Brotherhood

by Zebra 3 and Me

These Starsky and Hutch stories are dark and dramatic.

BROTHERHOOD

By TLR

1. Blind Love—A drug dealer seeks revenge.

2. Bloodlines-A mobster seeks revenge for the death of his brother.

3. Ancient-The detectives deal with a timeless enemy.

4. Amy-A young woman affects the lives of both detectives in unexpected ways.

5. Accidental-An accident turns the lives of the detectives upside down.

6. Chameleon-Following an argument with a girlfriend...

7. Desperate-Starsky's testimony puts a murderer behind bars.

8. Brenya-Following a party at Starsky's house.

9 Effigy-An old enemy finds a new way.

10. Missing-One of the partners goes missing.

11. Maelstrom-Huggy's is taken over by a murderer on the run.

Blind Love

By TLR

CHAPTER 1

The handsome Latino stood on his patio and looked at the photos of Starsky and Hutch on his glass-top table.

Another Latino stood nearby, a machine gun cradled in his arm.

"When can you do them, Juan?"

Juan gripped the machine gun more tightly.

"Just say the word."

XXXXXX+

"Oh, man, she looks so sexy."

Hutch snatched the binoculars from Starsky's hands.

Starsky adjusted the front of his jeans.

"Hurry up, will you? It's my turn."

Hutch adjusted the focus on the binoculars. "Man,

she is one foxy chick."

"Yeah, we established that already."

The Torino was parked far enough from the beach to be unnoticed by sunbathers and swimmers.

Starsky squinted to try to see the shapely blonde strolling on the beach with her radio and beach blanket.

"I think we're on duty, Detective Hutchinson."

Hutch replied from a faraway place, his libido: "Are we?" The police radio interrupted both of them.

"Zebra 3, Zebra 3, come in."

Starsky lifted the mike.

"See Huggy Bear regarding the cocaine shipment coming in on-" "Got it."

Starsky replaced the mike and started the car.

Hutch continued to view the girl through the binoculars.

"Holy cow."

"Maybe she'll be here when we get back."

"And maybe she won't. Let's go talk to her."

"Let's? As in us? I'm seeing Donna right now."

"I'm not, and I want her number. Let me out and I'll put a move on her. Real quick." "Right now?"

"While the getting is good."

Starsky shifted into Park.

"Hurry up."

Hutch jumped from the car, then ran across the parking lot, down some wooden steps, and onto the beach.

Starsky grinned as his partner scattered sand and nearly fell trying to get to the girl.

Starsky checked his watch, tapped fingers impatiently on the steering wheel, and revved the engine.

"Come on, Romeo."

Starsky saw Hutch pull out a pad of paper and pencil, write something down.

"That's my boy."

A smile passed between Hutch and the blonde, the girl bumped his hip with her own, and Hutch was on his way back to the Torino waving the snatch of paper like a high school kid.

"What's her name?" Starsky asked as Hutch slid into the passenger seat beside him.

"Carrie."

Starsky squealed tires as he exited the parking lot.

Hutch waved back at the girl on the beach.

CHAPTER 2

Starsky and Hutch met with Huggy and left him an hour later with the who, what, where, when, and how of the cocaine shipment arriving from Mexico.

"Miles and Willis want this case," Hutch said as he and Starsky headed for the Torino.

"Not gonna happen. We did all the leg work from day one. They think we're gonna give it to them just so they can see the headline in the paper?"

The two cops got into the red car and it drove away from Huggy's place.

Starsky slowed the Torino down to a crawl to let Hutch out at his curb.

"See you tomorrow night, Hutch. We'll take care of the Mexico thing, then show Donna and Carrie a thing or two."

"Later."

Hutch exited the Torino, closed the passenger door, then ran up the stairs to his

apartment.

CHAPTER 3

Starsky saw a police car, ambulance, and coroner's wagon at his curb when he parked his car in front of his place.

Captain Dobey bustled over to him, barking orders over his shoulder.

"Secure the area and keep the media out for now."

Starsky tiptoed to try to see past Dobey's shoulder and some of the officers' heads.

Dobey took his arm. "Somebody mowed down your next-door-neighbor with a machine gun. We think they were after you and got him by mistake. Latinos made you."

Fleeting concern for the neighbor, then Starsky moved in a reverse-"Hutch-"- then sideways run as he scrambled back to his car.

"Call him, Cap. Tell him to get the hell out of Venice Place."

CHAPTER 4

Hutch was cutting up a breast of chicken into small cubes for a fajita when the phone rang.

"Dear Carrie, Dear Carrie", he sang as he ran for the phone and grabbed the receiver. "Give me some love."

The sound of machine gun fire spattered throughout the apartment.

The tiny sound of Dobey's voice-"Hutch, Hutch"-came from the fallen receiver.

Then the shatter of glass, the chipping of wood, the blasting echoes.

"What the-"

He grabbed for the gun on his kitchen counter and fired back randomly, target unseen.

"Who the-"

Hutch dove facedown for precious little cover behind the sofa.

Rat-a-tat-a-tat-a-tat-tat-

Hutch's head hit the floor.

Blood seeped from a wound in his head.

One word.

A faint name.

"Starsk".

Silence.

No return fire.

CHAPTER 5

The Torino swerved onto Hutch's street, gunned forward, and lurched to a halt in front of Venice Place.

"Hutch!"

Starsky was out of the car, door open, feet flying up the stairs, heart leaping at the butchered walls and door.

"HUTCH!"

Starsky kicked aside the bottom half of the front door and stumbled across the room, head swiveling to find his partner in the debris.

"Hutch!"

A groan from behind the sofa.

Starsky dove to one knee, eyes taking in everything-his bloody head, his stillness, all at once.

Hutch lay face down, breathing faintly. His strength-less hand came up to reach for him, Starsky grasped it with one hand, applied pressure to his head with the other.

Starsky wanted nothing more than to pick him up, hold him, but he knew he couldn't move him.

A siren sounded outside, signaling the arrival of an ambulance.

Starsky leaned down, panted, tried to look into his eyes. "Can't leave you alone for a minute, can I?"

Hutch gave no response.

His hand lay lax in Starsky's.

Starsky pressed.

"Latinos?"

A slight nod.

"Ambulance is here, buddy. Everything'll be okay. What's a head wound anyway? Some time off work, attention from pretty nurses. Makes me want to trade places with you."

Hutch's glazed eyes didn't search for him.

Starsky squeezed Hutch's hand tighter.

"Squeeze my hand if you can, Hutch."

No response.

Starsky heard the noise of the medics coming up the steps-"What the hell happened here?"

Starsky's hand was so red with Hutch's blood that it was hard to distinguish it from the wound.

When the medics crouched down next to them, Starsky took his hand away so they could treat him, but he stayed in a frozen crouch until they crowded him aside.

Starsky's head went down, he closed his eyes, the sound of Hutch's labored breathing filling his ears until he himself swooned and felt light-headed. Light and sound swirled away and down like a slow-moving drain.

"He gonna make it?" he heard himself ask them.

The medics were too busy treating Hutch to respond.

Dobey entered the room, walked over to Starsky, gently took his shirt collar in his hand, and pulled him to his feet and to one side.

"I got Miles and Willis on the Latinos. I don't want you going gangbusters on them. You mind Hutch. I want you on guard duty in his room at the hospital. That's your only concern. If they hear Hutch is alive, they could come back to finish the job"

"I hope they do. I have a little unfinished business of my own." "No. I already told you. That's an order."

Starsky looked over to see the paramedics working feverishly, ripping packages, grabbing bags, inserting needles.

Dobey looked down at the puddle of blood on the floor along the back of the sofa.

The medics began doing chest compressions, which made Starsky head in Hutch's direction again, but Dobey pulled him back and toward the front door.

"Let's go wash your hands."

CHAPTER 6

Starsky stood just around the corner from the emergency room, back against the wall, head back, eyes closed, praying. At first glance he didn't appear to be an alert cop guarding a patient, but anyone who knew him well enough could vouch for his catlike reflexes and protective devotion to his partner, even when distressed or distracted.

The image of Hutch sprawled face down on his floor made a slow loop around his mind.

Huggy approached him and squeezed his arm.

"How's our bro?"

"I don't know. Bullet to the head. Surgery. They can't say right now."

"Miles and Willis got the Latinos. Killed one, the other's in custody. Case closed." "Not till Hutch pulls through."

"Well, yeah, you know what I mean. Anything I can do?"

Starsky looked at him and swallowed. "You know a good magician?"

Huggy smiled sadly.

The sound of clicking high heels made Starsky's head turn.

A pretty auburn-haired girl walked toward him with tissues in her hand.

Huggy smiled. "Hey, Donna." To Starsky: "Call me if you need me."

"I will."

Huggy nodded cordially to Donna as he went back down the hall and through the exit doors, giving her behind an appreciative look over his shoulder on his way.

Donna touched Starsky's face, then put her arms around him.

"I'm so sorry, Dave. I know how much he means to you."

Starsky held her tightly, burying his forehead against her shoulder.

"You're exhausted," she told him. "Let's go to the waiting room."

Instead, he sat down with his back against the wall, still guarding even though the living Latino was in custody.

She did the same, next to him, and they held hands.

"Life's so fragile," he mumbled sleepily. "Here one second, gone the next."

CHAPTER 7

Two hours later a surgeon by the name of Steve Salyers approached the quiet couple and crouched in front of them.

"Excuse me."

Starsky raised up a little straighter. "Yeah?"

Donna yawned and covered her mouth.

"He's out of surgery and in ICU. If he survives the night, he'll have a decent chance."

"Thanks, Doc," Starsky said as the doctor went down the hall, then stood to his feet and gave Donna his hand to help her up.

"Let's go to ICU."

As they walked down the hall, a nurse came from a lab carrying a stack of medical files. Starsky

stopped and looked at her.

"Carrie?"

She turned and looked at him.

"From the beach?"

"Yeah."

"What in the world are you doing here, are you-oh my gosh, is Ken Hutchinson here?"

"He didn't tell me you were a nurse."

"We didn't get that far. He just took my number and ran."

"Did he tell you he was a cop?"

"No."

"Well, he is, and some of our partners in crime put him In ICU."

"That's terrible. I'll be sure to look in on him."

"Yeah, I think he'd like that."

Carrie carried her stack of files on down the hall, and Starsky and Donna continued in the opposite direction to ICU.

CHAPTER 8

Starsky stood quietly, numbly, next to the bed Hutch was in, while Donna watched through the observation window with prayerful hands clasped under her chin.

He moved even closer to the bed, pressing into the rail, becoming part of it too, wanting to be a barrier, a protection, between Hutch and death.

Fragile.

A thread.

Frail, strong.

One breath between life and death.

One breath between me and thee.

My brother. My partner. My friend.

When you hurt, I hurt. What hurts you, hurts me.

How much can your body withstand?

Cops aren't made of steel.

Hearts aren't bulletproof.

We're blood and bone. Flesh and water.

And spirit.

Most of all spirit. Without that we're dead.

Thank God you have a double dose of that, because you'll need it to pull through this.

Starsky leaned over the bed.

A nurse entered, checking the machines.

Starsky stroked his hair away from the bandage around his head.

"It's okay, Hutch. I'm right here. They got the bullet out, but you have to fight for your life."

:::::::::::

It was hard for Starsky to return to the waiting room. Leaving Hutch when he needed him most caused a physical pain in his heart. The night seemed endless and gray, one long stretch of time. No hours, no minutes, no seconds. Just waiting, hoping, and praying. The room dissolved, Donna dissolved, time dissolved.

By the next day, Dr. Salyers came to Starsky and Donna in the waiting room, where Starsky was looking out a window and Donna was browsing a magazine without even looking at the text.

"You can see him now," the doctor said. "He isn't fully awake, but he'll come around."

Starsky turned and rushed from the room, Donna trying hard to keep up.

:::::::::::::::

Starsky clasped Hutch's lax hand and willed him to open his eyes or say something, but it wasn't happening. Not yet.

"Hey Hutch? You hearin' me?"

When only silence answered, Starsky looked around the room, as if for answers, as if for help, then back at his partner.

A soft moan came from Hutch-only Starsky could have heard it; sensed it really.

"Hey," Starsky smiled. "Come on, you're doin' it."

Hutch's eyes slowly blinked open and stayed on his partner's as they clasped hands.

"That's better," Starsky said. "They got the bullet out."

It was a long while before Hutch made an effort to speak, his voice small and dry. "Bullet? I don't remember what happened."

"You were shot in your apartment. Remember the Latinos we were after?"

"Yeah. I remember them." His eyes roamed the room. "Am I in the hospital?"

"Since yesterday."

Hutch's eyes closed again. "Tired," he breathed, and closed his eyes again.

"Rest," Starsky said softly. "I'll be back."

CHAPTER 9

Donna held her breath when Starsky charged from Hutch's room and kicked the water fountain in the corridor. She knew they were close, but she had no idea how close. Where had her soft, wounded man gone? He was now a striking scorpion. Still wounded, but now turning it outward.

Two orderlies helping a heavyset man into a wheelchair turned to stare at him.

Starsky headed down the hall toward the elevator, and Donna had to break into a near run to

keep up.

Starsky punched the elevator button with the heel of his hand.

"Dave…"

He hit it again.

"Dave…"

Starsky shifted impatiently. "You go home. I'll talk to you later."

"Where are you going?"

The elevator door opened and they stepped in.

"Unfinished business."

CHAPTER 10

He was to the Torino before she was halfway to her car, and she was left in pain and confusion on the sidewalk.

Tires squealed, rubber burned, and her heart went with him.

CHAPTER 11

The surviving Latino sat handcuffed and glowering at the interrogation room table when Starsky stepped in.

Starsky closed the door and stood with his back against it. For long moments he and the other man held a gaze of death and life, wrong and right, hate and love.

Hector's face was cut and bruised, compliments of a Miles and Willis arrest.

Starsky's tone was lethal and low. "You're a drug dealer. That's strike one. You killed my neighbor instead of me. That's strike two. You shot my partner."

Starsky stepped over to the table, jerked Hector to his feet, and slammed him against the wall.

"That's strike three."

Hector gazed without fear or emotion.

"Your police force killed someone close to me. Juan was my partner. More than that even. He was my friend. You should understand how I feel. My right arm. All I do is supply a product that society demands. And we die for it. You die for it. I make a living just like you. Juan and I made a life together. But now. Nothing. So I don't care if your partner lives or dies. Mine is lying on a cold steel table in a morgue. All is fair in law and crime."

Starsky took his gun out and put it to Hector's temple.

"Go ahead," Hector said. "Then I will join Juan in the afterlife. Our separation is temporary."

Starsky watched him for a long time, then put his gun away.

"You want me to kill you so you can be with your lover. I get it. So I'm not gonna give it to you. But I do know people in the pen, and when you get there, they'll have a little surprise, lots of little surprises, all the time, waiting for you."

"Is that a threat, Officer?"

Starsky backed toward the door.

"It's a guarantee."

The door opened and Captain Dobey looked from Starsky to Hector.

"Everything okay in here, Starsky?"

Starsky walked past him without a word.

CHAPTER 12

A few days later.

Carrie stood at the door of Hutch's recovery room and knocked on the doorframe.

"Excuse me, Ken. I have something for you if you feel like eating."

She carried in a tray and set it on the over-bed table next to the bed.

"I don't know if you remember me. Carrie? We met on the beach yesterday and you asked for my number? It made my day."

He pushed a button on the bed remote so that he could raise up to get a better look at her.

"Sure I remember you. Nice to see you again."

A knock came at the door, and Starsky stepped in with a smile, holding Donna's hand. "Small world, huh?"

The End

::::::::::::::::::::

Bloodlines

By TLR

CHAPTER 1

The baseball field was littered with kids in mismatched uniforms, and in some cases no uniform at all, one of them being Kiko.

Hutch was pitching to him when Starsky pulled up in the Torino and jumped out.

"Wait!" Starsky yelled. "Don't start yet!"

Hutch stopped in mid-pitch to throw his head back in exaggerated exasperation. "Now

what? You're interrupting the game!"

Starsky opened his trunk and pulled out a box of matching sky-blue baseball jerseys. He pulled a jersey off the top and held it out for the kids to see.

Hutch rolled his eyes at the team name stitched across the front. "The

Venice Flytraps?!" Hutch cried out. "Oh for-"

The kids ran toward Starsky and the jerseys, Kiko included.

"They're great, Starsky!" Kiko shouted as he grabbed one. All the

kids dug inside the box for a shirt.

Hutch walked over to the Torino and watched the kids pull their new jerseys on over their tattered T-shirts.

Starsky grinned and started swinging his arms in fierce batting gestures, even though he held no bat.

Hutch's look of exasperation turned to a smile, and he shook his head. "You

didn't have to do that," he said.

Starsky was still swinging. "You don't have to do this."

Hutch clapped his hands loudly. "Okay, gang! Back on the field!"

Hutch and the kids ran back onto the field while Starsky leaned against his Torino and watched the game.

CHAPTER 2

While Hutch was Big Brothering Kiko and the other kids, across the country in the back room of a restaurant a group of men sat in a game of poker.

"I need the john," a man with a small hoop earring said as he stood and walked to a back room.

In the back room, he closed the door, reached inside of his jacket for a pocket-size leather case, opened it, and took out the makings of a heroin injection.

CHAPTER 3

Two bulky men in sweatshirts and jeans were lounging against Starsky's Torino when he came downstairs from his apartment to the curb to go to the precinct.

"Help you?" he asked as he walked up to the one blocking the driver's side door.

"Yeah," he answered as he straightened, his chest touching Starsky's. "You can come with us."

Starsky's hand went inside his jacket, but the second man stuck a stun gun into his side.

CHAPTER 4

Nick Starsky was headed for the deli when two muscular men came up to him, each taking an arm, and shoved him into the back seat of a car idling at the curb.

"What the hell do you want?" the young Starsky asked as his head swiveled between the two men who forced him into the vehicle.

"Go," one of the men said to the driver, and the driver pulled away from the sidewalk.

The second man took a huge set of pliers and clamped Nick's hand, squeezing hard.

Nick's teeth clenched and his face went white. When he reflexively tried to pull his hand back,

the pliers clamped harder.

"Mr. Rosetti wants to send his condolences," the man said.

Nick barely heard him through the white static of pain in his head.

"What?" he managed to grunt out.

"You remember Martin Rosetti. Marty to his friends. You killed his brother."

The pliers clamped harder. Nick winced and sucked in his breath, growling to hold in the urge to let out a childlike cry of pain. He sat still and stiff, as if that would keep the pliers from crunching into the bone and muscle of his hand.

"It was an accident," Nick winced. "A mistake. I didn't know the dope was cut, honest."

"Honest? You're not honest. And since you took Marty's brother, he took your brother. Fair and square."

Nick tried to struggle against the two, even though they had him wedged between their heavy bodies.

"No," he grunted. "Leave David out of this. He didn't do anything."

"Marty's brother didn't do nothing either. See how that works?"

Tears sprang to Nick's eyes. Pain, fear, he wasn't sure which. But he closed them so the men wouldn't see.

The pliers clamped harder.

"You won't want to go to the cops."

The cry that Nick had been holding in finally broke out.

"OKAY I WON'T!"

The car stopped, the back door opened, and Nick was shoved onto the sidewalk.

He landed in the gutter, his new clothes getting dirty and torn.

As the car drove away, he began to sniff and whine an apology.

CHAPTER 5

Hutch pulled his tan Ford behind the Torino and got out.

At first nothing looked out of place.

He supposed his partner had overslept or was somewhere else with a lady friend and hadn't gotten around to calling him yet.

But when Hutch got out of his car and passed by the driver's side of the Torino, a metallic

glint caught his eye and he looked down, seeing Starsky's car keys just under the door.

With a pounding heart, Hutch reached down to pick them up.

It was the only sign, at least to the naked eye, that Starsky had been abducted. He almost always had his car keys in his hand or in his pocket.

"Oh my God," Hutch whispered in a near groan as he picked them up.

The sight of them was as powerful and as telling as a bloodstain.

CHAPTER 6

The two abductors opened the trunk of their car, the sound echoing off of the concrete walls of the underground parking garage. The property had been condemned after an earthquake a few years ago, and had been purchased by one of Martin Rosetti's real estate companies.

Starsky lay inside the trunk, unbound and without a gag; hair and clothes damp with sweat, the injection they gave him making restraint unnecessary.

The men reached in, pulled him out, and set him on his feet, but his legs gave out so they had to hold him up and half-carry, half-drag him to the elevator that led down to the basement.

Inside the elevator, a moan came from his lowered head.

"Where?" is the only word that came out, in a slurry, distant voice.

The men ignored him and waited for the elevator to descend.

Starsky's head was still down, and he had no strength to make another effort to move or speak.

CHAPTER 7

"We got him, Mr. Rosetti," one of them said proudly, as if trying to impress a teacher. They brought Starsky into the basement of the condemned parking garage, still holding him between them.

Rosetti stood looking at a photo on the wall of he and his brother. He opened a tin of mints and slid one between his teeth. On a nearby table was a pot of coffee, a telephone, a radio, a silver cigar box with heroin paraphernalia, a stack of books, and a video camera.

"Thank you," Rosetti said without turning around. "Just leave him. I'll take it from here."

"Yes, sir."

The two men dropped Starsky, who crumpled to his side with a groan, then left.

CHAPTER 8

Nick paced around his apartment, phone in one hand, receiver in the other, and listened to Hutch's phone ring.

On the twentieth ring, he decided to call Captain Dobey.

CHAPTER 9

When Starsky opened his eyes, he realized he was lying on the floor. His hand instinctively fumbled for his gun, but he no longer wore a jacket or holster.

His glassy eyes rolled toward the man standing over him.

"What'd you give me?"

Starsky's voice was a tired groan, lacking conviction and strength.

Rosetti reached down and gripped his shirt in both hands, pulling him to his feet.

"Your brother brought us together."

Starsky fought to hold his head up.

"I'm just gonna go," he mumbled as he tried to step away.

Rosetti jerked him back, pulling Starsky up into his face.

"You're mine now. I can take my time, do whatever I want, and there isn't anything you can do about it. No one knows where you are."

Starsky's left hand swatted harmlessly toward Rosetti's head.

Rosetti laughed and caught it, then twisted his arm behind his back, turned him around, and bent him forward.

Leaning over his back and forcing him downward, Rosetti said into his ear, "I think I kind of like you. I may kill you slowly so I can enjoy it."

Starsky tried to ram his free elbow back into Rosetti's chest, but Rosetti shoved his left arm upward into his back until it broke.

Starsky cried out and collapsed onto his knees, his left arm dropping uselessly to the floor.

He panted, his foggy brain unsure of what to do next.

Rosetti, his face moist with perspiration, reached for the silver cigar box and turned on the video camera.

"I can't decide whether to overdose you or string you out."

CHAPTER 10

Shock was on Hutch's face when Nick walked into Dobey's office and slammed the door.

"Where were you, Hutch?"

Hutch's pale face hardened a bit as he rose out of the chair in front of Dobey's desk.

"Now wait just a-"

"No. You're his partner, right? Supposed to keep stuff like this from happening, right? How come you didn't know about it? Or Huggy? Or anybody? If Ma were alive right now, this would kill her. Her favorite boy. The good son. I wish it was me they took."

Hutch's eyes were dead calm.

"Me too."

Dobey threw his pencil on the desk. "This is no time to be griping about the past."

Nick looked at the captain. "You don't know what it's like living in the shadow of a hero. He was always the good guy. I was always the bad one."

"I used to like you," Hutch said. "Love you, because you were Starsky's brother. But you changed, Nick. You went back to your old ways, and something tells me you know what went down with Starsky, or why else would you be here?"

"What, you don't think I love my brother enough to just come if he's missing?"

"You were never here when he needed you, only when you needed him. So you must be in trouble."

"You can be a prick, Hutch, you know that?"

Dobey grunted. "When it comes to your brother."

Hutch stood looking at Nick for a while, trying to read him.

"I don't care what you think of me, but if you came here to tell me something about David, then you better spit it out now, because I don't know a thing and Huggy hasn't heard anything either."

CHAPTER 11

Starsky sat slumped in the corner of the basement, holding his broken arm with his right hand. His head kept tilting back into the corner and bumping the wall when he tried to hold his head up.

"Hey," he said in a croaking voice to Rosetti, who was lying on a leather sofa and reading a book.

Rosetti kept reading.

"Hey," Starsky repeated. "My arm's killin' me here. Think you could give me a little somethin?"

Silence from Rosetti.

Starsky leaned forward and heard the metallic jingling sound of a chain, looked down, and saw what resembled a dog leash. One end of it was fastened and padlocked to an iron pipe on the floor, the other end fastened and padlocked around his neck.

"Pervert," he muttered as he half-heartedly tugged at the leash.

Rosetti jumped from the sofa and charged toward him, kicking him in the face. The blow sent Starsky crashing back into the corner, blood smearing the wall.

CHAPTER 12

Hutch and Nick stood with Huggy behind his counter.

The place was closed down for the night, so they were the only people present.

After listening to Nick's story, Hutch sat in long silence looking at the counter top.

