1 Heartbeat Away

by Zebra 3 and Me

Drama and angst abound in these Starsky and Hutch stories.

1 HEARTBEAT AWAY

By TLR

The Desert-The partners are left to die in a desert.

Fuel-Hutch discovers a little more about Starsky's uncle Al.

The Heart Of It-Starsky has a decision to make concerning Hutch's behavior.

Exit Wound-A stakeout takes a wrong turn.

Visions-A story related to The Psychic.

Revenge-A lady friend has revenge on her mind.

The Cellar-The Lopez Brothers seek revenge.

Blood-A Bloodbath story.

Replay-A story about The Fix.

Erin Ellis-The new girl in Starsky's life causes trouble.

Dark Corners—Starsky was kidnapped.

The Desert

By TLR

Hutch woke up face down in sand, the heat beating down on his back, the grit of sand in his dry mouth. His body was one long thrum of pain that gave no sign of letting up.

He told himself that if he could just say something, or move one inch, then he would be all right, he could get the rest of himself to move.

With great effort, he forced his head to turn a bit to the right, squinting in the relentless sunshine, and when he did, he saw his partner lying flat on his back, eyes closed, face swollen from what looked like a hellacious beating.

Hutch saw that that the left bottom hem of Starsky's jeans was covered in a patch of dry blood, so probably a busted ankle.

"Heh…"

Hutch closed his eyes, his voice lost somewhere in the dryness of his sandy throat.

His fingers inched to the right like a tired scorpion in search of his partner's shirt collar, grasped it, tugged.

"Hey…"

Starsky didn't move or answer.

This caused a surge in the depleted Hutch's heart, and he scooted closer, up onto his

elbow, pushing hair and sand from Starsky's eyes.

"Hey…"

Hutch's voice was so paper thin, how could anyone hear it?

Hutch looked up, half-expecting to see buzzards circling. He laughed a little, and stifled it before it turned into a sob.

The desert stretched endlessly in all directions. Whatever tracks the vehicle had made to dump them here had been covered. The only thing with them was a duffel bag of clothing Hutch had had because he had planned to crash at Starsky's the night before.

How long had they been here? Hours? A day?

Hutch pulled out his pocket watch. The face was broken, and so was the time. He placed it lovingly back inside the thigh pocket of his corduroy pants.

"Terrific," he mumbled, sounding amazingly like his partner.

Hutch leaned toward Starsky again, lifted his head, jostled it.

"Starsk. Hey."

Starsky groaned, his eyes rolled toward the hot sun, then back at Hutch, who moved in front of the sun to shade his partner's face.

"Where-" Starsky's fingers moved in the sand.

"A bloody desert," Hutch said.

"Cortez?" Starsky whispered. His voice was too parched and he was too weak to speak very loudly.

"Yeah."

Starsky saw the way Hutch was holding his left elbow.

"Okay?"

Hutch pushed up his sleeve to reveal a twisted shape at the bend of his arm.

"Huh," Hutch said with an almost bemused lilt to his voice. "Looks broken."

Starsky started to chuckle, which was the last thing Hutch thought he would or could do.

From the heat, he guessed.

"Funny, huh?" Hutch said.

Starsky began to do what Hutch had done-try to move around to see what condition he was in.

Without words or a glance, both men reached for each other and tried to help each other up, and with much huffing and straining, finally made it.

Starsky found that he couldn't stand on his bad ankle. He lifted it a little, putting all of his weight on his good foot, and braced a hand on Hutch's shoulder as the blond crouched to check it out.

"Busted," he said, and Starsky chuckled again.

Both of them looked around at the landscape of sand.

"Is there a road?" Starsky asked. "Gas station?"

"Do you really think they'd leave us near a road or a gas station?"

"Nah."

Starsky started to tilt sideways. Hutch pulled him back.

"Come on," he said picking up the duffel bag.

They walked without talking, and not fast. With their shirts tied around their heads and their faces down to shade from the sun, pants rolled up to their knees. They didn't speak their thoughts aloud, and didn't have to.

They couldn't make it very far in the heat without water or food. They would dehydrate, die of thirst, and collapse in the sand to dry up in death. But the instinct for survival was so great that they couldn't just sit down and wait for it to happen. Both had a life force inside that propelled them forward.

When Starsky leaned against his partner, Hutch pulled him a bit closer and took some of his weight instead of nudging him away.

"You can't walk and I can't carry you," Hutch said with a chuckle of his own. "So we make a fine pair."

Their unspoken words linked them together like an umbilical cord: Chances were good that they would be dead in a few days, but they would die trying to live.

XX

"Rest your ankle," Hutch said as he pulled Starsky down to sit beside him.

Starsky sat down. "How long does it take to starve to death?"

"We'll die of thirst before that."

"Or dehydration."

"Or a heat stroke."

"Or a heart attack."

Starsky reached into his pocket and pulled out a pack of chewing gum.

"Share?."

Hutch smiled, then took the half his partner offered.

Starsky looked around the tan expanse. To him it looked the same as it had three hours ago.

"I don't see any cacti, Hutch. Don't they have milk?"

"I don't know. I haven't seen a scorpion either."

"Would you eat a scorpion?"

"If it didn't kill me first."

Starsky looked at Hutch's face, seeing bruises and cuts.

"Is this what you call roughing it?"

Hutch nudged him with his elbow, then pushed himself to his feet, held his hand down, and pulled Starsky to his feet as well. He waited until Starsky was steady on his good foot, then they both started to walk again.

"How do we know where we're going?" Starsky asked.

"We don't."

"Do you know which desert this is?"

"Not really."

A small buzz sounded overhead and to the back of them, so both turned to look.

It sounded like a helicopter or a small airplane, and the sound grew louder as the aircraft

got closer.

Starsky began waving his arms and yelling, and Hutch did too, but the sound seemed to turn away in another direction, and the air was silent again.

Starsky took off hobbling toward it anyway, and Hutch pulled him back.

"Save your strength," he panted. "It's gone."

They turned back around and kept walking.

XX

The darkness of the night and coolness of the air was a welcomed change at first.

The two lay down facing each other, to watch, guard, comfort, connect.

Their faces burned, their bodies weak, they closed their eyes with sleep.

"If we don't wake up…" Starsky began. His body started to shiver in the coldness.

"We will. We're not done yet."

"But if we don't…"

Hutch's hand moved across the sand and clasped his partner's hot, dry one.

"I know."

XX

They walked in the heat all the next day, sand shuffling beneath their feet, their footsteps heavy. Sweat poured down their backs and chests. They stripped down to their shorts and left their pants lying stretched out in hopes that someone flying overhead might see.

Conversation was set aside for concentration. The heat made it difficult to think, breathe, walk, move.

When Starsky fell behind, Hutch reached back to pull him forward.

Starsky could no longer lean on Hutch, he merely loped along like an injured wolf.

Hutch pointed to a spot in the distance.

"There's a store just up there. If we can get to it, a phone. A fan."

Starsky wanted to believe it. He looked to where Hutch was pointing, strained his eyes, shaded the sun away for a better look, then shook his head and pushed Hutch to sit down in the sand.

"Nothin, Hutch. Nothin there."

Starsky stood in front of Hutch to shield him from the sun.

Hutch sat limply in the sand, head down.

"I don't want the junk."

Starsky crouched in front of him, ignoring his screaming ankle, and lifted Hutch's head, blowing air into his face to cool him, trying to get through to a soul that the sun was absorbing away.

"It's not here, Hutch. Look at me. I'm here."

Hutch looked at him.

"Say my name, Hutch."

"Suh.."

A dry sound. Hutch's eyes rolled back, his head fell back.

Starsky jostled him.

"Come on."

"Nuh. Sleep."

Starsky struggled to pull him to his feet, and they continued on.

XX

They were trudging, clinging to each other like children on a straying raft, two bodies

acting as one to stay upright, two minds striving to think.

Hutch started to hum softly, and Starsky welcomed it, even if it was faint and faltering. It was better than the smothering silent heat. It was the sound of life, and of his friend.

Where their shoes had once made distinct tracks, they now made drag marks that indicated their weak persistence.

XX

The cold night air chilled their bodies, and turned them facing each other again.

"Hutch," Starsky whispered in the darkness.

Only silence answered.

Starsky laid his hand on Hutch's throat, kept it there on his pulse.

Starsky spoke anyway.

"Thanks for being the best friend in the world, huh?"

Still no answer.

Starsky caressed his throat.

"You hear?"

Hutch moaned an answer.

Feeling that his friend's very life was weakening under his hand, Starsky moved closer to him and slipped an arm around his neck, kissing the top of his gritty blond head, then they slept together for the rest of the cold dark night.

XX

The morning brought the call of a big bird, and Starsky sat up, looked down to check on Hutch, put a hand on the pulse of his throat again.

Hutch's life was almost gone. He knew it. The bird knew it.

Starsky threw the duffel bag into the air at the bird, and the bird circled away.

It would be back, Starsky knew.

Starsky crawled toward the duffel bag, dragged it back to their spot in the sand. It had become a kind of defense.

When Hutch's shallow breathing came to his ears, Starsky worked to stand up. Hutch would want him to continue on without him, to try to live. And every survival instinct told him to do this. But he couldn't move forward.

He looked down at Hutch, then sat down beside him again.

The bird would be back. He had to keep the bird away.

Hutch wouldn't leave him to die alone. He could not do that to Hutch.

The heat was pounding down again, no relief. It would be another day of walking, another day of thirst, another day of hope and nothingness. It they could even survive that long.

Down to his last breaths, loyalty pulled him to his knees and he curled on his side next to his partner, blocking the sun from his face.

If he only had a shovel to keep the birds from getting at them.

But even that thought began to sift away like the sand, and right now all he wanted to do was go with his friend and be in the same place with him.

XX

The helicopter hovered overhead while a journalist and photographer jumped out and ran over to the men on the ground.

The pilot came lower, wind from the blades whipping the sand around.

One photographer snapped pictures while the other knelt to assess vital signs.

"This will be a bigger story than the scorpions," the journalist said. "You think they'll be okay?"

"If we get them to a hospital."

XX

Captain Dobey and Huggy Bear were discussing Cortez when Starsky's eyes opened in the hospital bed.

Huggy stepped close to the bed and leaned down to clasp Starsky's hand.

"You made it, man."

Starsky didn't have the strength to move, but he did look around the room.

"Hutch okay?"

Huggy looked at Dobey, then Dobey came to the bed.

"Cardiac arrest," he said. "But he's going to be all right."

Starsky's eyes closed. Out of relief. Out of fear. Out of gratitude. Out of just being alive and knowing that his partner was alive too.

"Cortez," Starsky said,

Dobey nodded. "I figured as much. I got men on it right now. Guards outside your door. Just worry about getting well and getting that partner of yours back on his feet."

End

Fuel

By TLR

Hutch walked into Vinnie's Gym, finding Starsky in black shorts working out with the punching bag.

"Morning, dirtball!" Hutch called happily as he walked over to Vinnie's desk to say hello to the proprietor.

The intense young man kept punching the bag as if he hadn't heard. Sweat had rendered his hair to wet ringlets and his posture described a mission.

"Been at it for an hour," Vinnie said to Hutch as he leaned his elbows on the counter and bit down on a matchstick. "He keeps coming in here, I'll have to make him a gold star member."

The blond eyebrows lifted. "How long has he been coming in?"

"For the last week. He's here waiting for me to open up every morning. Gets a jump on you, huh, Hutch?"

Vinnie's phone rang; he turned to answer it, leaving Hutch to watch Starsky with a mixture of confusion and curiosity on his face.

He walked over to the bag.

"Hey, I said hi when I came in. You didn't even hear me."

Starsky glanced up without a smile.

"Hey, Hutch. I think you got somethin' here."

"Into it, huh?"

But it seems a little off somehow.

Starsky was fit, athletic, energetic, even if he did consume a lot of junk food. So it shouldn't have surprised Hutch to see him at Vinnie's, but how many times had Hutch tried to coax him into a routine, and Starsky had turned him down in favor of a brown bag breakfast on a bench against the wall?

I get my exercise chasing girls…

But that was before…

Oh, wait.

Before Bellamy.

Starsky was doing amazingly well for a man who was on his deathbed just weeks ago.

A new appreciation for life, well-being, and health?

But he already had that before Bellamy. He was supremely aware of how precious life was, and took it enthusiastically by the horns every day.

Hutch stopped the punching bag with his hands.

Starsky continued to punch it.

"The compound?" Hutch asked softly, a gleam of sympathetic compassion passing his eyes.

"Don't be ridiculous."

"Then why else would you beat me to the gym every morning, and why is it some big secret?"

A vague shrug of his shoulder; more punches. "Not a secret."

"You didn't tell me."

"Didn't know I had to."

"Starsk, come on…you don't have to pretend. You almost died a few weeks ago."

Starsky kept pummeling.

"Yeah, but I'm still here."

"You have something to prove? Trying to get back what they took from you?"

Another solid punch at the bag, head still down. "They took nothin' from me. I'm not a quitter."

