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

by Bill Bernico

“You know,” Dan said. “The longer we stand here and discuss Bogart movies, the more likely the chance that we’ll miss the six-fifteen. Let’s get moving.”

  We drove to the theater in my car and took the two seats on the aisle in the back row. Just as we sat the opening credits began to roll. Before the first scene even had a chance to appear on the screen, the film broke and the screen went white. A minute later the theater manager turned on the house lights and walked to the front of the room, ascending the stairs to the stage.

  “Ladies and gentlemen,” he said. “Pantages Theater is sorry to announce that the film has broken. Normally we’d repair it and the film could continue but it broke because of a part in the projector. That would take us too long to replace, so we’ll be offering refunds or tickets to another show tomorrow at your discretion. Again we’re sorry for the inconvenience.” He descended the stairs again, walked up the aisle and was gone, leaving a room full of moviegoers moaning.

  “That’s just great,” I said. “Screwed again.”

  “Doesn’t pay to get all flustered,” Dan said. “There’s another theater just up the street. Wanna go there?”

  I sighed deeply. “No thanks,” I said.

  “Why not?” Dan said.

  “I don’t know about you.” I said, “But I don’t think I wanna sit though another Ma and Pa Kettle fiasco. Those two characters drive me crazy with their antics. That’s not my idea of humor.”

  Dan crinkled his nose at the thought. “Guess we’ll just call it a night. You wanna drive me back to the station for my car?”

  “I suppose,” I said, and walked out of the theater disappointed but determined to see Bogart again tomorrow night.

  One of these days I’d have to make a point to try to get over to the studio and see if I could meet Bogart in the flesh. I wouldn’t get my hopes up.

  29 - Track Record

  I was in my sweat suit jogging through Griffith Park and just enjoying the fresh air and the scenery. During my last visit to the doctor, he’d told me that I needed to drop fifteen pounds. He didn’t beat around the bush or mask his statement with flattery first. He just came right out and told me I was fat. Well, I’ll give him an A for candor but his bedside manner could use some work.

  Between his recommendation and the recent tight fit of my clothes, I knew I had to do something or face the expense of a whole new wardrobe. That’s when a friend of mine suggested I take up jogging, and since it didn’t require the purchase of any expensive equipment that I knew I’d never use, I decided to give it a shot.

  There were a lot of hills within Griffith Park. I didn’t mind the downhill jogs but the uphill jogs were going to kill me for sure if I didn’t pace myself and walk during those. I was taking my time on one of those uphill treks when I could hear a car rolling up behind me. I stopped, bent over with my hands on my knees and looked up to see my old friend, Dan Hollister, a sergeant with the Los Angeles Police Department and my former boss sitting behind the wheel.

  Dan stopped next to me, rolled his window down and leaned out toward me. “Hey old man,” he said sarcastically, “You seen anything of a middle-aged guy that looks like he could use a ride back to town?”

  I straightened up, took a few more needed deep breaths, looked around and said, “No, but if you don’t find him, I’m your man.”

  Dan laughed. “Get in, Matt.” He leaned over and lifted the door handle.

  I slid in beside him, still breathing heavily and trying to speak without breathless pauses. I held one finger up, took another breath and said, “You think I can’t do this, don’t you?”

  Dan stuck out his bottom lip and shook his head. “No, it looks to me like you’re right on schedule. I was gonna have Jack Walsh drive by with the meat wagon and have his men load you into it, but after thinking about it, I realized that it was probably in bad taste, although not altogether unrealistic.

  Jack Walsh was the county medical examiner. I don’t think I’d have found it to humorous to ride home in the morgue wagon, but the mental picture I got of that made me crack a smile anyway.

  “Where was this sense of humor when I was in the department?” I said. “I might not have left if you’d shown me this side of you back then.”

  “I guess I’ve mellowed,” Dan said. “Besides, being your boss is a little different than being your friend, you know. As your boss I had to maintain control. As your friend, I don’t.”

