by Bill Bernico
“Yuck,” I said. “The only thing about a BLT that appeals to me is the B. The L is for rabbits and the T is disgusting.”
“Oh,” Gloria said. “You’re one of those fussy eaters, aren’t you?”
“‘Fraid so,” I said. “It would take greater minds than ours to understand my food rules. Even I don’t fully understand why I like or dislike certain foods.”
“So I take it you’re not a salad eater, either,” Gloria said.
“Again,” I said. “Rabbit food. I didn’t fight my way to the top of the food chain to eat plants. I’m a carnivorous animal. Give me a steak any day.”
“So you don’t eat vegetables, either?” Gloria said.
“There’s where the goofy food rules come in,” I said. “The only veggies I eat are potatoes, corn and wax beans—not green beans, just the yellow wax beans. I’m sure I couldn’t tell the difference in the dark, but since I never eat in the dark, I stick with the yellow wax beans.”
“O-kay,” Gloria said, stretching out the O. “This ought to be an interesting lunch. Shall we?” She pointed to the door.
We walked the block and a half to The Copper Penny and took a booth at the window, facing the boulevard. I ordered a hamburger and fries and Gloria ordered the bacon, lettuce and tomato sandwich and a cup of coffee. I had a glass of water with mine.
“You’re not a coffee drinker, either, are you?” Gloria said.
“Never liked the taste,” I said.
“Let me guess,” Gloria said. “You don’t smoke or drink, either. How am I doing so far?”
“Right on the money,” I said. As for smoking, I inhaled one puff years ago and got so dizzy I wondered what it was that lured people back for a second puff. Never tried it again. With alcohol, I just never got into the taste of any of it. I’m not knocking people who drink, it just isn’t for me. What about you?”
“I have an occasional drink,” Gloria said. “Sometimes with a meal or when I’m out.”
“And smoking?” I said.
Gloria shook her head and waved it away, as if the thought of it was more than unpleasant. “Not for me,” she said. “Like I always say, kissing a smoker is like licking an ashtray.”
“And when was the last time you licked an ashtray?” I said, laughing.
Gloria had to laugh at that one herself. “Good point,” she said.
The waitress brought our food and we continued our conversation between bites.
“Are you from around here originally?” I said.
Gloria held up one finger, swallowed the bite she’d taken from her BLT, washed it down with some coffee and nodded. “Glendale,” she said.
“Well, that’s practically Hollywood,” I said. “Why is it our paths haven’t crossed before?”
Gloria pulled a small piece of bacon off her sandwich and nibbled on it. “I’ve seen you before,” she said. “But we’ve never officially met.”
“Really?” I said. “Where’d you see me before?”
“I was in that restaurant a while ago when the waitress got shot through the window,” Gloria said. “You and an older guy were sitting in the booth talking.”
“That was my dad, Clay Cooper,” I said. “No kidding, you were there that night?”
“Sure was,” Gloria said. “I was sitting on the other side of the room with my dad. We hung around for a while afterwards but we never said anything to anyone there. I guess we were just curious to see how it ended.”
“Didn’t end so well for Sandy,” I said.
“Sandy?” Gloria said.
“The waitress,” I explained. “She lived, but that had to be one painful, memorable night for her.”
“No kidding,” Gloria said. “I didn’t look over your way until I heard the shot and the breaking glass. I was looking right at your booth when the second shot came through the window, though.”
“Small world, isn’t it?” I said.
“And gettin’ smaller all the time,” Gloria said.
We finished our lunch and went back to my office, or should I say our office. When we got back, I sat behind my desk and Gloria stood in front of me, looking around her.
“Didn’t you tell me you and your dad shared this office?” Gloria said.
“Well,” I said. “Not full-time. Most of the time Dad worked out of his house. He didn’t spend as much time here as I do. Why?”
She looked around again. “Just wondering where he sat when he needed to work,” she said.
