The Complete Cooper Collection (All 97 Stories)

by Bernico, Bill

  Shane replied, “Well the hell with him, leave him there, I’m not going to go back in there again.”

  “John, we have to,” I said. “We can’t leave him there in the wrong house. What’ll happen when the owners come home and find him there?”

  Officer Shane thought about it and finally agreed with me. We went back into the house again, went back up the stairs, turned the lights on and picked him up off the bed. “As we were carrying him down the stairs, the doorway from the lower apartment opened and a guy in pajamas stuck his head out to see what the commotion was all about. “What are you guys doing anyway?” he said, looking at me specifically.

  “Do you know this guy here?” I said, gesturing toward the unconscious Ed Harding.

  Pajama guy looked down at Ed and said, “I’ve never seen him before in my life.”

  “Well, that’s what I thought,” I told pajama guy. “We thought he lived here so we’re taking him down to the station.”

  Pajama guy said, “Oh, fine, thanks officers.”

  And that’s just what we did. We took him down to the station and threw him in the drunk tank. Ted thanked Shane and me and promised that this was the last time we’d ever have to cover for his brother. We never got any calls on Ed Harding anymore after that.

  *****

  I was meeting Matt Cooper for coffee one morning in April of 1962. We usually met at the Copper Penny in Glendale, but this morning I asked him to meet me at The Gold Cup on Hollywood Boulevard. When I walked in Matt was already sitting in a booth waiting for me.

  “Morning, Matt,” I said, and slid in across from him.

  “What’s with the long face, Dan?” Matt said.

  “You remember Jack Walsh?” I said.

  “Sure,” Matt said. “County Medical Examiner, if I remember. What about him?”

  “Former medical examiner,” I said. “Andy Reynolds is the M.E. these days. Jack retired three months ago.”

  “Retired?” Matt said. “Was he old enough to retire?”

  “Sixty-five,” I told Matt. “I know, he didn’t look it, did he?”

  “He sure didn’t,” Matt said. “What’s he doing to keep himself busy these days?”

  “Actually, Matt,” I said. “Jack died this morning from a heart attack. He was found in his fishing boat floating in the lake.”

  “Oh, Dan,” Matt said. “I’m sorry to hear that. Jack was one of the good guys.”

  “Reynolds has some big shoes to fill,” I said.

  “I guess so,” Matt said. “Is that why you wanted to see me this morning, Dan?”

  “Not really,” I said. “It’s Dean.”

  “Dean?” Matt said. “Your boy’s all right, isn’t he?”

  I shrugged. “It’s some of the bigger boys at school,” I told Matt. “They’ve been picking on Dean and he’s still a little too timid to stand up for himself. I’ve been meaning to go a little one-on-one with him and teach him a few defensive moves, but I’ve been a little busy lately.”

  “And you want me to teach him to fight?” Matt said.

  I shook my head. “Not exactly,” I said. “I was hoping Clay could maybe keep an eye on him until I can teach Dean to fight.”

  “You want my son to act as a kind of body guard for yours?” Matt said.

  “Clay’s a year older than Dean,” I said, “and he’s in the seventh grade. It’s some of those seventh graders who are picking on Dean and I thought Clay could handle it a little more diplomatically that I would. I’m afraid I’d just be too tempted to grab them by their shoulder and bang their heads together.”

  “Like Moe did to Larry and Curly,” Matt said.

  “Only without the comical sound effects,” I said. “Would you talk to Clay about it? I’d really appreciate it.”

  “I’m sure Clay wouldn’t mind being a surrogate big brother for a while,” Matt said. “I’ll let him know about Dean’s situation tonight at dinner. Don’t worry about it.”

  “Thanks, Matt,” I said. We finished our coffee and Matt returned to his office on the boulevard. I drove back to the twelfth precinct feeling a little relieved. I’d make a point to set aside some time for Dean this weekend and teach him how to defend himself.

