Chemistry

by Zebra 3 and Me

These Starsky and Hutch stories contain drama, tragedy, and angst.

CHEMISTRY

By TLR

Stories:

Magic-Hutch's first major drug case 6 months after the Forest affair.

The Farm-Starsky's birthday drive to the country takes a turn for the worse.

Joe Collandra-The psychic shows up to help Hutch when trouble finds Starsky.

Directive-Starsky can't recall the details of an abduction.

Frankie's Gym-Life-changing events for Hutch at Frankie's Gym.

Aunt Rosie's Funeral-Hutch supports Starsky during a difficult time.

Amberlee-A photographer named Amberlee enters the partners' lives.

Tolerance-After Sweet Revenge.

Menace-After The Fix

MAGIC

By TR

"I just got a call from the Poison Control Center and the UCLA School Of Public Health," Captain Dobey said to Starsky and Hutch after he called them into his office. "Twenty drug overdoses in the last month in the red light district. Three in the same massage parlor. Too many in such a short timeframe to be a coincidence. We suspect tainted heroin. I've been asked to announce it on the news to prevent additional deaths, and I'm going to today."

He handed Starsky a file. "The twenty autopsy reports are in there too. And don't forget to talk to the junkie who's recovering at Memorial."

Starsky opened the file and looked through it, then handed it to Hutch. The dark-haired detective thought maybe it was just a trick of the light when he thought he saw the file trembling a little in his partner's hand, but then the papers slipping out onto the floor confirmed it. Dobey noticed too, and shot Starsky a look.

"Hutchinson," Dobey said, "it's only been six months since-"

"I'm fine," he said as he bent down to sweep the papers back into the file.

Dobey had to finish. "If there's any reason why you can't do this investigation, or don't want to, let's hear it now. Sim Nester can fill in for you."

Dobey looked at Starsky as if to elicit the most correct and truthful response, but Starsky let his partner respond.

"I told you," Hutch said rising to his feet and straightening the papers into the file. "I'm fine."

Dobey looked at him, gauging, then flicked his eyes to Starsky again, who nodded to support what Hutch said. Hutch needed to get back into heavy drug cases now. They'd had some lighter ones since Ben Forest, but nothing major. Hutch needed this to prove to himself he could do it. Like the captain, Starsky worried; but knew his partner had what it took to handle it.

True. Sim Nester was a good detective, but he wasn't Hutch.

I trust your judgment, Dobey's eyes told Starsky. But watch him.

No need for the instruction. Starsky intended to do just that, the way he did every day of his life, and even more closely since Forest.

XXXXXXXXX

"The heroin was cut with fentanyl," Dr. Ching told the partners in his lab. "As you read in the report."

He was a young man with little round glasses. The detectives started with him because they wanted to know all they could about the substance they were dealing with.

Starsky couldn't help the sharp whistle that escaped him, or the information that rolled out. "Hospitals use fentanyl in their anesthesia. Riot control uses it in their aerosols. In the right amounts, it's safe and effective. But it's eighty times stronger than morphine; hundreds more than heroin. It gives a good buzz. Not the high of H, but it's a stronger sedative. The Pentagon is studying it as a biochemical weapon. In high doses…" He looked at his partner. "It just stops the heart."

Hutch, who was reading the autopsy and toxicology reports in the file, gave him a look of surprise-how do you know all of that?-why do you know all of that?-and then Hutch realized, and then Starsky realized that his partner knew the answer. After the Forest thing, Starsky read all he could get his hands on about heroin, morphine, the variations, the synthetics. He told himself it was for research, to be a better cop, but deep down he felt that it was more of a driven motivation: To be more on top of things if anything even remotely like Forest ever happened to Hutch again, to know that enemy inside and out. In Starsky's case, almost to the point of obsession…

Hutch passed Starsky a small smile, not knowing whether to be thankful or worried that he had such a tenacious friend.

-"Our flake could work in a hospital," Starsky offered.

Ching's head bobbed back and forth as the two brainstormed.

-"Or a lab," Hutch said. "He knows his way around chemicals."

-"Paramedic?"

-"Nurse?"

-"Doctor?"

-"Chemist?"

-"Dealer added too much, unintentionally?"

-"Or for sick kicks, intentionally."

-"We need to find the source."

-"The lab."

-"The transporter."

-"We need to talk to Huggy."

Without a word to Ching, they left the lab, still talking about the case.

As they headed down the hall toward the elevator, Hutch said to his partner, "You okay with me doing this?"

"Kiddin' me?"

"No."

"No problem."

"If you have second thoughts…"

"I won't."

XXXXXX++

"Magic," Huggy said as he settled his elbows on the bar to talk to them.

"What?" Hutch asked.

"That's what they call junk cut with fentanyl on the street. Magic."

"You heard about all the overdoses?"

"Heard is all. Nothing concrete. People too scared to talk. Afraid there'll be retaliation, like in the form of a needle of it in the middle of the night."

"Well they need to start talking," Hutch told him. "We're trying to get that stuff off the street."

"I hear you. But you know how it is. Nobody wants to get busted."

"Hug," Starsky said. "You know us. Can't you soften 'em up for us? Tell 'em we don't want to lock 'em up, just talk to 'em."

"What do you think I've been telling them? Nobody don't trust nobody right now."

"Do you know Tucker Johnson?" Hutch asked.

"Used to work in some skin flicks until he got on the smack."

"Do you know him well enough to talk to him?"

"I've talked to him plenty of times before."

"He nearly overdosed on the tainted stuff. He's in the hospital. Can you grease the way before we talk to him? We know he's one person who can give us a solid lead."

"Whatever I can do to get things back to normal."

"Normal?" Hutch asked as they walked away.

Huggy's shrug suggested, Normal junkies, normal overdoses, normal heroin.

"We'll talk to him later this afternoon," Starsky said to Huggy over his shoulder, "so can you do it right away?"

"On it," he said picking up the phone to ask Diane to cover for him.

XXXXXXXXX

They went to the Velvet Rush Massage Parlor to talk to all of the hookers they knew on a first-name basis.

Honey was the one they thought would talk to them, but even she was standoffish.

"Nobody knows," she said as she looked from one to the other in between johns.

"We don't believe that," Hutch said. "We believe some people know and are just too afraid to spill it."

"My old man's cousin was one of the ones who overdosed," she said.

"Yeah?" Starsky asked. "Would your old man tell us where his cousin got his dope?"

The door opened and an Hispanic man wearing a flowered shirt walked in.

"I don't know," Honey replied. "Ask him." She looked at her man. "Jose?"

"We don't want to take anyone in," Hutch said. "We just want to trace the tainted heroin to its source. Where did your cousin score last?"

Jose looked at Honey, then began to speak in Spanish.

Hutch understood what he was saying.

"It's not going to be a setup or a raid," Hutch said. "Regardless of what you think of cops, we do care about what happens to the people in this neighborhood."

Jose looked from Starsky to Hutch, then said, "I don't know where he bought his stuff," and walked out.

They tried talking to some of the other hookers, but they weren't going for it.

"Somebody threaten you?" Starsky asked Honey at the front door as they were leaving.

"Good day, Officer," she said politely as she closed the door in their faces.

XXXXXXXXX+

Tucker Johnson looked like he could jump out of his hospital bed and then the window when he saw them. He was sitting up, hyper alert, biting a thumbnail.

"This is what Huggy calls softening?" Hutch asked his partner.

Starsky shrugged.

"Relax, Tucker," Hutch said. "We're not here to arrest you or lean on you. We just have some questions."

Part of Tucker's demeanor was due to the fact that he was in need of a fix. He was rubbing his arms and jiggling his foot under the sheet.

Starsky stiffened a moment at the memory of Hutch pacing Huggy's room-a nervous, pale addict.

"You do know why we're here?" Starsky asked, just to make sure Tucker understood.

"Yeah. About the…" He looked at them closely, as if trying to spot a wire.

"Yeah," Hutch said. "The you-know-what."

"Did you know," Starsky questioned, "that in the past month there have been twenty deaths attributed to overdoses in your neighborhood?"

"Thirty," he said with his foot still going.

Starsky looked at Hutch.

"Ten probably…" A shrug. "You know. Haven't made the papers yet, or into somebody's report. Some junkies don't even have names or addresses, you know? But we know."

Starsky nodded.

"And some of them have jobs and families," Hutch said. "But it doesn't matter to us. We don't get to pick and choose who we're to serve and protect. It's everyone. We want this stuff cleaned off the street, and the one responsible put behind bars. Do you?"

Tucker looked around the ceiling.

"Well?" Starsky asked him. "Do you?"

"You won't say it came from me?"

"This conversation never happened," Hutch assured him.

"I don't know if this dude's responsible, okay? He's a dealer, not a supplier, so I don't know that he's the one who's been cutting it, or if it was cut already when he got it. But I got my last bag from him."

"Who?" Hutch asked.

"Give me a consulting fee and I will."

A blatant request for money for his next fix.

His need was intensifying. In the hospital without access to his drug. How many hours since his last injection? The hospital hadn't helped him out with anything. He was leaning on them.

Starsky gave him a level stare. Give me a couple of days with you in an isolated room, turkey. You'll tell me anything I want to know when you see a syringe in my hand.

At the same time, Starsky and Hutch reached into their hip pockets. Neither of them were up to any more of Johnson's jones-ing. Too busy to play games. They had work to do.

Tucker took the money and put it under his pillow.

"Ted Griffin. He stays at the Covington Inn, down the street from Velvet Rush. Talks funny."

"Funny?" Hutch asked. "As in lisp or a stammer…"

"As in some kind of accent."

"What kind?"

"How do I know? Someplace like England or what not."

"Do you still have any of your stuff?" Starsky asked. "We'd like to have it analyzed."

"My old lady flushed it before the ambulance got there."

"Did you know any of the other victims?" Hutch asked.

Tucker hesitated, and for a minute Starsky and Hutch thought they would have to reach for their wallets again. But he finally said, "Robert Sanchez, Pete Santini, Jules Martin."

Three from the case file.

"Do you know if they bought their bags from Ted Griffin?" Hutch asked.

"I don't know, man."

"What's the rumor?"

"I don't know."

"Who else buys from him?"

"I don't know."

"Don't give me that," Starsky said. "You said you would help us."

"What is it with this Ted Griffin?" Hutch asked. "Why won't anybody talk about him?"

"That one you'll have to figure out on your own. Now get the hell out of my room."

XXXXXXXXXXXX

The Covington Inn was a dump. The manager, a man dressed in a tight polyester suit, was smoking a cigar and reading the newspaper behind the desk in the lobby.

"Ted Griffin here?" Starsky asked as he pulled out his badge.

"Never heard of him," the manager said turning a page of the newspaper.

Starsky took a fifty from his pocket and put it in on the desk in front of him. "This refresh your memory?"

He took the fifty and pocketed it just as an older man with gray hair and wearing a suit came in behind us and started up the stairs. He carried a pearl-handled cane and wore a nice hat.

He was polished compared to most of the drug dealers they'd dealt with; out of place in a rattrap like this one. He could have easily passed for a college professor, art dealer, or restaurateur.

The manager snapped his fingers at the man, who turned halfway up the stairway and looked down at the visitors.

"Ted Griffin?" Hutch asked him.

He looked them over, assessed that they were probably cops. "Join me for afternoon tea," he said in a British accent.

XXXXXXXXXXXX++

The rundown room had touches of elegance. Real flowers. Silk pillowcase. He poured a cup of tea in his room from a delicate china teapot, then offered them one.

"I'll pass," Starsky said.

"Don't mind if I do," Hutch told him.

Griffin poured Hutch a cup, passed it to him. "You're detectives?"

They nodded.

Griffin sat down at a desk that was paint-chipped, crossed his legs, placed a lace napkin over his knee.

"I suppose this is about the tainted heroin?"

"If you can tell us anything about it," Starsky told him, "we'll ignore the fact that you're the most popular drug dealer on the block."

"You think I debased the heroin?"

"We don't know," Hutch continued. "Did you?"

"Bad for business, wouldn't you say? I have…or rather, had…some of the purest product around. Until the multitude of deaths by overdose. Why would I want to cut my own throat?"

"You don't test your supply?"

"I never needed to before, but I do now. My heroin is in high demand, so I assume it's high grade. I'm not a user, so I wouldn't know. But if I were to cut my heroin, I can assure you I wouldn't be so foolish, or so malicious, as to cut it with something that would kill my customers."

"Fentanyl," Hutch said.

"Maybe you're new at it," Starsky suggested. "And just don't know what the hell you're doing yet. Some of the dead junkies bought their stuff from you."

Griffin stood up, unlocked his desk drawer, took out a package of heroin, tossed it to Starsky.

"Test it. If it contains fentanyl, come back and charge me. If not, I'll trust that you'll keep your word about ignoring me."

"Not good enough," Hutch said. "If you're not cutting it, somebody else is before it gets to you, and it's whoever you're buying it from, or whoever's transporting it, or whoever is handling it. You are unwittingly distributing this lethal substance, so we would appreciate a name. Sir."

He smiled. "That's something I won't give you."

"We'll work with you," Starsky offered. "You cooperate, give us the name, we'll offer you immunity and put you in the witness protection program."

"This person has far-reaching connections. That I can't even begin to mention unless I want my throat slit in the middle of the night. And you have no evidence that my supplier is the culprit. So I'm afraid you have to find the source some other way, Detectives. Believe it or not, I'd like the tainted heroin out of circulation as badly as you. It isn't good for my image."

XXXXXXXXX+

They had Griffin's bag of heroin tested, and it came back with fentanyl, so they went back to the Covington Inn late that night. Not to arrest him, just to inform him that it was his supplier they were going to zero in on, and to put more pressure on him to give up the name.

But when they stepped inside of his room, they saw that their plan had just fissured, because they found him lying in a blood-soaked bed from where his throat had been slashed.

XXXXXXXXX+

"The little guys aren't going to talk now," Starsky said on their way down to the Torino. "If anything, they're gonna be even more tight-lipped because they knew if the supplier can kill Griffin with zero muss or fuss, little guys would be chump change."

"How does the supplier know Griffin talked to us?" Hutch asked. "You know the manager's too spooked to say anything."

"Tucker Johnson wouldn't have said anything," Starsky agreed.

"Maybe somebody at the hospital saw us talking to him?"

"Which means our supplier could work at the hospital."

"Which means we could be next."

XXXXXXXXX+

When Starsky and Hutch met with Dobey later the same night in his office, the captain was pulling on his overcoat and hat and getting ready to leave.

"Rosie has a high fever, so I have to get to the hospital," he said on his way out the door. "You two be careful. I'm putting Sim Nester with you."

They followed him through the squad room.

"What?" Hutch asked.

Dobey stopped in the doorway and turned.

"Griffin's death means somebody's got you in their crosshairs. Consider it backup." A quick glance at Hutch. "Under the circumstances."

Hutch's eyes flickered ice. "There have been zero problems with me doing this case. Ask Starsky if you don't believe me. I didn't lose it when I was with Johnson in his hospital room, I didn't shoot up when Griffin tossed us a bag of his finest. I would bow out if I thought my being on this case jeopardized my safety, and especially my partner's."

"It's been cool," Starsky added.

"Still," Dobey said as he continued his trip down the hall. "We need to catch this nut, and the sooner, the better. Nester has some good contacts and information he can share with you. I told him to contact you tonight. One more set of eyes on the two of you will make me sleep a hell of a lot better tonight, if I get around to it at all."

They watched him step into the elevator.

Hutch stared at the closed elevator door.

The partners stood in the quiet hall. Hutch said, "Does he really think I'd-"

"No. He's just being careful. It's his Papa Bear syndrome. More personal than professional."

Hutch still stared at the elevator.

"Now what?" Starsky asked.

"Let's talk to Tucker again. Tell him about Griffin being wasted, see if he knows anything about the supplier."

XXXXXXXXX+

But when they went to the hospital, they discovered that Johnson had checked himself out AMA.

While they were there, they met with the chief of staff to get a list of all hospital personnel who had access to fentanyl.

"We'll come back in the morning to question them," Hutch said. "And of course we'd appreciate it if they were given no prior warning."

"Of course," the chief agreed.

XXXXXX++

As they crossed the parking lot to the Torino, they were instinctually more alert than usual to the vehicles and people in their surroundings. An instinct sharpened by close calls and the urgent desire to protect each other.

"Looks like an all-nighter for us," Starsky said.

"Yeah. We need to find Tucker and bring him in before something happens to him."

