Accomplices

He just moved so damn fast. One shot and ‘Pal’ Paleise was dead before he hit the warehouse floor.

“Jeezuz!” I finally breathed. “Jesus! Davey!” I got a grip on the gun, tugged it from the boy’s hands and shoved it back into McGraw’s as he just stood there. Understandable. Mike’s murder lost Mac his partner and their reputation. Now Davey’s act of revenge had cost McGraw his prisoner and the way to clear their names. How the hell would you react?

Davey didn’t move, either. Just kept staring at the blood creeping across the floor.

Paleise had tried to make his reputation by killing a cop. Dumb. Killing a cop on my streets? Crazy and dumb. Killing my life long friend? Proof Paleise wasn’t nothing but a waste of cum. I should’a handled it my way, quiet and clean. If I hadn’t been trying do this how he would’ve wanted, Palsy-boy would already be fertilizer under Mike’s coffin.

I looked at Mike’s oldest, so much like his father that it could’ve been 1930 instead of ’53. Smart kid. He must have put together me phoning the house with McGraw’s sudden departure and followed him. This family had lost enough. I couldn’t let this destroy the boy’s future. I had to fix this fuck up.

I cut the ropes off Paleise, pulled out my piece and fired a round into the wall behind the gray faced cop. Then I put the gun in the stiff’s hand. “Crazy bastard tried to off you, too, McGraw, but you got ‘im.”

“You can’t! I did it an’… ” Davey’s voice cracked, “I did it. I did it and I hav’ta – wha’ddo I do?” he looked up at McGraw, but got no answer.

“Davey!” I got a grip on his chin and forced him to look at me, “You didn’t mean to! You just lost it for a second. Don’t do this to your Ma! Think about her and Nicky, ‘bout how much they need you. You gotta remember that!” I spun him to face McGraw, “Talk to him! Help him, goddammit!”

That seemed to finally shake the cop into action. “Durniak -” Damned if he didn’t sound like he wanted to argue, so I pushed Davey a step closer to him. He hesitated, then wised up. “Durniak’s… right, Davey. Tell anyone about this and your family’s in for more heartache. Maybe even lose you to juvie, a policeman’s son wouldn’t stand a chance there. You want to put your mother through even more grief than she’s got now? Know that Nicky’s gonna be bullied without you there to protect him? I know you didn’t mean to. You’re sorry it happened, right? You weren’t thinking straight. It hasn’t been three days since –” He choked on the rest.

“Don’t feel nothing. I don’t… No. No, I-I’m not sorry.” Then Davey looked back at his work, swallowed hard a couple of times, and quietly added, “But I think I will be.” His eyes filled. “Pop’s gonna be so disappointed in me.”

McGraw finally holstered his gun, wrapped both arms around the kid and hugged him close. “No, no, he’d understand. It’s not your fault, it’s mine. Just let the adults handle this.” He stepped back, “You have to swear you won’t tell anyone what really happened.” He gave Davey a rough shake. “Swear it! No one! Promise me!” All the boy could manage was a nod.

I knew better than to be there when the patrol cars showed up. I took Davey home, alibiing us by saying we’d taken a drive. Lil’s mother started to give me what for, but Davey growled something in Yiddish that dropped her jaw, then disappeared into his room. I got out before she recovered enough to blame me for that, too.

McGraw’s story of being lured into an ambush by that phone call was accepted without question. The whole movie-hero brouhaha rankled him, but he took it. Enough of Paleise’s cronies had heard him shooting off his yap to end the rumors of trouble between Mike and me. The newspapers; with a little nudge, turned their attentions from Detectives Starsky and McGraw to those ‘heartless bureaucrats’ at city hall. It worked. The guys’ names were quickly cleared and the files closed. When the Chief of Police personally handed Mike’s badge to Lily, I thought it was all over. Just another memory for the whiskey bottle. Then the stories started coming back to me. Davey was skipping school, running with the Infernos and getting into trouble on the streets.

I guess he thought he couldn’t be Mike Starsky’s son anymore, not after what he’d done.

It took us nearly a year to convince Lil to send him to family out in California. Get the kid out of the city that haunted him and give him a fresh start. Before he left, McGraw and I had one last tough talk with him. David climbed on that train in a dark temper, stiff backed and a genuine Mike Starsky scowl on his puss, but he went. Only time will tell if we did right by the boy.