are going to have a bridge party to raise funds for the USO and we would like a detective present to keep unwanted people out, if you understand,” she said with a smile reserved for people like me, who could not possibly understand people like her.
“Sergeant Cawelti,” I said. “That’s his desk right there. You just have a seat. He’ll be right back. Tell him Captain Peters said he should take care of you.”
“Thank you,” she said, taking off her glove and offering me her hand. I took it. It felt soft. “Thank you, Captain Peters. It’s difficult to know what the right thing to do is at times like this.”
“You’re doing the right thing,” I assured her, taking her hand in both of mine. Behind us, Slaughter grumbled, “No, no, no,” to the Negro kid, who had apparently given a wrong answer. The woman drew her hand away.
“My son’s in the army,” she said, trying to keep her eyes away from the scene on the bench. “It’s hard to know what to do.”
“Leave it to Sergeant Cawelti,” I said, feeling guilty but not knowing how to get out of it. “Good luck.”
“Thank you, Captain,” she said as I walked out the door and left her perfumed presence to be engulfed by hell.
Veldu called, “Take care, Toby,” as I walked past him and into the light of Wilshire Boulevard. A lone cloud crossed in front of the sun, and I looked down at the watch I had inherited from my father. It was his only legacy to me, besides a tendency to feel sorry for most of the people who staggered into my life. The watch could never be relied upon for the right time. Now it told me that it was six, but it couldn’t have been later than two.
My car radio, after “Wendy Warren and the News,” told me that it was two-fifteen. A stop at a drugstore got me a Pepsi and a phone book that let me know that I was a twenty-minute drive away from Dr. Olson’s office in Sherman Oaks. I called the number in the phone book and a man answered, “Dr. Olson’s office.”
“I’d like to see the doctor,” I said. “This afternoon. It’s an emergency.”
“What kind of pet do you have?” he said. “And what is the problem?”
“Little black Scotch terrier,” I said, a sob in my voice. “He just seems different, like a different dog. You know what I mean?”
“I’ll tell Doctor,” he said with dull efficiency. “You can bring your dog in at four. The dog’s name?”
“Fala,” I said. “We named him after the president’s dog. My wife thought it was kind of a cute idea. What do you think?”
“We see lots of Scotch terriers named Fala,” he said. A phone was ringing behind him. “Sorry, Mr …?”
“Rosenfeldt,” I said. “Myron Rosenfeldt. That’s why my wife, Lottie, thought it would be cute to name the dog Fala.”
The man grunted and the phone continued to ring behind him. “Four o’clock,” he said and hung up.
Having given Dr. Olson something to think about in case he might be guilty of dognapping, I made another call to a second doctor, Doc Hodgdon, who agreed to cancel his two-thirty patient and meet me at the YMCA on Hope Street. Doc was thin, white-haired, and well over sixty. My hope was that he would slow down enough soon so that I could finally beat him at least once at handball. I sometimes wondered why he wanted to continue to play with me. “Sadist and masochist,” Jeremy had suggested. “He likes beating you and you like being beaten. A symbiotic relationship.”
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.
4
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
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
“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.
