Collecting Cooper

chapter twenty-nine

“I have something for you,” Adrian says.

Cooper is standing on the opposite side of the door. He’s been asleep for a long time-two shots from the Taser within two days has made him tired. It’s been a long morning in the dark, followed by a long night in the dark. This basement is like a black hole when it comes to time. The basement also doesn’t vent any smells that well. The stench of vomit and urine is really getting to him, and he had to take a shit when he woke up a few minutes ago, which is making the air feel thick. Plus his hand is sore. There’s a neat slice through the webbing of his thumb that looks like it would peel apart with just a little help. He’s got nothing to wrap it in. Best thing he can do to avoid an infection is hope for the best.

“I have something for you too,” Cooper says. “An apology. I know you thought last night that I was trying to escape, and I’m sorry if that’s what you thought, but I wasn’t, I really wasn’t. I was coming upstairs to find you.”

“Really?”

“Of course,” he says, but he can tell that Adrian is feeling unsure. “I wouldn’t lie to you, Adrian. After all, you’re all I have.”

“You’re all I have too,” Adrian says. “And that’s why I got you something. Two things, actually.”

“More women for me to kill?” he asks, hoping that it is. Next time he won’t mess it up. It was his stupid ego that got in the way last time. He should have let the girl live. At least until he’d dealt with Adrian. In lieu of an answer, Adrian holds up both hands. In one he’s holding a newspaper, in the other he’s holding a file. If this is what he brought for him, Cooper feels disappointed. The sun is coming through the basement door and the paper is easy to read. He can see a sketch on the front page of somebody who looks like one of his old teachers from school, Mr. Maynard, who used to smoke his pipe in the classroom back when things like that were considered normal. Adrian puts the file down on the coffee table, then wraps the first page of the newspaper behind the last, then folds it back in half.

“Stand back,” Adrian says.

“Why?”

“I want to slide this through the door.”

“Okay.”

He stands back. There’s the snap of a bolt being undone, not as loud as the one last night that opened the door. It takes all of his willpower not to run forward and try to reach out and grab Adrian’s arm, but he doesn’t, he keeps his ground. Even if he was quick enough to grab Adrian, what then? Start gnawing at the man’s fingers until he reaches up and unbolts the door?

Actually, yeah, it’s a pretty good idea, but it’s already too late. The flap is opened a fraction and the newspaper slid through, and then the bolt is slid into place and Adrian is back at the window. Cooper walks forward and picks up the paper.

“What’s in the file?” he asks, looking out at it.

“We can talk about that in a moment,” Adrian says. “The police are looking for you,” he says. “Have you really killed six people?”

“Where’s my camera?”

“What camera?”

“There was a camera in my briefcase. It’s gone now.”

“Oh, I burned it,” Adrian says. “In the fire. I didn’t want the police to find it.”

“Are you sure it was destroyed?”

“I poured petrol on it. Take a look,” he says, and he starts to scratch at his neck and Cooper wants to believe him but isn’t sure. “It’s in the paper. There’s a photo of the fire.”

Cooper unfolds the newspaper, careful not to open the wound on his hand with a paper cut. It’s too dark to see anything. Adrian figures it out and steps aside so the light coming from upstairs enters the cell. There is a photo of his house, only it isn’t his house anymore, it’s a fireball with his address.

“Oh Jesus,” he says, and he feels nauseous. He loved his house. Loved it. “My house. You completely destroyed it.”

“I know, isn’t it great? It’s stopped the police from finding anything to suggest you’re a serial killer. I thought that today you could tell me about some of the people who used to stay here,” he says.

“My house,” he says. “You fucking burned down my house!” He looks up at Adrian, and Adrian is looking confused. When he gets out of here he’s going to burn this place down too and Adrian can watch it happen from the comfort of this fucking cell.

He tightens his grip and the cut by his thumb squeezes out some spots of blood. At least the camera was destroyed. It must have been. He can clearly see his car. It’s where he dropped his briefcase, so even if Adrian is lying about burning it, it must have been destroyed anyway.

Must have been.

Or maybe not.

“I did it for you,” Adrian says, his voice quieter now. “To help you.”

Cooper lowers the newspaper. He folds it in half and tosses it onto the bed. Baby steps. You’re dealing with a moron, remember?

A moron who is in control of his future.

“That’s right,” he says, “you did it for me. I did love that house,” he says, and thank God for insurance. “But you’re right, it’s for the best and I’m thankful you’re looking out for me.”

“This is your home now,” Adrian says, “and that house was an anchor to your old life. Also, I have your book.”

“What?”

“It looks good,” Adrian says.

“Of course it’s good,” Cooper says. “How did you get it? You printed off a copy from my house?”

“No. I took it from somebody.”

“What? How? From who?”

“From Theodore Tate. He’s trying to find you.”

