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

by Bill Bernico

  Something occurred to Matt. “Does it say whether or not you can use a slingshot to hit your subject?”

  Elliott gave Matt a strange look but said nothing.

  “No, I’m serious,” Matt explained.

  “Think about that for a minute, Matt,” Elliott said. “If you shoot at the mark with a slingshot he’ll feel the hit and that would defeat the whole purpose of trying to hide it on him.”

  “Oh yeah,” Matt said, realizing what a dumb idea that was. “Never mind.”

  Elliott was still reading from the manual when Gloria walked in. She hung her jacket on the coat rack and stepped over to Matt’s desk to get a closer look at the gadget Elliott had described to her over the phone. “They really are small, aren’t they?” she said, holding the BB-sized transmitter between her thumb and forefinger.”

  Elliott rose from his desk and stood next to her. “And according to the manual, your best bet for a good fit with the subject is to personally place the transmitter on them. You’ll have to get in close contact with Booth.”

  “Booth?” Gloria said. “Is that who we’re tailing?”

  “Harry Booth,” Elliott explained. “But I imagine after fifteen years behind bars, it won’t be that difficult for you to get close to him.”

  Gloria smiled a knowing smile. “You have to admit that this is one time when I can do this job better than either of you.” She rotated her shoulder in a suggestive manner.

  “Mom,” Matt protested. “I’m sitting right here.”

  Gloria straightened up. “Sorry, Matt.”

  “If you can get two of them stuck to Booth, so much the better,” Matt said. “You know, in case he gets in a really crowded situation and one gets brushed off.”

  “I don’t think so,” Elliott said. “According to this manual these things stick like a burr on a dog once they’re in place. The most important thing is getting them placed so they’re not noticed.” Elliott finished the four-page booklet and laid it on Matt’s desk. He looked at Gloria. “Why don’t you and Matt practice placing one on each other’s backs to see how it feels from that perspective? Then split up and walk around the building to get an idea of how best to follow the receiver signal. An hour should be plenty of time to get proficient with those things.”

  Gloria motioned to her son. “Come on, Matt. I can take a hint. Let’s leave the office to your father and go have some fun with these things.” The two of them came back within twenty-five minutes, laughing and talking about the many uses of their new toys.

  “That was quick,” Elliott said, looking up as the two of them came back into the office.

  “Wasn’t much to learn,” Gloria said. “These things are really user friendly with almost no learning curve.” She gestured at the manual lying on Elliott’s desk. “Did it say anything in that booklet about getting too close to the transmitter with the receiver?”

  “What do you mean?” Elliott said.

  Gloria held up her small receiver. “I mean, are these things supposed to work silently or are they supposed to make any sounds when you get close to a subject with one of these BBs on his back?”

  “It didn’t say,” Elliott said. “Why?”

  Gloria handed her receiver to Elliott. “Because Matt hid in the building with one of these transmitters stuck to his collar. That receiver silently blinked away as I was looking for him and even as I walked right up to him. But when I gave him a hug, it made kind of a squealing sound until I let him go again. It reminded me of that reception we went to years ago where Clay and his long-lost brother, Nicholas sang a song for the crowd. Remember?”

  Elliott remembered the day the notice came from the post office to come pick up a letter than had been sent to his grandfather, Matt, but didn’t arrive until sixty-six years later. The letter told them of a son, Nicholas, that Matt never knew about. That made Nicholas Clay’s half-brother. It also made him some sort of uncle to Elliott.

  “I remember,” Elliott said. “Why’d you bring that up now?”

  “Remember when Clay came off the stage with the microphone and got too close to the P.A. speaker?” Gloria said. “That speaker squealed with feedback from the microphone. That was a lot louder, I admit, but this was like a miniature version of that. That’s why I wondered if maybe the BB would feed back from the receiver if it got too close.”

  “There’s one way to find out,” Elliott said, plucking a small transmitter from the box. “Turn that thing back on,” he told Gloria.

  Gloria picked up the receiver and turned it on. She moved closer to Elliott’s fingers with the small screen in her hand until it came within an inch of touching it. The receiver unit squealed a high-pitched squeal until she backed away again.

