Chapter 26

The bar was busy when Starsky walked into it. He had no recollection whether it was a bar he had used before. It was about a half a mile from his house and it was the first place he'd come to. Pushing open the door, the warm fugginess and the smell of beer seemed to welcome him and without making eye contact with any of the other patrons, he pushed his way through the crowd to the bar and found a stool close to a corner where he could sit and lose himself in the alcohol. The barkeep neither questioned him nor greeted him like a long lost friend. He merely poured out the string of five shots of tequila interspersed with three beers without a word before going back to serve his other clients.

Starsky reached for the fifth shot glass and missed. Concentrating hard, he managed to get his hand co-ordinated and tried again, his fingers closing around the slippery surface as he brought it to his lips and downed the fiery liquid in one. It burned the back of his throat and the vapours curled up his nose making him cough and he wiped at his mouth with the back of his hand. The tequila was having no effect on his mood. The brunet tapped on the bar top.

'Set 'em up. Beer and tequila chaser' he snapped before sliding off the stool and heading for the john, shoulders hunched and head down as though every care in the world were heaped upon his shoulders. Starsky could never remember feeling this way before. Well, Starsky couldn't remember a lot of things and yet the unease and the disquiet in his head felt harder to bear than any cuts or bruises. In a word, the brunet felt as though he were on the edge and the next step would take him plummeting down into craziness and a long stay at the State funny farm. If beer and shots weren't working, maybe the next step was a line of two of coke?

As the curly headed figure disappeared down the corridor to the bathrooms, one of Doc Isaac's heavies leaned on the bar and crooked a finger at the bartender. The man nodded that he'd seen the heavy, finished serving the drunk at the bar and headed over.

'Yeah?'

The hit man handed the barkeep a $5 bill. 'I'll pay for the beer and tequlia and take them over' he said quietly. 'Keep it between the two of us huh?'

The bar tender nodded. He was too used to pickups in his bar and too busy to care about what his patrons wanted to do in the alleyway out back. Without a comment, he took the money and poured the shot and the beer before starting to serve another customer. The hit man took the glasses around the Starsky's seat and as he shielded his movements from stray eyes, he took out a small capsule of powder and emptied it into the tequila, using his forefinger to dissolve the fine grains. With timing a Broadway musical would have been proud of, he melted away into the crowd just as Starsky came back from his visit and sat back down at the bar. Morosely, the cop picked up his beer and sipped at it slowly.

The alcohol was not have the desired effect for Starsky. The dream he'd had; that almost-real nightmare had shaken the brunet to the core. Had he been "normal"; had he been feeling well and he had his memories in tact, then he would surely have been able to shake off the dark thoughts inside his head, but without any past to ground him or give him a point of reference Starsky was left wondering whether he really was a cop, or whether what Doc Isaac had told him was true and right now he was living the lie. The curly haired man slammed his fist down on the bar top, making the glasses jump and jingle and the man sitting next to him shuffle a few inches further away. The pain helped. The pain made his mind sharper and yet it wasn't enough. Starsky could hardly go around slamming his hand against hard objects for the rest of his life just to give him a second of clarity. Knocking back the rest of his beer, Starsky grabbed for his shot and flung his head back letting the powerful drink slide down the back of his throat like molten lava. At the table right across the bar the two heavies grinned at each other now that the fish was well and truly on the line and got up casually making their way across the crowded room towards their target. On the bar stool Starsky felt the hairs on the back of his neck prickle and he looked around blurrily.

The bar seemed to have become fuzzy around the edges. There were no straight lines in the room any more and the air inside the room seemed to have taken on a misty quality. The voices too had changed. Before there had been a loud hum of general noise but now the sounds seemed somehow sharper and harsher making the brunet want to put his hands over his ears to close out the sounds. Starsky looked at the glass he'd just slammed down onto the bar. Inside, not quite dissolved by the alcohol there was a tiny residue of creamy coloured powder. GammaHydraButirate? Rohipnol? The date rape drugs were in their very infancy and yet Starsky had had experience of them before

Starsky glared around the room looking for the flake who'd spiked his drink and yet at the same time as he was looking for a fight, his legs were turning to rubber and his heart was racing a mile a minute. As he lurched off the bar stool and leaned heavily against the bar Starsky felt strong hands take a hold of his around his upper arms, supporting him from falling. He tried to shrug them off.

'Gerrof me' he slurred looking up into a grim face.

'Shudup and come with us' the grim face hissed at him.

Drug fuddled as he was, Starsky tried to pull away again. 'Back off man' he managed to grind out as he felt himself pulled towards the doorway.

'Hey, what're ya doin'?' the bartender called out. Grim faced man looked up.

'Our friend's had too much to drink. Drowning his sorrows ya know? We're gonna make sure he gets somewhere safe where he can sleep it off.'

The bar tender nodded. He'd seen it all before -some goon with a broken heart and enough money in his pocket to blot out the memories. There was always one in his bar and usually it was he who had to deal with the tears and the aftermath. If someone else was going to save him the task, then so be it. 'Get him outa here…..and maybe a pot of black coffee?'

