The Cooper Saga

Featuring Six Generations of the Cooper Family

Stories 351-360

by Bill Bernico

Not What It Seems

Christmas had come and gone and the weather had turned nippy of late.  The afternoons were still a comfortable sixty degrees, but the nights had dropped into the freezing range.  It had been eight days since Cooper Investigations’ newest operative; Abby Ross had gotten her P.I. license and just one day since she had picked up the gun she had ordered.  She had to wait the full seven days after she had picked it out before she could get it.  She had decided that she’d wear it in a shoulder rig for the most part, except for those times when her clothing wouldn’t allow it, at which time she’d wear it concealed in a holster behind her waist.  It was the beginning of a new week at work and so far, Abby had just ridden along with John or Nick on one of their cases.  She was really looking forward to handling a case of her own but Nick had told her that she still wasn’t ready.

Abby was, however, glad to be done with the secretarial aspect of the job that she’d originally been hired to do.  During her tenure as secretary, she and John Cooper, the son of the owner, Nick Cooper, had become an item, so to speak and she eventually moved in with John.  That was more than eight months ago and lately the two of them had been kicking around the idea of getting married.  That idea was not foreign to Nick, since he and his late wife, Shelley had at one time run the P.I. business.  Nick was approaching retirement age and would eventually step down and turn the business over to John.  And now that John might be getting married, it made perfect sense for Abby to step into the role of P.I.

A few minutes before the office was due to open, Abby pulled into the parking lot, checked her image in the rear view mirror and slid out.  As she was walking toward the back door of the Cahuenga Building, she passed the dumpster and something caught her eye, making her take a closer look.  Protruding out from behind a corner of the dumpster, Abby spotted a single shoe and decided to step up for a closer look.  She gasped and stepped back when she saw that there was a middle-aged woman lying there, obviously dead.  She pulled out her cell phone and called the Cooper office.

“Cooper Investigations, Nick speaking.”

“Nick, it’s Abby; I’m in the parking lot, standing next to the dumpster.  You need to get down here right away.  There’s a woman lying behind it and I’m pretty sure she’s dead.”

“Don’t touch a thing, Abby,” Nick instructed.  “I’m coming right down.”  He hung up and hurried down the hall to the elevator.  Just as he stepped out the parking lot door, John pulled up and parked his Toyota sedan next to Abby’s.  When he got out of his car, he saw Abby standing there, like she was waiting for him, and then he saw Nick hurrying toward her.

John’s initial smile turned to one of concern.  “What’s going on here?”

Abby said nothing but just pointed to the area behind the dumpster.  Nick joined her, crouched down and pressed tow fingers into the woman’s neck.  There was no pulse and he immediately pressed the speed dial button on his phone for the Twelfth Precinct.  He got Lieutenant Steve Stone.

“Stone.”

“Steve, it’s Nick Cooper.  You’re going to need to send someone over to the parking lot behind our building.  There’s a dead woman lying behind the dumpster.  You might as well send someone from the crime lab as well as the coroner.”

“Did you touch anything, Nick?”

“Just the woman’s neck, looking for a pulse.  She’s dead, no doubt about it.”

“I’m on my way,” Stone said.  “Make sure to keep anyone else away from the scene until I get there.”  Stone pulled into the Cahuenga Building parking lot just four minutes later, followed by a car with two crime scene techs.  They were followed by the coroner’s wagon.  Stone got out and walked up to Nick.  He gestured at the dead woman.  “Is this just how you found her?”

Nick tossed his head in Abby’s direction.  “Actually, Abby found her earlier this morning and called me down.”

Stone turned to Abby and got the condensed version of how she happened to spot the woman lying behind the dumpster.  “I was just coming in to work and saw her shoe sticking out.”  He made notes on this information and stepped over to where the coroner, Adam Kline and his assistant, Ben Turner were going over the body.

“How does it look, Adam?” Stone asked.

Dr. Kline scratched the back of his neck and said, “Well, without getting her on my table and delving deeper into this, from all outward appearances, she looks to have been raped.  She was wearing a skirt that was pulled up to her waist, and leggings that were pulled down, and torn in multiple spots. She also had abrasions around her buttocks, the heels, thigh, and wrists, as if she’d been held down.  I can give you a more comprehensive report once I finish with her.”

“Let me know as soon as you can, would you, Adam?”  Stone turned to the crime scene techs, who just shook their heads in wonder when the evidence, or lack thereof, didn’t correspond with what everyone assumed had happened to this poor woman.  They collected bit and scraps of things that they had found lying next to the body.  They bagged and tagged everything and let the coroner take the body back to the morgue.

Nick, John and Abby watched as the coroner’s wagon drove away with the body.  The crime scene techs also left the scene, leaving just Lieutenant Steve Stone standing there with the three P.I.s.  Stone looked at Abby and said, “This is one hell of a way to start on your new career, wouldn’t you say?”

Abby nodded.  “And can I assume that I am not to look into this matter on my own?”

“You assume correctly,” Stone agreed.  “This is a police matter now, so don’t make it harder for us by nosing around in it.”

Abby sighed in disappointment but agreed that she would stay out of it.  She and the two Coopers returned to their office but none of them could seem to concentrate and anything related to their jobs.

It wasn’t until nearly three days after the discovery of the dead woman in their parking lot that the Coopers finally learned the circumstances surrounding the death of that woman.  At first, the investigators thought that they had a sinister case on their hands. However, certain things did not add up. Even though it was mid-January, someone should have reported at least hearing a woman in distress, as the dumpster was near the parking lot of a well-known building with several businesses housed within.  Also, the abrasions on her buttocks were rather strange, as if someone had dragged her across the cement surface of the parking lot. After some further investigation, they found no traces of physical evidence that suggested there was an attacker; that is, there was no saliva or hair.

Later, it was revealed that due to the stress and loneliness of losing her husband and of having her daughters leave home as adults, that this woman went to the nearby bar to meet a potential new partner.  But, she had gotten carried away drinking and before she knew it, she could hardly stand, let alone walk back to her car, which she couldn’t find. Once outside in the freezing cold, she walked into the Cahuenga Building parking lot to take a leak and hid behind the dumpster. While doing so, she was slowly suffering from hypothermia due to the cold winter wind and lowered body temperature caused by the alcohol.

She began feeling hot, due to paradoxical undressing, caused by hypothermia.  As a result, she presumably stripped off her jacket and other pieces of clothing. At this point, the hypothermia was really getting to her badly and she began to slowly lose consciousness. While lying on the freezing ground, with her skirt pulled up and leggings down, she began convulsing, which left abrasions on her body.  All this left behind a curious scene that appeared as if she had been raped when she had actually caused her own demise.

Once Dr. Kline had finished relaying this new information to Lieutenant Stone, Steve marked the case file with a large rubber stamp that said CLOSED and filed it away.  He knew that Abby would want to know how this strange case had played out and decided to pay a visit to the Cooper office.  Once he had conveyed the coroner’s information to her, she seemed both relieved and disappointed.

“Long story short,” Steve said, “She caused her own death by excessive drinking, coupled with several other circumstances.  Everything is not what it seems.  It’s too bad it had to come to that, but that’s life, I guess.”

“Well, thanks for stopping by,” Abby said.  “Too bad Nick and John are both out on cases.  They would have been interested to hear what you all found.  I’ll be sure to tell them when they get back.”

Stone left the office and returned to the Twelfth Precinct.  Abby sat behind her own desk and began entering case files into the company database.  At least it was something to do until a case came her way.  She didn’t have to wait long, because ten minutes later, Nick walked into the office, looking worn out.  “Hey Nick,” Abby said.  “Are you finished with your case already?”

Nick sighed and nodded.  “You can say that again.  Gees, I was only on the case for fifteen minutes before the police picked me up and hauled me in for questioning.”

“What?” Abby said, genuinely surprised.  “What happened?”

“Let me hang up my jacket and sit down before I start explaining,” Nick said, and did just that.  “Do you remember that call you took first thing this morning from that guy who wanted one of us to help prove that he was not the actual father in that support case?  He wanted me to get video evidence showing that the child did not even look like him.”

“Sure,” Abby commented.  He told me on the phone that all we had to do was get some video the child at play.  Did you do that?”

Nick rolled his eyes and sighed again.  “I sure did.  So picture this; there I am, beside a playground, in my car, videotaping a nine-year-old playing with his toys.  Apparently, the police got complaints from several of the neighbors and sent a black and white patrol car to investigate.  It pulled up behind me as I was videotaping the client’s so-called kid.  They walked up to my car and gave me the fish eye before hauling me downtown and looking at me like I was some kind of pedophile.  These were two newer patrolmen who didn’t know me.  It wasn’t until they took me to the booking room when we passed Lieutenant Stone coming the other way.  He talked to the two cops for just a minute before I was let go with an apology.”

Abby tried her best not to crack a smile, but the situation was just too ridiculous not to laugh.  “Sorry, Nick, but it’s just too hard to try to picture you as a pedophile.”

“Then don’t,” Nick said.  “Sometimes everything is not what it seems, and this is one of those times so just let it go.”

Abby held up her index finger and remarked, “Hey; that’s the same thing Lieutenant Stone said to me earlier when he stopped in here earlier to tell me about that woman I found out back.”

Just then John stepped into the office, looked over at Nick and broke out in full blown laughter.  “Come on Dad; that was funny and you know it.”

“How did you hear about it so soon?” Nick asked his son.

“I stopped by the station on my way back from my short case and Steve filled me in,” John said.  “Now tell the truth, Dad; you weren’t wearing a trench coat with no pants on underneath, were you?”

Nick shook his head.  “Smart ass; that’s it, we’re not taking any more surveillance cases that involve children.”

“Oh, Dad, don’t be so sensitive,” John replied.  “This whole thing will blow over in a week or six and everyone will have forgotten about it.  You just have to have a sense of humor about it.”

That was all it took to get Abby giggling again.

The next morning as Nick was reading his paper, he came across a small article that made him take a closer look.  He cleared his throat and said, “Hey, listen to this,” and began reading the article to John and Abby.

Police identified the body of Stephanie Merrill, 48, from Hollywood.  Mrs. Merrill had been found behind a dumpster in the Cahuenga Building parking lot by an employee from the building.  They had initially suspected foul play, but later admitted that the woman had apparently caused her own death through excessive drinking.  Funeral services will be held this Friday at…

Nick quit reading and looked up at Abby.  “Did you want me to save this for your scrapbook?  You could file it under ‘an employee from the building’ and show it to your grandchildren some day.”

Abby waved him off.  “No, you can line your parakeet cage with it if you like.”

“But I don’t have a parakeet,” Nick said in rebuttal.

John held up an index finger and added, “But the day’s not over yet, Dad.”

Now all three of them were laughing.

Bingo

Nick had just gotten off the phone and was still jotting down notes on his yellow legal pad.  John was busy surfing the web for devices that might come in handy for Cooper Investigations and wasn’t really paying attention to what his father was doing.  Nick gestured for Abby, the third P.I. in this firm, to come over to his desk.

“Yes, Nick?” Abby said.

“That last call I just finished was from someone looking for a P.I. to follow a little old lady to see if she’s trying to scam her insurance company, claiming to be disabled.  It seems to me like a case you could handle on your own.  Are you interested?”

Abby’s broad smile gave Nick the answer he was looking for.  “You bet,” she said enthusiastically.  “When do I start?”

Nick tore the yellow sheet off his pad and handed it to Abby.  “Here’s the address for Consolidated Insurance and the guy you’ll want to talk to is an adjuster named Leo Thornton.  He’ll be expecting you and will give you more specific directions from there.  Make sure you bring a blank contract and collect a two day retainer of six hundred dollars.  If you run into something you have a question about, either John or I are just a phone call away.  Go get ‘em.”

Abby found a blank contract and folded it to fit in her purse.  She pulled her shoulder holster off the coat hook and slipped into it, covering it with her jacket.  She winked at John on her way out of the office and hurried down to her car.  At last she was off on a case all her own, without just being a ride along.  She smiled all the way to the Consolidated offices but managed to wear a more professional look just before she stepped into the reception area.

Abby told the receptionist about her reasons for being there and was shown into Leo Thornton’s office.  She introduced herself to the adjuster and listened closely to his concerns.  “What we need you to do, Miss Ross, is follow one of our customers, who claims that she is almost completely disabled.  However, we’ve gotten sketchy reports that this woman has been seen doing her normal activities with no restrictions at all.  Just bring me proof that she is faking it and it’ll save out company a substantial sum in payouts.  Here’s the address where you’ll most likely find her.  She lives just twelve blocks from this office and her name is Sally Benson.”

Abby got Thornton’s signature on her contract along with a company check for six hundred dollars.  She stood, shook Thornton’s hand and said, “Thank you for calling Cooper Investigations.  I’m sure I can get you the proof that you need.”  And with that she left Thornton’s office and headed back to her car.

The Benson house sat three houses from the corner of Kingsley on Fountain Avenue.  Abby parked around the corner on Kingsley, checked the information sheet and dialed Sally Benson’s phone.

It rang four times before a woman answered.  “Hello.”

“Is this Sally Benson?” Abby asked in her professional voice.

“Yes?”

“My name is Barbara Benson and I’m trying to find my maternal grandmother’s family,” Abby began.  “Her name was Gertrude and I was hoping you could direct me to her.”

“Never heard of anyone name Gertrude,” Sally replied.

“Oh my, could there be more than one Sally Benson in the greater Los Angeles area?”

“I don’t know,” Sally said, “but you got the wrong one here.”  Without waiting for a reply, Sally Benson disconnected the call.

Abby smiled to herself.  This Sally Benson was home and now all she had to do was wait for her to come out and follow her.  Abby had modified her purse with a hole on the end flap tall enough to accommodate her video camera.  If anyone saw her, she’d be just another woman carrying a purse.  She sat there, keeping an eye on the Benson residence for what seemed an eternity, but was actually just an hour and a half.  It was then that she saw Benson leave her house and get into the car that had been sitting in the driveway.  Here we go; she thought and started her car.  Shortly after Benson backed out of her driveway, Abby followed her, keeping a safe distance between the two cars.  Fifteen minutes later the Benson car parked in a lot with dozens of other cars whose occupants all seemed to be going into a large hall.

Abby parked several spaces away and walked into the hall, only to find it was a bingo hall filled to capacity with gray-haired old ladies, each with large, colorful bingo markers and the obligatory troll dolls for good luck.  Sally Benson took a seat on the end of one of the tables where Abby could get a good, unobstructed view of the woman.  The chatter among the women subsided as soon as the older man stepped up to the podium.  Next to him was a large, wire barrel-shaped contraption holding seventy-five ping pong balls, each with a different number and letter printed on them.

The room fell silent as the man announced the grand prize of five hundred dollars and gave the barrel a spin.  A single ball rolled down a chute and out into his waiting hand.  He held it overhead to show the crowd and announced, “I-17” and then repeated the call before moving on to the next ball.  This went on for nearly thirty more calls before some woman in the back yelled out, “Bingo,” and held her card over her head, waiting for verification from the bingo caller’s assistant.  Her card was confirmed and the assistant handed the woman crisp new five dollar bill while his partner was busy loading the called balls back into the wire barrel and spinning it again.

Abby wasn’t really paying attention to the single bingo card in front of her, but rather kept her eyes on Sally Benson, who was turning to talk to the woman seated next to her.  From where Abby sat, it didn’t appear that the Benson woman had any trouble turning her head; even though Leo Thornton had mentioned to Abby that Sally Benson appeared wearing a neck brace when he’d first met her.

