by Bill Bernico
“Elliott paid a visit to your last victim’s wife and she gave him the name and address of this guy here,” I said, point to Bellamy. “No one answered his door when we knocked and we were just about to leave when we saw him sneaking out the back door. We followed him; he ran and then he started shooting at Elliott. We never did find out why.” I pointed with my chin toward my car. “He took a couple of shots at me and I returned fire. I hit him in the leg and I must have hit an artery. He dropped his gun, we recovered it and he flopped over, dead. That’s about all there is to it.”
“And he never said why he was shooting at you,” Dean said.
“No,” Elliott said. “He just said that he thought someone had sent us to take care of him. He wouldn’t tell us who he thought it might be and a minute later he was dead. Just like that.”
“You know, you could have attached a tourniquet above his wound,” Dean said.
Elliott held his tie out toward Dean. “I was just about to do that when he dropped his head and died,” Elliott said. “I guess I didn’t get to him fast enough.”
Dean nodded to the ambulance attendants and they lifted Bellamy’s body onto a stretcher and loaded him into the back of the wagon. “Take him to the morgue,” Dean told the driver. “Tell Andy I’ll be in to see him as soon as I get back.”
“Yes, sir,” the driver said and then slid behind the wheel of the ambulance and pulled away from the curb with his red lights off and his siren now silent.
The officer who’d driven Dean to this scene stepped up to where we were talking. “Excuse me, sir,” the officer said. “Captain Burke is calling on the radio for you.”
Dean turned to me. “Wait right here,” he said. “I’ll just be a minute.”
A minute later Dean returned. He held his hand out, palm up and I handed him my .38. It was simple procedure and I had expected it.
“I’ll get it back to you when ballistics is finished with it,” Dean said.
I reached into my pocket and produced Bellamy’s .32 and handed it to Dean. “He had this strapped to his ankle,” I said, and then reached into my other pocket and pulled out Bellamy’s wallet. “Might as well take this, too.”
Elliott handed Bellamy’s other gun to Dean. “And this is the one he shot at us with while we were chasing him.”
Dean dropped that gun into his pocket and carried the wallet and two guns back to his cruiser. “Follow me down to the precinct, will you Clay?” Dean said. “We’re going to need to document this whole mess.”
“I’ll just need to drop Elliott at his car,” I told Dean. “Then we’ll both meet you there, all right?”
Dean nodded and drove away. I drove Elliott back to where he’d parked his car and then drove on to meet with Dean. Elliott followed close behind me.
By the time Dean had what he wanted from Elliott and me, it was already past seven-thirty. I was getting impatient and wanted to wrap this up and get moving. I looked at the clock above Dean’s office door and then down at my watch.
“Is this going to take much longer?” I said.
“Why, have you got someplace else you need to be?” Dean said.
Elliott stepped in with a smirk. “I think what Dad is trying to say is that he has a date and he’s already late. Isn’t that right, Dad?”
Dean gave me a similar look. “Is that right, Clay,” he said. “Do you have a date?”
“Yes,” I said. “I have a date. Are you both happy now?”
“Anyone I might know?” Dean asked. He waited patiently for my answer.
“Can I get going?” I said.
“Elliott,” Dean said. “Can you stick around to answer a few more questions so I can let your dad get on with his love life?”
Elliott nodded. “Sure,” he said, and then turned to me. “Go on, Dad. She’s waiting for you.” He and Dean both had a little laugh at my expense.
I tried to ignore them and just got out of my chair and headed for Dean’s door.
“Give her a hug for me,” Dean said.
I closed his door and hurried out to my car. I slid behind the wheel of my Olds and flipped open my cell phone. Gloria picked up almost immediately and the sound of her voice sent an electrical trickle through my body.
“Clay,” she said. “Where are you?”
“I’m just leaving the precinct,” I said. “Elliott and I got tied up with an investigation. I’m sorry. I can be there in fifteen minutes.”
“You’d better hurry,” Gloria said. “Dinner’s getting cold. We may have to go straight to desert.” She giggled.
