The Complete Cooper Collection (All 97 Stories)

by Bernico, Bill

  “Nope,” she said, “Aside from that stupid beard, he looked like a thousand other guys. I see people all day long, every day and after a while, they all start to look alike. Know what I mean?”

  I nodded in agreement. “Would you know him again if you saw him?” I said.

  “Hard to say,” she said. “I only saw him for a moment and besides, most of the time I almost never look up from the register. I just punch in the totals and make change while the people just file past me. I got sick of making small talk years ago and just kind of adopted that habit. Helps keep my sanity.”

  “Thank you Mrs. Campbell,” I said. “We’ll be in touch.”

  Dan and I drove back to the station house and sorted though our evidence files, looking for anything to go on, anything that might help us locate the psycho who’d taken it upon himself to punish the perpetrators of several petty crimes.

  We decided we’d head back to the neighborhood around Western and Sunset and start asking a few questions. Unlike Willy, we had almost nothing else to go on, so this was as good a place as any to start.

  Dan pulled the car up to the curb on Western and we each took one side of the street, asking the neighbors and merchants about the night that Willy took his last leak in public. I started with the liquor store where Willy’s body was found. The owner, Lester Tremont, said he’d closed the store at five minutes past twelve that night. He didn’t remember seeing anyone at that time. By the time he’d swept the place out and stashed the day’s take in the safe, it was nearly one a.m. We took the call at two a.m. and that narrowed the window of opportunity to one hour.

  I checked with a few other merchants on my side of the street and met Dan at the corner to compare notes. I told him what I’d found out from Tremont and a few of the neighbors, but it was still no more than we had before.

  “I talked with one guy,” Dan said, “who says he was getting home from his second shift job around one-thirty or so. Says he heard some strange noises outside but just passed it off as a couple of drunks fighting over a bottle of wine. A few minutes later he heard a vehicle with a loud muffler pulling away. He was curious enough to peer over his back yard fence and saw an older pickup truck leaving around then.”

  “Could he give you any more on the truck?” I said.

  “Not much,” Dan said. “Thinks it might have been a Dodge or maybe a Studebaker. They both look alike to him and he knows enough to know that the body style wasn’t a Chevy.”

  “Well, that’s something, anyway,” I said. “It may not mean anything, but what the hell.” I held out my palm and Dan tossed me the car keys. “Come on,” I said, “Let’s see what we can dig up over on Fountain Avenue.

  It took us twenty minutes to drive over to the intersection where Peter Masterson had learned the facts about jaywalking the hard way. Mr. Hubert had given us enough information that night to pinpoint the time of death. What we needed now was a witness who could identify the shooter.

  I talked with one woman who remembered seeing a guy carrying what looked like a guitar case. The woman’s name was Mary Riley and she lived two doors east of the Music store. She’d been used to seeing guys like that in the neighborhood before since the Wilcox Music Store was just half a block away. Yet something about this guy stood out in her mind.

  “What was different about this guy,” I asked.

  Mary thought for a moment. “He didn’t look like the other musician types I’ve seen around here. He was older, much older. I’d say about thirty-five or so. Most of those other greasy-haired scum buckets are in their teens. This guy couldda been their father. I remember thinking, what’s a coot like that doing with a guitar? Then he ran off down that alley.” She pointed at the alley where the fire escape hung down. “He didn’t have greasy hair. Just a short, stubbly beard.”

  Dan wrote fast, trying to get the woman’s statement. He pressed hard and the lead in the pencil snapped and fell to the ground. “Damn,” he said before catching himself. “I mean, darn, I broke the lead. Gimme your pencil, Matt.”

  I gave him the yellow pencil I carried and he continued taking notes.

  “Notice anything else strange, Mrs. Riley?” I said.

  She looked at Dan, who was still writing and pointed to his note pad. “That’s Miss Riley.”

  Dan wrote, “Miss” over the top of the “Mrs.” he’d written earlier. Mary smiled at Dan. Dan looked at me. I tried not to snicker.

  “Anything else?” I repeated.

