(Another slightly long chapter. Thanks for all the great positive feedback. Keeps me plugging away at this story.)

Chapter Six

The two denim clad figures squeezed through a loose board in the wooden fence which dumped them into an overgrown vacant lot. They headed towards a pile of junk cars that where clumped together, off to the side, half hidden from view.

"There's fucking cops all over the place man!" Miguel spat.

"Shut up, already. You think I don't know that!" Trey replied.

"You shouldn't have wasted him out in the open. Man we could'a been seen!"

"I didn't have much of a choice now did, I?" Trey snapped.

Miguel clamped his mouth angrily shut, then slowed when he saw the figure leaning against one of the junk cars, waiting. He nudged Trey.

The man in his late forties took one last drag on his cigarette before flicking it on the ground. "Where the hell have you two been?"

"We ran into some trouble, Mr. Luciana," Trey replied.

~S/H~

Hutch parked the Torino a few blocks down from an after hours strip joint called the Pink Play Station. As he entered he saw a single dancer doing her pole act on stage to piped music for a dozen or so patrons. Hutch bypassed them all and walked up to the bar and leaned against the counter. He didn't have to wait long before the bartender approached, a heavy scowl appearing on his face.

"Heya, Toulee," Hutch greeted.

The man cocked his head to the side and draped a dish towel over his shoulder, looking less than pleased. "What the hell you doing here?"

Hutch looked around. "See you made a few upgrades. New disco ball?"

"Can it, Hutchinson. What do you want?"

"Information."

The portly bartender slapped the rag on the counter and wiped a wet spot that wasn't there. "I'm not the yellow pages. Take a hike!"

Hutch merely leaned in closer, leveling his eyes on the fatter man. "Is that any way to talk to an old friend?"

"Friend? You must have me mixed up with someone else."

"I'm looking for my partner, you remember him, Detective Starsky?"

The man's dark brows descended. "I'm not likely to forget. You two closed me down for almost four solid months!"

"Well Toulee, that's what you get for hiring underage girls for your little private back stage peep shows."

"Hey, I told you before, I run a legit business! Those chicks had false ID's."

"Sure they did, along with the fake pimples."

The bartender's scowl deepened.

"Look, Toulee, I'll lay it out to you straight. I've got a missing partner who may be hurt and I intend to find him even if I have to shake every branch and poke a stick into every rat hole around here, get it?"

"I haven't seen him, okay!"

"But maybe some of your customers have?"

"How am I supposed to know that?"

Hutch lifted his forefinger, pointing it into the porky man's face, the light blue eyes darkening into icy orbs. "Don't play dumb with me, Toulee, not tonight."

"I swear, I haven't seen or heard shit about Starsky."

"What about two other men. Both white. One wearing an army surplus jacket, the other skinny in coveralls, like a grease monkey?"

"Sorry, no one in an army jacket or a red head in coveralls. Now beat it!"

Hutch's eyes narrowed. "Never mentioned he was a red head, Toulee."

The bartender bit his lip. The big Nordic cop leaned into the bar until his eyes where level with the stupid fat man.

"All right. All right. So maybe they were here earlier tonight. So what?"

"When?"

"I don't know, around eleven."

"Names!"

"I don't remember," Toulee said flippantly.

The fat man was suddenly grabbed by the thin black tie around his neck and jerked forward. Icy steel orbs bore down on him as Hutch held onto the tie which was cutting uncomfortably into the fleshy part of the pudgy man's neck. Not enough to choke or injure, but enough to get the man's attention.

"Names," Hutch repeated, dropping his voice to a softer tone which would have sounded almost conversational, except the glacial piercing eyes which remained fixed on the resistant bartender made the quieter tone much more intimidating.

The bartender couldn't hold the cop's stare and eventually sputtered out two names, "Carter and Llyod, all right!"

Still holding onto the tie, Hutch moved an inch closer into the man's personal space. "What else?"

"Carter works for some chop shop, I don't know where. He used to come in regular when his old lady was working here, but she up and left three weeks ago."

"What's her name?"

"Trixie, a tall leggy black girl. That's all I know, I swear!"

A few seconds later the bartender was released and he immediately took a step back.

"All right, Toulee. I believe you, for now. But if you hear anything about my partner, I better be the first to know, otherwise you know I'll be back and shake this place down so hard even the roaches will permanently scatter."

The porky man scowled but kept his distance. "Yeah. Yeah, all right. I get it."

Hutch scribbled a number on a napkin and slid it over to the bartender who reluctantly took it.

"And Toulee. Don't even think about tearing it up after I leave."

~S/H~

Something wet and rough was licking the side of his face. His glazed eyes opened then widened as he found himself staring into the muzzle of a dog, a really big dog. He jerked into a sitting position and scooted quickly backward until his back was pressed against a low lying wall, raising his forearms protectively out in front of him.

