Collecting Cooper (8 page)

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.”

Cooper’s face pales. A frown appears, the lines deep enough to look like long scars. “What? What did you just say?”

“A storyteller. You’re here to tell me stories about killers you know. I find them interesting.”

“You said I was a serial killer. Explain yourself.”

He never had to explain himself in the past to his cassette collection, or the collection of comics he had as a kid. This is tough work. “A serial killer is a person who . . .”

“Yes, yes, I know what a serial killer is, you twit, but I’m not a killer.”

Adrian doesn’t know what a twit is, but he does know he doesn’t like being called one. “Don’t you get it?” he asks, thrilled he knows something Cooper does not, because Cooper is one of those people who knows everything. His mother called those people
good-for-nothing know-it-alls,
but of course Cooper is good for everything. “You study killers, you know killers, and you are a killer. You are an entire collection in one piece.”

Cooper takes a deep breath then slowly exhales. He closes his eyes for a few seconds and rubs the side of his head with his fingers. Adrian thinks the man is either trying to collect his thoughts or fall asleep while standing. He decides on the first of the two options because it’s not late enough in the day to start sleeping. Then he decides the collecting your thoughts trick might work for him too, so he closes his eyes and takes a few deep breaths, and it helps, just a little.

“I’m not a serial killer,” Cooper says.

Adrian opens his eyes back up. “Yes you are. I know you are. That’s why you’re here.”

“No, I’m here because you abducted me, and because you’re delusional.”

“I am no such thing.”

“What’s your name?”

“What?”

“Your name. Surely you have one.”

“The first rule of a . . .”

“Shut up about the damn rule,” Cooper says, banging the door. “Just tell me your bloody name,” he says.

“But . . .”

“Your name. Tell me your name,” he shouts.

“Adrian,” he answers. He didn’t want to answer, he certainly had the intent to always keep his name to himself, but he hates being shouted at, always has, and his name comes out before he can stop himself.

“Does Adrian have a last name?”

“You have to stop,” he says, getting mad now. “No more, no more questions.” He covers his ears and shuts his eyes, but he can still hear Cooper asking him things. He takes a few steps away from the door. After a minute Cooper goes quiet and Adrian moves his hands away.

“I made you something to eat.”

“I don’t want anything to eat. I want you to let me out of here.”

“You get used to the cell,” Adrian says. He starts scratching at a sudden itch on the side of his head. “And I’m going to try and make it more comfortable for you. See all of this?” he asks, spreading his arms and encompassing the small view. “I brought these things from your house, all your serial killer memorabilia, I brought it here so you could have your own collection nearby because I know how important it is to you, just as you are important to me. It’s still all yours,” he says, “I don’t want it, I want you to still have it. If you think about it, we’re not that unalike really. You collect serial killer memorabilia, and . . .”

“And you collect serial killers. I get the point.”

“I am so lucky to own you,” he says, hardly hearing what Cooper said at all.

“You don’t own me, you crazy son of a bitch,” Cooper says, the defiance in his voice is annoying.

“Don’t be mean,” Adrian says, then remembers that of the two of them, it really is his job to be the calm one. After all, he has had days to think about this, and Cooper has only had a few minutes. This is going to be quite an adjustment for Cooper. He can’t just expect the man to wake up and accept it. “You should eat,” he says, hoping the change in topic and the food he made will hasten the bonding they have to do.

“Listen, Adrian, Adrian, I can’t stay here. This isn’t going to work. You’re going to see that soon, and then you’re going to let me go, but by then it’ll be too late and the police will lock you away and . . .”

“You need to keep your strength up.”

“Jesus,” Cooper yells, and bangs something against the window that looks like a shoe. “Doesn’t anything get through to you?”

“Stop with the questions,” Adrian yells, and before he can stop himself, he kicks out at the coffee table, sending the sandwich he’d made all over the wall and floor. The lantern hits the floor, flickers for a few seconds but doesn’t go out, just rolls across the ground sending shadows moving over the walls.

“Great, just great,” he screams, “now look at what you’ve done? That’s it—that’s it—no more lunch for you today. Now you go hungry,” he says, and he kicks at the coffee table one more time, picks up the lantern, and heads upstairs. He wanted nothing more than to make a good impression, a lasting first impression, and he’s failed, all because of Cooper.