Then it dawned on me. “Oh yeah,” I said. “You’re going to need a workspace, aren’t you? I’ll have another desk and chair brought in this afternoon. Meanwhile, you can pull your chair up to this desk and work off the end.” I pointed to the right end of my desk. “Might be a bit cramped for your knees, but it’s only for a few hours.”
My phone rang and I grabbed it, sitting back in my swivel chair. “Cooper Investigations,” I said. “Uh huh. Sure. I can do that. When did you want to meet?”
I wrote down the address the caller had given me, thanked him and hung up.
I turned to Gloria. “Looks like you can work on this side of the desk for a while,” I said. “I just got a call to talk to a guy about another case. I shouldn’t be gone too long. Make yourself at home while I’m out.”
“Can we do two cases simultaneously?” Gloria asked.
“Not a problem,” I said. “Sounds like you almost have the guitar case wrapped up. No pun intended. You just have to wait for the guy to e-mail you about the exchange or sale or whatever you work out with him.”
“Go on,” Gloria said. “I’ll be fine here until you return. If you like, I can make a call and get the desk and chair delivered. That’s one less thing on your plate.”
“Thank you,” I said. “That would be great. I gotta run now. You can just take down any messages if the phone rings. See you later.” Gloria took the seat behind my desk, flipping open the laptop just as I left the office.
I met with my potential client and decided against taking the case. He wanted me to do something that went against my standards and was borderline illegal, so the meeting I had with him was a short one. I got back to the office an hour later. The door was unlocked and when I walked in, I found the office empty. Gloria was gone and there was a small desk and matching chair against the north wall. On my desk blotter, I found a sheet from my yellow legal pad with a note from Gloria. It said that she’d gotten an e-mail from the guy with the guitar and she was going out to check on it. It also said she’d call me if she needed my help.
I took my seat behind the desk again and waited. An hour and a half passed with no word from Gloria. There was nothing I could do, since I didn’t even know where she’d gone. Then I remembered the laptop. I flipped it open and got into the e-mail section. The last e-mail received was time-stamped a little more than two hours ago. It gave an address where Gloria was to meet the man with the guitar. He’d instructed her to bring twelve hundred dollars and to come alone.
I had no idea if Gloria could even lay her hands on that kind of money or where she’d go for it if she could. I jotted down the address on my notepad and stuck it in my pocket. I left the office and hurried down to my car in the parking lot behind my building. The address in my notepad was about two miles away on the west end of Hollywood, just the other side of LaBrea.
Now that I thought of it, I had no idea if Gloria even owned a car. I’d never seen one. She’d walked into my office. We’d walked to lunch, and now that she’d gone, I wouldn’t even know her car if it was parked right in front of me. In front of the house that matched the address that I had, I saw a Toyota Corolla parked at the curb and wondered if that could be Gloria’s. Maybe it was the Dodge minivan parked ahead of the Toyota.
I walked up the walk and up the steps to the porch and rang the bell. No one answered. I tried knocking and got the same results. I stepped off the porch and walked around the back of the house. I tried knocking at the back door and still I got no answer. There was a garage aro
und the back of the house, facing the alley. I walked over to it, peered in the side window and spotted a bright red Jeep convertible inside. The rest of the garage was dusty and dirty, but the Jeep was spotless and shiny. Something was wrong with this picture and I decided to look into it further.
I tried the utility door on the side of the garage. It was locked. The overhead door was padlocked along the side. I went back to the utility door and threw my shoulder into it. It gave and I almost fell inward onto a dirt floor. I righted myself and took a closer look at the Jeep. I walked around to the passenger side and reached in to open the glove box. Inside I found the registration card. It was made out to Gloria Campbell and I got a shiver up my spine.
I ran back out to the street side of the house and scanned the neighboring houses. Across the street, I saw curtains fall shut as I looked at them. I hurried across the street and rang the bell. No one answered. I knocked on the door and kept knocking until the curtains on the door pane pulled back revealing an old woman who looked at me suspiciously.
