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

by Bill Bernico

  Now Brickman was laughing. “He sure doesn’t strike me as the Ivy League type, especially with a grille like that.” He thought for a moment and then added, “Reminds me of that scene in the Beatles’ second movie, Help! where Ringo shows that big red ring to the guy in the turban standing outside the restaurant. The guy takes one look at the ring and says, ‘My missus wouldn’t wear a ring like that. Ostentatious, that is.’ Same with that flashy grille.”

  The ambulance pulled into the alley just ahead of the black and white. Two men in white emerged and hurried over to where Irving Leeg lay bleeding. One of them applied pressure to the thigh wound while the other examined the shoulder wound. When they had him stabilized, they loaded him into the back of the ambulance on their gurney and headed for the hospital—the same hospital where Mary Granger lay fighting for her life.

  The following afternoon as Matt and Elliott were about to leave for lunch, the phone on Elliott’s desk rang. It was Lieutenant Cole.

  “Elliott,” Kevin said. “Just thought you’d like to know that we believe we caught The Costume Killer. The crime lab is checking his sweat with the sweat they found on those two costumes. I should have the results any minute now.”

  “That’s great, Kevin,” Elliott said.

  “What’s great?” Matt said, anxious to know what this conversation was all about.

  Elliott put his hand over the phone and said, “It’s Kevin. He thinks they have The Costume Killer in custody.” He took his hand back off the phone and resumed his conversation with Kevin. “Sorry, Kevin, Matt was asking me something. Go on.”

  “Have you had lunch yet?” Kevin said.

  “We were just heading out when you called,” Elliott explained.

  “Can you hold off a few more minutes until I get the results?” Kevin said. “Then I can wrap things up here and join you.”

  “I don’t suppose it’ll kill us to wait a while longer,” Elliott said. “Why don’t you just call me when you’re ready?”

  “Will do, buddy,” Kevin said and hung up.

  Elliott glanced over at his son. “Might as well sit down and relax. Kevin’s going to join us for lunch but he has to wait for the lab results on his suspect. Should be any minute now.”

  Matt slipped out of his jacket and hung it back on the rack before plopping down on the leather sofa. “So they caught the guy, eh?” he said. “And without any help from us. Bummer.”

  “What does it matter as long as they got him?” Elliott said.

  “I suppose,” Matt said, “but it would have been nice if we could have been involved in the capture. It always looks good on our résumés.”

  “Résumés?” Elliott said. “What do we need with résumés? We won’t be applying for jobs anywhere. At least I won’t. And speaking of résumés, make sure you don’t mention anything about D.B. Cooper. In case I haven’t told you this before, there is no connection between that guy and our family.”

  “Maybe résumé was the wrong word,” Matt said. “It would have looked good on our fliers. You know, the ones we could hand out to potential clients.”

  Elliott rolled his eyes and sat back behind his desk, waiting for Kevin’s call. Twelve minutes later Elliott’s phone rang.

  “It’s him,” Kevin said. “No doubt about it.”

  “Perfect,” Elliott said. “So, you still want to join us for lunch?”

  “Uh, yeah, about that. I’m going to be tied up here for a while yet. Can I take a rain check?”

  “Sure,” Elliott said. “Talk to you tomorrow.” He turned to Matt. “Come on, let’s go get some lunch.”

  Mary Granger remained in the hospital for two weeks, eventually making a full recovery. She was grateful to her neighbor and their car with the loud alarm. She thanked Officers Paul Brickman and Art Clancy when they visited her in her hospital room. When they showed her the mug shot of Irving Leeg, she winced and looked away, but identified him as the man who had attacked her. She even identified the gray mechanics coverall that Leeg wore that night. The department store also identified that same gray coverall as the one stolen from their store.

  One morning as Matt was coming in to work he ran into Elliott in the hall. He was carrying an armful of clothing toward the elevator. Matt stopped him and gestured at the clothes. “What’s with this? Where are you going with all your costumes?”

