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"Hey Hug, how's it hanging?"
It was around two in the afternoon as Starsky sauntered into The Pits looking as nonchalant as he could, and the majority of the lunchtime rush had subsided to a manageable trickle. Huggy was behind the bar, and Starsky swung himself up onto an empty bar stool closest to the bar, thinking that his friend looked remarkably depressed.
"It's hanging down, my curly friend, unless I can get some more of the green in, P-D-Q. What can I get you, my man?"
Starsky would have killed for a beer just then, and said so, and Huggy stepped over to get it for him. There was an account book lying open where Huggy had been sitting, he noticed, covered with corrections and crossings out, and surrounded by papers including a list of outstanding tabs. Hutch owed Huggy 300 dollars?
"One hair of the dog, for Metro's returning hero."
"Thanks, Hug. Hey, has Hutch been in yet?"
Huggy scowled. "No, he ain't. You heard from his blondness this AM?"
"Oh, I heard from him all right. He's back home nursing a hangover and doesn't want to talk to anyone, but he said he was coming here to pay his tab." He watched Huggy's smile suspiciously. "So, Hug, what did you do to the guy? He sounded like his dog'd just died?"
Huggy's smile was positively enigmatic. "C'mon, Huggy, you can tell me. I won't tell, I promise."
"No way, miracle man. That's between me and that partner of yours."
"Hey, I told you about calling me that."
"What else am I supposed to call you, my man?" Huggy made yet another annotation to his cashbook. "Man, you have had more holes in your body than my cousin Godric, and not only are you not feeding the worms, you're about to go back to scaring the bad guys." Godric? Starsky ran a mental inventory of Huggy's known relatives through his head, before remembering that Huggy's cousin Godric was the one who ran a body-piercing clinic on Monsarrat.
Starsky grinned crookedly at him. He supposed he didn't really mind the name. "Well, what else was I supposed to do? Get a job with the IRS?"
Huggy shook his head with a sigh. "Those fiscal fiends are no friends of the bear." He slammed the account book closed for a moment, leant forward, propping himself up on an elbow. "So, tomorrow's the big day for for the big duo. You cool with it?"
Starsky smiled so widely he could almost feel his face crack. "You kidding? Tomorrow's when we take this city back. Huggy, I haven't felt like this in years."
"See what I mean, miracle man? It's unnatural. Five bullets, a minute of death and three months in the hospital, and you're happy as my aunt June in a hat shop. Not even a nightmare to show for it."
"Yeah right. And what would you know about that?" Starsky heard himself say much too sharply. Huggy gave him a plaintive look.
"Man," he said. "Most people, when they go through a thing like that, dream of pain and dying and stuff. You dreamt about not being able to get it up again."
Starsky looked up, a little annoyed. He'd had a psychiatrist on his case for months, and the last thing he needed now was the amateur shrink act. What gave Huggy the right to judge what a 'normal' nightmare was? Sure he'd had his share of screamers in the past, but they'd always been about his dad or Hutch or Terri--never about him. Things happened to him, it was part of the job and he dealt with it, but it hurt like poison to watch the people he loved hurting. But this was neither the time nor the place to go into that, so he decided to play it for sympathy.
"Hey, listen! If that's not a nightmare, I don't know what is." Starsky frowned into his beer and gave an exaggerated shudder. "I tell you, Hug those dreams were the most frightening I've ever had. I mean, imagine going through all that and living, and then finding out that you've nothing to be living for. Don't you think that would have you waking up in a cold sweat?"
"You might be right, bro, you might be ri--" Huggy's voice trailed away as his head shot up and he looked towards the door of the Pits. Starsky twisted around on the stool, as the most incredible creature he'd ever seen strode into The Pits, slamming the door after him. His eyes widened.
It was Hutch.
Not Hutch as he'd sat in here last night, drinking the night away, nor the hung-over creature he'd been visualising from the phone call earlier that morning, but a perfect vision in gold and blue. He was standing tall and bowstring-tight with anger, striding towards Huggy like an avenging angel.
"Oh ... man," he heard Huggy say in a low voice.
The vision approached Huggy and slapped something down hard on the bar. "Your money," it said harshly. "And if you ever, ever pull something like that again, I'll have the public health department down on your ass."
Did you know your eyes flash a beautiful shade of blue when you're angry?
"Hutch..." Starsky's voice trailed off as he realised he had no idea what he had been about to say, his eyes widening as he got his first close look at Hutch. "You look..."
The forefinger emerged, stabbing towards him. "Don't ... you ... start," Hutch breathed. "What you're looking at is Huggy's idea of revenge. It has nothing - nothing - to do with me." Starsky opened his mouth to speak but Hutch got there first. "And that's another thing. I'm gonna be stuck with you driving for the next ten days, because I now have fifteen bucks left in the world to live on until pay day."
He turned on his heel and strode away, leaving both onlookers staring at him, speechless.
