by Bill Bernico
It’s a terrible tragedy,” Matt said, but we do have some business to take care of. You want to tell me a little about your P.I. business here in Flagstaff and why you’re closing up shop?”
The waitress was on her way back to their booth. “Let’s order first,” Leo said. “Go ahead.”
Matt looked up at the waitress and said, “I’ll take the open face roast beef sandwich and a glass of chocolate milk.” As the waitress was writing his order on her pad, Matt added. “Hold on, your chocolate milk doesn’t cost forty-four dollars a gallon, is it?”
The waitress’s eyebrows furrowed. “Excuse me?”
Matt waved her off. “Never mind, I’ll just take a small glass.” Matt could see the waitress roll her eyes slightly before turning to Leo.
“And for you, sir?”
“That sounds good,” he said. “Make that two.”
“And chocolate milk for you as well?”
“No,” Leo said. “I’ll have a small Diet Pepsi, thanks.” He handed both menus back to the waitress. She walked back toward the kitchen. Leo looked over at Matt. “What was all that about forty-four dollars for a gallon of chocolate milk?”
Matt explained his ordeal in the dining car and Leo had to laugh. “Next time you take the train, you might want to bring your own food and beverages.”
“There won’t be any next time on that train or any other,” Matt said. “Not after what happened today.”
“I guess I can’t blame you,” Leo said. “I read somewhere that flying is still the safest way to travel, statistic-wise.”
“Still, I think when we’re finished, I’ll just go back to the motel and get a good night’s sleep and then just drive home tomorrow morning,” Matt said.
“Well then it looks like we’d better get everything said and asked before we leave this diner,” Leo suggested. “You asked why I was closing up shop here in Flagstaff? Well, after twelve years it seems like the need for private investigator services has dried up around here. Two years ago I even had to take a second job just to pay the bills. I could see the writing on the walls and figured I’d better pull the plug before I got myself in the red. No, it’s for the better, I guess. I mean, I love the business, but I just can’t do it here.”
“And you think you’d like it better in a big city?” Matt said. “Had you given any thought to plying your trade in say, Phoenix?”
“I guess you could call that a bigger city,” Leo agreed. “I just didn’t like the idea of working in that environment. You can say what you want about it being a dry heat, but so is a pizza oven. No, I think I’d like working in and around Los Angeles.”
“It can get hot there in the summer, too,” Matt said.
Leo shook his head. “I’ve been to L.A. in the summer and it’s nothing like the two days I spent in Phoenix in August one year. I was just waiting for someone to walk up and stick a fork in me. I was done.”
Matt had to laugh at the analogy. “I know what you mean. My dad told me about the time he and Mom went to Phoenix on a case. Neither of them wanted to go back, either.”
A few minutes later the waitress returned with two plates, setting them down in front the men. “Will there be anything else, gentlemen?”
“That’ll be it for me,” Leo said.
“Same here,” Matt said.
The waitress laid their check face down between them and walked away. Both men started in on their meal, conversing between bites. By the time they’d finished their meals, both men had a good feel for each other and it looked to Matt like this just might work out for him and Elliott.
Matt grabbed the check. “I’ll get this,” he said.
“Then you’ll have to let me leave the tip,” Leo offered.
Matt agreed and both men returned to Leo’s car and drove back to Matt’s motel. They sat in Leo’s car for a moment, making sure they each had the other’s email and cell phone information before saying their goodbyes.
“Give me a day or two to talk this over with Dad,” Matt said. “I can call you by, let’s say, Monday or Tuesday at the latest. Does that work for you?”
“That’ll be fine,” Leo said and shook Matt’s hand once more before Matt handed him one of his business cards, got out of the car and returned to his motel room. Leo slipped the card into his shirt pocket and drove away.
