Twenty Four Hours

by provencepuss

Coffin for Starsky seen from Hutch's POV

Twenty Four Hours

A Coffin for Starsky seen from Hutch's POV

Prologue

The 'phone rang at 3.59am. I crawled up out of a dream where Sweet Alice was giving me a guided tour of her own special Wonderland. Some people would have stayed with Alice but I couldn't. I'm a cop. If my 'phone rings at 3.59am it means someone is in trouble – or dead.

Cursing under my breath I snatched the handset and asked who was there.

Silence.

No it wasn't total silence; someone was heavy breathing at me.

"Who is this?" I was getting snappy.

The breathing was labored – strained; my instincts went onto red-alert. Starsky!

Horrible visions of him tortured and bleeding invaded my mind.

"Hutch; help…" He managed to say it. His voice was so faint and hoarse but I could hear the fear. Hang on in there buddy I prayed. But where? Was Starsky at home; we'd parted at The Pits. Maybe he'd had an accident. Now my mind conjured up ideas of the Torino wrecked and mangled in some arroyo and Starsky desperately trying to reach me. Logic brought me back – if he'd been trapped in his car this would be a patch call.

"Where are you Starsky?"

Again I had to wait for him to drag his breath out of his lungs with enough force to speak.

"Bed….room."

The line didn't go dead; but Starsky was no longer able to speak to me.

I grabbed my clothes and ran out of my cottage into the chill night air. The canals were a little misty and I drove carefully over the bridge that leads from my place to the streets.

I grabbed the handset and called for an ambulance to meet me at Starsky's place then I groped under the passenger seat and my hand finally located the Mars light. I flung it up to the roof and prayed that it would stay there. It did – at least this time I didn't plunk it on one of the dents on the roof. I looked at the clock on the dash board – 4.10am.

4.30am

I ran up the steps on the side of the neat white house where Starsky rented the apartment over the garages. I found the spare key and let myself in. No sign of a break-in; someone else knew about this key. I ran through the apartment – past the flashing disco lights and the traffic signs and the wicker peacock chair, and into his bedroom.

Starsky's bedroom looks like something out of a stud brothel fantasy. He has a barber pole by the bed and the bed itself has mirrors above and behind it; there isn't really a headboard – but a big black leather padded section beside the mirror. He has a velvet patchwork blanket which I swear must cause some of his migraines. I walked in…Starsky was lying on the floor – he looked like he was kissing the 'phone; but his legs were still in the bed. I gathered him into my arms and pulled the blanket around his shoulders and waited for the ambulance to arrive.

He was deathly pale but he seemed so peaceful. If I couldn't see the gentle rise and fall of his ribs I wouldn't have believed that he was still alive. I felt for his pulse; it was fluttery and weak.

4.45am

The medics finally arrived. I was too worried about Starsky to chew them out. I helped one of them lift him onto a gurney and they covered him with a blanket and strapped him in. That's when I understood how bad it was. I insisted on sitting with him in the ambulance.

We've been a team of five years now. Now and then we rehearse each other about how we would break the bad news to the family. Now I pictured Starsky's mother weeping over her favorite son…and I knew I wouldn't be able to do it. I'd tell Al, or Rosa; they could break the bad news, not me.

5.05am

I was beside the gurney as they wheeled him into the examination room in Emergency. I couldn't see the doctor and I asked for him twice before he smiled reassuringly and stepped forward. "Go and deal with the admissions procedure detective. I'll look after your partner."

I filled out the forms and gave Dobey's number at Parker Center as a contact. It took about a half hour to deal with all their dumb questions; then I was free to go back to Starsky.

But they wouldn't let me back in. I went to find coffee; I tried to read a magazine that had been lying around since before they built the hospital; I walked up and down and I fretted.

I decided to try to rest. I sat in one of those uncomfortable chairs that are designed specifically for hospital waiting areas and tried to sleep. Now and then I was aware of people walking past me; entering and leaving the room where Starsky had been taken. No-one stopped to fill me in.

8.10am

The doctor came out of the room and I bolted over to him.

"Can I see him?"

He gave me that look that medics throw when they have bad news. I saw my old man do it enough times; explaining to some jock that his knees were shot or telling the widow the bad news.

"I need to ask you some questions."