"We'll get with Huggy and see where Johnson holes up."

"Yeah. But let's get a shower and change first, and a bite to eat."

"I'll get some coffee and donuts."

XXXXXXXXX

Starsky slowed the Torino in front of Hutch's cottage to let him out.

"I'll be back in an hour with the rations."

"Thanks."

Starsky drove on, heading for his apartment. He picked up the mike. "Control One, this is Zebra 3."

A moment of static, and then the dispatcher's voice: "Control One here, Zebra 3."

"Patch me through to Sim Nester."

"Stand by."

Starsky waited, and then the dispatcher said, "I'm sorry, 3; he doesn't pick up."

XXXXXXXXX++

Hutch's phone was ringing when he got inside.

"Hello?"

"Ken?"

"Speaking."

"Sim Nester."

It was late and Hutch was too tired to try to mask the irritation in his voice. "Yeah."

"Dobey told me to get with you guys tonight, so I'm coming over to pick you up. We'll go see my snitch, Eddie Grayson. He says he has some info on the supplier, but he won't say over the phone. Is Dave with you?"

"No, he's on his way home to shower and change. That's what I'm going to do. Then we're hitting it again. Come on over. We'll wait for him to pick us up. I'll start a pot of coffee."

XXXXXXXXX

Starsky's phone was ringing when he stepped inside of his apartment.

"Hey," he said into the receiver.

"It's me," Huggy said.

"You're just who we want to talk to."

"And you're just who I want to talk to. Tucker Johnson was offed earlier tonight right outside my joint."

"Damn. That's why we-"

"Throat cut open like a filet of fish. But he gave me the name of the supplier right before he kicked."

XXXXXXXXX

Hutch opened the door to a smiling Sim Nester, a physically fit man with a handlebar mustache and an easygoing demeanor.

"Come on in," Hutch said as he turned away buttoning his shirt and smoothing down his damp hair. "I just got out of the shower. Coffee's on."

"Yeah," Nester said as he walked in and looked around, hands casually in the pockets of his Army jacket. He strolled to the kitchen area and pulled a chair out from the table, turned it around. "Think I'll have a cup."

"Help yourself while I finish getting ready." Hutch stuffed the tails of his shirt into his brown corduroys. "The source knows that Ted Griffin and Tucker Johnson talked to us, so that leaves me and Starsk, and possibly you now, a wide open target. We need to get Tucker into protective custody before anything happens to him. Maybe Huggy too."

He reached for his shoulder holster, and Nester smiled as he smashed a half of a brick across Hutch's face.

Hutch dropped to the floor with a groan. When he raised his head to look up, Nester kicked him in the face, knocking him onto his back.

Hutch's eyes rolled as he tried to stay conscious and fixed on him. He tried to lift his head, but it dropped back.

Blood dripped from the side of his head, nose, and mouth.

"The source?" Nester repeated as he looked down at Hutch. He laughed a little. "I don't understand the rush."

Hutch tried to say something, but a groan came out instead.

Nester reached down, gripped the front of his shirt, pulled him to his feet, and sat him on the kitchen chair, cuffing his hands behind him.

"I hate heroin, Ken," he continued in his affable tone. "I hate junkies. One broke into the home of my grandparents and killed them for money for a fix. He could have just robbed them, but instead, he cut their throats."

Hutch's head bobbed lower and lower. Blood drops fell onto the front of his shirt.

"And yet our system-even cops-coddles them. Like with this case. Who cares if the heroin is tainted? It's getting the drug users off the streets, isn't it? It's making teenagers think twice before starting it. We've got child murderers, child rapists, out there, who need our attention, but what are we devoting our manpower and resources to? Dead junkies. Don't you think that's a little off? Don't you agree that we need to solve the drug problem?"

Hutch leaned forward, as if to try to get up, but instead fell forward. Nester put a hand on his chest and eased him back.

"You know what Mickey told me today? I didn't believe it. Called him a liar. He said he saw you face to face, talked to you, and that you looked like you'd been on the horse. I said you would never do anything like that."

Hutch moved his head no, and groaned through bleeding lips. "Forced."

"You expect me to believe that? I know junkie cops, and believe me, they're next on my list, starting with you."

He reached into his pocket and brought out a filled syringe; removed the cap. "I kill two birds with one stone tonight, Ken. My first junkie cop, and a bloodhound who wants me to stop my work. I made a vow at my grandparents' graveside that I would put a stop to the drugs, the users, the dealers, the suppliers, the junkies. Not hard when your father works for the Pentagon. What will they say when they find you with a needle in your arm, and Magic in your bloodstream?"

Hutch's head lolled to one side; he saw the needle, and tried to bolt, but Nester locked an arm around his throat from behind, choking off his air.

Hutch stiffened, tried to breathe, struggled to move.

"Hold still," Nester cooed into his ear. "Just one little fix, and then I'll be-"

Nestor's head exploded from a bullet that shattered Hutch's front window. The door slammed open and Starsky ran in holstering his gun; a backup unit, Dobey, and Huggy behind him.

"Hutch!"

Starsky slid to one knee next to the kitchen chair, unlocking the handcuffs on Hutch's wrists, kicking the fallen syringe aside. "Did he shoot you up?"

Starsky pushed up both of his partner's sleeves to look for injection sites.

Hutch groaned with his head down, moved his head no.

Starsky carefully lifted his chin. "Hey, buddy." He glanced at Huggy, swallowing a sob but failing to hide the tears that filled his eyes. "He's hurt pretty bad, Hug. Call an ambulance."

Huggy was walking to the phone before Starsky could finish his sentence.

It wasn't necessary for Dobey to check for a pulse on Nester's throat, because half of his head was gone, but he did look at the body to make sure it was him, even checked his wallet and police ID to be absolutely positive. He tilted Hutch's head back to assess his injuries.

"Okay," Hutch murmured as he leaned forward, his arms reaching for his partner. "I'm okay."

Starsky gently took him in his arms, stroked the back of his head. "Yeah. You're gonna be okay."

End

THE FARM

By TR

"Man," Starsky said as Hutch drove down the long stretch of gravel road well off the main highway, "what a nice way to spend my birthday. Thanks."

Hutch smiled as they drove past the green pastures, farmland, and dense forestland. "My pleasure."

On the road up ahead a turtle was crossing at an excruciatingly slow pace.

Hutch slowed his car down. "Get that, Starsk."

Starsky picked his camera up off the seat as Hutch crawled to a stop to let him out.

Starsky crept around to the front of Hutch's car. "Will it bite?"

"Not that kind," Hutch laughed as he got out of the car too.

Starsky crouched to snap a picture.

Hutch pointed ahead about a hundred yards. "What is that?"

"What is what?"

Then Starsky saw what Hutch was talking about. They started walking toward the peculiar sight-a large, old weathered barn with dolls-all sizes and kinds-plastic, cloth, porcelain-hair, no hair, mostly white but not all, all dressed in clothes that had faded and shriveled from the weather-nailed all over the side of the outside of the barn.

"Huh," Starsky said as they walked toward it. "Looks like an art display of some kind. Folk art or something'?"

"Who knows?"

"I'm getting a picture of it."

It was surreal, almost eerie. From a distance it looked like small corpses impaled along

the huge wooden surface in a haphazard fashion.

"How creepy can you get?" Hutch asked as they got closer to the barn.

When they reached it, they both just stood and stared at the side of the barn.

"There must be fifty, maybe a hundred dolls here," Hutch said in a bewildered voice. "Why?"

"Somebody collects 'em," Starsky replied as he raised his camera to fill his frame with the odd canvas. "Maybe some weirdo thing left over from last Halloween. Kinda cool.."

He snapped a picture, then backed up to take some more.

"Yeah," Hutch agreed. "If you're Vincent Price. I'm going to look inside."

Hutch walked around to the front of the barn, where he lifted a wooden board that held the wide door closed.

"Hey!" Hutch called as he slid the door aside. "Anybody here?"

Hutch stepped inside the dusty barn. It looked like it had been abandoned years ago. Empty stalls. A broken-down tractor, a rusty hay wagon, a few old tools, a worn-out saddle and bridle. He looked around for fresh footprints or tire prints, or anything that was new or not dusty. But there was nothing to indicate that anyone had been here recently.

He stepped farther into the barn, toward a room in the back that looked like a storage room, work room, or tool shed of some sort.

A flutter over his head clenched his heart. He looked up and saw two birds flapping around a nest high in the top of the rafters.

He saw that there was a rusted padlock on the closed door, which prevented him from opening it and looking inside.

He put his eye up to a crack in the boards of the room, and was able to see a big dusty worktable and some empty 50 gallon drums.

Even though he was a police officer who perhaps had more of a right or reason than most to snoop around, he still somehow felt like a little kid spying.

He stepped outside, then slid the big barn door closed again.

"You're probably right," he said as he walked around the side of the barn to talk to

Starsky. "Some kind of prank. Let's go on down the road to-"

"Starsk?"

Hutch looked around.

"Starsk?"

Hutch started walking all the way around the barn. "If this is some kind of joke, I'm not laugh-"

He stopped and looked down. Starsky's camera was on the ground.

He reached down with a trembling hand, held tight to it so it would stop shaking, his voice lower, soft with fear.

"Starsk?"

He looked toward the tan Ford, saw no sign of him, then started around the other side of the barn, head swiveling in all directions to catch sight of his partner.

"Starsky!"

Only the flutter of birds from inside the barn answered him.

He looked down and saw a trail of mashed weeds that led to the road, where someone had walked, dragged, or carried his partner away. And also a splatter of blood, which took him to one knee.

XXXXXXXXX+

Captain Dobey had the local sheriff's department dispatch several deputies to search the surrounding area for Starsky.

"I don't get it," Hutch said as he paced in long strides at the side of the barn. "A good cop like Starsky doesn't go down without a fight."

"Maybe he couldn't fight. Maybe he never had a chance."

Hutch stopped to stare at his captain's blunt truthfulness.

"It wouldn't be the first time," Dobey muttered as he looked around at the bloodstained weeds. A police photographer snapped a picture of the blood drops. "Vic Bellamy got him right in his own bed."

"Thanks for reminding me."

"And Simone right out of the courthouse men's room-"

"I know. I know. The blood isn't good. This-" Hutch stopped and looked down at Starsky's camera, still in his hands, grip so tight his knuckles were white. A link to the life of his partner.

"What if…"

Dobey studied the dolls on the side of the barn, touched one. "Old plastic. Old clothes. They've been here for a long time. Some of them look antique, and some of them look newer. Edith helps Rosie collect dolls. I don't know much about them." He trailed off, stood in the silence, and looked at Hutch. "What if what?"

"What if Starsky snapped some pictures of whoever jumped him?"

"Good idea. We'll take it back and get them developed."

Hutch handed him the camera. "You go ahead. I'm not leaving this place until I find him."

The sheriff walked up to Dobey and adjusted his hat. "You wanted to ask me something?"

"Whose barn is this? What's with the dolls?"

"This has been here for ages. Some old farmer started doing it years ago when he was a young man. Sort of a hobby I guess."

"Don't you think it's a little strange?"

"Not to us. We grew up with the spectacle. Get used to it I suppose. Now it's sort of a tourist attraction. He's harmless. Been retired from farming for about ten years now."

"What's his name?"

"Walter Wilson."

"He live close by?"

"About a mile down the road."

Hutch started for his car. "I'll ask if he saw anything."

"Meet me back here in an hour," Dobey told him. "I'll send his camera on with Maurice to get the film developed."

XXXXXXXXX++

An old pickup truck was parked outside of the big, inviting farmhouse. A cat was curled up inside of a wheelbarrow taking a nap. The house had two stories, the porch lined with potted flowers. Two rocking chairs sat side by side in front of a window. It reminded him of the farmhouse his grandfather had years ago. He could smell something cooking inside. Bacon. Maybe biscuits and gravy.

Hutch displayed his ID to the old man at the front door. He wore a worn denim work shirt, old green cotton pants, and scruffy work boots that were probably ten years old. His face was as lined and creased as leather, hair white and thin, eyes a vivid green. He was frail and thin, his knuckles enlarged and spotted, and he leaned on a cane.

"Walter Wilson?"

"Yes, sir?"

"My name is Detective Ken Hutchinson. My partner and I were down at your barn a little while ago, and he somehow disappeared. Did you see anything, or hear anything, or know anyone who would be at your barn today?"

Walter studied Hutch's ID.

"His name is David Starsky," Hutch said. "About this tall, dark hair. Wearing jeans and a bright green football jersey with the number 24 on it."

"Nope. Haven't seen anybody today. But if I do, how should I get a hold of you?"

Hutch handed him a card. "You can also call your sheriff's office. They're helping me look. It's important that I find him quickly. He's hurt."

"You goin' door to door?"

"Deputies are doing that for me."

Hutch looked past the old man, over his shoulder and into the living room of his house, where he saw a cardboard box full of dolls.

"Oh," Hutch said looking back to the man. "About your barn. The dolls?"

Walter nodded. Glanced over his shoulder. "I do it for the Missus."

Hutch looked past the man's shoulder again, saw the hem of a flowered housedress wisping about at the kitchen stove.

Walter spoke quietly, as if he didn't want his wife to hear. "She never could carry a little one. Miscarried all of them. She yearned for a baby, never did have one. So she got fixed on the dolls, and, well, she thought they'd look nice on the barn where everybody could see them. She just loves little babies."

"Oh."

An explanation, finally, Hutch thought, but still a little weird.

"Walter?" her voice sang from the kitchen. "Who's at the door?"

"A policeman. He's looking for his friend."

"Tell him to come in and eat with us."

"No," Hutch said. "I can't. I really have to keep-"

Something on the coffee table drew his eyes. A wallet. Familiar. It looked similar to Starsky's, but he couldn't be sure at this distance.

"Do you live here alone, Walter?" Hutch asked. "I mean, just you and your wife?"

Mrs. Wilson was at the door pulling him inside, a smile on her plump pinkish cheeks. "Come on in, dear. We have plenty."

Hutch stepped inside the home, trying not to stare at the wallet on the coffee table, but finding it hard to do otherwise.

"Right this way," she said as she and her husband led him toward the kitchen.

Hutch looked at the box of dolls on the way to the kitchen, then quickly flipped open the wallet, seeing that it wasn't Starsky's at all, but Walter's, and flipped it closed.

Mrs. Wilson moved Hutch to a kitchen chair, where he sat down. "I'm really not that hungry, Ma'am. Maybe coffee."

The woman poured a cup of coffee and handed it to him. "Tell me about your friend."

"David Starsky. My partner. We were looking at your barn, and I went inside to…" He laughed a little. "I'm a nosy cop, so I went inside to look around, and when I came back out, he was gone and there was blood on the ground."

"Sorry to hear that. Just tell us what we can do to help you find him."

"Well…" He heard a sound overhead, faint. The movement of furniture, and perhaps…perhaps…a cough. Or a groan.

Hutch looked at the ceiling. The old couple heard it as well. They looked overhead too.

Hutch set the coffee cup down and rose to his feet. "I asked you if you live alone, Walter."

"Not exactly alone," Walter answered as he leaned on his cane. "We have a farmhand who comes and goes."

Eyes still on the ceiling, Hutch rose to his feet, drawing his gun. "What's his name?"

"Ray Messina."

Mrs. Wilson passed a worried look to Walter. "Walter, what-"

"Now look here," Walter said as he watched Hutch walk from the room and toward the staircase. "If you think Ray hurt your-"

"Shut up," Hutch said as he headed for the stairs.

Walter followed him. "Don't you hurt Ray. He's like a son to us. We never had a boy to call our own."

Hutch trained his gun on Walter.

"Sit on the couch," he told them. "Both of you."

The Wilsons obeyed, sitting on the couch side by side.

Hutch continued up the stairs, ears straining to hear, eyes sharp, adrenaline surging.

"Ray Messina!"

But only silence answered back.

Hutch paused at the top of the stairs, head turning in both directions to observe a hallway that led to the left and right of him.

"This is the police! Detective Ken Hutchinson! Come out so we can talk!"

Hutch stopped, waited, listened.

Moments later: "I want to talk to you about my partner!"

Hutch went to the first room on his right. The door was opened halfway, so he quietly pushed the toe of his boot against it and swung it open gently. A bedroom. Likely the one that the Wilsons used. Her nightgown lay across the foot of the bed. His slippers on the floor. A few bottles of medicine and a box of tissues on the nightstand. An alarm clock and a glass of water.

