CLIPS
By TLR
Contains:
Unfinished Business-Based on the Vendetta episode.
Swastika-A hate group comes calling—snippet.
Straitjacket-Based on the Murder Ward episode.
Shedding Skin-Based on The Fix episode.
Voodoo-Based on the Playboy Island episode.
Skinhead-Skinheads come calling.
Living Dead Girl-A girl H tried to help pays a visit.
The Edge Of Time-Collandra warns H of a vision.
Race Traitor-H deals with an Arian group.
Psycho-A psycho's letter from prison.
Protection-Artie Solkin is out of jail.
Mistaken Identity-H sacrifices for his partner.
Flashback-Based on The Fix.
14. Cover-Maintaining cover isn't always easy.
15. Fire Starter-S deals with a pyro.
Unfinished Business
By TLR
Arthur Fingal Solkin sat in the driver's seat, three teenagers in the back.
"It's midnight and the guy's not home yet," one of the teenagers said to the rearview mirror. "Sure he still lives here?"
Solkin's eyes in the mirror didn't stray from the window he was watching across the street.
"I'm sure, Tom...I mean, Donny."
Solkin watched in the mirror as the Torino rounded the corner and parked behind him a few cars back. The man slouched a little, fighting a nervous blink as he got out and met Starsky on the sidewalk.
"Been a while, Starsky," he said as he blocked his path. He looked in the passenger seat of the Torino, seeing that it was empty. His thinning hair and wide brow was slick with sweat. He licked his lips impatiently, shifted from foot to foot, almost as if he would dart any second. For a man in his mid-to-late fifties, he was surprisingly agile, the queer physicality of an aging Vaudevillian, the nervous energy of a ferret, cautious in manner but bold with words. "I want you to come with me, and do as I say."
"You got some nerve celebrating your release by-"
A flash upward of the Taser in Donny's hand, into Starsky's side, and he dropped to the ground.
The two other teenagers, Mark and Collin, scrambled from the car to join them.
Solkin looked down at Starsky, half-wincing, half-grimacing.
"I should have done you to begin with," he said as he reached inside Starsky's jacket for his gun, then gripped the front of his shirt and jerked him. "Because of your partner, I had to live like a rat in a cage. I counted the days that I would get out. I still want him down on the street, looking up at me, and this time I think I'll get my wish."
The teenagers picked Starsky up, carried him to the car, where the man opened the trunk.
"Hurry it up," he said as they dropped him inside, then slammed it closed.
::::::::
Ten minutes later he stood holding his shabby apartment door open while the teenagers carried Starsky inside.
Starsky started to stir to consciousness, groaned low in his throat.
"On the bed?" Donny asked.
"Floor. He's waking up. When he does, I want you to hurt him."
Mark and Collin looked at the man. "How?"
He nodded toward an array of items on the table they could use for weapons. Pipes, baseball bats, knives, ropes, drugs, Tasers.
Mark and Collin looked a little uncertain, but Donny picked up a lead pipe. "Come on. I'll show you."
Mark and Collin dropped Starsky to the floor and joined Donny at the dresser.
"I'm going for a sandwich," Solkin said as he was leaving. "Keep the door locked, and put a gag in his mouth before you start."
::::::::
Hutch was just getting into his car to look for Starsky when Huggy pulled up alongside him in his own vehicle.
"Anything at his place?" Huggy asked.
Hutch shook his head no. "Clean. Torino's still parked out front. It looks like he was taken off the street before he could even get inside."
"What makes you think that?"
"His gun and jacket weren't there, and did you see the new white shirt he had on at lunch yesterday?"
Huggy found a crooked smile. "Missed that."
"Well, anyway, that and the jeans he was wearing weren't in the dirty clothes. No dirty dishes in the sink. Not a single glass or fork."
A look of admiration flickered in Huggy's eyes. Hutch was a good cop, an exceptionally
observant and meticulous one, but when it came to Starsky, he was a finely-tuned machine.
"Where you want to go now?" Huggy asked him.
"I think-"
The dispatcher's voice sounded over the radio.
"Zebra 3, Zebra 3, you have an urgent message from Captain Dobey."
Hutch picked up the microphone. "Yes, Captain?"
"We can narrow our suspects down to one now, Hutch."
Hutch looked at Huggy. "Why's that?"
"Artie Solkin was released from prison last week. He's had time to put some street kids together. And you know he threatened to finish what he started."
"Why the hell weren't we contacted about-"
"The prison sent a letter, it hasn't arrived yet. It could be in Toledo for all I know. I told them they better damn well learn how to use a telephone the next time."
"Do you know anything else? Did he go to a halfway house or..."
"He's supposed to meet with a parole officer once a month. She said he wasn't at the address he gave her and the prison."
Huggy shifted his car into drive. "I'll see what I can find out."
Hutch nodded, then spoke into the police mike as he watched Huggy leave.
"Thanks, Captain."
::::::::
That the APB couldn't officially be put out until around midnight didn't matter to Hutch. He was either driving his car or walking the streets all day, checking with fringe snitches, hooker friends, drug addicts who needed a fix, homeless people on the street who heard and saw everything, gang members, bookies, hit men. Still, no good information turned up. Since Solkin had failed in his first attempt at destroying him, Hutch knew he was staying low this time.
At midnight Huggy found him filling the tank of his car at a service station, noting how in
the span of one day, Hutch's appearance had grown pale, tired, and heartsick.
"You need to eat something," Huggy said. "Come to my place for a while. Then we'll head out again."
Hutch shook his head no. "I can't waste any time. The APB will be out in a few minutes. We'll learn something then. I have to be ready."
::::::::
But the APB brought no information. By morning Huggy was nodding off in the passenger seat of Hutch's car while his blond friend was circling Starsky's neighborhood over and over.
Huggy woke up, saw Hutch's wet eyes as he bent his head over the steering wheel.
"Hutchie, come here, man," he said, and pulled Hutch against his shoulder.
::::::::
Huggy went with him up the stairs at Venice Place to make sure he got inside and stayed inside, but the door was as far as they got.
They looked down and saw the big white envelope at the same time. Huggy reached down for it, and Hutch took it from his hand.
"Come on," he whispered as he opened it. "Give me something. Anything."
But when he opened the envelope and pulled the Polaroids out, he slumped against the wall and sank down on the top step, the photos spilling onto the steps.
Huggy picked up each gruesome one-of Starsky's battered body and the weapons used to hurt him-too stunned to comment.
A note was with the pictures. Huggy read it, then handed it to him.
"They'll let him live if you come. If you don't, they'll finish him off."
The note slipped from Hutch's fingers, and he reached upward for the stair railing, pulling himself up, wiping the back of his hand across his upper lip.
"Tell Dobey, Hutch. He needs to know this so he can send somebod-"
Hutch walked down the steps. Huggy followed, could see his knees threatening to buckle from shock, but Hutch went on down.
"Blond boy, are you hearin' me? You got to have backup or some-"
Hutch spun with his gun out, pointing it up at Huggy's face.
"Don't follow me."
::::::::
When Hutch got to the hotel room, he found Solkin sitting on the edge of the bed, one arm around a bleeding, moaning Starsky, the other holding a pistol to his head. Solkin's arm was around him and holding him close, as if protecting a child, stroking his arm. He raised Starsky's face so that Hutch could see his glazed, empty eyes.
Like Tommy.
Hutch choked back a sob and tried to take a step forward, but dropped to his hands and knees instead, his head going down.
"If you have a gun," Solkin said, "I want you to slide it under the bed."
Head still down, Hutch's hand went inside of his jacket and slid his gun under the bed.