But the dog just stood, licking its lips as it continued to stare at him and a strange sudden thought came to the injured man as to how it had gotten down off the roof.

The dog whined, and then turned and just trotted off.

As soon as it was out of sight, he tried to scramble to his feet but something held him pinned from behind. In a panic he pulled, jerked and twisted his body at whatever was restraining him until something snapped and slipped down and off his left shoulder and then his right.

Once free he got quickly to his feet but swayed dizzily and had to grip the short wall to steady himself.

The cool air against his damp skin made him shiver as he made his way along a path, across some kind of grassy and concrete frontage, through a chain link fence and out onto the empty sidewalk. He stumbled but forced himself to keep moving while his head continued to throb unmercifully. His vision shifted in strange blotchy patches and was intermixed with disjointed images of white walls, corridors, linoleum floors, bright lights and people all dressed in white moving towards him, grabbing him, shoving him, forcing him to comply; followed by laughter and darkness and irresolvable fear. He shook his head, trying to shake the distressing visions away.

Cold and tired, he just wanted to find somewhere safe, somewhere to rest, for a little while. His hand slid along the side of another building until he found an alcove and more or less rolled his body into it. Shaky knees gave out and his legs buckled so that his backside slid down along the wall until his rump hit the cement. With arms wrapped around his bruised ribs, he allowed his body to sag into the corner.

~S/H~

Hutch let the number for the Pits ring twenty times before he tiredly hung up. Huggy obviously wasn't back yet.

He finally decided to stop by the precinct and see about getting some flyers circulated with Starsky's picture to all the local police units in the area. He also wanted to see if there was anything he could dig up out of Vice on the stripper named Trixie. But first he wanted to check if any additional information had trickled in from the local hospitals.

As Hutch entered the building via the back entrance off from the rear parking lot and made his way towards the Night Watch Station located at the front, a suspect was being escorted down the hall by a patrolman.

"Hey, man, I didn't do nothing!"

"Tell it to the judge in the morning, pal," the uniformed officer said.

Hutch walked passed and was just about to push through a set of connective swinging doors when he stopped and turned around. He stared at the familiar looking leather jacket the suspect was wearing, before his eyes dropped to the stain on the left sleeve just as the two rounded the corner out of sight.

In the booking area, the uniformed officer was busy extracting several items out of the suspect's various pockets when Hutch caught up with them. A slim leather bi-fold wallet was placed on top of the stack on the counter.

Hutch grabbed it, startling both the patrolman and his prisoner.

When he opened it Starsky's badge number stared back at him.

Hutch grabbed the man by the flaps of the jacket and forcefully shoved him up against the wire cage until he was practically dangling a few inches off the ground.

"What the hell are you doing?" The uniformed officer shouted, stunned.

Hutch ignored him. "Where is my partner you bastard?"

The handcuffed prisoner hung speechlessly in the air.

"Where is he?" Hutch repeated, moving his hand up against the man's neck.

The patrolman, and now the booking officer were at Hutch's side, prying him off the wide-eyed suspect.

"Let him go Hutch!"

The man coward against the wall as the detective was restrained.

"Let me go, damnit!" Hutch bellowed.

"What's going on here?" Another voice demanded as Captain Eaton, the Chief of Detectives, stepped off the elevator.

~S/H~

There was a white corridor, acoustic tiles on the ceiling flashing by, a cold room and then a pudgy pitted faced man in glasses leaning over him while a stern looking woman in a white cap stood next to him. A bright light was forced in his eyes. He tried to push it away, but his arms were suddenly grabbed, held down on each side.

"Now, now, Rudy. It's just an exam. Stop resisting or you'll get another shot."

Above a blond face watched stoically as he was forced to submit.

Starsky twitched, cringed and drew his knees up closer to his body, huddling deeper in the alcove. His eyelids flickered rapidly as the face disappeared and another voice took its place, this one hidden completely in the dark, speaking in broken English.

"Little solider boy, think you're so brave? Just wait. Soon you be joining your friend over there."

He whimpered and in his dreams the stench of death drew ever closer, becoming his only companion as he was once again left in the dark.

~S/H~

Levi Jackson sat nervously in a chair behind a small table while Hutch paced back and forth in the small interrogation room. Captain Eaton stood nearby keeping a close eye on the edgy detective.

"What were you doing, Levi? Stalking him? Waiting until he came out of the Pits alone? Answer me!"

"I ain't saying nothing 'till I get a lawyer. I got that right!" the black man spoke belligerently.

Hutch placed both hands on the table, supporting his body as he leaned in close.

"Yeah, you got that right. Except you better keep in mind that if my partner is hurt out there and something worse happens to him because I'm standing here wasting my time talking to you, you're going to be looking at Murder One on a cop! That's a Capitol Offense, chump!"

"Hey, I didn't do nothing to him!"

