Chapter 6

By 1100 it was already starting to get very hot inside the boxcar and the blood was now mixed with sweat pouring down Hutch's face as he struggled to free himself from the handcuffs. His wrists were raw from the metal that dug into his skin. The more he fought; the more pain he was in. He pulled his feet away from the chair trying to loosen the ropes that held them in place. He wasn't having any luck. He was bleeding from his mouth, nose and a cut over his eye from the beating he took from Ray. He was tired, angry and frustrated. He rubbed his head against his shoulder and finally managed to get the blindfold off. He looked at his surroundings and noticed that he was exactly where he thought he was; locked inside a boxcar and left there to die. Hutch was finally able to get his legs free from the ropes. His shins were bruised and bleeding from the ropes cutting into his flesh but his legs were at least free. Hutch was able to stand up and break the chair as he threw himself against the wall of the boxcar. He fell on the floor when the chair broke and was able to wiggle his feet and hands around so that, although he was still handcuffed, his hands were in front of him. That took just about all the strength Hutch had left. He managed to work the handcuff key out of his left front pocket of his jacket. As soon as the cuffs were off, he took the jacket off. Now all he had to do was find out how to get out of the boxcar and make it back to Starsky before anything happened to him. At least Huggy gave them some useful information. Useful, that is if he could find a way out.

The boxcar Hutch was is was completely empty except for the ropes, handcuffs and the broken chair. Hutch could see outside from a two-inch crack where the doors weren't closed all the way. He tried to squeeze his hand in the crack to lift the bar that had been laid across the two doors. It was no use, his hands were too large. He saw the broken legs of the chair and tried to use one of them to move the bar. It took several tries but Hutch was finally able to move the bar and get the doors open. He was surprised to find out that he was not where he thought he was. He thought he had been taken to one of the boxcars on Railroad Lane, this was the complete opposite end of town. It was also a lot further from help. Hutch picked up his handcuffs, key and jacket and carefully stepped out of the boxcar and started walking. His chest was burning from the broken ribs and he hurt everywhere. He hoped he would find water soon.

Starsky slammed the door shut as he entered the interrogation room. "I'm only going to ask you this once, scum, and I expect an answer."

Ray just looked at Starsky as if he didn't care what he wanted to know. Ray knew Starsky was sent to ask where Hutch was, he also knew Starsky didn't really care about his ex-partner anymore. "And what might that be, Lieutenant?"

Starsky slammed his fist on the table. Ray didn't budge. "I want to know where my partner is."

"Don't you mean your ex-partner and really, just between us," Ray whispered, "do you really even care what happens to Hutchinson?"

Starsky put both hands on the table in front of Ray and leaned in so close the hairs on the back of Ray's hair stood up, "Get this straight, Ray, Hutch was, is and always will be my partner and best friend. Now tell me what you did with him."

"Oh, I see," Ray whispered, "Dopey is on the other side of the glass and you have to make this look good."

"It's Captain Dobey. Try, just try to think of what I'll do to you if you don't tell me what you did with him."

"You ain't gonna do nothin' to me. I did you a favor by getting rid of that ex-partner of yours. You wanna know how I did it? I used him as a punching bag."

Starsky grabbed Ray up by the shirt and slammed him against the wall. Dobey was watching along with a couple of Starsky's men. Starsky gave Dobey a slight wink to let him know that he was still in control. "You tell me where he is or else so help me no one will recognize you when I'm done," Starsky sounded as loud and as angry as he possibly could. He was really worried about Hutch and didn't have time to play nice with this creep.

Ray finally got the message that Starsky wasn't putting on an act. He really cared for Hutchinson after all. He wasn't sure what Starsky would do if he didn't tell him where he'd left his partner; he wasn't sure what he would do once he found out what he did to him. Ray wasn't sure if Hutch was even still alive. "Okay, okay. Let go of me." Starsky jerked him away from the wall and slammed him back into the chair. "He's at the train tracks on Railroad Lane. He's in the third boxcar.

"One more thing, who's your boss?"

"I can't tell you that. He'll kill me!" Ray was shaking as he stared at Starsky.