"I'll do whatever you want, Artie. Just let him go."
Solkin stood up, allowing a limp Starsky to fall back on the bed.
He trained his pistol on Starsky with one hand, moved a few feet toward the dresser and picked up a camera.
"I told you I wanted you on the street looking up at me. Don't look at him. Look at me."
Hutch moved his eyes up to the man.
Solkin reached for a bottle of vodka on the dresser, poured himself a drink. "Aren't you sorry you ever gave me a hard time?"
Hutch nodded, his eyes straying to Starsky.
"Starsk, I'm here."
But even as he said it, he knew Starsky couldn't hear him. He lay sprawled on his back, drugged eyes gazing at the ceiling.
Solkin snapped a picture of Hutch.
"I told you to look at me."
Hutch did.
Solkin started to take another picture, but found the instant camera out of film. He opened the second drawer of the dresser to reach in for more, his pistol wavering slightly, and that's when Hutch dove for him, driving him back against the wall and wrestling with him for control of the weapon.
An animalistic whine came from the back of Solkin's throat, and Hutch smashed his elbow into his face-once, twice, three times-and the man went down like a bag of bricks. Hutch cuffed him to a pipe and snatched up the pistol, then ran for the bedside phone to call an ambulance. A commotion at the door made him glance around to see Captain Dobey entering with four uniformed officers, Huggy trailing behind.
"Is he alive?" Dobey asked as he went closer to the bed.
Hutch sat down on the bed, turned Starsky's face toward him, leaning close.
"Starsk," he whispered. "Don't die on me, buddy. Help is here."
The only response was the same fixed gaze at the ceiling.
The paramedics wheeled a stretcher in, Hutch moved out of their way.
Two of the officers pulled a recovering Solkin to his feet, and Hutch bolted for him again.
"Fagela!"
Dobey and Huggy grabbed Hutch to hold him back. The other two officers helped restrain him.
Solkin was led out the door by the other two officers.
Hutch still fought against the barricade of arms even after the man was gone, until a soft moan came from Starsky's direction.
"Need Hutch," Starsky mumbled. "Where is he?"
The four men who held Hutch eased their grip on him so he could get to his partner's side.
The End
Swastika
By TR
"Set him up there. Yeah. You got him?"
The three neo-Nazis stood a drugged, disoriented Starsky on a wooden milk crate in the basement of a burned-out high school. His hands were cuffed behind his back, therefore the only weapons he had were his feet. The first kick brought a brick to his face, the second a razor slash across his bare left shoulder, and the third a kick to the crate, which left him kicking and struggling for life and breath.
Hutch yelled "Police!" when he ran into the basement, which drew fire from the three men. Hutch returned fire, killing each of them, then ran to Starsky, cut the noose around his neck, and caught his falling body.
"Starsky!"
The sound was full of fear, hope, and love.
"Here," Hutch panted as he loosened the noose, pulled it over and away from his head, unlocked the cuffs. "Breathe."
Starsky gasped, gagged, eyes rolling toward the sound of his partner's voice.
"I'm okay," he gasped. "I'm okay."
Hutch sat him up, keeping his chin up, looking around for backup and Captain Dobey.
"Somebody call an ambulance!"
Starsky clutched at Hutch's sleeve, gasping again, a glance of fear in his eyes.
"You're okay," Hutch whispered as he held him close. "Take it easy."
Starsky went limp in his partner's arms as the moment faded to black.
The End
Straitjacket
By TR
Hutch's cry in the middle of the night made me jump from the couch and run into his bedroom, where I found him in the middle of his third nightmare in the one week we'd been home from Cabrillo State. He was pawing his way into the corner, trying to climb up and away from the psycho with the knife, his undershirt and boxers soaked in sweat.
"Hutch!"
I ran over to him, shook him. Wrong move. He shoved me onto my back, shoved his forearm into my throat. Always strong as a bull. If I let him get the upper hand...
"Hutch?"
My voice came out in a rasp. But his eyes cleared and he came to his senses just as I thought I was blacking out.
He raised up off me, blinked as he looked around the room.
"Where-"
He looked down at me again, and then reached down to me, sobbing, almost collapsing on top of me in anguish.
"Oh God, I'm sorry."
I strained to hold him and sit up at the same time.
"It's okay, Hutch."
He tried to pull away from me, self-loathing and sorrow on his features. I wouldn't let him go.
"It's a nightmare, Hutch. You're okay now."
I climbed to my feet, pulled him up, sat him on the edge of the bed, keeping my arm around him.
"Same dream?" I asked.
His bowed head gave a nod.
"It'll go away," I told him. "Give it time."
I didn't tell him that I had a couple of nightmares too about the psycho with the knife. In my dream I didn't get to him in time, and I found Hutch at the top of the stairs with a knife sticking out of his chest.
"Can you sit up?" I asked as I got down on my knee and got a good look at his face.
He nodded again, drained.
"Okay. I'm gonna get you a nice drink of cold water. Huh?"
He nodded again, lifted his head.
I hurried for a glass of water and brought it back. It sloshed in his trembling hands. He held it instead of taking a drink.
"I'm scared, Starsk."
He never said that unless he really was. I can count on one hand the times he's said that to me, and each time it scared me too, to even hear it. I didn't know how many more close calls we could handle. Each one seemed to change him a little more. Not in a bad way, just a different way. Of course I wanted him to stay the strong, boyish smile I met at the police academy, but he was getting harder and harder to find with each life and death mile marker. It killed me a little too inside, each time he got hurt. Seeing him drugged again brought all of the heroin thing back. That had to compound his reasons for the nightmares. What was it doing to him whenever I got hurt?
He would get through this. We would. We would put it behind us and put our armor on again, and go out for another battle. As much as our job had taken from us lately, we always found a reason to stick with it. Maybe it was the rape victim Hutch couldn't leave alone, or the murderous doctor harming innocent patients I couldn't stomach, like Matwick, or the satisfaction of knowing we were making a difference. Maybe we had to find those reasons for each other now. Instead of the job driving us apart, it just drove us closer together, and I was glad. I don't know if the job would mean as much without him.
I helped him hold the glass so that he could take a drink.
"You have every right to be scared, Hutch. When I saw he had the knife that close to you, I lost it."
He gave a little laugh like he sometimes did when he was nervous or scared, to cover up a deeper emotion, try to show me he was okay, trying to lighten the mood and stay positive.
"Are you sure Matwick didn't give you his drug, Starsk?"
Anger hinted at his eyes, a flicker of blue flint. Compassion in his voice. My old Hutch was coming back. He had nearly died in that hospital, and he was worried about me.
"Sane as I ever was."
This brought another chuckle, not so nervous this time.
I sat with him on the bed again, and was surprised when he put his arm around me. He looked at me with eyes that were as clear as blue crystals. I looked back. Both of us searching for our reasons again, and finding them.
"Thanks for being there for me, Starsk."
Love and respect and gratitude filled my heart.
"Same goes for me, Hutch."
The End
Shedding Skin
By TR
There was no greater pleasure than to book Ben Forest. Hutch wanted to do it himself, but with the prick poking him with phrases like "Missing it, Hutch?" and "There's plenty more where that came from," I had to get him out of there. For someone like Hutch, who always has the right words for any situation, to see him speechless and scared to the point of near muteness was almost too much, so I sent him down the hall to get us some coffee while I finished with Forest.
When Hutch disappeared down the hall and around the corner, I slammed Forest face-first into the wall.
"Not another word," I growled into his ear. "I got friends in the pen too."
That shut him up. He was a barracuda, but not a suicidal one. He valued his low life just as much as the next one.
There wasn't a lot preventing me from shooting him where he stood, and he knew it.