Grim face nodded. 'Sure thing.' He and his friend took one of Starsky's arms each and propelled the brunet towards the door. Starsky felt himself being dragged and he tried hard to pull away. He knew he shouldn't be going with these men and however much alcohol he had inside him, it didn't stop him from realising that this could only mean trouble and yet try as he might, he could not get his legs to obey his commands. In fact as he was drawn further out of the bar, the cooler air hit him and seemed to activate the drug in his bloodstream. The world took on a sickening sideways quality. Colours blossomed around the edges of Starsky's vision as though he were seeing the world through a rainbow. His breath sounded loud in his ears and he could hardly feel the hands on his arms as though his body were becoming numb. Most worrying of all was the fact that the brunet felt his inhibitions flowing away with each step closer to the waiting black car. He should have been fighting. He should have been yelling for help or trying to reason with his captors and yet the further away from the bar he got; the harder the hold of the drug on his system, the easier it seemed to be to just go along quietly and see what these men wanted.

Finally the entourage reached the waiting car, its engine still ticking over as it stood at the side of the road. As Starsky was pushed against the cool bulk of the metal, a rear door opened and a familiar voice sounded from inside.

'Ethan! Thank God we found you! We've been searching everywhere for you.'

The two goons holding Starsky up pushed him towards the open door and Starsky managed to keep his eyes open long enough to recognise the face of Doctor Isaac sitting inside. He allowed himself to be manhandled onto the back seat where he sat gasping for breath as though he'd run a mile. The door closed and the two goons got into the front seat and prepared to drive off. For one moment of clarity Starsky panicked and his hand reached for the door handle.

'No….gotta….gotta go. Get out…gotta…..'

Doctor Isaac reached for Starsky's arm and pulled him back gently. 'Ethan what's happened to you? You're safe now. You're with me.'

Drunkenly the brunet turned to scowl at the doctor. 'M'not Ethan. M'Sssstarsssky. Cop. I'm a cop.'

Sadly Isaac shook his head. 'Where have you been Ethan? And what have they done to you? Is it Hunt? Has he fed you these lies in order to save himself? We've been so worried about you but you're safe now.'

Starsky slumped against the seat. All his fight had gone. All his newly formed memories seemed to flowing away from him. He'd been prepared to believe that he was Dave Starsky, cop and friend to Ken Hutchinson. He'd been prepared to try to forget his alter ego and now, right when he thought he could see a glimmer of clarity on the horizon, here was Doc Isaac telling him that what he'd been prepared to believe was just another tissue of lies.

Who should he trust? Hutch, the man with the earnest crystal blue eyes? Or this doctor, the man who'd found him in the car wreck and put him back together again? With a strangled sob of forlornness, Starsky closed his eyes and allowed sleep to claim him. Maybe when he awoke things would be clearer. Until then…..

The doctor watched Starsky sleep like a surgeon would watch the monitor during a difficult operation. He sighed deeply, thankful that the first part of his plan at least had gone as he'd hoped. It would have been good to get the earphones back onto his subject as soon as the drug had been introduced into his system but in the car there was no facility for doing that. Now it was a case of getting Starsky back to the clinic and trying to convince the cop that he was once more Ethan Quade in the hope that Mr Da Luca, Mr Lake and himself could finally finish what they'd started.

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Hutch made his own way home through the evening to his apartment at Venice Place. As he pulled up outside the building and walked quietly and tiredly up the steps to his front door, he reached automatically above the lintel and grabbed the key, jamming it into the lock. The door swung open and the slightly stale smell of weeks old garbage hit him full on. With a grunt, the blond opened the window, filled his watering can with water and plant food and made his way around the various potted plants that were wilting in their pots. The Adiantum capillus-veneris looked particularly sorry for itself and the blond man spent minutes pinching off the dried and shrivelled leaves and talking soothingly to the fern. It calmed him and for a while Hutch lost himself in the small domestic duties, allowing himself to give his full concentration to the plants and blocking out the more worrisome matters of Starsky's health and the small fact that he was about to star in America's Most Wanted.

Gardening over, Hutch poured himself a bourbon and sat down on his sofa, eyes closed as he breathed in the heady aroma of the liquor and allowed his mind to wander. The evening conversation with Starsky had put Hutch's mind at rest somewhat. As soon as the brunet had entered the Metro and had been greeted by people who knew him and who seemed genuinely pleased to see him back, he had started to relax a little. When Hutch had finally pushed Starsky through the door at Ridgeway, the smaller man was ready to talk…..and to listen. The hour long conversation had been both difficult and at the same time rewarding. For the most part Hutch had done all the talking, but Starsky had listened intently, had asked relevant questions and when Hutch had departed, the blond felt that progress had been made and come the morning, Hutch felt sure that Starsky would once again be his curly haired ebullient partner of 6 years.

It had not purely been the anger and the accusation in Starsky's eyes that had hurt Hutch so much back there on the island. The fights they'd had had hurt physically for sure, but what hurt Hutch more than anything else had been the lack of connection between them. He had spent the past six years inextricably tied into Starsky's life and to suddenly have that part of him ripped away was like having his right arm amputated. Hutch had felt at once incomplete and incredibly sad.

Realising he was getting maudlin, Hutch put the glass down on his table, hauled himself out of his seat and headed for the bedroom. Tonight, slobbish as it was, he was too tired even for a shower. Instead, Hutch slipped off his shirt and shorts, eased himself between the sheets of his bed and was asleep before his head touched the pillow.