The Complete Cooper Collection (All 97 Stories)

by Bernico, Bill

  The taller of the two looked to be in his mid-twenties with dirty brown hair and a short-sleeved shirt that helped display several tattoos. He wore blue jeans over biker boots. His partner was three inches shorter and forty pounds heavier. The elastic in his baseball cap was straining to contain the fat head beneath it. His tee shirt didn’t quite reach his belt and the extra forty pounds he had over his partner hung over his belt like bread dough rising on an open oven door.

  They snickered at each other at the thought of avoiding hundreds of people and an hour in line. They both looked at Elliott as he opened his mouth to say something. The fat one came nose to nose with Elliott, his breath making Elliott’s eyes water. “You look like you wanted to say something,” Fat Boy said. “Do you want to say something?” He held a clenched fist up to Elliott’s nose.

  Elliott looked at him and his partner and then over at Gloria. He decided it wasn’t worth the trouble they could cause us if he challenged them so he said nothing and stepped back. It was times like these that Elliott wished he could wear his .38 wherever he went, on duty or off. But even private detectives aren’t allowed to bring firearms into the park.

  Gloria didn’t share my passive attitude. Her eyebrows turned up and her eyes showed her rage. “You can’t just butt in line ahead of us,” she said, like a little banty rooster. “You get out of here or we’ll call the security guard.” She held her ground and waited for a reaction from the taller one. He just laughed at the tenacious little woman.

  Elliott turned around and pushed Gloria back away from the two low-lifes. “Forget it,” Elliott whispered. “They’re not worth it. We’ll get on the ride just as quick and this’ll all be behind us in a few minutes.”

  “But…” Gloria started to say.

  Elliott placed his finger to his lips and shook his head. “Come on,” he said, “the line’s moving again.”

  “Next,” the ride attendant barked again.

  They advanced with the surging crowd toward the front of the line. People anxious to get their turn kept pushing and forced them ahead into the fat man ahead of Elliott. He turned around, as Elliott was about to excuse himself for being pushed into the man.

  “You sure you don’t want to say something, pencil neck?” Fat Boy said. He grabbed Elliott’s shirt in front and bunched it up in his fist, raising Elliott up onto his toes. He released his grip and pushed Elliott back, still laughing.

  Elliott backed up and gave him his space. The last set of riders exited and the next set took their seats on the ride. Elliott and Gloria were sure to be among the next twenty-four riders and thirty seconds after that, they’d be away from here and away from the two idiots in front of them.

  “Next,” the ride attendant bellowed.

  Nervous giggles followed the screams of the riders as they left the ride in search of other heart-stopping thrills. Their line moved again and Gloria and Elliott moved forward. People scrambled for their seats, trying to position themselves for the best view from the top. The two tuffs ambled toward the ride in a walk that would have made John Wayne look like a pansy.

  Gloria and Elliott approached the gate, ready to find a seat for themselves. The attendant lowered the barrier in front of them. “That’s all for this ride,” he said, trying to sound important. “Step back folks.”

  Gloria spun me around, “Those should have been our spots on the ride,” she said angrily. “Those two goons got our spots.”

  “Will you let it alone?” Elliott said. “In a minute and a half we’ll be up there enjoying the view. Have a little patience, will ya?”

  “But there’s two empty seats on that ride,” Gloria said. “We could have been…”

  “Shhh,” Elliott said, “You wanna sit next to them? Looks like nobody does. Look up there.” Elliott pointed to the people ascending the tower. “Let’s just watch their faces and try to have fun, okay?”

  The ride stopped at the top of the tower and paused to let the riders gaze at the skyline thirty miles to the east. The six latches released the seats simultaneously as twenty-four riders free fell toward the earth at terminal velocity. At the sixty-foot mark, the brakes took hold and slowed five of the seats to a safe, slow descent. The sixth seat, holding the two wise-guy idiots screeched and scraped and Elliott heard an attendant barking.

  “Look out,” he yelled, stepping back.