I held my I.D. card up so she could see it and said through the closed door, “Ma’am, my name is Elliott Cooper and I’m looking for my partner, a woman. She was coming to the house across the street and I can’t find her. Can I talk to you?”
The curtains dropped and I could hear the sound of a chain sliding on metal. A second later, the front door opened several inches and the woman peered out through the opening.
“Please, ma’am,” I said. “I think my partner’s in trouble and I need to find her. Have you seen anything strange going on across the street?”
“Like what?” the woman said.
“Have you seen a woman in a red Jeep or a man across the street?” I said. “She may have been on his porch earlier.”
“She was there,” the woman said. “She went inside.”
“Did you see a man also?” I said.
“He came out a little while later,” the woman explained. “He drove that red car around to the back.”
“Did he come back out again?” I said.
“A couple minutes later,” she said.
“Was she with him?” I said.
The old woman shook her head. “Nope,” she said. “Just him and another guy.”
“Did you see anything else?” I asked.
“Like what?” she said.
“Was either one of them carrying anything?” I said.
She nodded. “One of ‘em was carrying a black case,” she said. “Like a big violin case.”
“Could it have been a guitar case?” I said.
“Couldda been,” she said. “It was big.”
“And did you see if they left in a car?” I asked.
“Nope,” she said, shaking her head. “They walked that way.” She pointed up the street.
“How long ago was this?” I said.
“Couldn’t have been more than a couple of minutes before you got here,” she said.
“Thank you very much,” I said, and hurried back across the street. If Gloria hadn’t left with him, it stood to reason that she must still be in the house. I ran around to the back of the house, away from the prying eyes of the neighbors. I jabbed my elbow through the glass pane on the back door and reached in to unlock it. There were three steps that led up into a kitchen. Beyond the kitchen, I could see a dining room. It held nothing special but I noticed a hallway to my left.
As I approached the first door on the right, I could hear moaning sounds on the other side of the door. I opened the door and found Gloria lying just inside. She was lying face down, unbound but obviously hurt. I knelt by her side and turned her over. Her eyebrows furrowed and she moaned some more.
“Gloria,” I said. “Are you all right? What happened?”
Gloria moaned some more and her eyes fluttered before opening. She looked up at me and flinched.
“Easy there,” I said. “It’s me.”
She stopped moving and settled back, letting out a deep breath.
“Don’t try to move,” I said, fishing my cell phone out of my pocket. I flipped it open and began dialing. Gloria laid a hand over mine and shook her head.
“I’m all right,” she said. “It’s just a knock on the head. I’ve had worse.” She sat up, rubbed the back of her head and blinked some more. A minute later she stood, looked herself over and then quickly patted her pants pocket. “It’s gone,” she said.
“What’s gone?” I said.
“The money,” Gloria said. “I had a grand in my pocket and it’s gone.”
“Slow down here,” I said. “Tell me what happened.”
Gloria licked her lips. “I came here to buy back the fake Gibson,” she said. “The guy who e-mailed me said he wanted twelve hundred, but I figured I could negotiate him down to a grand. He showed me the guitar in the case and while we were talking, someone hit me from behind and the next thing I know, I’m looking up at you.”
“What did this first guy look like?” I said.
“He was twenty-five or twenty-six,” Gloria said. “Shoulder-length, greasy blonde hair, blue eyes, about five-nine or ten, a hundred seventy-five or so. He had on dirty blue jeans and a black t-shirt with a picture of The Doobie Brothers on the front. Oh, and he had a huge pimple on the side of his neck. I never got a look at the second guy.”
“What did this first guy say?” I said.
“After he showed me the guitar,” Gloria said, “He held his hand out and asked for the twelve hundred. When I started to dig in my front pocket, that’s when I was hit from behind.”
“Did you get his name?” I said.
