Touch and Go

by Zebra 3 and Me

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

TOUCH & GO

By TLR

Stories-

A Coffin for Starsky (Missing Scene)

Avalanche—(Edited). A winter vacation turns tragic

Bash III—(Edited). H is the target of a hate crime when he helps a gay youth

Mister Hutchinson-Another Father's Day for S

Sacrifice—(Edited). Simon Marcus

Sailing-After Gillian's death

Bad Blood—(Edited). H's new love interest spells trouble

Family Way-S lends support to H's sister

Ghost-Forest released from jail

Ransomed-Captain Dobey kidnapped

What If? (Sweet Revenge, Sweet Surrender)

Touch & Go-The partners have a decision to make after a tragic accident

A COFFIN FOR STARSKY (Missing Scene)

By TR

XXXXXXXXXXXX+

The rooftop was suddenly silent when Starsky's chin dropped to his chest. He had used his last ounce of strength and love to save my life.

"Starsk?"

A frightened whisper.

I knew he couldn't hear me, but that didn't stop his name from coming out of my mouth.

Ambulance.

He needed an ambulance, though I didn't want to leave him, because I was afraid that he'd be gone when I got back.

I took him under the arms to lift him to his feet, but Bellamy's lady appeared in the doorway.

"Ambulance?" I asked as I looked up at her from where I still crouched, hating the way my voice came out in a plea. Only Starsky could wring my emotions to the surface like

this. "Please call an ambulance for him."

She gave one fearful, teary-eyed look in her dead boyfriend's direction, then gave a nod and left the doorway.

Poor unfortunate girl. How did she ever get mixed up with the likes of that creep?

"Huhh," came a breath from Starsky.

A small, labored breath. His lungs were shutting down. His heart.

I didn't know if he'd make it to the hospital. His hand, lying loosely in his lap, moved, and I looked down to see that funky stuffed toy he had tried to give me in the squad room.

I gently took it from him.

"Thanks, buddy," I whispered close to his ear where he could hear me. I put the keepsake in my jacket pocket, then hugged him to me when he slumped against my chest.

With his systems shutting down, I wanted him, somehow, to know I was still there, and the only way he would know was if my body was against his.

(God, don't let it be too late)

(What the hell am I going to do now?)

(How am I going to find the compound?)

(How am I going to live with myself if I don't?)

(His life was in my hands)

(Please don't let it be too late)

(I don't want to lose you)

"I love you," I choked as I held his head up. "I want you to do your best to hold on. Breathe for me."

I kept talking to him while we waited for the ambulance. My words a link. A sound of hope.

"It's not over," I told him. "We're not quitting, right?. I don't quit, you don't quit."

The siren.

Finally.

The ambulance was here.

"What took you so damn long!" I yelled at the paramedics when they brought the stretcher out to the roof.

"Detective Hutchinson, it only took us five minutes."

"You know what five minutes means to him?"

My side felt bare and cold when they gently lifted him away from me and onto the stretcher.

The medics picked up the stretcher to carry him down.

His eyes were closed and they put an oxygen mask over his face. God, I didn't want them to take him away from me. His breaths were faint gasps.

"We'll take care of him," the medic said.

"I'm riding with him."

Both medics gave me a look like they wanted to protest, but looked at each other and finally nodded.

XXXXXXXXX++

Home from the hospital.

Stronger, but still weak and needing a nursemaid.

He wanted the sofa but I parked him in my bed instead.

"Can I have another pillow?" he asked as I settled him against the headboard.

He held his pharmacy bag of medicine against his chest like a security blanket.

"Sure," I said as I fluffed another pillow and put it behind him. "Better?"

He tried setting the bag of medicine on the bedside table, but his less-than-perfect coordination and still-hazy vision caused him to drop it on the floor instead.

"Here we go," I said as I picked it up and took the bottles from the bag to arrange them on the table.

Noticing he seemed hot and exhausted from the trip from the car to the cottage, I turned a fan on for him and aimed it in his direction.

"Cool enough for you?"

He nodded as he lounged back against the pillows, looking sort of like a lost teddy bear.

"Thanks, Hutch," he breathed in a teary sigh.

Caught off guard by his sudden emotion-(a side effect from the medicine? A reaction to the trauma his body had been through?)-I sat on the edge of the bed.

"Hey," I said as I patted his hand. "You never have to thank me for being your best friend."

I reached for my jacket on the bedpost and pulled out the little toy he'd wanted me to have in the squad room, and then later on the rooftop.

"Here, buddy," I said putting it in his hand. "I'm giving this back to you, okay?"

End

AVALANCHE

By TR

XXXXXXXXXXXX++

It was seven in the morning and Mr. Hutchinson's cabin was toasty warm.

I watched as Hutch dressed in his layered winter clothes to go outside.

"Want to go with me, Starsk?"

Me, I was still lying on the top bunk half-asleep. Hutch had dragged me to his dad's cabin once again for a winter "get-away", promising me everything from breakfast in bed at the cabin, to a month's worth of free pizzas when we got back, his treat, if I'd go with him.

I burrowed down deeper into the warm blankets, smelling the bacon and egg breakfast he'd fixed for me and was now on a serving tray on the bedside table. "Why would I want to go out in zero weather when I can stay right here? It's supposed to be fun and relaxing."

Hutch pulled his white down jacket on, then his gloves. "Checking the traps we set will be fun and relaxing."

"Not to me," I said without opening my eyes.

"Don't you want to see if we caught a rabbit?"

"Nope. And don't expect me to eat one, even if we do get it."

He sat down on a kitchen chair to lace his hiking boots. "Starsk, I've told you before. Rabbit tastes like chicken."

"Everything tastes like chicken when it's a weird meat."

"You'll be sorry when you see me eating that mouth-watering rabbit stew I'm going to make for us."

"I'll pass. Pizza, remember?"

He stood up and opened the door. "Man," he said as a blast of cold air gusted in. "You better get up and keep that fire going."

"Yeah, yeah."

"And eat the breakfast I made for you."

"Yeah, yeah."

He knew I'd sleep a few more hours.

"Maybe we'll ride the snowmobile again, huh?" I asked with a yawn. "That's the kind of fun and relaxation I have in mind."

He tossed a throw pillow at me. "See you when I get back, snowball."

And with those words he was out the door, and I was slipping into my cozy sleep again.

XXXXXXXXXXXX++

A couple of hours later.

It's hard to describe what the sound of it was like. I'd been in a few minor earthquakes before, so I knew that sound, when the ground starts shuddering and the furniture starts moving and things start breaking.

But this sound was different. More like muffled thunder, with muffled rumbling in the

ground.

Not as alarming as an earthquake, because I wasn't sure what it was-dynamite blasting far away? A plane crash in the distance? Sonic boom? It was more curious than anything.

As alien as it was, it was enough to bring me out of the bunk, because whatever it was, I realized, Hutch was out there in it, and I needed to go see if he was okay.

I parted the red and white plaid curtains to look outside, hoping to catch sight of Hutch tromping through the snow with an unfortunate rabbit slung over his shoulder, but all I saw was a blanket of snow about a foot deep, plus the woods.

So I dressed in my winter clothes as quickly as I could, glad Hutch had bullied me into bringing all the necessary gear-boots, gloves, cap, scarf, extra shirts.

I went outside and looked around, hoping to find the source of the rumbling I'd both heard and felt.

"Hutch?" I asked, my head swiveling like I was at a tennis match.

Forget walking. I'd go get him on the snowmobile.

So I went to the shed and opened the door, and there was Mr. Hutchinson's sleek black snowmobile.

I checked to make sure it had gas, and when I saw that the tank was full, I started it up and drove it from the shed and out into the snow.

It was going to be easy. I saw Hutch's footprints in the snow, and followed them.

It was when I was about a half a mile away from the cabin that I heard and felt that muffled booming again, and I looked up at the snow-covered mountain in front of me and saw what it was: Huge chunks of snow, as big as cars, were sliding down the steep slope.

Oh my God.

Avalanche?

It looked like the whole side of the white mountain was sliding down. I saw trees and boulders disappearing beneath the white monster waves. It was like pure white lava, creaming everything in its path. A tremor could have set it off. Or maybe it was just its time to go.

"Hutch!"

My heart lurched forward in my chest as I sped the snowmobile along Hutch's tracks, until they ran out at the mounds of snow that had landed at the bottom of the mountain and spread outward in a white wake.

"HUTCH!"

He was under the snow somewhere. He'd have called back if he were okay.

Panic made my heart beat double-time as I sped around the enormous snow pile, looking for any sign of Hutch at all.

"HUTCH!"

Would there be another slide? I had to get help here before it got worse.

"HOLD ON, HUTCH! I'LL GET HELP!"

Even as I drove the snowmobile toward the cabin, my stomach had a sinking feeling like it was full of rocks.

Hutch would have called back if he could have.

CB.

I'd use the CB to call for an emergency chopper, and a search and rescue team.

Time was critical. They had to get up here.

XXXXXXXXXXXX++

"Mayday! Mayday!"

I paced around in small circles at Mr. Hutchinson's desk, where the CB was.

"What is your emergency?" a voice said over the radio.

"Avalanche," I panted. "Near the Hutchinson cabin. Send a rescue chopper and a search party. Somebody's under the snow. You gotta hurry."

XXXXXXXXXXXX++

The chopper was late because of the new snow falling, so each minute seemed like an hour.

I waved my arms in the air when it came into view.

Thank God they found a clearing that was pretty close.

A team of six men jumped out, four starting to dig with snow shovels, two bringing a stretcher.

"You didn't see it cover him?"

"No, but before the second slide came, I saw his footprints ending right along in here."

"Any idea how long he's he been under there?"

"Maybe as long as two hours, I don't know. Dig."

I shoveled and pawed at the snow with my gloved hands, calling his name with every breath.

"Hutch!"

He was suffocating under the tons of heavy snow. Buried in a cold white grave.

"HUTCH!"

And then I found it. One discolored hand. The impact of the avalanche had knocked his glove off.

A sob of relief escaped me. I stopped myself from pulling on his hand. I didn't know what condition he was in under the snow, and I didn't want to jostle him around. So I just pushed piles of snow away from him, trying to uncover him.

"I found you," I whispered frantically under my breath. "I found you. Hang on. I'll get you out of here."

He was facedown. My hands wanted to turn him over, but one of the medics pulled them back.

"Let us," he said, and I moved to one side and watched as they put a backboard and cervical collar on his limp body.

"He okay?" I asked as my eyes took in every detail of every move they made. "He breathin'? Do CPR. He's not breathin'."

He wasn't chilling. That's what bothered me the most. He wasn't reacting to the cold. His eyes were open to a crack, but I didn't see any sign of life in them.

God, how long had he been without oxygen? When was his last breath? He had tried to get out from under the snow, but the crushing weight forced all the air from his lungs and wouldn't let them expand for another breath.

The snow had smothered him.

The medic started CPR, and all I could do was look at his discolored skin, willing it to warm up, to change to a healthy color-any color but what it was.

"Got it," one of the medics panted. "He's breathing."

Hypothermia? Frostbite? What else was going on?

They loaded him onto the chopper and strapped an oxygen mask over his face.

"Cover him," one of them told me as he cut Hutch's clothes and nodded to a stack of blankets.

I covered him while they worked to keep his vitals up.

XXXXXXXXXXXX++

Doctor Prater wouldn't let me in the emergency room while they worked on him, so I went down the hall to the lobby and used the phone to call Mr. Hutchinson.

It was hard to gauge his reaction over the phone. All he said in a very low, quiet voice was, "I'll be there."

When I went back to the emergency room area, Prater was waiting for me.

"We're still working on him, Detective Starsky. There's a private waiting room we'll put you in."

Private.

Yeah, I knew about those. The doctors wanted to put me in one when I was at the hospital with Hutch when he was sick with the plague.

But I said no.

No waiting room.

Not that one.

That's the one they put you in for when you fall apart, for when your family is dying, for when everything is slipping through your fingers and there's no hope.

"No waiting room," I told Prater. "I'll wait in the hall."

XXXXXXXXXXXX++

I paced and waited. Paced and waited. Thought about that low, muffled sound of the

avalanche.

"Well?" I asked when I saw Prater coming from the emergency room.

He wrote something on a clipboard.

I tried to find the truth in his face. He was very good at keeping a bland, professional expression. Guess he had to be when delivering bad news to families.

"Is he gonna be all right? That's all I want to know. Is he gonna make it?"

He stopped writing to give me his attention. "We don't know," he said. "The next twenty-four hours are crucial."

I reached behind me for the wall, to steady myself, suddenly wishing Huggy or Dobey or somebody I knew were here. "What do you mean, you don't know?"

The doctor patted my arm. "It might be a good idea to see him now."

XXXXXXXXXXXX++

I heard the murmurs as I passed the nurse's station . . . . . . (Oxygen deprivation . . . . . . .

possible brain damage . . . . . . . lucky if he survives the night) . . . . . . . . . . . and I pretended that they were talking about some other patient.

XXXXXXXXXXXX++

I felt strange standing in his doorway, my insides melting into gel.

"He's in a coma," one of the nurses told me quietly when I walked to his bed. "He may not hear you."

"I don't care," I told her as I stood by his bed and took his hand. "I'll talk to him if I want to."

She looked at one of her fellow nurses and shook her head.

"Hutch," I said as I bent over him in the bed that was surrounded by equipment that was supposed to keep him alive. "I'm right here with you. I know you can hear me. When you get better, I got plans for us, buddy, so you just fight real hard and make it all the way back, because I don't . . . want you to miss out on anything . . . I don't want to lose you . . ."

His eyes didn't open, and his hand didn't squeeze mine back.

They let me sit with him, and I waited for him to come to.

I waited all night next to his bed, fell asleep at some point, then woke back up in the morning when the nurses were checking him.

"His vitals are better," one of the nurses told me. "And the doctor said he's stronger now. But he's still comatose."

Then they both left.

I looked at Hutch's still form.

God, what if he didn't wake up? What if he stayed asleep for the rest of his life? What would I do?

How could a trip to the mountains turn so bad? How could someone as strong and capable in the outdoors as Hutch end up like this?

"I want it to be me," I said quietly. "If I could just trade places with you . . . "

I felt a hand on my shoulder.

"David?"

There was Richard Hutchinson, and he'd heard what I'd said.

I braced myself for the torrent of accusation, but none came.

I almost wanted it. In a perverse way, it would have made me feel better. Because if I'd gone with Hutch like he asked, if I could have been there to dig him out of the snow sooner . . .

Richard had been crying, I guess. His eyes were red.

His hand went out to the only son he had, all his hopes and dreams, his pride and joy, and rested on the pale forehead, his whisper molasses-heavy.

"Is he awake?"

His voice was nasal from crying, but still he held it all in, in front of me.

The sound of our voices around him, or the touch of his dad's hand, must have roused Hutch awake, because he gave a little moan, and it was the sweetest sound I ever heard, music to my ears, making my heart pound faster.

"Son," Richard said quietly, and I'd never heard him sound so unguarded. His voice was trembling. "We're here. Try to wake up. Come on now, open your eyes."

Hutch's eyes opened slowly, blinked a couple of times like big doll's eyes, then closed again.

One of the nurses buzzed Prater to tell him Hutch was coming to.

I didn't know if he'd even seen us, but I prayed he'd open his eyes again and not lapse back into his coma.

Richard smoothed his hair down.

Hutch looked so warm now. Sleeping. Almost peaceful.

"Hey Hutch," I said quietly, hoping against hope. "We're right here, me and your dad. Stay with us."

"Excuse me," Dr. Prater said as he moved up beside me. "I want to examine him again."

Richard and I waited out in the hall.

XXXXXXXXX++

It seemed like an hour had passed. I called Captain Dobey and Huggy, and by the time I finished talking to them, Dr. Prater was calling me and Richard back to Hutch's room.

"He's fully awake," the doctor said with a slight smile. "He'll be with us until he completely recovers, and there's no lasting damage, but let us know if you need anything."

Prater went on out.

I turned my eyes to my partner, a beautiful sight to behold. The nurse had raised Hutch's bed up some, so he could see us, and now he wore a tired smile on his pale face.

"Dad," he said looking from his dad to me. "Starsk."

We walked over to him, Richard giving him a little hug around the neck, and me gripping his hand.

"Hiya, partner. Good to have you back."

End

BASH III

By TR

XXXXXXXXX

Midnight, and the customers were gone.

It was closin' time and I was wipin' down my bar while waitin' for Starsk and Hutch to come by. I had some info for them on some dude that got wasted down at the car wash. His chick gave me a tip but asked me to keep her name out of it. Seems he was an errand boy for some Mafia dude and tried to play the other end with the cops, so the Mob had to show him where his loyalty was supposed to lie.