  The sixth car’s brakes held enough to keep the seat from disintegrating into the asphalt, but it slammed the ground at a much higher rate of speed than the designers had intended. Several attendants and security guards rushed over to the damaged seat and the two bullies who were now crying out in pain.

  Within a couple of minutes an ambulance pulled up next to the ride and two attendants in white brought the stretcher over to where the two men sat, waiting to be released from their harnesses. The taller, thinner man was laid out on the stretcher and loaded into the back of the ambulance before it pulled away. A second ambulance took its place and two more men in white hurried over to where workers tried to free the fat bully from his seat.

  It took almost ten minutes to free the man from the ride and get him onto the stretcher. By now the crowds had swarmed the area, making transporting of the patient difficult. The attendants slowly inched past us with the stretcher. They stopped momentarily to allow security guards to clear the crowd. Gloria and Elliott looked down at the man who’d moments earlier given us so much grief. His neck was wrapped in a stiff, white collar to help immobilize his head movements. He looked up at me with tears in his eyes and tried to open his mouth.

  Elliott smiled back at him and said, “You look like you wanted to say something,” Elliott told him. “Do you want to say something?”

  The man said nothing. He just winced in pain as the stretcher moved on toward the ambulance. Behind them, the line for the ride had disappeared and several ride attendants looked at the failed ride. Ahead of them two thousand people disbursed into the park. The sun began to drop in the western sky and storm clouds appeared above.

  “Ready to go home?” Elliott said, putting his arm around Gloria.

  77 - Change Of Heart

  I got in early this morning so I could peruse the morning paper at my leisure without any interruptions. Sometimes when Gloria was here with me, she would ask for a section of the paper or interrupt me with questions about something work related or else she’d just want to talk when I didn’t. Well, this morning I’d have thirty quiet minutes alone with my paper. It would be worth getting up early to have the paper complete read by the time Gloria came in.

  I’d finished the front section as well as the business section and the comics. I really had no interest in the sports section and set that aside. The back section was all that was left, and as long as I still had five minutes to myself, I decided to give it a quick look. I skimmed past the editorials and the classified ads and turned to the obituary page just for the hell of it. Whenever I looked at someone’s obituary, the first thing I’d do is subtract my age from theirs and try to get a general idea of how many years I still had left before someone would be reading about me on this page.

  I was just about to fold up the paper when something caught my eye and made me look closer. The name on the last obituary was Gloria Campbell. I sat upright in my chair and bent over the paper, reading through the obit as fast as I could. It mentioned that Miss Campbell was just thirty-one and went on to mention those who preceded her in death and those she’d left behind.

  My heart raced as I quickly scanned the rest of the article. The office door opened and Gloria walked in whistling a familiar tune. She stopped whistling when she saw my face.

  “You look as though you just saw a ghost,” Gloria said.

  I held the folded section of paper up in my left hand and pointed at it with my right index finger. “You, you…” was all I could manager to squeak out.

  “You, you?” Gloria said. “What happened to ‘good morning, Gloria’ or at least a warm smile?”

  I laid the pa
per down on my desk and got up to meet my fiancé and business partner. I gave her a warm hug and held on tight. I didn’t doubt that Gloria could feel my rapid heartbeat or my quickened pulse. She pushed me away from her and backed up a step.

  “What’s gotten into you, Elliott?” she said. “You’re acting awfully strange, even for you.”

  I still had a hold of both of Gloria’s hands and as if on automatic involuntary impulse, I blurted out, “Gloria, will you marry me?”

  A puzzled look played over Gloria’s face. “You’ve already asked me this question,” she said. “And I’ve already said yes, remember? We’re already engaged.”

  “No,” I said. “I mean right now, today. Will you marry me?”

  She held her palm against my forehead and paused. “No,” she said. “You’re not running a fever.” She ran her hand over my skull. “No, I don’t feel any lumps. You didn’t hit your head. Let’s see, what else could it be?”