“Is it my favorite desert?” I said.
“Yes it is,” Gloria said. “You don’t want it to wilt, do you?”
“Make that ten minutes,” I said. “Don’t go anywhere.”
I hung up and sped off towards Gloria’s house. I made it in eight and a half minutes without getting stopped by one of L.A.’s finest. The front door was unlocked and I let myself in. The living room and kitchen were empty. I knew where I’d find Gloria and stepped over to her bedroom door. I opened it and found a dark room, except for three small candles on the dresser. Gloria was stretched out on the bed in her sheer nightie, her arms reaching toward me, beckoning me to her.
I pulled my tie loose and slipped it over my head, the knot still in it. The buttons of my shirt yielded just as quickly and I peeled it off, letting it drop to the floor. I loosened my belt and slipped out of my slacks. Gloria’s fingers curled toward her, calling me to her. I kneeled up onto the bed and lay down beside her. She wrapped her arms around me and pulled me toward her soft, warm body. Gloria began kissing me intensely, her tongue darting around in my mouth.
She pulled me on top of her and wrapped her hands around my body. My hands explored every inch of her body while my mouth responded to hers. Suddenly my back arched and my face grimaced. I released my grasp on Gloria and grabbed my left biceps. I could feel the pain all the way down my arm. My breathing was erratic and the pain had intensified. I rolled off Gloria and she sat upright in the bed.
“Clay,” she almost screamed. “Clay, are you all right?”
I shook my head. “No,” I said. “I think it’s my heart.”
“I’ll call 9-1-1,” Gloria said, reaching for the phone on her bedside stand.
“No,” I shouted. “Help me get dressed and drive me to the emergency room. Please.”
Gloria jumped out of bed and helped me slip back into my slacks. She stuck my arms into my shirtsleeves and buttoned me up again. I stepped into my shoes while Gloria threw a long coat on over her nightie. She helped me out to my car and buckled me in. She made it to the hospital in just a few minutes and ran inside for a doctor.
They wheeled me inside and took me straight to the emergency room where a doctor and three nurses hooked me up to several machines, monitoring my vital signs. The doctor came toward me with a long hypodermic needle and motioned for the nurses to hold me down while he inserted it into my chest. Immediately I could feel some relief and the pain began to subside.
My vision was blurry, but I could hear everything that was going on around me. I recognized Gloria’s voice. She was talking with the doctor on call.
“Are you a relative?” I heard the doctor say.
“No,” Gloria’s voice answered. “I’m just a good friend. I think you’d better call his son.”
The doctor told Gloria that I’d have to remain here at the hospital for several days under observation and that my son could visit in a couple of hours. The voices went silent and I couldn’t make out anyone clearly. I laid my head back and closed my eyes.
Elliott sat across from Dean, going over his statement in the Bellamy shooting. The phone on Dean’s desk rang. Dean held up one finger to Elliott. “Excuse me,” he said, lifting the receiver. “Lieutenant Hollister. Yes, he’s here. Did you want to speak to him? Hold on.” Dean handed the phone to me.
“Elliott speaking,” he said.
“Elliott Cooper?” the man said. “This is Doctor Samuel
s in the emergency room. Your father came in this evening with chest pains. We have him stabilized and he’s doing as well as can be expected. Can you come here immediately?”
“What happened?” Elliott said. “Is he going to be all right? Can I see him? What room is he in?”
“He’ll be here in the ER when you arrive,” the doctor said. “We haven’t assigned a room to him yet. Just ask for me when you get here.”
“I’ll be there in a few minutes,” Elliott said and hung up.
“What is it?” Dean said.
“It’s Dad,” Elliott explained. ”Looks like another heart attack. He’s in the emergency room. I have to get over there right now.”
“Wait,” Dean said. “I’ll drive you. We can get there quicker with the lights and siren.”
