Read Online Fala Factor by Stuart M. Kaminsky - Free Book Online

mouth from her, but not too far.
    â€œHuh,” she said dreamily.
    â€œWater,” I repeated.
    â€œWe can’t, honey,” she said opening her eyes. “Roy’s up there taking a bath.”
    â€œI hear water dripping from upstairs. Listen.”
    She gave me a look of impatience, blew out some air from puffed cheeks, and listened.
    â€œYou’re right,” she said without great interest. “Water dripping.”
    â€œIt’s dripping on my head,” I added.
    Anne Olson looked up at the low ceiling, a move that almost made her lose her already unstable balance. There was a distinct spot on the ceiling.
    â€œBathroom?” I said.
    She tried to figure out the layout of the house and then, coming to a conclusion, said, “Bathroom.”
    â€œI’m going up,” I said as she reached for me again, moving forward, her lips open in that smile. I jumped past her, went for the hall, took the stairs two at a time, turned the corner, and moved down a small hallway to the bathroom door.
    â€œOlson,” I called. “Are you all right?”
    There was no answer but something moved behind the door.
    â€œOlson?” I tried again, my hand on the knob. More silence. Water was coming through the opening under the door. I turned the handle and stepped in, trying not to slip on the wet tile.
    Doc Olson was in the bathtub, pink and nude but not smiling. His neck was purple and the water flowed slowly and steadily over the rim of the tub. His eyes were open. His mouth was open. And I could see that he was dead.
    A sloshy brown bath towel floated over my foot and I glanced down. Something moved behind me and I knew I had made a mistake. Doc Olson and I were not alone in the bathroom.

T he order of events that followed is still a matter of speculation for those who delve into the blotters of the Los Angeles Police Department for tidbits, tales, and history. I’m not even sure of what happened. I know I turned. I know that when turning I stepped on the floating towel and slipped. What I don’t know is whether the hand that pushed me struck before I slipped or was the cause of my slipping. A minor point, you might say, but if I could have managed to keep my balance while others were losing theirs, at least one more murder might have been prevented, not to mention what happened to me.
    So I tripped backwards, seeing ceiling and the right arm of a murderer as it went through the bathroom door attached to the man himself. That told me one thing that should have been of comfort. He wasn’t sticking around to do to me what he had done to Olson. But I wasn’t thinking about that at the moment, or about the fact that for the second time in a few hours I was up in the air after being roughed up by someone associated with the late Doc Olson, upon whom I now found myself lying.
    His body cushioned me neatly and kept me from a concussion or worse. There was no point in thanking him. My added bulk displaced a wave of water and my clothes took in moisture like a loan shark takes in IOUs. I reached back with a grunt to push myself up and found my hand in Olson’s face. It was at this moment that the bathroom door pushed open and instead of letting go of Olson, I pushed harder to get myself up to face the killer, who had decided to come back and do me in. It was Anne Olson, however, who stood in the doorway to the bathroom, almost up to her ankles from a new wave of water I had displaced. She watched my hand pushing her husband’s face under and she did a most reasonable thing; she screamed.
    â€œNo,” I said, letting go of Olson and falling forward on him to take in a lungful of water. When I came up sputtering, she was still standing there, her hands to her mouth.
    â€œWrong,” I gagged, coughing up water and managing to get one leg over the side of the tub. “I—” and a cough took me. She backed away into the hall and against the far wall. Her blouse