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

by Bill Bernico

  A moment later Thomas walked in, looked around for a moment before spotting the man he was meeting and walked over to the booth, sliding in across from the man. The waitress behind the counter handed Matt his coffee and took his money. Matt carried his coffee cup to the booth directly behind Thomas’s booth and sat almost back to back with political wannabe. He leaned back and listened and heard nothing but small talk. Thomas was probably waiting for Wayne, whoever Wayne was, to arrive so he wouldn’t have to repeat whatever it was he needed to tell these two men.

  Matt relaxed and glanced around the room. It was nearly at capacity and very soon seats would be hard to come by. The front door opened and Matt expected to see another man walk in. Instead he saw a little old lady carrying a shopping bag. She walked in, looked around the room and found no place to sit. Then she shuffled past Thomas, giving him a quick glance before moving on to Matt’s booth and stopping. She looked down at him with her sorrowful face.

  “Young man,” she said, “Would you mind terribly if I shared this booth with you? There simply are no other places to sit.”

  Matt hesitated for a moment and then stood, gesturing toward the seat opposite his. “Please,” he said. “I’d be happy to share my booth with you.”

  The old lady set her bag on the floor and slowly slid into the booth, sighing heavily as she did. “Thank you so much, young man,” she said as the waitress came over to the booth, her order pad at the ready.

  “What will you have today?” the waitress asked the woman.

  “Could I have a cup of tea, please?”

  “Tea,” the waitress said, writing it on her pad. “Anything else today?”

  The woman shook her head. “No thank you, Miss. The tea will be all.”

  The waitress walked away, mumbling something about a small tip.

  The old woman looked across the booth at Matt. “Were you waiting for anybody?” she said, pressing at something in her ear. “Because I can leave if you are.”

  Matt shook his head. “No, I’m not waiting for anyone. You just stay put and make yourself comfortable.”

  They sat there in silence for a moment before Matt looked across the aisle and out the window to the street and watched as another man entered the coffee shop. The third man looked around and then walked over to Thomas’s booth and slid in next to the man who sat across from Thomas. Matt could see their reflections in the window. Thomas was leaning forward and whispering to the new arrival. The other man also leaned in so as not to be heard. Matt leaned back in his seat, straining to hear what was being said. He couldn’t make out any of the whispered words between the men.

  Without warning, the old lady reached into her shopping back and withdrew a .44 magnum, aimed it toward Matt and fired once. Then she stood up in her seat, leveled the gun at the back of Thomas’s head and put one round into the politician’s skull. The front of Thomas’s head blew out, spraying his companions with blood and gray matter. She hurried around to Thomas’s booth and shot both the other men as well before dropping the gun into her bag and hurrying out of the coffee shop and down the street. Most of the other patrons had hit the floor and were still cowering by the time the old woman was half a block away, just another pedestrian on Melrose Avenue.

  Matt opened his eyes, shook his head and sat up. His chest ached and felt like he’d been punched. He placed his hand on his chest and withdrew it. His fingertips were bloody and he felt like he was going to pass out. Just a few minutes later Matt heard the howl of sirens and the squeal of tires in front of the coffee shop as three black and white patrol cars pulled up in front of the building. Matt tried to stand up, but got dizzy and sat back down again.

  Four officers bolted into the coffee shop, their .38 revolvers scanning the room. Two other officers remained outside, keeping the curious onlookers away from the crime scene. One of the officers, a cop named Warner, looked across the counter at the waitress who had given Matt his coffee earlier. “What happened here?” Warner said.

  The waitress’s face took on a blank stare and she just pointed to the three dead men in the booth, but found it hard to say anything.

  Warner and his partner, Ed Bronson slowly stepped closer to the booth, careful not to step in any of the blood that had pooled up on the floor. Warner looked down at the carnage and then back at his partner. “You recognize any of them, Ed?”

  Officer Bronson shook his head and pointed with the barrel of his revolver. “Their own mothers wouldn’t recognize them in that condition.”