"Well, hell no. You're a survivor."

"Regular gladiator."

"But I'm worried it's coming from a place that isn't healthy."

Starsky stepped away from the bag, picked up a towel from a cart of them, and wiped his face as he walked toward the shower room.

Hutch walked behind him.

"You're scared, Starsk. Talk to me."

Starsky spun with the powerful grace of a lynx, but didn't release his coiled fury. It stayed in his eyes and in his shoulders and his puffing chest.

"I know you worried about me when I was sick-"

"Sick? You were dying-"

"But it's time to step back. If it's one thing Uncle Al taught me, it's that when you get floored, you get back up. Bicycle and horse theory. Fall off, get back on."

Bicycle and horse?

You were dying alone in a hospital bed, Starsk. Your systems were shutting down. You had no control over your own body, breathing, sweating, swallowing. Dark isolation had become your existence. Your life, and death, were in my hands, you had already told me goodbye and were moving down that black tunnel.

"What? Your uncle Al?"

"He taught me to fight."

Starsky turned and went into the shower room.

Hutch followed, stalked ahead to block the entrance with his arm.

"Literally?"

Starsky glowered at him.

"Tried to straighten me out, Hutch, made a man out of me. He showed me the moves."

"Did he now?"

"Yeah. Now will you move?"

Hutch didn't know much about Starsky's uncle. Just what Starsky had told him, and that was that he had been as crooked as Rosie was straight, and that his aunt deserved better.

"What were you, ten, when you were moved out here?"

"Yeah, so what?"

"And how often did he show you the ropes?"

"Whenever. If I got picked on at school, he'd show me how to take care of myself better next time. When I got beat up at school, lost a fight, it'd set him off."

"You said he was a drunk."

"He was."

"And that he wasn't the nicest guy on the planet."

"He wasn't."

Hutch licked his lips, feeling somehow that the floor was melting.

"Starsk, what you're telling me…how did he teach you to fight?"

I think I know, but…

"I don't know, he just showed me what to do."

"By fighting you."

"'course."

Hutch grasped his upper arm. "He hit you, right?"

"What are you talkin' about? To show me how it's done. Toughen me up. I fought back."

"He made you fight back?"

"Of course!"

Starsky pushed Hutch's arm down and moved into the shower, stripped, stepped under the spray.

Hutch sank onto a bench, skin suddenly worming along his arms.

All the times I've seen you pummel a suspect, on the verge of snapping a neck or smashing a face into the sidewalk, over the edge, reckless, brutal. You have to show them, beat them, win, survive.

Your temper.

Under the shower spray, Starsky laughed and vigorously washed his hair, scrubbed his body with lime-scented soap.

"Toughen up, Davey! Damn little runt! Put 'em up! Hit me! Hit me! Like this! Hard! Not hard enough! Like this! Whap! Pop! Slam! Down! You're out!"

Hutch leaned his head back against the wall, listening to the water and to his partner's shouts.

But still, you know when to stop.

How did you stay so tenderhearted?

Hutch gazed at the ceiling and swallowed.

"Is that how it went?"

"Till the time I knocked him on his tail."

The shower stopped, Starsky stepped out, toweled off, and pulled on briefs, clean jeans, and a bumblebee-striped T-shirt from his duffel bag.

End

The Heart Of It

By TLR

"You stopped caring a long time ago."

"That's bull."

Hutch had walked to Starsky's front door and went out with a slam.

Two weeks ago.

Starsky sat on his sofa and stared at the ceiling, resting a root beer on his thigh. Hutch had been doing that a lot lately. Slamming doors. Actually, a lot of bad things lately, and more than slamming doors. Mishandling cases. Neglecting witnesses. Chewing out victims.

Not following up on leads. Not wanting to respond to calls. Letting his partner do all the work once they responded to a call.

It wasn't like him, and far beyond that even.

Starsky would look at him during those times, hoping to engage him, plug him back in, but Hutch would be gazing off out the window or at the wall.

I could use a little help here, partner.

Get lost.

Get lost?

Since when did Hutch talk to him like that?

"He needs analysis", Linda the cop had said. "People do it all the time nowadays. You go to a head shrinker, lay on her couch, and tell her everything. She sorts it out for you, gives you some feedback, maybe some pills, sends you on your way, you come back the next week and do it again."

Pills.

Hutch didn't need pills, and he didn't need analysis, or whatever the hell they called it these days. He was the kind of guy who could handle anything life threw at him. Look at the list. He gets strung out by Forest. Put down by a plague. Stuck wounded under his car. Lost a couple of ladies. And yet he managed to come out on top, he beat it every time. Not just a survivor, but a man whose heart had not turned color because of all that he had endured. He could still reach out, help people, be a cop, be a man.

Only.

Only now he didn't look, act, or sound like much of a victor.

Maybe it was all catching up to him.

"We gotta talk, Hutch," Starsky mumbled as he jumped off the couch and headed out the door.

He wasn't going to let Hutch slip through his fingers that easily. They meant too much to each other. What were best friends for if not to pull you back from the brink, even when they weren't aware you were even standing there?

XX

Hutch's key was still over the door as usual, but you didn't need one when the door was unlocked as it was today.

Starsky turned the knob and walked into the apartment. It was uncharacteristically dark and still. The curtains drawn, no stereo, no guitar. The plants were wilting, there were no food aromas in the air that indicated he was interested in cooking or eating. Just a few empty wine glasses, messy clothes and books on the floor. If Hutch's car hadn't been parked out by the curb, you wouldn't have known he was home.

Starsky started to call out, say, "Hey, let's talk again," but something in him told him to be quiet, maybe the cop in him, and it gave him a dirty feeling, almost as if he were spying.

I want to catch you crying, Hutch, that's what I want. At least then I'd know you were feeling something, and we could shake it loose and talk about it. This numb wall you have between us keeps us from communicating, and it's hard to be your friend.

There was a faint crack of light at the bathroom door, and Starsky slowly walked over to it, stood listening.

No shower.

No humming.

No smells of soap or shampoo.

No sounds of toiletries being picked up and set down.

Starsky stood at the vertical line of pale amber light and looked in, seeing the source of it, a candle in a dish on the sink. A spoon lay next to the candle like a costume jewelry accessory. He watched Hutch as he sat on the edge of his bathtub, cinched a belt around his upper arm, and gave himself an injection.

XX

Starsky sat in the driver's seat of the Torino as Hutch opened the passenger door and slid in beside him.

"Sorry about everything," Hutch mumbled as he put sunglasses on.

Starsky noted the barest of tremors in his partner's hands, and looked away.

He wondered how safe he would be if Hutch had to pull his gun today.

"Forget it," Starsky said as he pulled away from the curb.

XX

They ran into a junkie that day and Starsky watched as his partner roughed him up, intervening only when he thought Hutch was going to crush the man's Adam's apple under his boot.

"You make me sick," Hutch said to the man, and stepped over him in the doorway as if he were a discarded newspaper.

Starsky looked at the junkie, who had yielded no useful information to them after all, and followed Hutch to the Torino.

XX

By lunchtime Hutch was restless sitting at Huggy's bar, twisting a little from side to side

on a swivel stool.

Starsky held a newspaper in his hands, tried to read, but even the headlines escaped him.

Huggy set a salad on the counter in front of Hutch, who pushed it away.

"Get that out of my face."

Huggy looked at Starsky, who still had his eyes on the paper.

"Neither one of you gonna eat?" Huggy asked them. A longer look at Starsky. "Not even you?"

Hutch slid off of his stool and walked back to the men's room, hand going to his jacket pocket.

Starsky got off of his stool, took a step to follow him.

Let's see what's in your pocket, Hutch.

"What's with him?" Huggy asked.

Starsky stopped short, turned, and walked outside, slamming the paper to the floor on his way out.

Huggy watched Starsky leave. "What's with you?"

XX

Hutch slid into the passenger seat next to his partner.

"What a beautiful day, man. Isn't it beautiful?"

Starsky started the Torino and pulled away from Huggy's.

"Oh yeah. Beautiful."

XX

Starsky watched as Hutch came from the bank stuffing a wad of cash into his pocket. "So what plans you got for the weekend?" Starsky asked him as he got inside the car.

"Just gonna hang out at my place."

Not going to ask me to join you, Hutch?

XX

Hutch lay his head down on folded arms in the squad room while Starsky typed reports.

Dobey came into the squad room.

"What's your problem, Hutchinson?"

"Under the weather," he muttered without raising his head or sitting up.

Dobey looked at Starsky, who merely kept typing.

XX

"Cover me!" Starsky shouted as he ran across the street to get closer to the armed robber holding the hostage inside the liquor store.

Hutch raised his gun, but didn't squeeze off a shot.

A bullet whizzed over Starsky's head as he dove behind a van.

Hutch crouched behind the Torino.

"Hutch!"

Hutch didn't answer.

Bullets chattered into the side of the Torino.

The gunman appeared in a window to fire again, and Starsky rose up to unload his weapon into him.

The dead man fell from the window and onto the sidewalk.

"Hutch!"

When there was still no answer, Starsky backed away from the van and across the street to see Hutch crouching with his back against the Torino, head back, gun trembling in his hands, eyes half-closed and wet with tears.

I froze. For the first time.

Make it the second.

XX

Starsky eased the Torino up alongside Hutch's curb to let him out.

Hutch's hand was on the doorknob as if he were pausing to say something, but it was hard to read him behind the sunglasses.

"Hutch, if you want to talk…"

Hutch's head was slightly down, as if he were considering it. And then he simply opened the door, closed it, and walked inside of his apartment building.

XX

Starsky walked around his neighborhood all night, thinking of all the times Hutch had been there for him, had helped him through hell that had names like Helen, Bellamy, Marcus, Terry, Prudholm, and Gunther.

He thought about how strong and agile he had been, how pleasant and friendly and helpful he had been. The health food, his zest for life, his undying loyalty to him.

He thought about Hutch's vulnerability, his humor, his understanding and generosity.

The times he put his life on the line for him. The way he stood as a physical and figurative barrier between David Starsky and the world.

XX

Starsky knocked on Hutch's door the next morning and waited.

When Hutch opened it with a sleepy smile, two detectives and two Internal Affairs agents muscled their way in.

Starsky waited just outside the door.

Wouldn't it be nice to be Hutch? In one lifetime you have two people love you so much.

You love him too.

I love you, man, I understand what you're going through.

That's because I'm counting on you.

If he needs me, you call me.

Don't let either one of them change.

It's not me you had to worry about changing, Terry.

It was him.

The cops walked a handcuffed Hutch through the door and past him. Hutch looked over his shoulder at his partner as he was escorted down the stairs, but Starsky's head was down. It came up just in time, and their eyes met.

XX

Starsky stepped into the common visiting room of the jail, and saw inmates visiting with people. Family, friends, girlfriends, boyfriends.

A guard showed him to an empty table, and he sat down to wait.

A few of the inmates stared his way. Maybe they recognized him from a bust.

He looked back.

I don't care.

A few inmates walked up to a soft drink vending machine, put money in, and carried cold drinks back to their tables.

Starsky had a vague memory of visiting his father in jail before he was murdered in prison by a hired New York street thug. The memory was as yellowed and faded as an old scrapbook page, a piece affixed to his mind just like one of its newspaper clippings.

His mother tried to shield him from the truth. Pretended that they were visiting him in the Army, but something in him, maybe in the restricted ways and movements of his father, caused him to ask her the dreaded question.

"Where are we?"

His father's letters never indicated, his mother never said the word aloud, and his younger brother was too young to know.

Confronted with the truth, she could dodge no more.

"Jail," she said.

He looked down, nodded. Worse than he thought. Wishing to God it really was the Army, or college, like she sometimes said. But college didn't have steel bars and armed guards,

did it? It was supposed to be a good place, where you could move around and laugh if you wanted to.

His father never laughed. In fact his eyes had a wet look, as if on the brink of tears all the time.

He didn't pick his son up and swing him around or give him a big bear hug anymore. It was the kind of hug you gave with one arm, off to the side, but to the boy it was something. Not enough, but something to hold on to, smell, savor.

One visit. One hug. One last goodbye. And then he was dead.

"…an hour."

Starsky looked up, blinked.

"I said you get an hour," the guard said, and moved away from the table so Hutch could sit down.

But Hutch didn't sit down. He just stood looking at Starsky.

And Starsky just sat looking at him.

The way Hutch held his body. Coiled tension. Hard but alert eyes. Not cop's eyes. Now the ones of prey. And toughness.

Not the kind he had presented on the street to all the lowlifes. That was bluff and bravado and heart for the most part. The only time Hutch ever got really tough was in defense of his partner, and then it was for real. Today's toughness…was not born of love or passion. Starsky recognized it as one of submission and realism and survival. It was earned.

Starsky cleared his throat. "I didn't think you'd come."

Hutch gave him a look like a deadly cobra.

You know what they do to cops in here. "I had to."

The punch came as a single hammer blow to the face, knocking Starsky from his chair and onto the floor.

