Pulse

by Zebra 3 and Me

Starsky and Hutch stories of drama and tragedy, with friendship the most important theme.

PULSE

By TLR

Stories-

1. Grave-Marcus' followers

2. Bash II-The partners after a serial killer who preys on gay men

3. Fight-A favor for Huggy turns dangerous

4. Ice-A winter vacation spells trouble

5. Little Girl Lost-Handling a child sexual abuse case

6. Overdose-Just when H thinks it's safe...

GRAVE

By TLR

XXXXXXXXXXXX++

I don't know how long the alarm clock rang before I finally heard it. Starsky and I had had so many one-for-the-roads at Huggy's the night before that the thoughtful proprietor had to call us a cab and toss us into the back seat like a couple of puppies to get us home.

We'd just celebrated the arrest of a child killer we'd been after for months. Maybe it wasn't so much a celebration of catching him as it was knowing those poor little kids and their families finally had some justice. And maybe we were trying to shed some of the creepy scales we grew while working the case. Viewing each small dismembered body, each autopsy photo, informing and consoling each family. Even though we were cops and were used to it, humans should never see stuff like that.

On second thought, humans should never do stuff like that.

So we tied a good one on, just to wash it out of our system.

"And don't forget," Huggy said as he handed the cabbie two slips of paper with our addresses on them, "this one's Starsky, and this one's Hutch. This one goes to this address, and that one goes to that one."

"Will do," the driver assured him, but he looked doubtful.

And to make matters worse, Starsky said, "No, I'm Hutch. He's Starsky."

I wasn't sure if I was laying on him, or he was laying on me, but we were a tangled mess of arms and legs.

"No, no," I slurred as I nudged him off me and over against the door. "I'm Starsky. You're Hutch."

He sputtered with giggles. "Who are we?"

"Tom and Jerry if you ask me," the cabbie retorted into his rearview mirror.

I laughed and slapped my knee. "Hear that, Hutch? We're Tom and Jerry."

"Which one are you?"

"All right, all right," the driver griped. "Sheesh. I'll be glad when I get you two home."

"Hey," Starsk laughed as he leaned his head back on the seat. "Is it crowded back here, or is it me?"

"It's me," I said as I leaned my head back too.

Starsky was drunker than I was, so I felt obliged to help him up the stairs. I maneuvered him onto the sofa, but covered him with an Indian afghan before I left.

"Home, James," I said when I fumbled my way into the back of the cab again.

And that's the last thing I remember of that night.

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

"Okay, okay," I grumbled at the alarm clock, and then turned it off. I literally rolled out of bed and trudged my way to the kitchen to make a pot of coffee, drinking half of it before I felt like I could even pick up the phone to call Starsky.

"Come on, Jerry," I mumbled into the receiver as I sat there on the kitchen stool. "Rise and shine. It's Saturday morning."

His phone rang and rang.

"Oh man," I said as I hung up. "What a hangover."

I tucked my shirt in, tied my shoes, then carried my coffee mug to the door, aggravated that Starsky was snoozing blissfully away while I was nursing a hangover. I was determined to go wake him up so he'd be in as much misery as me.

But the small package the size of a paperback novel outside my door detoured me.

A red bow was on top.

I reached down and picked it up.

(God, Hutchinson, what if it had been a bomb? How careless can you be? After having your hand blown up in a little car bomb, you'd think you'd be spooked of any strange packages)

If Starsky were here, he'd have sent for the bomb squad.

Ever since the bomb, Starsky had grown super paranoid about strange packages. Even presents. Moreso than me.

"Fifi," I smiled as I turned the package over in my hands.

Fifi my cleaning lady was always leaving me little presents. One time it was cologne, and another time it was a book of romantic poetry.

But this was different. Not from Fifi, I could see now, as I opened the package.

Photographs.

The color rich and deep.

Sharp detail.

Nighttime pictures.

I let out a yelp and dropped them to the floor, along with my coffee mug, splashing creamed coffee all over the landing.

I stared down at the smattering of pictures.

A wooded area.

Dense green.

Familiar.

Thick trees.

bonfire. Robed figures. Torches.

No, it couldn't be.

The old zoo?

How could it be?

Was this a joke?

"No," I said, my hands-already shaking from the hangover-now absolute spasms as I swept the pictures up and shuffled through each one.

"Starsky . . . "

Picture after picture.

I ran to the phone and dialed Starsky's number again, my skin suddenly cold and clammy.

"Please," I panted into the phone as I wedged the receiver between my cheek and shoulder. "Please be home."

I waited for an answer, let it ring and ring, but it never came.

I let the receiver fall to the floor.

I couldn't move from the spot I was standing in. My shoes felt glued to the floor.

I looked down at the gruesome photos in my hands.

Pictures of Starsky.

My heart clenched into a tight fist.

My eyes snapped shut, then snapped open.

Still there. Upright between two young trees, arms outstretched and each wrist tied to a trunk on either side of him.

Shirtless.

Head down.

Bleeding gashes on his face.

Bruises.

On his face, chest, stomach.

A bloody nose.

Hanging between the two trees, unable to stand.

Surrounded by robed figures and torches. None of their faces visible. Hidden by the black hoods on their robes.

How? When? Last night? All this last night?

Another gasp from me.

Another picture.

One of the cultists clutching a handful of Starsky's hair and holding his head up for me to see his face.

His eyes.

Blue glaze. Out of it. Drugged. Cut and swelling.

I closed my eyes against the image.

It couldn't be Marcus himself. He was in prison.

It had to be his followers acting on an order from the imprisoned cult leader.

To taunt.

Smirk.

Laugh.

Not to show me he could get him Starsky from behind bars.

But to show me he could get me to come.

That he still had control.

Or the illusion of it.

I ran out the door, like he knew I would.

I didn't want to bring those horrible pictures with me. I didn't want them in my hand a

second longer. But I needed them to guide me to where he was.

(You stupid freaks)

(Send me picture of where he is)

(Like a roadmap)

(I'll play your game)

I jumped in my car, flipping the photos over and looking on the back for a possible message, but finding none.

Picking up the mike, I put a call in to Dobey at his home.

XXXXXXXXXXXX+

Dobey and some uniforms were near the zoo, on standby. I wanted to go in alone. Dobey said I was crazy. But I knew that taking men with me would only jeopardize Starsky's life, and I needed to find him. If they were laying a trap, so be it.

I parked the car and got out, sifting through the pictures and using them as a map.

"Starsky!"

I walked faster. The blinding sun was giving me a monster headache, but I pushed it back.

He had to be here somewhere.

I started running, one hand gripping the Magnum, the other clutching the photos.

"Hey!"

The wooded area in the zoo was dark and deep, almost cold, almost like another world, cavelike, and it seemed to stretch for miles, looking all the same.

Only a few speckles of sunlight cut down to the forest floor now.

I fled over spongy moss, leaped over rotten logs, and jumped whatever rocks and bushes were in my way.

"Starsky!"

These were their woods. Their forest. It was so huge and seemingly endless that they could be anywhere.

There were caves, caverns, lots of places to hide and hold their rituals without being noticed

And they moved from place to place within these miles of woods.

If their whereabouts were ever discovered, all they had to do was relocate to another part of the land.

"Starsky!"

They were waiting for me. They knew I'd come.

(That's right, you devil lovers)

(I'm here)

"Come on!" I yelled to the cool, damp air. "I'm here now! Come and get me!"

I ran like a freight train.

I wanted to see them. I wanted to confront them and fight them.

(Just show yourself)

(Come on)

(Come out)

(I dare you)

And then I saw them, up ahead: The two young trees with bloodstained ropes still tied around them. Strong and unyielding. He couldn't have gotten down by himself. Too weak for that. He'd been incapacitated when they jumped him at his apartment, so drunk he couldn't have fought back, had no time to defend himself or even know what was going on.

Dime-size circles of red stained the rocks on the ground between the trees. Where he'd shed drops of blood on them.

I walked around in circles, head swiveling, straining my voice until it was hoarse.

"Starsky!"

Remnants of a bonfire. Ashes. A blackened torch.

I looked down and saw a slight trail of blood, barely noticeable except for where the crimson drops contrasted against the green leaves.

Panic filled my lungs with icy puffs of air, made my heart slam in my chest as I followed it.

I looked for the cultists to jump from the tops of the trees any second.

I kept following the thin wine-red trail until my shoe stepped on something-

Oh God.

His hand.

Poking from the ground.

I screamed "STARSKY!" at the top of my lungs as I dove to my hands and knees, pawing at the mound of damp, fresh earth, pushing and clawing it aside until I uncovered his arm.

Facedown in a shallow grave.

"Oh God," I choked as I pulled on him. "Oh my God. Sweet Jesus. Help me."

I pushed the black dirt off him, scooped and dug and raked the ground until I could pull him free.

I jerked him up into the crook of my arm, and he came as limply as a broken doll, his features so altered by the beating he was barely recognizable, even to me.

I held my fingers to his throat to check for a pulse, then pulled him up close to my ear and listened for his faint breathing, brushed dirt away from his nose and mouth.

Barely alive.

Presumed dead by Marcus' followers, then buried.

(They think you're dead)

(My God, they think they beat you to death, but you hung on)

(That's why they're not here)

(That's why they so brazenly sent the pictures)

(They left you for dead and wanted me to find your body)

(Revenge backfired, didn't it, Marcus?)

No time for checking for broken bones (I figured he had a couple), I scooped him up and carried him through the woods.

"Starsk," I panted. "Starsk, hold on."

He was unresponsive.

"CAP!"

I tried to walk faster with him.

Those ghouls. I hoped they burned in hell for what they did to him. Shoveling dirt on top of him like he was nothing. Leaving him there in the cold, damp earth.

And sending me pictures of his torture.

My arms were aching, burning from his weight, but I gladly endured it. My legs were slowing down, my breath coming in harsh pants.

"CAP!"

I must have screamed loud enough for Cap to hear me, because he was barreling his car through the fence and toward me. He hurried out and opened the back door, then came over to me and took Starsky into his own arms while I sank to my knees.

I saw Cap laying Starsky in the car and covering him with his overcoat, then he came over to me and helped me to my feet and over to the car.

"Get in," he said as he practically pushed me into the backseat.

Still panting-wheezing actually-I pulled Starsky up against me and tried to smudge the dirt away from his face.

"Starsk," I gasped when I could manage. "It's okay. I got you. You're not in the ground any . . . "

I hid a sob in his matted hair.

"Buried him," I choked to Dobey in the rearview mirror. "Left him for dead."

"Take it easy, Hutch. We'll get him to a hospital."

I realized I was rocking Starsky a little. He needed to know I was there.

"Cap, I swear," I said as still soothed him. "I'm going to get them. Marcus. The ones who hurt him. They'll pay."

Dobey didn't say anything. I think he was glad to hear it.

XXXXXXXXXXXX

I guarded the emergency room while the doctors worked on Starsky. Emergency surgery to repair some internal damage.

"Looks like he went some rounds with Ali," one of the doctors commented.

"And lost," another added.

They cleaned and stitched him up, set him up with an IV, put a cast on his left wrist, and said they didn't know when or if he'd regain consciousness.

I didn't expect Marcus' goons to come back. Why would they if they were so sure he was dead? But if word got out, and it would sooner or later . . . but I planned to get them before they could get Starsky again.

When he came to-if he came to-I'd get their descriptions, and I'd get every last one of them. Or die trying.

XXXXXXXXX++

It was touch and go. Wait and see. Hope and pray. He'd regain consciousness, open his eyes with a flutter of lashes, then go back to sleep.

He didn't seem to see me or know I was there. Dobey brought me coffee and sandwiches while I stood guard by his bed.

But I wasn't very hungry. I ate to keep my strength up. I'd need every ounce to track them down. But with Starsky like he was, food tasted like paper. Coffee like muddy water.

Oh God.

Mud.

I couldn't get the image out of my mind.

The soil. Black, rich, fresh.

His poor hand.

I stepped on his poor hand.

"I'm sorry," I said as I ran a finger along the bruised fingers that poked their way out of the end of the cast.

His fingers gave a little twitch, a little sign, so I did it again.

Once again, his fingers moved.

"Hey," I whispered as I leaned down over the hospital bed. "You waking up? You're in a hospital, Starsk. Not in the woods. You're going to be okay, you hear me?"

My words sounded pretty convincing, even to myself. As long as his heart was beating. As long as his lungs were breathing. He had a chance. And that's all Starsky needed. He did wonders with a chance.

XXXXXXXXXXXX

It was the middle of the night and I still couldn't unwind enough to sleep, even doze, in the chair. And I wouldn't until I knew Starsky would really be okay. If he would just open his eyes, say something.

A soft moan from the bed. A move of a finger.

A dream?

"Starsk," I whispered as I leaned toward him. "You okay?"

His head turned toward me and he blinked at me like a tranquil owl.

"Huh," his whisper came to me.

His cracked ribs made breathing short and labored. I patted his hair-sticky with blood and dirt hours ago-now soft and clean and smelling of peaches and cream.

I smiled. "Hey."

His eyes filled with tears and his plaster-clad arm moved as if to brush the drop away, but he was too weak and the heavy cast pulled his arm back down.

"Dream," he breathed. "Thought I was dead. Couldn't breathe."

I blotted his wet cheek with my thumb. "It's over now, Starsk. You're safe."

His eyes stayed with me, as if he were afraid to look around the room. "Am I in the hospital?" he croaked weakly.

"Yeah. That's not a dream. And neither am I."

The door creaked open, which startled him so badly he flinched in the bed.

"Easy," I said with a smile as I looked up at the visitor. "It's Huggy."

Huggy painted on a smile but I could still see the tightness beneath it. "How's The Starsk?" he asked moving to my side.

"Hanging in," I answered as I adjusted the sheet around Starsky's taped chest.

I looked at Huggy's hand and realized why he looked so disturbed.

He was holding the photographs.

He'd retrieved them from my car when he drove it to the hospital for me.

"Thought you'd need 'em for evidence," he said.

"Yeah," I said quietly as I slipped them into my jacket pocket.

I didn't want to touch them again or see them again, and Starsky didn't need to see them either, but they were necessary to his case.

"Starsk," I asked gently, "can you remember any of them? Descriptions? Names? Distinguishing marks? Anything?"

He closed his eyes. "Shot me full of somethin'. Can't remember much. Fuzzy."

"I know, buddy. But try, okay? It's the only way."

He lay there for so long with his eyes closed that I thought he'd drifted off to sleep.

"Starsk?"

He spoke with his weary eyes still closed.

I didn't want to push him this hard, but I had no choice. And it wouldn't cross his mind to

hold it against me.

"One," he mumbled tiredly. "Tattoo of a goat's head on the back of his hand. "

Huggy chewed on a peppermint toothpick. "Ralph Cantrell does the best tattooing around. Michelangelo with the animal kingdom."

That's what I needed to hear.

One lead.

I was torn between going or staying, pursuing the lead or being with my partner.

He was scared and vulnerable, but he knew we needed to get those goons, so he made it easy for me to decide what to do when he said, "Go ahead, Hutch. Huggy's a good babysitter."

I looked at Huggy, who nodded and took my chair.

XXXXXXXXX++

The tattoo artist wearing the hippie headband was needling out a beautiful eagle on his customer's bicep when I parted his beaded curtain.

"Guess you're the fuzz," he said in a pot-lazy drawl.

"And why would you think that?" I asked reaching to my hip pocket for my badge.

"Everybody else is polite enough to knock."

Ralph Cantrell, tattoo genius that he was, didn't have a single one on his body. But his customer was sporting the most exquisitely-detailed eagle I'd ever seen.

"If this is a raid," the customer said to me through gritted teeth against the pain, "could you wait till he's done? I don't want him to mess this up."

"Ain't no raid, man," Ralph said as he swung his head sideways to get his long Jesus hair off his shoulder and behind his back. "And I don't mess up."

The buzzing of the tattoo gun-the thought of that needle piercing dozens of times a second-seeing Ralph blot the pinpoints of blood away-the discarded, crumpled gauze pads in the trash can-made my stomach weak.

I kept my eyes on Ralph's face.

"I'm investigating the attempted murder of a police officer, and he tells me that one of the guys who abducted him has a tattoo of a goat's head on the back of his hand."

Still needling his masterpiece, and without taking his eyes off of it, Ralph reached behind him for his artistic rendering of a goat's head, and handed it to me. "Look like this?"

I held the picture of the breathtakingly-realistic goat's head in my hands. "I don't know. I'd have to show it to my partner. You do many of these?"

"A few. Supposed to be symbolic of the devil, you know? A few rock stars ask for it. A few scammers in the fortune telling biz ask for it. A cult member or two. Businessman or two. It's not my most popular tattoo, you know? But it's one of my best."

"Which ones asked for it on the back of the hand?"

He glanced at me, for the first time taking his eyes off his art. "None of 'em."

My heart sank.

The lead was a dead end.

As if to console me, Ralph said, "But you know, I think those people are just into that benign white witchery stuff. That other stuff-that dark devil stuff-I myself don't even believe it's for real. Just people out for attention. Fun and games, you know? Like a séance, or tarot cards."

"That's what they want you to believe. It's real. At least, it is to them. They'll kill you for what they believe. Ask my partner."

Ralph turned his tattoo needle off and looked at me.

He knew more than he was telling. I could see it in his eyes. He was a little scared.

