by Bill Bernico
“And just how do you handle women?” Gloria said.
Matt and I exchanged glances but said nothing.
“Come on, give,” Gloria said. “What are you two up to?”
I pulled an old apple crate up next to me and invited Gloria to sit.
“I think I’ll stand,” she said.
I sat instead and thought about choosing my words carefully. When I’d finished telling her of the events of the past hour her face fell apart and she hurried to Matt’s side, stroking his head. Matt pulled away and straightened his hair out.
“Are you all right?” Gloria said to Matt.
“I’m fine,” Matt insisted. “We were both half a block away when it happened.”
Gloria turned to me and gave me the look she always saved for serious moments. “Elliott, how could you…”
I held up one hand. “I know,” I explained. “In hindsight I should have left Matt here to work on the book shelf but we’re both fine and we both learned a good lesson.”
“Yeah,” Gloria said, “Like looking behind you before you start instructing your son in the fine art of deception.”
I held up one finger. “Guilty.” We were all silent for a few seconds.
“You both better get washed up for supper,” Gloria said. “It’ll be ready in a few minutes.” She turned and walked back into the house.
I opened my mouth to tell Matt something but quickly looked behind me first. I turned back to Matt and said in a low tone, “See what I mean about women? You’ll learn firsthand when you get married someday.”
“Does all this apply to girlfriends, too?” Matt said innocently.
I paused. “Is there something you’d like to talk about, son?”
“Well,” Matt explained. “I met this girl a few weeks ago.”
I smiled. Matt and I had always had the kind of relationship where he could tell me anything. “And you’re just now telling me about her? Who is she? What’s she like? Where did you meet her? Come on, Matt, I want details.”
“Aw, Dad,” Matt said, blushing.
“Save it until after dinner,” I said. “Let’s go and get washed up for dinner.”
When we walked back into the kitchen, Matt’s mouth dropped open when he saw the decorations and the ‘Happy Birthday’ banner strung across the dining room wall. He saw a large, round cake with all the trimmings sitting on the kitchen counter. Next to it sat three beautifully wrapped presents, each with an envelope addressed to him. He smiled a toothy smile and turned to see me and Gloria and Olivia smiling back at him. The three of us said, “Happy Birthday,” in unison.
“This is all for me?” Matt said.
“You know anyone else around here who’s having a birthday tomorrow?” Gloria said.
Matt was puzzled. “But my birthday isn’t until tomorrow. Why are we doing this now?”
“Because I thought I’d be working out of town tomorrow,” I said, “And I didn’t want to miss this. But, since I’ll be here tomorrow anyway, we could let it all sit there for another day.”
“No, that’s all right,” Matt said. “Today works for me.” He looked at the presents. “Can I open them now?”
“After dinner,” Gloria said.
“Aw, Mom,” Matt said. “How about just one?”
Gloria and I exchanged glances and nodded. She picked up Olivia’s gift to Matt and handed it to him. “Here,” she said. “Try this one.”
“That one’s from me,” Olivia offered. “Go ahead, open it.”
Matt tore at the wrapping paper to find a small box inside. He lifted the lid and plucked out a new black wallet and held it up for us to see. He turned back to his sister and said, “Thanks, Olivia. Just what I needed.” He gave her a hug.
“Mom helped me pick it out,” Olivia said, proudly.
By now the commotion was too much to ignore and Stretch, our four-year-old German shepherd trotted into the room and plopped down next to Matt, her tail wagging.
“That’s enough for now,” Gloria said. “Let’s all sit down before our dinner gets cold.”
After we’d finished our meal, Gloria brought the birthday cake into the dining room and set it in the middle of the table. I pulled my cell phone from my pocket and pressed a few numbers and waited before closing the phone again and dropping it back in my pocket.
“Who were you calling?” Gloria wanted to know.
“No on,” I said. “Let’s light the candles.
