If I Can't Have You
It looks like things are about to go from bad to worse for Starsky. It's Brook's fault not mine!
Chapter 10
Starsky pushed out through the bathroom door and all but fell into the entrance hallway leading from the bar outside. He took a moment to lean back against the wall where the bank of phone booths shielded him somewhat from the view of any bar patrons. He sucked back a couple of huge deep breaths and willed his heart rate to go down to a manageable level. All he wanted was to sag against that wall and never move but the rational part of him knew that he wanted out of here before Ryan exited the bathroom behind him.
He pulled himself up and made for the pool room where he had left the other two.
Nick and Luke were still at the pool table, messing about with what was left of a half-hearted game, their level of intoxication having long since outstripped any of their pool-playing prowess.
They looked up now as Starsky pushed into the bar but given their state of far from complete sobriety they did not immediately fathom his unrest and shocked and disheveled appearance.
"Hey man – what took you so long hey? Thought you'd gone out the back way! Where's Ryan? We are waitin' here for the grand champ – "champchips" ! Luke was by far the drunker of the two.
Nick took a longer more measured look at Starsky.
"Hey what's up man? You don't look so hot Dave"
"Yeah – not feelin' too good. Musta' had too many beers too quick in the middle of the day. Need to get back to the warehouse and just crash. I will be ok when I sleep it off." He tried not to give them direct eye contact. A part of him felt terrified that they could read in his eyes and his face what Ryan had just tried to do to him and he himself had not yet had time to assimilate any part of it. He was still bleeding adrenalin and it was all that was keeping him upright.
I – I will just get a taxi. "
Starsky kept moving past the two men and made for the outer part of the bar and the less than salubrious outside street. He knew he could hail a taxi outside somewhere. Even if he couldn't grab a taxi, he thought, he would be more than happy to walk.
Anything to put Ryan Lancaster behind him.
He was not entirely sure what he was going to do when he got back to the warehouse, not believing that it would be any longer possible to remain sharing the small room with Ryan after what he has just gone through with him back there in the bathroom.
He would just get back there for now, sort out his head and deal with Ryan in due course.
He felt such a profound sense of dissociation with himself, a man he thought he had known and human behavior as a whole that he was barely capable of moving forward.
The aching need to be by himself was overwhelming.
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Ryan left his lip bloody intentionally. Looking in the grubby mirror above the basin he could already see the swelling where his the flesh was split.
It would suit his purpose.
Starsky had just changed the game plan and Ryan was going to have to improvise and improvise very quickly. He had worked too long as a police officer and struggled to hard on the career ladder to let the risk of being exposed as a homosexual to taint his position. He had survived more than six years staying in the closet while being active in the force.
His sheer size, physical prowess and overt masculinity had never allowed anyone to suspect Detective Sergeant Ryan Lancaster as being gay. To his knowledge no one was aware of his proclivities for the same sex.
Not that Ryan was ashamed of his sexual leaning. Not at all. He embraced it and reveled in it beauty and joy and always found that his sexual preferences gave him a sense of penultimate satisfaction.
But he was a cop too. Possibly, he realized, a cop foremost. A proud one and a damn good one.
The term "cop" and "homosexual" simply did not go together – not in his lifetime anyway.
Forward thinking and the sexual revolution was one thing, but nowhere in the Cop's charter was it acceptable to be in a community minded place, defender of justice and firewall to crime and simultaneously carry the title of closet gay.
Being revealed as a homosexual might not ostensibly cost him his job, but he knew that in reality, it would cost him just about everything but the title. He would instantly lose the respect of the other men and any real potential of career advancement. He had seen too many other homosexuals in the force that had come out, wrongly believing that the force would have a modern and broad-minded acceptance of the newer breeds of sexual liberation.
Their hopes were soon dashed.
The police department was a micro-culture of its own and in its world; machismo was tantamount to the "good cop's" public image. No one wanted the city's finest parading in the guise of a "fairy" or a "queer".
There was no other alternative for Ryan now. Starsky had rejected his advances. Perhaps he had misjudged him. Perhaps he had held out too much hope that Starsky would let go of his hold on Hutchinson and try out someone new.
Perhaps he was wrong altogether about the two of them – Starsky and Hutch.
Whatever – Ryan had more than put his cards on the table and Starsky had more than refused to play the game.