Diane was countin' the money and Angie my chef was takin' the garbage out the back way.

"Hey," Diane grinned sweetly at me as she spread out a bunch of bills like a fan of cards. "Business stays this good, you can take me on that cruise in the Bahamas yet, Hug."

I wrapped my arm around her and flicked my tongue in her ear. "I can take you on a cruise all by myself right up those stairs."

She dropped the money on the counter to curl both her arms around my neck.

"Hug!"

Angie's yell cracked into my ear and I turned to see him runnin' through my back door.

"Come quick, man!"

I jumped off the stool and ran, for an instant thinkin' I should have grabbed my gun 'cause it sounded serious, but knowin' Angie would have warned me if I'd really needed it.

Runnin' through my back door and into the alley, I could see what had Angie all shook up. Somebody was facedown beside the dumpster, and by the sash of blond hair I knew it was Hutch.

I didn't know how long he'd been out here, who'd done it, nothin'. My mind swam in circles like crazy sharks tryin' to remember if I heard anything or saw anything unusual. Well, unusual for my two caped crusaders, that is.

And then it clicked together like handcuffs. My two bros had been after some gang who got their kicks from beatin' up on juveniles of a different persuasion. Hutch had taken one boy, Rico, into his apartment against Dobey and Starsky's better judgement. Boy was a street kid with no family, no friends, and he threatened to run away if they put him in a foster home. Hutch figured the boy'd get harassed wherever he went.

So what does Blondie do?

Takes the teenager in. Sixteen years old and he'd had the hell beaten out of him because he liked boys his own age.

Hey, if it floats your boat . . . I'm nobody's judge.

But it was obvious somebody was Hutch's judge, just for helpin' the boy out.

I dropped to a knee beside him. He was unconscious, and in bad shape. Beaten. Broken. Bloody. At least the gang who'd beaten up Rico had let the kid walk away. It was no comparison to what they did to my bro who lay at my feet. The crooked turn of his right arm told me it was broken. Shirt torn and bloodstained. Breath was nothin' but like a little hitch sound in the back of his throat. I saw that his pants were unbuckled and unzipped, and were pulled down a few inches. I saw blood where nobody should ever see it.

"Angie-!" I started, but it was Diane who ran inside to call an ambulance, and Starsk I imagine.

Angie crouched with me too, reachin' to turn him over, but then must have remembered the rule about not movin' an injured person, and pulled his hands away. But when he did I saw one red word streaked in blood on the back of his shirt, and it was Gay.

It didn't matter if the word was true or not. It wasn't true for Hutch, but somebody believed it, knew the boy was, and hated whoever was associated with it.

"Aw, man," he said lookin' around and puttin' a tense fist to his mouth, like he was holdin' in some rage. "Aw, man. Why they want to do this? Why they got to do this, man?"

"Diane!" I roared through the open door as my hand rested on Hutch's back. "Tell 'em to hurry! Tell 'em-"

"Hug?"

I looked over my shoulder and saw Starsk standin' halfway down the alley with a lost, faraway look on his face like he wasn't sure if what he was seein' was real.

"Hug?"

He came walkin' slowly, and Angie stood up and took his shoulders.

"No, man. Not yet. Let the ambulance-"

Starsk pushed him aside with a sob escapin', and tried to crouch down, but it was me who grabbed him and moved him a step back.

"He's alive," I said standin' in front of him to block his view. "Ambulance'll be here any second." I shook my head, not knowing how to say the rest. "Looks like they had their way. 'cause of Rico I guess."

I saw his eyes roll back for a split second, and then he was pushin' me aside to crouch next to him again.

"Hutch," he said as his hand hovered over about the only place that wasn't bleedin' or torn, and that was the back of his head.

He tucked a yellow wisp behind his ear and kissed his sideburn like a brother or a father or a best friend would, pulled his pants up, tried to smooth a wrinkle out of his shirt, and patted his back.

"Here, Hutch," he whispered to him. "I'm here."

I felt sorry for the both of them.

Somewhere in the back of my mind I was hopin' that Rico was safe at Hutch's apartment.

I made a mental note to call. I'd have to go get him and bring him to my place.

The sirens grew loud as the ambulance drove up. Medics and cops were pushing and pulling, people tryin' to look.

"STAY BACK!" Starsk yelled at everyone, but of course they didn't. I pulled him away from Hutch so the paramedics could get to him.

"Save his shorts," I told the medic what Starsk was too messed up to think of:

"Evidence."

The medic gave me a long look, then nodded.

I was surprised they let Starsky ride to the hospital with Hutch. But I guess they figured he'd want to be there in case Hutch died on the way.

XXXXXXXXX+

It didn't look good. Hutch was unconscious for two days. Me and Starsk both sat at his bedside at first, sayin' a whole lot of little things to Hutch to let him know we were there with him.

Dobey brought Rico by the hospital.

"I'm sorry, Starsky," the dark Hispanic kid told Starsk inside Hutch's hospital room. But Starsky was so numb and in shock it was like talkin' to a stuffed animal, so the kid turned to me with his apology. "Huggy, I didn't know that would happen. Man, I didn't know-" He started bawlin', so I put my arm around his shoulders. "Kid, nobody coulda known this would happen."

The kid cried on my shoulder. "I'll go to a foster home. I'll go anywhere you want me to go. I'm sorry, man. I'm really sorry."

"You can stay with me," I told him as I patted his back. "Hutch'd like that."

As bad as Starsk wanted to go find those freaks, he elected to stay at the hospital in case Hutch took a turn for the worse.

Captain Dobey came and stayed for hours. Starsk was so out of it I had to tell Dobey the details, 'cause he needed them all if he was gonna get those geeks. If Hutch didn't make it, it wouldn't be just bashers we were after, it'd be killers. The good captain wanted to stay longer, but he finally left to start the case himself. He told me to stay with Starsk and keep an eye on him.

Wasn't hard to do. He was sitting beside Hutch's bed holdin' tight to his hand.

Little by little Hutch regained consciousness and a little bit of strength. Sometimes the most he could do was open his eyes and go back to sleep, but each time he did I knew he saw his bro next to him.

It was a few more days before his swollen blue eyes opened and looked around for real.

He tried to talk but his whisper was so faint and dry it wasn't working.

"No talkin'," Starsky shushed to him. "Just take it easy. You got plenty of time for that later on."

Hutch looked pretty relieved that he didn't have to do or say anything, so he let his heavy eyes close again to go back to sleep.

XXXXXXXXX++

I wanted to do more for Hutch, but the only thing I could do at the moment was hold a straw to his lips so he could get a sip of ice water.

Starsky was snoozing in the chair beside him. He looked beat. Hadn't shaved in two or three days, wearin' the same clothes.

"Man," Hutch finally whispered as he looked around the room like he was a tired bear waking up from a winter's hibernation. "What time is it?"

I had to smile. He looked out of his gourd with painkillers.

"Time to celebrate," I told him. "You made it."

I saw his throat move with a swallow as he looked in Starsky's direction, then he gave me a real good look. "Huggy, they-" A tear formed in his eye, but he was too weak to brush it away, so I did it for him.

"I know," I murmured like my mama used to when I was sick at home with a fever. "We know what the geeks did to you, and Dobey's on the case, so it won't be no time before-"

"No," he said in a voice that he was forcing above a whisper as he took my wrist. "Tell him to drop it. I don't give a damn. Just tell them to back off."

I leaned over his bed so my voice wouldn't wake Starsk up. "Hutchie, if you think we're gonna let this go, you got another thing comin'. We ain't gon-"

He didn't even know his arm was broken. He tried to raise the heavy cast but it dropped back to the bed. He pulled me close with his good hand, but even those fingers slipped away from my shirt. "I mean it," he whispered. "Please. Just leave it alone."

"Hutch . . . you need to talk to Starsk about it. He knows. He'll help you. If I could think of somethin' to say, do somethin' to take it back, man, I would. But you need to deal with it."

His hand thumped on the bed, then he draped an arm across his eyes like he didn't want to deal with it.

"Is Rico okay?" he asked me. His way of changing the subject?

"Rico's at my place. He's cool. He was here visitin' you yesterday. Worry about yourself instead of everybody else."

He didn't take his arm down from his eyes, like he was tryin' to hide the shame and disgrace and abuse he took in that alley.

I couldn't bear to push him any harder. He needed some time to mend.

XXXXXXXXX++

Hutch was slow in healing. Doctors said it was a miracle he survived. Each day he was stirrin' a little more in the bed.

He didn't want hands on him, and he tried to push all the doctors and nurses and orderlies and candy-stripers away.

"Leave me alone," he'd mumble as mean as he could, but of course they couldn't.

They had to do their job.

I think their hands gave him nightmares. One night while I was dozin' by his bed while he slept, he let out a big yell and tried to get out of bed.

"Easy, Hutch," I told him as I tried to calm him down. I looked toward the hallway, where Starsk was down the way talkin' to the doctor. "STARSKY! COME QUICK!"

Starsky came runnin', and settled him down. The next morning he asked Hutch about it, but Hutch said, "Can't remember."

I knew that was a lie, but I let it go.

XXXXXXXXX++

I stood outside the door of Hutch's hospital room, wantin' to go in so bad my heart was splittin', but not wantin' to upset what Starsk was getting' ready to do: Confront, gently, his partner with the truth.

"Hey, Hutch."

"Hey, Starsk."

Silence for a long time.

"I know what happened," I heard Starsk say. "I know what they did."

"Ah, teenager," he lied weakly, trying to laugh like it was nothin' so Starsk would back off. "Said uh . . . said if I wanted it that bad he'd give it to me."

Silence again.

"Wasn't a teenager," Starsk said softly. "Who were they?"

Hutch spoke to us without lookin' at us. His turned his black eyes to the window and talked that way.

"How do you know it was more than one?"

Starsk pulled a stool up close to the bed and sat down on it. "'cause I know it takes more than one person to hold you down."

Hutch gave a slip of a wry smile. "You'll make lieutenant yet."

XXXXXXXXX+

"There's some physical damage, of course," Doctor Monroe said grimly as he wrote in Hutch's chart just outside his hospital room. I noticed they replaced his former doctor, a female, with a man. Guess they figured Hutch'd be more comfortable with a male. But hell, he was playing his "I'm okay" game with whoever would listen. "It will heal in time. It's the psychological damage I'm concerned about. Male rape is a hush-hush topic. We know sometimes it's hard for a woman to admit she's been raped. It's twice as hard for a man. Detective Hutchinson is minimizing what happened."

Sure. I got it. Men have to be macho and all. More than one dude overpowered Hutch and forced him to do somethin' he didn't want to do, not unlike what Ben Forest and his goons did, except maybe worse this time.

"I want to help him," Starsky said lamely. He couldn't bring himself to look Monroe in the eye. He was just now beginning to sound like the Starsky I used to know.

"I understand your concern," Monroe told him. "You want to ease your partner's trauma. Professional help is available. But I'm afraid that's something he'll have to do in his own time. If you force him . . . "

"I know," Starsky grumbled. "Just makes it worse."

My hands curled into tight fists at my sides. I wanted to kill somebody.

XXXXXXXXXXXX+

When Hutch was stronger and able to get out of bed, he wouldn't let me or Starsky help him to the bathroom.

"Man," I warned him as we watched him limp gingerly across the floor while he held onto the wall. "You're gonna fall and bust your head open."

I moved to help him but he jerked away and almost fell.

"Don't," he said tightly. "Hands off. I'm okay."

I looked at Starsky, who just shook his head.

Hutch finally made it to the bathroom, then closed the door.

"Will you two just get the hell out of here?" his voice said on the other side of the door. "I think I know how to do this by myself."

Starsky motioned at me to follow him.

"Sure, Hutch," he said, and we went out into the hall.

XXXXXXXXX++

Hutch wouldn't talk to the doctor anymore about the rape.

Rape.

Man, it sounds so weird sayin' that about a man.

And he wouldn't talk to the therapist they sent up. He wouldn't talk to Starsk. And he wouldn't talk to me. He just kept wrapped up in himself like a bale of twine and pretended he was okay.

"I'm a cop," he said. "I can handle it. I deal with victims all the time."

XXXXXXXXXXXX

"Dobey got a case lined up for us?" he asked Starsk every time he walked into the hospital room. He would talk about anything except why he was in the hospital.

And finally Starsky gave in and said, "Sure, partner. Lots of 'em."

XXXXXXXXXXXX

He was discharged from the hospital a month after he came in.

Wasn't able to go back to work, but at least he was out. So the first place he came to when he was released was mine. To talk to Rico too, I guess.

"Hutch," the boy tried to apologize again as he sat beside him on the stool. "I feel like it's my fault. If you hadn't helped me, taken me in . . . "

Hutch waved his hand and picked up his beer, moving away from Rico just a tad. "Forget it. It's over, done with. It's a shame freaks like those walk the planet, you know?"

What had Monroe called it? Minimizing?

He was still doin' it, only now it seemed like it was getting easier as each day went by. Pretty soon he was gonna be able to sweep it under a mental rug like nothin' ever happened.

Starsky sat next to his partner. "Givin' anymore thought to that boys' home I was tellin' you about?" he asked Rico. "I talked to the staff. They're pretty open-minded about all kinds of lifestyles and religions and all."

Rico nodded. "Yeah, I have, Starsky, and I'm goin'."

Hutch looked at him. "Why? You know it may not be safe. Huggy said you could stay with him for as long as you-"

"Hey," Starsky said gently. "Let's be realistic, Hutch. He can't stay here with Huggy forever. He needs to be with kids his own age, get some structure, some guidance. And he wants to go."

Hutch even shrugged his shoulder out from under Starsky's hand.

Rico nodded. "I do, Hutch. Really. I mean, I appreciate you takin' me in, but I need to move on."

Hutch looked downhearted about it, but he finally nodded. I wasn't a bit surprised that he didn't hold his hand out for the boy to shake. But generous man that he is, he did find it in him to say, "Good luck."

"Come on, Rico," Starsky said getting off his stool. "I'll drive you over there myself." He looked at Hutch. "Be back in a flash, unless you want to go with us."

"No, uh . . . I think I'll stay here with Hug. Kinda tired."

And yeah, he did look tired. Pale and whipped. Those dudes took a lot out of my man, and I wondered if he'd get it back again.

This may sound cold, but I didn't want to know too much about how bad Hutch was feelin'. Hell, I wasn't no counselor or priest or doctor. I didn't know what to say or do to help him. I didn't want to say the wrong thing or make it worse or hurt himn. I just wanted him to be okay, inside and out.

Man, if I were a wizard.

"Ready to go back to work?"

I was secretly hopin' he'd get back into the job real soon, to give him some feelin' of doin' somethin' besides mendin' from a hurt that was too painful to talk about. Maybe that's what he needed right now.

He smiled and lifted his cast. "Desk duty for a while, I guess."

Diane came up beside me to slip an arm around me. She gave Hutch a kind smile.

"Hey, Hutch. Gonna be okay, honey?"

He slipped an arm around her too and pulled her against him, nuzzlin' her neck. "Sure, sweetie. Want me to show you?"

She pulled away a little and started puttin' some glasses on a tray, keepin' a heavy scene as light as she could. "Too bad me and Huggy are all booked up for the year."

He pulled her close again and kissed her on the mouth. She tried to pull away, and though I was sorta pulled between my bro and my girl, I had to defend my girl by pryiin' them apart. Wasn't hard, since Hutch was weak as a cat.

"Down, boy," I laughed, tryin' to make a joke out of sad situation.

She carried the tray away, then Hutch shrugged and ran a hand down his face, laughing a little, knowin' he'd overstepped his boundaries. "Sorry, Diane!" he called after her. "Rain-check, huh?"

I grabbed his arm and jerked him a little. "Man, what game you playin'?"

He drained his beer and slid off the stool. "Sorry, Hug," he said in a defeated voice as he started for the men's room.

But he stopped about halfway there, like a block of wood.

I couldn't figure out what was wrong, but he looked like he was scared, or trippin, or havin' a stroke or somethin'.

"Hutch," I said takin' him by the arm. "What the-"

This Hispanic biker gang laughin' by the pool table was what it was. They were pumpin' their pool sticks in Hutch's direction and grabbin' their goods, and I knew. I knew it was them. Plus the way Hutch's face was white as a sheet.

"Mi amigo!" one of them rousted. "Want to go another round?"

That was it. Hutch turned around and walked out my front door. Torn between going gangbusters on the goons, or following Hutch, I followed Hutch toward his place.

XXXXXXXXXXXX

When I got there, Starsky was just arriving from dropping Rico off, so I pulled him

aside at the Torino and told him what happened at my place.

