Starsky

Hutch was at the wheel of the Torino. His knuckles were white as the stripe on the side, his face slick with sweat. His upper lip stiff with determination. I couldn't see it, locked in the trunk and all, but I could imagine the look of fear and concentration on his face. This was no pleasure drive.

I tried to see the positive in the situation. What my partner frequently called the striped tomato had to have looked impressive speeding down the docks engulfed in flames. I'd worked my hands free of the ropes and felt around the inside of the trunk enough to know that the back was just as hot and on fire as the engine had to be.

I didn't know if Hutch knew that I was also lying over top of the gas tank. He'd been shouting reassurances from the moment he figured out that I was locked in the trunk, but he'd gone silent once we hit the docks. In my mind's eye I could see the dock workers dodging and the piles of crates, parked cranes and dollies and that. Plenty of obstacles to drive around. Required greater concentration.

We hit something and I flew up, the side of my face and my already abused left arm contacting the red hot trunk for a little too long. It hurt, like the world's worst sunburn. It made me miss my leather jacket. I'd had it on before I'd been knocked out and stuffed into the trunk. They must have stolen it. Damn kids.

The sound of the boards against the tires turned into this staccato whump, whump, whump. The sound of nothing but air under the wood of the pier. It'd been my idea to go to a car wash. Have an attendant hose the car down. Or even a fire station. Hutch had decided that our fastest route was to drive into the ocean.

I was beginning to secretly suspect that this was his way of forever ridding me of my beloved car when we went airborne.

Hutch shouted something, probably telling me to hang on. There was nothing I could hang on to. I floated for a bit then slammed into the wall in front of me. My knees, elbow and face took most of the impact and I instantly felt a gush of warm and wet from my nose.

Then the heat was dying, cool water was seeping into the cloth interior. No…not cool. Cold. Freezing water. I banged a fist against the one wall of the trunk that wasn't going to burn me. "Hutch!"

Nothing but the gurgle of water, and waves hitting the metal side and sighing with steam. I'd taken a hard hit against the front of the trunk.

What if Hutch had been knocked out? Thrown against the windshield and now we were sinking…and he was drowning.

I banged harder, screaming his name over and over. The blood from my nose was splattering over my lips. It was harder to breathe and the water was collecting, rising by inches.

"Hutchinson, you dummy, cars don't float!"

I reached around until I had the tire iron and started pounding on the trunk latch. Maybe the fire had weakened it and compromised the integrity of the latch. Maybe I could pop it open somehow. Maybe trunks should have an emergency release catch on the inside in case this sort of thing happened again.

"This sort of thing…" Bang, bang! "A cop getting knocked out by hoodlums and stuffed in the trunk of his car." Bang! Bang, bang! "Cause that sort of stuff happens all the time."

I was panting. Either the pain in my head, or my nose, or the water rising, was forcing the air out of my lungs faster than I liked and I felt dizzy. "Hutch!"

Bang, Bang, Bang, Thud!

I stopped. Gasped as I lay in the cold wet, feeling the sea water lap around my ears, sick to my stomach from the blood I was forced to swallow. But I'd definitely heard a thud. "Hutch!?"

Thud, Thud.

"Hutch!" I couldn't help the high pitched laugh of glee and pounded harder at the trunk latch. I could hear scratches and the screech of metal straining against metal on the other side of my prison. Somebody trying as hard as I was to get me out.

I thought about what that would mean. We were underwater, which meant that what little air I had left would disappear entirely once that trunk opened up. I'd been tossed around by water enough times to know that it could do a lot of damage.

I gave the trunk latch a few more hard whacks and backed against the front wall of the trunk, my lungs working twice as hard as before. There was nothing in the trunk to protect me from a sudden wave of salt water. Most of what was in the trunk was going to come with that wall of water to crush me. I had to protect my head and could only think of one way to do it.

Hutch

The dock workers had moved fast. I'd never seen a better crew of guys in my life. Even as the Torino sped toward the water I could see a foreman directing a crane to follow us. Hitting the water hurt. I'd ducked down on the seat in the last moment to avoid the glass from the windshield and ended up slammed under the dash.

