From Gun Clips to Money Clips
A/N: Thanks to Long Live BRUCAS for the review!
Chapter V
A smile lifted his cheeks as a click signaled the unlocking. Adam turned the master key and the lockpicks to swing the door open. He was finding the most difficult part was only using one hand to twist the picks as the other automatically went to the master key. Even though it wasn't true, he seemed to think he had to turn both keys simultaneously like it was a nuclear strike or something. Too many movies, probably.
"Huh, I thought I'd come down here to find you napping. Didn't think you'd actually listen and do the task you were given." Platt looked at Ruzek over the wall of 16 safety deposit doors. Hank was right to call Platt, she'd unearthed this training set from a warehouse somewhere. It had a bunch of doors from different manufacturers set into a heavy-duty frame. Some of the outer parts were charred like explosives had been used in the past. Those sections had shinier doors set in as replacements.
The smile turned upside down. "I still think I should be up there, running backgrounds or scenarios. Not alone down here learning something I already know how to do. I'm not that useless."
Platt dragged a chair around the frame and sat down. She narrowed her eyes into something that seemed contemplative, not the usual glare she gave the cops that were sassing her. "You're not Hank." She stated.
"You don't think I know that?" Ruzek threw the picks to the ground.
Now it was a glare. "Let me finish." She took a breath. "Hank, myself, Al – we came up in a different time. We were policing a different city with different problems. Our tactics were…different." She sighed out the last word. A thesaurus could've been helpful here. She looked at the detective and saw the stubbornness in his brow so she tried a different tact. "Adam, you are great at what you do. That's why Al pulled you from the academy. But in doing so, you skipped a step. A big step.
"You were never on patrol. You missed out on the camaraderie of roll calls and shifts. The monotony of walking the same beat or driving the same streets. You get close to your partner, your precinct that way." She bit the inside of her cheek. "You're like the kid that graduated from high school at 14 and never went to prom."
"Great, thanks, I'm a freak." Adam poked at the open door, swinging it closed.
Trudy bit back a sigh. And the urge to smack him upside the head. She chose to ignore his statement for now and carried on with her point. "Patrol is where you learn to trust, I mean really trust, your fellow police officers."
Adam looked at the Sergeant for the first time since she came in. His brow furrowed. "I trust everyone in the unit."
Platt struggled with how to get her point across to Adam since she had a long conversation with Hank after they'd both visited him in the hospital. She'd tried so many times to play it out but none of the approaches had been right. Knowing he was heading undercover had meant she didn't want to put it off any longer. Suddenly, in the moment, it all gelled together.
"If there was a distress call over the radio involving a fellow officer, what would you do?"
Adam sat up straight on his stool. "Get there as fast as I could and help anyway I can." The answer was automatic, with absolutely no hesitation.
"What do you think your fellow officers, not just your unit, would do if you put out a distress call?"
He opened his mouth but no words came out immediately. He swallowed and then answered, "the same" but it lacked the conviction of his previous answer.
She patted his knee. "Exactly. You are a cop's cop – ready to swoop in and help. The problem is, you don't believe that they would all do the same for you. That's what you missed by skipping patrol; the absolute certainty in your gut that the force is behind you no matter what happens."
Adam ducked his head and gave her a jerk of his head so Platt bit back a sigh. She had spent enough time with the young cop to know that he needed time to chew on what she'd told him. It was too much to expect an epiphany in this moment, regardless of how much she wished for one. "You won't have a stool in the bank." She said as she pushed herself up from the chair. "Replicate your circumstances."
He straightened his shoulders as he lifted his butt and dropped to one knee. "I'll be ready."
She decided not to push, "I know you will be." She watched as he picked up his picks and set up at the locks. Reaching the stairs, she changed her mind. Pulling a canister out of her pocket, she waited until he had stilled as he felt for the levers in the locks.
An ear-piercing screech ricocheted through the large room. Adam bounced his head on the wall as he lurched up from the floor, desperately grabbing for his empty holster.
He turned and glared at Platt, a trickle of blood dripping out of his eyebrow.
"Gotta be ready…for anything." She smirked, waggling the air horn at him.
Hank met her at the landing of the stairs. "Really Trudy? A horn blast?" He smiled as he shook his head. She just pursed her lips at him in response. He lifted his eyes up the stairs, listening for the footsteps of his team. "How'd it go?"
"He carries the weight of the world on his shoulders and his heart is too big." Her eyes softened. "Seems like I know someone else like that."
"Trudy…"
"You need to talk to him." She crossed her arms. "I can explain it until I'm hoarse but he's following your example. I know his dad was a cop, but you're the one whose footsteps he's stepping in."
"Trudy…"
"And it can't be 'do as I say, not as I do'. I know there are people in this department you trust, you need to tell him those stories."
"Should I do it standing over their headstones? Too many of them are in their graves." Hank paced the tight space.
"Your survivor's guilt is going to put Ruzek in a grave." The chill in her voice stopped him in his tracks. "I have skin in this game too. I want him on the job. Sure, he's rowdy, but he polices with his heart, not the handbook. Watching him flip the bird at ticket quotas and use the siren to get a mother to her daughter's birthday party on time is actually what this city needs."
"I don't know how…how…" Hank sagged against the wall.
Trudy leaned back beside him. "Start small. But start before this operation pulls him in. If we can get that seed planted, maybe that voice can be louder than the doubt. Halstead won't be able to be at his side every moment."
Hank released a slow, deep sigh. "He could be good."
"He could be great."
"Imagine him ordering around a bullpen." Hank coughed out a laugh.
"Some dry cleaner is going to make a fortune off of him getting stains out of his white shirts."
They both chuckled, getting Ruzek to wear a tie tight to the collar was like wrestling a toddler into a car seat.
"I'll try Trudy. But I'm not making any promises." Hank pushed off the wall. "I have a few things to wrap up first."
"Okay." Platt nodded. It was as close enough.
For now.