Good Cops, Good Partners

361

It was all well and good for Starsky to say “this didn’t happen,” but Bernie and his partner had already called in sighting the missing officer. What were they going to do now?

 

Missing scene from The Fix.

Expanded version of a drabble written for the LJ me_and_thee_100 challenge #253: Bernie Glassman.

---

With tires squealing in protest, Detective Starsky peeled out of the alley almost faster than he went in. Bernie stood on the sidewalk and watched the Torino until it disappeared around a corner, then he walked back to where I was parked. He got into our squad car and just sat there for a minute, staring at nothing.

Finally I asked, “Is Hutchinson okay?”

“Starsky and Hutchinson, they’re good cops,” he said slowly, like he was working something through in his head. “Good partners.”

I wasn’t exactly sure where he was going with this but I nodded, because yeah, they were. Everyone in the Department knew it. The two detectives didn’t always play by the rules, but hell, neither did the criminals. I’m sure they gave the Chief headaches, but when you came right down to it, they stood on the same side of the thin blue line we did. And they did it together as a team, one of the tightest I’d ever heard tell.

“Hope I’m doing the right thing,” Bernie muttered, then he picked up the mic and told Dispatch we’d made a mistake, false alarm.

I gaped at him. “That was Hutchinson! And he looked—”

“Starsky’s handling it,” Bernie said, cutting me off before I could finish. “It’s his responsibility.”

My partner is the straightest arrow I know, I couldn’t believe he was turning a blind eye to something serious like this. “Look, I don’t get what’s happening here, but—”

“What’s happening, is there’s a situation. Starsky is taking care of the situation.” Bernie looked me square in the eye. “He’s taking care of his partner.”

Oh. I thought about that for a second. I didn’t really know Starsky or Hutchinson, other than by reputation, but I did know Bernie.

“All right,” I said. I started the engine and checked my mirror for oncoming traffic.

“Yeah?” He sounded relieved, and maybe a little surprised.

“Yeah.” I threw him a grin as we headed back to our beat. “A man’s gotta trust his partner.”