by Bill Bernico
“Thanks,” I said and went to join my son in the living room.
Matt looked up from his book when I entered the room. He smiled a broad smile and laid the book aside. He slipped off the couch and ran to me. I picked him up and gave him a big hug.
“How’s my favorite boy?” I said.
“Your favorite?” Matt said. “I’m your only boy.”
“That’s right, you are,” I said.
“Did you bring me something, Daddy?” he said quietly, and then pointed toward my bedroom. “Mommy’s sleeping, Shhh.”
“I know,” I said. “Let’s go out to the kitchen.” I took Matt’s hand and we headed for the kitchen table. Matt slipped up onto one of the chairs and I pulled a chair out next to him and sat. I reached into my jacket pocket and pulled out the tiny black and white model police car and laid it in front of him.
Matt’s eyes got large as he examined the little vehicle with the red light on the roof. He turned back to me. “Is this like the one your grandpa rode around in?” he said, grabbing the car and running it across the table top.
“A little newer,” I said, “but the same color. Do you like it?”
Matt smiled, showing all his teeth, except the one in front that had recently fallen out. “It’s neat, Daddy,” he said.
“Just make sure you play quietly with it while your mother is resting,” I said. “Okay?”
“Okay,” Matt said and then wrapped his little arms around my neck. “Thank you, Daddy.”
“You’re welcome, Matt,” I said and then had to smile at the unintentional phrase, ‘Welcome Matt’ that came out of my mouth. I wondered how many times Grandpa had to hear a joke like that during his lifetime.
I rose from the kitchen table and turned to Mrs. Chandler. “I came home to run some thoughts by Gloria,” I said, “but they can wait until I get home again tonight. I’ll see you all later.” I left the house and drove back to the office. I couldn’t manage to shake the mental picture of more than a hundred grand in Greg’s desk drawer. I’d look into that a bit later, but right now I needed to talk to Bud Burke.
I dialed the number Eric had given me and waited as it rang. “Burke here,” the voice on the other end said.
“Mr. Burke,” I said. “My name is Elliott Cooper. I got your name from Lieutenant Anderson.”
“Yes, Mr. Cooper,” Bud said. “I know you. That is, I know of you. Your dad and I crossed paths on several occasions while I was still on the force. What can I do for you today?”
“I was wondering if you’re free to meet me over coffee,” I said. “I have something I want to run by you.”
“Yes,” Bud said. “Eric called and told me what you were looking for. I was wondering when you’d call.”
“Does that mean you’d be interested?” I said.
“Does a bear shit in the woods?” Bud said and then caught himself. “Sorry, that’s a bad habit I picked up over the years.”
“Don’t be,” I said. “It’s good to know I won’t have to be so formal with you. When can we meet, and where a convenient place for you? You’re in Burbank, aren’t you?”
“That’s where I used to work,” Bud said. “After I retired, the wife and I moved to Hollywood. We simplified and took a smaller house over on Las Palmas just south of Sunset. So if you have some favorite watering hole in town you like, well, make it easy on yourself.”
“Do you know The Gold Cup on the boulevard?” I said. “It’s a coffee shop.”
“I know it,” Bud said. “When are you free?”
“Well,” I said, “if you’re not in the middle of something now, how about fifteen minutes?”
“I’ll be there,” Bud said.
“One last thing,” I said. “If I ever crossed paths with you, I don’t remember, so tell me what to look for so I’ll know you.”
“I’ll be the guy who looks like a retired cop,” Bud said and then paused for effect. “And I’ll be wearing my Dodgers baseball cap. Big fan, you know.”
“Then I guess I’ll see you in fifteen minutes,” I said and hung up. I plucked a couple of business cards from the holder on my desk and slipped them into my shirt pocket before I left. I didn’t even have to drive anywhere. The Gold Cup was just up the block from my office building. When I walked in I didn’t see anyone wearing a baseball cap, Dodgers or otherwise. I must have beaten him here so I took a booth by the front window and waited. A few minutes later a tall, middle-aged man win a blue baseball cap walked in. When he turned toward me, I could finally see the Dodgers name stitched in script across the front. I held one hand in the air to get his attention. I slipped out of the booth and stood as Bud approached.
