The Complete Cooper Collection (All 97 Stories)

by Bernico, Bill

  Dean pulled a small key ring from his jacket pocket and fingered through the keys until he came to the one that fit the handcuffs. He inserted it into the cuff on Johnny’s wrist and twisted. The cuff popped open and Johnny pulled his wrist up to his chest and rubbed it with his left hand.

  “Rise and shine, Calvin,” Dean said. “It’s D-Day.”

  “D-Day?” Johnny said through the bandages. “And who the hell is Calvin?”

  “D for Dodge,” Hollister said. “Today’s the day we want you out of Dodge—by sundown. And Calvin is your new name. Calvin Pruitt. Now let’s go. Get outta that bed and get dressed.”

  “Calvin Pruitt?” Johnny complained. “I ain’t no Calvin. Calvin’s the name of some worm of an accountant from Jersey. Calvin is a shoe salesman.”

  “Maybe you’d rather be Dash Riprock, movie star,” I said. “Yeah, I like that. How many Dash Riprocks do you suppose there’d be out there. You’d be easy to find.”

  “I guess I can live with Calvin,” Johnny agreed. “But what about my new job?”

  Dean smiled wryly. “You run the Pruitt Lawn Care business,” he said. “From now on you’ll be mowing lawns, trimming hedges, pulling weeds and pruning branches. Doesn’t that sound exciting, Calvin?”

  “In your dreams,” Johnny said. “I ain’t no gardener. Get me some other line of work.”

  “Well,” Dean said, “there is one other opening, but I was saving that for the next witness protection guy—hopefully someone with more class than you.”

  “What is it?” Johnny said.

  “Pizza delivery boy,” Dean said, laughing. “It comes with the cutest uniform this side of San Bernardino. I think I could even pull some strings and get you one of those coin changers for your belt.”

  I tapped Dean on the shoulder. “There is that one other job,” I said. “That is, if you think he could handle it.”

  “Which job was that?” Dean said, playing along with me.

  “You know,” I said. “It involves driving that nice truck and making all those pickups on the route.”

  Dean still had no idea where I was going with this but kept it going anyway. “That’s too nice a job for Calvin, here,” he said.

  “Come on,” Johnny said. “Let me have that one. I’m a good truck driver.”

  I looked at Dean. “What do you think?” I said. “You wanna give Calvin here a shot at driving the septic tank truck route?”

  Dean looked Johnny up and down and pretended to think seriously about it. “Well, Calvin,” Dean said. “I think we could swing it for you. How would you feel about pumping out septic tanks all day long. You know, I hear that if you smear a little Vick’s Vapo Rub under your nose, after while you won’t even smell your load anymore.”

  Johnny Banta wasn’t amused. “Pruitt Lawn Care, eh?” he said. “I guess it beats sloppin’ the hogs on some ranch. What about these damned bandages? My face itches. When do I get these off?”

  “You want them off right now?” Dean said, “So you can walk out of here and let someone see your new face? I’d like that but it wouldn’t look good on my record to have my witness killed before I get him out of town. Any more questions, or can we get moving?”

  “Like I’m not going to be conspicuous walking out of here looking like this?” Johnny said.

  “You ain’t walking out,” I said. I stepped out into the hall and pulled a gurney back into the room. I pulled the sheet back and pointed to the gurney. “Climb up, lay down and keep very still,” I said. “We’ll wheel you out, with this sheet over your head, to a waiting ambulance. Once we’re under way, you can sit up and we’ll cut off the bandages. Now climb up here, shut your mouth and act like a stiff.”

  Johnny did as he was told and we pulled the sheet over his bandaged face and wheeled him into the elevator. The door closed and we rode the elevator down to the basement and pushed Johnny out to an ambulance that had been backed in with its rear doors standing wide open.

  I helped push the gurney into the ambulance and closed the rear doors. I slid in behind the wheel while Dean sat opposite me. The ambulance quietly pulled out into traffic and headed south out of town. A few blocks away Dean left his seat and took up a position next to the gurney, pulling a curtain shut that separated the driver’s compartment from the rear area. He flipped the sheet back and pulled Johnny to a sitting position.

