Collandra

By TLR

Starsky was missing, and I knew what Hutchinson wanted when he came through the front door of my diner.

I didn't have to be psychic to know the man was under duress. The scarcely-contained panic in his eyes, sheen of sweat on his upper lip, and walk that was threatening to be a run at any second, told it all. But my gift-or curse-of second sight, told me just how much duress he was under.

It was a physical thing. His love as strong as death. I could feel it radiating off of him like a fever.

I'd felt it off of Starsky once before, miles away (like a nuclear explosion!) when he was going after those goons who had shot Hutchinson through a window when some kidnappers saw cops in front of a place when there weren't supposed to be any cops. Finding the kidnapped girl, with my feelers, was painful enough for me. Those images don't just flash across my mind like a slide projector. I live whatever's coming through my filter. Starsky's love almost killed me. It seized me behind the counter when I was turning the radio off. The music had been distracting me. I'd been concentrating on helping them find the kidnapped girl. And I didn't want the music to cloud my reception.

The images of the girl-the feelings of her-where she was-what had happened to her-were bad enough, draining enough-but when the goons shot Hutch through the glass, the impact of Starsky's emotion slammed into me harder than the bullet had slammed into his partner's chest. So hard I landed on the floor behind the counter clutching my chest. Paralyzed. Felt like I was having a heart attack. I couldn't get up for ten minutes. Starsky's voice as he pushed through the crowd to get to Hutchinson (MOVE OUT OF THE WAY! GET OUT OF THE WAY!) was pounding in my head like a sledgehammer. And then, when he realized his partner was unharmed (I thought you were dead), I could finally breathe again, move again, and get off the floor. Somebody had called an ambulance for me. And I'm glad they did, because I'd never felt anything like that before or since.

Until now.

I don't know what it was with those two. How they seemed to read each other like I read everybody. When one was hurt, the other got stronger. When one was down, the other took over, compensated, took up the slack.

"Collandra," he said coming through my door pushing a hand through his hair and taking my arm.

It was when he took my arm that I felt (grief)-(deadly)-(seething)-(implosion)-(dangerous)- (murderous)-the full effect of what he was feeling. Physical contact always sharpens the images, the moods, and the details of what I'm getting. And to add to that, when I concentrate hard, really focus in on something, it gets even stronger.

I tried to jerk my arm away from his grip. "Hutchinson, I can't focus on what you're saying when you touch me. It's too much."

Instantly.

He let go.

(Whatever you say, Joe)

(Whatever it takes to get you to help me)

(To find Starsky for me)

"He's been gone three days," I said.

It wasn't a question. I could read it from him.

"And," I went on, looking into his eyes. "You've looked everywhere. Huggy didn't come up with anything. Sweet Alice didn't. APB didn't. Nobody's called you with any demands. No clues at his place. His car's still parked in front of his house. He just disappeared. Wasn't at home the other morning when you stopped to pick him up."

"Will you help me, Joe? I don't know what else to do. I've looked everywhere. We've got enemies, yes, and a lot of people would like to see us dead. But we've made no special ones lately. No recent death threats. Huggy would have heard something like that. He's just . . . "

"Gone."

There it was. The change. I felt it. From death angel to guardian angel. From sinister to sunshine.

From pit bull to lion cub.

I thought he was going to cry right there in the back of my diner.

(God, Joe, I don't know what I'd do if he died)

Starsky's the only person that can tear him up like that. Twist him around until he's almost suicidal with grief and affection.

He held Starsky's leather jacket out to me.

I looked at it, not touching it yet.

Because when I touch personal belongings of people, I always get a stronger read. It's like a lightening rod. Attracting stronger images. Clearer ones. More precise. And I really didn't know if I wanted to get a read as strong as I was expecting to get from it.

I looked into his hopeful, serious face. "Hutchinson, I don't know about this."

He just stood there, holding the jacket out for me to take.

"Hutchinson, you remember what it does to me. When I found that little boy . . . and then the girl . . . I'm in their heads. I feel what they feel."