  “Out to the dumpster,” Elliott explained. “I’ve looked at these things hanging in our closet now for the past few weeks and every time I think we might be able to use one on a case, I get this creepy feeling like I was turning into The Costume Killer. I can’t even put one of these on. They’ve got to go.”

  Matt took the bundle from his father. “Let me help you with that, Dad. Is this all there is?”

  Elliott nodded. “I already took the first load down to the dumpster. This is the last of it.”

  Out in the parking lot behind their building, Elliott lifted the lid on the dumpster while Matt dropped the bundle of clothes into it. He let the lid drop and brushed his hands off. “Well,” Elliott said. “That’s that.”

  “You mean that’s ten buck down the drain,” Matt corrected.

  Elliott produced his wallet and pulled a ten-dollar bill out, handing it to Matt. “There, let’s hear no more about it, shall we?”

  “About what?” Matt said, stuffing the bill into his wallet and returning to the office.

  139 - You Snooze, You Lose

  When Matt came into the office that Friday morning Elliott was already at his desk. This surprised Matt because his father had told him when he returned to work after having retired, that he preferred to sleep in and join Matt at the office in mid-morning. But there he was, looking bright-eyed, bushy-tailed and ready to work.

  “What gives here, Dad?” Matt said. “What happened to you sleeping in?”

  “You snooze, you lose,” Elliott said.

  Matt smiled. “Don’t old guys like you need your beauty rest?”

  “Old guys?” Elliott said indignantly. “I can still work rings around you, Sonny Boy.” Then Elliott noticed the suitcase Matt had carried into the office. “Going somewhere?”

  “Now you see, you’d know about all of this if you’d keep your cell phone on when you go fishing with Eric. I decided to take a trip to Flagstaff while you two were off on your fishing trip. I tried calling you and all I got was a mechanical voice saying your voice mail feature had not yet been activated. Come on, Dad, you’ve only had that phone for, what, two years now. Don’t you think it’s about time you set it up so we can communicate when we need to?”

  “So what’s in Flagstaff?” Elliott said, changing the subject.

  “I’m going to see another private investigator,” Matt said. “He’s closing his Flagstaff office and he’s thinking of relocating to Los Angeles.”

  “And you’re going to help him relocate here? Isn’t that collaborating with the enemy? That is our competition, after all.”

  Matt sighed. “Not exactly competition. I’m going there to talk to him about joining us here in our office.”

  Elliott’s eyebrows furrowed. “Our office? Sometimes we hardly have enough business to keep the two of us busy. How is this office supposed to support three P.I.s?”

  “That’s what I’m going there to discuss,” Matt explained. “Leo said he won’t expect a cut from any cases we bring in; just the ones he develops for himself.”

  “Leo?”

  “That’s his name; Leo,” Matt explained. “And you’re not going to believe this. His last name is Cooper—no relation. How’s that for fate?”

  “How is that fate?” Elliott said. “Cooper’s a fairly common name. We don’t exactly have a monopoly on it.”

  “No, but the business he has now is also called Cooper Investigations,” Matt said. “I stumbled upon his listing on the Internet when I was looking up other Coopers in this area. What can I say? It was a slow day and I was bored.”

  “Cooper Investigations?” Elliott said. “Well, if he�
��s a private investigator and his last name is Cooper, what else would he call his business? So tell me more about this guy? How old is he? Is he married or does he have a family? How much P.I. experience has he had?”

  “That’s all information I’m going to find out when I talk to him,” Matt said, checking his watch. “And speaking of that, I’d better get moving. My train’s pulling out in an hour.”

  “Your train?” Elliott said, obviously surprised. “Maybe you haven’t heard, but two brothers from Ohio came up with a new invention called the airplane. Perhaps you’ve heard of it.”

  “I’ve flown plenty of times, Dad,” Matt said. “I want to take a train trip before they disappear altogether, like pay phones and outhouses.”

  “Outhouses are even before my time,” Elliott said.

  “See, you missed ‘em, too?”

  “Too bad you didn’t plan this trip sooner. You missed out on the stagecoach.” Elliott chuckled but Matt failed to see the humor.

