by Bill Bernico
“And I don’t like that,” I said. “Trapped there in a small elevator, not able to get out.”
The doctor rose from his chair and set his book back on his desk. He extended his hand out toward me and invited me to stand. “Follow me,” he said, leading me out of his office and into the reception area. He stopped in front of one of the three elevators and pushed the button marked ‘down.’ In a few seconds the doors opened and the doctor stepped in. He turned around and faced me, beckoning me in with his finger. “Come on, Mr. Cooper,” he said. “Stand here next to me.”
I hesitated and looked around, searching for the door to the stairway I’d come up. It was nineteen floors and I was puffing by the time I’d reached the floor with the doctor’s office, but in my mind it was better than the alternative. The doctor made an exaggerated effort to show me that he’d pushed another button. “Come on, Mr. Cooper,” he said. “I’ve pushed the emergency stop button. We’re not going anywhere. We’ll just stand here in the elevator for a minute.”
I took small steps toward him and finally entered the car, staying just inside the doors. I quickly stepped back out into the lobby. “There,” I said. “Are you happy now?”
The doctor stepped out after me. “Mr. Cooper,” he said, “it’s just an enclosure that goes up and down on a cable. Nothing more, nothing less. You’re in no danger, Mr. Cooper. People use them every day all around the world. Come on, just stand next to me for a few seconds and we’ll gradually work our way up from there. You have to make the first step toward your own recovery.”
I felt a little silly now. The receptionist and two other people in the waiting area were starting to look at me. I followed the doctor back into the elevator and closed my eyes. I took deep breaths and opened my eyes again. The seconds felt like hours as I stood there next to my psychiatrist. My stomach was in knots, but I was doing it. I was actually standing in an elevator. Granted, the doors were still open, but I was in nonetheless.
“Ready for step two?” the doctor said, looking me square in the eye.
“Step two?” I said suspiciously. “What is step two?”
“It’s quite simple, really,” the doctor said. “We take a short ride, down one floor and then come back here. That’s all.”
I jumped out of the car in one stride. “No,” I said with a certain amount of conviction. “Not me.”
The doctor tried to reason with me and pushed the emergency stop button again, releasing it. “Mr. Cooper,” he said from within the confines of the car, “just wait here for a moment. I’ll take that ride by myself. Then you can take the next one with me. Okay?”
I said nothing as the doors closed and the lights above the elevator doors flashed, indicating that the car was moving down one floor. It returned to my floor in thirty seconds and the doors opened again to reveal the doctor still standing there, peaceful as a sleeping dog on a front porch.
“Nothing to it,” the doctor said, urging me to join him. “Come on, Mr. Cooper. Once around the block?”
“I don’t know, doc,” I said wringing my hands and wiping them on the tops of my pants legs. “What if something goes wrong?”
“What can go wrong?” the doctor said. “It’s perfectly safe.” He beckoned again with his finger.
I edged forward one step and stopped. “Are you sure?” I said, taking baby steps toward the car.
“I’d bet my life on it,” the doctor said.
The receptionist smiled at me and nodded. I took another step and stopped. The two people in the waiting room had been looking at me but both shifted their glances back to the magazines in their hands. I took another step toward the elevator. It was a big step for me. I wasn’t sure I could do it, but I owed it to myself to try to get over my fears. I started to take another step when I felt the rumble. The aftershock from yesterday’s quake shook the potted plant off the receptionist’s desk. It broke on the floor and scattered bits and pieces of the pot and black dirt everywhere. The receptionist screamed.
I looked toward the elevator. The doctor was still standing in the car, looking around at his surroundings. I heard the loud snap and watched as the elevator car plunged down toward the lobby. The doctor screamed all the way down. A few seconds later I heard the car crash to a stop and then the sounds of people in the lobby screaming.
I started for the stairway but stopped and turned back toward the reception desk. The doctor’s appointment book was lying open to tomorrow’s appointments. I grabbed a pencil and ran a line through my name. I didn’t see the need for any more therapy. My fear of elevators was real enough and I’d just have to learn to live with it.
Just call me Klaus. Klaus Cooper.
95 - That First Step
There’s something about watching a new skyscraper go up that brings out the little kid in me. I was watching one this morning and the process had me totally captivated. On the corner of Western Avenue and Hollywood Boulevard there once stood a grand hotel. At least it may have been grand in 1903 when the Rector Hotel went up on that corner. For years before it was demolished it had become a well-known flop house for transients and hookers. I realized that progress would sooner or later win out over sentiment and that The Rector would have to yield, but it was always hard for me to see a familiar landmark be torn down.
I’ve lived in Hollywood all my life, as did my father, Clay Cooper and for the most part, his father, Matt Cooper. I was the third generation of Coopers to carry on the family business of private investigations and my office, the office Grandpa Matt started out in, was also on Hollywood Boulevard near Cahuenga.
As I stood there watching the crane boom lift another girder into place at the fifteenth floor level I got dizzy. I hate to admit it, but I have acrophobia, a fear of heights, even when I’m standing on the ground and just looking up at a high place. I had to break my gaze and look at the ground before the dizziness went away.