“Elliott Cooper?” Bud said, extending his hand toward me.
I shook his hand. “Doctor Livingston, I presume,” I said.
Bud gave me a strange look and I immediately realized that he must not be an old movie buff. “Sorry,” I said. “That’s a bad habit I picked up over the years.”
Bud quickly connected my latest comment with the same one he’d made to me over the phone. “Clever,” he said and slid into the booth across from me.
“Coffee?” a waitress said over Bud’s shoulder.
“Black with cream,” Bud said and then looked at me.
“A glass of chocolate milk,” I said.
The waitress jotted down our order and walked away without further comment.
“Chocolate milk?” Bud said.
“Never cared for the taste of coffee,” I explained.
“So,” Bud said, “I understand you’re going to need some help with your private investigations company. Has business picked up enough to warrant another man?”
I shook my head. “Not exactly,” I said. “My wife is also a licenses private eye but she’s due to have our second child any day now. That and the fact that she told me that she wants to be a stay at home mom until this next kid starts school. So I’m afraid this position won’t be permanent.”
“School, huh?” Bud said. “That’s what, five years down the road? To me that’s permanent. What do you need from me?”
“Well,” I said, “for starters, do you still own a gun?”
“Still have my .38 service revolver from the department,” Bud said. “Bought it with my own money when I started the job and took it with me when I left.”
“And you’re licensed to carry it?” I said.
“That I am,” Bud said. “For the first month after I retired I didn’t wear it and I felt absolutely naked without it so I got myself a private carry permit. Now I never leave the house without it. It’s a shame isn’t it?”
“What’s that?” I said.
“The way the world is these days,” Bud explained. “It’s a dirty rotten shame that people can’t even feel safe on the streets with the element that’s out there these days. I know first-hand from my twenty years with the department.”
“And you’re forty-three now?” I said.
Bud nodded. “At least until next November,” he said. “Why? Do you think I’m too old for the job?”
“Not at all,” I said. “I just wanted to make sure you didn’t see it as a problem working for someone who’s only thirty-three.”
Bud shook his head. “The way I see it,” he said, “it’s more like I’ll be working with you than for you. But yeah, I know what you mean. I had sergeants older than me working for me. I had this same talk with them. Don’t give it another thought.”
I sighed. “This is too easy,” I said. “I figured I’d be up against at least a little resistance.”
“If it’ll make you feel any better, I’ll let you pay for the coffee,” Bud said and then laughed.
“I think this is going to work out just fine,” I said, as the waitress set Bud’s coffee and my chocolate milk on the table. She ripped the bill off her pad and laid it face down in front of Bud before she walked away again.
Bud slid the check over to my side of the booth. “Don’t forget to save your receipt for a tax
deduction.”
“When we’re finished here,” I said, “I can take you over to my office and show you around. Gloria’s desk is still there and you can slide right in. We talked for a few more minutes while we finished our drinks and then walked back up the boulevard to my office. Bud rode the elevator with me to the third floor and I walked him to the end of the hall and let him in. “You can hang your hat on the rack if you like.”
Bud placed both hands over his hat. “No thanks,” he said. “The hat can stay right where it’s at.”
“Okay,” I said. “Must be your lucky hat.”
Bud lifted it off his head to show me the giant bald spot on top. Around the side of his head was a perfect semi-circle of brown hair. He replaced the hat. “That’s why I like to keep it on,” he said.
I pointed out Gloria’s desk and said, “You can park it here while you’re in the office. The bathroom’s over there and the sink is in that little alcove next to my desk. Make yourself at home. Oh, and one more thing. You’ll have to apply for a private investigator’s license before you can join me out on the street or on a case. Meanwhile there should be enough to do around the office. Are you computer literate?”
