Fala Factor by Stuart M. Kaminsky Read Free Book Online

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.”
    â€œI’d like to see the doctor,” I said. “This afternoon. It’s an emergency.”
    â€œWhat kind of pet do you have?” he said. “And what is the problem?”
    â€œLittle black Scotch terrier,” I said, a sob in my voice. “He just seems different, like a different dog. You know what I mean?”
    â€œI’ll tell Doctor,” he said with dull efficiency. “You can bring your dog in at four. The dog’s name?”
    â€œFala,” I said. “We named him after the president’s dog. My wife thought it was kind of a cute idea. What do you think?”
    â€œWe see lots of Scotch terriers named Fala,” he said. A phone was ringing behind him. “Sorry, Mr …?”
    â€œRosenfeldt,” 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.

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