The Complete Cooper Collection (All 97 Stories)

by Bernico, Bill

Willoughby turned his attention to Clay, specifically. “Tell me, Mr. Cooper,” he said, “do you have much experience in this line of work?”

  “About forty years worth,” Dad explained. “My father started this business more than sixty-five years ago and Elliott, there, is the third generation of Coopers to go into the private investigator trade. There’s almost nothing we haven’t seen or done and frankly, there aren’t many situations that surprise us anymore.”

  “That’s good to hear,” Willoughby said. “I have a lot at stake here. I have to find Simon Lucas before he does anything stupid with our formula. If that formula got out it could ruin me.”

  “What would you like us to do with him when we find him?” Elliott said.

  Willoughby turned to Elliott. “I don’t suppose you can force him to come with you, can you?” he said.

  “Not unless we want to face kidnapping charges,” I said.

  “Well, then,” Willoughby continued, “I need you to find him and tell him that if he’ll just come back to the company and if he hasn’t shared that formula with anyone, that’ll I’ll take him in as a partner for a percentage of the company.”

  “It means that much to you, does it?” Clay said.

  “More,” Willoughby said emphatically. “Without Simon and that formula, I might as well close my doors. I should have realized that long before now, but I was so blinded by our success that I neglected to give credit where credit was due.”

  Gloria checked her watch and rose from her chair. “I’m sorry, gentlemen,” she said. “If you will excuse me.” She turned to me and said, “I’ll catch up with you two later this morning.” She turned back to Willoughby. “Mr. Willoughby, thank you for your business and just let me say again that we will give it a hundred and ten percent.”

  Willoughby stood, shook Gloria’s hand and waited until she had gone before he sat again. He turned back to Dad. “Seems like a great gal, but frankly, I think she takes life a little too seriously. You should teach her to lighten up a little and enjoy life.”

  “You can bet we’ll do that first chance we get,” I told him. “First chance.”

  Willoughby reached into his overcoat pocket and withdrew a folded slip of paper. He unfolded it and set it in front of Dad, pointing down at it. “I’ve taken the liberty of writing down all I know about Simon Lucas,” he said. “You’ll find his full name, address, phone number, known places that he frequents, nearest living relatives and a few other tidbits that may help you locate him. At the bottom of the page I’ve written down the names of my three closest competitors. These are the companies Lucas is likely to try to pedal the formula. Is there anything you require, Mr. Cooper?”

  “Just one thing, Mr. Willoughby,” Dad said.

  “And what’s that?” Willoughby said.

  “Please, call me Clay, if you would,” Dad said. “Mr. Cooper was my dad and he’s dead.”

  Willoughby chuckled and said, “Very well, Clay. But you’ll have to agree to call me George. I don’t care if I live to be a hundred, ‘Mr. Willoughby’ always sounds like some old guy in a nursing home and that guy is just not me.”

  Dad rose from his chair and stuck his hand out. “Done,” he said.

  Willoughby shook Dad’s hand and then turned his attentions to me. “And you, young man. That goes for you, too. May I call you Elliott?”

  “Call me whatever you like,” I said. “Just don’t call me late for supper.”

  Willoughby stopped smiling momentarily and broke out in a wide grin. “I like you, young man,” Willoughby said. “You may call me George as well. And just make sure to loosen up that wife of yours. She makes me uncomfortable.”

  “Consider it done,” I said.

  We both waited until Willoughby had driven away from the coffee shop before we both broke out in laughter. I looked at Dad. “Way to go, Clem.”

  Gloria walked down the hallway of the hotel and stopped in front of Henry Mandell’s room. She tapped the door knocker three times and waited. Henry came to the door in socks and slippers. His coat hung on the back of the door and Henry stood there with his tie loosed up and dangling from his starched white shirt.

  “Come in, Gloria,” Henry said. “I’ve been looking forward to this interview.”

  “Oh?” Gloria said.

  “Yes,” Henry said. “As one of its newer members, I wanted to get your perspective on this family business. Please, come in and have a seat. Can I get you something to drink?”