Guards descended immediately to pounce on Hutch, while two more helped Starsky to his feet.

The guards led Hutch away, and he never looked back.

Starsky wiped the back of his sleeve across his bloody nose and mouth, his eyes following Hutch through a door.

XX

Starsky awakened in the middle of the night and looked at his bedside clock.

Three a.m.

He got out of bed, walked around the dark bedroom, went to the window, looked out, saw the Torino.

How different life had turned, become.

He thought Hutch would always be in it.

But then, he thought his father would always be in it too.

What can you count on?

Hutch's voice, clear and pleading.

You didn't have to tell them. You didn't have to turn me in. Do you really think I'm better off? Do you think I would do this to you? It's just an addiction. The only one I'm hurting is myself. I gave in to a weak moment. The craving got the best of me. Are you really going to hold it against me? You always told me this wasn't my fault. You always seemed to understand.

XX

Huggy told the new waitress to take Starsky's order while he answered his phone.

"Hey, Captain Dobey, man. How's it goin'?"

Huggy watched Starsky from behind the bar. The waitress smiled and flirted, Starsky smiled back but didn't pull her onto his lap or flirt back like the old Starsky would have.

Huggy listened at the telephone receiver.

Starsky had been six months off the police force, and six months into his car rental business.

Huggy spoke into the receiver.

"About like you'd figure. Don't you talk to him no more?"

Huggy listened a while longer, then hung up and walked over to the booth where Starsky sat.

"You giving my new girl a hard time, Starsk?"

Starsky moved his head no.

"I wish," the waitress said as she pranced away from the table with a smile to both over her shoulder.

"What'd you order?" Huggy asked him.

Starsky was still looking at the menu. He didn't answer.

Huggy took the menu from his hand and set it aside.

"No words of wisdom," Starsky told him.

"Wisdom. Huh. Wish I had some."

End

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

Exit Wound

By TLR

Stakeout.

Overlooking the canyon, they had a clear view of the traffic that went in and out of the truck stop. A shipment of heroin was to arrive that numbered in the millions of dollars.

"I'm thirsty," Starsky said in the driver's seat of the Torino. "Wasn't there a little burger stand back there?"

"All nighter I think," Hutch replied.

"Why don't you go back and get us a drink?"

"Us? You're the one who wants one."

"Please?"

"Why can't you?"

"I'm in the driver's seat."

"Sometimes," Hutch grumbled as he got out of the car.

"Say what?"

"Nothing."

Hutch walked down the two-lane country road toward the burger stand. The kind that probably had ice cream, candy, soft drinks, maybe beer. He wagered they wouldn't have anything good for you, like tuna patties or kelp shakes. If they would only let him behind the counter. He'd show them a thing or two.

It was a nice night for a walk anyway. The crickets were chirping, the night breeze was blowing, the air was lively and cleansing.

A car passed him, he held up a hand in greeting, then looked over his shoulder, watching it drive past the Torino and around the bend.

The sound of rustling leaves brought Hutch's head around to the left, and saw that a squirrel was responsible. He smiled as he watched it scurry up a tree and disappear into the branches.

This was an area he could see himself living in someday. In the middle of nature but not too far away from the city. There was a lot he liked about the city. The people. The busyness, the access. But there was a lot he liked about the country too. The solitude, the scenery, the inspiration. Now if he could only fit the ocean in between.

Hutch rounded the curve, and could smell the aroma of burgers.

Maybe he would take Starsky one. He would love it.

And maybe he would get one for himself. Just a small one. And they could split an order of fries and a cherry Coke.

A single light bulb lit the stand as Hutch walked up to the gravel parking area. One car was here, probably the owner.

"Busy tonight?" Hutch smiled as he walked up to the window.

A pretty lady smiled.

"I am now."

Hutch looked at her, his mind somehow registering the interior of the small stand she stood in. A grill, a chip display, a soda pop dispenser, a deep fry, and an ice chest for ice cream. There was a phone on the wall, a radio playing, and a fly strip hanging from the ceiling. She was the only one here.

"What'll you have, handsome?"

"Uh…a burger, I guess. With the works. Or. Make that two. With one fry and 2 cherry Cokes. If you don't have seaweed salad, that is."

She smiled. "Oh, gross, no, I don't have that, I'm sorry. I'll get your order."

She turned away, Hutch catching sight of her ring-free ring-finger as she did so.

"Name's Ken," he said. "Or you can call me Hutch."

He watched her cook. Something about watching a cute busy butt in the kitchen.

He cleared his throat.

"I'm Minda," she said without turning around.

"Where do you live? Close?"

"About five miles away. My dad owns this place. I run it nights, he runs it days. Isn't the night owl he used to be. I like to stay up late and listen to music, read, whatever."

"I'm reading Thoreau right now. Reinforces why I want to live in a place like this even more. You know, I think there's a real connection between man and nature. Sometimes I feel like we're the same thing. Do you ever feel that way?"

The smell of the burgers was intoxicating. She turned and smiled, came back to the window while they fried.

She leaned on her elbows toward him and smiled. "Go on."

"I mean. We're living, breathing creatures, and so are trees, plants, flowers, wildlife."

"I don't know about the rocks."

"Rocks. Well. Rocks are part of it all. And how do we know they don't breathe in their own way? There are some things our puny human minds just can't grasp."

They stood looking into each other's eyes.

"I like the beach," she said.

"Me too. When it's quiet. Fewer people there, the better. I need my own private beach."

"Maybe we'll go someday."

She turned back around to get the burgers, fries, and drinks, wrapped them, put them in a white paper sack.

"Four-fifty," she said.

He fished a five from his pocket and gave it to her.

"Keep the change."

She wrote her phone number on a napkin and put it in the bag.

"Call me sometime."

"I will."

Hutch picked up the bag and started away, smiling at her over his shoulder.

She was a nice girl. And pretty. Breezy, curious, kind. Maybe he would call her after the case and make a date, take her to the beach, or to the library for some books.

He rounded the curve that led back to the Torino.

Too bad, Starsky. Because you didn't want to get your own food, you missed out on a pretty girl.

Such a quiet, quaint little area. Very little traffic, houses miles apart, high above the rat race yet close enough to jump in and get messy when you wanted to. Friends would be-

-He lurched forward one step to an abrupt stop, almost lost his balance by the sight of the gunman approaching a dozing Starsky in the Torino.

-"Starsk!"

The takeout dropped to the ground.

Yell, yell, just run, run.

He pulled his gun and ran.

"Police! Free-"

One blast. Fleeing feet.

Hutch fired at his back. Down. The man dropped.

A choking sound was in his throat when he reached the Torino.

The loud, maddening roar of blood and panic in Hutch's ears.

"Starsk?"

A whisper, a plea.

Starsky slumped over the steering wheel, blood trickling down his temple, looking dreadfully asleep.

Hutch clawed at the door handle, yanked it open, gathered in close, panting, examined the wound.

"Starsk? Please?"

Starsky's eyes were closed, still looking asleep. Not dead. Asleep.

Hold onto that.

Hutch snatched the radio, carefully moved Starsky over into the passenger side, trying to apply pressure and start the car and talk into the mike all at the same time.

Starsky slumped against him. Hutch pulled him closer, pressed against the bleeding wound.

Running footsteps. The girl.

"What hap-"

"Get in."

She got in.

"He's been shot. Apply pressure to his head."

She obeyed.

Hutch sped around the gunman's body with a screech of tires.

"I'm a cop."

"Oh."

Starsky's hand lay motionless on the seat. Hutch reached for it, squeezed.

"Is he breathing?"

She tried to raise his head. "I don't-"

"IS HE BREATHING?"

She put her ear close to his face, her hand on his chest.

"I think so."

Hutch sped up, the car careening dangerously around each curve.

XX

She tried making eye contact with him, but he was pacing too much, back and forth, back and forth, outside of the emergency room.

"I don't know you very well, but-"

"That's right, you don't."

She blanched.

What happened to the charming, sensitive guy at the burger stand? Of course he would be upset that his partner was shot, but for him to turn into a deadly mountain lion?

He saw her face, walked over to her, touched her arm.

"I'm sorry. It's just…"

"It's okay."

"We're like brothers."

"It's okay, you don't have to explain."

"I go for a stupid hamburger, and then this. It just-I've been really close to losing him before, and I always keep a close eye, but…I blew it."

"No. There's no way you could have known."

"It's my job to know. My responsibility. His safety is in my hands, and no one else's."

Those words turned him around, but she caught a glimpse of tearful eyes as he did. He walked down the hall again.

The doctor came out of the emergency room to talk to him, and Hutch hurried up the hall to where Minda was standing.

Hutch's face was at once hopeful and helpless.

"We removed the bullet," the doctor said.

Hutch nodded. "Thank you."

"But he's on life support. We're moving him to ICU. He hasn't regained consciousness. We'll watch him the next 24 hours, see what happens. It's just too early to know much, but we'll keep you updated. You can visit with him for a bit if you like, but like I told you, he isn't awake."

Hutch nodded, and the doctor went back to the ER.

Minda extended her hand toward Hutch's, touched it.

"It sounds like your friend is a fighter."

He nodded, squeezed her hand, started to pull away, but she squeezed back.

"Want a coffee?"

He nodded, allowed her to lead him down the hall and around the corner toward the cafeteria.

XX

They stood outside his room in ICU.

"I'm going in to see him," Hutch told the girl. "You don't have to stay. Thank you for coming with me."

She smiled. "Not like I had much of a choice. I thought you were going to shoot me."

He hugged her. "Sorry. Didn't mean to scare you. Can I call a cab for you, or is there a bus, what-"

"I'll call my girlfriend Serena."

"You sure?"

"Sure."

"Well, it was nice meeting you."

"Yeah, same here."

She walked down the hall, and she could feel that he was watching her. She would have stayed, in a heartbeat, but he didn't ask her.

XX

He stepped in the room and stood looking toward the bed, hoping for a movement from Starsky. A blink. A moan. A turn of the head. His head was swathed in bandages, his face pale, the tubes and machines attached to him, keeping him alive.

The few feet between them seemed like a few miles, and Hutch had never felt so isolated from his partner. No wisecracks, no endearing pouts, no playful exaggerations.

"I got the guy," Hutch said aloud, and his voice sounded strange in the room, almost as if someone else had spoken.

Hutch looked at the clock. Twelve critical hours had passed. Twelve critical more hours to go.

Vic Bellamy gave you a 24-hour death sentence.

That time we were both racing against the clock, trying to find the compound, trying to find the guy. This time it's just me, and there's no more guy to get, nothing to hunt. And the clock is going sluggishly slow.

Hutch moved closer to the bed, looked down, saw Starsky's still hand, picked it up, felt its coolness, its aloneness, and held it in both of his, squeezing life and faith and hope and love back into him.

If this were a cowboy movie, I'd give you my boots.

Come on.

Say something. Please.

Come back. Don't let go.

Fight like you did with Bellamy. Fight for me.

Why did I leave you in the car? It's not like we were staking out boy scouts.

I let my guard down. I let you down.

I'm so sorry. Please forgive me.

"Starsk-"

His name caught in his throat, and it took him to one knee next to the bed, where he wept, and when he did, he felt Starsky's hand on his head, as if in blessing.

Sniffing, Hutch raised his head and clasped his hand.

"Buddy? Are you awake?"

The slight squeeze of his hand told him that the worst was over, and that a lot of healing remained.

The End

::::::

Visions (A Joe Collandra Story)

By TLR

I have to tell Starsky.

One minute I'm minding my own business sweeping my diner, the next a cannonball smashes into the side of my head, and the cannonball is a blast of images like on a television set, and then I'm on one knee, pushing myself back up with my broom, trying to get out the door past my customers-"Honey, take over! I gotta go!"-and toward my car,

which seems to move farther and farther away from me the closer I get to-

-a gun out a car window-

-a gunshot-

-bullets chop-

-Hutch spins around-

-goes down-

-blood on his chest-

-Starsky runs to him-

I stumble at my car door, reaching, pawing to open it, climb inside. I have to warn them, it's soon, but my chest, it feels like a truck is sitting on it, crushing, I can't breathe, bleeding inside, God, help, somebody-

I can't get in the car-

I'm sorry-

XX

I come to looking at those two mugs, find myself in the hospital, hooked up to machines, what the-?

"You had a mild heart attack," Hutch says.

Mild? I'd hate to suffer a big one.

I have no strength or air to do anything but nod.

Starsky pats the shoulder of my hospital gown.

"Gonna be okay, Joe."

Yeah, right. You try it.

I looked at Hutch, reached for him, have to tell him.

He clutches my hand-God, no-worse. Physical contact always makes it worse. Stronger. Bullet slams into my chest, socks me into the mattress-Starsky runs, panic love, rage,

hate, revenge, boiling.

Need to speak, can't.

"Huh…"

Hutch's worried look, calls for the doctor.

I try to raise my head, say something.

"Luh…"

They trade a look. Try to decipher. The doctor comes in.

"Look out," I say. "Today."