"If they find out I talked, man . . . "

"I'll keep your name out of it, Ralph."

The man with the new tattoo slid off the table. "You done, dude?" he asked Ralph. "'cause I don't think I want to hear anymore of this conversation."

"I'm done."

The man pulled his wallet out and handed over a thin stack of one-hundreds. "Fifteen hundred." He admired the new addition to his anatomy in the full-length mirror on the wall. "Later, dude," he said as he walked out through the beaded curtain.

I looked at Ralph again. "The goat's head on the back of the hand, Ralph. Who has it?"

Ralph shrugged. "He looks so meek, you know? Mild. A little quiet, yeah. Smoked too much weed, or something, yeah, sure."

"But he's so proud of his butchering that he wears his little god on his hand for the world to see. And he hurt my partner. So who is he?"

"I don't know. I don't ask for names. But he told me where he works. He asked me to drop by sometime for some herbal tea."

My heart quickened at the information.

"Where? Where can I find him?"

"Moon's Health Food Store," he answered. "He owns it."

I shook his hand and backed from the tattoo parlor.

"Thanks, Ralph. And do yourself a favor."

"What's that, fuzz?"

"Don't ever drop by a devil worshipper's health food store for a cup of his herbal tea."

XXXXXXXXXXXX

Barely containing my thrill, I rushed into Starsky's hospital room with the picture of the goat's head in my hand.

Huggy was sponging Starsky's forehead with some cool water while a nurse took his temperature.

"Dreamin' again," Huggy said as I approached the bed.

The blue of Starsky's eyes found mine through his swollen features.

"Dreamed they got you," Starsky breathed. "Woke up and saw you gone . . . "

I squeezed his forearm and felt the clammy dampness of his skin. "I'm okay, Starsk. And I got something here that I think will make you rest easier."

I waited for the nurse to read his temperature.

"A little high," she announced. "But nothing to worry about." She motioned toward the call button. "Ring me if you need something." And to Huggy added: "Nurse Huggy."

The nurse gathered her things on a tray and left.

When she was gone, I placed my hand on Huggy's shoulder and showed him the ink drawing of the goat's head.

He looked it over and nodded, then I bent over the bed. "Starsky, I have a picture of a goat's head tattoo I want you to see. Remember telling me about it?"

I was 99% certain that this was our man, but Starsky's confirmation of the tattoo would make me 100%.

"Think you can look at it?"

He was already trying to reach for it. I put it in his hand and helped him hold it.

(Marcus, I could kill you with my bare hands)

(He can't even hold a sheet of paper by himself)

A small groan came to his throat when he looked at it, and I knew that was the image on the back of the cultist's hand.

It was more upsetting for Starsky than I'd anticipated. His chest hitched with a little sob, and he didn't have to tell me he was being bombarded with flashbacks of the beating in Marcus' woods.

"I'm sorry," I whispered as I patted his arm.

Huggy nodded for me to leave, and I did, but I could rest assured that Huggy would be there for Starsk while I was gone. He was already moving to sit on the edge of Starsky's bed when I went out the door.

I would get the man, and I'd make him tell me who his creepy friends were.

XXXXXXXXX++

"Police," I said as I displayed my badge and walked through the small health food store smelling of pine incense and full of shelves crowded with dried fruits, vegetables-glass jars of herbs, seeds, vitamins, grains.

The man-a thin matchstick of a man with lank hair and the unhealthy pallor of sculpting clay-saw me. And the look in his eyes said he knew me and knew why I was there.

He knew Starsky was alive and had identified him.

His few customers stared at me, and then him as he bolted for the rear exit of the store.

"Freeze!" I yelled as I pulled my gun out.

But the man with the dead-animal eyes wouldn't stop.

I chased him out the back, where he ran into the path of a delivery van that was blaring its horn.

The impact tossed the shopkeeper into the air and he landed back on the sidewalk.

Traffic braked to a halt as I knelt to take his pulse.

Zero.

But the back of his hand wore more than just the tattoo. It wore skull rings that had cut Starsky's face. And bruised, swollen knuckles where he'd helped beat most of the life from my partner.

XXXXXXXXXXXX+

I notified Dobey, then drove back to the hospital to tell Starsky what happened.

I should have felt good about the man being dead, but I didn't, because a dead man couldn't tell me who the others were.

His gesture-running into traffic-had been suicidal- as I tried to console the driver of the van-and quite deliberate.

The worshipper made sure he would never talk or implicate Marcus.

A self-sacrifice to his dark master.

XXXXXXXXXXXX

Starsky was asleep when I got to the hospital. I told Huggy what happened.

"So Marcus gets away with it?" he hissed from my chair, trying to keep his voice low so Starsky wouldn't wake up.

"For now," I answered dully.

Huggy rose to his feet.

"Well," he said putting on his cocky hat. "There's legal justice, and then there's Old Testament justice."

He went toward the door, not offering to explain what he meant.

And God help me, as my eyes played over my partner's distorted features, the raw rope burns on the wrist that wasn't in a cast, I didn't ask.

XXXXXXXXXXXX

I gave Dobey the photos for safekeeping, as well as the clothes Starsky had been wearing when I'd found him.

We'd need them for evidence if we ever got a lead on another cult member, and I didn't trust them to remain in the evidence room.

Cap locked them away in a safe at his home.

XXXXXXXXXXXX

"Up we go," I grunted as I helped Starsky from the bed and into the wheelchair. "It's time you go outside for some fresh air and sunshine."

He was looking a little pale today, and tired, but the bruises and swelling were almost gone from his face.

"Not in my hospital gown," he protested weakly. "Okay? I need some clothes on. Expect me to snatch a date lookin' like an invalid?"

"Oh, all right," I griped as I untied his gown and slipped it off him.

He shivered in the cool room, the fingers of his broken hand absently rubbing where the red lash-marks had been around his other wrist.

"Here you go, Romeo," I said as I helped him into a red T-shirt and white shorts. "Now you match your car."

"Put my shoes on."

I heaved an impatient sigh. "Why? You won' be walking around."

"Just put my shoes on."

I hunted around in the closet for the new pair of sneakers I'd bought him. His other ones were full of blood and dirt, and I'd put them in a bag along with the blood-stained, dirt-smudged clothes he'd been wearing when I found him.

He didn't say anything about the white sneakers I put on his feet. He knew what I'd done with his other ones.

He smiled. "Thanks, Hutch."

A sudden rush of love almost knocked me down, and-I don't know why-it was a feeling of thankfulness to God that my partner was all right-grumbling, smiling, and able to wear clothes that matched his car.

I had to say something. He was too precious to let the moment pass.

"I'm glad you're alive, dirtball."

I leaned over and put my hands on my knees, and looked him right in the face.

I hated when my voice started to break up, but I had to finish.

"My world's a better place because you're here."

I put my head down and I felt his hand in my hair, then a tug as he pulled my head against his shoulder.

"You're my pal, Hutch. A little soapy for my taste, but you do in a pinch." He pushed me back a little and clanked his cast on the wheel of his wheelchair. "Outside, cabbie. And step on it. The meter's runnin'."

XXXXXXXXXXXX

Huggy was whistling a happy tune when he met us on the hospital grounds outside.

"You okay?" Starsky asked him. "Or did one of your famous great aunts die and leave you some money?"

"Better than that," he said taking off his cowboy hat and putting it on Starsky's head.

"What's better than money?" Starsky asked.

"How about Simon Marcus landing himself in the prison infirmary for a couple of weeks? Busted nose, broken ribs, dislocated jaw, some internal injuries . . . "

Starsky's smile was pale. "But not buried, huh?"

Huggy's smile faded a little too.

"No," he said easily as he patted Starsky's cast. "Not buried."

My hand rested on Starsky's shoulder. "You arranged that, Hug?"

He batted innocent eyes. "Who, me?"

"You know people on the inside."

Huggy shrugged. "Sure. I know lots of people on the inside. But hey, stuff happens, you know? Inmates get beat up all the time."

He squatted down by the wheelchair and drew a tic-tac-toe grid on Starsky's cast with a red marker, then put an X in the middle square.

"Your turn, Rocky."

Starsky took the marker and made a sloppy O with his non-dominant right hand. "Thanks, Hug."

The game of tic-tac-toe was interrupted by a female voice near us, and all three looked over to see a cute girl in hotpants and a halter top walking her dog.

"Hi," she smiled, but was looking only at Starsky.

"Hi yourself," he said raising a hand to her.

"Looks like you have a couple of boo-boos."

"Yeah, well," he said nonchalantly, launching into full Starsky-the-flirt, "it's tough bein' a cop sometimes."

She walked her dog over. "Cop? My dad's a cop."

"Oh yeah?"

"Yeah. Would you be interested in going out?"

"Well, as you can see, I'm still a little under the weather."

"Hey, I didn't tell you. I volunteer here at the hospital a few days a week. I could drop by your room and we could . . . get better acquainted."

I rolled my eyes and took Huggy by the arm.

"Come on, Hug. I think that's our cue to exit."

And that's how he landed a date in his Tomato clothes.

End

BASH II

By TR

XXXXXXXXXXXX+

"I want to report a murder."

The officers in the squad room looked around to see a thin man in a skintight leopard body-stocking, white leather jacket with fringes, glitter eye shadow, and, as if an afterthought toward "toning down", a modest pair of white tennis shoes.

The entire precinct stared, and a trickle of chuckles rippled across the room, but it was Hutch who got up and walked over to the man.

"You came to the right place. Here, you don't look well. Have a seat."

Hutch ushered the man to a chair at his and Starsky's desk.

Starsky gave him a cup of coffee. "Take a deep breath and relax."

The man didn't. He sat holding the coffee cup in both hands, as if afraid of dropping it.

"You don't know me," the man said. "But you knew my . . . " He looked around the room before continuing. " . . . life-mate . . . and they killed him, and . . . " His tearful gaze looked up at Hutch as he pushed long hair out of his eyes with the back of a bangled hand. "I'm Maurice. Frenchie's . . . lover. And they killed him. I didn't know who else to tell."

Starsky gave him a handkerchief. "Take your time."

Hutch was staring at the man. "Frenchie's dead?"

Maurice nodded. "Murdered."

Hutch remembered Frenchie, the plump Frenchman in the white chef's hat who had been so kind to him when he'd been attacked by gay-bashers and tossed through the window of his gay establishment.

"By who?" Hutch asked. "What happened?"

"I don't know who! But they ran him down with a van. We were walking down the street, going home from the restaurant, and this van . . . it came up on the SIDEWALK . . . "

"Get the plate?"

Maurice wiped at his nose. "No! I was too busy trying to hold Frenchie's skull together!"

The man wept quietly.

Hutch squeezed his shoulder. "We have to ask these questions," he said gently. "And we have to ask them now. Did you see any of their faces?"

"Not clearly. It happened so fast. But there was a group of them. Three or four I think."

"What color was the van?"

"I don't . . . white? Cream? Light. That's all I remember. That's all I remember. Except that some college boys-I guess they were college boys, with their jackets and all-they were in the bar earlier, and went off on Frenchie when they realized it was a gay joint."

"What do you mean, 'went off'?"

"Just . . . yelling and stuff. Names. Spitting. No violence though."

"So what did Frenchie do?"

"What he always does." He shook his head. "Did. He turned the other cheek. But not me. I chased those boys out with a broom and told them to go home and grow up. And I wonder . . . did I provoke them? Is Frenchie dead because of me? I feel like it's my fault. If I'd just kept my mouth shut . . . "

Hutch waited until some of the man's emotion subsided, then said, "I'm going to turn you over to the sketch artist. I want you to give him a description of those college boys."

"But I'm not sure they're the ones who-"

"We know that," Starsky told him. "We just need a place to start."

"What kind of jackets were they wearing?" Hutch asked.

"UCLA." Maurice bit his polished fingernail, eyes moving skittishly around the room. "If this department had done its job, Frenchie would be alive today."

Hutch frowned. "What do you mean?"

"I mean, this isn't the first gay murder in our part of town. There have been a string of us murdered, but the police won't do anything about it."

"Who were the other victims?"

Maurice was picking at his fingernails. "Well, there was Leopold. Hung in his apartment. He'd never commit suicide. It was against his beliefs. And then there was Vern. Mutilated in a dumpster on skid row. And then there was Petey. Beaten to death outside his shop."

"What kind of shop?"

"Gay sex shop. Books. Play toys. You know."

Hutch looked at Starsky, then back at the grieving man. "Who did you report it to?"

Sitting up a little straighter, Maurice pointed to an older plainclothes officer across the room, who was at another desk, busy with talking on the phone and taking notes.

"You sure?" Hutch asked.

Maurice nodded.

Hutch got up from the table and walked over to the officer, taking the receiver from him and slamming it down. "What kind of a cop are you, Withers?"

The older officer looked Maurice's way, then rose to his feet. "What are you talking about, Hutchinson?"

"A citizen reports some murders and you don't tell anybody?"

"GAY murders."

"I don't care WHAT kind of murders."

Withers shrugged. "What are you getting involved for? One less pervert in the world if you ask-"

Hutch grabbed Withers' lapels, pulled him out of his seat, and shoved him back. "Nobody asked you. A life is a life. A murder is a murder. We don't see color, remember? Or race.

Or gender. Or sexual orientation."

Withers recovered and spit on the floor at Hutch's feet. "I know why you're so concerned. Pretty obvious around here."

Some officers were too stunned to look away or pretend they hadn't heard. Some found a reason to get up and leave.

Starsky was remarkably calm. "May as well hand over your badge now, Withers," he said holding his hand out. "You ain't gonna be needin' it by the time we get finished with you."

"Queers," Withers sneered a smile at both detectives as he walked out of the silent, staring squad room.

"Forget him," one of the rookies said to Hutch. "He's nutso."

Visibly shaken but intent on finishing up Maurice's statement, Hutch sat back down on the edge of his desk and picked up his notepad.

"Here, lover," Starsky said giving him a pen and a wink. "Anybody ever tell you your eyes get icy hot when you get mad?"

Hutch smiled in spite of himself, and so did Maurice, and so did some of the officers in the squad room.

XXXXXXXXXXXX

"Captain," Hutch said as he planted his hands on the edge of Dobey's desk and leaned over it, Starsky to his right, "we're dealing with a serial killer who preys on homosexual men. Withers knew about it and said nothing. We want his badge."

Dobey slammed his fist down. "It's not yours to take!"

Starsky pointed at the door. "It's because of him that killer is getting away with who knows how many murders!"

"Look. I'm as mad about this as you two are. So if you want the case, it's yours. But leave Withers to me."

XXXXXXXXXXXX+

Starsky showed his badge to the Registrar at the Admissions Office of the UCLA campus, while Hutch opened a portfolio of police sketches.

"We're conducting an investigation," Hutch explained, "and we'd like to know the names

and whereabouts of the young men in these sketches."

"Got yearbooks?" Starsky asked her.

Hutch smiled at him. "Good idea, Sherlock."

"Of course, Watson."

The registrar, a shapely, perky young woman with a cheerleader smile, examined the drawings.

"They look familiar," she mused thoughtfully. "But I don't know their names. The yearbooks would be your best idea. And you'll find our entire set in the Welcome Center, which is the building across the street."

"Thanks," Starsky winked at her. "Free for lunch?"

Hutch took his arm. "I thought you were having lunch with me," he said as he steered his partner toward the door.

XXXXXXXXXXXX+

In the lobby of the Welcome Center, Starsky and Hutch sat around a coffee table swigging soft-drinks and looking at yearbooks from the past five years.

The sketches of the four suspects were propped in chairs where only they could see them.

"Bingo," Hutch said as he held up a yearbook for Starsky to see.

Starsky looked at the group photo of some clean-cut boys in UCLA jackets gathered on the steps of what looked like their fraternity house.

"Let's go drop in on the Beach Boys," he said as he gathered up the sketches.

XXXXXXXXXXXX+

They saw a white van parked alongside the boys' fraternity house.

Hutch jotted down the license plate number.

XXXXXXXXXXXX+

"We were nowhere near a place called Frenchie's," Royce, a boy with a Ron Howard wholesomeness, said to Hutch as they stood in the Victorian-style den of their fraternity house. "Sorry, Officer."

"Where were you?" Starsky asked.

The college boy looked at his three roommates, who were studying around a coffee table.

"We were here," he answered. "Cramming."

"Can anyone verify that?"

"Not really. But our fraternity has a midnight curfew, and an honor code. Ask anyone. If the murder happened at two in the morning like you say, then it couldn't have been us."

"Does that van belong to you?"

"Yes, sir."

"Can we take a look at it?"

"What for?"

"Damage," Hutch answered, and walked out.

XXXXXXXXXXXX

Both detectives walked around the van, inspecting it for dents, getting down and looking underneath, for blood, bits of hair or bone-anything.

"Don't you need a warrant for that?" the fraternity boy asked.

Hutch looked at him from his crouch. "I can get one."

Starsky squinted in the sun at the young man. "Maurice says you went off on Frenchie because it was an establishment of a different persuasion."

"I did. And then we went home. I don't like gays. That doesn't mean I'd kill one of them."

"Maurice remembers a white van hitting Frenchie."

The boy shrugged. "Wasn't mine. Look, it's too bad the guy's dead, but it wasn't me. Why would I risk my future over something like that?"

"Because you thought you could get away with it. You thought Maurice would be too scared to talk."