Abby made sure to keep her purse camera angled to as to capture Benson’s movement the whole time she was sitting there.  The activities of that afternoon went on for arguably the longest two hours Abby had ever spent doing virtually nothing.  Then during the last game, which was for the five hundred dollar grand prize, the announcer said that this game was called the cover-all and that the first one to cover all of their squares would win the five hundred dollars.

Sally Benson busily stamped her cards as the numbers were called and she was getting more excited by the minute, constantly turning to the woman next to her to give her an update on how many more numbers she needed.  When the last bingo number was called, Sally Benson stamped the last square on her card and excitedly yelled, “Bingo,” and jumped to her feet, waving the card over head and jumping up and down.  Abby did her best to contain her laughter as she captured all of these pain free movements on her video camera.

Before the large crowd disbursed, Abby headed for the exit, not wanting to be trampled by a herd of blue hairs.  She made it back out to her car before any of the others and just sat there with her purse lying on the dash.  She might as well try to capture more footage of Sally Benson as she emerged from the bingo hall.  The gaggle of old ladies poured out of the hall and shuffled back to their car

Sally Benson was one of the last people to leave the hall.  She was still chatting excitedly to the woman who had been sitting next to her the whole time.  As the two of them stepped out of the hall, Benson caught her toe on one of the bingo hall steps and took a tumble onto the asphalt.  Abby kept the video camera running and captured Benson struggling to get to her feet but to no avail.  Benson’s bingo partner tried to pull her to her feet but couldn’t manage it.  Sally just lay there moaning.

Ten minutes later an ambulance pulled into the lot and two attendants in white got out and began assessing Benson’s injuries before loading her into the back of their ambulance and pulling out of the lot.  Now what was Abby supposed to do?  She did get the incriminating footage of Sally Benson that her client had asked for but what about the footage of her most recent injury?  Would that negate the earlier footage?  Would it help or hurt her client’s case?  She couldn’t be bothered by these new set of circumstances.  She’d just report back to Leo Thornton, collect her fee and let the chips or the woman in this case, fall where they may.

Leo Thornton looked at the video footage Abby had gathered and smiled with satisfaction at the results.  It was then that Abby described the circumstances concerning Sally Benson’s tumble in the parking lot.  “Will that hurt your original case?” Abby asked.

Thornton shook his head.  “Those are two separate events.  We’ll get reimbursed from the woman for the money she already collected from us fraudulently.  That tumble outside the bingo hall will be another issue between her and the bingo hall owners.  At least we’ll recoup our losses.  Thank you, Miss Ross.”

Abby left the Thornton office and drove back to her own office, satisfied that she had done a good job all on her own.  Yes, this was going to be a great occupation for her.  By the time she stepped back into her office, Nick was on the phone with someone and held up an index finger toward Abby.

“Hold on, Mr. Thornton, she just walked in.”  Nick put the man on hold and pointed to Abby’s phone.

“Abby Ross; yes.  Oh no, that’s terrible.  I’m sorry to hear that but thanks for calling to let me know what happened.”  She hung up and turned back to Nick.  “That was Leo Thornton from Consolidated Insurance.  He just called to let me know how things turned out for him.  He looked up the bingo hall’s owner and discovered that they had their insurance with his company, so he’s on the hook for her injuries anyway.  How’s that for karma?”

“But you got him the results he hired you for, didn’t you?”

Abby nodded.  “I sure did.”

“Well, there you have it; it’s not your fault that things turned out the way they did,” Nick explained.

“I guess,” Abby said, “but I still can’t help but feel bad for Mr. Thornton.  He just had the bad fortune to have insured that place.”

Nick smiled and pointed at Abby.  “Bingo.”

Way Back When

It wasn’t until after her first three assignments that Cooper’s newest P.I.; Abby Ross began to catch on.  She approached her boss Nick Cooper one morning in their office.  “Nick,” she began, “I’ve noticed that the last three cases that you assigned to me were all, how shall I put this, nothingburgers, for lack of a better word.  You sent me to follow some old lady to the bingo parlor.  I spent two and a half days before that tailing some meek man whose wife thought he was cheating on her, only to discover that he’d been planning a birthday party for her.  And before that I…”

“All right,” Nick said.  “I get it; you’re looking for something with a little more meat on it.  Tell you what; the very next call that comes in is all yours, no matter what they ask us to do for them—agreed?”

That got Abby smiling.  “Agreed.”  She was holding her hand behind her back with her fingers crossed, hoping for something juicy that she could tackle on her own.  She returned to her desk and kept one eye on her phone as she filed a few older cases.  The first call of the day didn’t come in until quarter to eleven and Abby was quick to grab her phone.  “Cooper Investigations, Abby Ross speaking.  Yes, I am one of the investigators.  Uh huh; yes, that is something that we do.  Would you like to stop up here at our office to discuss this further?  Great; do you know where we’re located?  That’s right; third floor in the front, last door on the right.  Thank you for choosing Cooper Investigations and I’ll see you around eleven.  Good bye.”  She hung up the phone and looked up at Nick, who was eagerly waiting for Abby to tell him about that phone client.

“Sounds like you got a live one there,” Nick said.

“Finally,” John said from his desk.  “Does it sound like an exciting case?”

“Hard to tell,” Abby replied.  “He mentioned something about a car but he was kind of vague.  Maybe he wants me to follow some car around town to find out about some crook.  Hell, you’ll know when I know.  He’ll be here in a few minutes.”  She stepped over to the sink in the alcove next to Nick’s desk and checked her image in the mirror, primping here hair and straightening her collar before returning to her desk.

The knock came on the door at two minutes past eleven.  It opened and a man in his mid-thirties poked his head in.  He smiled when he saw Abby standing there to greet him.  “Miss Ross?” the man asked before stepping all the way inside.

Abby offered her hand and said, “You must be Clifford Baker.”

“It’s Clifton, actually,” Baker corrected.

Abby waved an arm out toward John and said, “This gentleman is John Cooper and the distinguished looking one over there is Nick Cooper.  Won’t you have a seat over here, across from my desk and tell me how I can help you today.”

Baker settled into Abby’s client’s chair, looked back once at Nick and turned back to face Abby.

“You mentioned something on the phone about some car you wanted me to locate,” Abby began.  “Does the car belong to the person you need me to tail?”

Baker waved her off.  “Not exactly, Miss Ross.  What I want; what I need is for you to locate a particular car for me.  You see, my first car was one that my late father bought for me nearly twenty years ago and I’d like you to locate it so I can buy it back from whoever owns it now.  I know, I could check the Internet for another one exactly like the one I used to own, but I want that very same car from way back when and I need you to find it for me.”

Nick leaned back in his chair and held one hand over his mouth to stifle a laugh.  John simply turned his chair away from Abby but she could still see his shoulders convulsing somewhat.  She ignored them both and went on with her interview.  She produced a yellow legal pad and pencil and began taking notes.  “What kind of car was it that you had?”

Baker reminisced and smiled at the thought of his first car.  “It was a 1964 Chevrolet Covair.  Oh man, the stories that car could tell.  I was seventeen at the time and I took that car everywhere.  You see, that’s why I couldn’t replace it with a look-alike.  It has to be that same car.  It holds so many memories for me.  Do you think you could find it for me, Miss Ross?”

“I’ll certainly give it my absolute best effort, Mr. Baker.  Tell me what you remember about the car.  You must remember where it went after you had it.”

“I traded it in at the Chevy dealer in the valley,” Baker explained.  “They’re still there and I checked with them, but they don’t keep records back that far and I ran up against a brick wall.  I hope that’s enough for you to get you started on this.”

“It’s as good a place as any to start,” Abby said and produced one of their standard contracts for Baker to sign.  “I might mention that we get three hundred dollars a day and finding your car could run into a tidy sum before I’m finished.”

Baker signed the contract and said, “It doesn’t matter, Miss Ross.  I recently inherited a tidy sum myself and that’s what got me to thinking about my old Corvair.  It’s probably beat to hell and worn out.  That doesn’t matter to me.  If I can find it, I plan to have it restored to the way it was when I first got it, so it doesn’t matter even if you find it in some junk yard.”

“Well, then,” Abby said, “I’d better get right on this.  I’m going to need a two day retainer to get started.  If it takes longer than two days, I’ll let you know and tell you how much more I may need to keep going.”  She stood now and offered her hand to Clifton Baker.  “I won’t call you unless I have something to report, so have a little patience while I look into this for you.”  She walked Baker to the door and said goodbye before turning to the two Coopers with a stern look on her face.  She was about to chew them both out when Nick held up his index finger, listened for the elevator door and then sighed.

“I think he’s gone now,” Nick said.

“You two could have blown this job for me with your faces and your stifled laughter,” she chided.

“You have to admit,” John said.  “Dad promised you the very first case that came in today, no matter what it involved and look what you got.  It’s not exactly in a class with the Maltese Falcon, but it’s something to do anyway.  It kind of gives a whole new meaning to the phrase follow that car, wouldn’t you say.”

“Go on, both of you; get it out of your system.  While you’ll both be sitting here dangling your feet or swatting flies, I’ll be out earning my retainer.”  She slipped her jacket over her shoulder holster and grabbed her purse before heading for the door.  “Don’t wait up for me.”  A moment later she was gone.

Again both Coopers waited for the sound of the elevator door closing before they looked at each other and broke out laughing.  “What are the odds that she’ll ever find that very same car?” John asked.

“Slim to none,” Nick said and sat back down behind his desk.

John stood at the south window and looked out at the traffic and pedestrians on Hollywood Boulevard.  He turned toward Nick and asked, “How many cars do you think there are in California, Dad?”

“Gotta be in the millions anyway,” Nick replied.  “And what if whoever bought that old Corvair moved out of state and took it along with them?”

“I don’t envy Abby on this case, but I’m damn sure glad I didn’t get stuck with it,” John said.

Abby’s first stop would be to the Chevy dealer in the valley.  Even though they might not have the actual records from back that far, there might still be someone working there who remembers Clifton Baker trading it in.  It took her thirty-five minutes to make it to the dealership.  She pulled into the lot and killed her engine.  She was no sooner out of her car when a salesman swooped down on her with the typical used car salesman rhetoric.

Abby held up on palm toward the slick salesman and said, “Hold it right there; before you start in on your spiel, I have to tell you that I’m not here to buy a car.”  She produced her badge and I.D. and flashed it too quickly for the man to read it all and just returned it to her purse.  “Where can I find the owner?”

The salesman, a fast talking guy name Jerry hiked a thumb over his shoulder and said, “The owner doesn’t have his office here; he has it at one of his other locations.  You can find the manager, Russ Keen inside.”

Abby said nothing further to Jerry and walked toward the showroom.  Once inside another guy in a fancy suit approached her.  His name tag identified him as someone named Earl.  Abby looked him up and down and asked, “Are you Mr. Keen?”

Earl shook his head and gestured toward a door marked ‘Manager’.  She knocked and was invited in.  “Are you Russ Keen?” Abby asked.

Keen nodded and invited his guest to sit.  Abby pulled up a chair across from Keen and started right in with, “Mr. Keen, I’ve been hired by my client to find the very same car he used to own and he told me that he traded it in here.  While I realize that you probably don’t keep records back that far, I was hoping you might have remembered him.”

“You must be talking about Clifton Baker,” Keen said.

Abby’s hope rose briefly and she said, “So you do remember him.”

“How could I not?” Keen said.  “He was just in here three days ago asking the same thing you are right now.  I’ll tell you the same thing I told him; we only keep records back seven years and I have no idea who ended up with his Corvair.  To tell you the truth, Corvairs were junk then and now they’re just old junk.  So, if there’s nothing else you need, I still have a lot of work to do.  You can show yourself out.”

Abby left Keen’s office with a bad first impression of the man and decided to walk around the dealership and see if there were any other older employees who might have remembered Clifton Baker’s favorite car.  She walked out through the showroom door and around to the back where the service entrance sat.  A mechanic was just pulling out through the overhead door and she quickly stepped aside.  Out on the lot she could see and older man washing one of the cars in the back row.  She decided that she had nothing to lose and stepped up to him.

“Excuse me,” Abby said.  “I was just wondering how long you’ve been working at this dealership.”

The man stopped squirting the soapy car with the hose and turned toward the good looking woman standing there in front of him.

“Well, let’s see,” he said.  “Come this October it’ll be sixteen years.  Why do you ask?”

“I imagine you’ve seen quite a few cars come and go during that time,” Abby remarked.

The man smiled.  “I guess I have, and I’ve probably washed ‘em all at one time or another.  By the way, my name is Tom but folks around here call me Tommy.  And who might you be?”

Abby produced one of her business cards and handed it to Tommy.  “Abby Ross and I’ve been hired to find a particular car that was traded in here about fourteen years ago.  It was a black Corvair two door with…”

“With a double red striped down the top from hood to trunk,” Tommy said, remembering.  “I probably wouldn’t have remembered it if it hadn’t been for that red stripe.  Cute car, it was.”

“I don’t suppose you’d know whatever became of it, would you?”

“Sorry, Miss Ross; it came and went without much fanfare but I’ll bet I washed it a dozen times before it finally left here.”  Tommy was suddenly lost in thought but soon snapped out of it.  “Wait a minute; I recall that it sat on the lot for several months with no one interested in buying it so they took it to the auto auction in Pasadena.  That was the last time I remembered seeing it.  I know it ain’t much help but…”

“Oh no,” Abby said.  “You’ve been a big help, Tommy.”  She thanked him and walked back to her car.  She’d pay the auto auction a visit and hope their records went back further than just seven years.

“I wonder how Abby’s coming along on her case,” John said.

“I don’t know,” Nick replied.  “But I think we’d better giver her our full support and stop kidding her about it.  I really want this to work out.  You know, I’m not always going to be here.  I may retire some day and then you two will have to run this business.  I know, that may not happen for a few years, but someday I may just want to step down and take it easy.”

“But you’re not even close to retirement age, Dad.  You’re only fifty-eight.”

“Fifty-nine,” Nick corrected.  “But I figure that if I wait too long to retire, I may be too old to enjoy what I want to do, so just be aware and put your support behind Abby, would you.”

“Sure, Dad.”

Abby found the auto auction in Pasadena and drove into the main lot.  They weren’t running an auction today.  According to the sign on the wall, they only ran them once a week on Wednesdays.  She walked into the auction office and asked for someone in charge of the records.

“I can help you,” a man behind the counter said.  “What is it you need?”

“Well, eleven or twelve years ago a dealer in the valley ran a 1964 Corvair through the auction and I was wondering if you could tell me whatever became of it.  It was black with…”

“With a red racing stripe on top,” the man said.  “I remember it well; we ran it through the auction four or five times and never even got an opening bid on it.  Seems nobody wanted it.  You can’t blame them after Ralph Nader did his hatchet job on all Corvairs, categorizing them as ‘unsafe at any speed’ in his book.”

“So what becomes of cars that don’t sell here?” Abby asked.

The man smiled a bit and said, “I finally gave the business fifty bucks and took it home for my kid as his first car.”

Abby was starting to feel a little more optimistic.  “Do you still have it?”

The man shook his head.  “I’m afraid not.  Billy got in an accident with that thing and they hauled it off to the junk yard.  That was, oh, six or seven years ago.”  He wrote down the name and address of the junk yard and handed it to Abby.  “I wish I could have given you better news about that old Corvair.”