Hutch moved to the next room.

"Messina? I don't want to hurt you. I just want to find my-"

A groan of pain.

"Huh…"

Unmistakable. His partner's voice, a weak sound, calling for him from a room farther down the hall.

"Ray!" Hutch yelled as he moved carefully down the hall toward the sound of Starsky's voice. "Let's talk! Come out with your hands up!"

When nothing came in response, Hutch put his hand out toward the closed door, took the doorknob in his hand, and turned, his breath coming heavy.

Starsky was alone in the room, propped sideways against the headboard, wrists tied to the bedpost with hay baling twine, head down. a bloodstain on the right shoulder of his green football shirt.

"Starsk!"

Hutch bolted inside the room, putting his gun away, stumbling toward the bed, taking Starsky's head carefully in his hands and raising it up, seeing eyes that looked a million miles away.

"Starsk?"

"I lied," Walter's voice said behind him. "There's no Ray Messina."

Hutch's blood chilled. Words came out as ice chips.

"What did you give him?"

There was no answer. Mrs. Wilson joined her husband inside the room.

Hutch patted Starsky's face, spoke warmly, fearfully. "Hey. Hey, buddy. Look at me. Can you hear me?"

Starsky's eyes rolled as his head lolled to one side.

"Here," Hutch whispered as he worked to untie the knots in the twine. "Let's get you out of these, okay?"

"He's our boy," Mrs. Wilson said as she took a step toward the bed. "He's gonna stay here."

Hutch turned red-rimmed eyes to her. "What did you give him?"

Mr. Wilson's head went down.

"Walter doctored his own livestock," Mrs. Wilson explained. "He had a lot of tranquilizers left over."

Hutch opened the drawer to the bedside table, found dozens of syringes and vials.

"You can't take him," Mrs. Wilson said.

"Is this how you would treat a son?" Hutch asked them. "Hurt him? Drug him? Tie him up?"

Captain Dobey's voice from downstairs:

"HUTCHINSON!"

"HE'S UP HERE! CALL AN AMBULANCE!"

The sound of tromping footsteps as Dobey and two deputies made their way up the stairs, down the hall, and into the bedroom.

Dobey saw Starsky's condition and rushed past the elderly couple and then to the bed.

"They did this?"

The sheriff joined them, and then, after a sweeping glance that told him what happened, put Walter's hands behind his back. "You're under arrest."

"Both of them," Hutch said.

Mrs. Wilson started to cry. "You can't. He's our boy. We want him."

The sheriff arrested both of them and read them their rights.

After they were escorted from the room, Dobey leaned over Starsky to examine the bloody lump at the back of his head.

"Hutch," Starsky mumbled in a slurred voice. "Am I …okay?"

Hutch finished untying his wrists, then sat down next to him, pulling him close to his side.

"Sure. You're gonna be just fine."

"What hap…" He was too disoriented to finish. His arms, now free but heavy, found Hutch's right one and clung to it.

"Our friendly neighborhood doll collectors."

A deputy came into the room, pale-faced. "Hey, everybody."

Everyone but Starsky looked his way.

The deputy addressed Hutch:

"We got skeletons in the other room. Looks like they were people nailed to the wall a long time ago. Just like the dolls. I think that's what they were gonna do to your partner."

Dobey and Hutch exchanged a look, and then Dobey left the room to see for himself.

Hutch closed his eyes and squeezed his partner even closer.

XXXXXXXXX++

Starsky still had gray circles under his eyes when he stepped into the photography room at the police station.

Hutch and Dobey gave him a smile while the photographer sorted through the pictures.

"Hey," Hutch said ruffling his hair, "I told you I'd come and pick you up at the hospital."

"Couldn't wait that long. Whatcha got?"

Hutch pulled a stool over for Starsky to sit on.

"Here, dirtball. You okay?"

Starsky smiled and took a seat on the stool. "Thanks."

The photographer handed Hutch the photographs, and they all observed them:

Of a rusted mailbox with a bird's next inside.

Of a calf nursing at its mother.

Of a tree house high in some branches.

Of two ponies running together.

Of the turtle crossing the road.

Of the barn with all of the dolls affixed to it.

Of Mr. and Mrs. Wilson-she with a wheelbarrow, he with his cane raised in the air, their truck parked on the road in the background.

"Do you remember what happened?" Hutch asked him.

"Not really. One minute I was taking a picture, the next I see them coming at me, and he's got his cane raised over his head."

Dobey took the photos from Hutch. "I'll keep these for the case." He looked at Starsky. "Good to see you up and about."

Dobey left, and after he was gone, Hutch draped an arm around Starsky's shoulders. "I knew you were irresistible, but that was a little too much."

Starsky gave him a pale smile.

"Well," Hutch continued, "since your birthday was ruined by ma and pa, I think you deserve a do-over."

"No kidding. What do you have in mind?"

"Something safe. Nice little table in a quiet restaurant. Low lights, soft music."

Starsky got off the stool. "Sounds like a winner."

End

JOE COLLANDRA

By TR

"Nat!"

Starsky walked up to the young lady named Natalie, who was reading on a park bench.

He kissed her and handed her a brown paper bag.

"Thanks," she said as she smiled into his eyes and opened her ham and cheese sandwich. "My favorite. Want some?"

"Ate with Hutch earlier. Go ahead."

She looked into the lunch sack. "My drink?"

He snapped his fingers. "Just a sec." He ran to the Torino that was parked along the curb and came back with a can of Tab. "Almost forgot."

He opened it and handed it to her.

"Thanks again," she smiled.

He watched her eat her food. She looked away self-consciously.

"Dave," she said with a blush. "You're staring."

He leaned over, took her face between his hands, and kissed her again. "Can't help it. You free tonight?"

Her response was hesitant. "Yeah. I guess."

"You guess?"

"Well, it's…Don called again."

"You kidding me? You told him about us, right?"

"Right. But I guess he doesn't get the picture. We dated for two years."

"So? He doesn't own you."

"He said he breaks up with girls; they don't break up with him."

"Chump. I'll set him straight."

"I wish somebody would, because the head nurse doesn't like him coming here to my hospital or calling every day."

"He's been doing that?"

"I'm afraid I'll lose my job. If-"

She stopped talking, and he turned to see what stopped her in mid-sentence. Don, a handsome older man in a suit, was getting out of his white Corvette and walking across the park.

She got up to leave, but Starsky gently stilled her with his hand.

"I'll take care of it," he said as he walked over to the man named Don.

She watched carefully, fearfully from the bench; her head dipped toward her lunch bag, thumbnail between her teeth. She started to leave the bench when Don's eyes met hers, but Starsky moved in front of him to block her view of him.

Starsky spoke with the man a few moments, then took his badge and identification out. Don looked the shield over, then walked back to his car, giving a final glare over his shoulder to Natalie.

Starsky walked back to the park bench and sat down next to her.

"Hey, you're nervous," he said putting his arm around her. "Don't be. He got the message."

"Thanks," she said hugging his arm and laying her head against his shoulder.

XXXXXX++

Huggy was personally putting new songs on his jukebox when Hutch walked into the busy restaurant.

"Just in time," Hutch smiled as he looked over Huggy's selection of singles. "Hey, I like this Tony Bennett."

"Where's your better half?"

"On a date with his new squeeze."

"Do I know her?"

"Natalie Berry. She's a nurse at Memorial."

"I dated a few nurses there lately, but don't recall a Natalie Berry."

"She's only been in town a few months. She dated Don Anthony before she met Starsky."

"Don Anthony?"

"Lucky she's got Starsk to stick up for her. Breaking clean of The Little Godfather ain't gonna be easy."

"The Little Godfather?"

"That's his nickname. He's small-time workin' his way up. Got a few guys. Owns a few ships. Brings in a little of everything for the streets. "

"I'm aware of who he is; I just hadn't heard his nickname."

The bar became louder as the dinner crowd started to arrive.

"Well," Hutch said looking at his pocket watch. "I have my own date to attend to. I may bring her around here for a drink or two later."

"Selena?"

"You got it," Hutch said walking toward the door with a wave. "Keep Tony on standby for me."

"Will do."

XXXXXX

Starsky arrived at Natalie's apartment door promptly at seven that evening.

He knocked, smelling the bouquet of flowers in his hand.

The door opened, and Don Anthony filled the doorway.

"Come on in," he said with a reptilian smile.

Starsky reached for his gun, but froze when a pistol pressed against his temple. "Slowly," Don said quietly. "Come in slowly."

Starsky slowly entered the apartment, looked around, saw two of Don's men standing over Natalie's body, and bolted for her.

"Nat!" he shouted as he crouched by her side.

But the blood matting the side of her head and congealing on the floor told him that it was too late.

A growl of pain and rage escaped him as he lunged for Don, but one of Don's men thrust an arm out, caught him around the throat, jerked him back, and began to apply a chokehold.

Starsky struggled momentarily, his eyes beginning to roll back.

"Sleaze-" he half-gasped, half-growled. He kicked, struggled to get out of the hold, hands pawing desperately.

"Life as you know it is over," Don said as he walked up to Starsky, took a cigarette case from his breast pocket, withdrew a hypodermic needle and packet of heroin, and showed it to him. "Do you understand?'

XXXXXX+

"The lovely Selena," Huggy said as he took her hand and kissed it.

"My," the blonde said as Hutch put his arm around her. "If you're not careful, Ken, I just may drop you for this flatterer."

"I'll remember you said that," Hutch said as he kissed her.

Huggy cued Diane with a snap of his fingers, and she smiled, went to the jukebox, and started a Tony Bennett song.

"Oh," Selena said as she squeezed Hutch's hand. "I love that one."

Hutch and Huggy exchanged a wink.

"Starsky and Nat come by?" Hutch asked him.

"Haven't heard a peep." He set a phone in front of Hutch. "Ring him up and make it a double date."

Hutch dialed Starsky's number and waited, listening to it ring again and again.

"Not home?" Selena asked.

Hutch shook his head no and hung up.

"Maybe they're at her place," Huggy offered.

"I don't have her number. Let's drop over there and drag them out of bed."

Hutch took Selena's hand and led her toward the door.

"How do you know they're in bed?" she asked.

"When Starsky's dating, he's always in bed."

XXXXXX+

"His Torino isn't here," Selena said as Hutch parked in front of Natalie's apartment.

"I'll see if she is," he said as he got out of his car and walked around to the passenger side to open the door for her. "That's her VW across the street."

Selena got out of the car and they walked inside the apartment building, then Hutch led the way down the hall to the door with the number 9 on it.

"Hey!" he said as he knocked. "Anybody home?"

When no answer came back, Hutch gave the doorknob a halfhearted try, and was surprised when it turned all the way.

He pushed the door open and stepped inside, saw the wide bloodstain on the floor where Natalie's head had bled, then jerked his gun out and ran through the apartment.

"Starsk!"

Selena's hand came up to cover her mouth.

"Oh my God, Ken. What happened here?"

Upper lip perspiring, Hutch stalked over to Natalie's phone and used a handkerchief to lift the receiver when he dialed Captain Dobey.

As he spoke to the captain, Hutch's head moved in all directions, on the alert for the slightest sound or movement that might be in the apartment; attention on Selena's state of being as well. He raised a hand to signal her to stay put, to avoid further disturbance of the obvious crime scene.

"Starsky was here," he said to Dobey into the receiver. "Bouquet of flowers on the floor. One of them, maybe both of them, wounded. There's a bloodstain on the floor. No doubt this was Don Anthony. Get a crime team over here. Looks like he made it to the big time."

Selena watched Hutch as he worked via the telephone, a complex portrait of both calm professionalism and tightly-controlled panic. The professionalism was evident in his voice. A low-grade panic simmered just beneath the surface, gathering like a fever in the blueness of his eyes.

Selena waited patiently while he spoke to Dobey. She assumed she was watching a concerned detective doing his job well for his partner. She had no idea she was watching a man winding up tight inside for his best friend.

When he was finished, he hung up, his breath coming a little harder and faster than before.

"What can I do to help?" Selena asked as she watched him helplessly.

As if he hadn't heard her, he moved past her and out into the hallway, where he bumped into Joe Collandra, who was a perfect reflection of Hutch's demeanor-a calmness under extreme duress.

"I don't know," Joe said, answering Hutch's question before he could speak it aloud.

Hutch grabbed the front of Joe's blue shirt and white apron. "Where is he?"

"I said I don't know."

Without looking back at the bloodstain on the floor, Hutch pointed to it. "Is that his blood?"

"No. It's the girl's."

Hutch looked at Selena. "I want you to go home. I have work to do. Take my car. I'll catch up with you or call you when I can."

"But Ken-"

"Go!"

Like an admonished child, Selena walked briskly to Hutch's car, got in, and drove away.

"What do you know?" Hutch asked Joe.

Joe took his apron and wiped sweat from his face, looking peaked and strained. "I don't know. This started a little after seven. I was getting ready for the dinner service, and then it hits me. This feeling. This…Starsky feeling. Yelling out. In his head. To you. For you. And then. A lot of quiet. Nothing going on. I feel like…my head's all messed up. Confused. Can't think. Want to sleep. Can't think."

"Don Anthony, right? You get that, right?"

"Something like…father. God. God the father."

"Little Godfather. That's him."

"Yeah."

Hutch crowded into him, forcing Joe's back against the wall. "Are you getting where Starsky is? Do you see that?"

"No. I'm not getting a place right now. It's all…dark and quiet."

With those words, Hutch began to pace in the hall, arms folded tightly across his chest, rubbing the place between his eyes.

"Dark and quiet, as in dead?" he asked in a flat voice.

"I don't know, Hutch. Maybe just asleep. Maybe unconscious. I don't know."

Joe leaned against the wall, eyes rolling, sinking to his knees. "So tired," he said with his head down.

Hutch crouched with him. "What's going on?"

"Small room," Joe mumbled. He muttered something else, but Hutch couldn't make out the words.

"Hutch?"

Hutch looked around; saw Dobey arriving with two black and whites and two detectives.

"We're going to find Don Anthony," Hutch told the captain as he pulled Joe to his feet and dragged him down the hall. "And then we're going to find Starsky."

XXXXXXXXX

Don Anthony and two of his men stood in the small office of the burned out diner.

Starsky lay on a dirty cot, shirt off for easy access to his veins, staring at the ceiling, needle marks visible in the bend of his right arm.

"You want him overdosed?" the one with the heroin kit asked.

"I want him a junkie begging for it on the street. I want his career ruined and his reputation demolished."

"Be simpler just to kill him, wouldn't it?"

"Cops are all about laying down their lives for someone. They expect that could happen. He would die for his job, just like a soldier or any other public servant. But they're not about losing it all to shame and humiliation. Some things are harder than death. He's going to learn a lesson about what it's like to cross me. Give him another fix, then dump him in front of his precinct."

Don turned and left the small room.

When he was gone, the man with the syringe looked at his associate.

"I got it under control," he said. "Go to the car and catch some Z's."

"You sure?"

The man with the syringe glanced Starsky's way with a small laugh. "He's been on the stuff three days. What the hell's he gonna do, get away?"

The associate nodded, then left.

The man with the syringe closed the door, then sat down in a chair, tipping it back against the wall.

"Hey," Starsky said with a groggy wave of his hand. "Time for another shot?"

"Is that what you want?"

Starsky rolled slowly onto his side, then tumbled onto the floor.

"He said…" He tried to rise onto an elbow, but only crumpled facedown. "Come on. Give me some."

"You gotta come to me if you want it."

"I cuh…" Starsky tried to raise his head, move his hand, but his body was as slow-moving as molasses, and finally was resigned to lying on the floor. "Can't."

The man with the syringe chuckled, then got out of his chair and stooped beside him, tied a handkerchief around his upper arm as a tourniquet, then slid the needle in.

"Don't want it," Starsky groaned with a sound of pleasure, relief, and self-loathing.

XXXXXX

"Joe," Hutch said lightly smacking Collandra's face in the car. "Come on. Wake up. Talk to me."

"Can't," he murmured sleepily. "Nothing to say."

Hutch shook him. "Huggy's got some feelers out for where Don Anthony does business, but it's been three days and we have to find Starsky now. Do you feel anything? See anything? Any places?"

"Nah," he drawled as his head lazily moved around.

Hutch reached inside his jacket pocket, brought out the small blue plushy that Starsky kept in his desk in the squad room. He put it in Joe's hand, closing it around, hoping that it would intensify Joe's intuition.

