Paul Cleave - Collecting Cooper

“Hey bro, you were lucky to get out,” he says. He has long blond hair twisted into dreadlocks that are a meter long and smell like wet dog. He’s wearing army green cargo pants and a T-shirt that says You’re not in Guatemala anymore Dr. Huxtable . His face is deeply tanned and his lips chapped by the sun; he has one hand stuffed into the pocket of his pants and an unlit cigarette in the other. “You’re a cop, right?”

“You see who lit the fire?” I ask, standing back up, my knee complaining. Along with the smell of his dreadlocks is the smell of weed. His eyes are bloodshot.

“Nah, sorry bro. Is the professor okay?”

“You’re one of his students?” I ask.

“Nah, man, one of his neighbors.”

“You think something happened to him?” I ask.

He shrugs. “I think so. First I gotta tell you, man, you can’t arrest me. I got no weed on me.”

“Oh man,” I say.

“Deal?”

“Sure. I promise I won’t arrest you.”

“I saw something yesterday morning. I was sitting outside, you know, just sitting, right, relaxing with a smoke, you know what I mean? And I saw this dude approach that professor dude and the professor dude fell down or something so the other dude helped him and I thought I was hallucinating or something. You know, from the smoke.”

“Which house is yours?”

“That one, bro,” he says, pointing to the one opposite Cooper’s place. It’s a single-story home, tightly packed into a compact lot like all the others on this street, painted the same kind of color, the only real difference between his and the neighbors being that it hasn’t seen a lawn mower since winter.

“Why didn’t you call the police?”

“Because I was. . you know, wasn’t real sure what I’d seen and you’d have just ended up arresting me. I kind of forgot about it all until his house like, totally caught on fire, right, oh man that’s a hell of a sight, a real sight. Anyway I thought I should tell you.”

I have the urge to see if the bandaging on my hand will pad my knuckles like a boxing glove. “You should have reported it yesterday!”

“I didn’t want to get in trouble. I had to, you know, man, finish what I had. Jesus, I’m hungry,” he adds.

“Shit.”

“Geez, dude, Gandhi yourself down a notch,” he says, holding up his hands. “You think Professor Mono’s going to be okay?”

“What?”

“You think he’s going to be okay?”

“What did you call him?”

“Professor Riley.”

“No. You called him something different.”

“Oh, yeah,” he says, and he starts to grin. “Don’t tell him, but some of us in the neighborhood like to call him Professor Mono, you know, on account of his accident.”

“What accident?”

He starts to laugh. “Oh man, I shouldn’t laugh, but it’s the one he had. . let me think, must have been three or four years ago. Yeah, four years I think, nah, maybe it was three. I’ve been here five. Like it here too, man. Guess how I bought the place? Go on, guess.”

“What accident are you talking about?”

“I won lotto, bro. How sweet is that?”

Now I feel like kicking him too. “The accident?” I say, reminding him.

“Oh, yeah. Well, I don’t really know how it happened, but I have a friend, right, and his girlfriend’s a nurse at the hospital, right, and she told him that she recognized Cooper because she used to be one of his students way back whenever,” he says, “and. . and where was I? Oh, yeah, anyway the professor rushed himself in there after he got one of his nuts ripped off.”

“What?”

“Yeah, she said it was crushed like a grape. They had to remove it.”

“He was attacked?”

“He said he got it caught in a door, but how the hell does a man get his nuts caught in a door?” He spreads his legs and pushes his waist forward and tries to twist his body. “You’d have to, you know, have one leg out like this,” he says, “and maybe if the door slammed and you were. .”

“This nurse, how can I get hold of her?”

“Oh man, that’s a bummer.”

“What?”

“You can’t, ay. She was stealing medical supplies and prescription drugs and sold them to a patient who ended up dying. She got caught and she killed herself because she didn’t want to go to jail. It was really sad, bro, real sad. She had a real great rack,” he says, holding his hands up to his chest and looking sad.

“So which was it-when he had the accident? Three years ago, or four?”

“What’s it matter?”

It matters because Schroder said Cooper got divorced three years ago and there could be a connection. “See that guy over there?” I say, and point toward Schroder.

“Another cop?”

“Go and tell him the same thing you just told me. It’s useful.”

“Okay, man. Sure,” he says, then walks in the opposite direction, heading away from Schroder.

I’m able to bend my leg enough to get behind the steering wheel. Thankfully I’m driving an automatic. I pull away from the curb, smoke still drifting up from the house into the sky. I think about the nurse stealing pills and getting caught and taking her own life and wonder if any of what I was just told is true. My leg is throbbing but it’s too early to pop any more of the painkillers the paramedic gave me. Last year my addiction was booze; I haven’t been out of jail long enough to start a new one. Traffic is thick in and around the blocks surrounding the fire, and there are plenty of parked cars, but once I get through it all it’s a pretty easy drive. I drive past a service station and the attendant out front is up on a ladder changing the prices on the sign, putting petrol up another five cents a liter. I call Schroder on the cell phone.

“You checked Riley for any criminal record, right?”

“Right.”

“You check if he reported any crimes?”

“What?”

“Was he the victim of a crime?”

“What kind of crime?”

“Look it up. If there’s a record of it you’ll have all the details. If not, call me back and I’ll tell you. And one other thing. Riley’s house was doused in a lot of petrol. Maybe you should check some service stations. Maybe one of the attendants helped somebody fill up a few containers of fuel.”

It’s way too early for rush-hour traffic, and most of what’s on the roads are parents picking up their kids from school. There are groups of kids cycling with their bags slung over their backs, their shirts untucked, yelling and swearing and laughing at each other. Others are walking on the pavement, their feet scuffing the ground, they’re lighting up cigarettes and practicing what passes for being cool these days. I get home and park up the driveway and support my weight on my good leg and am halfway to the front door when I see Daxter. He’s lying by the doorstep.

“Hey, Dax,” I say, and Daxter doesn’t respond. “Dax?”

He doesn’t move, and the closer I get to him the more my heart starts to sink, and the slower I walk.

“You okay, Big Fella?” I ask, knowing that he isn’t.

Daxter is laying on his side stretched out in a position that he never adopts. It’s a struggle to crouch down next to him but I manage it, sliding my unbending leg out to the side. I put my hand on Daxter and he’s not as warm as he should be. I shake him a little and there’s nothing. His head lolls around. I hold his face and turn it toward me and his eyes are half closed and there is blood down the side of his face. I pick him up and he’s heavier than normal and he sags, gravity pulling every limb straight down, some of his ribs have broken and changed the shape of his body. I lean against the side of my house and I cradle Daxter against my chest and I start stroking him, rubbing him beneath his chin and scratching the top of his head. Tears well up in my eyes and I can’t contain them. It takes a minute or so to realize my lap is wet, and when I lift Daxter up urine and water is leaking out of him. I hug him against my chest and push my face against him, fully aware I’m cuddling a dead cat and I must look insane doing it, but unable to do anything different. We bought Daxter for Emily five years ago, and he was more her kitten than mine or Bridget’s. After Emily died Daxter was never the same. He would always sleep in her room and only ventured to the rest of the house when he was hungry or desperately in need of attention. Daxter is with my daughter now, and I truly am alone.