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

by Bill Bernico

  I popped a few more kernels of Cracker Jack into my mouth and stared up at the screen. I felt a tap on my left shoulder and turned to see who wanted my attention. It was a woman sitting directly behind me. She leaned in and put her mouth near my ear.

  “Mr. Cooper?” she whispered.

  I kept staring at the screen and just nodded.

  She whispered again. “Can I speak to you?”

  I gave my head a half turn, unwilling to take my eyes from the screen. “After the movie. Can’t it wait until after the movie?”

  The woman stood up and stepped down to my row and took the seat next to me. She leaned sideways and tried again. “Mr. Cooper, I need you to…”

  I turned my attention to her and said sternly, “I’ll hear you out but like I said, after the movie. Now let me finish watching this, will you?”

  “Okay,” she whispered. “I’ll wait.”

  I was able to watch the rest of the movie in silence. As Howard and Curtin went there separate ways at the end of the movie, the credits began to roll. I always liked to stay for the credits because I was interested in which actor played which roll. It was one of my quirks, but entertainment trivia seemed important to me. If cornered at a party I could tell anyone more than they ever wanted to know about movies, actors and other celebrities.

  The house lights came up and people started walking up the aisles toward the lobby and the exits. I laid my empty Crack Jack box on the seat cushion next to me and turned to the woman.

  “Okay,” I said. “You’ve got my attention. What is it you want?”

  She looked startled to have been talked to in such a gruff manner, but it didn’t stop her from rattling on, like women have a tendency to do. “Mr. Cooper, I was given your name as a person I could trust to keep what I tell you confidential. Are you that person?”

  “Depends,” I said. “If you expect me to keep the ending of this movie confidential, I can’t promise anything. It was just too good not to tell someone about it.”

  “Seriously, Mr. Cooper,” she said. “Can I trust you to keep what I tell you between just us?”

  I looked around the room. We were the last two people left in the theater. I nodded. “You can tell me anything and it won’t go any further, I promise. What can I do for you, Miss…?”

  “It’s Mrs.,” she said. “Mrs. Larry Harmon.”

  “All right, Mrs. Larry Harmon,” I said. “What’s so important that you just had to interrupt me during the movie? And just how’d you know I was here anyway?”

  “I asked your friend, Mr. Hollister,” she said. “He said you asked him if he wanted to see the movie with you and when he said he couldn’t make it, you told him you were going anyway. And since this is the only theater in Hollywood showing “Treasure of the Sierra Madre” it wasn’t too hard to find you.”

  “Well, that answers the second half of my question,” I said, impatiently. I’d deal with sergeant Dan Hollister later. “Now, about that first half, what is it you need me to do for you?”

  “I’d like you to follow my husband, Mr. Cooper,” she said. “Follow him and let me know where he goes and what he does. That’s all I need from you for now.”

  “Why don’t you save your money and follow him yourself?” I said. It was a logical question.

  She sighed heavily. “Because he’d spot me in a minute. I need someone he doesn’t know by sight and someone who’s a professional at tailing people. You know, a private eye, like you.”

  “May I ask why you need to know where he goes and what he does?”

  She hesitated and then offered, “I suspect he’s cheating on me.”

  “And you’re looking for ammunition for a divorce case,” I said. “Is that about it?”

  “Oh no, Mr. Cooper. I want…”

  “And before we go any further, Mrs. Harmon,” I said, “My father was Mr. Cooper. My name’s Matt, okay?”

  “Okay,” she said. “And you can call me Monica.”

  “All right, Monica. Go on with your story.”

  “I just want to know if he’s having an affair,” she said. “I don’t want a divorce. I have two small boys at home that need their father. I just want to confront him and have the facts to back me up. I just want to tell the other woman to stay away and I want to tell Larry that he has to think of the boys and what something like this would do to them. See?”