As we sat there eating our cake, I heard the car pull up in front of the house. The engine died and it sat there silent. No one else noticed it, but I did. I turned to Matt. “Well, are you ready to open the other two presents, or would you rather save them until tomorrow?”
Matt sprung from his chair but sat back down when Gloria held her hand up. “Stay right there. I’ll bring them in,” she said.
Gloria laid the two remaining presents on the table and handed Matt the larger of the two. Matt smiled and tore open the paper, revealing a new laptop computer. He flipped the cover open and his eyes took it all in. He turned back to Gloria. “Thanks a lot Mom, Dad. It’s just what I wanted.”
“That’s just from your mother,” I explained. “That little one is from me?”
Gloria looked at me with a puzzled look on her face. I hadn’t even told her about this gift. I turned to Matt. “I know it’s not very big, but I figured it was something you could use. You don’t already have red socks, do you Matt?”
The smile dropped off his face as he slowly unwrapped the package and withdrew a wad of tissue paper. Now he was totally baffled. This was no pair of socks. He slowly unwrapped the paper, revealing two keys dangling on a chrome ring. “What’s this for?” Matt said.
I curled a finger at my son. “Come here,” I said and led him to the living room window. I pulled back the curtain and pointed to the car sitting at the curb with a large red bow wrapped around it. I turned to Matt. “Why don’t you go out there and see if those keys fit?”
Matt yelled and whooped and jumped up and down, finally settling long enough to wrap his arms around me. He was crying now. “Thanks, Dad,” he said, sniffling. “Thanks a million.” Matt ran for the kitchen door and out to the curb. The three of us followed him out and watched as he slid beneath the wheel and just sat there, taking in the whole experience.
I leaned over and peered into the passenger side window. “Go ahead,” I said. “Start her up.”
Matt inserted the key and twisted. The engine came to life and he sat there, listening to it purr. He turned to me. “Can we take it for a ride, Dad?”
I reached in and turned the key off, pulling it out. “You don’t even have a license yet, Matt. I can take you down to the motor vehicle department tomorrow and you can get your learner’s permit, but then you can only drive it with me in the car until you get your regular license. Is that clear?”
“You bet,” Matt said excitedly. “Thanks again for everything.”
Olivia opened the passenger side door and slid in next to her brother while Gloria and I returned to the house. She slipped her arm around my waist and laid her head on my shoulder as we walked.
The phone was ringing when I got back to the house. I hurried over and picked it up. “Cooper Investigations,” I said before I realized I was at home.
“Boy, that’s taking your work home with you, Elliott,” Eric Anderson said.
“Habit,” I told Eric. “What’s happening?”
“Elliott, can you stop by the precinct and give your official statement about today’s events?”
“Eric,” I said, “it’s Matt’s birthday celebration. Can this wait another day?”
“Normally, I’d wait,” Eric explained, “but the sooner I get after those two Winkle brothers, the sooner I can bring them in. I don’t want them slipping away, especially now.”
“Now?”
“Jack died on the way to the hospital,” Eric said.
“I’m sorry, Eric,” I said. “I can be there in twenty minutes.�
�� I hung up the phone and turned to Gloria. “One of the bomb squad guys died a few minutes ago. I have to go to the precinct and give Eric my statement. I shouldn’t be too long.”
Gloria laid her hand on my arm. “That poor man and his family. What they must be going through. That could have been you and Matt.”
“I know,” I said. “That’ll be in my thoughts forever. I better get going. Tell Matt I’ll be right back.”
It had been six weeks since the explosion in the Silver Lake neighborhood that had claimed the life of Jack Bellows, a three-year veteran of the L.A. bomb squad. Gloria and I resumed our regular business at Cooper Investigations. Matt and Olivia returned to school for the fall semester.
Things were settling back down to normal when the office door opened and a woman stepped in. “Is this the private eye’s office?” she said.
