Uncle Ernie

Starsky finds an old TV hero down on the docks.

Dedicated to a dear friend who can see the light at the end of what has been a very long tunnel!

“That’s him, Uncle Ernie, you remember Uncle Ernie,” Starsky said, enthusiastically pointing at the article in the old movie magazine.

“Ernie?”

“Yeah, Uncle Ernie, he had that talking cat. You gotta remember, Hutch. Everyone watched it.”

Hutch leant against a bookshelf and raised an eyebrow.

“Starsk, I haven’t the faintest idea who Uncle Ernie is or was.”

Starsky flapped the magazine frantically. “You’re kidding, right? Uncle Ernie and his cat and there was a dog, too.”

“So you keep saying, but it just doesn’t mean anything to me at all and, more to the point, you keep wrinkling Mr. Haverstock’s merchandise, he is going to make you pay for that.”

The elderly man watched the two officers from the far end of the shop, peering over his glasses with his head tilted in a slightly downward direction.

“But this was the guy I saw at the docks last week. You remember the old man sitting near the pier? I told you he looked familiar. Gave us the information about the car that he had seen?”

Hutch nodded. “Yeah, I remember him, that was just last week, Starsk, not harking back to some old TV show from your youth. I know my memory isn’t great these days, but I still remember recent events.”

Starsky grinned. “Good, you had me worried for a moment there, pal. This was the guy. I am pretty sure of it.” He waved the magazine frantically under his partner’s nose, pointing at the photograph in the top right hand corner of the page.

“The one who left you about fifty dollars lighter in the wallet because you felt sorry for him?” Hutch replied, trying to conceal a smile.

“You think he might still be there? We are off duty in an hour, you mind if we go and take a look?”

“Sure, why not? It’s not like I had much planned this evening. Could be at home with a cold beer, but I guess a night with you on the docks, hunting for a homeless old man amongst the fish nets and oily grime could be a heck of a lot more fun.”

Starsky tilted his head slightly to one side and took a long look at his partner, desperately trying to figure out whether or not he was being serious.

“It’s a joke, Starsk. It’s OK. You want to go look for this guy, that’s fine. You can tell me more about Uncle Elmo on the way.”

“Ernie.”

“Yeah, of course. You going to buy that? Because I think if you don’t, Mr. Haverstock is going to charge you rent for the floor space you’ve been taking up for the last half hour.”

Starsky sighed. “One small problem with that partner, I’m outta loose change. Can you lend me a few bucks?”

—–

“You sure this was the right pier?” Hutch glanced around him.

“Pretty sure. Looks like the place.”

“Starsk, all these piers look the same. We could be here for hours, and it’s going to be dark soon. This ain’t exactly an upper class neighborhood, you know.”

Starsky leant on the Torino’s roof. “An hour, OK? If we don’t find anything after that, I’ll buy you a beer at Huggy’s.”

“Two beers and a burger.”

“Sweet talker,” Starsky replied, fluttering his eyelids at his partner. “Good job I love ya pal.”

“Hey, who’s doing who a favor here ‘pal’?”

But Starsky was already walking off in the direction of the warehouse where he had last seen the old man. His partner jogged a few steps to catch up.

Aside from the odd seagull shrieking overhead, the docks were virtually silent. The sea was calm and in the distance the sun was sinking below the horizon.

“You want to split up? We can cover more ground that way.”

“Nah, I don’t want to lose you out here. Just one thing, Starsk… If we find this guy and it turns out to be this famous Uncle Ernie, you have any plans what you intend to do with him?”

Starsky stopped in his tracks. “Find him a bed for the night, and we’ll take it from there. Maybe a hostel.”

Hutch shrugged. “And you plan on doing all of this for one old man who may or may not be a fond memory from your younger days?”

“No one deserves to be out on the street, Hutch. Least of all Uncle Ernie. All the kids in my neighborhood adored the guy. He was like a favourite grandfather. Didn’t matter what was going on at home, you always knew where you stood when you watched his show.”

Hutch nodded. “I guess I just missed it, maybe it wasn’t shown in Duluth, or maybe my parents thought I should do something more productive with my time. Come on; let’s keep looking around. It won’t be long before it’s dark.”

The warehouse was securely locked. Starsky checked the area out front and around the pier head, but there was no sign of anyone. Hutch trailed along behind, his heart not really in the search for the old man, but not wanting it to show.

“Maybe he already has a place. Come on, let’s call it a night.” Hutch gently rested a hand on his partner’s shoulder. “If we get some free time tomorrow, we’ll come back during daylight hours and ask around, maybe someone will have seen the old guy.”

Starsky shrugged. “You know, maybe you are right. Perhaps I am just wasting our time here. Maybe I was mistaken. Even so, though, it would have been good to find him a dry, warm bed for the night, you know?”

