Cooper By The Gross (All 144 Cooper Stories In One Volume)

by Bill Bernico

  Before stopping in the dress department, Gloria had visited the shoe department and had selected a pair of high heel pumps that complimented the dress perfectly. The high heels would accent her shapely legs once she’d slipped into the sheer panty hose. This was a lot more feminine looking than Gloria had been in a long time and it felt good. She exited the dressing room and walked over to a mirror on the floor and looked at her reflection again. She looked even better in this light, she thought.

  She wasn’t used to high heels and her feet wobbled a little as she walked back toward the dressing room. Once she was back inside, she looked around, thinking that she must have entered the wrong cubicle. Her street clothes weren’t hanging where she’d left them. Gloria hurried back out of the dressing room and found another door to her right. This cubicle was empty as well. She checked all of the cubicles and still couldn’t find her clothes in any of them.

  “Oh, this is just dandy,” she said to no one in particular. She stood there for a moment, not sure what she should do. She decided that she’d better try to find the store manager and explain her dilemma before someone started to suspect her of shoplifting.

  The store manager was a portly man named Rodney Jarvis. If he’d had a small mustache just below his nostrils only, he could have passed for Oliver Hardy. He had a semi-circle of dark hair around the back of his head and looked like he would sweat at the mere mention of heat. His suit jacket had that permanently unbuttoned look about it, like it was a size too small for him. He invited Gloria to sit.

  “Mr. Jarvis,” Gloria said. “I don’t have my identification with me to prove what I say, but my name is Gloria Campbell and I am a private investigator. I came here to your store to buy this dress and these shoes but when I left the dressing room to look at myself in a better lighted mirror on the floor, someone slipped into my dressing cubicle and made off with my street clothes. I can’t very well walk home in this outfit, now can I?”

  Jarvis looked me over briefly, trying to determine if I was making this story up or if I was on the level.

  “Look,” I said. “If I was just another shoplifter, do you think I’d try and walk out of this place in this?” She gestured at the dress and shoes she had on. “I need to get home, but my car keys were in my pants, along with my wallet and cell phone. Now what are you going to do about it?”

  “Would you like to use my phone to call someone for a ride back home?” Jarvis suggested.

  “And what will I be wearing on my way back home if I can find a ride?” Gloria said. “Obviously not this outfit. I haven’t even paid for it yet and no doubt you’d like it back.”

  “Well, uh, yes,” Jarvis said. “That would have to be paid for before it could leave here. Could whomever you call for your ride bring you a change of clothes, perhaps?”

  Whomever, Gloria thought. At least this clown was versed in the English language. “I’d call someone,” she said, “But they took my phone along with my wallet and pants.”

  Jarvis slid his desk phone over toward Gloria. “You can use my phone,” he said. “Just dial a nine first to get an outside line.”

  Gloria rolled her eyes and grabbed the phone, dialing the office. On the third ring she got the answering machine and hung up. She dialed another nine and then tried my cell phone number. I picked up on the second ring.

  “Cooper,” I said in a professional voice.

  “Elliott,” Gloria said. “It’s Gloria.”

  “Gloria?” I said. “Where are you calling from? I didn’t recognize the number.”

  “I’m calling from the manager’s office at Madame Michelle’s Dress Shop,” Gloria told him.

  “A dress shop?” I said. “What happened, did you wander into the wrong store?”

  “Spare me the sarcasm,” Gloria said. “I’m in a jam and I need your help. Are you in the area?”

  “I’m just exiting the Hollywood Freeway now,” I said. “I could be back at the office in ten minutes. What do you need?”

  “Turn around as soon as you can,” Gloria said. “Drive over to my place and get me a pair of jeans and a blouse or shirt. Oh, and a pair of shoes, too. Bring all that to Madame Michelle’s and meet me in the manager’s office. I’ll explain everything when you get here.”

  “How would you suggest I get into your house?” I said.

