by Bill Bernico
Dorsey sighed. “You saw my car at the body shop.”
Eddie nodded. “Quite a mess you made there,” he said.
“Yeah, well that kind of body work don’t come cheap,” Dorsey said. “Five hundred and some change. Now just where am I gonna come up with that kind of money?”
“All right,” Eddie said. “So you ran up a bill. Other people manage to pay their bills without resorting to robbery.”
“I ain’t got no job right now,” Dorsey said. “I’ve been outta work for six months now and my options were running out.”
“Okay, so you ran into hard times,” Eddie said. “It happens. But tell me, I spoke to the kid who works at the station over on Fullerton and he said that you came in with the towel over your face and had the rifle aimed at him. He said you made him go into the workshop bay area and lie down on the floor. According to the kid, you told him something like, ‘I’m going to leave, but I’m going to check on you and if you get up off the floor, I’ll kill ya,’ and then you’d leave.”
“Well,” Dorsey said, “ya just can’t run out of the place and leave him laying there. He’d call the cops for sure.”
Eddie jotted a few notes down in his notebook and then looked back over at Dorsey, who was casually blowing smoke rings into the air.
“The kid said that he was laying there and that he had seen you leave out of the front door of the station and head south and disappear around the corner,” Eddie said.
“He’s right, you know,” Dorsey said, still blowing smoke.
Eddie continued with his summary. “So he laid there for awhile and then he raised his head up and turned around to look at the front of the station to see if he could see anything.”
“Yep, he did,” Dorsey said.
“And he saw you on the north end of the station looking in at him through the overhead glass doors in the bay area,” Eddie said. “The kid said that you had actually walked all the way around the building and had come back to the station and looked in to see if he was still laying there.”
“I told him I’d be checking on him,” Dorsey said. “Can’t make empty threats, now can I?”
“I guess not, Ivan,” Eddie said.
Eddie continued question Ivan Dorsey for another forty-five minutes. He crossed his last t and dotted his last i and closed his notebook. Eddie rose from his chair and started for the door to the interrogation room.
Before leaving, he turned to Ivan and gave him a quizzical look. “What would you have done if the kid had gotten up?” Eddie said.
Without blinking an eye, Dorsey said, “I would have killed him.”
Eddie left the room and joined me in Sergeant Hollister’s office. He told me what Dorsey had said about killing the kid.
“And I believe he would have,” I said. “You get everything you need out of him?”
Eddie nodded. “Yeah, he’ll be going away for a long time,” he said.
“Thanks to you and your good cop performance in there,” I said.
“Maybe,” Eddie said. “But next time I get to be the bad cop. That seems more like a role I could sink my teeth into. You know, a fun roll.”
“Next time,” I said and walked Eddie out of the office and back to our cruiser.
Friday, July 13, 1945 – Hollywood, CA
I pulled the glass door to my gun cabinet open and withdrew my .38 service revolver. With an almost automatic press on a small button on the side of the gun, I flipped the cylinder open. I laid the gun on the cabinet shelf and then pulled the bottom drawer open and found the box of shells. I slipped a single cartridge into one of the chambers and returned the shell box to the drawer and slid it closed. I figured that one bullet was all that this job required. The cylinder clicked effortlessly back into place. I slipped the loaded gun under my arm, in a leather shoulder holster, and zipped my jacket closed.
It had been just three weeks since my wife, Stella, had been killed. She had stopped at an all night mini-mart to bring home milk for the next day’s breakfast. She had the misfortune to be standing at the counter with her gallon of milk when Randy Rhodes and his brother Ricky burst in and demanded the money from the cash register. Stella was shot dead, along with the clerk, and all the two brothers had to show for their efforts was thirteen dollars and a case of beer. It seemed all so senseless. She was my whole life, my best friend, almost a part of me, and now she was gone.