Hutch's heroin ordeal had sucked the life out of me too, and I was hanging on to civility by a single thread, more for Hutch's sake than my own.
When I saw my best friend down in the alley, a faded image of himself, so beaten and sick, I wanted to kill whoever on the spot. It doesn't take much to send me over when it comes to Hutch, and the sick lowlife who stole his health and his strength and that boyish light in his eyes was going to pay.
When he was booked, I walked down the hall to join Hutch in the vending room, physically shaking that scum from my shoulders and out of my system. If he had gotten to me this badly, after having been around him only a few minutes, I hated the thought of what he had done to Hutch. I couldn't let him interfere with getting Hutch back on his feet. Forest out, Hutch in.
"Hey-" I said when I entered the vending area, but Hutch wasn't there.
"Hutch!"
I tried to walk down the hall, but no good, I broke into a run.
"HUTCH!"
It's not like I thought he was a baby who couldn't take care of himself-Hutch was the strongest, smartest man I knew-but damn it, that's exactly what he seemed like to me now-a vulnerable, fragile, scared baby.
Somehow being on his feet scared me more than when he had been hurting and fighting in Huggy's bed. Then, I could control some of his pain, some of the stimuli, some of the nightmare. Now it was just like watching a scorpion to see which move it would make- strike outward at me, like he had done, like I would welcome time and again if it would help him through it-or would he strike inward, at himself?
I found him in the john, washing his hands.
I heaved a sigh and leaned back against the wall, heart galloping.
"You scared me to death, Hutch."
I was behind him. His eyes flickered up into the mirror at me, the sour green-yellow lighting making him look sick and frail.
"I'm sorry," he said softly, and reached for a paper towel.
"You're shakin'."
I'd never seen him looking so lost, like something had been chipped out of his soul.
"I won't let him get to you again, Hutch."
He nodded, head down. So quiet.
"I'm tired," he said shuffling past me.
I watched him go, then kicked a bathroom stall off the hinges and walked out.
He was sitting in the Torino when I went outside the precinct to the curb and got into the driver's seat. He was just sitting there quietly, head down, counting the puncture wounds in the crook of his arm.
I wanted to pound that gangster into the ground again.
I touched the back of Hutch's head. He didn't move.
"What can I do, Hutch?"
He pulled his shirtsleeve down to his wrist, hiding the chaffed rope burns too.
"Nothing, Starsk."
A sound like resignation. Acceptance. Distance. That bothered me more than any outbursts he may have had. I almost wish he'd get mad again. At least then I'd know what was on his mind.
"Up for a walk on the beach?" I asked.
He moved his head no. "I just want to go home."
"My home?"
Moved his head no again.
::::::::
"I can stay," I said dropping him off at the cottage. "Make some tea or…"
"I don't think so. I'm pretty tired."
He opened his door, got out, and I watched him go to his front door, resisting the urge to follow him in, check his place and make sure it was safe, tell him to call me if he needed anything. Maybe he needed some time alone. He hadn't had much of it since I found him and helped him get clean. Maybe he was sick of my doting and hovering. I just hoped he could withstand any residual cravings that might come along. Once he was inside, I pulled away from the curb, but didn't make it one block before I turned around and went back, parking just down the street from his place so I could keep an eye out.
::::::::
I slept okay. Next morning when I woke up, I started the Torino and drove closer to park in front of his place, got out, and went to his front door.
"Hutch?" I asked as I knocked. "You up?"
I could hear a little stirring inside, so I turned the doorknob, surprised to find it unlocked.
"Hey," I said as I stepped inside. "You forget to lock your door last…"
Seeing what he was doing, I trailed off. He had his belongings packed up in boxes and was loading his clothes into suitcases on the bed.
"What's going on?" I asked as I came inside and closed the door.
He continued to fold clothes and put them into the suitcases.
"I thought about it all night."
I looked around the cottage.
"Thought about what all night?"
He didn't turn toward me.
"I'm leaving."
My head was spinning like I'd just been clobbered in the head.
"Wait a minute."
Hutch closed the suitcase, picked it up, lifted it, but the weight of it took him stumbling to one knee, where he laughed a little.
I knelt with him.
"I don't get it. Talk to me."
He rose to his feet, turned for another suitcase, his back to me again.
"I don't want to be a cop anymore."
I walked up behind him.
"Because of Forest?"
"I should have done something more…fought harder…outsmarted them…escaped…I'm a failure. I failed myself. I failed you."
I gently turned him around. His head was down.
I put my hands on his shoulders. "There is no way in this world that you failed yourself, or me. Most guys would give in, give up-"
"I did give up!" he yelled at me as he shoved my arms down. "The minute I asked him for another hit, I gave up!"
"No way! You know how it works, Hutch! It chose you. You didn't choose it. That doesn't make you less of a man, or a cop, and it especially doesn't make you less of a friend. You beat it, and them, and now you're just gonna toss it out? You worked too
hard, and I love you too much to let this happen."
"You're not my mother or my father or my boss or my keeper."
"I'm your best friend. And your keeper? Yeah, Hutch, I am your keeper." I put my hand over my heart. "I keep you right here. All the time. I keep you close. I keep you on my mind."
I was surprised when his hand suddenly came up, caressed my neck.
"Thank you for being my friend, Starsk. Thank you for being there. I'm grateful. I will never have another friend like you. But I can't stay here. When I walk into the precinct, I'm going to wonder who knows or who heard. When I work a drug case, am I going to be fully focused and give it my all, or will my judgment be skewed? Am I going to screw up and somehow get you hurt or in trouble? I can't take that chance. Not with your life."
I was shaking my head no, no, no.
The tears that filled his eyes made me want to tear Forest's head off.
"You don't know everything that happened in his room," he whispered to me. "They made me…I had to…in order to get a dose…I caved…I let them…I did whatever they told me…just to get it…I wanted it that bad…"
The shame and disgrace was withering him before my eyes. He was breaking apart, trembling, holding his arms, sinking to his knees.
I caught him, pulled him against me, stroked his hair.
"Sshh. I get it. I understand."
My head was exploding. Red thoughts of murder swirled sluggishly around in my skull like sludge, and I knew I could kill Ben Forest without one twinge of guilt, one blink of an eye.
Hutch clung to me like a little kid, like he wanted to hide in my shoulder.
"Don't run away from me," I whispered. "It was the heroin that made you do those things. I refuse to let that pervert win. Give it to me, buddy. I can handle it."
::::::::
He was more afraid than he let on. He hadn't slept at all the night before. The bed still had the spread on it. He'd spent all night packing, trying to block it all out, rationalize it, run from it.
"Sleep," I told him as I pushed his stuff off the bed. "I'll unpack."
He didn't protest. He was wasted, so he crawled into the bed with his shoes on.
I started putting his stuff away, and in a few seconds, maybe not even a minute later, he was asleep. So spooked that he couldn't sleep alone in his own home.
::::::::
He slept all day, and in the afternoon I curled up in his chair to take a nap. The phone was off the hook to prevent any interruptions.
I hadn't been asleep long when I was awakened by Hutch whispering and whining in his sleep. After I opened my eyes and sat up, I saw that he wasn't on the bed anymore, he was crouched in the corner, trying to paw his way into it, against it.
"Wait," he was whining in a soft voice. "Wait a minute. Just-just-no-no-"
I crouched next to him, taking his arm.
"Hutch, you're here. Hey. Come on."
Amazing speed. He pounced on me. Pinned me. The back of my head hit the floor. He had his arm wedged against my windpipe.
Weak as a kitten yesterday, but now he'd found some adrenaline-fueled strength. My words were choked off in my throat.