  Johnny’s eyes darted about the van and settled on a shiny pair of scissors that Dean held in his hand. He took hold of Johnny’s shoulder and pulled him closer.

  “Hold still while I cut these off,” he told Johnny.

  Dean slipped one blade of the scissors under the bandage and began snipping up along one cheek. He moved the scissors to the other side and slit it open. The bandages came off in two neat pieces. Johnny rubbed his face and flexed his jaw.

  “Got a mirror?” Johnny said.

  Dean reached behind him and pulled a hand-held mirror from a drawer and handed it to Johnny.

  Johnny slowly held the mirror up and looked at his reflection. His mouth dropped open when he saw the stranger looking back at him from the mirror.

  “Say hi to Calvin Pruitt,” Dean said.

  “That’s Calvin Pruitt?” Johnny said. “He looks like a dork, like someone I used to beat up just for looking like that. I didn’t bargain for any of this crap.”

  “What choice do you have, Banta?” Dean said.

  “I think I’d rather be dead,” Johnny said.

  Dean pulled back the curtain and said, “Clay, forget the original plan. Banta here would rather be dead. Take him back to the city and drop him off on Wilcox Avenue.”

  “All right, Hollister,” Johnny said. “You made your point. Let’s get this dog and pony show on the road.”

  Thirty minutes later I pulled off the main highway and onto a dirt road. I followed it for a mile and a half before pulling up behind a large Buick sedan. I killed the engine and hurried to the back of the ambulance, pulling both doors open.

  “Let’s go, Johnny,” I said, gesturing with my hands.

  Johnny looked at Dean and then back at me. “Hey, what is this shit?” he said.

  Dean pushed Johnny out of the van. “You didn’t think we were gonna pull up to your new house in an ambulance, did you?” Dean said. “Low key, remember? Now get in the Buick.”

  A large man got out from behind the wheel of the Buick as I opened its door. I gestured toward the ambulance. “Take her back to the hospital. Johnson will drive you back to the precinct. We’ll take Banta the rest of the way and meet you back in town tonight.”

  The man slid behind the wheel of the ambulance, made a U-turn and sped away. I opened the back door and pushed Johnny inside, following him in. Dean took the wheel and made his own U-turn and picked up the highway again.

  We drove for seven hours, stopping only once for gas and food. As the sun was setting, the large Buick pulled into a new subdivision and circled the block once before settling in the driveway of a ranch house with an attached garage.

  Dean got out, pulled the overhead garage door open and returned to the car, pulling it into the garage and closing the door behind him. Dean opened the back door and pulled Johnny out. The three of us entered the house through the garage, pausing to look at the pickup truck parked there. Lettering on the side identified it as Pruitt’s Lawn Care Service.

  I looked back at Johnny. “Can’t you just hear the hum of the lawnmower already, Calvin?” I said.

  Johnny walked right past the truck, trying not to give me the satisfaction of letting his needling get to him. Dean slipped a key into the door that connected the garage and the house and the three of us stepped inside.

  Johnny looked around and sighed. “So this is suburbia, eh?” he said.

  “Get used to it,” Dean said, throwing the house keys down on the kitchen table next to a black book. “That’s your appointment book and your customer list. You start work tomorrow morning, but from now on, you’re on your own. We’ll be checking up on
you every so often. One wrong move and your headstone will read “Calvin Pruitt—idiot.” And remember, Banta, from this minute forward you are Calvin Pruitt. Johnny Banta doesn’t exist anymore. You let your old name slip to the wrong person and you’ll end up getting yourself killed. Not that I’d lose any sleep over it, you understand.”

  Dean looked back at me and tossed his head to one side. “Let’s get outta here, Clay,” Dean said.

  I followed Dean toward the garage door and paused before leaving. Dean turned toward Johnny. “One last thing, Calvin,” he said.

  “What’s that?” Johnny said.

  “This,” Dean said, bunching up his fist and driving it into Johnny’s stomach with all he had. “That’s for Detective Michaels.”

  As Johnny knelt bunched up, I brought my closed fists down on the back of his neck. “And that’s for this rotten system that allows scum like you to get away with murder,” I said.

