CHAPTER FOURTEEN

Hutch maneuvered through the heavy mid-day traffic towards the address of the rooming house where Starsky was reported to have been living while in Miami. He drove in silence, lost in his own thoughts. He felt the old familiar adrenalin rush that came when he was following up a hot lead. He was still trying to get used to the idea that Starsky was still alive. But, if Gunther had him, then finding him as soon as possible was imperative. Starsky's life depended on. But, Miami was a big city and Hutch didn't have the connections here that he did back in Bay City that would make trying to find Starsky in time even more difficult.

The rooming house was located on a quiet side street three blocks from the club where Starsky had been working as a dishwasher. A small sign in the front window read 'Rooms for Rent by the week or by the month' Hutch had already called ahead so the woman who owned the rooming house was expecting them.

Since it was early in the afternoon, most of the roomers who lived in the house were at work but, fortunately, the woman who had called them with the original lead about Starsky's whereabouts was at home since she worked nights. Talking briefly with the owner of the rooming house first, Hutch found out that Starsky had rented a room from her a little over a week before and had paid two months rent in advance and he had paid in cash. She commented that he was polite and soft spoken. When Hutch asked for a spare key to his room, she gave it to him without any objections.

After speaking to her, Hutch and Huggy went up the steps to the second floor so Hutch could have a look at Starsky's room. The room was large and sunny with a window that faced the south. It was neat a clean without any outward signs of Starsky's occupancy. A few pairs of faded jeans and some tee shirts were neatly folded in the dresser with some clean socks and underwear tucked away in the top drawer. In the nightstand, Hutch found a fully loaded thirty-eight with two extra clips. Wherever Starsky was, he was unarmed. An envelope hidden under the single pillow on the bed caught Hutch's attention. Tears sprang to his eyes when he opened it and pulled out a faded photograph of Starsky and himself taken shortly after they met over twenty years ago. From the condition of the worn photograph, it was apparent that Starsky had looked at it often. Tucked away in the same envelope was a second, worn and faded, picture of Starsky's mother, Rachel.

Hutch swallowed back the lump in his throat as he slipped the envelope containing the two photographs into his jacket pocket. He glanced up as Huggy laid a hand on his shoulder and gave his arm a comforting squeeze. "We'll find him, bro." Huggy said confidently.

"He didn't forget, Huggy." Hutch said in a choked voice. "He didn't run out on us…"

"Of course he didn't." Huggy said "He didn't have any choice in the matter…and when he finally managed to get away…he let you go on thinking he was dead for your own good. But, he never stopped caring…keeping that picture all these years proves that."

"It was all he had left," Hutch said, a single tear escaping and running down his cheek. "Those bastards took everything else away from him."

"Yeah, well as soon as we find him, he's gonna get it all back."

"How could the fucking feds do something like that to him? To us?" Hutch said, his voice strained with barely contained rage. "He told them that he wasn't going to hide, that he wouldn't go down without a fight and they still decided to make everybody think he was dead so they could spirit him away 'for his own good'!" His ice blue eyes blazed with a cold fire that Huggy hadn't seen in years. "Who the fuck gave them the right to play god?"

"Hey, man…chill out." Huggy said, knowing that he had to keep the big blond from losing it when they were so close. "Let's talk to the lady that helped Curly get that job. See if she can tell us anything."

Hutch nodded and forced himself to focus on the situation at hand. The two friends left the room and walked down the hall to the room that the landlady had told them belonged to the woman named Angie. Hutch knocked loudly. After a few minutes, the door opened and a petite blonde with an attractive face peered out at them.

"Yes? Can I help you?" she said in a cautious voice, eyeing the two strangers suspiciously.

"Miss Alexander?" Hutch asked with his most charming smile. "I'm Ken Hutchinson from Hutchinson investigations. You called about a missing person that I'm trying to find. David Starsky?"

"Oh, yes…of course. But, he told me that his name was Rick Marlowe." Angie said "Please, come in…"

She closed the door behind them as Hutch and Huggy stepped into the room. Unlike Starsky's room, Angie's room was cluttered with folded clothes lying on top of the dresser and an unmade bed in the middle of the room. Angie looked as if she hadn't been awake for very long. She was dressed in a terrycloth robe, her hair tousled and uncombed.

"I hope he's okay." She said "He usually worked his shift and then left and came straight home. Except the other night. He never came home at all and nobody's seen him or heard from him."

"And that was two days ago. Right?"

"Yeah. Tuesday night."

"Did anything usual happen that night?" Hutch asked

"No. I went in early that day so I could leave early. Rick was still at work when I left. Maybe Shelly could tell you more. She worked the late shift that night."

"Shelly?"
"Shelly Porter. She lives here too and works at the club as a dancer. She's been trying to get into Rick's pants since he moved in here but he made it pretty clear that he wasn't interested. I don't think she was his type." She smiled faintly "Just goes to show that he had better sense than most of the guys around here."

"Sounds like you don't care much for the lady." Huggy pointed out diplomatically.

"Believe me, honey," Angie told him with a snort "Shelly is anything but a lady. She's been around the block more than a few times. I think she saw Rick as some kind of challenge because he kept turning her down. She wasn't used to some guy telling her no if you catch my drift."

"Where could we find this Shelly?" Hutch asked before Angie could continue her assessment of Shelly's character.

"Probably at the club. She works a double shift on Fridays."

"Thank you very much. You've been a lot of help." Hutch told her with a warm smile.

"I hope you find him. I really liked him. He was a nice guy, ya know?" Angie said sincerely as Hutch and Huggy prepared to leave. She escorted them to the door and watched them until they disappeared down the hall.