"Hu-"
It was the worst feeling in the world, to think that you could die at the hands of your best friend, or that he was so out of control in a dream that he didn't recognize you, or thought you were the enemy who'd tormented him.
"Hu-"
I didn't want to hit him or hurt him, but he was going to kill me in his delirious state if I didn't stop him.
"It's-"
IT'S ME! my mind screamed.
He punched me, and then it was lights out.
::::::::
I woke up to a wet, cold sponge patting my forehead.
"Hutch?" I asked when I opened my eyes.
But it wasn't Hutch patting my face with cool water, it was Huggy.
"He's coming around," he said.
I fought against a dizzy wave of blackness swooping down over me like raven wings. I had to stay awake, see Hutch.
I put two and two together. Huggy had intervened, saved my life.
"I got worried when I got no answer on the phone," he said.
Hutch stood a few feet away, looking devastated, his back turned to me, so ashamed he couldn't even look at me.
"I'm okay, Hutch," I wheezed in a hoarse voice as I struggled to sit up.
Huggy helped me. Suddenly it was urgent that Hutch not blame himself.
"Just a nightmare," I told him. "That's all."
His head went back, eyes closing against tears. "I'm sorry."
I struggled to climb to my feet. Huggy helped me too, hovering between the two of us like a loving referee, not sure what he'd have to do, but poised for anything.
My swollen throat pulsed with burning pain.
Huggy kept a close eye on both of us.
Hutch looked down at the floor. "I thought you were one of…"
"I know," I said taking his arm again. "Come here."
Hutch turned into my arms, and sobbed.
Huggy went to the kitchen to make some coffee.
Hutch pushed me back, looked me over. "God, Starsk, I'm so sorry."
"Forget it. You didn't know what you were doing."
"But if Huggy hadn't-"
"But he did. That's what counts."
"I want you to leave."
I stared at him. "You're kidding me."
He shook his head no. "I mean it. I don't want…until I'm stronger, the nightmares pass…I don't want to hurt you again."
"Sorry, but it'll take more than that to keep me away."
"Never fear," Huggy said as he walked over to us, putting one hand on the back of
Hutch's neck, the other on the back of mine. "I plan on staying here for the both of you."
::::::::
Hutch never had another nightmare the whole week I was there, at least not out loud. I do think he dreamed about it though, and thought about it at times during the day.
The next Sunday is when he wanted to take a walk on the beach. It was a good place for us to clear our minds, talk, and just be quiet with each other.
::::::::
It was a week after that that Hutch said he wanted to go back to the house where Forest had held him.
He was sitting at his kitchen table, a tablet of paper and a pen in his hand, trying to write some song lyrics, but only a few lines were written.
"Why you want to do that for, Hutch? Won't that be kinda hard?"
"I have to."
I was tossing a salad together for him. I put everything down and went to stand next to his chair.
"I get it. Okay, sure. Let's go."
Something he came up with on his own, to keep the spooks away. I had to admire him all
over again for being so resourceful and determined.
"Thought I'd lost you for a while, Hutch."
He smiled a little, my old Hutch returning.
"I may be lost for a little while, but just remember I'll always come back."
He stood up, drank the last of his milk, and pulled a shirt on, rolled the sleeves up.
I caught his arm, turned it up where I could see the fading puncture marks on the inside of his arm.
"You're getting stronger, buddy."
He nodded. "I feel…like I'm shedding old skin, growing some new."
Yeah. Like that.
::::::::
We entered the room where Hutch had been held, and I walked around with him, close to his heels. He touched a chair, as if he really couldn't believe it unless he felt it under his hand.
"This is where they tied me," he said in a heavy whisper. "Shot me up the first time."
My hand went to his shoulder. "Yeah. I see it."
He turned and gestured toward the bed. "They dumped me here. I lost track of the days. It all bled into one long night."
I nodded. There were bloodstains, from Hutch I guessed, on the bed. "I want to tear this place upside down, Hutch."
He walked around slowly, hand touching the furniture, feeling the memories no doubt, the humiliation, the helplessness.
Maybe being there was helping me too.
"I tried to fight them," he finally said as he looked directly at me. "But I couldn't."
"I know, buddy."
He was saying words that I had said, only this time it was clear that they were real to him. He was beginning to understand what I had tried to tell him all along: He had been their victim, and had no control.
Like he read my mind, he said, "But they don't have me anymore."
"No."
"Thanks to you."
Hutch put an arm around my shoulders, just like he used to. No fear. Confidence returning. Strength rebuilding.
Soon he would be his old self, and I'd be there to keep a close watch.
I'm very proud of you, Hutch.
The End
Voodoo
By TR
Something woke Hutch up. Maybe Starsky's breathing. Maybe just a feeling. Maybe Starsky had even spoken his name. But when he turned onto his back and looked up into the darkness over his bed, he saw the low, silver glint of a steak knife raised over his head.
They had been home from the island three weeks now, and Starsky had seemed fine. They both returned to work, business as usual. The laughter was back along with the hard work. But now, as he looked up into Starsky's blank face, he knew that something was very wrong.
Starsky spoke in such a quiet voice, it was hard for Hutch to make out.
"I don't want to," he said just above a whisper.
Hutch licked his lips, raised his head a little, seeing that his gun was across the room hanging from the back of his bedroom door. There was no way he could move past Starsky to get to it.
Hutch spoke just as quietly. "You don't have to, Starsk."
The bedside clock read three in the morning.
Hutch looked at Starsky's arms, and could see a single bloody puncture wound. Someone had given him a shot of something.
"He told me to, Hutch."
Hutch nodded, swallowing down the painful memory that even now seared his throat-of Starsky trying to choke him to death at the top of the cliff on the island. He thought he was going to be murdered by his best friend, and the only way to stop him was to hurt him.
"I know. I mean, he must have, or you wouldn't be here like this. So just...just put the knife down, or give it to me, and we can talk about it. It's him, Starsk. Not you. You would never hur..." He swallowed a tearful hitch in his throat. How many times had he been saved by his partner's strong, capable hands? How many times had his gentle, sensitive fingers touched him when he was hurting, or in need, or showing friendship and
laughter? "You would never hurt me."
Starsky had tried to apologize for the attack on the island, but Hutch wouldn't accept it.
"You weren't yourself," Hutch had said, and found himself wanting to say the same words now. Starsky looked so far away.
"He said at three," Starsky murmured, and stabbed the knife down.
Hutch caught his wrist in both of his, shocked by his ferocious strength.
"Starsk! Stop it!"
Starsky growled with the effort of shoving the knife down closer toward him.
Hutch twisted him to the left, shoved a knee into his stomach, then smashed an elbow into his face.
Everything stopped.
Hutch still had a grip on his partner's wrist, even as Starsky dropped facedown to the bed, unconscious. Hutch took the knife from his hand, then shoved it under the bed, along with his gun.
"God," he panted in a tearful voice, and sat down on the edge of the bed, putting a trembling hand on the back of his partner's head.
::::::::
Hutch carried a glass of water over to where Starsky sat in the squad room.
Starsky took the glass, but winced when the cold water touched his split lip.
A couple of officers came in, stared at Starsky, then spoke in low voices to each other.
Starsky shifted uncomfortably in his chair, then turned in it away from the officers to reach for the handle of a file cabinet.
Hutch crouched at the end of the desk to look at him.
"Starsk, you don't have to stay here. Let's go home. You don't look well."
Starsky reached into the file cabinet. "I'm all right."
"You don't have to keep saying that to make me feel better. I know you weren't yourself.
