Paul Cleave - Collecting Cooper

“You don’t need to remind me of my own daughter.”

“Do I need to remind you that you almost took mine away?” He slowly shakes his head. “When you ran into her it changed her life. It sent her down a different path. You jumped into her timeline, and instead of her turning A,” he says, tapping his right forefinger with his left to make his point, “she turned B. It brought different people into her life. Doctors and rehab, new friends. She lost three months studying and had to take private tutoring. She almost didn’t graduate high school last year. She almost didn’t qualify for university this year. Her circumstances changed. If you hadn’t hurt her, she’d be in a different place now, with different people in her life. If one of those different people are responsible for taking her. .”

“I get your point,” I say, holding up my hand. If one of those new people in her life took her, then it’s my fault. It’s like he said-I sent her down path B, and path B might have had a bad man waiting in the shadows.

“Do you? Because if you did you’d be asking me how you can help. I know about you,” he says. “You’re about doing the right thing. Looking for Emma, that’s the right thing. That’s why you’re going to help me.”

I look at him but all I can see is his daughter, slumped against the steering wheel with blood running down the side of her face, broken glass surrounding the car, my own car a wreck with the front of it folded around a lamppost, a billboard with Jesus turning wine into bottled water staring down at me, my clothes and skin reeking of alcohol. My ears were ringing and I could taste blood and the night was so cold there was fog in the air, and God how I wish it was all just a dream. I had become the man who had run over my wife and daughter. That was the worst part. I picked up the half-empty bottle of booze from the floor of the car and tossed it into the night and I’ve not had a drop since. Donovan Green’s eyes are pleading with me, he knows his daughter is dead and yet is still holding out hope that she isn’t.

“I’ll need expenses,” I say, and I hate asking for them, but I don’t have any money. “I don’t even have a car. Or a cell phone.”

“You’ll get what you need.”

“And I can’t give you any promises.”

“Yes you can. You can promise me you’ll do what it takes to find the man that has her, and that when you find him. . when you find him, you’ll come to me before you go to the police. You’re working for me, not them. You come to me, not to them.”

I slowly nod, images of Donovan Green walking through the woods with his daughter’s killer and I’m walking with him, helping him get the revenge he needs. This time I imagine he’ll have the balls to go through with it. “We don’t know anybody took her,” I say. “Not for sure.”

“Somebody has her. I know it. I just know it.”

“Tell me about her,” I say, and as he does I realize there was never any chance of staying away from this world.

Adrian sets the tray on the coffee table and moves to the door. Cooper has been watching him walk down the stairs, and he knows that what is coming is going to be difficult for Cooper to hear. He’s been nervous about it all morning, and only ten minutes ago he was hunched over the bathroom sink, vomiting into it. His stomach is burning and his throat is sore and he wishes there was a way to make this easier, but there isn’t. It’s his job to sell himself, to get his reasons across, and if he can do that then Cooper will agree to stay. He has to. For the last ten minutes Cooper has been banging at the cell door in the same way that Adrian, as a kid, used to do, but in the later years Adrian stopped banging because nothing good ever came from it. Since planning his collection, he’s known there are only two reactions available to Cooper-he would be upset and angry, or he would be desperate and begging. The banging tells Adrian what reaction he’s in for.

Cooper’s face is inches from the glass. Adrian steps to the side slightly to let light from the lamp get past him. Cooper doesn’t look so good, but he does look calm and Adrian is pleased.

“Where am I?” Cooper asks.

“Umm. .” he starts, and suddenly his tongue is so heavy it won’t move and all the words inside his mind have been wiped away like an eraser over a blackboard, and he can’t remember a single thing. He knew this was going to be an important moment. He’d even rehearsed some big words with which he could impress. He started out with “welcome to my collection, ” which has been the plan all along, and now he’s wishing he’d written things down. It’s such a rudimentary mistake, he thinks, then enlarges his smile knowing that Cooper would be proud with the use of the large word, but disappointed with the mistake. “Umm. .” he repeats, his tongue a little looser now, and the faster he tries to think the foggier his thoughts become.

“Who the hell are you?” Cooper asks.

“The. . the first rule of a serial killer,” he says, thankful for the words-God, he’s so nervous he wants to be sick again-“is, is to. . to depersonalize his victims,” he says, looking down at the floor.

“Is that what I am? One of your victims?” Cooper asks.

“Huh?”

“It’s why I’m in this cage, right?”

Adrian is confused. “Cage? No, this is a basement,” he says, looking around. Can’t Cooper see that? “You can tell because there are concrete blocks and no bars.”

“It was a metaphor.”

Adrian frowns. “A what?”

“Let me out.”

“No.”

“What do you want? Did you send me the thumb?”

“What?”

“The thumb. Are you the one who sold it to me?”

“I. . I don’t understand. What thumb? The one in the jar that you cut off one of your victims?”

“One of my victims? What the hell are you talking about?” Cooper asks.

“What are you talking about?” Adrian asks.

“Why am I here? Are you going to kill me?”

“I. .”

“Let me out,” Cooper repeats. “Whatever is going on here, this needs to stop. You have to let me go. Whatever you have planned, it can’t happen. I don’t know what you want. I’m not a rich person. I can’t give you money. Please, please, you have to let me go.”

“I. .” he starts, then something catches in his throat and he can’t continue.

“What do you intend to do with me?”

“Umm. .”

“You said welcome to your collection. Is that what all of this is? Is that what I am? A collector’s piece?” Cooper asks, his voice sounding more angry than scared.

“You’re asking too many questions all at once,” Adrian says, getting confused. He lifts his hands up to his face and pushes his palms against his cheeks.

“Am I a collector’s item?”

“No, no, certainly not,” Adrian answers, upset Cooper would think that way. “You’re more than just a piece. You’re. . you’re everything.”

“Everything?”

“You are the collection.”

“So all of this,” Cooper says, and Adrian thinks he’s spreading his arms but he can’t know for sure because all he can see is Cooper’s face, “is some kind of zoo?”

“What? No, this isn’t a zoo,” he says, pulling his hands from his face and pointing them toward the opposite walls. “There would be animals here if it were, like monkeys and penguins and it would smell, and zoos have cages and. . and you still think this is a cage? This is a collection and you’re the main. . the main attraction.”

“As what? A criminology professor?”

“Partly that, and partly because of the stories you can tell me. And the fact you’re a serial killer makes you even more valuable.”