That night Matt slept better than he had all week. He awoke the next morning feeling up to the job of driving back to Hollywood. It was Saturday and before he got back on the freeway, Matt thought he’d at least try to get close to the scene of yesterday’s carnage at the train station. The streets weren’t as crowded with cars as they were yesterday, but he still couldn’t get within two blocks of the station. The police were still rerouting all traffic away from the crash site and the news crews from all over the country had descended on the sleepy Arizona town. Matt just circled the block and headed back toward the freeway.
He made it back to Hollywood later that afternoon and went straight home, instead of stopping by his office first. When he got within the eastern city limits of Los Angeles, Matt called home and told Chris he’d be there within the hour. Chris and the twins were waiting for Matt when he walked in his front door. Chris gave him a kiss and wrapped her arms around him, while the twins each grabbed a leg and held on tight until Matt picked them both up in his arms and hugged them. He set the twins down and looked at Chris again.
“What a weekend this has been,” he told her. “I’m glad to be home again. Flagstaff was a real zoo, let me tell you. There were emergency vehicles and news vans everywhere.”
“Those poor people,” Chris said and then remembered that Matt was supposed to be sitting in that station when the accident happened. Her eyes welled up and she hugged her husband again. She quickly dried them and said, “You must be hungry after seven hours on the road. Can I fix you something?”
“That would be great,” Matt said. “Let me know when it’s ready. I have to call Dad.” Matt carried his suitcase into the bedroom and closed the door. He didn’t want the kids interrupting his call. Elliott answered right away.
“Matt,” Elliott said when he answered, “are you back home?”
“Just got in,” Matt said. “Listen, I talked to Leo last night over dinner and we got to know each other a little better. He seems like he could be a good fit in our business. I told him to give me a day or two while I talked to you about it.”
“Go on,” Elliott said. “Tell me all about him.”
“Not now,” Matt said. “I’m beat and I just want to relax. I told Leo I’d let him know by Monday or Tuesday. We can talk about this Monday morning down at the office. I just wanted to let you know I got home all right. Give Mom a hug for me and I’ll see you Monday.”
Matt fell into his recliner, put his feet up and was asleep in minutes. When Chris woke him nearly an hour later, she had dinner on the table. He enjoyed a peaceful meal with his family and was able to unwind for the rest of the weekend.
When Monday morning rolled around, Matt found himself in the elevator of his building, heading toward the third floor. The hallway was deserted and quiet as he turned the key in his office door. Elliott had not yet come in and Matt was just as glad. This would give him some time to go through Friday’s mail and catch up with some paperwork before his dad joined him. Elliott came in forty-five minutes later, apologizing for being late.
“You’re not late, Dad,” Matt explained. “Remember, you’re semi-retired now. You get to sleep in. Go on, take you jacket off, get comfortable and we can talk about the possibility of Leo joining us.”
Elliott slipped out of his jacket, hung it up and settled into the leather sofa against the south wall. He motioned for Matt to join him. Matt held up one finger and padded over to the mini refrigerator opposite Elliott’s desk. He pulled out the half gallon jug of chocolate milk and held it up to his Dad. “You want a cup, too?”
Elliott nodded and Matt brought two cups with him to the sofa. He handed one cup to Elliott, sat, sipped from hi
s cup and looked at his dad. “So, where to start.”
Elliott also took a sip of his chocolate milk. “Suppose you start by telling me what you know about this guy. How long has he been in the business? What’s the P.I. business been like for him back in Flagstaff? How does he see himself fitting in here?”
Matt set his cup on the edge of Elliott’s desk and locked his fingers behind his head. “Leo’s been a gumshoe for twelve years,” Matt began.
“Gumshoe? I thought you hated that word?” Elliott said.
“Leo’s been a P.I. for twelve years,” he went on. “During the last two years business dropped off to the point where he had to take a second job to stay in the black. I guess he finally realized that demand for his service was only going down more and more each year. He told me he wants to give it a try in a bigger city.”
“What about Phoenix?”
“He doesn’t like the heat,” Matt explained. “He’s been to L.A. before and he liked it enough to want to relocate here. Can’t say I blame him.”