He sent somebody to your house with a needle, for God's sake. You didn't mean-"
"Can it. I nearly killed you, and all you can do is be nice to me."
Hutch laughed affectionately. "What do you want me to do, tear your head off? You should be mad at me. Look what I did to you."
"I deserve every bit of it, and more. If-"
Hutch took him by the arm and dragged him from the squad room. In the hall, he turned to face his partner.
"That's enough. I didn't blame you on the cliff, and I don't blame you now."
Tears sprang to Starsky's eyes. "Do you know how I'd feel if-"
Hutch put an arm around his neck and walked him down the hall. "About how I'd feel if the situation had been reversed, so I understand, okay?"
"I want it to be a bad dream so I can wake up and it'll go away."
Starsky was not moving in his usual energetic way. One hand was on his stomach, and he shuffled along like an old man. Hutch opened the door for him at the end of the hall.
"Well," Hutch said as he drew Starsky closer and spoke near his ear. "It's not a bad dream, but it is going to be all right."
The End
Skinhead
By TR
"Starsk?"
It was morning when I came into his apartment and looked around. His car was parked outside but he was late for work.
The apartment was turned upside down, but it looked more like a fight than a robbery.
I found him face down on his living room floor. They had put a pillowcase over his head and tied it tight around his neck. Since he had been asleep and his shirt was off, it was easy to see the big red swastika on his back. I smelled paint so I didn't think it was blood, but I wasn't sure, so I ran over to him.
"Starsk!"
To tell you the truth, he was so still I thought he was dead, until a groan came inside the pillow case.
Rage and tears both broiled inside of me as I got down beside him and, with my pocketknife, cut the ropes from his wrists that had been tied behind his back. He didn't try to get up or move. He couldn't.
"Easy, partner. It's me."
I cut the rope around his neck too, and took the pillowcase off so he could see who I was.
His face dripped with sweat, and was swollen black and blue.
They had done a number on him. I don't think they intended for him to live. He was barely breathing, and looked to be fading in and out of consciousness.
One gash in his cheek was bleeding pretty badly, so I took a handkerchief from my pocket and pressed it hard. He didn't even flinch.
"Starsk, can you hear me?"
His eyes looked for me, found me, his hand came up to grab me. I held onto him. I'd never seen him so weak and beaten, without words or fight or anything.
I didn't have the heart to pry his hands from me when I reached for the phone. He had to
hang on to life somehow, and I was it.
I called an ambulance, but before I could even finish the call, he passed out.
::::::::
He was able to say a few words in the ambulance, like "skinhead", "attack", and "dead". Even though he was able to talk a little, I was still worried he could slip away from me. I'd seen it before. You think somebody's going to pull through, and then the next thing you hear, they're gone, and you never expected it. I'd been overly worried since the professor poisoned him. I never wanted to see him in such a weakened state again, watching him die hour by hour, minute by minute, unable to do much, and now this. I swore to myself I would keep a closer eye on him.
::::::::
The nurses washed the swastika from his back. He didn't know it was on there until I told him.
"Terrific," he grumbled in his sarcastic tone.
When he was stronger, I began to ask him questions about his attackers. Descriptions. Names they may have used. Accents. Any details. But he couldn't remember much. Without much to go on, I decided to put all of my attention on being Starsky's friend. I came to the hospital every day, brought him foods he liked, plus books and music. Really, whatever he asked for.
"What a babysitter you are," he said.
How could I not be? With his face all banged up, and with the skinheads who did it still out there, probably doing the same thing to some other guy... He couldn't even hold a glass of water. Me not having any leads was not good for me, all it did was make me angrier, because there was all the time in the world to think about how much I hated those punks and wanted to get even.
He got stronger, which was a relief to me and Captain Dobey. No lasting damage that would keep him off the force. At the time, I couldn't think of anything that could keep him from being a cop. Also, at the time, there was only one thing that could keep me from being a cop, and that was losing Starsky. I don't know if I'd want to be a cop without my partner. When we first started being cops, we were into it for the job, and for the people, but as time went on, we were into it more for each other. It becomes an issue of survival, and survival depended on the both of us. I never thought about him dying, not really, until the professor.
But after that, I take nothing for granted. And became a more serious, deeper person. No
apology for that, it just happened. It took me from a somewhat naive college kid to a wiser, harder man. People tell me I'm more intense than I used to be, get angrier, worry more, think more, guard Starsky more. Why not? I think I've earned it. If that's what it takes to make me a better cop and a better friend, okay.
::::::::
Ironic, how it was the day of Starsky's discharge that Huggy Bear came to see me at the hospital with some information. He'd been digging for the smallest scrap while I was looking out for Starsk, and finally hit pay dirt. Not enough evidence for charges to stick, but a lead. I had their names.
I couldn't wait to get out of there. A feeling of gleeful revenge washed over me like a clean, cold shower. I could do something now. Make those freaks pay for hurting my partner.
"Hey," Starsky said as I drove him to his home. "I heard what Huggy said."
"Did you?"
"Yeah. And I know what you're thinkin'."
"There should be no problem, then. I'll get you settled in, and then I'll make a house call."
Starsky looked almost lost with worry, like he had looked when the poison was ticking his life away by the second. Almost like he didn't know what to say or what to do. I put my hand on the back of his neck, which made him tense up just a little. One more reason I wanted those psychos. I knew he would make a full recovery, but he still wasn't one-hundred percent. He jumped at the littlest noise, watched doorways super close, kept an eye on new people, stood a little closer to me than he used to. He was so tired and beat up, like a muscle car that had just been wrecked and needed restored. He would get better, I knew him; but I wanted the skinheads to know just what they took from him-and me too. They would learn that you just don't pick on the person I care the most about.
We got to his place and went up to the door, slowly and carefully because he was still stiff and sore. His hand inched toward his gun that wasn't there. I opened the door and went in first, and looked around. He looked around too.
"Look okay?" he asked.
Man, how could I leave him here like this? But then, how could I not? If they found out he was still alive, they would come back, and this time they would make sure he was dead. I had to cut their plan short.
I walked through the whole place, looking in closets and behind all the doors, around all
the furniture.
"I'm calling Huggy," I told him when I went to his phone. "He can stay with you until I-"
He hurried over and took the phone from my hand.
"Starsk-"
"I don't like what you're going to do."
"Really."
Angry tears jumped to his eyes, startling me. It was the first real anger and pain I'd seen come out of him since the attack.
"Hutch, if you think for one minute that I can let you go..."
"You don't have much of a choice."
He grabbed the front of my shirt, shook me once.
I took his arms, easily. "I am absolutely not going to let them get away with this. We don't have enough proof to bring them in. No prints. You didn't see them. No one else is talking. So I'm going to do what I have to do."
"Don't."
He must have seen murder in my eyes. He must have known what this had done to me.
Emotions tried to burrow upward, I pushed them down, swallowed tears.
"Remember in the hospital? After the professor? I swore to you, Starsk. That no one would hurt you like that again. And they did, therefore, I failed you."
"No, Hutch. No way."
"So I'm going to do what needs to be done. For you, and for myself."
"Hutch, we're not superhuman. We can't stop all the bullets. You don't have to swear anything like that. It's too much. All you have to swear is that you'll be there if something bad does happen, and that's a promise you keep all the time."
Revenge had twisted me so out of shape that I was actually thinking about killing them.
Starsky, even as banged up as they made him, was still being a good cop, and a good
friend to me, maybe even a better man than me. He had every right to want them dead, but he wouldn't go for it.
"We'll get them," he said in a quiet voice. "Maybe not right now. We wait. We watch. We listen. We gather evidence. And one day, we'll get them. Our way. Not theirs. You want to do something for me? Calm down."