That's all I can say. I pass out.

XX

They go on their way, not fully understanding, but knowing me well enough, and what I can do well enough, to discuss it.

Even though I'm in a hospital bed, passed out, I follow them, like astral projection, except it's more like a movie camera following them around.

They go to Huggy's to ask him. Huggy sees something on their minds.

"What's up?" he asks them as he puts two beers in front of them.

"Thought you might know," Starsky says.

"What do you mean?"

"Joe Collandra?"

"What about him?"

"He had a heart attack today," Hutch says. "He told us to be careful."

Huggy looks from one to the other. The word "careful" coming from some people may not mean much, but they know when it comes from me, it's real.

"I don't have what he has," Huggy says wryly and apologetically. "Just word on the street. And that's not as good as Joe's."

The two smirk a little. They look at each other, thinking about who else they could ask.

No one.

"Well," Hutch says taking a thoughtful sip of his beer. "We look out. Just like we always do."

"Made any recent enemies?" Huggy questions.

"Every day," Starsky chuckles.

That they do.

XX

They go about their daily routine, sometimes their thoughts turning to me, wondering how I am. Hutch makes a phone call to the hospital. They both consider the warning, watching out their car windows with extra careful attention as they drive their beat.

They go into a few places where their other, less reliable snitches hang out, but no one has heard of any hits "on us", as Starsky says, speaking like it's both of them instead of just Hutch.

They come back to the hospital around noon to see if I can give them more information. I can't, still out. So they go back to work. Hutch is getting worked up inside, but not out of fear for himself. He's worried about Starsky, who just came back from the Simon Marcus cult a few weeks ago, more shaken and traumatized than he will ever let Hutch know.

Starsky is worried that Hutch will be blown back through a plate-glass window again, and Hutch is worried that someone will grab him off the street, out of the car, out of his bed.

"We should just cool it at my place," Hutch says.

"Why? I ain't hidin' like some little old lady." Starsky pulls open his jacket and takes out his gun. "Come on, sucker."

"I don't think driving around as a bright red target is a wise idea."

"And I don't think sitting at your place like a duck is a wise idea either."

"Pull the car over."

"Huh?"

"You heard me."

"What for?"

The police radio sounds up.

"Zebra 3. Come in."

Hutch answers, listens to a message from Huggy via the dispatch that he has new info on a hit.

"We're there," Hutch says.

Starsky turns around and speeds up.

"You're paranoid," Starsky says accusingly.

"Paranoid. You were abducted a month and a half ago, Joe tells us to watch out, and I'm paranoid." He throws the mike back into the radio. "I don't want you hurt again! And if I can do anything to stop it-anything at all-I'M GOING TO!"

Starsky says nothing. He rarely sees Hutch so worked up. Usually Hutch's wrath is seen outside the presence of his partner directed at other people, like a superior, hospital staff, or a wise guy, and usually concerns his injured half. He was frustrated because he felt helpless to protect his best friend all the time. He kicked himself for not being more alert at the courthouse when Starsky was abducted. He felt he had been a lousy cop, a lousy friend-I should have known. I could have stopped them. I didn't protect you.

Starsky looks over at him. It only takes him a few words to cool Hutch down, get through to him, soften him up.

"You saved my life," he says quietly. "They would've killed me."

They use that radar with each other, like I have. Starsky knew why Hutch was so freaked out. Hutch knew Starsky was sincere. It just took a few words to work it out and make it right. They look out for each other. It's how they survive.

"Let's see what Huggy has to say," Hutch murmurs.

The car is quiet again. They drive to Huggy's, park, get out.

A car speeds up.

A gun out the window.

"Hutch!"

Hutch turns-

"Hutch, down!"

-Starsky dives at him-

-shoves him down-

-a gunshot-

-bullets chop-

-Starsky spins-

-goes down-

-blood on his chest-

-Hutch runs to him-

-shoots at the fleeing car with one hand, touches Starsky's red chest with the other- -exploding glass, exploding brains across the upholstery-

-the car crashes into a telephone pole on the sidewalk-both occupants dead-

Starsky changes the outcome. Prior knowledge of the event, active intervention, alters the circumstances.

Traffic stalls. Horns honk. Drivers swear, get out, throw tantrums.

Hutch runs up to the car, still shooting, even though he knows they're dead, keeps shooting, grimly gleeful, empties the gun, runs back.

Huggy comes running out, yells for somebody to call an ambulance.

Starsky sprawls on the sidewalk like a broken doll. Hutch opens his shirt, checks the wound, applies pressure.

Starsky struggles for breath. I struggle for breath. He tries to get up. I try to get up.

"Sshh," Hutch pushes him down. "Stay still." Starsky clutches his wrist, tries to breathe, speak.

"Easy," Hutch whispers. Gone the raging machine. Here the calm comforter. He does best when giving, reaching out, doing his purpose. Sometimes he fumbles around like a playful, distracted schoolboy, all carefree and smiles, sometimes even shy, but give him a crisis and he's dead calm, a study in focus and intensity and competence. No one but his partner brings this out. I don't like reaching too far into the future when it comes to my friends, but one of these guys without the other is like an incomplete picture, a stained masterpiece, a scratched record, a fractured vase.

Starsky's eyes look up to him, clutching his wrist, hanging on for dear life.

Hutch's hand goes to the side of his head, caressing.

"It'll be okay," he whispers. "Keep breathing. Look at me. Stay with me."

Huggy takes off his apron, rolls it up, puts it beneath Starsky's head.

"He gonna be okay?"

"Sure he is."

Such reassurance. The same hand that could knock you out with a closed fist is giving tenderness and survival to his friend.

Starsky coughs blood. Struggles to breathe again, clutches harder. Don't let me die.

Silent communication again.

Just keep looking at me. It'll be okay. I'm right here.

Friendship condensed to instinct-seeing, breathing, touching, life, death-survival.

Cellular, chemical, psychic, biologic, hard to define, invisible but palpable.

Tears in Hutch's eyes.

You pushed me down, Starsk. Took my bullet. Saved my life. Thank you. I love you.

Starsky clutches him harder, and the only way Hutch can get him any closer is to pull him up into the crook of his arm, which he does, slumped like a sleeping baby. It's what he wants, to get closer. It seems to be enough. Even when Starsky's eyes start to roll and his grip leaves Hutch's hand, it seems to be enough.

Hutch glances at Huggy. They don't say the words, they just pray.

Please be all right.

XX

Hutch asks about me at the hospital, is told I'm stabilizing, but he doesn't stay long enough to hear the details, he's on to the emergency room, where Starsky is being wheeled into surgery to remove the bullet.

Hutch has blood on the front of his shirt, a red sign of his love, which makes Dobey question if he's been shot too.

I want to talk to him, but they won't let me out of bed, and I'm too weak to try. If I could just get his attention, but he's too wrapped up in Starsky's condition to notice.

Oh well, the room is getting dark anyway. Time to close my eyes again.

XX

Huggy comes to see me.

"This is Thursday?" I ask.

"Yeah."

"Doctors are telling Hutch that Starsky's going to be okay."

"Good news."

"I told them, Huggy. I told them what would happen."

"I know. Guess you can't stop everything."

"No, but I guess you can change it. I saw Hutch getting shot, not Starsky."

Huggy takes that in, I take that in.

"I need a vacation, Hug."

"Yeah. Those visions are bad for your health."

"Seems like they're stronger with those two."

"Somethin' tells me they'd both be tomato paste right now if you hadn't warned them."

Hutch's worry keeps pushing at my membranes, to the point it pushes Huggy out. Even though the doctors are telling him that Starsky will be okay, Hutch won't believe it until

he sees Starsky himself and talks to him.

So a few minutes later, after strict orders to leave Starsky alone, Hutch slips around the corner to see his partner.

Hutch thinks how pale he looks, that he should be out busting heads and picking up girls, not parked in a hospital bed like a damaged muscle car. I try zoning away from Hutch. Sometimes I can't zone out at all, I'm glued to whoever and whatever until the ride is over. But with Starsky past the critical point and Hutch breathing some relief, I begin to catch a break.

It's hard to zone away from friends, or from something that needs close attention like this, but staying in the zone is bad for my health. I have little control over the visions, it's more like they control me. Usually it's okay. I just deal with it. But it really is hazardous to my health. My first heart attack, hopefully my last one. I want to die a ripe old age. Maybe senility will hit me and my visions won't be as strong. No such luck. I'll be catching these scenes for the rest of my life.

Hutch sits by Starsky's bed, watching, guarding, taking his hand, which opens Starsky's medicated eyes. A little smile lays across his face. We beat another one, Hutch. Don't worry. I'm here.

He acts so tough. He would never be aware that he clung to his partner like a little kid. He would never know what I know-that Hutch went to the hospital chapel and prayed for a trade-take my life, it was supposed to be me, just let him live-

He would never know of his hammer-like heartbeat as he stood just around the corner from the emergency room.

"Dirtball," Hutch whispers close to him as he grasps his hand. "Why'd you do that?"

Tears shine in his eyes like love, and Starsky feels like he owns the world. He and his partner beat the odds again.

XX

I get better. I thought a hospital was supposed to treat you with kid gloves after a heart attack. Turns out they want you up and moving around as much as possible, and way too early if you ask me. They don't want fluid to settle in my lungs, and they don't want me to get depressed.

How can I get depressed when I have so much to do, so much on my mind? I don't tell the staff that visions caused my heart attack. They don't understand. But my good buddies S & H do. Because their hearts have gone through all but failure a time or two. I don't want my visions, but I don't have a say. I have them for a reason, and work with it the best I can.

My phone rings.

I know who it is before I answer.

Starsky.

I reach for the receiver.

"Yeah?"

"Hey, Joe, it's me."

"Fancy meeting you here."

"Yeah. How you doin'?"

"Better."

"Why don't you come and see me? Hutch is here."

"I know."

"Yeah. You know everything."

"Not everything, but I do know that."

XX

A nurse wheels me to Starsky's room. He looks pasty and his hair looks like it's been mauled by a wildcat, but he's sitting up and doing a crossword puzzle in bed.

Hutch is pouring him a glass of water from a pitcher.

"Hey, Joe."

He pours one for me.

The schoolboy is back. Chipper. Relaxed. Satisfied.

I sit there in my wheelchair and take them in. Both alive, both on the mend.

"Thanks for the heads up," Starsky says.

"No problem."

Hutch comes to shake my hand.

"I don't know how to thank you, Joe."

Hutch's grip is strong and sincere, and I receive a lot in it-he's safe, thanks to you, I don't know how to express it, you saved his life-I take care of him the best I can, but sometimes…I can't lose my dear friend-I would never be the same…

"It's okay, Hutch. That look on your face is thanks enough."

And the silent words in your heart that I hear.

XX

Two months later they roll into my diner like two bouncers, checking out the ladies, waving to a few friends, elbowing each other away to take two stools front and center at my bar.

"Service!" Starsky says pounding on the counter.

I go over to them. They look raring to go again. Starsky cocky and energetic as ever.

Hutch thoughtful and cool.

A quick read: Starsky clears for duty. Hutch confident of his recovery. No more late night phone calls from Hutch to his partner to check on him. No more workouts from Starsky at Vinnie's Gym to prove to Hutch he's okay. Business as usual. Next case.

"Iced tea," Hutch says.

End

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

Revenge

By Zebra 3 and Me

Starsky sat down next to the pretty girl at Huggy's bar, smiled, caught Huggy's eye.

"Hey, Hug."

"Hey, Starsk. Where's your sidekick?"

"Getting his old gray mare worked on." He looked at the girl. "That's my partner Hutch's car."

She didn't look his way, but picked up a menu.

"Not really a horse," Starsky added. "But close."

She continued to look at the menu.

Starsky cleared his throat. "If I may make a recommendation."

Now she looked at him, smiled. "Please."

"Burger and fries. Good old-fashioned food. Sticks to your ribs."

She looked down at her ribs.

"You have lovely ribs," he said.

She smiled. "Are you flirting with me?"

"Want me to?"

"Of course."

An hour later he was escorting her from Huggy's, his arm around her. The night life was jumping tonight. Music. Laughter. Conversations on the street. Cruisers looking for a score.

"My car is just around the corner," she said.

"Car? Let's go to my place. In my car."

"Well…maybe next time."

"What, you don't trust me?"

"I don't know you well enough to trust you."

"I'm a cop. Very trustworthy."

"Says who?"

"Says anybody."

She smiled. "You pay people to say that?"

He laughed. "I like you, Trina."

"Then walk me to my car and let's make another date."

He took her hand and led her around the corner.

She pointed to a copper-colored Chevy Nova with a thin black stripe down the side.

"That's it."

He walked her to the car. "I like it. Wait'll you see mine."

She opened the door on the driver's side and stood smiling at him. "When will that be?"

"When do you want it to be?"

"How about next Friday night? Same time, same-"

A blow to the head from an iron pipe, and Starsky was unconscious on the ground.

Trina watched as two men picked him up and put him in the back of a van.

