The Complete Cooper Collection (All 97 Stories)

by Bernico, Bill

  “Elliott,” he said when he picked up. “Did you forget something?”

  “Dad,” I said. “I’m at the hospital. Gloria’s having the baby right now. Can you get down here right away?”

  “Give me ten minutes,” Dad said and broke the connection.

  I tried getting interested in one of the magazines, but couldn’t concentrate on any of the articles and put the magazine back down again. I checked my watch, looked around the room, paced over to the window and back several times and the last time I turned around, I saw my Dad standing there. He came over to where I was standing and shook my hand.

  “So this is it, eh?” he said. “You’re finally going to find out what it feels like to be a father.”

  “And you’re going to find out what it feels like to be a grandfather,” I reminded him.

  Dad’s smiled dropped off his face. “Oh yeah,” he said. “That’s right.” The smile immediately returned. “But ain’t it grand? Did they tell you how long it might be yet?”

  I looked at my watch again. “They’re really vague,” I said. “All they can tell me is that it won’t be long, whatever that means.”

  “It just means it’ll happen when it happens,” Dad explained. “You might as well sit down. It could be a long afternoon.”

  Dad and I sat nervously awaiting Matt’s arrival. Dad tried to keep my mind off the event by asking more about my new business venture. I answered a couple of his questions, but found I just couldn’t concentrate on anything right now. My insides were jumpy and my ears were ringing. I just couldn’t relax to save my life.

  Three hours had slipped by while Dad had kept me company. A few minutes past four the doctor stepped into the waiting room and looked directly at me. “It’s a boy,” he said, “but then you already knew it was going to be, didn’t you?”

  I stood, dumbfounded and at a loss for words. Dad nudged my shoulder and I snapped out of whatever trance I was in. I looked at the doctor. “How’s Gloria?” I said. “Is she all right?”

  The doctor smiled. “Mother and son are both doing fine,” he said. “Her temperature and pulse came back down and I suspect that after a couple days of total rest that she’ll be bringing your son home.”

  I broke out in a broad grin and grabbed the doctor’s hand again, pumping it vigorously. “Thank you, Doctor Hoskins,” I said. “Thank you so much. Can I see her yet?”

  “Give it ten or fifteen minutes,” the doctor said. “They’re still cleaning her and the baby up and they’ll be bringing them down to her room after that. Congratulations, Mr. Cooper. He’s a fine looking boy.” He turned and left the room, disappearing down the hallway.

  I turned to Dad and held out my hand to shake his. He pushed it aside and wrapped his arms around me, hugging me tightly. When he finally let me go, he stepped back and smiled, tears running down both of his cheeks. I couldn’t hold mine in any longer, either and just broke down.

  Dad handed me a tissue from the box on the table and took a couple for himself. We both got ourselves composed and wiped our faces dry before leaving the waiting room and taking the elevator up to Gloria’s room. I could see them wheeling her gurney into her room from where we stood. “I’ll wait in the hall for a couple of minutes,” Dad said. “Give you two some private time.”

  I hurried over to the door and walked in, leaving Dad standing just outside the door.

  The attendants got Gloria’s bed situated back where it had been, hooked up the heart monitor to her left index finger and got her tucked in before they turned and left. A nurse stepped up to the side of the bed with a bundle in her arms. She bent over and gently places the bundle in Gloria’s eager open arms. The nurse pulled back the top of the little blue blanket, exposing Matt’s face for the first time. Gloria turned and looked at Matt and then turned to look at me. Now she was crying and smiling both at the same time.

  I bent down and kissed her and then kissed Matt’s little head. “He’s perfect,” I told her, “just perfect.”

  Gloria turned toward Matt again and gently kissed his cheek.

  I leaned over Matt’s face and said, “Well, hello there, Matthew. Are you about ready to come work with me yet?”

  Gloria frowned. “Oh, Elliott,” she said.

  “Someday,” I said. “I suppose I can wait until he’s done being a kid. You know, it’s a good thing your both didn’t end up in the Intensive Care Unit.”

  Gloria frowned. “And why is that?” she said.