He was trying to keep me a human being.
They had not destroyed him. Nor had they taken away his fight or his heart or his soul. I had too much respect for him not to do what he was asking. I learned so much from him.
He pushed me toward the kitchen and poured us both a strong drink.
"To partners," he said lifting his glass.
Neither of us were smiling.
God, I needed a drink, and I needed to stay here with him.
I raised my glass too.
"To partners."
The End
Living Dead Girl
By TR
He gave her the money and the cop's address, and a week later she was walking down his street looking for his place.
She waited a week because she had to get high, and once she got high, she lost track of important things.
It was his name that attracted her to the task. Hutchinson. He had tried to help her once, told her to get off the street and do something with her life before the meth and the streets destroyed her.
"What do you know? You're a cop."
He went his way, and she went hers. Now, two years later, their paths would cross again.
Only, this time, it would be for a different reason.
She was pretty, once. Loving, once. But the men and the streets and the drugs and the women took it all away.
He was carrying a grocery bag from his car to his apartment, whistling a sunny song, as if he could be about to make dinner for a pretty lady.
"Officer Hutchinson?" she asked as she approached him.
Maybe I should have cleaned up. Fixed my hair. Put on some makeup. I forgot how nice-looking he was.
He turned, saw her, and smiled.
"Sheila."
He remembers me. How could he recognize me, when people tell me I look like a walking corpse?
But it didn't matter. She took the knife and slid it into his stomach. He slipped down the wall just inside his doorway, at the bottom of the steps, then she kept walking.
The End
The Edge Of Time (A Joe Collandra/SR story)
By TLR
I looked at my psychic friend, Joe Collandra, and in his eyes saw such truth, and fear, and torture, that it was hard not to believe him.
"Are you crazy? I just can't let Starsky die. If what you're telling me is true-"
"IF! YOU DON'T BELIEVE ME?"
People in the cafe stared at us in the booth. We hunkered a little closer to each other, trying to keep our voices down, Joe sweating, me beginning to.
He had been so right about so many things. But this time it just couldn't be real.
"You don't want it to be real," he said. "That doesn't change the facts. It will happen."
"No."
A simple and hard answer. I got out of the booth. I was too good a cop, too good a friend, and too good a partner to let Starsky be shot down at his car like some easy target at a carnival.
"Then I'll change it," I told him. Simple. "I'll just change it."
I walked away.
Joe shouted at my back: "I'm not so sure you can change the future!"
::::::::
I found Starsky in the squad room reading a comic book. I took it from him. The painters were already here painting, so it had kind of disrupted our routine. Most of the officers were out doing cases just to avoid the mess, but Starsky always found a way to find calm in the middle of a storm.
"You know what Joe Collandra just told me?"
"That's where you were? He didn't give you this week's Lucky Lotto numbers, did he?"
"Oh for Pete's..."
He gave me his full attention. Maybe he could see I was a little worried.
"Okay. What. What did he tell you?"
"He said..."
I looked around the squad room, finding it really easy to shake his words off under the bright lights and familiar setting.
"Nothing."
Starsky shook his head at me, then took his comic book back.
"Hey, did you see this in the back? They have these amazing seahorses that you can grow in a fish bowl. I think I'm gonna get some."
The phone rang. I answered.
"Hutchinson."
I listened. It was Joe.
"You didn't let me finish, Hutch."
I turned my back so Starsky couldn't hear.
"I heard enough."
"Then let me-"
I hung up on him. I didn't want to hear any more about Starsky getting killed in the street.
The phone rang again. Starsky reached for it, but I snatched it up first.
Joe again, saying, "You have to let it happen, Hutch."
Now I was getting a headache. I didn't want to hear any more of his weird predictions. It was making my heart pound fast and my throat dry up. I was composed on the outside, turmoil on the inside. I could hide it from Starsky, for a while, but couldn't at all from Joe Collandra.
"What did you say?"
"It's the guy. The killer. The bigshot guy I keep seeing. I don't get his name, but he's got a lot of power. He controls a lot of people. If you stop the hit, this guy...Hutch, all I see is
terror for the eagle. You know how I interpret that, don't you? The eagle is our country, but Ronald Reagan isn't going to be president in 1984-"
"What? Reagan? What are you talk-"
"It's going to be this guy, in 1984. And you know what? He drops the bomb on the Soviet Union. They give it right back. We're demolished, Hutch. And it's all because of this guy-"
"WHO?" I found myself shouting into the phone. "Who the hell is he?"
"I don't know! G. G something. I can't make it out. But it's all because this guy is in the White House instead of a prison cell for shooting Starsky."
My head was spinning out of control. The room went crooked. I had to look at Starsky to make sure I was still in the squad room and still a sane person. After talking to Joe, I wasn't sure anymore. I was beginning to think he was going off the deep end. His next words to me were very quiet. He sounded as distraught as I felt.
"Don't stop it, Hutch. Let it happen. It has to play out."
I looked at Starsky again. How could I not try to save his life? How does a person do that? Did Joe really think I could just let it unfold? That would be like letting your baby chase a ball into the street, knowing he'd get killed by a car. Or letting him play with a loaded gun. Or not take him to the doctor when he was dying.
Starsky put the comic book down and stood up.
"Up for some ping-pong?"
"Sure," I said, and helped him push the tables together.
Anything to get my mind off of what Joe Collandra had told me.
The End
Race Traitor
By TLR
CHAPTER 1
Hutch stood on the outside of the glass wall and watched Josef Wright give a taped statement to Detective Irons.
Irons: "Where is Detective Starsky?"
Wright: "He's where I put him."
Hutch started for the door to go in, but Captain Dobey pulled him back. Hand in his hair, Hutch began to pace, keeping his eyes on the floor, listening. It reminded him in some way of Simon Marcus' interrogation, the verbal puzzles he liked to offer, the comfortable knowledge that he was the answer.
Irons: "If you tell us where we can find him, we can give you special consideration."
Wright: "I don't like the word 'can'. It implies that you could if you want to, but won't if you choose to change your mind."
Exasperated, Irons sighed. He'd been at it for three hours. Starsky had been missing for three weeks, each day showing in Hutch's eyes, voice, and posture. He seemed to tense down onto himself, clamping onto his wits, skills, and fortitude, the only way to stay sane and cope in an insane and unnerving situation.
Hutch muttered to himself, trying to direct the questioning a room away. "He has a tattoo, Irons. He wants you to ask him about it."
But Irons didn't. Instead, he asked Wright about his gang.
"I think it means white pride," Dobey said quietly. "I've seen it in some literature. It's been around a while. Sanitized version of the KKK."
Slowly Hutch's head came up, and he shoved the door open. Dobey moved as if to stop him, and so did Irons, but Hutch was already at the table, jerking Wright up, slamming him to the wall, and putting his gun to his temple.
"You have my partner somewhere," he whispered hoarsely into the man's face. "I arrested you three years ago for assaulting a gay couple in a park. So if this is your way of paying me back-"
Wright smiled. "Oh, it is, but not for that reason."
Dobey and Irons watched closely, Irons ready to intervene, but Dobey held him back with a look.
"Then why?" Hutch asked as he searched the man's eyes. "Why would you take my partner and hide him away some-"
"You're a race traitor. We warned you about associating with his kind."
Hutch stared at the tattoo on Wright's neck, of a circle with a cross inside.
Sure Hutch would explode, Dobey fingered his own gun; shocked when Hutch's voice instead dropped to a helpless whisper.
"Me?"
Wright's eyes held a flicker of victory. "I was right. I knew just how to get to you."