Hutch leaned in closer invading the man's personal space. "No? Then explain to me just what the hell you're doing with his jacket, badge and ID?"

Levi racked his hand through his afro, his fingers jittery. He needed a cigarette and reached for the nearly empty pack a few inches away.

Hutch slapped his hand on top of it, making the black man jump in his seat.

"Talk, Levi!"

The sky blue eyes had turned into menacing steel orbs that seemed to go right through him.

Levi swallowed. "All right! All right! But you gotta believe me. I only ripped off his stuff, I didn't do any of that other shit to him."

Hutch inwardly flinched. "What exactly to you mean?"

"I don't know man. He was pretty messed up, okay? Looked like he'd been worked over. He was half out of it when I found him."

Hutch reached over and grabbed the man by his shirt practically dragging him across the table "Where, god damnit!"

"Hutchinson!" The Chief of Detectives barked.

The man tried to pry himself free, but Hutch only tightened his grip.

"Hutchinson. That's enough!"

"Off Third and Willow, man!" Levi finally broke. "But I swear he was alive when I left him."

Ignoring his superior, Hutch held the man tightly, bringing the suspect's face within inches of the icy steel blue eyes. "For your sake, you better damn well hope he's still that way when I find him!" he threatened, before pushing the black man back down in his seat, the momentum nearly toppling him over.

~S/H~

With flashlight in hand, Hutch crossed the small grassy lawn onto the section of concrete pavement which belonged to part of an industrial printing business that sat behind a decorative chain link fence. Passing several concrete planters he followed the walkway until it came to an end and branched off into two smaller paths, one a sloping ramp, apparently used for deliveries, the other leading to a short flight of stairs that went up to the building's main front entrance.

Hutch took the half dozen steps up to the open terrace above in two long strides and quickly scanned the area before moving purposely towards a light source which came from a bare bulb at the far end.

Just passed the lighted terrace a second set of steps led downward, back along a sloping bank and another cement planter which formed a retaining wall. He descended quickly then abruptly stopped for this is where Levi had told him he'd come across Starsky.

Still trying to contain his fury and to get a grip on his emotions after hearing what the scum had done, Hutch desperately fanned the beam of light into the many shadows formed by the terrace and angles of the building hoping to spot a flash of denim, a curly head of hair, or even a blue Adidas sneaker, but there was nothing.

The confirmation that indeed his partner was injured and the visualization of the low-life's dirty filthy hands touching and then stripping Starsky of all his identification and even the damn jacket off his back while he lay hurt and defenseless still made Hutch's blood boil. He had wanted nothing better than to pound the son-of-a-bitch's head into the damn wall of the interrogation room and probably would have done just that if Captain Eaton hadn't been there and cut him off with a strict reprimand. Hutch knew he had probably crossed the line, but he hadn't cared. Nothing had matter at that moment except for finding his partner.

Hutch continued his desperate search calling out to his partner as he rounded the corner onto a short walkway that wrapped back around towards the front of the building. It was then he noticed something odd snared on a water spigot protruding out from the short wall and partially draped across the cement path.

He retrieved it and recognized the object immediately. It was an empty gun holster, for a lefty.

With a surge a renewed hope, he called out to Starsky again as he frantically searched the entire area around the whole building complex but again, in the end, came up empty.

Gripping the holster tightly in his hand, he said aloud, "Come on, Starsk, where the hell are ya, buddy?"

But only silence was his reply and he eventually, reluctantly, he was forced to return to the Torino.

~S/H~

Sudden loud repetitious banging above jerked the injured man awake. The sound was immediately followed by something hard and blunt poking him in the back.

"Wake up! Wake up, you!"

Starsky groaned pitifully.

"Come, on." An angry voice said. "Get up! You hear me! Get up! You can't loiter around here! Go find somewhere else to sleep it off!"

He received another shove in the shoulder.

His hand reached out to ward off any additional blows as he staggered to a standing position, using the wall to help leverage himself up. When he turned slightly his gaze fell onto a man in a uniform standing a few feet away slapping a baton aggressively in his palm. He trembled.

"Hurry up! Get out of here you scum before I rack this thing upside your skull and have you hauled in and locked up!"

The man then gave him one more hard, painful jab, this time to his already tender ribs making him grunt and forcing him to move out of the alcove and onto the sidewalk.

Taking a small flask out of his jacket, the overnight guard watched as the dark haired man staggered down the street out of sight before he took a swig, recapped it, and then hid it back away.

"Damn junkies!" he groused.

~S/H~

Hutch found Huggy in the middle of brewing a fresh pot of strong coffee when he tiredly returned to the Pits. He slid into the back booth, the same one he and Starsky had shared earlier and sat staring into space.

Without a word, Huggy poured a cup of coffee for both of them and then joined him.

"What did you find out, Hug?" Hutch asked hopefully.