Starsky nodded, unlocked Hutch's door with a spare key, and we went in.

Hutch was pacing around the living room, hands on hips.

"What are you two doing here?" he asked with acid in his tone.

Man, sometimes he could come off so cold and unfeeling. That's why I nickname him The Ice Man. But this particular time was from the attack. He used it like a shield.

I started to say something, but Starsky put a hand on my arm. Hutch was still pacing, still in stone mode, refusing to look at us. He was taking it like a showdown, a standoff, but all we wanted was some loving intervention.

"You owe it to yourself, buddy," Starsky said. "And to me. I want the Hutch I know."

Now he turned and looked at us. "The Hutch you know?"

Starsky was as gentle as I'd ever seen him. He knew how to handle a wounded and resistant Hutch.

"Yeah," Starsky said almost whispering. "The Hutch I know would make sure these guys go behind bars, would keep them from hurting anybody else, would handle his problem. We can't let them get away with it. It's time."

And just like that, though not instant, Hutch stopped pacing, his posture softened, and he looked down at the floor. I'd seen that shift in him a hundred times before. Starsky's soft words could always get through to him.

When Hutch turned his back to us, I thought he'd start pacing and close off again, throw out some rebuffs, but he didn't.

Starsky walked over to him and put a hand on his shoulder, and it was like a sandcastle dissolving into its original form again. Hutch turned into his shelter, letting it all go, and Starsky squeezed him tight.

XXXXXXXXXXXX+

"The one on the right," Hutch announced as he sat between me and Starsk the next day at the police station. He was as nervous as a cat and his good hand kept rubbing his cast till I thought he was gonna rub it all the way through to his arm.

But he pointed out five guys that way.

Five creeps. I recognized them too, so it would be a tight case.

They had a record a mile long. Dobey leaned on 'em pretty hard and they finally confessed. Not just to what they did to Hutch, but for beating Rico and other teenage boys too.

Hutch'd have to go through a trial and everything, but he was gonna do it.

Starsky patted his shoulder. "Got a lot of respect for you, partner. Wondered for a while whether you were gonna face it."

"I'll never be a good cop again unless I do," he said quietly when the lineup was over. "How can I tell rape victims to do it if I can't even do it?"

Hutch was trembling and pale, but he wasn't minimizing it anymore. I think that was the proudest I'd ever been of him. Of all the tough cases he'd handled, his own had to be the worst.

Starsky pulled him into a hug and whispered in his ear, "You won't have to do it alone."

Amen to that, brother.

Not as long as me and Starsk were around.

End

MISTER HUTCHINSON

By TR

XXXXXXXXXXXX+

Taking the steps up to Hutch's apartment, Starsky patted the pocket of his new white shirt as if to make sure the Hallmark card was still there.

Father's Day.

His hand had actually trembled a bit when he had signed it.

He himself felt good about it. Even smiled about it.

What would Richard do when he saw it, make a crack or two?

(What, you want in the will again, David?)

It was their running joke.

No matter. It was worth the risk.

Not only was he going to give Hutch's father a card, he was going to take him out and buy him dinner. He'd been saving up for three months just to take him for a big steak in a fancy restaurant.

That would really ruffle his difficult blond feathers.

"Knock knock," he said as he knocked on the door.

He waited a moment, glanced at his watch, then took the card from his shirt pocket and turned it over in his hand, looking at the Norman Rockwell picture of an older man showing two young boys how to fish in a boat on a lake. One of the boys was blond-haired and biting a straw of hay between his teeth, the other with wild dark hair and suspenders. The man had a pipe clenched between his teeth and a bucket full of fish between his feet, plus a pretty smug look on his face. The boys, obviously, had a lot to learn.

It made Starsky smile from ear to ear.

Somehow it seemed like the right card.

The card was blank, so he could have written anything he wanted to in it, but when he took his ballpoint pen from his pocket, he found that words escaped him.

The feelings were there. He just didn't know how to put it into words.

All he could write was, Love, David.

"Hey in there! Anybody home!"

He waited a moment longer, and when no one answered, took the key over the door and let himself in. Since it was afternoon, he expected to find Hutch and his father around the coffee table debating some political or religious or social issue.

But what he found was a note from Hutch, saying that he and his father had gone out for some bagels and cream cheese and rootbeer and would be right back.

(That can only mean one thing)

(They were going to invite me over)

Starsky looked around and saw the suitcases that Richard had yet to unpack, saw his overcoat, belt, and hat-symbols of the man-hanging on Hutch's bathroom door. The faint smell of leather and cologne. A father smell. His father's smell. Memories rose as tears in his eyes.

His hand went out to touch the items before he even realized it, and then brought his hand back.

"Hello, David."

Starsky whirled and saw him. And offered an embarrassed smile.

"Hiya, Richard. Hutch comin'?"

Richard flicked an easy hand at the door. "Talking to a real looker on the street down there. You should go out there and give him a run for his money."

Starsky flicked an equally-easy hand at Richard's belongings on the door. "I was just um . . . it's good seein' you again."

"Same here."

Starsky reached into his pocket and pulled out the card, then handed it over. "You'll probably think I'm weird, but, well . . . "

Richard gave a perplexed smile and looked at the card, then looked back at Starsky. "David . . . "

Starsky shoved his hands in his back pockets and, nervous, stepped away. "Nah. Shouldn't have done that. Sorry."

Richard walked over to him and gently turned him around. "I never considered how this holiday might make you feel. I'm sure it's difficult at times . . . but I want you to know . . . this doesn't upset me. In fact, I feel quite honored that you would see me this way. I know we've had our ups and downs . . . that's what makes this special."

Starsky smiled and extended his hand. "Thanks."

Richard gripped his hand, then pulled him close for a quick hug.

"And that's not all," Starsky told him. "I'm takin' you out for a steak dinner. Hutch too, 'course."

Richard winked. "So that's why the new white shirt."

"Hey, you noticed?"

Richard looked down at the card again, seeing the two boys fishing with their father. "Anytime you want to talk, David. About your father, about anything at all, just come to me."

Starsky smiled, figuring they'd better start for the restaurant before he got too choked up.

"Hey, Hutch!" he said as he opened the door and called down the stairs. "Stop flirting and come up here and change your shirt! I'm treatin' you and Richard to dinner!"

End

SACRIFICE

By TR

XXXXXXXXX++

Tired and hungry, Hutch climbed from his car and stepped up onto the sidewalk with a bag of groceries in one arm.

"Trick or treat!" a group of children in Halloween costumes chimed as they made their way down the sidewalk in his direction with their bags full of candy.

"Uh oh," he said trying to move through them. "Forgot to get candy."

"Aw, gee!" one in a green Frankenstein mask complained. "What a scrooge."

"Sorry," he shrugged as he tried again to wade through the monster matinee-clad children. "Maybe next year."

All the masks looked downward in disappointment, and then the smallest trick-or-treater, a little boy, started to cry behind his Dracula mask.

"Good grief," he sighed as he rolled his eyes and sorted through his sack of groceries. "You remind me of my partner. Think all you have to do is work your lost-little-boy pout on me and get your way." He shook his head as he continued to sort. "Look. I don't have any candy. It's bad for you, all right? I have banana chips. You want banana chips?"

"Candy!" they demanded.

He threw his free hand up. "I don't have any candy!"

The group of children grumbled and complained as they stomped away and left him standing alone on the sidewalk.

"Good riddance!" the tallest one shouted over his shoulder.

"Scrooge!" another repeated.

"Oh, go home!" he yelled after them. "You shouldn't be out after dark anyway!"

He watched them turn the corner, then carried his groceries up the stairs to his apartment, the smell of steak and onion lifting his spirits as he ascended.

The door opened before he could even take the knob in his hand. Meeting him with a kiss and a glass of Scotch was a dark-haired, green-eyed beauty in his bathrobe.

"Steaks are ready," she smiled into his ear, then touched her tongue to his lobe.

He tossed the bag of groceries onto the nearest chair, drained his drink, then set the empty glass on the coffee table.

"Miss me?" he asked as he wrapped his arms around her and pulled her close. "Mmmm, Nothing like a fine meal."

She giggled when he swept her up to carry her into the bedroom.

"Jenny, Jenny, Jenny," he smiled as he stood with her in his arms. "What you do to me is beyond-"

The ringing phone interrupted him.

"Damn," he said as he closed his eyes.

"Going to answer it?" she asked with her arms still around his neck. "Could be important."

He sighed and set her gently on her feet. "Don't the bad guys know I have a social life?" he said as he moved toward the phone.

She tied the belt of her robe and watched him cross the room.

"Of course we do," she smiled. "How do you think we got you?"

"Wha-" He turned to look at her, but it was too late. He took one step toward her but, as if suddenly tired, sank to his knees with his head down, fumbling for the phone.

"They were right," she said as she scooped the ringing phone from the end table and onto the floor out of his reach. "They said you had a weakness for a pretty smile and a nice pair of legs."

"Jen-" He tried to crawl toward her, unable to hold his heavy head up or keep his rolling eyes on her. "Wh-what'd you-" His speech slurred to a moan. "-give me?"

Hutch's eyes gazed at her, full of confusion and questions, but it was the tattoo of a black upside down cross on the inside of her thigh that told him he was in serious trouble.

She stood quietly and watched him slowly sink facedown to the floor.

"Midnight," she said as she nudged his imploring hand away with a bare foot. "We sacrifice a human to Simone every All Hallow's Eve at midnight."

When his eyes were closed and his hand was no longer moving, she snapped her fingers to bring two figures in dark hooded sweats from the bedroom.

"Out like a light," she said as they reached down to pick him up. She took his empty Scotch glass and wiped the surface free of her fingerprints, then opened the door for them while they carried him out and down the steps, following close behind.

"Simone will be pleased," she said when she opened the trunk of their car so they could put him inside.

XXXXXXXXXXXX

Starsky parked behind Hutch's car at Venice Place, then jumped out of the Torino, careful to sweep his vampire cape aside with a flourish to avoid catching it in the car door. Then he rushed a shopping bag full of Halloween candy up the apartment steps.

"Trick or treat!" he called as he banged on the door. "Get a costume together! You're goin' with me!"

He fished inside his black jeans and came up with plastic vampire fangs, popping them into his mouth for the full effect. "Come on!" he said hitting the door again, speaking clumsily around the teeth. "I got you some popcorn balls!"

After sniffing the good food aromas, he stood with his ear against the door, listening. Hutch had only two or three dates with Jenny, so he didn't know a lot about her except that she was a local schoolteacher, but his blond half was taken with her.

The lack of response didn't bother him. All it meant was that he could catch his partner and company in the act and then roust him about it for days to come. But when five full minutes passed with absolutely no sound from inside, he finally turned the doorknob and stepped in, seeing the untouched steak dinner, empty apartment, and phone on the floor and off the hook.

Slowly he took his vampire teeth out and called out "Hutch?" even though his sinking stomach told him something was wrong.

Careful not to touch anything, he backed out of the apartment, then hurried down the stairs to the Torino, jerking the cape off and tossing it into the floorboard once he got in.

"Dispatch," he said when he snatched up the mike tore away from the curb. "Dobey. Fast."

A few moments later, Captain Dobey's voice came over the radio. "Dobey here."

"Cap, Hutch is missin'."

"Starsky-" Static on the radio. "Damn it, I don't have time for a Halloween prank!"

"I'm serious! I stopped by his place. He's supposed to have dinner with Jenny there tonight, but they're both gone. Put out an APB on her too."

"Think she's involved?"

"She'd better not be."

"What's her last name?"

"Ayers. Jenny Ayers. School teacher. In Hutch's vicinity I think. Hell, I don't know, what are we supposed to do, run a check on every girl he meets?"

"Not such a bad idea."

"No sign of a struggle. No blood. But I want you to send some men to check his place. Prints. Samples. Everything."

XXXXXXXXX++

"Gently," Marcus said as he watched his followers lift a limp, unresponsive Hutch from the trunk of the car at the edge of the woods. "The offering must not be blemished."

XXXXXXXXX++

Huggy did a doubletake when he saw Starsky running into his bar wearing a black turtleneck and black jeans, but the look on the detective's face made him come around to the front side of the bar to lead him back to a private corner in the busy, noisy kitchen.

"Somethin's up besides your cat burglar costume, man."

Starsky was panting when he clutched Huggy's shoulders. "Hutch's gone, and I think Jenny's got somethin' to do with it. Neither one of them were at his place when I showed up. They left a steak dinner untouched and his phone's off the hook. What do you know about her?"

"I know she's a bitch if she hurt my boy," he said reaching past Starsky for a wall phone, "I'll get on it."

Starsky started for the kitchen door to leave. "Let me know if you get anything," he said over his shoulder. "No matter how small."

Huggy gave him an okay sign, then yelled at Angie the cook to keep the noise down.

XXXXXXXXX++

The prison dentist knocked on the warden's door with a large manila envelope under his arm. "Mr. Greenbow?"

An older man with reddish hair and round wire spectacles looked up from paperwork on his desk. "Yes, Doctor Gordon?"

"Something strange here," he said motioning the envelope at him. "Can I come in?"

"Of course." He leaned back and lit a pipe. "I need a break anyway. What have you got there?"

Dr. Gordon approached the desk and opened the envelope, sliding out dental x-rays. "I've done dental work on Simon Marcus two different times since he's been here. Once to get a tooth pulled when he first came last year, and again for fillings this year. And I must say, I don't understand it, but the records look as if they belong to two different people."

Greenbow leaned forward in his chair and took the pipe stem from between his teeth. "What are you saying?"

"I'm saying," the dentist said as he placed the two sets of x-rays side by side in front of the warden, "that the man in Simon Marcus' cell can't be the Simon Marcus that was first incarcerated here. He's a clever double. A twin or something."

The warden picked up the x-ray films and held them in the light of his desk lamp. "That's impossible. How could that happen?"

The dentist shrugged. "He gets visitors. I suppose a lookalike could have switched places with him."

The warden shoved the x-rays at him and stood to his feet as he picked up his walkie-talkie and began to pace. "Duncan," he said into it. "Bring me the man in Simon Marcus' cell."

XXXXXXXXXXXX

Starsky was searching the streets in the Torino when the car phone rang.

Knowing it was Dobey, he said, "Whatcha got?" into the receiver.

"Nothing good," his voice came back. "They found a glass with a drop or two left in it, and the drops tested as a powerful tranquilizer. Not likely to kill him, just knock him out for a good while."

Starsky's expression barely changed, but his grip tightened on the steering wheel.

"And the girl," Dobey continued. "I ran a check, and no one by the name of Jenny Ayers is employed by any of the school systems in the surrounding area. Didn't come up in the DMV records. Not listed in criminal records. So she's a dead end."

"No she isn't. She's gotta have a real name, and somebody has to know somethin' about her. Hutch's got a picture of her at his place. I'll put it on the news if I have to."

"That could risk Hutch's life."

"It's already at risk. Got any better suggestions?"

"No," the captain sighed heavily over the phone. "I don't."

"Keep diggin'. I'm going to her apartment to see what I can find."

"You need a warrant."

"This is Hutch's life we're talkin' about and you want me to go get a war-"

"Hold on, Starsky! I'm on your side, remember?"

Starsky took the receiver away from his ear long enough to press the cuff of his sleeve against his perspiring upper lip, then took a breath and put it back to his ear. "Sorry. Just keep diggin', okay?"

"No need to ask," the captain said in a much quieter voice.

Starsky hung up.

XXXXXXXXXXXX

"You're not Simon Marcus," Warden Greenbow said as he paced behind a comfortable leather chair in front of his desk. The bearded, dark-haired man seated in it bore a striking resemblance to Simon Marcus, and even carried himself with the same unperturbed air. "Who are you?"

"I'm whoever you say I am," he said in the quiet, almost melodic voice of one lost in a pleasant trance. "Born to save the master. I've fulfilled my destiny."

"You've traded place with him," Greenbow said as he paced back and forth. He looked at two uniformed guards. "Process this man out."

"But-"

"Do as I say," Greenbow said as he picked up his phone. "I'm alerting the authorities that Simon Marcus has escaped from this prison and we don't know how long he's been out."

XXXXXXXXXXXX+

Starsky wasn't sure who was beeping the horn incessantly in the car approaching him, but he slowed down long enough to see that it was Huggy, who was now waving his arm out the window to make sure he stopped.

Horns honked around them and they were causing a traffic jam, but Starsky turned on the red light and held it in his hand without budging.

"Bad news, bro!" Huggy called across the street to him. "Jenny chick's name ain't Jenny, but she used to be one of Marcus' girls! They don't do their activities at the zoo no more! Source says some big woods not far from there! Also says somebody impersonatin' Marcus has been takin' his place in jail all this time!"

