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

by Bill Bernico

  “I hope he doesn’t expect me to help him build his dream house,” I said.

  Gloria’s eyebrows furrowed. “Huh?”

  “Cary Grant,” I explained. Gloria still looked puzzled. “Myrna Loy, Melvyn Douglas.” Still no reaction. “Never mind. Obviously movie trivia is wasted on you. Mr. Blandings Builds His Dream House. 1948. It’s a classic. Cary Grant and Myrna Loy buy some old dilapidated farm house and end up bulldozing it and starting over from scratch building a new one.”

  “Their dream house,” Gloria said. “Nope, can’t say I’ve ever seen it.”

  I gave up on trying to educate her on the finer points of classic movies. Gloria got right down to work on our client database while I settled in with the morning paper. I started with the comics and worked my way backwards to the front page. I hadn’t made it all the way through the paper when the office door opened and a man in an overcoat stepped in and then knocked on the open door.

  He looked at me. “Mr. Cooper?”

  I said I was and invited him to come in and sit across from me. “You can hang your coat on the rack if you like,” I told him.

  He waved me off. “I’m fine,” he said. “Besides, I won’t be here that long. My business will be brief.”

  “All right,” I said. “What is it I can do for you, Mr...?”

  “Blandings,” he said. “Stuart Blandings. And before you ask, no, I don’t want any help building my dream house.”

  My eyebrows shot upwards as Gloria and I exchanged glances. I smiled and nodded to her. She shrugged and got back to her task at hand. I gestured toward Gloria. “Mr. Blandings, this is my wife, Gloria. She’s also a partner in the firm. You can speak freely in front of her.” I turned back to Blandings. “So tell me, Mr. Blandings, what is it you’d like me to do for you today?”

  “Not today,” Blandings explained. “I need you tomorrow for an hour or two at the most.”

  I let out a deep breath and said, “You realize I have a one day minimum charge.”

  Blandings held up one hand. “Not a problem,” he said. “And there’ll be no traveling expenses.”

  “Oh?” I said.

  “No, you’ll be working just a few hundred feet from your office,” he said and pointed to the window. “Down there.”

  “Down where?” I said.

  “On the boulevard,” Blandings said. “You are aware of tomorrow’s parade?” He could tell by the puzzled look on my face that I had no clue what he was talking about. Blandings reached over and plucked the folded newspaper form my desk and opened it to the front page. He pointed out the article that told about the parade on Hollywood Boulevard that had been planned for tomorrow morning. “Right there.”

  I took the paper from him and read the two paragraph description of the parade being held in honor of Congressman Preston Johnson, who was returning from his trip to Iraq where he had personally negotiated the release of three Americans who had been held there for more than two years. The parade was scheduled to begin at nine tomorrow morning and last for approximately one hour.

  “And what exactly would you like me to do for you, Mr. Blandings?” I said.

  “Mr. Cooper,” Blandings said, “I’m afraid I’ve been less than candid with you.” He reached into his overcoat and produced an official looking badge and I.D. Across the top of the I.D. three letters were stamped—FBI. He flipped it closed almost as quickly as he had produced it, and returned it to his pocket. “Mr. Cooper, we’re going to have men patrolling the both sides of the boulevard during the parade, but we can always use another pair of trained eyes watching the crowd. This is your neighborhood and I take it you’re familiar with this whole block.”

  I nodded. “Are you expecting trouble?” I said.

  “I’m not at liberty to say any more at this time, Mr. Cooper. What we need you for is surveillance at street level. Are you interested?”

  “This is a paying job, isn’t it?” I said.

  Blandings leaned back in the client’s chair and nodded once. “I understand your going rate is two hundred dollars a day. Is that correct?”

  I said that it was.

  “We’re prepared to pay you four hundred for two hours of your time.” He paused for effect. “Can we count on your cooperation, Mr. Cooper?”

  “I’m your man,” I told him.

  “Good,” Blandings said. “I’ll be stopping in here first thing tomorrow morning. I can fill you in a little more then.” He got up and extended his hand. I shook it and he added, “And of course, you’re not to say anything about this to anyone.” He turned toward Gloria for confirmation.