  “There’s a production flaw,” Matt said. “That could throw a wrench in the works under the wrong circumstances.”

  “Well, then just use the receivers to narrow down your search for Booth,” Elliott suggested. “Once you have him in sight, switch off your receiver. If you lose him again, just turn it back on and track him down.”

  “Problem solved,” Gloria said. “This is going to be exciting. I can hardly wait until tomorrow noon.”

  “You just watch out for yourself,” Elliott reminded her. “Booth’s got a lot to lose if he thinks he may not get to collect his money and nothing to lose if you get him pissed at you. Just be careful with him, both of you.”

  Gloria grabbed Elliott’s shoulders and pulled him to her. She kissed his forehead. “I didn’t know you were the mother hen type, Elliott.”

  Elliott wiped the wet spot from his forehead. “This is serious,” he said. “He didn’t kill anyone getting the money, but that doesn’t mean he wouldn’t kill to keep it.”

  The next morning around ten o’clock Matt and his mother met at the office for last minute instructions from Elliott. Matt and Gloria each got one receiver and three BB transmitters, along with the respective cell phones.

  “We’ll have our phones set to vibrate,” Matt told Elliott. “It wouldn’t do to have them ring when we get close to Booth. We may not always answer them right away, depending on what’s happening at the moment, but at least we can stay in touch.”

  “And when you’re in your cars,” Elliott reminded them, “Use the hands-free feature to stay in touch with each other so you don’t lose him.”

  Gloria gave Elliott a blank look and said, “You’d think neither of us had ever done this kind of work before. Really, Elliott, we know what we’re doing.”

  “Sorry,” Elliott said. “I guess I’m just anxious because I’m not going to be out there with you.”

  Gloria laid her hand on Elliott’s shoulder and leaned in for a kiss. “But thanks for thinking of us.”

  Matt leaned closer toward his father and puckered his lips, pretending to go in for the kiss. Elliott leaned back away from his son. “Uh, that’s where I draw the line, son” he told Matt.

  “I don’t know what I’d have done if you hadn’t pulled away,” Matt said, chuckling to himself.

  “Save it for your wife,” Elliott said. “You know where this place is, I mean the prison?”

  Matt answered in a monotone voice, like a mechanical operator, to show his annoyance. “Take the Hollywood Freeway to the Golden State. Turn north on Fourteen through the mountains. The prison is just west of the freeway.” Matt switched back to his regular voice. “How’d I do, teach?”

  Gloria caught Elliott’s gaze and held up both palms in resignation. “He’s his father’s son, all right,” she said. A question played on Elliott’s face and Gloria added. “Well, isn’t that the way you’d answer me if I’d ask you that same question?”

  Elliott’s face softened. “Go on, get out of here and go do your job.” He smiled and Matt returned a knowing look.

  Once in the parking lot, Matt turned to Gloria and said, “Phones on?”

  “Check,” Gloria said.

  “Hands-free operation on?”

  “Check.”

  “GPS set
for Lancaster in case we get separated?”

  “Check?”

  “BB trackers operational?”

  “Check.”

  “Twinkies?”

  “Twinkies?” Gloria said.

  “Can’t make this hour and a half trip on an empty stomach,” Matt said, handing Gloria a package of the yellow cream-filled cakes.

  “Check,” Gloria said and slid into her car, a broad smile playing on her face.

  Matt led the way to the Hollywood Freeway and Gloria managed to stay with him all the way to Lancaster. Once they’d exited the highway onto the surface streets, Matt dialed Gloria’s cell phone. “It just a few blocks up this street,” he told her. “Let’s stay a block apart near the gate. You face east and I’ll face west and we’ll be able to follow no matter what he direction he goes once he gets out.”

  “Good plan, Matt,” Gloria said. She made a U-turn and positioned her car at the curb, facing the way she’d come. A block ahead of her she could see Matt sitting in his car facing her. Then they waited. It wasn’t even noon yet and the sun was beating down relentlessly on her roof. There wasn’t a shade tree for as far as the eye could see. Gloria could understand why the state had picked this location for the prison. The surrounding countryside was barren and unforgiving and any prisoner who might manage to escape would not find this environment easy to survive in.