  She thought for a moment and then scrunched up her eyebrows. “Nope. ‘Cept…” She trailed off. “Probably wasn’t important.”

  “You never know,” I said. “What is it?”

  “Well,” she continued, “A little while after I saw the old guy with the guitar running I heard a loud car.”

  “What do you mean by loud?” I said.

  “You know,” Mary said, “Like when they need some work on the tailpipe and it sounds like a motorcycle roaring away.”

  Dan made his final notes and closed his book. He started to put my yellow pencil in his shirt pocket when I held my hand out, palm up. I snapped my fingers and extended the palm again. “Uh, uh,” I said. I took my pencil from Dan and deposited it back in my shirt pocket.

  We thanked Mary Riley and returned to the relative cool comfort of the squad car. I pulled away from the curb and told Dan I wanted to stop downtown at the park and get a hot dog from the vendor that I knew would be on my favorite corner in a few minutes. We got there in ten minutes.

  I parked one spot from the corner and the two of us got out and found the hot dog vendor just where I thought he’d be. I turned to Dan, “You want one?” I said.

  Dan shook his head and I held up two fingers to the vendor. He handed me two hot dogs on a napkin. I squirted on my own mustard and spooned on some relish. I took a bite and turned to Dan with my mouth full, muttering what I knew to be, “Sure you don’t want some?” but what must have sounded to Dan like, “Mmmm mmm mmmm mmmm mmmm?”

  We took a seat on the bench and watched the throngs of people scurry past, all in a hurry to get somewhere. Between my bites Dan said, “Ever notice how people these days all seem to be looking out only for themselves?”

  “Huh?” I said.

  “I mean no one cares about anyone but themselves these days,” Dan said. “Used to be people took pride in their cities, their neighborhoods and their houses. Today people don’t even give each other eye contact, let alone smile or say hi.”

  I swallowed another morsel of hot dog. “Yeah,” I said. “And they’re all pigs, too. Just look around you. The city’s getting to be one big garbage dump. Plenty of trashcans on each corner and people still drop their garbage wherever and whenever they feel like it. The city would be money ahead to hire a full-time garbage cop. What they pay him would be a lot less than it costs them to clean up this mess.”

  Dan agreed and sat back on the bench. He looked up the block and saw a man walking away from us and heading toward the curb. Dan nudged me with his elbow. “Look at that,” he said, as the man peeled back the wrapper on a candy bar and threw the wrapper in the street. “That’s exactly what I was talking about. Well, it’s time someone did something about it.”

  Dan got up and started toward the man. The man had his hand on the door handle of a pickup truck that was parked at the curb. I followed Dan, trying not to spill the relish out of my second hot dog. I was still taking bites when Dan caught up with the man. He grabbed the man by the upper arm and spun him around. Dan pointed down toward the candy wrapper on the ground. He looked back at me.

  “See what I mean, Matt?” Dan said. “This is how the streets get so filthy. He turned back toward the man and said, “Pick that up.”

  The man scowled and muttered, “Pick it up yourself. What are you, a cop or something?” he said. He broke free of Dan’s grip and took a step before Dan grabbed the arm again and spun the man around. Dan held his shield up in the man’s face. “Yeah,” he said, “As a matter of fact I am.�
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  I smiled and stood there watching Dan get all worked up over a small piece of litter. The man’s face straightened visibly as he bent to retrieve the refuse. “Sorry,” he said.

  Dan took the wrapper from him and deposited it in his pocket. “Evidence,” he said, smiling at the man. He pulled out his ticket book and began writing.

  “You’re giving me a ticket for that?” The man seemed indignant.

  Dan kept writing. He looked at the truck parked there at the curb. As he glanced at the parking meter the red flag flipped up signaling that the time was up on this meter. “Ah, overtime parking on top of it all.” He flipped the page over in the ticket book and started writing out the second summons.

  “You must think you’re hot shit,” the man said.

  Dan finished writing the parking ticket and tore both tickets out of his book and handed them to the man. “Payable in ten days,” he said, smirking.

  “Don’t you have better things to do than harass decent citizens?” the man said.

  “Decent citizens?” Dan said. “Decent citizens don’t throw garbage on the streets.”