  “That’s all well and good, Monica,” I said. “But I don’t do divorce work, so if this thing leads to a divorce case, don’t expect me to testify in court. I can tail Mr. Harmon and give you an itemized account of his comings and goings, but that’s as far as I’d be willing to take it.”

  “That’s all I want,” she said. “Thank you, Matt.” She laid her hand on my forearm and gently squeezed it.

  “And I get thirty dollars a day plus expenses,” I said. “A job like this could run into a week or more of surveillance work.”

  “Don’t worry, Matt,” she said. “Larry can afford it.”

  “Larry?”

  “You don’t think this is coming out of my household money, do you?” she said. “Larry’s got plenty and he’s gonna pay for this, one way or another.”

  The audience for the second showing started to file in and take their seats. I turned to Monica, handing her one of my business cards. “Come around to my office tomorrow and we’ll draw up a contract and I can get started on this. Is that acceptable to you?”

  She smiled, relieved. “Yes, Matt. I’ll see you around ten thirty. Does that work for you?”

  “Ten thirty will be fine,” I said. “See you then.”

  She got up and walked out of the theater. I came in late and had missed the Three Stooges short that they played before the feature and decided to stick around. From the title, “Squareheads Of the Round Table,” it sounded like it could be a good one. As soon as the opening credits started to roll, I got up and left. It was one of the shorts with Shemp and he’s not nearly as funny, in my opinion, as his younger brother, Curley. But I remembered reading somewhere that Curley had suffered a stroke and had to drop out of the trio. Too bad. That was one of the funniest comedy acts ever to come out of Hollywood.

  I drove home, picking Cracker Jack bits out of my teeth with my fingernail. I should know better.

  Monica Harmon showed up right on time the next morning. She filled me in on Larry Harmon’s business address, habits, places he’d been known to frequent, the make, model and color his car along with the license number, and provided me with a recent photo of her husband. We finalized the details of my contract with her and she gave me a ninety-dollar retainer to get started. I asked her if she wanted me to contact her if I had anything to report. She said that wouldn’t be a good idea, in case Larry answered the phone. She said she’d check in with me every now and then and left again.

  This didn’t strike me as a particularly dangerous assignment so I left my .38 hanging on the coat hook in its holster. It felt good for a change not to have the extra weight hanging under my arm. I figured Larry Harmon’s place of employment would be as good a place as any to start.

  Harmon worked as an on-the-road salesman for a cosmetics company in Burbank. Monica had told me that his route covered most of the greater Los Angeles area and there were times when his job would necessitate and overnight stay at whatever motel was closest at the time. Today, however, he stayed close to home and I had no trouble following him to the six or seven stops on his route. He finished his last stop and drove directly home. I broke off surveillance and went home myself. It turned out to be a pretty boring day.

  The next three days yielded pretty much the same results—nothing. But on the forth day, Friday, his last stop took him to a town called Colton on the outskirts of San Bernardino, where he stayed in the building for forty minutes and then returned to his car. I figured this would be it for the day and that he’d head home. I stayed with him, but instead of driving west toward Burbank, Harmon drove north and stopped at a house near the corner of Seventh a
nd Arrowhead in San Bernardino.

  It was a white house with green shutters and trim. Harmon walked up the steps and onto the porch but instead of knocking or ringing the bell, he slipped a key in the door and walked right in, closing it behind him. I parked half a block away and walked toward the house. I walked past the house, trying to see in the windows. There, in what looked like a living room, I could see Harmon. He had has arms around a woman’s waist and he was pulling her close. She appeared to be kissing him. They both seemed to enjoy it. Two small boys soon joined them and hung on Harmon’s coat, tugging at it and apparently yelling up at him.

  I walked around to the front of the house again and up the sidewalk toward their porch. When I got close enough I could read the name on the mailbox. It said Mr. And Mrs. Lee Harper along with the house numbers. I turned around and walked back toward my car. Across the street from where I’d parked I found a phone booth and stepped inside, grabbing the phone book and flipping through the pages.