I was on the sidewalk, an eight-foot wooden fence separating me from the construction area. Throughout the length of the fence, at spaced intervals, there were holes in the fence, put there by the construction company so passersby could look in on the work in progress without having to resort to trespassing. I could see at least half a dozen people down the length of the block looking into those holes. Another twenty or so people were standing on the sidewalk, their necks bent back, looking up at the steel workers traversing the girders a hundred fifty feet above the pavement.
I was still looking at the pavement, trying to regain my equilibrium when I heard several women scream in horror while the rest of the crowd gasped. A few seconds later, just ten feet from where I stood, a body smashed to the ground, landing partially in the street. I turned and looked down at what was left of the man in the overalls and hard hat. The hard hat hadn’t helped the man in this instance. His head split open like a watermelon, and the man’s insides were now outside—all over the street. I looked up again and then back at the body and I got dizzy all over again. I turned away and puked in the gutter. I kept puking until my stomach was empty and then the dry heaves set in. It felt like Rocky Balboa was punching me in the stomach and the bell signaling the end of the round was broken.
The scene at ground level was pandemonium. Most people ran away from the area, unable to look at the mess in the street. Others couldn’t seem to get close enough. These are the people who cause gridlock when police cars and ambulances try to get close. It took just three minutes for two black and white patrol cars and an ambulance to pull up to the curb. I recognized one of the cops in the lead car. It was my old pal from the twelfth precinct, Lieutenant Eric Anderson.
“I’d ask you what happened here, Elliott,” Eric said as he approached me. “But it’s pretty obvious. Did you see it happen?”
I shook my head, still unwilling to look at the dead man. “No,” I said. “I was looking down and just heard the screams from the crowd. The guy landed not ten feet from where I was standing. There’s a sound I’ll never forget as long as I live.”
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nbsp; Eric scanned the crowd that had gathered. “Did anyone here see what happened?” he yelled over their heads. No one stepped forward or raised a hand. Eric turned in the other direction and repeated his question. Still no responses. He turned back to me.
“All these people watching the workers,” he said, “and no one sees the guy fall. What are the odds? I mean, usually there’s someone looking up at the workers. Sometimes there’s even a few people with their phone video camera cranking away.”
“Fate, I guess,” I said. “It’s like there’s never a cop around when you need one, but run just one red light and there he is.”
“This isn’t going to make my job any easier,” Eric said. “I guess I’d better go find the foreman on this job and talk to the other workers. I’ll see you later, Elliott.”
“I was just on my way back to the office anyway,” I said. “Good luck.”
I drove west on Hollywood and parked behind my building. I took the elevator to the third floor and walked to the end of the hall. When I stepped into the office my wife, Gloria, was standing at the window, looking down at the traffic and pedestrians below. She turned when she heard the office door open. She must have seen something in my face that didn’t belong.
“You look like you’d just been on a ship in rough seas,” Gloria said. “Your face is all white. What have you been doing?”
I told her about my experience at the construction site and how I’d emptied my stomach out on the street. I sat at my desk, pulled my handkerchief from my coat pocket and wiped my forehead with it.
“That’s terrible,” Gloria said. “You’re lucky he didn’t land on top of you. They’d never have been able to tell which parts belonged to which body.”
“It’s bad enough that some poor soul had to die that way,” I said, “but it’s also a shame that I’d just come from breakfast at the diner. There’s six-fifty down the drain, or in the gutter, in this case. I’m hungrier now than I was when I woke up this morning.”
Gloria turned on the phone answering machine and pulled me out of the chair by my arm. “Let’s go,” she said. “I could use something to eat myself,” she said, leading me toward the door.
I had my second breakfast of the day, returned to work and tried with no luck to concentrate on the tasks at hand. I kept hearing that body hit the street near my feet. I tried replacing that image with something pleasant but it kept returning stronger than before. I stood at my desk and turned to face the window. I looked straight across at the third floor of the building across the street and then I looked down. I quickly stepped back, tripping over my chair and catching myself on my desk before I hit the floor.
Gloria looked up from her work. “Are you all right” she said.
“I’ve got to get out of here,” I said. “I can’t keep my mind on my work. I’ll see you back at the house when you’re finished here.” I left the office, got back into my car and drove home.
The following morning I found myself back at that same construction site, my curiosity burning. Somehow I was able to walk right onto the site. No guard stopped me at the entrance and I didn’t run into anyone else. I saw the worker’s elevator with its door hanging open and stepped inside, closing the door behind me. I pressed a button inside the cage and the elevator took me to the fifteenth level. I opened the door and stepped out onto a wooden platform area with a wheelbarrow and other construction tools lying about. Still there were no other workers to be seen anywhere. It was like an unfinished ghost town up here.
I carefully stepped over to the edge of the wood platform where a rope had been stretched across from one girder to another. This was supposed to keep anyone from falling over the edge, supposedly. It didn’t look to me like much of a barrier. I inched my way closer to the edge and accidentally stepped on the edge of a bucket of grease, tipping it over onto the platform. The souls of my shoes became coated in grease and I quickly found myself slipping around on the greasy wooden surface.