Starsky looked up at Huggy, who was watching the bar door swing shut after him. "I think I'll have another beer now, Hug," he said weakly.
He glanced down, feeling an old familiar tightness in the crotch of his jeans. Deep in the earth, something stirred, he thought in his best horror-movie voice. At least it was nice to know that the nightmares about his virility were utterly unfounded.
And at least Huggy didn't know exactly who the co-star of those nightmares had been. Forgetting the beer he'd just ordered, Starsky pushed himself onto his feet and plunged out of the door in search of his partner.
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"Hutch, wait!"
Hutch already had his hand on the car door when he heard the voice behind him, and he pulled it open as Starsky rushed out behind him.
"I already told you, Starsky--"
"Hey, calm down, Hutch. I'm sure Huggy didn't think--"
"So," Hutch interrupted, "am I."
"What's so bad about it? All he did was give you a haircut, and a pretty good one at that."
Hutch sighed. He'd hoped that Starsky would have had some sympathy with him, but the man insisted on missing the point. "No. All he did-- Wait! What did you say?"
"What?"
"Haircut." Hutch stalked to the trunk of his car and then wheeled round to look at Starsky before pacing back to stare at his partner. Dammit, all this time and he hadn't had the brains to think it through like a cop. "Huggy has the IRS on his back, he's up til all hours trying to get his books ready for them and find enough money to pay them. When's he gonna find time to break into a guy's house and cut his hair?"
Starsky looked at him blankly. "You got me there."
Hutch met his eyes--It certainly beat looking lower down his partner's body. "Like you said, it's a quality haircut. Huggy doesn't have the skills, and he doesn't have the time."
"You know for sure that it was Huggy?"
"The note was in his handwriting, I'd swear it."
"So he got someone else--"
"SHIT!" Hutch almost pounded his fist on the roof of his car, but at the last minute changed direction to drive his fist into his thigh. "He let someone break in to my apartment."
"Now, Hutch, don't make assumptions. He mighta lent them your spare key."
Hutch spun round to stare at him. "You think that makes it better?"
"Well ... you might just have a point there, buddy."
"Besides, I took my key back from him when you got back to driving again," Hutch said thoughtfully. Starsky had a wary look on his face, as if he considered a thoughtful, angry partner a more dangerous thing to be around than a merely angry one. "Someone broke into my home, at Huggy's request, without leaving any signs of a break-in, and did -- this -- to me while I was asleep."
He turned and strode back into the Pits, barking "HUGGY!" in a voice that silenced every diner in the place, and then turned to glare at them all for daring to turn and stare at him. He stalked over to the bar again.
"Blondie, I'd appreciate if you didn't scare off my paying customers, man."
Hutch lowered his voice so that nobody else could hear him. He could feel Starsky standing close behind him.
"Huggy, who the hell cut my hair?"
Huggy's sudden impassiveness was all the confirmation he needed that he'd gotten someone else to do the deed.
"Who, Huggy?"
Huggy shook his head. "No can do, my man. The bear never gives up an amigo."
"Huggy, I'm a cop. You let someone I don't know break into my house and--and vandalise my face." He leant forward a little closer, feeling that the intimidation gesture would have been much more affective coming from his old face. "You expect me to just let it go?"
"You owed me the money, Hutch."
"That's not the point."
"Hutch, my man, I've seen you and your brother cop at work. There ain't nothing you can do that can scare the bear."
"Were you at least with him while he was in my apartment?"
The silence told him everything he needed to know. "Fine," he said, and turned on his heel.
He could hear Starsky hurrying to catch up with him as he stalked out, and just before he reached his car again, Starsky grabbed his arm.
"Hey, at least he didn't--"
Starsky didn't get to finish his sentence because Hutch had jerked hard on his arm, dragging him towards the car door which still stood open into the street. "Get in the car."
"Now, c'mon, Hutch, don't you think you might be overreacting a bit?" Starsky tightened the grip on his arm, and Hutch gave him an irritated glance. At least he wasn't throwing a damned rod any more.
"Get in the car, Starsky."
"Hutch, listen, it can wait 'til you've calmed down."
"The car, Starsk."
Starsky gave him a very doubtful glance, and got into the car.
Huggy counted the money that Hutch had slapped down onto the counter carefully, and then stowed it carefully into the till. Then he picked up the telephone and dialled, listening for a few moments before the call connected and John the Cat answered.
"Kandinsky's."
"Hey, John, I just thought I'd better give you a call."
There was a deep sigh on the other end of the line. "What is it now, Huggy?"
"Well It doesn't necessarily mean trouble for you, catman, but I've just had a very angry blond bombshell storm out of my bar--with a very shiny new 'do'."
There was silence on the other end of the phone. Huggy hadn't really been expecting an answer anyway. "Man, I said just the mustache. That meant nothing else, you dig?"