Nick looked at Huggy, who squeezed Hutch's shoulder.

"They don't want ransom or anything," Nick said. "They just want to kill him. We won't be hearing from them."

"No, but they'll be hearing from me."

"Rosetti's a sadist in a 3-piece suit," Huggy said. "I think he's got a few kinky pain clubs out here where a dude can go and get done to himself whatever he wants done."

Hutch finally looked at Nick. "How many times did he ask you, beg you, to give up the crime? Was he asking for too much? To have a brother who was a decent law-abiding citizen? That's what he wanted for you, Nicky. He expected more from you. He knew you could give it. You just don't believe in yourself."

"Keep the pep talk to yourself, coach. I heard enough of that from him and Ma my whole life."

Hutch slapped him. "I don't know why he loves you so much."

The crack of the slap and the sting of the words were left to hang in the air as Hutch headed for the door.

Huggy hustled to catch up, taking his arm.

"Hey, man, you know I'll help all I can. I'll call first news I get. I'll get my people on it."

"Your people, huh?"

The ice in Hutch's eyes suddenly melted, and he jerked Huggy to him in a quick, desperate hug.

"I'm scared, Hug."

Huggy thumped his back once. "I know, man. I am too. This is personal to Rosetti, not just some job."

Hutch broke the hug. "I swear, I'd like nothing more than to call Rosetti and trade that poor excuse for a brother for Starsky."

Huggy offered a crooked smile.

"I hear you."

CHAPTER 13

The length of the leash only allowed Starsky to rise to a half-crouch, but he did so, and was now pulling determinedly on the chain with his good hand, trying to pull it free from

the pipe to which it was fastened.

Rosetti sat on the leather sofa, smiling at him across the room.

"I know what you did to me," Starsky growled. "These tracks. You shot me up so I'd get hooked."

"And now you're craving it."

Starsky pulled at the leash.

"Let me out."

"You know I can't do that."

"Look. Nothin will bring your brother back. I'm sorry he's dead, I'm sorry Nick sold him some bad stuff, but you don't know Nick. He didn't mean it. He's impulsive, he doesn't think. He was just trying to make a quick buck."

The need for heroin was making Starsky more animated, more desperate.

"There's nothing you can say that will make me let you go," Rosetti told him. "You're here with me until I get tired of you. Then I'll kill you, and I'll go home. Of course I won't have my brother. And yours won't have his."

Starsky half-laughed and half-cried when the chain snapped and he staggered back a few steps.

He stumbled for the door, found it locked, rattled it, and pounded on it.

"I want out of here!"

Rosetti chuckled.

Starsky turned and stumbled toward the man, pushing his dirty, sweat-stained sleeve up.

"Okay," he panted as he made his way to the sofa. "If I can't leave, then just give me a shot."

Rosetti pushed him away.

"Look at you."

Starsky came back.

"Just help me, huh? I know you have some stuff over there."

When Rosetti made no offer to get up, Starsky turned away from him to go toward the table.

Rosetti grabbed his shirt and pulled him back. "What

would you do for it?"

Starsky's right hand patted his hip pockets. "Money. I'd pay you for it."

"I have money. I don't need your money."

Starsky's shoulders began to tremble violently. The pain doubled him over, and for a moment he forgot about negotiations.

Rosetti leaned forward and pulled Starsky toward him, holding him by the front of his shirt.

"How bad do you want it?"

"Not that bad."

Rosetti slapped him, rocking him sideways, allowing him to fall.

Starsky's good hand went down to the floor to break his fall, but it didn't stop Rosetti from kicking him in a fury of rage.

CHAPTER 14

Hutch was on the phone at his desk in the squad room while Nick sat silently in Starsky's chair. "Yeah," Hutch said glumly into the receiver. "Thanks." He hung up and looked at Nick "None of Huggy's contacts have turned anything yet."

The door opened and Dobey came in with two uniformed officers.

"Nick," Dobey announced, "you're under arrest."

Nick looked at Hutch. "What?"

Hutch didn't blink. "Dealing heroin. A mobster's dead brother. You think we can let everything slide just because your brother's been abducted?"

Nick glared at Hutch when the two officers pulled him to his feet and began to read him his rights.

"I want a lawyer," Nick said.

Hutch nodded. "Better make it a good one."

Hutch and Dobey watched as the officers escorted a handcuffed Nick from the squad room.

CHAPTER 15

Rosetti stood at the table pouring himself a glass of wine when the sound of Starsky whimpering from the corner drew his attention.

He turned to see Starsky once again pawing at the leather collar around his neck, and the chain that was attached to another, sturdier pipe that ran along the floor.

"Rosetti," came Starsky's dry whisper.

"Call me Marty."

"M-Marty."

Rosetti sipped his wine.

"Yes, David?"

"You gotta bring me some now. Please. My brain's screwy. I hurt all over. Do you know how it is? Have you ever been on it? Don't do this."

"You're not cooperating. You and I both know I can take it whenever I please. But that would remove all joy. I want you to say yes."

"Can't. Just give it to me."

Rosetti carried the box over to where Starsky sat on the floor looking up at him.

"Come here," Rosetti said.

Even though Starsky was already straining against the collar, he strained even more, making coughing sounds. Blood started to trickle down his throat. It had been chaffed raw.

"Can't," Starsky gasped. "Can't come any closer."

Rosetti looked down at him, the silver cigar box gleaming seductively in the low light.

"Then our negotiations are over," Rosetti whispered, and pulled him to his knees. He took a hunting knife from a sheath on his belt. "I've tired of you."

CHAPTER 16

Dobey was waiting for him when he walked into the squad room.

Heads of fellow officers turned a little toward Hutch or watched him from the corner of an eye.

It was getting harder for Hutch to hide his tension. Each day that passed without news of Starsky's disappearance brought the blond down one notch lower.

Today he made no point to hide anything. His shirt was rumpled, face unshaven, hair tousled, and the dark shadows under his eyes described his time of pacing, worrying, and searching.

"In here," Dobey said as he opened the door of his office.

Hutch went inside, noticing a small TV and VCR on a stand with wheels.

Dobey closed the door.

"Owner of a pawn shop said two teenage kids brought this VCR in for some cash. This tape was inside."

Dobey showed him a black video cassette.

"He didn't know if it was a movie or for real, so he turned it into the front desk downstairs."

"Yeah," Hutch said tiredly but carefully. "So what?"

Dobey turned the tape over in his hands.

"It's Starsky."

Hutch's eyes closed, he felt behind him for a chair.

"Is he dead?"

"Not on the tape."

Hutch dropped into the chair, and his eyes opened again when he heard the sound of the tape sliding into the VCR.

The basement of the parking garage came on the TV screen, the image grainy, color dull, but clear enough to show Starsky huddled in the corner, chilling and rocking and mumbling to himself.

Hutch's posture and expression didn't change, but tears welled in his eyes, his jaw set rigidly.

Martin Rosetti's corpse lay near Starsky, the hunting knife gripped loosely in his right hand.

The tape ended abruptly.

"The teenagers have already been questioned," Dobey said. "They said Starsky was gone when they came in looking for a place to hang out. They saw Rosetti's body but didn't bother to call it in. They just took the VCR and hocked it. It's just this one segment. The rest of the tape is blank."

"Five seconds," Hutch whispered.

His voice was unguarded. He lowered his head and pressed finger and thumb into his eyes.

"So," he said, his voice still a whisper. "He killed Rosetti, escaped, and is out there shot up somewhere."

Dobey squeezed his shoulder. "Let's go find him."

"I wonder if-"

A loud pounding came at Dobey's door.

"Hutch!"

It was Huggy.

Dobey opened the door, and Huggy pushed through.

"He's in my car, Hutch."

"Keep me informed!" Dobey yelled at his back.

CHAPTER 17

Hutch ran from the front door of the police station and out to Huggy's car. Starsky lay in the back seat, dirty, cut, bruised, perspiring, shaking.

Hutch opened the back door and got in while Huggy jumped under the steering wheel and drove. "I got a doctor on the way," Huggy said into the rearview mirror.

Hutch swallowed. "He needs a hospital."

"We'll take care of him, Hutch. We don't need this getting out."

At the sound of Hutch's voice, Starsky's eyes roamed around.

Hutch took

his hand and squeezed.

"I don't know how he got to my place," Huggy said. "I was just leavin and he comes staggerin' into the side of my car."

Starsky pulled on Hutch's hand until Hutch was leaning over him. With a careful hand, Hutch stroked his sticky hair.

"I thought you were dead, Starsk."

Starsky pressed himself into the fabric of the seat and mumbled something. Hutch pulled him up and against his shoulder.

"Hug, his arm is broken. Starsk, can you hear me? Can you say something?"

Starsky breathed heavily against Hutch's shoulder.

"Hey," Hutch half-laughed, half-whispered, "I was so worried about you."

"Couldn't," he groaned. "Had to knife him."

"I know."

"Wanted the stuff."

"I know. How is it now?"

"Terrific."

"Good. That's real good, Starsk."

Starsky fell silent, his grip slipping from Hutch's shirt, fight and agony draining away from him.

"He went through it away from me," Hutch said to Huggy in the rearview mirror. He swallowed a sob threatening to escape. "He didn't want me to see it."

CHAPTER 18

Huggy's place.

Hutch was on the phone to Dobey, and Huggy was pacing around the bed while the doctor and a male nurse tended to Starsky, who was clean and asleep in a pair of Huggy's boxers, left arm in a cast.

Hutch hung up and the doctor closed his medical bag.

"Huggy has my number if you need me. After a few days of rest, he should be okay. The worst is over, but do continue to keep an eye on him."

Hutch shook his hand, then the nurse's. "Thanks for the house call."

The two nodded, walked to the door, and left.

Hutch sank down into a chair. Now that Starsky's body was clean, the cuts, bruises, and abrasions stood out more than they had before.

"He'll be okay," Huggy said reassuringly, as much to himself as to Hutch.

"Yeah, he's a fighter."

CHAPTER 19

Nick lay on his cell bunk staring at the ceiling, one arm folded behind his head. His lawyer would be flying out to talk to him and they were going to try to work out a plea agreement that included a much-reduced sentence.

When he'd asked Hutch to put in a good word for him, the detective's reply had been, "I think I'll sit this one out, Nick."

CHAPTER 20

"Out!" came Starsky's cry as he tried to get out of the bed. "I want out!"

Hutch and Huggy, both dozing in nearby chairs, bolted to their feet and moved toward him.

Huggy caught Starsky's swinging cast and held it gently against his chest while Hutch took his head in his hands and looked into his tearful eyes.

"It's okay, buddy. We're right here with you. Just a dream, okay? You're okay. Can't hurt you here."

Starsky's eyes moved around the room, then settled on Hutch and Huggy. A loud sigh escaped him and his good hand went to his throat.

"He's not here?"

"No," Hutch said in a soothing voice.

"Hutch," Huggy said. "Look what he did to Starsky's- looks like he was choked."

"Some kind of dog collar or something," Hutch said.

Starsky began to tremble. Hutch pulled the sheet around him and held him against his chest.

"Sshh. Okay now."

"So real," Starsky gasped.

"What's real is right here, right now," Hutch said. "Me and Hug. We'll help you through it, Starsk. It'll get easier. It'll get better. Just hang in there."

CHAPTER 21

Nick sat with his lawyer, who said:

"You plead guilty and give me the name of the supplier, I shoot for dropping the drug

charges and asking for minimum on the involuntary manslaughter. You have a record, you

will do time. You may have to go into Witness Protection when you get out, but it beats

dying in the slammer, doesn't it?"

CHAPTER 22

When Hutch woke up, he realized Huggy had already gone downstairs for coffee. Starsky stood leaning against the bathroom doorway, looking at himself in the mirror, touching the bruises around his throat.

"I look like death warmed over," he mumbled.

Hutch got out of his chair and moved over to him, squeezing the back of his neck. "Glad you're okay, Starsk."

Starsky offered the faintest of smiles. "I was beginning to think I wasn't gonna make it out of there. Reminded me of-"

Another violent shudder, and this time Hutch didn't think it had anything to do with heroin.

"Marcus?" Hutch asked.

Starsky nodded, then he half-laughed, half-cried. "I thought I was gonna have to propose to him to get out of there."

Hutch nodded, blinking back tears.

Starsky swayed into his partner, and Hutch caught his arm, holding him up.

"I need to sit down," Starsky said. "And then I want to take a ride. I'm tired of being cooped up."

CHAPTER 23

Nick stood gripping the vertical steel bars when Starsky and Hutch approached his cell.

The sight of Starsky's condition made Nick's mouth open.

"Oh, God, David, I'm sorry."

Starsky, pale and unsteady, reached through the bars and touched his cheek.

"Glad you're okay, kid."

Nick looked from Starsky to Hutch. "Did you get a chance to talk to my lawyer?" Hutch tensed, as if his hands were about to grab Nick through the bars.

"Your brother made a heroic effort to come down here to see you, and all you want to say is did you talk to my lawyer?"

Starsky put a hand on Hutch's arm.

Hutch covered Starsky's hand with his own, then shook his head and walked off.

"Yeah," Nick said at his back, "well, if you had a brother, maybe you'd know how it is."

Hutch spoke over his shoulder. "I do have a brother. You're looking at him."

Hutch opened the door, went out, and let it slam behind him.

CHAPTER 24

Starsky found Hutch leaning against his tan Ford when he came outside. "You okay?" Starsky asked him.

"Yeah. Are you?"

"Yeah."

Starsky fumbled for the passenger door, so Hutch opened it for him, then got in on the driver's side.

"He's gonna do some time," Starsky said as they pulled away from the police station. "Not a lot, but he's gonna do same time."

"You talked to his lawyer, didn't you?"

Starsky didn't answer.

Hutch patted his shoulder. "It's okay. I'd do the same for you."

End

:::::::::::::::::::::

Ancient

By TLR

CHAPTER 1

It was late.

Hutch was sitting on his sofa strumming his guitar and jotting song lyrics into a tablet of paper on his coffee table when a knock came at his door.

"Yeah!" he called as he crossed out a couple of words and scribbled in replacements.

Then he got up and took a few strides to the door and opened it, seeing a woman with a little girl that appeared to be about four or five years old.

She looked pretty but distressed, and she held tightly to the little girl's hand.

"Lenore?"

He recognized her as an old college friend. They had dated years ago, had a few art classes together, and lost touch except for a few postcards.

She glanced anxiously behind her.

"Ken, can I come in?"

But she was already pushing her way inside.

"Of course," he said standing back to make room.

He took a glance down his stairwell himself, then closed the door and watched her grip the hem of her sweater.

"You're not all right," he said moving her to the sofa. To the little girl he said, "Hi, honey, what's your name?"

"Missy."

The small girl looked as frightened as her mother.

Lenore didn't sit down; she still clung to her daughter's hand.

"You have to help us. They'll find her. You're a policeman and I hate to involve you, but I didn't know who else to trust."

"Easy now. What are you talking about?"

"I ran away from my family because they want to kill Missy."

At first he thought she might be delusional or high, but her clear-eyed conviction kept him open-minded and listening.

"I know this is going to be hard to believe, but it's the truth."

He looked down at Missy, who gazed up at him with big scared eyes.

"The honest truth, Mister Ken."

Lenore opened the top of her blouse to reveal the small tattoo of a pentagram.

"My family is a cult. They put this on me when I was Missy's age. I know there's research coming out that's debunking ritual murder, and I can't say that it's wrong, all I can tell you is that some cases are true. I lived it until yesterday. I had to get Missy out."

"She's family. Why would they want to hurt her?"

"Her father is outside the cult. He's a Christian man. I tried to hide our relationship but it didn't work. Bill wasn't afraid of them. He tried to help me, but they killed him. Now they want to kill his 'Christian offspring' as they call it."

"It's not the devil worship I'm so worried about. From a law enforcement perspective, it's the murder of Missy's father we need to deal with. If I can prove they did it, they'll be locked away and you and Missy will be safe. Until it's investigated, I'll hide you out."

She visibly melted, her shoulders dropped, her knees almost gave way.

"Thank you."

He took her arm and Missy's hand.

"I know a good place."

CHAPTER 2

Huggy pulled Diane down onto his lap, then they both fell laughing onto his bedspread that boasted the solar system.

"Why did you get this thing?" she asked sliding her hand across Saturn.

"'cause, Wonderful woman, when we're making cool, sexy love, we're in heaven."

Her laugh turned to a sweet smile, and she kissed him, but a knock at his door interrupted them.

"Do you have to get that?" she asked. "Let's pretend we're asleep."

"Huggy!"

Hutch's voice, and it sounded urgent.

"Let me see what's up," he said moving off of her and going to the door in his boxers.

When he opened the door and saw that a woman and child were with Hutch, he reached for a silk robe and pulled it on.

"Hey, Hutch, what you doin out this late?"

Hutch came in with Lenore and Missy.

"I need a big favor."

CHAPTER 3

Lenore and Missy sat at Huggy's table on one side of the room while Hutch and Huggy spoke in low tones at the door on the other.

Diane brought a cup of hot cocoa to Missy and set it down in front of her.

"Here you go, baby, watch out, it's hot."

Lenore kept looking Hutch's way, but he was too involved with his conversation with Huggy to notice.

Hutch's hand closed around the doorknob.

"Okay," he whispered to Huggy. "I'm getting on this thing. Thanks for keeping an eye on her, and if anybody shows up, anything weird at all goes down, call Dobey."

Hutch opened the door.

"You pickin up Starsk?" Huggy asked.

"Not after the Marcus thing. I don't think he needs this one. Dobey'll do." He looked at Lenore. "I need you to show me their location, Lenore. Can you do it? I'll scope it out, gather all the information I can, then take it back to Dobey so he can arrange a wide bust."

Lenore leaned over to Missy and hugged her. "Mommy will be back tonight. You stay here with Huggy and Diane, okay? They're our friends now."

Missy clutched her mother's sweater. "Don't be scared, Mommy."

"I'm not, honey. Not now. This will all be over soon, and we'll have a happy life together."

Lenore kissed the top of her head, then joined Hutch.

He took her hand and led her out the door.

"Thanks again, Hug," Hutch said over his shoulder.

"Any time, man!" Huggy called after him as they went down the steps that led to the back alley. "I groove on babysittin' a cult kid I don't even know!"

CHAPTER 4

Lenore drove her van while Hutch looked out at the countryside and took mental notes of landmarks.

"So, your cult, Lenore. Generational?"

"I was told it can be traced back to ancient history, long before the time of Christ. We…I mean they…worship Lucifer, the fallen angel. He grants prayers in exchange for their souls. You want power and success? Don't pray to God. God wants you to be humble. Lucifer will give it to you. You want to satisfy the flesh? Lucifer can do it. Remember how he tempted Jesus in the wilderness by offering him all the kingdoms of the world if he would just worship him?"

"Well, I'm a little rusty on the New Testament." He turned his head toward her, his eyes trying to find the pentagram tattoo just above her breast. "Are you really out of it?"

"I told you I am. Do you think I would lie about something like that?"

He looked over his shoulder and into the back of the van, his arms suddenly chilling, his hand suddenly wanting to slide into his jacket to touch his gun, just to make sure it was still there.

"They use caves on my grandfather's property. On our holy days, a sacrifice is made. That's what they want Missy for. As long as people think we're goofy spiritualists who want to get stoned all the time and worship nature gods, we'll be free to be."

Hutch found himself pushing himself farther into the corner of the seat and door.

"You say 'we' and 'they'. Which is it?"

She looked at him, her gray eyes glinting almost silver in the light of the dashboard.

"Oh, I'm out, don't worry, but it's hard not to fully distance myself sometimes. I still think of them as family, in an absurd sort of way."

"I didn't know a thing about this in college."

"You think it's something I go around telling? If it hadn't been for Missy…"

Headlights from behind reflected brightly into the rearview mirror.

Lenore slowed down the van to let the driver pass, but the headlights beamed steady behind them, drawing closer and closer to the back of the van.

"Pull over," Hutch said. "They'll go around."

"I think it's them," she said as she sped up.

Hutch gripped the dash. "Maybe I should drive."

The van picked up speed, and so did the vehicle behind them.

Hutch looked over his shoulder to try to get a good look at the vehicle, but the glare of the headlights made it impossible.

Just when Lenore was ready to veer left at a fork in the road, the vehicle surged up and next to her van.

It was another van, and now it bumped and crowded against Lenore's, trying to force it from the road.

She gripped the wheel, too intent on driving to notice that the passenger window was going down.

Hutch saw it and yelled "Brake!", but it was too late.

A face framed by a sweatshirt hood appeared in the open window, along with a machine gun.

Hutch shoved Lenore's head down and ducked himself, just as the bullets chattered and the van veered off the road, down an embankment, and into a dry creek bed.

The second van parked on the road, and the two gunmen got out, making their way down the embankment with their weapons.

Lenore's van was silent except for the hissing radiator.

One gunman checked Lenore, whose bullet-torn body lie draped over her steering wheel. The

second checked Hutch, who lay halfway on the seat, halfway in the floorboard. "Still alive," he

announced as he checked for a pulse in his throat.

The other gunman went to the rear of the van and opened it, checking inside with a flashlight.

"No kid."

The other man opened the passenger door of the van and reached in for Hutch. "Help me get him to the van. He'll tell us where she is."

CHAPTER 5

Dobey's bedside phone rang at four in the morning, but it was his wife who answered.

"Hello?" she said in a sleepy voice.

"Mrs. Dobey, sorry to disturb you this time of the morning, but I need to talk to the man."

"Huggy, for heaven's sake, don't you ever sleep? Where are you, some party?"

Dobey grunted, stirred, and rolled over toward Edith for a more comfortable position. She held the receiver to his ear. "It's Huggy."

Dobey spoke, half-asleep. "I hope this is only a dream, because I can't think of any good reason why you would call me at this ungodly hour."

"Ungodly. Now there's a good word, my Captain. Did Hutch call you?"

"About what?"

"About some devil chick who's hidin' her kid out here at my place." "If you want to talk to me, you better speak English."

Dobey listened to Huggy. Mrs. Dobey watched her husband's face, his expression prompting her to get out of bed to start a pot of coffee.

Dobey sat on the edge of the bed and rubbed his face. "Why didn't you call earlier, Huggy?"

"Hutch said he was goin to. In case you forgot, I'm not on the force. And you better tell Starsky about all this, cause Hutch didn't."

CHAPTER 6

It was dawn.

Starsky stood in the middle of Hutch's living room, looking, assessing, trying to figure out just what might have been happening before he left with Lenore.

He saw the handwritten song lyrics on the coffee table, the guitar propped against the end of the sofa.

Hutch's car was parked downstairs, which told him he probably left in whatever vehicle Lenore was driving.

Huggy and Diane said they didn't catch Lenore's last name, and Missy said she didn't have one, so without it, it would be difficult to run down the license plate for an address or for any other information.

He planned to talk to Missy sometime today.

When Hutch's phone rang, Starsky answered it.

"Yeah?"

"Is Ken there?"

A female voice.

"Not right now. Who's this?"

"Natalie."

The flight attendant Hutch met at Huggy's last week.

"Oh, yeah, I remember you. Sorry, I'll let him know you called."

He hung up, disappointed that it wasn't Hutch.

He stepped over to Hutch's bookshelf and looked at the titles, a few new ones catching his eye.

He opened a leather-bound book that was the size and shape of a record album, and

browsed through pages of hand-written notes on old yellowed paper, drawings and reprints of paintings of ghoulish scenes-of children in the mouths of demonic goats, of severed limbs strewn on altars, of heads poked onto the head of spears, of pentagrams drawn in blood on dungeon and cave walls.

He tried to close the book but it dropped from his hand, hit the floor, and he stumbled back a step, his arm going across his eyes in a childlike reaction of (chanting, candles, torches, blood, knives) fear and panic.

He stood in a half-crouch, arm still across his eyes, stealing a look at the book.

It looked like it could be a library book, but he doubted it. It looked too…authentic and ancient to be a copy.

Why, Hutch?

Why do you have a book like this?

("Hutch was all over the place trying to find you.")-Huggy.

Of course he was. Everyone knew that. It was all over the news about Simon Marcus' followers grabbing him from the courthouse men's room and holding him.

But Hutch didn't talk much about it. He was so relieved to have Starsky back in one piece and in his right mind, that…

(so deep, you mean, and so painful, begging for the life of his partner, begging, pleading, praying to a dark master instead of God, trying to be a cop, trying to be a friend, trying to be an angel, not allowing his mind to travel to the darkest places of the cave, because in that dark place Starsky was dead)

-"Just a knife, Hutch."

-"I thought they were going to cut you open."

-"I'm all right."

-"What did they say to you? What did they do?"

Starsky still stared at the book, as if it might move at any moment.

You obsessed about it, didn't you, Hutch? You couldn't get it out of your mind, so in a way,

Marcus had a stronger hold over you than he ever did over me. I never met the man, but you did.

You sat with him, talked to him, let him play his head games with you just so you could find me.

You let him in. You had to. It was the only way.

This book was your way of trying to make sense of it all, trying to understand how it had affected both of us. Where did you get it? Did Huggy get it for you?