“Thanks anyway,” Abby replied.  “You’ve been a big help.”  She left the office with another lead and drove straight to the junk yard address.  It was a large scrap yard with an eight foot fence surrounding the rows and rows of old, discarded cars and trucks.

She found a dirty, greasy mechanic type guy hunting and pecking on the computer that sat on the counter.  He was obviously not a home row kind of typist.  He finished entering what he was looking for and turned at the sound of the door opening.  “Yes, Miss, can I help you with something?”  Abby explained what she was looking for and waited as the speed typist poked away at the keys again, getting up to three words a minute.  After an agonizing wait, he turned and said, “I remember that one.  I used to have a Corvair myself; same color and everything.  I took two pictures of it just for me.  You know; nostalgia and all.  Did you want to see them?”

“If it’s not too much trouble,” Abby replied.

“Got ‘em right here on the wall,” the man said and showed Abby where to look.  He pointed to the photo on the left and said, “That’s what it looked like when we hauled it in.  For a while I thought I might be able to repair it and take it home, but it was too far gone and way beyond my repair skills.”

“And where is that second photo you said you had?”

The man pointed to the photo to the immediate right of the first one and said, “That’s what it looked like last time I saw it.”  The photo showed a compacted cube about the size of a dresser.  “Not much similarity between the two, is there?”

Abby looked on in wonder at what was left of the Corvair and said, “And whatever became of that cube of compacted metal?”

“It was shipped out to the recycler and probably melted down to make other cars with,” the man said.  “Hell, that car you drove up in could very well have a bit of Corvair metal in it, or it could even be a part of someone’s refrigerator.”

Abby pulled her phone out of her purse and said, “Would you mind if I took a couple of pictures of those two photos”?

“Here,” the man said, pulling the two photos off the wall.  “Take ‘em; I’m sick of looking at ‘em.”

“Thanks for your help,” Abby said and slipped the two photos into her purse and left.  She drove back to her office to find it closed for the day.  She looked at her watch and found she’d been out all day and just decided to drive home and share her case findings with John.

The house was empty when she walked it but the red light on their answering machine was blinking.  She pressed the Play button and listened as John explained that his current case had him doing surveillance after hours and that he’d see her at work the next day.  He also added that he’d be sleeping in the next morning and to tell Nick that he’d be in by noon.  Abby kicked off her shoes, grabbed a cold soda from the refrigerator and looked at it, wondering of that old Corvair went into making any part of her refrigerator.  She settled in to her overstuffed chair and turned on the television.  John was still not home by the time she turned it off and went to bed.

Abby left for work the next morning while John was still fast asleep.  She and Nick spent a quiet morning waiting for John to come in.  This gave her time to finish her report, make copies of the two photos for her files and make out the final bill for Clifton Baker.  She was sure he’d be disappointed not to be getting his original car from way back when, but that part was out of her hands.

Just before Abby was about to leave for Clifton Baker’s office, John walked in and said, “Good morning all,” and then amended it with, “good afternoon,” once he checked the wall clock.  He turned to Abby and said, “Well, how did your search for that guy’s car turn out?”

Abby said nothing initially but just held up the second photo of the compacted cube.  “I don’t think it’s going to be drivable any time soon.  Listen, I’ll have to fill you in later after I get back from seeing my client; gotta run.”

After she had gone, John turned to his father and said, “So, what did I miss?”

“Nothing here,” Nick said, “But Abby had one heck of a run for her money.  She told me all about it and I have to admit that she did a professional job for her client.  I think she’s going to work out just fine.”

Abby returned to the Cooper office a little better than an hour later and plopped down onto the leather sofa beneath the south window.  She kicked off her shoes and sighed in frustration.  “Well, there was one client who was not too happy.  Not with me, but with the eventual disposition of his beloved car.  He thanked me anyway, saying something about being able to let go of the past once and for all, so I guess it wasn’t all for nothing.”

John sat down next to her and said, “Too bad he couldn’t have met up with Mr. Peabody and Sherman.”

Abby frowned and said, “Huh?”

Nick knew what John was referring to and said, “Then he could have taken Mr. Peabody’s way back machine and gone way back when to save his Corvair.”

Abby still had not caught the significance.  “And just who are Mr. Peabody and Sherman?”

Nick and John just looked at each other and had to laugh.  “I’ll lay it out for you when we get home,” John said.

“And when you’re done with that,” Nick remarked, “You can tell her all about Mr. Peabody and his boy, Sherman.”  He immediately got the fish eye from John and knew he must have crossed the line.  Then he remembered using that same line on John just recently.

It looked like Abby was too young to remember that iconic cartoon from way back when.

That Wasn’t Me

John Cooper and his girlfriend, Abby Ross had been living together for eight months and had fallen into a comfortable living arrangement.  Tonight they had settled in on the couch to watch an old black and white movie that was set to start in five minutes.  Before the movie started, the news anchor finished his piece on one of the most popular movie stars currently working in the business; Tray Barnett, a thirty-something who never seemed to stop working long enough to enjoy the fruits of his labor.  The newsman showed a brief clip of Mr. Barnett being mobbed by fans wherever he went and in some of the close-up shots, he didn’t appear to be enjoying it.

“Wouldn’t you just hate to be someone like that?” Abby asked.  “He probably can’t go anywhere without people constantly pestering him for autographs or just to touch him or ask him stupid questions.”

“No thank you very much,” John replied.  “I like my life the way it is just fine.”  Before they could continue this conversation any further, the news ended and the movie started.  The sat through most of the movie without talking and just enjoying each other’s company, occasionally munching on popcorn that sat in a bowl between them.

Two hours later, after the credit began rolling, John stood, stretched and yawned and told Abby he was going to bed.  “I’ll be in shortly,” Abby replied.  “I just want to straighten up a little in the kitchen and wash out this bowl.”  John said nothing further and just headed straight for the bedroom.  He was fast asleep even before Abby had finished in the kitchen.

The following morning they each took their own car to work and greeted John’s father, Nick Cooper when they walked in.  “Good morning, kids,” Nick said and quickly amended it to, “Good morning you two.”  John had told his father on several occasions to knock off referring to the two of them as kids, since they were both over thirty already.

“Hi, Dad,” John replied.

“Morning, Nick,” Abby said.  “Do we have anything goin on this morning?”

“Funny you should ask,” Nick said.  “I just got off the phone with a potential client and I think this case could be right up your alley.”

Abby pointed at her chest.  “My alley; I have an alley?  What’s the case?”

“Some woman from a downtown business called to ask if we could tail a man and get some evidence that he was cheating on his wife with a much younger woman,” Nick explained.

“You mean it wasn’t his wife who called you?”

Nick shook his head.  “No, I’ve run into this kind of thing before.  She’s probably some secretary that works for the guy and she no doubt feels that he done her wrong, so to speak, and she wants to bring him down a peg or three.  Are you interested?”

Abby nodded.  “Absolutely; give me the particulars and I’ll get started on it right away.”  Nick gave Abby the information sheet concerning the man she is supposed to tail.  She looked at the sheet and then asked about getting a signed contract and a deposit.

“No need this time around,” Nick explained.  “I’ve dealt with this company many times before and they set up an account with us.  I took care of the contract and had her electronically sign one and send it back.  As for the deposit, they have a credit card on file with us, so you can go directly out on the trail and see what this guy is up to.  Let me know what you find.  And by the way, you’ll find a printable picture of your target on the web.  Just do a search for James Dunlap so you’ll know him when you see him.”

“Thanks, Nick,” Abby said, and printed out a clear photo of Dunlap before she left the office.

John looked over at his Dad, sitting behind his desk and said, “Abby again?  What am I; an orphan?”

Nick waved him off.  “Don’t worry about it, I found a case for you as well.  Do you know who Tray Barnett is?”

“Who doesn’t, Dad,” John replied.  “Why do you ask?”

“Because I was over at the studio yesterday on something totally unrelated and I ran into Cecil B. Miller,” Nick said.  “You remember him; his mother was a big DeMille fan and named her son after the famous director.”

“Cecil B. Miller,” John echoed.  “I don’t believe I’ve ever met him.  I’m familiar with the name, but what does he do at the studio?”

“You’d think he’d be a director,” Nick said.  “But he’s not; he’s an agent.  As a matter of fact, he’s Tray Barnette’s agent and we got to talking about Tray’s problems with finding any privacy.”

“Oh, waah,” John said.  “He’s got the world by the ass, not to mention nearly a hundred million dollar net worth.  I’d trade places with the guy for that kind of money.”

“Funny you should mention trading places with him,” Nick remarked.

“Why?”

“Because that’s exactly what Miller wants you to do.”  Nick could tell by John’s reaction that he’d better explain further.  “Listen, I spent nearly an hour with Miller and we think we’ve got this thing pretty well hashed out.  He’d like you to stop by the studio right after lunch today so he can fill you in on the plan we came up with.  Long story short; he wants to make you up to look like Barnett and at the same time, make Barnett up to look like you.”

John furrowed his brow.  “Again; why?”

“Don’t you get it?” Nick said, going on with the plan.  “Then Barnett can just walk out of there and head out on that much needed vacation he’s been bugging his agent about without having to fend off an army of eager fans.  He’ll come back a week later, rested and relaxed and ready to get back to some serious movie making.  In fact, he was the one who first came up with the idea and told his agent about it.  Miller was stumped on who could play Barnett while he was on vacation and I suggested you for the part.  What do you think?”

John held up one index finger and said, “So, let me get this straight; While Barnett’s gone for that whole week, I’ll have to stay in makeup as him and play his part all that while?  Is anyone else at the studio in on the plan or is it just me and Miller?”

“And the makeup man, but that’s it.  You’ll be on salary that whole week at three hundred dollars a day.  I’m sure you could find a good use for the extra twenty-one hundred dollars.  And Miller promised a bonus at the end of the week if you can pull off a convincing portrayal of Barnett.  Now what do you say?”

“I’m in,” John said immediately.  “Do I keep in touch with you during that week?”

Nick waved him off.  “No, we’ll be incommunicado all week.  The only one you’ll interact with is Miller, and maybe an occasional fan or two.”

“A fan or two?  You mean out there in the open?”

“No, Miller will just arrange for you to wave at a few fans outside the studio gates, but from a distance so you can pull off this little charade.  Now if there are no further questions, I suggest you fire up your laptop and find as many videos as you can with Tray Barnett so you can study his mannerisms and voice.  You have at least three hours before you have to meet with Miller at the studio.  Just drive up to the gate and tell them you’re John Cooper there to see Cecil B. Miller.  Your name is being left at the gate.”

“I’m on it, Dad,” John said and settled in behind his desk with his laptop.  As Nick sat reading his morning paper, every now and then he could hear John repeating a line that Barnett spoke from some interview or movie clip.  Then John would get out of his chair and practice walking like Barnett and trying out some of his mannerisms.  By twelve-thirty, John was pretty confident that he could pass for the star from a distance.  He couldn’t wait to get started.  “I’d better get over there, Dad.”  John slipped into his jacket and left the office.

Meanwhile, Abby sat in her car, waiting for her target to leave for lunch.  She took out the five by seven portrait of Dunlap that she’d found on the web and kept comparing it to the men who left that building.  After seven other men, James Dunlap finally appeared and began walking east by himself.  Abby pulled away from the curb and kept her distance as she followed the man to a coffee shop.  She parked her car and casually walked into the same shop, just another person having lunch.

Abby walked in and took a table where she could keep an eye on the man without drawing any undue attention to herself.  She ordered a cup of coffee and nursed it while she kept an eye on Dunlap.  A few minutes later the front door opened and a beautiful young woman walked in, looked around and then settled on Dunlap.  She smiled and walked directly over to his table, bent over and kissed him on the cheek.  This was going to be easier than Abby had originally figured.  She kept watching the couple until fifteen minutes later when the young woman excused herself and headed for the ladies room.  This was the break Abby had been waiting for and a moment later, walked to the ladies room herself.

Abby didn’t see the other woman, but one of the stall doors was closed and she could see a pair of feet facing here from under the door.  Abby just turned to the sink and began washing her hands, waiting for the other woman to come out of the stall and wash her own hands.  A minute later the woman emerged and stepped up to the sink, right next to Abby.  She primped her hair for a moment and then started washing her hands.  Abby looked at the woman’s reflection in the mirror and adlibbed the next part.  “Excuse me,” she said.  “I couldn’t help noticing that beautiful necklace you’re wearing.”

“Thank you,” the woman said and continued to wash her hands.

“Did your boyfriend buy that for you?” Abby asked casually.  When all she got was a puzzled look, she added, “I mean that guy sitting with you at your table.  I was at one of the other tables when you came in.”

That elicited a laugh from the woman.  “My boyfriend?  That’s not my boyfriend; that’s my father.”

That threw Abby for a loop.  “Your father?” she said.  “I’m so sorry.  I just thought…”

“Everyone thinks that,” the woman said.  “My dad and I meet here a couple times a week for lunch and you wouldn’t believe some of the looks we get.  He’ll get a kick out of this one when I tell him.”

“Well,” Abby replied.  “I was just on my way out anyway.  Could you wait until I leave before you tell him so I don’t have to feel a little embarrassed?  I wouldn’t want to make either of you feel self-conscious.”

“Sure,” she said.  “I’ll wait until you leave.”  She offered Abby her hand and said, “By the way, my name’s Nicole Dunlap.”

“Abby Ross,” Abby said, shaking Nicole’s hand and quickly exiting the restroom.  She stopped briefly at her table and left a tip before leaving the coffee shop.  Gees, she thought, that wasn’t much of a case but she was glad it turned out the way it did.  People tend to think the worst but in this case, it was just the opposite.  She was eager to tell Nick about her discovery when she returned to the office.

John pulled up to the studio gate and gave his name to the guard.  “John Cooper to see Cecil B. Miller; he’s expecting me.”

The guard checked his clipboard list.  “Bungalow seven; right down this street,” he said and opened the gate for John, who drove on.

John pulled up in front of Bungalow seven and stepped up to the door.  He knocked once and let himself in to find a good looking receptionist greeting him.  He gave the woman his name, stated his business and she gestured to a door on her left.  “Go right in; he’s expecting you.”

Waiting inside the next room was Cecil B. Miller, Tray Barnett’s agent, along with Barnett’s frequent director, Alfred Hill.  Hill turned at the sound of the door opening and looked at John.  “Mr. Cooper, I assume; please come in, won’t you?”

John shook hands with the two men and then waited for one of them to start the conversation.  It was Hill, the director who spoke first.  “Mr. Cooper, I understand that your father has already given you a brief explanation of why we wanted to see you.”

“That he did,” John said.  “I take it you’d like Tray Barnett and me to exchange identities for a week so he can get some vacation time in before his next movie begins shooting.  Is that about it?”

“That’s it in a nutshell, Mr. Cooper,” Miller said, adding, “We just want to make sure that you’re available for the entire week, without someone wondering where you are.  As for us, there are only a handful of people who will know of the switch; me and Mr. Hill, along with our makeup man and your father; and of course, you and Tray.  No one else will know anything about what we’re doing and it must remain that way until Tray gets back from his vacation.  Does that work for you?”

John nodded and said, “My dad knows how to keep a secret and…”  His face gave away something that wasn’t right.

“What is it, Mr. Cooper?” Miller said.

“Abby,” John replied.  “She doesn’t know anything about this arrangement and she is sure to be asking Dad all kinds of questions.”