He broke it to me. Starsky had been poisoned and he had twenty four hours.

"Does he know?"

"He asked me to tell you. He says he hates soapy scenes."

The hell he does! Dave Starsky will sit going gooey eyed over all those brave sad moments in movie history. You know the moment in Now Voyager when Bette Davis turns those big eyes up to the moon? Starsky sniffles! On the other hand when it comes to David Michael Starsky the story is different. This is the man who managed to keep it from his mother (a typical semi-clairvoyant yiddisher momma who can hear her son sneeze in Bay City while she is still in New York) that he was in a hospital in Hawaii for three months learning how to walk again.

I went into the room expecting to see him with tubes and stuff coming out of him and an oxygen mask. He was lying quiet and still watching the monitor out of the corner of his eye. So calm and yet inside I knew he was fighting already.

The doc told him that his heart seemed to be OK so he could sit up. Starsky sat on the edge of the exam couch and watched me for a second. He was looking to see how I'd reacted to the news.

The doc said Starsky should rest but I knew that the last thing he was going to accept was sitting back and waiting for death to come knocking on his door. They say a cat has nine lives; well I figure Starsky must have a feline guardian angel somewhere because I've seen him come close to the one a couple of times in the past five years and I only know about the injury that brought him home from the war – for all I know he came close more than once out there.

I understood that Starsky was going to need me whatever had happened. He was going to need my strength the way I used his to kick the habit.

I'd been strung out on horse by a mobster who was a jealous lover. I managed to get away from them and Starsky found me collapsed in an alley. He took me to Huggy's and nursed me and fought me and kept me alive while I got over that terrible agonizing craving for the drug. I have a memory of his thumb caressing my neck the way a mother tries to soothe a sick child. Starsky was my strength; my lifejacket in the roiling waves that were trying to pull me down into addiction. Leaning against him, hunched into his embrace, I was aware of something else; I've often noticed how he can communicate in total silence – only his eyes 'speaking' but then, I felt more, I felt him transmitting his love and his furious refusal to give in to anything. I know that he fought off death more than once – and now somehow that was coming through to me. If I trusted his strength I'd survive.

Now I knew it was my turn. Keeping him going as he bled to death in the backroom of a restaurant wasn't anything on what was happening now. This time there was no hope.

Something inside me snapped. I'd grown up believing that my father was some kind of superhero; not the kind Starsky followed in comic books and Saturday afternoon matinees, but a life-saver….a doctor. My mom would tell me how marvelous he was and I believed her; I guess I kind of worshiped him – but at the same time I was aware of the fact that he expected me to follow him and I didn't want to. Now my rebellion was coming back. I raged against the way they seem to be able to sure anything until you really need them.

Starsky looked the doc in the eye and asked him if he could guarantee that by staying in the hospital for tests he'd improve his chances of surviving.

The doc shook his head.

So what did Starsk expect? I could have told him that they were going to test in the dark – that the analysis of the blood around the needle mark had told them all it could and they knew fuck all more to save him. But Starsky was in one of his Mr. Reasonable moods. He defused things by explaining to the doc that our job was to go out and find who did this and why and, with luck, find the formula so that they could find the antidote. He told the doctor that if we hadn't got anywhere by 10pm he'd come back and let them do what they wanted to him.

Round one to Starsky and Hutch – we were back in action.

Well almost.

Starsky sat and looked at me and asked "where are my pants?"

My brain yelled 'oh shit!'

"I brought your watch." I said – God knows why!

My subconscious started telling me what an idiot I was. My partner was telling me how he couldn't believe that I didn't think to bring his clothes. He was ranting on about having to go out on the streets without his pants, his gun and his dignity. I tried to counter it by pointing out that maybe instead of getting help for him I should have wasted time choosing from his collections of frayed; faded and tight-shrunk jeans.

He threw me another of his looks. I didn't need to be a mind-reader to know what was going on behind those fiery eyes. Before I could say anything else he was off; storming down the hospital corridor; the gown flapping open behind him revealing that he did at least still have his pajama pants on.

He stopped at the door. "Where's your car?"

"I came in the ambulance with you."

He rolled his eyes and walked back to the nurses' station. He flashed his best lop-sided smile at the dragon lady on duty and used her 'phone to call a cab.