  Before she could examine me further, I snatched up the folded paper section and handed it to her. She looked at it for a moment and then said, “Aw, poor Mr. Fletcher passed away, and he was only ninety-seven. Talk about cut down in your prime.”

  “No,” I said, pointing to the last listing on the obituary page. “This one.”

  Gloria read the name and then immediately looked up at me. “So that’s what’s got into you, eh?” she said. “You didn’t really think this was me, did you? Did you read the whole thing? Down here at the bottom it says that Miss Campbell was a second grade teacher from Pacoima who was hit by a car while crossing an intersection in downtown Pacoima last Saturday. The only reason it made the L.A. papers is because she went to school here fifteen years ago.”

  I took the paper from Gloria’s hand and threw it on my desk. “So, is that a yes?” I said.

  “Yes?” Gloria said. “Yes, what?”

  “Yes, to my question of will you marry me today,” I said. “Well?”

  “All this because of an obit?” Gloria said.

  “It wasn’t only that,” I told her. “But that obit made me realize how fragile and unpredictable life can be. And I don’t want to pick up the paper one morning and read your obit for real and wonder what might have been. So what do you say? How about if we close the office this morning and go and get married?”

  Gloria took a deep breath and let it out. “I don’t think it works that fast, Elliott,” she said. “Isn’t there a couple day wait and a blood test and all that other stuff?”

  “Screw it,” I said. “Let’s fly to Reno or Las Vegas and do it right now. What do you say? Do you have any adventure left in you?”

  Gloria checked her wristwatch, flipped the page in her daily planner and then looked back up at me. She grabbed my hand and pulled me toward the office door. “Let’s go,” she said, “Before you come to your senses.”

  We took the elevator to the lobby and hurried to the parking lot behind our building. I opened Gloria’s door and she slid in. I slid behind the wheel and headed south toward the airport.

  “What about extra clothes and things?” Gloria said.

  “We’ll get what we need when we get there,” I said. “Let’s not spoil the spontaneity now.”

  “All right,” Gloria said, smiling and holding onto my right arm as I drove. “What about all our friends and family? Won’t they all be disappointed that there was no formal wedding for them to come to?”

  “We can have the formal wedding later,” I said. “After we’ve had time to send out invitations and rent a hall and find a band and all those other things that come with weddings. But just think, when we go to bed tonight you’ll be Mrs. Elliott Cooper.”

  “I will?” Gloria said. “But what if I want to keep my maiden name? I could still wake up as Gloria Campbell, couldn’t I?”

  Gloria could tell the twisted look on my face that I didn’t approve. “What?” she said. “You’re not one of those traditionalists that insists on his wife changing her name to suit him, are you?”

  “And just what’s wrong with tradition?” I said. “The thing about tradition is that it has its roots secured in long ago. Why rock the boat now?”

  “How’s that rocking the boat if I just prefer keeping the name I was born with?” Gloria said. “I’d still be your wife and everything else would be just the way it was supposed to be when two people get married.”

  I eased my car to the curb and killed the engine, turning to Gloria with one arm over the back of my seat. “Look,” I said. “I’ve known that you were a strong-willed, independent kind of person all along, but I don’t think it’s asking too much for you to take my name when you marry me. It’s the way things should be and that’s how I want it.”

  “Well, I don’t,” Gloria said. “What if after we got married I wanted you to take my last name? How would that sit with you?”

  “That’s not even a valid argument,” I said. “There’s no precedent for it and nobody does that, so why would I?”

  “What about John Lennon?” Gloria said. “He wasn’t born John Ono Lennon. His mother named him John Winston Lennon but he changed it when he married Yoko Ono. That’s how much he thought of her.”

  “But I’m not John Lennon,” I said. “And I don’t want to be Elliott Campbell. Men in our family have always been Coopers and I for one am not going break with tradition to satisfy your women’s libber quirks.”

  “Quirks?” Gloria said. “I’ll give you a quirk.” With that she opened her door and exited to the street, walking north again toward Hollywood.