  Johnny Banta, a.k.a. Calvin Pruitt lay in a prone position on the kitchen floor. Dean and I stepped over him, returned to the Buick, backed out of the driveway and drove away. We spent that night at a motel in the next town and returned to the city the following morning.

  Three weeks and four days after Pruitt’s Lawn Care Service began operations, Calvin Pruitt, a.k.a. Johnny Banta, took a call from a man asking about prices for lawn services. Calvin agreed to meet with him at the man’s house on Vista Drive. The Pruitt truck pulled out of the driveway and drove south on Highway Seven. Johnny had driven just three miles when his truck was forced off the road by a bright yellow and red van driven by a young man with long greasy blonde hair.

  The road was deserted. Johnny pulled over and stopped. The van stopped ahead of him. The young man got out and walked back toward Johnny’s gardening truck. Johnny hopped out of the truck, ready to pound some sense into the careless kid. Instead the kid unzipped his jacket and withdrew a .45 automatic and leveled it at Johnny’s head.

  “What is this?” Johnny demanded. “You gonna shoot me over a little road rage?”

  The kid reached into his jacket and pulled out a picture of Johnny and held it up. He had confirmed the identity of his target. “Yup, it’s you, Banta. Sonny sends his condolences.”

  He turned the picture toward Johnny. It was grainy at best but it showed Johnny Banta sitting up in the back of an ambulance. It looked like a screen capture from a video camera. The last thing that went through Johnny’s mind, besides the .45 slug, was the realization that Dean Hollister’s word, like Banta’s own life, wasn’t worth a plug nickel.

  The following day I during my lunchtime, I stopped by Dean’s office. Dean was sitting at his desk and reading with apparent interest from a newspaper article. Several times he chuckled and finally broke out into full laughter.

  “Reading the comics?” I said, as I entered his office.

  “Funnier,” Dean said, handing me the paper.

  Page two, column six,” Dean said.

  He waited as I wrestled the paper open and folded it back. I broke out in laughter at the sight of the story of Johnny Banta being found dead on the side of the road with a single bullet in his brain.

  When I finally caught my breath and settled down, I said, “Now that’s justice.”

  “Know anyone who wants to take over a lawn care business?” Dean said, and the laughter started all over again.

  48 - Diplomatic Immunity

  Lieutenant Dean Hollister got the call at eleven forty-five on a Thursday night. Patrolman Paul Sanders found the body during his regular patrol along Lexington Street and had called it in to the precinct. The call was relayed to Hollister a few minutes later. He was on the scene in less than ten minutes.

  “What do you have here, Sanders?” Dean said, looking down at the body of a young woman clad in a gray skirt and white blouse. One shoe was lying several feet from the body. The victim’s hair was a tangled mess, obscuring most of her face.

  Patrolman Sanders flipped open his notebook and recited from his hastily scribbled notes. “Caucasian female, approximately twenty to twenty-five, blond, blue, a hundred and…”

  “Skip the grocery list,” I said in a monotone voice. “What’s the cause of death?” I had been friends with Dean almost since birth. Dean’s father, Dan Hollister had been on the police force with my grandfather, Matt Cooper for several years, prior to Granddad leaving to start his own private investigations business. Dean, like my dad, Clay Cooper, was approaching retirement age. Ever since I began working with my dad in the investigations business I had occasion to work with Lieutenant Hollister when the case called for it. We worked together like two cogs in the same machine and I enjoyed the exposure to police work every now and then.

  The uniformed cop put his notepad back in his pocket. “Strangled,” he said, kneeling next to the body and pulling back the collar of the girl’s blouse to expose the bruises about her throat. “Looks like she couldn’t have been here long, either.” He pointed to the couple seated on the park bench. “They were walking through the park around eleven and passed by this way. She wasn’t here then but when they came back on their way home half an hour later they found her lying right here.”

  Dean motioned me over to the body. “Well, Elliott, looks like the time of death is narrowed down to sometime between eleven and eleven-thirty, according to the couple’s statement.”

  “Got a positive I.D. on her yet?” I said.