CHAPTER 7

When Huggy opened his door, he expected Starsky to look steamed and worried, not pale and shaken.

"Hey, dude," Huggy said taking his arm and pulling him in. "Bad news?"

"No news."

"Then why you lookin' like that?"

Starsky saw Missy and Diane seated on the edge of Huggy's bed playing with paper dolls.

"I need to talk to her," he said quietly.

Huggy nodded, and so did Diane. The two left, leaving Starsky with Missy.

"Hey," he said pulling a chair close to the bed. "I'm Ken's friend. Remember him?"

"Yeah," she said trying to fit a paper dress onto her cardboard doll. "Mr. Ken. He went with Mommy last night to try to stop my family."

"That's what I want to talk to you about. Your family. Did they ever hurt you?"

His hand trembled as (Simone, Simone) it picked up a paper doll she dropped.

She moved her head no, slowly, taking the doll from him. "But they want to."

"My name is David, and I want to help your mother and Ken stop those people, so I'm gonna ask you a lot of questions, okay?"

Missy nodded.

The phone rang.

Starsky didn't want the interruption, but he took the call anyway, in case it was Hutch.

"Huggy's."

"Starsky, a van was found with Lenore's dead body in it. Multiple gunshot wounds. We think Hutch was taken alive to a different location."

Starsky's eyes closed at the captain's news. He turned his back toward Missy so she couldn't hear. She was still playing with the paper dolls.

Into the receiver he said, "They knew her mama would never give her up, so they think Hutch will."

He hung up the phone, then turned to Missy again, who looked too fragile to break the news of her dead mother right now. It could wait until after the questions. Selfish. Hutch instead of the girl, but Starsky didn't care.

CHAPTER 8

Two men led a struggling Hutch into one of the caves. He twisted, turned, and resisted each step, but was nevertheless shoved into a sturdy wooden chair, his hands tied behind his back and then to the back of the chair, ankles to the legs of it.

He leaned forward, straining against the ropes.

The light of the torches afforded only a little illumination, but enough to see part of their faces inside their hoods.

In the shadows of the cave stood a line of worshippers, chanting a verse in a language Hutch didn't understand.

"You know who we want," one said as he stepped back and unfurled a whip. "Where is she?"

CHAPTER 9

Starsky sat with Missy at Huggy's table. To push her into half-truths just to please him would be unwise, and he often didn't trust the memory or imagination of children-they could often be interchanged and false, so he slid some paper and pens in front of her.

"If you don't mind, Missy, would you draw a picture of where they have their ceremonies?"

She scribbled heavily across the whole page for the background, then drew in crude figures in long robes, hooded faces.

Then came a long square with small shapes scattered along the length of it.

"These are bones," she said quietly, and Starsky gripped the edge of the table.

Diane was folding some blankets by the bed and stacking them into a chair. She hummed

a light tune but watched them from the corner of her eye.

"I need to know where this is," he said to Missy as he put his hand over hers and stopped the pen from moving.

"I don't know, Mr. David."

"Think hard. Try to remember."

The grip around her small hand tightened until her face was distorted in pain and she tried to pull back.

"I don't know, Mr. David!"

Diane ran over to them and pulled their hands apart.

"She doesn't know, baby," she said hugging Starsky from behind, rocking him side to side a little, kissing the top of his head. "She's just four. She can't give you an address."

He swallowed and stumbled from the chair and from Diane's embrace.

"Sorry, sweetheart," he said to Missy. "Didn't mean to hurt you."

CHAPTER 10

Hutch sat in the chair with his head back, trying to breathe through the blood in his nose, trying to stay conscious. His clothes were covered in blood in varying stages of dryness, his hair messed and streaked with blood. A red stripe ran across his face, another across his neck.

Four cultists leaned over him.

"What does she mean to you?"

"You don't know her."

"We just want to talk to her."

"Take care of her."

"Bring her back into our lives again."

"We won't hurt her."

"She's family."

Hutch gasped for air. "Sick."

"Maybe we're not giving you a good enough reason to tell us. Maybe we don't know you well enough. We should get to know you."

CHAPTER 11

Huggy and Diane were asleep in the bed while Missy slept on a nearby cot with a new blanket and pillow.

The little girl tossed and turned as she slept, began to breathe heavily, then began to moan "Horn Hill" in her sleep again and again.

The sound woke Huggy, who raised up on an elbow to listen to her instead of going to her right away.

Then Missy let out a cry that brought both Huggy and Diane to her cot.

Diane held the fitful girl in her arms while Huggy went to the phone. Over his shoulder to Diane he said, "I think I know where Horn Hill is."

CHAPTER 12

"Okay," Hutch gasped as he stiffened in the chair.

The whip was wrapped tightly around his neck, cutting off his air.

"She-she-"

Missy. Jeanie. Starsky.

All the names seemed to circle around until they became one.

He was almost certain the cultists had drugged him, but he didn't know how and didn't remember when.

Their voices seemed far away, their bodies contorted into inhuman shapes before his eyes.

They cinched tighter.

"Seaview Point," he gasped.

The cinch around his throat loosened a little.

He repeated.

"Seaview Point."

CHAPTER 13

Huggy stood with the phone receiver in his hand.

"Starsk ain't home."

Diane joined him, slipping an arm around his waist.

CHAPTER 14

Simon Marcus sat on his bunk and looked at Starsky, who stood outside of his cell looking at him through the bars.

Even now, behind bars and with a shaven head and face, the cult leader held a sense of quiet

mystery and serenity in his demeanor. The inside of a cell had not diminished his beguiling sway.

People think he's insane, Starsky thought. That's what he wants them to think. There's nothing false about him.

"He went missing," Marcus said mildly as he looked at Starsky.

Starsky stood away from the bars.

(How did you know?)

"Simone sees everything," Marcus smiled. "I see you fascinated with me. I travel at night while I lie here on my bunk. In my mind. I visit you in your dreams, but you won't let yourself know it. I visit the white horse too, and he does let me in. He wants to know me."

Starsky's head was low, and he continued to glower at him. "I'm looking for a cult."

"You're looking for a friend in a cave."

CHAPTER 15

"False information," one of the cultists said as he brought an S-shaped knife to Hutch's throat and held it there. "She wasn't at Seaview Point, but we did find out a lot about you while we were out. We know what's important to you. We know who to hurt to make you talk."

Hutch jerked away from the blade.

"Leave him alone."

Another cultist wrapped an around his head to hold him still.

The sound of a man screaming in a distant cavern made Hutch stiffen.

It sounded like Starsky? Was it him?

A soft whimper escaped Hutch's throat.

"Don't. Let him go. This is just us. Kill me. but don't hurt him. I'll tell you, I'll tell you where she is, just-"

Another scream from the cavern.

A cry rumbled in Hutch's throat, his eyes clamped shut.

"Please. She's with my-a friend of mine."

CHAPTER 16

The night air was calm and silent as Huggy and Starsky walked through the woods.

"I don't hear anything," Huggy said. "Is everything dead in this place?"

They reached a clearing and saw two torch lights, then crouched behind a tree, seeing that two men in hooded sweatshirts were guarding the entrance to a cave, while two others prayed on their knees and sprinkled blood into a campfire.

The sound of chanting started up deep in the woods and far away from them.

Huggy felt Starsky stiffen at his side.

"Keep focused," he told Starsky. "You said we'd wait for backup, so we wait for backup. Dobey's on his way, right?"

Starsky nodded and put his head down, trying to listen for the sound of Hutch's voice somewhere but trying not to hear the chants.

And then the sound of a shrill whistle cut through the rhythmic chanting, and a SWAT team swarmed through the woods like a stampeding army.

Cops overtook the cultists while Starsky and Huggy ran toward the cave and inside and through a maze of shadowed caverns.

"HUTCH!"

The first cavern, empty.

A second with an altar and candles.

A third one held Hutch, still tied in the chair, his features marked with a bloody lash.

Starsky slid to the chair on one knee, taking Hutch's lowered head delicately in his hands and lifting it to look into eyes that were swollen, glassy, and somehow not part of this world.

"Get him out of the ropes," Starsky whispered, but Huggy was already cutting away at them.

Hutch was drenched in blood, his own, but mostly the blood of others. Body parts were strewn around like pieces of garbage, decomposing severed heads of children lined a stone altar.

"Hutch?"

Starsky's voice came out in a faint whisper.

Hutch's eyes were open, but they seemed to gaze right through his partner.

"The silence helps you listen," Hutch breathed. "Sshh. Do you hear that? In the silence you can learn who you are, and what the world is. The pain makes me pure. It teaches me."

It reminded Starsky so much of Gail.

No more dreaming, no more dreaming.

"No," Starsky answered him in a whisper. "The pain hurts you."

"You're not real," Hutch said in a tearful whisper. "They killed you."

Starsky tenderly caressed his face. "I'm alive. I'm right here. See?"

"Then who?" Hutch asked. "Who did they kill?"

"Not me, Hutch. You must've dreamed it, or imagined it, or maybe it was the drugs they gave you. I'm okay, and you're okay, Missy's okay, and that's all that matters. You're safe now, and we're both real."

"I told them," Hutch sobbed into his neck. "I told them where she was, where you were. Just like Jeanie. I'm sorry."

"No you didn't, buddy, it was all in your mind. They tortured you, but you didn't give anybody up. You didn't know what was real then, but I'm telling you now what's real."

When the ropes dropped to the floor, Hutch slumped forward.

Starsky caught him against his shoulder, looking up at Huggy.

"I'll kill 'em," he said in a low, shaky voice, and Huggy believed him.

Without words, Huggy helped lift Hutch to his feet, and when they found that he couldn't stand, picked him up and carried him out to a waiting ambulance.

CHAPTER 17

The police made multiple arrests, but didn't apprehend all of the cultists. The department psychiatrist talked to Hutch in multiple sessions, debriefing, assessing, helping him to process what had happened.

Starsky moved Hutch into his place during recovery, and Hutch didn't object.

"Gonna be okay," Starsky encouraged, although at times Hutch was far from okay. "You're doin' just fine."

At first the nightmares were intense, and the psychiatrist told them both, "Post traumatic stress is akin to what a prisoner of war experiences upon returning from captivity."

"I get it. I get that Starsky and I both rode that rollercoaster."

On the final session, the doctor rose to his feet and extended his hand. "You know how to reach me if you need

to."

Hutch left the psychiatrist's office and joined Starsky, who waited for him out in the hall. "There's somebody I want to talk to, Starsk."

CHAPTER 18

Hutch sat on the park bench and held the dollhouse while Missy put the plastic furniture and people inside, while Starsky sat at a nearby picnic table talking to her foster parents.

"I'm sorry about your mother," Hutch told her quietly.

(I wish I could have saved her, kept them from killing her)

"It's okay, Mr. Ken."

The mild breeze blew onto his face, ruffling his hair.

Starsky thought his partner still looked fragile enough for the breeze to push him over. Missy handed Hutch a toy crib, and he placed it inside one of the dollhouse rooms.

"Do you like your foster parents?"

"They're really nice."

"Are you happy?"

She nodded.

Starsky walked over to them. "You guys gonna eat?"

CHAPTER 19

Hutch was back home in his apartment now, standing in his living room and clearing out his bookshelf when Starsky came in and tossed a newspaper onto the coffee table.

"See the headline?"

Hutch looked down at it.

"'Mass Suicide By Cultists'?"

Starsky paced around, hands on hips. "They'll never go to trial."

Hutch picked up the paper. "All twenty of them?"

"All twenty. All heart failure."

"How? How could they do that?"

"Who knows? Self-induced? Hypnotism? Maybe somebody in the group played a mind game with them. Remember Marcus?"

"Gee, no, I forgot."

Starsky laughed, then looked at the box of books Hutch had discarded, seeing the one on ritualistic murder. He picked it up and started shredding pages.

"Good riddance," he said. "Good riddance to all of it."

End

::::::::::::::::::

Amy

By TR

Starsky's singing in the shower was loud and earnest:

"Amieeeeeeeeeeeeee! What you wanna do?! I think I could stay with you! For a while, maybe longer if I dooooooooooooo!"

Amy's laugh came high and bright as she ran into the bathroom, stripping off her clothes and jumping into the shower with him.

"I love you!" she shouted at him as she grabbed him, water streaming down their heads.

They shared a drenched hug, hands caressing and stroking each other's bodies.

XXX

Hutch looked up from the squad room desk when Starsky and Amy appeared in the doorway kissing, Amy trying to push him through the door and he trying to pull her through with him.

Hutch cleared his throat loudly.

"That's not allowed on duty!"

She pushed him into the squad room. "See you later, Dave. Morning, Hutch."

"Morning."

Amy waved at the other officers, they returned an obligatory wave, and she was gone.

"She is so cool," Starsky said sitting down across from Hutch, his eyes still on the empty doorway.

Hutch put a pencil between his teeth and began to type the date onto the top of a report. "Heard from Ricky?"

Starsky opened a Batman and Robin lunchbox and took out a container of yogurt, a banana, and a baggie full of trail mix. "I'm eating healthier since we got together."

"I tried for years to get you to eat that stuff, Starsk."

Starsky eyed the sausage, egg, and cheese biscuit breakfast sandwich next to his partner's typewriter.

"Yes, Hutch. The older we get, the more I get like you, and the more you get like me."

"God help us." Hutch took a bite of his sandwich. "You didn't answer my question."

"Which one?"

"My only one. Have you heard from Ricky?"

A shrug. "Why would I?"

"Oh, I don't know. He beat the hell out of her all the time, she left him for you, and now you're protecting her from the big bad wolf."

"He knows not to mess with me. He only picks on women. You know the type. He hates women deep down. He probably likes guys and can't admit it to himself yet. Nothing wrong with that, mind you, but it happens."

"Yeah, why don't you enlighten Ricky about that, I'm sure he'd like to know."

Starsky grinned and started spooning out some yogurt to eat.

"Want some?"

"Sure," Hutch said opening his mouth, and Starsky gave him a bite.

XXX

Huggy had just opened for the day, but business had not really started yet. He was handing Diane a stack of menus behind the counter when the door opened and Amy bounced in swinging her crocheted purse.

"Hey," she said hopping up onto a barstool. "Do you have anything healthy this early, like a salad or something?"

Huggy looked at Diane, then back at Amy. "I can make a fruit salad just for you, add it to the menu, and call it Amy's Fruit Cup."

Amy's mouth opened. "Wow, I'd love that! Do it!"

Diane rolled her eyes a little, but smiled. "Coming right up," she said as she went to the kitchen.

"Hey!" Huggy called after her. "Got to keep the customer happy!"

Diane waggled a finger over her head and in his direction. "You remember that next time you see me flirting with Hutch!"

Amy giggled.

"So," Huggy said, "How's Starsky this morning?"

"Happy. I just dropped him off at the station."

Huggy drew a drinking straw from a tall container and bit the tip of it. "You remind me of a girl Starsky used to date a few years back."

"Oh really? Who?"

"You wouldn't know her. But she was on his short list."

"I hope I stay on there. Being with him is…" Her smiling face turned thoughtful. "It's been good for me. He helps me feel like a good person."

Huggy patted her hand. "I bet you were already a good person before you met him."

"Yeah, well…" She let out a sigh and reached for a menu. "Hey, when will my fruit salad be here?"

The door opened and a young man in a postal uniform walked in.

"Amy?"

Amy didn't turn, but at the sound of the voice she bolted from her stool and ran toward the back door.

The young man stepped up his pace, but Huggy blocked his way.

"You don't want to do that, bro."

The young man rammed his elbow back into Huggy's jaw, sending him reeling.

Diane was just coming back with the fruit salad. She dropped it, ran around the end of the counter to crouch with Huggy while reaching for the phone on the edge of the bar.

"Who the hell was that?" she asked helping Huggy to his feet.

Huggy ran toward the back door, opened it, ran out, but saw no one in the alley.

He went back in and took the receiver from Diane's hand. "Who were you gonna call?"

"Police, who do you think?"

"Police is right," he said holding his bloody mouth.

He took the phone from her to call Starsky and Hutch.

XXX

When the Torino careened around the corner, Starsky and Hutch could see Ricky chasing Amy down the sidewalk.

Starsky slammed on the brakes in front of a bank and he and Hutch spilled out, pulling their guns.

Some nearby pedestrians screamed and ran, others ducked for cover behind parked cars.

"Police!" Starsky yelled. "Stop!"

Ricky grabbed Amy, pulled a pistol, then spun her around to face the detectives, her body his shield.

"Back off!" he yelled at them as he raised the gun toward her head.

"Drop it!" Starsky shouted.

Ricky turned the gun toward Starsky and fired, the bullet striking the side of his head, the impact spinning him around and off his feet.

Hutch fired and Ricky fell onto his back, his head split open on the left side and pouring blood.

Amy screamed into her convulsing hands and crouched against the building.

Hutch holstered his gun and ran over to Starsky, crouching next to his facedown form. "The blood," Hutch whispered in a panic. "Where's the blood?"

Then he saw it, spreading from beneath his head and soaking into the concrete. Hutch looked up at the spectators beginning to gather.

"Ambulance!" he shouted, and someone ran into a bank to phone one.

Starsky's breath came in pants.

"Hutch," he said trying to put his hands under his chest to push himself up. "Amy."

"She's okay," he said giving Amy's direction another look to make sure. "Amy! Come here!" Still shaking and sobbing, Amy managed to make her wobbly way over to where Starsky lay. "Oh, Dave, I'm so sorry!"

Hutch jerked a folded handkerchief from his hip pocket and pressed it against the side of Starsky's head.

"Hold on, Starsk. You'll be okay."

"Will he really?" Amy sniffed. "I'm sorry."

She looked over at Ricky's dead body, then lowered her head into her hands again. "Oh

my God. I can't believe I got you into this."

The ambulance siren sounded in the distance.

"Starsk?" Hutch asked as he tried to control his own escalating breaths. "Still with me?"

When Starsky didn't answer, Hutch looked down and saw that Starsky's eyes were closed.

XXX

Hutch waited in the waiting room with Amy. They

said nothing to each other.

Hutch stared at the wall while Amy stared at the magazine rack.

People in the waiting room entered and exited. There were tears from those waiting word on friends, family, loved ones; sometimes sighs of relief, sometimes prayer, sometimes chuckles of happiness.

"It's been hours," Amy finally whispered. Gone was the childlike quality in her voice. In its place a sober maturity. "I want to touch him, hold him, tell him how sorry I am."

Hutch bit his lower lip. "Ricky or Starsky?"

She said nothing.

He sighed, rubbed his face. "That wasn't fair. I know you love Starsk. And he loves you"

Amy twisted the ends of her purse. "Dave wouldn't have been hurt if it wasn't for me."

When she cried into her hands for the third time, Hutch moved closer to her and put an arm around her. "It's not your fault, Amy."

"You can't make me believe that. I'm poison. Whoever I meet, whoever I touch, it all goes bad."

"You didn't shoot him, Ricky did. And I've seen this before, honey. Ricky wanted to die, and take you right along with him."

She reached into her purse and pulled out a tissue, wiped her nose.

"I thought it would be me he would shoot, not somebody else. He couldn't stand the thought of me being with another man."

The door opened and a surgeon walked in.

"Detective. Miss Anderson."

Both looked up.

"The good news is that he survived surgery and is in ICU."

Amy reached for Hutch's hand and squeezed it hopefully.

"The bad news is that he's slipped into a coma."

XXX

Hutch and Amy stood just outside Starsky's room.

"You go first," she said touching Hutch's arm. "You've known him longer."

He smiled a little, something about her reminding him of Starsky. It touched him. He went into the room, so much he wanted to say to his friend and partner, of encouragement, of hope, of sorrow. He wanted Starsky to hear the words, but they were all lodged in his heart and in his throat, and wouldn't come out on this day, so he did the only thing he could at the time, and that was stand next to Starsky's bed and squeeze his hand.

XXX

Amy was dabbing on some perfume when Hutch stepped out.

"Maybe he can smell it," she said. "Know it's me."

"He may not wake up, Amy," he said with a turn of his head to hide wet eyes.

She nodded, then put on a brave smile and stepped into his room.

XXX

Hutch sat with a drink in Huggy's shadowed apartment. The radio was the only noise, playing a slow blues tune on low volume.

Huggy swirled his own whiskey around as he looked into his glass.

"I keep going over it and over it in my mind," Hutch said quietly as he tilted his head back to rest it against the couch. "What I could have done, should have done, to prevent it. It happened so fast."

"No cause for the blame game, man. It went down like all bad domestics do."

"Amy… I don't know. I haven't heard from her in a while."

"She's lost two dudes now."

"But only one that was worth anything."

Hutch took a drink.

XXX

Amy was lying on her couch watching the news on TV when a knock came at her door.

She tiptoed over to it and took the knob in one hand. "Who is it?" she asked.

"Hutch," he said in a voice so low she barely heard it.

She unfastened the chain lock, unlocked the deadbolt, and opened the door, only a few inches, even though it was just Hutch at the door.

"Hi," she said almost as quietly as he had.

She smelled liquor and saw his red eyes in the light over her door. "It's late, Hutch."

"Can I come in?" he asked.

She moved to one side, and he stepped in.

"Never been to your place before," he said looking around at the books and paintings. "Nice."

"Thanks."

He picked up a painting of a face with a black tear on its cheek.

"You do these?"

"Yeah. That one's a self-portrait. Pretty obvious, huh?"

He put it back down.

"Just came to check on you. Starsk would want me to."

She smiled. "That's nice of you. Would you like to sit down?" "Sure," he said sitting down.

"I was just watching the news."

He leaned his head back against the sofa and closed his eyes. She sat

down on the cushion next to him.

"You miss him too, don't you?"

He didn't answer, or lift his head, or make any movement, but she saw a tear slide from the

corner of his closed eye.

She leaned her head against his shoulder and watched the news, and he slipped an arm around her and pulled her against his side.

She raised her head and looked at him.

"Hutch?" she asked in a near-whisper.

He opened his eyes and looked at her as she leaned over to kiss him lightly on the lips.

XXX

Hutch set a potted plant in the windowsill of Starsky's hospital room, then slid a cassette tape into the tape player and turned it on.

"Ocean," Hutch said touching the sheet that covered his partner. "Thought you might like that."

Hutch waited a few minutes more, expectantly, hopefully, as if his presence could somehow wake him up.

"I'll come back," Hutch told him, and left the room.

Amy was waiting outside in the hall.

"Going in?" he asked her.

"Not this time," she said looking through the door at Starsky's sleeping body.

She reached for Hutch's hand as they walked down the hall toward the elevator, but he let go of it when they reached it.

XXX

Hutch parked his car in front of the bank where Ricky and Starsky were shot.

"Are you ready for this?"

She took a deep breath and looked toward the sidewalk in front of the bank.

"I haven't been back here since the shooting. I know I need to do it, but it's so hard."

"I'll be with you every step."

They got out of the car and stepped up onto the curb. He took her hand, his eyes fixed on the spot on the sidewalk where city workers had scrubbed the bloodstain.

"Ow," she said pulling her hand from his.

"Sorry," he said with a half-smile and taking her hand again to give it an apologetic pat. "Guess I need to do this too."

XXX

Hutch, Huggy, and Diane stood in Starsky's apartment amidst a scatter of empty cardboard boxes.

A film of dust covered all of the furniture.

Personal effects.

Artifacts.

Symbols of a life.

It reminded Hutch of when his grandfather died, when he helped his grandmother sort out his belongings, what to toss out, what to keep.

Diane picked up one of Starsky's model clipper ships. "You want to keep this, Hutch?"

Hutch headed for the door.

"I can't do this right now," he said, and slammed the door.

XXX

Amy opened the door and looked at him. He said nothing, simply fell onto her small frame and wept into her hair.

XXX

She carried a cup of coffee over to him and set it on the stand next to the easy chair, then put her hand on the back of his neck.

"Cool touch," he said closing his eyes. "Feels good."

She began to massage his neck, first with one hand, then with both, then his shoulders. When her hand slid down the front of his shirt, he clasped it, kissed it. "We can't," he said in a low voice.

"He would understand," she said kissing his hair. "He would want us to be happy. Don't you

care about me?"

He stood up and pulled his jacket on.

"Maybe it's best we keep our distance," he said as he started for the door.

She followed him.

"But we're friends. I care about you."

"Maybe a little too much?"

"What about you? Do you care about me too much?"

He didn't answer, just shook his head and went on out.

XXX

Hutch laughed as he read aloud from the magazine to Starsky.

"Here's one you'll like, Star-"

The laughter was cut off by a soft moan from Starsky's lips.

The magazine fell from Hutch's hands and he rose to his feet, leaning over the bed guard.

"Starsk?"

Starsky stirred slightly, another moan passing his lips.

"Oh my God," Hutch whispered, and ran from the room to get a doctor or nurse.

XXX

Several orderlies and nurses were holding a laughing and beaming Hutch back while the doctors examined Starsky.

Hutch rose up on his tiptoes at the door of Starsky's room to see what was going on. "Hey, whatever you do, don't let him go back to sleep."

XXX

Hutch was pacing in the hospital corridor when the elevator door opened and Amy came running down the hall.

He caught her and swung her around.