The word on the street was that the Rhodes brothers had gone underground after the botched holdup and efforts by local police to round them up had proved futile. Not that it would have done any good to find them. The only two witnesses to the crime were dead and all the police had to go on were unreliable leaks from the street. Informants had heard of the holdup through the usual sources but there was actually no solid evidence to link these two animals to the crime.
I didn’t care about evidence, circumstantial or otherwise. I didn’t care that even if the police found the two brothers, that they may not get a conviction. I didn’t care what some lawyer might have to say about the Rhodes brothers’ rights. I didn’t even care that my actions might cost me not only my job on the police force, but also my freedom. During my time on the force, I’d had seen enough of criminals falling through the cracks of justice and crawling out the other end of the legal loopholes. It was time to settle this score myself.
I had spent the last month following up leads and questioning my snitches with little or no luck. Then on a Friday evening in July I got the break I was looking for. Around midnight I was off-duty and cruising the neighborhood where the Rhodes brothers were known to hang out when I spotted Randy. Randy was standing on the corner handing a small white packet to another dirt bag. The other guy passed what appeared to be several bills, rolled up in a small wad, to Randy. The two men bumped closed fists several times as a kind of secret handshake before splitting up and going their own ways.
I watched from my car as Randy walked south on Ivar. I made a U-turn and followed from a distance. Rhodes continued south as I passed him. I parked several car lengths ahead. As Randy Rhodes approached the spot where the car had parked, I stepped out and swept the .38 revolver from beneath my arm. I stepped up behind Rhodes and jabbed the gun in his back.
“Don’t move,” I said. “Don’t even breath or I’ll plug you right here.”
Rhodes lifted his hands away from his body and froze where he stood. I pushed with the gun and forced Randy to keep walking just ahead of me. When we got to the entrance to the alley I whispered in Randy’s ear. “In here,” I said, nudging my prisoner into the alley.
The two of us walked in step to the far end of the dead-end alley. I stopped walking and announced, “This is far enough.”
Rhodes stopped, his hands still raised. “Turn around you son-of-a-bitch,” I said.
Randy Rhodes turned to face the man who’d forced him down this dark alley. He still had that cocky, street-smart look on his face. I held the gun steady and waist-high. “You have no idea who I am, do you?” I said.
“Sure,” Rhodes said. “You’re a guy with a gun who thinks he’s hot shit. Well, you ain’t nothin’ to me. Now why don’t you just put that gun away and I’ll forget you ever bothered me.”
I rolled my eyes upward. “And just let you walk away?” I said. “I don’t think so.”
Rhodes started to ease his hands down. I extended the gun in my hand and the man’s hands went back up. “Okay,” Rhodes said, “I’ll play your game. Who the hell are you?”
“The name’s Cooper,” I said. “Matt Cooper. Mean anything to you?”
“Nope,” Randy Rhodes said without hesitation. “Should it?”
I could feel the vein in his neck pulsing. I wanted nothing better than to pull the trigger and send this low-life slug to the morgue. “My wife was Stella Cooper.”
“So,” Rhodes said casually.
“So she died three weeks ago,” I said.
“Man, that’s too bad,” Rhodes said. “But we all gotta go sometime.”
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“She didn’t,” I almost yelled. “She never hurt anyone and some son-of-a-bitch shot her. You!” I pulled the hammer back on the handgun and pointed it at Randy’s head. “In the grocery store on Bronson and Sunset. You and that scum-sucking brother of yours.”
For the first time that evening, Randy Rhodes looked scared. The confidence drained out of him when he realized whom it was who held him at bay. “Look, man,” he said, almost apologetically, “That wasn’t me. That was…that was Ricky. I tried to stop him but he wouldn’t listen. All I wanted was the cash.”
“You lying no good…” I said.
“No, honest, man. I never shot anyone,” Rhodes said. “You gotta believe me.” Randy Rhodes extended his two hands toward me, turning the palms upward. He took one step forward and I took one step back before raising the handgun again and sighting in on Rhodes’ head. Rhodes stopped again.