“Is she the type of person who can be trusted to keep something like this to herself?” Hill asked.

“I’ll tell you what,” John said.  “It would be better if she did know and was told to keep it to herself, than if she didn’t know and started asking all kinds of questions.  I think maybe one of you had better call dad and fill him in on this.”

“I’ll do you one better,” Hill replied.  “I’ll stop over at your office myself and have a talk with both of them and make sure they understand the importance of their discretion.”

John breathed easier now and smiled.  “And I’d feel a lot better about it, too, so I can concentrate on playing my role as Barnett.  Thank you both.”

“Now, shall we get down to business?” Hill said and opened another door on the opposite side of the room.  Tray Barnett stepped in and walked over to where John stood, and took up his place alongside the private eye.  Hill looked at the two of them and said, “They’re about the same height and build.  Yes, this will do nicely.  What do you think, Tray?”

Tray turned to John and looked him over the way a woman looks at a fur coat.  “Uh huh; this just might work.  Come on; I’d like to get going on this so I can start my vacation.  Let’s go switch clothes and then go see Vernon.”  Vernon was Vernon Steele, an Oscar winning makeup man who had three of the gold statuettes sitting up on a shelf in his makeup room.  There were four chairs like the ones John had seen in the barber shop.  Steele got both men in two of the chairs next to each other and told Hill that he’d be doing up Tray Barnett first, so he could reference John’s face as he proceeded.  Making john up to look like Tray would be much easier, since Steele had been doing Tray for years and didn’t need to reference anything other than Tray Barnett’s publicity eight-by-ten.

After two hours of working on Tray Barnett, he told the actor to stand next to John, who was totally flabbergasted by the transformation.  “It’s like I was looking in the mirror,” John exclaimed and waited for Steel to start in on his face.  While Barnett waited for Steele to finish making up John as him, he sat and watched the makeup man do his magic.  Ninety minutes later, John slid out of the chair and over to a mirror on the wall.  He gasped when he looked at Tray Barnett staring back at him.  “Amazing,” he exclaimed and stepped over to where Tray was standing.  The two transformed men looked at each other and then turned toward Cecil B. Miller and Alfred Hill.

Miller wrapped one arm around Hill’s shoulder and pulled.  “You know, Alfred, this just might work.”

Barnett looked at his agent and said, “I’d like to stand around and gawk some more, but I still have to pack a few things and get going.”  He held out his palm toward John and said, “Let me have your car keys; I’ll be driving your car for a week.  It looks like you’ll be driving mine, if they ever let you out of here.”

John hand Tray his car keys and watched as the actor hurried out of the room.  John turned to Hill and Miller and asked, “Now what should I do?”

It was Hill who spoke first.  “While Tray is driving out the gate in your car as you, I’ll need you to accompany me to the gate as well and wave goodbye to him in full view of all those fans who are always standing outside trying to get a look at Tray, or in this case, you.  That should be a convincer and allow Tray to get away clean; come on.”

All the way to the gate, John practiced walking like Tray Barnett as well as waving like him.  He and Hill were waiting at the gate when Tray, looking like nobody important, as far as the fans were concerned, drove out onto the street and on toward his vacation.  John waved at the car until it was down the street and then heard the screaming of Tray’s fans.  He looked right at them and waved, but said nothing, as he and Miller walked back to the studio.

“Well,” Miller said.  “It looks like you convinced all those fans.  The rest should be easy.

Tray Barnett drove toward the freeway in John’s car and then noticed that the gas gauge was teetering on empty.  He decided to stop at the nearest gas station for a quick fill-up before continuing.

Back at the Cooper office, Nick’s phone rang and he snatched it up on the first ring.  “Cooper.”

“You’re dead meat, Cooper,” a gruff voice said and then quickly hung up.

Nick stood staring at his phone and then noticed Abby looking his way.  “What was that all about?” she asked.

“Damndest thing,” Nick replied.  “Someone just said ‘you’re dead meat, Cooper’ and hung up.  I don’t remember pissing anyone off lately and as far as I know, nobody has it in for me—or John for that matter.”  Then he tried to remember some of his last cases but nothing came to him.

As he stood there wondering who that caller could have been, there came a knock on his door and a man let himself in.  He looked over at Nick and said, “Nick Cooper?  My name is Alfred Hill from the studio.  I believe you already talked with Mr. Miller.”

Nick turned to Abby and said, “Abby, would you excuse us for a few minutes?”

Hill waved him off.  “No, actually I came up her to talk to both of you.  Please stay, Miss Ross.”

Nick gestured toward the leather sofa beneath the south window and invited Hill to make himself comfortable.  Nick sat on the opposite end of the sofa while Abby pulled up one of the client’s chairs and sat opposite the two men.

Hill first looked at Nick and directed the first part of what he had to say to him.  “Mr. Cooper, I know you already know about our arrangement with John, but we thought it would be better all around if Miss Ross was also informed on this matter.  Otherwise she might start asking too many questions and we need to keep this whole operation contained.”

“What whole thing?” Abby said, leaning in closer to the two men on the sofa.

Alfred Hill laid out the whole plan for Abby, ending with Tray Barnett driving out of the studio gate looking like John, in John’s car.  Abby’s eye got wide in amazement and she switched her look from Hill to Nick and back to Hill.  “John’s going to be gone for a whole week?”

“That’s right,” Hill replied.  “He’ll be safe with us the whole time that Tray is on vacation.  He just won’t be able to be in contact with anyone on the outside.  You never know if anyone on the inside has contacts on the outside and could leak the story to the fan magazines.”

“John’s making a great week’s pay while he’s on this assignment,” Nick told Abby.  “He’ll be back in no time; you’ll see.”

Hill rose, shook Nick’s and Abby’s hands and said, “We just thought Miss Ross should know.  Thank you both for your cooperation.  I’d better be getting back now.  Remember; mum’s the word.”  And with that he let himself out of the office and was gone.

Abby looked at Nick and said, “Hmm; and John never said a word about it to me.”

“He didn’t know about it himself,” Nick said.  “You had just gone out on a case of your own and he took this assignment before you got back.  Looks like it’s just you and me for a week, kid.”

Tray Barnett pulled up to one of the pumps at the station and got out to fill John’s car.  He was no sooner out of the car when another car rolled up next to him and the passenger side front window rolled down, revealing some man who was obviously mad about something.  He stuck a revolver out the window and said, “Cooper, you bastard” and fired just once before speeding away down the street.  The bullet had hit Tray Barnett in his side, but had luckily missed any vital organs.

A police siren screamed in the distance and pulled to an abrupt stop in the gas station lot.  Both cops got out and looked down at the man bleeding on the asphalt.  “What happened here,” the first cop, a sergeant named Roscoe Hearns asked.  “John, did you see who did this to you?”

Tray nodded and managed a weak, “I saw him briefly but I sure as hell don’t know who he was or what I ever did to deserve any of this.  He just yelled something at me, shot me and sped off.”

Sergeant Hearns called for an ambulance and stayed with Tray while they waited.  He got a call on his shoulder mic just then from the dispatcher.  “One Adam Nine what is your twenty?

“We’re at the filling station on Hollywood, just east of the freeway.  We have a shooting victim waiting for an ambulance.  Dispatch, it’s John Cooper.  Better let Lieutenant Stone know so he can call Cooper’s father.”

“One Adam Nine be aware that One Adam Four is in pursuit coming toward your location.  He’s chasing a black Audi sedan.”

“Copy that,” Hearns responded and nodded to his partner, a rookie named Ted Brewster.  “I’ll stay with the victim and wait for the ambulance.  You see if you can intercept and assist One Adam Four.”

Brewster hurried back to his car and watched as he saw the red lights of the pursuit car coming his way.  The black Audi sedan came closer and Brewster radioed to One Adam Four and said, “This is One Adam Nine ahead of you, I can cut your suspect off when he gets closer.”

“Copy that, One Adam Nine.”  The radio went silent after that last broadcast.

As the Audi got closer, Brewster pulled out in front of it and blocked off the traffic from the north and south, giving One Adam Four a chance to catch up and ram the Audi off the road.  It came to rest against a giant palm tree and soon there were three officer with their guns aimed at the drive and his passenger.

The ambulance carted Tray Barnett off to the hospital where doctors wheeled him into the emergency room to remove the pullet and patch him up again.  An hour later he was lying in a bed in his recovery room.

Lieutenant Steve Stone called the Cooper office and got Nick.  “Nick, it’s Steve.  I thought you should know that there’s been a shooting and John was involved.  They took him to the hospital.  I can meet you there in ten minutes.”

Nick agreed and quickly hung up.  He turned to Abby and said, “Let’s go; John’s in the hospital; he’s been shot.”  He turned on the answering machine and hung the Closed sign outside his door and then drove Abby to the hospital.  They found John’s room on the second floor and walked in to find Steve Stone leaning over the bed.  Nick hurried over to the bed and said, “John, what the hell hap…?”  He stopped abruptly.  Something didn’t look quite right.  He turned to Stone.  “That’s not John.”  Then it hit him like a ton of bricks and he turned to the patient in the bed.  “Mr. Barnett, I presume.”

“Huh?” Stone said, giving Nick a strange look.

Nick took Stone aside and explained what was going on here.  Meanwhile Abby stepped up to the bed and looked down at the made up actor with amazement.  “They did an excellent job on your face,” she told Barnett, but not enough to fool me.”  She offered her hand and added, “Nice to meet you Mr. Barnett.  I’m a huge fan.”

They’d all been standing around in the hospital room for twenty minutes when the door opened and Cecil B. Miller stepped in, followed closely by John, still looking like Tray.  Abby rushed up to him and threw her arms around John’s neck.  “We heard you’d been shot,” she said and then pointed to the patient in the bed.

John looked where Abby was pointing and said, “Uh, that wasn’t me, you know.”  Then he stepped up to the bed and looked down at Trey.  John shook his head and said, “Gees, I was followed all the way down here by a mob of paparazzi and fans.  I don’t know how you can stand it constantly.”

Tray shook his own head and replied, “I’ll take the overzealous mob any day over the kind of people you must deal with.  At least none of my fans want to shoot me.  To tell you the truth, Mr. Cooper, I’ll be just as glad to going back to my own persona.  You can have the P.I. life.”  And with that both he and John grabbed a handful of tissues from the box next to the bed and began wiping the makeup from their faces and pulling the rubber prosthetics off.  When they both looked pretty much like themselves again, they looked at Tray’s visitors, who still couldn’t wipe the look of astonishment from their faces.

“That’s the John I know,” Abby said, holding onto her boyfriend tightly.

Clean Up Work

As Nick Cooper stood waiting in line at the corner pretzel stand, he happened to notice a man walking across the intersection from the south side of Hollywood Boulevard coming his way.  He didn’t think much more about it at the time.  Maybe it was just a coincidence that the guy was giving Nick a knowing look.  Maybe he looked that way at everybody; maybe he was just having one of those days.

He wasn’t; he crossed the intersection and stepped right up behind Nick, tapping him on the shoulder.  “Excuse me, but aren’t you Nick Cooper, the private eye?”

“Yes I am,” Nick agreed.  “Do I know you?”  Just then the guy ahead of Nick got his pretzel and left.  “Pardon me; I can wait until you get your order.”  He stood there silently as Nick paid for his hot pretzel and Diet Pepsi and then turned back toward the man.

“All right, now what is it I can do for you today, Mr….?”

“Weber, Bruce Weber,” the man said and offered his hand before he realized that Nick didn’t have a free hand.

“Look, Mr. Weber,” Nick said, pointing with his pretzel at the window on the third floor.  My office is right up there.  How about if you just walk with me while I eat my pretzel and then we can discuss your problem upstairs?”

“Okay,” Weber said and walked silently with Nick to the elevator.  He remained silent, letting Nick finish his snack and wash it down with the soda.

The elevator door slid open and the two men stepped out.  “Right down there; last door on the right,” Nick said.  “Let me ask you; how did you recognize me down there on the street?”

“I come this way every morning, Mr. Cooper and I sometimes hear the pretzel vendor call you Nick Cooper and when I needed a private eye, I remembered that and looked you up in the yellow pages.”

Nick opened the office door and let Mr. Weber go in ahead of him.  He gestured with his empty soda cup and said, “Mr. Weber, this is my son and business partner, John Cooper.  And that lovely your lady to your right is another one of our operatives, Abby Ross.  Come on; have a seat across from my desk and we’ll see if we can’t help you with your problem.”

Weber settled in across from Nick’s desk and took a deep breath before he began with his explanation for why he was here.  “Mr. Cooper, let me start off by saying that my wife and I were recently divorced and she’s already dating another guy.”

“I’m sorry?” Nick said, more in the form of a question.

“Oh, don’t be; we parted on good terms and since there were no children involved it wasn’t a messy divorce at all.”  Weber squirmed in his seat, thinking of how to proceed and then said, “Mr. Cooper, I guess the reason I’m here talking to you now is because that other guy who’s dating my ex-wife has been telling her that he’s wealthy and successful and I’m just worried that he may be feeding Mary, that’s my ex-wife, a line and that he may just be after her money.”

“Your ex-wife is rich?”

“We both kind of are,” Weber said.  “But I was smart enough to get a pre-nup and was able to keep the money I had going into the marriage.  Mary didn’t mind at all, because as it turned out, she had more money that I did going into it.”

“Mr. Weber, this may sound a bit, oh I don’t know, callus, but why would you care if some other guy is after her money if you still have all of yours?”

“Oh, I see,” Weber said.  “No, actually, Mary and I parted as friends and I’d just hate to see her being taken by some fortune hunter.  Do you know what I mean?”

“I think I do,” Nick said.  “So, what is it you’d like me to do for you?”

“Can you do a complete background check on this guy and let me know what you find out?” Weber said.

“That’s a big part of what we do here at Cooper Investigations,” Nick explained.  “I’ll just need to get your signature on one of our standard contracts along with six hundred dollars as a two day retainer and I can get right on this immediately.  Does that work for you?”

“Sounds okay to me,” Weber said and signed where Nick showed him.  He produced a checkbook and gave Nick the six hundred dollars he asked for.  “I’ll feel a lot better once I get your initial report on this guy.  His name is Clarence.  I’m sorry but I didn’t catch any last name.  Is that enough for you to go on?”

“We’ve started with less,” Nick said.  “Do you know anything else at all about Clarence that I can use to find him?”

“Let me see,” Weber said.  “The only thing I know for sure is that he drives a panel truck with the name of some cleaning business on the side and I saw him about two weeks ago going into the Piedmont Building downtown after five p.m.  Sorry I couldn’t be of more help, but I couldn’t very well ask Mary about him; you understand.”

“That’s all right, Mr. Weber.  Do you know what this Clarence fellow looks like?”

“Can’t miss him,” Weber said.  “I’ve only caught a glimpse of him once but I’ll never forget that face.  He reminds me of a younger Clint Eastwood, you know; back when he was doing those Dirty Harry movies.  I’d say he’s about six feet three with a muscular build and brown wavy hair.”

Nick made a note of these characteristics and said, “I’ll get on this right away and see what shakes loose.  Thank you for your business.  I can give you periodic reports as I find things out; or just a final report after I finish the job.  Which would you prefer?”

“I think I’d prefer the periodic reports, otherwise the suspense would kill me.”

Nick agreed that he’d call Weber as soon as he found anything out, shook Weber’s hand and watched as he left the office.

