The Complete Cooper Collection (All 97 Stories)

by Bernico, Bill

  By the time Christopher Gunther had regained consciousness, he realized that he had been secured by his ankles and wrists to a hard wooden chair. Straight ahead of him, Gunther could see a work bench, similar to the one in his work shop. He tried turning his head to take in more of his surroundings, but he could only see ninety degrees on either side of him. He had no idea what was behind him. The room was silent.

  “Hey,” Gunther yelled. “Hey, where are you?” No one answered. He tried pulling at his wrists but they wouldn’t budge. A moment later Gunther heard sounds from behind him. The sounds were those of Norman’s feet descending the basement stairway. Gunther turned his head to the left, trying to see where the noise was coming from. Norman stepped around to Gunther’s right, startling him.

  “Comfortable?” Norman said to his guest.

  “You let me out of here right now, do you hear me?” Gunther said.

  Norman gestured with his head toward Gunther’s wrists. “Doesn’t look to me like you’re in any position to demand anything,” he told his prisoner. “So just sit there and shut your mouth.”

  “What do you think you’re...” Gunther started to say before Norman backhanded him in the mouth.

  “I’m not going to tell you again,” Norman said, turning and walking back toward the work bench. He picked up a caulking gun and carried it back to Gunther. “Look familiar?” he said. “It should. Apparently it’s your tool of choice to cover up your shoddy workmanship.”

  Suddenly Gunther remembered where he’d seen this man before and a chill ran up his spine. “You,” he said.

  “Me,” Norman said. “Did you really think that by simply going bankrupt that you would get out of your commitments to me. You owe me more than two thousand dollars plus what I spent chasing you for it. It’s too bad you went bankrupt. It must mean that you don’t have any money to pay me with. And that only means one thing as far as I’m concerned. It means, Christopher, that I’ll have to take twenty-five hundred dollars worth out of your hide. How’s that sound, asshole?”

  “You can’t do this,” Gunther said.

  Norman smiled his wicked smile. “Watch me,” he said, raising the caulking gun to Gunther’s left nostril.

  Gunther quickly turned his head away, flailing it back and forth.

  Norman laid the caulking gun down and stared at Gunther. “I can see we’re going to have to do this another way,” he said, grabbing a long leather belt and wrapping it around Gunther’s head. Sticking up from the back of the wooden chair was a two-by-four that Norman had attached with several wood screws. Norman slipped the leather belt around the two-by-four and pulled it tight. Gunther’s head was held fast in the forward position. Norman picked up the calking gun again and held the open tip of the nozzle inside Gunther’s left nostril, pulling hard on the trigger until the brown calk completely filled Gunther’s nasal cavity.

  Gunther gagged when the excess calk began to enter his throat. He spit the excess calk out and began to gag. Norman moved the nozzle to the other nostril and squeezed, filling the other side of Gunther’s nose with calk. He stopped squeezing when Gunther began to gag again. He didn’t want to kill Gunther just yet. He had more fun in store for the man before it would all be over.

  Norman stood back to admire his handiwork. Some of the brown calk began to ooze out of Gunther’s nostrils. Norman slipped on a pair of surgical gloves and used his index finger to wipe the excess calk away, spreading it up the side of Gunther’s face.

  “That’s how you do it, isn’t it, Christopher?” Norman said. “In fact, this job I just did on your face looks even better than the job you did on my countertop, don’t you think?” Norman held a small mirror up so Gunther could see his own face and the calking job Norman had done on him.

  Gunther’s eyes shot a look at Norman that said he’d kill the guy if he could get loose. Norman would see that Gunther never got the chance. Norman set the calk gun back down on the workbench and picked up another tool that Gunther couldn’t see. When Norman turned back around to face Gunther, it became clear what the tool was and Gunther began to struggle against his restraints.

  “Recognize this?” Norman said. “I thought so. It’s an electric sander, you know, the thing one would use to smooth out seams so they don’t show. Oh, that’s right, you don’t do that, do you. Maybe it’s because you don’t know how to use a sander. Is that your problem? Well, I’m here to help and I’m going to give you a free lesson in the proper use of a sander. Shall we begin?”