It must have worked, because something changed in Collandra's manner and voice.

Joe offered Hutch a tired smile, holding the inside of his arm as if it hurt; as if hiding it. "Can't let you see me like this, Hutch. Not gonna be good for you. It'd hurt you like hell. Just stay away."

Frowning, fear rising in his eyes and in his breath, Hutch gripped Joe's shoulders and shook him a little, sure he was speaking, however impossible that could be, to Starsky.

"Joe? Starsk? What are you talking about?'

Joe mumbled something unintelligible.

This time Hutch shook him roughly.

The plush toy dropped to the seat between them.

"Starsk!"

With Collandra clearly unable to speak, Hutch started the car.

"I don't know where the hell I'm going," Hutch muttered to himself as he drove toward

the only place that made sense at the moment: Huggy's.

He passed the precinct, and Joe started to stir in the passenger seat, his head moving back and forth as if in a fitful sleep.

"No," he said as he gripped the door handle. "Let me out of here."

Hutch grabbed for his sleeve.

"Joe!"

Collandra was opening the door.

Hutch grabbed him back.

"What the hell is wrong with-"

"Out!" Joe yelled. "Gotta get out!"

Hutch swerved the car to a lurching stop, and Joe spilled out, staggering down the sidewalk, turning into an alley.

Hutch dodged traffic as he crossed the street to catch up. Horns blared. Tires screeched.

Drivers swore.

"Joe! Come back here!"

Collandra trudged down the alley, past piles of crushed and dented cardboard boxes, a rusted shopping cart of discarded clothes, a broken bicycle, shattered glass.

"Joe!"

Collandra kept going, toward a dumpster.

A spidery-thin cat skittered away. Past a hand clutching the corner of the dumpster. Close to the ground.

A gasp. A moan.

"Starsk?"

Joe collapsed against the dumpster. Hutch saw his partner on the other side of it, huddling, clutching the corner-trying to hide or trying to get up, Hutch couldn't be sure.

"Oh my God," Hutch whispered when he saw the puncture wounds in his arm, his dirty

hair, smudged skin, glazed eyes.

He dropped to his knees next to Starsky, taking him under the arms, holding him upright.

"Got away," Starsky and Joe mumbled at the same time.

Joe let out a sound of relief-half-laugh, half-cry, as he struggled to his feet and leaned against the dumpster.

"Get the car," Hutch told him.

"He's alive," Joe said, sounding confused.

"Get the damn car!"

On steadier legs now, Joe trudged down the alleyway to get his car.

Fighting tears and rage, Hutch lifted Starsky's chin so that his glassy eyes could see him.

"Starsk?"

Starsky made no move toward him; no effort to speak. Hutch realized he was too weak to do anything.

"I got you," he whispered as he scooped Starsky up and carried him down the alley toward Joe's waiting car. "I'll take care of you, okay?"

XXXXXX+

Hutch sat on the edge of Joe's bed, holding a shivering but struggling Starsky so that he couldn't get out-or fall out-of bed.

"Easy," Hutch said softly. "Take it easy."

Starsky's teeth chattered, bore his head into Hutch's side. "Hutch. Just-just-please."

Joe watched from a chair placed next to the bedroom door, Hutch's second line of defense.

Hutch reached for the bedspread, covered Starsky, and pulled him closer.

"I know, Starsk," he cooed soothingly. "I know, buddy. You have to ride it out. You know that."

Hutch's eyes moved to Joe, who looked away, suddenly looking very uncomfortable.

Hutch looked down too.

"Nothing for you to be ashamed of," Joe said. "You didn't ask for it. Forest, right?"

Wanting to talk about anything besides the great nakedness between them, Hutch said, "If you could give me a line on where to find Don Anthony, I'd sure appreciate it."

He said it in a voice so gentle, but so deadly, Joe had to stand up and move to another spot in the room.

"Dobey's guys got him. Randall and Stein? But for killing Natalie. Not for messing Starsky up."

"Are you sure about that?"

"Yeah."

"She's dead?"

"I told Dobey where they buried her body."

Hutch's eyes went from ice to warmth when Starsky's hand clutched his partner's wrist. "I need somethin," Starsky groaned through clenched teeth. "Somethin. I fuh-feel like-"

A sudden retch over the side of the bed, and Joe was there with a waste basket. Starsky dry-heaved, his knees drawn up, clinging to Hutch's arms as best he could.

Hutch held his head, stroked his dirty, sweaty hair.

"Easy, baby. Stay with me. I won't leave you."

XXXXXXXXX

Huggy was reading the morning newspaper at his counter when Selena walked in a little before lunchtime.

"Hello, Lovely Selena."

"Still the gentleman."

"Always the gentleman."

"I guess you know why I'm here."

"He hasn't been around, my love."

"Keeping an eye on Starsky?"

"Yeah."

"From what I saw at her apartment…he must be devastated."

"Yeah. But Hutch is a good babysitter. They'll both be back around before you know it."

"I think I'll just go over to his place to sort of-"

Huggy took her hand in both of his. "Do me a favor. Do him a favor. And give him his space. If you don't…well, let's just say that if you love him, you'll let him breathe."

She tried to read his eyes, to see what, if anything, was between the lines.

"I trust you," she said at last.

"Good. If you need something to do with yourself to stay busy, I need a new waitress."

"Really?"

"Tips are good too."

"Okay. You have a deal."

XXXXXX++

Starsky was pacing and Hutch was nodding off to sleep in an easy chair just as the bedroom door opened and Joe stepped inside.

"Hutch," Joe said as he jostled his shoulder, shooting Starsky a frantic look. "He's about to run."

Hutch's eyes came open just as Starsky bolted for the bedroom door.

He grabbed Starsky's arm, gently pulling him back.

"Where you think you're going, huh?"

Starsky flung his hand aside and reached for the doorknob.

"You know where."

"Yeah, I know where, and you can't go."

Starsky tried to push him aside. Hutch took his wrist, gingerly pulled him back again.

"Starsk, come here. You know you can't-"

Starsky shoved him back against the wall, and ran for the door again, but Hutch recovered and ran after him, wrapping his arms around him in a loving bear hug, pulling him back, putting an arm around him, pacing with him, holding him against his side.

"Joe, could you get us some coffee? And chocolate?"

"Coming up," he said as he left the room.

"Just get off me," Starsky said as he shrugged out from under Hutch's arm. "Okay? I won't run."

Hutch took his arm away. "Okay."

He closed the door again, thinking it would be less tempting than an open one.

"I'm a mess," Starsky said as he paced in a tight circle, rubbing his arms. " I need a fix. I need a shower. I need to be a damn psychic like Joe so I'd know when a psycho like Anthony's gonna gun down a girl just because I LOVE her-"

His voice choked off. He picked up a serving tray and threw it against the wall. Picked up a book, then two, then three, and hurled them against the wall.

Hutch saw him visibly shaking and falling apart. He watched as Starsky sank to his knees in tears, and, respecting his wishes, forced his arms to stay at his sides instead of wrapping around his partner.

XXXXXX++

Hutch was standing over the bed and watching Starsky sleep when the door opened and Joe stepped in with a pot of coffee and some candy bars on the tray Starsky had tossed.

"Huggy brought more," Joe said setting the tray on top of the dresser. "Said to tell you he'd stop by again this evening."

Hutch was still watching Starsky sleep, reminding Joe of a guard watching over a priceless jewel.

"They were going to dump him in front of the police station," Joe said. "Try to ruin his career, have everybody thinking he was a junkie cop. He jumped out of the car on the way there. They thought he was too juiced up to get away."

"He should never be underestimated."

"Not even by you."

Hutch looked at him, and smiled a little.

XXXXXX++

Joe was watering his plants and Hutch was on the phone with Huggy when Starsky came from the shower, dressed in clean clothes and toweling his hair.

Hutch smiled at him, and Starsky smiled back.

"You look a million percent better," Hutch said as he hung up the phone. "Don't you think so, Joe?"

"Oh yeah."

"Feel better too?" Hutch asked him.

"If feeling like you've been put through a wringer washer is better, then yeah, I feel better."

Hutch resisted the urge to help him button his shirt, sit down, tie his shoes.

"I have to go somewhere, Hutch."

Hutch thought maybe he would say the cemetery, because he hadn't been able to attend Natalie's funeral. But he said, "I gotta see Anthony."

XXXXXXXXX

The guard unlocked the door to the interrogation room, and let Starsky and Hutch inside.

Don Anthony was seated at a table, wearing an inmate jumpsuit, handcuffed, a bland expression on his face.

"You remember me," Starsky said as walked over to the table.

Hutch supervised closely, ready to intervene in an instant.

"Of course. I killed our girlfriend. Are you here to administer some police brutality? Some payback?"

Starsky moved his head no.

"I just want you to see that I'm still in one piece, and that you didn't ruin my career, or me, or my life."

End

DIRECTIVE

By TR

Hutch got out of his car and closed the door, then started up the stairs to Venice Place. To do what, he wasn't sure. Starsky had been missing (how long now? A week? A week and a half? Time blurred, it was hard to remember, days and nights bled into one long dream state) for days, so it wasn't like he was coming back to home sweet home, relax, have abeer, make a nice meal, or catch some television. What he did instead was pace, call people on the phone-snitches, hookers, anybody that could know anything-downed a quick sandwich, cup of coffee, took a quick shower, dozed a little when he could no

longer think clearly or keep his eyes open, then go back out again and hunt some more. It could be 2:30 in the morning; it could be 5 in the evening. But he was constantly, diligently searching. Each day that passed by without finding him…well, statistics, and time, weren't on his side.

Dozing wasn't enough rest. He knew that. But sleep eluded him. Even when he tried to sleep, he felt Starsky, somehow, calling out to him from the ether. Then he was driven to his feet again, out the door, down to his car.

He was so sleep-deprived that he almost thought that the Starsky-like figure standing in the corner of his upstairs landing was a mere hallucination. Wishful thinking.

He rubbed his grainy eyes, took a few more steps up, and saw that it was indeed his partner, trying to stand, leaning against the wall, in dirty, bloodstained clothes, torn shirt, shadowed eyes.

"Starsk?"

The sound-a small groan-came from Starsky, and compelled Hutch to the top of the landing.

"Hey," Hutch whispered as his hand settled gently on Starsky's shoulder, his eyes instinctively assessing him for possible injuries.

Starsky leaned his head in the corner, compliant under Hutch's steadying hand.

"Am I dreamin'?" he asked as he swayed a little.

"If you mean are you with me, safe and sound, then no, you're not dreaming."

Starsk nodded gratefully, closed his eyes.

Through the torn fabric of his partner's shirtsleeve, Hutch saw something blue on his skin, and parted the material with his fingers. On his left upper arm was a tattoo of a Star Of David.

Hutch's brows knitted with anger and confusion.

"What? What is this?"

"It's okay," Starsky mumbled as he righted himself and turned his right arm to Hutch. "This one's for you."

Hutch saw the swastika, and caught Starsky as he sank exhaustedly into his arms.

XXXXXXXXX

Hutch carried Starsky into his apartment and over to the sofa, easing him down as gently as he could.

"I'm okay," Starsky mumbled. "Just banged up a little."

"I'll be the judge of that."

Hutch went to the phone to call an ambulance.

"Hey," Starsky said forcing himself up onto his right elbow. "I said I'm okay. Just come here."

Hutch called for an ambulance anyway, then walked over to the sofa.

"I could use a drink," Starsky told him. "I'm pretty thirsty."

Hutch went to the kitchen sink and prepared a glass of water with ice, then carried it back to his partner.

"Got it?" Hutch asked as he put it into his weak hand.

"Sure," Starsky said as he drank the water.

Hutch's held the unsteady glass nevertheless.

"Know what day it is?" Hutch asked.

Starsky gave a weak chuckle. "No. Do you?"

Hutch smiled. "I think it's Monday?"

"Sounds good to me." Starsky pushed the empty glass back at Hutch, and when he did, Hutch saw red streaks on his wrist.

Hutch set the empty glass on the coffee table, took the wrist gently in his hand, turned it over, examining.

"Where were you, huh?"

"Don't know."

"Who had you?"

"I have no idea. I was blindfolded until they dumped me here at your place. Restrained somewhere. Some kind of table. Like an examining table. It's hard to remember."

"Do you recall any of their names?"

"No."

"What kind of sounds did you hear?"

"Not many. Pretty quiet. Lot of voices. Couldn't make out what they were saying, but they were doing a lot of talking, Scared out of my wits, I'll tell you that. Couldn't get off the table or fight."

Even though Starsky's head was bowed in fatigue, Hutch saw a flicker of residual fear beneath his eyelashes.

"Anything broken?"

"Don't think so."

"Did they take you anywhere else?"

"Just here."

"Do you know what kind of car you were in?"

Starsky smiled and shook his head. "Luxury car. Smelled like one anyway. Smooth ride."

"Do you remember any particular sounds on the way to or from wherever they kept you?"

Starsky started to close his eyes. "You know, Hutch, I know you have to ask, and you're in cop mode here, but I'd like to get some sleep."

Hutch gently gripped his tattooed left arm, spoke softly. "And I'd like to get the degenerates who did this. That puts me in friend mode too."

"They just busted up my face a little."

Hutch did note that the only visible injuries Starsky had were two black eyes, bloody nose, and split lip.

"Did they drug you?" Hutch asked.

"Don't think so."

"How can you be sure? Your memory isn't exactly topnotch."

Starsky shrugged. "Maybe I was drugged, but if so, I don't remember it."

"So what else happened?"

"I don't know, I told you it's kind of hard to remember."

Hutch examined Starsky's arms for needle marks; found none.

"Well, hopefully these tattoos will lead me to something. My first guess would be a neo-Nazi group, but that may be too easy. Do you remember them giving these to you?"

"It was when I first got there. Right after they worked me over. They kept talking about their work, or something like that. Who knows, maybe I dreamed it. Crazy."

Starsky sank onto the throw pillow and closed his eyes. Hutch realized he was exhausted, and almost scolded himself for questioning Starsky, but he knew he needed all the information he could gather.

Hutch heard the sound of the paramedics at his door, and went to open it.

"I said I'm fine," Starsky said as he forced himself to sit up on the edge of the sofa.

The paramedics entered, and he sat impatiently as they checked his pupils.

"I'm fine!" he shouted at them. "All I need is some rest!"

One of the paramedics looked at Hutch. "Anything broken?"

"No."

"Drugged?"

"Not that I can tell."

"Just banged up," Starsky muttered as the other paramedic took his blood pressure. "Sorry I yelled at you, but you know Kenneth Hutchinson. He's like a-" He noticed that the medic was staring at the swastika.

"Tequila," he said with a glance to Hutch.

Hutch bit his lip to avoid saying anything.

"Starsky," the medic said. "Are you sure you don't want to go for a quick once-over? I

mean, you look all right to me, but-"

"Go spend your time on somebody who needs it. Hutch knows what to do."

The medic shrugged and looked at Hutch, who reluctantly nodded.

"Refused treatment," the other medic said as he wrote on a clipboard. He held it out for Starsky to sign, who did so with a slightly tremoring hand.

When the medics left, Hutch sat next to Starsky on the edge of the sofa, taking the hand that was still tremoring a little, and squeezed.

"I don't know what happened, and I don't think you do either, but you're home now, you'll be okay, I'll do everything I can to catch those people, and I'll watch you like a hawk."

Starsky's head nodded, almost a sleepy bob, dropping toward Hutch's shoulder.

Hutch put an arm around him, gave him a squeeze, then lowered him to the pillow and covered him with a throw.

"When you wake up, you can have a nice shower, I'll brew some of my herbal tea, and I'll show you the new song I've been working on."

A small smile played at Starsky's lips. A positive sign that Hutch could read: He had heard his partner's words, and he was starting to feel better.

XXXXXXXXX

While Starsky was sleeping, Hutch went to the phone and called Captain Dobey, told him what he knew, which was precious little, but told him to have a couple of detectives pull any and all files pertaining to neo-Nazis.

"I think maybe some disgruntled ex-con skinheads are trying for a little payback. Try especially Luke Marrs and Mike Highfield."

"You're not going to be on this yourself?"

"I'd like nothing better, but I need to keep an eye on Starsky until he gets his land legs back."

Dobey paused a moment before asking, "Is he all right?"

"He will be. No broken bones. They messed his pretty face up, put those tattoos on him, but he'll survive. Possibly drugged, but he refuses to go to the hospital to find out for

sure."

"This goes without saying, but keep an eye on him."