  “Laurie Peterson,” Dean said. “According to the cards in her wallet she worked at the United Nations as a secretary. It’s anybody’s guess what she was doing out here alone at this time of night.”

  I looked again at the marks on the girl’s neck. “She wasn’t alone,” I said.

  Friday morning Dean and I drove to the U.N. building and began our investigation. By nine-thirty we’d talked to four of Laurie Peterson’s friends and fellow workers. They all gave us pretty much the same story. Laurie Peterson had been seen with Ralah Abu, a diplomatic courier from the Middle East. Once we had enough information and background on Mr. Abu, it didn’t take us long to locate him and bring him in for questioning.

  Two hours into our interrogation we had gotten enough information from Ralah Abu to convict him of first degree murder. Two hours and five minutes into the session, Abe Armstrong strolled into the precinct with a writ and a representative from the State Department. Dean and I were called out of the room while Captain Blaine spoke with the two men. We hadn’t even had time to finish our coffee when Armstrong and the State Department man left with Ralah Abu walking between them. Abu smiled at me as he passed. I made a move toward him, but Dean held me back.

  “What the hell’s going on here, Captain?” Dean said. “Abu’s our man. He did it. There’s no doubt. He even confessed, for cryin’ out loud. What more do we need?”

  “My hands are tied,” the captain said. “It’s out of our jurisdiction. Forget it and get on with the rest of your caseload.” The captain turned to leave.

  Dean grabbed the captain’s shoulder and spun him around. It immediately dawned on him who he was manhandling. He straightened up and apologized to the captain and then softened his tone. “What’s this guy got, a special dispensation from the pope?”

  “Next best thing,” Blaine said. “Diplomatic immunity. As long as he’s part of the U.N. we can’t touch him for his crime, something about bad relations between the U.S. and the Middle East. I know it stinks. I know it’s not fair, but that’s the law, so let it be. There’s nothing we can do about it.”

  He was right. Ralah Abu returned to his job at the U.N. while Dean returned to the pile of other murder cases he still hadn’t solved. I drove back to my own office, frustrated and angry. The other cases were all just as important as the Abu case, but none of them hounded Dean the way this one did. Dean had him dead to rights and couldn’t touch him. It began to eat at Dean. He had trouble sleeping and his appetite had diminished substantially.

  I fared no better. Between the two of us, it seemed Ralah Abu crept int
o our conversations just about every day since he’d walked out of Dean’s office and had literally gotten away with murder.

  “You know, Elliott,” Dean said one day over a hot dog, “This Abu character may not have to pay back the system, but he sure as hell has to pay me back for my aggravation, not to mention his unpaid bill with the Peterson family.”

  “I was thinking the same thing,” I said. “But what can we do? It’s like he’s in this plastic bubble and we can’t get at him.”

  “Well, Dean said, “How’d you like a case, Elliott?”

  “What does it pay?” I said. “I can use the money.”

  “Sorry,” Dean said. “There’s no money in the budget at the moment, but if this works out the way I hope it will, maybe we can both get some real sleep for a change.”

  I thought about it for a moment. “Count me in, Dean,” I said. “What did you have in mind for this dirt bag?”

  “How about if we take turns tailing him on our off hours?” Dean said, sitting up straight. “Just to let him know we’re watching him. You know, make his life as miserable as we can, within the law.”

  “And if he slips up, then what?” I said. “He’ll just walk again and we’ll be twice as frustrated as we are now.”

  “It’s gotta be worth a try,” Dean said. “How about if we just give it two weeks and if nothing happens maybe we’d better just forget it like the captain says.”

  “Two weeks,” I said. “Who’s taking the first shift?”

  “Make it easy on yourself,” Dean said. “Would you prefer days or nights?”

  “Days,” I said. “Right now I don’t have any cases on my docket and it’ll give me something to do with my otherwise wasted time.”

  Dean and I took our turns keeping an eye on our target. We let Ralah Abu see us everywhere he went. If he took a cab, one of us was right behind him. When he stopped for coffee at a sidewalk café, one of us was there. I stayed on his heels even in the public restroom in the park. I stared at his reflection in the bathroom mirror, making a slicing motion across my throat with my index finger.