  Warner heard Matt moaning in the booth behind the three dead men and stepped over to investigate. He looked down and his eyes got wide as he recognized Elliott Cooper’s son lying there clutching his chest. Warner holstered his weapon and bent to take a closer look. “Matt Cooper, is that you?” he said.

  Matt opened his eyes and tried to focus. “Uh huh,” he managed to say. He sat upright again and looked at the policeman standing over him. “She just left,” Matt said in a shaky voice.

  “Who just left?” Warner said.

  “The old woman,” Matt told him.

  “Don’t try to talk,” Warner told Matt. “Just save your strength. The ambulance will be here any minute now. You just try to stay still.”

  “But she’s getting away,” Matt said, his voice getting weaker.

  The ambulance screeched to a stop and two attendants got out, pulling a gurney into the coffee shop. Two of the other officers cleared a path for them as they pulled the gurney up closer to the booth Matt was sitting at. The first attendant pulled Matt’s jacket open to get a look at his wound. He stood back up, a surprised look playing on his face. He turned to Officer Warner. “That’s about the luckiest shooting victim I’ve ever seen.”

  “What are you talking about?” Warner said.

  The attendant pointed to the .38 in Matt’s shoulder holster. “Look at this. His own gun stopped that slug from tearing into his chest.”

  “Then where’s all that blood coming from?” Warner asked.

  “The slug must have shattered on impact and a sliver or two of the slug scraped his chest. It’s all superficial, but that must have felt like getting kicked by a government mule.” He helped Matt out of the booth and laid him on the gurney.

  Officer Warner disconnected the Velcro straps that held Matt’s shoulder holster in place and slipped it off him. The .44 slug had embedded itself in the cylinder of Matt’s gun and couldn’t be extricated without tools. He took the shoulder rig and all, dropped into a large evidence bag and handed it to one of the other officers near the door. Warner told the cop to take the evidence bag with him back to the lab.

  Warner grabbed at his shoulder mic and called in to the twelfth precinct, asking for Lieutenant Eric Anderson. Anderson came on the line a few seconds later.

  “Lieutenant,” Warner said. “We’re at the shooting over here on Melrose. It’s a bad one. Better send the crime lab over with all their tools. We’re going to need the coroner, too. We’ve got three shooting victims lying here.”

  “Stay on the scene until I get there,” Eric said.

  “Yes sir,” Warner said. “And one more thing, Lieutenant. You might want to give Elliott Cooper a call while you’re at it.”

  “What is it, Officer Warner?” Eric said.

  “One of the victims is Elliott’s son, Matt.”

  Eric was silent for a moment and then said, “Is he among the dead?”

  “Oh, no sir,” Warner said. “I’m sorry you got that impression. They just took him to the hospital. He was shot, but you won’t believe what saved him.” He explained about the bullet hitting Matt’s revolver.

  “I’ll call Elliott right away,” Eric said. “Stay put until I get there.”

  Eric hung up and dialed Elliott at his office.

  “Eric,” Elliott said in a jovial voice. “To what do I owe the pleasure of this call, my friend?”

  “Elliott,” Eric said. “Listen, it’s Matt. There’s been a shooting over on Melrose. They took him to the
hospital. I have to get over to the crime scene but I can meet you at the hospital later.”

  “Is he…?” Elliott said in a weak voice.

  “No,” Eric said. “It looks like he caught a break but he’s still going to need to see a doctor. You get over there and I’ll let you know what I find out when I’m done on Melrose.”

  Elliott didn’t bother saying goodbye. He rushed out of his office, locked the door and hurried down to his car. On his way to the hospital he dialed his home phone and waited. No one answered and he closed his phone again. He’d have to try again later. Gloria and Olivia were probably still out making other preparations for Olivia’s graduation. He dropped the phone back in his pocket and sped toward the hospital.

  Matt was wheeled into the emergency room where a nurse removed his shoes and socks. Another nurse removed his jacket and cut away his shirt, revealing several nicks and scratches made by the shattering bullet. A doctor in green scrubs took a closer look at Matt’s wounds, dabbing at them with gauze pads and rinsing the wound to get a better look at the damage.

