Yesterday
By TLR
Plot: Second chances?
::::::::::::::::::::::::::
Huggy's was alive with the noontime crowd when Starsky and Hutch walked in, Hutch trying to snatch a scratch-off lottery ticket from Starsky's hand.
"Let me do it," Hutch said.
"No way. You might be bad luck."
"Well, I bought it."
"Don't worry. If we win, we split it."
"Why would I do that when I'm the one who bought it?"
The two found a couple of empty stools at the bar and sat down, Starsky using a coin to scratch the small card.
Huggy hung up the phone and turned around, offering a smile. "Lunch?"
"Two specials," Hutch said.
Huggy called the order back to a waitress, then turned back to them. "Want to make that three specials?"
"Huh?" Starsky asked.
"One for your brother? Nick's in town, isn't he?"
Starsky and Hutch looked at each other.
"Can't be," Starsky said. "He'd have called."
Huggy shrugged. "Saw him myself leaving a gas station. Said hey but I guess he didn't hear me."
"So," Hutch asked Starsky, "why didn't he call you?"
"Probably wasn't him."
"It was him," Huggy said. "New threads. Slick shoes. Red Corvette. Who knows? Maybe workin' for somebody."
"He'll call," Starsky said as he continued to scratch off his ticket. "Probably just wants to surprise me."
"Yeah," Huggy said. "Well, bring him around and we'll hit the pool tables again."
"Sure thing."
Hutch and Huggy passed a look of concern over Starsky's head.
"We win?" Hutch asked his partner.
"I did," Starsky grinned. "Fifty bucks."
"Good," Huggy said holding his hand out. "Just enough to pay your two tabs."
::
By late that evening, which was Friday night, Starsky dialed Hutch at his place to see if he wanted to ride around and look for Nick, maybe get a milkshake while they were at it, but then remembered that Hutch had a date with Lorissa, a flight attendant.
He thought about calling his ma to see if she could tell him why Nick would be in Bay City without calling him or coming to see him, but thought better of it. Conversations about Nick sometimes upset her, and placed him in the awkward position of having to make excuses that were beginning to sound more like lies.
Instead, he called one of Nick's favorite hotels, Harrington House, to see if he'd taken a room, but he hadn't.
Picking up his keys, he decided to cruise for Nick solo. It was a nice night, and if Starsky came across his brother early enough, they could go for a late dinner and a couple of drinks, or head back to his house to catch up.
He called Huggy and got the name of the gas station he thought he'd seen Nick at, but the attendant didn't remember seeing anyone fitting his description and had no record of a Nick Starsky paying with a check or credit card. He checked the car rentals to see if any had rented a red Corvette to his brother, but there were no records of that either.
As he was leaving the rental office, he saw Hutch's date Lorissa gassing up at the station next door.
"Hey!" he waved at her with a smile and sprinted over. "Where's your blond hunk?"
She offered a shrug. "No idea. We were supposed to go to dinner and a movie tonight. Guess he stood me up. He didn't even call. Thought maybe you guys got called in by your captain or something."
"Nope, but I'm glad I ran into you. If you hear from him, have him call me, would you?"
"Of course. Nice seeing you again, Dave. And when you see him, tell him it's strike two."
"Gotcha," he grinned as he darted back to the Torino.
She finished filling the tank of her car, then paid.
::
Starsky parked behind Hutch's car in front of Venice Place and got out, dashing up the stairs and knocking on the door.
"Hey, Lothario! Open up! I still haven't met up with Nick!"
He waited, but the door remained closed. Then he put his ear to the wood, in case Hutch was entertaining a date inside.
"Yoo-hoo!"
Starsky knocked again.
Maybe he was asleep.
Starsky reached up over the door, took the key down, and used it to let himself in, seeing right away something was wrong. Some of the furniture was in disarray, things knocked over, as if there had been a fight.
High alert, Starsky pulled his gun and moved silently and carefully through the apartment. In the kitchen, the teakettle was still slightly warm. In the bath, he found the shower stall still damp. In the bedroom, he saw clothes on the bed, as if Hutch hadn't had time to change into them for his date with Lorissa. But what seized his heart like a vise was the sight of Hutch's wallet, shield, and holstered gun next to the clothes, as telling as a bloodstain.