Bud smiled. “Are you kidding?” he said. “I wrote my own web site from scratch. I know my way around a computer.”
“Like I said, you’re going to fit right in,” I told him.
“I think I’m going to like it here,” Bud said.
Bud sat at Gloria’s desk and I lifted one leg and sat on the edge of it. “Let me ask you something,” I said. “Not as a private eye, which you’re not yet, but as a retired cop with plenty of experience.”
“Shoot,” Bud said.
I explained the case that I’d taken earlier in the day only to be told I wasn’t needed anymore. I told him about the rich girl and about looking for her missing boyfriend and finding the hundred twenty-five grand in the process, leaving out actual names for the moment. “What does that sound like to you, Bud?” I said.
“From what you told me,” Bud said, “It sounds like the girl and her boyfriend found a way to milk Daddy’s bank account with some phony story. That about what you came up with?”
“It had occurred to me,” I said. “I knew she and her family had money, but from what this girl told me about the boyfriend, I didn’t see him as the rich type. I figured him for more of a user.”
“So what part do you think you played in all this?” Bud said.
“I couldn’t figure that out right off the bat,” I said, “But once I stood back and took a closer look at everything in context, it occurred to me that I was just being used like she used the police when she tried to report him missing only to be told that she’s have to wait forty-eight hours to file a missing persons report. That and the receipt I gave her for my services could have been enough for her to go to her father and get a ransom.”
“Sounds like the long way around the barn,” Bud said. “There must have been an easier way to get that kind of money, especially for someone with her family’s resources.”
“I thought of that, too,” I said. “I wondered if her father might not have her on an allowance or some kind of trust fund until she reaches, say, twenty-five. A girl like that could get awfully impatient waiting for the big payoff. The other thing that I thought of was that she might also get some sort of kick out of outsmarting Daddy out of his money.”
“There is that,” Bud agreed. “But once she told you she no longer needed your services, why would you care what she’s doing? You got paid handsomely for a few hours of snooping around.”
“I have to agree with that,” I said.
“Had it occurred to you that Daddy might be a profitable client for you?” Bud suggested.
“The thought had crossed my mind,” I said. “But there’s no way I could approach him with this information without breaking client confidentiality.”
“That’s a hard one, isn’t it?” Bud said. “But I don’t have that same conflict with her. I’m not officially an employee here until I get my license. Do you think it might be worth a shot if I talk to him?”
“And say what?” I said.
Bud thought about it for a moment and then shook his head. “No good,” he said. “If I tell him what you told me, he’d want to know where I heard it and I couldn’t tell him. He’d probably suspect me of being up to no good, too.”
“Best just to let it go,” I said. “At least for now.”
“You’re probably right,” Bud said. He gestured toward Gloria’s computer. “Mind if I check this thing out and see what it can do?”
I spread my hands. “Be my guest,” I said.
Bud turned the computer on and waited as the boot screen messages scrolled by. “Kind of old technology,” he said. “And you could probably use another gig of memory and a second hard drive. This one’s almost full.”
“Don’t tell me you’re a hardware guy, too,” I said.
“I could upgrade both your computers in an hour,” Bud said. “You’d see a noticeable increase in speed and productivity. And it wouldn’t cost that much, either. Couple of hundred should do it.”
I opened my wallet and pulled two of the four hundred dollar bills I’d gotten earlier from Bonnie Sanders and laid them in front of Bud. “Go for it,” I said. “Go buy what you need and I check them out when you’ve finished.”
Bud left the office, giving me the privacy I wanted for my call home. Mrs. Chandler picked up the phone. “Hi, Mrs. Chandler,” I said. “Is Gloria up yet?”
She didn’t answer but a couple of seconds later Gloria came on the line. “Elliott,” she said. “What’s going on?”
I told her of my meeting with Bud and what we had talked about, up to and including his offer to upgrade both of our computers. “He’s out buying what he needs to do the job so I thought I’d use that time to call and see how you’re feeling.”