  “Besides,” I said, “if I’d stuck around I’d never have gotten to go on all the exciting cases I’ve had since I left the department, now would I?”

  “Exciting?” Dan said. “Let me see if I can remember some of your last exciting cases. Okay, there was that case where you sat in a tree for two days getting the goods on the neighbor with the noisy dog. How’d that one work out for you? And before that there was the Case of The Loud Muffler. A capital crime if ever there was one. And what was the outcome on that one? Oh, yeah, I remember. You got the evidence your client needed to press that disturbing-the-peace complaint. And before that…”

  “All right,” I said. “So they weren’t all exciting, but they paid the bills. Let’s not forget the real cases, like the class reunion killer or the Mother Goose murders or that case that centered around all those clues on the license plates.”

  Dan and I both dropped our smiles when I mentioned that one. One of Dan’s officers and a friend of ours, Officer Jerry Burns was shot dead on the street during that one.

  “So anyway,” I said, trying to switch the subject, “what brings you out here? You surely didn’t come by just to give me a ride back home.”

  “Actually,” Dan said, “I needed to deliver a message from a potential client.”

  I gave Dan a strange look. “Since when are you my secretary and since when do you take an interest in whether or not I get my messages? Not that I don’t appreciate it, but it seems to me that you have a job of protecting and serving, if memory serves.”

  “Well,” Dan said. “This particular woman came to see me first and I thought of you.”

  “Me?” I said. “And what’s your interest in this client?”

  Dan hesitated and drove down Los Feliz toward Hollywood Boulevard where it turned into Western Avenue. He turned right at the corner and then turned his head toward me. “The woman is someone I know personally and I’d rather not get involved. It could prove awkward for me and for the department. I told her I’d ask you to look into her case.”

  “And her case involves what?” I said. “And by the way, who are we talking about here, Dan?”

  “Her name’s Mary Montgomery,” Dan said. “And her husband is…”

  “Clark Montgomery,” I said. “Now I see why you don’t want to get involved. What’s going on with those two this time?”

  “This time?” Dan said. “There were others?”

  “Where have you been?” I said. “Clark Montgomery has told just about everybody he knows that he’s not a happy camper as far as that marriage goes. Over many a drink he’s let it spill that he’d love to be single again, and you know what that usually means.”

  “That’s why I’m dropping this in your lap,” Dan said. “Mary claims that there have been two ‘accidents’ in the last few weeks that she’s pretty sure Clark is behind.”

  “By ‘accidents’ I take it that neither you nor she believes that they really were accidents,” I said. “And that can only mean that Clark is making his move, or at least trying to.”

  “Well,” Dan said. “Not Clark himself, naturally. If he’s behind these then he’s isolating himself with some pretty airtight alibis. And if these are his doing, you can bet he’s hiring them out, so someone’s bound to talk sooner or later.”

  “No,” I said. “I can’t see anyone hiring out the job of snuffing his wife. That would leave the husband wide open for blackmail. If there have been attempts on the wife, you can bet it was the husband himself.”

  “You might have something there,” Dan said.

 
“And just what is it you or she would like me to do?” I said.

  “Mary asked me if I’d ask you to look into these incidents for her,” Dan said. “On the sly, of course. She doesn’t want Clark to know she’s onto him. Get it?”

  “Not often enough, but yeah, I get it,” I said.

  “Clever,” Dan said, probably making a mental note of that comeback so he could use it himself the first chance he got.

  “Didn’t Mary ask you to do anything?” I said.

  “Yes, she did,” Dan said. “But I told here there was nothing the department could do since Clark hadn’t actually broken any laws. She was a little more than put off by the realization that we couldn’t get involved unless he actually hurt her or at least tried to hurt her. That’s when I thought of you.”

  “Me?”

  “Yes,” Dan said. “You can look into this unofficially and quietly and you can go places and ask things that we can’t. So, can I tell Mary that you’re interested in taking her case?”