Fear starting to creep up his spine, he looked around for red, real bloodstains-saw none.
From Hutch's phone, he called Huggy to see if Hutch had stopped by since lunch-he hadn't-then called Captain Dobey and got him out of bed with a simple but heavy "Hutch is missing."
Accustomed to late-night calls, but rarely ones this personally worrying, Dobey was out of his bed and dressing while his wife Edith made coffee. "Go to your house," the captain told Starsky, "and wait for any phone calls from Hutch. I'll put out an APB and get an officer in front of Hutch's place."
Starsky was not good at standing still or sitting still in a crisis, especially one involving his partner, so he spent his bottled panic pacing around his house, thinking back to the cases they'd been working on the past week, hoping something would come to mind that would explain why Hutch would disappear into thin-
A knock at the door interrupted his thoughts.
"Hutch!" he shouted as he ran to the door.
But it wasn't Hutch; it was Nick.
Nick pushed past him, his cocaine eyes flitting around. "Hey, brother David! Nice to see you too!"
Starsky grabbed Nick's shoulders by way of distressed greeting. "Huggy said he saw you today gassin' up. I've been lookin' for you. Now I'm lookin' for Hutch. Have-"
"Dear old Hutch!" Nick said jerking roughly away from him and strolling around with stoned energy.
Starsky's eyes followed the pacing Nick. "You come here high, Nick? Why would you do that? What are you doing in town, and why didn't you call me, huh?"
Nick looked at him straight on. "You ride me about a little blow? Did you know Hutch was on HEROIN? He's such a...hypocrite! Is that who you want for a partner? A best friend? A BROTHER? You choose that over me?"
Starsky's face went white, voice almost as pale. "How do you know that? Who told you that?"
"The big man himself. Ben Forest."
Starsky grabbed him and shook him, breath coming a little harder. "That's why you're here? That's who you're working for?"
"Yeah. He's putting some guys back together since parole. He likes me. Says he'll take me places. Says he holds nothin' against me for havin' a cop in the family. All I had to do was prove my loyalty."
The one-word question was in Starsky's eyes, in the way he panted. He didn't know if he had the strength to ask it, or hear the answer, but he knew he had to: "How?"
"Take Hutch to him."
Starsky weakened, almost passed out, his hands slipping away from Nick and dropping like weights at his sides. Hutch's trashed apartment. His gun, badge, wallet-no, no, no.
"You?" Starsky murmured without looking up. He reached for the wall; slumped against it. "You did that?"
Nick saw and felt his brother's pain, but continued as if he didn't care, as if he savored it: "So Ben can talk with that junkie partner of yours. Yeah, I'll call him that. He'd call me that and worse. Ben's gonna make it clear to Hutch that he and you have to stay out of his way."
Starsky's head finally lifted, but his words sounded small, wooden, far away. (This must be what it feels like to come undone, to lose your mind). "Ben hooked him to get information. It wasn't Hutch's fault."
"Yeah," Nick laughed. "Right. Is that what the junkie told you?" He took a big roll of cash out and held it up. "Look what Ben paid me. I'm goin' places. I'm somebody."
Pain gave way to rage, and Starsky plowed Nick against the wall, gripping his shirt. "Where is he! Take me to him!"
Nick laughed again. "If I do that, Ben won't keep me on. He'll kill me and you know it."
"If you don't, I'm turning you in. I can't let-"
Nick punched him hard in the face and ran, leaving Starsky lying unconscious on the floor.
::
When Starsky came to, Captain Dobey was smacking his face and Huggy was putting a cold, wet cloth across his forehead. Detectives Simmons and Babcock had been assigned the case and were now milling around his house, collecting as much evidence on Nick as they could.
And, Starsky didn't care.
Dobey and Huggy carefully sat Starsky up on the floor and leaned him back against the sofa, allowing him to get his bearings.
"Forest has been paroled for a month," the captain said to Huggy.
"I know, Captain. My brothers told me."
"Reports are he's been behaving himself until now."
"Right on. But him getting his boys back together don't surprise me none. Him goin' after Hutch again does. As for Nick meetin' up with him..."