  I smiled and said, “Because then I would be able to say, ‘I see you’ in the ICU.”

  Gloria rolled her eyes. “I swear, Elliott,” she said. “You’d be able to find a way to slip your warped sense of humor in at a funeral.”

  “But isn’t that part of my overall charm?” I said.

  I heard a knock on the door and turned to see Dad poking his head in. “Is it all right if I come in?” he said, sheepishly.

  “Dad,” I said. “Come on over and meet your grandson.”

  *****

  Two days later Gloria came home with Matt. I walked her inside, got her settled in the padded rocking chair and handed Matt down to her. She gently rocked back and forth, looking down at our new son.

  “I’m going to have Mrs. Chandler stay with us for a few days,” I said. “You remember she’s the lady who helped take care of Dad when he was home recovering from his second heart attack. I’d love to stay here and spend all my time with the two of you, but I have to earn us a living.”

  Gloria nodded. “I’ll be thankful for the help, Elliott,” Gloria said. “Thank you for getting her to stay with me.”

  “What a week this has been,” I said. “We’ve got ourselves a son and I got a new client who can use my surveillance services. It doesn’t get any better than this, now does it?”

  “No, it really doesn’t,” Gloria said.

  A yellow taxi cab pulled up in front of the house and a middle-aged woman got out and walked up our sidewalk. She rang our doorbell and Matt cried, startled by the noise. I opened the door and welcomed Mrs. Chandler in.

  “Did I do that?” she said, gesturing toward Matt.

  “It’s all right,” I told her. “He’ll have to get used to it sooner or later. Thank you for coming again, Mrs. Chandler.”

  She looked down at Matt and smiled a warm smile. She looked back at me and said, “These are the times that make my job a real pleasure. “May I hold him, please?”

  I took Mrs. Chandler’s coat and she walked into the living room. She looked down at Matt and her face lit up. She looked at Gloria. “May I?” she said, her arms extended.

  Gloria passed Matt to Mrs. Chandler, who rocked the little fellow back and forth in her arms while she hummed some unidentifiable song to him.

  “I’d better get back to work,” I told Gloria. “Are you two going to be all right here by yourselves?”

  She and Mrs. Chandler both looked at me and told me not to worry without having to say a word.

  “I’ll see you tonight,” I said and walked back to my car. I had an appointment to meet with Carlton Powell, the president of Powell Industries in San Francisco. It was nearly eleven o’clock by the time I stepped off the plane and took the cab to Powell industries. I rode the elevator to the top floor and walked into the waiting room outside of Powell’s office. His secretary asked me to wait while she let Mr. Powell know I was here. A minute later she led me into the inner office and introduced me to her boss.

  “Won’t you have a seat, Mr. Cooper?” Powell said, gesturing to a leather client chair that looked like it cost more than all my office furnishings put together. “Would you like something to drink, coffee or perhaps a soda?”

  “No, thank you,” I said, holding up one hand. “I’m good.”

  “Mr. Cooper,” Powell began, “I’d like to begin by telling you that I didn’t just pick your name out of a phone book. I did, however, receive your flier in the mail last week. Since that time I’ve had you thoroughly checked out and I’ve even asked my
friend, Captain Blake at the twelfth precinct about you. You’ll be pleased to know that you come highly recommended.”

  “Well, thank you, Mr. Powell,” I said. “We at Cooper Investigations have always relied on our reputation ever since my grandfather started the company in 1946. I’m glad you had us checked out. It makes my job of selling our services to you that much easier. So what is it we can do for you and your company?”

  “I’ll get right to the point, Mr. Cooper,” Powell said. “My company has branch offices and factories in San Francisco, Denver, Atlanta, Chicago, New York and Los Angeles. We manufacture components for the aircraft industry. These components are the heart of the aircraft and help keep them in the air. While other factories manufacture the larger parts, fuselage, wings, tail assemblies and so on, our company manufactures the gauges, wiring harnesses, control panels and LED readouts. The reason I’m telling you all this, Mr. Cooper, is that our parts are small enough to be carried out of our plants unnoticed and that’s exactly what’s happening in our Los Angeles plant. What I’d like you and your company to do is to find a way to carry on surveillance of that facility without their knowledge. If they know they’re being watched, they won’t take the parts. And while that would solve the immediate problem, I want to know who has been taking the parts so I can prosecute those individuals and recover as many of those parts as I can.”