  And there listed right after Hardy, Robert was Harper, Lee and the phone number. I wrote the information down in my notebook and got back in my car. I was half a block from Lee Harper’s house and watched with binoculars, hoping they’d leave some of the curtains open. It looked to be suppertime as the woman Harmon had hugged earlier looked to be dishing food out to Harmon, herself and two small children, who sat on either side of the couple. Platters were passed around and from all outward appearances, this looked to me like one big happy family, something right out of a Norman Rockwell painting.

  This made no sense at all to me, but then I wasn’t married, either. It looked to me like Larry Harmon was either standing in for the absent Lee Harper, or they were one and the same person, which meant that Harmon/Harper was a bigamist. And a job that allowed him overnight stays seemed to be a good enough excuse to play house in two different cities. But why would he want to? That was the part that I personally wanted to know. Sure, Mrs. Harmon would eventually have to know of this, but in the meantime, I needed to know what would drive a man to want two families. One was complicated enough. It would take a special man to juggle two.

  I kept him under surveillance until they finished their meal and then took my binoculars and walked across the street to the phone booth and dialed Lee Harper’s number. As the phone on the other end rang, I watched the house through the glasses. I could see Harmon walking across the room to pick up the phone.

  “Hello,” he said. I could see hip lips moving in sync with what he was saying on the phone.

  I changed my voice somewhat and said, “Could I speak with Lee Harper, please?”

  “This is Mr. Harper,” Harmon said into the phone. He shifted from one foot to the other as we spoke.

  “Mr. Harper, this is Bill Yates with Pacific Western Indemnity Insurance. I was wondering if I could have a minute of your time.”

  “No thanks,” Harmon said. “I have all the insurance I need, thank you. Good bye.”

  Without waiting for a reply, he hung up, which was fine with me, since my opening sentence was all that I had prepared. I don’t know what I’d have said if he hadn’t hung up on me. All I really wanted to do was establish that Harmon and Harper were the same person. For the most part, my tail job was finished. I could drive back to Burbank and report to Mrs. Harmon that technically her husband was not having an affair. She’d probably breathe easier until I opened my mouth again to finish my report. I certainly wouldn’t want to be in Harmon’s shoes once Mrs. Harmon had what I knew. For all I knew, this could eventually turn into a murder case.

  It was getting late and I decided that since I was already here and it would be another hour or more back to Los Angeles that I’d stay over and try to contact Harmon/Harper again in the morning. I found a motel a few blocks away and checked in. I was still hungry and set out to find one of those mom and pop diners with homemade food. I couldn’t face room service even at a good hotel. Who knew what they’d serve at a cheesy motel?

  A few blocks into the downtown area I found a place that looked like it would fit the bill. The large neon sign over the door said that this was “Mabel’s Kitchen.” And if the plump woman behind the counter was Mabel, chances are that her food was the talk of the town. I took a seat at the counter, set my hat on the stool next to me and flipped open the menu. There it was, pot roast and potatoes with gravy—my favorite.

  The waitress came over to me, pulled a pencil from behind her ear and waited with her order pad poised.

  “What’ll it be?” she said.

  I held the menu out, facing her, and pointed to the pot roast special. “I’ll have the special,” I said.

  “Anything to drink?” she said.

  “Just coffee,” I said. “Black.”

  She jotted my order on her pad and walked away toward the kitchen. I put the menu back behind the napkin dispenser and glanced around the room, taking in the ambiance of this homey setting. They had a large round jukebox in one corner, a tall wooden coat tree next to the door with one coat hanging from it, and a small shelf around the perimeter of the room. It was eight feet high and held decorative hand-painted plates, beer steins and other folksy knickknacks.

  Five or six minutes later, the waitress set the plate of food in front of me and asked if I’d like some coffee. She must have forgotten that I’d already said that I did when she took my order. I didn’t bring that up. I just said that I would and started right in with the roast. It was delicious and by the time the waitress brought my coffee cup and filled it with steaming hot coffee, I’d eaten enough of the meal to be able to comment on it if and when she asked, and she did.