"Thanks," she told them. "Take him to her room."

XX

She watched him as he stirred back to consciousness, looked at her watch, then at the door to make sure it was locked. Went to the window and pulled the shade down. Didn't bother to turn the TV up to mask the sounds, because she knew he would not be making very many.

He sat on the floor at the foot of the bed, handcuffed to its iron railing and slumped against it, gag in his mouth, blindfold on, head down, a low groaning sound coming muffled behind the cloth in his mouth. A trickle of blood seeped from beneath the blindfold, trailing down his sideburn.

His head was too heavy to lift, but his fingers moved, and that took her to the dresser where she prepared a needle from a nurse's bag, took it over to him, pushed up his sleeve, and pushed it into his arm.

His response was a slight flinch, a soft moan.

"What would he think if he saw you now?" she asked.

He couldn't answer of course, but she continued to talk.

He moved his head, trying to see her from the bottom of the blindfold. She kicked him in the ribs, a muffled cry escaped.

His breath now a panting sound, slight panic, confusion, disorientation. A tug on the handcuffs.

She kicked him again.

"I want you still."

Breathless. He struggled to get air again. The drug caused his movements to dwindle to a stillness that she seemed to be satisfied with. He raised his head, it lolled back.

XX

He listened, but he was fading in and out. Her voice. So familiar. But in his drugged state of mind, couldn't be sure of who was speaking. Maybe he was hallucinating. Maybe he was at home dreaming in his own bed. Maybe in one of Simon Marcus' caves waiting to be cut apart like a butchered calf. Her voice. Senseless. Low. Cold.

-"He was supposed to love me."

-"I know he loves you."

-"I'm jealous of you."

-"I hate you."

-"I'll make him pay."

-"I want him to hurt."

-"This will hurt him more than anything."

His stomach would split open and everything would spill out. His intestines, his organs, maybe even his lungs and heart if they chopped through his ribs-

-a sheen of sweat accompanied the soft squeal behind the gag, and then he was out.

But before he was gone, one name appeared across his black mind as a single word typed in white on a page: Diana.

XX

Starsky was fifteen minutes late.

Tired of waiting, Hutch picked up the phone and dialed his house.

After ten rings, he went down to Merle's loaner parked at the curb, got in, and drove toward Starsky's.

XX

He tried fruitlessly to pull at the handcuffs, but the only result was a metallic clinking sound and a vicious kick to his side.

He gasped, gagged, maybe blood. If he choked…she wouldn't care.

She sank another injection into his arm, and his head dropped forward against the iron rail.

She was using him to hurt Hutch. Whether Hutch came or not…was irrelevant. She wanted him dead. He heard no phone call from her to him taunting him to come, daring him to come, begging him to come. She knew he would, eventually, and her only goal was to hurt him by torturing his best friend to death.

Hutch, I want you to come, but don't. I don't want you to find me dead. I don't want her to win.

XX

"I didn't see what kind of car she drove," Huggy told Hutch as they stood at the Torino, which was still parked across the street from his bar and grill. "But I can give you a description of her."

"His car is still sitting here this morning when you come to work and you don't call me?"

Huggy tried to ignore the ice in his eyes, the coiled tension in his shoulders.

"Hutch, his car is parked here a lot of mornings when he's on an overnighter with a girl, and you know that, so why you givin' me grief?"

"Okay, I'm just…looking for someone to blame."

Hutch walked to the loaner.

"Where you going?" Huggy asked.

"Talk to Dobey, where else?"

Huggy walked toward the passenger side of Hutch's car and got in.

"You're going with me?" Hutch asked.

"Starsky drops out of sight, you expect me to just stand around?"

"I'll put you with a sketch artist while I talk to Dobey."

Hutch gunned the motor and took off in a surge down the street.

XX

The drug was wearing off. Shards of awareness shuffled through fragments of images, impossible to distinguish one from the other now. He didn't know the day, the time, and, if asked, wasn't sure if he could say his name. The name "Diana" wasn't even in his head any longer. Only one word remained. Hutch.

She bent low to him, the carving knife in her hand, placing the tip delicately to his cheekbone, just below the blindfold.

He flinched, causing a nick.

"Still," she said, but instinct turned his head away.

His breath picked up.

She turned the knife point-down in her hand and jabbed it into his thigh near the femoral artery. Quick. In and out.

Chop. Another just above his knee. Tiny circles of blood seeped through his jeans.

He yelped behind the gag, tried to move away. She chopped again. He cringed, curled into himself, panting, sweating, muscles tensing.

He moved his head no, tried to speak. She chopped him again. He froze. Held his breath.

Anything to get her to stop.

Get me out of here, Hutch. She really is crazy. Please come and get me.

Too much movement to suit her. She went to her nurse's bag, prepared an injection, and jabbed that into his thigh too.

XX

Huggy sat in Starsky's chair in the squad room looking through mug books when Hutch

came from Dobey's office.

Dobey appeared in the doorway of his office, giving Huggy a look-Go with him, keep an eye on him, call me if you need to.

"Here she is," Huggy said pointing to a strawberry blonde in the mug book. "Angela Coplan."

XX

"You're not bad looking," was what he heard her say upon regaining consciousness.

He smelled food again. A hamburger. He heard her chewing it across the room. The swish of ice in a lidded cup. The crackling of sandwich wrapping.

A bit of clarity. Bits of reality instead of the foggy land of hallucination.

One drink would be nice. He wouldn't turn it down. One bite. Just to keep him going.

"You're actually good looking," she said as she crouched next to him with the knife, putting the tip under his chin and lifting his lowered head.

More compelling than his hunger and the needlelike pain to his throat was his urgent need to urinate. Excruciating.

His hands came up, fingers opening, gesturing for her to come close, listen to him, understand, take the gag out so he could tell her that he had to take a leak. She would do this. She was a woman, a nurse. She understood about bodily functions and the body's basic need for water and relief.

But the communication was much too much. When his fingers moved toward the gag to gesture toward it, request that she remove it, she chopped the knife into the back of his hand.

His injured hand flew up to his mouth in reflex, pressing hard against the gag, fireworks of pain exploding in his brain. For one lucid, strong moment he yanked his cuffed hands against the iron bed rail, hoping to break it, praying he was strong enough to jerk it loose and run, fight her, but the needle came down into his neck, immobilizing him.

The drug traveled through his veins, and his body stopped resisting.

She unlocked the cuffs, and he slumped sideways to the floor. She pushed him over onto his stomach, pulled his hands behind him, and cuffed his wrists again to the iron bed rail.

Facedown, he moaned into the floor

XX

Trina was opening her door to leave, keys to the Nova in her hand, when Hutch barreled inside the doorway, clutched her throat in her hand, and slammed her back inside and against the wall.

"Talk," he seethed quietly into her terrified face. "Where is he?"

Huggy tried to pull Hutch away from her. It was no good/cop, bad/cop routine.

"Hutch, man! Stop it!"

Hutch banged the back of her head against the wall, once, eyes snakelike in their flatness and indifference to her safety. "Where?"

"I…" Her eyes darted from one man to the other. "I don't know. I wasn't supposed to know. Just get him to the car. That's all I did."

"Who else is involved?"

She closed her eyes. "They'll kill me."

Hutch pounded her head again. "I'll kill you, if you don't tell me."

She looked at Huggy, and his eyes told her to talk.

XX

"This is my trained Mastiff," Diane told him as she walked to the door. "Burnes. I'm sure you can hear him breathing. He outweighs you by about twenty pounds, and if you move, he will attack you."

But he only half-heard her, because she had given him another needle.

She looked at him again, then went out, put a "Do Not Disturb" sign on the doorknob, and closed the door.

Move? How could he move? He hadn't moved in…how long now? Hard to tell. His black world was getting blacker, disjointed, pulling apart, floating away like pieces into silent space. He had no strength to move. He couldn't distinguish his body from the floor. They had somehow melded together to form the same matter. He wasn't even sure if he were alive or dead, sane or insane, medicated or un-medicated. Was it day or night? Was she here? Did she leave?

No, don't leave me. Come back.

XX

"Cap's sending reinforcements."

Hutch put a gun in Huggy's hand, then moved him to the opposite side of the apartment door and pulled his own gun.

"Police! Open up!"

Hutch didn't wait for a response. He kicked the door in, moved in, Huggy behind him.

The two cousins who had abducted Starsky at Trina/Angela's car, made a move for the back door.

"Freeze!" Hutch shouted, but when they didn't respond, ran after them, tackling the first one he could get his hands on.

Huggy grabbed the second, punched him, and shoved him back onto the sofa, where he put the gun to the man's forehead.

The man sat panting up at him.

Hutch pulled his man to his feet and shoved him onto the couch next to his cousin, putting his own gun to this man's forehead.

"Kidnapping a police officer is a serious crime. If you don't want your brains splattered all over your wallpaper, I suggest you tell me something."

"Don't we have the right to remain silent?"

"Don't we get a lawyer?"

XX

"You didn't read them their rights!" Dobey shouted at Hutch in his office. "One of your overheated, overblown moments, and they walked!"

Hutch turned to stalk out.

"Hutch, where are you going?"

"I quit," Hutch said dropping his badge and gun into the chair. "I'm not on duty anymore, so I can do whatever I want to."

Dobey came around his desk.

"Hutch!"

XX

Hutch carried Huggy's handgun to the cousins' front door and kicked it in, but the place was empty.

Huggy's car lurched to a stop at the curb, and he jumped out.

"Hutch!"

He joined Hutch inside, looking around.

"Don't worry," Huggy said as they left. "I'll dig around."

Angry tears sprang to Hutch's eyes as he stalked to his car. "Wench."

XX

Hutch got out of his car and went up to his apartment. It was over.

It wasn't over, but it felt over. Angela Coplan didn't know anymore. The cousins got off and had fled to who knows where. And Diane was somewhere with Starsky.

He had been so busy pursuing the case, he hadn't had the time to let it sink into his bones, his heart, his soul, but now Starsky's abduction was doing just that, invading him like a virus, attacking him cell by cell, the rage being coupled with heartache. His chest hurt, his heart mourned, his brain struggled.

Cop mode out, friend mode in.

He'd done all he could do as a cop, now he was operating on sheer desperation. He'd walk the streets in search of him if he had to, drive all night, search all day, pay any amount of money she-

You don't want money.

You want me.

And you know you can't have me, so your twisted logic says if you can't have me, neither can anyone else.

You've come unglued, you know there's no chance for us, so you're out to destroy me by hurting the closest one to me.

Starsky.

Hutch looked at the phone.

"Call me, psycho. Come on."

But the phone didn't ring.

XX

Hutch had a photo of Diana in his hand as he went from door to door. He wanted to put it on the air, but if she saw it, she would flee.

There was an APB out for Starsky, but nothing came of it.

XX

Hutch's phone was ringing when he entered his apartment. He lifted the receiver.

"Hutchinson."

"We got Diane Harmon's body at the morgue. Family member identified her. She took a bottle of pills on the beach and walked out into the ocean."

Dobey said a little more, but Hutch didn't hear it. The receiver had slipped from his hand.

XX

A knock came at Hutch's door.

Hutch's apartment was dark. He slept on the couch, unshaven, unkempt.

The knock came again.

Hutch moved the newspaper from his chest and went to the door, opened it.

A neighbor lady stood with a business-sized envelope in her hand.

"This came to my mailbox by mistake."

Hutch took the letter, saying nothing else, and closed the door.

No sender's name, no return address. Hutch opened the letter and immediately dropped it.

It was the signature, Diane, that jumped out at him.

With a trembling hand, he reached down and picked up the note:

-You'll find him at the Colegrove Inn on Fifth and Vine. Room 350. When you get this, I'll be gone, and so will he.

Hutch was out the door before the page could flutter to the floor.

XX

Hutch called Huggy, Dobey, and an ambulance, and told them to meet him at the inn, but he got there first, racing through the shabby lobby, past the vacant front desk, up the stairs, down the hall, busting in-

"Starsk!"

The Mastiff leaped, knocking Hutch backward to the floor. Hutch let him have his left arm, pulled Huggy's gun with his right, and as the teeth gouged for his throat, fired into the massive head, the animal dropping on top of him, pinning him to the floor.

Hutch heaved the dog sideways, and, panting, crawled across the floor toward the clump of clothing at the foot of the bed, but when he got there, discovered with heart-wrenching reality that the clump of clothing was his partner, thinner, lost in the material.

Hutch raised the window shade, saw the nurse's bag, looked through the contents, saw the vials and syringes.

She had left him to die of thirst, starvation, dehydration. Drugged, bound, helpless.

"Oh my God."

He was still face down, where she had left him, puncture marks at the back of his neck where the dog's teeth had plunged.

Hutch unlocked the handcuffs, a sob catching in his throat.

"Starsk?"

Starsky's skin was scorching, breath shallow.

"Water," Hutch whispered to him as he gently turned Starsky onto his side and leaned down close to his ear. "I'll get you some water."

What he meant to say was that an IV would be in him soon. He was too weak to drink water on his own.

