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

by Bill Bernico

  Matt had left work early this evening, telling his dad, Elliott, that he needed the extra time to get dressed and to pick up Christine for their six-thirty reservation. It was a Friday night and without the reservation, there was no way they’d get a seat at this restaurant. Matt showered, shaved and dressed in his best blue suit and red tie. Before he stopped by Chris’s house to pick her up, he needed to swing by the floral shop for a dozen red roses. This night of all nights needed to be perfect.

  Matt pulled up to the curb in front of Chris’s house and walked up her sidewalk, flowers in hand. He rang the doorbell and hid the flowers behind his back. When Chris opened the door a moment later, Matt pulled the flowers out from behind him and presented them to Chris. Her face lit up and she pulled Matt inside by his arm.

  She gave him a quick kiss and excused herself to put the flowers in some water. She came back into the living room holding the vase and smelling the fragrant bouquet. “They’re lovely, Matt,” she said. “Just lovely. Thank you so much.” She set the vase on the coffee table and this time she gave Matt a long, hard kiss that lasted several seconds. When they came up for air, Chris threw her arms around Matt’s neck and hugged him.

  Matt stood back to get a better look at Chris. “My, don’t you look beautiful tonight,” he said.

  “Thank you, dear,” she said.

  Unlike Elliott and Gloria, Matt’s parents, who never did give each other pet names, Matt and Chris weren’t so inhibited. Matt was ‘Dear’ to Chris and Chris was ‘Honey’ to him. They also had pat things that they always said to each other. Whenever Matt would ask if Chris had locked the door before they left, Chris would inevitably answer, “I’m gwanna,” to which Matt would always reply, “You’re an iguana, all right. Let’s go.” They had become totally comfortable with each other during these past six months and had gotten to the point where they could almost finish each other’s sentences.

  Chris retreated to her bedroom and returned a few seconds later with a beautifully wrapped box and handed it to Matt.

  “What’s this for?” Matt said, tugging at the ribbon that surrounded the wrapped box.

  “Same thing the flowers were for,” Chris said. “For our six month anniversary of the night we met in your office. Remember?”

  “Remember? Are you kidding?” Matt said. “The date is etched in my mind. That’s why we also have reservations tonight downtown.” He pulled the last of the wrapping paper off the box and opened it. Matt spread the tissue paper aside to reveal a smaller box. He pulled it out and read the description on the box before looking back up at Chris. “A GPS,” Matt said. “How’d you know that’s what I wanted?” He secretly could not let her know that he thought these contraptions were stupid, but instead just said, “Thank you so much,” and laid the box on the coffee table next to the roses.

  “You don’t like it, do you?” Chris said.

  “Don’t be silly,” Matt told her. “That’ll come in very handy on some of my cases. I love it.”

  “Really?” Chris said, looking for reinforcement. “You’re not just saying that?”

  Matt leaned in and kissed her. “It’s perfect. Thank you.”

  “Let’s take it along and try it out on the way to the restaurant,” Chris suggested.

  “All right,” Matt said hesitantly. “But I’m not sure how they work.”

  “That’s all right,” Chris said, picking up the box again. “I do.”

  On their way to the restaurant this evening, Chris attached the suction cup from the GPS device onto the windshield of Matt’s car and then plugged the AC adaptor into the cigarette lighter socket on the dash. She turned the unit on and then turned to Matt. “What’s the name of the restaurant?”

  “Can that thing find a place by its name?”

  “It can do all kinds of things,” Chris said. “Give me the name.”

  “It’s kind of tricky,” Matt said. “It’s called Entrees On Trays,” and spelled it out for her along with the address on Seventh Street.

  “Isn’t that clever,” Chris said, and punched it into the GPS and hit ‘Go’ before settling back into her seat. “There,” Chris said. “Now just let the GPS voice guide you to your destination.”