"Officer, if you're going to arrest me, then arrest me. If not, I have some studying to do."

XXXXXXXXXXXX++

"We can place the college boys at Frenchie's," Starsky said once they were in the Torino. "But we can't place them at the scene of the crime."

"Let's keep digging," Hutch said. "We owe it to Frenchie."

XXXXXXXXXXXX++

"Hey," one of the rookies said as Starsky and Hutch entered the squad room. "Hear about Withers?"

"No," Hutch said tossing his jacket onto the back of his chair. "What's up?"

"They took his badge," he replied with a grin. "DOBEY took his badge."

Hutch smiled at Starsky and sank into his chair before a portable whirring fan. "Best news we've heard all day, huh, partner?"

Starsky nodded. "Calls for a drink with Maurice tonight."

XXXXXXXXXXXX++

Starsky and Hutch stood politely at Frenchie's burial. Hutch recognized most of the mourners as regulars from Frenchie's Bar-from the ones in conservative suit and tie, to the ones in feathered boas and high heels.

The large bouquet of bright pink carnations, from Hutch, stood out against the blood-red roses that surrounded them.

Dabbing a lace handkerchief to his nose, Maurice approached Hutch and clasped his hand. "Thank you for coming, Straight-I mean . . . Kenneth. You're a true friend. We appreciate what you're doing."

Hutch smiled sadly. "I'm sorry about Frenchie, Maurice. He was a good man."

XXXXXXXXXXXX

They jumped Starsky after the funeral, all four of them, just as he was getting out of the Torino, and beat him down to the pavement, blow after blow, kick after kick, until he was a crumpled heap on the ground.

"Up we go," Royce said as he slid the side door of the van open while his associates picked Starsky up and tossed him inside.

XXXXXXXXXXXX++

Hutch stopped his car in front of Frenchie's Bar to let Maurice out, the purple neon sign casting a lilac color to their skin.

A closed sign was on the door:

Closed for the funeral.

Hutch wondered what would happen to the bar.

"Want me to go in with you?" he offered.

Maurice sat slump-shouldered, his hand on the door handle but making no move to leave yet. "No," he said staring into the lap of his black suit. "I'll be all right. I have to go in there sometime."

Hutch decided that Maurice just didn't look like Maurice dressed so conservatively. He got out of the car and rounded it to the passenger side, opening it for him. "At least let me give it a once-over. Those psychos could have gotten inside somehow." He reached in to help the man out.

''Thank you," Maurice said as he rose from the car like a stiff crow.

"Don't you have . . . family to stay with you?"

"Frenchie was my family," he said as emptily as a deflated balloon. "I'll be all right. Just catch his killer, all right, Ken? Just catch him."

Hutch didn't think he looked well at all. He led the man to the front door, where Maurice unlocked it and turned on the light.

"Stay right here," Hutch directed as he began a tour of the bar to make sure it was clear. Then he returned to Maurice, who lounged sickly against the door. "Here," he said taking his arm and leading him over to a red velvet settee, helping him to lie down. He found a bottle of aspirin in his shirt pocket and shook two into his hand, then poured him a glass of water from behind the bar. "Take these, Maurice. Get some rest. You don't look well."

Maurice looked at the blond standing over him and took the pills and water.

"I think you know, Kenneth," he said as he washed the aspirins down and handed the empty glass back. "I think you know how I feel." He lay a black scarecrow sleeve across his eyes. "Losing someone you love."

"I've come close," he said softly, and briefly touched his fingers to the man's forehead. "A time or two."

He waited a moment, then, when he thought Maurice was asleep, turned and left, careful to lock the door behind him.

XXXXXXXXXXXX++

Starsky stood weaving between the two men who were holding his arms.

"Nosey cop," Royce said as he circled around Starsky, looking him over. "Should have left well enough alone. We're trying to do the city a favor and rid it of the vermin that continues to defy all decency. So if you're not part of the solution, you're part of the problem."

Starsky's head was bobbing and he snuffed air through his bloody nose. "Cold-blooded killer," he muttered as his eyes rolled toward the ceiling and he tried to step away.

They pulled him back. "Yes," the wholesome-faced young man confirmed. "And I don't suppose Detective Hutchinson would appreciate what we're going to do to his boyfriend. You think he may back off the investigation if we kill you like we did the other queer boys?"

Starsky tried to keep his eyes open.

"Sit him down in the chair," the youth directed, and they did.

"Now," Royce said as he opened a First Aid kit. "I'm not a chemistry major for nothing."

Starsky watched as the boy took out a vial and a syringe.

"Undetectable and untraceable," Royce said as he pierced the tip of the needle into the vial and drew its contents into the syringe. "And it's my very own concoction. I call it TZ-10. Too good for those other fags. But just right for a fag sympathizer."

XXXXXXXXXXXX++

Hutch pulled the tan Ford behind the Torino at Starsky's place and got out, taking the stairs two at a time.

"Starsk?" he asked before he even found the key in his pocket and opened the door.

He stepped inside.

"Starsk?"

He drew his gun and went through each room, looking, listening, using all of his senses all at once.

"Starsk?"

Nothing looked amiss.

No sign of a struggle. No broken furniture. No note.

But still . . .

Breathing heavier, Hutch closed the door and went down the stairs to his car, but something made him look toward the Torino, and that's when he saw it: Smears of blood on the white stripe. Splashes like red flower petals on the street near the driver's side door.

He raised his voice, even though he knew Starsky was gone.

"STARSKY!"

He didn't touch the car, though he wanted to open the door and search inside. He didn't want to disturb any evidence there might be.

He merely peered through the windows, seeing nothing wrong on the inside, then hurried to his car and picked up the mike as he pulled away from the curb.

"Control One, this is Zebra Three. Get me Dobey and get him fast."

XXXXXXXXXXXX++

In his steamy kitchen, Huggy paced from where his chef Mario was boiling a huge pot of spaghetti at the stove, to where Hutch was standing at the swinging doors.

"Hutch, I ain't heard nothin' about Starsky. You know I'd tell you."

Hutch grabbed his arm to keep him from circling. "Who, Huggy? I'll take a name. Any name you've got. Just a lead."

Huggy jerked his arm free. "I told you I don't know, man! But I'll call some people and do what I can!"

XXXXXXXXXXXX++

Royce turned with the syringe, and Starsky dove sideways, crashing headfirst through the

window and landing two stories down, the shrubbery partially breaking his fall.

"Get him!" he heard Royce call through the jagged glass hole above.

Starsky took off down the street in a stumble, then pulled out his badge and used it to flag down a taxi.

"Drive," he panted as he dove through the open rear window into the back seat. The cabbie sped away with him.

XXXXXXXXXXXX++

Hutch drove the streets, looking and asking, seeing if anyone and everyone he knew had heard of any plans to ambush his partner.

He cruised past Starsky's place a second time, then stopped by the station again, then by Huggy's again, then headed for the UCLA campus.

But when he got to the boys' fraternity house, he discovered none of them were there.

It was dusk when, numb and defeated, he walked to his car and slid into the front seat, then leaned his forehead against the steering wheel.

"Starsky," he whispered into the dark interior. "Where are you, buddy?"

He decided to go home to see if anyone called with demands or information. A number of people wanted them dead. They dealt with that knowledge on a daily basis. But now, the college boys, and even Withers, moved to the forefront of his imagination.

Thirty minutes later he was parking his car in front of his apartment and getting out, looking around for a suspicious vehicle or white van.

The closer he walked to the front door of Venice Place, though, the heavier the dread was beginning to feel-a brick in his stomach.

Glancing at his watch made him think of Starsky, and how long it had been since his partner had eaten anything-

"Oh my God."

Hutch raced up the stairs to find him slumped on the floor against the door, his hand clinging to the doorknob, blood seeping from cuts on his face, eyes swelling with bruises.

Starsky groaned with his head down, still trying to turn the doorknob.

(God, how long has he been out here trying to turn the doorknob, too weak to raise his voice?)

"Here I am, buddy," he said as he crouched next to him and took his head in his hands. "I'm right here. Who did this to you, huh?"

Starsky tried to talk, but only a moan moved past his mashed, bloody lips. He tried to focus on his partner's face as his hand groped up for him.

"Anything broken?" Hutch asked easily as his fingers probed gently along his arms and legs.

Starsky winced when the touch moved to his ribs.

"Sorry, Starsk," he said as he gingerly lifted Starsky to his feet. "Let's get you inside and I'll call an ambulance for you."

Starsky seemed barely aware that Hutch was helping him up. "Killed 'em," he mumbled as he slumped against Hutch's shoulder. "Told me they did."

Hutch held him up and opened the door. "Who, Starsk? The college boys?"

He nodded.

Hutch moved Starsky inside and helped him to the couch, easing him down and reaching for the phone.

"You took a beating and a half," Hutch told him as he kept the heel of his hand pressed against the worst gash, at his temple.

"They . . . " He held to Hutch's arm, his eyes roaming dazedly about. "They were gonna kill me. Give me a shot of somethin'. I jumped out the window."

Hutch didn't try to take his arm back as he reached for the phone with his free one. "They didn't give you anything, did they?"

"Nnn . . . no."

"Sure?"

He nodded.

"They follow you?"

"Tried. Cabbie lost him."

"I'll call an ambulance, then I'll get Dobey to get some men on our favorite boy scouts."

Starsky tried to smile. "Didn't win, did they?"

Hutch patted his shoulder. "No, buddy. They didn't win."

XXXXXXXXXXXX+

Public pressure earned the "Fraternity Boys Case"-as the media had dubbed it-a quick court date. The proceedings were held even before Starsky's bruising could completely fade. Which may have, both detectives knew, subliminally influenced the judge to hand down a heavier sentence.

Maurice sat between Starsky and Hutch in the courtroom.

Reporters and cameras were allowed in. For once the partners welcomed their presence.

The murders spawned a lot of media controversy concerning gay-bashing, homosexual rights, equal protection, etc.

Withers' dismissal from the police force also generated a lot of talk, inside the department and out.

The four college boys each had their own attorney, and each pleaded guilty-(with Starsky's damaging testimony, they had little choice)-in exchange for a lighter sentence.

XXXXXXXXXXXX+

"I guess I'll take over the bar," Maurice told Starsky and Hutch as a waiter at Frenchie's brought Cajun food and drinks to their booth. "French would want me to. I'd hate to see all he worked for . . . all WE worked for . . . go down the drain."

He stirred an umbrella swizzle stick around in his watermelon punch. "If he'd have died from cancer, or an accident, or a brain tumor . . . that I can understand. I could accept that a little more. But murdered . . . because of who we chose to share a life with . . . make love to . . . "

Starsky hadn't touched his watermelon punch yet. "How do you live with it?" he asked curiously. "What makes you go on, in spite of the slurs, and the violence, and the hatred?"

Maurice smiled a little, his head coming up with a bit of pride. "Love is worth it," he said simply, with a wink for Hutch and a smile for Frenchie. "It's worth anything we have to endure."

The End

XXXXXXXXX

FIGHT

By TR

XXXXXXXXXXXX+

"I need your help, Hutch," Huggy told me over the phone. "Can you and Starsk come over to the bar?"

Two in the morning.

It sounded urgent, but he wouldn't elaborate. So I called Starsky's place to wake him up. He mumbled into the receiver in a half-dream state, "No, Amy, don't be mad. I told you, you can be on top next time."

I whistled loudly in his ear. "Hugh Hefner! Wake up!"

He grumbled around and mumbled around and the receiver clattered to the floor twice.

"Hutch?"

"No, it's the Easter Bunny. Wake up."

"Huh?"

"I said get up. Huggy needs to talk to us."

"Oh, man, it's . . . "

My mind's eye could see him squinting at the clock.

"It's in the middle of the night, Hutch."

"I know what time it is."

"Uhhhhhhhh . . . "

"Don't go back to sleep."

"Mmmmmm . . . "

"Starsk, do you have company?"

"She left."

"Good. Get your booty in gear. Huggy sounded upset."

He yawned and stretched. "Yeah, okay. I'm up."

"Stay up. I'm coming to get you."

"Yeah. Will do."

But when I got to his place, I found him sitting in his chair dozing away, his head resting in his hand. But at least he'd gotten dressed.

"Hey!" I shouted as I tossed a throw-pillow at him. "Sleeping Beauty!"

He startled and caught the pillow. Even half-asleep he has the reflexes of a cat.

I looked around the apartment just to make sure there were no stray girls I'd have to put out.

"Hey!" I shouted. "Any Amies in here?"

The place was empty.

"Coffee," I said pulling him out of the chair. "Come on. We'll get some coffee at Huggy's."

XXXXXXXXXXXX++

Starsky was coming around now. We both sat in Huggy's empty bar. It was two-thirty.

We'd been in Huggy's plenty of time when it was closed and empty, when it was just the three of us, but this night, somehow, it felt lonesome, and it probably had more to do with the owner's state of being than anything else.

I'd never seen Huggy looking so down and hurt.

Usually he keeps his emotions pretty well in hand, unless he's mad or in a really silly mood. And even then he has a lot of control with it.

But tonight he was just letting his down-heartedness ooze onto his bar like a spilled bottle of Rum.

"I think my friend Jessie's missing," he said quietly. "At least . . . disappeared. Don't know what else to call it."

I poured him a drink. It called for a little more than coffee.

Jessie was a childhood friend from Huggy's old neighborhood. We were only casual friends with him, as he was on the shadier side of Huggy and didn't want to get very acquainted with Huggy's cop buddies. He wasn't hardcore, mind you. He had a few special ladies that he . . . well . . . managed. And he liked to gamble. And whatever else he did, me and Starsky didn't want to know about. Huggy kept assuring us he was minor league, and we took him at his word. Huggy had no reason to lie to us, and me and Starsk both knew Huggy wouldn't pal around too closely with someone who was into bigtime crime. He knew where to draw the line. With himself, and with us.

"Anybody file a missing person's report?" Starsky asked him.

"Nope. Jessie don't have no family, besides me, that'd miss him. And I wanted to talk to you guys first before I involved the police."

I smiled at his joke. Even in the worst of times Huggy maintained his sense of humor. It carried him through some tough times. It carried me and Starsky through some tough times too.

Right now he looked wiped out, and his sense of humor was hanging by a thread.

"What can you tell us?" I asked him.

Leaning over the bar toward us, not looking at us but staring at his glass, he gave a lame shrug. "If I know Jessie, and boy do I know Jessie, he probably owed some money to somebody and couldn't pay up. Gamblin' debts, y'know? I kept tellin' him gamblin' . . .money . . . was gonna be his downfall. He wouldn't listen. He thought he could talk or fight or deal his way out of anything. Last time me and him talked, it was about his new bag. Fightin'."

"Fightin'?" Starsky repeated. "He was a fighter?"

"No. Fightin'. Capital F. Nothin' Howard Cosell would be braggin' about. Or even know about."

Huggy moved away from us, as if uncomfortable.

I knew he was hiding more information. He wouldn't even look at us.

Huggy was an encyclopedia. If it existed, he knew something about it. And when we asked, he'd tell us everything he knew. Sometimes it was a little. Sometimes it was a lot.

"Hug," I began carefully. "Are you in trouble?"

He waved his hand away. "Nah, man. Nah. Just . . . I think I coulda saved Jessie, and didn't."

"Saved him?" Starsky asked. "You mean he's dead? You said he was missing. Huggy, you can't hold back information like that from-"

I squeezed Starsky's arm. "Easy."

Hug spun back around. "Okay! You think this is easy for me? Jessie told me what he was into and I didn't do anything. I didn't have any CLUE that it was this heavy."

"What?" I asked. "Gambling? Or-"

"Fightin'!"

He was shaking. His shoulders. Arms.

I moved behind the bar that he was keeping like a barrier between us, and brought him around to sit on a stool.

"Huggy, take your time. As long as you're not in any trouble, or any danger, that's our main concern."

His head was down and he looked at a crack in the floor.

"What are you tryin' to tell us?" Starsky asked him.

Starsky was pushing, but maybe it was the only way.

And I'd be there to cushion it.

"I know a little about Fightin'," Huggy started, "from what Jessie told me. And believe me, it's probably too much. Nobody's supposed to know about it, and nobody's supposed to talk about it. And the only reason he told me was because I found him banged up and bleedin' at his place one night. He wouldn't let me take him to a hospital. Too many questions, he said. It was all a big bad secret, y'know? He said he owed fifty-thousand dollars to a loan shark, and that one fight paid off half the debt. He said one more fight would keep the shark from cuttin' off his hands. I tried to get him not to go back for that fight. Begged him. He said it was fast, easy money. Said he couldn't lose. Win or lose, he'd still bring home some dough. A hundred thousand if he won. Twenty-five if he lost. So what was he gonna do, man? What was he gonna do?"

Huggy folded his arms against his chest and scuffed the heel of his boot into the floor.

"Huggy," I said gently. "If he lost that fight . . . if he's dead because of it . . . that's not your fault. You tried to talk him out of it, right? My God, I know he was your friend, but he was a grown man, and he made his own choices."

Huggy turned wet, hard eyes up to me. "HE WAS IN A BIND! HE HAD NO CHOICES!"

I took a deep breath.

Starsky took over. "Hug, first off, we don't know that he's dea-"

"I DO!" he yelled as he hit his chest. "I FEEL IT RIGHT HERE!