9.55am

Starsky dressed; I think he made a point of taking his time choosing his jeans. It must have been a new pair; they weren't torn; and they weren't tight enough for the denim to have faded to reveal every contour of what was inside. He grinned at me as he zipped up. "I do have jeans that aren't cruddy." He winked. He grabbed his gun and slipped his holster on before topping everything off with his bomber jacket. He sometimes calls it his good luck jacket – but I don't know why.

The weather was kind of cool that day – one of those days when the bay area gets sea mists and the main part of the city further inland broils under a smoggy sun. I had a high neck sweater on and Starsky had a T-shirt and shirt under the jacket – but neither of us was overdressed for the day.

He grabbed his car keys. I hesitated. "Are you sure we shouldn't take my car?"

Again; the eyes had it. I bit my tongue. If Starsky only had another twenty four hours he was going to spend as many of them as he could in his beloved Torino. The dying man's last wish. I followed him down to the car.

He slipped in behind the wheel and listened to the engine growl into action. I let him savor the moment. Then we set off for Parker Center,

Driving down one of the streets between Starsky's place and PC we saw Huggy. Huggy is a man of many parts and careers. Not satisfied with being the owner of a thriving bar he likes to wheel and deal on the side. He looked smart in his jacket and white hat and big shades.

Starsky threw a three-sixty turn and we pulled up in front our favorite dude.

Huggy's face when Starsky told him said everything.

10.30am

As Starsky drove I grabbed the mike and asked R&I to have all the files we'd worked on in the past five years ready for us.

Back in the hospital Starsky had remembered two things about his assailant. He had a dirty laugh and Starsky was pretty sure he knew him. That meant it was someone we'd either put away or hampered in his normal day-to-day illegal business.

Starsky parked in the lot behind Parker Center and we ran up to Dobey's office. He already had a pile of files on his desk and someone from R&I returned with more every now and then. Dobey had also told Cheryl, the lab technician, to work with the hospital on the analysis of the poison.

I slumped into the armchair and Starsky took a chair up close to Dobey's desk. The three of us started to go through the files. I don't really know what Dobey and I were looking for but I guess Starsky hoped to see a familiar face.

The files piled up and I kept stealing a look at Starsky; he was concentrating and that was a danger sign. That's one of the differences between us. I have to really read a file – study it and assimilate the information in my mind. Starsky has a talent for skimming a page – zooming in on the info he needs and taking it in quickly. But now he was taking a while to look at each photo. He sighed

"Eleven thirty six".

11.36am

Starsky made it sound like a countdown on the Doomsday clock. Dobey made a remark about always knowing he was a clock watcher. Starsky! Sure he watches the clock, he's irritatingly punctual! Dobey looked at him and I guess he saw the same drawn look that I did.

"It must be bad, he called me Dave."

"The things some people will do to be on a first name basis." I said and bit my tongue straight off. In other circumstances that might have been funny but Starsky's terse "yeah" told me that I'd goofed. I was saved by Cheryl. She had some news for me.

Cheryl is great lady, she works in the lab here and to be honest I've been trying to get her for a date for the last six weeks; her dad is a chemist out at the University. I hope maybe the old man could help but he hasn't been on good terms with her since her brother died. He didn't return her calls.

She gave me a rundown on what she'd found out so far. The drug attacks the central nervous system. What she told me sounded like a lecture I should have listened to in biology at High School. It spelled out Starsky's last hours – sweating, short of breath with fuzzy vision he was likely to stagger and collapse into death's arms. Cheryl could give him something if he had pain – but no antidote.

I wasn't ready to let it happen that way.

I asked her to try her dad again and she promised to do what she could.

I went back into the office. Starsky had a bit more information. The guy was white; thirty five to fifty….and don't forget the dirty laugh!

Dobey saw what we had all missed. He was going to the computer room to tell them to eliminate all the women, the blacks and anyone known to be in hospital or prison or out of town.

Starsky continued to leaf through the files. I listened to his breathing – it seemed ok.

11.50am

We had a lead. Three names out of twenty possibles: Vic Bellamy, Janos Martinez and Al Weddell. Bellamy was a pusher that we'd arrested a couple of years back; he'd done his time and was back out on the street. Janos was a pimp turned porn filmmaker who got his kicks beating up the girls on camera. The third guy was a dealer in a big way and he ran his own lab.

