by Bill Bernico
“What are we waiting for?” Elliott said, grabbing the box with the copter and heading for the door. Matt followed close behind. Elliott had Matt slide behind the wheel of his surveillance van while he sat in the passenger seat with his remote copter. Elliott checked the first address on his notepad and told Matt to drive east on Hollywood Boulevard. Three blocks east of Western Avenue Elliott instructed Matt to turn south to Fountain Avenue. In the fifty-two hundred block Elliott told Matt to pull to the curb and kill the engine. They sat quietly, keeping an eye on their target’s residence.
“Which house is his?” Matt said, scanning the neighborhood.
“It’s that little place right there,” Elliott said, gesturing toward a small building with no front yard. “That has to be his car in the driveway, so we might as well settle in and just wait.”
The two men sat there in the morning sun with the two front windows open, trying to catch a little cross ventilation. They sat quietly for almost ninety minutes when the front door of the target house opened and a man emerged. Elliott checked the man’s face against the face in the photo from his pocket. It was a perfect match. He watched as the subject climbed into the car in the driveway, backed out onto Fountain Avenue and headed east. Elliott gave him a block head start before he told Matt to follow.
Matt kept a block’s distance between them as he followed. Several blocks east, the target car turned north. Matt followed until the target car sped up at a yellow light and continued on through the intersection, turning east again. Matt stopped at the red light and turned to Elliott.
“He’s all yours, Dad.”
Elliott started the copter and released it out his window, taking it up seventy or eighty feet before leveling off. It flew east directly above the target car and stayed with it, keeping it in camera range. Elliott focused the camera and hit the button on his control panel that locked onto the target. The light turned green again and Matt proceeded east, now three blocks behind the car. He couldn’t see it from the driver’s seat.
“Where’d he go, Dad?”
The target car was still travelling east. Elliott swiveled the copter’s camera to the right and zoomed in on the street sign. The car was on Sunset, passing Vermont. He relayed that information to Matt. “Still got him in my sights,” Elliott said. “Just keep going. He’s up ahead three or four blocks.
Elliott closed the gap between him and the target car and watched as it pulled to the curb and stopped. Babcock got out just as Matt drove past him and pulled around the corner to park. Elliott guided the copter back to the van and then got out while Matt stayed with the van, driving it around the block and pulling up three cars behind the target vehicle. Elliott stepped around the corner just as Babcock walked into a bar near the corner. Elliott pulled the door to the bar open and just as he was walking in, Babcock was walking back out again. Elliott couldn’t very well turn around and follow the man out again without being made, so he stayed put.
Babcock got back in his car and pulled out into traffic. Matt gave him a couple seconds head start and then followed a block behind. He’d have to swing back for Elliott later. Matt stayed behind Babcock’s vehicle on Sunset and then heard Elliott’s voice coming from the copter’s mini speaker.
“Matt,” Elliott said, “do you still have Babcock in sight?”
“I see him,” Matt said. “We’re still on Sunset.”
“He ditched me at the bar,” Elliott explained. “Just stay with him.”
“What if I lose him in traffic again?” Matt said.
“Next time you have to stop for a red light, start the copter again and send it out the window. The target is still locked into the copter’s memory, so it’ll find him in traffic and I’ll be able to see it from here. I can let you know where he goes.”
“Hold on, Dad,” Matt said. “Babcock just went through the intersection and I’m stuck at the light. I’m sending the copter out now.”
“I’ve got it,” Elliott said, switching to his cell phone now to communicate with his son. “It’s heading east at eighty feet up. Hang on, there he is. I’ve got him.”
“Good job, Dad,” Matt said. “I’m putting my cell phone on the car speaker so we can stay in touch while I drive.”
The light turned green and Matt continued southeast on Sunset. A minute later Elliott’s voice came back over the cell phone speaker in the van. “Babcock just turned south onto Park Avenue. He just crossed over Glendale Boulevard. Looks like he heading for Echo Park. Stay with him, Matt.”