The car sank. I thought I heard Starsk screaming from the trunk and grabbed the crowbar from under the passenger seat just as the passenger compartment filled with water. I swam through an open window and surfaced for a second before gasping for air and going back down. Terrified that I would lose the car. Lose Starsky.

My head was throbbing as I struggled deeper down, found the trunk, heard the pounding from the inside. I dug the claw of the heavy iron into the top of the trunk but the water slowed my swing. I wouldn't have the leverage that Starsky had inside. I could hear him…vaguely, through the pound of the water on my eardrums. He was alive, conscious…aware that he was drowning.

I sank with the car, trying to wedge the crowbar into the tiny gap between the trunk and the tailgate, trying to fake the leverage that I needed to pry the trunk open. I was running out of air. My lungs were burning, but I couldn't risk surfacing again and losing the car.

I nearly had a heart attack when I felt something brush against my shoulder. My first thought was shark, barracuda…something with teeth.

I didn't expect two dock workers guiding the hook of a crane toward the underbelly of the car. I didn't know if the crane I'd seen could handle the weight of the waterlogged Torino, but I wasn't going to get the trunk open on my own.

And Starsky had stopped making noises. The shouts had stopped, and the sound of pounding. The trunk was still and I had to breathe.

One of the dock workers made the choice for me, dragging me up by the sleeve of my jacket. I watched the taillights of the Torino fade and choked on salt water, fighting the spasm of my diaphragm. We broke the surface and I immediately started to cough and retch. I would have drowned if the dock worker hadn't been holding my head up.

The moment my skin began to dry the burns came alive, worsened by the salt. There were some small blisters forming on my hands and my face felt tight and fragile. I could barely climb the ladder to the dock surface and by the time I got there I could only lie on the rough wood.

One of the men shouted, "Get me some fresh water! Blankets, towels. Come on guys move!"

"Am…amb…"

"Yeah buddy, yeah." He mumbled then shouted, "And somebody call an ambulance."

"Par…part…Starsk." Even my lips felt swollen and warm, the fire suddenly alive again against my skin. I tried to speak more clearly, saying his name. "Stars-ky. Partner."

"Partner…you got a partner we should call?"

"Trunk."

"Aw…Jezus." Then he had the same note of panic in his voice as I'd had, shouting at the men working to raise the Torino from the ocean. "This guy says there's somebody in the trunk!"

Voices answered, sounding distracted. I couldn't make them out and didn't want to try. I didn't want the bad news.

"Hey…hey, buddy, stay with me. Hey…are you guys cops?"

I shivered…the wind was blowing and the heat in my face and hands hadn't made it to the rest of my body. I was freezing and on fire at the same time. I managed a nod.

The dock worker shouted again for the blankets then said, "I thought I recognized that car."

I couldn't stop the smirk. Rarely before had I felt that Starsky's taste in cars would work to our advantage. Somehow, this time, it had. I needed him there, so that I could tell him. So that I could see the reassuring smug look on his face.

I shivered and spat water on the docks and tried to force my eyes open. My vision was swimming, but far ahead I could see a bright blue crane fishing for a giant red trout at the end of the pier. Reeling it in slowly, water rushing from the open pores of the windows. The men were cheering, gathered in a semi-circle as the crane slowly rotated, setting the car down nose first, guiding it onto its wheels again.

Scarred, streaked with black and still steaming, the Torino looked like a baked Russet potato on melted tires.

I had to be there. I wouldn't wait to have someone tell me, sadly, that my partner was dead. I had to be on my feet, by his side, one hundred percent certain that he was going to be okay. The dock worker fought me for two seconds before he saw something…maybe the look in my eyes, the determination on my face.

He called a buddy over and the both of them got me to my feet. It hurt, but I made it.

Men with tools were working on the trunk latch, one forcing it open with a long crowbar while the other took a torch to the metal. Fire…to save us from what fire had already done.

The trunk flew open before I could get there. I kept moving closer, watching as one fire reddened arm appeared, then a blue sneaker, a tuft of dark curly hair. He had blood down his face and the front of his shirt and his nose was swollen. Burns lanced up and down his left arm and the left side of his face. But his blue eyes were open. He met mine and color returned to his otherwise pale face.

