Cooper By The Gross (All 144 Cooper Stories In One Volume)

by Bill Bernico

“Only name I heard was Randolph. I don’t know if that’s his first name or his last name, but he’s been here every day that I have and maybe even before.”

  I turned to Clem. “Thanks Clem. If I can ever do you a favor.”

  I got up from the table and carried my bowl to the kitchen window and laid it on the shelf. I casually walked over to where this Randolph character was sitting and took the seat directly across from him. He looked up briefly and then concentrated on his soup again. When he looked up again he saw me still staring at him and an annoyed look crept onto his face.

  “What the hell you lookin’ at?” He said, still shoveling soup into his mouth.

  “I’m sorry,” I said. “I didn’t mean to stare. It’s just that you look like someone I once knew, a guy named Randolph.”

  He looked up and gave me a better look this time. “That so?” he said, “Well, I don’t know you.”

  “Couldda been another Randolph,” I said, trying to draw him out. “I guess in here everybody looks more or less the same.”

  He ignored me.

  “My name’s Matt, by the way.”

  “Good for you,” he said. “You want a medal or something?”

  I knew that if I wanted to get anything out of this guy that I’d probably have to build him up a little and work on his ego. I tried another ploy. “Word around here is that you’re a pretty important guy.”

  “I guess I am,” he said. “What of it?”

  “Oh nothing,” I said, and started to stand.

  He looked up at me and gestured with his soup spoon at my seat. “Go on, sit down.”

  I sat again and leaned in closer. I could smell the liquor on his breath even over the soup smell. “I came into town the other day with a friend of mine and we kinda got separated in the railroad yard. I wondered if you might know him.”

  “Who is it you’re lookin’ for?”

  “His name’s Frank,” I said, “But he might call himself Doc.” I described Dr. Conklin to him.

  He thought for a moment and then said, “I might know someone like that. Don’t know why they’d call him Doc, though. He sure don’t look like any doctor I even knew.”

  “Know where I might find him?” I said.

  If this is the same guy you’re thinkin’ of you might want to try The Salvation Army over on Sunset just past LaBrea. To hear him tell it, they got better soup over there. He might be right, but I can’t stand the sound of a tambourine. Goes right through me like a rusty nail.”

  “Thanks, I’ll check it out.” I got up and started to leave but turned back once more. “I forgot to ask, is Randolph you first or last name?”

  “Neither,” he said. “It’s Ned.”

  “Ned what?”

  “Ned’s all you need to know. Now go on, leave me alone.”

  “Thanks, Ned.” I said and left the building.

  I was in no particular hurry, as most of the homeless are, and slowly walked south a couple of blocks and picked up Sunset. LaBrea was five or six blocks west and by the time I got there, I was winded. I wasn’t in the best of shape and I sure wasn’t used to walking so far on a regular basis. The Salvation Army was housed in what looked like a former shoe store that had fallen on hard times. The front display windows had been painted over with a dark blue paint. Over that they’d painted Salvation Army is a shallow arc at the top of the window.

  I opened the front door and walked in, not sure what to expect. Near the front door, in front of the painted-over windows I noticed a pulpit facing the back of the room. Rows of folding chairs had been lined up facing the pulpit. This was probably where the homeless men sat to take in the sermon before they were fed or bedded down for the night. Toward the back of the room I noticed two other doors. I walked back toward those doors and was greeted by a man in a blue uniform with gold piping on the neck and shoulders. His visored cap looked like those worn by police officers and had the same gold piping on a blue background. When he saw me approaching he smiled and held his hand out.

  I took it and he squeezed it hard and pumped it a few times before releasing it again. I could have sworn I heard the crack of bones. My fingers felt like they’d been squeezed in a vice and I had to rub them to get the circulation flowing again. I shook my hand loosely at my side.

  The man in the uniform said, “Good morning, sir. My name is Captain Gerald Larson, and you are?”

  “Matt,” I said.