Hutch backhanded him with his gun, then Dobey and Irons pulled him back before he could do it a second time.
On the floor, Wright nursed a gash in his right cheek while Hutch was dragged to the door.
"Do you know what isolation does to a person?" Wright asked him.
"Where!" Hutch yelled at him. "Where is he?"
Dobey and Irons pulled him from the room, and Dobey nodded to two other officers to secure Wright and the room.
"Come to my office," Dobey told him. "Calm down.
Hutch pulled away to go back again, but stopped when he saw two detectives, Samuels and Roberts, running toward him. They had been working the case with him for the past 3 weeks.
"We just got a call," Samuels panted. "Somebody found him."
CHAPTER 2
Hutch arrived at the salvage yard before the ambulance did, jumping from his car and running toward two teenage boys who were standing at the trunk of a demolished car. "Starsk!"
Dobey followed, hustling to keep up.
Hutch shoved the boys aside and saw a devastated version of his partner: Curled into the trunk, wrists bloody from where he'd worked them free of barbed wire. A black hood over his head. Body bruised from a beating.
One of the teenagers took a step back. "I think he's dead, man. We called an ambulance, but..."
Breath trembling with love and fear, Hutch leaned into the trunk and felt his throat for a pulse, found a faint one, then carefully worked the hood up, almost gasped aloud when he saw that his hair had been shaved military-close, the same white pride symbol Wright had been wearing, drawn in black on the side of his head. He was unable to move or speak except for a small sound in his throat, and his glazed eyes glistened an amazing blue from the darkness of the trunk.
"He's not dead," Hutch whispered as he reached into the trunk, picked Starsky up, and carried him toward his car.
Dobey was on the police radio. "Where the hell is that ambula-" He dropped the mike when he saw Starsky.
"Let's get him to the hospital," Hutch said, and Dobey opened the back door for him.
The End
Psycho
By TR
I drown in an ocean of hate for that blond-headed cop. He must think I'm his slave that he can push around. But he's the one who will be kneeling to me, because, you see, I know his weakness, and it is a man. I sit in this cell, dreaming about him every day, and it takes away whatever is left human of me. I wasn't a psycho when I came here, but now that is what they call me. But that will change one day when I go home. He will give in to me like I have had to give in to this place.
When I look in the mirror, I see myself, but when I stare longer, I see him. He's inside of me. And violence too, there is no way to stop it, it spreads like a virus through my mind and my physical being. A sleeping demon has been awakened, and there is no turning back.
I take everyone's hate and let it build in me, like a reservoir, and it causes me to go mad, but I see the madness as a blessing. One day he will succumb to me. I'll use his friend to do that. It's the only way. He has blotted out any good that may have been in me. I lay rotting and stinking because of it.
My sin corrodes away my nature, and I take lives in my dreams, unable to stop it. Hollow and hallow, my hand slips bloody with the knife. He pushes me to this, he must know what I am. I need some medicine to contain this, but medicine will just blunt the hate, and I want to feel all of my murderous rage. I need it to stay alive. I see his face in my mind, and it fuels me. I feed on it until I black out.
I killed my mother and father for what they did to me, now I dream of killing him. He'll know how it feels. One day. I'll be released, and then I'll go looking for him. He'll never be ready for this.
End
Protection
By TR
Starsky joined Hutch in the stairwell, taking a seat on the step next to him.
"I just talked to Huggy," Hutch said to his partner. "Artie Solkin's out of the slammer."
Starsky's expression didn't change. "How'd he get out so soon? And why didn't anyone notify us?"
Hutch looked down at his hands. "He wants to get even for Tommy's suicide."
Starsky saw that he was working a matchbook nervously between his fingers. Now
Starsky's face darkened, his eyes narrowed, the mental image of Hutch's raw hand coming back to him, burned from a car bomb Solkin had rigged in the trunk of his car.
"That Tommy freak offed himself in the mental institution, and he's gonna blame us for it?"
"Me. But he says he only has to hurt you this time."
They sat in the silence.
Hutch rose to his feet. "He wants to meet me."
Starsky stood up too. "Good. Let's go."
Hutch turned on the step, looked up at him, one step above him.
"He said alone."
"There's no way-"
Two uniformed officers entered the stairwell. Hutch walked past them. Starsky lunged forward, reaching for Hutch, but the officers caught him and held him back.
"No! Damn it, let me go! Hutch! Wait!"
Starsky struggled against the cops, got free, but two more came in to help hold him back.
"Let go of me! Hutch!"
Starsky fought, strained, kicked, until he was panting and sweating. Until the four officers
had him pushed face-first against the wall.
The End
Mistaken Identity
By TR
I kissed Yolonda at her door after our date, then drove my Torino home. It was late and I was tired. Seven o'clock comes early, and I had a bunch of reports to catch up.
My bed seemed like a warm dream I couldn't wait to get into.
Fifteen minutes later I was unlocking my front door and going inside. One lamp was on and I could see Hutch just sitting there in one of my kitchen chairs. He has a key to my place and comes over a lot, so it wasn't a big surprise to see him sitting in my house; just a surprise to see him sitting so quiet and still. He faced me but wasn't looking at me, just staring out there into empty space somewhere like he was on drugs or-
I shot to the chair and tore his sleeve up to get a look at his arm. Not that he would use again. That was over and in the past. But that wasn't to say that some flake with a hypo couldn't have jumped him and=
"Hutch!"
I turned his lost eyes toward me by turning his face in my direction. Not an ounce of the friend that I knew was in there. I checked his pulse and pupils and respirations.
"What did they give you, huh? Who was it?"
The only answer he could give was a few words I couldn't make out.
"What? Hutch, what did you say? Say it again."
He whispered something. I put my ear close.
"Thought I was you. I don't know who. Wore a ski mask."
A red-hot knife stabbed my heart. I didn't know what to say. I helped him out of the chair and walked him over to the door. He moved slow-motion and disoriented.
"I'm getting you to the hospital," I told him.
He didn't answer. He kept moving in a heavy, confused way.
I didn't know what was in the needle and didn't know if he would get worse.
I opened the door and we went out, but I had a vise on him going down the stairs. He almost fell a few times.
"Come on," I said keeping him up and getting him to the Torino. "We'll be there in no time."
I put him in the car, and he was in his daze the whole way. I wanted him to talk to me or give me more information, but I knew it was impossible for him to manage it. It reminded me too much of when I had found him high on heroin in a dirty alley just a few months before.
:::::::::::::
The emergency room doctor looked like he didn't believe me when I told him Hutch had been drugged by somebody.
Normally I defend Hutch to the death, but in this case I held my tongue. His reputation speaks for itself. They'd soon hear the facts. After all, I couldn't punch the doctor who was trying to help him.
:::::::::
"A powerful tranquilizer," the same doctor told me the next morning in the waiting room. "It should have killed him."
It should have killed me.
Immediately I went to see him in the hospital room. He was awake but still looked drowsy.
The best part was that he looked like he recognized me and put on a smile like he was okay.
It was meant for me, I wanted to say. You could have told them you weren't me, or said they had the wrong guy, or, Hutch, you could have told them where to find me. But you didn't.
I couldn't say all that to him, though. It would have been a soapy scene. He knew how I felt about it-the same way he would feel if the situation had been reversed.
I just gripped his hand like I did in the squad room when Bellamy pumped me full of the professor's compound.
"Good seeing you again, partner."
::::::::
The next day he could go home from the hospital, so we drove around in the Torino looking for a new health food restaurant he wanted to try.
When we got there, he ordered a salmon burger, but the only thing on the menu I could stomach was the banana milkshake.