"You know I will."

"Did he escape or did they drop him off?"

"He said they dropped him off, so that tells me their intentions weren't to kill him, just sending a message."

"To you?"

"I don't know."

"Anything else you can tell me?"

"He said he was brought home in a luxury car, so take it from there. If we…"

He trailed off because Starsky was mumbling something in his sleep.

Something…German?

"Gotta go," he told Dobey, then hung up and walked over to the bed.

His ears were playing tricks on him. Starsky didn't know the German language.

"Hey," Hutch said gently shaking his shoulder. "You dreaming, Starsk? Wake up and talk to me."

Starsky stirred, blinked at him, then opened sleepy eyes.

"Huh?"

"Were you speaking German?"

Starsky moved his head no. "You know I don't know any German," he muttered, then turned over to go back to sleep. "'cept you, komrade."

Okay. Just my imagination. You've got this neo-Nazi thing on your mind, so of course you thought you heard him say something in German.

Hutch went to the phone to call Huggy this time, and told him that Starsky was back.

XXXXXX+

Hutch, Huggy, and a tattoo artist named Magicka, dressed in an African caftan and wearing a small white ponytail, stood over Starsky while the craftsman examined, without touching him, the tattoos on both of his upper arms.

"Well?" Hutch asked in a near-whisper. "Do they tell you anything, besides the obvious?"

"They're very…professional isn't the word. Different. Organic is more like it. As if they're birthmarks instead of ink or an exterior application. I can't tell you that it was ink that was used, or what instrument they used. But I've never really seen anything like it before. The artistry is lovely. I'd like to see what he can do with a more intricate design. Basic swastika and Star of David aren't that elaborate. I'll check around the shops, though, to see if I can spot anything similar, but I doubt that I will. These look very advanced. I'm not sure that a needle was even used."

"What else could it be?" Hutch asked.

"I wish I knew."

"I tried to wipe them off," Hutch said. "But they're permanent."

"If you find out anything," Huggy admonished, "keep it under wraps. Me and Hutch are the only ones to know."

Magicka nodded. "I understand. Perhaps…"

He let his sentence fade when he saw Starsky's eyes open.

Hutch smiled at him. "Hiya, partner."

Starsky gazed up at the 3 men hovering over the sofa.

"Okay," he said as he rolled off the sofa and pushed himself to a standing position. "Mother henning is one thing, but I don't think it takes 3 grown men to baby sit me."

He moved between them.

"We were just admiring your groovy tattoos," Huggy told him.

Starsky waved a hand at him and disappeared inside Hutch's bedroom. "I need a change of clothes," he said, then came out and stomped into the bathroom, slamming the door closed.

"He's feeling better," Hutch decided. To Huggy and Magicka he said, "Thanks for coming."

Huggy nodded. "Call if there's anything else I can do. And I'll do a little digging myself."

Hutch nodded, then opened the door for the two men to leave.

When they were gone, Hutch set about making the herbal tea he'd promised, along with a grilled cheese sandwich for both of them.

Twenty minutes later Starsky emerged from the shower in a pair of Hutch's brown corduroys and white undershirt.

"You look a million times better," Hutch said handing him a cup of tea.

"Feel a million times better too," Starsky said as he trudged to the table where Hutch had set the table with the grilled cheese sandwiches, a candle, and a flower in a vase.

Hutch pulled his chair out for him, then sat down too.

"How long did I sleep?" Starsky asked.

"Three hours or so."

"I needed it. I was zonked."

"Magicka said the tattoos were very advanced. What do you remember about them?"

"Magicka?"

"The guy that just left here, who do you think I meant?"

"How should I know?"

"So what do you remember about them?"

Starsky sipped his hot tea thoughtfully, then answered, "I remember that I expected it to hurt like hell, but it didn't."

"So it wasn't a needle?"

"Is that important?"

"Everything's important if we're going to find the scum who had you. You know that."

When he saw Starsky's distressed features, he lightened. "Look, I know I've been giving you the third degree, but…"

"But if I could remember anything, I'd tell you."

"Really? You didn't tell me about the tattoos until I asked."

"I didn't really think about it."

Hutch smiled. "That's why I'm asking."

"Hey, can we change the subject? I just kinda wanna sit here."

"Sure," Hutch said picking up his grilled cheese. "Whatever you want to talk about. I'm trying to find your kidnappers and you want to change the subj-"

Starsky slammed the flat of his hand down on the table. "Not now!"

Hutch stared at him.

Starsky looked apologetic. "Okay? I'm getting tired of the interrogation."

Hutch lowered his voice, even though it hadn't been loud before. "Okay. I'm sorry."

They ate in silence for a few moments, then Hutch decided that maybe Starsky just needed a little time to himself.

"My turn to take a shower," he said as he rose from the table. "Door's locked. You know where my gun is."

He brushed the nape of his partner's neck as he rounded the table. Starsky caught his forearm.

"Hutch-"

Hutch suddenly turned back and hugged him.

"Starsk," he whispered into the curve of his shoulder "I was afraid I would never see you again."

Starsky nodded. "I know. I'm sorry." He nudged Hutch away. "It's okay. Go take your shower, huh? I'd like to finish my meal."

Hutch headed for the shower, and Starsky returned to his tea and sandwich.

XXX++

Hutch stepped under the spray of the shower, relieved that Starsky was back, but worried

about what may have happened to him. The tattoos. His faulty memory. The German words. (If they had really been German words at all. More like his own insomnia speaking).

Maybe they both needed some time to rest and recover. Starsky had obviously been through something hellacious, and he himself felt that he could collapse into a coma at any moment. Things would look better in the morning after a good night's sleep and some personal space for the both of them.

Hutch turned the shower off, stepped out, toweled off, then pulled fresh clothes on and stepped from the bathroom.

"Hey, Starsk, I know what you mean about-"

Hutch froze as the barrel of his gun pressed into his forehead, backing him into the wall.

They were Starsky's eyes, but he didn't see much of his friend in them at the moment.

"Hey," Hutch said in a quiet voice. The kind, sadly, that he used to cajole and reason with on countless people on the job (suspects, victims, people who were hurting, people who were desperate, who were going off the deep end), to talk them out of hurting themselvesor someone else, like himself, or his partner. "It's okay, buddy. It's me. It's Hutch."

Starsky said something almost inaudible, and again Hutch thought he spoke German words.

"What's going on, Starsk? Talk to me, okay? I don't understand. Are you hurting, or scared, or angry or-"

"No," he said as he still held the gun at arm's length to Hutch's forehead. "I'm here to kill you."

"Why would you want to kill me?"

Starsky didn't say anything. Hutch stood frozen against the wall, pushing out the million frames that ran through his mind like a filmstrip-brainwashing, bio-chemical experiments, mind control, MK-ULTRA, programming, Terry Nash-and tried to stay focused on staying alive.

"Hutch-"

His voice. Different now. Pained.

Hutch watched his face. The one he could read at a glance.

Right now he saw hesitation. Something was happening.

A trickle of blood ran down Starsky's neck from behind his right ear.

"Starsk…"

Instinct. Love. Danger.

"Why are you bleed-"

The gun trembled. Arm faltered. His eyes rolled. Too weak to hold the gun, or stand, his arm dropped heavily and he sank, but Hutch caught him, and the gun, before he hit the floor.

Starsky's eyes rolled as Hutch eased him to the floor and into the crook of his right arm, exploring the small bleeding puncture wound behind his ear.

When he was finally imploding with fearful questions, and empty of any logical answers, he reached for the phone and dialed an ambulance for the second time.

XXX+

Hutch took a good long look at the sunflower seed-sized object on the microscope slide, then at the two doctors and one researcher who stood before him, then at his partner who lay asleep in the hospital bed, with Dobey standing dutifully over him.

"You're telling me you don't know what the hell was inside my partner's head?"

"We X-rayed it, spliced it, tested it. All we can say is that it looks like…microscopic circuitry of some sort. We don't know how it works or what it does."

"A microchip."

One of the doctors laughed a little. "Well, we wouldn't go that far-"

"That's a little science fiction," the second doctor said. "We deal with facts. What we can prove."

Hutch looked at the researcher. "You know, and I know, that science, the government, the military, the world of technology, is always ten or twenty years ahead of what the general public gets."

The researcher gave him a pat on the shoulder. "You're tired, Ken. You and Dave have been through a taxing experience. Let's say you're half right. That his abductors programmed him to kill you, for whatever reason. Revenge. Fun. Business. Science. It

didn't work. So their technology isn't as advanced as you'd like to think, or as they'd like to think. They're amateurs. I know bioengineers who try to work on projects like this, and believe me, it can't be done yet. They're not even close."

"They are this close, Don. He almost blew my head off. What does it take to convince you that this kind of thing is possible? Let me tell you about a case Starsky and I had one time. His name was Terry, and he was programmed…"

But the dry, bored look in their eyes slowed him down, and he decided to let it go. Either they truly didn't believe mind control was possible, or they did, and wanted him to drop it.

A look from Dobey told him it was pointless to continue the conversation.

"He seems to be fine now," the doctor told him. "X-rays are okay, tests are okay. He was even asking for you just before he went to sleep. We'll keep him a few days for observation, then let him go. If he should happen to reveal anymore information about where he's been or who abducted him, though, we'd sure be interested in hearing about it."

The researcher, Don, nodded in agreement.

"Sure," Hutch answered, but he had no intention of telling them anything of the sort.

The doctors and researcher left the room, and Hutch walked over to Dobey. "You know the kind of experiments they were doing in the concentration camps. They never stopped. They just went…invisible."

"You don't have to convince me," Dobey said.

Starsky stirred in his sleep and tried to blink open his eyes.

"Hey, Hutch," he said reaching out his hand.

Hutch shook his hand. "Hey there, it's good to see you again."

"What'm I doin' at the hospital?"

"You don't remember what happened at my place?"

Starsky moved his head no.

Dobey and Hutch exchanged a glance, tacitly agreeing that it would not benefit Starsky at this point to know every detail.

"You…collapsed. I overlooked a puncture wound behind your right ear. You remember anything about an injury to that area?"

"No. Told you I don't remember much about what happened."

"You're going to be okay, though. Doctors will let you go in a few days. That's the main thing."

Starsky smiled sleepily, then looked at Dobey. "You should give him a commendation, Cap."

"For being a good cop?"

"For being a good nursemaid."

XXXXXXXXX

The drive to Hutch's place from the hospital was quiet.

"What's wrong?" Hutch asked him. "You hurting anywhere?"

"Nah. Not really. I just fell kind of…incomplete."

"How could you with me at your side?"

Starsky smiled, the twinkle coming back to his eyes. "I mean, because I can't remember all the details of what happened when I was nabbed."

"Don't worry about it. It'll come to you when it comes to you. I'm sorry I pressured you. Just knock my block off next time."

Hutch turned to go toward Venice Place instead of in the direction of Starsky's house.

"Hey, where we goin'?"

"My place of course."

"Hutch, the doctors said I was fine. I feel good. Little tired, but I've felt worse, believe me."

"I won't feel like you're safe until we catch whoever got you."

"We may never find out."

"I'll find out."

Starsky looked at him, seeing that confident, airy look in Hutch's eyes that left no room for question or doubt.

XXXXXXXXX+

Hutch's phone was ringing when he and Starsky stepped into Hutch's apartment.

"Hello?" Hutch said picking up the receiver.

"Holmes, my man. It's Watson."

"Huggy. Hi. Anything?"

"Told you I'd call with something. You know that Marrs and Hatfield you turned me onto?"

"Of course."

"They were both found overdosed at Marrs' place."

"Are you serious?"

"I just told Dobey. He said he'd take it from here."

"What do you know about it?"

"I don't know nothing about it, except that they were found with the purest stuff on the street in their veins, and they could never afford that. Looks like they were offed."

"By who?"

"Somebody who didn't want them saying nothing about nothing."

"Huggy, you didn't have anything to do with…no, scratch that, I know you better than that."

"I'm hurt, Blondie. Not that the thought wouldn't have crossed my mind, somebody messin' with Starsk that way, they deserved it."

"I know. Thanks for your help."

"Anytime, brother."

Hutch hung up, then turned toward Starsky, who had found the legal pad with the lyrics to

the new song Hutch had mentioned.

"This beast could sure use some soothing," Starsky said as he handed the pad to Hutch, then settled onto the sofa and leaned his head back.

Hutch reached for his guitar, then sat in a nearby chair and began to play a mellow ballad.

It wasn't long before Starsky was asleep. Hutch put the guitar aside, poured himself a glass of lemonade, then answered a knock at his door.

It was Captain Dobey.

"I was just going to call you," Hutch said. "Come in."

Dobey stepped inside.

"How's Starsky?"

"Out like a light."

"Again?"

"I guess everything's taken a toll on him."

"More than you know, and more than he could remember."

Hutch studied his face. "Okay, why are you really here?"

"Professor Jennings was released from a private psychiatric hospital three months ago on good behavior."

Hutch didn't move as he listened to Dobey speak.

"I did some digging myself, Hutch. He was one of several brilliant scientists secretly sent to America to work after the war. His primary area of study was eugenics. Some sub-programs were special projects like combining man with technology, and turning drugs, chemicals, computers, and people, into weapons. He hired Marrs and Highfield to bring Starsky to him."

"Then killed them when his little experiment failed and he was afraid they'd talk."

"Where is he now?"

"Back at the hospital. I've been reading his research notes. The tattoos themselves were chemicals absorbed into his skin to affect memory. The German you heard was Starsky

repeating phrases Jennings used to communicate with his lab assistants so that Starsky wouldn't understand what they were doing to him. And the microchip…was a microchip. Time sensitive to kill you, and then himself, at the exact time that he did try to. But, it wasn't perfected, obviously."

Hutch started for the door.

Dobey grabbed his arm. "Now wait a minute. I'm just as mad as you are about this, but I'm not going to let you go off half-"

"Stay with him," Hutch said on his way out the door.

XXXXXXXXXXXX+

Hutch showed his badge at the front desk of the psychiatric hospital as he stalked past it and made his way to the cafeteria where Professor Jennings was eating a meal with three fellow patients.

The old man saw him coming and rose to his feet, picking up his plastic fork defensively.

Hutch grabbed the front of his sweater and slammed him back against the wall.

"YOU USED MY PARTNER LIKE SOME DAMN LAB ANIMAL!"

Four orderlies ran to pull Hutch away from the professor and muscled him toward the door.

"HOW MANY, PROFESSOR? HOW MANY PEOPLE HAVE YOU HURT OVER THE YEARS?"

XXXXXXXXXXXX

Starsky was sitting in Hutch's easy chair, Hutch's guitar on his knee and trying to play Hutch's new song when Hutch arrived back at the apartment.

Dobey met him at the door on his way out.

"I told him everything, Hutch. He'll be okay. What did you do to Jennings?"

"He's still in one piece, don't worry."

Dobey nodded. "Call me if you need anything. I think with Jennings' records, the hospital will be able to get those tattoos off."

Hutch closed the door after Dobey left, then turned and looked at Starsky.

Starsky stopped playing and looked up at him. "You okay?"

"Are you?"

"I will be. But I'm not so sure about you."

"Oh really?"

"Really. Sit down, and teach me how to play this."

Hutch let out a long pent-up sigh of tension, then sat down on the end of the sofa closest to the easy chair and began to show him.

XXXXXX++

Hutch lay on his pillow, his body and brain begging for sleep, but still it wouldn't come, and there was no reason for it. Starsky was safe now, Jennings was locked up, so there was no real reason for the insomnia.

His thoughts went to the medicine cabinet. Allison, the waitress he'd had here last month, had left her sleeping pills. He'd never needed anything to help him sleep before. The very idea of it sounded…weak. He had kicked heroin for God's sake. Why couldn't he control his body now?

"Damn," he murmured as he rolled out of bed and went to the kitchen for a cold drink of water.

It was the moonlight catching on Starsky's white T-shirt-his own of course since they still hadn't gotten around to getting him some clothes from his place-that made him look toward the greenhouse. To see Starsky standing with his head down, back to him, hand over his eyes…

He looked-not small. Just…alone. A man dealing with something by himself.

Hutch saw him swipe at tears.

"Starsk?"

He hadn't meant for his voice to come out so hesitantly-so much like a scared, worried boy-but it did.

Hutch joined him in the greenhouse, put a hand on his shoulder, and turned him around.

Starsky came into his arms and clung tightly, fearfully.