  “Welcome, Matt,” he said and then caught the pun he’d just uttered. “Now that’s funny, wouldn’t you say?”

  Yeah, about as funny as your vice grip handshake, you prick, I thought, but just nodded.

  “Captain,” I said. “I was hoping you could help me locate a friend of mine. We came into town together but got separated and I thought he might have come here seeking shelter.” I described Dr. Conklin and mentioned the nickname he might be using.

  “I believe I did see him,” Captain Larson said.

  “Can you tell me where I can find him?” I said.

  “That was three nights ago,” Larson said. “He hasn’t been back here since then. Have you tried the soup kitchen over on Wilcox?”

  “Just came from there,” I said. “They sent me here.”

  “Then I guess I can’t help you,” Larson said. “The people who come here don’t usually stay put for too long. They all have that same wanderlust spirit, I guess. If he returns, is there someplace where I can reach you?”

  I thought about giving him my office number but that wouldn’t be in keeping with the character I was trying so hard to portray. “No, I guess I can just keep checking with you from time to time, if you don’t mind.”

  “You’re always welcomed here,” Larson said. “Have you eaten?”

  I nodded. “I had some soup a while ago, but thanks anyway.”

  Captain Larson walked me back to the front door and waved as I walked away down the street. I dug one of the nickels I’d brought along out of my pants pocket when I spotted a pay phone on the corner. I dialed Dan Hollister’s number at the precinct and waited. After a few rings, Hollister picked up.

  “Sergeant Hollister,” he said.

  “Dan, it’s Matt. I’m still on that same case from the other day and thought I’d check with you regarding that latest skid row death. You hear any more on it?”

  “Oh, I see how it works,” Dan said sarcastically. “You get to pump me for information but when I ask you for some you clam up and claim client privilege. Pretty smooth, Cooper.”

  “Look Dan,” I said. “I can’t fill you in with the details just yet, but from the looks of it, our cases may be connected. If not now, they may soon be if I can’t get the results I need. If you’ll work with me, I’ll give you all I have once I find the guy I’m looking for. Deal?”

  “How does that help me?” Dan said.

  “I can’t say just now. I guess you’ll have to trust me on this one.”

  “Matt, if I find out you’re holding out on me I’ll…”

  “Dan, can I say something?”

  “What?”

  “Goodbye.”

  I hung up, checked the coin return slot for nickels and continued walking back toward the boulevard. I decided to check on one place that I knew the bums liked to frequent. Directly across the street from Grauman’s Chinese Theater stood the Masonic Temple. On many occasions I’d seen guys in tattered suits asking for handouts there. It was a great place to catch the tourists off guard and some of them gave money just to get rid of the men who stood there with their hands out.

  As I walked past the massive steps to the temple, I saw a man sitting on a middle step. He looked like he’d drop over if he had to walk one more block. I sat next to him and pointed to the throngs of out-of-towners at Grauman’s, stepping into the footprints of their matinee idols.

  “Boy,” I said, “If I had a dime for every guy who stepped into some movie star’s footprints over there, I could buy myself a new car and drive away from this town.”

  “You
and me both,” the other man said. “How about a nickel for every snapshot ever taken in front of that place?”

  “Yeah,” I said. “That would set me up for life, too.” I turned toward the man and extended my hand. “My name’s Matt.”

  He took my hand and shook it. “I’m Francis.”

  “Glad to meet you, Francis. You look kinda tuckered out. You been on the pavement long?”

  “Since six this morning,” Francis said. “I had a spot picked out last night where I thought I could sleep for a while, but someone came by early and told me to move on. I just need a couple hours sleep and I’ll be good as new again. How about you?”

  “About the same,” I said. “You have lunch yet?”

  “Lunch? I ain’t even had breakfast. Kinda slim pickin’s out here.”

  “What about the soup kitchen or the Salvation Army?” I said. “You know you can always get a meal at one of those places, don’t you?”

  “I suppose so, but I’m just so damned tired of having to listen to them preach to me. I got enough of that at home. I sure don’t want any more now that I’m free.”