When Hutch slowly dislodged the gag from Starsky's mouth, a little blood and saliva came with it.

"Hey," Hutch whispered. "Hey. It's okay. I'm right here."

It wasn't okay, but Hutch could say nothing else. It was far from okay, it was awful. But he was alive, and he had to try to keep him that way, had to try to help him believe it, and convince even himself of it.

Hutch worked the blindfold off cautiously, noting the streaks of dried blood down his face.

Starsky gave a slight wince at the sudden light in his eyes.

Hutch leaned over him, shading him, carefully and lovingly lifting his head in both hands. His nose was bleeding from the dryness. Hutch took a fresh handkerchief from his back pocket, pressed, dabbed.

"Buddy. Look at me."

Starsky's glazed eyes roamed aimlessly at the sound, looking but not seeing.

A small heave of Starsky's stomach. Starsky's hands too weak to move, too weak to hold his head up. His lips parted to say something, nothing came out.

"Help is coming. An ambulance. I'll get you to a hospital. So you fight, okay? Fight with everything you have. I'll fight with you."

Hutch gathered Starsky into his arms, leaned back against the bed, held him close, making sure Starsky could have eye contact with him. His clothes were now too big on him. Hutch felt more bone than muscle.

"Huh…"

His lips were cracked, his tongue thick. Hutch saw the tiny dried knife pricks dotted here and there on his body. Rusty-brown circles. Thigh, hand, shoulder, throat, back, forearm.

She tortured you.

He's dying. Close to death. Where is that ambulance?

How could you do this to him, Diane?

How could you do this to me?

A soft laughter came from Starsky. Delirium? Relief? Both?

"Sshh," Hutch said cradling him, rocking him. "You're going to be okay."

Hutch looked up to see Dobey and Huggy in the doorway, helpless disbelief on their faces. They walked over to see about Starsky, gathering in close to him as if in a family prayer.

End

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

The Cellar

By TLR

A small sound came in the darkness of the cellar, and Hutch came to and raised his head, discovering that he had managed to prop himself in the corner, and that Starsky had somehow made it over to collapse facedown across his lap.

It wasn't a large cellar, maybe twelve feet by twenty. Dark, dank, quiet, made of stone.

When the small sound came again, he raised his head, sending a blade of pain down his spine. He had been hit over the head, his hands went back to feel. No blood, but a big knot.

It was Starsky that had made the sound, a small groan of pain, not him.

"Starsk?" he asked weakly. "You okay?"

He carefully moved Starsky to a sitting position, then put an arm around him to hold him steady.

"Yeah," came his small voice, but Hutch could tell he wasn't okay.

Simply put, it appeared as though the Lopez brothers, bent on revenge, had left them here to die a slow death by starvation.

"Where are we?" Starsky asked.

"Not sure. Cellar I think."

"We gonna…gonna get out of here?"

"If I have anything to do with it."

"How? How we gonna get out of here? I can't even see my hand in front of my face, or you, or nothin'."

"Anything broken?"

"Left arm I think, not sure."

Hutch felt along Starsky's left arm. "That hurt?"

"Yes!"

"Sorry. I'm going to stand up and do a little exploring."

"Careful, huh?"

Hutch gently took his arm from around Starsky, then climbed to his feet.

"How we gonna get out of here?"

"You already asked me that."

"And you never gave me an answer."

"How do you eat an elephant?"

Together they said, "One bite at a time."

Hutch's hands started feeling around the stone walls. Starsky struggled to his feet and began to explore with his good hand.

"You okay?" Starsky asked him.

"I have a lump on the back of my head the size of Texas, but aside from that, I'm fine."

"We need to find a door."

"No kidding."

Hutch's hands played along shelves of old tools, books, crockery, and cardboard boxes, then gave a sharp grunt in the darkness, but caught himself as he tripped.

"What happened?" Starsky asked.

"Found the stairs. Let's see if we can leave."

"Careful," Starsky said, remembering Marcus' caves at the zoo. There wasn't always a promise of a way out, even when it looked that way. "May be a trap."

Starsky groped his way toward the sound of Hutch's voice, and they made their way up the stone steps, to double wooden doors that were locked.

"Think we can break out?" Starsky asked.

"We'll give it a heck of a try. Let's check out these tools and see what we can use."

Starsky held to Hutch's shirttail with his good hand as they made their way to a table containing a box of tools. Hutch felt a hammer.

"Too small," he said putting it back. "A sledgehammer would be nice."

"Or a battering ram."

"I like the way you think."

They didn't find a sledgehammer or a battering ram, but did find a long crowbar.

"Maybe this will help," Hutch said as he carried it back over to the steps and up them.

But when he reached the top and found cracks to wedge the crowbar in, the sound of an animal roaring made him back down a step or two.

"Bear," they said in the same voice.

Another reminder for Starsky of the Marcus cult.

"What else is up there?" Starsky asked.

"I don't know, but we have to be ready for anything."

Now in addition to the roaring, came the loud thumping of the bear's body against the doors, as if it were trying to break in to attack.

The partners found themselves clutching each other and retreating to the tool table, grabbing up something, anything, and holding it at the ready.

"It smells blood," Starsky whispered in the dark.

"I have an idea."

"What is it?"

"You be bait for the bear, and I'll kill it when it comes down."

Starsky weighed the idea, then said, "How about you be the bait, and I'll kill it when it comes down?"

"I like my idea better. How are you going to fend off a bear with only one good arm?"

But they didn't have to wait for an answer to that question, as the bear broke through the wooden doors and came leaping down the stone steps toward them. Hutch drew the crowbar back like a javelin and stabbed it into the heavy chest as far in as it would go, then grabbed Starsky and pulled him up the steps. They stumbled and fell along the way, but made it out into the night air, spotting safety in an old farm truck across a field.

The bear was right behind them, roaring and wounded, but the partners managed to get inside of the cab of the truck and slam the doors shut.

Panting, they watched the bear pacing around the truck in the moonlight.

"Die," Starsky whispered as it lumbered in circles.

In the driver's seat, Hutch tried hotwiring the old truck, and it worked.

Starsky gave the bear the finger as they drove away. Looking in the rearview mirror, Hutch could see the bear following them for a few yards, then it just collapsed to the ground.

"Now for the Lopez Brothers," Starsky said looking over his shoulder at the bear.

The End

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

Blood

By TLR

Hutch helped Starsky to his feet and walked him toward the Torino, an arm around him, leaving behind the mess for the other cops to handle.

Starsky leaned into him, limping, stumbled, caught Hutch's sleeve.

"Okay?" Hutch asked.

"Yeah."

Starsky shrugged halfway out of the robe, Hutch searched a pocket for his pocketknife,

took the rope still around Starsky's wrist, pulled it toward him to cut it.

Starsky winced back, reflex.

Hutch's eyes met his-sorry. Starsky looked away, tried to step out of the robe, tripped, Hutch started to cinch the sleeves around his middle, saw the small carving of the upside-down cross on his loin, the fingerprint bruises. His hands froze, looking down, tears welling in his eyes.

Starsky finished the cinching, staggered sideways.

Hutch grabbed him, opened the passenger door, sat him in the seat, crouched, examined the burn around his eye.

"I'll take you to the hospital."

Starsky leaned his head against the headrest and looked at him.

"Let it go."

"I will not let it go."

"Hutch-"

"You're his tenth victim, Starsk, only you survived."

"It's over. Done with. He's down either way, and so are they."

Hutch shaded his eyes with a bloody-knuckled hand.

"Mr. Crow was right. I didn't protect you. I should have seen that coming. I should have waited outside the door for you. If-"

Starsky grabbed his collar and jerked him with such ferocity it startled him.

"Don't do that, Hutch."

Hutch jerked away from him, closed the door, and rounded the Torino to get into the driver's seat.

XX

Starsky was silent on the drive.

"Hungry?" Hutch asked. A nonsensical question because he didn't know what else to say.

His partner looked out the window. "No."

"I know what they did to their victims," Hutch said softly. "You know what they did. So if you ever want to talk about-"

Eyes still out the window.

"I won't. It's over. Just drop it."

Hutch drove. The rest of the drive was in silence.

XX

They stopped at Starsky's place, where he could get a shower and a change of clothes.

Hutch heard him cursing under the spray of water when it hit his raw cuts.

When Starsky was finished, he came out to get his clothes, trying to wrap the towel around his hips quickly, but not quick enough. Hutch saw the bruises again, the blasphemous cross, their mark branding him for life, glanced away.

-Simone never lies-

Animal.

Starsky dressed, painfully, easing the jeans up over his hips. He reached for the arm of the sofa, sat down.

The phone rang. Starsky just sat, exhausted, drained. Hutch went to the phone to answer, squeezing the back of Starsky's neck, feeling tension.

"Hello?"

Hutch listened, slammed the phone down.

"Who was it?"

"Media wants an interview."

Tired, Starsky leaned forward and pressed the heels of his hands into his eyes.

Hutch gently pushed his hands away. "Hey, don't do that. You really should let a doctor take a look at you."

Starsky pushed himself up to his feet, paused, swaying, dizzy, nauseous, then stumbled to the bathroom and retched from a dry, empty stomach.

Hutch followed quickly, wetting a cloth with cold water, holding it to his forehead while Starsky rinsed his mouth out.

"Starsk-"

"They gave me somethin', but it's better now."

Starsky held onto the sink until it passed, then started past Hutch.

"I gotta give my statement."

He stumbled into Hutch.

Hutch set him on his feet. "It can wait. I'll have Dobey come here."

Starsky moved his head no, kept moving past him in his unsteady gait.

Hutch watched him.

"Are you going to tell him everything?"

"I'll tell him what he needs to know."

Hutch followed.

-He wants to keep moving, put it behind him, get it over with, go on to normalcy, forget it.

XX

Starsky gave his statement to Dobey, in private.

Hutch waited outside in the squad room.

Huggy walked in, nodded to Hutch, took a perch on the corner of his desk.

"He gonna be okay?"

Hutch was looking down at his hands, folded quietly in his lap.

Dobey's office door opened, Starsky stepped out, saw Huggy.

"You here to gawk?"

Huggy's head withdrew like a turtle.

Dobey forced a smile in Huggy's direction. "Huggy was very helpful in finding you."

Starsky, pale, weak, looked at Hutch.

"Ready?"

Hutch rose to his feet, Huggy brushing his forearm as he passed.

Starsky waited for Hutch, almost afraid to move without him, took a step forward, and collapsed, Hutch catching him before he hit the floor.

Officers in the squad room looked, rose to their feet.

Dobey started forward, Huggy got there first, helping Hutch lift him to his feet and walk him through the door.

"I'm all right," Starsky mumbled with his head down. "Just tired."

XX

Hutch and Huggy led Starsky inside his house where he reached for his couch, easing face down on it.

"Tired," he murmured as he closed his eyes.

Hutch covered him with a knitted throw.

"Go," Starsky muttered. "Both of you."

"We're not leaving," Hutch said sitting down on the coffee table.

Huggy took a nearby chair. "Try and make us."

XX

Simon Marcus stood in Starsky's living room in his inmate uniform, looking at Hutch.

"One of you has to come with Simone."

Starsky still slept on the sofa.

Hutch rose to his feet from the coffee table.

"Take me."

Hutch followed Marcus out the door.

XX

Hutch startled awake from his dozing dream, looked around, saw Starsky still asleep on the sofa, Huggy nodding off in the chair.

He went to the front door, made sure it was locked, walked to the bathroom to take a leak, closed the door, looked down, and saw blood on the towel. Leaning his head against the wall, he released his tears and frustration into it.

XX

"Hutch!"

Huggy's voice from the other room.

Hutch ran into the living room to find him holding to a dreaming, thrashing Starsky.

Hutch rushed over.

Starsky was drenched in sweat, eyes wild, panting.

Hutch took his shoulders, crouched on one knee. "Starsk, it's a dream, wake-"

Starsky lunged at him, driving him back to the floor, forearm wedged against his throat.

Huggy tried to pull him off.

"Starsky! Get off! You're killing him!"

Hutch knocked him sideways, and when Starsky scrambled toward him again, Hutch caught him in a hug, restraining.

Huggy's eyes didn't leave them.

"Suh…" Hutch's voice was a soft pant, thin, scared. "I got you. Come on. Wake up. It's over."

Starsky struggled, growled, but couldn't move.

Hutch hid his tearful eyes in Starsky's neck. "That's it. Wake up."

Starsky's struggles slowed as his nightmare subsided. Head resting on Hutch's shoulder, his eyes opened. Beginning to clear, he looked around the room and saw Huggy.

Huggy smiled crookedly, put a hand in his hair. "You with us, man?"

Starsky's arms came up around Hutch's back, clung tightly, a sob escaping into his shoulder.

Hutch rocked him, looked at Huggy.

"Help me with him."

Huggy nodded, then helped Hutch take him back to the couch, where Starsky fell into another deep sleep.

XX

Huggy was looking through Starsky's record collection the next morning when Hutch came from the bedroom half asleep.