"Easy. They won't let you in there."

"Is he okay?"

"I don't know how okay he is, but he's awake."

A smile broke out on her face as she looked into his eyes. "It's good to see you happy again."

He let go of her and stepped back, running a hand through his hair.

"I have a feeling our waiting isn't over."

XXX

"He knows his name," Dr. Mason said as he sat down in a chair across from Hutch and Amy in the waiting room. "That's a good sign."

"Yeah," Hutch said nodding eagerly. "Real good. What else?"

"His speech is a little affected right now, so is his coordination and some recall, but he should improve with time and therapy. I didn't expect him to come out of it, I really didn't."

Amy smiled proudly. "If anyone can come out of something like that, it's Dave."

He patted her knee.

"He'll need a lot of support. Looks like he already has it."

XXX

It was days later that Starsky gave a pale smile to Hutch and Amy when they came into his hospital room.

"Hey, man," Starsky said opening his hand on the bed and turning it palm up. "Good to see you."

Hutch gripped his hand and ruffled his hair, unable to hide the joy on his face or in his voice.

"It's good to have you back, Starsk."

Amy leaned down and kissed him. His arms came up to hug her, but stiffness prevented them from wrapping around her.

Starsky offered a crooked smile to Hutch. "You too."

Hutch leaned down to join the hug, all three of them tearful.

"Man, I can't move," Starsky said in a raspy voice. "And all I want to do is… get out of here."

"One day at a time," Hutch said as he straightened back up. "You try to get out of that bed right now, you wouldn't make it to the door."

"We'll help you, honey," Amy said. "We'll come every day, we'll help you with exercises, we'll get you back to your old self."

Starsky looked at Hutch. "They get the bullet out?"

Hutch smiled. "They got the bullet out."

Amy smoothed the sheet that covered his legs. "Do you remember what happened?"

"I don't know. I saw…what was his name? With a gun, and that's it. I gather he shot me."

"You can't remember his name?" she asked him.

"It's okay," Hutch told her. "His memory will improve. Everything will."

XXX

"Home sweet home," Starsky said as Hutch helped him up the stairs that led to Starsky's house.

"You remember your address?"

"Um…"

Hutch stopped with him on the stairs.

Starsky grinned. "Just kidding."

They continued on up the stairs.

"Huggy and Diane cleaned your place for you," Hutch said.

"Oh yeah?"

"Yeah. We almost got rid of everything, but I told them to wait a little longer." "Glad you did, man. I'd hate to have no…where to come home to."

"Always got a place to crash with me, Starsk."

"Yeah, I know, you…"

Starsky stopped, his breathing getting harder.

"Okay?" Hutch asked.

"Give me a minute."

Starsky sank down to sit on a step halfway up, catching his breath.

Hutch sat down next to him.

"Oh man," Starsky panted. "I haven't been this wiped out since I took one at the restaurant."

"You were in a coma, Starsk. Take it easy."

Starsky nodded, head down, trying to control his breathing.

"Come here," Hutch said pulling him to his feet. He took Starsky's left arm, carefully wrapped it around his neck, and slid a secure arm around and under Starsky's other arm. "I got you. Up we go."

Starsky was barely moving his feet. "Yeah, here I come."

Hutch bore most of Starsky's weight as they took the last steps to the top.

At the door Hutch unlocked it while Starsky started to sit down again.

"Can't make it," he gasped.

Hutch pulled him up, picked him up, then grunted as he carried Starsky inside and put him on the couch.

"Oh man," Starsky laughed, "don't fall on me."

Hutch smiled, panting, and situated the pillows under Starsky's head.

"Okay now?"

"I'll tell you after a few pills."

Hutch reached into his pocket and pulled out a prescription bottle.

"Yeah, that's just what you need," he said dryly, "a good long sleep. Let me get you some water."

XXX

Amy and Starsky sat together on Starsky's sofa, their bodies so close it looked as if they had melted into one form.

He held a book and read aloud to her, slowly, mispronouncing a few words.

"What an improvement!" Hutch called from the kitchen. "Reading better than before he was shot!"

Amy smiled. "Oh, Hutch."

Hutch carried in a tray with three salads and three glasses of grape juice.

"Lunch is served. Huggy's got nothing on Chef Hutchinson."

XXX

Captain Dobey was on the phone in his office speaking with Starsky's doctors.

"I want all the cards on the table. If you think he can return to work at some point in the future, I want to know. If you think he won't, I want to know that too."

XXX

Huggy walked from his kitchen carrying a huge carry-out pizza box. He hoisted it onto his left shoulder.

"What the heck is that?" Diane asked as she mixed a drink for a customer sitting at the bar.

"My new size. Giant."

"Oh my, it looks like my kitchen table."

"Been a while since Starsky's had his pizza, and I doubt if Hutch and Amy are gonna let him have any, so it's Huggarino to the rescue."

She shook her head as he passed by her and strolled toward the front door, smiling fondly as she continued to mix the drink.

XXX

Starsky stood in the middle of his living room floor, slowly raising hand-held weights above his head. They were only five pounds each.

Amy watched him, spotting him really, her hand on his chest.

"Try to stretch a little each time, baby. For flexibility. And take some nice slow, deep breaths while you're at it."

"Yes, Nurse Amy."

He lowered the weights, and she took them from him, putting them on the coffee table.

He eyed her bottom, then reached for her, pulling her close and kissing her.

"I miss your body," he whispered to her.

She smiled, stepped back a little. "Yeah, it's been a while."

He reached for her again. "Don't I know it. I could ravish you all day and all night. Right here, right now, right on this floor."

His hands moved down her shoulders, caressed her breasts, then slid down the curves of her waist and settled on her bottom again.

"I really have to go," she said closing her eyes.

She backed up a few steps, picked up her purse.

He wore a wounded look, trying to read her.

"What?" he asked taking a few halting steps toward her. "Is it me? You think I'm always gonna be like this? I've come a long way since the hospital. Couple more weeks, maybe a month, everything will be back the way it was."

Her smile was one of near-pain as she made her way to the door.

He went after her, stumbling over his discarded sneakers, and gently took her arm.

"Amy, talk to me."

She turned but didn't look at him.

He squeezed her shoulders. "Before I was shot, you said you loved me. We were talkin about movin' in together. What happened?"

She sniffed. "Oh, I hate this. I hate me."

He lifted her chin. "What are you talking about?"

"After I left Ricky, I didn't know if I could love another guy. And then I fell for you. And then you were torn out of my life, and I thought, I thought you weren't coming back, and then…I don't love you anymore, Dave. Not like I did. I care about you, but I changed, my feelings changed, or something did."

His voice cracked. "Something? Did you meet another guy? Why are you here? Why are you still with me then?"

"I'm mixed up. I still want to be your friend, but I didn't want to tell you just yet, not while you were just out of the hospital, you needed me…"

He slumped onto the arm of his easy chair.

"You gotta tell me what this is about. I don't get it."

"Maybe I should have broke it off clean. I'm sorry. And to still be around you when I love Hutch, it's wrong, I know, I just…"

His eyes came up to meet hers, a cloudy, confused blue.

"Hutch?"

She bolted for the door, and this time he sat with his head down instead of trying to stop her.

XXX

Hutch was on the phone with Mrs. Dobey when a knock came at his apartment door.

"Yes, Edith, he likes brownies, make him some brownies, lots of nuts. Yeah, thanks, somebody's at the door, have to go, goodbye."

Hutch hung up and went to the door to open it.

Starsky stood slumped against the doorframe, perspiring and out of breath.

"Thanks, buddy," he gasped as he shoved Hutch back into the apartment. "Thanks for taking care of Amy for me while I was in the hospital."

Hutch held his hands up. "Whoa, Starsk, slow down."

Starsky trudged in.

Hutch reached for him. "You're hurting, please sit down."

Starsky took a swing at him. Hutch gently caught his arm, squeezing it lovingly, a mist of tears in his eyes.

"What did she tell you, Starsk?"

Starsky jerked away and staggered a few steps, breaking into tears.

"Forget it," he said going toward the door. He stumbled to one knee and almost collapsed.

Hutch dove to catch him.

"Damn it, you're not leaving like this."

Starsky shoved him, panting, and toppled facedown, breathing hard into the floor.

Hutch crouched down, put a hand out to touch his head, a memory flooding back, of Starsky lying on the sidewalk just like this in front of the bank.

"She loves you," Starsky wept in a hoarse voice.

"Starsky, buddy, please, listen to me. Nothing happened. She kissed me once. She wanted more, I didn't let it go any farther than that. I wouldn't do that to you. I like Amy. We're

close. We got closer when you were in the hospital. But for me, it wasn't like that at all. Her feelings were different, I guess. We should have went our separate ways, but we needed each other at the time. In a way I loved her because she was such a big part of your life. It made me feel close to you somehow. But I swear on everything and everyone I love, I swear on your life, we didn't make it with each other."

Starsky let out a shuddering breath.

"All this time…ever since I got home from the hospital…she let me think we still had something."

"I guess she wanted to wait until you were stronger to tell you."

"I can't talk to her again. It's over."

XXX

Starsky stood at his living room window and looked down at the sidewalk. He could see Hutch and Amy talking but couldn't hear what they were saying.

Amy took a step toward his stairs to come up, but Hutch tenderly pulled her back and moved her toward her car.

Amy grew tearful, wiped her eyes, and looked up at the window.

Starsky raised a hand in goodbye, then moved away, out of her sight.

He sat down on the sofa, listened for the closing of her car door, the sound of the engine, then Hutch's footsteps as he came up the stairs.

Hutch had two flower-decorated envelopes in his hand, one with Hutch's name written on it, the other Starsky's.

"Not now," Starsky said, and reached for the TV remote.

Hutch sat down next to him, opened the envelope carrying his name, and began to read.

End

::::::::::::

Accidental

By TR

Monday morning when I went into the squad room, Hutch was tipped back in his chair a little and on the phone talking to his dad.

"Hey," I said walking over to our desk, "wanna see it?"

"Sure," he said holding out his hand.

I pulled my new gun from my shoulder holster to hand it to him, and that's when it went off.

Just like that. As quick as that; as simple.

The bullet slugged him backward and out of his chair, and the next thing I know, he's on the floor sprawled flat on his back, a stain of red spreading across his upper chest.

It happened so fast, but the rest of it so slow, like I was hearing and seeing it from outside the room-about twelve officers jumping furniture and knocking chairs over to get to him, all saying "Hutch! Hutch!" at the same time and crowding down to him to help him, the voice of Hutch's dad coming out of the receiver, a miniature roar, on the floor.

One of the cops called an ambulance.

Me, I had backed up halfway across the room and didn't know how I'd gotten there. Don't remember Dobey approaching, but heard his voice, his arm tightening around my shoulder, viselike so I wouldn't fall or take off, taking me to his office.

I don't remember going to Hutch, or saying his name, or anything like that. I don't remember

what I was thinking at all. I remember Cap's voice saying things, but couldn't tell what they were.

Later he told me I couldn't stand up, that he had to sit me down in a chair because I had passed out.

XXX

When I came to, Cap was patting my face and saying something.

"Do you want to ride to the hospital with me?"

"Yeah," I heard myself answer, finally coming back to myself a little. At least enough to know I had to be where Hutch was. Time was distorted. I didn't know how much or how little had past.

"I called Huggy," Cap said steadying me to the door. "He's probably already at the hospital."

XXX

It was like I didn't see the doctors and nurses moving in front of me to keep me out of the emergency room area. I tried pushing through, yelling "Hutch!" but they, along with Dobey and Huggy, kept me out.

"They need to work on him," Cap said.

Both of them led me down the hall in another direction.

"Hutch!" I yelled over my shoulder. "I'm out here!"

Other cops were in the waiting room. I saw how they looked at me.

"What," I said moving toward them, "you got something to say?"

"Yeah," Clark said standing up, "we know it was an accident."

Suddenly all the tension went out of my body and all the air went out of my lungs, and I had to get out of the room and try again to get to Hutch. I couldn't sit in this room while he lay dying in another one.

"Pray he lives," I heard Cap say to the cops as I shoved my way out of the waiting room.

No one was guarding the emergency room when I went back down the hall. I rounded the corner, saw them working on Hutch, saw his bloody white shirt and the red-stained sheets through the stand of doctors and nurses, and suddenly my legs gave out and I slouched down to a crouch in the hall, my back against the wall, heels of my hands in my eyes, wanting to disappear, hide, or run, but was granted nothing except a crushing pain in my chest.

If he dies, it'll be at your hands.

This small voice spoke to me over and over, gently reminding me of the facts: You shot your partner. Accident or not, you shot him.

"Is he going to die?" another voice asked above me.

I looked up, and it was Hutch's dad. He must have been in town on a business trip and that's why Hutch was talking to him on the phone in the squad room.

I didn't have the strength to stand up.

"I don't know."

He took the front of my jacket in his hands and pulled me to my feet.

"You?" he asked in an incredulous voice. "You did this?"

"I'm sorry, I-"

He shook me, tears making his blue eyes sparkle. He looked so much like Hutch, for a moment I was back in Gillian's apartment and he was shaking me around.

"How could you be so reckless?"

"Mr. Hutchinson, you can't tell me anything I haven't already told myself. If I could take it back or change places with him I-"

"Yes! It should be you!"

He shook me again, and I let him. I had no right to say anything.

Then he clutched me to him and cried like a little kid on my shoulder.

I patted his back. He looked so much like Hutch.

I tried to swallow my tears. "I didn't mean to hurt him."

He moved passed me and started into the emergency room, but was stopped by a couple of doctors coming out.

"Are you family?" one of them asked.

"His father."

The doctors looked at me, figuring I needed to hear the news just the same as Mr.

Hutchinson did.

"It's a shoulder wound," the doctor told us. "But a bad one. We removed the bullet but it did a lot of damage. He lost a lot of blood, he's very weak right now, but he should be all right. As he recovers, we'll be able to assess any lasting effects on his shoulder and arm."

I leaned back against the wall.

The other doctor walked down the hall to the waiting room to deliver the good news to Huggy, Dobey, and the other cops.

"Shoulder wound," Mr. Hutchinson said as we looked into the room and saw Hutch in the hospital bed, his shoulder and chest wrapped in bandages. "He should be okay. You had a

shoulder wound, didn't you?"

I was surprised he remembered.

"Yeah, took a slug in a restaurant. Hutch saved my life."

The man looked at me, not so angry now that his son would live, me not as uptight.

"He'll probably be sedated for the night," he said. "I'll be back in the morning."

I watched him go down the hall to the elevator, then turned to see Cap and Huggy coming my way. They looked relieved and were smiling.

"I knew the boy would make it," Huggy said clapping me on the back.

"Sure you did," Cap grumbled. "Starsky, now would be a good time to write up that incident report. You know Internal Affairs will want one. Don't ask me what the outcome of the investigation will be."

"What will the outcome of the investigation be?"

He shook his head at me and went to the elevator.

"I'll write it here at the hospital," I told him. "I'm not leavin till I talk to Hutch, and I don't know when that will be."

Cap stepped into the elevator, the doors closed, and it took him down.

Huggy glanced into the room where Hutch was and saw the nurses and doctors tending to him.

"He really gonna be okay?" he asked me.

"That's what they said."

So we stood there together in the hall, me and Huggy, and waited until they moved Hutch to a recovery room.

XXX

Hutch looked like as faint and spooky as a ghost when he opened his eyes, the look in them ghastly from painkillers. But I'd take ghastly over dead any day.

"Hiya, Casper," I said as I watched him. "Huggy's here too."

Hutch's eyes blinked heavily, closed, then opened again and rolled to look for Huggy.

"What'm I doin in here?" he asked innocently.

"Don't you remember?" I asked him.

He was too out of it to really comprehend. He just closed his eyes and went back to sleep.

XXX

The next day he was a little more alert. Enough to ask to see me anyway, so I hurried down the hall from the waiting room. His arm was in a sling and the nurses had his bed raised a little when I went in. He looked as white as his sheets.

"Want to talk to you," he said faintly.

I went close to the bed. "Hutch, I'm sorry. I coulda killed you."

His left hand tugged at the bottom of my jacket. He had every reason to chew me out, turn me away, call me careless, but he didn't.

"Don't worry about me. I'm fine."

He was the one shot up, and he was concerned about my feelings. For once I wish he didn't care so much. I almost wanted him to hate me for what I did. Then it would feel right. I almost wanted people to be down on me about it, and then it would fit the shame and guilt I felt inside.

"How's the wing?" I asked nodding toward his arm.

"Don't know," he smiled in his medicated haze. "Can't feel it right now."

XXX

I met Cap in a hallway of the precinct the next day, and handed him my report.

"Whatever they do, Cap, is cool."

"Cool?"

"Yeah."

"I'm sure they'll be glad to hear that. There's a hearing day after tomorrow at nine a.m."

"Yeah, whatever."

I felt him staring at me as I went toward the exit door. He knew what I was thinking, (bring it on, I deserve whatever) and I didn't care if he knew it.

XXX

The next afternoon when I went to visit Hutch at the hospital, his door was closed but I could hear the doctors talking to him. I couldn't catch it all, but there were words like "muscles", "nerves", "damage", "function", "doubtful", "lifelong", "therapy".

Part of me wanted to turn and walk away from the sound of them, but only for a second. I quietly pushed the door open a crack and peeked in, staring at Hutch, putting two and two together very quickly. He couldn't use his right arm. His shoulder was still bandaged, but his arm was free. Now out of the sling, it lay lifeless in the nurse's hands while the doctor examined it, probed, turned it over, asked him questions.

Hutch's eyes looked scared, and he looked very alone. Where was his father? Where was I? His father was doing business in a hotel room and I was eavesdropping like a coward.

They assessed him for what he could and couldn't do. He couldn't move his arm, or fingers, or make a fist, or hold a cup, he could only move it a couple of inches away from his body. He tried so hard to make it move that the rest of him trembled and a sheen of sweat formed on his face. But no matter how hard he tried or how much he willed it, it mostly just lay in his lap, and if it moved at all, it was because he picked it up and moved it himself.

Tears formed in his eyes and he blinked them away.

"It will get better, though, right? In time, and with physical therapy? I mean, I'll work it every day, I'll do whatever I have to do."

"We encourage physical therapy, but we see no reason at this time to believe it will improve to any significant level. The important thing is to exercise it regularly to maintain circulation, and to prevent atrophy…"

The doctor went on with his talk, but I'd heard enough. I felt like kicking the door down or throttling the doctor, so I hurried away from the door. No, I hadn't taken his life, the one entrusted to me, but I had done something just as bad, and that was ruin it.

XXX

The Internal Affairs guys, Captain Dobey, the police commissioner, the District Attorney, some other department lawyers, and somebody from the press were all seated around a conference table when I went into the hearing room at the courthouse.

"Have a seat, Detective Starsky," the police commissioner said motioning to an empty chair.

"Won't be necessary," I said as I reached in my hip pocket, took out my badge, and slid it down the table toward Dobey. I already had my shoulder holster and gun in my hand, and I slid that down to him too.

"I won't be comin' back," I said as I turned and left, feeling great, feeling like it was the best thing I'd ever done in my life.

Hutch grabbed my arm with his left hand halfway up the courthouse steps. His right arm was in its sling.

"Huggy told me your hearing is today."

I stopped on the steps because I didn't want to knock him down. He looked pale and unsteady, I don't know how he made it up as far as he did. I steadied him so he wouldn't fall. He would never strap on a gun again. I wouldn't let my mind at that moment think about what else he couldn't do on my account.

"It's over."

"How can it be over?"

I rubbed his left arm. "I appreciate you comin to put in a good word for me, but it's done, I quit."

"Don't punish yourself just because I can't go back."

I blinked back hard tears of my own.

We stood there looking at each other, and then we hugged, both sniffing and trying to comprehend the loss and change in our lives.

"Not supposed to happen," I whispered next to his ear, thankful he was such a good man. A lesser friend could have shut me out, and would have had every right.

I felt him sinking against me, waved the cabbie on that was waiting for him, and helped him into the passenger side of the Torino.

XXX

The ride to his place was silent. Maybe we were too afraid, or too drained, to say

anymore. We just needed to feel the weight of this thing together, alone.

XXX

Since Hutch wasn't capable at the moment, I reached above his door for the key and unlocked it, then we went in.

He lowered himself down into an easy chair and I went to make a pot of coffee.

He took a bottle of pills from his jacket pocket and set it on the coffee table.

When the percolator was going, I opened the kitchen cabinet for mugs, then turned to see Hutch's dad charging through the doorway toward me.

He was at me with his fist pulled back, but Hutch was there grabbing his arm, using all of the strength he had to hold him back.

"Dad, no!"

Mr. Hutchinson knocked Hutch to one side, very, very hard. He lost his balance, falling and crushing his wounded shoulder into the wall.

A whine of pain escaped Hutch as his good hand touched the wall.

Mr. Hutchinson just froze, panting.

"I didn't mean-"

"Exactly," Hutch panted up at him.

I helped Hutch to his feet, and we both helped him back to the easy chair.

Hutch held his shoulder. Blood was seeping through his bandage, shirt, sling, and between his fingers.

"Dear God," Mr. Hutchinson said as he went for towels to apply pressure.

I crouched in front of Hutch's chair and unbuttoned his shirt to peel back the bandage so I could have a look.

I have seen bullet wounds before, bad ones, have had a couple of minor ones myself, but had never seen Hutch's body this marred before. A hunk of flesh forever torn out of his beautiful shoulder made my stomach and heart go weak. It looked like someone had carved out a hole with a butcher knife. I couldn't stop my hands from shaking as I took the towel from his father and pressed it against the bloody bandages.

Mr. Hutchinson looked away from it, but kept his hand on his son's shoulder.

"I'm sorry, son."

Hutch winced away from his father and away from me, preferring to rest the side of his head against the back of the chair and apply pressure himself.

"When Harold Dobey told me you would never be able to return to the force," Mr. Hutchinson said, "I lost it."

"Why?" Hutch panted into the material of the chair, wiping his perspiring upper lip with a shirtsleeve. "You never approved of my career choice."

Mr. Hutchinson looked at me. "I don't know what to say to you. I want to blame you, but I also know these things-terrible things-happen. And if he doesn't blame you, then neither will I."

When there was only the ticking clock between the three of us, Mr. Hutchinson stroked Hutch's hair, kissed the top of his head, and said, "I'll try to come back and see you before I go home."

Hutch closed his eyes, and his father went out the door.

Hutch reached for his pill bottle with a trembling hand. I picked it up, opened it, and shook two out, putting them in his hand. It was weird seeing him using his left hand all the time, and not well at that.

"I'll get you some water."

XXX

Forgive me, God, I prayed in Hutch's greenhouse that night. I should have gone home, but Icouldn't. There was this feeling that if I left he'd have no one to watch over him, and it was a funny thought to have since I was the one who put him in this situation. I couldn't sleep or eat, all I could do was stand and pray for this huge wrong I'd done to Hutch.

Sometime after midnight he squeezed the back of my neck and put his head against mine. It was the closest I'd ever felt to him, even though we should have felt the farthest apart.

"I feel like I should be in prison or something," I told him.

"You already are," he said patting my heart. "And I want you to come out of there."

"What about your guitar?"

"That's not important right now."

"Your sculpting. Piano."

"I'll be a leftie like you. It's not important, Starsk."

"Then what is?"

"You are. I mean, this is. I prayed for you last night, you know. In the hospital chapel?"

He had a shoulder that looked like a Rottweiler had taken a bite out of it, and he was praying for me?

"I prayed that God would help make this easier for you."

Not since the shooting in the restaurant had I feel Hutch's selfless love and loyalty so strong. He was the one who was hurt, and yet he was the one protecting and taking care of me. He was doing all he could to make shooting him not feel horrible to me.

"Thanks, Hutch."

XXX

Sometimes Hutch wore a sling and sometimes he didn't, but he had one in almost every color and always tried to match it to the shirt or jacket he was wearing so it would blend in.

Other times he got tired of wearing a sling, especially when sitting, and he would just slip his arm out of it and let his forearm rest on his upper thigh.

He was becoming good at doing things with his left hand. Writing, eating, cooking, opening jars and packages, laundry, all kinds of things.

His first night back at Huggy's after the shooting, we sat at the bar and waited on a big plate of French fries. I was hoping some foxy ladies would come by. Hutch hadn't had any female company lately, and I got the feeling it was because of how his shoulder looked, but we never talked about it. I do know he turned down a lot of propositions and would only talk to girls on the phone.

Even if he didn't want to get lucky tonight, I sure the hell did.

"Hi, baby," Diane said giving him a kiss on the cheek, and then gave me mine. She set two beers in front of us. "Good to see you out and about. Huggy tells me you two are going into business together."

"We are," Hutch smiled as he lifted his mug. "We just can't settle on which one."

"I want to sell cars," I told her.

"Hotrods," Hutch corrected.

"And he wants to sell camping gear."

Huggy joined us and patted Diane on the rear.

"Anything but a bar and grill," he said. "I'd hate to run you cats out of business."

Two pretty girls passed us and sat on stools to Hutch's right.

I nudged his arm. "They like us. Let's go talk to 'em."