R&I had an address for Bellamy. Starsky was on his feet and out of the office just like normal.

12.20pm

Starsky parked right in front of the entrance to Bellamy's apartment block. As we went up the stairs I though I heard him wheezing a little. And it seemed that he wasn't coming up as fast as usual. We took our positions and I knocked.

"Just a minute"

Who was he trying to kid – give him a minute and he'd take the fire escape!

I kicked the door open and Starsky covered me. I stared at Bellamy and I heard Starsky's disappointed sigh.

Bellamy was in a wheelchair and his leg stuck out straight in front of him encased in a cast.

I don't think you want to hear the string of obscenities Starsky muttered as we went back down to the street!

As we left the building he slipped. He missed a step and nearly fell. I looked at him again – he was sweating.

I suggested that maybe I should drive.

"What and kill both of us?" He walked to his side of the car.

He was really beginning to sweat by now. Even though it was mid-day the temperatures hadn't made me wish I wasn't wearing a sweater. Starsky was really sweating. He dabbed at his face and looked at the droplets on his hand in disbelief.

I radioed to Dobey to tell him to scratch Bellamy. They still didn't have anything new for us and I blew it; and Starsky played it to the full. He told Dobey I was feeling skittish!

Next on the list was Janos. No, Dobey still didn't have an address for Janos; but he asked if I had an address for Sweet Alice.

Starsky didn't say 'dumb question' but it was twinkling in his eyes.

Alice's apartment was our next port of call.

As we drove away from Bellamy's place I saw the clock on the dashboard. Nearly one o'clock and Starsky hadn't said he was hungry; that meant he was feeling worse than he was going to admit.

We got to the apartment complex where Alice lives and I told Starsky to go wait at the front door while I went round back. Like we thought, she had a customer with her and as soon as Starsky knocked on her front door the guy came out of the back carrying his shoes.

Alice is sweet; sweeter than sweet and as ever I had to remind myself that I was in her apartment on business not pleasure. She had an address for Janos, on condition that he never found out who gave it to us. As we left she noticed how bad Starsky looked.

"Do you have a fever?" she asked him. He shot me a look that said 'no!'

"Yeah" he said as he walked out of the door.

Starsky sat for a minute to get his breath. I didn't comment. I didn't really want him to think I was watching him.

"You hungry?" I asked.

"Not really, I feel a little thirsty but …." He stopped to mop his brow again. "Shit it isn't that hot today is it?"

"No." I tried to keep calm but Starsky heard it anyway.

"Level with me. It's beginning to take effect isn't it; Cheryl told you what to expect didn't she? Hey Hutch I can read you like a book and you've been watching me like I'm a stake-out."

I told him what Cheryl had said. He made a little gesture with his head – like he was swallowing the information and sighed. "Just as long as I know what to expect."

He drove to a place where he knew I'd find something I thought I could eat without food-poisoning. I ordered a chicken salad sandwich and a side order of coleslaw. Starsky looked at the menu and grimaced slightly.

"Eat something," I said, "you may need it."

He ordered a pastrami on rye with mustard and no other trimmings; and a big coke. He managed to eat about half the sandwich before pushing the plate away. "I can't Hutch; it's like chewing cardboard." He drank the coke and went off in search of another one. Was I imagining it or did he stagger slightly as he walked away.

2.30pm

I insisted that Starsky take a few minutes to relax. Maybe I needed to too. We weren't far from Venice and I suggested a little walk along the beach. Starsky looked at me out of the corner of his eye. "Which movie is this?" he quipped. He parked down by the place where the muscle men show off.

"Would you look at those guys?" He said with a chuckle. "Who wants to look like the Incredible Hulk?" Starsky has muscles to that most guys would be proud of. I've never seen him work weights; he's just a naturally athletic type and I guess the army finished off what High School football had begun. The truth is that he is way stronger than any of those guys with their showy biceps; all bulk and no stamina. Watching him as he walked ahead of me, hands thrust into the side pockets of his jacket, head held steady; I knew what he was thinking. I was too. Did he have the strength to go on right to the end?

Suddenly he turned and I saw the sunlight reflect on a tear on his cheek. I didn't say anything, just touched his arm as he walked past me.

"Let's go find Janos." He said gruffly as he opened the car door.