Starsky didn't wait to hear more. He lifted the mike to notify Dobey. Huggy threw his car into Park and jumped out, leaving the motor running.

"No!" Starsky yelled at him. "Too dangerous! Just get with Dobey!"

"Forget that!" Huggy yelled back as he rounded the back of the Torino.

But Starsky took off before Huggy could get in.

XXXXXXXXX+

The warm gold color in the torchlight cave was cut abruptly through with stark black shadows on the wall. In the center of the cave the followers stood with silent heads bowed in a circle around a dining room table-size stone altar. Their hoods hid most of their features, and as if by unspoken cue, they began to whisper Simone's name in unison when he descended the wide stone steps in a black robe and crossed the area.

The subservient figures moved back to the walls of the cave as their master approached the hip-high slab his unconscious captive lay on, nude and almost serene in the soft yellow aura.

"White Knight," he intoned quietly as his finger touched the halo of blond and caressed a strand between his fingers. "We meet again, though you will never know it." He gingerly touched his fingertips to the closed eyelids, brushing across the lashes, cheekbone, sideburn, then down his throat, chest, stomach, loins, and leg.

"At midnight you will be Simone's," he said as he took the blond head between his hands

and lifted it to gently kiss his upper lip. "It will surely destroy your friend."

Marcus carefully lowered his head back down, then slid a curved dagger from its sheath beneath his robe.

XXXXXXXXXXXX

Starsky ran through the woods with a flashlight in one hand, his gun in the other, all of his senses alert to the slightest strange noise, sight, and smell.

"Not too late," he whispered as he jumped over fallen logs. "Hang on, Hutch."

He ran and ran, for miles it seemed, until he was out of breath and strength, and just as he was about to collapse from fatigue, he saw the soft golden glow deeper in the woods.

He slowed to a walk to catch his breath, keenly aware of the slightest rustle of leaves, the smallest snap of a twig. He saw that the golden glow was coming from a cave.

When a robed follower crept toward him with a raised knife, Starsky subdued him with a chokehold, then put on his robe and pulled the hood up over his head.

He turned the flashlight off and stood next to the mouth of the cave, still trying to quiet his panting body, recognizing the familiar low chant of Simone's followers repeating his name.

When he was ready, he made his way into the cave.

XXXXXXXXX

Marcus placed the tip of the dagger to Hutch's throat and paused.

One of the followers brought a large empty chalice over to him and stood silently at his side.

"In half," Marcus murmured as he drew the tip delicately down the center of his chest and stomach, just above his skin.

That's when Starsky slipped up behind him and put a gun to his head, but it did nothing to stop the followers from chanting.

The sound of helicopters and Captain Dobey's raid grew louder as it approached, but none of the cultists moved, choosing instead to await their fate with their leader.

"Hutch?" Starsky asked in the torch glow, "you okay? Help's here."

Marcus smiled. "He can't hear you."

Starsky resisted the urge to pull the trigger. He could see that Hutch was still breathing, and, as soon as officers arrived in the cave to assist with the arrests, he shoved Marcus toward two uniforms and ran to Hutch, lifting his head, smacking his face.

"Come on, boy. We're gettin' you to the hospital, then I'm goin' after Jenny."

End

SAILING

By TR

XXXXXXXXX+

(She was gonna give it all up, Hutch. Just for you)

I looked up from my place on my sofa, Gillian's framed 8x10 in my hands, and saw him standing there in my living room.

"God, Starsk," I said wiping a hand down my face, "I didn't even hear you come in."

So absorbed in her. Her face, her life, her death, what we meant-could have had- would never have.

A glance at my watch told me it was almost lunchtime. Three months after her death, and like a fool I'd spent my Saturday morning just mooning over her picture and letting myself ride that long, lonesome wave of missing her.

"'Let it out'," Starsky had told me after I'd found her dead on the floor of her apartment.

Let it out.

Sure.

Grief for her. Anger at Grossman. Sorrow for what I'd lost. Frustration at Starsky for simply telling me a truth I didn't want to hear. That truth was a saber tooth tiger tearing me apart, and Starsky was torn apart right along with me.

Even after I slugged him, he could still be there for me.

(Let it out, boy)

Wasn't that easy for me to let it out, and he knew it, but I could do it with Starsky. No one else.

If he hadn't been there . . .

But he was. He's always there at the right time. How many times has he saved my life at the last second?

"Hey . . . " He sat down on the arm of the sofa, propping his hand along the sofa behind me, close, and it was as comforting as a hug. "She loved you."

"I know. But . . . "

"No buts."

"But . . . I know what she was. And I can't believe I didn't know that. Or could tell that. Or that she didn't tell me sooner."

"You know why she didn't tell you sooner. She didn't want to lose you."

Suddenly weary with grief, I let my head rest back against the couch and closed my eyes, trying to picture her face in my mind. Her smile. The way she looked at me like I was the only man on the planet. She would have done anything for me. And she had. She quit her old lifestyle, even when she knew she could pay for it with her life. And did. What she risked for me. For us.

"I'm trying, Starsk, to see her the way she was when . . . before I found her . . . before you told me . . . when she was alive . . . we were happy . . . I want to see her like that again . .

. "

I felt both of his hands around my left upper arm and he was carefully but firmly pulling me to my feet.

"Come on, buddy. You're comin' with me."

"I don't want to go anywhere."

"I know. You'd rather sit here and miss her. But I came over to dig you out of your Saturday morning grave."

Saturday morning grave.

He sure has a way with words.

But he was right. In a perverse kind of way, I was beginning to enjoy my low state. I could sit and think about all the mistakes I made, she made, pine over all the what ifs.

"Not healthy," Starsky told me, steering me to the door.

"You're not taking me bowling again, are you?"

"No bowling."

"Not bumper cars?"

"Not bumper cars."

"Toy store?"

"No toy store. Somethin' just for Hutch."

XXXXXXXXXXXX

"Just relax, Hutch. Let me handle things."

Oh God. It was relaxing. Beautiful. Just what I needed.

I lounged there in the gorgeous red sailboat with the white stripe, tilting my face up into the heavenly blue sky and gold sunshine, the sea spray fresh on my face.

"I didn't think you could sail," I murmured with my eyes closed.

"Been takin' lessons ever since . . . well . . . just wanted to surprise you, that's all."

"And the boat?"

He shrugged. "I had some money gathered up for a rainy day."

I raised my head long enough to look at him. "You bought a sailboat just for me?"

He shrugged again, and gave a little smile. "Like I said. I had some money."

I tilted my head back again, felt my muscles relaxing, my mind at ease. No music except for an occasional seagull and the lapping of the ocean. No heavy thoughts. Just peace, as the wing-like waves carried me to a freer place of being.

I heard him stirring around in the cooler as he fixed me something to drink.

"What is it?" I asked him.

"Your favorite health shake," he said. "With a Starsky twist. Smell the bananas?"

"I do now." I interrupted my nirvana long enough to open my eyes and look over at him. He was slicing the bananas into the drink, adding a drop of vanilla, a few sprinkles of coconut, a dribble of Rum-things I would never think to put in there-and doing it all with such care.

He startled a little when he saw me watching him.

"Okay?" he asked as he put a little colored umbrella and a straw in the glass and put it in my hand.

I smiled at him. "Thanks, Starsk. For . . . you know . . . everything."

I took him for granted sometimes. I didn't mean to. We were so busy doing our jobs and living our lives, sometimes I didn't stop to think about what he meant to me. Or what I'd do without him. I just didn't know how to say it sometimes. Too corny. Too dopey.

"Starsk, uh . . . " (You're the best friend I got in the whole world).

How do I say that? It came a little easier for him.

"Starsk, uh . . . I want you to know something . . . " I looked out at the blue air, not wanting him to see how this moment was tearing me up inside-how his pure and unselfish loyalty could melt me into a puddle of butter. That and me still missing Gillian. My emotions were raw nerve endings, and surfaced in the tears I tried to blink back. "If losing her hurts this bad . . . I don't know what I'd do if I lost you too . . . and it almost happened when I froze in the alley . . . I'm sorry . . . "

"Hey . . . " He took my drink from me and crouched next to my lounge. "We talked about that, remember? It's okay."

"For you maybe. I could . . . " I laughed a little. "I think I could put you under the guillotine and you'd say it was okay."

(I don't want to take you for granted)

(I don't want to take advantage of your loyalty)

(I don't want to betray you)

"I don't want to betray you."

There.

I said it.

He smiled and fluffed my hair. "You'd never do that, Hutch. Why you gettin' so soapy all of a sudden, huh?"

I reached for him and pulled him to me. "Because sometimes, you don't know what you got till it's gone. And I want you to know how much I appreciate you."

He laughed in my ear and gave my back a pat. "I think I should have taken violin lessons instead."

End

BAD BLOOD

By TR

XXXXXXXXX+

I walked into Huggy's to find Hutch sittin' in the same booth he'd been sittin' in for the last five nights, gazing goo-goo-eyed at the same girl he'd been gazing at for the past five nights-Huggy's new "attraction" to his place. Not a waitress. A pretty singer named Quinn Jordan. An exotic-looking girl with mocha-shade skin, blue eyes, and long Bo Derek braids with tiny butterflies on the ends.

She had a voice that was smooth and soft, and she usually sang well-known love songs, but put her own sweet Reggae spice to them.

Tonight she wore a tight white jumpsuit that showed off her girlish curves.

Like everybody else in the place, I stood and watched her sing-watchin' was as much fun as listening, because she was really cute and didn't mind singing and swaying those cute hips to the music and really getting into it.

She enjoyed the audience too. Had a sweet smile for everyone. But her eyes-a look of obvious infatuation-she had for nobody else in the room but Hutch.

Her mouth was singing her song, but her eyes, and her mind, were focused on him.

I gave her a wink as I walked over to the booth where Hutch sat ogling at her.

"Ground Control to Major Tom," I said as I snapped my fingers beside his ear.

He gave my arm an absent pat, and kept his dreamy smile on her face.

"She's singing 'Blue Angel'," he said in a faraway voice.

He looked hypnotized.

"So I hear," I said as I settled down across from him in the booth. "You asked her out yet?"

"She leaves with the same guy every night."

I winked. "Maybe it's her brother."

He groaned like he wanted her so bad, then pulled his eyes away from her to look at me.

"She's taken, Starsk. She's gorgeous. Sings like a bird. And she's taken. That guy is so lucky."

"She's still lookin' at you. I bet she's singin' just to you."

He drank his beer. "Let's go, huh? If I see her leaving with that guy one more night . . . "

Her song ended. Hutch managed to set his beer down and clap his hands, though he didn't look around.

Like she read his mind and knew he was about to split, she handed her mike to her bongo player and came off the small stage to make her way toward us.

Hutch still wasn't looking in her direction.

"Here she comes," I mumbled into my beer.

"Yeah, right."

The whole place was watching her. Guys, girls. She had a presence like she was already a star, just needed discovering. Confident but not cocky. Sweet but not too shy. Self-possessed I guess.

"Excuse me, Detective Hutchinson?"

He looked up at her with a soulful schoolboy crush on his face and stood up to meet her.

"Y-you know my name?"

"I asked Huggy about you."

Me and Hutch both looked over at Huggy, who threw us a wink from behind the bar where he was polishing some silver serving trays.

"I'm Quinn Jordan," she said as she patted her perspiring throat with a pink scarf.

I stood up too.

"Hutch's partner. David Starsky. Like to sit with us?"

She nodded, and I made room for her on my side of the booth.

Huggy brought her over a Coke with ice. "Enjoy, Quinn."

"I will, Huggy. Thanks."

Huggy left the booth.

"Hope you don't mind me coming over," she said to us.

"No," Hutch told her. "Not at all. I enjoy your singing. Live music is the best idea Huggy ever had. You're going to be a tough act to follow."

"Thanks. Um . . . " She sipped her cold drink. "I have one number left. Would you consider a duet?"

"A du . . . " He looked at me. "Oh, Quinn, well, I'm very flattered, but I'm afraid I couldn't-"

I kicked his leg under the table. "Go ahead, Placebo. Show her what you got."

"What I-"

"Huggy said you sing very well," she told him. "I trust Huggy. We grew up on the same block."

"Quinn, I'm only amateur. I couldn't begin to-"

She took his hand and pulled him from the booth. "Come on. You don't have to play the guitar. Just sing. You know Simon and Garfunkle's 'Silence' song, don't you?"

"Well I-"

She dragged him onto the stage and held his hand. "Sure you do. Everybody does."

Holding the mike between them, she started the song.

Me and Huggy and some of the regulars urged him on, and, with a squeeze of her hand, he joined in.

They sang well together, and when they were finished, everybody yelled for an encore.

After their song, Hutch escorted her back to our booth. A few people came up for her autograph, even though she was only famous at Huggy's. Somehow they knew what she knew-that she had talent and celebrate, and she'd make it big some day soon.

"Quinn!" Huggy exclaimed happily when he brought more drinks to our booth. "You're a hit!"

"Yeah," I chimed in. "Especially that last song."

Hutch blushed.

"You two wanna be my regulars?" Huggy asked them.

Hutch was downing the drink like it was the last one he'd ever have. "No way," he choked as he set his glass down. "I'll stick to cops and robbers, thanks."

She smiled her bright smile. "You should reconsider. We sing very well together."

He looked deep into her eyes like he wanted to kiss her, but he took a deep breath instead.

"Need a ride home?" he asked her.

Before she could answer, a pumped-up bodybuilder, the guy she'd been leaving with every night, stepped up to us.

"I'll take her home," he said taking her arm. "She's with me."

The guy was wearing gold chains, a physique-flattering tank-top, black leather pants, and looked none too happy. He had braids too, that ended just below his ears.

"WAS with you," she said pulling her arm away. "I told you it's over, Julius."

He took her arm again. "Hey, baby. It ain't over till I say it's-"

Hutch's badge in his face told him different. "Leave the young lady alone. She said it was over, so let go of her."

Julius tightened his fingers around her wrist, making her squeal in pain. "You with the white boy? And a copper at that?"

Me and Hutch went at him at the same time, but it was Hutch who landed the first punch, knocking the guy flat on his back.

Out cold.

Hutch looked apologetically at Huggy while putting an arm around Quinn. "He steps one foot in this place again, call me."

Huggy nodded with a gleam of respect in his eye, and we went out the door.

We drove her home.

On the way she sat between me and Hutch, looking more like a scared little girl than the confident singer she'd been thirty minutes ago.

"Sorry," she said glumly. "I thought he was gone for good."

"He will be," I assured her. "He even looks at you, you call us."

"That is," Hutch put in carefully, "if you really want it to be over."

"Oh, I do," she said with a sigh of hope and relief. "We were childhood sweethearts, you know? Same neighborhood. Same school. But we grew up. I went in one direction, and he went in the other. And a bad one at that."

"Dope?" I asked.

She wouldn't answer.

"Guns?"

Still no answer.

"I told him I wanted to cut free of him, start a singing career. He keeps following me. Won't leave his life of crime, and he doesn't understand why I want no part of it, or him."

Hutch put his arm around her. "Don't worry, Quinn. It's against the law for him to harass you like that. You need to get a restraining order."

She shook her head no. "He'd ignore it."

"He won't ignore us," I told her.

She smiled bitterly. "You don't know Julius. He accuses me of sleeping around, when really, the only guy I ever had was him. He doesn't even appreciate it. And . . . " She looked at Hutch. "He hates whites. He doesn't like me even talking to . . . "

"Forget about him," I told her. "It's over. You got a new life."

Hutch smiled. "And two new bodyguards."

She put her head on his shoulder, and it looked kinda sweet. He smiled and kissed the top of her braids, then looked at me.

I got a kick every time I saw him fall head over heels for somebody. Being in love made him happy, and it made me feel good seeing him that way.

XXXXXXXXX++

"Home already?" she asked lifting her head from his shoulder.

"This it?" Hutch asked looking up at the apartment above the Panda Bakery.

"This is it," she said with a pretty yawn. She stretched her arms like a cat, and I took the opportunity to lay a few Gomez Addams kisses along the inside of her arm.

"Hey," Hutch winked as he opened his car door. "Thought that was my job."

She smiled as he helped her from the car.

I tried not to look as they stood kissing on the sidewalk. It looked like the beginnings of something meaningful.

"Want to come up?" she purred into his ear. "My bodyguard?"

Uh oh.

I felt like a voyeur.

But it was fun.

"Uh . . . " Another kiss. "Mmm. Are you sure?"

"I'm always sure," she murmured back.