We let the room stay silent for as long as Huggy wanted.

He was in pain. A wounded bull trying to walk around with a spear in his side.

And when he was ready to talk again, he continued in a subdued voice. "It's all voluntary, Hutch. Nobody's forced. Everybody gets paid. It's so underground I'm just now hearin' about it. They brought it out from the East coast. I uh . . . " He shrugged defensively, guiltily. "I went to one of the fights. Just to see what it was like. Didn't put no money down. Just had to check it out. Jessie took me."

Huggy reached for his drink. He was getting hold of himself. He knew that information was the key to any investigation, and he was set on finding out what happened to his friend.

"Everybody does it. Rich, poor. Bikers. Punks. Druggies. College kids. Amateur boxers. Struggling actors. Porn stars. They don't have to be professional fighters. Anybody with two fists will do. Jessie wasn't the best fighter in the world. No Ali. But you couldn't tell him that. And he was desperate. He'd taken beatin's before, back in the neighborhood when he was street fightin', so he thought this was no different."

Huggy took a drink. "But that one fight I saw . . . I asked Jessie . . . I said . . . man, what happens if somebody needs a hospital? And he said they just dump 'em off at the emergency room. And then I asked him . . . what happens if somebody dies in the ring? And he said . . . "

Huggy swallowed when he looked at me. "He gave me this look and said, in the world of Fightin', that doesn't happen. And the next time I saw him . . . he'd had his first fight . . . wouldn't let me take him to the hospital. I told him to get out of Fightin' because it was gonna kill him. He said he wasn't crazy about the idea of getting his brains beat out, but he had one more fight to go and his debt'd be paid in full."

"Where did this fight take place?"

"Sometimes they're in the basement of Sully's Bar. But the fights move around so nobody'll find out. They're held in different bars, nightclubs, underground arenas. And it's just for the clique. Not open to the general public, you know? Exclusive membership. Friends of friends of friends. I got in since Jessie was a fighter. He got in because of this stripper chick at Sully's named Carla who was hot after him. Tight security. Heavily, heavily screened. The doormen are armed. Everyone's frisked. They won't let guns through the door. And God forbid if they think a cop's on the premises."

I looked at Starsky. "Let's go see Dobey."

XXXXXXXXXXXX++

"Fights?" Dobey asked as he poured us some coffee at his kitchen table.

We figured he'd be as sore as a bear for us waking him up at three in the morning, but he said since it was about Huggy and had indigestion anyway, he could let it go this time.

"Before I drink this," Starsky said as he rose from the table. "I gotta go potty. You just drag out the donuts while I'm gone, Cap. Those Long Johns are my favorite. Got any of those?"

"I've got jelly-filled and cream horns!" Cap shouted at his back as he hustled down the hall to the bathroom.

"I'll take 'em!" Starsky shouted back.

While Starsky was relieving himself, I filled Cap in on what Huggy had told us. He listened closely, not even touching a donut or his coffee, then when I was finished, he just shook his head and started spooning sugar into his cup.

"Hutch, you know what I'm going to say. If Huggy's friend died in that fight, as unfortunate as it is, we can't call it murder, or reckless homicide, or even involuntary manslaughter. I'm sorry, but without a body, there's been no crime. Not even a death."

Starsky was standing in the doorway. "Yeah, but Huggy said-"

"Maybe Huggy doesn't have to have a body to know he's dead, but we do."

"So what about the Fights?" I asked him.

"Where's the crime? Two consenting adult men get paid to slug it out with each other? Ever hear of boxing? It's the betting on it that's illegal. That's what you need to deal with

first."

"But-"

"Look," Cap said picking up a cream horn. "I can put out a Missing Person's report on Jessie, but beyond that . . . "

"Yeah," I sighed as Starsky reached for a jelly-filled. "We know. Your hands are tied."

"They're tied as far as Jessie is concerned. But not as far as the gambling is concerned. If you want to investigate, do it from the vice angle, then once you're in, see what you can find out about Jessie."

Starsky perked up. "You mean we can go investigate?"

"Undercover. And from the betting side. I'll arrange for you to have some money."

XXXXXXXXXXXX

"So how do we get in?" Starsky asked as we walked out to my car.

"Same way Jessie got in," I said fishing for my keys. "Stripper chick at Sully's."

"Ah, gee," Starsky said as he bopped around punching at my shoulder. "No fightin'?"

I shook my head and laughed, elbowing him away. "I think you've had too much sugar this morning."

XXXXXXXXXXXX+

"No kiddin', Hutch," Starsky said as we were driving down the street toward Sully's bar. He was counting a wad of cash that had been supplied by the department. The department also supplied a pickup truck and new ID's. We had our guns under the seat. We knew what Huggy said about them not liking guns, but we didn't want ours too far away. "You know I'm a good fighter. I could win us a hundred thousand dollars."

"Yeah, well, seeing your brains oozing out like so much stuffing onto a boxing ring isn't worth a hundred thousand, or twenty-five, to me."

"Hey, I've got insurance."

"Starsky, we are definitely going in with a cover, but not as fighters. You heard what Dobey said. Gamblers only."

"No fun, Hutch. No fun at all."

XXXXXXXXXXXX

Huggy was right.

Sully's had a doorman who frisked us for weapons at the door. We showed our fake driver's licenses.

Sully had the looks of a fighter himself-a crooked nose, a chiseled physique. A physically-fit Kojak, but wore a sleeveless T-shirt and black leather pants instead of a suit. I thought I'd seen him somewhere before, but wasn't about to ask him where. He looked at me once like he was thinking the same thing, but never mentioned it.

"Sully look familiar to you?" I asked Starsky later in the truck on the way home.

"Nope."

But we ran his name and license plate through the computers anyway. No record whatsoever.

Oh well.

Déjà vu.

We didn't let that deter us. We went to Sully's night after night, just looking around and trying to become regulars.

Two strangers walking into Sully's asking Carla the stripper where to place bets on Fights would definitely give us away as cops, so we decided to just play it cool and flash a lot of cash, and we knew that it wouldn't be long before Sully would be feeling us out, maybe even inviting us to a Fight.

So we just made ourselves at home, drinking beer and listening to music, over-tipping the waitresses, buying lots of drinks for pretty girls. Starsky stuck way too much money into Carla's black garter belt. But hey, I don't blame him. She was a foxy lady with warm brown skin and sexy emerald eyes.

Since she had a thing for him, and who didn't, he capitalized on it and sat her on his lap every chance he got, kissing her and sticking money wherever he could find a place.

"Whatcha boys want?" she asked after her set was over. She was out of breath, but Starsky and I didn't mind her heaving bosom in our faces at all.

"Little fun," he answered as he pulled her onto his lap.

"You queer?"

I almost spit my drink out. "Uh . . . nuh . . . no."

She giggled and wound one of Starsky's curls around her finger. "Good. I could do you both. And since you're so cute, I'll make it two for the price of one."

Oh, great. Not only was Jessie's girl a stripper. She was a hooker too.

Starsky looked at me.

"Our way in" his eyes said to me.

I rose to my feet, took her hand, and pulled her off his lap. "Where's your room, sweetie?"

She led us to an upstairs room with Asian furnishings-light, airy, and spidery. Sort of like her.

She left us standing in the middle of the floor while she went into the bathroom.

I looked at Starsky. "What are we supposed to do?"

He winked. "Want me to draw you a picture?"

I leaned in close to his ear so she wouldn't hear. For all I knew, the room was bugged. "I don't know if I can do this."

"Sure you can. You do it all the time."

"But you're here. I'll be self-conscious."

He shrugged. "What's the big deal? I've seen you in the shower. You might pick up a few pointers."

My elbow gouged him in the ribs.

Nude, Carla came from the bathroom. I smelled perfume, so unless she had put in some kind of birth control, her sole purpose for leaving us was to smell pretty for us.

She wasn't shy at all. She came right to us, her left arm going around Starsky's neck, her right going around mine, drawing us both in for a kiss.

My eyes slipped to Starsky as her hand came around and settled on my hip pocket, then slid inside.

I kissed her on the neck while Starsky's roving hands moved down her belly.

"Mmm," she murmured in my ear as she pulled my wallet out.

I was too lost in the steamy scene to care. I think Starsky was enjoying the threesome way too much. We gently backed her to the bed and lay on either side of her, me stroking her, Starsky kissing her.

She arched her back in response.

"Okay," she gasped. "Okay, Detectives. I won't tell if you don't. It's cool. Don't stop."

But of course we stopped, my mouth on her right breast, Starsky's somewhere down farther, on her pelvic bone I think. We froze and looked at each other.

Panting, she held my ID up.

I swore under my breath.

It was the first time I'd ever left my ID in my pocket while working undercover.

Starsky looked more disappointed that we had to stop our threesome than he did at her discovering we were cops.

She gave us a frank look, like she wanted us to finish.

(Fine, Carla. Tell us what we want to know and we'll do you)

I almost laughed.

Starsky finally came to his senses, and we both rolled off her with a groan, and lay beside her in the bed.

"We're not here to roust you," I informed her.

"Obviously."

"We're here about Jessie," Starsky added. "We know he was Fightin'. We want in to place some bets, to check around and see what happened to him. But we need-"

The sound of Jessie's name made her tear up. She lay a slender cocoa-colored arm across her eyes. "I don't know what happened to him. I'm thinkin' it was the Fights, but I can't prove it, and there was no way I could report somethin' like that to the police. But . . . " She moved her arm down and looked from me to Starsky. "Huggy contact you?"

We nodded.

She began to laugh, a soft giggle at first, and then very hard.

"What's so funny?" I asked as I looked across her convulsing body to my partner.

"Jessie said Huggy had two cop buddies named Chip and Dale."

She sat up, her head swiveling between me and Starsky.

"What, you were gonna do me, and blow your case and your reputations?"

Starsky shook his head no. "We'd do anything to help Huggy out, but, um, actually . . . " He dipped his head a bit sheepishly. "We were gonna bring you to ecstasy and leave you hangin'."

I nodded agreement. "There's no way we could go all the way. Not without compromising the case."

She shook her head and moved off the bed, reaching for a pack of slim cigars. When she offered us one, we both shook our heads no.

"THAT'S police brutality," she laughed as she blew smoke into the room.

Her dainty cigars smelled like cherry.

She got a flowered silk robe and slipped it on. A little sadness returned to her voice. "I think somethin' bad happened to Jessie. I think he was killed in a Fight."

I sat up and tried to get my mind off of her body and onto the case. Starsky was groaning with a pillow over his face. "Will you help us?"

"You kidding? They'll kill me."

"Who?"

"The organizers."

"Who are they?"

"I don't know. I just know that it ain't Sully. He just provides the place. I think he's a contact. But if you question Sully-"

"No, we're not working like that. We're undercover. We want to get on the inside."

"You almost were, sugar."

Her wry smile made me smile too.

"We'll offer you protection, Carla. You tell us all you know, we'll send you to a safe place, give you a lot of money, you can start over, make a new life outside of . . . stripping . . . "

She stood still, listening, considering. Then she looked down at her cigar. "I always wanted to live back east. My grades were great in school. I could go to college in New England."

"Sure," Starsky mumbled from under his pillow.

A little edge came to her voice as she raised her eyes directly to mine. "I'll do it for Jessie."

I nodded.

She gave her feminine cigar a little puff. "Human cockfights," she said quietly. "I saw one, and that was enough. They won't let the fighters quit till the bell rings. The money is real, though. That's how they get the suckers. Winners get a hundred thou. Losers twenty-five."

"And," I pressed, "what happens if someone dies?"

She didn't move her gaze away from mine.

"They just dump the body."

"You knew that?" I asked her, a little too hotly maybe. "You knew how it was and you introduced him to it?"

She wrung her hands. "I didn't know how bad it was. Not at first. I thought . . . and he thought . . . he'd take his fifty grand, maybe even a hundred grand if he won, and run."

"Who was Jessie fightin'?" Starsky's muffled question came from under the pillow.

"Cat by the name of Drake. He wins a lot. I had Jessie talked out of his last fight, but I think . . . " And her tears started again. "I think they made him fight against his will."

Starsky took the pillow off his face.

"Terrific," he mumbled morosely.

"I didn't see his last fight. I never saw him after that."

Silence hung in the room like a heavy curtain, and then she said, "I'll introduce you to Sully," she told us. "It's the only way to see a fight."

"So we hear."

XXXXXXXXXXXX++

"They want to see a show," Carla said as she moved behind the bar to where Sully said.

"Sorry," he answered as he wiped the bar down. "I don't know what you're talkin' about."

Carla rubbed up against him. "Come on, Sully. They're friends."

Sully eyed me, and I got that feeling again like I'd seen him somewhere before. That's why he was giving us the I-don't-know-nothin' routine.

"No can do," he said as he poured himself a drink. "Only show I have is you, and they can see it every night."

I pulled my wallet out and began thumbing through the stack of money, holding it at an angle where he could see it. "Too bad, Sully."

His eyes were glued to the money, but he tore them away and looked at mine. "Anyways,"

he said. "I need a fighter more'n I need money."

I saw Starsky perk up like a German police dog at that, and I took his arm and pulled him toward the door.

"No can do," I told Sully over my shoulder.

"Can do," Starsky said as he pulled away from me and went back to the bar. "I'm your man."

Sully looked him over. "You any good?"

Starsky jumped across the bar and threw three quick jabs to his face, four to his abdomen, and he was down. No time for the tough bar owner to defend himself. He was on the floor. I pulled Starsky off, giving him a good shake.

"What's with you? You want this guy to kill you?"

Carla's hands were over her mouth as Sully climbed to his feet, panting and nursing his busted nose with a dish cloth.

But instead of charging at Starsky like I thought he was going to, he only leaned his elbows on the counter and let out a good long laugh.

"Be here at seven tonight." And he shot a look at me. "Just him. To go over the rules. Show starts at nine. That's when you and everybody else get to come."

"But," I said a bit uneasily. (I didn't like the idea of Starsky being in this place alone). "You're closed on Sundays."

"The bar is," Sully said as he spat blood into his rag. "But the Fights ain't."

XXXXXXXXXXXX++

"Are you crazy?" I asked Starsky as we climbed into the white pick-up truck.

"Maybe," he said sucking on his sore knuckles. "But we're in, aren't we?"

"You know what Dobey said. He'll throw us off the case."

"What he don't know won't hurt him. It's the only way, Hutch. You heard him. He needs a fighter. You gonna bet on me?"

I let out a long sigh as I pulled away from the curb. "Starsky, you know as well as I do we can't keep that money."

"Yeah, I know."

"If Dobey finds out what you're doing-"

"I'll take responsibility. If this is what we gotta do to find out what happened to Huggy's pal, then I want to do it. Now if you want to back out and tell Dobey on me, you go ahead."

I checked my rearview as I signaled and changed lanes. "You think I'm going to let you get messed up in this by yourself?"

He gave his cocky smile. "Nope."

I shook my head. "Starsky, I swear. Some days . . . "

"I know. Some days you could strangle me. But hey, we put some pretty good moves on Carla, didn't we?"

I gave him a threatening look that somehow turned into a grin. "I am telling you, you have

way too much sugar in your diet."

XXXXXXXXXXXX+

We made sure Carla was safely at Huggy's before we went to Sully's that night. We weren't sure anything would go down so soon, but we didn't want to take a chance on her being suspected as a snitch.

When we told Huggy that Starsky was going in as a fighter, he hit the roof, stalking around the bar shoving chairs up under tables.

"Why?! Man, you're walkin' into the same thing Jessie walked into! Nobody even knows who the organizers are!"

"That's what we gotta find out!" Starsky shouted back.

Huggy leaned his elbows onto the bar and clapped a hand to his forehead. "Man, I appreciate what you're doin' for me . . . for Jessie . . . but it ain't worth it. Not if they get you too. Just drop it, man. Just drop it. I don't care who it is. I know he's dead and I know how. Just let it go."

"Huggy," I said gripping his shoulder. "We can't. We're in too deep now. We'll have to see it through. But if it's any consolation . . . I'll be there with Starsk. And we're prepared. Jessie wasn't."

Like he was disgusted, or defeated, he just straightened and walked upstairs.

XXXXXXXXXXXX+

I paced around Starsky's living room like an expectant father, and watched him dress for the night.

"Hutch," he said pulling on a red T-shirt, "now YOU'RE the one actin' like you're hopped-up on sugar. And speed. And cocaine."

"I should have gotten you some brass knuckles," I said as I turned my tiger's eye ring around and around on my finger, "This is going to be tougher than you think."

He stood up and emptied his pockets, not wanting to make the same mistake I'd made and have someone find something that indicated who he really was.

"I'll be all right," he said as he pranced around shadow-boxing at the wall. "You know I'm a good fighter."

"Good, yes. But if this . . . this Drake character . . . killed Jessie, then he could-"

"Stuff it, Hutch. You'll be there to intervene if anything bad goes down." He gave me a sidelong glance. "Won't you?"

I sighed for the twentieth time. "Yes. You know I will. Just . . . keep your dukes up, okay? If they find out who we are . . . Sully's been giving me looks ever since we walked in that place, and I've been giving him looks, and I swear, I think I've seen him before but can't remember where."

"I called Huggy about him. He says he's clean, just like our computer check said."

I watched him walk to the door.

"Hey," I called after him. "Don't forget. To instantly kill someone, use the heel of your hand to drive his nose up into his brain."