"Fluke," Starsky mumbled. "Forest must've salivated at the name Starsky, wants a little payback, and used Nick to do it. He's a sadist, remember? He enjoys this."
"What do you want to do about Nick?" Dobey asked. "Can't go easy on him."
Starsky looked at him as he held his jaw. "I never asked you to. I'm worried about Hutch right now. I gotta get him back."
Dobey nodded. "We have an APB out on all three of them."
Starsky moved to get up, and Huggy and the captain helped him.
"I think you should rest up a little first," Dobey said. "Simmons and Babcock can-"
"Yes," Starsky agreed without a smile, eyes dark with stress. "They can. But I can't just sit here."
Dobey looked at Huggy. "Go with him."
"Come on," Huggy said taking Starsky's arm and pulling him up. "Let's go."
::
Nick was speeding in his red Corvette just on the outskirts of Bay City, heading south, heading for Mexico, when the loud popping sound of a blowout assaulted his ears. He tried to control the car but was going too fast, and overcorrected, swerving to miss a dump truck that was rounding the curve toward him up ahead.
The Corvette rolled over the hill and burst into flames when it hit bottom.
He was able to crawl out and save himself, but he couldn't save the roll of cash that had bounced from his pocket. It burned too.
Both laughing and crying, he lay on his back on the ground and looked up at the sky.
He could still get to Mexico. He would hitchhike if he had to.
These were his last thoughts before he passed out.
::
Starsky hadn't slept all night, and neither had Huggy. They drove the streets, talked to anyone they could think of who might know where Ben Forest was operating from. It certainly wouldn't be the upscale place he'd taken Jeanie to. Not yet. Micky the snitch hadn't heard anything either.
Outside Micky's favorite diner, Huggy turned to Starsky. "What now? We talked to everybody. They're afraid, or paid, I don't know."
"He's somewhere. He didn't just drop off the face of the earth."
"Man, you okay? You don't look so hot."
"Fine," Starsky said. "I just hope Forest doesn't..." He took a swing at the brick wall, but Huggy caught his fist in mid-air.
"Be cool," Huggy said. "Let's keep lookin' and askin'."
::
When Nick came to with a groan, still on his back, he didn't quite understand or remember what had transpired the last couple of coke-fueled days. Memories returned in snippets: He'd needed a steady job. An impressive Ben Forest needed a steady footman. And a fat roll of hundreds plus a Corvette was payment to bring Hutch to him for a "friendly little discussion", as Forest put it.
Yes, it was David's partner. Yes, it was David's best friend. That's why Nick had to coke himself into oblivion to carry it out. He had to. As opportunistic and jealous as he was, he couldn't do it with a clean head. Now it all seemed like an insane streak of impulsivity, greed, money, status-it mutilated his judgment.
Now he was lying on the ground remembering, of all things, when he and his brother were little, living back home together, before their pop passed. They would go swimming in the city pool in the summer to cool off, and after, when they returned home, David would push him on the backyard swing, and he would go so high, as high as the treetops it seemed, both he and the trees reaching to the sky. David was his brother then, and he was David's. There was no Hutch. Life was good. It felt warm, and safe, like it would be that way forever. But then their pop died and it all went away.
Whether Nick made it to Mexico or not made no difference. The damage had been done. David would hate him for the rest of his life for his moment of weakness, for what he had done to Hutch, which by definition he had done to his brother.
Would there ever be room for forgiveness? Was there such a thing as second chances?
Nick forced himself to roll over onto his side. The fire in the Corvette had gone out hours ago. He pushed himself to his feet, steadied himself, straightened his ash-covered, disheveled clothing, and began to climb the embankment toward the highway.
There was no way to save what he and his brother once had together, reclaim what they lost, but maybe there was still time to save Hutch.
::
Night.
Simmons and Babcock were still leading the investigation into Hutch's disappearance, which included finding Nick Starsky and Ben Forest. Dobey was still pushing things as hard as he could.
Huggy had to talk to a few possible tips at his place, leaving Starsky parked outside the bar, sitting dazedly behind the wheel of the Torino.
Starsky needed sleep, but insomnia forbid it. He would wait. He would hunt. Maybe it would be tonight. Or tomorrow. Or the next day. But he would find Hutch, somehow.