“He said it was Todd Bracken,” Gloria said. “But I doubt that’s his real name. And now that I think of it, I’ll bet if we try to trace his e-mail address it’ll probably lead to some internet café or library.”
“So where are we with this then?” I said.
“We’re out a grand,” Gloria said, “Unless we can find him again.”
“So?” I said.
“So I suggest we get moving,” Gloria said, heading for the front door.
I stopped her and steered her toward the back door. She gave me a strange look. “He parked your Jeep in the garage,” I said. “I assume that is your Jeep.”
“Yeah,” Gloria said. “It is. You riding with me or am I riding with you?”
“Well,” I said, “First let’s get your Jeep out of that garage. Then you can follow me to a safe parking lot and one of us can leave our vehicle there and ride with the other.”
“And where do you suggest we start?” Gloria said.
I pointed down the street in the direction the old woman across the street indicated. “That way,” I said. “Someone saw them walking off in that direction.”
Gloria and I entered the garage again and looked around inside for something we could use to break the lock off the overhead door. There were no tools inside the garage and there were no large rocks outside. Gloria reached into her Jeep, under the driver’s seat and brought out a .38 snub-nose revolver. She went back out the utility door and around to the overhead door. She took careful aim at the hasp and fired. It broke free of the doorframe and she pulled the door open. She noticed me giving her a strange look. “What?” she said.
“Nothing,” I said, as she backed out of the garage. “Follow me.”
I drove east and found a strip mall with quite a few empty parking spaces. Gloria pulled in alongside me and gestured for me to join her. I left my car there and jumped into Gloria’s Jeep. In the back seat, I spotted a suitcase.
“Going on a trip?” I said, pointing to the suitcase.
“No,” she said. “That’s my prop case.”
“Prop case?” I said.
“You know,” Gloria said. “Disguises, makeup, that sort of thing. I never travel without it”
“All right,” I said. “Now what?”
Gloria kept looking straight ahead at the traffic but said, “I thought we’d start just down the block at that music store on the corner
,” she said. “You never know. Someone may have tried to pass the fake Gibson off there or they might know of someone who was approached.”
“That’s as good a place as any to start,” I said.
Gloria pulled up to the curb in front of the Ace Music Store. In the display windows were several guitars, keyboards and a full set of drums. Hanging alongside these instruments were trumpets, trombones, clarinets and a variety of harmonicas. The bell above the door tinkled as Gloria and I entered. A kid in a Greatful Dead t-shirt approached us warily. He probably didn’t get many customers our age in here. He nodded at us.
“‘Sup?” he said casually
“No thanks,” I said. “I already ate.”
He looked at me as if flowers had grown out of the top of my head.
“I think he’s asking you what is up,” Gloria said by way of translation. She turned to the kid. “Isn’t that what you were saying?”
“Yeah, right,” the kid said. “What can I do for you today?”
Gloria stepped closer to the kid and flashed her eyes at him. “We’re looking for an electric guitar,” she said. “Got anything like that here?”
“You bet,” he said, leading us to a wall with several dozen guitars hanging by their necks. He pointed out a beginner’s guitar in hot pink with a single pickup. “Here ya go. Everything you could want in a guitar for under a hundred dollars.”
Gloria gave the kid a sideways glance. “That’s all right for beginners,” she said. “I’m thinking more along the line of a professional. What do you have in that category?”
I had no idea what to ask or what to look for so I was content letting Gloria handle this interaction.
The kid led us to a back wall with only a dozen or so high-end guitars. He swept his hand toward the display. “Any of these trip your trigger?” he said.
Gloria looked over the selection and shook her head. She turned to the kid. “What I had in mind was a Gibson thin line, maybe a 335, something like that.”
“I don’t have any at the moment,” the kid said. “Sure you wouldn’t like something like this American Standard Stratocaster?”
“Gotta be a 335,” Gloria said. “My guy’s pretty specific with what he wants. Know anyplace I might find one?”