He heard John the cat swallow on the other end of the line. "I never meant--"
Huggy sighed. "It's no skin off my chin, man," he said, "but Hutchinson's a cop with brains. And right now, he knows that someone with just your skills got into his pad, you know what I mean? And he's angry enough that he's not gonna be put off by a little thing like how stupid it would look on the charge sheet."
"I hear you, Huggy," John said wearily, and put the phone down.
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Part 6.
It took Hutch all of three phone calls to identify the most likely suspects--and none of the calls were to the parole service.
Starsky was impressed, in spite of himself--Hutch definitely hadn't slackened off any in his absence. It occurred to him that he'd have a lot of learning to do come tomorrow to get back in the swim of things where the snitches were concerned. To be sure, Hutch has kept him up to date on the gossip, but there was a huge difference between hearing it and living it. Not for the first time, the anticipation sizzled through him, threaded with only enough fear to sharpen the anticipation with adrenalin. Tomorrow--when tomorrow came he'd be back on the streets.
The drive over was mostly silent, with the typical heavy silence of the Brooding Hutch. Starsky stayed quiet too--timing was everything when handling the Brooding Hutch, and hopefully the silence would give his partner time to cool down before he did anything stupid.
With this in mind it was only when they'd parked outside the very ordinary-looking barber's shop that he reached over and touched Hutch's arm. He noticed the tension in the muscles with a sinking heart: clearly Hutch was still nowhere near relaxing and forgetting it.
"Hey Hutch, are you sure you want to do this?" Starsky had to restrain himself forcibly from using the word 'overreacting'. Of course, it was a beautiful tactic to use when you wanted the man to blow his top but right now, a rational Hutch was what was required.
"Starsky," Hutch turned to look at him, and Starsky's heart sank. The blazing fury was gone, and in its place was a cold rage that made even Starsky back off. "How would you feel if you knew a hairdressing ex-con had broken into your home?"
Aha! Rational thought! You'll pass. "Good point. I'm coming with you."
"It's my show." So he'd be ignored, but it was still better than nothing. Hutch swung the car door open and climbed out, slamming the door and setting off the car's mechanical rattling that always set Starsky's teeth on edge.
"This," Starsky muttered in the brief silence that followed Hutch's exit, 'is gonna be interesting."
Then he climbed out of the car and went to follow his partner.
John the Cat was three quarters of the way through Mr Chen's short back and sides when door opened. From long habit he did not look up, careful that he did not let his scissors deviate from their assigned course.
"John Kandinsky?
He could feel a hot gaze on the back of his neck. "I'll be with you in a minute, sir." Something about that gaze made him feel nervous, so he didn't let himself pay attention to it.
The side of Mr Chen's hair was finished to his satisfaction before he laid his scissors down and looked up . . . to see for the first time his finished handiwork from last night, surrounding a very angry face.
His first reaction was a moment of sheer creator's pride. The haircut may have been done on a sleeping man while in terror for his life, but it was good, it was right, and by some creative alchemy it complemented the man's waking face perfectly. Like a warrior out of legend, with those angry blue eyes and upright, outraged posture.
He came to his senses fast. The cop was here. And he was angry. And he knew damned well who was responsible for his (probably unwanted) new look.
The flashed badge confirmed his fears.
"John Kandinsky?"
He nodded, throat dry.
"Police. We've got some questions we'd like to ask you."
We. For the first time he noticed the cop's partner, leaning against the wall by the door of his shop, arms folded and one leg crossed casually across the other. His eyes were watchful, his face expressionless and enigmatic. He didn't need to say a word to exude an air of menace.
He wanted to bolt for the back door, but at the last moment, professional pride took over. "Let me finish up, and I'll be right with you."
It was the blond's partner who answered. "Take your time. John, take your time. We're not going anywhere."
John swallowed nervously and got back to work, even though it felt like he was delivering the lengthiest short back and sides in history. He was relieved when Mr Chen finally pronounced his approval and paid for the cut. You couldn't do good work with sweaty, shaky hands; and John wasn't about to let a client walk out of the door with any other kind on his head.
It was a moment before he realized he was now alone with the two cops. As the door shut, the cop's partner flipped the sign on the door over to read 'Closed', and pulled the blind beside it.
'It was you, wasn't it?"
There didn't seen any point in lying about it. "Yes."
"You know that's breaking and entering." John said nothing: his mouth was too dry for words. "C'mon, Kandinsky! You must do, with your record."
"I never stole anything."
"Oh?"
"Look, I don't do that shit any more. It's just that someone called in a favor."
The blond raised his eyebrows. "Huggy did, you mean." John nodded, still speechless. "It didn't mean you had to go along with it, did it? Why did you agree to it?"
John opened his mouth, and then closed it again. He could hardly tell this being that he'd merely been curious about Huggy's proposition.
The blond cop raised a finger, his eyes intent on him. "Now, c'mon, I want some answers here! You must have agreed for a reason."