  “Not right now,” Gloria said. “I just came from a cup of coffee. Maybe a bit later.”

  Henry explained his procedure to Gloria and she agreed that she didn’t mind him using the digital recorder during their interview. “It helps me get accurate quotes and inflections,” he explained. “Just writing things down could lead to confusion.”

  “I understand,” Gloria said. “It’s not a problem. Shall we begin? Elliott, Clay and I just took on a new case this morning and they’re already working on it. I need to join them as soon as we finish here.”

  “Well, then let’s not waste another minute,” Henry said, gesturing toward the overstuffed chair where Clay and Elliott had each sat. He switched on the recorder and set it on the coffee table between them. Henry Mandell flipped over the last page of his yellow legal pad and sat poised with his pencil. “What I’d like to do,” he said, “is have you start at the point where you come into the picture and give me a little background on yourself, if you don’t mind.”

  “Sure,” Gloria said. “Well, I guess we’d have to go back nearly three years to when Clay had his first heart attack. That’s when Elliott hired me to take up the slack in his business.”

  Henry held up one finger. “If I may interrupt for a second,” he said. “If I find you’re telling me something that Clay or Elliott has already told me, I can stop you and you can go on to another part of the story. That’ll get you out of here quicker. Would that be all right, Gloria?”

  “Sure,” Gloria said. “What has Elliott already told you about when I started?”

  Henry flipped a few pages back and stopped when he found the part he was looking for. He paraphrased, “Clay had his first heart attack, Elliott interviewed you for the job, you had all the qualifications.” He skipped ahead half a page. “Master of disguise, skilled marksman, Tae-Kwon-Do expert and licensed private eye. Is that accurate?”

  “In a nutshell, yes,” Gloria said. “What is there left to tell you about?”

  “Tell me about some of your most interesting cases,” Henry said. “Tell me about how you and Elliott eventually became a couple. Tell me about your family. Anything you’d like to tell me that might make a good storyline for the book.”

  “Well,” Gloria said, “The first time I worked for Elliott, we really didn’t see each other in anyway other than professional partners. We remained at arm’s length until Clay was well enough to come back to work, at which time I quit, since there wasn’t enough work to support three people. Then when Clay had his second heart attack, Elliott called me to come back in and it was during that time that we made a connection. I can’t explain it. We just clicked that second time around.”

  Henry jotted down a few notes to himself and then said, “So what did you do in between those two times you worked for The Coopers? How did you support yourself?”

  “Well,” Gloria said, “I came to work for The Coopers because my dad had recently died and I didn’t have enough working capital to keep the business going.”

  “Yes,” Henry said, “Elliott mentioned something about that. He said you were able to get by on your father’s life insurance while you looked for other work.”

  “Okay,” Gloria said. “Then how about if I tell you about my first case working with Elliott?”

  “That would be fine,” Henry said.

  “Actually, it was a case that my father and I had taken just before he was killed,” Gloria said. “I told Elliott about it, since he didn’t have a current case for us to work on. We had to track
down a stolen guitar.”

  “A stolen guitar,” Henry said. “I wouldn’t think the owner of the guitar would spend more on two private eyes than the guitar would be worth.”

  “You would think that, Henry,” Gloria told him. “But this was no ordinary guitar. If memory serves, it was a 1959 Gibson ES-335 worth somewhere in the neighborhood of thirty thousand dollars.”

  Henry looked up from his yellow pad. “Did you say thirty thousand dollars?” he said with some amazement.

  “That’s right,” Gloria said. “Who knew those things appreciated with age? One recently sold in England for eighty thousand and they go even higher if there’s a celebrity connection. You could have bought that guitar new in ‘59 for a little more than two hundred fifty dollars.”

  “And did you find it?” Henry said.

  “We got to the bottom of the case, but the outcome wasn’t what the owner expected,” Gloria said.

  “Why not?” Henry asked.

  “Because someone else got involved and tried to substitute a Chinese knockoff in its place,” Gloria explained. “It wasn’t pretty.”

  “So,” Henry said. “Not only did you come to Cooper Investigations with all the right credentials, you also brought a case with you. It doesn’t get any better than that, does it?”