“And what about how he’ll fit in with us?” Elliott said.
“We talked about that,” Matt said. “He told me he’d drum up his own leads and wouldn’t want any income from the business we already have going. He doesn’t even want a draw against future income. How can you lose with a setup like that?”
“And his name is Cooper,” Elliott remembered. “That can’t hurt the business any, either.”
“There is that,” Matt agreed. “So what do you think? You want to give it a try?”
“And if neither of us thinks it’s a good fit, he won’t have a problem with moving on?”
“Well, then he’s always got that second job to fall back on if it doesn’t work out with us.” Matt said.
“What else does he do?” Elliott said, sipping from his cup.
“He robs banks,” Matt said straight-faced.
Elliott sprayed chocolate milk all down the front of his shirt and then looked up at his smart-ass son.
Matt just laughed and said, “Gull-A-Bull.” When Elliott didn’t laugh, Matt straightened up and dropped the smile from his face. “Sorry Dad, I just couldn’t resist. Here, let me get you a towel.” Matt hurried over to the sink in the corner and wet the end of a towel. He gave it to his dad, who tried in vain to get the chocolate milk stain off his shirt.
“This’ll have to go in the wash,” Elliott said, slipping out of his shirt and hanging it on the coat rack. He stepped over to the closet and pulled a spare shirt off the rack, buttoning it up on his way back to the sofa.
Matt was busy wiping chocolate milk residue off the leather cushions. He looked up. “Well, what do you think? Should we give it a try for, let’s say, a month or two?”
Elliott thought about it for a moment and then said, “Sure, why not. What have we got to lose? As long as he knows it’s on a trial basis.”
“I’ll be sure to tell him that when I call him back,” Matt said.
“When are you going to do that?” Elliott said.
“I guess now’s as good a time as any,” Matt said, picking up the phone and dialing Leo Cooper. The next month or two should prove interesting, to say the least.
When Matt hung up the phone again, Elliott looked over at him and asked, “So what’d he say? I could hear your end of the conversation, but how did he react to the idea of a trial period?”
“He was fine with it,” Matt said.
“I heard you say something about a week from tomorrow. What was that all about?”
“That’s when he can be here,” Matt explained. “He lives in a furnished apartment, so he doesn’t have a house or furniture to sell. He just has a few loose ends to tie up around town and he figures he can leave Flagstaff Monday afternoon, settle into a motel for now and meet us in the office on Tuesday. He said he could wait a day or two before he started looking for an apartment. Sounds like he’d get into town around ten-thirty or eleven.”
“Unless he stops along the way for gas or food or a restroom. Still, that’s pretty fast,” Elliott said. “I guess there’s something to be said for being a minimalist. You can just pick up and leave whenever the urge strikes you.”
“I suppose.”
“Come to think of it, I never did ask you about his private life,” Elliott said. “No wife or girlfriend to check with or bring along with him?”
“He was married for two years,” Matt said. “That was just before he started his own P.I. business and was still pounding a beat in downtown Flagstaff.”
“He was a cop?” Elliott said. “Even better, but what became of his wife?”
“Hit and run accident a day before their second anniversary,” Matt said. “He got so despondent afterwards that he left the department and did nothing for nearly a month. That’s when he decided to try his hand at private investigations.”
“Well, we both know what it’s like to lose a loved one,” Elliott said, recalling his own father’s untimely death from a heart attack several years earlier.
“Sounds like he could use the company as much as he could use the job,” Matt said. “We could be his family—The Cooper Family. He’d fit right in.”
“All we can do now is wait for him to get here. I think you might want to bring that third desk back again. You remember, the one Gloria used when it was still the three of us.”
Matt snapped his fingers and pointed at Elliott. “Good idea. I would have forgotten. I’ll call the office supply store at the end of the week for a Monday delivery.”