  “Turn right in six hundred feet,” the British-accented woman’s voice said. Several seconds later the voice came back with, “Turn right in three hundred feet.” Matt found this particular voice annoying as hell. It seemed like a lot of commercials these days were using either British or Australian voices to sell their products or services on television. There must have been some market study somewhere that revealed that the typical popcorn-for-brains TV watcher responded to these accents. Matt certainly did. Whenever he heard one, he turned off the television. Now here it was inside his car telling him where to go.

  “Turn right in sixty feet,” the annoying woman’s voice said. Matt continued straight at this point and the GPS readjusted itself to account for an alternate route taken by the driver. “Turn around at the next opportunity,” the voice said.

  Matt looked at Chris. “Could you turn that thing off, please?”

  “Why?” Chris genuinely wanted to know.

  “One, because it’s telling me to turn right when I know for a fact that there’s road construction down that street that this thing couldn’t possibly know about. And two, because I find that British accent really annoying.”

  “It has six different voices to choose from,” Chris told him. “Or it could be muted if you just want to glance at it occasionally.”

  “It was a sweet thought and all,” Matt told her, “But I was born here and know the city like the back of my hand. I really have no use for it. I hope you saved the receipt.”

  Chris’s smiling face went deadpan and Matt realized that he could have used a little more tact. He laid his hand on top of hers. “Chris,” Matt said in a soothing voice. “If we’re going to be together a lot, it would be in both our interests to find out what the other likes and dislikes without taking things personally. If I had found out tonight that you really didn’t like roses for whatever reason, I’d understand and wouldn’t take it personally. It’s all part of our growth process and you just found out something about me that you didn’t know before. Now doesn’t that feel like a growth spurt, so to speak?”

  Chris smiled again. “I guess so,” she said and squeezed his hand. “I guess it’s like certain things that I find annoying that you still don’t know about.”

  “Oh?” Matt said. “Do share them with me so I don’t end up rubbing you the wrong way someday.”

  “All right,” Chris said, muting the GPS and pulling the plug out of Matt’s cigarette lighter. “Let’s see.” She thought for a moment and then said, “I know, and it may be nitpicking, but to me it’s like fingernails on the blackboard when I hear someone say, ‘you know?’ several times in the same conversation. That or, ‘you see what I’m saying?’ How can you see someone words? ‘You hear what I’m saying?’ Now that makes sense.”

  “The world’s full of ignorant people,” I told her. “I have a similar pet peeve when I see someone write ‘your’ when they are trying to say, ‘You’re going to get it.’”

  “I have one more,” Chris said and then corrected herself. “Actually, I have dozens more, but for now, let’s just leave it at one more. It makes me cringe when I see movies where some guy is trying to be clever about proposing to his fiancé and he sticks the ring in her salad so she’ll find it. Boy that would irritate me having a beautiful ring all messed up with salad dressing.”

  Or pudding, Matt thought.

  “But maybe that’s just me,” Chris went on. “I’m sure most girls would find it romantic. I just find it dumb, kind of like those cereal commercials with a close-up of the bowl and someone off camera is pouring milk on it from up high. It just grates on me to see all that milk splashed all over the place. Why are we pulling over, Matt? The restaurant is downtown, isn’t it?”

  “As long as we’re being honest with each oth
er,” Matt began, “I have a confession to make. Just now when you said how it would annoy you to have an engagement ring messed up my salad dressing, I got a jolt running up my spine.”

  “What?” Chris said. “What are you talking about?”

  Matt shut off the car and turned to Chris. “Maybe I’m corny or maybe I’ve just seen too many of those movies you just described.” Matt reached into his pocket and pulled out the small black box, extending it toward Chris. He lifted the lid, revealing the diamond ring. “My clever plan was to slip this into your pudding after dinner, but I guess that plan is out.” He pulled the ring from the box and looked into Chris’s eyes. “Christine Sullivan, will you marry me?”

  Chris looked down at the ring and didn’t have to think about for even a second. She extended her left hand; her fingers splayed apart and almost shouted, “Yes.”