Nick looked at John and said, “You never know where business is going to come from, do you?  I was waiting in line for my pretzel when that guy approached me on the street.  Would either of you like to help me with this one?”

“I would,” Abby said, “But I’ll be starting my own case in half an hour; sorry Nick.”

“I can help you,” John said.  “Where should we start?”

“At the Piedmont Building, I would think,” Nick replied.  “Let’s take a drive over there right now and start asking around if anyone knows anyone named Clarence; come on.”  He looked at Abby and said, “Don’t forget to turn on the answering machine and hang the Closed sign on the door before you leave.”

Abby just winked at Nick and nodded before he and John left the office.  The Piedmont Building was a fifteen story office building in downtown Los Angeles.  Nick pulled to the curb and he and John got out.  Nick tilted his head back and looked up at the tall building and then back at John.  “That’s a lot of ground to cover.  I’m glad I have you along on this one.”

The two of them crossed the street and entered the lobby of the Piedmont Building.  They immediately found a bank of mailboxes along with a black felt board, populated with hundreds of white letters identifying the tenants and where they could be found in the building.

“Now what?” John said.

“I think we should split up so we can cover more ground.  Keep your cell phone on and let me know if you find anyone who is familiar with a guy named Clarence, who looks like Dirty Harry.  You go that way and I’ll start on the second floor.”  John walked away while Nick headed for the elevator.  He stepped out on the second floor and saw a sign straight ahead telling visitors which room numbers could be found down their hallway.

Halfway down the hall to his right he noticed a man coming his way and held up an index finger.  “Excuse me,” Nick said.  “Would you happen to know anyone from the building named Clarence?”

The man frowned and said, “No I don’t; sorry,” and kept walking.

Nick kept walking but didn’t encounter anyone else in the hall.  Maybe it was too early for any Clarence encounters.  Perhaps the best place to ask would be where there were more people roaming around, and he thought of the main lobby again.  Nick got back on the elevator and returned to the lobby.  Somewhere down there had to be a lunch room or break room.

Meanwhile John had covered a considerable distance on the ground floor but hadn’t run into anyone who knew someone named Clarence.  He spotted the men’s room down the hall and tried there.  It was empty and as soon as he stepped back out into the main area, he ran into Nick.  “Anything?” he asked his father.

Nick shook his head and remarked, “You know, Mr. Weber said he saw Clarence coming out of this building after five p.m. so maybe we should come back around four.”

“No argument here,” John said and followed his father back to the lobby.  On their way there, they saw a man in a tan uniform, rolling a bucket with a mop sticking out of it and decided that had nothing to lose.  “Hang on, Dad; I’ll be right back.”  John walked over to the man with the mop and bucket and stepped in front of him.  “Excuse me,” John began, “But would you…”  That was as far as he got before his eye caught the name tag on the man’s uniform.  It said Clarence on an oval patch about the pocket.

“Would I what?  The man asked.

“Never mind,” John said.  “I thought you were someone else.”  He walked back over to where Nick waited and said, “Who does that guy remind you of, Dad?  You might have to squint a little.”

Nick looked over at the man with the mop and then tried to picture him saying, ‘Go ahead; make my day’.  He looked at John and said, “Clint Eastwood?”

“The patch on his shirt says Clarence and he does bear a resemblance somewhat to Harry Callahan.  You think that’s our target?”

“Has to be,” Nick said.  “I think I can see why Weber was worried about this guy getting his hooks into the ex Mrs. Weber.  Anything would be a step up from mopping floors in an office building.  I think I’d better give him a call.”  Nick stepped over to a quiet corner, turned away from the janitor and punched in Weber’s number.

“Weber,” the voice on the other end said.

“Mr. Weber, it’s Nick Cooper calling with some information about your target.  My son and I are here at the Piedmont Building and we’re pretty sure we spotted Clarence.  And get this; he’s pushing a pail and mop around the floor; he’s a janitor, for crying out loud.  Where do you want us to take it from here?”

“Are you sure it’s the same guy I saw?” Weber said.

“Hey,” Nick replied.  “If he looked anymore like the guy you described, he’d be pointing a .44 magnum at us and asking us if we felt lucky.  It’s him all right; no doubt about it.”

“That’s good news,” Weber said.  “I think you’d both better leave before you spook him.  I need to call my ex-wife and give her the good news.  Thanks for your help.  I’ll stop by your office tomorrow morning to wrap things up.”  Weber disconnected the call.

“Well, what did he say, Dad?”

“Looks like it turned out to be just a one day job,” Nick said.  “I told him about Clarence and he was downright giddy with anticipation for calling his ex-wife to report his findings; actually our findings.”

“We might as well get back to the office,” John suggested and walked with Nick back to the car.  It took them forty minutes from downtown L.A. to drive back to Hollywood.

Even as they were unlocking the office door, they could hear Nick’s desk phone ringing.  Nick left the keys hanging in his lock and hurried over to his desk.  “Cooper Investigations, Nick speaking.”

“Mr. Cooper,” an obviously angry voice said.  “It’s Bruce Weber and I just got off the phone with my ex-wife.  Just when I thought she’d be grateful that I showed enough concern to check into her current boyfriend, she just ripped me a new one instead.”

“Why?” Nick asked.

“Because Clarence Marshall, as it turns out, is not your garden variety, run of the mill janitor.”  Weber was getting more irritated by the second.  “No, I had to find out the hard way and make a complete fool of myself trying to help her.  Her boyfriend owns Marshall Janitorial Service and was just there today standing in for one of his workers who called in sick.  I guess he didn’t want to lose that prominent client.  Clarence Marshall, by the way, has a net worth of two point seven million dollars.  I’ll see you in the morning and collect my refund for that second day retainer.  Good day, Mr. Cooper.”

The phone went dead and Nick stepped back over to the office door to pull his keys out of the lock.

“Trouble, Dad?” John asked and got Nick’s explanation about Clarence.  “Ooh, that must have smarted.  Now what?”

“I have to give him back three hundred of that retainer.  We’re done.”  Nick sat behind his desk and sighed as John’s desk phone rang.

Before John could pick it up, Nick gestured at the phone and said, “Go ahead, do you feel lucky?  Well, do you, punk?”

Let It Go

Cooper’s newest private eye, Abby Ross was out on another assignment when the call came in.  Nick picked it up and spoke to the potential client for nearly fifteen minutes before he had gathered enough information to begin on the case.  He made himself a few notes before settling in behind his desk and waiting for the client to show up and take care of the paperwork and leave Nick the retainer.

Nick’s son, John, who had been listening to his father’s conversations held up an index finger and said, “Dad, I couldn’t help but hear your end of the conversation from that last call.  What does the guy want you to do for him?”

Nick looked down at his notes and said, “The client is in his late twenties and he’d like me to track down some guy whom he went to school with a decade earlier.  He tells me that the guy he wants me to look for used to bully him all through school and he just wants to know whatever became of the guy.”  When he saw the unusual look on John’s face, Nick asked, “Why do you ask?”  And then Nick remembered the times that John used to come home from school the worse for wear.  “That’s right; you used to have a bully of your own, didn’t you?”

John nodded and he was immediately carried back to those terrible high school years.  “Dad,” John said.  “You know I don’t try to interfere with the way you decide to work a case, don’t you?”

“Uh huh,” Nick said.  “But something tells me that you’re about to.  If you have something to say, you’d better spit it out now.  My client will be here in just a few minutes.”

“Dad, I want you to turn this case over to me, if you wouldn’t mind.”

“Why?”

“It’s just something I need to do for my own sanity if nothing else,” John explained and waited for his father’s reply.

Nick paused for a moment and then said, “All right; it’s all yours.  We can go over it in detail some other time.  When my client gets here, I’ll make up some excuse that I won’t be able to handle the case and turn it over to you.  Good enough?”

“Thanks, Dad,” John said and straightened up his desk in anticipation of his guest.  He took Nick’s yellow legal pad with the notes on the case and looked them over for a few minutes before the knock came on the office door.

The door opened and a guy not yet thirty stepped inside.  He looked at Nick and asked, “Mr. Cooper?”

“I’m Mr. Cooper,” John said and invited the man to sit across from his desk.

The man frowned and said, “You sounded older on the phone.”

“That’s because you were talking to my father over there, but he got called out on an emergency and I’ll be handling your case instead.  Before you got here, Dad filled me in on what you both talked about and brought me up to speed, but suppose you fill in the blanks for me so I can get a more concise picture of what you want from me.  How about if we start out with introductions?   “My name is John Cooper and you are...?”

“Dennis Berg,” the client said.

John made a note of the name and went on.  “I’m going to need the name of this bully you had so much trouble with way back then.”

Berg’s face dropped with the memories of his tormentor.  “It was Darrel, Darrel Eisentrout.”

“Go on John said, and then turned to Nick.  “Dad, you’d better get going on that emergency call.”

“I was just leaving,” Nick said and slipped into his jacket before he left the office.  He’d wait out in his car until he saw the client leave and then go back upstairs for the details.

“Anyway,” Berg said, “This Darrel would torment me every chance he got.  One time he pushed me down on the cinder track and another time he pulled me around the gym by my hair and then…”

John stopped writing and said, “So far, Mr. Berg, what you’re telling me falls under the category of juvenile mischief.  Most kids grow out of it and I have a feeling your bully did, too.”

Berg shook his head and went on.  “You would think so, but even after graduation, he still kept menacing me and even threatened to kill me.  And that wasn’t the first time, either.  One time he actually brought a loaded gun to school but some other kid squealed on him out and Darrel got expelled.  He still lived in the neighborhood for a few more years and beat me up every chance he got.  Mr. Cooper, I was never a good fighter, but I became a damned good runner.  I’ve been living my life in fear that someday Darrel would show up unexpectedly and make good on his threats.  I really need you to find Darrel and give me an update on his life these days so I can stop looking over my shoulder and finally relax.”

John felt that he had enough notes on the case and assured Berg that he’d get right on it this morning and let him know what he found.  Berg thanked him, signed the contract and paid John a two day retainer.  He got up and leaned in to John to shake his hand before he left the office.  John slipped his jacket over his shoulder holster and tore the notes from the yellow legal pad.  He folded them the short way and tucked them in his inside jacket pocket.  He had his hand on the office door knob when it was forced open from outside.

Nick held his hand over his heart and said, “You trying to scare those last few years outta me?  I can tell you now that it wouldn’t be worth it.  I don’t have that much money squirreled way.”

“Oh, Dad,” John said.  “I just finished with the client and was about to leave.”

“Yeah, I know,” Nick said.  “I saw him leave from my car.  I know you must be in a hurry to get started, but don’t forget to fill me in when you get a chance.”

“I will, Dad,” John said and hurried off down the hall to the elevator.  He slid behind the wheel of his Toyota sedan and pulled out of the parking lot, onto Cahuenga and then east on Hollywood Boulevard.  If he hit the traffic just right, he could make the freeway in fifteen minutes.  Before he got to the freeway onramp, he pulled to the curb, called his office and got Nick on the first ring.

“Cooper Inv…”

“Yeah, yeah, Dad it’s me.  Listen, I left in such a hurry that I forgot to look up my target and get a current address.  Could you look that up for me?”  He gave Nick the target’s name and approximate age and found out that Darrel Eisentrout was living just a little more than an hour and a quarter south of L.A. in a sleepy little town called Menifee.  As John pulled into the outskirts of town he checked his car thermometer and was thankful that his car had air conditioning that worked.  The outside temperature was a sweltering one hundred sixteen in the shade, only he couldn’t find any shade.

He found the Eisentrout residence in the middle of a bare dirt yard with a rickety old cyclone fence surrounding it.  There was one rusty old pickup truck sitting up on blocks in the yard next to a wooden dog house with a dog too afraid to stick his head out in the sweltering head.  It just lay there, panting.  John didn’t see any activity anywhere around the house, but did see one man in the next yard and decided to pay him a brief visit.

John pulled up to the curb and rolled his window down.  The heat hit him in the face like an open oven door.  “Excuse me,” John said to the man.  “I’m trying to locate Mr. Eisentrout from next door.  There doesn’t seem to be anyone there.  Would you know where I could find him?”

“Darrel?” the man said, and then looked at his watch.  “He’s probably still at work right about now?”

“And where would that be?” John asked.

“Which way did you come in?” the man asked.

“Newport Road, just off the freeway cloverleaf,” John replied.

“Great, just go back there and take Newport Road west to Murieta Road.  Across the street from the Walgreens you’ll see a Texaco gas station.”

“Then where do I turn?” John asked.

“Into the gas station,” the neighbor said.  “That’s where Darrel works.  You can’t miss him; he stands six foot four and weighs somewhere in the neighborhood of two hundred eighty pounds.  If you could catch him without his hat, you’d see that he’s lost almost all of his hair.”

John noted the description on one of his yellow sheets, thanked the man for his time and drove away in search of Bigfoot in a gas station uniform.  It took John just six minutes to make it to the Texaco station, where he pulled up to the pump and got out.  He could use a little gas and this was as good a place as any.  He pumped in just five gallons before walking to the station office to pay his tab.

The man behind the counter was obviously not Darrel Eisentrout.  This guy stood no more than five foot ten with a full head of red hair.  John handed the man his credit card and said, “I heard that Darrel was working here; how’s he doing these days?”

“See for yourself,” the counterman said, gesturing with John’s credit card at a man sweeping up in the garage.  “That’s about as far up the employment ladder anyone will ever get without a high school education.”

“I was told that Darrel was the boss here,” John lied.  “Do you have another Darrel working for you?”

“Nope, that the one and only Darrel and if he doesn’t get that garage swept out soon, he’ll be looking for some other dead-end job.  Now, if you want to talk to him, you’d better make it quick.  I ain’t running no coffee klatch here.”

“I don’t think so,” John said.  “I wouldn’t want to embarrass him.  And please, don’t even tell him I was here asking about him, okay?”

“I tell you, if I could find another oaf to sweep up around here, Darrel would be history.  It was bad enough when he got arrested for assault and public drunkenness last month.  And that wasn’t the only time, either.  The idiot got hurt on his last job out on that farm.  That was the only reason I gave him a chance here because of his game arm.”

“Well, thanks for your time,” John said, taking his credit card back from the man and hurrying back out to his car.  He drove directly back to Hollywood and began making out his bill and filling out the detailed report on Darrel Eisentrout.  Dennis Berg could finally get that monkey off his back and get on with his life.  He would no longer have to worry about what Darrel might do to him if the two men ever met again.  Darrel had all he could do to hold on to a broom, let alone beat up Dennis Berg.  This was turning out to be a very satisfying case for John as well as his client.

“So, tell me,” Nick asked his son.  “What did you find out about Dennis Berg’s tormentor?”

“Dennis surely doesn’t have to worry about that guy anymore,” John said.  “He’s semi-crippled in a dead end job, sweeping up at a gas station in some little desert town.  That was not only one of the easiest jobs I ever took on, it was also the most gratifying for me.  Before I left that pizza oven of a town, I unloaded a lot of my own baggage in the process.”

“That’s great,” Nick said.  “Now you and your client can both get on with your lives.”

John called Dennis Berg into his office later that afternoon and filled him in on what he had found out about Darrel Eisentrout.  He refunded Berg one day’s pay from the retainer and filed away the paperwork.

It wasn’t until eight days later that Nick was reading the morning paper at his desk when John walked in.  “You’re just the guy I was looking for,” Nick said, folding his paper into a compact size and handing it to John.  He pointed to a paragraph near the bottom and said, “Read that; sound familiar?”