  *****

  My son, Dean and Matt’s son, Clay grew close over the next few years. The summer Clay turned fifteen was the summer that The Beatles’ second movie, Help! Came out. Clay had even bought himself a guitar and had learned a few songs on it. Dean, however, didn’t share his enthusiasm for the modern music. Still the two boys had grown up together and had become close friends.

  Matt and his second wife, Amy, had gone to a movie of their own that August night in 1965. On their way home, to save a little time, they decided to take the shortcut through the park. It turned out to be a fatal mistake for Amy. She and Matt were mugged mid-way through the park. Matt had been stabbed and left for dead, while Amy had been raped and beat to death with a length of pipe. I swore to Matt that our department would do everything in its powers to find the three punks who had done this.

  A little of Matt had been killed along with Amy. He was a shell of his former self when we was finally released from the hospital. I knew he’d be going after the killer on his own, and as much as I wanted to remind him that it was a police matter, I couldn’t blame him at all for wanting to do something about it himself. He did and I never pressed the issue. One of the killer was squashed under a pile of lumber at the lumber yard. We took the other two into custody, but not before someone had managed to break their arms and legs and leave them lying where we could find them. Those were two of the easiest arrests we’d ever made.

  *****

  Seven years later, in the spring of 1972, Dean had joined the police academy shortly before his twenty-first birthday. Matt’s son, Clay, had joined his father in the private investigations business a year earlier. With very little help from me and without me having to use my influence in the department, Dean moved up the ranks and by the time I retired in 1975, Dean felt he was ready to take his sergeant’s exam.

  I’d been retired for less than a year when Dean made sergeant. He hadn’t passed his exam the first time around and spent the next ten months as an officer on patrol. The second time around, Dean passed with flying colors and got his sergeant stripes. They gave him my old office and to me it felt like the carousel ride of life had come full circle. I guess could relax in my retirement now, knowing that another Hollister would be picking up where I had left off.

  *****

  On February 16, 1980 Dean and Clay stood up near the altar, each of them also dressed in a tuxedo, looking like a couple of trained penguins. They each had another man their own age standing alongside them. I assumed these were the best men. Beside them each stood just one woman in a light pink formal dress. These had to be the maids of honor for Veronica, Clay’s partner, and Helen, the woman who was to marry Dean. I looked around the room. With accommodations for sixty people, this place could still bring in another forty more people before they’d be at capacity. I guess this ceremony came with too little notice for most people to be able to make it.

  The whole ceremony took less than twenty minutes, including the vows, the music and the witnessing of the documents later in the pastor’s office. It was almost like the express line at the grocery store—twelve items or less, or in this case, twelve minutes or less.

  When the three couples, the two married couples and the witnesses, emerged from the office holding their wedding licenses, the small crowd in the church clapped and lined the door leading out to the street. As the two newlywed couples exited, the people on either side of them threw the rice they’d brought for just this moment. Altogether, there wasn’t enough rice thrown to make a decent side dish for supper. The two couples got into a waiting limousine and were driven away. I knew where they were going and had Matt drive me there. We got there almost before the new married couples arrived.

  The reception was held in the back room of a Denny’s Restaurant on C
olorado Boulevard in Glendale. The crowd of fewer than twenty people filed in and found seats at the tables with their names on small folded cards. Without further fanfare, and with everyone seated, the meals were brought in and placed on each of the tables. Before anyone took a single bite, Matt clinked the side of his glass with his fork and stood.

  “If I may,” Matt said. “I’d like to propose a toast to my son, Clay Cooper and his new wife Veronica.” Everyone raised their glasses and drank. “I’d also like to propose a toast to Mrs. and Mrs. Dean Hollister.” Glasses were raised again and everyone drank. Before Matt sat down he said,” And one last toast, if you will all indulge me for a moment. To my best friend Dan Hollister, the father of the other groom. Here’s to you, my friend.” Everyone drank and Matt raised his glass directly to me, drank, gave me a wink and sat back down again.