John backed away a pace from the creature. "All right, I was curious," he said quickly. "It's not your normal everyday request, is it? And I owe Huggy a lot. Look, I'm sorry I took any part in this. If it makes you feel better, I was terrified every moment I was in your apartment." Was it his imagination, or did the blue gaze grow a little less intense at that? "If I can make it up to you--free haircut or whatever--"
"You think I'd let you near me again?"
Now that hurt. John lifted his head in a futile attempt to glare at his attacker. "Listen, I know my work, and I did the best I could--it suits you--"
"I'm a cop," the blond growled, and John stared at him in incomprehension. The cop stalked toward him, and leaned over a little further, forcing John, who was fully five inches shorter than him, to lean backwards.
"Listen ... John," the cop said, his tone softly menacing, "There's something you've got to understand here."
Once again, John had the urge to retreat, but since he was already backed against his own counter and leaning away from the blond, he was forced to stay where he was. He bit back a whimper. "Being a cop's not exactly what you call a nice job. Gets you into a lot of trouble, the kind of trouble that can get you badly burned. You show weakness in front of those guys, you will get burned. You see my partner there?" He jerked a thumb over his shoulder, and John glanced towards the man. "He's a tough guy--toughest on the street--and everyone knows it. Now, they see me with him, with this face, and they make assumptions about me. They think I'm the soft one, the easy guy. Maybe they're right, but that's not important. However it happens, what it means is they take liberties, and I don't like that. And that means I need to be twice as mean as my partner, and I really don't like that. Do you understand?
John licked his lips. "What do you want me to do?"
"Fix it." The blond seated himself determinedly in the chair in front of the mirror, grimacing at his reflection. "Go on. Stop me looking like a fuckin' kid."
Fix it. At least it beat being menaced even further. John picked up the scissors with shaky hands and let his gaze travel over the blond head, his eyes tying not to meet the laser stare following his every action in the mirror. He felt trapped by the contempt in those eyes, caught between the feelings of the craftsman and the blond's indomitable will.
"I can't do it," he said.
"Why not?"
"I got it right. I can't knowingly ruin--"
"Do it!"
John picked up the scissors again, and stood there, looking at the blond hair. When he glanced up, he met the eyes of the blond's enigmatic partner, not encouraging, not condemning ... just watching. He stood there for a moment until the panicked thoughts chasing themselves through his head came to a halt.
"No," he said. It was a decision; it was also a promise. He felt, suddenly, utterly at peace, as though his calm was strength, and the rage and fury of his adversary merely weaknesses. He was a craftsman, and his work was right, no matter the circumstances that had brought it forth. "I will never go near your home or your hair again. But I stand by what I have done, and I will not change it."
There was a moment of indescribable silence, and then the blond got to his feet. As John watched, the anger in his face faded to resignation and weariness, and then he turned and walked wordlessly out of the door. His partner held John's gaze for a moment, unfolding his arms and pushing himself away from the wall, and then he too left.
The moment the door shut behind him, John sank into his own barber's chair, and swore he would never again do a favor for Huggy Bear.
"Looks like even an ex-con barber can defeat me."
When Starsky got outside, Hutch was back by his car, leaning on it.
Starsky recognized the switch to sarcasm mode instantly, and suspected it was a last-ditch defense. Not that that meant anything--Hutch could carry on fueled by sarcasm alone for days--but it was a start.
He didn't want to get into the sarcasm game, though, so he ignored the comment. "You're wrong, you know. You don't need to prove anything--people know you're tough."
"Oh, yeah, sure I was, way back when we were young and stupid. I grew out of it."
Oh to be that young and stupid again. Starsky didn't let himself react to the sarcasm. "You're the guy who brought down Gunther. You think that doesn't say something?"
Hutch waved it away as though Gunther were just another street punk, rather than the crime-lord's crime-lord, nailed with enough hard evidence to convict God almighty himself of wrongdoing. Without the defense of his anger he looked tired and miserable.
He feels he's doing it alone, Starsky realized suddenly. Come to that, for the past eight months he has been doing it alone. Or maybe, he thought, remembering the screw-ups of the time before that, maybe longer than that, even. Hell, I know I did.
"Hey," he said quietly. "Don't forget you've got backup." Me, he added mentally. That word didn't need to be said aloud.
Hutch looked at him sharply, his eyes filled with a pain and tenderness he hadn't seen in them since Terri's death, and then his gaze dropped to the sidewalk.
"Take me home, Starsk." His shoulders heaved in a sigh. "Please, take me home."
He'd gotten through to him. Starsky held out his hand for the car keys, and Hutch handed them to him, the long fingers brushing momentarily against his. Hutch's hands always felt cool to the touch, in comparison with his own, and today they felt positively chilled, in need of warming.
Starsky smiled, and held the car door open for his partner. Guess what? he thought, I know just the man for the job.