Starsky sat at the kitchen table, a cup of coffee in front of him.

Hutch nodded a good morning to Huggy.

"Feel better?" Hutch asked Starsky as he poured a cup of coffee for himself.

Starsky stared into the coffee.

"Better by the second."

Hutch sat down at the table with him.

Starsky looked in Huggy's direction.

"You've looked at those fifteen times. You can leave any time now."

Hutch gently put a hand over Starsky's wrist. "Hey…"

Huggy walked in to the kitchen. "You want to know why I'm sticking around?"

Starsky still looked into his coffee cup.

Huggy stood at the table. "Take a look at Hutch."

Starsky raised his eyes, saw the bruising on his neck, turned in the chair, stumbled away, stood in the middle of the floor with his back to them.

"The nightmare, wasn't it? I'm sorry."

Hutch walked over to him. "It's not your fault. You didn't realize. I blame them, not you."

XX

The courtroom was packed with reporters, spectators, and police officers.

Starsky sat glaring at each of the cult members as they took the stand. Each one gazed at him, as if to try to intimidate him, control him. The only thing that kept Hutch from jumping the witness stand was the image of Marcus' smug look as he'd folded his arms in the interrogation room during Starsky's kidnapping.

-You didn't dream this, did you, Marcus?

When the trial was over and the guilty verdicts were read, Starsky walked out with his head up.

XX

Hutch stood in the cave, looking around, seeing the drops of dried blood on the walls and stones where they had wounded his partner.

-Why are you here?

-Isn't it real enough for you?

-You have to return to the scene of the crime to believe it really happened?

-Isn't Starsky enough?

-Do you have to go over it again and again to see what could have been done differently?

-Starsky's right. It's over. Done. Nothing can change what happened.

"I got under your skin."

Hutch heard the voice, whirled.

"Marcus?"

Just the wind. Or a falling rock. Or his imagination.

XX

Hutch got into the passenger side of the Torino and accepted the paper bag offering Starsky held out.

Hutch took it, opened it, finding a container of yogurt and some wheat germ.

"Thanks," Hutch smiled. "You're all heart."

Starsky revved the motor, hand on the gearshift.

Hutch smiled again. "You're raring to go."

"Yep."

"In that case…"

Hutch reached into his back pocket, pulled out Starsky's shield.

"You'll need this."

Starsky looked at him, slid the shield into his hip pocket.

"Thanks."

"Now let's go to Merle's and get my car."

XX

Hutch looked at the newly clean-shaven, clean-cut Simon Marcus, who sat at the same table in the same interrogation room as before, hands cuffed behind him, a guard posted outside.

Marcus smiled.

"I got to you, didn't I?"

Hutch ignored him.

"I came to tell you personally, that you lost everything. All your people. All your drugs. All your games and rituals. Gone."

"The ones you know about, yes."

Hutch looked at him.

Marcus didn't blink.

"I dreamed you would come."

"Starsky is okay. We're back to work. You didn't win."

"I still got to you, though, didn't I?"

Hutch walked to the door.

"Yes, Marcus. When someone hurts my partner, it gets to me."

Marcus was still smiling when Hutch went out.

"I'm done," he told the guard, and walked down the hall.

The guard nodded, went inside, pulled Marcus to his feet.

"Let's go."

The cop dropped his keys, reached down to get them.

Marcus raised his handcuffed wrists up behind his back, up over his dislocated shoulders, and down around the guard's throat, choking him with the cuffs.

The guard struggled for life, and Marcus choked harder, crushing his trachea.

When he was dead, Marcus lowered him to the floor, put the man's uniform on over his own, unlocked the cuffs, put the guard's hat on, pulling the visor low, and walked through the door and calmly down the hall.

End

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

Replay

By TLR

-Do you really think that you got all of my people? That I can't have you erased whenever I want it? One phone call, one word, and you're dead.

Hutch tried to shake the words Forest spoke in the Torino on the way to the police station as he unlocked the door to the cottage.

Of course they had gotten all of his people. He was just trying to wig him out for taking Jeanie away from him and busting him.

Starsky stepped in behind him.

"I thought you went home," Hutch told him. "Get out of here."

"And leave such fine company?"

"Go home, Starsk. They're all dead or locked up."

"How do you know? You think he's got 3 or 4 guys and that's it? What if he's got people in Vegas?"

"I'm not in Vegas."

"Don't play like it can't happen. It did happen."

Hutch spun on him. "Oh I forgot! Tell me again!"

Starsky remained calm, absorbed it. It was the withdrawal talking, or what was left of it in his system and his soul, anyway. He was weary, on edge, missing Jeanie, upside down, trying to make sense out of nonsense.

Starsky touched his shoulder, Hutch shirked it off.

"Go home. I'll see you in the morning."

"You think you're ready for the job?"

"I do know how."

"I mean, so soon?"

"What do you want me to do, let him win?"

"Of course not."

"Want me to sit around here and dwell on it?"

"Of course not."

"We have things to take care of. I've been off the street long enough. The longer I'm out, the more people will speculate. I've got to show them."

Starsky watched his eyes, still dark-circled beneath.

-Right, Hutch. You got to show them.

-It's only been a few days.

Hutch looked around, his hand nervously opening and closing at his side. Starsky knew what he was looking for, handed him a candy bar.

"You don't have any here in the house. Want me to run and get you some more?"

"No, I'll go later."

"Want some coffee?"

"I'll get it."

Hutch went to the stove and turned the teakettle on. Starsky opened the closet door, looked in, checked the other rooms.

"Oh for Pete's-"

Starsky sat down on the edge of the bed.

"No," Hutch said, "you can't sleep here. Get the hell out."

Starsky heard the candy wrapper tearing as he opened it.

The teakettle whistled, making Hutch jump.

"What the hell else?"

Hutch went to the teakettle, turned it off, got a mug, poured water. The teakettle shook, sloshing scalding water onto his hand. He dropped it with a clang.

"Damn it!"

Starsky walked quickly, shoved his hand under cold tap water at the faucet.

"And you want to handle a gun tomorrow?"

Hutch shoved him to the side. "Back off."

Starsky jabbed a forefinger at his face. "You can't even protect yourself! Let alone me! You didn't tell me about Jeanie! You didn't tell me about Forest! If you had, maybe this wouldn't have happened! Where's your head? 'Oh I forgot.' You were in love."

Hutch grabbed his shirt, stumbled.

Starsky stood looking at him, hands at his side. "You want to hit me?"

He knew the answer.

Weak, half-hearted, Hutch lowered his head. Starsky pulled him into a gentle hug.

"You trust me."

It wasn't a question.

"With my life," Hutch whispered.

"Then…I'll tell you when you're ready."

Hutch nodded.

Starsky patted his back. "You're not ready."

Hutch nodded again, pulled back. He didn't know how to explain that the slightest touch sent him over the edge, but at the same time, the physical connection, the physical lifeline, was what he held onto during his withdrawal. Starsky knew, understood the push and pull, took it.

"I don't even know if I'm ready, Hutch. So we're gonna take some time off, unwind, collect ourselves, and take it easy. We'll go fishing, swimming, sailing, all that stuff you like."

Hutch stepped away, pressed the heels of his hands into his eyes. "Right now all I want is a cup of coffee."

Starsky picked the teakettle off the floor while Hutch paced around like a live wire.

XX

Settled by the candy bar and coffee, Hutch was now asleep on the bed.

Starsky covered him with an extra sheet, then parked himself in an easy chair to watch over him.

End

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

Erin Ellis

By TLR

"Just let me out at the Corner Theatre," Starsky said as they came from the police station and got into Hutch's car on the passenger side.

"Corner Theatre?" Hutch asked as he started the car and pulled away from the curb.

Starsky fished his wallet from his back pocket, produced a photo of a pretty girl with reddish hair and creamy skin.

"Erin Ellis. I told you about her."

"The actress."

"Aspiring actress. Right now she's a receptionist at the theatre, but she's gonna audition for a part soon. Hey, can't you see me doing Hamlet? Hark. What light through yonder window breaks?"

"I think that's Romeo and Juliet."

"Isn't that the same play?"

"Not exactly."

"Guess I need to brush up."

"So what are your big plans?"

"I don't know yet. Wanna meet her?"

"Why not?"

XX

Hutch parked his car in front of the Corner Theatre and let Starsky out. Erin Ellis ran to meet him, throwing her arms around him.

"Erin, this is my partner Hutch."

Erin put her hand through the open passenger window.

"Nice to meet you, Hutch."

"Nice to meet you, Erin."

"You and Dave are welcome to come to the play tonight."

"Maybe the weekend?" Hutch asked.

"Sure." She turned back to Starsky, eyes dancing. "Come on, I want to show you something." She took his hand and led him toward the theatre.

Starsky grinned and shrugged at Hutch. "Catch you in the morning. She wants to show me something."

Hutch smiled and watched the two go toward the building. At the double doors Erin stopped to introduce Starsky to an older man with glasses, who shook Starsky's hand and watched them go inside.

XX

Hutch entered his apartment whistling, took off his jacket and holster, tossed them onto the bed, then picked up his phone and dialed Abby.

She picked up on the third ring.

"Hi, sweetheart."

"Hi, Hutch."

"If you're not busy Sunday, how would you like to catch Hamlet?"

XX

Hutch took a back booth at Huggy's and motioned him over.

Huggy's place was busy, but he tossed a towel over his shoulder and strolled over to the booth.

"What's up?"

"I'm lonesome. Want to have dinner with me?"

"Where's Tonto?"

"On a date."

"Where's Abby?"

"Shopping with her mother."

Huggy glanced around at the hectic crowd. "I'd like to, but I'm tied up. I could use some help in the kitchen, though."

Hutch considered it, then rose to his feet. "Sure, I'll help you out. I owe you one anyway."

"Huh," Huggy said following him to the kitchen. "You owe me a dozen."

"I think you mean Starsky."

Huggy tapped his temple. "I keep a running tab right up here."

Hutch grinned and put on an apron, then started washing dishes in the big sink.

XX

The next morning Hutch pulled his car up alongside Starsky's curb and blew the horn, munching on a bag of banana chips. He had a bag of dried pineapple for Starsky.

Hutch stuck his head out the window and called.

"Starsk!"

Hutch looked at his watch, then sighed with annoyance and got out of the car, moved past the Torino, then took the stairs two at a time.

"Hey!" he said pounding on the door. "Company or no company, we're late! Get a move

on!"

Hutch stood crunching his banana chips, looking around the neighborhood, then put his ear to the door and listened for sounds of Starsky and Erin-laughter, music, sex, conversation.

He banged on the door again.

"Come on! I'm not starting that mountain of reports without you, if that's your plan!"

A neighbor across the street came out on her stoop and watched Hutch, huffily folding her arms across her chest, a rolling pin in one hand.

"Sorry!" Hutch shouted to her. "Have you seen Starsky!"

"No," she answered, "I haven't." And went back inside.

Grumbling, Hutch trotted down the stairs and got back in his car.

XX

Hutch's head turned this way and that when he entered the squad room, expecting his partner to be here, ideally having been dropped off by Erin.

Dobey's office door opened.

"You're late, Hutchinson."

"I know. Is Starsky here?"

"What do you think?"

"I don't know, I asked you."

"You two have tried about forty different ways to cover for each other. 'Gee, Captain, have you seen Starsky?', 'Hutch's car must've broken down', 'Starsky had to see a snitch', 'Hutch took a report from his neighbor'."

Hutch smiled sheepishly. "Well…he was with a girl last night."

"So was I, but I managed to make it in on time. She must be a hellcat in the sack."

Hutch put his hands up. "All right, all right," he said walking to the squad room desk and picking up the phone book. "I'll see if I can find him."

Dobey closed the door. Fellow officers gave Hutch a strange look. Hutch just turned his back and started looking for the name Erin Ellis in the directory.

XX

Hutch parked in front of her one-room apartment and went to the door and knocked.

DMV said she drove a white Vega, but it wasn't here.

He knocked again.

"Hello? Erin? Starsky?"

The place was quiet. He looked around the area, saw a neighbor lady sweeping her stoop next door.

"Excuse me," Hutch said stepping over to her and producing his badge. "I'm Detective Hutchinson. Did you by any chance notice if Erin came home last night, or was here this morning?"

The lady looked at his badge. "Did she do something wrong?"

"No, I'd just like to talk to her."

"She's a good, quiet girl, she wouldn't do anything."

"I didn't say she did. I just want to know if you saw her, or a guy who may have been with her, about this tall, dark hair, jeans, red T-shirt."

The lady shook her head no.

"Didn't see her last night or this morning."

"Okay, thanks."

Hutch walked toward his car. He was probably jumping to conclusions, but something felt wrong. If Starsky were going to be this late, because of a girl, he may not have reported to Dobey, but he would let his partner know something. It was that way since they became partners, they knew each other's who, what, where, when, why, out of friendship mostly, and especially since Forest. Now Starsky insisted on it.

What if it's another Bellamy?