  The skin around the wounds was beginning to turn red and yellow. He’d have one hell of a bruise before he was done. The doctor ordered X-rays of Matt’s chest and had him wheeled away, making notes on a chart. A few minutes later they wheeled Matt back into the emergency room and continued looking over his chest. The X-ray came back several minutes later, showing just two small slivers of metal from the slug embedded under Matt’s skin.

  Elliott pulled up to the front of the hospital and hurried inside to find the nurse at the front desk looking over a chart. “Matt Cooper,” Elliott said in a frenzied voice. “How is he? Where did they take him? Who’s the doctor in charge here?”

  “Matt Cooper, you said,” the nurse asked Elliott. “Is that Matthew?”

  “Yes.”

  “He’s still in surgery,” the nurse told him. “It’ll be a while before you can see him.”

  Elliott pointed at the chart in the nurse’s hand. “Does it say anything there about how he is? What’s his condition?”

  The nurse shook her head. “They just brought him in. I won’t know any more about him until the doctor is finished with him. Please, Mr. Cooper, just have a seat in the waiting room and I’ll call you when the doctor comes out again.”

  Elliott let out a deep breath and turned away, walking to the waiting room. He sat down but quickly stood again and began pacing. Then he remembered Gloria. He tried his home phone again and still no one answered. Elliott pressed the button on his cell phone and brought up his contacts page, scrolling down until he got to Gloria’s cell phone. He hit the speed dial and waited as it rang.

  “Elliott,” Gloria said. “You should see the decorations we found for Olivia’s party. They’re all…”

  “Gloria,” Elliott interrupted her. “Don’t talk, just listen. There’s been some trouble and Matt’s in the hospital. They can’t tell me anything about his condition yet. I’m waiting for the doctor to come back. You and Olivia better get over here right away.”

  “Elliott,” Gloria said frantically. “He’s just a boy.”

  “Gloria,” Elliott repeated. “Just get over here. I’m in the waiting room across from the nurse’s station on the first floor.”

  Ten minutes later Gloria and Olivia hurried into the hospital and followed the hallway signs to the waiting room. She rushed into Elliott’s arms, tears streaming down her cheeks. “What happened, Elliott?”

  Elliott shook his head. “I just don’t know,” he said. “I couldn’t get anything out of Eric and the doctor’s not done with Matt yet. Eric mentioned something about a shooting and all I could get out of him was that Matt wasn’t one of the fatalities. We’ll just have to wait.

  Twenty-five minutes later the doctor in green scrubs opened the door to the waiting room and looked at Elliott. “Are you Mr. Cooper?” he said.

  Gloria rushed up to the doctor. “How’s Matt?” she said. “Is he going to be all right?”

  “Your son is going to be fine,” the doctor said. “That was one lucky young man.”

  “Excuse me?” Elliott said.

  “What I meant was,” the doctor started to say when the waiting room door opened again and Lieutenant Anderson stepped into the room.

  “Elliott,” Eric said. “How’s Matt?”

  “I guess he’s going to be all right,” Elliott said. “The doctor was just saying how lucky Matt was, but I don’t see how getting hit was lucky for him.”

  Eric turned to the doctor. “May I?” he said, gesturing toward the Cooper family.

  The doctor nodded.

  “Matt was wearing his .38 in his shoulder rig when he was shot,” Eric explained. “He must have turned just right in his seat, because the bullet hit the cylinder of his gun and that kept him from getting killed. The gun is useless, but Matt’s life was spared.”

  The doctor added, “His chest will have a few stitches and there will be a bruise for a while. One of his ribs cracked when the bullet impacted, but like this man says, your son was one lucky young man.”

  “Thank you, doctor,” Gloria said, shaking his hand. She turned and wrapped one arm around Olivia, who was sobbing by now.

  *****

  Claire hurried down Melrose and rounded the corner at Las Palmas. She kept walking several more blocks before she found a service station and hurried around to the ladies’ room, locking the door behind her. She shed the clothes and wig she’d been wearing and pulled her Beatrice ensemble from the shopping bag. When she again looked like the unassuming Beatrice, she stepped out of the wash room and slowly walked to the corner, where she waited for the bus.