"How do you know they like us? They didn't say anything."

"They smiled at us when they went by."

"Help yourself. I'll wait on the fries."

I moved down to where the girls sat, and we began to flirt.

But when Sweet Alice came in and draped her arm around Hutch's neck, purring "Hey, Handsome Hutch" in his ear, he got off the stool and left with her, smiling over his shoulder at me.

XXX

Hutch and me were standing back and looking at the big sign over our door-"Hot Rods And Cool Reels"-when Captain Dobey pulled up in his Caddy.

"Well, well," he laughed as he got out of the car. He didn't laugh often, but when he did you could tell it was from the heart. It made his eyes twinkle. "Not bad, boys."

The three of us went inside the warehouse we'd converted into a showroom. On the left-hand side, which was my side, were four cars I'd restored (a Mustang, a Barracuda, a Charger, and a Porsche). And on the right-hand side, which was Hutch's side, all kinds of camping gear, from tents to backpacks to sleeping bags to fishing tackle to coolers to clothes.

"What'll it be?" I asked the captain. "Cars or camping?"

"Neither. I came to invite you to have dinner tonight at our house. You can bring a guest if you want to."

"Can I bring two?" I asked him.

Hutch rolled his eyes at me.

"I can't help it!" I shrugged as I threw up my arms. "They're twins!" "We'll come," Hutch told him. "If you don't mind Sweet Alice."

"I don't," the captain said leaning around a rack of clothes to give her a good look. Dobey walked over to my cars for a closer look.

Sweet Alice, who sat back at the desk painting her fingernails, smiled at the captain. Hutch walked over to her and gave her a kiss.

The two of them together, it just fit. She was understanding about his shoulder and all that had happened, and Hutch could be himself with her. It's what he needed at the time. It was just right.

End

::::::::::

Chameleon

By TR

"You know, I'm getting tired of this," the attractive blonde said as she made her way across the floor of the Neon Blues club, through tables, and back to the corner booth where Hutch sat.

The band played leisurely while couples and friends talked and drank at tables.

"I come to see you between flights, the only day I have off this week, and all you can give me is ten minutes of your time?"

A couple turned to look at Kim, then turned back toward the band.

"A triple homicide came up this morning," Hutch said. "I'm sorry. I've been on it all day."

"This isn't the first time. The last time it was a stakeout. The time before that it was some undercover thing and I didn't even know where you were."

"What do you want me to do? This is all the time I have tonight. These things happen in my job."

"Why don't you get a normal job so we can have more time together?"

"Why don't you?"

"At least I make an effort. I'm here, aren't I? You never come to me."

"Yeah, I guess I could call Dobey and tell him I need to hold off the investigation because my girlfriend is here and we need to get laid now because she's crunched for time."

She picked up his vodka and tonic, splashed it in his face, then marched away.

Now several tables turned to watch.

Hutch rose from the booth to go after her, then sat back down, snapping his fingers at a waitress.

"Bring me a bottle of vodka. I spilled my drink."

Dabbing his face and collar with a napkin, he called toward the door, "I bought a new shirt for you!"

XXX

The big cab driver brought his vehicle to a stop in front of Hutch's apartment.

"Here you go," he said glancing into the rearview mirror.

Hutch lay with his head back against the seat, a drunken, incoherent mumble coming from him.

The driver turned halfway in his seat. "You're home."

When only heavy breathing answered him, the driver turned the ignition off, got out of the car, and walked around to Hutch's side.

He opened the door, took the front of Hutch's jacket, and pulled him out of the car. Hutch's head bobbed down, his knees buckled, and the cabbie put him over his shoulder to carry him upstairs.

XXX

Starsky thought he was seeing a murder scene in Hutch's apartment, and grabbed for the wall as he fell to his knees.

The sheets on the bed were stained with blood, as was his face from an obvious beating. A handkerchief fastened each wrist and ankle to a bedpost; a fifth wrapped around his eyes, and a sixth was in his mouth. His clothes were rumpled and bloodstained and he lay as if lifeless.

Muffled moans sounded faintly into the handkerchief as Hutch regained consciousness, and Starsky realized he was alive.

"Oh my God," Starsky breathed as his weak legs moved jerkily toward the bed and sat on the edge of the mattress.

A torn shirtsleeve made Starsky look at the inside of his arm, where he found the injection site.

When he gingerly pulled the handkerchief from Hutch's mouth, blood and a gasp for breath came with it. The blood in his nose made breathing difficult.

"Starsk?" he asked in a nasal-sounding voice through split, swollen lips. He tried to raise his head; it fell back onto the mattress. His voice was small and dry. "Am I home? What happened? What day is it?"

With two trembling hands, Starsky gently pulled off the blindfold. The cuts and bruises around his partner's swollen eyes brought tears to his own.

"Somebody hurt you. You're just now comin to. We have a crime scene here. I can get a lab over here, there's plenty of evidence. With the fibers and samples and everything else, we'll get this

guy."

Hutch blinked and squinted. "I got drunk last night after Kim left." He coughed; swallowed. "I don't remember what happened or who was here. Just let it go. I'll be all right."

With a pocketknife Starsky cut the handkerchiefs on his wrists, then the ones on his ankles. Now free, Hutch's arms and legs dropped heavily in the bed.

Starsky sat on the edge of the bed and reached for him, pulling Hutch toward him.

Hutch reached back, wrapping trembling arms around his middle and clinging to him. "I'll be all right."

Starsky held his head and stroked his hair, the sound of his partner's sob hurting his heart.

XXX

While Hutch was mending at his apartment, Starsky drove to the blues establishment called Neon Blues with a wallet-size photo of Hutch and asked the owner, bartenders, waitresses, and band if they remembered seeing him leave the club on the night he was assaulted. A band member said he recalled seeing him arguing with a young lady, but that was it. The bartender recalled that Hutch left the place drunk, but didn't know where he went from there. A waitress said she invited him back to her place but he turned her down. The owner said he was entertaining a lady friend downstairs and didn't have any information to offer. The club was within walking distance of Hutch's place, and Hutch said he had walked there, but he himself had no idea how he'd gotten home.

XXX

"You look like you been run over by a truck," Huggy said as he carried in a covered chicken and oyster casserole for Hutch.

Hutch closed the door and limped across the room to pick up a glass of iced water from the coffee table.

"Good to see you too, Hug."

Huggy set the casserole on the kitchen table. "Starsky told me what happened."

"Yeah? What'd he say, some fruitcake drugged me, tied me up, beat me up, and left? Happens all the time. We deal with assaults like this every day."

"So how come you don't want it investigated?"

"It's a waste of time. There's not enough to go on. I didn't see who jumped me, and I don't remember what happened."

Huggy looked toward the bed. "There was enough. Starsky could've had pictures taken, samples collected, fingerprints, all that. But you can't even trace that drug you were shot with because you wouldn't let him investigate."

"Well, Kojak, we have more important cases than this to work on."

"Did he assault you sexually too?"

Hutch set his water glass down. "Are you kidding me?"

"No."

"Don't you think I'd know it if some guy stuck his stick up my bum?"

"I don't know, you said you can't remember."

"I can't. And while I hurt all over, my bum feels fine."

"Okay, I was just checkin."

"Starsky put you up to asking me these questions?"

"No, man, I'm just a close friend that don't need to care or know nothin."

Huggy sauntered toward the door and exited with a loud slam.

Hutch looked at the closed door for a long time, then went to the kitchen and uncovered the casserole.

XXX

Starsky paced back and forth in his apartment, telephone in hand.

"Kim, I'm trying to figure out who he was with and where he may have gone after he left the club."

"I don't have a clue, so don't call me anymore."

He heard a loud click in his ear as she hung up.

"Witch," he said, and hung up too.

XXX

Feeling weak and drowsy, Hutch passed up his bed to settle onto the sofa for a nap.

XXX

Starsky was in the squad room reading through some recent assault cases to find a possible suspect with an m.o. matching the one used by Hutch's assailant.

Of the ten cases that were similar to Hutch's, two cut their victims before leaving them, two used handcuffs instead of handkerchiefs, two had female victims only, two had male victims, one with sexual battery, one without, and only one used a drug in the commission of the attack. There were no exact matches, and all ten criminals were incarcerated.

"Hey, Starsk."

He looked up to see Hutch approaching their desk, jacket in hand, still bruised, wearing his gun.

Starsky stood up to help him into his chair. "What are you doin' here, buddy?"

"Working, what does it look like?"

"You're not ready to come back yet."

"I'll be the judge of that."

An officer at a nearby desk looked at him.

"What the hell happened to you, Hutchinson?"

"Long story." To Starsky he said, "What's the deal on the triple homicide?"

"Haven't heard in the last few days. Some kind of family dispute. Dobey assigned it to somebody else."

Hutch pulled one of his partner's case files over and opened it. "What are you working on?"

"Your attack."

"You and Detective Huggy partners now?"

Starsky sat on the edge of the desk and squeezed his shoulder. "Hutch, if it was me who'd been hurt, you'd be tearing up the sidewalks to find him."

"I know. But I just want to put it behind me and move on."

"Fine," Starsky sighed as he took the file from Hutch and put it on the top of his stack. "The physical evidence is gone. Witnesses can't remember anything. And the victim refuses to cooperate."

The healing cut on Hutch's lip would only allow a half-smile. "And for your information too, he

left my bum intact."

"We'll see what Dobey says about you working tomorrow. I don't have a problem with it if he doesn't."

XXX

"Desk duty for a while," was Captain Dobey's decision, and both Starsky and Hutch were satisfied with that, Starsky more so than Hutch.

XXX

Huggy set two hamburger platters in front of two customers when his phone behind the bar rang.

"Yo," he said lifting the receiver.

"Hug, I want to apologize."

Huggy clamped the receiver in the crook of his neck while serving drinks to the customers.

"No foul, Hutch. It's cool."

"And thanks for your casserole. It was good."

XXX

The seventeen-year-old stood with his father as they observed through the glass the six suspects in the lineup.

The boy's arm was in a cast. He had been jumped in the park two nights ago by three men.

"Take your time," Starsky told him.

The boy moved a little closer to his father, who put an arm around his shoulder.

"They can't see you," Hutch said. "So go ahead and look."

The boy's head would only come up a few inches, his eyes giving the suspects only cursory glances.

"Him," the boy said raising a finger and pointing. "The plaid shirt." "Good job," Starsky said nodding to both of them.

XXX

Starsky and Hutch both stared at the crime scene while Martinez and Link conducted the investigation. Photos were snapped of the handkerchiefs that bound the dead man's wrists and ankles to the headboard and footboard of the bed. His face was distorted from a beating, and his left shirtsleeve was ripped open, a syringe still stuck in his arm.

That's why we should've investigated, Hutch, Starsky thought as he shoved a chair aside on his wayout.

Hutch followed him out and found him leaning against the wall in the hallway.

"You were his first victim, Hutch. Only you didn't die. He didn't know how to overdose you, it was his first time. You were practice. He binds, assaults, and kills by overdosing. He's a serial killer, and he's gonna do it again."

XXX

Starsky read the autopsy and lab reports in the file while Hutch read it over his shoulder.

"Sexual assault," Martinez said as he went to the coffee pot. "Semen and blood."

XXX

"I know, I know," Hutch said as Starsky drove the Torino from the precinct. "There were no samples collected from my bed to see if he had jerked off."

"Did you throw out the bedding and your clothes?"

"What was I supposed to do, keep it all for souvenirs? Of course I threw it out. The bed too."

"The bed too?"

"It's not exactly the bed I want to make love in now."

"We have nothing physical to tie this new case to yours. It's just circumstantial with the m.o.-the bindings are the same, the beating, the syringe-it fits except for the sexual assault that's missing from your case."

XXX

A third male, in his mid-to-late thirties and having the same look and build as Hutch and the second victim, was found dead a week later in an almost identical fashion.

"Sexual assault?" Starsky asked the coroner in his lab.

"I thought this was Martinez and Link's case?"

"It is," Starsky said. "But we were at the last crime scene with them."

"Yes," the coroner said. "there is evidence of sexual assault. Semen, blood, torn tissue. Our fellow isn't just a serial killer, he's a sexual sadist."

XXX

The detectives stood at the far end of Huggy's bar, brainstorming the case while patrons laughed and drank and ate around them.

"His killing will intensify in number and severity," Starsky said as Hutch took notes in a notebook. "He's getting better at it, and he gets off on it. I mean off."

"He probably has a juvenile record of sexual assault."

"Escalating violence."

"Displaced rage."

"Appears normal, he blends in, just like everybody else."

Hutch wrote the word "Chameleon" across the top of the page.

Starsky cleared his throat. "He probably did jack off while he was hurting you."

Hutch nudged him with his elbow, and kept writing.

"Probably got off on kinky porno first, then tried some of that with real people, then it just built."

"Probably took a souvenir from each place."

"He's of the disorganized variety."

"Behavior reflects personality."

"What's his fantasy?"

"Plan?"

"How does he choose his victims? What is it about them? Me?"

"Has he tried to be a part of the investigation yet?"

"He may give tips to the papers, hang out at cop bars. He likes the attention."

Huggy's place was getting packed. Someone bumped against Diane, causing her to spill some drinks.

"'scuse me," the man said to her as he tried to press through the crowd. He dug into his pocket for a roll of ones and put some on her tray. "Here you go."

Starsky took his own notebook out and flipped through pages. "I should call that reporter, what's his name, and tell him to let us know if anybody calls asking a lot of questions or giving a lot of comments about the investigation, don't you think?"

Starsky patted his pockets for a pen.

"Don't you think, Hutch?"

When Hutch didn't reply, Starsky looked at him and saw that his face was a frozen white mask, and he was staring at the man who had bumped into Diane.

The man's eyes met Hutch's, then he pushed harder and faster through the crowd.

Starsky grabbed Hutch's arm and shook him roughly.

"Hutch!"

Huggy noticed Hutch's posture and blank expression, and came around the bar, taking his arm and moving him through the crowd and up the stairs.

Hutch went like a wax figure, eyes looking straight ahead.

Starsky started through the sea of customers, keeping the man's back in view, noting his height, hair, clothing, build, in the event he lost him.

Once at the door, the big cab driver broke into a run for his taxi.

Starsky chased him.

"Police! Stop!"

The driver didn't slow. He rounded the front of the cab just as Starsky jumped across the hood and tackled him to the ground.

XXX

After handing the driver over to Martinez and Link for questioning, Starsky rushed back to Huggy's.

XXX

Hutch sat slumped low on his back in his easy chair with a Scotch in his hand.

Huggy stood quietly at the door as if to guard it.

Starsky sat on the edge of the coffee table and leaned forward to Hutch.

"Why would you have a reaction like that?"

Hutch moved his head no.

"His face?" Starsky asked. "His voice? What did he say? What triggered it?"

(Did you see their faces?)

(I want names)

"I don't know," Hutch said. "I don't know what it was. I don't know him, I've never talked to him, I've never seen him before."

"He's a cab driver. Did he give you a ride home that night?" "I don't remember."

(Think) (Voices)

(How many?)

(Names) (Monk)

(Monk!)

"Did you see him at the club?"

"I don't remember!"

Hutch shot to his feet, his drink sloshing, and stepped away to pace. Starsky stood up to follow him.

Huggy got up too, and took Starsky's arm.

"I

know somebody…"

XXX

"Cabbie confessed," Link told Starsky as he walked into the squad room. "He loves it."

XXX

The shades were drawn in the hypnotherapist's office, the only light a small lamp on his desk.

Hutch lay on the doctor's sofa, hands folded across his stomach, eyes closed.

"I invited you to bring someone with you," Dr. Stein said in a low, cordial voice from his comfortable chair.

Also sitting in a comfortable chair, Starsky nodded and shook the man's hand. "David

Starsky. Pleasure."

Dr. Stein adjusted his glasses and spoke in a calm, measured tone.

"I would like for you to keep your eyes closed, Ken, and relax. Listen to my voice. Your partner and I have your safety in mind, and we won't let you get hurt here."

The ticking of the wall clock was somehow soothing, almost hypnotic in itself.

XXX

"Look at this," Detective Martinez said to his partner as they searched the cab driver's bedroom.

Link joined him next to the dresser and looked into the top drawer Martinez had opened. In it were stacks of Polaroid pictures of men.

XXX

"Here you go," the cab driver had said as he deposited Hutch in the bed on his back.

With eyes too intoxicated and heavy to open, Hutch put a wavering arm out to the driver.

"Here you go," he slurred as he dropped imaginary money toward the cabbie, then passed out.

XXX

"Here you go," Hutch murmured on the sofa. His relaxed body gradually began to tense, his hands unlacing and slowly opening and closing on his stomach.

Starsky moved forward in his chair, and Dr. Stein put a staying hand in his direction.

XXX

The cab driver stood back and snapped a Polaroid of Hutch, who was now bound to the bed, drugged, beaten, and incapacitated. Then the large man leaned over him and unzipped his fly.

XXX

Hutch's arms were stiff at his sides, his legs unmoving on the sofa, his posture mimicking restraint.

Starsky lunged forward, and this time Dr. Stein put a hand on his arm to keep him in his chair.

Hutch's panting became louder, until it turned into a long heartbreaking sound that finally brought Starsky out of his chair and to one knee at the sofa.

"Hutch!" he said urgently as he took his shoulders. He looked at the doctor, who pulled a stool over to sit down. "Is he okay?"

"He'll be fine."

Hutch's eyes came open. He looked around as if not at all certain of where he was, saw the office, Dr. Stein, and Starsky, then put an arm across his eyes and turned sobbing into the back of the sofa.

"It happened, didn't it?" Hutch whispered with his back to them.

Starsky squeezed his shoulder and whispered, "Hutch, I'm sorry."

Dr. Stein began to write in his chart. "You've had an important breakthrough, Ken."

Hutch turned toward Starsky and clung to his neck, sobbing until he fell asleep on his shoulder.

End

Desperate

By TR

"Detective Starsky," the prosecutor asked him on the witness stand, "in whose home did you find the journal threatening the life of Judge Wallingford?"

"Tony Monroe."

"Handwriting analysis concludes that it was written by the hand of Tony Monroe?"

"Yes, sir."

"Objection, Your Honor," the defense attorney said. "Hearsay."

"Sustained."

The prosecutor continued. "Fine, your honor. That's what the testimony of the handwriting expert will be on the stand this afternoon."

"Granted. Continue."

"And in the trunk of whose car, Detective Starsky, did you find a cache of stolen weapons?"

"Tony Monroe."

"And whose shoes matched the bloody shoeprints you and Detective Hutchinson found inside Judge Wallingford's home?"

"Tony Monroe."

XXX

"When they gonna sentence the dude?" Huggy asked the detectives as they walked back to his pool table for a game.

"Next month," Starsky said picking up a pool stick.

Hutch dropped some change into the jukebox and selected a song.

"Judge Wallingford was as crooked as they come and a lot of people wanted to see him dead, but thirty-eight bullets from a machine gun?"

"Tony Monroe was too young and too inexperienced to take on a hit like that," Starsky said leaning over the table to break the balls. "Just a hot-head kid wanting revenge for the execution of his father."

"Wrongly convicted," Hutch said dryly.

Huggy nodded. "Ain't they all."

XXX

Starsky and Hutch were coming out of the police station when a pretty girl with long black hair and blue eyes approached them with a shoulder bag.

"Excuse me," she said to them, "do you guys work here?"

Hutch put his hand out to her. "Detective Hutchinson."

Starsky moved in front of him and took her hand. "Detective Starsky."

"Okay, well, my name is Felicia Connelly and I'm wondering who I should see about applying for a job here at the police station?" She patted her shoulder bag. "I have a resume with me."

"Oh?" Hutch asked. "Police officer?"

"No. I mean, not yet. I'm new in town and I was thinking secretarial for now."

"We have a human resources department," Hutch said.

Starsky offered his arm to her. "I'll show you where it is. I think our Captain Dobey is looking for someone."

Hutch half-glared and half-smiled as Starsky led Felicia back toward the police station.

"Yeah, I know, Starsky," he said under his breath, "get my own."

XXX

Felicia carried the two cups of hot cocoa to Starsky's bed and handed one to him.

"Think this will make you feel better?"

"Hell of a headache," he said taking a drink of the hot liquid. "Got any aspirin?"

"No, but I'll go get some for you in just a bit."

"Thanks," he said pulling her down onto his lap and sliding his hand beneath her lace nightie to cup her breast.

"Sorry I'm not in a better mood," he laughed.

She laughed too, tracing a finger along his bare chest. "Don't worry, the last five night were enough to tide me over till you feel better."

They kissed, and she clinked mugs with him.

"Drink up."

Ten minutes later he was drowsy, almost dropping the cup.

She took it from him, carried both mugs to the kitchen and washed them out at the sink, then changed into jeans and a blouse, got her purse, and went out the door.

XXX

Hutch knocked on Starsky's door and waited, looking at his watch, smoothing his hair.

"Hey, Starsk. How's your head?"

Hutch knocked again.

"I know you and Felicia hit it off, but Dobey wants to see us."

Hutch waited a few minutes more, then took his notepad out, scribbled a few lines, and stuck it in the crack of his door.

XXX

The loft was large and empty, a storage space above a closed furniture store. The windows that weren't broken were painted black, and the only thing left in it was a collection of dangling wind chimes, and Starsky, whose wrists were tied with leather straps to a pulley attached to a beam above his head. The rope on the pulley was tied off to a radiator in the floor.

XXX

Hutch returned to Starsky's apartment that evening and found his note still stuck in the crack of Starsky's door.

Baffled and worried, he didn't bother to knock again, he shoved his shoulder hard against the door once and broke it open.

"Starsk?" he asked moving through the apartment.

He went into the bedroom and looked around. One of Starsky's red T-shirts was on the floor, along with Felicia's lace nightie. His wallet, car keys, and watch were on the nightstand.

Hutch looked through the wallet, found Felicia's number, and dialed.

XXX

The airy, musical sound of wind chimes tinkled in the loft.

Arms taut above him, Starsky moaned with his head back, sneakers barely on the floor. A

blindfold prevented him from seeing or opening his eyes, and a drug-induced lethargy made struggle, speech, or standing impossible. A trickle of blood tracked down his forearm from where the strap bit into his flesh; his bare chest moved slowly with gasping, shallow breaths.

"Hutch," he groaned into the air, but only the leisure lightness of the chimes answered back.

XXX

When no one answered the phone at Felicia's, Hutch went to the precinct to see if she was working.

"Have you seen her?" he asked Captain Dobey.

"No. She hasn't asked for a day off since she started. What do you think happened to the two of them?"

"I don't know. The Torino is still at Starsky's. Her car is at her place."

"Check with Huggy. Maybe he talked to them."

XXX

"You'll be here as long as my brother is in jail. For each day he's there, you're here."

But Starsky didn't hear her, and to keep his body and brain sluggish, she stuck a syringe into his thigh and discharged the contents.

XXX

"I haven't seen 'em," Huggy said as he locked up for the night and started toward his car. "Maybe they eloped."

Hutch followed him. "I have a bad feeling, Hug. His watch, wallet, and car keys are still in his bedroom."

"What do you know about Felicia the Filly?"

"Enough to know she and Starsky are crazy about each other, and she's Cap's secretary."

"Maybe somebody's after her, and got Starsky too. Or maybe she's not who she says she is. Might want to check her out."

"Yes, Captain, I guess I'll do that to cover all my bases."

Hutch went to his car too, and drove home.

When he got there, he found a business-size envelope resting against his door, and opened

it, taking out and unfolding a type-written note.

He read it, then ran back down the stairs and jumped in his car.

XXX

"If the system cares about your life-any life at all-they'll let him go. He just did what a lot of other people wanted to do but were too cowardly. It'll be an even trade. His freedom for yours."

The drug was starting to wear off. He tried to lift his head, but it fell back.

"Help me," he groaned. "I'm hurtin' here."

She turned away from him to prepare another shot.

XXX

Captain Dobey, in robe and slippers, stood in his study and read the letter while Hutch paced and ran a hand through his hair.

A life for a life. Tony's for David's. Let Tony go and I'll let David go. You have twenty-four hours.

Dobey looked at Hutch. "I'll put all the men I can on it," he said reaching for his desk phone just as it rang.

He answered and listened, then held the receiver out to Hutch.

"It's her."

Hutch snatched it from the captain's hand.

"Felicia, please, listen to me."

XXX

"Oh my God," Hutch breathed as he and Huggy ran across Felicia's living room to where she lay on the floor. Huggy checked her other rooms for Starsky, while Hutch tried to revive her.

"Come on," he panted as he forced air into lungs that had ceased breathing thirty minutes earlier.

"No sign of Starsk," Huggy said as he came back into the room and picked up an empty prescription bottle lying near her body.

"Witch!" Hutch suddenly shouted as he grabbed her shoulders and shook her violently.

Huggy pulled him to his feet and moved him away.

"Stay cool, Hutch. You know Dobey's got boys combin' Starsky's place for evidence right now."

"He could be anywhere," Hutch panted. "Dead, alive, we don't know."

Huggy handed him Felicia's shoulder bag. "Look through that. I'll check her car."

