Chapter 4

'How are our visitors Mr Lake?'

'On track Mr Da Luca. The dark haired one woke up this morning for the first time.'

'And?'

'He doesn't remember a thing. The drug that Doc Isaac gave him in his drip seems to be working on that score, he's had the headphones on almost continuously and he's healing well. He should be ready in maybe a month.'

'What of the other one Mr Lake? He was slightly more um, problematic wasn't he?'

'He's more resistant to the drug, yes. The doctor's had to work harder on him, but they're waking him up again today and if he still remembers then they're going to take him down to the treatment room.'

'It seems a lot of trouble to go to Mr Lake. Are you sure you don't just want to kill them now and have done with it?'

'You said I could be inventive. Creative I think is the term you used. This way we can get rid of the two cops and we can give our men some training. We have a double whammy and we can enjoy the hunt. It seems a convenient way of doing things.'

The other man chuckled. 'I can always rely on you to make good a ticklish situation Mr Lake. Well done. That big house in New York is looking more of a possibility by the minute.'

Mr Lake shrugged his shoulders. 'Just doing my job Mr Da Luca Sir. The New York job would be the icing on the cake. For now I want to make sure the blond one is behaving himself. Would you excuse me?'

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The small white painted room was quiet, only the blip, blip from the monitor by the bed making a noise. It had been this way on and off for almost eight days now. Each time Ken Hutchinson awoke, he looked around and asked for Starsky, his partner.

It was inconvenient.

This time, Dr Isaac sat by the side of the bed waiting as the nurse closed off the fluid in the drip feed flowing into the blond's left arm. The doctor whiled away his time taking pulse, blood pressure and respiration readings and recording them on a chart which he rose and hung on the end of the metal framed bed. He looked back at his patient.

When Hutch had been brought into the facility he'd been almost as much of a mess as his friend had been. The cop's arm dangled uselessly from the gurney, the elbow ruptured and blue. Other black and blue bruises marched across the blond's face, neck, chest, arms and legs. It had taken an hour of surgery to piece back the elbow that Hill and his friend had broken. It took another hour or so to repair damage to Hutch's leg and chest. After that, Isaac kept his patient comatose for a few days, giving his drug time to work on the blond's memories. Twice now the patient had been allowed to wake. Twice Hutch had looked around him and asked for Starsky. Today, Isaac hoped it would be third time lucky.

The doctor bent over his patient and watched as Hutch's eyelids fluttered and then cracked open to reveal crescents of crystal blue.

'Can you hear me?' Isaac asked.

Hutch's eyebrows V'd in concentration and he closed his eyes again feeling disorientated and dizzy.

'Where am I?' the blond asked weakly.

'You're in the hospital. Do you remember the accident?'

Hutch rolled his head on the pillow. 'Accident? What accident? Don't remember….'

'Your memories will return' Isaac said soothingly. 'Just lie back and relax. You've been through a helluva time.'

'Where's Starsky?' Hutch tried to raise his head from the pillow and look around. He had dim pictures flowing through his head of a curly head slick with blood lying opposite him on a dusty, rough road. His partner seemed unconscious and his white shirt had been covered in blood. It seemed odd to the blond that he should remember a white shirt. Starsky almost never wore white. He was a jeans and tee shirt kinda guy.

'Starsk?'

Isaac shook his head. 'No one came in with you. You were on your own. Who or what is Starsky?' The doctor held his breath. They'd been down this road before and it had so far ended in Hutch becoming almost violent in his attempts to find his friend.

The flaxen haired cop shook his head carefully. 'No. I remember. Not an accident, but I remember Starsky was with me. I need to find him. He was hurt. He needed me.' Hutch started to try to get out of the bed, fighting with the drip feed attached to the back of his hand. The other hand – the one encased in a white plaster cast got in his way and the pains in his chest and back took away his breath, making him sag back against the pillows in frustration. He looked pleadingly at the doctor.

'Help me?' he whispered.

'You have to help yourself son. Only you can deal with these "memories" although there is one thing I could try.'

'Will it help me find Starsky?'

Isaac shook his head gently. 'There is no Starsky. Your mind seems to have fixated on an imaginary person and until we can erase that thought, you're not going to be able to progress. Will you let me help you?'

