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

by Bill Bernico

  Gloria dialed the number, waited for it to ring and then handed me the phone. Dean came on the line after the second ring.

  “Hollister,” Dean said.

  “Dean,” I said. “It’s Elliott Cooper.”

  “What are the odds?” Dean said.

  “Huh?” I said.

  “What are the odds that I’d have a Cooper on the phone and a Cooper across my desk from me at the same time?” Dean said. “Are you checking up on your dad?”

  “No,” I said. “This is official business.”

  “Sounds serious,” Dean said.

  “They don’t come any more serious,” I said. “Gloria and I are at Beefcakes, Unlimited over on Sunset Boulevard.”

  “I didn’t know the investigation business was that bad,” Dean said. “Are you thinking about moonlighting as a stripper?”

  “Dean,” I said. “Drop the jokes. I’m in the back office with the owner. He’s dead. Someone put one into his skull.”

  “Don’t touch a thing,” Dean said. “Stay put. I’m on my way.”

  Dean hung up the phone and turned to Clay. “Sorry, Clay, I’ve got to go out. We’ll have to do this another time.”

  “I want to come along,” Clay said. “Elliott’s involved and I want to be there. All right?”

  “All right,” Dean said reluctantly. “Just don’t get yourself all worked up. I can’t handle a murder and a heart attack at the same time.”

  “I’m fine,” Clay said. “Let’s get going.”

  Clay climbed into the cruiser beside Dean. Dean tooled the car east on Sunset and skidded to a stop across the street from the salmon-colored Catholic Church. They checked the traffic on Sunset and started to cross. Dean held up one hand to oncoming traffic and then dashed across the street with Clay close behind. Dean pulled the front door of Beefcakes, Unlimited open and cautiously stepped inside, his .38 in his hand. It took a while for his eyes to adjust to the darkness.

  “Elliott?” he called out into the darkness.

  “Back here, Dean,” I said. “Behind the bar.”

  Dean and Clay found the back office and stepped in. Dean looked down at Billy Gibson, looked at the rest of his surroundings and then holstered his revolver.

  “Is this just how you found him?” Dean said.

  I shook my head. “No,” I said, gesturing toward the other door. “I pulled that door open and he fell out into the room.”

  Dean looked at the door.

  “I didn’t touch the door knob without a handkerchief,” I said.

  Dean reached for the radio on his belt and called for a crime scene team and the coroner. He turned back to me. “What were you two doing here?” he said, switching his gaze from me to Gloria and back to me again.

  “We were following up on a recent case,” I said. I gestured to the body on the floor. “This guy’s the owner here, or at least he was, and he wanted to hire Gloria and me to find one of his strippers and convince him to come back to work.”

  Clay thought about this for a moment and then said, “Does this have something to do with Margaret Lewis?”

  “I think so,” I said. “Gloria got on the court access site and found that she’d had a restraining order placed against her to stay away from the stripper that Billy Gibson, here, wanted us to find.” I pointed to the body on the floor.

  “And who’s this Margaret Lewis?” Dean said.

  Clay turned to Dean and said, “Do you remember a couple of years ago when I was working on that case with the stalker? I told you about it at the time. This woman was stalking several somewhat famous men, claiming to be their wives.”

  “Yes,” Dean said. “I seem to remember something about that. Some of the guys were up and coming actors, if I recall.”

  “Same woman,” Clay said. “And now she’s apparently stalking some stripper who worked for this guy and now he’s dead. Too much of a coincidence, wouldn’t you say?”

  “Uh, yeah,” Dean said. “Either of you know where this Margaret Lewis woman is now?”

  I shrugged and turned to Gloria. “They listed her address on that court site, but we’ve only seen her at our office and she was using the stripper’s last name then.”

  Dean looked at the computer on Gibson’s desk and then gestured at it. “Can you pull up that site on here?” he said to Gloria.

  “Sure,” Gloria said, bending over in front of the computer. She typed in a few commands and the court access site appeared on the screen. She entered Margaret Lewis’s name and then stepped away so Dean could take down the information.