Hutch searched her bag, finding an address book with phone numbers.

Upon searching her car parked outside, Huggy found her cosmetic case full of drugs and paraphernalia-pills, liquids, syringes, vials.

"Secretary my ass," he said showing the case to Hutch.

"His headaches," Hutch said sorting through some identification in her change purse. "I think she was giving him something. She was a pharmacist."

XXX

Captain Dobey sat in the television news studio and spoke into the camera.

"A substantial award is being offered to anyone with information leading to the location of Detective David Starsky. If you know of his whereabouts, you're urged to call the number on the screen. He was last seen with this woman, Felicia Monroe, sister of convicted murderer Anthony Monroe, who was sentenced last week for the murder of Judge Michael Wallingford…"

XXX

At a corner payphone, Hutch stood with the receiver to his ear while Huggy watched the passing traffic and incessantly snapped his fingers at his sides.

"Detective Hutchinson," the frail elderly female voice said into his ear, "I don't know why you call me. I'm eighty-five years old and I have a heart condition."

"I'm sorry, Mrs. Monroe. I need your help."

"My help? I'm the one who needs help. My son was put to death by the courts, my grandson is in a federal penitentiary for a crime on that judge he didn't commit, and now my granddaughter is dead. I was too sick to go to her funeral. I'm grieving for my losses, and it's all because of the police. I don't have one good reason to help you, not one kind word for you." Hutch closed his eyes, hand tightening desperately around the receiver.

"Please. I'm begging you. I know it won't bring Felicia back, or get Tony out of jail, but if you can tell me anything about where she might have taken my partner..." He licked his lips, waiting with held breath.

When the soft click came in his ear, he lowered to a crouch and put his head down.

Huggy caught the receiver and pushed Hutch to his feet.

"Take a walk, Hutch."

Hutch trudged down the street, and Huggy dialed the woman again.

XXX

Hutch and Huggy ran past an old, faded "Monroe Furniture" sign propped against the wall of the loft.

Years of dust coated the walls, floor, blackened windows, and the few wind chimes that dangled from the rafters.

"Starsky!"

Their shoes made pounding noises as they ran across the wooden floor.

Starsky's fever-flushed face told them that he was still alive.

"Starsk!"

When Hutch took the blindfold off, Starsky's eyes rolled back.

Huggy reached up with a switchblade to cut the leather straps that held his wrists, seeing the bloodstains on the leather straps from where he had struggled during rare moments of lucidity.

"Hey," Hutch said cupping the back of his head and lifting it. "You see me? It's okay now."

There was no response from Starsky.

Huggy sliced through the straps and Hutch caught his partner under the arms, holding him against his chest, his whispers harsh sobs in his throat.

"Drugged. Dehydrated."

Huggy kicked the radiator until it tore loose from the floor.

Hutch sobbed into Starsky's hair. "She went to off herself knowing he would die here."

Huggy stroked Hutch's hair, his own voice tearful and wavering. "I hear you, man. I don't know whether to feel good or feel bad."

Starsky moaned against Hutch's shoulder, and Huggy carefully picked up one of his

swollen, discolored wrists to look at it.

"Let's get him to a hospital, Hutch."

Keeping one arm around him, Hutch slid the other under his knees and carried him across the loft.

Huggy hurried to open the doors.

XXX

Hutch spoke into the mike as he drove his car toward the hospital.

"Cap, he's in bad shape, but we found him. We're on our way to Memorial."

In the backseat, Huggy draped his jacket around Starsky, then pulled his drooping head onto his shoulder.

"Can't," Starsky mumbled. "Can't get down."

"We got you down," Huggy said.

Starsky's arms lay as if lifeless in his lap, Huggy gingerly picked up his bruised left wrist and let it rest in his hand.

"Bad scene, my boy," he whispered. "Bad scene."

"Hutch?"

Keeping his eyes on the street, Hutch reached into the backseat and squeezed his knee.

"Right here, Starsk."

"Can't move."

"You'll be able to soon. The doctors will take good care of you."

"Birds and bells."

Hutch smiled a little. "I think those were wind chimes." "Thought I was dead."

"Me too. But you'll be okay. You're with us now."

Starsky grew silent as he went to sleep. Hutch and Huggy exchanged a look in the rearview mirror.

"What did you tell that old lady, Huggy?"

Huggy's arm pulled Starsky even closer. "Told that old biddy I'd cut her up and put her in my freezer if she didn't start naming some places."

Huggy looked out the car window, sniffed, then swiped quickly at his eyes.

XXX

Two days later Starsky was able to look at Hutch from his hospital bed with clear eyes and a small smile.

"Thanks for gettin me out of there."

Hutch touched his shoulder. "You don't have to thank me for saving your life."

XXX

Two weeks later Starsky was back at home, and Hutch visited once a day.

"Starsk? You want that pizza now?"

When Starsky didn't answer, Hutch carried the pizza with paper plates and napkins on top into the living room, finding him asleep on the sofa, noting how he held his wrists crossed protectively against his chest.

"Hey," Hutch said putting the meal on the coffee table and patting his arm, "you want some pizza?"

Starsky's eyes came open and he blinked at him.

"Hey, Hutch."

"Hey yourself. You okay?"

Starsky sat up and rubbed his face. "Yeah, I guess. Weird dream."

Hutch put two slices of pizza on a plate and handed it to him. "This'll fatten you up, Gordo."

"You too."

Hutch saw the plate tremble in his hands.

"All right?"

Starsky took a bite of pizza. "Fine."

"You've come a long way."

"Yeah, I know."

XXX

Two months later Starsky and Hutch were coming out of the police station when a pretty blonde with gray eyes approached them.

"Excuse me, " she said opening a briefcase of perfume and cologne. "Would you be interested in a sample of our new men's cologne? It's called Babe?"

Both detectives reached inside for a sample.

"Wow," Starsky told her as he patted some cologne on his face. "I feel like a babe already."

Hutch waved an offended hand in front of his face. "Good grief! That's enough to kill an elephant!"

She smiled at Starsky. "Would you be interested in a bottle?"

He smiled back. "I'd be interested in taking you to lunch."

End

:::::::::::::::

Brenya

By TLR

Starsky walked Hutch and Julie to the door. As usual, they were the last ones to leave one of his get-togethers.

She turned and gave him a quick hug.

"Thanks, Dave, I had a good time."

Hutch yawned. "Spinach dip was great. See you in the morning." Starsky watched the two of them kiss in the doorway.

"They got hotels for that kind of thing," Starsky said.

Hutch laughed and slipped an arm around Julie's waist as they started down the steps.

Starsky closed the door, then turned and surveyed the party debris.

"Thanks, Hutch," he grumbled as he began to pick up the discarded glasses and plates, noticing that Hutch had left his wallet on the coffee table.

"Hey!" he shouted as he ran with the wallet to the door and opened it.

But Hutch's car was already gone.

"Oh well," he said as he himself began to yawn.

He would give it to him in the morning.

XXX

The truck driver's head bounced up and down as he fought sleep, so he rolled his window down and turned up his music to help keep himself awake.

But it was only a temporary solution. The lines passing on the road and the swiping of the wipers had a hypnotic effect on him, and his eyes grew heavy again.

XXX

He thought the ringing of the phone was part of a dream, but when it didn't stop, he somehow pulled his fuzzy brain from the depths of sleep and fumbled for the receiver.

The bedside clock read 3:00 a.m.

"'lo?" he mumbled into the phone.

"Starsky, are you awake?"

Captain Dobey's voice.

Starsky sighed sleepily into the receiver. "I am now."

"I'm at Memorial. Hutch and Julie were in an accident."

Starsky dropped the receiver and stumbled from the bed, trying to find his clothes.

XXX

Captain Dobey watched a rumpled, unshaven Starsky walk toward him, shirt buttoned crookedly, one side of his shirt tucked in, the other hanging out.

The only part of him that looked awake was his eyes, alert with fear and love.

"Where is he?" he asked moving past Dobey to go to the emergency room.

Dobey took his arm and pulled him back.

"He's gone."

Starsky's shoulder slumped against the wall, sliding downward.

"He didn't make it?"

Dobey put his hands under Starsky's arms to lift him upright.

"I mean he isn't here. Julie's in the emergency room. The truck driver said he saw Hutch walking away from the crash."

"Walking away? He must be hurt or disoriented. He just wouldn't leave like that."

"I put out an APB. We'll find him. He'll come here to see about Julie, or call you. He's evidently in need of medical treatment."

Starsky looked around in a daze.

"Cap, will you stay here in case he shows up? I gotta go see if I can find him."

"Go ahead. I'll be here for a while. Call Huggy and take him with you."

XXX

The rain had stopped.

Starsky and Huggy walked around the twisted remains of Hutch's car.

"Truck driver said he took off that way," Starsky said pointing. "Said he woulda stopped him if Julie hadn't been trapped in the car and needed his help."

"Let's keep looking," Huggy said. "He has to be out here somewhere."

XXX

A doctor was speaking with Captain Dobey when Starsky returned to the hospital with Huggy hours later. The two of them had combed the area of the crash by car and on foot, going door to door and asking the neighborhood if they had seen a man matching Hutch's description, and no one had.

"Hutch here?" Starsky asked them.

Dobey moved his head no. He looked exhausted too.

"The young lady may not survive," the doctor told Starsky. "She suffered traumatic head injuries. If she regains consciousness in the next twenty-four hours, she may have a chance."

"Can I see her?" Starsky asked.

"Are you family?"

"She doesn't have any. I'm a friend."

The doctor looked at Dobey, then nodded.

XXX

Starsky stood in ICU. The young woman in the bed looked nothing like the one who had left his home the night before.

Hutch had met her six months ago during a trial. She was a legal assistant, and they shared a love for music and art.

She was the topic of at least one conversation a day in the squad room or Torino, and Starsky found Hutch buying jewelry, flowers, and cards for her.

They seemed like old friends, and the ease with which they talked and dated spoke of a promising, lasting bond.

"Hey."

Starsky turned, hoping to see Hutch, but it was Huggy coming to stand next to him to grieve too the terrible sight of her head swathed in bandages, her swollen, disfigured face, and the ever-present tubes and machines.

"I don't see her makin' it," Huggy sighed.

"Yeah, but I guess anything's possible."

XXX

Starsky and Huggy drove the streets for the next three days, asking, searching, hoping for any sign of Hutch.

"A dude just can't disappear off the face of the earth," Huggy said when he parked his car in front of the police station. "Unless…"

Starsky stared out the windshield. "I don't want to think about it."

"Me neither, but it's the only explanation that fits. You know and I know Hutch would come back if he could."

"It's too soon to give up, Hug. He wouldn't stop lookin' for me, or you."

XXX

Starsky and Huggy watched Dobey sit at his desk and scrub his tired face with tired hands.

"I've called hospitals, I've called morgues, I've called missions, I've called bus stations, jails, cab companies; I've put it on the radio, TV, in the newspapers. I don't know what else I can do."

"Go home, Cap," Starsky said gently. "Get some rest. Huggy and I will keep looking."

Dobey reached for the phone. "I can't."

XXX

In the following days, Starsky was on the phone or on the street looking for Hutch without Huggy.

He stopped only to eat, shower, sleep a couple of hours, and then he was back searching again.

XXX

"I can't keep lookin'," Huggy said as he held to Diane with exhausted arms. "It'll only hurt Starsk."

"I know, baby," she said as she held the back of his head.

"He's got to give it up. Me out there with him every day, it's just givin' him false hope." She felt him breaking apart on her shoulder, and squeezed him tighter. His voice cracked with a heartbreaking sound. "Guess Hutchie's gone for good."

XXX

"How is she?" Starsky asked the doctor on a payphone.

"Still in a coma. No brain activity. The machines are keeping her alive." "So what's that mean for her?"

"She has a living will. Her wishes were to not remain on life support. We're still trying to locate

some family, as a courtesy should they want to pay her a visit, so we won't be removing her just yet. We held out for Ken to return, but now that looks out of the question."

"He could still show up."

The doctor's silence told Starsky he had no belief in that happening.

XXX

Dobey pulled Starsky aside in the hallway of the precinct. "I want to find Hutch as much as you do, but we may have to face the facts."

"No way. No body, no death."

"I'd like to believe that, but Starsky, you know as well as I do that people go missing and die all the time and are never found. Finding his remains would end it, but we may have to end it without them."

Remains.

The word nauseated Starsky.

"You look for remains," Starsky said nudging him out of the way and going toward the exit. "I'll look for him alive."

XXX

Dobey observed his hunt with concern, and saw that it had changed his countenance-and not just physically. Not only was his partner lost, a piece of his soul appeared to be lost too.

XXX

Starsky picked up a legal pad from Hutch's coffee table and saw what appeared to be lyrics for a song that he had written. The title, "Julie" was scrawled across the top in Hutch's handwriting.

Two lives.

Two spirits gone from the world.

Tears blurred his vision, making it impossible to read the end of the song.

"I know," Huggy's voice said behind him. "I miss him too."

Starsky turned and collapsed heavily onto his shoulder.

Huggy enveloped him in a fierce, protective hug.

XXX

Starsky sat down in a leather chair across from the doctor's desk, looking at the large white envelope in his hands. He could guess why the doctor called for him. They were going to remove life support from Julie. Since she had no family, Starsky wanted to be here with her in her last moments, and the doctor allowed it. The thought of her dying alone…of Hutch dying alone…he couldn't be with his partner at his death, but he could be with someone his partner had adored.

"Did Ken have family, Dave?"

"Did have. His father died three years ago. Mother last year. I thought this was about Julie?"

"Any siblings?"

"No. What do you want to know that for?"

"Something's come up with Julie that involves Ken. Or I should say, any living relatives he may have."

"There aren't any."

"Well then." The doctor opened the envelope and took out lab reports and sonograms. "No family on either side to notify that she's pregnant, and is at least three months along."

XXX

"What are they gonna do?" Huggy asked as he and Starsky packed Hutch's belongings into boxes.

"I'm meeting with Julie's attorney."

XXX

Six months later...

Starsky had never felt so alone and sad as he stood in the hospital corridor watching the C-section through the glass window.

Julie would never hold her baby in her arms, Hutch would never know he had a child.

"Poor kid," Huggy said, as if to echo Starsky's thoughts. "It'll be an orphan."

"No he won't," Starsky whispered into the pane as the doctor lifted a male infant from her body.

"He'll have me."

The doctor turned Starsky's way to show him the baby, and both scrambled to be first through the doorway, their sorrow turning to tears of happiness.

XXX

Tears stood in Captain Dobey and Edith's eyes as they watched Starsky, dressed in hospital attire, rocking the swaddled baby in his arms in a cozy area of the pediatric ward.

He hummed a soft lullaby and stroked the baby's tender head. A diaper bag was on the floor next to the rocker, an empty formula bottle on a nearby table where he had fed the child.

"Boy have a name yet?" Dobey asked.

"Benjamin," Starsky said kissing the baby's cheek. "It means 'Son of my right hand'."

XXX

Huggy and Diane were opening business for the day when Starsky came in carrying the baby in one arm. From his shoulder hung a diaper bag.

Diane nudged Huggy as Starsky showed the newborn all around the bar and grill, pointing everything out and calling it by name.

"Starsky, baby," Diane said, "do you really plan on bringing that baby up all by yourself? You don't even have a pet."

Starsky smiled. "I got a turtle."

"Seriously," she said.

"Seriously," he said walking over to the bar. "There's no way I'm lettin' this little angel out of my life."

XXX

As planned, Starsky was with Julie when life support was withdrawn. With one hand he held hers, and in the other he held Benjamin, saying a silent prayer for them both.

XXX

While Starsky had been known to sleep through a ringing phone or buzzing clock, he was out of the bed at the first sound of the baby's cry, sometimes making a bottle of formula half asleep, sometimes reading to him at three in the morning, but always trying his best to be there when he needed him.

XXX

"You're not supposed to let them sleep with you," Edith said one morning as she came by to bring a gift bag for the baby. "It spoils them."

Starsky lay propped up on one elbow in the bed, tugging on a rattle in the baby's hand.

"It's easier this way. If he cries, I'm right here. I don't like leavin' him in the crib all by himself."

Edith smiled. "You're a good daddy, David. He's a lucky baby."

The baby cooed as if to agree.

Three months later Starsky held a memorial service for both Julie and Hutch.

It was a large gathering, attended by all of their friends and acquaintances, including her colleagues at the courthouse and his fellow officers. Starsky sat in a black suit in the front row with the baby on his lap, and even though the occasion was sad, with a lot of tears and a lot of memories, Starsky felt a sense of new hope and happiness when he looked into the blue eyes of his son.

When he stood up to speak of Hutch, he held the baby in his arms, who tugged Starsky's tie in one pudgy fist.

"Benjamin H. Starsky," he said with a tearful smile. "A bright flame on a dark night. God's gift. I'll take good care of him, Hutch."

Those words ended the service. Everyone approached Starsky, surrounding him with warmth, love, and smiles for the baby.

XXX

Huggy walked into Starsky's house and ruffled the hair of the three-year-old, who was coloring in a book at the coffee table.

"Hey, little blondie, how's it goin'?"

"Cool," he said holding up the coloring book. "Look at my picture."

"Michelangelo!"

"What?"

"Actually it looks more like Picasso. You know, outside the lines?"

"Oh."

"Where's big daddy?"

"Benji!" Starsky's voice roared from the other room. "What'd I tell you about leavin' your toys on the floor!"

"Uh oh," the boy said.

Huggy picked him up and carried him to his room. "Uh oh is right. Get in here and clean 'em

up. A man's home is his castle, and pretty ladies don't want to come into a messy castle, you

dig?"

"I dig."

Huggy set the boy on his feet, then helped pick up toys and toss them into a big toy box that looked like a caboose.

Starsky was folding the boy's clothes.

"We gotta get you some new threads, Ben, you're growin' outa all of these."

"I know, Daddy, my pants are too short."

Huggy closed the door of the toy box. "Your legs are too long."

Starsky picked up the stack of small clothes and handed them to Benjamin. "Find a bag and we'll donate 'em somewhere, then we'll go get you some new ones. Want to come, Hug?"

"Nah, I think I'll sit this one out. I just came by to see if Dobey has anybody lookin' into Regina's story."

"Regina? I don't know a Regina. Who is she?"

"Friend of mine. Guess Dobey didn't tell you, or didn't think it was important enough to look into."

"Well, tell me, and I'll talk to him."

"She was r-a-p-e-d two weeks ago. Dude that did it's in some kind of charity organization that supposedly helps people. They were both members. She got involved wantin' to help somebody out, but he hurt her instead, man, and nobody's gettin' that guy. He's still doin' his thing every day with the folks like nothin' happened. She's at my place till she can get her head together. She's scared to death."

Benjamin looked up at Starsky.

"Are you gonna help Huggy's scared friend, Daddy?"

"Yeah," he said picking the boy up. "Right after we get your clothes."

XXX

Starsky drove from the department store while Benjamin looked into his bag of new clothes.

"What's your favorite?" Starsky asked him.

"My shoes," he said wiggling the new ones that sported dinosaurs on the sides.

"Wouldn't mind havin' a pair of those myself."

"You gonna help that lady now?"

"Yeah, we'll stop by Cap's so I can talk to him about her, and you can play with Rosie."

"She's too big to play with."

"Well I know Edith probably has somethin' good to eat."

"Yeah, like apple pie maybe."

The boy looked out the window at kids playing in the park, neither he nor Starsky seeing the truck that ran the red light and hit them.

Both Starsky and the boy were thrown forward into the windshield.

The driver of the truck jumped out and hurried to the car.

"Hey, fella, my brakes are bad, they-"

Starsky looked dazed but unharmed, but the boy was lying in the seat and bleeding from a gash in the top of his head.

Starsky grabbed him up. "Ben!"

With the Torino unable to start, Starsky tumbled out of the driver's side with the boy in his arms and ran with him down the sidewalk toward the hospital, panting, "Baby, I'm sorry, I'm sorry," as he pressed his hand against the bleeding scalp.

XXX

Benjamin looked small and pale on the examining table, and he cried out loud when the doctor came in to stitch the cut in his head.

"Daddy!"

Starsky picked him up, sat on the table, and held him on his lap.

"He'll be all right," the doctor told him. "It looks worse than it really is."

"So you say. He's just a baby." Starsky cupped the back of the boy's head. "Let him do what he has to do, Ben. Be a big boy. I'm right here."

Benjamin clutched Starsky's hand and squeezed his eyes closed as the doctor began to sew, but a long squeal of pain still escaped him.

XXX

Edith Dobey stepped inside Starsky's house, bringing an apple pie and a stuffed lion with her.

"Hello," she sang softly. "House call."

Starsky was sitting in one corner of the sofa watching a nature program on TV, Benjamin propped drowsily against his chest.

Starsky smiled at her and motioned for her to come in.

She walked over to them and stroked the boy's cheek with her finger.

"Is there a little boy here who likes apple pies and baby lions?"

Benjamin looked up at her and offered a wan smile.

"Thank you, Mrs. Dobey," he murmured sleepily as he settled his head back down on Starsky's chest, tucking the lion under his arm.

She kissed the top of Starsky's head.

"Close call, wasn't it?"

He stroked the boy's hair. "Too close."

XXX

"Don't give me that look, Huggy," Captain Dobey said as he reached for his hat and overcoat. "I assigned that investigation, and nothing has turned up so far. The man had left the group."

"Why didn't you tell me?"

"I didn't know I was supposed to report to you about the activities of my men."

"It would have been nice to know. Then I wouldn't be worryin' my fool head off about what was goin' on and thinkin' you didn't give a rat's ass."

"Is Regina with you?"

"Yes."

"Then she's safe. Let her stay with you until the investigation turns up something else." With his hat and coat on, the captain turned to him at the door. "I'll keep you posted." XXX

"You're assigning it to me?" Starsky asked Dobey at a table in Huggy's.

"Didn't you hear me? She's right upstairs, you can talk to her."

"To get Huggy off your back?"

"You can call it that. I'll call it putting a good man on the case."

XXX

"I got a phone call from a girlfriend at the center," Regina told Starsky after he invited her to his table and told her he would be investigating her case. "He hasn't been back there."

Starsky took a notepad from his pocket. "Give me name, description, automobile, everything you know about him. I'll be going to the center to talk to the people, see where he might have gone."

"He has a temper. Put that at the top of your list."

"Who was he close to there?"

"No one really. I mean we all got along. It was a nice place and everyone knows one another. But he wasn't especially close to any one person. It's not Tim Blakefield's nature."

"Who should I talk to at the center?"

"Brenya. He's everyone's mentor. He even made Tim leave the group once when he hit me."

"And he let Tim back in?"

"No. He didn't really know Tim was back until after I told him I was raped. Brenya was concerned, and said I should report it."

"Really? So Brenda's not a bad guy?"

"Not at all." She grinned. "And it's Brenya., not Brenda."

"Okay, got it."

XXX

The boy sat on top of Starsky's dresser and watched him pack a suitcase.

"Is it far away, Daddy?"

"Not really, but I could be gone a few days. You can stay with Cap and Edith."

Benjamin rubbed the top of his own head. "My head doesn't hurt now."

Starsky kissed it, and smoothed down his hair. "Good."

"Will you bring me back something'?"

"Like what?"

"Bubblegum? I'm gonna blow one as big as you are."

"Oh yeah?"

Starsky picked up Benjamin, then his suitcase, and carried both to the living room. "I'd like to see that."

XXX

The center's official name was "Community Of The People". Starsky expected to see a halfway house on a shoestring budget, but the oceanfront property resembled a vacation lodge, with living quarters, administrative office, counseling quarters, library, a cafeteria, auditorium, pool, a playground for youngsters, and other creature comforts.

Starsky parked his loaner in front of the main office, got out, and knocked on the door.

An older man in a suit opened the door.

Starsky displayed his badge. "Brenya?"

"I'm sorry, no, I'm the founder, George Carlisle."

"Detective David Starsky. I'd like to ask you some questions about Tim Blakefield."

XXX

Mr. Carlisle told Starsky he would find Brenya in the auditorium speaking to community members, and asked his secretary, Sherry, to escort him there.

XXX

"He's not like a regular person," the shapely blonde said as she and Starsky crossed the grounds toward the auditorium. "I mean he is, of course, but when Brenya speaks, it's from the heart. And he listens. God uses people to do His work, and Brenya must be one of His chosen ones. He alone has grown the community members from two hundred to two thousand."

"Don't let somebody like him fool you, honey, he's just a man. God uses waitresses, garbage men, tow truck drivers, telephone operators..."

"Oh, he's not trying to fool anybody. If you knew him, I mean if you were here long enough, you would know that his intentions are pure. People come here, and they don't want to leave."

"Does this place operate on contributions?"

"Yes. From members and the outside community too. We help people, that's what I've been trying to tell you. Brenya helped us reach out to everyone. That's why we've grown. He doesn't turn anyone away."

"Or their money."

"We can't function without donations. It's our lifeblood. But you should see where the money goes, who it helps. Foster children, drug addicts, inmate families, prostitutes, runaways, everyone. We pool all of our resources for the greater good. No one is coerced into coming here or giving money. It's all free will."

