Fandom: Houston Knights
Rating: This story is not rated,
a few strong words but that’s it.
Spoilers: None.
Title: Horsing Around
Author: Tammy
Standard Disclaimer: Houston Knights belongs to Jay Bernstein and Michael Butler and Columbia Pictures. No copyright infringement is intended.
Not that he was planning on telling his partner that.
“I hear you plan on quitting the police force to go join
a rodeo.” Lundy went on, pretending that he didn’t hear his partner throwing
cusses at him. “That true, laFiamma?”
The dark haired Italian Houston cop propped his head
up on his hands to glare at his friend.
“Go to hell Lundy.” He growled, glaring daggers.
“I’m the one laying here cause my backside feels like I
sat on a cactus bush and all you got is a bullet in the
shoulder.”
Lundy laughed, taking his Stetson off and sitting down
near the bed. “LaFiamma, I told you things like this
wouldn’t happen if you’d learn to ride a horse.”
Things like this. Merely 24 hours earlier, the
two Houston cops had been eating lunch at a local park. The day hadn’t
been any different than usual. Fighting over every little detail
on a case was normal for Lundy and LaFiamma.
The two had been partners for going on two years and
though they were extremely loyal to each other now,
the other differences between the lanky Texan and the
well styled Italian/American couldn’t have been more clear.
“No. I am not letting you teach me how to ride
a horse.” LaFiamma’s handsome face scowled at the mere
thought. “If I want to ride on an animal I could
ride one of the more than a million mechanical bulls in this city.”
Lundy, tall and lanky by nature with blond wavy
hair and blue eyes shaded by the tan Stetson he always
wore, paused to finish his hotdog before clucking his
tounge at his partner.
“Son, you ain’t in Chicago no more. You’re
in Texas and out here, sometimes you can’t get around on foot or in that
fancy tuna can you drive.”
“Don’t insult my Cobra, Lundy.” LaFiamma
growled,eyeing his newly bought Italian leather loafers. “You’re the cowboy
remember? I’ll stick to the modern ways of traveling.”
Figuring he could needle his partner on this subject a
little more, Lundy was about to throw in another jab
about Joe’s precious car and was about to when shots
suddenly rang out from the Houston Savings & Loan
across the street.
“Trouble.” LaFiamma threw what was left of his lunch
in a trash can then ran to catch up with his partner.
“Who the hell robs a bank in the middle of the lunch
rush?”
Lundy looked back once to see his partner had stopped
by his red Jimmy to call for backup. “LaFiamma, tell dispatch to get that
SWAT….” The Texan stopped when the bank doors slammed open as a lone gunman
ran out armed a UZI sub-machine gun. “Oh, damn! Freeze!” his
Colt was barely out of its holster
when Levon felt a warn burning shoot through his left
shoulder and down his arm.
Hearing shots fired so close, LaFiamma ducked down behind
the Jimmy’s open door, looking around and
freezing. “Lundy!”
The Texan was laying slumped on the cement while the
masked robber was sprinting down the panicked
sidewalk, firing bursts from the Uzi.
“Levon?!” Joe swore as he knelt quickly next to
his partner and seeing blood coming from his shoulder.
“Lundy! Talk to me Lundy!”
“Go….after that jerk LaFiamma.” Lundy gritted his teeth
and tried to sit up as sirens could be heard. “He’ll
kill a…lot of people with that…”
Obviously uneasy to leave his partner, LaFiamma hedged
until another burst of autofire and more screams
were heard.
“Hell. I hate this city.” The former Chicago
cop muttered, breaking off into a run after the gun-crazy bank
robber. “Out of the way!! Houston Police!
People, get the hell outta my way here!!”
As frightened civilians ran for cover, it didn’t take
the dark haired Chicago native long to realize he had no
chance of catching his foe on foot.
Looking around quickly for any means of transportation,
LaFiamma saw his only option. “God, I can’t believe I’ve sunk to this.”
He groaned, shoving his badge into the startled face of the traffic cop
before grabbing the reins of the brown and white speckled horse.
“Sergeant LaFiamma with Houston homicide division. I’m going to borrow
your…..horse.”
Before he could talk himself out of it, LaFiamma swung
up into the saddle and had to hold on with both
hands as the horse took off down the street.
“WHHHOOOAAA….um, Silver!” LaFiamma screamed while holding
onto the horse. “Lundy, I hate you!”
As horse and the Italian suited cop raced through people
towards a gun-toting crook, LaFiamma risked a
little by letting go of the reins with one hand to pull
one of the two Colts he carried. “Hey! Hold it steady!” he
ordered the horse as he tried to draw a bead on the fleeing robber.
“Freeze slimeball!” Joe yelled, ignoring the half dozen corny clichés
that came into his mind.
The robber, who had lost his mask, turned to fire the
Uzi at his pursuer. “Go to hell, copper!”
“When did I leave this nightmare and enter the Twilight
Zone or a really bad old movie?” LaFiamma
wondered, cursing as a bullet creased his shoulder.
“O-kay, that does it.”
Throwing caution to the wind, LaFiamma pulled his second
Colt, said a rapid prayer and fired both guns at
the thief while hoping the horse didn’t throw him.
The horse seemed to instinctively know when to stop as
the robber dropped as his kneecap began bleeding
profusely.
“Well, what d’ya know? That stunt really works.”
Joe marveled as he figured out how to turn the horse
back towards the fallen thief where several black &
white Houston patrol cars were just arriving.
The lead officer whom Joe had seen before looked up from
cuffing the man who had started all this mere
minutes earlier.
“Sergeant LaFiamma, we were told by your superior to
tell you that your partner was being taken to the
hospital.”
LaFiamma breathed a silent sigh of relief, starting to
lift himself off the saddle when he froze in
mid-motion.
“Do you want a lift back to where Lundy’s truck is?”
Officer Stew McClean wanted to know after he’d
read the prisoner his rights and put him in the back
of a car.
“Uhhh, yeah. Sure.” LaFiamma grunted, pain shooting through
his backside and other parts of his body that
he didn’t want to think about. “The problem is,
how do I get myself out of this thing? They make jaws of life for
horses?”
“Stew said you looked like a dancer who split his pants
in the middle of a show. Part pride, part
stubbornness and all pain.” Lundy was laughing
so hard as he recalled the story that he hurt his arm.
LaFiamma just buried his head in the pillow, figuring
this story would be haunting him for years. “Laugh
now Lundy cause one of these days you’ll find yourself
doing something totally new.”
“LaFiamma, I doubt if I could ever look as miserable
as you do right now, son.” The Texan replied then
sobered, realizing that his friend really could have
been hurt.
“You didn’t have to get on that horse.” Lundy spoke
seriously. “We had back-up coming.”
The dark haired Italian shrugged it off. “That
guy was a massacre waiting to happen, Lundy. Besides, he
shot my partner.”
Before Lundy could reply, Joe grinned. “If he’d
have killed you, I’d never find my way around this city.”
“Nice, LaFiamma.” Lundy rolled his eye and lightly slapped
his friend’s shoulder. “Guess I’ll go tell Joann
you ain’t joinin’ no rodeo.”
“
You do that, Lundy. You just do that.” Joe grinned
as his partner let the door swing shut and he went to
sleep.