"I just had a nightmare," he breathed shakily, and clutched Hutch even tighter. "I remember everything."

Hutch held him. Held him up, and listened as his memory whorled back in a sandstorm. Particles. Fragments. Half-sentences. Elemental. Grainy. But all accurate details Hutch recognized from Jennings' own logs: Sleep deprivation. Sensory inhibitors. Oxygen deprivation. Near-death experiences. Experimental drugs. Mental, physical, and emotional torture. "Our work is to become higher machines one day, free of useless eaters and parasites upon society and humankind, where we will all be contributors and creators."-Jennings' final notation.

God, Starsk. You remember that it was Jennings and Bellamy all over again, only a thousand fold. This time it was the mad doctor delivering his evil personally, and with greater madness and gall. It wasn't just Jerry this time. It was you, me, him. All of his sickness focused down to a laser point of fury. And I couldn't be there to help you. He wanted it that way. He knew that he could hurt me with you. He knows you're my weakness, and my strength.

"I had a gun to your head," Starsky whispered on his shoulder. "Oh God, Hutch."

"Not you fault. Forget it."

"I don't want to be a baby about it, but I can't get it out of my head. I…"

"Hey, baby. I told you it's okay. You didn't put a scratch on me. It's you we should worry about."

"I'm not worried anymore."

"You're not?"

His head rolled no on Hutch's shoulder.

"I feel like I'm in one piece now."

Hutch rubbed his back.

"Good, Starsk. Good."

XXXXXXXXX

They sat on the sofa and talked for hours, one on each end, as if they needed a physical separation from the emotional impact, and an individual processing of their thoughts.

Starsky repeated, with more clarity and cohesion this time, the events that had taken place during the time of his captivity.

Hutch didn't try to direct the conversation or ask questions. He listened. Commented. But mostly listened. Something that Starsky was grateful for, because somewhere around 4 in the morning he saw that his blond partner, who had lost ten pounds and wore blue circles under his haunted, loving eyes, had drifted off to sleep.

Starsky didn't dare wake him. He simply pushed himself to his feet, covered him with a throw, lightly touched his hair, then went to the bedroom to get some sleep himself.

The End

FRANKIE'S GYM

By TR

"Watch out. Don't sweat all over my Danish."

Hutch smiled as he tossed a hand towel at Starsky's face. As always, Hutch was the earliest and first of Frankie's patrons at the gym, and actually preferred it that way.

"Get showered," Starsky told him tossing the towel back, "or we're gonna be late, and Dobey'll boot us down to parking tickets."

"Don't worry," Hutch said as he laid aside his jumping rope and walked toward the shower room. "If Dobey kicks us out, Tallman said he could use us, remember?"

Starsky grinned. "Yeah, we'd make a couple of good hit men."

Frankie wandered past with a stack of clean towels in his hands, giving both of them a sideways glance but saying nothing.

"Okay," Starsky said playfully to the proprietor. "You get 3 guesses today."

Frankie grunted. "Told you I'm not interested in what kind of line you guys are in."

"Sure!" Hutch called over his shoulder. "That's why you keep bringing it up!"

"The less I know, the safer I'll be."

"Better believe it." Starsky winked at Hutch. It was fun keeping Frankie in the dark, leading him to believe that they were shady figures. He had seen Hutch's shoulder holster in his gym bag his first day at the gym, had surmised the worst, and when he asked Hutch about it, Hutch had given him a cryptic line about not being able to say anything about

what he and his partner did for a living.

Hutch disappeared into the shower room, and Starsky played more guessing games with Frankie during the five minutes he was in there.

When Hutch came back out, clean, freshly-clothed, and still damp-haired, he saw that Frankie was back up at the front desk getting paperwork from beneath the counter. Hutch walked over to Starsky, where he sat on a bench against the wall, and stole a sip of his dark half's morning coffee.

"Too much sugar," he said handing it back. "You'll feel draggy in a couple of hours, especially if you eat all of that breakfast roll."

"So? I'll just get another coffee and roll to pick me back up. Or maybe a couple of-"

"Ken!"

A blood-curdling scream as a pretty blonde girl in her mid-twenties ran in, a handsome man in a delivery uniform behind her.

Hutch registered him as Tom, his ex-wife Nancy's new boyfriend, and yelled "Nancy!" as he ran in her direction, pulling his gun.

But Tom already had his out, and fired at Nancy's back, which drove her into Hutch's arms.

Hutch physically struggled between holding her and trying to reach for his gun at the same time.

Frankie reached for his own gun under the counter, but Tom shot him, then turned his gun on Hutch, but was dropped by a bullet from Starsky.

Sudden silence in the gym. Tom lay with the back of his head gone.

Starsky stared as Hutch lowered his head to Nancy's bloody chest to listen for a heartbeat, then ran behind Frankie's counter to check on him and call an ambulance and Dobey.

Frankie gripped a bullet wound in his left shoulder as he sat up on the floor behind his counter and leaned back against the wall. Through gritted teeth he said, "I knew you guys were trouble."

"Ambulance is comin'," Starsky said frantically as he hopped over Frankie's outstretched legs and joined Hutch, who still crouched with Nancy in his arms.

"Tell Tom," Nancy whispered as her fading eyes gazed up at Hutch. "Tell him I don't love you anymore. He didn't believe me."

Hutch blinked wet eyes and stroked her hair, then looked at Starsky helplessly and whispered, "I don't think she's going to make it."

Starsky put an arm around him and they both crouched with Nancy until the ambulance arrived.

XXXXXX

"I've never really lost anyone before," Hutch told him later, after Nancy was in the morgue, and after Starsky had handed him a sherry. "Both of my parents are alive. My grandparents. Cousins. Friends."

Hutch's breathing slowed to almost zero as his head turned in Starsky's direction.

"Stay alive, partner. I can't lose you too."

Starsky smiled. "I'll do my best."

XXXXXXXXX

Starsky finished booking Ben Forest, then walked over to where Hutch stood leaning his shoulder against the wall, almost slumped.

"You look tired," Starsky said squeezing the back of his neck. "Wanna go home?"

He gave a slight, simple nod, and moved with Starsky down the hall, Starsky slowing to match his partner's pace, still keeping his hand on the back of his neck.

"How'd you do it?" Starsky asked quietly. "Protected Jeanie. Got away. Kicked the heroin. Stood up to Forest. Most guys would have tossed in the towel."

"I didn't protect Jeanie. I told them where she was."

"You can't blame yourself for that. That was the H talkin'. That's the only way they could make you talk. You'd have died protecting her."

"She was just a scared girl. I had to help her. I couldn't let her go back to him, and have it end like…"

Hutch stopped, ran a hand down his face. "Forget it. You're right. I'm tired."

"Come on. Talk to me. Like what?"

Hutch didn't answer. He put his head down and opened the exit door.

"Like Nancy?" Starsky asked gently as they walked toward the Torino. "Is that what you were gonna say?"

"I didn't protect her. You know I didn't."

"Hutch, Nancy was an ambush. It happened too fast. Nobody could have stopped that. She was dead before she ran into that gym."

Hutch stopped at the passenger side of the Torino, hand on the handle, head down.

He didn't look angry or hurt; just weary. Almost bewildered.

"Jeanie's alive because of you, Hutch. And you're alive. That's what matters the most. We can't save everybody. We save who we can."

"Ask me again, Starsk."

"Ask what again?"

"Ask me how I got through what happened."

"Okay. How'd you get through what happened?"

Hutch lifted his head. "I'm looking at him."

Starsky smiled a little. "That's the Hutch I know. Come here, boy."

Starsky pulled him close and hugged him.

-I can't tell you what I really think of Jeanie, Hutch. Not at a time like this. You're too vulnerable. I can't add spiteful words to the heartache you already have. I'd like to tell you that you deserve better than a mobster's girlfriend, that she wasn't really worth all your suffering, and she would probably never fully realize or appreciate what you took for her. But maybe you know that already. Maybe that's why you ended it. I know you still care about her, and I know that you still care about Nancy. Maybe you saw Nancy in Jeanie, and tried to right a wrong you thought you had committed, or tried to redeem yourself, or forgive yourself.

Hutch leaned heavily against Starsky, for the second time that day. Starsky opened the passenger door and moved Hutch into the seat.

Hutch leaned his head back and closed his eyes.

"Okay?" Starsky asked.

Hutch nodded.

Starsky rounded the front of the Torino and slid inside next to his partner.

"Let's go to Huggy's, huh? I'll buy you a drink."

"I think I'd rather have a quiet drink at home. Want to join me?"

"Sure thing."

Hutch lay with his head back against the headrest as Starsky drove toward Hutch's cottage.

No words. Just peaceful silence and the rhythmic lull of the engine, until Starsky saw the yellow taxi up ahead.

"What the hell-"

Hutch's head came up as Starsky parked behind the cab.

The back passenger door was open and the cab driver was leaning inside toward a young woman who was screaming.

Thinking the cabbie was attacking the girl, Starsky pulled his gun, but Hutch held his hand up as he came up behind the cabbie and saw what was going on.

"She's having a baby!" the cabbie shouted with blood on his hands. "I don't know what the hell to do!"

Hutch tried to push the cabbie out of the way, but was not back to his fullest strength, so the shocked cabbie just remained halfway inside the back seat, halfway out.

Starsky pulled the driver aside. "We're cops. Just stifle yourself and stay out of the way."

Hutch leaned in, smiling uncertainly at the girl.

"Hi. My name is Ken. I'll try to help you deliver your baby."

"Are you a doctor?"

"No."

"Have you delivered a baby before?"

"No. But I helped a mother cat deliver some kittens on my grampa's farm."

Starsky nodded, as if that was experience enough.

Hutch glanced at Starsky. "First aid kit please?"

Starsky nodded again and ran to the Torino to retrieve the first aid kit under the passenger seat, then ran it back to his partner.

"Thanks," Hutch said, a sheen of sweat beginning to build on his upper lip. His hands trembled. He assessed the environment with a glance.

"The diner, Starsk. Hot water and towels."

Starsky nodded and ran to the deli as the young lady screamed in pain, "It's coming!"

The cabbie paced anxiously on the sidewalk behind Hutch, wincing against her shrieks..

Over his shoulder Hutch said to the cab driver, "Call an ambulance."

The cabbie nodded and did as he was told.

The woman clutched at the cab's seats and screamed in pain again.

"Breathe like this," Hutch told her, and demonstrated for her.

She did as he said.

"But it's coming out!" she yelled.

"Push," Hutch said calmly. "Push when you feel the urge. I see the head."

Another scream, another push, and the sound of her panting filled the cab.

"Hey lady," the cabbie said. "You could split atoms with that voice!" "Leave her alone," Hutch said blinking sweat from his eyes.

Some passersby on the sidewalk stared as they passed, while a few stopped a few feet back to observe.

"You're doing fine," Hutch told her. "She's coming out."

The woman screamed again, this time with joy.

Starsky arrived back with towels and a teakettle of hot water, but by the time he reached the back seat of the cab, the baby was born.

"Oh my God!" the mother cried happily as Hutch wrapped the baby in a towel and placed it on her breast.

"It's a girl," he announced as the ambulance arrived and the attendants jumped out.

The cabbie looked in at the two of them. Hutch cleaned his hands on a towel and tried to rise to his feet to let the medics in, but stumbled in his weakness, and Starsky helped him move aside.

Hutch looked at him and smiled, and when he did, Starsky saw a lively light in his blue eyes again.

Starsky almost sputtered with happiness. "Did you see what you just did?"

Hutch nodded, almost as if he didn't believe it himself.

Starsky gaped toward the cab as the medics lifted mother and baby onto a stretcher. "You brought a life into this world."

Both watched speechless as the ambulance drove away, then waved at the cabbie as they got into the Torino and continued their ride to Hutch's cottage.

The End

AUNT ROSIE'S FUNERAL

By TR

"Mind if I join you?"

Hutch, out for a morning jog, looked to his left to see Starsky driving the Torino at a snail's pace beside him.

"You going to follow me all the way?"

"I mean, really join you?"

"As in jogging? Starsk, I don't think your arm would appreciate it."

Starsky parked the car along the curb, and got out, his left arm in a cast and sling.

"I mean walking, blondie. You do remember how to walk, don't you?"

"Okay," Hutch said panting lightly as he jogged back to where his partner stood.

Hutch noticed that Starsky's sling was tie-dyed today.

"You do that yourself?" Hutch asked.

"Carly."

"Cute."

"It's Saturday," Starsky said glumly as he and Hutch started walking down the sidewalk together. "I'm bored. Can't go bowling or play tennis."

"Poor baby. I'll fix you some brunch when we get back."

Starsky eyed him suspiciously. "What kind of brunch?" "Bacon, eggs, and English muffins?"

"You're slipping, Hutch. I remember when you would shun a breakfast like that."

"Well, you want to know the truth?"

Starsky cocked his ear for a deep, philosophical reason.

"Health food just doesn't taste that good," Hutch said. Starsky laughed. "Now you're wakin' up."

They walked past Merl the Earl's lot.

Merl, who was customizing a girl's VW with unicorns and rainbows, raised a hand.

"Starskinson! Good morning!"

The detectives raised a hand.

"What happened to your arm?"

"Got jumped outside a bar," Starsky said as he stopped to talk to Merl. "Wanna sign my cast?"

"Why not?"

Starsky smiled at the young lady who was waiting for her VW.

Merl took a broad-tip marker from his jacket and scrawled his name with an artistic flair that nearly covered the entire cast. He looked at Hutch. "Where were you?" he asked accusingly.

"Excuse me?"

"Dave gets knocked around at a bar and you don't help him?"

"He wasn't there," Starsky said. "Otherwise, they'd have been creamed."

Starsky winked at the girl. "Nice ride."

"Not as nice as the one I can give you."

Starsky grinned. "Whatcha got in mind?"

"How about this Friday night?"

"Sure. You know a place called The Pits?"

"Of course."

"Meet me there at 7. I'll buy you dinner, and then…I'll show you my unicorn."

She grinned appreciatively as the detectives ambled away from Merl's.

"Be careful!" Merl called after them.

"We will!" Hutch assured him.

The partners continued down the street. "Your unicorn?" Hutch asked suspiciously.

"You know. My new necklace. I showed you."

Hutch smiled, recalling the unicorn head necklace Starsky showed him last week.

"Want to look at some more mug books?" Hutch asked. "Maybe your head's a little clearer now that you're on the mend."

Starsky turned his eyes away, as if Hutch could read the truth in them.

"Just let it go. I've had worse."

"Let it go? Starsky, I do feel bad that I wasn't at the bar with you and that you got clobbered when I wasn't there."

"Hate to break it to you, but you're not my nanny."

"No, I'm your best friend. And I think you know who jumped you, but for some reason you're not saying. You're a better cop than to not make a mental note of your assailants."

"I told you my memory is fuzzy."

Hutch grabbed his arm, a little more roughly than he had intended. "I don't believe you."

Starsky winced a little, and stopped walking.

"Okay. You want to know who jumped me outside Punk's?"

"You know I do."

"It was Kiko and three of his thug friends."

Hutch stared at him. "No way."

"Yes."

"Kiko wouldn't do that."

"No. He didn't throw a single punch. But he was there, and he never lifted a finger to stop it. They were all wearing bandanas and some kind of war paint, but I still recognized Kiko."

"Why didn't you tell me?"

"I didn't want to hurt you. You taught him better than that. I know how much you think of him."

"You're the one who got hurt, buddy. And I don't think nearly as much of him as I used to, given what you just told me. He's sixteen now."

The remainder of the walk was silent for the most part. When they circled the block and arrived back at the Torino, Hutch said as he got into the passenger seat next to Starsky, "He needs to go to juvenile court."

"He'll be sent off, then come out worse than he is now. Which is not that bad really."

"You're making excuses for him now?"

Starsky started the car and pulled away from the curb. "Hutch, I could have been a kid like that."

"Starsky, your mother has told me that you were twelve years old and stealing hubcaps and vandalizing playgrounds. Sneaking a few beers in your attic and swiping comics and baseball cards, not in a gang beating up on people."

"That was when I was 12. I did get older, y'know."

"Not much older. But you still weren't that hard. Those kids broke your arm. They could have killed you. You should have told me."

"So what do you wanna do?"

"Let's go talk to him."

But when they confronted Kiko and told his mother about it, Kiko denied it.

However, the look in his mother's eyes told the detectives that she believed Starsky, and that she would deal with the situation herself.