  Across the street I could see a family of four enjoying the wonder of the famous footprints. The father stood there, a camera draped around his neck, and he was taking pictures of his wife and two children. The little boy was having trouble holding still for that long a period and dad was getting impatient for the boy to settle down and have his picture taken. As soon as the father snapped the photo, the little boy ran off to the side looking for footprints of people he’d recognize. He found Shirley Temple’s prints and ran back toward his father, excited to have found his favorite star. There were so many people in the way and the boy had to run around a large crowd of people. Without looking he’d stepped into the street, looking toward his father and not at the traffic.

  A large sedan came around the corner from Highland Avenue heading west on Hollywood Boulevard. The driver didn’t see the boy until it was too late. He swerved but still managed to sideswipe the boy, sending him bouncing off the surface of the street. A woman in the crowd screamed and people rushed up to where the boy lay in the street. The driver of the sedan screeched to a stop and hurried over to the boy’s side. The boy’s mother knelt next to her son and cried, not sure what to do.

  “Did you see that?” I said, turning toward Francis.

  Francis had already leapt to his feet and was running across the street to where the boy lay. In seconds he had his fingers on the boy’s face, opening his eyelids and feeling for a pulse in his neck. He bent over and pressed his ear to the boy’s chest. He looked up at no one in particular.

  “Call an ambulance,” he yelled, taking off his coat, rolling it up placing it carefully under the boy’s head. He felt the boy’s legs and arms and pressed his fingers into the boy’s abdomen.

  The boy’s father looked down at Francis. “Don’t you think you’d better leave him alone and wait for a doctor?”

  “I know what I’m doing,” Francis said. He continued examining the boy for breaks and internal injuries. The boy’s mother looked at Francis and seemed to calm down.

  She looked at the man and smiled. “You’ve done this before, haven’t you?”

  A few minutes later the ambulance rolled to a stop and two attendants got out with their black bags. They took their position next to the boy and went through the same motions that Francis had just finished. They loaded him onto a stretcher and slid him into the back of the ambulance. The boy’s mother got in beside him and called out the back door to her husband to meet them at the hospital.

  Francis laid his arm on the attendant’s shoulder and said, “Have the doctor order an x-ray of the pelvic area and check the left tibia for a fracture.”

  The attendant looked at Francis suspiciously and said nothing before he drove away.

  Francis picked up his rolled up coat, unrolled it and slipped it back on again. Then he casually walked back across the street and returned to the spot on the steps where he’d been sitting earlier. I looked at him in wonder.

  “You really looked like you knew what you were doing there,” I said. And suddenly it hit me. I looked back at Francis again. “Do folks call you Frank?”

  “They used to,” Francis said. “A long time ago.”

  “Doctor Conklin?” I said.

  “Who?”

  “You’re Frank Conklin, aren’t you?”

  Frank got to his feet and looked down at me. “I’m afraid you must have me confused with someone else.” He began to descend the steps and I followed.

  “Doctor, I mean Francis, would you mind if I walked along with you? How about if we go on down to the drug store? I’ll buy you lunch and we can talk.”

  “What’s there to talk about?” Francis said.

  “You’re hungry, aren’t you?” I said. “I have money. You can order whatever you like, on me. What do you say?”

  Francis smacked his lips and paused there on the sidewalk. “Okay, you can buy me lunch but I’m not this Conklin you’re looking for.”

  The counter at the drug store was probably thirty feet long with stools positioned all along it. We found two on the far end, away from everybody else. I grabbed two menus and gave one to Francis. His eyes got large when he looked at the pictures of the food.

  He swiveled on his stool toward me. “Anything I want?”

  “Anything,” I assured him.

  A girl in a white uniform, pink apron and white paper hat came over to where we were sitting, pulled a pencil from somewhere in her puffy hairdo and produced an order pad. “What’ll it be?”