I waited for him to say something, but it was no good. He knew what it would do to me and he didn't care. He didn't care if it killed me. As long as I found his partner.

But then another thought, right behind that one: (Do you know how grateful I'll be, Joe?) (Can you read that from me?) (Because if you can, then you know I will die trying to find him)

He didn't have to say anything out loud. I sensed it all. And his pain was already bearing down on my insides like a runaway semi. What would Starsky's read do to me?

I looked around my own diner, almost for help, like I needed rescuing from Detective Ken Hutchinson and his partner.

But everybody was busy eating and talking and minding their own business, and I was left there with his uncompromising eyes on me.

There wasn't anything else in his head except for Starsky.

No thoughts of what time it was, or how tired he was, or how thirsty he was, or what he would be eating for dinner later that day. Because he didn't care what time it was, or that he'd been without sleep for three days, or that he'd had so little to drink and eat that he was becoming sick and dehydrated.

"Let's step out back in the alley," I said quietly, and raised my voice to the waitress, Lucy, behind the counter. "Lucy, take over and close up! I don't know when . . ."-(or if?)-" . . . I'll be back."

Lucy nodded and I led the way to the rear exit.

Hutchinson still carried the jacket. No way was I going to handle it until I was outside.

"Wouldn't hurt to have an ambulance on standby," I joked, but it fell pretty flat out there in the dirty alley behind my place.

(I'll call one if he needs one) was Hutchinson's next thought. Big of him. Like a sadist he would put me through sheer mental and physical torture to find his partner, but like a boy scout, would make sure I received medical attention afterward.

"Hutchinson," I tried for a half-hearted, transparent plea, "you don't really buy it, do you? You sure you want me to-"

He thrust the jacket at me, and the contact of that simple leather material against my chest knocked me against the brick wall. Not the material itself, of course, but what came to me, through it. The images-dark, sweat, smothery, wool, foul, nasty, blood-assaulted my senses, and like always, but never this intense, I wasn't Joe Collandra anymore, but David Starsky. Not in my back alley, but somewhere . . . somewhere else . . . where? Where are you, Starsky? Where am I?

Hutchinson's face disappeared from my vision. All went dark and I was falling, down, down, into a deep well, hollow, until I could no longer see the alley, or Hutchinson, or the brick wall.

I was gone.

I was Starsky.

Breathe.

I can't breathe.

Choking. Something over my head, my face. Someone's choking me. Yelling and saying something, but I can't hear what it is, what they're saying.

Breathe. Stay alive. Hutch will come. Hutch will find me. Come on, Hutch.

"Hutch?" I heard myself saying out loud, and it was too much like Starsky's voice. My hair was standing on end. I was frigid with cold. "Are you comin'? You comin' to get me?"

"Starsk?" Hutchinson's voice floated around me. My vision had faded to black, but my hearing was just fine, and I could still feel things-especially Hutchinson's painful grip on my arms. "Starsk? You okay? Where are you?"

Hutchinson actually thought he was talking to his partner through me.

There was so much intuition between them. So much perception. Psychic interpretation.

Of course he was. That's exactly what he was doing.

"Who has you, Starsk?"

Finally, the darkness passed, as if Starsky had lost consciousness.

And that was all.

No more thoughts.

No more images.

No more Starsky.

Quiet. . . . . . . . .

Quiet. . . . . . . . .

A respite for me. My chest was aching.

The black cloud was lifting, and color and sight were returning to me.

"Joe?"

I felt myself slumping down to sit on an old vegetable crate.

Hutchinson was kneeling down in front of me, shaking me, saying something.

"What?" I heard myself asking. My senses were trying to zone out again. I handed the jacket back. I just wanted it out of my hands. It was sapping me.

Of all the images I'd seen, of all the people I'd sensed, read, tracked, and found, I had never, ever,

spoken as them, or with the likeness of their voices.

"-your neck."

"What?"

Hutchinson was saying something and I'd missed it.

"What?"

"I said," he said staring at me and sitting down hard on the ground, "My God, you've got bruises all over your neck."

He had taken me to his apartment and put a cold compress on my head, and I was now arriving back at myself on his couch.