  The rest of the evening was surely one to remember. A lone musician provided music that night with an accordion. He was all we could come up with on such short notice. Near the end of the night, after several drinks and dances, my wife, Laverne lost her footing and fell down a short flight of stairs, breaking her right leg. When Matt saw her the following day she was wearing a full-length cast on that leg and she walked really funny with those crutches.

  A month later Matt stopped by to see his son and his new daughter-in-law at their new house. His long face gave him away almost instantly.

  “What is it, Dad?” Clay said.

  “Dan Hollister died this morning,” Matt said. “Dean and Laverne were at his bedside when he passed away peacefully. Just a few seconds after Dan had taken his last breath, Laverne looked out the bedroom window and poked Dean in the elbow. At that very moment a Monarch butterfly was drifting past the window, its wings fluttering in the breeze. Laverne told Dean, ‘He’s free now’.”

  Veronica sniffed and dapped at her eyes with a handkerchief. Clay turned away, embarrassed to let anyone see his eyes welling up.

  Dan Hollister’s funeral was held on the following Friday. Ironically it rained that morning after not having rained for nearly four months. The attendees for Dan’s funeral outnumbered the people at the double wedding ten times over. Dan got a full police funeral with a procession of motorcycle cops leading the hearse and a dozen patrol cars following close behind. Policemen lined either side of the grave, their white gloves all in a row, looking like trained doves.

  During the prayer reading, Matt stood back behind the rest of the crowd. He didn’t want anyone to see him crying like a baby under his umbrella. They lowered Dan’s casket into the ground and then Dean and Laverne stepped up to the mound of dirt and each of them grabbed a handful, tossing it into the grave. The usually stalwart Dean broke down, as did his mother. Clay came over to where Matt was standing by himself and wrapped an arm around his father’s shoulder, pulling him close.

  “How are you doing, dad?” Clay said.

  “He was a good man, son,” Matt said. “I’m really going to miss him.”

  “So am I, Dad,” Clay said.

  Veronica joined Clay and Matt and the three of them walked back to Clay’s car together. They drove back to Dean and Veronica’s house. The three of them sat on the porch with Dean and Helen, just rocking and enjoying the peaceful quiet of the day. They sat in awkward silence for several minutes, not sure who should break the silence or what they could possibly say.

  “You know,” Dean said, after a few minutes. “Dad was born the same year that Mark Twain died—1910. It was also the year that Haley’s Comet came into view again. It last appeared in 1835, the year Twain was born and he liked to tell people that he’d come in with the comet and would stick around long enough to see it again. He did, but dad missed it by five years.

  “You dad shone brighter than any comet,” Matt said.

  “I guess he did,” Dean said. “I guess he did.

  91 - Hell Is Other People

  Norman watches as she leaves the mall, headed toward her car in the lot. It’s the same woman. This is confirmed when she stops next to a red Chevy Nova and opens the door. Same car, no doubt about it. This is the same woman he’d encountered earlier that day. She balances her purchases on her knee as she opens the car’s rear door and deposits her packages on the rear seat. Without as much as a backwards glance, she slides in behind the wheel and before the engine has even started she’s on her cell phone.

  Norman checks his watch. Ten twenty-nine. The mall is closing for the night. He rolls up his own car window and starts his engine. His car falls in behind hers as she exits the mall parking lot. They drive for several blocks before the street leads out of town toward farm country. Nothing but back roads and darkness. No streetlights, no traffic, no witnesses.

  She drives into the night for ninety seconds before the engine begins to sputter. Norman can see her brake lights come on as the Chevy pulls to the shoulder. He’s still close enough to hear her attempts to restart the engine. But it’s useless. He knows the engine will not come to life with two cups of sugar in the fuel tank. Norman glances over at the empty sugar bag on his passenger seat and smiles to himself. She’s out of the car with the hood up as he pulls up behind her. He smiles broadly as he approaches. She has an exasperated look on her face as she looks up from the dead engine. How ironic, he thinks. The engine is as dead as she will soon be.

  Norman points to the area beneath the open hood. “Out of gas?” he asks, knowing full well she is not.