  Gloria thought for a moment and then said, “Pull open my front screen door. It’s never locked. Under the crossbar in the middle of the door, I have a spare house key taped to it. Let yourself in and bring that key with you when you come.”

  “But…”

  “Please, Elliott,” Gloria said. “Just go, would you?”

  “Give me twenty minutes,” I said. “I’ll be there as soon as I can.”

  Gloria hung up the phone and slid it back over toward Mr. Jarvis. “Thank you. Someone will be here shortly with a change of clothes for me. Meanwhile, what are you going to do about my things? I need them back.”

  “What can I do?” Jarvis said.

  “Does your store use surveillance cameras, Mr. Jarvis?” Gloria said.

  “Yes, of course we do,” Jarvis said.

  “Can I see the surveillance tape from fifteen minutes ago in the dress department?” Gloria said.

  Jarvis hesitated for a moment.

  “Now!” Gloria almost yelled and then caught herself. “I’m sorry, Mr. Jarvis. Could I see that tape now, please?”

  “Right this way,” Jarvis said, leading Gloria through another door, down a hall and into an office marked, ‘Security’.

  Inside the room Gloria could see a dozen or more security monitors displaying different areas of the store. She scanned the monitors and stopped on the second one from the right. She pointed to the screen.

  “That’s where I was,” she said. “I’d like to see the tape from that area.”

  Jarvis pressed a button on the recorder that sat directly under the monitor that Gloria had pointed to. The tape stopped. He hit another button and the tape rewound in fast motion. Gloria watched the counter as it counted down backwards from the present time to fifteen minutes prior. She saw her own image as it emerged from the dressing room and stepped over to the mirror. A few seconds later she caught the image of a person sneaking into her dressing cubicle. Five seconds later the figure came back out carrying something with her. Gloria pointed at the screen.

  “Freeze that,” she said.

  Jarvis hit the pause button. The image froze on the screen.

  “Can you zoom in on this area here?” Gloria said, pointing to the person’s face.

  Jarvis maneuvered a joystick device and the image came in closer until Gloria instructed him to stop. “There she is,” Gloria said. “And she’s got my clothes and shoes with her.”

  “She looks amazingly like you, doesn’t she?” Jarvis said.

  “Well, obviously it’s not me,” Gloria said. “Because I’m right here and she’s gone with my clothes. I’ll need a printout of that frame, if you don’t mind, Mr. Jarvis.”

  Jarvis pressed another button and a printer on the countertop spit out a color photo of the thief’s face. Gloria grabbed it and took a closer look. She didn’t recognize the woman in the photo. Suddenly it dawned on Gloria that her cell phone was still in the pocket of her pants. She turned to Jarvis again.

  “May I use your phone one more time, Mr. Jarvis?” Without waiting for an answer, Gloria picked up the handset from Jarvis’s desk phone and dialed her cell phone. It rang five times before someone answered.

  “Hello,” a woman’s voice said.

  “Hello,” Gloria said. “Who am I speaking to?”

  There was nothing but silence on the other end for a moment.

  “Look,” Gloria said. “I don’t care that much about the jeans and blouse. If you need clothes that bad, keep them. But I need my cell phone, wallet and car keys back. They won’t do you any good. I can just cancel the charge cards and phone service and you wouldn’t know where my car is or even what it is, so why not giv
e them back?”

  After another pause, the woman said. “I’m sorry I took your things, but I had to.”

  “What do you mean, you had top?” Gloria said. “Nobody has to steal someone’s clothes.”

  “You don’t understand,” the woman said. “I couldn’t have gotten out of the store in my own clothes. He was watching.”

  “Who was watching?” Gloria said.

  “My ex-boyfriend,” the woman said. “He followed me into the store and I had to ditch him. He’d have recognized my red, white and blue sweat suit anywhere. Tell you what, if you’ll give me a few minutes, I’ll give you back everything I took. Or at least I’ll tell you where you can pick them up after I change back into my own clothes.”