John read the two paragraph article and looked up at his father in amazement.  “You don’t think…”

“Which part are you talking about?” Nick said.

John pulled the paper back toward himself and read:

Last evening in a little town called Menifee, police found the body of a Hollywood resident, Dennis Berg, 28.  Mr. Berg had been shot just once in the chest and was found lying on the asphalt apron at a Texaco station.  Police arrested one Darrel Eisentrout, 29 of Menifee.  We’ll have more details as the case unfolds.

“Looks like Dennis just couldn’t let it go,” Nick said.  “He had to drive down there and try to get the last word in all of this.”

“Yeah,” John remarked and added, “And it looks like there was nothing wrong with Darrel’s gun hand.”

Just Shoot Me

John Cooper tried to sit up in his bed but he was still too weak to accomplish even this simple task.  He had been sick for nearly ten days at this point and it seemed like he was never going to shake this bug and start feeling normal again.  His throat ached, mostly from the constant coughing.  The rest of his body similarly ached from his head to his toes and he was too dizzy to walk.  Enough, already; there has to be a quality of life to warrant his going on any further.

John’s live-in girlfriend, Abby Ross had been doing her best to tend to his needs but the strain was even starting to wear on her nerves.  She propped up one of his pillows so he could accept the tray that held his bowl of soup and glass of milk.  “How are you feeling today, John?” she asked with genuine concern.

John just shrugged it off and sipped another spoonful of soup, pausing in between sips to lay his palm against his sore throat and moan.  “Where’s my quality of life,” he asked.

Just then John’s Dad, private eye Nick Cooper let himself into the bedroom and looked over at his son, who was trying his best to finish his soup.  “How are you feeling today, John?”

“Oh Dad,” John said in a weak, painful voice.  “Do me a favor and just shoot me.  I can’t take any more of this agony.”

Without saying another word, Nick unzipped his jacked and pulled his .38 caliber revolver from under his arm.  He leveled it at John’s head and squeezed the trigger just once before returning the gun to the holster under his arm.  John’s soup bowl spilled over onto his lap.

Abby screamed maniacally and started pounding her fists on Nick’s chest.  “Look what you’ve done to John.  He wasn’t serious; just in a lot of pain.”

“Well, he’s not in any pain now, is he?”  Nick said sarcastically with a smirk.

John sat straight up in his bed and looked around the room.  He was alone and sweating profusely.  He yelled out for Abby, who showed up a moment later.  “Another bad dream, John?” she asked.  “That makes three just this week alone.”

“Where’s Dad?” John asked.

Abby shrugged, shook her head and replied, “I imagine he’s still at his office, unless he’s out on a case.  Did you want me to call him for you?”

John lay back down on his back and draped an arm over his eyes.  “Don’t bother him; he’s got his hands full at work with me laid up and you taking care of me.”

“Well, if you’re not better in two days, I’m taking you to the doctor, Mister.  And I don’t want to hear any argument about it, either.”

John just nodded softly and closed his eyes again.  He’d see if he could refrain from swallowing, lest he find himself in the throes of agonizing pain.  He quickly fell back asleep and tried to think of more pleasant subject matter for his dreams.

It was closing in on five thirty when Nick parked his car out in front of John’s house and walked up the driveway.  He knocked just once and let himself in through the kitchen door.  “Is there anybody home?” He said.

Abby soft-footed it around the living room wall and into the kitchen.  She held her index finger up to her lips.  “Shh, John’s asleep.  How are you doing down at the salt mines, Nick?”

Nick shrugged.  “I’m scraping by but I’m really looking forward to when one or both of you can come back to work.”

Abby laid her hand on Nick’s shoulder and led him further away from the bedroom.  “I told John that I’d give him just two more days before I hauled his stubborn ass to the doctor.”

“Good for you,” Nick remarked.  “Don’t let him get away with anything.  This thing has been hanging on for way too long already.  Well just tell him I stopped by to see him when he wakes up.”

“Don’t worry; one of us will be back there with you soon.”  Abby walked Nick to the door and said goodbye.

“Abby,” John called out.  “Who was that?”

Abby walked into the bedroom and was surprised to see John on his feet.  “What are you doing out of bed, young man.”

“Something must have broken during the night,” John said.  “I’m not nearly as achy as I was yesterday and I’m hungry.”

“Well, that’s a good sign,” Abby replied.

Abby and John spent the rest of the day trying to get back to normal.  She kept him home the next day just to be sure, but on the third day, John got up and got dressed and joined Abby at the breakfast table.  “I think it’s about time I got back to work, don’t you?”

“Only if you’re sure you feel up to it,” Abby said.  “To tell you the truth, I was starting to go stir crazy around here myself.  Finish your breakfast and you can ride in with me.  I’m sure Nick could use the break.”

John felt a little more familiar as he and Abby pulled into the parking lot behind the Cahuenga Building and rode the elevator to the third floor.  When they walked in, they could see Nick with his arms laid out on his desk and his head on those arms.  He raised his head when he heard the office door open.

“Dad, are you all right?” John asked.  “You look like death warmed over.”

Abby stepped up to Nick and felt his forehead.  “You’re warm,” she told Nick.  “Do you feel all right?”

Nick managed to slowly shake his head and lay it back down on his arms.

“Come on; lay down on the sofa and let me put your feet up,” Abby said, as she and John helped Nick over to the leather sofa beneath the south window.

They had just gotten Nick comfortable when the phone rang.  John grabbed it on the second ring.  “Cooper Investigations, John speaking.  “Yes, I see; and you’d like us to conduct our own investigation.  Not a problem.  If you’ll just give me your name and address, I can stop by within the hour.  Thank you for your business.”  John hung up the phone and looked at Abby.  “Can you stay with Dad while I go out and get our client to sign a contract?  I shouldn’t be gone too long.”

Abby waved him off.  “You go on; I’ll take good care of our boy.  I’ve had enough practice on you.”

John grabbed a blank contract and the sheet of paper where he’d written the client’s name and address and left the office.  He punched the address into his GPS and found the place in just twenty minutes.  It was the office building of a large insurance company.  Once inside the lobby, he found the name of the person who had called him.  He was located on the tenth floor in front.  John walked into the reception area of that office and introduced himself to the woman behind the desk.

“Won’t you have a seat, Mr. Cooper?  Mr. Reynolds will be with you shortly,” the receptionist assured John.

Franklin Reynolds turned out to be a no nonsense kind of guy who liked to get right down to the business at hand without delay.  He invited John to sit and then settled into his leather chair.  “Mr. Cooper,” Reynolds began.  “We got this strange claim about children who were hurt in a front end collision while the parents filed no claim for themselves. The collision was against a brick wall.  A few things in their account of the accident didn't ring true so we decided to call in our own investigator to study the case further.  See what you can come up with, Mr. Cooper.” Reynolds gave John a sheet with all the information he’d need to start looking into the case, thanked him for his time and told him to keep him updated with anything he finds.

John agreed that he would, gave Reynolds his copy of the contract and folded his retainer check, slipping it into his shirt pocket.  Back in his car John sat there but didn’t start the engine.  Instead he studied the information sheet and decided to start in the police impound yard where he could take a closer look at the car in question.

The car was a ten-year-old model with a crumpled front end and a broken windshield.  John opened the rear door and leaned in to find both seatbelts unbuckled and lying to one side.  According to Reynolds, this is where the two kids would have sat.  The seatbelts in the front were still hanging on the window pillars and had appeared to have been unused.  That in itself was strange, since the parents apparently walked away from the accident unscathed and had refused treatment.  John remembered what Reynolds had said about the parents not even filing any injury claims for themselves; just for the two kids.

John smelled a rat and decided to investigate further.  On the front floor he noticed small bits of sand, dirt and possibly pebbles.  Although it was likely that the debris came from the driver’s shoes, John didn’t think so and leaned in for a closer look.  That was when something caught the corner of his eye and he turned in that direction.  There, under the driver’s side seat John could see similar material to that near the gas pedal, only bigger—much bigger.  This was an actual rock of about four inches long and three inches wide.  Now it made sense, John thought.  The parents stayed out of the car while the driver, most likely the father, wedged the rock onto the accelerator pedal and jumped back in time to send the car into that brick wall.  Pretty clever idea, John thought, if those parents didn’t mind forfeiting their ‘parent of the year’ award.  Now all they had to do was put in a claim for their children’s injuries, collect their compensation check from the insurance company and live life in the lap of luxury.

John produced two evidence bags and labeled them with ‘debris’ and ‘rock’ along with the location where each was found.  He deposited each into different jacket pockets and decided to take it all back to his office.  This would be too fast of a case for Reynolds to believe that he’d been thorough.  Besides, he wanted to run it past Abby and Nick before turning it over to the client.

John drove directly back to his office and found his father still stretched out on the leather sofa.  John turned to Abby and asked, “How’s Dad doing?”

“He’s still complaining of dizziness and a headache, but at least he’s not coughing his head off like you were,” Abby said.  “Hopefully his is just a twenty-four bug.  I don’t think I could stand playing nurse maid again for another week.”

Just then Nick rolled over and sat upright, rubbing his forehead and clearing his throat several times.

“Dad, how are you doing?” John asked.  “You gonna make it?”

“I sure hope so,” Nick said.  “Although I didn’t see myself going out in a blaze of gunfire on the street, I surely don’t want to waste away with whatever this is that I have.  How’d your case go?  Did you solve it for your client?”

“I think I did,” John said and explained what he’d found in the wrecked car.  “Talk about people who should be sterilized; these two qualify hands down.”  He told both Nick and Abby about the careless parents who put making easy money ahead of their children’s safety.  “Not only will they not get anything from their claim, they’ll most likely have their kids taken away from them and placed in foster homes.  I hope they both end up in prison.”  He withdrew the two evidence bags from his jacket pockets and laid them out on the top of Nick’s desk.  “No doubt about it; that rock was a perfect fit over the gas pedal.  Now all I have to do is finish the paperwork and present it all to my client.”

“Good job, John,” Abby said as Nick lay back down on the sofa.

Just then the office door opened and Lieutenant Steve Stone let himself in.  He looked over at Nick, stretched out on the sofa and sarcastically said, “Oh, no, really; don’t get up on my account.”

John held his index finger in front of his face and waved it back and forth.  “Cut him a little slack, Steve.  Dad’s not feeling too well today.  I think he may have caught a little of what I had for all of last week.”

Stone stepped over to the sofa and patted Nick’s shoulder.  “As bad as all that; is it?  How you feeling there, Champ?”

Nick rolled over, looked up at Steve and said, “Just shoot me, please.”

Steve unfastened the hammer strap on his sidearm and placed his hand over it.  Suddenly shades of John’s own dream came back to him and he immediately stepped between Steve and his father.  “Not funny, Steve.  I think we’re going to take Dad home and put him to bed; so if there’s nothing else, you’ll have to excuse us.”

Steve turned to Abby and said, “How about if you bring the car around while John and I help Nick down to the back door.”

John turned on the answering machine and hung the Closed sign on the door before he and Steve each draped one of Nick’s arms over their necks and eased him down to the lobby and over to the back door where Abby waited.  They eased Nick into the back seat, thanked Steve for his help and drove Nick home.

John hoped it was just one of those twenty four hours bugs.

Hang In There

“Abby,” private eye Nick Cooper said.  “How’d you like to advance to the position of being the number one person in this office?  You’d be in charge of everyone else in certain situations and no one could second guess your decisions.”

Abby Ross, the newest P.I. at Cooper Investigations beamed.  “Are you serious, Nick?”  She exchanged a quick glance with John Cooper, who already knew where Nick was going with all this.  He nodded his approval at her and smiled.  “Sure; when does this all start?”

Nick checked his watch.  “In about two minutes.”  He slipped into his jacket, as did John, grabbed his drone and John did the same with his.  They both headed for the door.  Nick turned back to look at Abby once more and said, “Now remember; keep the rest of the employees in line.  John and I have some drone maneuvers to perfect this morning.”  He winked at her and hurried off toward the elevator, the sound of Abby’s complaints ringing in his ear.

Nick and John stepped into the elevator with their drones.  Nick hit the button for the twelfth floor while John hit the button for the lobby.  John said, “You’ll have to give me a few minutes to get across the street and over to the bank building.  Figure another five minutes to get to the roof and get set up.  Call it ten minutes from now.  You’ll be able to look down seven floors onto me, but I may not be able to see you from there, so keep your phone on.”

As they rode to the top floor of the Cahuenga Building, Nick ran a hand over the smooth surface of his newer, larger drone.  They’d come across them while on another case and decided to give them a try.  That drone had been large enough to carry a man over a field, where he ultimately fell to his death.  While their original drones were fine for following a vehicle in traffic, they were too small to carry any kind of a load.  With the latest technology, Nick’s new drone had the capability to carry a normal full-grown man for short distances if necessary, but it had its strict weight limits.

“Here we are,” Nick said, stepping off the elevator with his drone.  “I’ll talk to you later,” he said and headed for the stairs to the roof while John rode the twelve floors down to the lobby.  Nick opened the door to the roof and stepped out into the sunshine.  He wasn’t crazy about heights, but this roof had a four-foot retaining wall all around the top.  He could look over it without fear of losing his balance and dropping a hundred thirty feet to the street below.  Nick laid his drone down on the surface of the roof and checked his remote control unit.  The screen showed nothing but gray, since the camera mounted under it was now aiming at the roof itself.  As Nick raised the drone to a dozen feet overhead, the screen changed to a more recognizable scene of the roof and parts of the surrounding areas.

John carried his drone into the bank building and over to the elevators.  He made it to the fifth floor and then stepped over to the roof stairs.  It took him only a minute or less to have his drone ready.  He tested it with a short flight up and down and then let it sit, waiting for the signal from Nick.

Nick looked over the roof wall and could see John standing near his own drone but it was obvious that John didn’t see Nick.  Nick dialed John’s cell and caught him on the second ring.  “Are you all set to try these out?”

“Ready whenever you are,” John replied.  What’s first on the checklist?”

“First,” Nick began, “I want to fly each drone toward each other and see if we can exchange them.  That is, you bring yours up to this roof and I’ll fly mine down to yours.  I want to test the switchover capabilities.  If it works, then you should be able to control my drone from your controller and vice versa.  Go ahead; send yours up.”

John fired up his drone and sent it skyward, toward the Cahuenga Building, all the while keeping an eye on his screen.  Halfway up he could see Nick’s drone coming toward his and made sure to steer around it.  Several moments later John gently landed his drone right next to where Nick was standing.  Nick did the same with his drone.  Both men switched the switch on the back of their units and now their remote control worked for the opposite drone.

Nick called down to John again.  “Got it; now send mine back up here and I’ll send yours back to you.”  The reverse procedure took no time at all and soon each of them had back their original drone.  “Works like a charm,” Nick said.

“I don’t get it,” John said.  “What’s the big deal about controlling each other’s drone?  I could just as easily have flown my own drone back down from your position with my own controller and you could have done the same with yours.  What’s the advantage of switchable controllers?”

“All right,” Nick said.  “Picture this; my drone is trying to deliver some item to you but somewhere along the way it crashes.  We lose touch with each other but you still need a drone for whatever reason.  You just have to switch the controllers and you’re back in business.  The situation may never come up, but you what they say; it’s better to have it and not need it than to need it and not have it.”