The blond shivered, a feeling of dread running down his spine like ice water. Starsky was a fiction? It seemed almost too preposterous to believe, and yet the doctor seemed convinced that he was imaginary.

'I dunno. I dunno anything. I don't even….I don't even know who I am any more.'

Isaac smiled. 'Believe it or not, that's a good sign. Who do you think you are? Are there any names that seem like you?'

Once again Hutch shook his head. 'There's nothing there Doc. Just that one name. Starsky. I don't even know my own name. Oh my God, I don't even know who I am! Who am I? Who the fuck am I?' Hutch's voice rose so that it sounded cracked and harsh. The blond started to sweat as he tried to pierce the blackness in head. Starsky. There was a man called Starsky and they were close. Very close. He couldn't have been a figment of Hutch's imagination. He could almost smell sandalwood soap and Pierre Cardin aftershave. He could see chocolate coloured curls and he could hear a voice. It called to him and yet it didn't use his name. Was he going crazy? Did he need help, or did he just need to get himself out of there?

Fear and anger mingled inside the blond's head. He was disorientated although he thought he'd seen the doctor before, but not having a name freaked him out. It was as though he didn't exist because his name didn't exist. How was it he could remember the curly haired man and yet he couldn't remember his own name? The fear spilled over into blind panic. How could a name mean so much? How could one name be the entire identity of a man? So without a name he was a nobody? Come on!

'Who am I? Tell me who I am' he yelled.

Isaac looked disappointed. He laid a hand on Hutch's shoulder but the cop shook him off and flinched away, fear widening the crystal blue eyes and making the big blond shake. The doctor had been full of hope that this time his memory serum might have worked but once again he seemed to have underestimated Hutch's resolve and strength of mind.

'Does it matter so much to you son?'

Crystal blue eyes showing just a hint of white stared at him, mute for a moment. Hutch nodded his head. Yes, it did matter. An identity might just ground him in the here and now. It might just give him a foothold with which to piece together his past. 'Yeah' he said quietly.

'That's fine son. We can help there. We have a name. From the ID papers in your wallet and the photo there, you are Ray Hunt, from Seattle.'

'Ray? Ray Hunt?' Hutch paused a moment letting the name roll around his lips. There was nothing familiar about it. The doctor could just have well have told him he was Santa Claus and yet it was a name. Something he could hold on to. 'And Starsky?'

Isaac sighed dramatically. 'I don't know how to convince you that there is no Starsky. Let me help you. I'll cut you a deal. You let me try our treatment out on you and I'll have someone try to find out more about your background. How does that sound?'

Hutch nodded. He felt defeated somehow, as though the doctor had won a battle Hutch didn't know he was fighting. 'What kind of treatment? And what's wrong with me?'

'You had a bad concussion when you came to us. Your left elbow was broken and we had to piece it back together. You should regain full use of it with time and exercise. You also had a broken rib and multiple bruises and contusions. Typical of a car crash.'

'I don't remember a car crash. Are you sure?'

Isaac smiled. 'I'll have the orderlies take you down to the treatment room shortly. I can't promise, but I think the treatment will make you feel a whole lot better. In the mean time, rest.'

The doctor got up and left leaving Hutch on the bed, eyes closed and dispirited. The blond felt alone; empty. As though someone had taken the stopper out of the bottle of his life and thrown the contents away. There was nothing to think about other than blackness. How many times must a person use their memories during a day? Hundreds? Thousands? Millions? It was done without thinking, the memories were merely there. Without them, Hutch was adrift on a sea of loneliness and he hated every moment. The one thing he knew above all – the absence of "Starsky" whoever he was, made him feel more alone than anything else.

Outside the hospital room Arlo Da Luca stood waiting with Mr Lake. 'Well?' the gang boss asked as Isaac closed the door carefully behind him. The doctor shook his head.

'I've never known anyone fight the drug like he is. He's still asking for his partner. I fed him the identity you gave me – Ray Hunt from Seattle – but he didn't seem to buy it. He's still asking for Starsky.'

'So your next step is….?'

'We'll take him for a treatment. Not even Terry could withstand that. By this evening he'll be eating out of our hands and then you will just need to wait until the both of them are fit.'