Even more worrying, was the fact that Starsky had called into question his credibility as a police officer.
He had waited long enough for Starsky to have left and for the two of them to wonder about his extended absence.
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As Ryan dabbed at his split lip he heard the voices he had waited for. In the mirror he caught the reflection of Nick and Luke, who had come in search of him.
You brought this on yourself Starsky. All you had to do was try to love me. Even for a little while – just loved me for a little while. But you could not give me that.
Not even a small piece of what I wanted.
What I needed from you.
He prepared himself now for what he had to do.
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Luke approached him first. Although quite drunk he was able to see that Ryan had been hurt and he moved quickly over to where his runner partner was leaning dramatically into the basin as if supporting himself.
"What the hell Ryan? What's going on? Did you and Dave just brawl? "
He steadied Ryan now who made as if he might stumble.
Nick grabbed some paper towels and ran the water over them, handing them to Ryan to push against his lip.
"You two are pieces of work! Come in to the john and go at each other. What gives man? The job giving you too much heat? Dave looked pretty wiped out too. We just saw him out front. He said he was catching a taxi back to the warehouse"
Ryan looked around the bathroom as if he was thinking about whether to talk in here of not. The walls were paper-thin and the bar itself would soon turn into a seething carpet of tricksters as the afternoon crept into evening.
Right now at this time of the afternoon, they were amongst the very few clientele in the establishment. Ryan could not risk this going any further than the three of them.
"Look lets get out of here. We need to get out of here before it gets any busier. Come on lets leave – NOW! "
Nick looked at once confused and more than a little wary.
"What? What gives here Ryan? Why the big rush to leave?"
"Luke, Nick…. there is going to be some shit going down soon. We need to get back to the warehouse and meet up with Kalzo."
He put his hand up to touch the blood on his face.
The blood shed between a brotherhood.
A brotherhood he was about to turn his back on.
He responded to the look of confusion in the other men's faces.
"Turns out our Davey is a cop".
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Half an hour later the three of them sat in Kalzo's office. Two of Kalzo's closest men hovered in menacingly in the corner. Kalzo had a look of pure fury on his big face and it was harder to tell which was the reddest feature – his bulging bloodshot eyes or his tight florid face.
He had slammed down two quick shots of whiskey when Nick, Luke and Ryan had filed into his office fifteen minutes earlier with Nick heralding the way – his lines delivered like he was doing the first take in some cheap B grade gangster movie.
Ryan would have cringed except Nick's line was beyond frighteningly real.
Ryan just wished he was not one of the leading roles.
"We got big problems Kalzo – big problems. You had better clear your desk - this needs your attention now."
"Nick this had better be important - there is a lot of shit to get straightened out here before tonight so you had better hope you are not wasting my time here."
Within minutes he had heard the news and within minutes he had opened his filing cabinet, pulled out the bottle of whiskey and threw back two neat shots.
Back to back.
"How the fuck? How did you find this out Ryan? Why didn't know any of this already? He was your friend.
He brought his hypertensive face up close and personal to Ryan at that moment. Kalzo's blood pressure was almost audible.
You brought him here to us you fucker!"
"Look Kalzo – I do not know him that well and have not know him for long either. He had a tight undercover gig. Must have been under deep for a while because no one I know had a whiff of it. What can I say? He's freakin' good. "
He kept up the story, which flowed easily now – blurring some real details with his own false ones.
He had to keep up the momentum.
"I started to get suspicious couple of days ago when he went out by himself late at night to a bar. Gone for a while. No reason as we supposedly buddies you know. But well, he just didn't want me along. Got a bit strange when I pushed it to go with him.
He blew out the next line, Kalzo a seething mass of expectation in front of his eyes.
I think that was when he was making contact with outside."
Ryan went on.
"So I started to watch him you know. Watch him closely and watched how he acted and what he said and stuff."
Nick came in now. "Yeah – that's right! I saw you really staring him down when we were all having beers in the warehouse. Wondered why you were giving him the evil eye. Mentioned it to Dave myself. Shit, come to think of it, I damned well warned him about you looking at him with daggers you know? I'll be damned!"