"Hey Hug, how's it hanging?"
It was around two in the afternoon as Starsky sauntered into The Pits looking as nonchalant as he could, and the majority of the lunchtime rush had subsided to a manageable trickle. Huggy was behind the bar, and Starsky swung himself up onto an empty bar stool closest to the bar, thinking that his friend looked remarkably depressed.
"It's hanging down, my curly friend, unless I can get some more of the green in, P-D-Q. What can I get you, my man?"
Starsky would have killed for a beer just then, and said so, and Huggy stepped over to get it for him. There was an account book lying open where Huggy had been sitting, he noticed, covered with corrections and crossings out, and surrounded by papers including a list of outstanding tabs. Hutch owed Huggy 300 dollars?
"One hair of the dog, for Metro's returning hero."
"Thanks, Hug. Hey, has Hutch been in yet?"
Huggy scowled. "No, he ain't. You heard from his blondness this AM?"
"Oh, I heard from him all right. He's back home nursing a hangover and doesn't want to talk to anyone, but he said he was coming here to pay his tab." He watched Huggy's smile suspiciously. "So, Hug, what did you do to the guy? He sounded like his dog'd just died?"
Huggy's smile was positively enigmatic. "C'mon, Huggy, you can tell me. I won't tell, I promise."
"No way, miracle man. That's between me and that partner of yours."
"Hey, I told you about calling me that."
"What else am I supposed to call you, my man?" Huggy made yet another annotation to his cashbook. "Man, you have had more holes in your body than my cousin Godric, and not only are you not feeding the worms, you're about to go back to scaring the bad guys." Godric? Starsky ran a mental inventory of Huggy's known relatives through his head, before remembering that Huggy's cousin Godric was the one who ran a body-piercing clinic on Monsarrat.
Starsky grinned crookedly at him. He supposed he didn't really mind the name. "Well, what else was I supposed to do? Get a job with the IRS?"
Huggy shook his head with a sigh. "Those fiscal fiends are no friends of the bear." He slammed the account book closed for a moment, leant forward, propping himself up on an elbow. "So, tomorrow's the big day for for the big duo. You cool with it?"
Starsky smiled so widely he could almost feel his face crack. "You kidding? Tomorrow's when we take this city back. Huggy, I haven't felt like this in years."
"See what I mean, miracle man? It's unnatural. Five bullets, a minute of death and three months in the hospital, and you're happy as my aunt June in a hat shop. Not even a nightmare to show for it."
"Yeah right. And what would you know about that?" Starsky heard himself say much too sharply. Huggy gave him a plaintive look.
"Man," he said. "Most people, when they go through a thing like that, dream of pain and dying and stuff. You dreamt about not being able to get it up again."
Starsky looked up, a little annoyed. He'd had a psychiatrist on his case for months, and the last thing he needed now was the amateur shrink act. What gave Huggy the right to judge what a 'normal' nightmare was? Sure he'd had his share of screamers in the past, but they'd always been about his dad or Hutch or Terri--never about him. Things happened to him, it was part of the job and he dealt with it, but it hurt like poison to watch the people he loved hurting. But this was neither the time nor the place to go into that, so he decided to play it for sympathy.
"Hey, listen! If that's not a nightmare, I don't know what is." Starsky frowned into his beer and gave an exaggerated shudder. "I tell you, Hug those dreams were the most frightening I've ever had. I mean, imagine going through all that and living, and then finding out that you've nothing to be living for. Don't you think that would have you waking up in a cold sweat?"
"You might be right, bro, you might be ri--" Huggy's voice trailed away as his head shot up and he looked towards the door of the Pits. Starsky twisted around on the stool, as the most incredible creature he'd ever seen strode into The Pits, slamming the door after him. His eyes widened.
It was Hutch.
Not Hutch as he'd sat in here last night, drinking the night away, nor the hung-over creature he'd been visualising from the phone call earlier that morning, but a perfect vision in gold and blue. He was standing tall and bowstring-tight with anger, striding towards Huggy like an avenging angel.
"Oh ... man," he heard Huggy say in a low voice.
The vision approached Huggy and slapped something down hard on the bar. "Your money," it said harshly. "And if you ever, ever pull something like that again, I'll have the public health department down on your ass."
Did you know your eyes flash a beautiful shade of blue when you're angry?
"Hutch..." Starsky's voice trailed off as he realised he had no idea what he had been about to say, his eyes widening as he got his first close look at Hutch. "You look..."
The forefinger emerged, stabbing towards him. "Don't ... you ... start," Hutch breathed. "What you're looking at is Huggy's idea of revenge. It has nothing - nothing - to do with me." Starsky opened his mouth to speak but Hutch got there first. "And that's another thing. I'm gonna be stuck with you driving for the next ten days, because I now have fifteen bucks left in the world to live on until pay day."
He turned on his heel and strode away, leaving both onlookers staring at him, speechless.