“I suppose you’ve got a point there, Dad,” John agreed.  “What’s next on the list?”

“Next I want to test the lifting capacity of these machines,” Nick said.  “The instructions say that they’re capable of carrying no more than two hundred pounds.  The instruction also say in bold and underline that two hundred and one pounds will not work.  They have been specifically designed to max out at two hundred even.  That’s why yesterday I brought up two precisely weighed sacks of sand.  One weight exactly two hundred pounds and the other weighs just one hundred fifty pounds.  That’s the one I’ll start with; are you ready?”

“Let ‘er rip,” John replied.

“Let’s just hope that it doesn’t,” Nick said and attached the metal ring from the end of the sack to the underside of his drone.  He stood back and worked the controls until his drone with the sack of sand was hovering just a few feet off the roof.  “I’m sending it your way.”  He maneuvered the joysticks until the drone started east toward the bank building.  A moment later he starts the descent down seven stories and hovers over the bank roof, making sure to stay clear of John before landing the drone with the sack of sand and shutting off the engine.

John produced his phone and got Nick right away.  “Pinpoint landing, Dad.  Hey, these things are going to work.  What are you going to do with the two hundred pound sack?”

“I’ll try that one just from here but I won’t send it over just in case.  Unhook that sack and send my drone back up to me.  Then stand by for the results.”  He pocketed his phone and waited for his drone to return and then hooked up the larger sack to the metal ring.  He stood back and started the engines.  He lifted the drone to a height of just two feet off the roof and let it hover while he pulled the wallet from his hip pocket and gently set it on the sack of sand.  The wallet couldn’t have weighed more than a pound, but apparently the instruction manual was right about the load capacity.  Just the weight of that wallet made the drone’s red warning light flash several times.  A moment later the drone released the sack, which fell back to the roof, splitting open and spreading sand all around.

Nick got back on his phone.  “Gees, they called that one to the ounce.  It really can’t handle anything over two hundred pounds.  I think we proved what we set out to do with these things.  What do you say we call it a morning and head back to the office?  I’ll meet you there.”  Nick packed up his drone and controller and headed for the roof stairs.  He’d return later to clean up the sand.

John was in the process of packing up his own drone when he first heard the sirens screaming toward his position.   He looked over the four-foot retaining wall down onto Hollywood Boulevard and could see a long hook and ladder truck racing west toward the corner of Cahuenga.  He figured he had the perfect vantage point to watch the fire truck and just stood there, expecting it to keep going but to his surprise, it stopped directly in front of the bank.  Firemen jumped off the truck and started rolling hoses in every which direction.  It was then that John noticed the first plumes of smoke curling up the side of the building—the building where he was standing on its roof.

As if things weren’t tense enough, more sirens filled the streets below and John noticed at least four black and white police cars taking up their positions on this block.  Officer had their guns drawn and John immediately knew that they weren’t there to direct traffic.

One of the firemen used his fire ax to break down a door and that’s when John could finally hear the bank alarm sounding its incessant ringing.  Oh great, John thought.  The bank was being robbed.  He pulled the phone from inside his jacket pocket and was about to dial Nick when the phone slipped out of his hand and plummeted fifty feet to the street below.  He doubted it would ever work again.  What else could go wrong to make this a perfect day?

Just then the door to the roof stairs flew open and two men carrying sacks and guns stepped out onto the roof, looking all around them when their eyes finally fell on John, standing there with his flying equipment.  John sized them up in a second or less.  They were an oddly matched couple, with one of them at least six inches taller than the other, who stood no more than five feet thee and couldn’t have tipped the scales at any more than one-twenty.  His partner easily had seventy-five pounds on him.

The bigger of the two hurried over to where John stood and pointed his gun at him.  “Is there another way out of here?”

“Beats me,” John said.  “This is my first time up here.”  He looked down at the canvas bag the man was holding.  Stenciled on the side of the bag was the name of the savings and loan business that occupied part of the third floor in this building.  John looked up at the man and remarked, “You got a whole bank to rob and you settled for a savings and loan.  You didn’t think this one through, did you?”

“Shut your yap, kid,” the man barked and looked at his surroundings again.  “How were you gonna get out of here?”

“I was just planning on taking the stairs back the way I came,” John answered.  “But I don’t suppose that’s even possible anymore, is it?  I mean if the fire didn’t block my way, the cops certainly would.”

“Now what do we do, Artie?” the smaller of the two men asked.  “It looks like we’re trapped up here.  You and your big ideas.”

“Shut up, Chet and just let me think,” Artie said.

John held up an index finger and said, “If I might suggest something, I think I can get you both out of here.”

Artie stopped thinking and turned to John.  “How’s that?”

“You see this?” John said, holding up his folded drone package.  “It’s a drone and I was up here this morning testing it out.”

Artie looked past John at the sack lying there on the roof.  “What’s that?”

John turned around and then back to Artie.  “That just a sack of sand I was using to test the lifting capabilities of my drone.  Turns out it is capable of lifting an average sized man and flying him out of danger.  Too bad they didn’t have these available back on 9-11 in New York.  They might have been able to life a few of those poor souls off the World Trade Center before they collapsed.”

Artie pointed his gun in John’s face.  “You ain’t shittin’ me, are you?”

John held up one palm toward Artie and then hiked a thumb over his shoulder at the sand bag.  I just proved it twenty minutes ago with that sack of sand.  Worked like a charm.”

Artie and Chet exchanged looks and then stepped up face to face with John.  “You’re gonna fly us off this roof, see, and you’re gonna keep your mouth shut about the whole thing.”

John took a step back and looked Artie up and down before commenting, “Yeah, it might work at that, but this drone has a weight limit.  I can only do one of you at a time.”

Artie swept an arm and pushed Chet out of his way.  “I’m going first.  Come on; let’s get this show on the road before the cops or the firemen get here.”

John unpacked the drone and got it set up.  He looked at Artie and said, “Slip out of your belt and attached it under your arms so I have someplace for the drone to attach to you.”

Artie did as he was told and looked to John for further instructions.  “Now what?”

“Hang on,” John said as he started the drone and hovered it just above Artie’s head.  He pointed out the bar that ran the width of the drone body and said, “Hang on to that bar while I attach your belt to the drone.”

Both of Artie’s hands were full; one with his gun and one with the sack of money.  Chet reached out for Artie’s gun and money sack and said, “Better let me take those for you.”

“Nothin’ doin’,” Artie said and stuffed the gun into his pants pocket.  He opened a button on his shirt and stuffed the money sack inside, buttoning it up again.  “Come on kid, get me out of here.”

“I don’t know, Artie.  Remember I told you there was a weight limit,” John reminded him.

Artie pulled the revolver from his pocket and tossed it at Chet before turning back to John.  “Let’s get this thing moving already.”

“All right,” John agreed.  “Where do you want to be set down?”

Artie looked over the side of the bank, down onto a parking lot one block to the north.  He could see his getaway car sitting there and said, “Right there in that parking lot.”

“Hang on,” John said and started the engines.  The drone began to climb and soon Artie was a few feet off the surface of the roof and John aimed it toward the parking lot.  He had just cleared the four-foot retaining wall and was starting toward the parking lot when the red warning light on his controlled blinked just three times before the drone released its payload and Artie fell fifty feet to the pavement below, screaming all the way.

Chet hurried to the edge of the roof and could see what was left of Artie, lying there in a bloody heap.  He quickly stepped back, panic showing on his face.  He looked at John and pointed his gun at him.  “You said thins thing would work.”

“And it would have it Artie hadn’t gotten greedy.  He would have made it by himself but at the last minute he stuffed that bag of money into his shirt and that put him over the limit.  Now, do you want to just stand here and wait for the cops or do you want to get away clean?  Come on; they’ll be here any minute.”

“What do I do?” Chet pleaded.

“First of all, put those two heavy guns down and drop that heavy money sack or you’ll never make it,” John instructed.

Chet did as he was told.

John looked him over carefully and said, “Those look like some heavy boots; better get rid of ‘em.”

Chet hurried out of his boots and awaited further instructions.

“This could be close,” John lied.  “Better strip out of those clothes, too, but keep the belt.

In a moment, Chet stood there shivering in his underwear.

“Every ounce could make the difference between life and death,” John said.  “Better shed the skivvies, too.”  When Chet didn’t immediately drop his pants, John cocked his head toward the edge of the roof, reminding Chet what happened to Artie.

Chet reluctantly rid himself of his underwear as John attached the belt under Chet’s armpits and connected him to the underside of the drone.

“Now just hang in there while I get you down to that parking lot,” John said, revving up the drone’s propellers.  Chet easily lifted, as John knew he would.  John flew skyward another four feet and eased Chet over the edge of the roof, but instead of aiming toward the parking lot, John changed direction and set Chet down into the waiting arms of the police on Hollywood Boulevard.

He shut the drone down, looked over the edge of the building and waved at the police.  “I have the money bags up here, along with their weapons.  Come on up and get ‘em.”

“Thanks, John,” Lieutenant Steve Stone yelled back.

A moment later the roof door opened and two uniformed officers stepped out onto the roof, their guns drawn.  They both relaxed when they recognized John standing there with two revolvers dangling from his fingers and two savings and loan money bags lying at his feet.  Good job, there, Cooper,” Officer Richie Kohler said, taking the guns from John as his partner, Sergeant Mike Becker took possession of the money bags.  They all headed for the stairs and were back on the street in minutes.

Waiting for him when he emerged from the bank were Nick and Abby, both with relieved looks on their faces.  “John, are you all right?” Nick asked.

“Sure,” John said.  I’m in a lot better shape than Artie.”

“Who’s Artie?” Abby asked.

“Just a greedy guy who learned a valuable lesson about weight limits,” John said.

Nick gave John a sideways glance and said, “I was there when that other guy was lowered to the street in his birthday suit.  I suppose that was your idea.”

“You gotta take your fun when you can get it,” John said.  “You can bet the evening news is going to have to blur that image out.”

Nick smirked.  “Ya think?”

Who Am I

“I’m sorry, sir,” Lieutenant Steve Stone told the stranger in his office.  “But you’re not in our system or any other law enforcement database across the country, so there’s no way to identify you unless your memory eventually comes back to you and you remember on your own.  I wish there was more I could do for you and if you have any suggestions, I’m all ears.”

The mystery man just sat there, staring back at the cop.  “What can I do now?  I can’t just roam the streets hoping to see something to jog my memory.  Hell, I don’t even know where I’m going to sleep tonight.”

“Well,” Steve said.  “From that goose egg on the back of your head I’d have to guess that someone hit you and cleaned you out.  You didn’t have a wallet or any I.D. on you when you wandered into the Twelfth Precinct.  We did run your fingerprints and took a sample of your DNA, but unless we have something to compare them to, I’m afraid we’re at a dead end.”

“Can you recommend anyone else that might be able to help me?” Mystery Man said.

Steve gave it some thought and then said, “I do know of one guy, but he doesn’t work cheap.  He’s a private eye just up the street and he charges three hundred dollars a day but I don’t see how you’re going to be able to pay him without a wallet.”

“Could I at least get his name and address and see what he has to say about it?”

Stone slid his desk drawer open and pulled out one of a dozen business cards Nick Cooper had given him for just such an occasion.  He handed one across his desk to the man and said, “The Cooper Investigations office is just north of here, about four blocks on the corner of Hollywood and Cahuenga.  His office is on the third floor in the front; last door on the right.  You can tell him that you stopped here first and that I sent you his way; good luck.”  He stood, shook the man’s hand and showed him to the door.  As soon as the man left, Stone called Nick’s office and told him to expect a visitor soon.  He filled Nick in on the man’s situation.

“Well, thanks, Steve,” Nick said.  “I don’t know if there’ll be anything I can do for him, but I’ll at least talk to the guy.  I’ll let you know if anything breaks loose.”  A few minutes later Nick heard the elevator door open and sat up straight behind his desk.  John and Abby were out on a case together so Nick had the office to himself.

A knock came at the door a moment later and a man let himself in.  He looked over at Nick and asked, “Are you Mr. Cooper?”

Nick allowed that he was and invited the man to have a seat across from his desk.  “Welcome to Cooper Investigations, and you are?”  As soon as the words had left his mouth, he felt stupid.  “Excuse me, it just popped out.  That’s why you’re here, isn’t it?  Lieutenant Stone called me and told me a little about your situation.  I understand you may have amnesia.  Perhaps I can help.  We normally get three hundred dollars a day for our services, but if after our little chat I feel that there wouldn’t be enough for me to go on, there’ll be no charge for this consultation.  If I think I can help you, we’ll work something out as far as payment.  How about if we start with a casual conversation and see where that leads.  If at any time during our talk, something occurs to you, just blurt it out.  It may lead somewhere so just let it flow.  Do you have any idea how old you are or what month your birthday falls on?”

Mystery Man held up one index finger, as though he wanted to say something but just as quickly lowered the finger and found himself at a loss for words.  He shook his head.  “Sorry.”

“Not a problem,” Nick said.  “Let’s come at this from another angle.  Years ago my grandfather was carjacked and left for dead in the desert.  He’d been hit on the head and stripped of his I.D., similar to your situation.  The woman who found him just kept him talking and he eventually figured out his identity from something they said, so let’s just keep talking.  Tell me the first thing that pops into your head; any thought or rambling, just go with it.”

“I admit that I don’t know anything about amnesia, but there can’t be any such thing as complete amnesia or I wouldn’t remember how to walk or talk.  But I do remember some basics.”

Nick pulled out his yellow legal pad and a pen.  “Such as…”

“Such as I know enough not to cross the street against the red light.  I know I’m supposed to walk on the right side of the sidewalk.  As a matter of fact, I remember that’s it’s called a sidewalk.  That has to count for something anyway.”

“It does,” Nick said, writing this information on his pad.  “Go on; what else do you remember?  For example, if we were outside with a bicycle, would you remember how to ride it?”

“I’m not sure,” Mystery Man had to admit.  “But I do remember driving a car at one time.”  He held up his index finger again and said, “Wait a minute, I remember owning a car and driving it recently.  I think it was blue, but I can’t be sure.  That might have been someone else’s car I’m remembering.”

“Let’s keep going,” Nick said.  “But first, just so I’ll have something to call you as we’re talking, what name should I use?  I’m not asking you to remember your real name at this point, but is there a name you’d like me to call you until you do?”

“Curt sounds like a familiar name that I’ve heard somewhere.  Let’s use that one.”

“Very well, Curt.  Do you have any idea where you might have heard that name?  Could it have been some movie or TV star you recalled?”

Curt just shrugged and shook his head.  “Beats me.  Wouldn’t that be something if my name really was Curt?”

“Stranger things than that have happened,” Nick said.  “Take my grandfather’s case, for example.  The woman who found him just found a list of men’s names on the web and just read them to my grandfather, Elliott, until she got to the E section and something just clicked.  Do you want to try that?”

Curt looked puzzled.  “What if my name is Zack?  It could take you forever and a day to get to the end of that list.  Hey, there’s something else I just remembered; Z comes at the end of the alphabet.  Mr. Cooper, there may be hope for me yet.  Let’s keep at this.”

“And you remembered that there was such a thing as an alphabet,” Nick replied.  “Hang on a minute while I bring up a list of men’s names and try a few out on you.”  He turned to his laptop and typed in the search criteria.  “Here we are; you ready?”

“Go for it.”