“Don’t give me any of that shit,” I said. “I’ve been after you for quite a while now and I got the story from a few of your associates. I know all about you and everything you’ve ever done. And you know what? You’re not worth saving. Turn around and kneel down, unless you want it right between the eyes.”
Rhodes kneeled, but still facing me. Now his hands were interlocked and the former thug looked like an altar boy praying at Sunday mass. “Please,” he pleaded, “Don’t do this to me. I don’t wanna die.”
“My wife didn’t want to die, either,” I said.
Tears ran down his cheeks. “Just let me go and I’ll leave town,” Rhodes said. “You’ll never see me again. I’ll go straight, I promise.”
“Uh uh,” I said. “The minute I do that you’ll be back pulling the same shit you always did. You’re just no good. Someday you’ll come after me so I might as well end it right here and now.”
“No!” Rhodes shouted. He stood back up, his fingers still interlaced and extended toward me. “Really. I mean it. I’ll do anything you say. Anything.”
He took a half step toward me and I took a full step back. The heel of my shoe snagged on a loose brick and I fell over backward. The gun discharged into the air and I dropped it. Rhodes was quick to snap it up and had it aimed at me before I could sit up straight.
“Man, are you stupid,” Randy Rhodes said with a smirk. “You had your chance and you blew it. You don’t have what it takes to kill a man, but I do. Believe me I do. Ask your wife.” Rhodes chuckled. “Oh, that’s right, you can’t ask her, can you. I guess I did shoot her. It slipped my mind.”
I sat there on the damp ground looking up at Randy Rhodes. “Go on,” I said, “go. Just go away like you said you’d do if you got the chance. Go on, leave town and turn your life around. Make something of yourself.”
“Make something of myself?” Rhodes said, laughing maniacally. “I am something. I’m Randy Rhodes and people in this neighborhood respect me.”
“That’s not respect,” I said. “That’s fear.”
“I’ll still take it,” Randy said. “And as for you, well, I’m afraid you’re just gonna have to go and join that dead, stupid wife of yours.” He took the shooter’s stance and aimed the handgun at my head. “Adios, asshole.”
Rhodes pulled the trigger. The alley echoed with the hollow click of the hammer falling on an empty chamber. He pulled the trigger again, and again. Click, click. He held the gun in his palm and pressed the button that released the cylinder. He looked down at the empty cylinder and then back at me. By now I had pulled a five-shot .32 revolver that I had taken from a suspect earlier in the year from my waistband.
“That’s what I thought,” I said, and pulled the trigger. Randy Rhodes’ body flew backward with the impact of the bullet. He fell among the trashcans and cardboard boxes. I stood up and walked over to where Rhodes’ body had come to rest. Rhodes’ eyes were still wide open and staring off into the night.
I looked down at the lifeless face that lay at my feet. “My wife always said people deserve a second chance. You just wasted yours.”
I wiped the gun clean and threw it on top of Rhodes’ body and walked away.
Friday, July 20, 1945 – Hollywood, CA
It had been nearly five weeks since Stella had been needlessly killed. My work suffered as a result of my missing her and not being able to concentrate on my job. Although Sergeant Hollister had initially been understanding, my lack of enthusiasm for the job had become a strain on him and he began resenting me. His barking of orders and his constant criticism of my performance, or should I say, lack of performance finally took its toll on me. I had to get away and I did the only thing that I thought I could do under the circumstances—I quit the department.
Jerry Burns caught up with me in the locker room after I’d turned in my badge and gun and was changing into my civilian clothes again. As I sat there tying my shoes Jerry sat on the bench down from me.
“Not going to be the same around here without you, Matt,” he said. “You sure you know what you’re doing?”
“I don’t know, Jerry,” I said. “This could be the biggest mistake of my life, but right now it seems like the thing to do. It’ll all work out in the end. Don’t worry about me. I always manage to land on my feet. But thanks for your concern. And thanks for everything else, you know what I mean.”