“I see him, Dad. He’s no more than a block ahead of me.” Matt watched as Babcock pulled to the curb on Park Avenue and got out. Babcock looked both ways down the street before starting to cross and then Matt saw him look up and shade his eyes from the sun. “Dad, do you still have Babcock in your viewfinder?”
“Yes,” Elliott said. “Babcock left the vehicle and is about to cross the street.”
“Dad,” I think he made you. He’s looking up.”
Elliott zoomed in on the subject and could see Harold Babcock looking directly at the copter, which by now had dropped to forty feet above him. “You’re right, Matt. I think we blew the stakeout.”
Matt watched as Babcock made a dash toward the opposite side of the street. A city bus was coming from the opposite direction and was heading right for Babcock, who was still trying to see where the copter went. Babcock and the bus came to the same spot on the street at the same time. The sickening thud of the bus hitting Babcock made Matt’s stomach turn. All he could do was watch as the bus continued for another seventy feet before coming to a stop. By then, Babcock was lying on the street forty feet behind the bus. His torso had been flattened and his head was nothing more than a bloody pulp now. There was no chance any paramedic would be able to help Babcock at this point.
“Dad,” Matt said in a stammering voice. “Did you catch that?”
“Gees,” was all Elliott could muster. “That had to hurt.” He was silent for a few seconds afterwards.
“Dad?”
“Matt, swing back to the bar on Sunset and pick me up,” Elliott said. “I’ll bring the copter back to where I am.”
“But…”
“Matt, we’ll talk about it later. Just come and get me.”
It took Matt seven minutes to drive back to the bar on Sunset where Babcock had managed to elude him. Elliott was standing at the curb, copter in hand when Matt pulled up. Elliott got in, setting the copter on the floor behind him. He looked at Matt. “Go on back to the office,” he said. “This tail job is done and it doesn’t look like we’ll be able to collect anything from Crenshaw, either.”
The two of them drove back to Hollywood in silence. Matt parked the van in the lot behind their building. Back in the office, Elliott put the copter and its accessories back in the closet and sat at his desk, wondering how he was going to explain this turn of events to his client.
After a moment of reflection, Matt spoke up. “Dad?”
“I know, Matt,” Elliott said. “We’re probably to blame for Babcock’s death.”
“That’s not what I was going to say,” Matt explained. “Babcock just wasn’t watching where he was going and stepped right in front of that bus on his own. As far as anyone knows, he could have been looking up at a bird, a plane or Superman as far as that goes. Everyone else on the street was too busy looking at what happened to Babcock to look up. You could always tell Crenshaw that we lost him in traffic and that we’re not sure where he went.”
Elliott looked at Matt with a strange expression on his face. “But we do know what happened to him and we have to tell our client how this whole thing played out. We also have to tell the police. I’m sure they’ll want to know the circumstances surrounding Babcock’s death.”
“But why complicate out lives because of these unfortunate circumstances?” Matt wanted to know. “It certainly can’t do us any good. And it could only hurt the business.”
Elliott thought about that for a moment.
�
��At least give it a while before you do anything you’ll regret,” Matt said.
“Just let me think about it for a while,” Elliott said. “Either way, I’ll have to call Crenshaw and tell him we didn’t come to a successful conclusion in this case.”
Matt backed off and turned his attentions back to his computer screen. Elliott sat there in silent contemplation, trying to decide the best course of action for everyone concerned. Neither of them said another word about the incident for the next hour and a half, when Elliott reached for his phone and dialed Crenshaw’s number.
Matt watched without comment as Elliott made the call.
“Mr. Crenshaw,” Elliott said. “It’s Elliott Cooper.”
“Mr. Cooper,” Crenshaw said. “I was just going to call you. You must have read my mind.”
“You were going to call me?” Elliott said. “Why?”
Crenshaw cleared his throat and said, “Well, I was just going to call to say that you needn’t worry about the surveillance job in Harold Babcock any longer.”