"I'm sorry," she said as she walked the partners to her front door. "I raised him to be against violence."

"You have nothing to apologize for," Starsky assured her. "You're doing the best you can."

When they arrived back at Starsky's house, he was the one who insisted on making breakfast. Hutch helped out, and by the time lunchtime rolled around, they were finally eating bacon, eggs, and English muffins.

"Think I'll have another cup of coffee," Starsky said rising from the table. "How about you"

"No, thanks."

The phone rang, and Starsky answered it while he was on his feet.

He wedged the receiver under his chin as he poured himself a second cup of coffee, but stopped halfway through, and slowly set the percolator down on the counter.

He was quiet as he listened on the phone, then slowly hung up, his head bowing over the sink.

Hutch rose to his feet. Starsky dipped a bit, as if he might faint. Hutch moved him back to the table and sat him down.

"What is it, Starsk?"

"That was Ma," Starsky said just above a whisper. "Aunt Rosie died last night. Passed away in her sleep."

Hutch squeezed his shoulder. "Sorry, buddy."

"She was like a mother to me."

"I know."

"She deserved better than Uncle Al."

"I know."

XXXXXX+

Starsky moved robotically through the next two days, got pictures out of his aunt to show Hutch, and couldn't make up his mind about what to wear to her funeral.

"Go with the dark blue shirt," Hutch said.

Starsky nodded, and Hutch sat in the living room while his partner dressed. When Starsky emerged twenty minutes later, Hutch noted how the dark blue dress shirt accentuated the electric blue of his partner's sad eyes.

"I look okay, Hutch?"

"You look fine," Hutch said as he slipped a black sling around his cast.

Hutch drove, and Starsky was silent through the entire ride.

When they reached the funeral parlor and parked, Starsky finally said, "It's been a month since I visited her. I feel bad about that."

"She'll always be right here," Hutch said patting his heart. "You were a good nephew to her. She appreciated everything you did for her."

They got out of the car and walked inside, Starsky barely speaking to distant relatives, Hutch shaking hands with them and doing the speaking for him, guiding him through the sea of people and being ever-mindful of his friend's arm.

They approached the casket, Starsky's steps slowed, and Hutch saw his eyes fill with tears as he looked at the elderly woman dressed in the same dark blue as his shirt.

"This isn't the Aunt Rosie I knew," Starsky whispered. He nodded toward a framed photograph of a lively Aunt Rosie in her younger days, arms locked in a hug around a teenage Starsky.

"That's Aunt Rosie."

Hutch nodded, and moved Starsky aside a bit when an older man with a stubble beard approached.

But the man was intent on invading their space, and reached around to grip the collar of Starsky's shirt.

"You worried her into her grave, you ungrateful runt. Gave her a heart attack. Feel better now? Why did you even come here? You should've-"

Starsky made no protest or even lifted a hand. His eyes looked trapped and wounded. He stood with his head down.

Hutch, already between the two, rammed his right elbow into the man's face. Starsky's Uncle Al reeled backward, blood pouring through his hands, and would have fallen if two men hadn't caught him and righted him again.

Gasps and stares filled the funeral parlor as Hutch escorted Starsky through the crowd.

"Thug," Hutch said when they were crossing the parking lot. "The wrong person died the other night, I can tell you that."

"He sobered up for the funeral. Coulda been worse if he'd downed a few."

Hutch opened the passenger door for Starsky, closed it once he was inside, and went around to the driver's side to get in.

"Son of a-" Hutch sbacked the car out of the space and started out of the parking lot. He glanced into the rearview mirror, saw Uncle Al coming from the funeral home and stalking toward them, and Hutch shoved the gearshift into park, opened the door for another confrontation, but was stopped by Starsky grabbing his arm.

"Just forget it, Hutch. Come on. He can do this all day."

"So can I."

But the persistent grip on his sleeve made him sit back down and slam the door shut.

"Okay," Hutch said as he glanced into the rearview mirror again as he drove out of the parking lot. "I'll just pretend he's not an ass who slapped your aunt around and used you for a punching bag when you were a kid."

Hutch gunned the Ford down the street, anger flexing in every muscle of his body.

"It's over now," Starsky said in a tired voice, laying his head against the window and closing his eyes. "He's a lowlife and there ain't nothing anyone can do about it, including you."

Hutch couldn't decide if his partner was reacting from fatigue, grief, fear, or a little of everything.

"It's okay," Starsky said, and Hutch did as he requested: He let it go.

When they arrived back at Starsky's place, they found that Kiko was waiting on the top step.

"Sorry about your aunt," the boy said to Starsky as they stopped halfway up the stairs to talk to him "Huggy told me what happened."

"Thanks," Starsky said.

Hutch glared at him. "Why are you here, round 2?"

"Hutch," Kiko said, "I didn't hurt Starsky." He gave Starsky a pleading look. "Didn't you tell him I didn't join in?"

"Yeah, I told him."

"You didn't join in," Hutch agreed. "But you did nothing to stop it, and that makes you just as guilty. Starsky loves you, and this is how you treat him?"

"That's why I came over," Kiko said looking from one face to the other. "To apologize, and to say yeah, I do realize that what I did was wrong. I should've stopped them, but I didn't. My pride got in the way. I didn't want my friends to think I was weak."

"Standing by and doing nothing makes you weak," Hutch said.

"But I do accept your apology," Starsky told him. "It's more than most people do." A glance to Hutch. "More than Uncle Al ever did." A look back to Kiko. "I think you got a shot of turning yourself around. Don't you think, Hutch?"

Hutch was not so quick to forgive.

"Kiko, you knew better than that."

"I know, Hutch, I know. That's why I'm here. I'm really sorry. Just give me another chance. Just let me make it up to you."

"You can't," Hutch said. "What's done is done. Starsky's arm is still in a cast, and-"

"Well, actually," Starsky said, "you can make it up to me, Kiko. With my bum arm like this, it's kinda hard waxing the Torino, so if you could come over Friday and do that for me, I got a hot date that night."

A smile finally came to Kiko's face, and some of the guilt melted. "Okay. I'll wax your car. And Hutch, I'll do whatever you want."

"I want you to go with me to the grade school next week and help me give a talk on gangs and why they're not such a good idea."

"Well, okay, I guess."

"Okay," Hutch said. "Now go home and do something nice for your mother."

Kiko nodded and moved past them down the stairs, then over to his beat-up pickup truck.

"Thanks."

Starsky and Hutch watched the teenager leave, then continued up the steps to Starsky's house.

"I think I need a nap," Starsky said in an exhausted voice.

"I hear you, partner. I hear you."

The End

AMBERLEE

By TR

She was across the street from the police officer's funeral, taking pictures of families playing in the park, but when the two somber men wearing black suits and white shirts caught her attention, she turned her camera toward them and photographed them.

Their body language said they could be brothers, but they certainly didn't look like it.

They communicated without speaking.

When she saw them looking her way and spotting her camera, she quickly gathered her equipment into a shoulder bag and started for her car, but spilled everything just as she reached it.

Starsky and Hutch walked quickly to her, both retrieving her belongings at the same time.

"Get a good look?" Hutch smiled as he rose to his feet and handed her some film canisters.

She blushed and glanced at Starsky, who handed her some lenses.

"Hope they're not cracked," he ventured, then turned playfully to the side. "This is my best side. Wanna shoot me again?"

She pushed her long strawberry blonde hair from her face and put her tripod in the back seat, along with the things the detectives handed back to her.

"I'm sorry," she said nervously. "I didn't mean to spy."

"Yes, you did," Hutch smiled. "But we liked it."

She looked from one to the other.

"We? How do you know your friend liked it? How can you speak for him like that?"

Hutch shrugged. "Don't know. I just do."

"I got a nifty little camera myself," Starsky informed her. "But not as elaborate as yours."

"Really? Well, maybe you can borrow it sometime."

"Maybe," Hutch said. "But if it's a view you want, I live in this quaint little cottage beside a canal, and the beach isn't that far away…"

"Wow," she said looking from one to the other. "Two gentlemen. Two flatterers. What's a girl to do?"

"I'm free tonight," Hutch said. "If you are, that is. I don't see a ring."

Starsky coughed. "Don't you have an appointment with your divorce lawyer, Hutch?"

"I'm not married, Starsk."

"But you are divorced." Starsky put an arm around the young lady's neck. "Don't let his looks fool you. He's very disappointing to the ladies."

"Starsk!"

She laughed, and then all 3 of them did.

"I'm Amberlee," she said holding her hand out to Hutch.

Hutch took her hand and kissed it, then to Starsky said, "She put her hand out to me first." To Amberlee he said, "I'm Ken Hutchinson. This is my partner-"

"Dave Starsky," he said taking her hand and kissing it too.

"Oh my Gosh," she swooned dramatically. "I think I've died and gone to heaven."

"He's free tonight," Starsky said. "But I'm free right now."

"Golly, I just don't know, I…have a thing for blonds, but then…" A smile to Starsky. "You look so irresistible."

"How about a threesome?" Hutch asked.

"Whoa," she laughed. "I'm not that liberated."

"We could flip a coin," Starsky offered. "Heads you go with Hutch. Tails you go with me."

"Um, sure," Hutch said as he watched Starsky pull a quarter from his pocket and toss it into the air.

When the quarter landed heads up, Starsky said, "Congratulations," and shook Hutch's hand, and with a wink to Amberlee added, "Make sure I'm plan B if he turns out to be a dud."

"I will," she said laughing.

After she had all of her things in the car, she wrote her name, address, and number on a slip of paper and handed it to Hutch, then smiled at both of them and drove away.

The friends watched until her car disappeared around a corner, then started for the Torino.

"That's one way to get your mind off of a funeral," Starsky said.

XXXXXX++

"How was your date with Amberlee last night?" Starsky asked as he picked Hutch up at his cottage the next morning.

"Starsky," he said as he took a bite of Starsky's morning burrito, "you know how when you meet a lady and something just clicks? Like you've known each other for years, or know what the other is thinking, or you knew each other in another life?"

"Love at first sight," he answered as he watched Hutch munching on his breakfast.

"It shows, huh?" Hutch asked him.

"The fact that Mr. Health is eating a burrito for breakfast? Yeah. That tells me something."

Hutch turned in the seat and handed the half-eaten burrito back. "I could live with that girl. Do you know that she speaks three languages?"

"Really?"

"And she's traveled the world. She wants me to go to Paris with her next month when she goes for a photography assignment."

"No kidding?"

Hutch's face was alight with love.

"She takes pictures of me all the time. I haven't been this head over heels since…"

"Jeanie."

"Yeah," Hutch said in a quieter voice, without losing his smile. "Jeanie. Yeah. That's right."

Starsky smiled. "She must be something special. Hope it works out."

"Yeah. Me too."

XXXXXX+

They went about their workweek smoothly, mostly paperwork and phone calls following up with witnesses and contacts. Hutch saw Amberlee every night, and every morning Hutch would relay the details to his partner, who listened with genuine happiness. On a couple of weekends, Hutch and Amberlee would invite Starsky and a date to join them, and they all had a good time, with the photographer taking pictures of them every chance

she got..

Starsky could see that Hutch was in love with her, and hoped that it lasted.

The following week was much busier, work-wise. Two armed robberies, three rapes, four drug busts. The one day they did stay in the squad room to catch up on paperwork, Hutch said at lunchtime, "Think I'll go grab some Chinese. You want anything?"

"Egg rolls would be good." Starsky reached for his wallet. "Get me about six."

"On me," Hutch said as he grabbed his jacket. "You just keep typing on that report."

"Yes, sir," Starsky saluted as Hutch went whistling out the door.

Starsky didn't offer to go with him because he thought that maybe Hutch would stop by to see Amberlee on his way to get the food. That, and because Dobey had been harping on them to get current on their reports.

The door to Captain Dobey's office opened, and the captain looked around the squad room.

"Where's your partner?"

"Off to get some lunch. Don't worry. It's a working lunch."

To prove it, Starsky typed a few words. "See?"

"Who's that blonde he's been seeing?"

"Amberlee Johnson."

"He like her?"

"He loves her."

Dobey's eyebrows raised.

"Good," the captain said, then closed his door again.

Thirty minutes later, Hutch still wasn't back with the Chinese food. Starsky called Amberlee and asked her if Hutch had stopped by, and she told him that he hadn't.

Starsky tried raising him on the police radio, but was unsuccessful there too.

After a phone call to Huggy, he told Dobey that something was up with Hutch, and said

that he was going to look for him, but just as he was about to leave the squad room, one of the uniformed officers met him in the doorway.

"Hutch has been in an accident, Sergeant. Pretty bad shape. He's at Memorial."

"Tell Dobey," Starsky said as he ran down the hall toward the elevator.

XXXXXX++

Ten minutes later Starsky was running through the emergency room entrance of the hospital.

"Hutch!" he yelled as he looked around for his partner. "Hutch!"

A nurse came to talk to him.

"Do you mean Detective Hutchinson?"

"Yeah."

"He's in ICU."

"What happened?"

"He was in an automobile accident."

"I know that, but what happened?"

"Apparently he smashed into a dump truck. That's what the truck driver says anyway. He said Ken tried to swerve, but was too late."

"Is he gonna be okay?"

"He hasn't regained consciousness yet. His left leg is broken. A few cracked ribs. Various contusions and swelling."

"I gotta see him."

"We really think it's best you wait for-"

"I know. But I really gotta see him."

She couldn't say no to the look in his eyes.

Before he went to ICU, he phoned Dobey and told him to have Hutch's accident

investigated, especially the Ford itself.

XXXXXX+

Starsky was barely breathing as he stood beside his partner's hospital bed and took his right hand, which lay bruised and swollen in his.

"Hey, partner," he whispered as he leaned down to his bandaged head. "If you can hear me, try to squeeze my hand, huh?"

Starsky waited, and waited some more, but no response came.

"What happened with the car, buddy? Huh? You so crazy in love you weren't watchin' where you were goin'?"

It was hard to recognize Hutch's youthful face beneath the discolored swelling.

"Get better, okay? I'll be right here at the hospital."

He looked up to see Amberlee and Huggy standing at the ICU window.

Starsky motioned for them to come in, and they both stepped quietly into the room.

Starsky put an arm around a tearful Amberlee, and Huggy put an arm around Starsky.

XXXXXX++

Visitors came and went. Cops. Friends. Kiko. Merle. Vinnie. Huggy. Dobey. Amberlee.

Starsky was the only one who stayed around the clock; even taking showers and eating at the hospital.

He sat in a chair just outside the ICU, as if guarding his partner, since he wasn't allowed to stay in the room with him.

When Dobey visited for the third time, Starsky asked, "Anything unusual about the accident?"

"No. My first thought was severed brake lines, or something with the steering. But everything checks out."

"Good. I guess."

"Let me know the minute he wakes up, huh, Starsky?"

"Sure thing."

Dobey walked down the hall to the elevator, and tipped his hat at Amberlee when she stepped out.

"Hi, Dave," she said as she approached the ICU window. "Any change?"

"Not yet. I read the paper to him. Play some music. He'll come around."

She smiled. "I'm glad you think so. You seem to know him better than anyone."

"He's tougher than he looks."

"Dave, do you ever wonder…"

She looked down, playing with the hem of her long sweater.

"Wonder what?"

"Remember my photo shoot in Paris?"

"Yeah. Hutch said you asked him to go."

"Yes. We had plans. But I'm not so sure I want to go through with them. Even if Ken hadn't been hurt…"

Her hand moved toward him, and he clasped it, still looking into her uncertain features.

"I'm not so sure I care as much about him as he does me. The way he looks at me…God…he's in it all the way, and it's not fair for me to continue with…"

He caressed her hand, and she slumped down onto his lap, weeping onto his shoulder.

"He loves you," he said as he stroked her hair.

She straightened and took the handkerchief he offered to her.

"I think it should have been tails," she said looking into his eyes.

Her hand brushed his cheek, then moved down his arm, her head bending toward his, lips parting.

He stopped her hand and gently pushed her back.

"I love him," he said. "I won't do this to him. So, I guess you'll just have to go to Paris by yourself."

She searched his face.

"Are you absolutely sure there's no chance? I know you were attracted to me when the 3 of us first met."

He gave the barest of nods.

She rose to her feet, looking through the ICU glass.

"You'll explain things to him?"

"If you want to be chicken and run, yeah. I'll have to."

She kissed the tips of her fingers, pressed them to the glass, then looked at Starsky.

"Everyone should have a best friend like you," she said, then walked down the hall.