“Aside from feeling tired all the time,” Gloria said, “I guess I’m doing as well as could be expected this close to delivery.”
“Well,” I said, “You just keep on taking it easy, you hear? I’ll be home around five. I’m anxious for you to meet Bud. Maybe after you have the baby I can have him over for coffee and to meet you.”
“That’s still more than ten days away,” Gloria reminded me. “I think…”
I heard a clunking sound and then what sounded like moaning. “Gloria,” I yelled into the phone. No answer. “Gloria,” I repeated. “Mrs. Chandler.”
Mrs. Chandler came on the line after a few seconds. “Mr. Cooper,” she said in a panicked voice. “I think you’d better come home right away. Gloria collapsed on the kitchen floor. Her face is looking pale.”
“Stay right there with her,” I said. “I’ll call an ambulance on my way home.” I hung up the phone and dialed 911, telling the operator to send an ambulance to my home address. I hurried downstairs and into my car. The scenery became a blur as I sped through the streets toward home. I pulled up to the curb in front of my house just as two ambulance attendants were wheeling Gloria out to the back of their ambulance. I rushed to her side and climbed into the back of the ambulance just before the back doors closed and the emergency vehicle sped toward the hospital. A few minutes later the ambulance pulled to a stop at the emergency entrance to the hospital. The driver came back and opened the doors and helped the other attendant wheel the gurney inside. There was a large blood stain on the lower half of the sheet that covered Gloria.
I stayed alongside the gurney, holding Gloria’s hand and speaking words of encouragement to her. When we got to the emergency room, a hospital attendant held me back while they wheeled Gloria through the double doors to a waiting team of doctors and nurses.
“What happened to my wife?” I said to the young man in scrubs who had held me back.
“I don’t know, sir,” he said. “The doctor will be with you just as soon as he knows more. You might as well sit in the waiting room. There’s nothing more you can do for now.” He
walked me to the waiting area and then disappeared.
I was too keyed up to sit and just paced the length of the room, back and forth. I had lost all track of time and before I knew it, ninety minutes had passed when the waiting room door opened and a doctor stepped in.
“Mr. Cooper?” he said.
I nodded. “How’s my wife?” I said. “How’s Gloria?”
“Mother and daughter are both doing fine,” the doctor said. “She…”
“Daughter?” I said. “I have a daughter?”
“Seven pounds, two ounces,” the doctor said. “And quite a set of lungs on her, from the way she objected to my spanking her bottom.”
“Can I see my wife, doctor?” I said anxiously.
“She’ll need plenty of rest,” the doctor said, “but I don’t suppose a minute or two would hurt. Just wait here. They’ll be bringing her into the recovery room shortly. Someone will come and get you then.”
I grabbed the doctor’s hand. “Thank you, doctor,” I said, my eyes welling up.
I stood in the hallway just outside the waiting room so I’d be sure to see if anyone was coming for me. Two minutes later a nurse in green scrubs walked toward me, her face mask hanging below her chin. “Mr. Cooper?” she said.
“I’m Mr. Cooper,” I told her. “Can I see my wife now?”
“Come with me,” she said, walking back the way she’d come. She pushed a door open and held it while I walked in. “You can only stay a minute or two,” she said, holding out a green surgical gown for me to stick my arms into. Then she held out a surgical glove and I slipped one hand into it and then covered the other one as well. “Your wife needs her rest.”
I walked past the nurse, oblivious to any direction she may have given me. I stepped up next to Gloria’s bed and looked down into her face. She was crying. Wrapped in a pink blanked and cradled in her right arm was a tiny pink bundle. Gloria pulled the blanket off the baby’s face and then looked up at me, smiling. “Say hello to Olivia,” Gloria said.
By now the tears were running down my face as well. I took a deep breath and reached toward my daughter. I touched Olivia’s fingertips and she wrapped her little hand around my index finger and held on tight. I looked at Gloria and smiled. “You did great, Gloria,” I said. “She’s beautiful.” I bent over and kissed Gloria.