I left the locker room and walked to my car in the lot. I took one last look at the twelfth precinct and drove home, not sure what my next move was going to be.
Monday, July 29, 1946 – Hollywood, CA
Two years ago Stella and I had sat in the very theater that I now found myself in. We’d come to see Dick Powell portray Raymond Chandler’s Philip Marlowe in the movie, Murder, My Sweet. It was based on Chandler’s novel, Farewell, My Lovely and it portrayed Powell as the hardboiled detective hired to find Velma, a former dancehall girl, for Moose Malloy. The movie had made quite an impression on me at the time. I was still in uniform and had daydreams about becoming a private investigator, but pipe dreams like that seemed out of reach for a newly married man like myself who now had a wife and responsibilities. I put the notion out of my mind then, but lately the idea began to fester in my mind again, like an open wound.
Last month I finally grabbed the bull by the horns and filled out an application for my private investigator’s license. I got it a couple of weeks later and continued to step two of my plan, and that was to find an office and open my own business. With my P.I. license in hand, I applied for and got a permit to carry a weapon. I was ready.
Shortly after we were married, Stella and I had talked about the kind of job I was in and that maybe it might be a good idea if I took out a life insurance policy on myself, in case anything were to happen to me on the job. Soon after I got the policy, Stella insisted that she take out a policy on herself, just to make things fair between us. I told her she didn’t have to, but she insisted so I agreed. I never imagined that I would be the one cashing in on her policy. I always thought it would have been the other way around.
But here I was, with an even fifty thousand from her policy. It allowed me to live for this past year without having to worry about finding another job right away. It also allowed me to buy the office that I finally found for my business. I could have rented, but buying the office outright gave me a little more peace of mind, knowing that some moody landlord could never force me out. It would be mine as long as I wanted it.
Two weeks after I opened my doors I got a visit from a Wisconsin woman who wanted to hire me to find her runaway daughter, who had come to Hollywood to break into show business, and the rest, as they say, is history.
I remained in business for more than twenty-five years before my son, Clay joined me as a partner. I kept a hand in the day-to-day running of the business but by then I was already sixty and Clay had taken over the bulk of the legwork. I stayed on in an advisory capacity and to handle Clay’s paperwork. Ten years later, when I turned seventy and Clay had gotten married, I turned the business over to him entirely and retired from active duty.
Wed
nesday, July 17, 2002 – Hollywood, CA
When I looked up, Elliott was sitting there, wide-eyed and jotting notes down on his pad. Clay had heard some of the stories before, but I could tell by the look on his face that he was impressed with the ones he hadn’t already heard.
“That was great, grandpa,” Elliott said. “Can I use all of these stories in my book?”
I thought for a moment and answered, “Okay, but just the ones with police stories in them. I don’t care to have my personal life laid out for the entire world to read. Some of it’s private.”
“Oh sure, grandpa,” Elliott said. “Just your police and detective exploits alone would make a terrific novel and maybe even a movie.”
“Oh, I don’t know if it’s that interesting,” I said.
“It really is, dad,” Clay said. “These stories of yours are better than most of the movies out there already. They’re all about car chases and shootouts and explosions and swearing. Your stories have real heart to them. They do, I mean it.”
I waved a dismissive hand at Clay. “They might be interesting to you and me, but to the general public, I’m not so sure.”
“I can’t wait to get started on this book,” Elliott said.
“I just hope you don’t get disillusioned by all of the hoops the agents and publishers are sure to make you jump through just to consider your material worthy. They can be real snobs sometimes.”
“I’ll keep at it,” Elliott said. “It’s what I think I want to do with my life.”
“Good for you,” I said. “Half the battle in life is knowing what you want and where you want to go. You just keep at it.”
Saturday, August 24, 2002 – Hollywood, CA
On that Saturday morning in August Matt Cooper slipped into a coma at age ninety-one. He remained in a coma for twelve days and passed away peacefully with his son, Clay and grandson, Elliott at his bedside. It was the end of one era and the beginning of another.