  Dean grabbed his radio again and ordered a pickup for Margaret Lewis at the address he’d just written down. He looked at me with a question on his face. “So now what are you two going to do?” he said. “You have no one left to pay your fee.”

  “I think we should still try to find Jack Holden,” I said. “If for no other reason than to tie up this big loose end for us and for you.”

  “Go ahead,” Dean said. “We don’t want him for anything that I know of. We’ll have our hands full chasing down Margaret Lewis. Just the same, Elliott, let me know what you turn up, will you?”

  “You bet, Dean,” I said and then gestured to Gloria. “Let’s get moving,” I told her.

  “Goodbye,” Gloria said, mostly to Clay, but then looked at Dean as well.

  Gloria and I got back into my car and pulled away from the curb. “Any ideas about where we should start looking for Holden?” I said, without taking my eyes off the road.

  “Seems to me we need to get a line on him somehow,” she said. “Who’s that contact you have at City Hall in the records?”

  “I don’t know,” I said. “Dad and grandpa always used to have an in with Eva Bishop, but I think she died a few years after she retired from there. I guess we’ll just have to walk in and use our charm on whoever took Eva’s place.”

  “In other words,” Gloria said, “You want me to do the talking?”

  “Now that would be interesting,” I said. “I could get a first-hand lesson on schmoozing. Go ahead, see what you can do?”

  I drove downtown and parked in the City Hall parking lot. We climbed the steps and walked into the cool air. The directory in the main hallway told us which hallway to take to get to the records department. Gloria and I walked in and stepped up to the counter. There was a brass nameplate on the counter that identified the records clerk as one Delbert Smithers. Next to the nameplate sat a small push-button bell. Gloria brought her palm down on the plunger and the bell dinged once. A young man, perhaps in his late twenties, emerged from somewhere unseen and stepped up to the counter. Gloria looked at me and I urged her to step up.

  Gloria looked at the young man, smiled and said, “Are you Delbert Smithers?”

  The man agreed that he was and said, “How may I help you today?”

  Gloria leaned in closer and said, “I need information on a Jack or maybe John Holden. Would you have a record of any property transfers in that name?”

  Delbert swiveled his body toward a computer screen that sat on the counter. He pulled a keyboard on a rolling shelf out from under the counter and typed in the name Gloria had asked for. “Holden,” he said. “Let’s try John first.” He typed in the first name and came up with a blank screen. “Okay,” he said, “Let’s try Jack.” Again he typed on the keyboard and then said, “Here we go. Jack Holden.” Delbert wrote the name and the address down on a slip of paper and slid it across the counter to Gloria.

  Gloria looked at the address and then looked at Delbert. “I already have this address,” she said. “Could you check if there are any other entries under his name?”

  Delbert hit the scroll key and the screen scrolled up, displaying a second entry. “Ah,” he said. “He has one other address up in the Hollywood Hills.” He wrote that address down on the back of the first slip he’d given Gloria. “Will there be anything else?”

  “That should do it, Delbert,” she said. Thank you so much.” She laid her hand on top
of his and he blushed, pulling his hand back. His eyes got wide and he seemed genuinely embarrassed.

  I stepped up to the counter and nudged Gloria to one side. “Excuse me,” I told Delbert. “Could you check one more address as long as you have the screen up?”

  “Go ahead,” Delbert said. “Give me the name.”

  “Margaret Lewis,” I said. “Do you have anything on her?”

  Delbert typed Margaret’s name into the computer and waited. A second later the screen came up blank. Delbert looked up at me. “Sorry,” he said. “There’s nothing under that name.”

  I played a hunch. “Try Margaret Holden,” I said.

  Delbert gave me a strange look and then typed in the name. “Got a hit,” he said, sounding surprised. He wrote the name and address on another piece of paper and slid it over to me.

  “Thanks a lot, Delbert,” I said. “Say, do people call you Del?”

  “Almost nobody,” Delbert said. “Most people call me Delbert.”

  “Well,” I said. “My name’s Elliott. Would you mind if I called you Del?”