I didn't even remember the trip to his place.

"What happened?" he asked me.

"I don't know."

He sat on the coffee table in front of me, Starsky's leather jacket draped over one arm.

"You have to know, Joe. Something happened. You saw something, didn't you? Where is he? He's hurt, isn't he?"

"Hutchinson . . . "

I could hear the weakness in my voice, like an old man, and it scared me to death. He held the jacket out to me again. "Find him." "Look, give me time. I can't-"

"DO IT!"

"NO WAY! NOT RIGHT NOW!"

I was panting, he was seething.

"You want me to find him," I said in a hoarse, cracking voice. "You back off. I'm no good to you dead."

He stared at me again, especially my neck.

"You don't know what this does to me, Hutchinson."

He grabbed the front of my shirt and pulled me forward. "What's it doing to Starsky, Joe? Huh? Is somebody . . . " Something-emotion-caught in his throat. "Choking him like that?"

I relayed the vision. He needed to know. He would kill me if I didn't give him something to keep him off my back.

"Dark," I said with a wheeze, and reached into my back pocket for a handkerchief.

I coughed into it. Tried to blink away the red spots in front of my eyes.

He handed me a bourbon.

"Smothery," I added wiping my brow. "And yes . . . " My hand went carefully to my own throat, my voice harsh and whispery from the throttling. "Someone was choking him."

His head dropped. It just dropped, and he sat there in the silence, as if in prayer.

"But he's not dead," I told him. "At least, not now. I mean, that's what I'm feeling. He's . . . I think he's still alive."

"What else?" he whispered with his head down.

I knew he really didn't want to know. Didn't really want to hear. Or see my throat again. Or hear my choked voice. Because it was Starsky. What little I'd gleaned was already tearing him apart. It would be a torturous journey, for both of-

His thoughts invading mine again:

(I'd take it, Starsk)

(I'd take whatever you're going through if I could)

"No," I said out loud, and didn't care what he thought about it. "I've had a taste of it, and believe me, you don't want it."

His head slowly rose again.

"You don't know who? Why? Where? How? Anything at all, I can use it. Just give me something. Keep talking."

"Blood," I said, and each word that followed fell like a stone from my mouth. "Wool. Nasty. Sweat. Smell. Black. Hot."

"Indoors?"

"Outdoors. That much I can be sure of. He's outside. But he-"

I winced and shrank back into the couch, hands to my head. Something unexpected was bullying its way in.

Starsky was regaining consciousness again.

"Trapped," I managed to say through gritted teeth. I suddenly bent double and started to heave.

Hutchinson helped me to the bathroom but nothing came up.

An invisible blow to the stomach and I was on my knees gasping for breath-"Hutch-"-My hand clawing for him, my eyes trying to stay focused on him, but no good. I could hear him saying my name over and over, but I wasn't me anymore, I was his partner, somehow I was his partner, and I was on the floor, curling up, my hands going behind my back as if tied.

I went with it, rode on it, to see where it would take me. It was the only way to find him.

I lurched when a hard kick came to my stomach.

"Huh-"

Hutchinson was trying to pull me up, pull my hands around.

"Joe! What is it? Tell me! Is it Starsky?"

Choking again. Not breathing.

Hutchinson smacking my face, urging me to breathe.

"Out," I gasped as Starsky against the cold tiles. "Get me out." I tried to move my hands, but they felt bound behind my back. I couldn't move on my own. I'd been beaten.

And-as Starsky-was losing consciousness.

"Hutch," I whispered. "Help."

The boy scout knelt next to me, his hand reaching out-not to me, but to Starsky.

"Starsk . . . "

"Find me," I groaned. "They're gonna kill me."

I didn't know how much time had passed, but when I fully came to myself I wasn't on the bathroom floor anymore, I was lying on the sofa, and Hutchinson was sitting on the coffee table dabbing my face with some kind of antiseptic pads.

"You're bleeding," he said, and I detected the tremble (pale rage) in his voice.

I knocked his hand away and pushed myself to a sitting position. "He's unconscious," I mumbled.

"How do you know?"