He was about to start the engine and drive the blocks again, talk to whoever he saw on the street, but the palms of two smudged hands landing flat on the driver's side window startled him so badly he pulled his gun.
"David..."
It was Nick, looking scuffed and ragged in his smoke-stained clothes.
Starsky shoved his door open and grabbed him by the shirt, eyes hard glass. "I want to kill you."
No longer high, but now red-eyed and hollow, Nick said hoarsely, "I'll take you to where Ben is keeping him."
"Get in the car."
Nick was barely in the passenger seat when Starsky gunned the Torino down the street.
On the way, the dispatcher patched a call through from Captain Dobey on the police radio:
"Starsky. I don't know how to tell you this. Huggy heard Ben Forest burned a cop."
Nick gave Starsky Ben Forest's location, and Starsky relayed it to Dobey, then Starsky surged the Torino in that direction, dodging in and out of traffic, a look of pale devastation on his face, trying to keep himself sane.
"Hutch," he whispered, believing that if he kept saying his name over and over, it would keep him alive, it wouldn't be real.
It was the most un-Forest-like location imaginable: An abandoned paint factory in an area surrounded by a decaying wooden fence.
The Torino skidded to a dusty halt in the big lot-"Nick, stay put"-Starsky spilling out and crouching behind a dumpster.
Starsky advanced toward the front door of the building, but Nick didn't stay put. He followed several feet behind.
Nick didn't see that there was a rifle sticking out of an upper window, or that Forest was the one aiming it, but Starsky did-"Drop it, Ben!"-and fired. But instead of Forest shooting at Starsky, he shot Nick, making good on his earlier ultimatum.
"Nick!" Starsky yelled, and shot back, Forest dropping dead from the high window and onto the ground.
Starsky ran over to where Nick lay, sliding onto his knee in the dirt next to him, pressing his hand into the bloody bullet wound in his heart and pulling him up into his arms.
"Nick," Starsky sobbed. "Don't die. I can't lose both of you."
Nick's dry, colorless lips opened to speak, his words a whisper between labored gasps. "I'm sorry, David. I'm a losing man. But I always loved you. Maybe we...grew up too fast. Too different. But...no more running. Tell ma I'm sorry. I'm free now."
"No," Starsky whispered. "Stay here."
Nick lay pale and silent. Strangely, no look or sound of pain. An odd look of peace.
He was gone.
Starsky carefully lowered Nick to the ground, then looked around for Hutch, but there was no Hutch. No hope, no rescue. Not even sirens in the distance. Somehow he had to find a new way to live, a new way to breathe, because a world without Hutch was a dark world without happiness or meaning. He turned back to look at Nick one last time, one final goodbye, unable to feel, at first, the hand on his shoulder, or hear the voice speaking softly in his ear.
"Starsk?"
Almost afraid to move, breathe, or feel, Starsky turned and grabbed Hutch in a joyous, tearful hug.
"Hutch! You're alive!"
Hutch squeezed him tight as he pulled him to his feet.
"I'm so sorry about Nick, Starsk. I'm okay. Ben used me for target practice, but he didn't shoot me. I got out of the ropes. He didn't hurt me. I'm all right."
Starsky had no words. He just nodded and clung desperately to his partner.
The End
::
Poem: I Remember, I Remember
by Thomas Hood, 1844
I remember, I remember,
The house where I was born,
The little window where the sun
Came peeping in at morn;
He never came a wink too soon,
Nor brought too long a day,
But now, I often wish the night
Had borne my breath away!
I remember, I remember,
The roses, red and white,
The vi'lets, and the lily-cups,
Those flowers made of light!
The lilacs where the robin built,
And where my brother set
The laburnum on his birthday,—
The tree is living yet!
I remember, I remember,
Where I was used to swing,
And thought the air must rush as fresh
To swallows on the wing;
My spirit flew in feathers then,
That is so heavy now,
And summer pools could hardly cool
The fever on my brow!
I remember, I remember,
The fir trees dark and high;
I used to think their slender tops
Were close against the sky:
It was a childish ignorance,
But now 'tis little joy
To know I'm farther off from heav'n
Than when I was a boy.