by Bill Bernico
“See you then,” Nicky said.
Matt, who had been watching from the kitchen window, knew that Benny had set the wheels in motion and came back out to the car. He ran his fingers over Nicky’s head and then climbed back behind the wheel and closed the door. He backed the car out into the street and drove back toward the office.
“How’d it go?” Matt said.
“I told him I’d swing by after work,” Benny said. “He seemed eager to learn, too. I think this is going to be fun for both of us.”
“Thanks, Benny” Matt said. “This means a lot to me.”
“I’m glad to do it, Matt. I remember all too well what it was like to be in Nicky’s spot.”
On the ride back to their office, Matt’s cell phone rang. He fished it out of his pocket and flipped it open. “Cooper Investigations,” he said. “Matt Cooper speaking. Uh huh. Yes, I see. When would you like to meet with me? Do you know where my office is located? Huh, sure. Give me that address.” Matt gestured toward his glove box and Benny opened it, pulling out a pad and pencil. Matt repeated the address the woman had given him and Benny jotted it down on the pad. “Great,” Matt went on. “We can be there in fifteen minutes. Thank you. Goodbye.” He flipped the phone closed again and dropped it into his pocket.
“Sounds like you picked up a client,” Benny said. “How did they know to call your cell phone?”
“I got to thinking the other day,” Matt explained. “With only an answering machine to take the calls when we’re out, we could be missing on some cases that just can’t wait for a return call so I contacted the phone company and found I could add an option to my phone service that would forward the office calls to my cell phone. Looks like it works.”
“So where are we going?” Benny said. “And what does this woman want you to do for her?”
Matt pointed to the pad on Benny’s lap. “That’s where we’re going but she didn’t want to tell me the nature of her problem over the phone. I guess we’ll find out when we get there.”
Twelve minute later Matt pulled to the curb in front of the address on the pad. He turned to Benny. “Well, suppose we go find out how we can help this woman.” The two of them walked up to the stoop and waited while Matt rang the bell.
The door was opened by a woman who looked to be about Matt’s age—mid thirties—wearing slacks and a sweater. She invited them inside and gestured toward the living room. “Won’t you have a seat?” she said.
Matt and Benny remained standing until the woman sat in the recliner before they both sat on the edge of the sofa. “I’m Matt Cooper and this is my partner, Benny Briggs.”
“Mary Crawford,” the woman said and gave a half-hearted smile.
“How can we help you today, Mrs. Crawford?” Matt said. “It is Mrs., isn’t it?”
Mary nodded. “I, uh, I…oh dear, where do I start?”
“Maybe it would help if you backed up a little and told us something about yourself,” Matt said.
Benny watched in silent fascination at the process Matt was displaying.
Mary wrung her hands in her lap. “Goodness, where are my manners? Could I get either of you something to drink?”
Matt waved her off. “Nothing for me, thanks.”
Benny followed Matt’s lead and shook his head. “No thanks.”
“What would you like to know?” Mary said.
Matt pulled a notepad and pen from his pocket, flipped open the pad and clicked his pen. “Well, let’s start with your husband’s name.”
Mary looked at Matt. “Why would you need to know his name?”
“He is the reason you called, isn’t he?” Matt said.
Both Mary and Benny looked amazed. How could Matt know that was why she called?
“Mrs. Crawford,” Matt began, “Ninety-nine times out of a hundred, when a wife calls someone like me, it usually has something to do with her husband. So, unless you’re in that one percent, I can assume he is the reason you sent for me. So, can I have his name?”
“John,” Mary said. “John Crawford.”
Matt wrote the name down and then tried to lighten the mood. “He didn’t play the son, Mark, on that old TV show The Rifleman, did he? Matt knew this wasn’t the case, since Johnny Crawford would have to be in his sixties by now.
Mary smiled weakly. “No, that wasn’t him and you’re not the first person to have made that connection. No, most people ask if he wasn’t the guy who played the mayor in that Dirty Harry movie, The Enforcer. That guy’s dead. My John’s not.”