  The man turned away and mumbled again. “What a petty crime,” he said.

  Something struck a chord with Dan just then. For the first time since their encounter, Dan took a good look at the man. He had brown hair and that three-day stubble they call a beard. Dan shifted his glance toward the truck. It looked beat up enough that it could be in need of a muffler. He leaned over to the window and looked in, behind the seat. There was some sort of case. It could have held a guitar. It could just as easily have held a 30-30 rifle.

  Dan and I drew our revolvers almost simultaneously. I kept mine aimed at the man while Dan turned him around and patted him down. He pulled a set of keys out of the man’s pocket and found a Dodge key. It fit the truck door and Dan opened it and withdrew the case. He laid it out on the hood of the truck and popped the latches. Inside he found a Winchester 30-30 rifle with a scope. In the inner compartment Dan found a hastily scribbled note, a sort of a list, so to speak. It listed the following:

  · Public Urination

  · Jaywalking

  · Shoplifting

  · Overtime parking

  · Littering

  · Overdue Library Book

  · Speeding

  · Disturbing The Peace

  The first three entries had been crossed off.

  “Good work, Dan,” I said, pulling my cuffs from my belt and slapping them on the man’s wrists.

  I looked at the list and then up at the man. “According to your list, now you have to kill yourself.” The man didn’t see the humor as Dan led him back up the block to our waiting patrol car.

  03 - November Child

  Hollywood is a town of predator and prey. The studio heads, casting directors and agents make up the lion’s share of the predators. Their prey generally consists of the droves of naive would-be stars that arrive daily from all over the country hoping to make it big in show business. I normally don’t concern myself with either group. Today is the exception.

  It was nine o’clock on a Wednesday morning in September and I’d already finished two cups of coffee and was pouring a third when the door to my outer office opened and closed again. As I sat in my swivel chair, the door to my inner office opened and a middle-aged woman stood facing me from across the desk. I didn’t bother standing. I pointed to the chair across from me with my coffee cup and invited the woman to take a seat.

  She sat across from my desk, her feet planted firmly on the floor and her hands folded squarely in her lap. She wore round wire-rim glasses and had her gray hair neatly swirled on top of her head. She wore a modest dress with a floral design and sensible shoes. She looked like she could have modeled for a magazine ad about Midwest farm life.

  “Mr. Cooper,” she said, “my name is Holquist. Estelle Holquist. My daughter is missing and I’d like you to find her.”

  I’d heard this story a hundred times before and it must have showed. A fly on the edge of my desk had my attention and I sighed, probably a little too loud.

  “The least you could do is act interested, Mr. Cooper,” she said impatiently. “After all if it weren’t for people like me hiring people like you, you’d...”

  I straightened up in my chair and leaned toward her. My wooden swivel chair squeaked as I leaned in. “I’m sorry, Mrs... “ I glanced down at my note pad and then back up at the woman. “...Mrs. Holquist. Normally I don’t take runaway cases. They usually turn out to be nothing more than a family argument that ends with the kid coming back home a few days later. I really can’t...”

  The woman unfolded her hands and placed them on the edge of my desk as she stood, leaning in toward me. Her eyes sported crow’s feet at the corners and were red from a lot of recent crying. “Look, Mr. Cooper,” she said. “I’ve come all the way from Wisconsin. I’ve already been to the police. They’ve told me pretty much the same thing you just did, but I just know something’s wrong. Selma has never been gone this long before.” The woman lowered her head, sat again and began to weep.

  I handed her a tissue from the box on my desk and she dabbed at her eyes. She composed herself momentarily and said, “Some sergeant suggested I see you. You’re my last hope, Mr. Cooper. Please, won’t you help me.”

  “Mrs. Holquist,” I said, “I’m already on a case at the moment but if I may suggest another investigator, I think you’ll be satisfied with his work.” I pulled open my desk drawer and withdrew a business card and slid it toward the woman.

  She placed the crumpled tissue in her lap and picked up the card, examined it and said, “This Mr. Hart,” she said, “is he any good?”