I've known Starsky a little over six years now. I've seen him deal with all kinds of horrors and tragedies. I've known him continue stone-faced as he dealt with a child-killer and I've seen him weep like a child over a lost girlfriend. He'll crack a bad joke at the wrong time or he'll be deadly serious when others are laughing. He has ghosts and demons that I've never been allowed to know about, and others that he has shared with me in an attempt to exorcise them from his mind. He can be child-like and naïve or complicate and down-to-earth. He's never pretended that he isn't scared; and he's never lied to me either. At least I don't think he has. He said he can read me like a book – but I still kind of need subtitles when I'm watching my buddy; and subtitles never give you the whole dialog.

Right now I could sense it; he was angry. Angry because he wasn't ready to die yet, I guess.

I can understand that.

We pulled up outside the address that Alice gave us. It was a storefront film studio, with a notice on the door telling visitors to go round to the side. The access was blocked by a couple of goons that under normal circumstances Starsky and I would have dealt with in, seconds. But I wasn't sure these were normal circumstances. I figured we should provoke them and get them off guard. Starsky picked it up like a ping-pong game. We traded insults about them and finally one of them stepped forward. As I fought my adversary into the yard I caught a glimpse of Starsky landed a sharp left in the other one's gut before giving him an over-arm wrist twist and throwing him into the gutter. I shoved my goon out after him and we started to cross the yard.

Did I see him go down – or did I sense it? One minute Starsky was behind me the next minute he was on the floor writhing and gasping.

He was holding onto me for grim life and the pain made his whole body tense and jerk. I told him to try to relax and he gripped my arm even tighter. He was suffering and I half expected the pastrami to reappear on my shoes. Then the convulsion seemed to ease off and Starsky fought back. "I haven't felt this bad since Aunt Rosa sent me her special chicken soup," he gasped. I felt him relax a little more – the humor was his way of hiding the misery. "She makes great Won Ton though." He said and I doubted that very much. From what I've seen and heard, and god help me, tasted of Rosa's cooking I could understand Starsky's taste in burritos.

He finally got it together and we went into Janos' little den of vice. I decided to strong arm it and knocked over few bits of equipment; Starsky made it to the other side of the room and only I knew why he was leaning on the piece of set so heavily. Or was it only me? Did Janos know? He claimed to have been on his way to the studio at four in the morning. He looked worried though. I wasn't sure I believed him. Starsky needed to hear him laugh.

Well give the guy a break, he tried. He made even more or an effort when we started to play catch with his twenty five hundred dollar zoom lens. That made him laugh; good and deep and from the belly. I looked at Starsky; his face gave me the answer before he said "unfortunately that's not it." He threw the lens to Janos and we left.

Right up until now Starsky had been trying to push it away. The collapse a few minutes earlier had spooked him; he couldn't fight it. He sat on a low wall and looked so dejected.

"It hurts, oh god it hurts."

Earlier I told him it was harder for the one left behind and he'd snapped that off. But right there and then I saw myself at his graveside. I saw myself standing there with his mom and his Aunt and Uncle and maybe his kid brother ….I saw myself weeping for the best friend I ever had; the man who pulled me back from the fire more than once. Starsky had been there for me so often in the past few years.

One of the first things he did was to literally pull me through – he hauled me over the wall on the first attempt at the assault course then spent patient hours training me to get over it myself. He took me out to get roaring drunk the day my divorce came through ad I didn't know whether to laugh or cry….by the time Starsky and Huggy had finished with me I didn't even know who I was let alone how I felt.

He got me through my first dead body and the stink of the tenements on our beat. He was there. Silent and sometimes not physically present – but Starsky had been there for me more times than I could remember.

One thing he hates is self-pity. I caught him looking at me out of the corner of his eye.

"Give you a dime for them."

"What happened to a penny?"

"A dying man can be generous. So?" He flicked his eyes at me in encouragement. I couldn't say it; couldn't admit that for a moment I'd been wallowing how much I'd miss him? Couldn't admit that I'd been selfishly thinking of how I would deal with it and not how he was going to face up to it if he had to….

"Twelve hours already" His voice snapped me back. He was beginning to look drawn and scared. He did the old routine of the half full bottle and for a moment I was tempted to take him to the Pits and empty a bottle or two so that he wouldn't notice it happening to him.