  “How’s everything?” she said, looking at the plate and then glancing up at me.

  I patted her on the forearm and smiled. “If I was married, this meal would be enough to make me leave home.”

  She liked that and smiled broadly. “You’re not from around here, are you?”

  “Just passing through,” I said. “Nice place you got here, though. Makes a person feel right at home.”

  She was the chatty type and since no other customers seemed to need her immediate attention, she stayed standing where she was, ready to continue the conversation.

  “Are you Mabel?” I asked.

  “Heaven’s no, deary,” she said. “Mabel was the original owner. I bought the place from her and just kept the name. You know, good will and all. My name’s Agnes. Been here six years come October.”

  “You’ve only lived in San Bernardino for six years?” I asked, taking another bite of potatoes.

  “Oh, no. It’s just the diner that I’ve only had for six years. No, I was born here, went to school here and will probably die here.”

  “So you know most of the people who live around here?” I said, still eating.

  Agnes nodded. “I suppose so. I get a lot of regulars that I see pretty often and even on the days when we’re closed, I run into a lot of people downtown who know me from here and say hi.”

  I sipped my coffee and swallowed. “You wouldn’t happen to know Lee Harper, would you?”

  “Lee?” Agnes said, waving a hand aside. “He comes in here sometimes, mostly on weekends, but yeah, I kinda know him.”

  “You know his wife, too?” I said.

  “Darleen?” she said, leaning on the counter. “She’s been in here, too. Sometimes with Lee and sometimes with just the two boys. How do you know them?”

  “Mutual friends,” I said, not wanting to get too specific. “I think he lives over on Arrowhead, doesn’t he?”

  “Seventh Street, actually,” Agnes said. “It’s one of those corner houses, but the address is actually on Seventh Street.”

  “Seventh, that’s right,” I said. “I remember now. The big white house with the green shutters and the big porch.”

  Agnes nodded. She looked down at me as I finished the last morsel of potatoes and laid my fork down on the plate. “How’d you like some fresh homemade apple pie?”

  I patted my stomach. “I don’
t know where I’d put it.”

  “A growing boy like you?” Agnes said, producing a plate with a slice of pie on it. “Go on, you can finish it.”

  “Okay,” I said and gave her a smile. I took a bite and nodded at her. “Say, this is very good, Agnes.”

  “Thank you, um, what did you say your name was?” she asked.

  “Bill Yates,” I said, sticking with the insurance salesman cover.

  “Now tell the truth, Bill,” she said. “Is that about the best pie you’ve ever tasted? Come on, you can be honest with me.”

  “Honestly, Agnes,” I said. “It is not among the best I’ve had. It is thee best.” I licked the fork clean and set it down next to the plate.

  She liked that and patted my hand. Another customer was trying to get her attention. She excused herself and went over to the other end of the counter. I finished my coffee and stood. I walked over to where the cash register sat and waited for Agnes to finish with the other customer. A minute later she came over to where I stood and ripped a slip out of her order book and handed it to me.

  “That’s eighty-five cents, dear,” she said.

  I remembered that the meal was eighty-five cents by itself. “What about the pie? It’s not on here?”

  “On the house,” Agnes said, handing me fifteen cents change for my dollar.

  “Why, thank you, Agnes,” I said, smiling. “I’ll be back, you can count on that.”

  Another customer stepped up behind me, ready to pay his bill. I walked back over to where I’d been sitting and left the fifteen cents as a tip. I left the diner and drove back to my motel. I slept like a baby knowing that I’d found out all I needed to in order to wrap up this simple case.

  The morning light sifting through the blinds woke me early Saturday morning. I showered and dressed and drove over to Mabel’s Kitchen to see if her breakfast fare was as good as her supper. Agnes was there, bright-eyed and bushy-tailed, seemingly without a care in the world. She recognized me as I walked in the front door and smiled.