“You can’t keep me here,” Cooper shouts out from the basement.

Adrian stops at the door and looks back down at the cell. Cooper is staring up at him through the window. “We’ll make it work,” he says. “Soon we’ll be friends. I forgive you for making me make a mess.”

“You’re delusional.”

“I’m. Not. Delusional,” he says, biting down on each word. Why do people always think he’s crazy? He’s had to deal with that his whole life and he’s sick of it. He looks down at his feet, at his polished shoes. He cleaned his shoes as part of his attempt to make a good impression, and now he isn’t even sure why he bothered. Did he not clean them enough? Is that the problem? The right one is scuffed up from kicking the coffee table. The fifteen dollars he paid last week for his shirt and tie from the thrift store is looking like a waste of money. He flicks the hair out of his eyes. He can feel the tears starting to come. This has gone nothing like he expected.

He slams the basement door on Cooper’s shouts, angry, embarrassed, wondering if it wouldn’t just be easier to set fire to his collection the same way he set fire to his mother.

He races down the hallway and up the stairs to the first landing, his hip hitting the wall and the radio bouncing off his belt onto the floor. He wouldn’t really set fire to Cooper, that’s just his frustration talking and trying to convince him to do something stupid. He bends down to pick up the radio and is relieved it hasn’t broken. He rewinds the tape a little and can hear Cooper’s voice, then rewinds it the rest of the way so he can record over it. He doesn’t want to hear any of the conversation.

If he wanted to, he could give Cooper the gift he got for him to smooth things over, but he wanted that to be a surprise for tomorrow. He quietly opens one of the bedroom doors in case Cooper’s gift is sleeping, and she is. There are other, perhaps more appropriate rooms for her, but he liked the idea of keeping her more comfortable, of giving her a bed. Her hands are bound to the rails of the bed in the same place he tied them two nights ago. Her skin is flushed and the skin around her lips is dry and has chipped and there’s a plastic drinking straw hanging from her mouth. There’s a pitcher of water on the floor next to her that he helps her drink from, but unfortunately there’s no bathroom in here and he didn’t want to risk untying her all the time for her to urinate, so the room smells from where she’s soiled herself, and the smell reminds him of his days at school, which makes him smile, but then reminds him of the day he got beaten into a coma and the smile disappears. The girl is no more than twenty, he thinks; he isn’t sure of her name and the time for asking was before he glued her lips together around the straw, but he had to do the gluing before she could say mean things to him. She looked the type that could be pretty nasty if she wanted to be. Right now she just looks unhealthy, and he doesn’t think Cooper will be happy with his gift covered in sweat and urine, and he’s going to have to do something about it. Probably he’ll just hose her down and leave her naked. Cooper will like her that way.

Donovan Green leaves me the car he arrived in—a rental—and catches a taxi. The rental is a white four-door sedan about a year old. It tells me Green knew I would take on the case, that he knew I had no car, and from the moment he realized his daughter was missing he knew he would be contacting me if she didn’t show up. If there had even been any doubt, he would have decided that Fate or Destiny played a part in this—his daughter going missing thirty-six hours before I’m released from jail—there has to be something in that, and thank God it wasn’t the other way around, otherwise, instead of coming to me for help, he may have come to blame me for her disappearance. He’s given me a thousand dollars in cash for expenses with the promise of more if I need it. The cash is to smooth any wheels that grind to a halt along the way. He’s given me the gun he threatened to shoot me with last year. It brings back memories. I hide it beneath my wife’s side of the mattress. He’s given me a photograph of Emma when she was ten years old, taken at her birthday party. He’s asked me to carry it with me until I find her. He wants that photograph burning in my pocket as a constant
reminder to find Emma, as if I need reminding. I fold it into my wallet. And he’s told me how he thinks Emma would react. She’s a smart kid, he said, one who wanted to study psychology because she thought she was good at figuring out what people thought. He said no matter what the situation, she would adapt and she would survive it. I just kept nodding the entire time hoping he was right, but knowing there wasn’t a lot a young girl like Emma could say to talk her way out of the situation some sick bastard has put her in.