They took the body away and Hollister’s men got to do all the interesting work on this case. I felt like I had been cheated out of a meaty case. Solving this girl’s murder was something I could really have sunk my teeth into, but here I was stuck making the rounds at some backwoods, hayseed carnival and I hadn’t even caught a single pickpocket. I’d have to be content with taking their money and running like a thief.
Maybe I’ll go back and take another look at those killer rats from the sewers of Paris. They were no worse than the other animals roaming these parts.
60 - Fresh-Faced Kid
It was one of those full-moon nights when the air was still and the world seemed at peace. The rain had stopped shortly after eleven. The July night was hot and muggy and I wished I’d had the air conditioning in my car repaired when my mechanic suggested it several weeks earlier. Now my shirt was sticking to my back like an uncomfortable, clinging rag.
Gloria and I were just coming off a surveillance job that we’d been hired to do. It seems that Mrs. Monty Fuller was not totally convinced that her husband had not been totally faithful to her these past five months, and that prompted her to call Cooper Investigations. She wanted us to help put her mind at ease, one way or the other. Gloria had taken the initial call and had agreed to handle the case for Mrs. Fuller. We figured we could rap this case up after one or two more nights of watching Monty Fuller after hours.
It was after midnight when I tooled my car down the main street leading out of town. Ahead I could see the lights of the mini mart shining onto the wet street. Gloria straightened up in her seat and grabbed my knee.
“Pull in, would you, Elliott?” she said. “I feel lucky tonight. I want to get a lottery ticket.” Gloria unbuckled her seat belt even as the car pulled into the parking spot in front of the mart. She followed me in and took her place at the counter.
I sidled over to where a display of cakes and donuts had caught my attention. I mentally weighed the differences in price and net weight before selecting a packaged cinnamon roll. At the dairy case, I grabbed a small chocolate milk and brought my booty to the counter where Gloria was picking out four instant scratch lottery tickets and one for the multi-million dollar drawing later tonight. I set my late night snack on the counter.
“What do you want?” I said, nodding at the cinnamon roll and chocolate milk.
Gloria looked up at me. She’d stopped scratching her ticket long enough to say, “Nothing. I’ll just have a bite of yours.” She lowered her head again and intently resumed the ticket scratching.
That was one of my pet peeves. I liked to have my cinnamon roll and chocolate milk all to myself. I wouldn’t have minded buying Gloria her own snack, but I didn’t like sharing.
The fresh-faced kid behind the counter couldn’t have been more than seventeen. His eyes and lips and rosy cheeks still had noticeable traces of baby fat. He may have been seventeen but his face could have passed for that of a kid ten years younger. On the counter behind him lay an algebra book open to the halfway point. Beside it were some papers with figures scribbled on it.
“Will that be all, sir?” he said, pointing to my snacks and Gloria’s tickets.
“Yup, that’s everything,” I said, already beginning to open the cinnamon roll package.
“That will be seven thirty-nine,” the kid said, punching buttons on the register.
I gave the kid a ten and continued opening my snack. The kid counted out my change and handed it back to me. “Thank you, sir, and have a good night.” His voice was almost squeaky and his cheeks blushed a bright red. A smile crept onto his face as he nodded at us.
I noticed another woman standing behind me and nudged Gloria’s elbow. Gloria looked up and noticed two other patrons starting to fall in line behind that woman. She scooped up her tickets and walked over to the condiment counter near the hot dog machine. She continued scratching tickets as I took the first bite out of my roll and followed it with a swallow of chocolate milk.
We could hear the transactions taking place at the checkout counter as each customer presented their purchases and waited for their change. In each instance the young clerk extended the same courtesy and almost shy demeanor that he had shown us.
Gloria finished her ticket scratching and produced a two-dollar winner. “Hey, I won,” she said, holding up the ticket.
I examined the ticket. “Not bad, kiddo. It only cost you four bucks to win two. A few more like that and you can retire.”
Gloria didn’t see the humor in my sarcasm. She just shook her head and proceeded to the counter. Smiling broadly, she handed her winning ticket to the clerk.