Ryan thought back to that event and smiled inwardly. Well good to think that his leering admiration of Starsky had paid off for the wrong reason – stupid idiot Nick couldn't read a covert signal if it was painted in words for him. This dick was not long for the world if he couldn't even pick pure lust from suspicion. In the dirty world Nick was playing in, a man needed the wits and the skill to be able to discern body language. It was often more useful than any loaded gun.
"Yeah – that's right Nick. And I think that St – Dave was feeling the heat from me, the pressure you know? He started to get a bit pushy with me – angling to see what I might know about him."
He had to give something tangible here for Kalzo to buy his story that he had uncovered Starsky's identity. Suspicions and feelings were not enough.
"Anyway when we were at the bar earlier and he left the game to go out to the john, I was thinking something was going to go down. I followed him. The phones out there at the back near the john? " He looked at the other men for concurrence.
They nodded.
"He was making a call to the outside. He didn't see me and I was able to catch a bit of it – not all but enough. He was talking to some other cop – a partner I think because he sounded friendly with him. He mentioned the shipment and tomorrow being the "big day". …Said something like, yeah like he was half-joking with this other person - 'will have it all sewn up by tomorrow. Might even get a commendation for this one – the captain better be happy.'"
Kalzo's face was turning from shades of red to purple.
'"What happened then?" the gravel pitch got even lower now as the boss man looked toward his men in the corner. "Yes" his eyes said - we need some action here.
"When he had put the phone down he freakin' made me! Don't know what made him turn around but he did and he caught me standing there. Cops instincts I guess."
Ryan was improvising now…
"He looked damn angry and asked me how long I'd been there. Had to cover my tracks fast because I couldn't let him know his cover was blown and he didn't know how long I'd been there or if I had heard him. So I bullshitted fast. Said that I had been there long enough only to work out he was saying goodbye to a male friend – a very special, close male friend you know? Made some comment about him being a dirty bastard for sneaking out to call his lover. Said – 'so Dave is this what you got up to the other night when you went out, phoning your lover on the sly. I heard you, you were making out on the phone with your man weren't you? Didn't take you for a queer'. Christ I was sweating, I don't know if he bought it, that I had not heard what he said. But I just kept laying it on, joking that I had caught him out the back on the phone talking dirty to his queer lover."
Ryan took a breath – not sure how this story was going down with Kalzo at all. Nick was looking like he was swallowing every morsel of it and Luke looked nonplussed – but Kalzo – Ryan could not be sure about this big boss.
"Anyway next thing, he dragged me into the john and tried to start beating the shit out of me. Didn't expect it – just out of the blue. So I am guessing that he bought my story. He slammed me and then said – you don't tell anyone in this job that I am a queer right? Figured that he was trying to make it look good – that I had been right about what I had heard and he wanted me to think that was all there was to it."
Nick finished the story. "Then he came storming out of the john and said he was leaving – getting a taxi back here."
Kalzo looked at the men.
"So where the fuck is he now?"
"I am thinking he must be back in our room. If he really believes that I did not make him and thought what I said I thought I heard, then he is not worried. "
"You had better hope that is where he is Ryan, because you have come freakin' close to fuckin' up my whole operation here. If he knows you made him for a cop this whole house of cards is gonna come down."
"Boss! Got that information for you" a small man, enthusiastic in his approach to please Kalzo put his head around the corner of the office. Minutes before Kalzo had called him in and asked him to check the room where the two men were staying and to find out who saw " Dave" return from the bar earlier.
"Shoot".
"Apparently he pulled up here in a taxi a short while ago and headed straight for his room. Been there ever since 'cos no one has seen him walk out past the front area. There ain't no real way out the back."
"Well I guess its your lucky day Ryan because if he had gone squealin' you were dead meat."
Kalzo turned to the two thugs in the corner.
"Keep the room under watch. He leaves I need to know."
Nick was visibly excited now and bouncing on his toes. Ryan could tell that it wasn't just the remnants of the earlier beers in his system that was causing his hyped up mood. Nick had been helping himself to some more of Uncle Kalzo's party favours. Just before they came into this meeting? The boy had a taste for it that was for sure.
"So what now eh? What do you want us to do Kalzo?"
Visibly relieved now, Kalzo busied himself pouring another shot before he turned to the men.
"What the hell sort of question is that you idiot? Didn't you get any of the brains from your father's side of the family? Sometimes I think your dumb bitch of a mother is all you have in your thick head"
Luke cackled with laughter and Nick just looked pout faced and sullen.