  “He’s one of the best,” I said, feeling relieved that I may have gotten out of a job I didn’t want in the first place. “I refer a lot of cases like yours to him. Go on, give him a try.”

  The woman stood and put the card in her purse. It snapped shut like a miniature bank vault as she hung it on her arm. “I’ve just got to find her, Mr. Cooper,” she said. She’s all I have left.” She looked at me once more before quietly exiting the way she’d come.

  I returned to my reclining position and resumed my inventory of the flies stuck to the ribbon that dangled from my ceiling. There were sixteen in all, three still alive and struggling to free themselves from the sticky ribbon. A few minutes later I sat up when something caught my eye. It was a hat. A silly little pillbox contraption with some sort of netting hanging from it. It obviously belonged to Estelle Holquist. I had no idea where she was staying or how to reach her but I knew where she was going from here.

  The phone rang on the other end and a voice said, “Hart Investigations.”

  “Phil,” I said, “it’s Matt. How’s things on your end of town?”

  “Cooper, you ol’ horse thief,” Phil said. “I was just thinking about you this morning.”

  “No kidding,” I said.

  “Yeah,” Phil said. “I stepped outta my car and into a pile of dog shit.”

  “Heh, heh, heh,” I laughed back at him. “Listen, buddy, I just had a frantic mother here who wanted me to track down her runaway kid. I sent her your way. The usual bird dog fee still apply?”

  “Sure, Matt,” he said. “Scotch straight up, if memory serves.”

  “Make it a double and you’re on,” I said. “Oh, by the way, this dame left her hat in my office. I don’t know where to reach her so when she shows up, tell her I have it, will you?”

  “Sure thing, Matt,” Phil said. “What’s her name?”

  “Holquist. Estelle Holquist,” I said. “If she headed right over there from here she should be there shortly. Can’t miss her. She looks like Ma Kettle in her Sunday-go-to-meetin’ outfit.”

  “She got ‘Pa’ with her?” Phil asked.

  “Yeah, and twelve little rug rats,” I said.

  “I’ll send her back when I’m finished with her, Matt,” Phil said.

  I hung up and grabbed my hat and headed out on
my current assignment. I’d been trailing a guy who told the judge that he couldn’t walk since his car accident. The guy had left the courtroom wearing a neck brace and had his lawyer wheel out of the courtroom in a wheel chair. The defendant’s insurance company smelled a rat and called me in to tail the guy to see what cropped up.

  I’d been on him for three days before I got lucky. This afternoon our paths crossed again in front of his house. As I sat in my Olds with my camera pointed out the window he arrived in his own car and jumped out carrying a full bag of golf clubs. There was no neck brace, no wheel chair and no limp.

  I raised the camera over the window and snapped several quick shots before he turned and spotted me. I had no idea injured people could run as fast as he did. His three wood was poised over his head, ready to send me down the fairway when I pulled the camera in and floored the Olds. I aimed the camera in his general direction and snapped a few more of him running with the club over his head. I was down the street with my evidence before he reached my car. I wondered if they had a decent front nine in San Quentin. I delivered the pictures, collected my fee from the Alpine Insurance Company and returned to my office.

  I’d almost forgotten about Mrs. Holquist’s hat but it was still hanging on my hat rack when I returned. I grabbed the hat and headed out again. Phil Hart’s office was just ten minutes from my own, in the Traxlor Building. I pulled up in front and found his office in the back on the first floor.

  The office door was open and I could see a silhouette through the opaque glass room divider. Phil was seated at his desk but I heard no sounds coming from the office. Either he was asleep or listening to a long-winded client on the phone. I waited. Nothing happened. I knocked on his office door and pushed. It opened easily and I entered. Phil sat in his high back leather chair with his back to me. The phone was cradled on the desk and I couldn’t hear a sound coming from him.

  “Wake up, Hart,” I said. “I’m here to collect my bird dog fee. Let’s go.” No answer. I spun his chair around and quickly stepped back. His right temple sported a bullet hole and a line of crusty black blood trailed out of it and into a congealed puddle on the floor. A .32 revolver hung from his right hand at his side.