  She held both palms up. “My lips are sealed.”

  “Thank you, Mr. and Mrs. Cooper,” Blandings said as he headed for the door. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”

  And with that he was gone, leaving Gloria and me standing there scratching our heads. “Can you believe him?” Gloria said. “A regular cloak-and-dagger kind of guy, isn’t he?”

  “I’ll give him that,” I said. “But for four hundred bucks, he can act as strange as he wants.”

  “So you’re taking the job?”

  “Any reason I shouldn’t?”

  “I guess not,” Gloria conceded. “Look at it this way, you’ll be getting paid good money to take a walk and get some exercise for a couple of hours.”

  “Exactly.”

  “At least the parade will be a distraction from our everyday humdrum,” Gloria said. “I recall as a kid watching the Christmas Parade with my dad on the boulevard. It came right past here, if I remember correctly. I think the parade route stretched for two miles on that street out there.”

  “I remember Grandpa Matt tell me and Dad about watching the Christmas parade from that window,” I said, gesturing with my chin. He was in his early thirties when he saw his first parade out here. He said Gary Cooper was the parade marshal one year and he got really sick of people asking him if he and Gary were related. He’d always tell them he wasn’t, but that Jackie was a cousin.”

  “He was?” Gloria said, somewhat impressed.

  “Of course not,” I explained. “Grandpa just like to have fun with people, jerking their bobbers.”

  “Is that where you get your offbeat sense of humor, Elliott?”

  “Dad had it, too,” I explained. “But then, you’d know that, wouldn’t you?”

  Gloria said nothing, but just changed the subject.

  The rest of the morning crept by in relative uneventful fashion. At noon Gloria and I turned on the answering machine, hung our ‘Out To Lunch’ sign on the door and walked the half block to The Gold Cup, a coffee house across the street on the boulevard. All the tables and booths were already taken but Gloria and I managed to find two vacant stools at the counter. They weren’t next to each other so I tapped the shoulder of the guy sitting on the stool between the two empty ones.

  “Excuse me,” I said politely. “Could I trouble you to move down one stool so that my wife and I could sit together?”

  Without looking up the burly man slurped another spoonful of soup and muttered, “Get lost, bud, I’m trying to eat my lunch.”

  I looked at Gloria and shrugged. She swept her hand, pushing me aside and stepped up behind the rude man. Gloria pinched the man’s neck, causing him to spill a spoonful of soup on his pants. He looked up, ready for a fight, and saw Gloria scowling at him.

  “He asked you nice to please move down one stool,” she told the man. “I won’t ask so nice, now move it or you’ll be slurping all your meals through a straw.”

  I’m not sure if it was Gloria’s tone, the demented look on her face or the fist she held up in the man’s face, but he didn’t say another word. Instead he slid his soup bowl one stool to the right, tipped his soup bowl up to his face and finished what was left in two big swallows. He threw down a five dollar bill, wiped his chin and hurried out of the coffee shop.

  Gloria held her hand out and swept it across the now vacant three stools. “After you, Mr. Cooper,” she said smi
ling her Mona Lisa smile. I was speechless as I threw one leg over the stool and sat next to my new hero—the Queen of Confrontation.

  “I guess no one will ever accuse you of having too much tact, will they?” I said.

  Gloria shook her head. “Ever hear the saying, ‘hell is other people’? Well, that guy was living proof of it.”

  “He could be thinking the same about you right about now,” I said.

  “So what,” Gloria said. “In my case, I’m right and he’s wrong.”

  “He could be thinking the same about you right about now,” I repeated.

  “Who’s side are you on here?”

  “I didn’t know I was supposed to be choosing sides,” I explained. Gloria shot me a look. “But if I had to take sides, it would be yours, of course.”

  Gloria’s look softened and she exhaled deeply. The waitress behind the counter walked up to us just then and Gloria ordered her lunch—a sandwich and a glass of milk. I held up two fingers to double the order and the waitress walked away as she was writing our order down on her pad.