Starsky looked up at Huggy, who was watching the bar door swing shut after him. "I think I'll have another beer now, Hug," he said weakly.
He glanced down, feeling an old familiar tightness in the crotch of his jeans. Deep in the earth, something stirred, he thought in his best horror-movie voice. At least it was nice to know that the nightmares about his virility were utterly unfounded.
And at least Huggy didn't know exactly who the co-star of those nightmares had been. Forgetting the beer he'd just ordered, Starsky pushed himself onto his feet and plunged out of the door in search of his partner.
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"Hutch, wait!"
Hutch already had his hand on the car door when he heard the voice behind him, and he pulled it open as Starsky rushed out behind him.
"I already told you, Starsky--"
"Hey, calm down, Hutch. I'm sure Huggy didn't think--"
"So," Hutch interrupted, "am I."
"What's so bad about it? All he did was give you a haircut, and a pretty good one at that."
Hutch sighed. He'd hoped that Starsky would have had some sympathy with him, but the man insisted on missing the point. "No. All he did-- Wait! What did you say?"
"What?"
"Haircut." Hutch stalked to the trunk of his car and then wheeled round to look at Starsky before pacing back to stare at his partner. Dammit, all this time and he hadn't had the brains to think it through like a cop. "Huggy has the IRS on his back, he's up til all hours trying to get his books ready for them and find enough money to pay them. When's he gonna find time to break into a guy's house and cut his hair?"
Starsky looked at him blankly. "You got me there."
Hutch met his eyes--It certainly beat looking lower down his partner's body. "Like you said, it's a quality haircut. Huggy doesn't have the skills, and he doesn't have the time."
"You know for sure that it was Huggy?"
"The note was in his handwriting, I'd swear it."
"So he got someone else--"
"SHIT!" Hutch almost pounded his fist on the roof of his car, but at the last minute changed direction to drive his fist into his thigh. "He let someone break in to my apartment."
"Now, Hutch, don't make assumptions. He mighta lent them your spare key."
Hutch spun round to stare at him. "You think that makes it better?"
"Well ... you might just have a point there, buddy."
"Besides, I took my key back from him when you got back to driving again," Hutch said thoughtfully. Starsky had a wary look on his face, as if he considered a thoughtful, angry partner a more dangerous thing to be around than a merely angry one. "Someone broke into my home, at Huggy's request, without leaving any signs of a break-in, and did -- this -- to me while I was asleep."
He turned and strode back into the Pits, barking "HUGGY!" in a voice that silenced every diner in the place, and then turned to glare at them all for daring to turn and stare at him. He stalked over to the bar again.
"Blondie, I'd appreciate if you didn't scare off my paying customers, man."
Hutch lowered his voice so that nobody else could hear him. He could feel Starsky standing close behind him.
"Huggy, who the hell cut my hair?"
Huggy's sudden impassiveness was all the confirmation he needed that he'd gotten someone else to do the deed.
"Who, Huggy?"
Huggy shook his head. "No can do, my man. The bear never gives up an amigo."
"Huggy, I'm a cop. You let someone I don't know break into my house and--and vandalise my face." He leant forward a little closer, feeling that the intimidation gesture would have been much more affective coming from his old face. "You expect me to just let it go?"
"You owed me the money, Hutch."
"That's not the point."
"Hutch, my man, I've seen you and your brother cop at work. There ain't nothing you can do that can scare the bear."
"Were you at least with him while he was in my apartment?"
The silence told him everything he needed to know. "Fine," he said, and turned on his heel.
He could hear Starsky hurrying to catch up with him as he stalked out, and just before he reached his car again, Starsky grabbed his arm.
"Hey, at least he didn't--"
Starsky didn't get to finish his sentence because Hutch had jerked hard on his arm, dragging him towards the car door which still stood open into the street. "Get in the car."
"Now, c'mon, Hutch, don't you think you might be overreacting a bit?" Starsky tightened the grip on his arm, and Hutch gave him an irritated glance. At least he wasn't throwing a damned rod any more.
"Get in the car, Starsky."
"Hutch, listen, it can wait 'til you've calmed down."
"The car, Starsk."
Starsky gave him a very doubtful glance, and got into the car.
Huggy counted the money that Hutch had slapped down onto the counter carefully, and then stowed it carefully into the till. Then he picked up the telephone and dialled, listening for a few moments before the call connected and John the Cat answered.
"Kandinsky's."
"Hey, John, I just thought I'd better give you a call."
There was a deep sigh on the other end of the line. "What is it now, Huggy?"
"Well It doesn't necessarily mean trouble for you, catman, but I've just had a very angry blond bombshell storm out of my bar--with a very shiny new 'do'."
There was silence on the other end of the phone. Huggy hadn't really been expecting an answer anyway. "Man, I said just the mustache. That meant nothing else, you dig?"