"Well, I'm in my car. I'd have to take my partner home. He-"

I rolled the window down. "I can drive this tinker toy home and pick you up in the morning."

Quinn smiled, and then he smiled.

"Good idea, Watson," he said as he patted the roof of the car. "Shall we say seven-thirty?"

"Make it eight," Quinn said wrapping her arms around his waist and kissing him again. "He'll have a long night."

"Well um . . . " I cleared my throat. "Let me know if you need an extra bodyguard."

Hutch laughed and ruffled my hair. "Get out of here, will you?"

So I did, and when I pulled away from the curb and drove down the street, I looked into the rearview and saw them kissing again.

XXXXXXXXXXXX++

When I got home, I heated up a pizza in the oven, grabbed a rootbeer from the refrigerator, then planted myself on a kitchen stool to call Huggy, who answered with a crack of "Huggy's Entertainment Lounge."

"Hey, Hug. How's Julius?"

"He came to after that sledgehammer Hutch gave him, and his compadres helped him on his way."

"Cool," I said munching pizza. "Just checkin' to make sure everything's okay."

"It is. How's Quinn?"

I grinned with the rootbeer bottle almost touching my lips. "She's in good hands tonight."

"I catch your drift."

"See you round, Hug."

"Yeah, like, probably tomorrow. You guys should pay me rent as much as you hang out here."

I laughed and hung up, then polished off the last bite of pizza, swigged the last drop of root beer, then headed off to bed with visions of Hutch and Quinn making love dancing in my head.

XXXXXXXXXXXX

I got up the next morning and took a leisurely shower since I had some time to spare with Quinn's place being closer to my place than Hutch's.

I started to call 'em and wake 'em up before going over, as I didn't want to interrupt them, but decided to get a kick out of catchin' them off guard.

"Bye, Phillip," I said to my plant as I squirted some water on him on my way out the door.

XXXXXXXXXXXX

I was humming some kind of tune, I can't remember now, on my way to Quinn's apartment.

Don't remember much about the drive over, except that it was interrupted by the static of Hutch's police radio. "Zebra 3, patching a Mr. Bear through."

I picked up the mike, wondering what was so urgent this time of the morning.

"Hey, Hug? What's up?"

"Listen, Starsk. I don't know where you are, but you better get to Quinn's in a hurry. I heard Julius was on his way over to burn a white cop who had the guts to mess with his girl."

But I was already there.

"Thanks," I said as I swung Hutch's car in front of the Panda Bakery and jumped out.

"HUTCH!"

I ran up the stairs with my gun drawn and kicked the door in, even if I didn't know what might be happening on the other side of it.

The scene was a nightmare.

Blood splashed on the walls, the sofa-bed where they'd been sleeping, shredded. Wide spots of bloodstains on the white sheets.

No sounds.

Heart in my throat, I ran through the place looking frantically around.

I saw Quinn, on the kitchen floor, her throat slashed open and the last of her blood spilled on the tiles.

A tiny sound of "Hutch" formed in my throat when I didn't see him in the kitchen.

But then he came in behind me, back from a quick run around her block.

I tried to move in front of him, to block his view, but it was too late.

"Quinn?"

I grabbed his shoulders and stopped him.

"Too late, buddy," I whispered. "She's gone."

His head dropped, breath heavy, and I pulled him to me, feeling hot tears against my neck.

"We'll get him," I assured him.

End

FAMILY WAY

CHAPTER 1

Hutch was jogging around his block and working up a good sweat when Starsky eased up alongside him in the Torino.

"Mornin', partner."

Hutch grinned at him but didn't slow his pace. "Morning!"

Starsky took a bite of his blueberry Pop Tart and swigged his chocolate milk. "Want a bite? It's boysenberry."

"Liar. I suppose that's a health drink you're chugging too."

"Yeah. Endorsed by Jack La Lane himself. Virility Shake."

"Right. Tell me another one."

"You wanna get in the car?"

"No."

"Wanna race?"

Starsky gunned the motor and teased the Torino past Hutch, making the blond laugh, then waited for him to catch up.

XXXXXXXXXXXX

Fifteen minutes later Starsky was lounging on Hutch's couch with his feet propped on the coffee table, finishing his breakfast and working a TV Guide crossword puzzle with a pen while waiting for him to come from the shower.

"Hey, Hutch!" he tried to shout over the shower. "Last one! Give me Zsa Zsa Gabor's twin sister who played in Green Acres!"

Hutch obviously hadn't heard him under the spray, because no answer came back, but he did hear the phone ring, and barreled out of the bathroom with a towel around his middle as though shot from a cannon.

"For me," he said slipping on the floor with his wet feet and grabbing the receiver from Starsky's hand. "Wendy."

"Who's Wendy?"

Hutch spoke into the receiver. "Hu-hi, Wendy."

Starsky laughed and snatched the towel from his hips, snapping him smartly on the rear. "'Hu-hi, Wendy.' When'd you meet her? Holdin' out on me again?"

Hutch laughed and mopped his dripping hair back with his hand. But the longer he listened, the more his smile faded, and the bright humor in his eyes turned to solemn quiet.

"Okay, Alicia. I'll be there. I'm coming."

Starsky held the towel in his hands and watched Hutch's face.

Hutch wiped water from his eyes. "Sissy, I promise. I'm on my way. I'm sorry to hear it. I'm really sorry. Hold yourself together now. Go to Mom and Dad's. You told them, didn't you? Don't cry, sweetheart. I'll be there. I'm on my way. Let me hang up, okay? I'll be there as soon as I can."

Hutch slowly hung up, then just stood in the middle of the floor staring at his partner. "Her husband's dead. Nelson. Head-on crash. Other driver was drunk."

Starsky leaned toward him, concern in his eyes. "Alicia okay?"

Hutch nodded. "She was home when it happened. There were no survivors. She . . . " He folded his arms across his damp chest and looked down at the floor. "She's three months pregnant."

Starsky rubbed the towel into his hair. "Hey," he said softly. "Go get dressed. I'll explain things to Dobey."

XXXXXXXXXXXX

Starsky and Hutch sat with few words between them on the plane. Sitting in the window seat, Hutch soaked up the silent comfort Starsky offered.

Starsky saw him rubbing his forehead and motioned for the stewardess.

"Yes, sir?" the petite redhead asked.

"Couple of aspirins?"

She glanced at Hutch, then nodded and slipped down the aisle.

"How?" came the whisper from beneath the hand that shaded the blond forehead. "How does a twenty-eight- year-old girl face widowhood?"

"I don't know," Starsky said very quietly. "Ma was about that age when Pop . . . I never thought about how young she really was when that happened. It changed everything. For all of us."

Starsky didn't have to explain how everything changed. Hutch already knew. Rachel was forced to work two jobs. She had to handle two hurting, rowdy boys. She coddled the younger one. Sent the oldest one away. Every life in that small family took a detour that none of them had been prepared for.

Even with his head down, Hutch's other hand fumbled for Starsky's and squeezed it briefly. "Thanks for coming, Starsk."

Starsky squeezed back, then let his hand go.

The stewardess brought Hutch a tin of aspirin and a paper cup of water.

"Thank you," he said as he swallowed the pills and washed them down.

"Anything else?" she asked.

He shook his head no.

But Starsky said, "A pillow if you got one," and she left to fulfil that request as well.

When she was gone, Hutch leaned his head back against the seat and closed his eyes.

XXXXXXXXXXXX

"Was Nelson a good guy?" Starsky asked as they waited for their luggage at the airport.

Hutch picked up his camel-color bag. "Real decent."

"Lawyer, right?"

"Right."

"Your dad give him the Hutchinson stamp of approval?"

Hutch nodded.

Starsky picked up his burgundy suitcase. "What do you think she'll do now?"

"I think she'll stay with Mom and Dad till she gets back on her feet." He reached into his back pocket and opened his wallet, holding out a picture for his partner to see.

"Pretty," Starsky smiled as he looked at the photo of the girl with shoulder-length white-blonde hair and powder-blue eyes. He'd seen the picture before, but looked it over again. "Looks like you, Hutch."

Hutch slid his wallet back into his hip pocket and smiled. "Big brother. She used to follow me around wherever I went. Wanted to do whatever I did. Fish, camp, hunt, ride bikes, horses, climb trees, you name it. Of course Mom didn't want her getting all dirty and scuffed up, but Alicia loved it. And she trusted me. One time . . . " He shook his head from the memory. "She climbed to the top of our apple tree. Got too high, you know? Scared. Way in the top and couldn't get down. She yelled for me to help her, so I ran under the tree, climbed a few branches. But she was lighter than me, smaller, so I couldn't go up to where she was without breaking the branch she was on."

Starsky watched his face as if mesmerized. "What'd you do?"

He smiled. "I told her to let go."

"And . . ?"

"She let go. She trusted me that much. She knew I'd catch her, even when I wasn't sure myself that I could do it."

Starsky's smile spread across his face. "Wow. Superman."

Hutch poked him in the ribs with his elbow.

"Kenny!"

They both turned at the voice, and, Alicia, dressed in a black sleeveless dress and penny loafers, ran to Hutch and flung herself at his chest, sobbing into his jacket.

He held her and stroked her hair. "I'm sorry, baby. I'm so sorry."

She was accompanied by Mr. Hutchinson, who put his hand out to Starsky. "David. I didn't expect to see you here."

Starsky looked at the older face as they shook hands. Firm chin. Dry eyes. But of course they would be in a place as public as an airport.

"I can stay at a hotel," Starsky told him. "I didn't mean-"

"Nonsense. You'll stay at the house with the rest of us."

A few pilots walked by and tipped their hats at him or nodded a greeting. It was obvious he was no stranger to the airport.

"I told her to stay at home," Mr. Hutchinson told his son. "She wouldn't hear of it."

"'course not," Hutch murmured as he kissed the top of her head. "You wanted to see your big brother, didn't you?"

She nodded against his chest.

He dabbed her face with a handkerchief, then put an arm around her, first shaking his father's hand, then squeezing Starsky's shoulder. "Alicia, this is Starsky."

She smiled through a sniff and extended her hand. "David, right?"

He took her hand and kissed it. "That's right. Sorry to have to meet under these circumstances. Sorry for your loss."

He noticed that she wasn't showing yet.

That brought a fresh round of tears, which made Hutch's arm tighten around her and Mr. Hutchinson clear his throat and reach for the camel-color bag. "I'll get that, Ken. Let's head back to the house. She wants us to help her with the arrangements."

XXXXXXXXX++

In the doorway of the Hutchinson home, Mrs. Hutchinson embraced her son and kissed him on the cheek. "Ken, thank God you came. She's been so devastated." Her hand

moved to the collar of Starsky's shoulder to smooth a wrinkle. "David. Good of you to come. I wish you could have known Nelson. I think you would have liked him. He was always making jokes, like you. Even in the courtroom." She sniffed and dabbed her nose with a silk hankie.

Starsky smiled at her.

"Make yourself at home," she told him.

Starsky looked around the Victorian furnishings, enjoying the high ceilings, the chandeliers, the paintings, the antiques. "Thanks."

"I've been cooking today. My way of releasing tension I suppose. Dinner's in about an hour."

"Is that a roast I smell?"

"It is."

Alicia lay her head against Hutch's shoulder and held to his arm. "It was just so sudden," she said in a small voice. "Here one minute, gone the next. I ask myself why. I ask God why. Why Nelson? Why now? I don't under . . . " She fell apart again, and Hutch walked her over to a sofa and sat down with her.

Richard took his wife's hand. "Dorothy, let's give them some time alone. David, I want to show you a set of antique dueling pistols I picked up."

"Oh, sure," he said as he followed the Hutchinsons into the den.

XXXXXXXXX++

Alicia stood between her father and her brother at the burial. Starsky lent support to Mrs.

Hutchinson.

"I'll always love you," the blonde girl whispered to the photo placed on top of the casket. And with a hand warmly on her stomach, whispered, "And I'll make sure our baby would have loved you too."

XXXXXXXXX++

Starsky found Hutch and his parents going over some of Nelson's personal papers in the dining room.

"Where's Alicia?" he asked as he looked around.

Hutch walked over to him. "In her room. We asked her to come out for something to eat . . . " He shook his head. "She won't."

He looked at Mr. Hutchinson before asking, "Can I try?"

The older man nodded permission.

XXXXXXXXXXXX

She opened the door after several knocks.

"Yes?" she asked as she dabbed a tissue to a pink nose.

"Probably not hungry," he said, "but if you'd like to go outside for some fresh air, I'd be happy to escort you."

"I . . . " She looked over her shoulder at the bed she'd been lying across. "…was looking at some pictures."

He nodded. "Bring 'em with you. We'll sit on the porch."

She attempted a smile and picked up the photo album she'd been looking through, then took the arm he offered her.

When the two of them walked past the dining room, Mr. Hutchinson watched them until they were outside.

XXXXXXXXX++

"I never knew how important these pictures would become," she said as they sat in the porch swing.

He looked at a photo her fingers were caressing lovingly, one of she and Nelson in front of a fireplace in a Northern California ski lodge.

"You'll come back to them many times," he said quietly. "When you miss him so bad you don't know how you can take another step without him."

She looked at his face. "How do you know that?"

He took his wallet out and opened it, showing her two photos. "My pop, Michael. Killed when I was ten. He was a cop. And here's Terry. She died last year."

She took the wallet from him to get a good look at the pictures, then placed her hand on his.

"I'm sorry," she said as she handed the wallet back.

He folded the wallet. "I don't want this to be about me," he said as he slid it back into his hip pocket.

"Oh, David, it's fine, really. I appreciate you telling me. I appreciate you caring enough about my big brother to come here with him." She smiled. "Sometimes even heroes need somebody to lean on."

She shivered in the cool night air and he took his jacket off and draped it around her shoulders.

"Better?"

"Thanks," she smiled, and turned another page in the photo album.

XXXXXXXXX++

To Starsky's delight, Mrs. Hutchinson fixed a huge breakfast the next morning, but Alicia only had juice and a bite of biscuit.

Hutch had pancakes with blackberry jelly.

"Yum," Starsky said as he licked some from his spoon. "Where'd you find this jam, Mrs. Hutchinson?"

Dorothy smiled. "I made it myself, David."

"It's the best. You should put this on the market."

Dorothy blushed. "Why, thank you."

Hutch rolled his eyes. "Can't you tell when he's buttering you up, Mom? He just wants you to give him some to take home."

She waved her napkin at him. "Hush, Ken. David can have anything he wants. All he has to do is ask."

Starsky waggled his brows Groucho Marx-style at the elegant blonde, which made Alicia giggle.

XXXXXXXXX++

After breakfast Starsky helped Mrs. Hutchinson clear the table, then he joined the two

Hutchinson men in the den, where they were sharing a drink.

"Where's Alicia?"

"Front porch," Hutch told him. "One of her favorite places."

He looked through the sheer curtains and saw her standing by a white column, one arm wrapped around it as she gazed out into the spacious yard and rose garden.

He stepped out onto the porch and stood quietly beside her. "You okay?"

She gave a long sigh. "I guess I will be, in time."

"I know what you need," he said nudging her arm.

She turned a smile on him and raised a suspicious and finely-arched brow. "What's that?"

"You need to get out of here for a while. Clear you head. I can take you for a drive."

She laughed. "Daddy won't let you drive his car."

"Oh yeah?"

"Yeah."

She raised her voice a little. "Daddy? Can David take me for a drive in your car?"

"Absolutely not!" thundered his voice through the window.

"How about your motorcycle?"

Mr. Hutchinson didn't answer for a long time, then he joined them on the porch, followed by Hutch.

"That old thing?" he asked as his eyes twinkled toward the garage. "I haven't started it in ages. Got it in when I was in the army."

"I'll be real careful with it," Starsky told him in his best convincing voice. "And your daughter. I'll drive real slow."

His blue eyes lingered on the garage, then looked back at Starsky. "Very well. Just bring them both back in one piece."

Starsky saluted, then grabbed Alicia's hand and dragged her toward the garage.

Hutch watched them go.

"I'm glad I brought him, Dad. He's so full of life he can't help but rub off on her."

Alicia and Starsky laughed like teenagers when Starsky pushed the older motorcycle from the garage and onto the drive.

He helped her onto the bike, then kicked life into the machine and drove her carefully away and toward the woods.

XXXXXXXXX+

The bike was half a mile away from the Hutchinson house, and they were walking through the summery woods when they came to a sun-sparkled lake.

"Not crazy about the woods or anything," he said as he stopped and held fast to her hand, "but Hutch'd really like this spot."

She picked a flower and tucked it behind his ear. "Daddy owns it."

"Yeah? Beautiful."

"Like you," she smiled as she slipped her arms around his neck. "David, somehow you've made this easier for me. You seem to understand."