  “I gotta go,” Matt repeated.

  “Do you want me to drive you to the station?” Elliott offered. “Otherwise you’ll have your car sitting there in the lot all that while.”

  Matt paused and then said, “You might have something there, Dad. Thanks for the offer.” He gestured toward the answering machine on Elliott’s desk. “Don’t forget to turn on the machine before you lock up.”

  On their way to Union Station Elliott was unusually quiet. Matt could sense something was up and thought he’d clear the air. “What’s on your mind, Dad?”

  “What made you decide to add a third operative to our business?” Elliott said, keeping his eyes on the road.

  Matt chose his words carefully before speaking. “Well, Dad, you retired once before and quite frankly, I don’t see you doing this for too much longer before you retire for good. I just don’t want to be caught short-staffed, so to speak. Besides, we might be able to learn something from Leo.”

  “He could just as well learn something from us,” Elliott said.

  “Either way,” Matt said, “it won’t hurt to at least explore the possibilities, will it?”

  “Excuse me if I’m in your way.”

  “Come on, Dad, it’s not like that at all and you know it. You’re welcomed to stay as long as you like or as long as you still enjoy doing it. Besides, if I decide to take Leo on, and that’s a big if, it would just be for a trial period where either of us could decide if it’s a good match or not. You’d have a say in this decision, too. If you don’t like Leo or don’t want him working with us for whatever reason, he’s out. It can’t get any fairer than that, now can it?”

  “Any reason?” Elliott said. “Suppose I don’t like his tie?”

  “Who are you, George Harrison?” Matt said.

  “You lost me there, Matt.”

  “When The Beatles first met their record producer, George Martin, Martin introduced himself and he asked them if there was anything they didn’t like. George Harrison replied, “I don’t like your tie.”

  “That was the long way around the barn to make a point,” Elliott said. “You know what I mean. Okay, so I won’t be as picky as criticizing his tie. But you know how some people are just like oil and water? They just don’t mix well.”

  “Why don’t you save all that until after you’ve met him and talked with him?” Matt said.

  “All right,” Elliott agreed. “I’ll try to keep an open mind when you show up with Super Sleuth.”

  Matt shot his dad a knowing look.

  Elliott took both hands off the steering wheel and held them up for a second. “Sorry.” A few minutes later he pulled up in front of Union Station and let Matt out. Elliott rolled down the passenger side window and leaned across. “Call me when you get there, would you?”

  Matt smiled. “You’re worried, aren’t you? How sweet.”

  Elliott rolled his eyes and brought the window back up before he pulled away from the curb. Matt grabbed his suitcase and walked into the terminal. He’d already purchased his ticket the day before so he found a bench and sat, waiting for his train to be called.

  “Train for San Francisco now boarding,” the voice over the loud speaker said.

  Matt settled back and decided to people watch until his train was called. He and his wife, Chris often people watched when they went to the mall. There was nothing more entertaining that just observing people in their natural habitat when they didn’t know they were being watched. Some of them did the strangest things in public and Matt was never disappointed by their behavior. Today was no exception.

  A large woman was walking ahead of a smaller man, who had no fewer than five suitcases in his hands, under his armpits and in his teeth, while she carried nothing more than her purse. He was the one doing all the work and she was the one doing all the complaining. Poor son-of-a-bitch, Matt thought.

  Another woman was trying to steer her five children in the same direction and having no luck. It reminded Matt of a 1940 movie he saw about the young Abe Lincoln from Illinois. He remembered one scene where Abe (Raymond Massey) and a few other men were taking a raft full of pigs down the river when the raft hit a dam and came apart. The pigs all scattered in different directions and the men ran every which way, trying to catch them again. Matt tried to picture that woman wearing a stovepipe hat and a beard. The thought made him laugh.

  “Train for Flagstaff now boarding,” the echoing voice said.