  Norman pulled box cutter from his back pocket, slid the blade out an inch and quickly ran it across Gunther’s exposed forearm. It left a shallow gash that dripped blood onto the plastic sheet that had been spread out beneath Gunther and his chair. “Oh no,” Norman said. “That looks like a seam, doesn’t it. An unsightly seam that needs to be smoothed out. Okay, Christopher, here how you get rid of an unsightly seam.” He switched on the sander and edged closer to Gunther’s arm.

  Gunther screamed as the rotating belt made contact with the cut on his arm. Norman leaned into the sanding job, running the sander back and forth until the top layer of skin on Gunther’s arm was nothing more than a memory. Now the arm was really bleeding. Norman grabbed the cauterizing iron that had been heating beneath a blue flame and touched it to several places on Gunther’s arm. Gunther howled like a dog who’d been hit by a car.

  Norman returned the hot iron to the stand beneath the propane flame and picked up a small bottle. He opened the bottle and held it beneath Gunther’s nearly unconscious nose. Nothing happened and then Norman remembered that Gunther couldn’t smell anything if he’d wanted to. His nostrils were packed with calk. Norman grabbed his power drill and inserted a quarter-inch bit. He held the business end of the bit against the calk and started the drill. He pushed upward as hardened calk sprinkled out of the opening and onto the floor. Norman withdrew the drill bit and blood spilled out onto the floor. Gunther’s eyes flickered a few times and his head moved slightly, even though restrained with the strap.

  “Can’t have you sleeping through all this fun,” Norman said. “We still have a lot of work to do to get this job right.” He picked up a tape measure and pulled several inches out and let the tape slap back inside again. He repeated this three or four times as he walked toward Gunther.

  When he got close enough, Norman pulled the tape out again and laid it against the top of Gunther’s head, running the tape downward to his chin. He pulled the tape back again and examined the part that had touched Gunther’s chin. “Nine and a quarter inches,” Norman said, looking at the tape. “Let’s see what mine measures.” Norman stretched the tape from his head to his chin, examined the results and said, “Nine and eleven sixteenths exactly. Looks like you’re short seven sixteenths. Isn’t that a coincidence? That countertop you installed in my kitchen was seven sixteenths too short for the cabinet you attached it to. What are the odds? I think we’re going to have to fix that, even though you didn’t think it was important enough to bother with for me. Well, I happen to take a little more pride in my work than you do. Don’t you worry, Christopher. I won’t let you get by with less than perfection.”

  Gunther began to cry uncontrollably. His body convulsed and spasmed between sobs.

  “Settle down,” Christopher,” Norman said. “This is a minor fix. I’ll have you symmetrical in no time at all.” Norman turned back to his work bench again and selected the right tool for the right job. Then he picked up several popsicle sticks and carried them along with his new tool over to where Gunther waited.

  “What are you going to do?” Gunther said, as best he could with two nostrils full of calk.

  “You need another seven sixteenths added to come up to the standard,” Norman said. “Otherwise it’ll be noticeable and we wouldn’t want that, now would we, Christopher? Of course not. Hold still now. I wouldn’t want to have to do this twice.”

  Norman held one of the popsicle sticks up to Gunther’s chin and then pressed his latest tool, a power stapl
er, against the wooden stick and pulled the trigger. The inch-long staple easily penetrated the popsicle stick and drove itself another seven eights of an inch into Gunther’s chin.

  Gunther screamed an animal scream.

  “There,” Norman said. “That wasn’t so bad, now was it? And now your chin is another eight of an inch closer to perfection. Just three more to go and we’ll be there. Ready?”

  Gunther tried in vain to struggle but it was useless. Norman held the second wooden stick against the first one and drove another staple through it into Gunther’s chin. The crying started again, interspersed with moaning and convulsing.