I flailed my arms around my head, trying to maintain my balance, all the while sliding closer and closer to the edge. In a last ditch effort to steady myself, I grabbed hold of the rope barrier and it broke in my hands like tissue paper. I slid right off the edge of the platform and began tumbling fifteen floors to the street below.
I screamed and sat up in bed.
“Elliott,” Gloria said, turning on the lamp. “Are you all right? It sounded like you were having a nightmare.”
I grabbed her hand and held her flat palm over my heart. It was pounding out of my chest and my breathing was coming fast and shallow.
Gloria wrapped her arms around me. “Elliott,” she said. “Your heart is just racing. What were you dreaming about?”
I blinked my eyes and tried to familiarize myself with my surroundings. I let out a deep breath when I realized that I was safe in my own bed. “I was at that construction site again,” I said. “I got up on the fifteenth floor and fell over the side. It seemed so real.”
“I can imagine,” Gloria said. “After what you went through this morning, it’s no wonder. Do you want to get up and go to the kitchen for something to eat?”
I shook my head. “No,” I said. “I just want to sleep. If I don’t get some sleep soon, I won’t be any good at work tomorrow. Thank you anyway.” I kissed Gloria and lay back down again, trying desperately to think pleasant thoughts in an effort to influence my dreams.
When I woke the next morning I couldn’t decide if waking up in the middle of the night from that nightmare had been real or a dream itself. My dreams returned for several more nights before they began to fade away. Four days after the terrible incident I woke feeling better than I had all week. I showered and got dressed and joined Gloria at the kitchen counter for pancakes and sausage.
“How are you feeling this morning?” Gloria asked, kissing my forehead.
I nodded. “Better,” I said.
“Did your nightmares come back again?” she said.
I shook my head. “No,” I said. “I don’t remember any other dreams after I got back to sleep, thank goodness.”
“Can you handle things at the office for a few hours?” Gloria said. “I have to take Matt in for a checkup this morning.”
“Is he all right?” I asked.
“Sure,” Gloria said. “It’s just a regular checkup that the doctor scheduled. Matt’s going to be starting kindergarten next week and I guess the schools want to make sure that the kids aren’t bringing any sickness or germs with them when school starts. We shouldn’t be too long. I’ll probably be there before you have to go to lunch.”
I nodded. “Sure,” I said. “I can hold down the fort until you get there. We don’t have anything going right now so maybe I’ll just help you out with all that data entry from our old case files.”
“I’d really appreciate that,” Gloria said. “That gets to be pretty tedious work after a while.”
“Well, it won’t last much longer,” I said. “We’re almost caught up with the current files. Then it’ll just be a case of entering each case file as we finish it.”
My son chose that moment to emerge from the bathroom just two seconds after I heard the toilet flush. As he came closer to me I looked at him with a stern look and said, “Did you wash your hands, Matt?”
Without answering, Matt turned around and walked back into the bathroom. I heard the faucet running and the sounds of two tiny hands splashing around under the water. A few more seconds of wiping them on the towel and Matt was back at my side, waiting for his morning hug.
“So you’re starting school next week, are you?” I said, wrapping my arms around Matt’s neck and drawing him close.
Matt squirmed out of my grip and straightened his messy hair. “Yes, daddy,” he said. “I’m going to kittygarden. I can’t wait to see them.”
“See what?” I said.
“The kitties,” Matt said. “They must have a whole garden full of them there.” He giggled with delight and that got me laughing.
&nbs
p; “I don’t think…” I started to say but stopped when Gloria waved me off.
“You don’t think what, daddy?” Matt said.
“I don’t think I’d be able to wait to get there, either,” I said. “That should be lots of fun your first day at school.”
Matt smiled even wider and climbed up onto his chair. He grabbed his spoon and dug into his cereal bowl, milk dripping off the spoon and down onto his shirt.
Gloria quickly wiped the milk droplets off Matt’s shirt and then wrapped the towel around his neck, tucking it into his collar. I got up, slipped into my coat and kissed Gloria before leaving the house. The ride to the office took me just ten minutes.
I unlocked the office door, picked up the mail and carried it back to my desk. I hung my coat on the coat rack and settled into my chair with the mail. Publisher’s Clearing House and AARP literature went directly into the trash can, leaving me with two bills and a letter addressed only to Cooper Investigations. The return address told me it was from someone named Abigail Bailey in Glendale. I slipped my letter opener under the flap and slid it across.
The letter was dated two days ago. Abigail Bailey, as it turned out, was the wife of the man who had fallen to his death earlier this week. She went on to say that she had spoken to the police lieutenant who was handling the case and that he had told her that her husband, Raymond’s death was a accident and that there would be no further investigation into the matter. Mrs. Bailey wrote that she had reason to believe that Raymond’s death was not an accident and that she wanted me to look into it for her. The letter included a phone number and stated that she’d be home after ten o’clock on Friday morning, after the funeral.
This morning was Friday but I’d have to wait another hour to call her about her concerns. I set the letter aside and turned on my desktop computer. The sooner I got at those case files, the sooner we could put that never-ending task behind us. I was still entering data thirty minutes later when my phone rang.
“Cooper Investigations,” I said. “Elliott speaking.”