  “I see your dilemma,” I said. “Even if I was granted access into your L.A. plant and could install our surveillance equipment, they’d know about it and would be able to carry on their illicit activities in the dead zones, or the zones where the surveillance camera couldn’t reach. So what is it you think I can do for you, Mr. Powell?”

  “Mr. Cooper,” Powell said. “Edgar Kendall is the regional president in charge of my Los Angeles plant. I’d like to think I could trust him, but frankly, at this point I don’t know if I can even trust him to cooperate with you. No, Mr. Cooper, what I’d like you to do is get into that facility after hours and place your surveillance equipment in places that would not be detected. I understand your cameras are extremely small and inconspicuous.”

  I pulled a camera and its monitor out of my pocket and passed the monitor over the desk to Powell. I held the camera over my head and rotated it while Powell looked at the tiny monitor. He looked up at me after a few seconds and I handed him the camera unit. He looked at it from all angles and then handed it back to me.

  “These are the perfect size for concealing behind a fire hose, on top of a wall clock, on a door frame or even attached to a light fixture,” I told him. “If you didn’t already know they were in place, you’d never see them. I also have another model with infra-red capabilities that can record video in total darkness. I’m sure it wouldn’t take long to uncover who is behind these thefts once the cameras were in place.”

  “I like that idea,” Powell said. “How long a time would you need to get, let’s say, a dozen of these installed in my Los Angeles plant?”

  “Two hours,” I said, “maybe a little longer. They typically take only ten minutes each to install so figure at least two hours for a dozen of them. But how do you propose I get in after hours? I’m sure you must have an alarm system in place already.”

  Carlton Powell handed me an envelope and nodded at it. “Go on, Mr. Cooper,” he said, “open it. In there you’ll find a key to the main office. That piece of paper with the key is the code for deactivating the alarm system once you’re inside. The other paper, the folded one, is a floor plan of the offices and the factory. I’ve marked all the places where parts have been disappearing so far. Once you get into that area, I’ll leave it up to you to decide where to install the surveillance cameras. Now, what about recording what the cameras see? Do you also have that capability?”

  I took the monitor unit from Powell, turned it around and slid the USB connector out and showed it to him. I explained how many hours of recording time he could expect from each camera and how to transfer the data to any computer once the surveillance part of the job was complete.

  “You may have to repeat this procedure for several nights in a row, Mr. Cooper,” Powell said. “I can’t tell you exactly when the thefts will occur, if at all during any particular time period. One month we had no thefts and the next month we had over thirty-five thousand dollars worth of equipment and product go missing.”

  “That could run into a few dollars,” I said. “We get two hundred dollars a day plus expenses, Mr. Powell.”

  Powell waved off the notion like he was shoeing away a pesky fly. “Mr. Cooper,” Powell said. “Between my six factories, I net in excess of fifty-five million dollars annually. Paying someone like you to put a stop to these thefts is nothing. Your fee could come out of petty cash. But let me tell you this, Mr. Cooper. I’ll pay double your regular fee—four hundred dollars a day and expenses. And there’s a guaranteed ten thousand dollar bonus if the evidence you gather results in an air tight case for me when I take these thieves to court. Do you want the job, Mr. Cooper?”

  “If anyone can do it, we can,” I said. “I accept your terms. When would you like me to begin?”

  “How long would you need to get everything together?” Powell said.

  I thought about having to buy ten more of the mini camera outfits and hoped the store where I bought my three units would be able to fill that order. “How does the day after tomorrow work out for you, Mr. Powell?” I said.

  Powell thumbed through his appointment desk calendar and wrote my name in ink on the page two days from now. “I’ve put you down for Thursday, Mr. Cooper. Thursday night you can just let yourself in, install the equipment and see what turns up on the recorders by Friday.”