  “So,” I said, just to have something to say, “What are you going to be doing tomorrow while I’m out walking the streets?”

  “If you can be a street walker, why can’t I?”

  “Not really the same thing,” I said. “So what are you going to be doing?”

  Gloria thought about it for a moment and then offered, “I thought I’d take my binoculars and watch from the office window. Hell, someone’s got to cover your back.”

  I nodded. “Nice to know you’re going to be my eyes in the sky. I’d better make sure not to pick my nose.”

  “You think anyone would take an opportunity like that to try to get to the congressman?” Gloria said.

  “Why else would the FBI get involved?” I said, grabbing a menu and flipping it open to the desert section. “But it strikes me as more than a little odd that an organization as big as the FBI would need to supplement their manpower with a P.I. That part doesn’t makes much sense to me.”

  “Since when does any government agency have to make sense?” Gloria said sarcastically. “Just take the money and run. You can’t make it any easier than that.”

  “I guess,” I said, pointing to a picture of a fat piece of cheese cake on the menu. “I’m having that one, with a chocolate malt and some whipped cream.”

  Gloria turned to me. “Don’t tell me. Tell the waitress.”

  As we were eating lunch I noticed out of the corner of my eye that someone had taken the vacant stool next to me. I turned and was surprised to see Lieutenant Eric Anderson from the L.A.P.D. sitting there. I did a double take. “Eric, what are you doing here?”

  “I was driving past this place when I saw you two come in here,” Eric said. “I was on my way to your office, but I guess this is as good a place as any to talk to you.”

  “About what?” I said.

  The waitress stopped by with her order pad and looked at Eric.

  “Just coffee,” he told her and then turned back to me. “About tomorrow’s parade for the congressman. I just had a visit from some agent of the FBI asking if I could spare some manpower on the parade route tomorrow.”

  “I know,” I told Eric. “He came to see me this morning. Looks like I’ll be helping patrol the sidewalk outside my office building. I guess Blandings thinks I’m familiar enough with the neighborhood to be able to spot anything out of the ordinary during the parade.”

  “So he told me,” Eric said. “I’m going to have eight of my own men doing the same thing. Hell, before we’re done with this whole mess there’ll be more cops, FBI agents and P.I.s than there will be onlookers. What do you suppose this guy is so nervous about?”

  “Beats me,” I said. “You know how the government likes to waste taxpayer money. He’s paying me well, and I imagine your department will be able to send them a bill when it’s all over.”

  Gloria leaned forward to see past me. “Hi Eric,” she said. “If you ask me, they could just as easily put the congressman in a closed car and get on with it. Didn’t they learn anything from Dallas back in ‘63?”

  “My thoughts exactly,” Eric said. “They’re making way more of this than they need to.” Eric turned back to me. “So anyway, I just wanted to touch base with you and give you a heads up. I’ve informed my men that you’ll be patrolling that block as well, just so anyone who might not be familiar with you doesn’t get nervous if they see a guy walking up and down the street. In case one of them catches a glimpse of your .38 I don’t want anyone tackling you to the sidewalk.”

  “Good call,” I said. “I hate having to kiss the pavement. You know how many germs there are on a sidewalk like that? I don’t care if it is Andy Griffith’s star. They don’t keep them clean enough for me to kiss.”

  The waitress set Eric’s coffee in front of him and walked away again. She returned a moment later with mine and Gloria’s sandwiches and milk. The three of us ate and drank in relative silence for the next few minutes.

  Eric finished his coffee and before he left his stool, he turned toward me and gave me a pat on the shoulder. “See you tomorrow, Elliott.”

  I hoisted my glass of milk to him. “I’ll be there.”

  I turned to Gloria. “I almost forgot to ask you. Is Matt still going on about getting his own apartment next week?”

  “He hasn’t mentioned it in two days now,” Gloria said. “And I can’t help but wonder if he hasn’t already found one. I can’t believe our baby is leaving us already.”