The End
Flashback
By TLR
I sit here trying to write a song in this notebook on this long dark night, unable to sleep because of the noises I keep hearing around the cottage. Music has always helped me express myself, but it feels like the music has left me tonight.
It's been a week since we took Forest in, but I still can't tame all of the withdrawal.
Those noises made me get my gun and check around, inside and outside, but I didn't see anyone or anything wrong, except what is inside my head.
My slings and arrows are tourniquets and needles, and I wonder if they can do me in.
Part of me knows my symptoms are leftovers from the heroin in my body, like stubborn ghosts that keep haunting me, but the rest of me thinks this is the new skin I'll have to live in. My new skin is emotional, too, and when I peel back a layer, another one is there, redder than the last, and it just can't seem to heal. How do you shed your own skin?
Maybe I should just accept the fact that I was an addict, weakened by a drug, and that it has changed me.
I have a desperate need to go back in time and wipe this all away, to have life simple again, one without a junkie cop and his devastated partner.
Brother of my heart. He actually apologized for not finding me sooner. What has this done to him? I don't think I'll ever truly know.
I don't want to become hardened or cynical or indifferent because of this, but since Starsky found me, so help me, I care less, feel less, think less, and I hope that is only part of withdrawal too. I try to hold on to who I was, but it's slipping through my fingers, and I feel so alone. The sun shines every day, but I don't notice it or love it like I did before.
Will I ever get that back?
If I don't, I may as well give up, because I don't want to live in a dark cloud for the rest of my life. I don't know how much more I can stand the bad dreams, the flashbacks, the cravings, night sweats, sore joints, crawling skin, ragged nerves, noises.
Starsk, please come now. I'm trying to hold on to myself, and I just keep falling. I don't
feel safe. I feel, literally, like I'm down to my last breaths, like a grave isn't so dark and cold anymore. I need you to save me again. The eyes of my former self watch me in shame, but I still want to believe there's a good life ahead of me, and you.
::::::::
Starsky tore the sheet of paper from the notebook, and folded it into his shirt pocket on his way out of Hutch's front door.
::::::::
Starsky found him in the alley where he had collapsed almost two weeks ago, just standing still and looking down at the spot where he had ended up after escaping his captors.
"Hutch?"
Hutch didn't turn. The defeated shoulders, closed eyes, bowed head, and soft gleam of his hair in the dull street lamp made him look like a fallen angel.
Starsky went to stand next to him, took the letter from his pocket, and put his arm around his partner.
The End
Cover
By TR
The drug buyer sat at a game of poker in the back room of Smokey's pool hall, his two partners flanking his chair.
Hutch took a bag of heroin from his jacket pocket and placed it on the table in front of him.
"Pure," he said looking from face to face. "Try it. Test it. Whatever."
The buyer, Reeder, picked up the bag, looked it over, then slid it back across the table.
"You try it."
"Hey," Hutch said with a laugh as he held his hands up. "I made a rule a long time ago."
Reeder didn't lower his gaze or change expression.
"So did I."
The door opened, and Starsky walked in, wearing a knit wool cap and Army jacket.
One of Reeder's partner's, Park, opened the bag to examine the contents while Reeder's second partner, Raleigh, casually opened his jacket to reveal his holstered pistol.
Reeder's eyes didn't waver from Starsky or Hutch.
Park looked at Hutch. "What the hell is this? Do you know what this tastes like?"
Hutch looked at Starsky. "What are you trying to pull?"
Starsky laughed nervously. "I don't know what you're talk-"
Hutch jumped at him, punching him in the stomach.
Starsky doubled over and fought for breath, and Hutch jerked him back up. "When I tell you I want pure, I want pure. What did you do with it?"
Starsky's glazed eyes turned up to him.
Reeder and his partners watched as Hutch shoved Starsky face-first into the wall. "Where is it?"
Starsky started to sag to his knees.
The door opened and Reeder's third partner walked in, looked around.
"Cops," he said, and everyone drew their guns, firing. The detectives dove for cover behind a liquor bar and returned fire.
"Police!" Hutch yelled. "Put down your-"
More exchanges. Bullets chipped the plaster and wood away, the detectives hit their marks, and the room was silent as the four drug buyers lay dead, two at the poker table and two on the floor.
Starsky moved out from behind the bar, walking over to make sure everyone was dead, then put his gun away.
"Anybody need an ambulance?" Hutch asked as he walked across the floor and looked too.
"Nah," Starsky said as he started for the phone to call Dobey, then collapsed to his hands and knees.
"Whoa," Hutch said as he hurried to him and sat him down on the floor. He lifted Starsky's head to get a good look. There was a trickle of blood from his nose and the corner of his moth. "Sorry, partner," he said taking out his handkerchief.
"Shoulda pulled your punches."
"I did."
Starsky released a small laugh of pain, and Hutch slipped an around his shoulders.
The End
:::::
Fire Starter
By TR
The teenager with the punk black hair and eyeliner carried a can of gasoline into the warehouse, then closed the door. He snorted cocaine from the back of his wrist, then walked over to the light-haired cop who was upright on his feet and tied to the concrete post, head down and mumbling something to himself.
"Shut up, mate!" the punk yelled as he punched the cop with a spike-gloved fist.
"Nobody hears you!"
When the cop continued to mutter incoherently, the punk grabbed a handful of hair and lifted his head.
"Gonna let my girlfriend out of jail?"
"Can't," Hutch groaned through a trickle of blood. "I don't have the-"
"Then you burn."
The punk poured the gasoline over Hutch's head, then pulled a charcoal sketch from his hip pocket, unfolded it, showed it to him. "You see her?"
Hutch coughed, gasped, blinked harshly from the gasoline in his eyes and fumes in his lungs, unable to see the picture of a punk girl with earrings and tattoos.
"I can't live without her," the young man said as he wiped his nose with the back of his glove. "You hated her."
"No. Just...doing my job. It was noth...ing per-" A round of coughs and disjointed thoughts cut off any attempt to reason.
"You liked my chickie, didn't you?"
"No. Not like-"
The punk smashed him in the mouth again, and Hutch's head dropped.
"You liked her, but she wouldn't like you back, so you sent her up-"
Hutch sagged into the ropes that bound his chest to the pillar. "She set fire to my
captain's-"
A crack across his nose sent blood spurting.
Hutch heard rather than saw the punk take out a lighter and flip back the lid.
"Wait," Hutch groaned. "Wait a-"
"She cut her wrists in her cell, tried to kill herself, all because of you, now you'd well see that she gets out or-" The punk took a razor from his jacket pocket, drew it across his own cheek. "Or see? You're dead. You're just dea-"
Hutch tried to say more, but nothing else came out, and his eyes began to roll.
A noise from the back of the warehouse made the punk turn, then go investigate, razor out, and when he disappeared into the shadows of some old splintered shipping crates, a kick from above came down hard to his face and he went lights out.
Starsky jumped down and began to cuff the unconscious man.
"Hutch!"
Glancing over his shoulder, he saw that Hutch was unmoving on the post.
Starsky kicked the man's razor aside, then ran to Hutch, digging a knife from his pocket before he even reached him.
"Buddy," he whispered as he raised Hutch's head. "I'm here."
Hutch's eyes were closed, and he was barely conscious. Starsky cut the coils of ropes that bound him, then caught his slumping body.
"Come on," he grunted as he slung Hutch's arm around his neck and struggled with him toward the door and fresh air. "I got ya."
Hutch was able to manage a few steps, but once they got outside on the sidewalk, he collapsed, and Starsky took him gently to the concrete, holding his head. Toward the backup unit he directed, "Get an ambulance," and the officer went for his police radio.
The End