“Oh,” Elliott said. “And why is that?” He knew why that was no longer necessary, but he was curious to learn if Crenshaw knew why.
“It seems Mr. Babcock has met with an unfortunate accident earlier today and your services will no longer be needed.”
“An accident?” Elliott said, trying to sound surprised.
“Yes, it seems Mr. Babcock’s attentions were focused elsewhere as he was crossing the street and he was struck down by a city bus. Most unfortunate, but those are the facts.”
Elliott paused momentarily and then asked, “You never did say why you wanted us to follow Mr. Babcock.”
“That’s right, I didn’t,” Crenshaw remarked casually. “Please send me your bill for whatever time you spent on this case and I’ll get a check out to you right away. Good day, Mr. Cooper.”
The phone went dead and Elliott stared at the handset in his fist, his face one big question mark. He hung up the phone and turned to Matt. “That was surely a strange call.”
“How so?”
“Crenshaw wouldn’t tell me why he wanted us to tail Babcock in the first place. And he damn sure didn’t sound like there was any grief or remorse in his voice when he told me that Babcock was dead. We may never find out what this was all about and that’s going to bother me.”
“Well, don’t let it,” Matt said. “On the plus side, we’re off the hook for our part in all this. As far as Crenshaw or anyone else knows, it was just a pedestrian accident and I think we should let it be.”
“So that’s it, then,” Elliott said. “I’m going out with a whimper?”
“What did you expect, Dad, a shootout, car chase and maybe an explosion or two?” Matt said. “You’ve had enough excitement during your career for a dozen men. Just be thankful you came away from it all in relatively good health.”
Elliott glanced up at the clock. It was a few minutes before three and in just a little more than two hours Elliott would be walking out of the office an unemployed man, free to spend his days however he saw fit. The day was unusually slow for a Friday.
Matt could see that Elliott was getting restless, or maybe it was nervous. He came out from behind his desk and stepped over to where Elliott sat looking out the window down onto Hollywood Boulevard. He perched his butt on the edge of Elliott’s desk and said, “Dad?”
Elliott turned around and said, “Yes?”
“Are you having any reservations about retiring?”
“What would make you ask me that with just two hours to go?” Elliott said.
Matt sighed. “I couldn’t help but wonder how you were feeling about getting away from all this. You’ve been doing this so long that it’s become part of who you are.”
“Change is always unnerving to most people,” Elliott said. “I guess I’m no different. But by the time Monday morning rolls around and I can stay in bed as long as I like, I expect I’ll get over it pretty quick. What about you?”
“What about me?” Matt said.
“Aren’t you getting a little nervous about taking over the business and running it by yourself?” Elliott said.
“Oh, hell,” Matt said, trying to feign confidence. “I’ve been at this a few years myself and I expect I’ve learned a few things from you along the way. And you’re just a phone call away if I have any questions.” He stared at his father for a moment and then added, “Who am I kidding? I am a little nervous about this transition.”
“You’ll do just fine,” Elliott assure him. “And if you come in a minute late some day you could always stare at that imaginary wristwatch, hold it to your ear and tap on the imaginary crystal, like you used to do when I came in late.”
“It’s not the same,” Matt said. “I need someone else’s reaction for that old gag to make any sense.”
“Just do it in the mirror,” Elliott said.
There was an awkward moment of silence before Elliott spoke. “I think I know now how my father felt when he retired, and Grandpa Matt, too.”
Matt looked around the office, trying to imagine how the room looked back in 1946 when Grandpa Matt started the business here after leaving the L.A.P.D. He turned back to Elliott and said, “You knew Grandpa Matt pretty well, didn’t you, Dad?”
Elliott shrugged. “About as well as anyone can know their grandfather,” he said. “Why?”
“I was just wondering,” Matt said looking around the room. “If these walls could talk, what kind of stories could they tell?”