Their lips came close, almost touched, and then didn't.

"Bet I can climb that tree faster than you," she challenged.

"I bet you can too, but I'm not gonna let you climb it in your delicate condition."

XXXXXXXXX+

"How was the ride?" Hutch smiled when Starsky stopped the motorcycle and helped her off. He was helping his mother plant a tree in the front yard while Richard supervised from the porch.

"Great," they both said in the same voice, and walked inside the house past Mr.

Hutchinson, whose eyes were fastened on their joined hands.

XXXXXXXXX++

That night Starsky lay in bed in a formally-decorated guest room, but not asleep, his arms folded behind his head, his eyes looking at the stars in the ink-black sky. The bedposts were long and tapered, the cushions sharp-cornered, the furniture strong and simple.

He saw a pale light in the crack of the bedroom door as it opened, and he could see Alicia's silhouette as it opened even wider. Her Swedish blonde hair shone like Hutch's in the dark.

"David?" she whispered.

She came to him in a white silk robe that parted to reveal her nude body beneath, and took his hand, placing it on her breast.

"Is it wrong?" she whispered. "I just want to lay with you."

His eyes moved over her face, and then he pulled her down next to his side in the bed, holding her close against him, warm body against warm body.

"Would you think I was crazy," he said slowly, measuring his words carefully, "if I told you I want to marry you?"

XXXXXXXXX++

Starsky stood in the bathroom the next morning watching Hutch comb his hair.

"I need to tell you somethin' before breakfast, Hutch."

Hutch looked at him in the mirror. "Okay, so what is it?"

Starsky smiled at him. "I'm in love with your sister."

Hutch turned and looked at him. "Starsky, my God, I respect your concern, but . . . are you sure?"

Starsky smiled and leaned his head back against the wall, closing his eyes as if lost in the thought of her.

"I'm sure."

XXXXXXXXX++

After breakfast, Richard watched the way Starsky slid his arm around Alicia's waist as he walked her to the front door.

XXXXXXXXX++

That night when Alicia retired to her bedroom, and when Hutch had gone with his mother into the den to play a song on the piano for her, Richard opened the front door and motioned his head at Starsky.

"David, I think we need to talk."

Starsky joined him on the front porch, and Richard closed the door.

"She's vulnerable, David. She doesn't know what she wants. She doesn't need the complication of a . . . "

He gave the older man a direct look. "Of a what?"

Richard didn't say anything.

Starsky's eyes glittered. "Want me to say it for you? Street punk? Cop? Working class? Uncouth? Unpolished? No breeding? User?"

"I didn't say that."

"You used to say that."

"I used to think that."

"But now? I'm okay, but not quite good enough for your daughter?"

"Don't make me say something I don't mean."

"Never stopped you before."

"She's pregnant."

"I know."

"She's . . . what did you say?"

"I know."

Richard frowned. "And you still want to . . . " He turned and walked to the door. He opened it and stood with his hand on the knob. Looking at Starsky, he said, "I want you out of her life."

"That's for us to decide. She's not a little girl. She's a grown woman."

"You're taking advantage of her vulnerable condition."

"It's not just me. She has feelings too."

Richard started to say more, but Starsky walked into the house.

XXXXXXXXXXXX

The next morning while Mrs. Hutchinson was preparing breakfast, Starsky was folding his clothes into his suitcase when Alicia stepped in the doorway of his guest room.

"David," she said going to him and embracing him from behind, laying her cheek against his back. "You're not leaving me, are you?"

He turned and hugged her, kissing the top of her hair. "I think it's best we put some miles and time between us. Then, later, if we still feel the same . . . I respect your father . . . I love you . . . I want to marry you . . . but I want to make sure it's right."

"But I love you. I know what I want."

He pulled back and looked at her, seeing Hutch's gentle luster in her eyes. "Can you wait, Alicia? I want this to be right for you too. I don't want to rush anything. I want us to have clear feelings."

Her hands caressed his arms. "Can we ever have clear feelings, Dave? Haven't you ever just wanted to do something because you felt like it? Because it felt good? And right?"

He smiled. "All the time."

Her eyes searched his, trying to sort him out. "You said you loved me."

"I do." He took her hand and kissed it, then took a pink-stoned ring from his pocket and slipped it onto her right hand. "Too much to blow it."

She pressed the ring to her lips. "You know, I think Nelson would like you."

He took her hand and kissed it. "I'll be in touch."

End

GHOST

By TR

XXXXXXXXX++

The warden handed this soon-to-be ex-convict a suit and some money at one of the front offices of the prison.

"Good luck, Mr. Forest."

Mr. Forest?

Some of them knew my reputation, even five years later. Even this snot-nose warden who thought he could bribe his way into my circle with a better suit than what the other released men got, and a hundred-dollar bill instead of the usual twenty.

What this two-bit, two-faced runt didn't understand was that I didn't have a circle anymore, thanks to two of Bay City's finest.

No men.

No estate.

No Jeanie.

No stuff.

No bread.

This wet-behind-the-ears warden was Dudley Do-Right by day, aspiring bad-ass by night. One of those crooked wardens who smuggled in what the cons wanted-dope, booze, money, information-and looked the other way for a few kickbacks. Hell, I think he did it more for the hard-on than anything else.

I had no respect for him. My credo is, you're going to be a criminal, at least be an honest one. Don't pretend to be Ronnie Howard through the day if you're going to rob his grandma at night. That's shallow. I would never hire anybody like that. Monk was never like that. He wasn't the brightest, but I knew what he was and where he stood, and he was loyal to me till the end. I had more respect for Starsky and Hutch than I had for this hanger-on. At least they weren't crooked and I knew what I was dealing with.

He looked up at me from behind his desk with that sickening hero-worship in his eyes. "Mr. Forest, will you remember me once you're on the outside?"

(Will you remember me when you enter into your kingdom?)

I smiled.

"Sure, kid," I said discarding his cheap suit and his insulting one-hundred dollar bill into the trash can on my way out the door.

The kid must've thought I was going to waltz right outside and reclaim my throne like I was still on top after five years.

Hell, I had nothing, and rebuilding my kingdom was the last thing on my mind. I mean, being boss again hadn't exactly been my prime fantasy all those years. I didn't lie on that hard iron bunk and dream of the satin sheets I used to sleep on, or the silk suits I used to wear, or the caviar and wine I used to have delivered to my door, or the soft women like Jeanie I used to own every night in my cozy little mansion.

I fantasized about what I would do to a cop named Hutch once I got out.

XXXXXXXXXXXX

First thing I did was get hooked up with a broad who thought the sun rose and set on me, and who would keep her mouth shut, and it wasn't Jeanie. It was a blonde dancer named Marla who now owned the same joint she used to dance in.

Things change in five years.

Her tongue nearly dropped out of her mouth when she saw me walking in. She was behind her bar and paying her girls for the night and sending them home, but once her eyes got fixed on me, her hands got real nervous with the money, and she laughed that self-conscious little laugh when she tried to hide how glad she was to see me.

Even her dancers noticed how flustered she was, and gave me a once-over to see who it was that was making their boss lady blush so deep.

The girls tittered and walked out, sashaying their hips in my direction on their way.

Tramps. I could ravish every one of them and it would be doing them a favor.

When it was just me and Marla in the bar, she locked the door and stood with her hand on the knob just looking at me. No way was I going to walk to her. She'd have to walk to me. And she did, coming right up like a hot feline and winding her arms around my neck.

"Ben," she said kissing me on the lips. "Why didn't you let me know you were getting out? I could've picked you up."

I pulled her close and kissed her, hoping that her curvy body in my arms could turn me on again, but nothing happened. Her hand figured it out.

"Maybe if I were Jeanie?" she purred at me.

I backhanded her across the face and she fell onto one of her tables, spilling off the ashtrays and napkins and menus. She lay there with the back of her fingers to her cut lip. I took her by the hair and pulled her to her feet. Her mouth looked like smeared red lipstick.

"You think you're a funny girl?"

"No, Ben."

"Think you can tease me?"

"I . . . it's good to see you again. I had a real thing for you. You know that. But it was never any good with Jeanie in the way. So maybe now . . . you think there's a chance for us?"

I walked behind her bar and helped myself to a bottle of Scotch, then helped myself to her cash register. "We'll see."

I took the wine and her money and walked to the door.

"Ben, wait," she said reaching for her pocketbook. "I have more."

She opened her wallet and took out a stack of cash, putting it in my hand.

"Starsky and Hutch," I said.

She shrugged her pretty shoulders, nervous-like. "Who?"

She was playing dumb because she was scared to death. She didn't want to be the one to give out any information on them.

"Never mind," I said stroking her face. "I'll take care of it."

XXXXXXXXX+

Mickey the Stoolie.

Running a newspaper stand on the corner.

His eyes got big when I came up the sidewalk, and he actually turned away from two customers to walk away from me.

"Relax," I said smiling and leading him back by the collar. I picked up a paper and handed him a buck. "Just need to catch up on the news, that's all."

He looked at my new silk suit and my lizard shoes; he was as shifty and greasy as ever. He waited on his two customers, then, when they were gone said, "Uh, gee, Mr. Forest, you look real good. I mean, for comin' out of the joint an' all." He looked around for a box of cigars. "Here," he said handing me one to smoke. "Best I have."

"Eat it," I said shoving it in his mouth. "I don't want your stinking cheap cigars. You know what I want."

He took the cigar from his mouth and placed it back into its box with a shaking hand, his restless eyes refusing to look at me. "Well, you know, Mr. Forest, I can't exactly give you the information you're lookin' for, see, 'cause, well, you know how it is, and I've been out of circulation for a while, lost contact with them, don't do business with them no more, and it's been five years, so it'd be a waste of your time to even ask me about them and-"

I folded what amounted to a grand between my fingers and slid it under his nose, waiting.

His eyes were stuck on the bills now. He swallowed hard.

"Starsky's not back on duty yet," he ratted. "Stayin' at Hutchinson's till he mends up. Suppose you heard about Gunther's hit? Hutchinson's on leave. Got nurses and whatnot comin' in. Defenses down. They wouldn't expect anything like this."

I detested this oily little man about as much as I detested the Ronnie Howard warden. A snitch who played both ends. But at least it got me what I needed.

"You're a jerk, you know that, Mickey? A stupid one too. Their defenses are never down. And if you so much as look at a phone to call them, I'll kill you with my bare hands."

He nodded, and took the money.

XXXXXXXXXXXX

A key over his door?

laughed. Too easy.

Maybe Mickey was right. Maybe their defenses were way down.

In my white medical clothes I opened Hutchinson's door and crept inside, pistol in my hand, finding exactly what I thought I'd find-the remains of Gunther's hit.

The whole apartment smelled like medicine. I expected Hutchinson to have stashed his partner in another room so he could be closest to the door in case he had to intercept any surprises, and he was-asleep on the sofa with an arm slung across his eyes, his gun on the coffee table.

I knew how they worked. They put each other's safety before their own.

Hutchinson must have been dead to the world not to have heard me. Playing nursemaid must've drained him. About like my heroin drained him. But he told me where Jeanie was, just like I figured. Knocked him down a few notches. Not the true-blue boy-in-blue he thought he was. Not a white knight. Not a hero. Just a mere mortal, subject to addictions and weakness like all men. I sure showed Jeanie what her cop boyfriend was made out of. He gave her up to me just like that.

It was Starsky who was first aware that I was inside, and he came at me in gym shorts and bandages around his middle, a gun in his hand.

"Hutch!"

I chuckled because his voice wasn't loud enough to wake him up, and he wasn't strong enough to raise the gun up even with both hands, and when he figured out he couldn't shoot me or warn his partner, he did what he could manage, which was just drop the gun and jump at me to take me one-on-one.

I cracked my pistol against his temple and knocked him down. Out like a light. Way too easy.

The noise of him hitting a lamp table on the way down was what woke Hutchinson up. His arm shot out for his Magnum, but my shoe on Starsky's chest and my pistol aimed down at his bleeding head stopped him.

"Don't hurt him," Hutchinson whispered with his big sleepy eyes. He looked from me to his partner, from his partner to me.

I looked down at Starsky. Out cold. I could stomp on his mending chest and stomach and do some real damage, I could blow his brains out, I could do whatever I wanted.

"Don't move a muscle," I said as I reached for the Magnum that Hutchinson's fingers were still on.

He didn't move.

I picked the gun up, then Starsky's, unloaded the bullets, then tossed them into the seat of a chair.

"You know me," I said as I smiled my special smile. "I don't like unfinished business."

His breathing was getting heavier, almost a quick pant. He'd be hyperventilating before long.

"Sit up," I told the cop named Hutch, and he did. His eyes were on me like a mongoose on a snake. His pupils constricted when I reached inside my jacket for the juice. "Give me your arm."

He just sat there in his white jeans and white T-shirt with his eyes glued on me. A white knight with no armor.

"No," he said in a simple way, and started to move off the couch, away from me, trying to lure me as far away from his partner as he could, but also trying to avoid what was in my little cache.

"Down," I said, and pointed the gun down at the other pig.

Hutchinson sat back down. I knew then it was the only way to get him to do what I wanted him to.

"Come on," I nudged him. "You heard me."

His thoughts played out very clearly on his face, in his eyes-he despised me, feared me, and it felt good. He didn't want his partner to get killed, but he didn't want to ride that train to nowhere either.

"Arm," I repeated. "Or I give it to your partner, and I don't think his delicate condition could endure it."

He bolted for the door, a last-ditch attempt to free himself and keep me as far away from his partner as possible.

I lunged for him and caught the neck of his undershirt, then reeled him back and shoved the needle into his neck.

"Overdose," I told him.

And then something like a baseball bat came across the back of my head and it was lights out.

XX

When I came to again, which was, I don't know how much later, I was in lock-up again, and Starsky's eyes were boring into me like blue cinders from the other side of the iron bars.

Guess they figured he'd tear my throat out if he were allowed to be in the same cell with me.

"You didn't kill him," he said evenly. "I called an ambulance in time."

I gazed right back at him, offering him my best smile; the one Marla always said looks

like a shark.

"Come on in here with me," I said patting the bunk I was sitting on. "Water's fine."

End

RANSOMED

By TR

XXXXXXXXX+

The sound of Starsky and Hutch coming into his office on this particular Saturday morning made Captain Dobey look up from the paperwork on his desk, and the yet-to-be-touched tray of breakfast at his elbow.

He glanced at Starsky's tennis shorts and racquet, and then at Hutch's fishing pole and tackle box.

"What the hell are you doing here?" he growled. "I gave you the week off. If you want to work that badly, there's a stakeout on a drug shipment I could put you on."

"No, no," Hutch corrected with a grin. "We just stopped by to see you."

"What the hell for?"

"'cause you're our captain," Starsky smiled. "And we like you."

"And we want to say thanks for giving us a week's vacation."

"And your cabin."

"Again."

"Well," the captain grumbled, "you don't have to be sappy about it, do you?"

Starsky eyed the Poptarts on the tray. "You don't mind, do you, Cap?" he asked as he picked them up. "These are way too sugary for your diet. And strawberry. My favorite."

"Starsky! Put that down!"

"Don't mind if I do," Hutch said as he reached for an orange. "Good to see you're eating healthy again, Captain."

The pair started for the door.

"Hey!" Dobey yelled after them. "Bring my breakfast back!"

But he was yelling at a closed door.

"For cripe's sake," he said as he reached for the telephone and buzzed his secretary. "Delilah, will you bring me another breakfast please? Yes, damn it! The same kind I had!"

XXXXXXXXXXXX++

"I can't believe you're letting me drive the Torino up to Dobey's cabin," Hutch said as he rolled down the driver's side window of the red car with the white zebra stripe..

"Don't be flattered," Starsky told him as he watched the passing countryside. "Strictly self-preservation. Some wild turkey comes along, we can get out of there in a hurry instead of depending on your old dinosaur that probably wouldn't even start."

"My 'old dinosaur' can take you anywhere you want to go, and as fast as you want to get there."

Starsky rolled his eyes. "Where've I heard that before?"

Hutch laughed and gunned the motor as he raced down the two-lane country road toward the cabin.

XXXXXXXXX++

"Delilah," Captain Dobey told his curvaceous blonde secretary who bore a startling resemblance to Marilyn Monroe, "I'm meeting my wife for lunch. If I get any calls from a Mr. Huggy Bear, don't take a message, just tell him to call back."

"Yes, Captain."

Dobey walked down the corridor to the elevator with his overcoat draped over his arm and his hat in his hand.

Two rookies nodded to him as they passed, and he heard them whispering reverently, "There's Dobey. Starsky and Hutch's captain. Maybe we'll get lucky enough to work under him one of these days."