“What does he do?” Matt asked.
“John drives a cab in Hollywood,” she said. “He’s just doing that until he can find a better job in his own field.”
“And what field is that?”
“He was a teacher,” Mary explained. “After the last round of budget cuts, John was laid off from his teaching job. Driving a cab was all he could find at such short notice.”
Matt made a few more notes on his pad. “And what about you? Do you work?”
Marry nodded. “Yes, I’m a registered nurse. I make pretty good money, I guess, and that’s always been a sore spot with John. He’s the old-fashioned type who can’t accept that his wife makes more money than he does. I told him time and time again that it doesn’t matter to me. My money is our money. He doesn’t understand.”
“And why did you call me?”
Mary wiped the corner of her eye with the back of her finger. “Mr. Cooper, I’d like you to follow John and find out if he’s, if he’s… Oh dear, how can I put this?”
“Stepping out?” Matt said.
Mary hung her head and nodded softly.
Matt laid one hand on her shoulder. “If it’s any consolation, you’re not alone. This is a fairly common problem that I see all the time.”
Benny remained silent during this exchange, but was taking in every word. He found this whole process fascinating.
“How do those other cases generally end?” Mary said.
“Generally they end with me getting the evidence the wife needs to take her husband to court for a divorce,” Matt said. “But not always. Is that what you want me to do for you?”
“Oh, I don’t know at this point, Mr. Cooper,” Mary said. “So far it’s just a hunch. I don’t have anything solid to go on but John has been acting a little peculiar lately.”
“How so?”
“He says he has to go out sometimes,” Mary explained. “He doesn’t say where he’s going or what he has to do. Other times he makes things up that I know aren’t true. I just haven’t confronted him with any of this yet.”
“Well, keep holding off for a while longer, if you would,” Matt said. “Give me a chance to look into this a little before you worry yourself sick about something that may or may not be true.”
“What can you do?” Mary said.
“We can follow John for a couple of days and let you know where he goes and what he does,” Matt said. “Then you’ll know for sure and you can take whatever steps you feel are necessary from there.”
Benny listened intently for another ten minutes while Matt firmed up the details with Mary Crawford and got her signature on one of his standard contracts. She gave Matt a three by five photo of her husband and told him he could keep it. Matt assured her that he’d get back to her as soon as he had something to report, good, bad or otherwise. She agreed and thanked them both for coming by on such short notice. On the ride back to the office Matt asked Benny if he’d learned anything during that visit.
“Well,” Benny began, “I learned that cheating is more common than I would have suspected. I also realized that I’m in no hurry to get married.” He caught himself and added, “Not that marriage isn’t…I mean, you certainly have a good…oh, hell, I stuck my foot in my mouth again, didn’t I?”
“Not really,” Matt said. “True, I happen to have one of the stable marriages you hear about, but in general it’s a crap shoot. I think the divorce rate is almost fifty percent nationwide these days
.”
“Yeah, that’s what I meant,” Benny said.
“So when are you going to start on your first case?” Matt said, smiling.
“My first case?” Benny said, surprised. “You’re giving this case to me?”
“Why not? It’s a fairly straight-forward simple case. You follow the guy, see what he’s up to, find out who he’s seeing, if anyone, and report back. It’s a good case to get your feet wet, so to speak. It’s all yours.”
“Gee, thanks, Matt,” Benny said, beaming.
“It may mean tailing the guy after hours,” Matt said. “During the day he’s probably doing nothing more than driving his cab. Once he gets home or maybe even on his way home is when you’ll have to keep an eye out for him.”
“I could stake out the cab company,” Benny said, “and when he turns in his cab, I can follow him on his way home. I’ll sit outside his house in case he leaves. Boy, this is going to be exciting.”
“That’s not exactly the word I’d have chosen,” Matt said. “You could sit on your stakeout all night with nothing to show for your efforts. You could nod off for only a minute, during which time your subject could slip by you undetected.”