Dean and Elliott hurried to the garage and slid into a cruiser. Dean pulled out onto the street and turned on the flashing lights and hit the siren. They made it to the hospital in six minutes. Dean parked the cruiser while I ran into the emergency room and asked for Doctor Samuels. The nurse picked up the desk phone and paged the doctor and in just a few seconds, he appeared from somewhere down a long hallway.
Gloria had slipped Dad’s keys back into his pants pocket before she’d had him wheeled inside. She slipped away before Elliott had arrived, caught a cab and took it back to her place. I had told her not to leave her name at the hospital and not to let Elliott know where my attack had taken place. She reluctantly agreed and went back to her house to wait until she heard anything further on Clay’s condition.
The next morning I lay in my own room, resting after a stressful night. As I opened my eyes, I saw Elliott standing over me. He was rubbing my hand and his eyes were closed. I squeezed his hand and he opened his eyes to look at me.
“Dad,” he said. “Are you all right? What happened to you last night?”
“I’m doing okay,” I said, lying through my teeth.
“How did this happen?” Elliott said. “What were you doing?”
“Nothing,” I said. “I was just trying to move a few things around in the garage and I could feel the pain in my arm coming on, so I drove myself here and checked in. That’s all. No big deal.”
“No big deal?” Elliott said. “That’s not what the doctor told me. He said you were lucky to come in when you did. A few more minutes and you’d have died. You really have to take it easier. No more heavy lifting or anything strenuous, do you hear me? I mean it.” Elliott’s brow furrowed while he worked something out in his mind. “Hey, wait a minute,” he said. “When you left Dean’s office, you said you had a date.”
“I didn’t say I had a date,” I told Elliott. “You said I had a date.”
“And you didn’t deny it,” Elliott said. “Is that what was going on when this happened?”
Elliott had caught me completely off guard and I couldn’t come up with a quick answer. “I, uh…”
“I uh is right,” Elliott said. “You were overworking your heart muscle, not to mention some other muscle, weren’t you?”
“Stay out of it,” I insisted. “It’s none of your business.”
“It becomes my business if it threatens your life,” Elliott said.
“I’ll be out of here in a day or two,” I said. “And we can get back to work on that Bellamy shooting. How’s that going anyway?”
“Never mind the Bellamy shooting,” Elliott said. “And don’t try to change the subject. You will have to recuperate at home again. This time the doctor says you’ll need to remain quiet and rested for maybe six months. More, if you don’t behave. Really, Dad, you’re like a little kid. I have to keep an eye on you twenty-four hours a day.”
“But what about the business?” I said.
“I can handle the business,” Elliott said. “Don’t you worry about the business. You just worry about getting better.”
“You can’t do it all by yourself,” I said. “You’ll need some help.”
Elliott thought about that for a moment and then added, “I can always call Gloria to come back for a while and help out. She knows the business and she’s probably still doing nothing at home, living off her insurance money. That can’t last forever and she’d be glad to have something to do. I’ll call her later.”
“Call her now, would you?” I said. “I just want to make sure she’s available.” I couldn’t tell Elliott the real reason I wanted him to call her.
“You’re probably right,” Elliott said. “Besides, if she knew you were here, she’d want to visit. Hang on while I try her number.”
Elliott pulled his cell phone from his pocket and opened the Contacts page, scrolling down to Gloria’s number. He hit the speed dial button and listened. “Hello?” he said. “Gloria? This is Elliott Cooper. Remember me? Yes, I’m fine. And you? Listen, the reason I’m calling is to ask if you’re available for some more work with the company. I’m going to need you for a few months. Dad’s had another heart attack and he’ll be off of work for a few months at least. Wait a minute, I’ll ask him.”
Elliott pressed the phone to his chest and turned to me. “She wants to know if it would be all right if she came here to see you.”
I nodded but said nothing to give my feelings away.
Elliott put the phone back to his ear. “That would be all right,” he said. “You’ll have to keep it brief. He still needs a lot of rest. Sure, he’s in room…” Elliott stopped and stepped out of the room briefly to look at the number on the door and then stepped back inside. “He’s in room 307 at the end of the hall. I have to get back to the office, but you can come by here anytime this morning. Yes, and thanks for your help with the business. I can’t tell you for sure how long we’ll need you, but thanks again.”