He laughed a little. "Gotcha."

I followed him to the door. "And don't forget the karate chop to the throat."

"I won't. And I won't forget the Vulcan neck pinch either."

"Starsk. . . . " We stood in the doorway looking at each other. "You'll be there with those circus freaks two full hours before I get there. Please be careful. And please don't do anything to provoke anyone."

He passed me a wink. "You know me," he said as he went on out.

I shook my head at the closed door. "All too well."

XXXXXXXXXXXX

The doorman let me inside Sully's and led me to a red door in the back that opened to a set of steps leading down to the basement.

Metal music was playing loud, smoke filled the air, and the lighting was an eerie red, making it difficult to recognize anyone clearly.

Graffiti colored the walls.

It was a huge basement. Arena was a better word.

What looked like a boxing ring was in the middle of the floor, surrounded by a sturdy wire cage on all four sides, plus along the top.

There was a door on one side with a padlock on it.

Oh great. So no one could get out until the match was over.

The audience of about forty or fifty were packed in like sardines, and could have been any audience at a sporting event, a race track, a poker game, a Vegas table, or theatre. They were milling around, talking, laughing, drinks in hand, smoking, snorting, feeling up their dates, counting money, handing it to . . .

(No, don't look too closely. Don't act like a cop)

Some people-contenders?-were warming up at punching bags or skipping rope.

One of them was Sully himself, and it was then I realized-

Vinnie's Gym.

My God, that's where I'd seen him.

On the punching bag at Vinnie's Gym.

He knew I was a cop.

And when he turned his head and looked at me, I knew he remembered too. Maybe all along. Maybe letting it go so he could set us up for-

Starsky.

I started through the crowd toward Sully.

He saw me coming but he slipped through a sea of bodies and disappeared into another room.

"Starsky!"

Where was he?

I pushed through more spectators.

None seemed to see my alarm, and at this point I didn't care if my cover was blown. I just needed to get Starsky out of there before they-

A bell rang near the caged ring, drawing my attention around.

A hulk of a man wearing a black silk cape with the name Drake in gold across the back,

ducked through the wire door and started walking around with his fists in the air.

"Drake's here!" he shouted, and I could tell by his voice, I could tell by his lumbering movements, and slow look in his eyes, that he was mentally challenged-some poor giant with the mind of a child they'd suckered into fighting for them-a fighter who didn't even know enough to ask questions or complain. "Drake's here!"

Programmed to say the same thing over and over.

Several cheers tossed out by the audience: "You're the best!"

"Drake's the champ!"

"Beat 'em, Drake!"

"Drake's here!"

But Starsky was quick. He could take this guy.

More cheers went up as another door opened and two men walked Starsky through the crowd and down toward the cage.

His fists weren't up, he wasn't prancing or bouncing like I expected. He shuffled along with a dazed, dreamy look in his eyes between his two escorts.

I saw him trying to step away from them, but they held him tighter and led him to the cage door, where Drake stood waiting for him.

Drugged.

Sully had him drugged because he knew Starsky was my partner.

Starsky tried to look around for me-"Hutch?"-his voice a slur-but they smacked his face and hustled him toward the cage, tossing him inside like a broken doll.

"Call it off!" I yelled as I waved my arms over my head.

No one listened, no one cared.

"POLICE!" I roared to anybody. "IT'S OVER!"

(Great)

(Trying to arrest somebody without a gun or badge)

(How arrogant, or suicidal, or desperate, are you?)

A punch to my stomach silenced me. I gagged toward the floor, but still held onto the wire cage.

A few of the spectators trickled out. The rest stood buzzing about what to do. And the two bouncers were all set to jump me when the door burst open and Dobey's voice boomed over a megaphone, "POLICE! HANDS IN THE AIR!"

A swarm of uniforms descended the stairs, using batons and mace and whatever else they had to subdue the crowd and make their arrests.

Drake did something totally unexpected. He started blubbering like a big baby while

raising hands of surrender in the air.

The two bouncers let me go and backed off.

Dobey hustled Sully over to the cage personally, Huggy at his heels.

"Open the door now!"

Sully was sweating as he dug around in his pocket for the key to the padlock.

I snatched the key from him and worked it into the lock.

"Who!" Dobey yelled into Sully's ear. "Who organizes these things!"

Sully swallowed hard. "Cuh-I can't tell you. He-he'll kill me."

"I'LL kill you!" I said as I wheeled on him and drove him back against the wall.

Sully went white, and his voice was that of somebody who'd just seen a ghost. "Ever hear of Gunther Enterprises?"

I slammed him against the wall again. "You're telling me that one of the most respected, successful businessmen in the world, would even KNOW about something like this? You're crazy." I threw him into two uniforms. "Get him out of here."

Officers were corralling Drake, who, I realized, was just a mechanism in this whole operation. A cog. No more than a puppet.

I didn't want to waste another second of Starsky's life on that piece of trash.

Dobey and Huggy were already in the cage, but I flew past them and got to Starsky first, pulling him up into my arm to assess him.

"Starsk?" I asked patting his face. "What'd the give you? Do you know?"

"Hey, baby," Huggy said kindly as he knelt down next to us. "Huggarino's here. Hutch too. You're in good hands now. It's cool, okay?"

Starsk grasped my sleeve and gazed up at me.

"I win?" he groaned groggily.

"You're alive, amigo. That means you won."

One of the uniforms approached the outside of the cage and looked up at us. "We called an ambulance, sir. And we called for more back-up."

"Just get everybody out of here," I told him.

I looked over at Drake, who was being put in cuffs too, and led away. "Too tight," he said as he worked his wrists against them. "Too tight."

The ambulance attendants arrived with the stretcher and medical supplies, and I helped put my partner in the ambulance.

"They drugged him with something," I informed them. "I don't know what it was."

XXXXXXXXXXXX+

Once in the waiting room, Huggy sat in a chair while Captain Dobey stomped around working at his tie.

"Hutchinson!" he yelled across the room. "You did exactly what I told you not to do!"

"I'm sorry."

"And it nearly got your partner killed!"

"I know that, Captain. But it was the only way we could close that circus down and catch the people responsible for Jessie's death."

"I told you gamblers! Not fighters! If it hadn't been for Huggy . . . "

Huggy wasn't looking at me. He felt guilty about ratting on me and Starsky. But how could I be mad at him for saving Starsky's life?

"Hug," I said walking over to his chair. "It's okay. It's over. Starsky's going to be all right."

"Never," he said glumly as he stared at the floor. "Never again will I put your lives on the line. I asked you for help, and it almost got Starsk killed. Jessie was no choirboy, and you knew that, but you jumped in with both feet to try to find out what happened to him, just because he was my friend."

I squeezed his shoulder. "Hey, how many times have we put your life on the line, mixing you up in stuff that could get you killed? And you know why you do it?"

Huggy gave a wry, crooked grin. "No, I'll never know why I do it. I ain't no cop. I ain't got a gun or a badge. Your enemies are my enemies. I must have a hole in my head."

"You do it because we ask you to. Because you're our friend."

He rubbed a hand across his mouth. "Come on," he said tiredly as he got to his feet. "Let's see if we can visit Starsk now."

XXXXXXXXXXXX

"A strong tranquilizer," Doctor Yunker explained in the hall outside Starsky's room. "That's what they gave him. He should be as good as new in a couple of days."

"Any lasting effects?" I asked him.

"No. His main problem right now seems to be female in nature."

XXXXXXXXXXXX

Starsky's eyes still sparkled a smile when me and Huggy walked into his room.

He had three candy stripers at his beck and call, massaging, sponge bathing, fixing his hair.

"Hey," I said as I messed up his hair. "Next time you have an orgy, invite me, will you?"

He produced a small wink even though it hurt. "Wouldn't want you to be self-conscious or anything."

I smiled at the nurses. "Could you excuse us please?"

They clucked and fussed and mewled about it, but they finally left.

When they were gone, I pulled a chair up and sat down, just now noticing the tight pain in my stomach. My hand went reflexively to hold it.

I must have winced, because Starsky reached over with his hand and pulled my shirt up. "My God, Hutch. You got a bruise the size of Canada there."

"Bouncers," I explained. I pulled my shirt down and put his hand back on the bed. "I'm all right. You just worry about yourself. And we have Huggy to thank. He's the one who told Dobey."

Huggy gave his wry, crooked smile and shrugged. "They don't call me snitch for nothin'. If I can't snitch on my best friends, who can I snitch on?"

XXXXXXXXXXXX+

It was the next day that Dobey called and told me that the body of a young black man was found in the trunk of an abandoned car, and it looked like the victim had been beaten to death, but he wanted Huggy to view the remains to see if it was Jessie.

"I need to go with him," I told Starsky, who just nodded and gently pushed me away from the bed.

"Go ahead," he said in a small, heavy voice. "Huggy needs you more'n I do right now."

I nodded, and went to find Huggy, who was somewhere in the hospital.

Should have known he was in the cafeteria telling the cooks how to spice up the dreary hospital food.

I swear. The man needed his own TV cooking show.

"Hug," I said, trying to keep emotion out of my voice as I poked my head into the kitchen. "We need to talk."

The cooks looked relieved to see him go.

I took his arm and led him down the hall. "They found a body in a trunk of an abandoned car. Dobey wants you to try to make a positive ID. But . . . "

"I know," he said setting his jaw and keeping his eyes straight ahead. "It's been a few days. It ain't gonna be pretty."

And it wasn't easy either.

I kept my arm around him in the morgue, and his knees gave out when they pulled the sheet back.

He just let go, falling on me, crying it out for the first time, and I held him up and led him out of the cold room.

"Okay, man," he choked into my shoulder as I held him in the hallway. "It's bad. But . . . at least I can put him to rest, y'know?"

"I know," I whispered as I patted his back. "I know."

End

XXXXXXX

ICE

By TR

XXXXXXXXXXXX++

"It's my turn to choose," I said as I pulled a suitcase from the top of my closet. "And I say we go to the beach."

Hutch sighed loudly and dipped his hand into a bowl of red M&Ms on my bedside table. "We went to the beach last time. Now it's my turn."

I smiled and tossed my suitcase onto the bed, not really caring where we took a vacation, just wanting to get a rise out of my partner.

"I think it's my turn, Hutch."

His hand skimmed back through his hair. He was getting all frustrated over the simple idea of choosing a vacation spot.

"It's my turn, Starsk. And I say we go-"

"To the cabin," we said in the same voice.

Hutch's eyes marveled at me. "How'd you know I was going to say that?"

(Gee, could it be because that's where you ALWAYS want to go?)

"Gee," I said rolling my eyes in my best Hutch impression, "I must be psychic."

Hutch looked down at the red M&Ms in his hand, and to the ones in the clear glass bowl.

"Starsk, why do you have all red M&Ms?"

"'cause they're my favorite."

"But they all taste the same."

"Nope. Red ones are better."

I thought he was gonna stomp his foot on the floor. "No, they're not."

Another way to heighten his anxiety. I was in that kind of mood. Vacation time always made me silly, especially with Hutch. He could always get real steamed up over little stuff.

"Yes, Hutch, the red ones are better."

"They couldn't be."

"They are to me."

He cast a look at the ones in his hand like he was disgusted with the whole idea, but not

so disgusted that he couldn't pop a few in his mouth.

"So," he said munching, "you go through the whole bag and just pick out the red ones."

I started packing warm clothes for the snow. "Yep."

"Must be quite a chore."

"Not really."

He found my gloves and hiking boots in the bottom of the closet and put them in a gym bag for me. "So what do you do with the other colors?"

"I give 'em to the little girl, Kimmy, across the street."

Hutch was smiling in spite of himself, trying to keep from breaking open a big grin, even a laugh. "She ever ask you what happens to all the red ones?"

"Yep. She gets mad, just like you, and tells me they all taste the same. But she gives me her red ones too."

He finally laughed and grabbed my neck in a headlock. "You pervert," he laughed as he dragged me to the bed and shoved me down. "Giving candy to little kids."

XXXXXXXXXXXX+

Mr. Hutchinson had sent a snowplow to clear the road all the way to the cabin, so it was no problem getting there.

Ah, there it was.

The Hutchinson cabin parked in a wooded, snowy area, so pretty it belonged in a picture frame.

"Ah," Hutch said as we parked the Torino in front of the cabin. "There it is."

He wanted to drive his car, but I insisted on using the Torino because I didn't want to be stranded by his old clunker. It hadn't been starting right lately.

"Now," he said as he looked over at me, "aren't you glad you came with me?"

"Thrilled," I grumbled under my breath as I turned the engine off.

The snow was not deep, only a few inches. So maybe it wouldn't be too bad. But it was painfully cold. The puddles and streams were frozen over. But even if it snowed a lot

more, there was a miniature snowplow locked in the back shed for burrowing our way out if necessary.

We got out of the car and pulled our gear from the back seat and trunk. I was aggravating Hutch by singing Frosty The Snowman.

"Hey!" I said brightly as an idea came to me. "Could we build an igloo?"

He froze with his snowshoes perched across his shoulder. "You want to build an igloo?"

He looked so blasted shocked and happy you'd think I'd asked him if he wanted to sing on stage at the Grand Ole Opry.

"Well, yeah," I said looking around. "There's enough snow here to make an entire village of igloos."

He hurried some gear over to the porch. "And-and-" he said excitedly as he set it down and came running back to give the idea his full attention. "We-we could make it really big, and I could show you exactly how the Eskimos do it, and teach you ice-fishing, and we could get oil lamps, and we could actually SLEEP in it-"

"Whoa, whoa. You're getting carried away, Nanuck. Sleeping in a freezing igloo is where I draw the line."

"But-but, Starsk. They're not cold. You'll see. They're warm. Eskimos LIVE in them, for Pete's sake."

I pulled a sled from the trunk. "No polar bears here, right?"

"Right."

"No brown ones?"

"Hibernating."

"And the snowshoe rabbits?"

He smiled. "They won't hurt you, Starsk."

I shook my head and reached into the trunk for a couple of suitcases. "Okay. We'll see about sleeping in the igloo."

XXXXXXXXXXXX+

It took longer than I thought to build the igloo, about all day, but man, it was cool when it

was done.

Hutch showed me how to slide a knife through the snow bricks to eliminate the cracks.

"Wow, Hutch."

We just stood there in the snow staring at the dome house. Neither one of us had made one before. But Hutch knew how. He knew how to do lots of neat things like that.

It wasn't a big igloo, but big enough for us to use.

"Bring your camera?" he asked without taking his eyes off our little white house.

"As always," I said as I shuffled through the snow toward the car. "Hey," I laughed, "you think we could build an upstairs? A terrace? You could have a greenhouse?"

"Get outa here," he said as he hurled a snowball at me.

The snowball in the face caught me off guard. I startled so badly I tripped backward and fell into a pile of cut firewood.

"Starsk?"

Worry was in the air as he said my name and ran over to me.

For all he knew, I'd impaled my head on a sharp stick of kindling.

I hadn't, of course, and when he skidded a spray of snow into my face reaching my side, I turned over and stuffed a handful of snow down his shirt.

"STARSKY!"

He hopped around like a mad rabbit (if there could be such a thing), pulling his shirt up out of his pants and brushing the snow out.

"Why you-"

He was half-laughing and half-yelling, hopping, and brushing.

I just lay there on the wood pile laughing at him.

XXXXXXXXXXXX

We went into the cabin and changed into some dry clothes, ate a double decker sandwich with some hot chicken noodle soup, then unpacked our stuff.

"CB's working okay," he said as he tried it out. "You know how to use it, don't you?"

"I may not be Lewis or Clark, but I know how to use a CB."

"Good. You ready to turn in?"

"We're not sleepin' in the igloo?"

He smiled. "Of course we're not sleeping in the igloo."

"But you said-"

"I was just kidding about that."

I smiled back. He was backing out of the igloo idea for me, because he knew I was reluctant to sleep outdoors.

"Thanks, Hutch."

"But I will show you how to ice-fish tomorrow."

We set about building a fire, and he brought out an old guitar, and we sang John Denver songs in front of the fireplace until about midnight, then we turned in, Hutch on the bottom bunk, me on the top.

"Why don't I get the bottom this time?" I asked as I looked over the edge of my bunk at him.

He folded his arms behind his head and looked at me with his sleepy eyes. "If anybody breaks in . . . "

Too full of snow and John Denver to answer me.

But he didn't have to.

"They'll have me to deal with first," is what he was gonna say.

XXXXXXXXXXXX+

We stood on a floor of ice out on the frozen stream.

Stream wasn't the word. Deeper than a creek. More like a gully. Or a small river. But Hutch called it a stream, so I guess technically it was a stream.

"I'd rather skate around," I said as I watched him cutting a hole in the ice. "Are you sure this is safe?"

"It's safe."

He stomped his hiking boot on the ice as if to prove it. "It'll hold."

"How deep is it?"

"I don't know. Ten or twelve feet right here in the middle."

"Do we really want a fish sandwich this bad?"

"If we had to live off the land, this is what we would do."

"Well, we don't have to live off the land, Hutch. We got a fridge full of food, and a general store down the street-"

"Road, Starsk."

"Road."

"But the point is, I'm showing you something new and interesting. You know. Broadening your horizons."

"Hutch, you have broadened my horizons so far out that I have to wave at you from outer space."