He heard John the cat swallow on the other end of the line. "I never meant--"
Huggy sighed. "It's no skin off my chin, man," he said, "but Hutchinson's a cop with brains. And right now, he knows that someone with just your skills got into his pad, you know what I mean? And he's angry enough that he's not gonna be put off by a little thing like how stupid it would look on the charge sheet."
"I hear you, Huggy," John said wearily, and put the phone down.
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Part 6.
It took Hutch all of three phone calls to identify the most likely suspects--and none of the calls were to the parole service.
Starsky was impressed, in spite of himself--Hutch definitely hadn't slackened off any in his absence. It occurred to him that he'd have a lot of learning to do come tomorrow to get back in the swim of things where the snitches were concerned. To be sure, Hutch has kept him up to date on the gossip, but there was a huge difference between hearing it and living it. Not for the first time, the anticipation sizzled through him, threaded with only enough fear to sharpen the anticipation with adrenalin. Tomorrow--when tomorrow came he'd be back on the streets.
The drive over was mostly silent, with the typical heavy silence of the Brooding Hutch. Starsky stayed quiet too--timing was everything when handling the Brooding Hutch, and hopefully the silence would give his partner time to cool down before he did anything stupid.
With this in mind it was only when they'd parked outside the very ordinary-looking barber's shop that he reached over and touched Hutch's arm. He noticed the tension in the muscles with a sinking heart: clearly Hutch was still nowhere near relaxing and forgetting it.
"Hey Hutch, are you sure you want to do this?" Starsky had to restrain himself forcibly from using the word 'overreacting'. Of course, it was a beautiful tactic to use when you wanted the man to blow his top but right now, a rational Hutch was what was required.
"Starsky," Hutch turned to look at him, and Starsky's heart sank. The blazing fury was gone, and in its place was a cold rage that made even Starsky back off. "How would you feel if you knew a hairdressing ex-con had broken into your home?"
Aha! Rational thought! You'll pass. "Good point. I'm coming with you."
"It's my show." So he'd be ignored, but it was still better than nothing. Hutch swung the car door open and climbed out, slamming the door and setting off the car's mechanical rattling that always set Starsky's teeth on edge.
"This," Starsky muttered in the brief silence that followed Hutch's exit, 'is gonna be interesting."
Then he climbed out of the car and went to follow his partner.
John the Cat was three quarters of the way through Mr Chen's short back and sides when door opened. From long habit he did not look up, careful that he did not let his scissors deviate from their assigned course.
"John Kandinsky?
He could feel a hot gaze on the back of his neck. "I'll be with you in a minute, sir." Something about that gaze made him feel nervous, so he didn't let himself pay attention to it.
The side of Mr Chen's hair was finished to his satisfaction before he laid his scissors down and looked up . . . to see for the first time his finished handiwork from last night, surrounding a very angry face.
His first reaction was a moment of sheer creator's pride. The haircut may have been done on a sleeping man while in terror for his life, but it was good, it was right, and by some creative alchemy it complemented the man's waking face perfectly. Like a warrior out of legend, with those angry blue eyes and upright, outraged posture.
He came to his senses fast. The cop was here. And he was angry. And he knew damned well who was responsible for his (probably unwanted) new look.
The flashed badge confirmed his fears.
"John Kandinsky?"
He nodded, throat dry.
"Police. We've got some questions we'd like to ask you."
We. For the first time he noticed the cop's partner, leaning against the wall by the door of his shop, arms folded and one leg crossed casually across the other. His eyes were watchful, his face expressionless and enigmatic. He didn't need to say a word to exude an air of menace.
He wanted to bolt for the back door, but at the last moment, professional pride took over. "Let me finish up, and I'll be right with you."
It was the blond's partner who answered. "Take your time. John, take your time. We're not going anywhere."
John swallowed nervously and got back to work, even though it felt like he was delivering the lengthiest short back and sides in history. He was relieved when Mr Chen finally pronounced his approval and paid for the cut. You couldn't do good work with sweaty, shaky hands; and John wasn't about to let a client walk out of the door with any other kind on his head.
It was a moment before he realized he was now alone with the two cops. As the door shut, the cop's partner flipped the sign on the door over to read 'Closed', and pulled the blind beside it.
'It was you, wasn't it?"
There didn't seen any point in lying about it. "Yes."
"You know that's breaking and entering." John said nothing: his mouth was too dry for words. "C'mon, Kandinsky! You must do, with your record."
"I never stole anything."
"Oh?"
"Look, I don't do that shit any more. It's just that someone called in a favor."
The blond raised his eyebrows. "Huggy did, you mean." John nodded, still speechless. "It didn't mean you had to go along with it, did it? Why did you agree to it?"
John opened his mouth, and then closed it again. He could hardly tell this being that he'd merely been curious about Huggy's proposition.
The blond cop raised a finger, his eyes intent on him. "Now, c'mon, I want some answers here! You must have agreed for a reason."