Dobey shook his head and stepped inside the elevator, pressing the button to the basement garage.

When the door slid open, he stepped out and walked to his car, fishing in his pants pocket for his keys. He pulled them out, but a feeling of cold metal pressing against his cheek made him drop them. His overcoat and hat also dropped unnoticed to the ground.

"Into the van," George Prudholm told him.

Dobey's mind raced for a reaction, a plan, a stall tactic, but he remembered that Prudholm wasn't one to respond to rationality.

Prudholm opened the passenger door. "Get in or I get the missus."

The captain gave his face a study, seeing what changes may have occurred over the past few years. He was heavier. Balder. But one thing hadn't changed, and it was that crazy gleam in his eyes.

Dobey's mind played back on the pain he'd inflicted on his two detectives, and knew he was capable of anything; would not blink an eye when it came to hurting his wife.

Wordlessly, he got in the van.

XXXXXXXXXXXX

"Let me ask you something, Starsk," Hutch said as he and Starsky unloaded their gear from the trunk of the Torino in front of the Dobey cabin. "Why did you bring two handguns and a rifle? Not to mention your tennis racquet?"

Starsky checked the handguns to make sure they were loaded. "Blame me? After those devil-lovers that were here last time, anything's possible, and I want to be prepared."

"Those Satan worshippers are gone."

"Yeah, but the woods are full of things that go bump in the night."

"Here," Hutch said handing him a box of groceries and supplies. "Let's get this stuff in and build us a campfire out here. I'm starving."

XXXXXXXXXXXX

Pistol in hand, Prudholm led Captain Dobey down an alley and unlocked the door to an abandoned apartment building, then pushed him inside and followed him in.

"Basement," he said motioning the gun toward a dirty white door with spray-painted graffiti all over it.

Dobey knew once he was downstairs, his chances of getting out alive were slim to none, especially with this man. But he knew George Prudholm, and he knew every criminal had a motive for doing what they did.

"What do you want?" the captain's voice sounded in the dirty air.

Prudholm muscled him down the stairs and pushed him into a chair, then pulled his hands behind his back and tied them with a piece of rope.

"Money, revenge, satisfaction," the man said as he stepped back and looked at his captive, who sat with his head held high and his eyes daringly direct. "I've kidnapped you, Captain Dobey, and Starsky and Hutch are going to bring me the money I ask for, if they, and your wife and family, want to see you alive again."

The captain's chin lifted even higher. "You won't get away with this. I've instructed my men not to give in to kidnappers."

Prudholm cracked him across the face with the butt of the pistol. "We'll see about that."

Dobey tried to blink away the blood that trickled from his eyebrow into his eye. Instinct telling him to fight back, he stood up as if to charge at Prudholm, but the man shoved him back down into the chair and grabbed his tie, which he fastened to a pipe along the wall behind him just above his head.

"A million dollars," Prudholm said to the captain, who was having difficulty breathing with the makeshift noose. "You think your life's worth a million dollars?"

"No one I know has that kind of money," he managed to gasp through clenched teeth. "You-"

Prudholm smashed the pistol across his face again, harder, and this time the captain passed out.

XXXXXXXXXXXX

"Now this is the life," Hutch yawned as he leaned his back against a log and gazed sleepily at the campfire.

Starsky was roasting the last of his marshmallows on a stick over the flame. "Have to admit, you make good homemade fish. Coulda used some fries and slaw, though. Hey, couldn't we make some jam outa those purple berries? The ones that taste sorta like blueberries?"

Starsky waited for an answer, and when he didn't get one, looked over at his partner to find him dozing against the log.

"Berry jam comin' right up," Starsky said as he went to the Torino, found a paper bag he'd brought snacks in on the drive up, and pulled a pistol from beneath the front seat, sticking it inside his belt. "Can't go berry huntin' without my gun."

He traipsed off through the dark woods in search of some berry bushes. He didn't plan on going too far into the woods, because he didn't want to get lost, so he kept looking over his shoulder to make sure he could see the campfire still glowing in the darkness.

XXXXXXXXXXXX

Edith Dobey hugged her son Cal tightly when she saw him coming into the principal's office.

"What's up, Ma? I thought I was in trouble."

"Oh, baby. It's your father. He didn't meet me at the Century Gardens for lunch. I called the station. The commissioner thinks something terrible has happened. His car keys were found on the garage floor, along with his overcoat and hat."

"Better get hold of Starsky and Hutch at the cabin then."

"Let's go to the house. Commissioner Stanley said that whoever took him may call the house."

XXXXXXXXXXXX+

The berry bushes were deeper in the woods than he remembered, but at least he found them.

Humming a light tune, he began picking the loaded berries off and dropping them by handfuls into the deli bag he brought with him.

"Boy, Hutch, are you ever gonna be surprised when you see-"

A crackling of twigs behind him made him turn around, the growl behind the trees made him drop his berries, and the advancing bear made him run for his life.

"HUTCH!" he yelled as he fumbled for his pistol and shot behind him as he ran.

But his aim was off, and the bear kept charging.

Starsky raced for a tree and skittered up the branches just as the bear reached him.

"Get lost!" he yelled as he shot the pistol again.

The bullet hit the bear in the shoulder and it ran off into the woods.

Planted high up into the tree, Starsky lay gasping and panicked on his belly along a sturdy branch. He knew bears were good at climbing trees, and he knew this bear could come back and climb this one whenever it got a notion, but at least he had a gun to scare if away.

"HUTCH!"

And then he remembered that Hutch was asleep by the campfire. The bear could be on his way for a visit right now.

Swallowing hard, Starsky stuck the pistol in his belt to climb down, but was stopped by the sound of Hutch's laughter on the ground below him.

"Hey, Starsk, what're you doing up there, sleeping?"

"Very funny," Starsky answered down to him. "A bear chased me up this tree."

"Yeah, right. Probably your overactive imagination, or was it one of those devil-chicks again?"

A growl close by caused Hutch's eyes to widen, and then he was scrambling up the tree too.

"Get your own branch," Starsky laughed at him. "This one's mine."

XXXXXXXXX++

"A million dollars at the Fairview Apartment Building by nine tomorrow morning," Prudholm's voice said to Edith Dobey over the telephone line. "And Starsky and Hutch have to bring it. Tell them old George wants to see them. Unarmed of course. And no police. Tell 'em to put it in the black van, and then wait there for me."

She burst into tears. "A million dol-please. I can't raise that kind of money so quickly. If you just-"

There was a click on the line.

"Mama, what do we do?" Cal asked. "How are we going to get the money? Call Commissioner Stanley again."

"I will, honey."

But first she tried dialing their cabin for the second time that night, and received no answer.

XXXXXXXXXXXX

"Sshh," Hutch whispered to Starsky across the branches. "I think it's safe to get down now. But don't kill him unless you have to."

"Right. A bear wants to eat me for dessert and you want to spare his life."

They climbed down as quietly as they could, listening for sounds, and headed back to the cabin.

"Got your compass?" Starsky asked him as they made their way through the trees.

"Why?"

"'cause we're lost, that's why."

"You may be lost, but I'm not. I don't need a compass. Just follow me."

"What about the berries?"

Hutch just shook his head.

XXXXXXXXXXXX

"Almost midnight," Prudholm said as he paced around in front of the physically fading captain, who was drifting in and out of consciousness. "Don't think they can raise that kind of money so fast, do you?"

The captain's swollen eyes were glazed and it took all the strength within him to take a breath to say, "Don't hurt my family."

Prudholm cinched his fist around the tie until the captain's air was choked off and he blacked out.

"I told you not to talk."

XXXXXXXXXXXX+

The phone was ringing off the hook when Starsky and Hutch emerged from the woods and started for the cabin.

"Race ya!" Starsky yelled, and they both ran for the front door, then, once inside, wrestled

over the telephone.

Starsky ended up with it.

"Yeah?"

Edith's earlier calm had escalated into hysteria now.

"David? Harold's been kidnapped. They're asking for a million dollars by nine in the morning, and they want you and Ken to bring it to the Fairview Apartment Building. Unarmed and no other police. You're supposed to put it in a black van and wait for them. Commissioner Stanley knows. He's got a SWAT team on standby. I know you're not supposed to give in to kidnappers, but David-David-" Her voice dissolved into tears.

"On our way," Starsky said, and hung up.

Hutch watched the frantic way Starsky was grabbing up his weapons and his wallet.

"What is it?" Hutch asked.

Starsky told him, and then Hutch just sat down on the coffee table as if bewildered.

"Cap," he said softly.

"George is gonna kill him," Starsky said as he paced around in frantic circles, his hand clutching his hair. "I just know it. Like Terry. Like-"

Hutch looked up and saw Starsky pacing like a madman, then took his shoulders. "Starsk, listen to me. We'll get him back. We-"

But Starsky pulled away from him and kept pacing.

Hutch picked up the phone to make a call. The party on the other end of the line answered on the third ring.

"Hutchinson here."

Hutch breathed a sigh of relief, but couldn't hide the tremble in his voice.

"Dad?"

XXXXXXXXXXXX+

Richard Hutchinson carried the heavy suitcase into the squad room where Starsky and his son were both talking on a telephone in heated discussion.

"Dad!"

Hutch hurried over to him.

"Thank God you're here. There's still time."

"Stop socializing with me and go save your captain."

Starsky grabbed up his jacket and rushed over to join them.

"Thanks, Mr. Hutchinson. You're the best."

XXXXXXXXX++

The rundown neighborhood had been discretely evacuated by the police, but wasn't deserted.

A SWAT team was perched on the rooftops near Riverview Apartments. Two plainclothes cops were planted inside the warehouse across the street. They stood with guns poised at the front windows.

Starsky and Hutch got out of the Torino, Hutch lifting the suitcase from the backseat. He looked at Starsky, who was as white as paper.

"I can do this alone," Hutch told him.

Starsky swallowed hard, then said, "He said both."

They walked toward the Fairview Apartments, aware of the show of defense around them ready to fire on Prudholm at the first sign of trouble.

They saw the van too.

Both detectives looked it over for booby-traps before touching it or trying to open any of the doors.

Starsky crouched down to stick a magnetic tracking device under the bumper in the event Prudholm killed them and got away in the van.

"We're here, Prudholm!" Hutch shouted. "Come on out! And bring our captain with you!"

There were no sounds coming from the apartment building.

Hutch looked at Starsky, who was beginning to prance from foot to foot.

"Prudholm!" Hutch shouted again. "The money's in the van just like you asked!"

Seconds later they heard a door rattling and feet tromping inside the apartment building, and then Prudholm emerged with a double-barrel shotgun aimed in their direction.

"Put it down, Prudholm!" Starsky shouted, and when he didn't, he was hit by a rainstorm of bullets from the rooftops and nearby buildings.

When the SWAT team ran to make sure the man was dead, Starsky and Hutch raced inside the building, glancing around the debris-scattered area, and then scurrying down the basement steps.

"Cap!"

Still tied in the chair, and still trussed to the pipe behind him by his tie, he was only able to breathe in small intakes of air. Blood had gathered between the swollen pouches of his eyes, and stained his shirt.

"Oh my God," Starsky breathed shakily as he took the big head in his hands and held it up while Hutch cut the tie from his neck, which caused his heavy body to slump forward. "Cap," he said holding his arms out to catch him against his stomach. "Don't worry. Everything's okay. We got Prudholm and we're gonna get you out of here."

A strangled groan struggled through the captain's throat.

Starsky's hand rested on the back of his head while Hutch reached behind him to cut the ropes off of his hands.

A SWAT member yelled down, "He okay down there?!"

"Get that stretcher down here!" Hutch yelled as he crouched down to the captain's eye level. "Cap," he said holding the big, useless bear paw and watching the slight movement of the swollen eyes. "We're here. It's okay. Business as usual, okay?"

When the cops and medics all rushed down to help, they were stopped short by the tender and intimate way the detectives were handling their captain.

XXXXXXXXXXXX+

Cal and Edith Dobey ran up to the gurney as the medics rolled it inside the emergency room.

"Harold!"

Hutch caught her and held her. Starsky grabbed Cal by the arms.

"He's banged up," Hutch told her, "but he's going to be okay. He should be here no more than a couple of days."

"Prudholm didn't shoot him, did he?" Cal asked.

"No," Starsky told him. "Just roughed him up. But your dad's a tough cookie. He'll be just fine."

XXXXXXXXXXXX

Captain Dobey woke up to the sight of his wife and son's face next to his bed.

He tried to smile for her, but it came out a grimace, which made him chuckle at himself.

"Oh, Harold," she wept quietly as she kissed his cheek. "I'm so glad you're all right. Rosie's with Huggy in the waiting room.""

Cal turned slightly away from his father to wipe a tear away. "Hi, Dad."

Dobey reached for his hand and squeezed it, then pulled him down for a hug.

XXXXXXXXXXXX+

"What the hell are you two doing here?" Dobey asked with all the gruffness he could muster when he saw Starsky and Hutch walking into his hospital room with candy and flowers. "I thought you were on vacation?"

"Duty called," Starsky grinned.

Dobey took the candy with a grunt. "Okay, I guess I owe you two a thank you."

"And we owe you . . . " Hutch said as he produced a brown paper bag he'd smuggled in under his jacket. "Breakfast."

Dobey opened the bag and looked in, seeing a box of Poptarts and a bag of oranges.

"Well, well," he said smiling crookedly, "there's hope for you yet." He began to open the bag of oranges, but swatted Hutch's hands away when he tried to help. "Where's your father, young man?"

"Uh . . . " Hutch looked at Starsky. "Waiting room, I guess."

"Tell him I want to see him."

XXXXXXXXXXXX

Richard handed Captain Dobey a newspaper and a box of fine cigars. "You wanted to see me, Captain?"

Even in a hospital bed, Dobey still presented himself as a man of strength and authority.

"I want to thank you for getting involved, Richard. You didn't have to. You could have lost a million dollars."

Richard chuckled. "Money is just paper, Harold. You know that. Life has no dollar amount."

Dobey extended his hand, and the two men shook. "Your son is a fine young man."

Richard's chest expanded a bit with pride. "I think so."

"And he has a fine partner."

Richard's eyes took on a merry gleam at those words. "Yes. David. I don't know whether to adopt him or kick him in the ass."

End

SWEET REVENGE, SWEET SURRENDER (Sweet Revenge What If)

By TR

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

"Cap . . . "

His voice on the line. One word and I knew who it was, though it had been a year since I'd heard him say it.

He wouldn't call me unless it were urgent, and by the slurry sound in his voice, it was.

I rose from the supper table and gave Edith a quick kiss on the cheek. "It's Hutch. I'll be back as soon as I can."

She clutched my arm and I saw worry in her eyes. Any time his name came up, there was worry in her eyes. She could always put into words what I was feeling. We'd lie awake many nights talking about Hutch's downhill slide, one year in the making now.

"Tell him I love him, Harold," she said as I put my hat on and grabbed my overcoat.

I nodded, then headed out the door to my car.

One year.

.

Starsky had been gone one year. Sometimes it seemed like eons ago. Other times it's like it was yesterday that I was pacing at the observation glass in the hospital corridor with Huggy.

I'd made the call: "Hutch, you better get down here."

It wasn't good. They'd lost him and were trying to revive him, even as Hutch barreled down the hall toward his room.

It was a mystery. When Hutch was by his side, he was stronger. And when he was away .

. .

"Flatline."

He flew past us, grabbing the door handle.

"I'm here! Starsk, I'm here! Starsk, I'm-"

Hands-mine, Huggy's, doctors', nurses', grabbed at him to pull him back. He was as wild as a mustang.

One doctor was looking at the clock and calling the time, for the second time. This froze Hutch in place, his eyes on the clock.

"I'm sorry," another said to us, his hand on Hutch's shoulder. "We did everything we could."

"No!"

Hutch reached and pawed and strained and begged for the door.

"Please!"

"I'm sorry, Detective."

"No!"

He tore past us, plowing all of us into the wall on his way in.

The doctors and nurses stood solemn at the bed.

"Don't stop!" he sobbed as he ran across the room. "Keep trying!"

He thought there was hope, a chance. Even after it was too late. Like some miracle was going to happen and Starsky was going to be all right.

I grabbed him just as he went to one knee next to the bed, but I didn't have the heart to pull him away. Both of his hands were on Starsky's forearm, and he lowered his head to it, crying, whispering.

I gave him a few minutes, then pulled him away with Huggy's help.

"Come on, Hutch," I said trying to keep my voice from betraying what I really felt. "He's gone. Nothing you can do."

"Let him go," Huggy said as we walked him down the hall between us. "He put up his best fight."