  “That a quarter inch down and just three sixteenths to go,” Norman said, repeating the procedure two more times before standing back to admire his handiwork. He pulled his tape measure out again and measured the distance between Gunther’s head and chin. “Nine and three quarters. We went over by one sixteenth. Now I know you’d let that a shoddy workman like you would let that slide, but I take more pride in my work. Don’t worry, I can easily sand off that last sixteenth.”

  Norman grabbed the electric sander and pressed the trigger. The belt rotated and Norman pressed it to the last popsicle stick. A few seconds later, all four sticks broke loose from Gunther’s chin and fell to the floor.

  “Damn,” Norman said. “Looks like I’ll have to redo that last part.”

  Christopher Gunther violently shook in the chair, trying to free himself from his confines. It was no use. He opened his mouth wide, trying to breathe. A few seconds later Gunther passed out. Norman held the small bottle under the open nostril until Gunther came around again.

  “Tell you what, Christopher,” Norman said. “I think we can just leave it like it is. A little calk will cover that up and to tell you the truth, I don’t think people will notice.” Norman squeezed another bead of calk against Gunther’s chin and rubbed it smooth with his gloved finger. Gunther squirmed and moaned.

  Norman stood back, framed his hands like a movie director over Gunther’s face and said, “Yes, I think that will do nicely. That takes care of the imperfections, now all we need to work on is the reimbursement part of this transaction. Oh, that’s right, you don’t have any money, do you? Well, I guess I’ll just have to think of a few more ways to even out this injustice.”

  “No,” Gunther yelled. “I have money. I can pay you. Please.”

  Norman feigned surprise. “You have money?” he said. “How can that be? You went bankrupt. Now where’s a guy like you gonna come up with twenty-five hundred dollars on such short notice?”

  “My pocket,” Gunther said. “I hid it from the court. Take it. It’s yours, just let me out of here.”

  Norman was surprised that he hadn’t bothered to check Gunther’s pockets before he secured him to the chair. He reached into the man’s front pants pocket and felt a roll of paper. He grabbed it and pulled it from the man’s pocket. It was a roll big enough to choke a horse. Norman whistled. “Oh wow, Christopher,” he said. “If you’d only let me know about this earlier. Are you telling me I went through all this remodeling on you for nothing?”

  “Cut me loose,” Gunther said. “Just take the money and leave me alone.”

  “Oh no,” Norman said. “I couldn’t do that. I’m going to have to put you back to the way you were before the remodeling job I did on you. Don’t worry, I’ll be done in a few minutes and you’ll never even know I was here by the time I finish the job. First, I have to get that awful calk out of your other nostril.” Norman squeezed the trigger on his electric drill and inched toward Gunther.

  *****

  Lieutenant Anderson had been called to the scene of yet another body that had been found floating in the reservoir. It was the body of a middle-aged man whose arms and chest looked like it had been scraped with a cheese grater. The man’s throat yawned open like an exotic bird’s beak. Another inch and the head would have been totally severed from the body. It was lying on the stretcher, its eyes fixed open and staring upward.

  “Think there’s any connection to the girl we found last week in the dump?” Andy Reynolds said as he examined this body.

  “Hard to say,” Anderson answered. “She had hot metal poured on her. This guy’s had his skin scraped off. I don’t see how they relate.”

  “Looks like both killers had some twisted kind of game going on,” Andy said. “I mean, normal people don’t do these kinds of things to other people, do they?”

  “Define normal,” Anderson said.

  On his way back to headquarters, Lieutenant Anderson stopped by the office of his friend, a private detective by the name of Elliott Cooper. Elliott was the third generation P.I. to operate out of this office, after his father, Clay and his grandfather, Matt. Elliott’s wife, Gloria was the newest addition to the business, having joined several years earlier. Their office was on the third floor in a building on Hollywood Boulevard.

  Anderson knocked on Elliott’s office door purely as a formality, but didn’t wait for an answer before he let himself in. “Elliott,” he said, walking past Gloria’s empty desk. “What’s happening in your world today?”