  “I guess not,” Gloria said modestly.

  “Tell me some more about some of your most memorable cases,” Henry said.

  “Did Elliott tell you about the case we took that required us to ride the train to Flagstaff?” Gloria said.

  “As a matter of fact, he did,” Henry said. “What else have you got for me?”

  “Well,” Gloria said, “you may find this interesting. Seems there was this old guy, he had to be in his eighties. Apparently he had crossed paths with Clay’s father, Matt back in the forties. Well, he had served a decade or five behind bars and got out in his late eighties. The guy sure knew how to hold a grudge and came looking for anyone connected with his case from all those years ago. And he still knew how to kill people.”

  “In his eighties?” Henry said.

  Gloria nodded. “And who would have suspected an old guy like that?” she said. “He had the perfect camouflage, just walking around in plain sight. No one would have thought to be afraid of him, and that was their mistake.”

  “Were you able to stop him?” Henry said.

  “In a roundabout way,” Gloria said. “When we caught up with him, the excitement was too much for him and he dropped dead right there in front of us from a heart attack. Ain’t that a kick in the pants?”

  Henry made a few notes on his pad and circled one area for emphasis. “I like that one,” he said. “That will be one of the highlights of this book and hopefully the movie, as well.” He finished scribbling on his pad, looked up at Gloria and said, “Would you like to tell me a little about your family, Gloria?”

  “Which one?” she said. “My family before I got involved with The Coopers, or as part of the Cooper family?”

  “Since this is about The Coopers,” Henry explained, “how about if you tell me about your family with Elliott and,” he looked through his notes. “What was your son’s name again?”

  “Matthew Clayton Elliott Cooper,” Gloria said. “We named him for Elliott’s grandfather, father and him.”

  Henry smiled widely. “Another nugget that readers and movie-goers will eat up with a spoon,” Henry said. “Go on.”

  “Do you see the irony here, Henry?” Gloria said. “Someday little Matt will take over the investigations business, becoming the fourth generation of Coopers to carry on. Someday there will be another Matt Cooper, Private Eye, and we find that very satisfying.”

  Henry scribbled furiously on his pad, circling what he written, several time. He looked up at Gloria. “This is going to be one hell of a project,” he said. “It has all the elements—crime, mystery, love, suspense, family and who knows what else will surface during these interviews.”

  Gloria glanced at her wrist watch and sprung from the chair. “Look at the time,” she said. “I didn’t mean to spend this much time here. I’ve got a case I need to be working on. Do you have everything you need from me, Henry?”

  “For now,” Henry said. “Like I told Clay and Elliott, I’d like to sit down with all three of you for the final interview and see if we can find a common thread to piece all of this information together into a book. Does that work for you, Gloria?”

  “That’ll be fine,” Gloria said, heading for the door. “We can talk about it another time. I have to get going. Thank you, Henry.”

  Before Henry could answer her, the door had closed behind Gloria. She sprinted down the hall to the elevator and rode it to the lobby. She found her car and hurried back to the office. She called Elliott’s cell phone and got him on the second ring.

  “Elliott Cooper,” I said.

  “Elliott,” Gloria said. “Where are you and Clay? What are you doing? What do you want me to do?”

  “We’re at Lucas’s house,” I said. “There’s no one here. We tried his phone and no one answers. Dad and I are heading over to Willoughby’s competitors. There were three of them on Willoughby’s list. We can save a lot of time if each of us takes one of those names and follows up on it. Oh, and one more thing. Willoughby asked that we not tell the competitors why we’re visiting them. He figures if they get wind that Lucas is trying to freelance the formula to any of them, that they’ll take an active part in seeking him out and that’ll make all our jobs just that much harder.”

  “All right,” Gloria said. “Who’s going where?”

  “Dad’s going to Excelsior Bottling on Melrose Avenue,” I said. “I’m going to see the president of Bubble Bright Soda downtown.”

  “What does that leave for me?” Gloria said.