  Matt slipped the ring onto her finger and smiled. Chris held her hand out in front of her to get the effect before throwing her arms around Matt’s neck and kissing him. When she broke away, she held her hand out in front of her again and moved it around, making the street light’s beam glint off the diamond’s facets. She kissed Matt again and then leaned back, away from him. “Pudding?”

  “All right,” Matt agreed, “So I didn’t think it through. Imagine how bad I’d have felt if you had taken a spoonful of pudding into your mouth and broke a tooth on the ring. See, that’s why you’ll be the voice of reason in this relationship.”

  Chris gave Matt a deadpan expression for a second and then let him off the hook with a wink of her eye. Matt smiled, started his car again and drove on to the restaurant.

  The next day was Saturday and that usually meant a short day at work for Matt and Elliott. Elliott was already at his desk when Matt walked in whistling a familiar tune.

  “Oh oh,” Elliott said.

  “Oh oh?” Matt said, looking at Elliott. “What’d I do now?”

  “I don’t know. What did you do?” Elliott smiled a wry smile, trying to suppress a laugh.

  “Come on, Dad,” Matt said. “Are you that hard up for cheap thrills that you have to get them from me? Can’t a guy just be in a good mood without there being some underlying reason?”

  Elliott’s face went serious. “I got a call this morning for our services.”

  “That’s it?” Matt said. “We’re done talking about me?”

  “Well,” Elliott said, “You didn’t seem to want to tell me anything and you know I don’t like to pry.”

  “Are you kidding me?” Matt said. “If you’d have had an extra frame on hand, your diploma from the Prying Institute would be hanging on the wall right over there, next to your diploma from good ol’ Tact U.”

  “Okay, Matt,” Elliott conceded. “Let’s hear all about your date last night with Chris.”

  Matt hung up his coat and pulled Elliott’s client’s chair around next to Elliott’s side of the desk. “We’re engaged,” Matt said.

  Elliott’s face lit up like a heavily strung Christmas tree. “Really? That’s terrific. Chris is a great girl and I’m happy for you two. Have you set a date yet?”

  Matt shook his head. “There’s plenty of time for that.”

  “Are you going to invite Debbie?” Elliott said sarcastically.

  Matt rolled his eyes. “Debbie who?” he said, referring to the former girlfriend who had broken up with him the previous year, prompting him to wonder if there’d ever be anyone else for him.

  “I hope she reads about the engagement in the paper and kicks herself in the ass,” Elliott said. “She’ll be sorry she let you slip between her fingers.”

  “Yeah, right,” Matt said dismissively. “Hey, do you know what Chris bought me last night?” He didn’t wait for Elliott to guess before continuing with, “A GPS for my car.”

  “But you don’t…”

  “I know,” Matt said. “And now she knows, too. She was cool about it and she even saved the receipt, so she’s not out anything.” Matt stood and put the client’s chair back where he found it. He looked back at his dad. “Imagine having to listen to some British woman telling you where to go every time you got in your car.”

  “No thanks,” Elliott said. “I don’t even like it when your mother does that.” He caught himself and quickly added, “You never heard that.”

  Matt held up both hands. “Did you say something, Dad?” He stepped over to the window and looked down onto Hollywood Boulevard. “You said something about a call this morning. Did you pick up a new client?”

  “It was Eric,” Elliott said, referring to Lieutenant Eric Anderson of the L.A.P.D. “He thinks he may have a couple days work for us babysitting.”

  “I don’t do diapers or puke,” Matt said quickly.

  “It’s not that kind of babysitting job,” Elliott said. “We’re supposed to look after some guy who’s set to testify Monday morning in the Stein case. Eric’s afraid there may be a mole within the department and doesn’t want anyone getting to our client before Monday.”

  “So what does he expect us to do with him?” Matt said. “We can’t very well take him home with either of us and he can’t stay here.”

  “I told Eric I’d take this guy someplace even he didn’t know about, just in case anyone was listening in on his phone conversations. Eric doesn’t know and I want to keep it that way.”

  “Well,” Matt said. “That’s makes two of us who don’t know. Where are you going to put him until Monday?”

