“Don’t be a smart ass,” I said. “I don’t like this any better than you do, but if we ignore it and another complaint comes in, the lieutenant and the captain will have our ass in a sling. And leave that thing in the car when we go in. The lieutenant told us to go out there and just walk in and have a drink, don’t ask for any meals, but if somebody comes up and offer us a meal. He said we should take it and eat the meal and then make the arrest.”
“Is this for real?” Burns said. “You’re right, this is a shitty assignment.”
We pulled the unmarked patrol car to the curb and got out. Burns and I walked into the tavern, took two seats at the bar and ordered two beers. A young waitress came up to the two and said, “Would you two like to have some chicken?”
I turned to her and said, “Well, how much does it cost?”
“Nothing,” the waitress said, “it’s free.”
I turned to Burns and nodded. Burns nodded back. I turned to the waitress. “Sure,” I told her. “We’ll both have some.”
A moment later the waitress returned with two plates of chicken and said, “I don’t have a table right now, the place was packed, but I can put it on the bar and you can start eating. As soon as I get a table free, I’ll call you over.”
I told the girl that that would be fine. She brought two orders of chicken and potatoes and cole slaw. We hadn’t finished half our meal when the waitress returned and told us that she has a table available. She led the two of us over to the table and set our plates in front of us again. When Burns and I had cleaned our plates, the waitress returned and asked us if we would like some more chicken.
“I patted my stomach and said, “No thank you, but can you tell the owner I’d like to talk to him, please?”
The waitress looked puzzled. “Was everything all right?” she said.
I waved her off. “Everything was excellent,” I said. “I know him and just wanted to talk to him for a minute.”
The waitress heaved a sigh of relief. “I’ll send him right over,” she said.
A few seconds later the manager, a friend of mine named Barry Franklin, stopped at our table. He smiled when he recognized me. “As I live and breathe,” Barry said. “If it isn’t Daniel P Hollister in the flesh. What brings you here?”
I stood and shook Barry’s hand and leaned in close so he could whisper. “Is there someplace we could talk, Barry?” I said in a low tone.
“Sure,” Barry said, a question creeping onto his face. “Follow me.” Barry led the two of us into the kitchen and then turned to me. “What’s the problem, Dan?”
“Barry,” I said, gesturing toward Burns. “This is my partner, Jerry Burns. I don’t know quite how to say this, but my lieutenant received a complaint about you giving away the free chicken dinners.”
“Well, that’s my loss and nobody else’s business,” Barry said.
“I wish it were that easy,” I said. “Fact is that there’s still a law on the books against giving away anything but snack foods like cheese and crackers and whatnot. I know, it’s a shitty law, but if I don’t enforce it, I’ll be out looking for a new job. I hope you understand, Barry.”
“Are you saying what I think you’re saying, Dan?” Barry said. “You’re here to arrest me?”
“I’m afraid so, Barry,” I said. “I’m really sorry, but you see the bind I’m in here?”
Barry Franklin held his wrists out in front of me. “Take me away,” he said. “But I gotta tell you, I got a bad back so I won’t be any good at breaking up rocks with a sledge hammer.”
“Come on, Barry,” I said. “I don’t like this any more than you do, and cuffs won’t be necessary. We just have to take you to the precinct and book you. You can be back here in forty-five minutes after you post bail.”
“Bail?” Barry said. “How much is that going to be?”
“Probably just fifty bucks or so,” I told him. “You’ll get it back after your court appearance. The judge will probably just give you a fine to pay and let it go at that. I’ll even see if I can put in a word for you and get the whole thing dropped with a promise not to do it again.”
The three of us drove back to the precinct where I filled out the paperwork, collected Barry’s bail money and then drove him back to the bar again. Before he pulled away, I turned to my friend and said, “Please, Barry, just stop giving away the chicken dinners and we won’t have any more trouble. Okay?”
Barry promised that he would stop giving away free chicken dinners, I shook his hand and apologized again for having to carry out the arrest.