  “No,” she answers. “I still have more than half a tank. It just died on me.”

  “Let me have a look,” he says, even though he knows almost nothing about automobile engines. He knows just enough to disable them when the need arises.

  She turns to head back and looks toward her front seat where her cell phone rests in her purse. He looks her way. “You see this thing right here?” He points to some indefinite area on the engine.

  She stops, pivots and returns to the front of the car, bending over to have a look. “What am I supposed to be looking at?” She says, puzzled.

  Before she realizes that the guy is no longer at her side, she feels the hand with the moist cloth clamp over her mouth. She struggles for a few seconds before the black hole swallows her up. She goes limp in the stranger’s arms. Norman deposits her in the back seat of his car and drives off into the night.

  Consciousness swirls around her head as she blinks, trying to focus on her surroundings. She moves her head ever so slightly before she realizes that even that small movement causes her pain. She stops and blinks again. From almost directly over her head a single light bulb illuminates her small world. Her line of vision comes to rest on a workbench a dozen feet in front of her. She sees an assortment of hammers, saws, wrenches, drills and electrical cords. At the end of the workbench she can make out a small cast iron pot on a stand. Next to that there stands a dozen or so soldiers in various poses. She’d seen these figures before in her brother’s bedroom. Only they were molded in green plastic. These seemed to be cast in pewter or lead. She tries to turn her head to the side but quickly realizes that it’s been restrained with some sort of wide leather apparatus. She tries lifting her arms but they’ve been tied to the arms of the chair. Her legs won’t move, either. The long, plastic tie-wrap restraints around her ankles are tight and begin chaffing her. Beneath her she notices a large sheet of plastic laid out under the chair that holds her.

  From somewhere behind her she can hear the faint sounds of footsteps shuffling toward her. They sound like heavy footsteps and now they’re right behind her. A large hand grabs her shoulder and she jolts in her seat.

  Then the voice. A deep baritone voice that sounds like it’s coming up from a dry well. Low in volume at first and then louder. “Hello Stacey,” the voice says. “Comfortable?”

  How did this person know her name? And who was this person? Stacey figured whomever it was must have gone through her purse and then her wallet. But why? What did he want from her?

  “Who are you?” Stacey says, timidly. “What do
you want?”

  Norman leans down with his mouth to her ear. “You, Stacey. I want you.”

  Stacey feels something wet on the outer rim of her ear. His tongue. It probes and searches and winds its way into the inner part of her ear. She finds it strange that she could feel like laughing and screaming in terror at the same time. He withdraws his tongue and pulls her long blonde hair away from her neck and nuzzles it down to her shoulder. The small hairs on the nape of Stacey’s neck snap to attention and her arms fill with goose bumps.

  The chair vibrates with the effort she’s putting into freeing herself from the restraints. It’s no use. She can’t budge. She screams with all she has until she can scream no more. The baritone voice laughs a deep, guttural laugh that trails off. The figure steps in front of the chair and for the first time Stacey can get a good look at her captor.

  It’s the same man who stopped behind Stacey’s car and looked under her hood. Her eyes widen and she opens her mouth but the scream won’t come. Tears run down her cheeks and she whimpers. The man steps over to the workbench, picks up a small blowtorch and flicks his lighter under the nozzle. The flame jumps to life and the blowtorch hisses. He adjusts the dial at the back of the torch and the flame turns from red to blue with a white tip. The man turns toward Stacey and smiles a broad smile. She manages a scream.

  “Go ahead, Stacey, scream,” Norman says. “Scream all you like. No one can hear you.”

  She watches in horror, waiting for the man to step up to her but instead he turns his back toward her and picks up one lead soldier. He drops in into the cast iron pot. Then another and a third and a forth. Then he holds the torch flame into the pot and the toy soldiers melt into a bubbling mass. He picks up the cast iron pot with some sort of pliers-type device that wraps around the pot. He turns toward Stacey and take three steps toward her. Stacey can’t take her eyes off the still bubbling pot and he steps up right next to the chair that holds her tight.