  I thought for a moment and then agreed. “Sure,” I said. “You wanna give her one of my cards and have her stop by my office?”

  “I already did, Matt,” Dan said. “In fact, she’s waiting there now in your outer office.”

  I looked sideways at him without turning my head. “You were pretty confident that I’d take the case, weren’t you?” I said.

  Dan nodded. “Yeah, pretty much.”

  We drove past Vine toward Cahuenga and Dan pulled up to the curb in front of my building. He gestured with his chin toward the door. “Let me know what happens, will you?”

  I pulled down on the door handle and slid out onto the sidewalk, slamming the door behind me. I bent over the open window and leaned in. “Sorry, driver,” I said. “I’m fresh out of money. I’ll catch you next time around.”

  Dan shook his head, smiled and pulled away into traffic. He turned south at the light and was gone.

  I rode the elevator up to the third floor and walked to the end of the hall. The glass door was lettered with Cooper Investigations in gold lettering. Below that in smaller lettering it simply said, Matt Cooper, P.I. I walked in and found Mary Montgomery sitting in one of the leather chairs, leafing through an old magazine. She looked a bit startled to see a man standing there in a jogging suit.

  “Mary Montgomery?” I said.

  She stood and looked at me warily.

  I extended my hand. “Matt Cooper,” I said. “Sergeant Hollister said you wanted to see me.”

  Her tense body relaxed and she forced a smile, giving me her hand.

  I stepped back and gestured with my hands at my outfit. “You’ll have to excuse my clothes,” I said. “I was out jogging when Dan found me and I haven’t had time to shower and change yet.”

  “That’s all right,” Mary said. “This shouldn’t take long to tell you what’s happened so far and what I need from you.”

  I dug my spare key out of my jogging pants pocket and unlocked my inner office door, holding it open for Mary. She stepped in and I invited her to have a seat in my client’s chair. I walked over to my sink, splashed a little water in my face and toweled it dry before taking a seat behind my desk.

  “So,” I began. “Dan tells me you have some concerns about your husband and about some recent incidents. Care to tell me about those?”

  “Just like that?” Mary said. “You cut right to the chase, don’t you?”

  “I’m sorry,” I said. “Was there something else you wanted to discuss before you get right to the matter at hand?”

  “Not really,” Mary said. “I just never had to hire a private detective before and I wasn’t sure if you guys filled out forms or asked a few questions before you got down to business, that’s all.”

  “Nope,” I said. “This is really pretty informal. You just start wherever you feel like and I’ll interrupt you if I have any questions. Sound all right to you?”

  Mary nodded. “Okay,” she said. “Let’s start with last week. No wait, it was two weeks ago. Yeah, I remember because it was the opposite week from the one when I get my paycheck. Anyway, I was leaving work and walking across the street at Yucca and Cahuenga when a car came around the corner and just missed running me down. I jumped back just in time but the driver took off and turned right on Franklin before I could get a license number.”

  “So far,” I said, “all we really have is a near miss from what might have actually been just a coincidence. Is there something else you want to tell me about?”

  “That’s what I thought at first,” Mary said. “I didn’t think about it at the time because it was just the one incident, but last week made me think that something else was up because normally I lead a pretty normal and uneventful life.”

  “What happened last week?” I said.

  “I nearly had a heart attack,” Mary said. “I was standing next to a building over on Western, near Fountain. I was waiting for the bus and just kind of leaning against the building when a big cement gargoyle fell from the third story ledge above me and landed less than two feet from me. Scared the living daylights out of me, let me tell you. Well, I knew right then that it was no accident and I also realized that the near miss from that car the week before was also no accident. Clark’s trying to kill me.”

  I pulled a yellow legal pad from my desk drawer and made a few notes for myself. I looked up at Mary. “And why do you think Clark wants to kill you?”