  “Gloria’s out on a case and I’m manning the phone,” Elliott said. “What brings you around?”

  “I’m just on my way back to the office,” Eric said. “Found another body wrapped in plastic at the dump. That makes two in two weeks.”

  “Sounds like more than a coincidence,” Elliott said. “Got any leads?”

  “Nothing concrete,” Eric said.

  “How about paper mache?” Elliott said.

  “Huh?”

  Elliott waved him off. “Never mind,” he said. “Bad joke.”

  Eric rolled his eyes. “Okay then,” he said.

  “Any reason in particular that you’re telling me all this?” Elliott said. “Could it be you need my help?”

  “Well, now that you brought it up,” Eric said, “there is one way you could make yourself useful.”

  “And what’s that?” Elliott said.

  “We’ve got three men on vacation this week,” Eric said. “And the captain’s already given me the okay to farm out some of our leg work. It probably doesn’t pay like your regular clients would, but you know how county budgets are? At least it’ll get you out of here and back on the street. You interested?”

  “What kind of budget are you working with?” Elliott said.

  “Eighty bucks a day and expenses,” Eric said.

  “That’s less than half our regular fee,” Elliott said. “You going to throw in lunch?”

  Eric shrugged. “Depends on your appetite,” he said. “This would be coming out of my pocket and I don’t have a rich dead uncle to leave me his estate. So, are you in or out?”

  Elliott thought for a moment, leafed through his desk calendar and looked up at Eric. “In,” he said. “When did you need me to start?”

  “Are you still sittin’ there,” Eric said.

  “That soon, eh?” Elliott said, rising from his desk and pulling his cell phone from his pocket. He dialed Gloria and left her a message telling her where she could reach him for the rest of the day and then followed Lieutenant Eric Anderson out of the office. When the two of them got to the parking lot, Elliott turned to Anderson and said, “Where do you want me to start?”

  “Ever heard of a handyman named Christopher Gunter?” Eric said.

  Elliott shook his head, “Name doesn’t ring any bells. Should it?”

  “His contractor’s truck was found almost obscured by bushes in a ditch on the outskirts of town,” Eric said. “They had it towed out of there and found a lot of sugar in the gas tank. Our first victim’s car had sugar in the gas tank. We found the owner in the dump, wrapped in plastic and filled with burns and hardened lead in several orifices. We’re going under the assumption that they are connected, if for no other reason than their vehicles. I’d like you to try and get a lead on Gunther. Check with his friends, family and co-workers and see if anyone has any ideas as to his where
abouts. Let me know what you find out.”

  “Do you know where he works out of?” Elliott said.

  “He used to have an office and garage on Sepulveda before he declared bankruptcy,” Eric said. “Last anyone knew, he was working out of his house.” Eric gave him a slip of paper with the address on it and returned to his cruiser.

  Elliott pocketed the paper and drove south on Cahuenga to the house on Romaine Street. It was a white ranch set back from the street by a large front yard of mostly brown grass. The house looked as though it had fallen on neglect by its owner. There were three newspapers lying on the front stoop and the mailbox had several letters peeking out of the flap that covered the box. It was obvious that no one had been home for several days, but Elliott knocked anyway. He wasn’t surprised when no one came to the door.

  Elliott looked both ways up and down the street before stepping up onto the stoop and plucking the mail from the box. He looked at the return addresses, trying to determine if any of them could be a lead as to Christopher Gunther’s whereabouts. One letter was from a finance company on Santa Monica. Another was from Publisher’s Clearing House. The other letters’ return addresses only told Elliott that Gunther owed more than he was earning. He stuffed the letters back into the box and walked back to his car.

  When Elliott got back into his car, his cell phone began to chime. He flipped it open and held it to his ear. “Cooper here,” he said in his most professional voice, even though he could tell by the caller I.D. that it was Gloria calling.

  “Elliott,” Gloria said. “I got your message earlier. Where are you?”

  “I down on Romaine Street trying to locate a man for Lieutenant Anderson,” Elliott said. “What about you? How’d your case turn out?”