"What do you think I'll do to you if Hutch doesn't make it? Think about that. You got one minute to answer me." Starsky gave Ray a cold hard stare. He remained quiet, a very eerie kind of quiet that made Ray just about jump out of his skin.

"I don't know who the top man is, but Ricky Blinn is the one who gives me my orders."

"What did he order you to do with Hutch?"

"He told me to make sure," he hesitated.

"Make sure what?"

"He told me to make sure Hutchinson…" Ray mumbled, "He told me to take care of him."

Starsky left the room slamming the door as he left. He ran down the hall so fast his men were having a hard time keeping up. Starsky jumped into the Torino and Blanks got in the passenger side. Starsky looked surprised at him.

"I thought you could some company, Sir."

Starsky smiled at the young officer and said, "I sure could." He put the car in drive and sped off.

What Ray didn't know, was that late last night after he had left Hutch, his boss hooked the boxcar that Hutch was in and moved it across town. If Ray was picked up by the police, he wouldn't know where Hutch was. Starsky managed to stir up a pile of dirt as he stopped the car at the tracks. He got out along with Blanks and ran for the third boxcar. It had a padlock on it. Starsky beat on the door, "Hutch! Hutch! Talk to me. I'm here, Buddy." There was no answer.

Blanks ran back to the car and opened the trunk and started rummaging through it. As the other two cars pulled up, he yelled that they needed bolt cutters. One of the other officers grabbed the bolt cutters from his trunk and ran to where Starsky was desperately trying to get Hutch to answer him. He took the cutters that were handed him and cut the lock and quickly opened the doors. "Oh no," he said sounding like he was about to lose what little self control he had left. The boxcar was empty. He quickly cut the locks on every boxcar there and found no sign of Hutch in any of them. He threw the bolt cutters on the ground and headed back to his car.

As Starsky headed back to the station to have another chat with Ray, Hutch continued walking, dragging his jacket on the ground. His face was dirty with a mixture of sweat, blood and dirt. He was more stumbling than walking. He was very weak and tired and didn't have the energy to go on. He found an empty building and went inside. It was old and dusty but Hutch knew he needed to rest or he wouldn't be able to go on. He found a dark corner and curled up in the fetal position and dozed off.

Starsky got nowhere with Ray. Ray swore he left Hutch in that boxcar. Starsky knew he had to leave the room or he would have lost his cool. He met Captain Dobey in the hallway. Dobey told him Andy Vaughn was still on the loose but Richard had been picked up. Starsky was in no mood to talk to Richard so Dobey had Simmons and Babcock interrogate him. He didn't know anything except he was give a hundred dollars for each bug he planted.

Starsky thought about the trains and asked Blanks to get him some maps of the tracks in town. Miller was sitting as his desk and said, "I'd like to go with Blanks to get the maps, Sir." Starsky nodded. He knew the two had a fight the night before and needed to work it out.

Starsky cleared off one of the tables in the meeting room to make space for the map when Blanks and Miller came back. He carefully unfolded the maps and found the track where Ray said Hutch was left. That track was over fifty miles long and it broke off in several places. Starsky knew Hutch could be anywhere. Starsky rubbed his head with his hands.

"That's a lot of track, Lieutenant. We can start here," Miller pointed to a spot thirty miles away, "and work back toward the city you can start at the beginning and we'll search every train we see. We'll find, Hutchinson."

All of Starsky and Hutch's men had gathered in the meeting room. Blanks and Anderson had called the men that were off duty. They immediately volunteered to join the search for Hutch. Dobey said he could put an additional twenty men on the search, including Simmons and Babcock. He also had the helicopter in the air looking for any signs of Hutch. There were a total of almost fifty officers available to join the search. "Take enough men to search every spot that track branches off. Blanks you're with me. We'll start here." Starsky pointed to the spot where Ray said he left Hutch. They laid out plans for the men to break up into teams so every place the track broke off would be searched.

Starsky and the others searched for hours. It was 0200 when Starsky found the boxcar with the broken chair and ropes in it but here was no sign of Hutch. Starsky had the men concentrate the search in that area.