Elliott hung up the phone and slipped it back into his pocket. “Gloria says she’ll try to stop by here sometime this morning. I have a few things to take care of at the office, but I’ll be back this afternoon. Do you need anything while I’m out?”
I pulled the drawer open on the small cart next to my bed and retrieved my car keys. I tossed them to Elliott. “Could you make sure my car gets back to my house before someone tows it or steals it?”
“Sure,” Elliott said. “I’ll take care of that a little later, when Gloria comes by the office. We’ll come by here and pick it up then, okay?”
“Thanks, Elliott,” I said and closed my eyes.
“You get some rest now,” Elliott said. “I’ll see you later.”
He left my room and I opened my eyes again, not really tired. It was just a way to get him to leave. I didn’t think it would be a good idea for him to still be here when Gloria arrived. I was sure he might catch us looking at each other a certain way and start to put the whole thing together. Now he may never have to know about us.
It was ten-fifteen when my door opened and Gloria poked her head in. “All right if I come in?” she said.
I smiled broadly and nodded. Gloria stepped up to my bedside and held my hand. The machine next to me that had been steadily beeping out my heart rate suddenly started beeping more rapidly and Gloria quickly released my hand and stepped back.
I turned my head and looked at the machine’s display. My heart rate was dropping back down into the normal range again.
“I’m sorry,” Gloria said, slipping her hands into her pockets.
“Don’t be,” I said. “This isn’t your fault. You can’t help being the most exciting thing that’s ever happened to me.”
“Maybe not,” Gloria said. “But if we hadn’t… I mean, if you wouldn’t have… Oh hell, there’s no getting around this thing. If we try to keep going like we have been, you’re going to die and I don’t want to be the one responsible for that.”
A tear rolled down the side of my face as I lay there. “I might as well die if we can’t be together anymore,” I said. “Where’s the quality of my life without you?”
Gloria shook her head. “No, Clay,” she said. “I can’t do this anymore, knowing what might happen
to you if I do. I don’t like this any better than you do, but I won’t put you at risk again. I’m sorry. I love you, but I’m sorry. It’s for your own good.”
Now she was crying as well. Gloria wiped her eyes and then bent down to kiss my forehead. The heart monitor’s beeping began to increase and she quickly stepped back and blew me a kiss before hurrying out of the room.
I laid there, both cheeks now soaked with my tears. My heart was killing me; not from the attack, but from the hole Gloria had just left in it. I hoped I would just go quietly in my sleep tonight. What was left for me now? A few minutes later I must have fallen asleep because the next thing I remember was opening my eyes and looking up at Dean and Elliott standing over my bed.
“What time is it?” I said.
Dean looked down at his watch. “A little after three,” he said. “How are you doing, buddy? They tell me this was a close one.”
I sighed heavily. “All right, I guess, all things considered.”
“Hey,” Dean said. “You ought to count your lucky stars and be thankful I’m not Andy Reynolds. When he stands over you, it’s all over.”
He was probably right. Having the county medical examiner standing over you is the last thing I’d want, and would probably be the last thing I’d ever get before they lowered me in the ground and threw the dirt on top of me.
Elliott stepped up to my bedside. “Did Gloria stop by?” he said.
I nodded. “Yeah,” I said. “She stopped in for a couple of minutes but had to leave again. Did you ask her about helping you out again while I’m laid up?”
“Yes,” Elliott said. “She’ll be in tomorrow morning. How about you? Are you feeling any better?”
“I suppose,” I said. “I’m sure not looking forward to another boring three months at home watching the grass grow.”
“Sorry, Dad,” Elliott said. “I just came from the doctor. He tells me it could be as much as six months this time and you’d better really take it easy, too. I mean it, Dad. No exerting yourself, no undue stress or excitement and no work at all during that time. Are we clear here, Dad?”