Benny held up a palm. “I won’t fall asleep, Matt. I wouldn’t leave my post for a minute. If he goes anywhere, I’ll know about it.”
“Okay,” Matt said. “We’re going to find out if, after this case, you still think being a private eye is all you thought it was going to be.”
For the rest of the ride back to the office, Benny couldn’t wipe the smile from his face.
Matt took the call a few minutes before noon. It was Lieutenant Kevin Cole from the twelfth precinct. “Kevin,” Matt said cheerily. “To what do I owe the...”
“Matt,” Kevin said, cutting him off. “Are you alone?”
“What’s the matter, Kevin, you lonely today?”
“Matt, this is serious,” Kevin said. “Is there anyone else in the office with you?”
“Just Benny.”
“Can you send him somewhere for a few minutes? I need to talk to you in strict privacy.”
“Sure,” Matt said, getting serious now. “Hang on a second.” He put Kevin on hold, turned to Benny and gestured with his raised hand. “Why don’t you go to lunch, Benny?”
Benny looked up at the clock over the office door. “It’s not even noon yet.”
“Go ahead anyway,” Matt said gesturing with the phone in his hand. “I need to take this call. You go on ahead.”
“All right,” Benny said, rising from his desk and slipping into his jacket. Once he had closed the door and Matt could hear his footsteps fading down the hall he pressed the hold button on his phone again. “Go ahead, Kevin. I’m here alone. What’s troubling you today?”
“Matt, I need to meet with you right away,” Kevin said. “I’m in real trouble and we could use your help.”
“We?”
“It’s complicated,” Kevin said. “Can we meet in the parking lot behind the Gold Cup, let’s say in ten minutes?”
“I’ll see you there,” Matt said and hung up. The Gold Cup was a coffee shop on the boulevard a few doors down from Matt’s building. He made it there with eight minutes to spare. Five minutes later Matt could see Kevin pulling into the parking lot. There was another man with him.
Kevin pulled up beside Matt’s car and the two men got out. Matt started to get out of his car but was stopped by Kevin’s upheld hand. Kevin got in beside Matt and the other man slid into the back seat. Kevin looked over at Matt and said, “Drive, Matt.”
Matt pulled out of the lot and paused at the opening to Hollywood Boulevard. “Where to?”
“Anywhere,” Kevin said. Just drive.”
Matt pulled into traffic and turned west until he got to the corner of Highland. He took highland north until Kevin tapped his shoulder, instructing him to turn onto a side street and pull over. Matt killed the engine and turned toward Kevin. “What’s with all the cloak and dagger,” he said and then hiked a thumb over his shoulder. “And who is this?”
“Matt Cooper,” Kevin said by way of introduction, “This is Sergeant Sheldon Mills. He’s in charge of the evidence room at the twelfth precinct. Sergeant, I’d like you to meet Matt Cooper.”
Matt and Sheldon clumsily shook hands over the seat before Matt turned back to Kevin again. “Now would you like to tell me what this is all about?”
Kevin and Sheldon exchanged glances before Kevin took a deep breath and began with, “Matt, have you been reading about the county’s proposed budget cuts in the paper?”
Matt shook his head. “I must have missed that one.”
“It’s been in every day now for the past week,” Kevin said. “Anyway, the county board is proposing cutbacks in both the police and fire departments as a way to keep from going under. Meanwhile, they’re also planning to go ahead with the Griffith Park remodeling project. Now, offhand, which would you say is the more important use of county funds?”
“Sounds like a no brainer,” Matt said.
Sergeant Mills leaned forward in his seat. “But you’d be wrong,” he said. “There are obviously some outside influences at work here and if we hadn’t done something about it, this city would be woefully understaffed of police and fire fighters.”
“Wait a minute,” Matt said, holding up one hand. “What do you mean, if you hadn’t done something? What have you done?”
“That’s where we need your services, Matt,” Kevin said. “We, that is, Sergeant Mills and I came up with a plan to save all those city jobs, but it involved using something from our evidence room; something neither of us could have done on our own.”