  “I may have to go back in on Friday to adjust the angle of the recorders,” I said. “Is that plant open during the weekend?”

  Powell shook his head. “Monday through Friday are the only days the plant operates,” Powell said. “They don’t have a night watchman or anyone else to interfere with you, Mr. Cooper. The police patrol the area surrounding the plant several times a night, but that’s the extent of their security.”

  “The reason I ask about the weekends, Mr. Powell,” I said, “is that when I let myself back in on Friday after the plant closes, I’d like to be able to spend enough time there to go over the contents of each recorder in peace and privacy. It wouldn’t do to have someone walk in on me during this time. I’ll have to watch a little of each video to see if any of the units need to be aimed someplace else.”

  “You’ll be alone,” Powell assured me. He stood behind his desk and extended his hand.

  I shook it and thanked him for the job. “I’ll be in touch within a week,” I told Powell, “maybe sooner than you think if I find anything out right away. Otherwise, if you prefer, I’ll check back with you every other day to let you know how it’s progressing.”

  “No need, Mr. Cooper,” Powell said. “I have faith in your abilities. Just get back to me if and when you have something to report.”

  I left the office and made it back to the airport in time to catch the two o’clock flight back to Los Angeles. I found my car in the lot, paid the attendant on the way out and drove directly back to the electronics store where I’d bought those first three camera units and the helicopter. I walked through the store until I found the same clerk who had waited on me before.

  I tapped him on the shoulder. “Hi,” I said. “Remember me?”

  “Mr. Coogan,” he said.

  “Close,” I said. “It’s Cooper. I bought three mini camera outfits and the helicopter.”

  “Of course, Mr. Cooper,” he said. “I’m sorry. It’s just that I see so many customers every day that it’s hard to keep the names straight.”

  “No problem,” I said. “Let me ask you something. Those camera outfits I bought, you know, the infra-red ones? What kind of deal can you give me if I purchase in bulk, let’s say, ten more units, all with the range extenders?”

  The clerk’s eyes lit up and I had
his undivided attention. He held up one finger and walked over to his desk and pulled an older, used sales book from the drawer. “When was that you bought those first cameras?” he said. Before I could answer, he said, “Never mind, I found them. Yes, you got one regular light camera, two infra-red units and the mini copter. The infra-red units sold for eighty-two forty-five each. If you were to buy ten more, I could let you have them for…” he picked up the calculator from his desk and punched in some numbers. “I could let you have ten of them for the price of the regular camera—sixty-nine ninety-five each, or six ninety-nine fifty plus tax for the whole works.”

  I thought about it briefly and realized that this was a hell of a deal for me. But apparently I’d hesitated a few seconds too long to suit the clerk. Before I could tell him I’d take them, he countered with, “Tell you what. If I recall, I believe you said you still had six hundred dollars in your budget for surveillance equipment. I can’t go down quite that low, but if you want ten units, you can have them for six-fifty plus tax, if that will help.”

  “Sold,” I said. “Wrap ‘em up. I’ll take ‘em along with me.”

  Yes sir,” the clerk said, scurrying around like a giddy schoolboy after his first kiss. I browsed up and down the aisles, waiting for the clerk to return from the stock room with my order. I could see that this was going to be one of the stores on my list of favorite places. The more equipment I looked at, the more uses I could think of for them.

  The clerk returned after a few minutes, pulling a small four-wheeled cart behind him. He had ten more infra-red camera boxes stacked on the cart and he pulled them over to the cash register and began scanning them. When he’d finished, I gave him my credit card and he ran it through, gave me my receipt and offered to help me load my van with the units.

  I drove back to the office, parked in my space, locked the van with the ten camera units and went back to my office to formulate my plan for entering the locked offices on Thursday after hours. I spent the next hour reading and re-reading the manual that came with the camera outfit, making sure I understood everything there was to know about installation and preparation. I read that each camera came already loaded with a small watch battery and that all I had to do was pull the small plastic strip out that kept the battery from making contact and they’d be set to go. I’d take care of that detail Thursday afternoon, just before the offices and factory closed for the day.