The following Friday another complaint call came into the station and once again the lieutenant gave the assignment to me and Burns. This time we arrived in our uniforms and asked to see the manager. The waitress sent him over and Barry greeted us with a smile and a handshake.
“Dan,” Barry said in a cheerful voice. “Come on in. Have a set, both of you. Would you like a couple of chicken dinners?”
I looked sideways at my friend. “Really?” I said. “How much?”
“One cent,” Barry said. “I gotta tell you, Dan, when you came last week and arrested me, I was pretty pissed, but as it turns out, you did me a favor. I asked around and some people figured that if we were giving chicken dinners away, that there must be something wrong with it and some people stayed away. But let me tell you, if people have to pay at least something for it, then they consider it a bargain, so I just advertised the same chicken dinner for one cent and just look at the place. It’s packed even more than it was last week. And you know what? The real money is in the drinks. We probably have a hundred people in here right now and we only have seating for thirty. The ones who are waiting for a table are spending money at the bar and I’m cleaning up. Thanks, buddy.”
I had to smile at the way things turned out for my friend. “It’s all part of the service,” I said, and saluted Barry Franklin before I left the bar and returned to the precinct, whistling all the way back.
It was late fall of 1944 when I got an assignment from the lieutenant that changed my attitude about patrolling residences when the homeowners were out of town. I was patrolling the Beverly Hills area with Officer Matt Cooper one night. We had a list of four residences to check after dark. All four couples had called the precinct to let us know that they’d be on vacation and that they wanted officers to patrol the neighborhood and to especially check their door and windows while they were away. We did this routinely for five nights in a row. On the sixth night we pulled into the driveway of a house in the six hundred block of Foothill Road and got out to have a look around.
The front of the house sported a semi-circle horseshoe driveway and an immaculately trimmed lawn with shaped hedges against the house. I checked the front doorknob while Cooper went around to the back door, checking windows as he went. The front door was locked, as were the windows facing the street. When I came around to the back of the house, Officer Cooper had just finished checking the last of the rear windows. He moved over to the back door and twisted the knob. It turned freely and he quickly looked up at me. We had checked this house five nights in a row and it had been locked. The people who lived here weren’t due home for another two days.
We both drew our .38 revolvers and quietly stepped into the kitchen. Our flashlights lit up our path as we made our way through the house. To my left was a door leading to the basement. To my right was a long hallway with doors on either side of it. Officer Cooper was four steps ahead of me as we tiptoed down the hall. As he shined his flashlight into one of the rooms on the left, I could see over his shoulder that the door on the right at the far end of the hall was opening.
I shined my flashlight down the hall and found myself looking at five dogs that came charging toward us, with a large German Shepherd leading the pack. I turned and ran as fast as I could. Cooper was a few steps behind me. I made it to the basement door and quickly opened it, stepped around it and closed it again, with Cooper still on the other side in the kitchen.
&nb
sp; Officer Cooper jumped up on top of the cupboard, trying hard to keep his hands and feet out of reach of the dogs’ snarling, snapping jaws. He spotted a chandelier hanging from the kitchen ceiling and for a brief moment entertained thoughts of trying to jump from the countertop to the light fixture. He stood up on the countertop and reached his hands out. If he jumped, he thought, he could make it. But what if the chandelier didn’t hold his weight and he crashed to the kitchen floor on it? If the fall didn’t hurt him, the dogs most surely would have.
Before he had a chance to think any more about jumping, the kitchen light came on and a man with a revolver stood there, pointing his gun at Officer Cooper. He called the dogs off and herded them back into the bedroom before returning to the kitchen. By now I had come back out from behind the basement door to find Officer Cooper with his hand over his heart. He was sweating and breathing hard by the time he stepped back down onto the kitchen floor.
The man looked at the two of us but hadn’t lowered his gun. “I almost shot you,” he said, looking at Officer Cooper. “What are you two doing in here?”