As the detectives turned to walk back to the car, there was a movement in the shadows in front of the warehouse. The meager light from the moon revealed a short figure dressed in what appeared to be a long raincoat. He was carrying a brown paper sack under one arm and a large laundry bag in the opposite hand. The figure stopped when it saw the two men and then slowly started backing up again, obviously hoping that he hadn’t been seen.

“Ernie?” Starsky enquired with an air of optimism.

The figure shuffled away from the direction it had come.

“Hey, Ernie,” Starsky repeated, trying to keep the old man in sight.

“I ain’t got nothing,” the old man said, dropping his bags and desperately trying to shield his head from possible attack. “Nothing,” he repeated with an air of desperation. He collapsed to the ground, petrified.

Hutch knelt down beside him, gently taking the man’s shaking shoulders in his hands. “It’s OK. My friend and I are police officers.”

The old man, however, was far from being convinced and obviously hadn’t heard a word that Hutch had said. “I ain’t got nothing, honest. I didn’t tell them. Just told them about the car is all. They tried to get me to tell ’em more but I said I didn’t know no more than that.”

Starsky glanced at his partner and then back at the old man. “Easy, old timer. How about we go and talk about this some place more comfortable?”

“No, no. I ain’t going no place. You aren’t taking me back there.” He pulled himself out of Hutch’s grip and tried to stand up again, his back pressed against the warehouse wall. “People will know if I disappear, they’ll come looking for you.”

Hutch raised both hands in a surrender gesture. “Look, neither of us wants to hurt you. My partner came because he was genuinely concerned for your safety. You remember? We were here the other day. You told us about the car that you had seen.”

The old man stared hard at the two officers faces and chewed on his bottom lip. “You called me Ernie. You remember me?” he said finally, staring at Starsky. “You remember Carlo?”

“Yeah. That’s it. Carlo the Cat,” Starsky said, smiling broadly. “And the dog, what was the dog called?”

“Digger.”

“Digger, yeah. He was a small, hairy little thing. Big brown eyes. What happened Ernie? The last I read about you the article said you had a big house in the Santa Monica hills.”

Ernie paused for a while, as though trying to remember back all through the years. “Too much booze, too many friends, too many people.” His voice trailed away. “I had a wife though, had a daughter, too. Pretty little thing. They left though, they all left.”

Starsky frowned. “How long since you last saw them?”

“Too long,” Ernie replied, almost in a whisper.

“Starsk, let’s move this somewhere indoors. How about we take him to the hostel near Huggy’s? We might get him a bed for the night. If not, he might know of somewhere locally we can put him up for a few days.” Hutch headed off in the direction of the car.

Starsky waited for Ernie to clamber to his feet again, and then shepherded him in the direction of the Torino.

—–

“Ernest Malkowitz. Last known address 8915 Canyon Road, Santa Monica.” Hutch put the paperwork on the desk in front of him. “Its an unusual name. Records might have some luck tracking the daughter down. What happens if they do, though, and she doesn’t want to see him? You thought about that?”

Starsky leant back in the chair. “It means we gave it a try and we did all that we could. She could be half way across the country by now. He’s a great old guy, though. He deserves better than living rough down by the docks.”

“I’m not disagreeing with you. I hope we track her down, too, and if it hadn’t been for your phenomenal memory for TV trivia, we would never have gotten the information about the smuggling operation. Meantime, we have a couple of good leads and a stakeout on the property on Acacia where they kept the old man. You did good, Starsk.”

Starsky nodded, his hand resting on the telephone, half hoping that it would ring with some worthwhile information on the missing ex-wife and daughter. “You ever wonder where we’ll be when we get to that age? You ever worry about that?”

“No, I have enough on my plate keeping an eye on you on a daily basis. Who knows? Tomorrow we could be driving by a field somewhere and you’ll spot some old horse and insist that it’s Trigger,” Hutch replied trying to lighten both Starsky’s mood and the conversation.

“Trigger already died,” Starsky said, in a monotone voice.

“Yeah, I know, pal. I just bet you could tell me what year it was too.”

Fortunately for Hutch, Dobey’s head appeared round the corner of his office door, breaking the ensuing silence.

“Emily Jane Malkowitz, the daughter of your friend, current address, either of you guys interested?” He waved a small scrap of paper in the air. Starsky leapt to his feet and almost tore it out of the captain’s hand.

“I’ll take you boys off the roster for an hour or so then,” Dobey yelled as his two detectives disappeared out of the door.

—–

Hutch stood with his partner by the picket fence. “Well, moment of truth time. You want me to handle this with my irrepressible northern charm?”

Starsky sniggered. “You’re joking, right? This one is all mine, pal. If anyone is good at charming the ladies, it’s me, as you know only too well.”

