Free Fala Factor by Stuart M. Kaminsky

something sick going. You were in the tub together and things got out of hand. All a mistake, right?”
    â€œThat’s not what happened,” I said, shaking my head patiently. “Ask Mrs. Olson. Where is she?”
    â€œNo Mrs. Olson here. Nobody but you,” Hindryx said, nodding back into the house.
    For a second time, I explained what had happened. The two cops wrote it down dutifully so that my two tellings could be checked against each other and whatever additional tales I might tell. Hindryx wrote it, grunted occasionally, and put his notebook away.
    â€œWhere’s your car?” said Down.
    I told him and he decided it would be fine right there until it could be checked out.
    â€œCop who found you said you’re Phil Pevsner’s brother, that right?” said Downs.
    â€œIt’s right,” I said.
    â€œHe’s an asshole,” said Downs, looking at me for contradiction.
    â€œYou want me to tell him you said that?” I answered.
    Downs shrugged. “Suit yourself,” he said, shifting his toothpick to the other side of his mouth.
    The next hour was a trip down memory lane. Printed, booked, checked for priors, questioned again, and headed for the lockup. I had a single call I could make. I told the cop at the local that I wanted to make a few calls, that there was no law that said I could make only one, that the cops got that idea from William Powell movies, but he didn’t budge. One call it would be.
    I’d been through this before. I wouldn’t get a bail hearing on a murder charge so there was no point in calling Gunther to get me out. They’d want to keep me for a psychiatrist to talk to after what had happened. So I called the Wilshire District station. Veldu was still on duty, a double shift he explained as the lockup cop checked his watch to be sure I didn’t take too much time. Phil was home but Seidman was still there. I talked to him and gave him a quick explanation.
    â€œSteve,” I said when he didn’t answer. “You there?”
    â€œI’m here,” he said wearily, “but I’m not sure you’re all there. I’ll tell Phil and see what he wants to do.” He hung up and I gave the phone back to the lockup officer.
    It was night and the cell I was taken to was small and smelled of nightmares. There were two bunks in the cell and a weak light in the ceiling. On the wall between the bunks was a chalk drawing of Smokey Stover. Someone was lying on the bunk on the left. Doc Olson’s clothes and I took the bunk on the right.
    â€œI didn’t do it,” said the voice from the other bunk. The guy in it was lying on his back, his right arm across his eyes.
    â€œI believe you,” I said, checking the bunk for bugs.
    The other guy began to snore and I lay back trying to think. Had I stumbled into some unrelated murder? Had some jealous hulk that Anne Olson picked up strangled her husband, and I just had the dumb luck to walk in at the wrong time? Where was Anne Olson? Had Olson been knocked off because of the kidnapping of the president’s dog? Why? I knew I was too edgy to sleep, but knowing is not the same as feeling. I was asleep in minutes. My body had been through enough in forty-seven years to know when it needed a break, even if my mind didn’t.
    I dreamed that Guy Kibbe and I were sitting on Doc Olson’s naked stomach. He was floating and we were out in the middle of the ocean. From a faraway island, a woman’s voice called, “Out here damned spot.” Using our hands, we paddled for it on the bouyant corpse. When we reached the island, my ex-wife Anne and Koko the clown were hand-in-hand, dancing on the beach. We got off of Olson, and the four of us watched him float out to sea. For some reason, it was a tender moment. Something was about to happen. Anne was about to speak and tell me something important, but she never did. Someone shook me awake and I was back in the