“You still haven’t told me what it is you’ve done,” Matt said.
“I’m getting to that,” Kevin said. “The sergeant and I had been talking about this for weeks and I suggested a way of using what we already had at our disposal to...”
“I assume you’re talking about confiscated money, drugs or both,” Matt said.
“Right,” Kevin said. “Both. Anyway, Sergeant Mills and I got to talking and we figured that we could use those funds to finance the Griffith Park remodeling project, freeing up county funds to keep the police and fire departments at full strength.”
“Just how much money are we talking about here?” Matt said.
Kevin and Mills exchanged glances before Kevin turned back to Matt and said, “We netted just over three million in that drug bust last month, along with enough cocaine to keep the users in L.A. high for the rest of their lives. All told, I’d say we have something like eight million in drugs. That’s street value. Wholesale could be a lot less.”
“Wholesale?” Matt said, a troubled look playing on his face. “You sound like you already have a buyer lined up for this stuff.”
“We did,” Kevin said. “We didn’t want that stuff floating around our own streets so we found a connection in Mexico who’d take the whole lot off our hands.”
“Okay,” Matt said, holding up one hand. “Even if you could manage to sell all of the cocaine and let’s say you end up with something like seven million dollars by the time you’re finished, how do you expect to get all that money into the Griffith Park remodeling fund without attracting attention to yourselves? Someone’s going to want to know where it came from, aren’t they?”
Sergeant Mills leaned forward from the back seat. “We figured we could donate it anonymously, you know.”
“And as soon as the Griffith Park remodeling committee sees the name on the check, they’ll know who to thank,” Matt said.
“We were going to donate it all in cash,” Kevin explained.
Matt scratched his head. “Even if by some long shot you manage to pull this off, I still don’t see where I come into all of this. Why do you need me at all?”
“Well, uh,” Kevin began. “It got a little complicated last night. It appears that someone found out where we’d stashed the three million in cash and when we checked on it this morning it was go
ne.”
“Just the cash?” Matt said. “What about the cocaine?”
“We had that stashed someplace else and that’s still right where we left it,” Mills said. “So you can see the fix we’re in. The trial for those drug dealers we busted last month is coming up in three weeks and without the evidence, they’ll walk.”
Now Matt was really confused. “Even if someone hadn’t found your cash, those dealers would still walk when the trial comes up because all the evidence would still be gone. Or did I miss something?”
Kevin stroked his chin. “We planned on leaving two of the eighty-seven packages of cocaine as is in the evidence room and substituting the other eighty-five packages with powdered sugar. The two packages would still be enough for a conviction and lengthy sentence. As for the cash, well, we contacted a guy I know who works directly with the Wall Street crowd. He assured me that just the use of three million dollars for a week could net us double that much with the right stock purchases.”
“Then you take your three million dollar profit and use it for the Griffith Park donation and put the other three million back in the evidence room before the trial starts and you’re in the clear. Is that about how you figured it?” Matt said.
Kevin and Mills both nodded. Kevin added, “And now we’re in so far over our heads that I don’t see an easy way out.”
“I see,” Matt said. “That’s why you can’t use any of your own manpower to look into this thing and find out who took your three million dollars.”
Kevin nodded. “Except for me. Sergeant Mills has to stay where he is, watching over the evidence room, but I can still put my own efforts into this thing. That is, you and me both, if you want the job.”
Matt stared out the window, trying to work this thing out in his mind. He couldn’t see an upside in this for him either way. He turned back to Kevin. “I can appreciate the fact that you’re both in this bind. I can appreciate the trouble you’ll both be in if this ever comes to light. I can also appreciate your not wanting the police and fire departments to suffer if you did nothing. But as I see it, this thing has the potential to drag me down with you if anything goes wrong.”
Kevin held up one finger. “I’ll make sure you’re compensated handsomely for your efforts. Let’s say, fifty thousand dollars in your pocket.”