"Like a commune."

"Ew, that sounds like such a hippie thing."

"So Brenya's okay?"

"Everyone loves him. He has a magnetism, charisma, it has to be God-given. I think he

has a way of healing people. Not their bodies so much, but their souls. The wounded. The ones left out or thrown away. When he holds people, and talks to them, it's just like Christ. He's all about love and forgiveness. It's what we need in the world today. That's why we would do anything for him. "

Starsky laughed. "Maybe I should take my shoes off before I meet this guy."

Sherry laughed too. "I know I sound like I'm gushing. I can't help it. Here's the door."

They stopped at the side door of the auditorium. Starsky took the handle in his hand as she turned to go back to the office.

"Hey, you interested in dinner tonight?"

"Sorry," she smiled over her shoulder. "I only date members."

He smiled back. "Where do I sign up?"

She waved to him and continued across the grounds and toward the office.

Starsky opened the door and stepped in, standing just inside to allow his eyes to adjust to the lower light.

The stage was bare, and the people in the auditorium seats were obviously waiting for a speaker as they chatted to each other or looked at their pamphlets-a mix of people- young and old and from different races and nationalities, some dressed in suits and dresses, others in jeans and T-shirts.

A door on the right-hand side of the stage opened and the audience stood to its feet and applauded when Hutch walked out to greet them. In his summery white T-shirt, unbuttoned white shirt, and loose white cotton pants, he raised his hand to them and smiled, and they gazed in awe at their earthly messiah.

Starsky slid down the wall to a sitting position and stared, mind spinning out, barely hearing Hutch's words -"If you need help, we'll help you. Bring your burdens to us."-"If you want to help someone, this is the place. Use your compassion for others."-"Clothes, food, shelter, counseling. Whatever it is. This is where your needs can be met, and where you can meet the needs of others. It's time to act instead of talk. Do instead of dream. Put your concern into action. Do something."

-or processing who he was seeing.

One step below a cult leader, Hutch. The white side of Simon Marcus.

"Thank you for being here," Hutch said to the crowd, and looked over at Starsky. "Even the newcome-?" He stumbled back on the stage, hand over his heart-"Starsky?"-the

audience members rushing forward to help him, calling, "Brenya! Brenya!"

Starsky climbed to his feet and jumped up on the stage.

An older man who was helping Hutch sit up said, "Somebody! Get him a drink of water!"

A woman in a flowered dress went to get one.

Starsky pushed through the bodies until he found Hutch, who looked disoriented and on the verge of passing out, or on the verge of a heart attack. Starsky grabbed his shirt and shook him, patting his face.

"Hutch! It's okay, you're alive. You wandered away from the accident with amnesia. Are you with me? You listening? When you saw me…it triggered your memory." He pulled his badge and held it up. "Everybody clear out. Now."

The audience murmured but no one moved.

"NOW!"

With reluctant looks over their shoulders, everyone moved off the stage and started for an exit.

Hutch groaned.

"Brenya!" a young security guard shouted as he ran down to the stage pulling a baton from his side.

Starsky pulled his gun.

"Don't move."

The guard stopped and raised his hands.

Starsky patted Hutch's white face.

"Come on, boy, don't pass out on me, talk to me. Stay with me."

Hutch moaned and raised his head. "Starsk?"

"That's it," Starsky said helping him to sit up. "It's gonna be okay. You're gonna be all right."

XXX

Hutch slept in the back seat of Starsky's car while Starsky drove and spoke on the car phone to Captain Dobey:

"George Carlisle said some of his people found him in the street that night, saw him banged up and thought he'd been mugged. They took him in, fed him, nursed him back to health, and he liked it so much he stayed. He didn't know who he was or where he was from, so they gave him a name and a job. He didn't know anything about his old life, so he started a new one with them."

"Have you talked to him about Julie and Benji?"

Starsky looked in the rearview mirror at Hutch.

"No, haven't had a chance. He's sleepin' like a baby. And actually, I don't know what to say or how to tell him, or how Benji's gonna feel."

XXX

"You said Julie and I were in an accident," Hutch said as he sat up in the backseat two hours later. "I do recall leaving your place, but after that…I don't remember the crash, but how is she now?"

"It's been three years, Hutch."

"Yeah, I know it's been three years, so how is she, did she move away or marry somebody? She must have moved on, because you haven't said anything about her except that she was in the car."

Starsky pulled the car over and turned halfway in his seat.

Hutch sat looking angry, lost, and confused, caught between two worlds and two lives, trying to sort out what happened in both.

"Listen to me, buddy. She didn't make-"

Slowly Hutch moved his head from side to side. "No."

"She hung on in the hospital for as long as she-"

"No."

"She was in an irreversible coma, and her wishes were to not live in that condi-"

"No!"

Hutch shoved the back door open and spilled out, trudging down the street, arm across a stomach that hurt from wrenching sobs.

Starsky jumped out after him, grabbing him from behind in a hug.

"I know you loved her, and you coulda had a life together, and I'm sorry she was taken from you."

Hutch couldn't speak. Doubled over, he could only move his head back and forth.

"I know it won't bring her back, Hutch, or make losing her okay, but she was carrying your baby inside of her. You have a beautiful little boy who calls me Daddy."

Starsky's voice broke with a sob.

Hutch sank lower to his knees, and Starsky went with him, holding him until Hutch turned into his arms and cried into his shoulder.

XXX

On the way home they stopped at the cemetery.

Hutch stood looking down at the gravestone that bore his name, and the one beside it, which bore Julie's.

"She was a good person," he whispered.

Starsky nodded. "Yeah, she was. A part of her will live on in Benji, just like part of you lives in him."

"Thank you for being there for him, Starsk."

"Are you kidding me? I thought you were dead, gone forever, and then God looked down and said, 'I know just what you need'. He's my whole life, Hutch. "

XXX

His closest friends were waiting for him at Starsky's house-Captain Dobey, Edith, Cal, Rosie, Kiko, and Huggy and Diane. They all hugged him and wiped their eyes, sharing tears and conversation and photographs. Huggy poured wine and passed around glasses.

Benjamin came from his bedroom carrying his stuffed lion.

"Daddy, did you get to help the lady?"

"Still workin' on it," Starsky said picking him up. "But I did bring somebody who wants to meet you."

Hutch smiled tearfully as he put his hand out to Benjamin, his eyes taking him in from head to toe, seeing Julie, seeing himself, seeing Starsky.

"Ken Hutchinson."

"Hutchinson! Hey, that's my middle name!"

"It's nice to meet you. I'm your daddy's best friend."

The boy hooked an arm around Starsky's neck. "I am too."

The room glowed with warm laughter, and Starsky pulled a pack of bubblegum from his pocket. "Show me that big bubble you were talkin' about."

End

:::::::::::::::

Effigy

By TLR

The girl in torn dress and scraped knees cowered in the alley, nose runny and mascara smeared.

"You're broken," a kind voice said above her. "Let me heal you. My name is Angel."

She looked up at the eighteen-year-old with the long black ponytail and goatee as he knelt in front of her and enfolded her into his arms.

"I don't have any parents," she sniffed. "I ran away from my uncle."

"Sshh. I know. You've been on the streets for weeks, no place to lay your head, and now this. Everything will be different now, Pearl."

She looked up into his black velvet eyes.

"How did you know my name?"

XXX

Captain Dobey paced in his office, phone in one hand, receiver in the other.

"Hutchinson, where is that partner of yours?"

"Do you know anything about the birds and the bees, Cap?"

Tolerant, Dobey closed his eyes. "Yes, Hutch."

"Well, Starsky's busy being a bee right now with a pretty little bird named Heather. Why? You need to get in touch with him?"

"I want to tell him the news. Simon Marcus is dead. He was beaten to death in jail by his fellow inmates last night."

"I'll be happy to pass that on."

XXX

Hutch hung up, then picked up his jacket on his way to the door.

XXX

Pearl knelt in the cave at the foot of the chair hewn from stone, her head in Angel's lap as she clung to his waist.

Eleven young men gathered around Angel, stroking his hair, massaging his shoulders, comforting him.

"We grieve too," one of them said opening a small bottle of scented oil and marking a small upside down cross on Angel's forehead.

Angel closed his eyes, his head tilting back to absorb the essence.

"The police officer has to pay for his death."

XXX

Hutch bounded up the stairs to Starsky's house and knocked. "Hey, Starsk! Good news!"

He waited for an answer, but none came back.

He knocked a second time.

"Hey, busy bee!"

XXX

Starsky and Heather sat on a picnic blanket under a tree in the park. The freckled redhead took food from a hamper while he browsed through her music cassette collection.

"I like this one," he said reaching for the tape player.

Eleven youths clambered from a van, ran over to them, slit Heather's throat with a knife, and

swung a baseball bat across Starsky's head.

He fell to his side in the grass, and four of the eleven, taking an arm or a leg, carried him to the van, tossed him in, and drove away.

It was broad daylight but no one noticed. Children on the jungle gym were busy playing. A teenage couple necked on a bench, and two businessmen were in a heated argument over a missed conference.

XXX

"One of the kids found her when he ran over to get his ball," Captain Dobey said to Hutch as officers isolated the picnic area with yellow crime scene ribbon.

Hutch watched the police photographer snap pictures of Heather's bloody throat and the wide bloodstain that was on the blanket and splashed across the basket of food and tape player.

A detective approached them. "Hutch, did you ever see any heated arguments between them?"

Hutch grabbed for the man's collar but Dobey pulled him back.

"You know we have to cover these questions, Hutch. She's dead, Starsky isn't here, and it can't look like we're not addressing all possibilities."

"Somebody grabbed him," Hutch said to Dobey and the detective. "That's why he isn't here."

Hutch turned away on rubbery legs to go to his car.

It could be anyone.

We have a lot of enemies.

We get death threats all the time.

But only a few are actually acted upon.

Hutch turned and walked back to Dobey.

"Marcus leave any loyal followers behind?"

"Look into it."

XXX

Angel sat in his throne-like chair and watched two of the eleven young men bring a

fighting, struggling Starsky into the cave. The other nine followed close behind.

"Bring him here."

They held him in front of the chai.

Panting, trying to stand, Starsky raised his bleeding head to look at the young man. His hands were tied behind his back.

"He fathered many sons before you took him away from me," Angel said. "Miracle. Ash. Leaf. Cassia. Willow. Stone. Moon. Star. Dream. Sun. Sky. I'm the oldest. I carry on my father's work of justice, fairness, equality, and helping others."

Starsky spat on the ground next to the chair. "Your father knows nothin' about those things."

Miracle grabbed his hair and jerked his head.

Starsky gazed at Angel through glazed but burning eyes. "Now you can be in jail right along with him."

"He died last night."

"Good."

"It's your fault. If you hadn't put him away… he'll speak through me now. I'll do his will. We both want you dead. You'll die here in your prison like he died in his."

Starsky saw a group of waiflike girls on their knees, praying with clasped hands and gently rocking.

"You prayin' to him?" Starsky asked in their direction as he tried to remain upright. He strained against their grip and the ropes, but two others joined in holding him still.

The girls didn't respond, they continued to rock and pray.

"You don't need him," Starsky continued. "I know girls like you."

He saw other teenagers, boys, sitting cross-legged on the ground, whispering prayers into

folded hands.

"Boys like you. Adults like you. Looking for someone to lead you. You need someone to follow, show you what to do, how to feel, the way to act, what to think. Trust in him, huh? He gonna take you to heaven if you do everything he says?"

Leaf slapped him, rocking his head back, but it didn't stop him.

"He's not holy. He's a killer. They choose who lives and dies. They make their own laws, decide what's fair, just, and right. Vigilantes. And all of you are lost sheep he's leading astray. Question him. Judge him. Challenge him. He's not light, he's a lie."

Angel came off of his throne with hateful black eyes, grabbed Starsky's hair in one fist and dragged him over to the edge of a stone pool of water in the ground.

"I'm your god now!" Angel roared at him as he forced Starsky forward and down until his head was under the water. "I've got your life in my hands! I say when and how and where you die! But you're going to suffer first, for what you did to him! Do you hear me?"

Starsky struggled at first, but then his movements gradually slowed until he was limp; the water in the pool still.

Angel pulled his head from the water.

"Revive him," he said as he stepped away from them.

His brothers dropped Starsky on the ground, turned him over, and Miracle began mouth to mouth resuscitation.

Angel watched until Starsky coughed out water, gasped, and rolled onto his side, then said, "Drown him again."

XXX

Hutch and Huggy sat across from each other in a booth at the back of the bar, which Huggy had closed hours before.

"Most of those junk followers went their own ways after he went inside," Huggy said as he watched Hutch folding and unfolding a gum wrapper between his fingers. "The ones that weren't locked up with him anyway."

"Cut off the head of the serpent, the rest dies?"

"Yeah. But the dude had a lot of women, and he had a lot of kids. I couldn't track any of them down. Most of them had phony names. The only one who could've told us anything, the big man himself, can't, 'cause he's in the great beyond."

"Burning in hell I hope." Hutch ran a hand down his face. "How are we going to find them?"

XXX

He held his arms as he trudged down the street looking for a fix, pulling on arms, purses, jacket pockets, anyone.

"Money," he said holding out his dirty hand. "I need some help."

He was shoved away, knocked down, refused, ignored.

Willow and Stone came up alongside him.

"Come with us," Willow told him. "We'll help you."

The boy smiled with relief and gratitude as they continued down the street.

XXX

Starsky sat in Angel's throne, wrists, ankles and waist lashed to it, Angel's arm locked around his throat, squeezing hard.

A group of teenagers sat on smooth, flat stones some distance away, repeating "Angel" in a low mantra-like unison.

"I don't like what you said to the children."

Starsky stiffened as his breath was cut off.

"Now," Angel said with a glance to Moon.

Moon stepped up to the stone chair and pushed a syringe containing a tranquilizer into Starsky's arm, which made his body begin to go limber under Angel's constricting arm.

Angel leaned down to whisper in his ear. "Haven't you ever wanted to take the law into your own hands? Right a wrong? Help the weak? Make someone feel better? That's all we're doing. My father will reward me."

A faint moan passed Starsky's lips, an effort to speak, but the words were not audible.

Angel shoved his head back down and looked at Moon.

"Keep him tranquilized."

Moon nodded, then watched Angel as he walked over to the group of teenagers and placed his hands on each one of their heads.

XXX

Hutch stepped up to the freshly-dug grave of Simon Marcus-Who will come to your burial? Will anyone? Who will I see?-a cry escaping him when a hand reached out of the hole and clutchedhis ankle.

He fell backward and tried to scramble away, but one arm, and then two, dragged him down into the grave with him.

XXX

Huggy clutched Hutch's shoulders and shook him.

"Wake up, man! You're wiggin' out on me!"

Hutch startled, flinching and gasping against the passenger door of Huggy's car, then looked around and saw that they were still parked on the hill overlooking Marcus' gravesite.

"I fell asleep?"

"If that's what you want to call it. You were flippin' out."

Hutch leaned forward with a hand to his forehead, trying to catch his breath.

"We both better get some Z's," Huggy said starting his car. "We'll need it for the funeral tomorrow. Don't forget to wear a suit."

Hutch laughed nervously.

Huggy looked into his rearview mirror. "Think anybody will show up?"

"I don't know," Hutch said, trying to control a shudder. "But I'll be there if they do."

XXX

Sun and Star sat in the branches of the tree and watched Huggy's car drive away.

XXX

"Has anyone been by to view the body?" Hutch asked the funeral director.

She put an arrangement of flowers on a stand near a casket on display in one of the back rooms.

"Not yet."

"Any flowers sent for him? Cards? Anything?"

"Not so far."

An assistant poked her head in the doorway.

"Susan, someone just came in. The Thomases."

Susan nodded, then looked at Hutch. "I have to see to the family."

"Sure."

After Susan and the assistant disappeared from the doorway, Hutch looked around, seeing a couple of doors that led to other viewing areas, and a hallway that led back to several rooms marked "Employees Only."

With a slow-moving classical arrangement playing in the background, he made his way down the hall, past two of the rooms, and opened the door to the third, where Simon Marcus lay on a table in a body bag.

Reunited.

Why do you come even now, Hutchinson?

What mystical bond do we share?

Your partner will always link us together.

Gasping, Hutch closed the door and turned around, walking in jerky strides down the hall and toward the front door.

Susan was consoling the elderly couple at the front door.

"Let me know if anyone comes for Marcus," he panted to her on his way out.

XXX

Angel's followers stood together praying as Dream sliced through the twine that bound Starsky to the chair.

Angel gripped the front of his shirt, pulling the drugged, compliant man to his feet.

"My sacrifice," he breathed against Starsky's lowered head, then looked at the group. "Help me, children."

The teenagers walked over to Starsky, praying in a low chant, and picked him up.

They carried him to a stone altar and put him down.

Angel walked over to them and picked up a long knife and put the tip on Starsky's stomach.

"Now for his partner."

XXX

Hutch was coming out of the police station when a young girl no older than thirteen ran up to him and pulled on his jacket.

"You've got to come," she said with pleading eyes. "He's dying. I'm sorry. I don't want to be a part of it. He's right. Angel just wants us to do whatever he says, but I can't."

Hutch grabbed Pearl's arm and pulled her to his car. "Show me where he is."

He put her into his car on the passenger side and picked up the mike. "Cap, I need you, an ambulance, and a SWAT team."

XXX

Vehicles-Dobey's, Huggy's, and SWAT's-were already at the ranch when Hutch's car slid to a halt in the dirt and jumped out of the car. He heard the siren of the ambulance that was on its way.

The SWAT team led a group of handcuffed teenagers from the cave as he shoved through them to go inside. Pearl huddled behind Hutch's open passenger door.

Miracle's dark eyes bore into hers as an officer escorted him past her, and she hid her face against the armrest.

"Starsk!"

Hutch pushed through more officers and teenagers until he reached the altar.

"He's alive, Hutch," Dobey said coming up behind him. "Drugged, but alive."

Two paramedics brought in a stretcher.

Hutch lifted his partner's head. "Starsk?"

"He's breathing and has a pulse," Dobey informed the medics. "They drugged him with something."

"Starsk," Hutch said in a trembling whisper as he was placed on the stretcher. "Hey."

Starsky was still unresponsive. Hutch followed the medics, who carried his partner from the cave and over to the ambulance.

Dobey and Huggy were close behind.

Hutch stalked quickly over to the first handcuffed teenager he saw-Leaf-and grabbed the front of his shirt.

"Where is he?! Which one is your wonderful leader?!"

Dobey and Huggy pulled Hutch away.

"Come on," Dobey told him as he moved in front of him to block his way. "You don't need a brutality charge."

"BRUTALITY?!"

The medics lifted Starsky into the back of the ambulance.

"Go," Huggy said pushing Hutch toward the vehicle. "Go with him."

XXX

Hutch paced in the hallway just around the corner from the emergency room, eyes red, cheeks wet, waiting to hear Starsky say something, yell something, mumble something. He wanted to

hear anything but his silence beneath the sound of the doctors and nurses tending to him.

"How is he?" a voice asked behind him.

Hutch turned, pressing the heels of his hand into his eyes. "Hey, Hug."

"Well?"

"I uh… I don't know. They're trying to figure out the drug. I should have moved faster on the family, I should've-"

Huggy nudged his shoulder. "You did what you could with what you had."

"What's Cap doing?"

"Tryin' to get the kids to talk before their lawyers get there."

"What about Angel?"

"Still at large."

"He still may show up at his father's funeral, but I'm not leaving Starsky to find out. Cap will have to send somebody."

"I'll go."

Hutch smiled with affection and amusement. "You don't have to."

"No foolin'. Citizen's arrest. I'd be happy to get my hands on that kid."

XXX

Captain Dobey and Huggy sat in the captain's car watching the funeral of Simon Marcus. There was only one person in attendance, and that was an elderly minister.

XXX

"He's stabilized but too weak to communicate," the doctor told Hutch in the hall. "The drugs will wear off. Any lasting effects will likely be psychological. I think time will take care of most of it. You can visit him now if you want, but he'll probably sleep through the night."

XXX

"Slipped right through our fingers," Dobey said to Huggy in the car on their way back to the hospital.

"Temporarily," Huggy answered. "Somewhere down the line he's gonna form a new group. His lust for the power trip got down in his bones."

XXX

Starsky looked Hutch's way when he quietly entered the recovery room.

"Hey, Hutch."

His voice was barely audible due to the trauma to his throat. It came out in a small hoarse breath.

Hutch walked over to the bed, leaned down, and hugged him.

"Good to see you again, Starsk."

Starsky tried to hug him back, but his arms fell heavily away and back to the bed.

"Heather make it?"

Hutch traced his finger along the bedrail. "No."

Starsky tried to smile. "Glad you're here. Had my fill of freaks."

"Me too. We got all but one."

Starsky's eyes darted fearfully to him and his fingers grasped at the sheet at his sides. "Angel?"

Hutch crouched next to the bed so that he could be eyelevel with him.

"Not yet. But I'm not going anywhere. I hope he does show up, because I'd like to tear his head off."

XXX

Hutch was getting coffee in the vending area of the hospital when he felt a tug on his shirtsleeve.

He turned to see Pearl standing with tears in her eyes and a bouquet of flowers in her hands.

"I'm sorry, Mr. Hutchinson. I didn't mean to get involved with those people."

He touched one of the flowers in the bouquet. "The important thing is that you helped Starsky. You saved his life, you know that?"

She smiled. "Do you think I could visit him and give him these flowers?"

"I'll tell him you want to visit him, and see what he says. But I will give him the flowers and make sure he knows they're from you."

"Okay, I understand."

XXX

When Hutch returned to Starsky's room with two coffees, he nodded to the uniformed officer posted outside the door.

XXX

Starsky flinched when Hutch touched his shoulder. "Ready to go home?"

Starsky stepped back and buttoned the clean shirt Hutch had brought him the day before.

"Yeah, I guess."

"You guess?"

Starsky shrugged and looked down, continuing to button. "I'm scared."

Hutch looked closely at him. He set the coffees on the stand next to the bed, then squeezed his shoulder. "I know."

Starsky moved out from under his hand. "I feel like anything could happen. He got me once, twice, and he's still out there. I mean…Angel is out there. It might as well be Simon."

"I'll do all I can to help you. What can I do?"

"I couldn't ask you to do any more for me than you already have. You're a good friend, Hutch. A good person. I couldn't handle this without you. It's just somethin' I gotta deal with. "

"Let's take it one day at a time then, okay?"

The sound of the door opening made Starsky spin and grip the bedrail.

Hutch saw him tense up, and moved in front of him.

It was Dobey, bringing in a box of chocolates.

"Well," the captain said with a smile as he looked Starsky over. "How are you today?"

"Pretty good," he said.

Dobey held the candy out to him. "I'll eat them if you don't."

Starsky reached for it, both Dobey and Hutch seeing the rope burn still around his wrist.

"We got him, Starsky."

Starsky stared at his superior.

"Huh?"

"Picked him up myself. He was trolling outside the hospital." Starsky felt behind him for the bed, and Hutch helped him sit down. "That's the best news I've heard all day," Hutch said.

"Well," Starsky said with a small smile of relief as he absently rubbed his arms, "at least they won't be suckin' anymore kids into their family."

"Can't wait to get my hands on that punk," Hutch said.

Starsky clutched his arm.

"No."

Hutch sat down next to him on the bed. "Starsk…" "I mean…"

"Take it easy. He's under lock and key. Right, Cap?"

Dobey nodded.

Starsky rubbed his forehead with a thumb.

"He's got me spooked, Hutch. How'm I gonna do this?"

"You can. I think the first step, when you're ready, is to confront him." "You think that's wise?" Dobey asked. "The kid tortured him." Hutch's eyes flashed. "I know what he did."

"Yeah," Starsky said rising to his feet. "Hutch's right. I gotta face him. Maybe not today, but I will."

XXX

Angel sat calmly in the interrogation room, hands folded on the table in front of him, his eyes meeting Hutch's when he came inside.

At first Hutch said nothing; he walked around, paced around, fingers snapping nervously and impatiently, looking at the eighteen-year-old, evaluating, reading, detecting.

"You're wounded," Angel said to Hutch. "Let me lay my holy hands on you."

Hutch lunged across the table, grabbed the front of his shirt, and slammed him against the wall.

I know you, Simon Marcus.

"You nearly killed him."

"I know. And then I was going to kill you."

Hutch slammed him again.

Angel smiled, unperturbed. "The courts will say I'm sick. Do you think it's really my fault? I had Simon Marcus for a father."

XXX

Three weeks later Pearl came to see Starsky at the squad room, and she brought him a cake with pink icing.

Hutch watched with interest and concern, appearing relaxed and calm but ready to intervene at any moment. Starsky was feeling better, and the anxiety he had shown at the hospital seemed to be easing more with each passing day.

"For you, Mr. Starsky."

Sitting on his desk with his feet in the chair, he took the cake from her. "Hey, thanks. Strawberry?"

She nodded.

He tasted the icing with his finger. "Mmm."

She smiled as she watched him.

"How you doin'?" he asked her.

"Great. I live with a nice foster family and go to school every day."