  “Fine,” I yelled out her door, reaching over to pull it shut again. “If that’s how you feel.” I pulled away from the curb and just drove. It didn’t matter where I was going as long as it was away from here. After six or seven blocks of stewing, I had time to calm down and turned the car around, returning to the spot where Gloria had bailed on me. She was nowhere to be found. I drove further up the street, looking out both sides of my car for her. A block ahead I caught a glimpse of her stepping onto a city bus that said Hollywood across the front, above the windshield. I let it go and returned to the office.

  I rode the elevator to the third floor and slowly walked back to my office. I was alone again and could re-read this morning’s paper if I felt like it. I didn’t feel like it. I didn’t feel like anything. I began to doubt myself and my convictions. Was I being too stubborn and unyielding in my views on traditional marriages? Would it cost me the woman I loved? Or was Gloria being unreasonable in her insistence to buck tradition and keep her own name? If we were to have a future of any kind, one of us would have to bend to the will of the other, but which one of us would that be? I didn’t think I was being too demanding by expecting Gloria to do the same thing my mother and her mother and her mother before her had done by leaving their maiden names behind and becoming Coopers.

  I agonized over the question for the next hour and a half, trying to play out scenarios from both points of view. When all was said and done, I decided that my future without Gloria was no future worth having at all. I got out from behind my desk, locked the office door on my way out and walked back toward the elevator. I got in and pressed the button for the lobby. When the doors opened, I found myself standing face to face with Gloria. We stood there looking at each other for a moment and before either of us could open our mouths to say anything, the automatic elevator door closed again.

  I pressed the lobby button again and when the door opened this time, I could see Gloria with her finger on the elevator call button. That was enough to break the ice and she stepped into the car with me. The doors closed behind us and the elevator began to rise. Between floors Gloria turned and hit the red emergency stop button and the car jolted to a stop. She turned around again to face me and held both of her arms out, curling her fingers inward toward herself. I smiled and stepped up to her, wrapping my arms around her waist. I pulled her to me and kissed her. When we parted again, we both began to speak at the same time.

  “I’m sorry,” we sa
id in unison and we each broke out in a wide grin.

  “No,” Gloria said, “You were right. I’d be proud to be a Cooper, Mrs. Elliott Cooper. What was I thinking?”

  “I’m glad to hear you say that,” I said. “But I’d come to the conclusion that it didn’t really matter what name you went by as long as we were together. So if you want to go on being Gloria Campbell…”

  “But I don’t,” Gloria said. “After I got out of the car and onto that bus, I kept saying, ‘Gloria Cooper, Gloria Campbell,’ over and over in my head. At one point I think I even said it out loud, probably more than once, when I noticed other people on the bus looking at me strangely. I ended up getting off the bus three blocks before my stop.”

  “Well,” I said. “I’d be proud to have you as Gloria Cooper, but just so you know, I’d be just as happy with Campbell. Either way, you wouldn’t have to get rid of any monogrammed pajamas after the wedding.”

  “Or my class ring with the GC initials on either side of the stone,” Gloria said. She hugged me again and then checked her watch again. “There’s still one more flight to Las Vegas tonight. Let’s make November sixteenth a day to remember and tell our grandchildren about.”

  I reached past her and released the red emergency stop button. The elevator stopped on the third floor and I hit the button for the lobby again. The doors closed and we found a way to make one more kiss last for three floors.

  We made it all the way to the airport this time with just eight minutes to spare. Since we didn’t have to deal with checking any luggage we were able to purchase our tickets and walk directly onto the plane. Las Vegas was a mere two hundred thirty-five miles away and we could be there in less than an hour. The cab took us directly to the wedding chapel on Las Vegas Boulevard. From the street it looked like a miniature country church, complete with a steeple not more than fifteen feet tall. The iron fence around the front of the chapel sported little iron hearts and coach lights, all painted white, like the chapel itself. The lush green grass leading up to the chapel door was nothing more than Astroturf. Around the side of the building was a canopied driveway where couples in a real hurry could take advantage of the drive-thru chapel and be on their way before their French Fries got cold.