Chapter 11

Sorry for the delay with this chapter, again... And thanks again for the reviews so far! On with the story...

***

The next time Starsky woke up, it was almost afternoon. Expecting Hutch to be back at the room by now, he sat up slowly and looked around. The curtains were still drawn, which struck him as odd, but bright late-morning sunlight intruded into the room through a small gap in the curtains, and there was still no sign of Hutch. An uneasy feeling nagged at him, and he sat up slowly, wondering where his partner was. He stood up cautiously, stifling a groan of pain, and after making certain that Hutch really wasn't in the room, he quickly got dressed, gritting his teeth as he forced his injured arm into his clothes without Hutch there to help.

A knock at the door distracted his attention, and Starsky debated with himself as to whether he should answer it, finally deciding that he could open the door carefully, and defend himself if it turned out to be someone he shouldn't open the door to. However, on opening the door a friendly-faced, older man presented himself.

"Hi," the man greeted Starsky. "I'm Doctor Weiss, and your Captain tells me you're in need of some help, but that we need to keep it quiet."

Starsky smiled self-consciously. The man seemed harmless enough, carrying a black doctor's bag, and Starsky waved him into the room with his good arm. "Yeah, come in," he acknowledged.

The doctor glanced around the room, assessing his surroundings, and then motioned to Starsky to sit down. "Sit there, detective, and I'll take a look at that injury," he ordered.

Starsky obediently sat in the only chair in the room while the doctor crouched beside him, and allowed the man to pull down the neck of his shirt to examine the wound.

"It's not too deep, detective," the doctor reported, glancing at Starsky over the top of his glasses. "But I ought to dress it properly."

"Yeah, whatever you think, doc," Starsky agreed.

He kept up his bravado while the doctor cleaned and bandaged the knife injury, then listened to the man's instructions.

"Use that arm as little as you can," the doctor ordered, "and try to change that bandage at least every day if possible. Would you like me to give you a prescription for painkillers?"

Starsky thought about it. With Hutch missing, he wouldn't have time to go and collect a prescription; besides which, it wasn't too bad. "Uh, no, thanks," he told the doctor. "I'll be fine."

"Okay... well, if you change your mind..." the doctor wrote down his phone number and handed it to Starsky, then picked up his bag and headed for the door. "Call me if you need anything."

"Will do, doc," Starsky waved with the piece of paper. "Thanks a lot."

***

Starsky made his way unsteadily out of the room, intending to go and call Dobey and see if Hutch had reported to him that morning.

Five minutes later and he had found out that Hutch had not called in that day; Dobey had heard nothing since the day before and assumed that they had been unable to call. Both Starsky and Dobey were now very worried, and Starsky thought he had an idea of what was going on. "I think whoever really committed that murder and wanted to frame us, they took Hutch, for whatever reason. We were talkin' about it yesterday. And somethin' happened last night... not sure what, but we both crashed early. Possibly we were drugged."

"You could be right," Dobey grunted. "I'll see what I can find out. In the meantime, you stay out of sight yourself."

"Captain, I'm not gonna just sit around here while no one knows where Hutch is!" Starsky snapped.

"You'll do as I say, Starsky!" Dobey shouted back, then, lowering his voice, he added "We don't want you both out of action. You'll be no good to anyone if someone catches you."

"Well, I guess..." Starsky responded slowly, acknowledging the truth of what Dobey said, although he wasn't happy about leaving Hutch to whatever fate had befallen him. Dobey didn't know, but Starsky had no intention of staying in the room doing nothing. "Is there any news on the case?" he asked quietly, conscious of the other people around in the street.

"We've got a guy in for questioning. He was spotted acting suspiciously at the hotel last night," Dobey informed him.

Starsky smiled slightly. "That reminds me of a guy I saw, the last night I was there. He was 'acting suspiciously'. Turned out he was just looking for his girlfriend."

"Huh. Maybe it's the same guy. Listen, I'll try and come by later, and see if we can work anything out."

They discussed the situation for a couple of minutes more, then Starsky thanked the captain, hung up and returned to his room, where he proceeded to write down anything he could think of that would help, in preparation for Dobey's next visit.

***

Gary had allowed Liam to have his fun, and Liam had spent the time while Hutch was unconscious to hit and kick him as much as possible, yet without doing too much damage. Gary had told his brother that they needed to get their revenge against this man, and frighten him as much as they could in payment for what he had done, and what Gary had said must be right, so Liam had tried his best to please his brother. Now, Liam was looking forward to Hutchinson waking up, so they could continue their work.

After a few hours, Hutch did wake up, groaning as he registered the beating that must have taken place while he was out. Everything hurt, and he guessed that these guys weren't finished carrying out their revenge for whatever supposed injustice he had committed against them. He was right. He found it difficult to think too, it felt as though there was a fog over his mind, and he was no longer sure what was going on.

Noticing that the cop was awake again, Gary appeared in front of him, and showed him the needle he held in his hand, dangling it in front of Hutch's face. "Hello, Hutch. You want some of this?" he asked, smirking evilly.

"No, I don't," Hutch moaned, weakly trying to slap it away. Even through the fog in his mind, he knew that needles were very bad. He could vaguely remember another time when someone had forced the contents of a needle on him. However, he couldn't stop Gary from grabbing his arm, and Hutch flinched violently as Gary forced the needle in roughly, emptying it of its contents.

Gary knelt down in front of Hutch, while Liam watched with interest, and held up four fingers of his his hand. "How many fingers?"

Hutch blinked and tried to focus. "Four."

"No, there are five. Tell me you see five."

"But there are four." Hutch was convinced of this.

"We'll work on that. Now, what if I told you we'd got your partner?"

"Starsk..."

"Yeah. Starsky. We got him. Now, you be a good boy and do as we say, and Starsky will be fine. But if you don't, we'll find a way to punish him, and he'll know it was your fault."

"Not my fault..." Hutch found it difficult to think, let alone speak, but he still knew he had to defend himself and his partner.

"Yes it is. Because you killed that man in the hotel, remember?" Gary stared at Hutch intently.

"No..." Hutch shook his head.

"You did. You killed him, and the sooner you realise that, the better it will be for everyone."

Hutch didn't remember much about that time, his memories seemed to be an incoherent blur, and he couldn't remember what was real and what was imagined. What if these men were right? He didn't think they were, but how could he know? He and Starsky had hated that Thompson, and the man might have blown their cover. Wouldn't it have made sense for one of them to do away with him? This man, his kidnapper, had told him that he had killed the guy who had fought with Starsky, and hoped to blame it on the original killer. What if that was true? But then, why couldn't he remember?

Gary was speaking again. "We've got Starsky, you know. He's in worse shape than you are. Now, I want you to admit that you killed that man, and we'll let him go."

"I didn't ..."

"You did. Admit it, or we'll carry on beating Starsky."

Hutch knew they were in trouble, but Starsky wouldn't want him to give in. But if these men were hurting Starsky, he couldn't allow that to continue. He was confused, he didn't know what to do, and he cried out in frustration.

Gary was very satisfied with the way his plan was progressing so far. The drug was working, and Hutchinson was becoming more uncertain about what had really happened. Soon, he would damage Hutchinson's mind further, and he would have his revenge.

***

TBC