  “Baby?” I said, giving Gloria the look that told her I thought she was being overly dramatic. “He’s turning eighteen and if he decides he wants to move out of our house, there’s not a thing we can do to stop him. Maybe he needs to find out the hard way what the real world is like on his own.”

  “But he doesn’t make enough at that part-time job to be able to afford his own apartment,” Gloria said. “What’s he going to use for food or utilities or gas money?”

  “Won’t take him long to find out, will it?” I said. “We can talk to him until we’re blue in the face and it won’t make half the impact that finding out for himself will. Mark my words. He’ll be back before the second month’s rent is due.”

  “I hope you’re right, Elliott,” Gloria said, sniffling. “He’s just a…”

  “A baby, I know. But like all babies, he has to grow up sometime. Even a momma robin knows when to kick her babies out of the nest and let them fly. You’ll still have Olivia. It could be another six years before she’s ready to fly out of your nest.”

  Gloria punched me on the shoulder. “Thanks for your support,” she said.

  We both finished our sandwiches, washed them down with our milk and paid the bill. I walked Gloria back to our building and we rode the elevator up to the third floor. The rest of our afternoon passed in relative silence. We rode home together and found Olivia in the living room watching her favorite television show. Gloria walked right over to her daughter and wrapped her arms around her and squeezed.

  “What was that for?” Olivia said, turning to look at me.

  I shrugged and hung up my coat. Gloria grabbed Olivia’s hands, stepped back for a better look and said, “Don’t be in a hurry to grow up, sweetie. You’ll have the rest of your life to be an adult. Enjoy this time while you can.”

  “Huh?”

  That night at dinner I steered the conversation around to Matt. I wanted to give him an opening to tell us about his hunt for an apartment. “So, Matt, what are your plans for the coming weekend?”

  “Funny you should ask, Dad,” Matt said. “You remember that I’m going to be eighteen next week?”

  “Yes,” I said. “Seems I heard something to that effect. Why?”

  Matt stalled for time, taking another drink from his milk glass. He set the glass down, wiped his upper lip and said, “Because I’ll be an adult when I turn eighteen and I was thinking about getting my own apartment.”

  Gloria set he fork down and frown
ed at her son. “What’s wrong with the home you have here? Aren’t you happy living with me and your father and Olivia?”

  “It’s not that, Mom,” Matt said. “It’s just that I need to get out there and spread my wings, so to speak. I need to live my own life and make my own decisions. Dad did when he was my age, and you probably did, too. So why can’t I?”

  I turned to Matt. “And you think you can make a go of it on your own with what you make working at that pet shop?”

  Matt cleared his throat. “That’s the other thing I wanted to talk to you about. I, uh, quit that job this morning.”

  I could see Gloria’s face soften. I could also tell what she was thinking. If Matt didn’t have the job anymore, he couldn’t afford to move out.

  “You quit?” I said. “Why?”

  “Because I couldn’t make enough money there to be able to afford my own apartment,” Matt explained.

  “And just what are you going to do for money?” Gloria said.

  “I found another job,” Matt explained. “I can start the day I turn eighteen and I’ll be making six dollars an hour more than I was making at the pet shop.”

  “Doing what?” I said.

  Matt hesitated and then said, “I got a job with the L.A.P.D.”

  Gloria gasped. “What?”

  I turned to Matt. “You’re not old enough to be a policeman, Matt. Besides, you would need more schooling and training and…”

  “Not as a cop,” Matt explained. “I’d still get the uniform and the badge, but I’d only be writing parking tickets to start with.”

  Olivia snickered. “You’re going to be a meter maid?”

  “Parking enforcement officer,” Matt corrected.

  “Do you get to carry a gun?” Olivia wanted to know. “And handcuffs and one of those clubs?”

  I turned to Olivia. “No, dear. He doesn’t.” I turned back to Matt. “How’d you get this job?”

  Matt smiled. “You always used to say that it’s who you know, not what you know. I remembered that and went to see your friend, Lieutenant Anderson at the twelfth precinct. The last person who had the job left to go to college and I was there at the right time. And with Lieutenant Anderson as a reference, I was a cinch for the job.”