  Gloria thought about the proposition for a moment and then said, “Okay, where can I get my things and when?”

  After a brief pause, the woman said, “You know that little church just west of Grauman’s Chinese Theater?”

  “Yes,” Gloria said.

  “It’s pretty close to the building next to it,” the woman said. “There’s maybe eight feet between them. I’ll leave your stuff in a brown paper bag under the bush that’s between those two buildings. Give me five minutes and then you can pick them all up, and once again, I am sorry I had to do that to you, but it was necessary. I know it won’t make up for your inconvenience, but I’ll leave ten bucks in the pocket of your jeans for your aggravation.”

  “But…” Gloria started to say before she heard the dial tone. Gloria hung up Jarvis’s phone and sighed.

  “Did you locate your things?” Jarvis said.

  “I think so,” Gloria told him. “And as soon as my replacement clothes get here I can go and recover them.”

  Just then a knock came on Jarvis’s door. Jarvis opened his door and invited me in.

  I held the bag out for Gloria and she took it, peeked down into it and then looked at me. “Thanks, Elliott,” she said, and then looked at Jarvis. “Is there someplace where I can change clothes?” she said.

  Jarvis pointed to his personal bathroom and Gloria hurried inside. She emerged in less than a minute, dressed in the jeans, shirt and sneakers I’d brought. I gave Gloria back her house key and she handed Mr. Jarvis his dress and shoes. “Thank you, Mr. Jarvis,” Gloria said. “If you could hang onto those items for me, I’ll be back to pay for them as soon as I can.” She turned to me and jerked her head toward the exit door. “Come on, Elliott, let’s go get my things.”

  I looked at Mr. Jarvis, shrugged and spread my hands. “Don’t ask me,” I said. “I just got here.”

  Gloria and I hurried out to my car. She slid in behind the wheel and when I slid in next to her, she held her hand out. “Can I have the keys?” she said.

  I handed them over without asking any questions. I could tell she was in a hurry and in no mood for explanations yet. She headed east on Hollywood and turned south on Las Palmas for one block, turning east on Selma. She took Selma to Highland and Highland back to Hollywood, turning west and continuing a couple of blocks until she pulled up in front of a small church. Just as she got out of the car, she saw a woman crouched under a bush. The woman was wearing a red, white and blue sweat suit and she appeared to be reaching under the bush. She was totally absorbed in what she was doing and didn’t even hear Gloria walking up behind her. Gloria laid a hand on the woman’s shoulder and the woman let out a terrified screech. This startled Gloria, who immediately pulled her hand back.

  The woman turned and looked up at Gloria. “You scared the shit out of me,” the woman said.

  “You took a few years off my life with that screech, too,” Gloria said. She pointed to the bag under the bush. “I take it those would be my clothes.” She held her hand out and curled the fingers toward her.

  The woman retrieved the bag and stood, handing it to Gloria. “I’m really sorry,” she said again as she gave Gloria back her possessions.

  Gloria reached into the bag and pulled out her jeans. She immediately went through her pockets and found her cell phone and car keys. In the other pocket she found her wallet. She pulled that out and opened it. All her money and credit cards were still there. She looked at the woman with amazement.

  “Check the back pocket,” the woman told her.

  Gloria reached into the back pocket and withdrew a ten-dollar bill that had been folded twice. Gloria shot me a knowing glance and then looked at the woman. “Okay,” she said, “So you’re not the average everyday thief. You still had no right to take my things.”

  The woman hung her head. “I know,” she said. “And I really am sorry, but it was the only way I could think of to get out of the store without having to deal with my ex-boyfriend again. You don’t know what he’s capable of.”

  Gloria thought about this for a moment and remembered one of her relationships years ago that had ended badly. She could understand somewhat what this girl was feeling. Gloria held the ten-dollar bill out to the woman. “Go on,” Gloria said. “I don’t want your money.”