“Would you like two more tickets or the two dollars?” the clerk asked shyly.
Gloria looked back at me and saw that look I always gave her when I disapproved of her wasting money on things like lottery tickets. Sure, it was her money, but after all, someone had to be the voice of reason here.
“I’ll take the two dollars,” she said reluctantly.
The clerk handed two one-dollar bills over the counter to Gloria, who promptly deposited them in her purse.
“Thank you very much, ma’am,” the fresh-faced clerk said, smiling. “Come again.”
I joined her at the door and we walked back to my car. Through the window we could see the kid turning his attention to the book open on the counter behind him.
“He seems like a nice kid, doesn’t he?” Gloria said, turning toward me.
“Huh?” I said, not really following her train of thought.
“The young clerk back there,” Gloria said. “You don’t see many kids like him any more. Polite, good looking, well mannered, no tattoos or scraggly hair. You know, wholesome.”
“Yeah,” I said, “The kind of kid that you hope your daughter brings home. I noticed he was doing his math back behind the counter.”
“Algebra,” Gloria said.
“Math, algebra, calculus, arithmetic,” I said. “It’s all the same to me. I never cared for it. I was better at sports than lessons.”
I pulled out of the driveway and headed south on Highland Avenue. Gloria’s eyes drifted off into the night sky. “Seems like a dangerous job for such a young kid, doesn’t it?”
“Yeah,” I said in that sarcastic voice I used to patronize Gloria when I thought she’d said something dumb. “He could get a fatal paper cut from the cash register paper roll. Or he might drop a gallon of milk on his toe. Oooh, or worse yet, he might overdose on sugar candy.” I snickered as I drove on.
“No, I mean being in the place all by himself so late at night,” Gloria said. “Someone could come in and hold the place up and shoot him. It’s happened before, you know. Statistics show that being a clerk in a mini-mart during the graveyard shift is one of the most dangerous jobs out there, especially in a city like Hollywood. The town is full of nut cases.”
The sarcasm left my voice as I thought about the possibilities that awaited a lone clerk in a mini mart late at night. “You know, I was thinking the same thing when we pulled out of there,” I said. “You remember Don? He managed that gas station in Burbank? One of his part-time clerks was shot dead at three in the morning by a couple of creeps looking for an easy score. I think I remember reading where the guys got away with something like sixteen dollars and four cartons of cigarettes. You’d think a kid’s life would be worth more than sixteen dollars and some smokes.”
“That’s all they got?” Gloria said. “Why did they have to shoot the kid? Couldn’t they just have taken the money and left? What a couple of animals. I think I’d be sick if I ever heard something like that happened to this kid.”
“I suppose,” I said. “Ever think of something like that happening to Joey some night?”
“Oh, gees,” Gloria said, “I don’t even want to think about it.”
Joey Conrad was an eighteen-year-old bartender in one of our favorite bars, The Dusty Guitar on Wilshire. He had worked for Frank and Ellie Turner for the past six months, trying to save enough money
to help with his fall tuition into U.C.L.A. This was the same bar we were headed to now to relax after a full day of surveillance.
“Well,” I said, “We can’t be at that bar all the time. There will be more times when Joey will have to close the place up for Frank and Ellie.” Gloria got that worried look she sometimes got when she thought too much. I pulled the car into the parking lot of the bar Gloria and I owned on the outskirts of town. Gloria and I walked into the bar and sat at our usual stools at the end of the bar.
Joey was behind the bar, wiping a beer mug when Gloria and I entered. There was just one other customer sitting at the opposite end of the bar nursing a beer. It was one of the regulars, Gus Swanson. It was slow for a Wednesday night. “Why don’t you go on home, Joey?” Frank said, walking around behind the bar. “We can handle it for the next half hour.”
“You don’t have to tell me twice,” Joey said, removing his white bar apron. “See you Friday night, chief.” Joey passed by Gloria on his way to the door. “See you later Miss Campbell.”