John backed away a pace from the creature. "All right, I was curious," he said quickly. "It's not your normal everyday request, is it? And I owe Huggy a lot. Look, I'm sorry I took any part in this. If it makes you feel better, I was terrified every moment I was in your apartment." Was it his imagination, or did the blue gaze grow a little less intense at that? "If I can make it up to you--free haircut or whatever--"
"You think I'd let you near me again?"
Now that hurt. John lifted his head in a futile attempt to glare at his attacker. "Listen, I know my work, and I did the best I could--it suits you--"
"I'm a cop," the blond growled, and John stared at him in incomprehension. The cop stalked toward him, and leaned over a little further, forcing John, who was fully five inches shorter than him, to lean backwards.
"Listen ... John," the cop said, his tone softly menacing, "There's something you've got to understand here."
Once again, John had the urge to retreat, but since he was already backed against his own counter and leaning away from the blond, he was forced to stay where he was. He bit back a whimper. "Being a cop's not exactly what you call a nice job. Gets you into a lot of trouble, the kind of trouble that can get you badly burned. You show weakness in front of those guys, you will get burned. You see my partner there?" He jerked a thumb over his shoulder, and John glanced towards the man. "He's a tough guy--toughest on the street--and everyone knows it. Now, they see me with him, with this face, and they make assumptions about me. They think I'm the soft one, the easy guy. Maybe they're right, but that's not important. However it happens, what it means is they take liberties, and I don't like that. And that means I need to be twice as mean as my partner, and I really don't like that. Do you understand?
John licked his lips. "What do you want me to do?"
"Fix it." The blond seated himself determinedly in the chair in front of the mirror, grimacing at his reflection. "Go on. Stop me looking like a fuckin' kid."
Fix it. At least it beat being menaced even further. John picked up the scissors with shaky hands and let his gaze travel over the blond head, his eyes tying not to meet the laser stare following his every action in the mirror. He felt trapped by the contempt in those eyes, caught between the feelings of the craftsman and the blond's indomitable will.
"I can't do it," he said.
"Why not?"
"I got it right. I can't knowingly ruin--"
"Do it!"
John picked up the scissors again, and stood there, looking at the blond hair. When he glanced up, he met the eyes of the blond's enigmatic partner, not encouraging, not condemning ... just watching. He stood there for a moment until the panicked thoughts chasing themselves through his head came to a halt.
"No," he said. It was a decision; it was also a promise. He felt, suddenly, utterly at peace, as though his calm was strength, and the rage and fury of his adversary merely weaknesses. He was a craftsman, and his work was right, no matter the circumstances that had brought it forth. "I will never go near your home or your hair again. But I stand by what I have done, and I will not change it."
There was a moment of indescribable silence, and then the blond got to his feet. As John watched, the anger in his face faded to resignation and weariness, and then he turned and walked wordlessly out of the door. His partner held John's gaze for a moment, unfolding his arms and pushing himself away from the wall, and then he too left.
The moment the door shut behind him, John sank into his own barber's chair, and swore he would never again do a favor for Huggy Bear.
"Looks like even an ex-con barber can defeat me."
When Starsky got outside, Hutch was back by his car, leaning on it.
Starsky recognized the switch to sarcasm mode instantly, and suspected it was a last-ditch defense. Not that that meant anything--Hutch could carry on fueled by sarcasm alone for days--but it was a start.
He didn't want to get into the sarcasm game, though, so he ignored the comment. "You're wrong, you know. You don't need to prove anything--people know you're tough."
"Oh, yeah, sure I was, way back when we were young and stupid. I grew out of it."
Oh to be that young and stupid again. Starsky didn't let himself react to the sarcasm. "You're the guy who brought down Gunther. You think that doesn't say something?"
Hutch waved it away as though Gunther were just another street punk, rather than the crime-lord's crime-lord, nailed with enough hard evidence to convict God almighty himself of wrongdoing. Without the defense of his anger he looked tired and miserable.
He feels he's doing it alone, Starsky realized suddenly. Come to that, for the past eight months he has been doing it alone. Or maybe, he thought, remembering the screw-ups of the time before that, maybe longer than that, even. Hell, I know I did.
"Hey," he said quietly. "Don't forget you've got backup." Me, he added mentally. That word didn't need to be said aloud.
Hutch looked at him sharply, his eyes filled with a pain and tenderness he hadn't seen in them since Terri's death, and then his gaze dropped to the sidewalk.
"Take me home, Starsk." His shoulders heaved in a sigh. "Please, take me home."
He'd gotten through to him. Starsky held out his hand for the car keys, and Hutch handed them to him, the long fingers brushing momentarily against his. Hutch's hands always felt cool to the touch, in comparison with his own, and today they felt positively chilled, in need of warming.
Starsky smiled, and held the car door open for his partner. Guess what? he thought, I know just the man for the job.