Elliott stared off into space. “I was just a little younger than you are now when Grandpa Matt died,” he said. “And he was already retired when I was born, but he used to tell me about some of his cases when my mother would take me to his house for a visit.” Elliott smiled at the memory of sitting on Grandpa Matt’s lap in that overstuffed leather chair in his living room. He looked back at Matt. “I remember this one case he worked on, must have been sometime in the late forties, I’d guess. He and his friend Sergeant Dan Hollister worked a case that involved a series of murders in Hollywood. Each of the victims had some connection to the Mother Goose Nursery Rhymes.”
“How’s that?” Matt said.
“Well,” Elliott said, “The first victim was actually three victims, all of them old, homeless men who also happened to be blind. Each of them was not only killed but their, um, butts had been sliced off as well.”
“Their butts?” Matt said. “Did you say their butts we sliced off? Why?”
“I guess they were supposed to represent the Three Blind Mice in the nursery rhyme,” Elliott explained. “And apparently it just got weirder from there.”
“How can it get any weirder than three old men with their asses sliced off?” Matt said.
“Well,” Elliott explained, “There was one woman who was killed, sliced up into small pieces and placed inside several carved out pumpkins. Her husband’s name was Peter and she was in the process of leaving him.”
Matt mind raced, searching for his memory of the nursery rhyme. “Peter Peter Pumpkin Eater?” he said.
“One and the same,” Elliott told him. Before they caught up with the killer, he had claimed more than a dozen lives. He ended up killing himself before he could be taken into custody.”
“And I end up with cases involving neighbors with complaints about someone’s dog or someone trampling their flowers,” Matt said. “I guess the days of the exciting cases are long gone.”
“What are you talking about?” Elliott said. “You and I handled some pretty intense cases.”
“Name one that could actually have been considered intense,” Matt said.
Elliott thought about it for a moment and then offered, “Well, there was that one... No, never mind. That was me and my father. Okay, there was the time we... Nope, that was me and Gloria. How about the case where we...? Wait a minute that was me and Bud.”
“Whatever happened to Bud Burke?” Matt said. “He wasn’t here that long, was he?”
“He filled in
for your mother for the whole five years Olivia was growing up,” Elliott said. “By the time she was old enough to start school, your mother came back and Bud stepped down again, glad to be retired for the second time.”
“So, whatever happened to him?” Matt repeated.
“Talk about irony or fate or whatever you want to call it,” Elliott said.
“Huh?”
“Think about it,” Elliott said. “He spends twenty years with the Burbank Police Department and five years working with me and he never gets so much as a scratch. He leaves here and goes back to his life of retirement, slips in the shower and breaks his neck. Now that’s what I’d call just plain bad luck.”
“Or maybe he was just clumsy,” Matt said.
Elliott closed his laptop computer and slid his chair back. He retrieved his coat from the coat rack, turned back for one more look at the office and headed for the door.
Matt looked up at the clock. It was ten minutes to five. He looked at Elliott. “You know I’m going to have to dock you ten minutes for this.”
“Whatever you feel is right,” Elliott said, and walked out of the office.
Matt looked around the office. He’d been in it alone before, but the office never seemed as empty as it did right now. It was ironic, actually, how Matt Cooper had started this business alone all those years ago and now, four generations later, Matt Cooper was once again running this business alone. Cooper Investigations had finally come full circle.
In the morning Matt would take down the ‘Cooper and Son’ sign and put back the one that used to hang there that said simply, ‘Cooper Investigations.’ Someday, when Nick was old enough to join him in the business, he’d get the ‘Cooper and Son’ sign out, dust it off and hang it back up again.
Someday.
134 - About Face
Eddie Roman stood in front of his bathroom mirror, stretching the skin on his neck with his fingertips. He pulled this way and that, trying to imagine what he’d look like as a younger version of himself. He had always said that women were the vain ones in this life, but here he was, contemplating the procedure that so many women had had recently.