  The minutes seemed to crawl by on broken legs as Gloria waited. Thirty-five minutes later the gate to the prison opened two uniformed guards and a man in a light-colored suit walked a fourth man beyond the gate, said a few words that Gloria couldn’t hear and then left the last man standing by himself as they returned to the interior of the prison. The fourth man had to be Harry Booth. No one else was being released today.

  “See him?” Matt’s voice came over Gloria’s phone speaker.

  “I got him?” Gloria said, looking further down the road. “And here come the bus. You’ll have to fall in behind it. I’ll catch up to you later.”

  “Got it,” Matt said. He waited until Booth had stepped up onto the bus before he started his car and dropped the shifter down into Drive. Matt followed the bus at a safe distance, keeping Gloria informed about his location at every turn. The bus let Booth off downtown and pulled away again. Booth waited on the corner for less than a minute before he flagged a cab and slid into the back seat. “He’s in a cab heading south,” Matt told Gloria. “Better take over for me in case he made my car.”

  “I see him,” Gloria said. “I’m on him. Stay with me on a parallel street in case I have to ditch him.”

  “Got it,” Matt said, turning one block east and continuing south at the posted speed limit.

  Gloria stayed a block behind the cab as it took Booth south, out of Lancaster. Fifteen minutes later the cab turned east toward Palmdale. It continued a few blocks before stopping in front of the Greyhound Bus Terminal. Booth slid out of the cab, bent down to pay the cabbie and walked into the terminal.

  “He’s taking the bus from Palmdale,” Gloria told Matt. “Your turn.”

  Matt and Gloria sat in their cars, keeping the bus in their sights. A few minutes later Booth got on the bus. When the Greyhound bus pulled away from the terminal Matt took up his position a safe distance behind it, making sure to keep at least two other cars between him and the bus. Gloria followed a quarter mile behind Matt.

  Matt stayed with the bus all the way back to the Hollywood Freeway and watched as it exited onto Magnolia Avenue in North Hollywood. “The bus is headed to the Greyhound Terminal on Magnolia,” Matt told Gloria. “It could just be a stopover to let someone else out, but we can’t let it out of our site in case he gets off here.”

  The bus pulled into the North Hollywood terminal and Booth stepped off. He had no luggage so he didn’t have to wait around for the driver to unload the bags. He walked directly to the street and hailed another cab. This time Gloria fell in behind it, keeping Matt in touch with her phone. “Where’s he getting all this money for the bus and cab fares?” Gloria said into her phone.

  “I’ve got a pretty good hunch,” Matt said. “But he wouldn’t have taken any money with him to prison. I’d say someone sent him enough in the last day or so to get by for a while.”

  “Yeah,” Gloria said. “Enough to last until he can get to the two million.”

  “Oh great,” Matt said. “We might have two people to tail before this is over.”

  A few miles down the highway Gloria called Matt again. “He’s not heading south to Hollywood,” she said. “He’s taking the Ventura Freeway east.”

  “I’m coming up behind you now,” Matt said. “I’ll take over for a while. Drop back.” They traded places and Matt stayed with the cab until it exited onto the Golden State Freeway south. He called Gloria again and they traded places once more.

  “They got off on Riverside,” Gloria told Matt a few minutes later. “I’m on ‘em.”

  “Let me know which way they go and we can switch again,” Matt said.

  Gloria watched as the cab turned south on Glendale Boulevard. She advised Matt of the change in direction and backed off. Matt fell in behind the cab, staying back far enough so as not to attract attention to himself. The cab eventually pulled up to the curb in front of a tavern and Booth got out. The cab sped away and Booth walked into the tavern.

  “Subject went into the tavern on Glendale Boulevard, just south of Brier,” Matt said. “He’s all yours, Mom.” Matt drove on past the tavern, turning around at the next corner. He parked half a block away, keeping the tavern’s front door in sight.