“Don’t even go there, partner. As much as one glance in the wrong direction and there’ll be a six foot blond down on you like a ton of bricks.” Hutch swatted his partner on the rear as he walked up the path through the neatly laid-out little garden.

“I am relying on it,” Starsky muttered, under his breath.

—–

Emily Malkowitz opened the door cautiously and peered out. “Whatever you’re selling I either don’t want it or, if I do, I can’t afford it.”

Starsky showed his badge. “Police, Ma’am.”

“Well, it’s about time.” she said, throwing caution to the wind and opening the door wide enough that the two detectives could see not only her, but also the hallway of the house. “I thought you guys were never coming. You believe me at last then?”

Hutch was about to reply when she ushered them both inside. “Quick, I don’t want all the neighbors staring. They’ll just love that, give them something to really talk about.”

Once in the hallway, Emily hurriedly shut the door behind them. “Did you catch him, then, and more to the point, did you get my lingerie back?”

“Lingerie, Ma’am?”

“Yeah, well he took enough of it, you have to have found at least some of it, haven’t you?”

Starsky tried to hide his smile. “I’m sorry. We’re here about your father.”

Emily tilted her head to one side. “He’s dead, died about thirty years ago, according to my mother. ‘Course she’s been dead a fair few years now too. She said he was a drunk, used to beat her up, too. Good riddance to bad rubbish, she used to tell me.”

Hutch pointed in the direction of the living room. “You want to sit down, Miss Malkowitz? My partner has some news for you.”

“Sure, you found some paperwork telling me that he had shares in a goldmine or something, that I have become a millionaire.” She laughed at her own words.

“No, nothing like that. We found your father,” Starsky said, watching her carefully for signs of a reaction.

“In the graveyard?”

“No, on the docks, actually,” Hutch said, trying hard not to visualize a corpse that had lain undisturbed on the quay for 30 years.

Starsky sat down beside Emily. “He’s alive. He’s been living rough for a while but we found him a place in a shelter down-town.”

Emily just stared blankly ahead of her. “But she told me that he died, he drank himself to death.”

“I guess she thought that it was for the best. From what he has told us, she left one night and took you with her. He tried for two years to find you, but never succeeded. As time went by, he realized that the chances of tracking you down were getting less and less. He never gave up, though, and when we found him the other day living rough on the docks, the one thing that he still carried with him was a picture he had of you when you were aged about three. We just came here to give you the address of the place he is staying at, that’s all. You want to see him fine, if you don’t, I am sure he’ll understand,” Hutch said.

Starsky took the small folded piece of paper out of his jeans pocket. “This is where he is, for the next few nights anyway. It’s a short stay place, an emergency hostel. They will try and find him a place more permanent after that, but it may not be in Bay City.”

Emily took the scrap of paper and read it. “Mother said he was an actor.” She appeared to be desperately struggling to dig up pieces of her past. “On television?”

“Uncle Ernie.”

“Yeah, I remember. I had a book, maybe I still have it somewhere.” She hurriedly clambered to her feet and disappeared out of the room. Seconds later the sound of things being moved could be heard. “It’s here, somewhere. I remember seeing it.”

Hutch looked at his partner. “You think she’ll go and see him?”

“Who knows. Maybe. She seems interested,” Starsky half whispered back.

“Here it is,” came a triumphant voice from the other room. Emily reappeared with an old annual. “I knew I had it.” She thrust it in to Starsky’s hands.

“Uncle Ernie’s Christmas Book.” He opened the front cover and read the inscription on the first page. “To my little angel, from Daddy.”

“I’ll go. Would you mind taking me down there?” Emily sniffed in-between words. “I want to see him, I want to know why my mother lied to me about his death. There are so many questions I would like to ask him.”

“Of course. We’ll wait for you outside in the car,” Hutch said, heading for the door.

—–

Outside again in the warm, early summer sunshine, Starsky perched himself on the car’s hood. “She has plenty of space here. Uncle Ernie would love it. It’s kind of like the place they used for the TV show. The cat and the dog used to sit in the garden waiting for Uncle Ernie to come out and introduce that week’s episode.”

Hutch sidled over and stood in front of him. “Kind of like the place I visualize us having one of these days too. Don’t ever change, Starsk. You are a good man.”

Starsky frowned. “You still want us to get a place together?”

“It’s not like we haven’t discussed it in the past. It’s just that every time you find us a potential place, it needs fixing up. To be honest, we have better things to do with our time after work than hammering and screwing.” Realizing what he had said, Hutch hastily waved an arm in the air. “Forget it, Starsk. This is neither the time nor the place.”

Before Starsky got a chance to make a caustic reply, Emily appeared at the front door. She smiled warmly, and headed down the path to join them.

“Let’s go then,” Hutch said, smiling at his partner.

“Tonight,” Starsky whispered back. “Just you wait till tonight, I’ll teach you all you need to know about hammering and screwing.”