A surge of maternal instinct washed over Gloria and she threw her arms around Joey and hugged him tight. A few seconds later she released him and stood back to get a better look at the kid that Frank had hired six months earlier. Gloria pulled Joey back toward her again and kissed his cheek. “Good night, Joey.”
She released him and he quickly stepped back, looking toward me for an explanation. Then he turned to me and said, “Goodnight, Elliott.”
“Goodnight, Joey,” I said. I shrugged and tilted my head. Joey sheepishly backed out of the door without further remarks.
The customer at the end of the bar finished his beer and stood up, grabbing his hat. He made it to the front door without falling over but just barely.
“Good night, Gus” Gloria said, as the customer left. “Stay off the sidewalk.”
Gus didn’t answer. He let the door close behind him and walked out to his car. I heard the engine kick over and the sound of the car as it sped away in the night.
“Looks like it’s you and me, kids,” Frank said to Ellie, who was cleaning up after the last patron. “What do you say we clean up and close a little early tonight?” Then he remembered that Gloria and I were still sitting there sipping our beers. “Sorry, Elliott,” Frank said. “Take your time. I’m in no hurry.”
Gloria stood staring at the illuminated beer sign, lost in thought. I walked up behind her and wrapped my arms around her, nuzzling her neck. “You still worried about Joey?”
“Him and that kid at the mini mart,” Gloria said, “And every other kid who’s left alone at that hour of the night.”
“Two more months and Joey will be off at college,” I said. “He’s probably had his fill of dealing with the public anyway.”
Frank walked over to the picture window and pulled the string that turned off the neon beer sign. He was about to lock the front door when it opened and two men entered wearing ski masks and flashing handguns in front of them.
One of the men jabbed the barrel of his revolver in Frank’s stomach and pushed him back into the room while the other pulled the shade down over the front door and locked it behind him. Gloria stood motionless, waiting for an opening. She backed up away from the men, feeling behind her as she retreated.
The first man kept pushing Frank until his back was up against the bar. “Okay, pop, open the till,” he said in a voice that was almost squeaky. “Do it, now.”
Ellie was still in the kitchen so Frank hurried behind the bar and punched two buttons on the cash register. The cash drawer slid open with a ring. He scooped out the currency and laid it on the bar. Two of the twenties fell over onto the floor. In the instant it took the man to instinctively bend over to retrieve the fallen money, I had the .38 that hung under my arm in a holster, in my hand.
The man at the door yelled to his partner, “He’s got a gun, Jason.” He fired his pistol at me, missing me by several feet. I returned fire, hitting him in the abdomen. He fell back against the front door, groaning and holding his mid-section. Blood oozed out between his fingers.
In the split second following the first shot, Jason rose from the barroom floor clutching the two twenties that had fallen. His revolver fired up and wide, tearing a hole in the ceiling above my head. I squeezed off another round, hitting Jason in the side of his neck. Jason’s gun dropped to the floor with a thud. He grasped his neck with his right hand, his left hand still holding tight to the forty dollars. In a matter of seconds he fell backwards, flat on has back. His head hit the barroom floor with a cracking sound. With a final gasp, Jason’s hand fell away from his neck and out at his side. Blood spurted out of the wound and onto the floor. A crimson pool formed around the gunman’s head.
The second man was still groaning and holding his left hand over his wound. His right held tight to the pistol. I walked toward him and he threw his gun away from him and held his hand up in front of his face. “No,” he screamed. “Don’t shoot me again.” His face got tight and he winced in pain. Suddenly his eyes widened and rolled back into his head and he slumped over sideways across the front door.
Gloria rushed over to where I stood and threw her arms around my neck, sobbing uncontrollably. I returned my .38 to its holster and hugged her.
“Are you all right?” I asked, looking her over.
Gloria nodded. “Oh, Elliott, that was a foolish thing to do. You could have been killed. The money wouldn’t have been worth it. I’m sure Frank’s insured against robbery.” She hugged me again, grateful that I wasn’t hurt.