"I haven't had a chance to thank you yet for goin' for help, so, thanks."

"You're welcome. You helped me too, though. You helped me see he wasn't a really good person, he just pretends to help people."

Hutch nodded.

A middle-aged couple appeared in the doorway.

"Ready to go, Pearl?"

The girl smiled at her foster parents, then waved to the detectives.

"Bye."

"Bye," they said in one voice.

After she left, Starsky looked at his partner. "Wanna help me eat this cake?"

XXX

Three months later the partners walked down the hall past a row of jail cells and stopped at the one holding Angel Marcus.

"Sure you're ready for this?" Hutch asked.

"I'm sure," Starsky replied.

A uniformed officer unlocked the door, and Starsky went inside the cell.

End

Missing

By TLR

CHAPTER 1

"You two gonna come up for air?" I asked Hutch when I found him and Gera kissing hot and heavy in my living room. "Party doesn't start for another hour."

They didn't hear me; they kept kissing.

"Uh…you can use my bedroom."

Still nothing.

Oh well. That's the way it is when you're in love.

They met at a health food store and were inseparable after that. They went out to dinner a lot, took long walks on the beach, went to jazz clubs, and he even met her folks. Everything was going fine with them. Well, until he went missing. Then everything changed.

The morning after the party I went to pick him up as usual, but he wasn't home.

"Oh boy," I thought driving over to Gera's house. "He must be serious about her."

But he wasn't at her house, and she wasn't either.

It wasn't like Hutch to take off without letting someone know, even with a girl. When you're a cop and you have a lot of heavy cases and sticky situations, you let your partner know. Hutch would let me know anyway, being best friends and all.

"Let's give it twenty-four hours," Dobey said to me in his office.

I'd called Huggy, who'd seen no sign of Hutch.

Called a couple of ladies he'd been seeing, and they hadn't heard from him in the last day or so either.

"Twenty-four?"

"That's procedure. I don't like it either, but-"

"You wait twenty-four," I said slamming his door on my way out. "I'm lookin' now."

My adrenaline was pumping now. Anything could have happened to him. And obviously to Gera too. I called her folks to see if they knew where she or the two of them might be, and they had no idea.

"Did he take her somewhere?" they asked suspiciously.

Terrific.

My partner was missing and they think he had something to do with her disappearance.

I went back to Hutch's place for a closer look, to see if I could find anything that would shed light-travel brochures, messages, receipts, mail, visitors, anything. But it was like he dropped off the planet, and Gera along with him.

"What do you know about the chick?" Huggy asked me as we sorted through files and messages on Hutch's desk at the squad rom, hoping to find something that told us he may have gone to meet somebody on a case, or was working on something I didn't know about yet.

"From a good family, as far as I can tell. I've already talked to them."

"I didn't ask you about her family, I asked you about her."

"She's okay, Hug. Into health food and new age music plus some old jazz. She doesn't have a record, I already ran a check."

Hours passed. Days passed. I drove through Hutch's neighborhood looking for him. Dobey had put out the APB, and I questioned almost everybody Hutch knew.

And then I got a phone call from Dobey.

"Starsky, you need to get down here to Oakwood Park. We have two bodies."

I can't tell you what my brain was doing. Flying. Burning. Static. Auto. I don't know how I got to the park in Hutch's neighborhood, but found myself walking mechanically as a robot across the grass to where Dobey was talking to some detectives by a patch of ground sectioned off by crime scene tape. The cops were patting his back in a consoling way. He turned his head away from them.

I reached Dobey just as he turned away from the sympathetic investigators, saw her decomposing body, then another—some blond hair and a plaid shirt-and dropped to my hands and knees, feeling sick, my head hot, my heart exploding.

Other cops came to Dobey, talking to him again.

I couldn't feel Dobey's hands on me but he was trying to help me up.

"It's Gera," he said pulling me up and leaning me against his car, "but not Hutch."

My knees sank again, and all I could do was lean over the trunk of the car and bawl.

Time passed. Minutes, hours, I don't know how much. But I was at Huggy's and he was pushing a drink at me.

I held the glass with two weak, shaky hands. The day had sapped me of strength and thought and words.

"An old boyfriend," he said to me. Funny. He was giving me the information a cop would have. Dobey told him everything he knew about the case, then went home to Edith. The day had wasted him too.

"Greg Allison. Good guy. Musician in a folk band. Why would somebody want her dead, him dead, and Hutch dead?"

"He ain't dead."

"You know that?"

"I feel that."

He wouldn't let me drive home, so I crashed upstairs. My brain and heart still wanted to look for Hutch, day and night, nonstop, morning till night, but my body said no.

"Not all of her boyfriends were good guys," Cap told me the next day in his office when we were both more in our right minds.

He had gotten up even earlier than me to go to the precinct to start making phone calls and pulling files.

"She dated Micky Battista for a while," he said handing me a cup of coffee.

I shuddered so hard my coffee splashed. "Me and Hutch put his old man away."

"That's why I'm telling you. You might want to watch your own back."

A good lead.

I had work to do.

CHAPTER 2

I found Micky Battista climbing out of his swimming pool and pulling on a robe.

"Can I help you, Detective Starsky?" he asked reaching for a drink.

One of his bodyguards stood nearby.

I grabbed the front of his robe and pulled him up close.

"They'll never tie you to Gera's murder. It was too clean. A mob hit. But so help me, if you hurt my partner, there won't be an arrest, and there won't be a trial, they'll just find your body in the park one day like they did hers and Greg's."

He tried to play it cool, but I saw the sweat building on his upper lip.

"Are you threatening me, good officer?"

I released him.

"Where is he?"

Now he reached for his drink, a cool breeze. He knew I had nothing solid, just circumstantial.

"Who? I don't know what you're talking about."

The bodyguard took a step toward me. I pulled my gun and leveled it at his face, and he stopped.

My soul wanted to demand, beg, threaten, kill. But it wouldn't do any good, I had no proof, and time was running out. I had to keep digging, I had to keep looking for Hutch.

"One day," I said backing toward the gate of his pool area. "You and me."

He didn't say anything, just watched me over the rim of his drink.

CHAPTER 3

"What are you guys doing sitting around when you're supposed to be out there lookin' for him?"

I was losing it with my fellow officers, pacing around the squad room, cops staring at me and not knowing what to say.

Cap opened his office door. "Get in here."

When I just glared back at him, he grabbed my collar and pulled me out into the hall.

"I have every available man looking for him. It's on the news, in the papers. We just have to keep looking, and pray someone phones in some informa-"

"Starsky."

Familiar voice. Distressed. I turned around and saw our psychic friend Joe Collandra, but he looked like he was going to collapse or have a heart attack on the spot.

"Blood," he wheezed, and did collapse in the floor.

I ran to him, Dobey at my heels.

"Joe," I said helping him sit up and patting his face. "What are you talkin' about?"

"I can't get it out of my head," he said with his eyes squeezed shut. "I didn't know about it until I saw it on TV. And then it starting coming."

"What did?"

"The blood. It's everywhere."

My heart galloping, I shook him hard. "What else?"

"It's not clear, just pieces. Blood, cold." He held his arms. "I'm so cold."

"Is he alive?"

"I think so, but I don't know for how long. They're not coming back. The blood. It's everywhere."

I pulled him to his feet. "You gotta think. Try harder."

Officers gathered at the squad room to see what was going on.

"Damn psychic," one of them laughed as a few in the group made their way down the hall.

Let them laugh. I didn't care. He had helped locate a missing girl, and now he was trying to tell me something about Hutch.

"Who's not coming back, Joe?"

His head thrashed from side to side and he looked like somebody in torment.

"Pictures in my head. Blood. Cold. Meat. Bones. Blades. I see blood. I don't- I don't think he's conscious. In and out."

"Do you get a place? A name? Words? Faces?"

Joe clutched the front of my jacket.

"Help me, Starsk," he groaned as he passed out, but before he did, I saw Hutch in his eyes.

CHAPTER 4

Joe came to on the couch in Dobey's office. Me and Cap were sitting right there in chairs, almost on top of him, waiting to see if he would say anything else.

"Slaughter," he said looking from me to Cap. "Blood. Cold. That's all I get."

Dobey looked at me.

"Slaughterhouse."

My skin crawled with a chill.

"The Battista family owns and operates a slaughterhouse and meatpacking plant."

CHAPTER 5

Cap sat in grim silence in the passenger seat, like we were going to a funeral. He was even biting on a thumbnail.

Then he said, "They wanted Hutch, so maybe they paid Gera to bring him to them, or forced her to. And then they got rid of her, and Greg was just unfortunate enough to have been with her."

But I wasn't ready to give up yet. Joe said he thought Hutch was still alive, so there was a chance.

I put the siren on and floored it through the streets to get there as fast as I could.

The place was closed down for the day, so we had to break a window to get inside.

It was quiet.

No squealing animals. No workers. No machinery going. No fans running. We looked everywhere. Storage rooms, offices, basement, but there was no sign of Hutch.

Dobey kept looking at the meat hooks, and I know what he was thinking. His partner had been killed on one, and he was praying, just like I was, that we wouldn't find Hutch like that.

"Let's look in the livestock trucks", he said, and started to leave, but a sound to our right stopped us.

We looked toward a door, realizing we'd overlooked a room. There was a bar across it and some crates of tools stacked against it.

We hurried over to it, knocked the crates aside, lifted the bar, then went in.

I think Hutch would have died there if it hadn't been for Joe's vision.

Cold. Blood.

It was cold in the room, like it was once a walk-in refrigerator, and he was bloody from where the knife was still stuck in his chest.

He was still alive, sniffing for breath, wrists and ankles wrapped in tape, plus a piece slapped across his mouth.

"I'll call an ambulance," Cap said as he hurried out.

I ran over to Hutch and took the tape from his mouth. Blood dribbled out and he groaned when I lifted his head..

I held his head up.

"Hutch, I found you."

"Really?" he asked with dazed eyes.

I half-laughed and half-cried as I let his head rest against me while I checked out the knife wound.

"Really. Don't move, okay?"

"Okay."

"Cap's callin' for help."

I reached behind him and cut the tape from his wrists. Dobey came back in and cut the tape from his ankles.

"How is he?" he asked me.

"Fine," Hutch said with his head down.

I held his head up again.

"The knife's pluggin' up the wound. Gotta leave it in for now."

Hutch's hand fumbled up toward the knife, I caught his hand, squeezed it.

"Let the doctors get it."

"Okay."

Dobey ran a hand down his stressed face, releasing a sigh.

CHAPTER 6

I rode in the ambulance with Hutch while Cap drove behind us in his car.

Hutch had lost a lot of blood and was weak, but he was going to be okay.

When they were working on him in the emergency room, Joe came shuffling down the hall,

bleary-eyed and disheveled, like he'd been on a ten-day drunk. He looked like I felt, and maybe

he was reflecting me altogether, or Hutch and me both, who knows.

"He's gonna make it," I told him.

"I know."

"Yeah, I guess you would. Thanks for comin' to see him."

"I came to see you too."

"Yeah?"

"Yeah. You don't want to go do what I know you want to do."

I looked away from him, like that could keep him out of my head.

"If you do this, Starsky, I see you spending the rest of your life in jail. I see Hutch living with a missing partner. Is that how you want it to be?"

I still didn't look back at him.

"You don't get it. He hurt Hutch, and I told him I was gonna kill him, and I am."

He took my arm, then as if I burned him, yanked his hand back.

"You're not a murderer. You're a hothead. And you're gonna pay for it, and make Hutch pay for it, for the rest of your lives."

I stood listening to him, knowing he was right, but torn between the law and revenge.

"If you wait, he's gonna go in a month."

Now I looked back at him.

"He's gonna drop dead of a heart attack in about a month. Young guy. Good swimmer. Vitamins. Health club. But it's gonna happen. Right in his pool."

I waited. He shook me.

"It doesn't have to be by your hand."

As bad as I wanted the man dead, Hutch brought me back. What good would it do either of us if I died in prison? He would find some way to blame himself for everything.

Joe's face relaxed a little. He knew what my decision was.

A nurse came around the corner and smiled at me. "He's stabilized now. Would you like to see him?"

CHAPTER 7

Hutch was pale as a ghost when I went up to his bed. He put a hand out and shook mine.

"Hey, partner."

"Hey yourself."

His eyes looked drowsy, like he could drift off any second. Painkillers and exhaustion I guess.

"I thought I was going to die there."

"No way."

"No?"

"Not with Joe involved."

"Joe who?"

"Our fortune teller."

"Collandra?"

"Yeah, he's right outside; he came to see you."

"Sure."

I stuck my head out the door to tell Joe to come in, but he was gone.

"Starsk?"

Hutch's voice brought me back to the bed. "Yeah?"

"What happened?"

My heart sank. He didn't know about Gera.

"I got some bad news, buddy."

CHAPTER 8

Hutch grieved for Gera hard, feeling partly responsible for her murder. I had to keep reminding him that she was the one who set him up for Battista.

He would never feel anger for her, only bereavement for her lost life.

CHAPTER 9

Dobey was the one who picked Battista up for questioning, but had to let him go.

Even though Hutch had been left at his place of business to die, his lawyer said there was no physical evidence to prove he or anyone else actually did it, especially since Hutch had been knocked out and hadn't seen who'd abducted him.

I was like a German police dog straining at a leash wanting to go get the guy, but Joe's words held me back, so I waited, and told Hutch to wait.

CHAPTER 10

Huggy waved to us when I took Hutch to his place on the day he was released from the hospital.

Hutch was still in pain from the stabbing, and the doctors said that in two weeks he could return to duty, but only desk duty, and full duty when they said it was okay.

We sat down in a booth and Huggy brought us a special.

"Somebody's been waiting for you," he told us.

A pretty brunette in a slinky dress carried back a bottle of champagne.

"Ken? Dave?"

We stood up and smiled at her.

"My uncle Joe said I should bring this to you. He wanted to join us but he's feeling under the weather."

"Uncle, huh?" I asked her.

We both gestured for her to sit down, and she did.

"Yes. My name is Marietta."

It was clear she was into us, but it was Hutch she smiled at the most, and he smiled back.

"Nice to meet you, Marietta."

She came back to Huggy's again. And again. Until she and Hutch started dating.

It wasn't like he was jumping into something right after Gera's death. Marietta was somebody he could talk to. She was a really good listener.

CHAPTER 11

Hutch and I were both a little tense about Battista walking around free as a bird until I got a call from Dobey at my house.

"Joe was right, Starsky."

"I know."

"Maybe I should put him on the force."

I laughed a little, almost feeling sorry for Joe. "I don't think he could take it."

I hung up from talking to Cap, then hopped in my car to go give Hutch the news.

End

::::::::::::::::::::::::::

Maelstrom

By TLR

CHAPTER 1

We heard it on the radio, and then it came through Huggy's front door, a man named Ness Roberts, who'd just killed his wife and kids and was now being pursued by the police. He was armed and high on meth.

The good part was that it was before noon, so Huggy hadn't opened for lunch yet and the place was empty, but the bad part was that Starsky and Huggy and I were the only ones there when Roberts ran through the door shooting randomly and screaming at the top of his lungs.

Starsky and I were at a table waiting for Huggy to bring an antique guitar downstairs to show us when the chaos named Roberts burst through the door firing his weapon.

"Down!" I shouted to Starsky.

We both dove for cover and reached for our guns, Starsky under a table, me under a booth, but the bullets had already chopped into Starsky's body and he wasn't moving.

A bullet hit my arm, and the gun fell out of my hand.

"Starsky!"

Roberts ran over and grabbed up my gun, so I reached for Starsky's, then he shot me in the leg and took it away from me.

"Don't move!" he screamed at me.

I panted up at his red, sweat-streaked face, wild eyes, tense posture.

He was a man with nothing to lose, and we were his hostages.

I prayed Huggy had gone down the outside steps from his upstairs apartment. If he stayed behind to help us, he was a goner.

"Wait," I heard myself pant, and he shot a bullet in the floor next to my head.

"No, you wait!"

Strange how I wasn't feeling much pain, but I was bleeding. I hoped I remained conscious. I didn't want to think about what would happen after I closed my eyes.

With Starsky down and me unarmed, Roberts ran to Huggy's back exit to make sure it was locked, to the kitchen to make sure it was empty, and even looked in the supply closet.

"Where's the owner?" he asked.

"Went to pick up a waitress," I gasped as I held my arm and looked up at him from the floor.

"Anybody else here?"

"No."

He didn't believe me. He started up the stairs.

"Huggy!" I shouted as loudly as I could, but my voice was weak with shock and panic.

I wanted to go after Roberts, stop him, but I couldn't get off the floor.

All I heard was silence upstairs. Huggy had made it out.

I turned my head to look at Starsky, who lay motionless about a foot away from me, his back to me.

I had to get to him. I didn't know how badly he was hurt.

"Starsk," I gasped as I took his collar in my hand and tugged.

He didn't move and he didn't speak.

I pulled myself over to him. His back was still to me, I raised up on my elbow to look at his face, checked his pulse, felt his chest. Barely breathing, and a faint heartbeat. He was dying from two bullet wounds.

I leaned over him and whispered near his ear, holding a stack of cloth napkins against the worst of the bullet wounds.

"Hey, buddy. It's Hutch. Can you hear me?"

No response.

"I'm going to try to get us out of here. But if I can't…" I put my forehead down on his arm and fought back tears. "I'll be right here with you."

Roberts came back down the stairs, walked past us like we were a couple of empty boxes on the floor, and went to the front window to look out.

"They're here," he said.

I guessed it was the cops. Huggy had already called them, or they had chased Roberts here, or the neighborhood had called about the gunshots.

They obviously hadn't used the sirens when they approached. Or maybe they did and I just didn't hear them. They were going to show him that they were open to negotiation. The sirens would have been too threatening.

"My partner needs an ambulance," I told him.

"I need hostages."

"You have me. Let him leave. I'll take him outside, and they can get him to a hospital."

"Think I'm gonna open this door? They'll blow my head off."

"No, they won't. They'll want to talk."

"I want no jail time. I want a plane ticket. And I want some money."

"I can help you get that. Just let my partner out of here."

"No."

"Then…can I sit up?"

I wanted him to feel all the control he wanted. Of which, in fact, he had plenty. Any small thing that would help Starsky survive or buy more time or keep Roberts cool is what I was after.

"Guess so."

Now the pain was coming on. I don't know which burned more, my arm or my leg. I sat up

and tied a cloth napkin around my arm, then my leg, then leaned back against the booth seat to catch my breath, fighting unconsciousness and nausea.

Starsky made a coughing sound, and I leaned over to him again, seeing that he was choking up blood. I turned him onto his side.

"Mr. Roberts!" I yelled as I moved Starsky a little more forward so he wouldn't choke. "We need help here!"

Roberts fired at me, the bullet chipping into the wall behind my head, then stalked back to where we were.

"Roberts!" somebody outside on the bullhorn shouted. "What's going on in there! Did you shoot someone?"

"Move away from him," Roberts said pointing the gun down at my head.

I looked up at him. "I'm not leaving him. Now you can have live hostages or dead hostages. Do what you have to do. And you better let them know we're alive, or they will be storming this place."

He looked at me for a long time, then went back up to the window, broke a pane out, and yelled, "Nothin! I got two wounded cops in here!"

"We're alive!" I yelled behind him. "But Starsky needs an ambulance!"

That's when Roberts walked back to me and kicked me in the face.

Lights out.

CHAPTER 2

When I woke up it was nighttime, and Roberts had an arm locked around Starsky's chest at the front window where he still talked to the police, SWAT, and hostage negotiators.

"Son of a…"

I rolled over and put my hand on the booth seat, pushing myself up to my feet.

Starsky was starting to struggle; more from pain than trying to get away. He was too out of it to know what was going on or what he was doing. Roberts punched him in the chest with his gun. Starsky yelped out but couldn't defend himself. He was immobilized by agony.

"Easy, Starsk," I called out to him.

I wanted him to know I was nearby, and didn't want him to invite anymore wrath onto

himself.

If I could get upstairs…I knew where Huggy kept a pistol.

As if he read my mind, Roberts said, "Get over here. I want you where I can see you. Show yourself to the cops."

I stepped up to the window and looked out at the law enforcement vehicles and uniforms that had gathered.

Roberts was getting tired of holding Starsky. He was becoming a hindrance, and it would be easier to shoot him and deal with me.

"Let me have him," I whispered in a pleading sound. "I'll stay right here."

Roberts didn't object. I took Starsky from him, difficult to do with only one good arm and one good leg, but manageable, and lowered us to the floor, sitting with my back against the wall and holding Starsky against my chest.

"I told you what I want!" Roberts yelled out the window.

"Let's talk about it!" a negotiator shouted back.

I checked Starsky's chest. It was bleeding again from where Roberts had hit him, and his face was pale.

"Starsk?" I asked patting his cheek, but he didn't answer me.

I put my head against his and prayed.

"Gonna get us outa here?" he mumbled to me.

"Sshh. Please be quiet, Starsk. I don't want him to hurt you again."

"Who's hurt? Not me."

"Sshh. Please."

Roberts yelled out the window again.

"No talk! If you don't agree to my demands, I'm gonna kill one of these cops!"

Starsky started coughing again. I held him closer against me, patting his back. "Easy."

Negotiations were failing.

A horrible sight flashed through my mind.

Of me jumping Roberts and struggling to take his gun with one good arm, then he regaining control and shooting me, then shooting Starsky, then himself as the cops ran forward.

"Please," I said up to Roberts, feeling like it was close to the end of everything, and that if begging for Starsky's life was the last thing I could do for him, I didn't care. "Let my partner go. He needs a doctor. You don't need both of us. If you help him, they'll be more open to your-"

He took one step toward us, but the blast of a gunshot cut him off and he went crashing through the front door and onto the sidewalk outside.

I heard a stampede of cops coming in our direction from outside, then saw Huggy holding a pistol in shaking hands at the bottom of his stairs.

I couldn't move. I was too stunned, too weak, and too relieved. All I could do was lay my head back against the wall and say, "Thank you, Huggy."

He came to us and crouched down, hand on Starsky's head.

"I came back," he panted. "Man, I didn't think I could even shoot that good."

I laughed until it hurt, until I cried.

The cops came inside, along with paramedics. I wanted to help Starsky onto the gurney, but wasn't strong enough. Huggy and Dobey both pushed me onto mine.

CHAPTER 3

The doctors couldn't keep me down. After they nursed me and bandaged me up in the emergency room, I limped over to Starsky's gurney to see what was going on.

"We made it, Starsk," I said reaching for his hand.

I don't know if he heard me or not, and I honestly didn't know how true it was yet.

"You'll have to leave," I was told, and some orderlies and nurses escorted me back to my bed.

CHAPTER 4

He was in ICU while I was in a recovery room.

"Did you see the damage to your place?" I asked Huggy as he stood by my bed.

"Heard it too."

"How's Starsky? I keep asking them, they never come back to answer."

"He's hangin' in."

I sat up and tried to get out of bed.

"You outa your mind, Hutch? You were shot too, y'know. I gotta see both of you in ICU?"

I put my feet on the floor and my head swam, so I sat back down. "Here," he said stepping out into the hallway.

He came back in pushing a wheelchair.

"At least go in this. I'll take you."

CHAPTER 5

"Kenneth!" one of the nurses called sternly to me. "You're not supposed to be out of bed."

"Try and stop me," I said as Huggy pushed me past her with a shrug.

"Get back to your room or I'll…I'll…"

"Throw me out of the hospital?"

"I might!"

Too late; we were already down the hall at ICU.

CHAPTER 6

It seemed like days before Starsky showed any improvement, but day by day he grew stronger, became alert, responded, and passed from critical condition into stable.

I was with him as often as allowed, and times when I wasn't.

Coming that close to death, it made me to want to stay by his side.

Ness Roberts deserved hell for what he put us through.

I was back on my feet and walking with a temporary cane when Starsky was able to have a coherent conversation with me.

"How you feeling?" I asked him.

"What's goin' on with your leg?"

"Don't worry about it. No lasting damage. I'll be kicking doors down again before you know it."

"How about me?"

"You will too, Gordo."

He put a hand over his bandaged chest, as if to check and see if what he thought had happened had really happened. I could relate. It seemed surreal, even this much later.

"I don't remember a lot of what went down," he said. "But I remember you being there."

The door opened and Huggy came in.

I shook his hand.

"Here's the man, Starsk. Neither of us would be in this room today if it weren't for him."

He stuck his chest out proudly. "Word is the captain's gonna have a ceremony for me. When you two cats are well enough to go to it, that is."

"Well," I said, "maybe the city will pay for the repairs on your place."

"Repairs?" Starsky asked. "Shot up that bad?"

Huggy smiled. "Almost as bad as you."

The door opened again and a pretty nurse carried in a milkshake. "Hi,"

Starsky smiled to her.

"Hello, darlin'," she said as she slipped between Huggy and I to give Starsky the milkshake.

"Could you hold it for me?" he asked her with a small helpless sigh. "I don't think I can."

"Oh, of course."

I rolled my eyes as she held the milkshake for him.

He winked at me, and I knew he would be just fine.

End