  A minute later Gloria parked her car across the street, facing Matt’s and walked to the tavern entrance. She hesitated at the door, reaching into her pocket to make sure her tracking receiver was turned off. She pinched a transmitter BB between her forefinger and thumb and stepped inside. It took a minute for her eyes to adjust to the dark interior but she soon saw Booth standing at the bar, sipping on a beer. She made her way up behind him, making sure there were enough people around to cause a squeeze play. When she got behind Booth she touched the BB to his collar and tried to step away. Booth turned around and looked Gloria in the eye.

  “Excuse me,” Gloria said. “Kind of crowded in here.”

  Booth looked her over and decided he liked what he saw. He looked her up and down like a fox eyeing a chicken. “Don’t give it another thought,” he told her. “Can I buy you a drink?”

  “Thanks,” Gloria said, “But I’m just on my way to the ladies room then I’m meeting someone here. Maybe next time.” She smiled and kept moving.

  Booth kept his eyes on Gloria until she disappeared into the bathroom.

  Once she made sure she was alone in the bathroom, Gloria dialed Matt’s cell phone. “The tracker’s in place,” she told Matt. “You better come in here. I told him I was meeting someone.”

  “If I show up, he’s going to think you’re some kind of cougar,” Matt said.

  “Cougar?” Gloria said. “Where’d you hear about cougars?”

  “Mom,” Matt said. “I’m not a kid anymore. I’ve been around.”

  “Come on in anyway,” Gloria said. “I don’t have a choice. I don’t want him getting suspicious. Just come and get me and we can leave together.”

  “I’ll be right in,” Matt told her. He set his phone on vibrate and made sure his tracker was off before he entered the bar.

  Gloria exited the bathroom and had to walk past Booth again to get to Matt. She gave Matt a friendly smile and extended her hand. “There you are,” she said.

  Booth turned around and looked at Gloria. “This is your date?” he said. “Why don’t you ditch junior there and hook up with a real man who’s got some miles under his belt?”

  “Junior?” Matt said indignantly.

  Gloria took Matt’s hand and pulled him toward the front door. Booth mumbled something under his breath and turned back to the bar to finish his drink. Gloria pulled Matt outside and he immediately released her hand, as though he
didn’t want anyone to see him holding his mother’s hand. He exchanged glances with Gloria and they both smiled. “Now we can track him from a safe distance,” Gloria said.

  They both got back into their own cars and waited for Booth to emerge from the tavern. He didn’t come back out for another half hour and when he did, he didn’t hail another cab or catch a bus. He simply walked north on Glendale Boulevard.

  Matt dialed Gloria’s cell. “Can you see him yet from your car?” he said.

  “He’s coming toward me,” Gloria answered.

  “I thought I saw him carrying something,” Matt added. “Can you make it out from there?”

  “Hold on,” Gloria said and stared down the street at Booth, who was getting closer to her with every step he took. “He’s got something in his hand,” she said. “I can’t make it out, but it’s no more than two feet long with a handle and something else on the other end. Wait a minute, he’s coming this way. Don’t talk until I come back on the air. Don’t want to spook him.” Gloria lowered her head and pretended to be reading a map that she’d grabbed from the door pocket of her car. Booth was almost adjacent to her car now, but still across the street. Gloria snuck a quick look toward Booth. When he passed her car, Gloria laid the map down and said into her phone, “Looks like one of those military folding shovels. What do you suppose he wants with that in this neighborhood?”

  “I don’t know,” Matt said. “But you’d better pull away from the curb and keep going. I’ll pick him up from here.”

  “All right, Matt,” Gloria said and pulled back into traffic. She continued south on Glendale and turned left on Bancroft and then left again on Teviot. She let Matt know about where she was.

  Matt slowly pulled away from the curb, keeping Booth in his line of sight the whole time. Booth crossed the street and turned west on Silver Lake Boulevard, still carrying the folding shovel. Matt watched as Booth walked into a small parking area, looked all around him cautiously and then tossed the shovel over the cyclone fence, into the trees. He waited until a car passed him by before he made a running leap up onto the fence. He was up and over in a matter of seconds. He checked his immediate vicinity once more before disappearing into the trees after the shovel.