  Elliott shook his head. “Can’t tell you just yet, Matt. Let’s get out of here.”

  “But we just got here,” Matt said.

  “I haven’t had my chocolate milk yet this morning,” Elliott said. “Let’s walk down to the coffee shop and talk about it.”

  Once they’d found a booth at the coffee shop and ordered their drinks, Elliott leaned in toward his son and said in a low tone, “You remember where the four of us went on our vacation three years ago?”

  Matt nodded. “That cabin in the mountains that you rented? The place where Olivia fell off the dock and complained the rest of the weekend about here ruined hairdo?” Olivia was Matt’s younger sister.

  “That’s the place. That’s where we’re taking him later today. We’ll drive back early Monday morning and have him in court by nine-thirty.”

  “We?” Matt said. “You got a mouse in your pocket, or are you talking about me going with you?”

  “It’ll be the two of us up there with Alvin.”

  “Just Alvin? Not Simon or Theodore?” Matt said referring to the animated chipmunks from television.

  “Come on, Matt,” Elliott said. “This is serious.”

  “Sorry, Dad. Go on with your story.”

  “Gloria and Olivia will have to stay home this time,” Elliott explained. “This is business.”

  “What is it Alvin is testifying about?” Matt said.

  “I don’t know,” Elliott said. “And I didn’t ask. I don’t want to know and Eric doesn’t want to say. I guess he figures the less we know about the case, the less we can accidentally spill. So let’s just leave it like that, okay?”

  “Sure, Dad. When are we picking up this Alvin character?”

  Elliott glanced at his watch. “An hour and ten minutes from now. So I’ll need you to stop back at your place and pack clothes and whatever else you’ll need for two days at the cabin. Gloria’s already packing my bags. I’ll pickup Alvin and then swing by your place to get you. I’ll stop home for my bags on the way. You’d better get moving.”

  “Who do you think I am, Olivia?” Matt said. “She takes three days to pack for an overnighter. Hell, I can be packed and ready to go in fifteen minutes.”

  Elliott gestured with his chin toward the door. “Still, you’d better get moving, just in case you run into any snags. I want you to be ready to leave when I get there.”

  “I’ll be packed and ready and will still have time enough left over to write that great American novel,” Matt said, sliding out of the booth an
d heading for the door. “I’ll see you at ten-thirty.”

  Matt walked back toward the office and detoured around to the parking lot for his car. On the way there, he pulled out his cell phone and called Chris, telling her of his unexpected weekend with his father. “We’ll be back on Monday morning,” he told Chris.

  “I’ll miss you, Matt,” Chris told him. “Where are you going?”

  “I can’t tell you,” Matt said. “Kind of a secret assignment.”

  “Then how can I reach you if something comes up?”

  “You can’t. Besides, it’s just two days,” Matt assured her and then found his car. He told Chris they’d talk when he got home, slid behind the wheel of his car and drove home to pack.

  Elliott finished his chocolate milk, paid the waitress and returned to his office. He turned off the computers, pulled the shades and grabbed Matt’s coat from the coat rack before locking up the office for the weekend. By the time he got to the twelfth precinct, Eric was waiting for him in the underground garage beneath the station. He was standing at the far end of the garage, next to his cruiser. Another man was standing next to him when Elliott drove up. Elliott killed his engine and got out to greet the two men.

  “Elliott Cooper,” Eric said. “This is Alvin, your weekend guest.”

  Elliott reached out to shake the man’s hand but wasn’t greeted with another hand. Elliott pulled his hand back again. “Okay,” Elliott said. “What’s your last name, Alvin?”

  The man glanced at Eric and then back at Elliott but still said nothing.

  “It’s just Alvin, for now,” Eric said.

  Elliott nodded. “Okay, I get it. The less I know and all that other crap, right? I’m guessing Alvin isn’t even his real name.”

  “Just leave it at Alvin,” Eric said. “I’ll meet you both right back here on Monday at nine-fifteen.” He turned to Alvin. “We’ll go directly to court from here.”