"BECAUSE!" I screamed at him. "I'D BE DEAD IF HE WEREN'T!"

I pushed past him, even though he tried to keep me on the couch. I had to get up, I had to walk around. I wrapped my arms around my chest.

"I think I got some cracked ribs," I mumbled.

Hutchinson got up to follow me around like a tenacious blond Doberman.

"What did you say?"

"I said," I repeated in the same mumble-pain prevented me from raising my voice again, "I think I got some cracked ribs."

"How? Are you telling me that . . . "

I kept walking, he kept following.

"Joe, are you telling me that you're going through whatever Starsky's going through?"

"No. Not with the same intensity. No."

"But you're feeling it."

"I'm feeling a shade of it. A shadow of it. You think this has happened to me before? You think I know what's going on here? I'm getting more than I ever got before."

"Then why don't you know where he is? Why can't you get that? How can you-"

I grabbed the jacket just to shut him up and get it over with, clutching it to my chest, the force of it driving me to my knees.

"Oh God," I gasped as I doubled forward with my forehead on the floor, pressing my face into the soft leather. "They're back. They're back. They're back. They're-"

"Joe!"

"NO! YOU CAN'T DO THIS TO ME! HUTCH!"

Beating me into the ground. Down. Down. Into the dirt, the garbage, the-

"Gang of boys. Initiation. Kill a cop. Get a color. Be a man-"

Choking again.

Blacking out.

Hard to breathe.

Can't see.

Can't move.

It was over.

They're leaving.

They're finished.

"Garbage," I whispered, and sank face-first into the rug.

Something slamming closed overhead.

Done.

It seemed to be over, but I felt empty instead of relieved.

"The dump," I moaned to the floor. "He's at the dump. Mayo's Dump."

Hutchinson's hands hauled me up to my feet. "Is he alive?"

I couldn't answer. I didn't know.

He shook me. "Joe! Is he alive?"

"I DON'T KNOW! IT DOESN'T FEEL LIKE IT, HUTCHINSON!"

He pulled me out the door. I didn't want to go. I didn't want anymore Starsky. Or Hutchinson. I just wanted to lay down and sleep for a month. Or puke. Or die.

And like he read my mind, he said, "You're going with me. I want to make sure I find him once I get there."

Mayo's Dump.

If hell had a garbage dump, this had to be it.

Mountains of trash, wrecked cars, trucks. Burned out appliances. Mounds of useless and broken furniture. Rats scurrying around. Flies. Scavenger birds. Snakes.

And the smell.

Enough to gag.

And Starsky was here, somewhere, amidst all the piles and piles of debris.

Hutchinson had called Dobey and asked him to dispatch officers to help us look, but they hadn't arrived yet. So me and the death angel walked around-no, ran around-calling out his name, hoping we'd hear him from the dark trunk of one of those old rusted clunkers, or find him wrapped up in a carpet somewhere.

"Anything?" he asked me every five minutes or so.

I shook my head no. Couldn't explain why I wasn't feeling anything from Starsky except white noise. No pain, no fear, no panic.

God.

Does that mean he's dead? Dying?

I sensed the sirens before Hutch heard them.

"Help's coming," I offered lamely.

He cupped a hand around his mouth. "Starsk!"

Hutchinson's pulse was in my head, his dozens of thoughts flying around a mile a millisecond, my heartbeat pounding time with his.

"Starsk!"

Sirens in the distance. Help had arrived. Dobey came out of his sedan and ordered the searchers around. To the officers' eyes he was brisk and business. To my mind's eye he was carefully-controlled alarm and dread.

I moved along with some of the officers, hunting through the heaps of garbage, and I knew what they were thinking (crackpot) (phony) (snake-oil) (freak) (you know he's here because you probably put him here yourself), but I didn't care. I had long ago learned to let the slur-thoughts of othersslide off me like Teflon. If I took every thought personally, I'd be in a rubber room by now.

Hutchinson and his superior looked at each other, but no words passed between them. They didn't need words. They just kept looking.