Then I lost track of time, a blur of movement. Blankets and fresh water and crates being moved to get the two of us out of the sun.

We were waiting for the ambulance, Starsky leaning against my left side, head forward so that he didn't have to choke on the blood from his broken nose.

"Car wash."

"What?" I managed, trying to focus on anything but the pain of the burns.

"A car wash." Starsk enunciated through the swelling, tilting his head just enough to shoot one blue eyeball my way. "Or a fire station. A deep puddle." My partner's eye rolled back behind his eyelids and he winced. "None of those things occurred to you?"

So that's what he'd been shouting from the trunk. Once I'd latched onto the plan of driving the car into the ocean I'd ignored everything else. I was trying to remember whether or not we had passed any of those things when Starsky interrupted me with a cough.

"No…instead you drive my beautiful car into the ocean….off a…a twenty-foot high pier."

I rolled my eyes and closed them. Even my eyelids felt burned. "Hey, it worked, Starsk. Just let it go."

"You know what else would've worked? A fire hydrant."

"The car will be fine, Starsky…a blow dry and some paint."

"Leather seats, Hutch. Do you know what salt water does to leather seats?"

"The same thing it does to a leather jacket I would imagine." I mumbled, remembering a previous dunk in the ocean. He'd blamed me for that one too.

Starsky groaned and leaned his head on my shoulder.

The men who had reeled in the Torino had been fishing through the trunk and under the hood to make sure the fire was completely extinguished. I blinked when one of them easily lifted the extra tire out of the back.

"Did that come loose?"

"What?"

"The tire." I said, pointing at the one remaining whole wheel.

Starsky cleared his throat and his voice faltered for a moment. I wasn't sure if it was the broken nose or the sorrow for his ruined car. "I uh...I loosened it."

I turned my head carefully so that I could get a good look at my partner.

"Tire's got air in it." Starsky said, looking at me like that statement alone was supposed to explain it. "That trunk was gonna open up and all that water was gonna rush in. I figured I'd….float us to the top."

Starsky withered a little under a glare I hadn't intended. I was envisioning my partner, trapped in the trunk of his own car, desperately trying to save me with a tire...a tire that would have sunk the both of us to the ocean floor.

"That is the stupidest thing you've ever said."

Starsky gave a hurt look and protested, "You don't know that. It coulda worked. And if it weren't for your brilliant plan I wouldn't have needed to-"

"Tires don't float, Starsky!"

"How could you possibly know that? When have you ever tried to float with a tire? That's right, never! So don't sit there like some kind of living, breathing encyclopedia and tell me that tires don't float." Starsky had started jabbing at the air to emphasize his point. The move must have hurt him because he dropped into silence, trying to hide the wince.

I sighed and let my head rest back against the crate. The air around us was cool, the waterlogged cloths on my arms like heaven. It would hurt like the other place to move, but I could hear the ambulance siren getting closer.

"Do you wanna talk about how you got into the trunk...before the ambulance gets here?"

"No, I do not."

That was it. I'd hurt his feelings, forgetting that he'd already suffered a heap of embarrassment in just the first few hours of the morning. Attacked by a gang of teenaged boys, stuffed into the trunk of his own car, then the car was firebombed. All of it had happened in the amount of time it took me to duck into a restaurant for our breakfast.

And it had been my idea to park in the alley instead of on the street.

"I'm sorry I made you park in the alley."

"What?"

"I said...I'm sorry I made you park in that alley."

Starsky's head lifted and his eyes drifted open, probably thinking back over the past hour. He wobbled a bit but gave me a smile and said, "S'all good, partner." It came out "paht-nah".

A medic popped into view, squatting down to look us over before they wheeled a bed into our shelter. We must have looked a mess judging from the shock and sympathetic pain on his face. Ever the friendly one Starsky spoke up beside me.

"Hi there. Say listen, what's your name?"

"B-Billy."

"Billy...have you ever tried to float a tire?"

I groaned and rolled my eyes.