Kalzo turned now to Ryan.
Ryan already knew what was coming.
"You brought him here to us. You take him away. Understood"?
He stood now, finished with his council. His sweeping meaty hand dismissed them all.
"But make one certain Ryan – do it now before he gets a chance to figure he's been made. Take Nick with you – he can show you what we do with loose ends – that is something he is good at – at least".
Nick lost the sullen edge and regained his previous excited look.
"I want all of you back here on deck for later tonight. The trucks are coming in and I want no mess-ups. Now clear out all of you. I don't want to see your faces again until you have taken care of this problem".
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Ryan stood to leave, nodding at Kalzo.
It is done.
"Don't worry boss. I have had experience with this sort of thing a few times in my life too so the matter will be well taken care of, you can count on me"
If only he knew half of it. If only he knew how many people he had killed in the line of duty.
Starsky will be just one more.
As he waited for Nick to join him outside his head was full of screaming mixed thoughts.
I have to do this, there is no turning back.
I have no choice.
It's either Starsky or my career. Starsky or me.
He had already formulated a rough plan as to how he was going to make this all work, he only hoped that having the unstable factor of Nick along for the ride would not jeopardise everything.
Outside Kalzo's office now, Ryan pulled the crazed Nick aside, a little less roughly than he really wanted to.
"Talk to me Nick. What does Kalzo usually like to do with this situation"?
"Simple man. Dave's a runner isn't he? A dirty low life runner like you and me. It's a bum deal this job, plenty of risks, plenty of people wanting to take you out. We'll just go to one of the usual places we do the deals with, near one of the buyers Dave has already had contact with in the last few days. Make it look like he riled up the buyer and didn't play nice. There is a particularly bad dude Dave and I have been running to last couple of days. He has some nasty friends. We'll take Dave near his meet place and work him over real good. Cops will think he's been done in by one of the players. Happens all the time in this job. "
"And then, what do we do with his body"?
"What always happens to two bit hustlers like us who nobody cares about? Just leave him on the street where he'll be found eventually by some low life local. In the end it will all connect back to the contacts that he had been dealing with in his job as Kalzo's runner."
Nick smiled and then picked nervously at his scabbing knuckles, no doubt permanently scarred up from his frequent use of his fists.
"Shame really, 'cos I was just sorta' startin' to like the guy. Tough you know. Just cool and tough. Took my shit and gave me no razz like Kalzo's other dudes. Huh! And all along he was a freakin' cop! Might have known. I am usually spot on with picking cops you know. Nothin' usually gets past old Nick here!"
Want to make a bet on that you dickhead? There is one looking you in the eye right now and you have absolutely no idea.
No idea.
"Well Nick, like him or not you heard your uncle. We've got to take him out."
"OK – lets do it man"
"One thing Nick – let me do the talking ok? It was my make and I get the right to call the shots on this one. Besides – I owe him for ripping up my lip. "
"Sure man, I have plenty of dudes I get to work over so he's yours. I understand that you need to show him what happens when he messes with you."
"Are we just gonna take him now or stage another job and get him to the site?" Nick wanted to know.
Ryan already knew that he would have little hope of dealing with Starsky once he got into their room, not after what had happened between them back at the bar. He needed to go in with Nick under the guise that one of the two covers had been blown - Starsky's.
At least that way Starsky would go willingly enough with him to the site. Starsky, Ryan knew was far too good as a cop not to follow that procedure and to protect his partner's cover despite his own having been blown.
He did not know how he would contain the whole scene if Starsky thought for a moment he had turned on him. His own cover would be blown in an instant and he would go down as quickly as Starsky – Nick would waste no time in getting back to Kalzo.
The whole deal was precarious and Ryan felt rivers of sweat running down his back.
How had it come to this?
If he had more time he might have been able to plan something a little less open ended, because right now he felt like he was making this up as he went along.
Only one thing was for sure.
He could not allow Starsky to reveal what he knew about him to the department.
Right now this was the best option Ryan had available to ensure that this did not happen.
"No – no pretense. We just take him now. We'll get him out to the car by gunpoint and do the job at the site so we can just leave him there ok? Have you got your gun?"
Nick patted his side and smiled.
Ryan lifted his fist and banged on their door.
"Dave, open up its me!"