  When she walked back into her house twenty minutes later, Beatrice carried her shopping bag into the bedroom, pulled her .44 out of it and set the bag on the floor behind the bedroom door. She hadn’t bothered shedding her Beatrice persona or disguise and settled into her easy chair to unwind. That last hit in the coffee shop on Melrose could just as easily have gone the other way and she could have ended up dead or in jail. It was time to move on. Beatrice would have to say goodbye to the neighbors and move out as soon as possible.

  Claire had already decided to retire Beatrice from her lineup. She’d made enough money in the last two years and decided to give up the business and go legit somewhere else. But first she had to collect her fee for eliminating Burt Walker’s political competition. The money had better be in her post office box tomorrow, she thought, or her next job would be a freebie and the voters of Los Angeles would have to come up with two new candidates who didn’t deserve the office any more than the one they were stuck with now. Claire sat there, already formulating her contingency plan in the event that she’d find her post office box empty tomorrow.

  *****

  By the time they had wheeled Matt to his room on the third floor, his family was already there, waiting for him. Eric Anderson was there as well. Matt smiled as his gurney rolled past his visitors toward the bed. Two attendants lifted Matt from the gurney onto the bed and tucked him in before backing away from the bed and turning to Elliott.

  “You’ll have to keep your visit short,” the attendant said. “Mr. Cooper is going to need some rest. He’s still a bit groggy from the anesthetic.”

  “We won’t be long,” Elliott assured her and then turned to Matt. “How do you feel, son?”

  “Dad,” Matt said. “I saw her. I was sitting right across from her.”

  “Her?” Elliott said. “Her who?”

  “The shooter,” Matt said.

  Eric’s ears perked up. “You saw the shooter?” he said. “Would you know her if you saw her again?”

  Matt nodded.

  “The shooter was a woman?” Elliott said.

  Matt nodded. “Some little old lady, like we talked about.”

  “LOL,” Elliott mumbled.

  Olivia looked at her father. “I don’t think this is funny, Dad,” she said.

  “Huh?” Elliott said.

  “You said
LOL,” Olivia reminded him. “Are you laughing out loud at this situation?”

  Matt held up one had toward his sister. “No, Olivia,” he explained. “He’s talking about the other LOL…Little Old Lady. A little old lady was the shooter who killed those men over on Melrose.”

  Gloria turned to Elliott. “I don’t understand, Elliott,” she said. “What are you two talking about?”

  Elliott explained the conversation he and Matt had had in their office regarding the recent slayings in MacArthur Park. He pulled her aside, out of earshot of Olivia and told her about the three bloody letters on the sidewalk near one of the park victims.

  “And you think the same person is responsible for both shootings?” Gloria said.

  “There’s a good possibility,” Elliott said and then turned back to Matt. “We can talk about the details later. You just get some rest and we’ll be back to see you.”

  “I’m posting a guard outside this door,” Eric said. “I’ll want to talk to you again myself.”

  “Eric,” Matt said, beckoning for Eric to step closer.

  “What is it, Matt?” Eric said.

  “There was something peculiar about this old lady,” Matt said. “She was dressed in old people’s clothes and her hair was gray and all, but her face didn’t look totally like an old person’s face. There was something missing.”

  “Missing?” Eric said. “Like what?”

  Matt thought for a moment and then said, “Wrinkles. She had some wrinkles, but not like you’d see on your grandma. Now that I think of it, these wrinkles looked more like makeup.”

  “We’ll talk about this some more when I come back,” Eric said. “Thanks, Matt. You just broadened our search criteria.”

  “I did?” Matt said.

  Eric nodded. “Now we can start looking for a woman with an M.O. that includes dressing like an old lady.”

  Eric left the room, followed by Elliott, Gloria and Olivia. Once they were out in the hall, Elliott looked at Eric. “Don’t even think of trying to keep me out of this one, Eric. You need help and I need answers so don’t give me a hard time about getting involved. I won’t…”