“Adam, Allen, Archie, Arthur.”  Nick kept reading names, continuing with “Jack, John, Joe, Jim, Jeff.”  He still got no sign of recognition from Curt.  “Lenny, Louie, Lester, Larry.”  By the time Nick got to the W’s he was beginning to lose hope of finding the right name.  “Walter, Wesley, William.”

Curt’s face told Nick to pause.  “William?  Could that be it?”  Then Curt’s face fell with disappointment and Nick turned around to see what Curt was looking at behind him.  It was Nick’s wall calendar that he’d gotten from the William Fuller Insurance Agency.  So much for why William seemed familiar.  Nick laid his pen down and said, “I think we need to take a break.  Would you like something to drink?”

“Anything as long as it’s cold,” Curt said.

“Pepsi all right?”

Curt paused and thought about it for a second before commenting, “Pepsi; that sounds familiar.  I must have had it before.”

“See,” Nick said.  “Little by little all these clues will fall into place and suddenly something’s gonna click.”  He pulled two cold bottles from his mini fridge and handed one to Curt.  As Curt sipped from his, Nick asked, “When you were at the police station, did they check your clothes for labels or laundry marks?”

Curt nodded, swallowed and replied, “They sure did.  There were no laundry marks and the clothes were just local brands, off the rack.  Same with the shoes.”

The two men finished their sodas and got back to the task of looking for clues to Curt’s identity.  Nick picked up his yellow legal pad, looked at what he’d written and then back at Curt.  “Do you remember anything about having a job or what you did for a living?”

Curt’s face took on a puzzled look and he said nothing.

“What about school?” Nick asked.  “What do you remember about school?”

Again the puzzled look but no spark of recognition.

Nick slid his notes and pen across the desk and asked Curt to sign his name, thinking he might automatically write it the way he had for most of his life.  Curt picked up the pen and set it to paper and that’s where it stopped; he was stumped.  At least Nick noticed that Curt was left handed and made a note of that fact.  He wasn’t sure where he was going to go from here but wasn’t ready to give up just yet.  Then something occurred to him.  “Curt, do you remember if you have any family; wife or children?”  Curt got a faraway look in his eye and Nick could see the question troubled him.  “Have I hit a nerve?”

Curt just shook his head and spread his hands.  “I just don’t know, Mr. Cooper.  It’s so frustrating not to know who I am or where I’m supposed to be.”

“If all else fails,” Nick said.  “We could always call the newspaper and ask them to run your picture with a story asking if anyone recognizes you, but who knows how long that could take.  No, I think your best bet would be to keep at this a while longer with some more questions.  If that doesn’t pan out, maybe I can walk you around the neighborhood and see if anything sparks your memory.”

The two men stayed with it for almost two more hours but Nick couldn’t see any progress being made.  He was about to give up when he cocked his ear to one side and listened.  It was the elevator door down the hall.  He could hear footsteps coming closer and Nick recognized them as belonging to his son, John.  A moment later the door opened and John let himself in.

“What a morning I’ve…” John started to say before he noticed the man sitting across from Nick.  “Oh, sorry, Dad; I didn’t know you had someone here.”

Nick stood and introduced Curt to John.  Curt stood and shook John’s hand.  “John Cooper,” John said, waiting for the man to reciprocate.

“Curt,” was all Curt said.

Nick looked at John and gave him a brief explanation of the reason for Curt’s visit.  He turned to Curt and said, “Would you mind if John joined us?  Maybe between the three of us, someone will ask the right question to help solve your problem.”

“Not at all,” Curt said.  “Pull up a chair, John.”

Nick brought John up to speed as far as what ground they’ve already covered.  John looked Curt over for a moment and said, “You look like a pretty muscular guy.  Do you remember if you enjoyed any particular sport, like golf or tennis?”  There was no reaction from Curt so John moved on to, “What about spectator sports?  Do you like to watch football, baseball or basketball?”

Curt just shook his head in frustration.

John kept at it with the questions.  “Do you remember if you go to church or belong to any clubs or organizations?”  Still nothing.  “What about music?  Do you like the classics, like The Beatles or The Eagles or maybe the Doobie Brothers?  Or do you like today’s so-called music.  Please don’t tell me you like that rap or worse yet, Dylan.”

“What’s a Dylan?” Curt asked.

John smiled.  “Just be thankful you can’t remember him.  I’ve been trying for years to get that hack out of my memory.”

Nick stepped in with, “I have to tell you, Curt; I just don’t know where to go from here.  I think I’ve asked about every question I could think of and yet nothing seems to be working.  I’m sorry we couldn’t make any progress with your problem.”

“That’s all right, Nick,” Curt replied.  “I really appreciate your efforts.  Who knows, maybe I’ll wake up tomorrow and remember everything.”

Nick furrowed his brow.  “But where will you wake up if you can’t remember who you are and where you live?”

“I hadn’t thought of that,” Curt said and sighed in frustration.

The three men sat there, stumped about Curt’s big problem.  Then Nick heard the elevator door open and sat listening to the lighter footsteps coming his way.  It had to be Abby.  Even her footsteps were becoming familiar to Nick by now.

A moment later she opened the office door and stepped in.  “Hey, Nick, John; who’s your…”

Curt turned around in his seat to look at the woman with the soothing voice.

Abby smiled now, looked at Curt and says, “Hi Kevin, long time no see.  Where’ve you been hiding?”

“Do you know me?” Curt asked.

Nick’s mouth dropped open.  “You know this guy?”

“What is this; some kind of gag?  Of course I know him.  His name is Kevin Curtis and I went to school with him way back when.  What’s going on here?”

“Kevin Curtis,” Nick said smiling.  “Hey, that’s probably why you picked Curt for your name.”

Suddenly something clicked in Kevin’s head and he smiled.  “Abby?  Abby Ross?  “Boy am I ever glad to see you.  It has been a long time, hasn’t it?”

Nick picked up his phone and dialed Lieutenant Stone’s desk.  Now maybe their investigation would have some place to start.  “Steve, it’s Nick.  You are not going to believe this.”

The Big Event

John Cooper and Abby Ross had been living together for a little better than a year.  During that time they had talked about the possibility of eventually getting married.  John’s father, Nick, had talked about his impending retirement and the possibility that John and Abby would take over the family run private eye business that had been operating since right after World War II.  This particular weekend they found themselves with a lot of spare time on their hands and decided to see if they couldn’t firm up a date for the wedding as well as the details for the big event.

June was just two months away and Abby had mentioned on more than one occasion how nice a June wedding would be.  John had suggested an October wedding because of the beautiful fall colors and the breath of fresh autumn air, free for the taking.  As the two of them sat there at John’s house, trying to work out the details, they got a knock at their front door.  John got up to answer it, looking out the side curtains and noticing another couple that they had spent a lot of time with in the past.

John opened the front door wide and welcomed his guests inside.  “Come in, come in,” John said.  “Abby and I were just knocking around some ideas for the wedding.  Won’t you join us?”

The couple were Ken and Nicole, who had been married for about two years.  They had both known John since high school.  They had only known Abby since she and John and started living together.  John invited them to sit but had to wait while Nicole and Abby gave each other the obligatory hug.  Both women took a seat on John’s sofa, leaving John and Ken to sit in the two overstuffed chairs on either side of it.  The last of the four had just settled in when the front doorbell rung, surprising John.

“Now who could that be?” John said, getting up and walking over to the front door.  Again, he recognized his two married friends standing on the front stoop and opened the door to invite them inside.  He closed the door behind them and shouted out to Abby, “Abby, it’s Gary and Kimberly; how about that?”

Abby got up to greet her guests and hugged Kimberly.  She led them into the living room and said, “Wait a minute, while I grab a couple more chairs.”

Gary and Kimberly stopped in their tracks when they saw the other couple.  “Oh, I’m sorry,” Kimberly said.  “We didn’t know you had company.  We can come back another time.”

“Nonsense,” Abby replied.  “We were all just about to sit back with a drink or two.  Please stay and join us.  This is Ken and Nicole, a couple of friends of John’s from back in high school.”

Gary and Kimberly exchanged a quick glance and then nodded.  “All right,” Gary agreed.

They all nodded acknowledgment before Ken looked over at Gary.  “How do you know John and Abby?”

“I hired John to work on a case for me about a year ago,” Gary said.  “Things went so well that we just stayed in touch after the case was concluded.  So, what are we all talking about tonight?”

Ken replied, “We just got here a few minutes before you two, so we hadn’t really gotten down to any particular subject yet.”

“And before Ken and Nicole got here,” Abby said, “John and I were just talking about our upcoming wedding plans.”

“How exciting,” Kimberly said.  “Have you picked a date yet?”

“That’s still up in air so far,” John said.  “We can get back to that later.  For now we thought we could talk about a guest list, who’s going to stand up in the wedding, food choices, reception music and on and on.  So if anyone has any wedding stories they want to share with the rest of the group, speak now or forever hold your piece.”  That got a giggle out of both Kimberly and Nicole, while all Ken and Gary did was exchange a puzzled glance.

Abby stood now and took everyone’s drink order and returned with six drinks on a tray, along with crackers and cheese snacks.  It was Abby who started the ball rolling with, “You’re both married couples; seasoned veterans, if you will.  How about sharing some of your own wedding experiences with us.  Nicole, how about if you start things out for us.  What do you remember most about yours and Ken’s wedding day?”

Ken started to speak, but got a look from Nicole silently telling him to keep it to himself.

“What?” John said.  “It can’t be as bad as all that can it?”

Nicole shrugged and spread her hands.  “Oh all right, but just keep in mind that this was more than two years ago and quite a few people were drunk.”

Ken had to smile at the memory and started out by saying, “It was at the reception during our first dance together.  I bent down to pick up Nicole and spin her around when I heard a sickening ripping sound coming from somewhere behind me.  I had ripped my tuxedo pants from cheek to cheek and stood there with my boxer shorts hanging out in back.  I was so embarrassed I instinctively dropped Nicole right on her ass, grabbed the rip in my pants and made a mad dash for the men’s room.  Nicole came in a few minutes later with some safety pins and patched me up again so we could at least get pictures taken of our first dance together.”

Gary had to laugh at the mental picture forming in his mind.  “That’s a good one, Ken, but it can’t hold a candle to what happened to us.  Check this out; during our reception we experienced a minor earthquake.  It wasn’t enough to make anyone run for cover, but it was just strong enough to send our five-layer wedding cake toppling to the floor.  As if that wasn’t enough of a disaster, the crystal ten-gallon punch bowl fell over, shattering into a million pieces on the dance floor.  Between the punch and the cake, that dance floor was way too slippery for anyone to stand up on, let alone dance.”

Now it was Ken’s turn to laugh at the misfortunes of some other couple’s disaster.  “Oh brother; what I wouldn’t have given to see that first hand.  I don’t suppose you have pictures of it.”

Gary shook his head.  “We got a few right after it happened, but no one thought to get a video as it was happening.”  He paused for a moment and then added, “This next one didn’t happen to us but to another couple whose wedding we attended, so I guess it’s okay to tell you about what happened at this one.”

Kimberly shrunk down in her seat, knowing what was coming.

Gary went on with, “This other couple—let’s call them Jim and Mary—were standing at the altar getting ready to recite their vows when I noticed Jim holding his hand over his stomach and wincing.  Keep in mind he was wearing a white tuxedo.  The preacher had just asked him if he took this woman, blah, blah, blah.  Jim was just about to answer when his stomach erupted again and he let out with the loudest, foulest smelling fart in recorded history.  A big stain soon covered the butt of his white tux and it didn’t take long for the preacher to run for cover, holding his nose.  And Mary was right behind him, heading for parts unknown.  The first three rows all emptied out in seconds with the occupants dashing for the exits.  I even hear several of them throwing up on their way out the door.”

John’s curiosity got the better of him and he had to ask, “So whatever happened to Jim and Mary?  Did they eventually wind up happily ever after?”

Gary couldn’t contain himself and just broke out laughing.  “Not even close; it took Mary a month or more before she dared show her face again among her friends and family.”

John was now bent over with gut-wrenching laughter but composed himself long enough to ask, “And what happened to Jim?”

Kimberly jumped in now with, “Nobody ever saw him again after that.  As far as anyone knows, he’s still in hiding somewhere and still single.”

“And still trying to scrub the stains out of his rented tuxedo,” Gary added.  “Something tells me he won’t be getting his deposit back on that one.”

Even Abby had to turn away from her guests to laugh.

Nicole held her hand up, like a child in school wanting to be called on.  “Oh, I got one for you, and this one really happened at our wedding rehearsal dinner.  Ken’s best man got into a fistfight with some relative of mine over who knows what; doesn’t matter.  They were both drunk and both of them ended up getting hauled off to jail in handcuffs.  That kind of put us in a bind, what with the wedding just one day away.  No way was he going to be released in time to make the wedding.”

Abby was shocked.  “What did you do for a best man the next day?”

“What could we do?” Nicole said.  “Luckily we had four bridesmaids and four groomsmen standing up with us.  We just told everyone to take one step closer to us to take over those positions.  The original maid of honor had to give up that position.  She couldn’t have made the wedding anyway.  She was too busy trying to bail her boyfriend out of jail.  The wedding went on as planned, but with just three bridesmaids and three groomsmen.”

“Amateurs, all of you,” Gary said.  “None of you can beat this story.  And every word of it is true; I swear.  I was at a wedding of one of the guys on my softball team several years ago.  The bride’s uncle pulled me aside and said that one of the wedding guests had died just outside of the men’s room.  Rather than notify the proper authorities and possibly spoil an otherwise perfect evening for the bride, he and I just dragged the guy into the men’s room, set him on a toilet and latched the door until after the reception was over so the bride wouldn’t be upset.”

John started to laugh at the situation but quickly stopped when he realized the severity of the event.  “Come on; you’re making that up—aren’t you?”  The room fell silent for a moment before Gary picked up his story right where he’d left it off.  “Hey; the guy was dead anyway and he’d be just as dead after the reception. Why spoil the garter toss?”  That broke the tension in the room and everyone else joined in with the nervous laughter.

The three couples talked and shared experiences for another hour before it broke up and the guests went home.  After John closed the door and turned off the porch light, he turned to Abby and sighed.  He sat next to her on the sofa, wrapped one arm around her shoulder and let her lay her head on his shoulder.  “Those were quite the stories,” he remarked.

“You can say that again,” Abby replied.

“Those were quite the stories,” he repeated.

Abby elbowed him in the ribs.  “Smart ass.”

The two were silent for at least a full minute before John pulled his arm off Abby’s shoulder and turned toward her.  “You’re awfully quiet; do you have anything you want to share with me?”

“You’re just as quiet,” Abby replied.  “Do you have anything you want to share with me?”

There was an awkward pause before both of them spoke at the same time.  “Let’s elope.”

John sat up straight and grabbed both of Abby’s shoulders.  “You’d do that?”

Abby smiled.  “In a heartbeat.  Who needs all the grief and anxiety that comes with a big wedding?  And don’t get me started on my mother.  She’d want to step in and take over and do everything the way she wants it done.  No thank you, Mr. Cooper.”

Now a wide smile crept onto John’s face and he hugged Abby tightly.  “Well, that settles that.  Now we just have to figure out when and where.  And we won’t tell a soul about our plans.  As much as I’d like to have Dad standing next to me, that could start a whole big thing with your folks, wondering why we didn’t invite them, too.  No, I think we’ll just have to do this on our own.”

They both sat back in each other’s embrace and just enjoyed the moment.  The future was theirs.