  Del’s stone face softened and I thought I saw the edges of a smile. “Sure,” he said.

  “Well, it was great to meet you, Del,” I said. “You’ll probably be seeing more of us in the future. It’s good to know we have a contact here at City Hall.”

  Now Del was smiling broadly, apparently glad to have made a real connection with another human being, unlike all the robotic connections he had come across in this impersonal job.

  Back in the car I turned to Gloria. “Now that’s schmoozing,” I said. “Make a friend of the guy and you’ll have him in your pocket next time you need a favor.”

  “I got what I wanted out of him,” Gloria said.

  “You didn’t think it was a bit strange when he pulled his hand out from under yours?” I said.

  “I just figured he was the shy type,” Gloria said.

  “Hey,” I said, “Sometimes a look or a touch can be too much for some guys. Poor Delbert’s probably going to have to change his shorts now. You’re just lucky there wasn’t some old guy behind the counter. He might have had the big one, like Fred Sanford, if you’d touched him. You seem to have that effect on men.”

  Gloria got her back up. “What’s that supposed to mean?” she said.

  I held up both palms. “Easy, lady,” I said. “That was supposed to be a compliment. Why are you so sensitive about it?”

  Gloria eased up. “I’m not sensitive,” she said. “I just wasn’t aware a simple touch had that kind of effect on men.”

  “We are the sensitive half of the species, despite what they say about women,” I said. “Maybe women aren’t affected by a simple touch, but we guys, well, that’s another story entirely. You get our imaginations running wild with something like a simple touch. Doesn’t take much to set some of us off, you know.”

  “No, I didn’t know,” Gloria said. “I’ll try to control myself from now on.”

  “Well, you don’t have to go to extremes,” I said. “I can handle it, so don’t ease up with me.” That seemed to soothe her nervousness and she softened.

  “Can we get going?” she said.

  “Did I say something wrong?” I said.

  Gloria didn’t answer, but just held a hand up. When I looked over at her, her eyes had welled up and she turned away from me.

  I pulled up to the curb and put the car in Park. “What’s the problem?” I said.

  Gloria still wouldn’t face me.

  I laid my hand on her shoulder. “Come on, Gloria, you can talk to me. I’m here for you.”

  She turned toward me and buried her head in my chest and sobbed. I stroked her hair but couldn’t think of anything to say. I didn’t even know why she was upset, so how could I possibly say anything to fix it?

  Gloria opened the glove box and pulled out a tissue. She wiped her eyes and sat upright again. She tried her best to compose herself. “I’m fine now,” she said. “We’d better keep going if we’re going to find Jack.” She let out a deep breath and tucked the wet tissue into her pocket.

  “Are you sure?” I said. “This isn’t even a case for us. We don’t have to do this, you know.”

  “No,” Gloria said. “Let’s see this thing through. I’ll be all right. I just had to let it out, that’s all.”

  I pulled the shifter back down into Drive and pulled back into traffic. If I lived to be a hundred, I’d never be able to figure out women. Maybe Dad understood them. Maybe he could give me a little insight into their complex workings. I decided when this whole thing was over that I was going to set aside some time and have a meaningful talk with my dad.

  I took Sunset west past LaBrea to Fuller Avenue and then turned north. I picked up Runyon Canyon Road at the end of Fuller. It was a dirt road that wound around up into the mountains. A couple miles further north we found the address Delbert had written down for us. It turned out to be nothing more than a lot where an older Airstream trailer had been parked. The location was isolated from the rest of the houses in this area. I guess Jack Holden could find some refuge here from the hurried life in Hollywood.

  I pulled up next to the trailer and Gloria and I got out to take a closer look. The trailer was surrounded on three sides by scrub brush. If you didn’t know it was there, you could easily miss it. I was almost certain that it couldn’t have been seen from the air.