  Matt grabbed his suitcase and headed for the track where his train waited. He stepped up onto the platform and into the train car. He shoved his one and only suitcase under the seat and settled in. Several other people filed in after him, arranging their luggage and finding their own seats. Matt found his seat surprisingly comfortable so he settled back and decided to close his eyes for a few minutes. The next thing Matt knew, someone was nudging his shoulder. He opened his eye and looked up to see the conductor standing over him with a punch in his hand.

  “Ticket, please,” the conductor said.

  Matt reached into his jacket pocket and produced his ticket, handing it up to the conductor, who promptly punched it and handed it back to Matt. Matt soon realized that the train was moving and at a pretty good speed, too. The countryside zipped by as he looked out the window. He glanced at his watch. Thirty-five minutes had slipped by while he had been napping. He was more tired than he realized. He knew it would be more than seven hours before he’d be in Flagstaff.

  Matt didn’t want to sleep away the whole trip. Half the purpose of a train trip was to enjoy the scenery from his window. The other half was being able to move around in and through the various cars. He decided to see what the other cars had to offer. He walked the length of his car, exited to the platform between the cars and slid the door to the next car open. This was just another passenger car, half full of people. Matt continued through to the next car. It too was a passenger car filled with bench seats. The third car looked more like a dining car. The seats were arranged in sets of two, facing each other with a table between them. The tables were adorned with white table cloths, place settings wrapped in cloth napkins and condiment shakers in a wire basket which also held the menus.

  At the end of this car Matt could see what looked like a short bar. There was a man in a white coat with a name tag pinned to it standing behind the bar, looking like a spider waiting to pounce on the next fly who happened by his web. The name tag said simply, ‘Roy.’ Matt stopped, laying his hands on the bar.

  “What can I get for you this morning?” Roy said.

  “Well,” Matt said, “I’m not really a drinker per se. I don’t suppose you have any chocolate milk back there, do you?”

  Without missing a beat Roy replied, “Would you like a small glass or a large glass, sir?”

  “What the heck,” Matt said. “Make it a large glass.”

  Roy pulled a large glass from the shelf behind him, set it in front of Matt and then turned toward the refrigerator, a half-size cube behind the bar. He withdrew a half-gallon
jug of chocolate milk and poured some into Matt’s glass. While Roy was still busy returning the jug to the refrigerator, Matt picked up the glass and took a healthy swallow before setting the glass back on the bar and reaching for his wallet.

  “So, what do I owe you, Roy?”

  With a straight face, Roy said, “Five-fifty, please.”

  “Uh, no, Roy,” Matt said. “I don’t want to buy two gallons. How much for just the one glass?”

  “That is the price for one large glass of chocolate milk, sir.”

  “Are you out of your mind?” Matt said indignantly. “There can’t be more than a half pint of milk in that glass. How can you justify five bucks?”

  “Excuse me sir, five-fifty,” Roy said.

  “For crying out loud,” Matt protested. “That comes out to forty-four dollars a gallon.”

  Roy’s face showed no sign of relenting. He just stood behind the bar, his open palm extended.

  Matt pulled out a five dollar bill and found two quarters in his pocket. He laid them on the bar and upended the rest of the glass into his mouth. He set the glass down again, pointed at the five-fifty on the bar and looked at Roy. “That includes your tip,” Matt said and walked away grumbling about excessive markup.

  Matt looked through the door into the next car and noticed a narrow hallway along with several doors situated opposite the windows. This had to be a sleeper car. He entered the car and walked the length of it, turning around when he got to the end. He had noticed when he boarded the train that it wasn’t even half-filled to capacity. Besides, the trip to Flagstaff would take a little more than ten hours, so who would need a sleeper unit? He was already two hours from Los Angeles and would be in Flagstaff by eight-thirty.

  It always amazed Matt that the travel brochures showed that the travel time by train between the two cities was ten hours and fifteen minutes, while it took less than seven hours to drive that same distance. This was not progress, he thought. Matt looked at his watch. It was just after twelve noon. He knocked on one of the doors and got no answer. He twisted the handle, pushed the door inward and peered into the room. It was empty.