I pointed to the gold lettering on the door she’d just come though. “Cooper Investigations,” I said. “I’m Elliott Cooper and this is Gloria. How may we help you today?” I gestured toward my client’s chair. Won’t you have a seat?” The woman sat and shifted nervously in the chair. “How about if we start with your name?”
“Huh? Oh, yeah,” she said. “It’s Ruby, Ruby Stark.”
“And what is it we can do for you today, Ruby?”
“I think I got taken on a driveway job,” Ruby said.
“A driveway job.”
“Yes. Mr. Cooper, I think the guys who did the job on my driveway cheated me and I’d like you to look into it for me.”
“Have you already spoken to the police or the Better Business Bureau? I asked.
Ruby nodded. “They can’t or won’t help me. I didn’t know where else to turn.”
“Suppose you tell me what happened.”
“Well,” Ruby began, “I hire this company to pave my driveway and at the time I thought they did a pretty good job so I paid them right away. But now, I’m not so sure.”
“Sure about what?” I said.
“About the quality of their work.”
“And exactly what are your concerns?” I asked.
“They put this black stuff on my driveway and then rolled over it with some heavy machines.”
“So you had your driveway blacktopped?”
“Yes,” Ruby explained. “This was over three weeks ago,” Ruby explained. “You’d think that would be enough time.”
“Enough time for what? I said, my curiosity burning now.
“For the blacktop to turn into cement,” she said, as if I was supposed to know. “It’s still black everywhere. Not even a hint of cement.”
Gloria and I exchanged glances and she was doing everything in her power to suppress her laughter. I looked back at Ruby. “What makes you think the blacktop is going to turn into cement?”
“I’ve seen it,” Ruby said. “All over town and even on the way here today I saw it. There are parts of the road that have already turned to cement. It probably takes a while before it all converts.”
I stood now and stepped around to her side of the desk. I gestured with my hand toward the office door. “I don’t think we’re going to be able to help you, Ruby,” I said, walking toward the door.
“Is there anyone else who could help me?” Ruby asked.
I thought about Doctor Goldman, the psychiatrist one floor above me but I kept that to myself. “No one I can think of. Good day, Ruby and good luck.”
I closed the door and turned back toward Gloria, who was by now bent over in convulsive laughter. “Just when you thought you’ve heard everything,” I said. “Someone like Ruby comes along.”
“I wasn’t sure she was serious at first,” Gloria said between laughs. “But her explanation about seeing it on the way here was the last straw. If you hadn’t gotten her out of here when you did, I’d have laughed in her face.”
“Takes all kinds,” I said.
“Gees,” Gloria said, “I haven’t had a good laugh like that since Grandma Pearl passed away.”
“You thought it was funny that your grandma died?” I asked.
Gloria straightened up and dropped the smile from her face. “Oh no,” she explained. “Her dying wasn’t the funny part. No, it was during the funeral when I got to talking to my nieces and nephews and cousins.”
“Okay, I’ll bite,” I said. “What struck you so funny at a funeral?”
“You had to know Grandma Pearl,” Gloria said. “Every year she bought her grandchildren Christmas presents and every year there seemed to be more of them to buy for. Well, about three years before she died Grandma realized that it was too much of a chore to get out there and buy so many presents. Instead she decided to just send each grandchild a Christmas card with a check inside and let them buy whatever they wanted for themselves.”
“Sounds practical,” I agreed.
“Would have been,” Gloria explained. “Well, Grandma addressed all the Christmas cards and sent them out with a little note to each of them that said, “Merry Christmas. Go buy your own presents.”
“What’s wrong with that?” I asked.
“A few months later,” Gloria started to say, but broke down laughing at the thought of what she was about to say. She composed herself and continued. “A few months later, she was preparing to send out her Easter cards. She sat down at her desk and pulled a stack of greeting cards out of one of the cubby holes and a pile of checks fell out with them. They were the checks she thought she had inserted into each of her grandkids’ Christmas cards.”