Hutch laughed and shook his head. "Carl Sagan. That's good."

Even in winter clothes, caps, gloves, extra socks, and scarf, I was still cold.

"Okay," he said as he ran his finger around the circumference of the hole he'd just made. "Ready for the pole?"

"Pole?"

I patted my pockets. "What pole?"

"The fishing pole. I told you to bring it."

"I did."

"Then where is it?"

I pointed a guilty finger toward the snowy bank. "I left it over there."

"Hey, I'm good, but I can't ice fish with my bare hands. You go get the pole while I stay here."

"Doing what?"

"Watching for fish, of course."

He crouched down to watch the hole in the ice.

"Hope one jumps up and bites your nose off," I said as I skidded my way toward the white bank.

Skating in my boots reminded me of when me and Nicky were kids and skating in the park. We couldn't afford real ice skates, so we just slid around in our boots.

Ma said it took more skill to do it that way (yeah, right, Ma, you just didn't want us to know we were poor), but that was okay. We were little kids and didn't know any better.

"Starsk!"

I just reached the shore when Hutch's cry came behind me.

My name. That's all he could say.

I turned to see him standing as still as a statue yards away from me on the ice, his arms out, his legs apart, afraid to move, afraid to breathe.

He didn't have to tell me what was wrong. I could hear the ice cracking all the way from the bank.

The water was fast under the ice. In the summer time it was used for white water rafting.

If the ice broke and he fell, the frigid temperatures wouldn't allow him to hold on for very long, and with the force of the current beneath him . . .

I held my hand up. "Don't move. I'll get a rope."

He didn't move. He didn't even nod.

I hated leaving him standing there like that, but I had to run back to the tool shed for a rope.

I ran as fast as I could.

Mr. Hutchinson was an organized man. His tools hung in neat rows on the wall. I half-expected to see them labeled or in plastic baggies.

And the rope.

I'd seen it before, coiled neatly into a loop on the wall next to his equally neatly-coiled garden hose.

I grabbed the rope and ran.

I could throw it to him and he could hang onto it while I pulled him toward the bank.

But I hadn't run fast enough.

Because when I got back to the bank, he was just gone.

"Hutch!"

A trick.

Please be a trick.

Please get me back for faking you out on the wood pile.

Please.

"Hutch!"

I was tromping out onto the ice, knowing very well that I could fall through too. But I didn't care.

"Hutch!"

And then I saw it: A gaping hole in the ice where Hutch had been standing.

Gone.

I skidded out toward the hole as far as I dared.

No sign of him.

He should have been struggling. Should have been surfacing. Reaching for me. Trying to climb out.

"Hutch!"

I looked toward the bank, hoping and praying I'd see him standing over there laughing his head off.

But he wasn't there.

I looked down at the water.

No splashes, no air bubbles, no stirring or movement in the running water.

And then I realized.

The current was pulling him downstream beneath the ice.

"Oh my God."

My hot breath was puffing out in steamy balloons as I slid down the ice at a reckless pace.

God, if I fell, I'd go under too, and then how would I save him?

"Oh my God."

I still had the rope coiled around my shoulder. My legs were shaking, trying to give way.

I left a wake of crackling ice behind me.

Hurry, hurry. Faster, faster.

Hold on, Hutch.

I ran ahead.

I didn't know what else to do. He was under the ice, probably trying to pound on the hard ceiling above him, trying to hold his breath, trying to swim to shallower water near the bank where he could stand up and break through the ice-"Hutch, I'm comin!"-unless he was too cold and numb to fight the current, too weak to swim or break the ice.

And then a miserable groan left me when I saw him under the ice, an opaque view of his red coat as he passed lazily under my feet.

Facedown.

I saw a dash of his yellow hair. He wasn't moving, and his arms weren't pawing, and his legs weren't kicking. He was just floating lifeless under the pane of ice.

I skated ahead, but looked over my shoulder to keep sight of him as I skimmed over to an overhanging tree, where its branches jutted out over the frozen stream.

I tied one end of the rope to a sturdy branch, then wrapped the middle part of the rope around my chest and tied it, leaving some free on the end to tie around him if necessary.

A drowning person could be pretty feisty, and Hutch was strong, so I didn't want him pulling us both under.

I slid my way to the middle of the stream again. I saw him floating toward me, and I began stomping and jumping on the ice, ramming the heel of my boot to make a hole.

Just one crack.

That's all I needed.

And quick.

And I got it.

The ice began to fracture. I quickly lay flat on my belly, to distribute my weight evenly so I wouldn't be so heavy on the melting ice.

I kept chopping and punching at the ice, but at the same time keeping my eyes on him.

So far the ice was holding me. I hoped it would hold both of us.

At least till I could get Hutch out of the water.

And then it could break all it wanted to. My main concern was getting him some air.

Finally.

Finally I made a hole big enough to reach into, and I plunged my arm into the cold water and caught Hutch by the coat collar just as he came near.

He wasn't helping. He couldn't. He was just floating facedown toward me.

I chopped and hacked at the ice some more with my elbow, to make the hole bigger, at least big enough to hold his head up out of the water.

I pulled and pulled on him, and he was twice as heavy in wet clothes, and he was limp and blue, his eyes half-closed and dazed.

God, not breathing.

"Hutch!"

I screamed in his face even when I knew screaming wouldn't help.

I lugged and pulled on him, slipping and falling on the ice until I hauled him out. Rght there on the ice I started CPR. I couldn't wait till we got to shore.

"Hutch," I panted as I pumped the heels of my hands on his chest. "Come on. You can do it. Breathe. Come on."

Then I forced some air into his lungs with a few breaths, and he spit up water.

When he started coughing, I turned him onto his side so he wouldn't choke, and he coughed up a little water at a time.

He wasn't moving.

How long had he been without oxygen? It seemed like hours but I knew it had to be only minutes.

But even a few minutes without oxygen could be dangerous.

"Hutch?"

He lay on his side on the ice as if dead, a lavender tinge to his skin, breathing faint, gurgling breaths. Not responding. Not trying to move or speak.

Enough time had been wasted. I grabbed the back of his coat collar and started pulling him back toward the cabin, where I used the CB to report the emergency. A medical chopper was on the way.

While I waited on the helicopter, I put Hutch by the warm fire in the fireplace. He was still unconscious. I quickly stripped him of his wet clothes and wrapped him in layers of warm blankets.

"Hold on, Hutch. Just hold on. Help's comin'."

XXXXXXXXX++

In the helicopter, they wrapped him in foil blankets to warm him up.

I held his near-lifeless hand.

While they gave him warm IVs and worked to bring his vitals and body temperature up, all I could do was think about that igloo and how damn happy he was when I asked him if we could build one.

XXXXXXXXXXXX+

I stood just inside the emergency room and watched them work on him.

I don't know how long I stood there, and didn't really know what the doctors were doing

because I was in a daze.

"-waiting room?"

I looked up.

One of the doctors was talking to me.

"Huh?"

"I'm Dr. Prater. The cold temperatures prolonged his life, slowed down his brain, heart, everything. He'll be here for a few days, and we'll monitor him closely, but it looks like he's going to be fine."

Tears of gratitude came to my eyes, but I blinked them back. I looked past the doctor and glimpsed Hutch between the bodies of doctors and nurses. He lay on the gurney, snow-pale, but it was a sight to be thankful for.

I could now rest a little easier.

"I'm gonna call his dad," I said as I started down the hall to a phone. "And then . . . well, is there a music store around here anywhere?"

"Oh, yes. We have one in the mall, and we have another just down the street."

"Okay, thanks. If he wakes up while I'm gone, tell him I'll be right back."

"Very well. Does your friend like music?"

I smiled. "It should be his middle name."

XXXXXXXXXXXX+

When I got back to the hospital with my get-well present for Hutch, I at first had a feeling of dread in the pit of my stomach, like the doctor had been mistaken or I had dreamed what he said about Hutch going to be okay.

But when one of the emergency room nurses told me to go up to the third floor to Recovery, I was busting at the seams with joy.

It was just getting dark when I stepped into his quiet hospital room. He wasn't asleep. Just lying still, and as white as the sheets. A nurse was checking his IV.

I just stood there in the middle of the floor, my eyes absorbing the fact that he was alive and well.

I could see it was an effort for him to even turn his head toward me. The whole ordeal had taken its physical toll.

But somehow, because it was me, he came up with a small smile, his whisper as thin as a thread.

"Hey, Starsk."

"He's a stubborn one," the nurse told me. "Said he wouldn't go to sleep until his partner came. I hope you're his partner, because he certainly needs his rest."

"I'm his partner," I told her as I sat down with his get-well present. "Hiya, Hutch."

She checked a monitor or two, then slipped out.

He took a breath as if to say something, but he was so weak he couldn't speak.

"Sshh," I told him as I squeezed his hand. "What's this about you not sleepin' till I get here?"

He struggled again to speak, his voice a faint rasp: "Not till I could thank you. " He took another breath to help him get his words out. "For saving my life."

"You don't have to say that, Hutch. You never have to say that. What else was I gonna do? I couldn't let you die."

God, that's what he'd been waiting for. The chance to say thank you for doing something that was as natural to me as breathing air.

His breaths became heavy and deep, and I knew he was drifting off to sleep. He'd forced himself to stay awake just to thank me.

"Rest, Hutch," I whispered. "I'll be right here. I'm gonna give you your get-well present now, but only thing is, I gotta sing it to you, so here goes."

I saw his small smile as he hovered on the edge of sleep.

I opened the leather case and took the guitar out, settling it across my thigh.

And then-I don't know why my hands felt nervous-I guess I was used to him playing for me instead of me playing for him-I positioned my hand around the neck of the guitar and carefully began part of a Queen song, in a very slow strum. Since it was a song about best friends, I didn't think Freddy would mind:

"You're the best friend

That I ever had

I've been with you such a long time

You're my sunshine

And I want you to know

That my feelings are true

I really love you

You're my best friend."

I continued to sing slowly, the same part over and over, watching Hutch's face, which was softening in appreciation and contentment in his sleep.

The feeling in the room was so restful and easy that all I wanted to do was play that song over and over for him.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

I guess I fell asleep too, because it was the middle of the night when I felt the weak touch of Hutch's fingers in my hair. I was sleeping atop folded arms on the edge of his bed.

"Night, Starsk," he murmured softly.

"Night, Hutch."

The End

XXXXXXXX

LITTLE GIRL LOST

By TR

Hutch snatched the jumbo-size bag of M&Ms away from his partner in the squad room. "Give me those," he said popping a few into his mouth. "You have entirely too much sugar and chocolate in your diet."

Starsky took the bag back. "Keeps me alert."

"Alert? I've got all kinds of vitamins, minerals, herbs, and health foods that will do that for you."

"Yeah, by the looks of your kitchen cabinets, you could give Herb's Herbs down the street a run for his money."

A shapely secretary approached the water cooler and began pouring herself a cup of water.

"Hey, Marcy," Starsky said going up behind her and placing his hands on her hips and nuzzling her ear. "Why don't you come over to my place tonight for some dictation?"

Hutch rolled his eyes. "Dictation."

She turned and gave him an appreciative smile. "Well, Detective Starsky, I just may take you up on that."

Captain Dobey's office door opened and the big man stuck his head out. "Starsky, if you're finished flirting with my new secretary, I'd like to see you and Hutch in my office. This is the third one I've caught you putting the moves on."

Starsky smiled at Marcy. "Any complaints?"

"No way. I mean, no, sir."

Hutch took his partner's arm and led him into the captain's office. "You're simply irresistible, aren't you?"

"That's what they tell me."

Marcy waggled her fingers in a see-you-later at Starsky before the door closed between them.

"Now," Dobey said going to his desk. "We've got a little girl at Memorial Hospital." He moved his pencil cup around, then adjusted his tie. "I don't mind telling you, after I got off the phone from talking to the nurse, it made me call my little girl at home . . ."

Starsky and Hutch looked at each other. Normally Captain Dobey didn't mix personal feelings with work. But today it was evident that he had.

Starsky took out his notepad and borrowed an ink pen from the captain's pencil cup to take some notes.

"Little girl's name is Misty Thomas," Dobey continued. "She just had a miscarriage."

"Little?" Hutch asked. "How little?"

Dobey ran fingers across his mustache. "Eleven."

Starsky stopped writing. "Elev . . . "

"Her parents say she has lots of little 'boyfriends', and they suspect an older one, sixteen or eighteen years old. Though when they asked to supply his name, they couldn't come up with one. I don't need to tell you who the prime suspect is. But she won't talk about it. She's very timid."

Starsky flung his notepad into the air and stormed from the office.

Hutch followed him. Over his shoulder he said to Dobey, "We'll take it from here, Cap. Thanks."

He trailed his partner down the hall toward the stairwell.

Starsky pushed the door open and Hutch caught it as it swung back. The blond paused a moment at the closed door, head down, taking a deep breath before opening it.

"Starsk?"

Hutch saw him sitting on a step about halfway down the stairs, and settled down next to him. "Come on, tough guy. We have to talk to her."

Starsky rolled his ink pen between his hands. "This job . . . just when you think you got a handle on it . . . seen the worst . . . somethin' like this . . . "

"I know."

"Eleven? Can girls get pregnant at eleven?"

"Well, you know. Some girls physically mature faster than others . . . "

"Man, her body's too SMALL for stuff like that. How could any man-"

"I know. He's sick-"

"PERVERTED!"

Starsky jumped to the bottom of the stairs and paced around like a restless tiger, eyes flickering a blue hardness.

"Yes," Hutch agreed. "Wicked."

"Hutch, I want to get my hands on him. Just let me get my hands around his throat. His cheap, perverted-!"

"Starsk-"

He was upset when Hutch went down the steps. Burrowing his head in the corner.

"Hey . . . " Hutch approached him, hand on his partner's shoulder. They were always so busy doing what was necessary . . . gathering evidence, taking statements, preparing the court cases, giving court testimony . . . that they had little time to process, debrief, unload, or even feel the impact of their job. There was always another case. Another victim, another perpetrator. And if they stopped to think about it-the sickness and the cruelty they worked in every day-they would be paralyzed with the reality of it all.

They had to maintain a certain objectivity, maybe even a certain level of cynicism, to carry on.

But sometimes . . .

Sometimes the enormity of it all gathered in one case, became pressurized, and had to explode.

As much as it hurt Hutch to see his partner affected this way, it was better than being burned out and not caring at all.

A hurting, enraged Starsky was much better than a detached, unaffected one.

"It's okay, Starsk. If we can't feel it sometimes, then what are we doing here?"

Starsky turned into his arms, and Hutch held him. He himself had been there before, and Starsky had held him.

XXXXXXXXXXXX++

Starsky and Hutch knocked politely on the doorframe of the little girl's hospital room before entering.

She was propped up in the bed, her round face sprinkled with light freckles and framed by silky white-blonde hair. She was watching a Disney movie on the TV mounted on the wall.

A nurse was by her bed, checking her IV.

Starsky opened a shopping bag and pulled out a baby doll. "Hi, Misty. Me and my friend Hutch are policemen, and we want to talk to you, okay?"

She looked shyly at Starsky, her gray eyes moving from one detective to the other, and then to the doll.

"My name's Dave," he said as he gave her the doll. "And I thought you'd like a get-well present."

Misty took the doll and cradled it in her arms, hiding her big eyes into the doll's hair, which was the same color as hers.

"Hope you're feelin' better now," Starsky told her. "We want to ask you about why you're here at the hospital."

The nurse looked from Starsky to Hutch. "Don't you think a female detective would put her more at ease?"

"Ma'am," Hutch told her as he tried to keep his voice level in front of the girl, "my partner and I talk to a lot of little girls. We know how. We do this for a living. Most times little girls warm up to men surprisingly well." He smiled at Misty. "You'll see. We won't hurt you." He looked back to the nurse. "I don't tell you how to give shots, you don't tell us how to interview children."

The nurse started to say more, but didn't. She crossed the room to change the sheets on the other bed, giving them room to talk.

Starsky crouched by the bed, cutting to the chase, using a tactic that was a bit abrupt in getting a perpetrator's name, yet usually fruitful. Softly he said, "We already know what happened, Misty. We know who did it. We just need you to say his name."

At his words, her bottom lip quivered, and tears pooled in her eyes until they spilled over her long, pale lashes. She hugged the doll close to her.

"Daddy," she whispered from beneath her white-blond hair.

The nurse moved to the bed to offer comfort.

Starsky stroked her head, then got up and headed across the room, flinging the door open and marching down the hall toward the waiting room.

Hutch followed his partner. "Starsk, wait up."

He didn't. He just kept walking.

Hutch grabbed his arm. "Starsky, yes. He raped her, she carried his baby, and it's a horrid crime, but, buddy, we have a good case against him, and he's going to be put away where he can't-"

Starsky jerked away and shoved into the waiting room where the Thomases, a young, attractive couple, were seated on a green leather couch. He grabbed the man by his checkered shirt, yanking him to his feet.

"Child molester!" he roared into the father's face.

Hutch tried to pull him away. "Starsky, we need to read him his rights, he needs an attorney, we need to question him-"

"FILTHY!" Starsky yelled at Mr. Thomas, then looked at the woman. "You don't know what goes on in your own home?"

"I beg your-"

Hutch grabbed him around the chest and dragged him forcefully from the room.

"Starsky, shut up! Don't blow this case!"