And I think that Hutchinson found Starsky-sensed him-a fraction before I did, though we both looked in the direction of the abandoned deep-freeze at the same time.

(Oh my God) was in his head as we ran over to the dirty-white and dented freezer.

White noise.

Dying.

No air.

Hot.

Dark.

Breath going.

Hutchinson flung open the lid, and there he lay curled on his side, a woolen bag over his head and tied at the neck with an electrical cord, hands bound behind his back with yet another electrical cord, clothes drenched in sweat, not moving, seemingly not breathing.

(Starsk)

"Oh my God."

I reached inside the freezer to help Hutch cut the cords. He pulled the wool bag from his partner's head and we saw the beating I'd felt. His cut and bruised face, discolored from lack of oxygen. He was suffocating. His throat purplish red from strangulation. Sweat dripping from his hair.

"Starsk?"

The boy scout's small voice: Fear. Dread. Love.

Hope: One long, sustained, dreadful note of hope.

We reached in and lifted him out. Unconscious, near death, he came as a boneless rag doll in our hands, and we put him on the ground.

"Starsk?"

I had to walk away. Catch my breath. Try to get as far away from Hutchinson's deathly love, and the white noise, as I could. It bore down on me again. Tons. Crushing my chest, in my lungs, heart, brain, ears, nose, eyes, all my senses.

It was private, their love. Beyond that of friends, of partners, of lovers. Something spiritual and designed. Something transcending the physical, the romantic. More than friendship. Friendship is too elementary a word. But no earthly words accurately describe it. Try describing the color of the sky to someone who's never seen it before.

"CAP! OVER HERE! MEDICS!"

Hutchinson leaned over his partner and began CPR, panting, cajoling, praying, begging life back into him.

And even though my back was turned and I was out of sight behind the totaled hulk of a van, I could feel it.

Starsky coming around. A sputter of life. A faint gasp. A weak moan. Eyes open and shining like blue lights.

Hutchinson laughed and cried, crazy with love, exhausted with relief.

I was laughing and crying too (Alive! He's alive, Joe! He's alive! Thank you! Thank you! Thank God! Thank), thankful those two hadn't killed me.

I was lurking around in the hall outside Starsky's hospital room, feeling guilty for overhearing, in my head, the conversations in THEIR heads, even though they weren't saying anything out loud to each other.

Starsky was just lying quietly (a change for that motor mouth!), hands bunching at the sheets, letting the doctors check him over and tend to him.

It was his puffy throat they were worried about.

They would keep him a couple of days, give him something to keep the swelling down.

And yes, he did have some cracked ribs. Mine were only bruised.

"How'd you get these?" one of the doctors asked me.

"Fell down the stairs," I shrugged. What else could I say?

(I was scared, Hutch)-I heard Starsky say in his head. He was looking at Hutchinson but not sayinganything out loud. (I'm glad you found me)

Hutchinson was standing next to the examining table Starsky was on, arms folded defensively across his chest (don't poke and pry on him so hard, you clowns) yet smiling fondly at his partner (we're okay, buddy) (thanks to-Joe, what are you doing out there)-

Hutch appeared in the doorway and grabbed my arm.

"Joe, what are you doing out here, counting the ceiling tiles? Get in here."

Feeling like a peeping Tom who'd been caught red-handed, I followed Hutchinson into the room.

"Here's the man," he said clapping me on the shoulder. "Right here. Best psychic in the world."

"Sshh," I scolded him. "Don't spread it around. Somebody might put me away."

"Well," Starsky said in a voice that sounded like laryngitis. "If they put you away, they gotta put us away too, because we know the truth. Right, Hutch?"

"Right, Starsk."

Starsky put on a brave smile. He really wanted to hold onto his partner's arm, but he kept bunching the sheets in his hands instead.

"Thanks," he whispered to me.

"Yeah," Hutchinson added. "I wish there were some way to repay you."

"Wash my dishes for two weeks and we'll call it even."

Hutchinson put his hand out to me. "Thanks, Joe. You don't know how much this means to me."

I shook his hand, and felt all the love he possessed in that one handshake.

"Yes," I winked. "I do know."

End