Their next stop was the club where Starsky had been employed as a dishwasher. Since it was still early in the day, the place was empty except for a lone bartender and a single customer sitting at the end of the bar. A woman was on the tiny stage dancing to a slow number. She was obviously rehearsing for an evening performance since she was casually dressed in blue jeans, sneakers and a off the shoulder blouse. Her long ginger colored hair was pulled back from her face and tied with a ribbon. Since she appeared to be the only woman in the place at the moment, Hutch assumed that she was Shelly Porter.

Walking up to the edge of the stage, Hutch caught the dancer's eye and smiled. She smiled back, obviously pleased, and stopped dancing. She bent down to turn off the radio, giving Hutch a clear view of her ample cleavage. Ignoring Huggy, she focused her attention on Hutch.

"Well, hello there, handsome." She said "You looking for some company?"

"Depends. Are you Shelly?" Hutch asked

"You bet I am, Blondie. What can I do for you?" she cooed suggestively.

"I'm looking for Rick Marlowe." Hutch told her, using the alias Starsky had been using. "He's a friend of mine."

"Sorry. Haven't seen him for a couple of days." Angie said, eyeing Hutch and Huggy suspiciously. "Maybe he decided to split."

"I don't think so. His stuff is all still in his room." Hutch said "And there are some things there he wouldn't leave without taking."

Shelly jumped down from the stage and looked at Hutch with a guarded expression in her eyes that instantly made him take notice. His cop instincts, rusty as they were, told him that she was hiding something. She knew more then she was telling him.

"Sorry, I can't help you." Shelly said, starting to walk away. Hutch's hand shot out and grabbed her wrist tightly. She gasped and looked at him in surprise, a hint of fear creeping into her eyes.

"Now, you listen to me, lady, and you listen good," Hutch said, lowering his voice so that nobody else could hear him but the woman and Huggy. "I think you know what happened to my friend…so we're going to go somewhere quiet and have a little conversation."

"What if I don't wanna go?" Shelly challenged him with a hint of defiance.

Hutch tightened his grip on her wrist enough to make her wince at the pain as his fingertips pressed against a particularly sensitive pressure point. With a thin smile that never quite reached his eyes, he said, "Then I'm sure my friend here," he nodded at Huggy "Will be happy to convince you that it would be in your best interest to cooperate with us."

Huggy glared at the woman, doing his best to look the part of a bad ass heavy.

He smiled from the teeth out and said, "Sure will. Just ask my ladies back home how ole Huggy keeps them in line." He intertwined his fingers and crackled his knuckles for effect.

"I don't know anything. I swear." Shelly said, still defiant but not as confident as she had been a few minutes ago.

Hutch tightened his grip enough to make her cry out in pain as he twisted her wrist slightly. His voice turned cold and deadly, his street voice, as he said, "Look, I'm tired and I'm in no mood to fuck around. Now, unless you want us to drag you outside to get some answers out of you, you better start talking."

Shelly looked nervously from Hutch's face to Huggy's cold stare. She hesitated for a moment and then whimpered, "They'll kill me if they find out I talked to you."

"Who will?" Hutch demanded "Gunther?"

At the mention of Gunther's name, Shelly's face turned pale and the terror in her eyes was even more evident. Ignoring the pain, she tried to pull her wrist away from Hutch's iron grip. "Let me go, please!" she pleaded "He'll kill me if I tell you anything!"

"Tell me, please…" Hutch said softening his voice. "You know they're going to kill him…tell me before it's too late. I'll help you, I swear. I'll make sure that he doesn't hurt you."

Shelly considered his offer for a moment and then nodded her head. "Not here." She said "There's a room in the back where we can talk in private."

Hutch nodded in agreement and loosened his grip on her wrist but didn't let her go. She turned and led the way through a curtain into the back of the club and down a dimly lit hallway to a room that was obviously used by the staff members when they took their breaks. Closing the door behind them, Shelly locked it securely and then turned to look at Hutch and Huggy Bear. In a resigned voice, she said,

"Mr. Gunther put the word out a couple of months ago, offering to pay anyone who could tell him where to find your friend ten thousand dollars. No questions asked. I heard about the offer but never thought I'd ever be able to collect. Then your friend just showed up at the rooming house a couple of weeks ago and I couldn't believe it. I mean, I really needed the money. I mean who couldn't use ten thousand dollars."

"So you turned him in. Ratted him out to Gunther." Hutch said moving in close and crowding her personal space. "Did it ever cross your mind that once you did that he was a dead man?"

"I didn't think about that." Shelly said, backing up until her back was against the wall. "I didn't want to know what they were going to do to him."

"Where is he?" Hutch growled, placing one hand on the wall on either side of her head and pinning her against the wall with his body.

"I don't know where they took him!" Shelly insisted in a frightened voice. "I don't!"

"How did you get in touch with Gunther?" Huggy asked, taking a step closer to the woman himself.

"Through Louie Martell. He works for the local syndicate here in Miami." She said "He owns half of this club." Her face flushed nervously as she added, "I've done him some favors a few times…when he had a friend from out of town that needed some company."

"Was Gunther one of those 'friends'?"

"Yes." She admitted "He always gave me a big tip and took me out to a nice dinner."

"Do you have any idea where Martell or Gunther could have taken Starsky? Any place quiet and out of the way where they wouldn't be disturbed…and where nobody would call the cops if they heard any screams?" Hutch demanded in a cold, deadly tone

"Maybe…" Shelly said thoughtfully. "Martell owns an old deserted ranch about twenty miles outside of town. Nobody around for miles. I know he took one of the other girls there one time so he could rough her up a little because she was skimming on the side."

"Tell me how to get there."

Within minutes, Hutch had the directions he needed. He promised to return when he found Starsky and take Shelly to talk to the local police so she could give an official statement and get some protection from the bad guys. Dismissing her from his mind, Hutch hurried out of the bar to continue his search for his missing friend and ex-partner.