Starsky struggled against him even after they were in the hall. Hutch shoved him into a corner, where he crowded a panting, angry partner against the wall.

"I know it's bad, Starsk. But we don't need him walking on a technicality because we violated his rights."

Starsky rammed his knee against the wall, then willed himself to calm down.

"We gotta get him, Hutch," he said to the wall. "We gotta put him away."

XXXXXXXXXXXX+

Mrs. Thomas stood in a hallway at the police station, looking from one detective to the other. She had the same white-blonde hair as her daughter, the same large gray eyes.

"Ronnie would never do anything like that," she said. "He's a hard working man. He loves Misty. I see them together. She's not afraid of him."

"Did she ever tell you what he was doing?" Hutch asked.

She glanced away. "She likes attention. She'd say anything for attention. If I thought there was anything going on-"

"My partner asked you a question," Starsky said. "Did she ever tell you?"

She still wouldn't look at him. "One time. She said he was trying to be her boyfriend, but I took that to mean, you know, like all little girls say they're going to grow up and marry their daddies, and how they think their daddies are just the be all and end all."

Hutch felt Starsky bristling beside him. "Mrs. Thomas, did she ever tell you he was touching her, sleeping with her, having sex with-"

"YOU'RE THE PERVERT!" she shrieked at him as she suddenly slapped and clawed at his face. "WHAT KIND OF QUESTIONS ARE THOSE?"

"Mrs. Thom-"

Starsky took her by the shoulders and moved her away. "Easy, Mrs. Thomas. We're just trying to get to the truth."

"TRUTH?" she flared at him. "I'LL GIVE YOU THE TRUTH! SHE'S A LITTLE WHORE! BOYS CALLING HER ALL THE TIME! IT COULD BE ANY ONE OF THEM!"

Hutch leaned the palm of his hand against the wall, panting and pressing his fingertips into a scratch at his left eye.

Two uniforms came to assist with the distraught woman.

XXXXXXXXXXXX+

Starsky and Hutch both agreed that Starsky's presence in the interrogation room could jeopardize the interview, so Starsky decided to stand on the other side of the one-way glass while his partner interrogated Mr. Thomas.

A uniformed officer observed with him.

A tape recorder whirred softly on the table between Hutch and the suspect. No notebook, no gun visible, Hutch in a white shirt with his sleeves rolled up a turn or two: Friendly. Trust me.

Hutch handed him a cup of coffee. "I'm sorry about my partner going a little overboard, Mr. Thomas. He's having some personal problems, and he didn't mean to take them out on you." He sipped his own cup of coffee, and then said, "I'm even sorrier about your daughter. I know you love her. And I know what these allegations must be doing to you

and your wife. Not to mention how they will affect your job at the garage . . . "

Starsky fought the urge to turn away from his partner-from the finesse and psychology with which he could handle a child molester. He'd seen Hutch do it before, and knew it was only a tactic-one he used himself. But he always felt greasy after having slipped into the skin of a suspect.

"Oh, I do love her, Detective Hutchinson. I really do." He sniffed into the steaming coffee and accepted the box of tissues the blond passed to him. "I'm not what your partner thinks I am."

"I know," Hutch said folding his hands on the table, "it's bad enough that your daughter would become pregnant. But for her to accuse you . . . she denies having contact with anyone else . . . I'm really confused as to why she would make something like that up against her own father . . . when it's so obvious you love her."

The man nodded. "I'd never hurt her."

"Oh, I know. Your wife says you're a good father."

"I am. I take her places, I take care of her while her mommy works at the deli. We're as close as can be. She can cook, and she can clean. A little lady. And she loves me."

"Yes, I think Misty does love you. Did you ever wonder if she loves you too much?"

Mr. Thomas shifted a bit in his seat. "Well . . . in a way."

"Like . . . " Hutch shrugged. "Overly affectionate?"

"Oh, sure. She cuddles like a kitten, and she gives me kisses, and . . . "

"Did it ever feel like she was going a little too far?"

The man took a deep breath, gauging Hutch's face, and then said, "She does that, yes. Sits on my lap, combs my hair, rubs my back with lotion." He smiled. "She wants to be a beautician when she grows up. So she finds a lot of reasons to be close to me. She's really mature for her age. Not just in body. But the way she likes to dress up in teenage clothes, and jewelry, makeup, and fingernail polish."

"Did she ever do anything that could be considered as . . . leading you on?"

"Well, I know what you mean. She kisses me, yes. On the mouth. And I don't like it."

Hutch nodded. "Does she ever make you do things you don't want to do?"

"Well, I tell her not to do it so much, but she just keeps on, kissing that is, and she always craves affection, you know, and always likes me petting on her. I mean, she'll take my hand and put it wherever she wants to. She wants me to rub her belly, and her legs, like a massage."

"Oh, sure. Fathers and daughters should be close. Nothing wrong with that. But it sounds like she takes it just a little farther than what you have in mind."

Mr. Thomas pulled a tissue from its box and wiped at his lips. "She does. And . . . you know . . . how do you tell your little girl she's acting like a grown-up woman and doing grown-up things without hurting her feelings?"

"Does she kiss you a lot?"

Thomas nodded.

"Rub against you a lot?"

"All the time."

"Take your hand and put it on her?"

The man sighed, loosening even more. "Yes. And more. She does all that and more. I'm weak, and my body gets turned on. So hard to resist. You don't know how many times I pushed her away. When Lois-my wife?-is gone, Misty sort of teases me along to do things . . . forces me really, in a way . . . the temptation is always there."

Starsky's arms went weak with sickness and relief, and he lowered his head a bit, leaning against the glass, listening. It was coming. His partner was getting a confession. A rarity in incest cases.

Thank God Thomas had agreed to talk to Hutch without an attorney.

"So," Hutch continued slowly, easily, "we could say it wasn't really your fault. If she led you on, then she has to take part of the responsibility. You certainly didn't mean for it to go as far as it did. Hey, when a man gets aroused, it's hard for him to stop himself, am I right?"

Mr. Thomas nodded. "Exactly." He raised his eyes to the detective. "She always climbs into the bed with me when Lois is gone. Like she really wants me to do something with her. I resisted at first. I really did. But she kept on, and she kept on, and then one time I was like, too aroused, like you said, and I let her do it to me. I wish she would have stopped before she got pregnant, though."

Hutch carefully licked his lips. "How many times did she talk you into it?"

"Too many. It went on for a year."

Hutch nodded.

Mr. Thomas sat quietly, shaking his head a little. "She was a little tease, all right," he said reflectively. "Yeah, I had sexual relations with her, because she wanted me to. She never told me to stop. Not once. So she's just as much to blame as I am."

Silence hung between them like a gray fog.

Hutch rose from the table and slowly slid his chair back, then turned the tape recorder off and walked out the door.

"He's all yours," he said to the uniform who stood next to Starsky, then started down the hall.

Starsky turned his head and saw him, then walked behind him.

"Hutch, you okay?"

Hutch didn't acknowledge him. He kept walking, then pushed the door to the men's room open and stalked inside, where he headed for a stall and gagged into the commode.

"God," he gasped as he spat.

Starsky put a hand on his back and patted it. "It's okay, Hutch. You got him. You did a good job."

XXXXXXXXXXXX+

The partners showed up at Misty's foster home bearing gifts: Starsky's a big bag of M&Ms as the nurse had said she had a sweet tooth, Hutch a cosmetic bag full of hair and beauty products, as the little girl liked to fix her baby doll's hair and put different outfits of clothes on it.

The foster parents were grilling out in the back yard.

"Detectives," the foster father said as he crossed the patio with an extended hand. "Glad you could come."

"Wouldn't miss it," Hutch said as he winked at the little girl.

Misty smiled shyly from her foster mother's side, where they were spreading a tablecloth over the picnic table.

"Doing okay, Misty?" Starsky asked as they approached the picnic table and handed the gifts to her.

"Fine," she answered softly. She shook the bag of candy. "Dessert's our favorite part of a meal, right, Dave?"

"Right."

She opened the cosmetic bag and gasped at the contents.

"Wow," she breathed as she sorted through the shampoos, gels, lotions, ribbons, combs, sprays, and barrettes. She looked up at both detectives, then reached into the pocket of her lightweight jacket and handed Starsky an envelope. "I made it just for you and Hutch."

Starsky sat down at the picnic table and opened the envelope, pulling out a hand-made card with a happy drawing of a girl running through a field of flowers with her doll, a trail of kittens and butterflies behind her.

She had written 'Thanks' on the front.

Hutch reached out to touch her hair, then brought his hand back, and then, on second thought, touched it again, wanting her to see that a man's touch could be a kind thing.

"You're a good girl," Hutch told her softly. "Don't you forget that."

She beamed up at him, her smiling face like a small sun.

The End

OVERDOSE

By TR

XXXXXXXXXXXX+

"Okay, Starsk! Go long for this one!"

We were goofing off on the beach with a red Nerf football. Sylvia, Hutch's latest blonde (the one he met at the courthouse one day-she was a clerk), watched us from a big beach blanket.

"Hope you guys are hungry!" she called as she made sandwiches from our picnic basket.

"Go, Starsk!"

Hutch threw the ball long all right. Right out into the ocean. But I kept on going, running as fast as I could to get it even though I was dressed in my street clothes, and he got a good laugh when I caught it with a big splash and drenched myself.

It'd only been a couple of months since Forest. Couple of months since Jeanie. I was doing all I could to keep his spirits up. And mine too.

He was just getting his wind back. That ordeal had just sucked the life right out of him.

Robbed him of a little trust, a little innocence. A little fight.

I didn't think I'd ever see him have a good laugh again.

But it happened. With time, and a little help from me and Sylvia.

She didn't know anything about Forest, of course. She was just a distraction for him, some sense of normalcy.

She was a good cook, and she liked to sing.

"Did you see that terrific catch!" I called as I came tromping and dripping from the ocean with the football.

I slung an arm around his neck to make sure he got all wet, but didn't get the carefree gesture in return. He was still a little tight with his body. Still careful, like he thought he was going to be jumped any second.

It hurt to see Hutch like that, and hurt even worse that he couldn't even completely relax around me.

"Okay!" I said clapping my hands as we dropped onto the beach blanket. "Where's the food?"

Sylvia swept her arm over our lunch of sandwiches and fruit, then handed me a big club sandwich. "This is it."

"God," I sad glumly as I pawed through the stuff. "No chips? No candy bars? No pie? Just sandwiches, fruit, and nuts? What kind of a picnic is this anyway?"

We watched a game of volleyball while we ate our lunch, and when we were finished, Sylvia reached for her guitar.

"Any requests?" she asked.

I winked at her. "Can you do 'Long Cool Woman In a Black Dress'?"

XXXXXXXXXXXX+

The rest of that Saturday was pretty relaxing. We just lazed around his place watching a football game.

Hutch wasn't really that interested in it. He was more interested in snuggling with Sylvia. He had her on his lap and was putting the moves on her, and since I was sitting right beside them, I aggravated them with my roving hand.

They kept giggling and knocking my hand away, then finally got up and headed for the bedroom for some privacy.

"Yeah, right!" I called after them. "What hosts you are! Get me all hot and bothered, then just leave me here to fend for myself! You could at least let me watch!"

"You'll live!" he called from the other side of the door.

Not to be outdone, I reached for his phone and called Marie, the hot little number I met at Huggy's the week before. She was into yoga and knew how to give a good massage.

And she knew how to work on cars.

If Hutch hadn't been with Sylvia, I coulda fixed him up with her.

XXXXXXXXXXXX+

Me and Marie went dancing. She was good. Especially with the slow ones. A lot of guys asked her to dance, but she told them no.

We got home a little after midnight, made out, then fell right to sleep in each other's arms.

It felt good knowing there were no ties, no strings, just good clean fun.

I was dreaming that I was making my way through a forest when the phone rang next to me.

It was Hutch.

"Hey, Starsk? I didn't mean to wake you. I just . . . "

He sounded like he was a little scared but was trying to downplay it. It was after midnight.

"What is it, Hutch?"

Nothing on the other end of the line for a while, and then he said with a little nervous laugh, "I dreamed Forest put me in a box and I couldn't get out. And you were trying to find me but . . . silly, huh?"

"Ain't silly, Hutch. You have a right to be scared."

"Who said I was scared?" I heard his quiet, slow breath, the long pause in it. "I got to thinking about the job, you know? And . . . I want to be a good partner on the street. I feel like I let you down."

"Hutch, you didn't let me down, buddy. Those lowlifes took something from you. It's them, not you."

"I dreamed-God, I dreamed they got you too. Put you in the box right along with me."

"Is Sylvia there?"

"No. She left earlier. Went to Huggy's to meet a friend."

"Hutch, it's okay. Want me to come over? We can go for a drive, get some fresh air."

"No. I appreciate the offer, but I'll be all right. Thanks for listening."

I heard the soft click of the phone as he hung up.

It was a long while before I was able to get back to sleep.

Marie lay beside me, watching, listening. Concerned but asking no questions.

Guess she knew it was pretty personal.

XXXXXXXXXXXX+

Next morning I woke to find that Marie had made me a big pancake breakfast with coffee.

She even brought it to me on a tray.

"Wow," I said as I kissed her. "What'd I do to deserve this?"

"Last night," she purred like a cat as she fed me my first bite. "You were the best."

"Flattery will get you everywhere. You want to go for a ride in the country today? Meet my best buddy?"

"I'd love to go for a ride in the country today and meet your best buddy, but I have to take my mother to a family reunion. Rain-check?"

"Sure."

After breakfast, me and Marie took a frisky shower together, then she went her way, and I got dressed and headed over to Hutch's to check on him. If I could get him away from Sylvia long enough, I could get him out in the country where we could talk about things.

When I arrived at his place, I heard no stirring inside, and the door was locked, so I knocked.

Usually he was up way before me, drinking coffee or reading the newspaper, writing a song, sometimes painting a little, or strumming his guitar.

"Hutch?"

Getting no answer, I knocked a second time.

"Hutch? You awake?"

A third knock.

"Hutch? You home? You in there?"

Worry began to creep in. I reached over the doorframe for the key, found it, then unlocked the door and stepped inside.

The apartment was eerily still. Hushed. I heard the sound of my breath in my own ears.

My own pulse it seemed.

And what I saw . . .

I almost fell to my knees.

Hutch.

Bare except for his white boxers and sprawled facedown on the bed, cheek to the mattress, right arm dangling off the edge with his belt cinched tight around, a syringe stuck in the crook of his forearm.

He wasn't moving.

The phone was on the floor where he tried to call somebody.

Me.

It was me he tried to reach, but couldn't make the call.

"Hutch!"

I ran to him and pushed the hair from his half-lidded eyes-"Hey!"-then flipped him onto his back, reaching for his throat to feel a pulse with one hand, for the phone on the bedside table with the other.

I stumbled over my words and almost forgot Hutch's address when I called the ambulance.

"Nature of the problem?" the dispatcher's voice said.

"Over-somebody gave him an over-a heart attack!"

No time to explain. And the dispatcher didn't need to know the details.

"Just get here!"

I banged the phone down. Too panicked to be careful with the evidence. I snatched the needle from his arm and tossed it to the floor, then unbuckled the belt and let it drop to the floor too. He was barely breathing.

"Hutch?"

I took his head in my hands and wanted him to see me, but his eyes held a nothingness that scared me to death, and his chest barely moved.

"Hey," I said as I patted his face. "Hey, stay with me, partner. Come on. I'm here now. Breathe for me. Come on."

It's weird how focused and frantic you can be at the same time. Half of my brain was flying around like wild birds, while the other half was trying to stay calm.

My heart lurched in my chest when he started struggling for his faint breaths, like he was fighting for each tiny gasp of air.

I sat on the edge of the bed, slipped an arm under his neck, and pulled him up against me. One arm moved as if to reach for me, but he was too weak to pull it up. I grasped his hand and held it against my pounding heart.

"Here, buddy," I whispered. "See? It's me. Help's comin'. Don't let go."

He gazed up at me with his fading eyes. Trying to hang on, I could see. Gasping faintly.

"Who?" I swallowed. "Who, Hutch?"

God.

I didn't know if he would make it, and I had to get whoever did this to him.

"Was it Sylvia? Hutch, was it Sylvia?"

I knew he couldn't talk, but I was hoping by some miracle he could give me a sign, a whisper, a breath. Anything.

But there was nothing. Just the dimming light in his eyes.

"Oh, God."

Sensing him slipping away, yet holding absurdly onto that crazy calm I had, I held him closer, rocking him a little, rubbing my hand in his hair to show him I was there.

I didn't hear the ambulance siren, or the paramedics' pounding footsteps when they came up the steps. Suddenly they were just there in front of me, taking him from me and checking his vitals, giving him oxygen.

One of them must have called Dobey, because he was there too, helping the attendants put Hutch onto the stretcher.

"Starsky, would you mind telling me what this is all about?"

I barely heard him. He was talking to me, holding something out to me, but I was walking past him to follow the stretcher out.

Dobey took my arm and pulled me back.

"Starsky, did you see this? What is this?"

"No," I found myself saying in a dazed voice. "I gotta go with Hutch."

Dobey jerked me hard-"STARSKY!"-snapping me around.

"Wha-"

He thrust a sheet of paper at me.

"Read it."