  “I’d like you to go and see a man named Herbert Beaumont at the Sundrop Sodas,” I said. “They’re over on Ripple Street, northeast of Silver Lake. You know where that is?”

  “Sure do,” Gloria said. “I’m on my way. Are we all meeting someplace afterwards?”

  “We’ll all keep in touch by phone,” I said. “We’ll probably decide on some central location when we’re all finished.”

  “Catch you later,” Gloria said, and closed her phone. She drove east toward Glendale and the Silver Lake district. Ripple Street was nestled in a little triangle between the Golden State Freeway, the Glendale Freeway and the Los Angeles River. She parked in the lot next to the main office and found a receptionist sitting behind the counter when she walked in.

  “Good morning,” the woman behind the counter said. Her name plaque identified her as Helen Baker.

  “Good morning,” Gloria said. “My name is Gloria Cooper. Would it be possible to speak with Mr. Beaumont?”

  Helen Baker looked down at several sheets that were clipped to a clipboard and then back up at Gloria. “Mr. Beaumont is in a meeting at the moment. Can anyone else help you?”

  “What about your head of personnel?” Gloria said.

  “I’m sorry,” Helen said. “We’re not accepting any applications at the moment. Perhaps if you wish to leave your application with me, I can file it away for when they are looking to hire.”

  “Thanks,” Gloria said, “but I’m not looking for a job.” She pulled her I.D. and shield out of her purse and held them up for the receptionist to see, but only briefly. “Actually, I’m looking into some irregularities in the bottling business. Who can I talk to regarding production?”

  “Yes, of course,” Helen said, straightening up in her chair and grabbing her phone. “I’ll see who’s available for you. Just a moment, please.” A moment later she hung up her phone and looked up at Gloria. “Mr. Penrose will see you in just a minute.”

  “Thank you,” Gloria said, slipping her I.D. case back into her purse. In less than a minute, the door behind the receptionist opened and a stout man with a semi-circle of gray hair emerged. He walked straight toward Gloria and held out his hand.

&nb
sp; “Miss Cooper?” Penrose said.

  “Mrs. Cooper,” Gloria told him.

  “What can I do for you today?” Penrose said.

  “Is there someplace we can talk in private?” Gloria said.

  “Certainly,” Penrose said, directing Gloria into his office. He gestured toward a chair across from his desk and invited Gloria to sit. Penrose sat behind his desk and gave Gloria his undivided attention.

  “Mr. Penrose,” Gloria said, “we’re looking into certain irregularities in the bottling industry. I’m not at liberty to go into detail with you, but what we’d like to know is if anyone has approached your company offering their services in your research and development departments.”

  Penrose shook his head, his two chins wiggling even after his head had stopped shaking. “No one has come to us, Mrs. Cooper. We’ve had the same R&D crew for the past six years. Mr. Beaumont is very particular about who we hire, especially when it comes to R&D. This is a very competitive business, after all.”

  “So I’ve been told,” Gloria said. “If anyone had approached your company, would you know about it, Mr. Penrose?”

  “I’m am second only to Mr. Beaumont around here,” Penrose said. “If anything happens in this company he and I would know about it. We don’t share much with the other managers below me. No, I’m sure we haven’t had anyone like that around here.”

  Gloria rose from her chair. “Well, thank you for your time, Mr. Penrose,” she said. “I can show myself out.”

  Penrose studied Gloria for a moment as she was leaving. “Which branch of law enforcement did you say you were with, Mrs. Cooper?” he said.

  Gloria’s eyes shifted back and forth and landed on Penrose’s face. “I didn’t,” she said with a stern look playing on her face. “And I was never here. Do you understand, Mr. Penrose?”

  “Certainly,” Penrose said. “Confidentiality, I understand.”

  Gloria closed the office door behind her and finally let her face smile. Some people can be so gullible, she thought.

  Clay Cooper headed west on Melrose Avenue and turned south on LaBrea for several blocks. The building labeled Excelsior Bottling was smaller than Clay had imagined. This was no doubt just the corporate headquarters. Their bottling plant must be located somewhere else. Clay parked out on the street and walked to the main entrance of the company.