The rest of the week crawled by on hands and knees as Matt and his dad waited for Leo to make the drive from Flagstaff. They were both a bit excited about the prospect of new blood being injected into their business. And they both had to admit to each other that they couldn’t wait to see the looks on the faces of some of their friends when they introduced them to Leo Cooper. They were certain that their friends would immediately study Leo’s face, looking for any sign of a family resemblance.
The following Monday morning Elliott came in a bit early and found Matt already at his desk. “Morning, Matt.”
“Hey, Dad,” Matt said and turned his attentions back to the map that he’d spread out on top of his desk.
“Planning a trip?” Elliott said, gesturing with his chin at the map.
“Nope, just checking the route from Flagstaff to Los Angeles and trying to figure out about where Leo would be at any given time of day.”
Elliott leaned over and put his finger on Flagstaff. “I’d guess that he’s right about there by now.”
Matt rolled his eyes. “That would be a safe bet, since he’s not even leaving there until three o’clock this afternoon.”
Elliott tapped the map and inch or so to the west and added, “He should be right about here at three-fifteen.”
“All right, Dad,” Matt said, sighing. “It was almost funny the first time. The second time, not so much. Let’s just wait until Leo walks through that door tomorrow morning. And don’t scare him away with your offbeat sense of humor right away. Let him get to know you a little before you spring your alter ego on him.”
Elliott stood at attention and saluted his son. “Yes sir,” he said, bringing his arm down sharply to his side and staring straight ahead.
Matt ignored him and turned his attentions to the ringing phone on his desk. “Cooper Investigations,” he said.
“Matt, it’s Kevin. Did I catch you in the middle of anything important?” Kevin was Lieutenant Kevin Cole at the twelfth precinct.
“Not really,” Matt said. “Dad was just showing me that he still knows how to stand at attention and salute.”
“I didn’t know Elliott was ever in the service,” Kevin said.
“He wasn’t,” Matt said. “But I think he must have done a stretch as a standup comic in a past life.”
“Huh?”
“Never mind. What’s up with you today?”
“Just a reminder call, in case you forgot to write it down, that you both need to renew yo
ur P.I. licenses as well as your carry permits. You can do that right here at the twelfth precinct, you know.”
“When’s the deadline?” Matt said.
“End of the week,” Kevin told him.
“Perfect,” Matt said. “There’ll probably be three of us coming down for that.”
“Three? Who’s the third one?”
“Leo Cooper,” Matt said. “We’re thinking of expanding the workforce around here.”
“Is he an uncle or cousin?” Kevin said.
“Wait until tomorrow and judge for yourself. He’ll be here in the morning. Then you can tell us which one of us he looks most like.”
“All right,” Kevin said. “I guess I’ll see you all later this week.”
Matt hung up and looked over at his father, who was staring at him. “Now who’s being the comedian? You know very well Leo’s not going to look like either of us.”
“I know that,” Matt said. “I just want to see if the power of suggestion is enough to make Kevin see some similarities. Don’t worry; I’ll let him off the hook before we leave there.”
That afternoon the third desk was delivered and set up next to Matt’s. Matt stocked it with yellow legal pads, pencils, pens and even a box of business cards that said ‘Cooper Investigations’ across the front. In the lower left corner they said ‘Leo Cooper’ with the office phone number occupying lower right corner.
By the end of the work day, Matt had checked the map three times, making sure to tell his father about each leg of Leo’s journey. Before they closed the office for the day, Matt looked again at the map again and pointed to a spot approximately a hundred fifteen miles west of Flagstaff, in the middle of nowhere. “He’s probably just going through Needles right about now.”
“Oh oh,” Elliott said, jabbing his finger at a spot on the map.
“What?”
“What if he gets to Barstow and decided he’s found paradise and doesn’t want to leave it?”
“Yeah, right,” Matt said. “Not much chance of that happening. Come on, let’s lock this place up and go home. And remember what I said about being nice tomorrow.”
“Good night,” Elliott said, and left the office.