I think it was my words and Huggy's words that finally got some reality through to him.

His head was down and he trudged with rubbery legs that threatened to give out.

"No," he moaned with a hand to his chest. "Starsk . . . "

Then he just collapsed between us as he passed out right there in the hall.

Doctors and nurses came running. They put him on a gurney and checked his vitals, then wheeled him away.

At first Huggy and I just stood there in the hall in a numb stupor.

"Gunther-" Huggy started, and stalked away.

I grabbed his arm. "Let me."

XXXXXXXXX++

I arrested Gunther myself and put him away, but it was no consolation. Not with one of my boys in the ground and the other holed up inside his apartment.

I wasn't surprised that Hutch had closed himself off. Even though each of them had always been strong and independent in his own right, they were better together. So the loss was an amputation for Hutch-the loss of a heart. And how can you function without one of those?

I could see Hutch surviving, of course. But never flourishing. And as his captain, and friend, I tried to prevent a nosedive.

Finding a partner for Hutch was the first thing I did after Starsky died. Figured if he didn't have Starsky, he at least had his job.

He put each partner through the gauntlet, made it impossible for them to work with him.

If he didn't reject them, they rejected him.

He told me once he had a partner and didn't need another one. Guess he meant it.

Tensions in the squad room were mounting. The things I heard from him coming through my door-"Back off! That's not how we do it!"-"Are you trying to get me killed? Why weren't you watching my back?"-"I don't need your sympathy! It's not my problem you can't do your job!"

He wouldn't let anyone have Starsky's desk. It was his now. Everybody else had to use Hutch's old one.

His descent was not only dangerous to himself, but to any man or woman I put with him. I didn't want that responsibility. The job was dangerous enough with a good partner. Allowing a crippled partnership would have been negligent on my part, if not homicidal. I advised him officially to see a professional, or else. He ignored me, so I had no choice but to transfer him to the juvenile unit where he could work alone.

And you know something, he didn't seem to mind. But then, he didn't seem to mind anything after that. He gradually lost enthusiasm for everything. He stopped dropping by Huggy's. He took no phone calls from Diane or Abby or Sweet Alice. His car was rarely at his place anymore, and I didn't know where he was spending his free time.

Once he was in the juvenile unit, I saw less and less of him, though I made up excuses to go down to the first floor now and then to check on him. His job was to work with teenage crime. Baby-stuff for Hutch. But that's what he needed. Something simple. Something to keep him off the street. And useful.

But that was just a band-aid. He missed more and more work, he wouldn't call in, and finally his new captain came and told me the next time he saw Hutch he was going to reprimand him. He said he empathized with Hutch and asked if I knew of anything that would remedy it. I told him no.

I took off early that day to go look for him. It'd been months since I'd had a good long talk with him. As fond as we were of each other, he was not the kind of man who would knock on your door and tell you he had a problem. I'd have to go to him.

His car was gone, so I had to turn around and go home.

But that night is when I got the call from him. That single "Cap . . . " on the line, and I was back on the street headed for Venice Place again.

His car was parked out front, so I figured he was home.

I started up the stairs, not sure what to say once I talked to him, but hoping I'd get through to him.

"Hutch?" I asked as I knocked on his door. "You home?"

There was no answer.

I tried the doorknob, and to my surprise, found it unlocked.

I don't know why I pulled my snub-nose, but I did, just to be on the safe side. If it was that silent in there, and the door was unlocked, it was hard telling what was going on . . .

Pushing the door open, I stepped in. The sight of the apartment broke my heart.

It was seriously neglected. Clothes and towels strewn all around. Empty whiskey bottles littered the coffee table and kitchen table.

No dirty dishes in the sink. He hadn't been eating. The plants in the greenhouse were dead. He'd smashed his guitar and shredded his paintings.

"Hutch?" I called out as I looked around the apartment.

(Cap, why couldn't I save him?)

(Why was it him and not me?)

(Why wasn't it both of us?)

(I was his partner)

(I should have protected him)

(I feel like his killer)

The bathroom was empty too.

I walked into the bedroom and saw that his bed was made, but the spread was wrinkled, as if he slept on top of it all the time. And on the stand next to his bed . . .

How the hell could it be what I thought it was?

I moved closer for a better look, my eyes confirming what I suspected I saw from across the room:

Syringes, and vials of heroin.

I didn't touch them. My stomach rose to my throat and I wanted to be sick.

"HUTCHINSON!" I roared as I moved back to the living room, but was stopped short when I got there by the sight of Hutch's gun holster hanging on the partially-opened closet door. His shield stuck down behind the Magnum in the holster.

I would have turned right around and left if it hadn't been for the light patch of color (his hair) that caught my eye in the darkness of the closet.

Slowly, dreadfully, I opened it, and saw Hutch slumped in the corner, his head down, a rubber tourniquet around his arm, a needle stuck in. My fingers went quick to his neck for a pulse, but it was gone.

A "Dear God" or something growled in my throat as I grabbed the front of his white T-shirt and yanked him out onto the floor on his back to do CPR.

"Don't do this, Hutch," I muttered through clenched teeth as I pumped my hands up and down on his chest.

Nothing.

I puffed some air into his mouth.

Nothing.

His eyes were half-open and gazing far away.

I hustled to the phone and called an ambulance, then started back on him with CPR.

"Beat, damn it," I choked as I shoved my hands on his heart.

Thoughts raced through my brain of what I could have done, should have done, didn't do, didn't say. And realized that it wouldn't have made a difference. There was nothing I

could have done, because he had boarded a runaway train.

The siren sounded too late.

He was already gone, and was where he wanted to be. With Starsky.

I took the rubber tubing off his arm and put it aside, withdrew the needle, and put it aside too.

By the looks of his arms, he'd been using for months. Since Starsky's death, I would guess. While he worked. On the job, off the job. At the precinct, at home.

He'd become the thing he despised and feared.

"Come on, Hutch," I said with a sunken, heavy heart as I pulled him to a sitting position to hold him for a last goodbye. "Edith said to tell you we love you."

End

TOUCH AND GO

By TLR

Starsky and I were waiting on the docks at dawn for Huggy to come by with some information for us concerning a shipment of illegal arms.

I was drinking coffee and watching the sun come up while Starsky was tackling a burrito for breakfast.

"Good Lord, Starsky, that burrito is going to burn a hole in your ozone layer."

"Want some?" he asked licking his thumb.

"No. Watching you eat that is nauseating enough."

I looked at my watch. "Huggy's late. He should be here by now."

"You know Huggy. Interviewing some sexy waitress."

"Yeah, in the bedroom."

We stood there thinking up a dozen more reasons why our faithful friend could be late,

then we just decided to drop by his place and find out for ourselves.

"You driving?" I asked Starsky as we headed for the Torino.

"Nah, you should. I gotta put moves on my English muffin."

XXXXXXXXX++

But when we got to Huggy's we found he wasn't up for the breakfast crowd yet. His front door was locked. Huggy may have his quirks, but he was always open for business early in the morning.

Me and Starsk shrugged at each other, then went around to the back of his place and started up the stairs.

It was then that I heard Kiko's voice behind me.

"Huggy's in the hospital."

I turned to the twelve-year-old kid and almost fell down the stairs. "What?"

Starsky jumped down the stairs to grab Kiko's shoulders. "Where?"

"Memorial Hospital," the boy said with worry in his eyes. He knew Huggy was our good friend. "He was in a car crash. Captain Dobey said it looked like somebody cut his brake lines."

Starsky looked at me, and we both realized he'd been hurt by the guys with the assault weapons we were investigating.

"How bad?" I asked.

He shook his head no, not wanting to answer. I shook him, maybe a little too hard.

"I SAID HOW BAD?"

Kiko's eyes filled with despair.

"They say he's not going to live."

Kiko started blubbering then, and I pulled him to me briefly.

"Come on," I said to both of them. "Let's get to the hospital."

XXXXXXXXX++

Something was wrong.

I could feel it all the way to the hospital. A feeling like shark teeth gnawing my bones that wouldn't let up.

Starsky sat very still in the passenger seat beside me as I sped through the streets with the siren wailing and the lights flaring.

XXXXXXXXXXXX

The emergency room was chaos.

"We want to see him!" Starsky kept yelling. "Let us in!"

"We can't!" the doctor yelled back. "We're trying to save his life!"

I pulled Starsky around the corner and held him against the wall.

"Slow down," I said to him in a strange, hoarse voice. "Let them do what they have to do."

Starsky pushed away from me and started to pace.

"Because of us," he said grimly as he clenched and unclenched his hands again and again. "He got hurt helpin' us."

"Starsky, he-"

He turned and threw a punch to the wall, but I caught his arm and held him still before it made contact.

"He knew the risk," I whispered to him. "He always knew."

He shoved me back and walked down the hall. "He's our friend," he growled tearfully, and kept going. "Not disposable."

I didn't follow.

XXXXXXXXXXXX

I waited for hours, my ears straining to catch every voice and sound drifting from the emergency room.

Captain Dobey came off the elevator and joined me in the corridor.

"Anything?" he asked me as he approached.

"Still working on him."

It was then that one of the doctors rounded the corner stripping off his gloves.

"Mr. Brown has suffered major head and neck trauma," he said. "He's in a coma and on life support. We don't expect him to be able to make it on his own. We're going to give him every opportunity, but there doesn't seem to be much to work with."

Those sterile words were like needles in my heart.

"Too early to tell right now, of course," the physician continued, "but his family should be notified. It's touch and go."

"His Aunt Minnie," Cap mumbled to me. "I've already called her."

The hallway was quiet.

"Miracles can happen," the doctor said. "But don't rule out the possibility that some very hard decisions may have to be made regarding your friend."

I leaned my head back against the wall and closed my eyes.

"I've got to tell Starsk."

But I waited a few more hours before doing it.

XXXXXXXXXXXX+

I found Starsky in the waiting room standing at the window. He looked strange not pacing or cussing or knocking things around.

I was all prepared to tell him, but I didn't know how. Huggy was our best friend. He'd done so much for us, placed himself in danger many times for us, out of friendship. Losing him because of one of our cases . . .

"I feel like a murderer," Starsk whispered to the windowpane.

It was raining outside. How appropriate.

I walked up behind him and placed my hand on his shoulder. "He's in a coma, Starsk. He can't survive on his own."

I thought Starsky would cut loose again, but he was too deflated. To even look at me. His knees sort of sank, and he slumped down. I caught him and sat him on the magazine table before he collapsed completely.

I didn't know what else to say. We just sat there next to each other on the table, my hand on the back of his neck.

XXXXXXXXX++

It was hours before Dobey joined us in the waiting room, taking a seat on the green leather couch. He let us have our silence. Words escaped him too, I think.

Nurses checked on us, offered us coffee and sandwiches, but we turned them down.

More hours passed, and finally a different doctor joined us.

Somehow we found the strength to stand up to face his words.

"He's still on life support," the physician said. "Still comatose. You can see him if you like. ICU, Room 303."

The three of us left the waiting room without a word and headed upstairs to 303.

It was like walking to a funeral.

Though I wanted to feel hope, I knew there wasn't much around. Starsky, usually outdoing me in the hope department, was subdued as well.

Dobey seemed to put it all into words: "I think we lost him."

Neither of us commented, we just walked into the ICU where Huggy lay like something mechanical in the bed with all those machines and tubes attached to him. His head was encased in white and his eyes were closed. The respirator was hissing breath for him.

"Hey, friend," I said picking up his unmoving hand. "We want you to hold on, and come back to us."

Starsk stroked the dark cheek with a thumb.

"Sorry, Hug," he whispered tearfully, and bent down to kiss his bandaged head.

Dobey cleared his throat and rested a hand on Huggy's sheet-covered leg. "I appreciate what you always did for my boys, Huggy."

Yet another doctor appeared in the room.

"Mr. Bear's aunt is in the waiting room."

XXXXXXXXXXXX+

We went to the waiting room where a nurse sat with Huggy's Aunt Minnie on the couch.

Two detectives, Milton and Cross, were there to brief Dobey on the status of catching the arms dealers.

Dobey gestured for the cops to join him out in the hall, while Starsky nodded his head for the nurse to move off the couch so he could sit beside Aunt Minnie.

"He's a good boy," the older, plump woman said tearfully as she balled a handkerchief in her hands. She wore a long flowered caftan and dangling sunburst earrings, lots of island jewelry around her wrists and neck.

"The best," I said as Starsky sat down with her and put his arm around her.

"What'd he do to deserve this?"

"Nothing bad," my partner murmured to her. "He was helpin' us with a case. Bad guys cut the brake lines on his car."

"But we're going to find his kil . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . " I cleared my throat. "I mean, we're going to find who hurt him. We've got detectives on it."

She turned her teary eyes to Starsky. "Will you go with me when I see him?"

"'course I will. Whenever you're ready."

"They tell me . . . " She looked at me. "He may never wake up on his own, that those machines will have to live for him."

I looked at Starsky, then nodded. "That's what we were told."

She opened her pocketbook and took out a seashell necklace. "I'm going to put this on him. I prayed over it. I don't know if it will bring him back, but . . . " She wept silently again.

I nodded. "I'm sure he'd appreciate it, Aunt Minnie."

Starsky helped her to her feet, then said to me, "I'm gonna take her to see him. Get us some coffee, huh?"

I nodded. We were going to be up for a while.

XXXXXXXXX++

Days passed, and Huggy showed no signs of improvement.

Captain Dobey persuaded Aunt Minnie to stay in his home for a while.

Starsky didn't want to leave the hospital, but I made him. I had to get him out of the black hole that that building had become.

We returned to work, but were operating like detached robots. Diane was upset and trying to keep the bar going at the same time, leaving for the bathroom every now and then to cry and come back to business as usual.

We heard murmurs on the street about how we were ultimately responsible for what happened to Huggy, and it was hard to dispute it.

We went to see Huggy every day, sometimes together, sometimes apart. But we didn't let a day go by without visiting him and talking to him.

Aunt Minnie had his room looking more personal with some island pictures on the wall, and some tropical fabrics and earthenware sitting around.

And then the day came that we all dreaded, and that was the day that Doctor Coleman, Huggy's primary physician, called the woman to his office for a conference.

She asked us to go, so we did, and from behind his desk he said what I'd been fearing for weeks:

"Mr. Bear's condition is not expected to change, and we don't know what his wishes would be concerning sustained life support, so therefore it is our policy to turn to family for a final decision." He smiled sympathetically at Aunt Minnie. "Have you given any thought about this, Ma'am?"

She sat on a sofa between me and Starsky, and looked from me to him. "I was hoping and praying that he'd wake up."

"I know, Ma'am. And that's what we would all like."

"How long can he be like this?"

He sighed and leaned back in his chair. "Indefinitely."

Phrases kept running through my mind: Quality of life. Euthanasia. Mercy killing.

"Of course, there's always a chance he could wake up on his own, but he would be in a persistent vegetative state. You have to weigh that reality against what is best for him. It's your decision, Ma'am."

We assisted her up off of the sofa. "I have to think about this," she told us as she straightened her back and looked at my partner and I. "I'd like your help with it."

Starsky and I looked at each other.

XXXXXXXXXXXX

We were in Huggy's room an hour later. Our mood was quiet and heavy, but there was almost a sacred feel to it. Aunt Minnie sat at his bedside humming a song to him, remarkably held together.

Starsk and I stood behind her. The sound of the respirator was a constant reminder of why we were here.

The shell necklace lay against his white gown. His countenance was still the same, a picture of eternal stillness.

"He was full of life," she smiled sadly. "Such a handful. Vim and vigor. Bouncing from this to that, some new idea always runnin' around in his head. Always explorin' this and that. Had a mind of his own, a drive to do more things, different things. Liked to take chances, do stunts, daredevil plans, you see?"

We nodded. We knew.

"Heart of a warrior," Starsky said.

"Loyal through and through," I added.

Aunt Minnie choked a sob into her handkerchief. "I just don't see him here no more."

And with those words our decision was made.

XXXXXXXXXXXX

Doctor Coleman and his staff joined us an hour later.

We stood around his bed while they turned off the machines, hoping up until the last second that Huggy would wake up and give us a wry grin and say, "Fooled you chumps, didn't I?"

We were caught in an underworld, where neither decision seemed right. And we could only act with our love for Huggy. We had to do what we thought he would want. How would he want to live? How would he want to be remembered? Nobody wanted to play God. Nobody wanted to be the one to say it. Or do this.

The silence in the room was sudden and permanent.

We watched his chest to see if it would rise again, listened for the slightest breath, waited for the slightest movement.

But none of those things came.

"Peace," I whispered tearfully as I leaned down to kiss his forehead.

End