Hutch found himself running to the car, panting with fear.

XX

Hutch parked in the parking lot of the Corner Theatre and got out, looking for a white Vega, saw none, and walked into the theatre, where the older man with glasses met him.

Hutch looked around the lobby, saw actors in costume coming and going to rehearsal, wardrobe, and makeup. He addressed the older man. "I need to speak to Erin Ellis."

"I'm sorry, she hasn't arrived to work yet."

"She was with my partner yesterday evening. I dropped him off here."

"Partner?"

Hutch pulled his ID, showed him. "Detective Hutchinson."

"They were here."

"And then?"

"And then I don't know. I went to my office."

"Did they say anything about plans, or where they were going?"

"Not that I'm aware of. Has she done something wrong?"

"No, I just need to find them."

"Feel free to look around. I'll help you."

XX

The older man led Hutch through each room of the theatre, starting with the attic, and ending in the basement. They checked dressing rooms, prop rooms, supply closets, under the stage, backstage, in the rows of seats.

"Are you looking for them alive?" the man asked. "Or dead?"

Hutch didn't answer for a moment, and then he said, "Alive."

"I'm sorry. When she comes by, should I have her call you?"

Hutch gave him a card. "Please."

The man walked with him toward the front door. "My name is Alan Wheeler. I own the theatre."

Hutch shook his hand. "Nice to meet you."

Mr. Wheeler opened the front door for him.

"Oh," Hutch said. "You said you have an office?" "Of course. It adjoins Erin's. We can look there too."

Mr. Wheeler led Hutch around the corner and opened the door to Erin's office.

A tiny room with a small desk and a couple of chairs. Typewriter and phone. A radio.

It opened into Mr. Wheeler's office.

A large but sparse room, with a massive marble-top wooden desk, a floor lamp, two couches, and a bookcase.

Plays were stacked on the desk, notes, books, mail.

And on the walls, an array of photographs, all of Erin Ellis.

Hutch looked at him.

Mr. Wheeler blushed, pushed his glasses up on his nose.

"I just know she's going to be famous someday. She wants to be an actress. I'm giving her an audition next week, for Juliet."

"Pretty nice role for a receptionist."

"You have to start somewhere. I really like her."

"I can tell."

"She reminds me of a young Katherine Hepburn."

"Do you know much about her? Does she have family?"

"I honestly don't know much about her, but I do know she doesn't have family. She told me. That's why I felt sorry for her, gave her a job, gave her an apartment."

Hutch nodded. "Okay, well, thanks. I may come back to talk to your actors."

"Certainly. Just please, do it after the show, would you?"

"How about before?"

XX

Hutch spoke to each and every actor in the theatre, all of the employees, even people who had had appointments with Mr. Wheeler the day before.

Still no one had seen Starsky or Erin.

XX

Dobey's office door was open.

"I want you to put an APB out on both of them," Hutch said as he walked back and forth in front of Dobey's desk.

"I'd like to, but you know the 24-hour regula-"

"He's gone!" Hutch shouted

Heads of fellow officers looked his way. Hutch closed the door. In a quieter tone he said, "Cap, he's gone."

"They probably eloped."

But Hutch saw on his face that he didn't really believe it.

"I don't want to wait 24 hours," Hutch said.

"Neither do I, but we don't have much choice."

"Six tonight," Hutch said as he pointed his finger at Dobey on his way to the door. "That's 24."

XX

Hutch drove to Huggy's, hoping to find the Torino parked out front, or Starsky and Erin cozy in a corner booth. But he found nothing.

"People don't just vanish," Hutch said as he poured himself a whiskey.

Huggy took it from him, set an iced tea in front of him instead.

"I'll see what I can dig up, Hutch."

Hutch nodded. Huggy's phone rang behind the bar, making Hutch jump.

Huggy answered, listened.

Hutch reached for the glass of whiskey. Still listening, Huggy took it out of his hand.

Hutch got off the stool to pace, Huggy pulled him back, hung up.

"Dobey said they found her car, with her in it."

Hutch sat down hard on the stool.

Huggy steadied him with a hand to his shoulder. "No Starsk."

XX

Hutch looked at Erin's body on the medical examiner's table.

The ME unzipped the opaque plastic bag.

"Stabbed in the heart," he said.

Hutch looked away.

"I want your report asap," he said, and walked from the room.

XX

Hutch joined Captain Dobey at the white Vega, and watched while the crime scene technicians dusted for fingerprints and collected other possible evidence into small baggies.

Blood was on the steering wheel and on the arm rest, some in the seat, but nowhere else.

"How could a new girl in town have enemies?" Dobey asked as he walked around the car, examining it.

One of the techs opened the trunk. "I don't think it was an enemy," he offered. "Stabbed in the heart. Physical contact. Looks personal to me." Glance to Hutch. "Like a boyfriend."

Hutch punched the tech, Dobey grabbed him. "Hutch!"

The tech landed on the ground next to a black and white.

Hutch went for him again. "Starsky had nothing to do with this!"

Dobey grabbed him again. "Stop it!"

XX

Hutch got out of his car and walked up to the Torino, looked inside, the crime scene unit right behind him.

The car looked as it had the last time he saw it.

As the techs started dusting it for fingerprints, Hutch started up the stairs to Starsky's front door.

"Hutch!"

He turned, saw Dobey with two detectives.

"Let them."

"You think I'm going to manipulate something or-I just want to see if he's in there."

Dobey walked over to him.

"Let them."

The detectives walked up the steps, guns drawn.

Hutch got it. They thought Starsky could either be the suspect, or dead, or both.

Murder/suicide.

Dobey bit his lip.

Hutch walked toward his car. "It's 6, Cap, where's that APB?"

"Where are you going?"

"I'm looking for my partner."

XX

Hutch arrived back at the theatre, and with Mr. Wheeler's permission, started his search again, from top to bottom, this time with Huggy and four other detectives and a canine

unit that Dobey dispatched

Hutch took a closer look in Erin's office, went through her desk drawers, her papers, looking for notes, dates, times, appointments, anything to do with Starsky. He looked for anything physical that had to do with Starsky, empty food wrappers, an article of clothing, fingerprints, a bloodstain, anything.

He found a handwritten note to her, unsigned.

Dearest Erin, share my life, and together we can conquer the world. You are beautiful, and we can be beautiful together.

Not Starsky's left-handed script.

When all of the cops left empty-handed, Huggy told Hutch he would look in the basement again.

Hutch stood in the lobby, back against the wall, head tilted back, gazing at the ceiling.

The actors were leaving, their night's performance over.

More than 24 hours had passed. The APB was out.

He walked around the corner to Wheeler's office and stood in the doorway.

The old man was writing at his desk. He looked up over his glasses.

"I thought you left with the other officers."

"My partner is somewhere here in this building."

Mr. Wheeler took his glasses off. "Excuse me?"

"This is the last place I saw him. The last place anybody saw him."

"Feel free to look again."

Mr. Wheeler kept writing. Hutch looked at Erin's photographs on the wall, then his eyes moved to the pen in the old man's hand, the handwriting.

In a terribly quiet voice, Hutch said, "You were jealous of him, weren't you?"

The man looked up again. "I'm sorry?"

"Because she liked him."

Two uniformed officers entered the office with 2 canine units. One cop held Starsky's dark blue T-shirt. The dogs searched, sniffed, but Hutch barely noticed. He took a menacing step toward Mr. Wheeler, Dobey and Huggy coming up behind him, each taking an arm.

Mr. Wheeler rose to his feet. "Charge me or get out. I'm allowing this search voluntarily. Now I suggest you go back and get a search war-"

The dogs trained on the desk, sniffed urgently, barked, pawed at the corners.

Hutch lunged forward, Huggy and Dobey held him back.

Huggy, at his ear, struggling to contain his wild adrenaline: "Easy, man."

Dobey: "Hutch, calm down!"

The old man took a step back, eyes on his desk as the officers raked everything off and started to slide the marble slab away.

Hutch strained against Huggy and Dobey's hands, hoarse, tearful. "Is my PARTNER in there, you son of a-?"

Hutch glimpsed Starsky's form curled inside the hollow desk, broke loose from the hands that held him, stumbled ahead, where the officers were carefully lifting a limp, bloody Starsky out and placing him on the floor.

"Like the girl," one of the detectives said. "Looks like he was stabbed in the heart."

Hutch grabbed for Mr. Wheeler, but Dobey and Huggy were there holding him back again.

An officer led Mr. Wheeler aside, out of his reach.

Now Hutch moved like rubber as Huggy walked him over to where Starsky lay.

Another cop looked at Hutch. "He's still alive."

Dobey, over his shoulder: "Get a paramedic in here!"

Hutch collapsed to one knee, turned Starsky's face toward him, saw his glazed eyes.

"You're going to be okay, Starsk. Can you hold on? Huh?"

XX

"The knife missed his heart," Dr. Cornelius told Hutch in the waiting room.

Huggy and Dobey were waiting for word too.

"Is he going to be okay?" Hutch asked.

"It's looking good. He's young, healthy, seems to have a strong will to survive. I'll let you know when you can see him."

XX

Starsky looked pale and lost when Hutch entered his hospital room.

"Hey," Hutch said going to the bed. "Good to see you again."

Starsky's arms rose a few inches from the bed and reached for him. Not missing the fear and distress in his eyes, Hutch leaned down, hugged him.

"Starsk. It's okay."

A shuddering breath against Hutch's ear: "Scared."

"I know."

"I thought I was dead."

"I thought you were dead too."

"Did you get that guy?"

"I sure did."

A small sound of pain made Hutch gently lower him back to the pillow.

Starsky looked at him, a question in his eyes. "Erin?"

"She's gone."

Starsky's eyes closed. Hutch squeezed his friend's wrist, saw the tears slide from beneath his eyelashes.

"Will you go to her funeral for me?" Starsky asked. "She didn't have any family. I don't want her to be by her-" Words caught in his throat.

Hutch patted his hand. "I'll go."

End

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

Dark Corners

By TLR

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

Starsky had been missing two weeks, Hutch looking nonstop for him, to the point of exhaustion and malnutrition. Late one night Captain Dobey dragged him into his office by a shirtsleeve and closed the door.

"You'll be no good to him if you land yourself in the hospital. Now act like a cop instead of a friend."

He knew the words stung, but Hutch needed a wakeup call.

Hutch's jaw tensed, but he made no retort.

"Go home," Dobey said. "Get some sleep, some food, and let your fellow officers do their job. That's an order."

Hutch looked toward the window and into the night. "He's out there somewhere, Cap."

This time his voice verged on defeat, though not quite there. He would never give up. He would search the rest of his life if he had to.

But he obeyed his captain, and left.

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

Hutch parked in front of Venice Place and turned off the ignition, so tired he almost fell asleep on the steering wheel.

Huggy hadn't called with any news. None of their snitches had heard anything. The morgue hadn't called. No ransom calls. It looked like Starsky had just vanished into thin air.

Hutch got out of the car, went into the building, and started up the steps. He would dial his partner's number again, to see if he made it home.

But a few steps up he heard a noise, stopped. Drew his gun, listened.

A gasping sound.

At the top, movement in the darkness.

A black T-shirt wearing dried bloodstains, dirty jeans, dark hair, a left hand groping for his door.

"Oh my God."

Hutch put his gun away, scrambled up the stairs, Starsky's hand on his doorknob, pressing his face against it, panting, sinking.

Hutch caught him. "Come on, I got you."

"Hutch? Are you Hutch?"

Starsky's hands reached for him.

"I need Hutch."

Hutch saw his dazed eyes, and understood. He looked to be drugged.

"Starsk. Please."

"Is this Venice Place? Call him for me."

Hutch put an arm around him, led him inside.

"Hutch is here, Starsk. Right here. Let's go. Here we go. Inside."

Disoriented, Starsky clung to him, sinking to his knees, soft laughter.

"I make it?"

Hutch helped him inside, lowered him to the floor on his side, kept one hand on him

while he reached for the phone to call Dobey and an ambulance with the other.

He pulled out his badge, put it in Starsky's hand. "You sure did, buddy. Here. Hold this for me."

"Mike Stephens," Starsky mumbled. "Baron Hotel."

As Hutch talked above him, Starsky, safe now, gave in to the pain, the fatigue, and the drug, closing his eyes

"Yeah," he whispered as his hand closed around the badge, almost lovingly. "Hutch."

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

Mike Stephens was a sadist who had sworn to kill both Starsky and Hutch for the suicide of his brother during incarceration. Stephens had left behind a video recording of Starsky's torture-a way to torture Hutch?-but Hutch chose not to watch it. He gave it to Captain Dobey instead, for the record.

With Stephens' confession, there had been no trial, so all the partners had to do now was make sure Starsky made a complete recovery.

Hutch was beginning to wonder if his partner would bounce back from the dark corners he'd lived in for two weeks, but he quickly made his return. The drug was out of his system and he was stronger.

Now Hutch sat in the Torino next to him, reading a Louis L'Amour novel to him out loud.

End