  The woman waved her off. “Please take it,” she said. “I’d feel better if you did and money’s the one thing I have. That’s why my ex is after me. I’m sure it’s the only reason he wants to find me, so he can try to get back together and get at my money. What I really need is protection.”

  Gloria shot me another glance and then looked at the woman again, beckoning her to follow. “Come on,” Gloria said. “How about if we all go somewhere and talk about this over a cup of coffee.”

  “We?” the woman said.

  “I’m sorry,” Gloria said. “That’s right, you don’t even know us and we don’t know you. My name is Gloria Campbell and this is Elliott Cooper. Please, won’t you join us for a cup of coffee? Maybe we can help you.”

  The woman thought about it for a second and then said, “All right,” but still had not given us her name.

  “Did you walk here?” Gloria said.

  The woman nodded.

  “You can ride with us,” Gloria told her. “We can go to the Gold Cup. It’s right down the street.”

  All three of us got into my car with me driving this time. I drove around the block and headed east on the boulevard again. A block from our office building I pulled up to the curb in front of The Gold Cup coffee shop, dropped a quarter into the meter and the three of us went inside. I walked the two ladies over to a corner booth and signaled for a waitress. The waitress brought a coffee pot over to our table. Gloria and the woman turned their cups right side up. The waitress poured two cups of coffee and then looked at me. I waved her off and asked for a glass of skim milk.

  “This is really embarrassing for me,” the woman said. “I’ve never done anything like this in my life.”

  Gloria poured a little cream into her coffee and stirred it. “Why don’t you tell us your story?” Gloria said. “And like I said earlier, maybe Elliott and I can help you.”

  “How can you help?” the woman said. “What are you, cops or something?”

  “More of an ‘or something’,” I said. “Gloria and I are private investigators.”

  The woman breathed a sigh of relief. “Oh man,” she said. “That’s a load of my mind. I thought I was going to have to go to jail?”

  “So,” Gloria said, “Suppose you tell us all about it. If we can help, we’ll tell you. If not, well, nothing ventured, nothing gained. What do we call you?”

  “Donna,” she said. “Donna Goodwin.”

  “All right, Donna,” I said. “Let’s hear your story.” Just then the waitress brought me my glass of milk and I sipped from it.

  “I thought Joey was the one,” Donna began. “I met him six months ago at a bar and things were fine for a while. Then I started noticing a change in him when he found out that I came into a sizeable amount of money. His attitude towards me changed. He began expecting me to pay for a lot of things for him. I did for a while, just to keep him happy, but he got more and more demanding until one day I just told him that it wasn’t working out betwe
en us and that I wanted out.”

  “I take it he didn’t like that,” Gloria said.

  Donna shook her head. “Not one little bit,” she said. “He started to get really nasty and a couple of time I had to call the cops, or neighbors called the cops. Anyway, Joey got arrested a couple of times and then I got a restraining order out against him. He’s supposed to stay five hundred yards away from me, but lately I’ve been seeing him within ten or fifteen feet. It’s always in public and he initially didn’t try to approach me. He’d just stand there smiling that stupid smile to let me know he was ignoring the restraining order and that he could get to me any time he felt like it.”

  “So have him arrested again,” I said. “Judges don’t take kindly to having their orders ignored. Joey could do some time.”

  “And he’d be out in sixty or ninety days and then start this whole thing all over again,” Donna said. “He’s just not getting the message. I want him to stay away from me. I’m getting scared.”

  “Would you like us to help you?” Gloria said. “We deal with this kind of thing all the time.”

  I nodded. “She’s right, Donna,” I said. “Maybe what Joey needs is a stern talking to, if you catch my drift.”

  “Are you suggesting strong-arm tactics?” Donna said.

  “Well, I was just…” I started to say.

  “No, don’t apologize, Mr. Cooper,” Donna said. “I was hoping that’s what you meant and I just wanted to be sure that we’re both on the same page.”

  “So you’d have no problem with me having that stern talk with Joey then?” I said.

  “How stern are we talking here?” Donna said.