Starsky stood in the tunnel and held his breath. He had pushed the weasel lawyer
as far as he could and now he had to do something – or they would both
be dead.
He took a deep breath and concentrated on what he had.
He had a gun…he could at least defend himself. But he needed to set up
a diversion – but how.
He leaned back against the wall and something dug into his butt. That was it…the
perfect diversion.
He fished in the back pocket and pulled out the offending article. He held it
and fingered it lovingly for a moment. It meant a lot to him…but he could
always get another one.
He threw it into the darkness. It seemed to echo in the tunnel; like a gunshot.
The firing started and Starsky saw his chance. As Dobey and Hutch came into
the tunnel he had already taken one of his prisoners and the lawyer was falling
over himself to thank the cop that only the day before he had accused of being
a vigilante.
Dobey gave orders for the offenders to be taken
away and Hutch went over to his partner and patted him on the shoulder. It was
their standard way of giving comfort and no-one took any notice any more.
“Come on, I’ll buy you a beer.” They started back to the waiting
car.
Starsky stopped in his tracks and Hutch was amazed to see him dart back into
the tunnel.
“Starsk! Hey wait up…what is it.” He pulled his gun out of
the holster as he ran; anticipating some problem that his ever-alert partner
had reacted to.
He followed Starsky into the gloom. Blinking his eyes to accommodate to the
darkness he peered ahead of him and saw that Starsky was crouching perfectly
balanced on the balls of his feet, he was searching for something in the dirt.
Hutch flipped the safety catch and held his gun out, ready to fire at the unseen
enemy.
“Starsky?” He whispered. “Are you OK?”
“Yeah. Put that bloody thing away and come and help me here.”
Sheepishly, Hutch realized that there was no danger and replaced the Magnum
in its leather holder under his left shoulder. He came alongside Starsky and
crouched down beside him. “What are we looking for?”
“We are looking for Jerry.”
“Jerry?”
“Jerry. I used him to create a diversion and…aha!”
Starsky picked something up triumphantly and started to wipe it with his hand
before kissing it. “I knew I’d find you. We were made for each other.”
Hutch shook his head in desperation. He would never figure out how this tough
street-wise brighter-than-he-pretended to be (and little did Hutch know what
a good act Starsky put on sometimes!) cop could be such a sucker for any piece
of junk that Huggy was trying to palm off on the unsuspecting public. And not
just Huggy. There was the guy who sold Starsky a Guinea Pig and convinced him
that it was a Chinchilla. There was the real estate who nearly got all of Starsky’s
savings (and Hutch’s) for a ‘fixer-upper’ that was only fit
to be torn down. Sometimes Hutch even included Merle in the list of the people
who could part Starsky from his money with little effort on their part.
Hutch made his way back to the car closely followed by Starsky who was still cooing sweet nothings to ‘Jerry.’
The next day
They were gathered in Millie’s bar. Starsky and Hutch had already bought beers for all the cops who had been fooled by their performance a couple of days earlier. Starsky and Huggy were discussing the merchandise. Hutch suggested that Starsky drop by his place because there was plenty of junk he would like to sell him. Starsky gave him a steady deep-blue eyed “don’t push your luck” stare and Hutch settled down to drink his beer before it got warm.
“This one. It’s the same kind of size
and color”
“No you don’t want them both the same – how will you tell
them apart?”
For the second time Millie asked Huggy to “get this stuff out of my bar.”
And for the second time Huggy ignored her. He was closing the deal here after
all. Starsky reached for another specimen.
“Now that,” Huggy said using all his powers of persuasion, “that
is a class number. That little guy has breeding. Class. Know what I mean.”
Starsky shot a mischievous grin in Hutch’s direction “Yeah it’s
even kind of blond, isn’t it?”
“That’s the one for you Starsk. Think how good it will look alongside
the one you already have.”
“Do they breed?”
“Only if you can be sure you have a male and a female.”
“How can you tell?”
Huggy shrugged and Starsky grinned at him. “Thought you had me fooled
there, didn’t you? Hey I’m not that dumb!”
Hutch choked on his beer.
Starsky fished into the front pocket his jeans – not an easy thing to
do with the pair he appeared to have sprayed on that morning – and pulled
out two bills. He handed them to Huggy who checked them and grinned.
He handed Starsky another Pet Rock.
“What are you going to call this one?” Hutch asked, trying not to
splutter beer as he held back a giggle.
Starsky dead-panned him. “Well I was gong to call it Ken…”
He waited for the reaction and laughed. “but these little guys look so
good together I guess I’ll have to call it Tom.”
“Tom?”
"Tom and Jerry!”