"Nothing about Starsky, sorry man."

Hutch's face fell despondently.

"But I did learn something I thought you should know."

His head snapped up. "What?"

"Apparently someone's been messing around with the local action of late and the main establishment, Eddie LaRue, ain't taking it too kindly."

"Why? What's going on?"

"Well, according to my sources several of LaRue's booky joints have been rousted up pretty badly of late."

Hutch knew of LaRue. Six years ago he'd been a Louisiana transplant bottom feeder who moved up the ranks and had taken over the numbers scene off his cousin who was currently serving twenty in Quentin. Besides being into numbers, it was also suspected he had expanded his operation into other areas, but neither the locals nor the Feds had been able to solidly tag him anything, mainly because LaRue was mean as hell and didn't trust anybody.

"A shake down?"

Huggy nodded. "It has that definite flavor to it. And that ain't all. This time, whoever hit his last joint wasn't just interested in wrecking the place up, they scored seventy G's of LaRue's money and a couple kilo's of coke."

"Coke? LaRue's really branching out."

Huggy nodded.

"Anyone know who's behind it?"

"Gossip is swinging in the general direction one of LaRue's rivals trying to wedge into his territory, most likely Pinky Lamar. He's been after LaRue's stake for couple of years now. But one of my other private, though admittedly not always very accurate sources, thinks an independent party may also be involved."

"How do you mean?"

"Pinky wants to put LaRue out of business. These guys were definitely in it for the money. Whatever be the case, my man, it's been making the streets pretty edgy of late, especially since LaRue has put out his own set of local heavies looking for some answers."

"Swell."

"I doubt this has anything to do with what happened to Curly, but I thought you should know."

Hutch agreed.

Though he knew of LaRue, neither he nor Starsky had been much involved in his case, but the idea that LaRue was out shaking the streets up looking for blood was unsettling and only increased his worry and his anxiety to find his missing partner as quickly as possible.

"Hey, man, don't give up. I've put plenty of feelers out. It just may take a little time for things to turn up."

Hutch nodded.

Huggy then inquired about the empty holster Hutch had clutched tightly in his hand. With an icy edge of anger returning to the blue eyes, Hutch filled him in, his knuckles turning white as he got to the part about Levi mugging his already injured partner, then leaving him.

Though appalled and angered too, Huggy was not that surprised. There was little compassion left on the streets, especially when it came to cops.

"Hey, man, as bad as that sounds, at least you know he's still in the area, right? And you were able to track him down that far. If anyone can find Curly, it's the Big Blond Bloodhound sitting across from me, dig?"

Hutch couldn't help but grin a little at that before the worried lines returned to his forehead. Even though both detectives knew the risks that came with the job and had accepted it long ago, it still never came easy nor lessened the anxiety each always felt when the other was in danger.

Not just his partner and his best friend, Starsky was his better half, the only one Hutch had ever truly felt comfortable with, connected to and completely accepted by. His whole life before Starsky had always been about fitting someone else's mold of who he was supposed to be: his parents, his ex-wife and even most of his friends in college. But Starsky had never done that. If fact he had done just the opposite. He had helped Hutch discover who he really was and then just had accepted him, sarcasm, fussy health habits, dirty socks and all.

And right now, knowing his partner was out there somewhere hurt and alone was tearing him up inside.

Hutch scraped his hands across his tired, throbbing eyes sockets. Babe, you seriously gotta stop doing this me.

Huggy got up from the booth and returned a moment later placing a bottle of aspirin in front of him. "Here. I think you can use these."

Hutch's mouth lifted up into a little smile. "Thanks, Hug." He downed a couple of pills with a few sips of coffee.

"You should eat something, Blondie. It's not good to take those things on an empty stomach. The grill's cold, but I can fix you up with a sandwich."

Hutch shook his head. "Thanks, Huggy, but I'm not hungry."

"You need to keep your strength up, my friend."

"Maybe later, Hug. I just can't eat anything right now."

"Sure, man, okay."

Huggy sat back down. "So what about the hospitals? Maybe something's turned up by now?

"I already checked before coming here. Still nothing," Hutch replied dejectedly.

"Hey, something's gonna turn soon, Hutch, just have a little faith."

But Hutch could not be so easily pacified, his worry over his partner only increasing as the hours went by.

Hutch then asked Huggy if he knew anything of the black leggy stripper named Trixie, associated with his the two drunks who'd been in the bar earlier, still wondering if they had anything to do with the initial attack on his partner. Huggy shook his head, but also said it shouldn't be that hard to find out and would make some calls.

The phone rang at the bar. Huggy slid out of the booth and quickly crossed the space to answer it. "Yeah, yeah. Okay thanks."

"Hutch. That was Shoe-Shine. Says he thinks he may have spotted Curly down by the newspaper stand."

Hope surged and Hutch was up and out of the booth in an instant.

TBC...