“I know that name,” he says, and a moment later he knows from where. Theodore Tate has made the papers a few times over the last few years. It used to be with different cases, he would be part of a team looking for some guy who had killed a prostitute or held up a service station with a shotgun, and then he made the news when he lost his daughter in an accident. The man who killed her went missing, the theory being he skipped the country rather than face jail. Then Tate made the papers again last year when he tracked down and killed a serial killer.

“He’s a cop,” Adrian says. “Anyway, he won’t find anything because there’s nothing to find.”

“Why did he have the manuscript?” Cooper asks, and then an even more important question comes to him. “How did you get it from him?”

“I don’t know why he had it,” Adrian answers, “but I got it from his house.”

“You killed him?”

“I’m not a killer, remember? I left him exactly how I found him.”

“Why were you at his house?”

“I don’t want to talk about it,” Adrian says.

“Something led you there. He’s involved somehow, tell me how?”

“I don’t know how he’s involved,” Adrian says.

“Then why go to his house?”

“For this,” Adrian says, and holds up the file.

“What’s in it?”

“It’s a case that Tate is working on.”

“What case?”

“The Melissa X case.”

Cooper feels a chill run the length of his spine right into his groin, where it settles. He cups his remaining testicle lightly.

“Tate is working on that?” Cooper asks.

“It looked that way,” Adrian says.

“Can I see it?”

“It’s why I got it. If you’re nice to me, I’ll let you read it later on today.”

“Okay, Adrian, sure. No problem. Just remember, you have to be careful, Adrian. What if he had caught you? Then what would have happened to me?”

“I don’t know,” Adrian answers, “I didn’t think about it. I wouldn’t have told the police about you, I promise. They wouldn’t have come and taken you away.”

“I would have starved to death out here,” he says, and he thinks of Emma Green, locked up in a cell at another abandoned mental institution. He left her some water but no food. How much water did he leave her? Two bottles, he thinks. Maybe two liters in total. More than enough for one day. He was going to return the following night. Only it hasn’t been one day. It’s been three and a half. If she’s spaced it out, she’ll be okay. If she drank it all on Monday night after he left her, she’ll be dead by now. When he gets out of here Emma Green isn’t going to be much fun to be around.

“How long were you here, Adrian?” Cooper asks.

“Nineteen years, eight months, and four days,” Adrian says proudly. “I counted.”

“You counted?”

“Sometimes there wasn’t much more to do.”

“And why were you here?”

“Because my mother, my real mother, she was forced to bring me here.”

“Your real mother?” Cooper repeats. Insanity aside, he’s intrigued again. If the camera hasn’t been found and his life is waiting for him once he escapes, there’ll be a book in this, one that the publishers have to accept this time.

He puts the webbing of his thumb into his mouth and lightly sucks on it, tasting it and feeling a tiny twinge of pain that actually feels pretty good.

“I have two mothers. My real one, and the one I had here.”

“Your mother here-she was one of the nurses?”

“Nurse Deans,” Adrian says. “I saw you speaking to her sometimes.”

He used to drive all the way out here, and for the privilege of talking to some of the patients he had to slip Nurse Deans two hundred dollars a week in the beginning, and when he was really getting into it, he had to start slipping her two-fifty. She let him use an empty office to talk to whoever he wanted, as long as there was an orderly in the room, and as long as he didn’t tell anybody about the money. He was writing about killers. Writing about people who’d had nervous breakdowns or spent their time eating flies wouldn’t make good reading.

But Adrian will make for great reading. Especially with all that’s going on. Cooper will kill the bastard when he escapes from here, stage the scene any way he wants, he’ll come out of it a hero and there’s no way the publishers will shoot him down again.

“So why was your real mother forced to bring you here? Because of the cats?”

“Yes,” Adrian says. “Because of the cats.”

“I really was coming upstairs to find you last night,” Cooper says.

“I believe you. Kind of. Would you like some time to read the paper?”

He turns back toward it. It’s on the bed but he can’t make out any of the text. “Just a couple of minutes.”

“Then we can talk about my friends,” Adrian says, “and you can tell me stories about other killers you met. We can compare them against your own stories of killing once I’ve read your book.”

“You really love the stories, right?”

“I do,” Adrian says.

“Okay, Adrian. Give me some time to read the paper and get my thoughts together.”

“That would be great.”

“But it has to be like before, quid pro quo.”

“I. . I don’t understand French,” Adrian says.

“It’s Latin.”

“Isn’t that the same thing?” Adrian says.

How the hell can a guy like Adrian still be holding him captive? It’s like being beaten by a six-year-old at chess. “Also, I’m hungry. I need some food.”

“Okay.”

“And you need to empty out the bucket. It stinks in here.”

“Later,” Adrian says, “I promise.”

“Then let me read the paper and we’ll talk soon. Come back with some sandwiches. And leave the upstairs door open so I can see.”

Adrian rushes upstairs, leaving Cooper to read the paper in peace.