  “I can tell you in two words,” Mr. Cooper,” Mary said. “My money. I had saved quite a bit and was doing pretty well for myself before I married Clark. I always told him that I intended to keep that money separate from our money and at first he didn’t mind it. But later he tried to get me to pool my money with ours, saying that we were supposed to be a team and all that other stuff men say when they want something from you. Well, I wouldn’t budge and it became a bone of contention between us. And lately he’s become downright nasty about it.”

  “Nasty?” I said. “What do you mean?”

  “Mary thought for a moment and then offered, “He’s been cold and distant for a couple of months now and when I try to talk to him, he shuts me out. And lately, oh I don’t know how to put a finger on it specifically, but I don’t feel safe around him. Does that make any sense to you, Mr. Cooper?”

  “Well,” I said, “I can only speak from my own experience. I was married briefly a few years ago and those were the happiest years of my life.”

  “Was?” Mary said.

  “Yes,” I explained. “She died after we were married for just a couple of years.”

  “Oh, I so sorry,” Mary said. “I shouldn’t have asked.”

  “It’s all right,” I said. “Suppose we get back to your problem and see if there’s something we can do about it.”

  “That’s about it,” Mary said. “Aside from the bad attitude and the cold disposition, the only other things that concerned me were the two close calls I had. I think Clark is trying to kill me and I’m scared.”

  I jotted down a few more notes and set the pad and pen aside. I looked at Mary. “As far as I know, Clark doesn’t know me or what I look like. Is that a fair assumption?”

  Mary shook her head. “As far as I know, he’s never even heard of you.”

  “Great,” I said. “That’ll work to my advantage. Suppose you tell me a little about his habits and hangouts. Where can I go where I’ll be sure to run into him?”

  Mary thought momentarily. “Well, there’s the golf course, and the racetrack. He’s either out golfing or betting on the horse races at Santa Anita. And he goes to this restaurant on Alameda Boulevard in Burbank.”

  “I think I can rule out the restaurant,” I said. “This chance meeting has to be some place public and out in the open. The golf course is okay, but I might not be able to get close enough to him. Now the racetrack, on the other hand, hell, I could stand right next to him and strike up a conversation about the race or the horses. Yeah, I think that’s where I’ll start, at Santa Anita. Any parti
cular days that I can find him there?”

  “Wednesdays are the best days to catch him there,” Mary said. “I guess they have some kind of special events going on there on Wednesdays. But he also goes on the weekends.”

  I wrote this information on my legal pad and turned to Mary. “Do you have any photos of him with you?”

  Mary open her purse and dug around inside, coming out with a wallet-size snapshot of Clark Montgomery. She handed it over to me and said, “I don’t even know why I carry that thing. Habit, I guess. That was taken several months ago but nothing’s changed since then. He’s still got that same stupid looking smirk.”

  I tucked the photo into the corner of my blotter. “I’ll get this back to you when I’m finished.”

  “You needn’t bother,” Mary said. “Hopefully when you’re finished, Clark will either be locked up or dead.”

  She stopped herself and put one hand over her mouth. “My goodness. Did that come out of me?”

  I turned to Mary. “Give me a phone number where you can be reached,” I said. “Make it a number where you can talk freely when I call.”

  Mary pulled a business card from her purse and passed it to me. “This is my number at work,” she said. “You can reach me there between nine-thirty and five-thirty weekdays.”

  I stood and Mary followed. I walked her to the door and she laid her hand on my forearm.

  “Thank you, Mr. Cooper,” she said. “I feel better already just knowing you’re looking out for me.”

  “Now just because I’m on the case, doesn’t mean you can let your guard down,” I said. “Keep an eye out for anything or anyone that doesn’t look or feel right. If Clark is trying to have you killed, he may try again so keep your eyes open and let me know if any other strange incidents happen to you.”

  “I will, Mr. Cooper, and thank you,” Mary said. She left the outer office and I heard her footsteps echo down the hall.

  I locked up the office and headed home for a shower and a change of clothes. It was Tuesday and I had the rest of the day to plan my strategies. Tomorrow I’d head on over to Santa Anita and to my chance meeting with Clark Montgomery.