  Francis pointed to a page on the menu. “I’ll have the Salisbury steak and mashed potatoes with gravy. And some corn with butter on it, and I’ll have a chocolate malt with that.”

  I looked at Francis.

  “Well,” he said, “I can get coffee any time. Can’t always get a chocolate malt at the mission.”

  The waitress wrote his order down and turned to me. “And for you?”

  “Give me the same,” I said.

  The waitress had the two orders written down on her pad and for the first time looked up into our faces. She frowned. “Let me see your money.”

  She’d probably lost a few dollars in the past from guys who couldn’t pay afterwards and wasn’t taking any chances with two more bums.

  I bent over, untied my right shoe and slipped it off. I pulled four singles out of the shoe and slipped it back on my foot. I laid the four dollars on the counter and the waitress quickly laid down a napkin, picked up the four singles by the corner and laid them on the paper. She turned around and quickly washed her hands in the sink, wiping them on a towel that hung nearby. She ripped the top sheet off her order pad and clipped it onto the revolving wheel at the kitchen window.

  “So you really do have enough money,” Francis said. “Where’d you get it?”

  “Does it matter?” I said.

  “I guess not.”

  A moment later the waitress returned with two tall stainless steel cups and set them down in front of Francis and me. She reached up onto the shelf behind her and produced to glasses and set them and a couple of straws down next to the malt cups. Francis wasted no time in filling his glass from the cup. He unwrapped his straw and slipped it into the glass of malted milk and sipped.

  “Ah,” he said after swallowing. “I missed that.”

  “Francis,” I said. “My name is Matt Cooper and I’ve been hired by your daughter Vivian to find you.”

  A look of panic fell over Francis’ face.

  “Don’t worry,” I assured him. “I’m not here to take you back or anything. I was just hired to find you and report back to Vivian. She just wants to know that you’re all right.”

  Francis sucked on the straw again, avoiding my gaze.

  “Look,” I said, “Vivian told me how you just up and left one day with no explanation and she thinks it’s because of something she did that caused you to leave. I guess she just wants to be assured th
at your leaving wasn’t her fault.”

  Francis pulled the straw from his lips and turned to me. “I didn’t know,” he finally admitted. “I left because I just couldn’t take all the pressure and demands on me. I explained it all to her mother several months after I left. I just couldn’t take any more and I told Margaret, that was my wife, that she could have everything and that I just wanted to be left alone. She resisted at first and was really hurt by my decision, but after a while she accepted it and agreed not to pursue it any further. I asked her not to tell the children about why I left. I thought it was better that way, at least at the time. I had no idea Vivian felt this way.”

  “Well,” I said. “Like I told you before, I’m not here to take you back, but don’t you think it would be the right thing to do to finally let your daughter off the hook after all these years? Then maybe she can get on with her life, too.”

  A single tear rolled down Doctor Conklin’s face and he turned away from me.

  “Frank,” I said. “Can I just let Vivian know that you’re all right and that this wasn’t her fault?”

  “And I don’t have to go back with you?”

  “No.”

  “Okay. Just tell her that this is the way I want it and that I’m sorry if I hurt her. Would you do that for me?”

  “She’ll be glad it’s over,” I said. “I’ll tell her first thing tomorrow.”

  “Thank you, Mr. Cooper.”

  I nodded and smiled. The waitress brought the two plates of food, wrapped two of my four singles in a napkin and carried them off. She returned with thirty cents change and laid it next to my two dollars. I pushed the whole lot toward her and said, “Keep it.”

  She smiled and wrapped the other two bills in a napkin and carried them over to the cash register. I saw her stuff my two singles in and take two fresh bills out, stuffing them into her apron pocket and disappearing into the kitchen.

  I slipped out of both of my shoes now and pulled out the two ten-dollar bills I had tucked away earlier. I stuffed them into Doctor Conklin’s coat pocket and patted it. “You hang onto them. They may come in handy out here on the street, you hear?”

  “Thanks again, Mr. Cooper,” Conklin said.