I knew he wouldn't agree to that but I talked him into coming back to my place so we could plan our next moves.

We sat in my cottage and tried to think of all the places Weddell could be. Starsky remembered a couple of pushers who had sub-contracted from him but when we got there the cupboard was bare – one of them was clean – and addicted to Jesus instead; the other was in Cabrillo State – his mind blown clean out of his brain by the stuff he'd been pushing and sampling.

During those hours Starsky would stop and take a breath now and then, holding his stomach and grimacing. Twice he tripped or slipped and I had to wait while he recovered. Finally he handed me the keys. "My head aches; Hutch. It's worse than a migraine; it's all down through my jaw too." I knew the symptoms of neuralgia and I understood that the central nerves were beginning to be affected more severely.

I talked him into going back to the lab to see if Cheryl could do something for him

9.03pm

Where had the time gone? It was dark outside the laboratory window and Starsky was still perched on a stool slumped against a refrigerator that Cheryl kept lab samples in. She'd been working for three hours now and still hadn't found the right formula for his pain.

I stared at the glass bottles and flasks filled or half-full with colored liquids. Nothing was actually bubbling or steaming but it reminded me of one of those horror movies where the mad scientist creates his lethal mixture. Cheryl was in trouble because of one of the composites the hospital had told her was in the poison. If she got the dose of pain killer wrong it could combine with the poison and put Starsky out of his misery in seconds – permanently.

"I'm scared Hutch."

So am I buddy, so am I.

Starsky has a twisted sense of humor sometimes; now he was joking about being some kind of super cops. "Running down a few alleys…" I took up the game "Kicking down a few doors…"

He laughed – it was wheezy and strained but he meant it.

Finally Cheryl was satisfied with her work and she filled a syringe. Starsky was almost too far gone to care. I bared his arm and she gave him the shot, as she did she apologized that she couldn't give him more without it sending him to sleep.

"That's all I need" he said groggily before cracking about how his arm was really getting it. Neither Cheryl nor I had the heart to tell him that the poison had been injected into the other arm. For a horrible moment I wondered what he could feel or remember any more.

Dobey brought us down to earth with a bang. Weddell was dead.

I led Starsky back to the squad room and we sat quietly together. He didn't even want the water I offered him.

Some old lady came in asking for me. I told her to see another officer and went back keeping Starsky with me.

Remember what the doctor said about Starsky and soapy scenes? Well in the next few seconds the suds were like to overflow and flood the whole of the third floor of Parker Center.

Starsky reached out and held my hand. His grip was still good but his hand was clammy. He looked up at me from below those long dark lashes of his and said quietly "you're my pal Hutch." That came from the heart. I gripped his hand in man; felt his strong slender fingers as they entwined with mine – but he wasn't holding me as tight as he did back in Janos' yard. He was getting weaker by the minute. He managed a line about leaving me his cowboy boots; I resisted the temptation to say I'd rather have his boots than his Adidas trainers.

The old bird started squawking at me again. She recognized one of the photos.

I went over to take a look. It was Bellamy. And the kicker was what he'd bought; the materials for making a leg cast.

Starsky was already on his way. He had to hold onto the furniture to get to the door and I had to help him down to the car. I still had the keys and he went straight to the passenger door.

I nearly lost control of the rear end on one of the corners but got there in one piece.

Starsky lost it on the stairs. The man who had once raced an elevator up and down could hardly drag himself up the two flights to Bellamy's apartment. He fell and for a moment I thought I'd have to leave him there; but Starsky heaved himself to his feet and joined me at the door. He stood swaying like a drunk punching shadows while I looked into the room; Bellamy's fake cast was on the chair and his wife was crying. She told me he'd gone up the roof. I propped Starsky against the wall and told him to wait for me.

Up on the roof I tried to reason with Bellamy but all I got was bullets for answers. He started to taunt me; telling me if I killed him than Starsky would die too. I was covered by a skylight and I couldn't see him any more. Then I caught sight of him; he was behind a ventilation stack and aiming at me.

I hear the rapid firing of Starsky's automatic pistol and Bellamy fell before he drew a bead on me for the last time. I went over to check him out – he was dead.

Starsky was fighting for his breath. He was gray and his face covered with sweat. He was still holding the gun in his two-handed lefty's grip but it was swinging around and I knew he couldn't see what he was doing. For all I knew he couldn't see at all. He forced a wan smile.