I rested my hand on the revolver in my holster and looked at Livingston. “Lay the gun down on the counter,” I said.
Livingston complied. I stepped over and took the gun, tucking it in my waistband. “First off,” I said, “who are you?”
“I own this house,” the man said. “My name’s Livingston, Randolph Livingston.”
By this time a woman in a bathrobe came into the kitchen. “Randolph,” she said. “What are these policemen doing in our kitchen at this time of night?”
“What are you doing here?” Randolph said.
“We’re doing what you told us to do,” I said. “We were making our rounds and checking doors and windows and found your back door unlocked.”
Evelyn Livingston shot her husband and angry look. “I thought you said the doors were locked before you came to bed.”
Randolph shrugged. “Must have missed that one,” he said.
“Honestly, Randolph,” Evelyn said, “If I want something done right I have to do it myself.”
I pulled a notepad from my shirt pocket and found the page with Livingston’s request on it. “It says here,” I told him as I read from the page, “that you would be gone until Monday. Today’s only Saturday.”
“Well,” Randolph said, “we decided to come home early since Evelyn wasn’t feeling well.”
“If you come home early,” I said, “the thing to do is call the precinct and cancel your watch order.”
“We did,” Randolph said. “At least, Evelyn said she was going to do that.” He turned to look at his wife. She averted her eyes from his and suddenly we all knew what had happened. Randolph turned to his wife and said, ““Honestly, Evelyn, if I want something done right I have to do it myself.”
I couldn’t help but let out a little snicker. Officer Cooper didn’t find it as funny as I did. When we got back to the patrol car we called in to cancel the Livingston’s watch order and drove back to the station.
“Maybe that’s what you need, Cooper,” I said.
“What, a wife like that?” he said. “No thanks. I’ll keep the one I have.”
“Not a wife,” I said. “A dog.”
Cooper failed to see the humor and we rode back to the station in silence. When we got back I made a deal with Cooper. If he’d drop the silent treatment, I wouldn’t tell anyone else about his kitchen encounter with Rin Tin Tin and his pals. He agreed.
The following summer turned out to be hotter than any on record up to this point. Tempers flared and a lot of otherwise friendly people suddenly found themselves with a lot shorter fuse. Argument and fight calls to the station tripled in July and even the cops’ nerves were on edge. If we didn’t get relief soon, there was no telling what might happen.
I had been partnered with Matt Cooper once again. We were riding patrol in the seedier section of Hollywood, checking doors and windows. I had found the back door of a local Elk’s club standing slightly ajar. I called out of service and we went in with our flashlights and guns. We came back to a furnace room area where there are all pipes and electrical boxes converged on the back wall. Cooper and I walked through that part of the club and found that it opened up through a doorway into their restaurant area where there were tables and chairs. We searched the restaurant area and found out that the place had been burglarized.
They had a large wall safe that had been broken into and a smaller upright safe on the stand that had also been ransacked. I turned around and shined my light into the dining room and saw a table that was turned over on its side and in that instant, all I saw was two guys crouched down behind a table with guns in their hands pointing right at us. I hollered, “Police” and just about the time I heard it, I heard them holler “Police.” I didn’t shoot, but I hollered out, “Who’s in there?”
“Detectives Rafferty and Lewis,” the voice in the dark said. “Who are you?”
“Sergeant Dan Hollister,” I said, “and Officer Matt Cooper.” I signaled Matt to turn on the overhead lights and once the room lit up, the two detectives stood up. Everyone let out a deep sigh and holstered their guns.
Rafferty turned to me. “Two other officers found the back door open earlier tonight and called in a burglary. We also got a tip that the place was going to be hit again so we came here to stake it out. We left the back door open so they could get in easier.”
“It would have been nice if you had let someone at the precinct know you were going to be in here,” I said. “I almost shot you both.”
“You almost shot us?” Detective Lewis said. “We almost shot you two.”
Rafferty stepped up. “We did call this in to the captain earlier tonight,” he told me. “The captain said he’d notify all the officers on the night duty about this setup.”