Starsky watched her leave, then leaned his head back against the wall and closed his eyes.

XXXXXX

Two hours into his nap, a nurse was jostling his shoulder.

"Dave, Dave. He's coming to. Look."

Starsky shot to his feet and stared through the glass as Hutch's eyes blinked slowly at the doctor who was examining him.

Starsky covered his teary eyes with one hand.

"Go in and see him," the nurse encouraged, and Starsky did so.

"Hi, buddy," he said as he took Hutch's hand and squeezed it. "Think you can slip away that easily with me around?"

A warm light softened Hutch's groggy eyes, and a faint smile formed on his face.

"He's one lucky man," the doctor said to Starsky. "It looks like he's going to be just fine."

XXXXXXXXX+

Watching Hutch pace in his recovery room on crutches was half-heartbreaking, half-comical.

"At least she was honest," Starsky said as he opened a can of soda. "She broke it off clean. Didn't lead you on. Didn't try to use you for all she could get."

Hutch stopped pacing and looked at him. "Do you think she was just…confused? Maybe she just needs time to think?"

"No, Hutch. She meant it. Hey, look."

In an attempt to change the subject and get his partner's mind off of Amberlee, Starsky took out a large manila envelope.

"She mailed these to me. Wanna see?"

Hutch released a heavy sigh, then made his way over to where Starsky stood, looking over his partner's shoulder to view all of the photographs of them that she had taken: The ones after the funeral, the ones at Hutch's cottage, some others on the beach, others of the partners talking privately about a case at the canal, one of them arm wrestling at Starsky's, another of them taken at Huggy's, one of Hutch sleeping peacefully in bed, another of Starsky asleep in his chair outside ICU.

"I'll take this one," Hutch said pulling out a photograph of them posing at Huggy's pool table.

The End

TOLERANCE

By TR

Unable to sleep, Hutch turned over and looked at the bedside clock. Three A.M. He was supposed to return to work in the morning, but his heart just wasn't in it. He tried to tell himself that he could do it. That returning to the force after Gunther's hit was the best.

But now he knew that returning to it without his partner was impossible. He had wrestled with it all day, hadn't spoken about his reservations at all, to anyone, and now it seemed urgent that he tell Dobey.

He lifted the receiver to the bedside phone, but a knock at the door interrupted him.

"Coming!" Hutch called as he made his way through the apartment in white undershirt and white sweatpants.

He opened the door a crack, alarmed to see his partner standing there leaning on his cane, sweat on his face, panting a little from his first laborious and painful trip up the stairs since his release from the hospital.

"Hey," Hutch said sleepily as he gently took Starsky's arm and led him inside. "What are you doing out this time of night?"

"I, uh…couldn't sleep."

"Really?"

Starsky moved like a different person altogether with his damaged leg. Slower, less cocky, almost too careful. Even though the shooting had been months ago, Hutch winced inwardly every time he saw Starsky walking with the cane.

It would be a permanent fixture in his life from now on, and so would the pain pills he had to take, which seemed to be more with each passing week.

Starsky offered a small shrug; a small smile of embarrassment.

"First night alone. Hearing too many boogiemen I guess."

Hutch's brow creased with concern.

"You're afraid?"

"Not when you were staying with me. Even when I had nightmares. Flashbacks. Whatever they are. But with the empty house-"

Hutch moved him to the sofa and made him sit down.

"You should have told me, Starsk. I had no idea."

"I didn't want to worry you."

"My God, you're trembling."

The embarrassed smile again. "Trip up the stairs, not the nightmare."

Hutch watched him massage his left thigh and wince in pain as he reached into his pocket for his painkillers.

"Starsk-"

Starsky swallowed a few pills-how many Hutch could only guess. Two or three. Maybe more.

Seeing his friend so vulnerable and in so much pain made Hutch shake inwardly with

rage at Gunther all over again.

It was bad enough that the once-powerful, untouchable puppet-master had taken away his physical well-being. He had taken away his career as well. There was no way Starsky could return to the force.

"I'm okay," Starsky said as he closed his eyes for a moment, then opened them and forced a smile.

But the smile couldn't hide the paleness of his face, or the tremble in his hand.

"How bad does the pain get?" Hutch asked. "1 to 10?"

"It varies."

Hutch suspected it was closer to a 10, or Starsky would have said another number, and wouldn't be taking so many pills.

"I just came to tell you, Hutch…"

Hutch sat down on the coffee table. "Tell me what?"

"It's okay to go back to the force without me. It really is. I know how much the job means to you. You can kick in doors for the both of us. I really don't mind."

"No, Starsk. You don't understand. When we were both considering packing it in, before Gunther, it was a joint decision. I didn't want to do the job without you. And now that you can't…I really don't want to go back without you. It won't be the same. Everything's changed."

Starsky looked down briefly. "Thanks to me, huh?"

Hutch rested a hand on his partner's forearm. "No. It's not like that. My decision to leave…it's one of the easiest ones I've ever made in my life. It's simple. No Starsk, no police work. I feel good about it, now that I've actually decided. I was getting ready to call Dobey when you knocked on the door."

"Really?"

"Really. Now tell me about these nightmares."

"They're not as bad as they were in the beginning. But I guess my stupid fear of being alone tonight triggered one. I didn't know that would hap-"

"It's not stupid, buddy. It's a natural reaction. I didn't know you were that scared."

"I didn't either."

"I think you could use my services for a few more days."

"Forget it. You can't stay with me forever."

"I'm not talking about forever. Just until the nightmares subside."

"You've done enough for me already."

"It's not like I'm going to work right now. Although I do plan on doing some job hunting."

"Yeah, me too. What have you thought about?"

Hutch smiled. "Huggy always needs a good dishwasher."

Starsky laughed.

"What about you, Starsk?"

"I don't know. Private investigator. Teach a criminology class. Who knows?"

"The latter sounds better to me."

"You afraid I'll get hurt again?"

"Of course."

"Then maybe I won't. Maybe it'll be like it was when you and Jeanie broke up."

Hutch raised his eyebrows. "Meaning?"

"If I'm gonna end it, I'm gonna end it."

Hutch smiled and squeezed his arm.

"I never thanked you, Hutch."

"Star-"

"For helping me."

"You never had to."

"Why not? What's wrong with telling you that I'd have packed it in by now if it hadn't been for you?"

"Nothing is wrong with it, but it's just not necessary."

"I just don't want you to think that I don't appreciate what you've-"

"I get it."

"I almost died. I don't want to die without telling you how much I…"

Starsky dipped his head, then grabbed at his thigh again, the cane dropping from his hand. He always kept the cane in his hand, Hutch observed. It was almost like a security blanket. Of course he needed it to walk, and needed to have it within arm's reach. But even when he was sitting down, he still held onto it.

Starsky dug in his jacket pocket again, fumbled the pills out, tried to take the lid off but couldn't because of his trembling hands.

Hutch opened the bottle and Starsky snatched it from him, the pills spilling onto the floor.

"Damn it," Starsky panted as his head dropped back on the sofa in frustration, a fresh sheen of perspiration forming on his face.

Hutch reached for a couple of pills, but too slow. Starsky pushed himself forward and scooped up a few, chewing them dry as he did before.

"Starsk, you just took some a few minutes ago. Don't you think-"

Starsky hurled his cane across the room. "Yeah! Too many, I know! But it's killin' me, Hutch! You gonna tell me how many to take? You gonna tell me I'm not hurting? It's easy for you to sit there and try to judge-"

"No. I'm not judg-"

"The hell you're not."

Starsky struggled to his feet, then limped over to get his cane.

If watching Starsky walking with the cane was hard, then watching him walk without it was agony, because without it, he simply lurched because he could tolerate only a little of his weight on it.

Starsky picked up the cane and made his way back to the sofa but didn't sit down.

"You think I'm an addict, don't you?"

Hutch looked up with a bruised expression in his eyes.

"No, buddy, where did you get that-"

"You think I'm an addict."

Hutch looked down. "I think, in your situation, it can't be avoided. Of course you're going to be addicted, because-"

Starsky shoved him, knocking him off the coffee table and onto the floor.

Starsky pounced at him, grabbing a fistful of his shirt in one hand, and drawing back his other fist to strike.

"You want to hit me?" Hutch asked quietly. "Will that make you feel better? Buddy?"

Starsky was in tears as he let go of Hutch's shirt and moved to his scattered pills, going to his good knee to scoop them up and put them back into their bottle.

"He took my leg, my job, but he's not gonna make me an addict too."

Hutch pushed himself to his hands and knees and moved over to Starsky, turning him around and pulling him against his chest.

"You will always need them," Hutch whispered softly. "It's okay. Don't be ashamed. You're under a doctor's care. What difference does it make? I didn't mean to make you feel…I just don't want you to accidentally overdose and…"

Starsky collapsed into his embrace, sobbing, clutching him, the cane dropping to the floor again, along with the bottle of pills.

"I don't want to take them. I have to."

"I know."

"I'm scared to death. Too many changes all at once."

Hutch continued to hold him, rocking him a little.

"I know. But…and you may not believe this, but…you're doing great. I'm so proud of you. You're so strong. I don't know how you do it."

"You," Starsky breathed as he desperately stroked the back of Hutch's hair. "It's you."

The End

MENACE

By TR

Starsky slowed the Torino down in front of Hutch's cottage to let him out.

"I think you should re-think going back to work tomorrow." Starsky told him. "But if that's what you want…"

"That's what I want," Hutch said getting out of the car. "See you in the morning."

Hutch closed the passenger door and watched as Starsky and the Torino drove away, then walked to the door of his home.

Yes. It had only been a week since Ben Forest's arrest, but Starsky failed to fully understand his partner's need to return to work and do something normal again, even if it was just desk duty.

They both knew he wasn't strong enough for the streets yet. Maybe in a couple of weeks when his head cleared and his body rebounded. But for now, just staying busy in the squad room doing routine paperwork was enough for him. More than that. He even cherished the prospect. It would make him feel useful and sane again, and help keep his mind off of Jeanie, Ben, and the heroin.

Good to be home, he thought as he unlocked the door and stepped inside. An unexpected,familiar comfort enveloped him. To be surrounded by his favorite things again-guitar, piano, plants, books, paintings-was therapeutic in itself. Home felt good, and safe, even if this was the place where his nightmare began.

"Welcome home, Hutch."

He froze. Although the cottage was a shadowed landscape in the dark, he didn't need to see his visitor to know whose voice it was. He had heard it often enough when he had been blindfolded.

When his eyes adjusted to the darkness, Hutch made out Ben Forest's shape sitting in his chair, a snub-nose pistol held with casual authority in his lap, pointed directly at him.

Panic seized Hutch's heart, and his hand reached under his jacket impulsively.

"Raise your hands," Ben directed.

But Hutch didn't. He froze, trying to decide in a fraction of a second if he wanted to live or die, if he could endure anymore from this man.

But when Ben said, in his calm, self-possessed voice, "Or I'll do to your partner what I did to you," Hutch's decision was made, and he slowly raised his hands chest-high in the air.

Ben rose from his chair and walked over to Hutch and turned the light on, which made Hutch blink in the sudden harshness of the light.

"How did you make bail?" Hutch asked quietly.

"I have a well-paid attorney," Ben replied as he reached inside Hutch's jacket and took out his gun, then tossed it onto the bed. "And the judge is a very good friend of mine. My trial-although we hope that we'll come to a plea agreement before then-won't start for another few months or so. Possibly a year. Did you forget that I owned this town, Hutch? And you?"

As Hutch stood with his hands in the air, he realized with escalating fear and dread that he hadn't shaken Ben Forest from his psyche, that the sound of his voice alone could put him in a state of mental and physical paralysis.

"You're perspiring," Ben said as he looked at Hutch's face. "Is it me, or is the H getting to you?"

Hutch didn't answer the question, but he didn't have to. The answer was painfully obvious to both of them. Hutch's voice was low, and he tried to keep the fear from his eyes and face.

"So why are you here? To string me out again? Is that how you get off? I know how much you enjoyed it. It wasn't all about Jeanie, was it? You like the power, the humilia-"

Ben backhanded him across the face, snapping Hutch's head to the side.

"Talk about power," Ben said, his voice low, crisp, and in control as always. "Arrogance. Who's the snot-nose detective who thought he could take Ben Forest's girl away? Huh? Who are you? Who do you think you are anyway, savior of the world? You're just a public servant supported by the taxpayers. Did you really think that your 'system' would work on me? You're naïve, Hutch. Smart, but naïve. I guess that's what makes you a good cop. You really believe the bull about doing the right thing and helping the poor victims. Give it a few years. You'll realize that you're a little white hamster running around an endless, endless wheel of apathy, corruption, and cruelty. Nobody cares, so you may as well take what you can get when you can get it, because you only get one shot."

Ben began to remove Hutch's jacket and shoulder holster, tossing them onto the bed near his gun.

Hutch berated himself for allowing Ben to make him feel like a frightened 10-year-old, but found the courage to look at him. "You can rationalize all you want, but it won't change the fact that you're lower than a piece of gar-"

Ben backhanded him again, this time sending Hutch back a step.

"You think you're better than me? Why? Because you have a badge? I wasn't the one crawling on the floor begging for a fix, clinging to my legs like a baby after his mama. Who was that man? Huh? It was you. I bet you never thought it was possible to be at the mercy of a 'lowlife' like me. You weren't a hero, Hutch. You gave Jeanie up to me. What kind of a good guy is that?"

Hutch moved his hand in an attempt to wipe the blood from his nose, but Ben said, "Up in the air. I told you."

Hutch did as he was told, keeping his hands at chest-level.

"I'm here to teach you something, Hutch. The ways of the world. My world. That you don't mess with me and get away with it. That you'll think twice before you tangle with me or anyone else like me again. I thought I had taught you how to be humble, and gracious. Now I see that I didn't go quite far enough. We could bring your partner around and ask him what it takes to break you. But I think I already know. It's him, isn't it? He's your breaking point. Maybe he's the one I should have snatched in the first place. I suspect that you would have given Jeanie up a lot sooner had he been the one under interrogation."

"Leave him out of this."

"Oh, I will, Hutch. As long as you cooperate. The second you give me trouble, well, you know I know where he lives and where he hangs out-"

Hutch plowed into him, grabbing for the gun, a last ditch effort to save himself from whatever plan Ben had for him, and to protect Starsky, because he knew, deep inside, that since he had caved under Ben the first time, there was a strong probability that he would do it again, and the thought of handing Starsky to Ben in a moment of weakness was unbearable.

But Hutch wasn't as fit as he thought he was. Ben sidestepped his attempts, tripped him, and pounced, planting a knee in his stomach and a fist in his chest, putting the gun to his temple.

"Do you want me to kill him?" Ben asked calmly.

Hutch panted up at him, both hands clutching Ben's wrist, eyes a wild blue.

Ben chuckled, but it did nothing to soften his piercing eyes or shark-like smile. "You look like a scared rabbit in a trap, Hutch. I asked you a question. Do you want me to kill him?"

Hutch moved his head no, still clutching Ben's wrist, now a pleading gesture.

"Then listen to me. Turn over onto your stomach."

In shock, Hutch didn't move. Ben backhanded him for the third time, this time with the butt of the pistol.

Blood ran from a gash under Hutch's right cheekbone, and he was too dazed to move, allowing Ben to roll him over onto his stomach, take his handcuffs from his hip pocket, and cuff his wrists behind his back.

"Wuh-" Hutch tried to lift his head and turn it so that he could see Ben's face. "Wait. What are you-wait-"

Ben took a handkerchief from his pocket and shoved it into Hutch's mouth.

"Time to be quiet now, Hutch."

Instinct and self-preservation took over, making Hutch fight to get up. He tried to turn over onto his side and kick at Ben, who smoothly ducked aside and injected him with a tranquilizer.

Hutch's eyes rolled as the drug streamed through his veins, head dipping toward the floor.

Ben caught his head between his hands, almost gently, and pulled him to a sitting position, carefully removing the handkerchief from his mouth.

"Are you ready for this, baby?" he asked as he unbuckled his belt and doubled it over into a strap. "It's going to be a long night."

Hutch was unable to answer, his mind a swirling sludge of pain, bad memories, and fear.

That's when he heard Starsky's voice behind him, low and lethal: "Stand to your feet, Forest. You're under arrest."

Looking over his shoulder, Hutch saw Starsky's gun at the gangster's head, and sank with relief as his partner cuffed him and read him his rights.

The End