I pried Gloria’s arms from around my neck and sat her down on a stool. Frank came around from behind the bar and knelt down next to the man sprawled across the door. He pressed two fingers into the man’s neck looking for a pulse, but didn’t find one. Ellie came out of the kitchen just then and rushed to her husband’s side. When she saw the two dead bodies on the floor she gasped audibly. Frank grabbed her shoulders and turned her away from the carnage. “Call the police,” he said to his wife. Frank lifted the ski mask from the man’s face and stepped back for a better look.
“For Christ’s sake,” Frank said, shaking, “He’s just a kid. Just a god damned stupid kid.”
“Oh, my god,” Gloria said.
I turned around to find Gloria standing over Jason’s body. She’d pulled his ski mask off his head and stood holding it. Her eyes went wide when she recognized the dead boy. I looked down at the body on the floor. He, too, was just a kid—just a fresh-faced, foolish kid who’d never get to take that final algebra test.
61 - You Ought To Be In Pictures
Elliott looked at me out of the corners of his eyes before actually turning his head toward me. “Dad, what are you doing?” he said. “Why didn’t you just stay on ninety-five and pick up ten at Blythe?”
I sighed heavily. “Because then we’d be backtracking,” I said. “Blythe is forty miles further south than we want to be. I figured if we cut over to Palm Springs on sixty-two we could save almost an hour.”
“At least we’d be on a real road,” Elliott reminded me. “This way’s desert all the way. If we broke down our bones would be bleached before anyone found us.”
“Don’t sweat it,” I said. “The tank’s full, we’ve got plenty of water and there are no cops for almost a hundred miles. This old crate will still do eighty-five like a breeze. We can really make up time.”
Elliott thought about it for a moment. “I suppose,” he said. “I just hope we don’t break down in the middle of nowhere. I don’t want any more trouble with any more bikers like the last time when you took that short cut around San Francisco. The vultures won’t like the taste of my flesh.”
“You worry too much, you know that?” I said. “I’ve been working on a new routine. Trust me. We’ll be in Palm Springs in a couple of hours and then it’s just a hop, skip and a jump back to Hollywood.”
“We’d better be,” he said. “If we don’t get this camera equipment back to the studio, we won’t get paid. And don’t
forget the bonus he promised us if we’re back early. Shooting on that movie was over yesterday and they need this stuff back today. Elliott lay back on the seat and closed his eyes. “Wake me up when you get to Palm Springs,” he said. “There’s nothing in this desert I want to look at anyway.”
Elliott and I had been hired to provide extra security on a motion picture location in Arizona. It was just three days work, but Kevin Meyer, the line boss who’d hired us, told us there’d be a two hundred dollar bonus in it for us if we took one of the cameras back with us ahead of the rest of the trucks. We agreed and once again Cooper Investigations was on the job.
I drove on, playing the same song over and over in my head. It beat listening to the radio and it helped keep me busy as I drove. The afternoon heat was sweltering. Heat waves rose from the desert floor, casting mirages of vast water pools in the distance. Beads of sweat formed on my forehead and ran down into my eyes. There was a moist smell of fresh road kill sifting in through the open windows.
Elliott had napped for almost an hour before we reached the outskirts of Twentynine Palms. The sun was just settling above the horizon and glowing like somebody’s idea of what a UFO looked like close-up. I could see the town in the distance when Elliott sat upright and rubbed his eyes.
“Where are we?” he said, looking around.
“Just outside Twentynine Palms,” I said. “It’s just another mile or so. See, I told you we could save some time this way.”
From off in the distance behind us I felt the subtle rumble moments before I heard it. A few seconds later, the sound became louder until I recognized it. I checked my rearview mirror and jabbed Elliott with my elbow. “Oh oh,” I said. “We almost made it. Here they come.”
Elliott swiveled around and looked through the back window of my Oldsmobile sedan. He turned back around and looked at me with his I-told-you-so look.
“Just grab the camera and follow my lead,” I said.
The Complete Cooper Collection (All 97 Stories) Page 177