  I didn’t see any cars parked nearby. If Jack was up here, he either walked or got a lift from someone else. As I walked around the side of the trailer, I spotted a dirt bike. It was a 125cc model with knobby tires—perfect for this terrain. From the corner of my eye I thought I saw a curtain move. I walked back around to the front of the trailer and stepped up two steps and knocked on the door. I heard movement inside but nobody came to the door. I knocked again and a moment later the door opened and a tall man in shorts and a tee shirt stood looking down at Gloria and me.

  “Yeah?” he said. “What do you want?”

  “Jack Holden?” I said.

  “Who wants to know?” he said warily.

  “My name is Elliott Cooper,” I said. “And this is Gloria Campbell. We wanted to talk to you about Billy Gibson.” I handed him one of my cards. He tried to hand it back to me, but I didn’t take it.

  “Forget it,” Holden said. “You can tell that son-of-a-bitch that I’m not coming back. Now scram.”

  “Mr. Holden,” I said. “We just came from Beefcakes, Unlimited. The police are there with Mr. Gibson now.”

  “So what?” Holden said. “Whatever he did to bring the heat down on himself had nothing to do with me. So you can both just drive back down the mountain and tell him to find another sucker.”

  “I can’t tell him that,” I said.

  “And why not?” Holden said.

  “Because he’s dead,” Gloria said, glancing around me to get a look at Jack the Stripper in the flesh.

  “You’re not kidding me, are you?” Holden said.

  I shook my head. “Someone shot him,” I said. “And by the looks of it, it happened in the past few hours.”

  “Well,” Holden said, “I’ve been up here for the past three days. I haven’t left here in all that time.”

  “Could we maybe come inside?” I said. “It might be easier to talk to you, if you don’t mind.”

  Holden sighed and then held the door open for us. “Yeah,” he said. “Come on in.”

  He invited us to sit on a small two-position sofa while he pulled open his refrigerator door and looked back at us. “Do either of you want a beer?” he said.

  Gloria and I both waved him off, not because we weren’t thirsty, but because just being in this old trailer gave us the Willies and we were certain we’d need a shower when we got back to town. Holden took a beer for himself and popped the top before sitting in a chair next to us.

  “Mr. Holden,” I said. “Are you familiar with a woman named Margaret Lewis?”

  “Oh gees,” Holden said. “Is there no esca
ping that lunatic, even up here?”

  “Is she part of the reason for your leaving Beefcakes?” Gloria said.

  “Mostly,” Holden said. “Between her and Billy, I couldn’t get any peace and privacy. If he wasn’t bugging me to do more shows, she was stalking me like some nut case. I couldn’t shake the bitch. Every time I’d turn around, there she was.”

  “Mr. Holden,” I said.

  “You can just call me Jack,” Holden said. “Everyone else does.”

  “All right, Jack,” I continued. “Margaret originally wanted to hire Gloria and me and find her missing husband—you.”

  “But I’m not…” Jack started to say.

  “I know,” I said. “We’ve since found out that there was a restraining order placed against Margaret Lewis and that she is not your wife.”

  “Thank goodness for that,” Jack said.

  Gloria looked at Jack and added, “We also found out that she had been escorted out of Beefcakes on several occasions for inappropriate behavior toward you and some of the other dancers. Elliott and I had decided not to hire ourselves out to Margaret, but we did get the same offer to find you from Mr. Gibson. When we went back to speak with him, we found him dead—shot once in the head. Since there was no one left to hire us, the case should have ended then and there, but Elliott and I wanted to at least find you and let you know what’s happened and to be on the lookout for this Lewis woman.”

  “You think she shot Billy?” Jack said.

  “We’re not sure at this point,” I said. “But if it was her, there’s a good chance that she may be coming after you next.”

  “She doesn’t know about this place,” Jack said. “And I want to keep it like that. She made such a pest of herself at my apartment back in Hollywood that I had to move.”

  “Well, Jack,” I said. “You may get a visit from a police lieutenant. I’m sure he’ll have a few questions of his own. But that’s all we came up here for, was to get some answers to our questions. We won’t bother you any further.”

  Gloria and I got up to leave. When Jack opened his front door for us, Margaret Lewis was standing there, holding a gun on him. She backed the three of us into the trailer and told us all to sit. We complied.