"What did you have to do that for?" I asked

"It seemed like a good idea at the time." He said.

Then he collapsed. His eyes rolled up and he slumped against the wall; I caught him in time and held him. His body was completely limp. I was looking for a pulse when I smelled the giveaway odor of urine. In that split second I was sure that I was looking at a dead man.

I hauled him back down to the Bellamy apartment and called the ambulance.

1.50am

I waited until the doctor told me it was time for them to take Starsky upstairs. He gave him a shot and they lifted him onto a gurney to be transferred to ICU.

I walked out of the ER and tried to focus on all this. Only yesterday Starsky had been his usual irritating brilliant and loveable self. He'd chased some punk across a park and finally thrown a tackle worthy of the Superbowl final. He'd spent an hour in Huggy's telling some of the silliest dirtiest jokes I'd ever heard in my life – and all with a deadpan expression.

And now he was lying in ICU with an oxygen mask on his face and trying not to breathe his last breath.

Dobey was waiting for me; he'd given up.

"Well that's it then." He said.

I couldn't believe my ears. We'd been working on his team for five years; we were favored honorary uncles to his two kids. Only a few hours ago he's lost his calm enough to call my partner 'Dave' and now he was writing him off.

All over, nothing we can do.

I said it wasn't over for me; even if it came to the last two minutes I wouldn't give up and I still had two hours. I was beginning to sound like Starsky – angry determination. It must have made Dobey think again because he asked me what I wanted to do.

Then it came to me. We'd missed something simple. Bellamy was too uneducated to have pulled this off on his own. There had to be something in his apartment that would lead me to his accomplice.

2.20am

I thought she'd never stop whimpering that she was sorry. Bellamy's widow stood there sniveling while I tore the place apart. In the end I grabbed her and pushed her onto the couch. "Who helped him?" Finally she said something about the university.

Idiot, Hutchinson I yelled at myself. In all the panic neither of us had seen it. Bellamy was a dealer and he'd done time after Starsky and I broke up his distribution ring. One of his pushers was killed in a struggle when my gun went off by accident.

Cheryl's brother.

3.15am

I drove to the campus and called for reinforcements. Cheryl's car was already parked in front of her father's house. She opened the door; she was surprised to see me. I don't think her father was. He tried to threaten me with the campus police; I told him they were searching his lab. He argued a bit more. Cheryl tried to reason with him but he wouldn't hear. As far as he was concerned Jerry was an innocent victim of police brutality.

I could hear ticking and turned to see an antique clock with an enamel dial; the ornate hands were pushing towards three am. Starsky had less that an hour to live.

I tried pleading with him but he sat there insisting that Jerry was a good boy. He kept looking at his desk drawer and I knew that the formula was in the room. I challenged him; I was guessing but I said that he had dose for me too. He opened the drawer and pulled out a syringe.

2.50am

I caught sight of the clock as I ran out of the house with the precious syringe. I found one of the lab technicians participating in the search and he gave me a safe container for the syringe; then with an escort of black and whites with their lights flashing and sirens wailing I drove like a man possessed to the hospital.

I went and waited by Starsky's bed while they analyzed the formula. I looked at him lying there; his face was half covered by the oxygen mask.

His eyes were half-closed and he seemed to be pleading with me to save his life.

3.30am

The doctor was reeling off the formula as he prepared the syringe. He injected the precious fluid into Starsky's veins and we waited.

And waited.

3.45am

Starsky's eyes fluttered open and he tried to raise his hand to pull away the oxygen mask.

"Hi buddy." I said

He grinned.

"I hope you brought my pants with you this time."

11.40 am two days later

Dobey and I were going through some of the paperwork on the case when the door opened and Starsky came in. He looked pale and tired still and he was leaning heavily on a cane.

He insisted that the doctors were wrong and he was Ok to come back to work – didn't look like it to me. He pulled out his pills and I went to get him some water.

The 'phone rang and Dobey took the call. His face began to cloud over but Starsky didn't seem to notice anything.

Dobey told me to pick up another 'phone; "you need to hear this."

Huggy was describing the paradise that he'd booked for Starsky to spend his two weeks recovery time.

I gave Starsky his water.