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Hanson stood at the bar, waiting for his order, and turned a tipsy eye on his crew mixing and mingling with the other patrons. Somewhere in back, past the stale beer and sawdust, he could hear the digital jukebox playing a Hozier song and Lucas singing along loudly:
“We'll steal her Lexus,
Be detectives,
Ride round picking up clues
We'll name our children Jackie and Wilson,
Raise 'em on rhythm and blues.”
Hanson felt a tap on his shoulder and turned to see refills of his beer and Henry’s cognac on the bar. He dropped some bills, picked up the drinks and took a swig of his beer, intensifying his already warm glow. It was good to see everyone enjoying themselves again, maybe now things would get back to normal. Or at least as normal as things ever got at the NYPD.
It had been a rough few weeks over the holidays. True, things always got a little intense with so many tourists in town for the Christmas and New Year’s festivities, but Henry’s stalker had ratcheted up the crazy to new levels. It wasn’t often that one of their own was a target and the team did not take kindly to it.
Especially in Henry’s case. After all, the guy was an M.E., not a cop. He didn’t have the training someone like Lieu or Jo, or even Hanson himself, had.
He glanced over at the table where Henry was chatting with one of the desk sargeants. It had taken a while, but the Doc was starting to come back. Hanson would never admit it out loud, but he had missed Henry.
For all his cream-puff-and-crumpets exterior, the guy was one tough bastard. Shooting a suspect was bad enough, but stabbing a psychopath with a letter opener while wrestling face-to-face on the floor … well, that was just way too close for comfort.
The flowery smell of Henry's cognac brought Hanson back to the here and now. He took another swig, pushed off from the bar and gingerly threaded his way through the crowd, careful not to spill the drinks. He was almost back to the table when he saw it.
Two pretty young blondes -- one with long corn silk hair and the other with a honey bob -- passed dangerously close to Henry’s chair. As Henry downed the last of his snifter, the bob’s swaying hips connected with his elbow. She yelped and, as Henry sputtered an apology, blinked China blue eyes at him while dropping a napkin scrawled with some numbers into his lap. Henry looked down, smiled brightly, tucked the napkin in his pocket and lifted his empty snifter in salute. The bob returned his smile with a wink, then drifted after her friend deeper into the bar.
Hanson deposited the refill he was carrying in front of Henry, plopped down in the chair next to him and sighed. “I don’t know how you do it, Doc, but the ladies got a thing for you.” He shook his head as he so often did when it came to Henry. “Guess it’s a good thing you got a thing for blondes.”
“I don’t know what you mean, Detective,” Henry said, his precise British vowels slipping and sliding ever so slightly as he pulled at what Hanson fuzzily calculated to be his third cognac of the evening.
“Oh, c’mon Henry, it’s just you and me now.” Hanson waved vaguely around the bar. Lieu and Jo ruled the pool table, beating the pants off all challengers. At the wall opposite, Lucas studied the jukebox playlist as if it held the secrets of the universe. Even the desk sargeant had excused himself for the rest room. “Admit it. You’ve got a thing for blondes. I saw it with that Iona chick, now these two and about three or four others every time you step in this joint. God only knows what happens when you're out and about on your own, but I'm sure you're working it. Blondes are more fun and all that.”
“I don’t think that’s quite how it goes, but yes, I do have an appreciation for women with blonde hair.” Henry took another sip before woozily leaning in a bit closer and whispering conspiratorially, “Above all, I like kind women.”
“Well, who doesn’t, buddy?” Hanson guffawed and slapped Henry’s shoulder in a gesture of alcohol-fueled solidarity. “I mean, tea and sympathy and maybe a little somethin’ somethin’ extra, am I right?”
Henry looked pointedly at Hanson’s hand and rolled his eyes. “That’s not what I mean. I’m talking about the kind of woman who will listen to you, trust you, give you the benefit of the doubt even when the rest of the world doesn’t believe in you….” His eyes slowly shifted in the direction of the pool table, where Jo was now laughing as she tried to teach Lucas a particularly intricate pool shot.
Hanson sat for a moment taking in Henry's words, his gaze slowly following the path Henry’s had taken. When his eyes landed on Jo, he went still, then turned back to Henry with narrowed eyes. “That sounds like Jo,” his voice dropped low, gruff.
“Yes,” Henry nodded slowly, “Jo is quite kind.”
It was Hanson’s turn to lean in, and when he did, he was right in Henry’s face. “She’s also had a tough time of it since Sean died. She's finally getting her feet back under her. I'd hate to see anybody mess that up."
Hanson stared hard at Henry as the other man silently considered the drink in his hands. Sure, the good doctor was eccentric and cocky, but damn it all if at that moment Henry didn't look like the loneliest guy in the world. Henry had been through hell too, Hanson chided himself, he needed to remember that.
“So it’s good that you like blondes, Doc," he said, softening his stare. "You get what I’m saying?”
“Yes, Detective Hanson, I think I do," Henry replied. "Rest assured my preference for blondes will stand for the foreseeable future.” He raised his head and looked sideways at Hanson as a slow grin spread across his face. “Though it hasn’t always been that way you know.”
“What?” Hanson found himself shaking his head again.
“My first wife was a brunette. Dark hair, dark eyes, a real beauty actually. So you see, I haven’t always been immune to the pull of a dark star, so to speak.” Henry leaned back in his chair, swirling the remnants of the cognac in his glass.
“Henry,” Hanson began to growl, then laughed, “Wait … ‘first wife’? So just how many have you had exactly?”
The cognac stopped swirling and Henry’s face fell. “What do you mean ‘how many'?”
“Well, Doc, you said ‘first wife.’ If you’d only had one, you’d have just said ex-wife. The fact that you said ‘first,’ implies there’s more than one. You’re not the only one who can pick up on clues around here, you know.”
“Yes, I can see that."
"So, how many?"
"More than I care to discuss no matter how much I've had to drink," Henry answered.
Hanson clinked Henry's snifter with his beer bottle. "I've only got my one wife, but I hear you on that."
Just then both men's heads turned to gape as a mass of brilliant copper curls sidled up to the jukebox.
"I will say, I've never been married to a redhead. Perhaps it's time to broaden my horizons." Henry rose and made a beeline for the jukebox.
"Go get her, Doc," Hanson called, shaking his head yet again. "Man does not live by blondes alone."