Hutch was surprised to find it was dark when he woke up. He had no idea he had slept as long as he did. He looked at his watch and it was 0500. He had slept a lot longer than he had intended. He had now gone over twenty-four hours without water or food. Going without food was nothing new for him, but he was dehydrated and needed water soon. He stumbled out of the building. He had been walking about an hour when he saw a car's headlights. He hid behind a building afraid it was Ray coming back for him. As the car past he recognized the back end of Starsky's Torino. He raised his hands and started waving them, "Starsky, don't leave me." He tried to run after it but fell in the middle of the street.

Blanks looked in his side-view mirror and saw someone fall on the ground. "Lieutenant, I thought I saw someone back there."

Starsky didn't waste any time slamming on the breaks so hard smoke filled the air from the rubber burning. There was a loud screeching sound as the car spun around. Starsky stopped just as he saw Hutch lying in the road. "Call for an ambulance," he said to Blanks as he jumped out of the car and ran to Hutch.

Starsky picked Hutch up in his arms, "I got you, Buddy. It's okay, I got ya. You're going to be just fine."

Hutch reached his arms up, "Is that you, Starsk?"

"Yeah, it's me, Hutch."

Blanks knelt down and handed Starsky a bottle of water he had in the car, "I called an ambulance and everyone else knows we found him. How is he?"

"Thanks," Starsky said as he took the water from Blanks and gave some to Hutch. "Not too fast, Hutch, it'll make you sick." Hutch nodded as he drank some of the water.

Starsky looked at Hutch from head-to-toe while they waited for the ambulance. None of his wounds appeared to be life-threatening but he was hurting a lot from the beating and was dehydrated. Starsky expected that Hutch had a couple of broken ribs. Starsky held Hutch tight until the ambulance came. He asked Blanks to bring the Torino to the hospital so he could ride in with Hutch. Blanks felt honored that Starsky asked him. He knew how much Starsky loved that car.

Captain Dobey, Huggy, Simmons, Babcock and several of the officers that were involved in the search were sitting waiting for word on Hutch. Starsky paced until the doctor told him that Hutch was very dehydrated and did have two broken ribs and some other minor cuts and abrasions. He said that Hutch would need to stay at least until tomorrow but he would fully recover. He told Starsky that he could see him in about an hour. Starsky thanked everyone for their help and told them to all go home. "You too, Hug. Go on home I'll call you a little later." Huggy nodded and Starsky patted his arm as he walked by.

"What about you, Starsky? You need to get some rest yourself," Captain Dobey said.

"I'm not going anywhere until I see him, you know that. And I want…"

"I already have a couple of uniforms on the way. Don't worry, he'll be protected."

"I'll go home for a little while after I see Hutch."

The nurse showed Starsky where Hutch's room was and told him he could stay a few minutes. Starsky thanked her and opened the door. He slowly walked over to the bed. "How ya felling, Buddy?"

"I hope I don't look as bad as I feel."

"I hope you don't feel as bad as you look, 'cause you look like hell."

"That's about how I feel. Did you get Ray?"

"We got Ray and Andy was picked up too along with Richard, the janitor. Ray told me it was Ricky Blinn pulling his strings but he doesn't know who's pulling Blinn's."

"Huggy told us Spitzer and Monroe are the two after Big John's area," Hutch said.

"Dobey put an APB out on all of them. Simmons and Babcock are on it," Starsky said.

"Hey, Starsk?"

"Yeah?"

"You be careful. They'll come after you too, especially now that they know we've been making them look like fools. Don't take any chances."

"You know me, Hutch."

"That's exactly what I'm worried about."

Hutch was losing what little energy he had and Starsky knew it. He patted Hutch's shoulder, "Hey, get some rest and I'll check in on you later. You have two uniforms outside your door."

"Dobey's idea?"

"Nope, mine."

Hutch smiled as he drifted off to sleep. Starsky patted his hand, "Sleep, Buddy, sleep." Starsky said softly. He quietly closed the door as he left.