Da Luca smiled a smile that did not reach his eyes. 'See to it that it does work Doctor. You know how I hate to waste my time.'

Isaac nodded, a wave of trepidation showing on his face. 'It'll work Mr da Luca Sir. It'll work.'

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The two orderlies came for Hutch about a half an hour later. The blond had managed to doze after Isaac had gone. In truth, his body hurt almost as much as his mind did. His elbow throbbed mercilessly and it hurt to breath through the white strapping across his chest. Being awake seemed such a difficult exercise that even the small conversation with the doctor had taken it out of the blond and he jumped as the orderlies opened the door to his room and pushed in a gurney.

'Mr Hunt? We've come to take you to the treatment room. We just need to get you onto the gurney. Relax and let us do the work huh?' The orderly smiled cheerily at Hutch and the blond stared back, not feeling in the least like smiling. Instead he nodded his consent and the two men whisked back the sheet to reveal white scrub pants. Hutch was thankful for small mercies. He knew his chest was bare save for the bandages, but he'd not checked further south.

With one man at his head and another taking his feet, Hutch was lifted gently onto the gurney, but his eyes widened and he started to protest as wide leather straps were buckled across his chest and legs leaving his arms trapped and his body immobile.

'No, d d don't do that' he gasped, trying to struggle free of the restraints.

'Hey man, cool it buddy. We're only following regs. You gotta be strapped in so as we don't' have no accidents. Wouldn't want ya hurtin' yourself if ya fell off.'

Hutch tried to see the sense of the straps. He was sure he'd seem them before on other gurneys – which got him to thinking. Had he been in a lot of hospitals before? Again the clear picture of a curly head on a pillow, eyes closed and a tube exiting the mouth connected to a respirator.

Starsky.

Who the hell was Starsky and why did he haunt Hutch's dreams? The blond needed answers if only to preserve his sanity and with a deep sigh, Hutch lay back on the gurney and tried to ignore the restraints as the orderlies wheeled him down a succession of white corridors.

Eventually, they paused by a door on the left and Orderly #1 opened it to reveal a small white room, empty but for a stand with what looked like a projector and a set of headphones. Dr Isaac leaned calmly against the wall as the gurney was positioned in the middle of the room opposite the blank wall.

Hutch expected the restraints to be taken off when they eventually stopped their excursion through the hospital. The orderlies, however, simply positioned the gurney, applied the brakes and stood back as Isaac came forwards with a hypodermic needle in his hand.

Hutch's heart rate climbed through the roof. He had one distinct memory of being tied to a chair. His face was hurt and bruised and there were unseen hands slapping and punching him, hurting him more and more. A blindfold covered his eyes making the punishment seem twice as bad and then suddenly it stopped and a man's voice spoke to him.

'Where is she?'

Hutch remembered refusing to talk; the "she" seemed very important to him and then he heard the two words that lanced through his memory like a bolt of lightning to his heart.

'Juice him.'

The blond remembered a bruising vice-like grip on his upper arm and someone tearing the sleeve of his shirt. He hated needles. Needles represented fear, heat, pain, sweat, loneliness and fear. Needles blew lives apart and meant….Starsky? And then, above the memory like a string of salvation Hutch remembered strong arms wrapped around his shivering shaking body and a voice, quiet and reassuring.

I got ya, you big lug. I got ya.

Isaac's voice penetrated Hutch's fevered memory. 'Hold him still, he's going to hurt himself.'

Other strong hands took a hold of him and the blond continued to fight against them, his body writhing and bucking against the restraints and then there were hands on his head, holding it down to the gurney and another restraint passed across his forehead, keeping him immobile. The blond's eyes stared wildly upwards as Isaac's concerned face came into view.

'Listen to me Ray. Listen to my voice. I'm not going to hurt you. We just need to give you some sedative so that the treatment will work. It won't hurt. I'll be done in a second.'

There was a bee sting prick on his upper arm and Hutch froze, expecting the first blissful rush of the heroin. None came. Instead he started to feel calmer, sleepier and his mouth dried. He didn't flinch as the earphones were placed on his head. He didn't even try to look away as the projector aimed at the white ceiling above him and started to play images of the dark haired man of his memories.

'This is Ethan Quade……'

The tape continued to play and Hutch continued to watch.