It took me only a second and a half for the implication to sink in and soon we were both laughing hysterically. Gloria liked to keep me going once she had me laughing and added, “I still have the card she sent me. Every time I need a good laugh, I take it out and read it.”
I laughed even harder. Gloria, still bent over, sat up and pulled her middle desk drawer open and withdrew a Christmas card and held it open in front of me. I broke up all over again. There in Grandma Pearl’s shaky penmanship it said, ‘Merry Christmas. Go buy your own presents.’ Tears rolled down my cheeks and my face was probably red as a beet. “Don’t ever throw that card away,” I told Gloria.
Just then the office door opened and Eric stepped in. He stopped when he saw us laughing and holding the backs of our heads. “Looks like I missed out on a good one,” he said.
Gloria and I exchanged glances and laughed even harder. It was a contagious laughter because soon Eric was laughing and didn’t even know why. When the laughter finally died down we all took a deep breath and tried to compose ourselves.
“Sorry, Eric,” I said. “We’re usually a lot more professional than this.”
“Not at all,” Eric said. “Everyone needs a good laugh every now and then. But the reason I stopped in was to tell you that we finally caught the Winkle brothers. We were able to bring Bill in. He’s sitting in jail as we speak.”
“And Rocky?” I asked.
Eric shook his head. “Rocky didn’t want to be taken alive so we just waited him out and about twenty minutes after Bill surrendered Rocky set off his last blast in the cabin we found those two in.”
“That’s a shame,” I said sarcastically, “but don’t get me going again. I already have a stomach ache from laughing.”
“At least he died a gentleman,” Eric said. “And you know what they say. Gentlemen prefer bombs.”
That was all it took to set me and Gloria off again. The three of us had one more good laugh that day.
119 - Hollywood Parade
On my way to work I stopped at the corner news stand and picked up a copy of this morning’s L.A. Times. By the time I came into the office Gloria was already there. She was standing at the window looking down onto Hollywood Boulevard, her hands up near her eyes.
“Morning,” I said, retreating to my desk.
“Morning,” Gloria said, not bothering to turn toward me. She held a pair of binoculars to her eyes and twisted the focus adjustment wheel.
I turned toward her. “What’s so in
teresting out there?”
“Not sure yet,” Gloria said, scanning back and forth. The glasses were aimed almost straight across now at the building on the south side of the boulevard.
“And what prompted this sudden wave of, oh, what’s the right word? Nosiness?”
Gloria lowered the glasses and looked at me. “Nosiness?” she said, almost indignant. “Have you forgotten what business we’re in?”
“Private Investigations,” I said, as though I’d passed the test. “What does that have to do with spying on the neighbors?”
Gloria tossed her head, gesturing me over to where she stood. She handed me the glasses. “Third floor, second window from the left, directly across from us.”
I took the glasses from her and held them to my eyes. “What am I supposed to be looking at?”
“Just count two windows from the corner and tell me what you see,” Gloria said.
I held the binoculars steady and focused on the second window over. After a few seconds I lowered the glasses and handed them back to my wife. “Nothing,” I said.
Gloria took the glasses back and aimed them at the third window again. “I could have sworn I saw something or someone moving over there.”
“Aren’t they allowed to move around in their own office?” I said.
“Apartment,” Gloria corrected. “That’s an apartment and it’s supposed to be empty.”
“Well, maybe someone rented it,” I explained. “People have been known to rent apartments.”
“One guy?” Gloria asked. “And no furniture? What’s he supposed to do, sleep on the floor?”
“Maybe his furniture is on its way and he’s just walking around trying to decide where to put everything,” I said. “Ever think of that?”
“I guess,” Gloria conceded. She lowered the glasses and stepped back over to her chair, laying the binoculars on the corner of her desk.
“What have we got going today?” I said.
Gloria sat at her desk and flipped open her day planner to today’s date. “Nothing until ten-fifteen. Mr. Blandings is coming to see you about some work he’d like you to do for him.”