I didn't have time to read it, I needed to be with Hutch, but some small part of me reasoned that if Dobey were forcing me to look at it at a time like this, it had to be important.

I looked down at the sheet of paper in my hand, and felt my head slowly shaking no as I read the words.

"No," I said in a small, strange voice that didn't seem to be mine. "Hutch didn't write this."

"It's his handwriting."

I was still shaking my head no, reading the note again, as if to make sure I'd read it correctly the first time.

"I don't care. He didn't write this. How could you think that he-"

"It's his handwriting."

"I DON'T CARE! THEY MADE HIM WRITE IT!"

I shoved the page at Cap's chest and stalked out behind the medics.

XXXXXXXXXXXX++

I rode in the back of the ambulance with him, holding tight to his hand while they worked on him, trying to push the surreal image of Hutch facedown in his bed out of my mind, trying to think like a cop and a friend at the same time.

Hutch wouldn't try to kill himself. He wouldn't play around with heroin. He wouldn't give himself a shot-for fun, or for overdose. There could be a hundred notes saying "Sorry, Starsky. Just can't keep going the way things are. I hope you understand" and it wouldn't mean anything.

So Dobey could talk about suicide all he wanted.

I knew that's what all the signs pointed to.

But I knew Hutch. He was feeling down from Forest, and feeling down with his crazy notion he'd let me down somehow, but he'd never take it that far. He'd bounce back like he always did. That was Hutch.

"History of drug use?" one of the paramedics asked as he opened a supply case.

My tongue felt scorching in my mouth, and I couldn't talk.

It wasn't a sarcastic question. He wanted to know. But I must have had murder in my eyes, because he never asked the question again.

XXXXXXXXXXXX++

I was pacing just outside the emergency room where they were trying to stabilize him.

Dobey was with me, standing between me and the door like he was guarding it.

"Starsky, I don't want to think that Hutch would hurt himself, but we have to cover all bases."

"I already told you."

"I know. But there was no sign of a struggle."

"What do you expect? They jumped him in his bed. You saw the phone on the floor. He's right-handed. He wouldn't have given himself a shot in the right arm with his left hand."

"If he had a relapse from Forest . . . "

"You know him better than that."

"The note-"

"They forced him!"

"Who?"

"I don't know who!"

"Why?"

"I don't know why!"

Dobey sighed, running a hand across his mustache.

"Personal problems lately? Girl? Family? You?"

I turned and kicked the wall. "WILL YOU LAY OFF THAT TALK? HOW ABOUT SOME NUT WANTS HIM DEAD? LIKE THE PROFESSOR WANTED ME DEAD? LIKE FOREST WANTED HUTCH DEAD? DON'T YOU THINK-"

I stopped talking, a slow, dreadful thought slinking its way inside my brain like a snake.

Sylvia.

What if she-

Hutch told me it wasn't her. But what if he was lying to protect her, or was too confused to remember? What if she hadn't actually given him the shot herself but had set him up for it?

But she loved him. Would do anything for him. I couldn't see her doing anything like-

Huggy was escorting her down the hall. She was sobbing, trying to push Dobey away from the emergency room door.

A couple of nurses were hovering near to make sure we didn't get by them.

"Ken! What hap-did he really?"

I dove for her, grabbing her shoulders and slamming her against the wall.

"You did it, didn't you? You got close enough! Who? Who you working for? Forest?"

She cried out and tried to move away. "Who's Forest?"

But I held her to the wall.

"Dave, I don't know what you're talking about. Please. You're hurting me-"

"YOU HURT HIM!"

"No! How could you even think that? I love him!"

"Were you with him tonight?"

"No, I was with-"

Huggy and Dobey both were pulling me away, but it was Huggy who kept a tight arm around me and walked me down the hall.

"Let's go to the gents' room, bro," he said quietly. "Let's talk."

"But Hutch-"

"It's cool. We're just down the hall from him."

"Huggy, she did something. She helped whoever-."

He forced me into the men's room and into a corner. "She was at my place, Starsk. She's got an alibi. She was talkin' to Libby, one of my waitresses. They're good friends."

I shook my head. "It doesn't make sense, Hug. Somebody got in there and overdosed him."

"Yeah, I'm with you on that much. But it wasn't Sylvie."

Panting, I leaned over to catch my breath, and put my hands on shaky knees. "Man, I'm sorry. I shouldn't have gone off on her, but she was the first person I thought of."

He patted my back. "Come on. Let's get back to Hutchie-boy."

XXXXXXXXXXXX++

She was wringing tissues in her hands when me and Huggy walked back. Cap took them from her and gave her his handkerchief.

"Sylvia," I said walking up to her, feeling like, talking like, and acting like, a robot. Just saying the words. Not meaning them. I was numb with shock and worry for Hutch. "Sorry I jumped on you. I just-"

She moved closer in to Cap's side. I don't blame her.

It was that gesture that made me wake up. The last thing I wanted to do was hurt Hutch's new girl.

"Hey," I said reaching for her arm. "Did I hurt your shoulder?"

She shook her head no and took my hand. "Dave, it's okay. You didn't hurt me. If I knew anything . . . anything at all . . . I'd tell you. I care just as much about him as you do."

I'd heard that a million times, but it wasn't true. Nobody cared about him as much as me.

Cap cleared his throat. "Miss, did Hutch seem despondent to you? Did something happen between the two of you? An argument?"

"No, I told you. We were fine. I agree with Dave's opinion. I think someone gave him a shot against his will. The Ken I know would never do anything like that."

The doctor, a petite Asian woman named Dr. Ling, rounded the corner from the emergency room and looked at us.

"He has had an uphill battle, no?" she said. "But he survived. You can see him for a few minutes, though he's not likely to give much response."

Sylvia looked at me. "You can go first, Dave."

(Gee, Sylvie. Big of you)

I bit my tongue. I'd already been mean enough to her. "Okay," I said gently, and patted her on the shoulder.

XXXXXXXXXXXX++

Hutch lay like a pale sculpture in the bed, his eyes closed.

He always looked so tough and untouchable to me, but now he just looked fragile, like he

could break if I touched him the wrong way.

Like he looked when I got him back from Forest.

I almost lost him to heroin, twice, pure and simple. And I hadn't been there either time to stop it, back him up, be his mouthpiece. Nothing.

Somebody just got into his place and showed how quick he could be snuffed out.

I took his quiet hand and leaned over the bed, grateful that my hand was meeting his warm forehead.

"Hey, Hutch," I whispered to him. "Starsk here. Looks like you made it, pal. One tough tiger, you know that?"

At first he didn't give any sign that he heard, then, the more I talked, the more he stirred, until his eyes came open and gazed groggily at me.

He made a small attempt to say something, but found it too much of a chore.

"Okay, lazybones," I smiled at him. "I'll do the talkin'. You just move your head yes or no, okay?"

He moved his head in a small nod.

Without breaking eye contact, I reached a hand behind me for a stool and slid it over.

"Cap and Huggy and Sylvia are here for you. Right outside the door, okay? You're gonna be all right. Do you remember what happened?"

His head gave the slightest movement no.

I licked my lips. "You're in the hospital, buddy. I found you in the bed, and there was a needle in your arm, and a note on your nightstand."

He stiffened a little, as though recalling a bad dream, and a tiny squeak of fear escaped him as he pulled my hand to his chest and hugged it against him.

I could feel his frightened heart pounding like galloping hooves against the back of my hand.

"Hey," I whispered as I stroked his hair with my free hand. "Sshh. It's okay. You're not there anymore. You're in the hospital where it's safe. I found you, buddy."

His tense body settled again, but his hand still held tight and his eyes stayed on mine for reassurance.

"Do you know them?" I asked quietly, giving him time to think about his answer.

He moved his head no.

"Would you recognize them again?"

Again he shook his head no.

"Disguise?"

A nod.

I squeezed his hand. "They think you're dead. If they find out . . . well . . . I'm putting a guard at the door."

He nodded a little.

"So," I went on calmly, proud that I could question my own partner in a professional manner instead of tearing down the walls with my bare hands. "You think it was Forest?"

"Said," he breathed faintly. He was so weak it took all the strength he possessed to say just a few words. I wanted to strangle whoever did this to my partner. "Said I was unfinished business."

Even though my questions had tired him, he went to sleep with a more relaxed look on his face.

I stayed with him until I was sure he was fast asleep, then I went out into the hall where Dobey and Sylvia and Huggy were waiting.

"Well?" Dobey asked.

"He thinks it's Forest," I told him. "They wore a disguise. That's all I could get." I looked at Cap and Huggy. "He's out like a light. Let's see if we can't locate some of Forest's old associates."

I started around them, but Cap took my arm.

"Starsky, about my line of questioning . . . "

"I know," I nodded as I patted his arm. "You had to cover all the bases."

I watched Sylvia go into his room, then passed a guilty look at Huggy. "Check her out for me, Hug. Marie too."

He stared at me. "You want me to check out both your girlfriends?"

"After what happened, I don't trust anybody."

I went downstairs to the cafeteria to grab a sandwich and some coffee. If I was gonna find whoever hurt Hutch, I'd need to keep my strength up.

XXXXXXXXXXXX++

The nurses standing outside Hutch's room stopped whispering-"heroin", "suicide attempt", "overdose"-when I approached.

"We have enemies," I told them, but I don't think it made a difference. They were going to believe what they wanted. But I had to say it for Hutch.

When I went in, I saw two suits from Internal Affairs at Hutch's bedside. Benson and Stevens. Both family men. Both serious about their job. Questioning him before he was even out of the hospital.

"If someone wanted to kill you," Benson, the younger one, asked him, "why would they choose heroin?"

Hutch wasn't up to the questioning. Anybody could see that. He was pale and weak.

But I guess that's how they wanted him-vulnerable and off guard-to get at the truth.

"You'll have to ask them," Hutch answered quietly.

"How'd you find out about this?" I asked them.

"Captain Dobey. He knew something like this couldn't be hidden for long."

"'Something like this'? He knew it was forced."

Stevens smiled tightly. "We're trying to rule out drug use and a suicide attempt."

"Rule it out," I told him. "He wouldn't have given it to himself with his left hand."

The other held his hand up. "If you'll excuse us, Detective Starsky. We have some questions to ask."

"Only way I'm leavin' is if Hutch asks me."

Which he didn't.

They opened their notepads to jot some details.

"All right, Hutchinson. Just take it from the top."

Hutch looked at me. He really wasn't up to it, but he'd go through it just to get it over with. He was so strong. I don't know if I could have done it.

I nodded encouragement. I wanted to hear the details too, so that I could use the information to help get the guys who did this. So, when Hutch started talking, he kept his eyes on me, and we pretended like Benson and Stevens weren't in the room-like it was just Hutch telling me and nobody else.

"It was the middle of the night," he began. "Surprise attack. I don't remember much, what time, just . . . " He closed his eyes. "They held me down, gave me the injection. I didn't know what was in the hypo. They didn't say what it was."

Eyes still on me, Hutch paused, waiting for them to write his answer.

I knew Hutch. He would only tell this once.

"And the note?" Benson continued.

"They said . . . " He licked his lips, still looking at me. "They said they'd kill you if I didn't write it."

Stevens looked skeptical. But then again, he always managed to look skeptical.

"Masks?"

Hutch nodded.

"What kind?"

"Black ski masks. All four of them."

God.

It took four of them to hold him down and give him a shot.

I could imagine how hard he fought them. How scared he must have been seeing that needle again.

Or maybe there wasn't much of a fight at all.

Maybe, once they threatened to hurt me, he gave his arm up to them willingly.

And that mental picture was even scarier than the first.

"Any names?" Benson asked.

Hutch moved his head no.

"Gloves?"

He nodded.

Benson and Stevens kept jotting notes.

"And then what happened?" Stevens asked.

"They uh . . . " His face showed no emotion, like some of the victims we interviewed. Wood-like and numb. "They held me down and waited until it took effect. Then . . . then they just left and . . . I don't know what happened after that. I don't know."

There.

It was finished. Out.

The chips would fall where they may. It wasn't like last time, where I could hide Hutch away from all the fallout. He could very well lose his job over this. Over something that wasn't even his fault.

"You tried to call me," I finished gently. "I found you this morning."

His hand squeezed at the white sheet covering him, and Benson and Stevens saw it.

"If you remember anything else," Benson said patting Hutch on the shoulder, "give us a call."

But Hutch was finished talking, one hand moving to cover the jagged puncture wound, a deep bruise on the inside of his arm.

They looked at me like they wanted to ask me some questions, but let it go.

After they were gone, I moved close to the bed.

"Starsk," he said in a trembling whisper, and I knew his heavy emotion was a residue from the drug in his system, "I don't want to lose my job. I know what it looks like, but . . . "

"Hey," I said leaning down over the bed and looking him right in the eyes. "You may have had to explain it to them, but don't ever think you have to explain it to me . . . "

He squeezed my hand and smiled a little. "Thanks, partner."

XXXXXXXXXXXX++

Hutch was sleeping and I was keeping watch in a chair by his bed when Huggy tiptoed into the quiet, darkened room that night.

"Hey," he whispered with a hand on my shoulder. "Don't get up. How's he doin'?"

"Okay, I guess."

He crouched by my chair to talk to me. "I checked out Sylvia and Marie. Clean as can be."

"Good. Thanks."

He smiled. "Hope the chicks don't find out, dude. Could make for some bad bedroom vibes, know what I mean?"

"Had no choice," I shrugged.

He patted my arm. "Dig. Catch you later."

He gave a look Hutch's way before he left. After he was gone, I managed to drift into a light sleep myself.

XXXXXXXXXXXX

I woke up with morning sun warm in my face, and the sound of a male nurse with a squeaky cart wheeling his way into the room.

"Rise and shine, Detective Hutchinson. Blood work time."

Hutch stirred sleepily and tried to open his eyes. "Not again."

The nurse gestured toward his array of tubes and needles and supplies. "This will absolutely be the last time you have to do this." He smiled at me. "Why don't you go down for some coffee and juice, and by the time you get back, he'll be all done?"

I looked at Hutch, who looked pretty forlorn about the tray of supplies.

"Want me to stay, Hutch?"

He shook his head no and gave a pale smile. "Nah. I'm a big boy now."

The nurse nodded. "That's the spirit."

I got out of my chair and yawned and stretched my way to the door.

"I'll bring you back some juice, okay?"

"Yeah."

I stepped outside, and past the guard I'd posted, a uniformed rookie. He and another rookie had taken turns watching the door since Hutch came into the hospital.

"Need some coffee or juice?" I asked him.

"No, thanks." He winked. "One of the candy-stripers is bringing me breakfast."

I winked back. "I see. Well. Have a good breakfast."

I was just about to leave when Doctor Ling approached. "Good morning, Detective Starsky. How is our patient?"

"Sort of occupied with a male nurse at the moment. Blood work, he said."

She got this strange look on her face and said, "We don't have male nurses."

"What?"

My whole body felt hot and queasy at the same time as I pushed past the rookie and went

inside.

"Hey!"

The man had one knee planted in Hutch's chest, a pillow shoved onto his face.

Beneath him, Hutch was struggling and trying to push him off.

I must have been temporarily insane with rage, because I was barely aware that I was running at the man. I grabbed him from behind and rammed him head-first into the wall. And then a second time. And then a third time. Until he dropped like a ton of bricks.

"You're under arrest," I panted down at him, then trudged over to the bed. To the staring uniform I said, "Cuff him and get him out of here."

Dr. Ling was with Hutch at the bed. I sort of politely muscled past her to get to him. He was gasping for air and pawing for me, but he was okay.

"Suh-Starsk. He-he-"

"Okay, Hutch. Calm down. It's okay."

"I thought I was dreaming. I thought-"

Dr. Ling had told me that the heroin could make for some pretty wild dreams.

"It's okay," I said as I stroked his hair. "Look at me."

His wild eyes found mine.

"It's okay, Hutch. It's over."

Dr. Ling checked his heart rate. "You are fine, Detective Hutchinson. Try to relax. Close call, yes?"

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

The guy confessed to being part of Forest's clan, but he wouldn't give up the names of the other three.

"Maybe he will when I get through with him," I said as I watched him through an observation glass at the precinct.

Dobey stood with me at the window. "One's better than none. At least you got him when you did."

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Benson and Stevens were having lunch with Hutch when I came back from the station.

"I take it this is good news," I said as I stole one of Hutch's fries.

Benson looked at Hutch, then me. "Our inquiry is over. His job is safe. And the records are kept confidential."

"If it weren't for the man trying to smother Hutch, though," I said, "you wouldn't have believed him, right?"

"That's not entirely true. We were already leaning toward Hutch's account anyway."

"Oh, it's 'Hutch' now, huh?"

Stevens handed me a cola. "Don't give me a hard time, Starsky."

Girlish laughter in the hall made me look around to see Sylvia and Marie coming into the room with flowers, candy, and stuffed teddy bears. Both made a big show of kissing Hutch and babying him.

Benson cleared his throat and winked to Hutch. "I can see it's a little crowded here. And we have business to tend to. See you later."

I shook both their hands on their way out.

XXXXXXXXXXXX+

"Go long, Hutch!"

It was weeks later, Hutch was out of the hospital and doing better, Sylvia and Maria were with us on the beach for a picnic, but it was me throwing the red Nerf football this time, and it was Hutch who felt good enough and silly enough to run straight into the ocean for the catch.

End