“Well, he didn’t,” Cooper almost screamed. “That son-of-a-bitch almost got us killed.”
I turned to Matt. “Take it easy, Cooper,” I said.
“Take it easy?” Cooper said. “You take it easy. I’ve had it, and I’m going to tell the captain just what I think of him when I get back there.”
“We’d better get out of here,” I told Rafferty, “so you two can get back to your stakeout.” I turned to Matt but he’d already stormed out the back door and was waiting in the car when I got there.
I slid beneath the wheel but before I started the patrol car I turned to Matt and said, “Look, it happens. It was an honest mistake. Granted, it was a serious oversight on the captain’s part, but it was just a mix-up. Just try to cool down. Tomorrow, after you’ve had time to think about it, you’ll be glad you held your tongue. Don’t worry, Cooper, I’ll make sure the captain knows how close we came tonight to buying the farm.”
“You tell him anything you want,” Cooper said. “I’m done. Not tomorrow, not at the end of this shift. I’m done right now. You can let me off at the station.”
“Are you sure this is what you want?” I told Cooper. “You’re weighing one bad night against a lifelong career.”
“What career?” Cooper said. “If it ain’t the captain, it’s you. You’re always riding my ass and I’ve had it. I don’t see things getting any better around here, either. I’ll wash dishes or pump gas before I’ll subject myself to anymore abuse from anyone with a uniform and a Messiah complex.”
“Matt,” I said. “Come on, think about what you’re doing. You’re just making things worse for yourself. I’m sure losing Stella isn’t making you think any clearer, either. I’m sorry for that, but you still need to go on with your life.”
Cooper’s wife, Stella had been killed in a holdup at the grocery store just a month earlier and it had taken a lot out of him. I took all this into consideration and tried to step lightly around him. I tried talking to Matt on the way back to the precinct, but he had his mind made up, stepped out of the car and was gone before I could find a place to park it. By the time I got back inside, Cooper was already coming out of the
captain’s empty office. He headed for the door to the parking lot but I stopped him in the hall.
“You tell that fat bastard when he comes in tomorrow that I’m all done,” Cooper said and stormed out of the building before I could reply.
I sensed that Matt hadn’t been happy here for some time, but I couldn’t put my finger on it. Some guys just aren’t cut out to carry a badge and a gun, I guess. A week later I learned that Cooper had applied for a gun permit and a private investigator’s license. So much for my badge and gun theory.
A few weeks later I had heard from the beat cop in Matt’s neighborhood that he’d opened an office on Hollywood Boulevard and was already working on a case of his own. I gave him his space and hoped he’d do well with his new venture.
In the summer of 1947 Matt Cooper and I were working on a case that involved seemingly random victims of a sniper. They didn’t turn out to be so random once we’d figured out that parts of each victim’s license plate number contained parts of the overall clue we were looking for. Officer Burns and I had been pinned down behind a parked car while the sniper took pot shots at us from the roof across the street. Matt had managed to make his way to the building and up to the roof and was able to get the drop on the sniper, killing him, but not before the sniper had killed Officer Jerry Burns with a single shot to the chest.
As we stood on the sidewalk that afternoon, looking down at the body of Leo Bettencourt, the sniper, I was finally able to let out the breath I’d been holding. I extended my hand to Matt. “I owe you one, Cooper,” I said. Matt took my hand, shook it once and released it. I looked back toward the Chevy where Jerry Burns’ body lay.
“I wish I could have gotten to Bettencourt sooner,” Matt said.
“I know,” I said. “Burns was a good man and I owe him my life. It’s going to be hard to replace him.”
Matt and I walked back to the squad car. By now the street was filled with flashing red lights and uniformed cops. The neighborhood was alive with the buzzing of people curious to see what all the commotion was about. The random killing spree had come to an end and I was anxious to get back to my office and try to find some semblance of normalcy again.
The Complete Cooper Collection (All 97 Stories) Page 267