Mutant Plant

Plants can be other than what they seem.

Now listen, I like Hutch’s jungle okay-I mean, some of those leafy things are kinda nice. They don’t bitch or whine or carry on about being taken somewhere nice for once. They never complain about their living conditions or being left alone for a couple of days. All they ask for is some water on a somewhat regular basis and a little food every few weeks. That’s not much, and they’re sure as hell less trouble than anything else living in your house. I personally don’t see the fascination, but if they make Hutch feel good, I don’t see the problem-most of the time. But once in a while…I don’t know how to phrase this, but there’s a couple or three that sort of spook me.

Now don’t get me wrong, I don’t mean they sneak up behind me and go BOO! or anything like that. They just seem to, uh, you know, kind of recognize me…and look at me…and creep me out. Plants aren’t supposed to do that, you know. They’re supposed to sit in their little pots and look green or whatever, bring a little bit of the outdoors in. Which is okay and what most of Hutch’s plants do most of the time. These ones I’m talkin’ about aren’t quite like that. Oh, they look enough like regular plants-they’re mostly green, have leaves or sort of, and seem to thrive here. I mean, if they’re aliens (not entirely impossible), they’ve managed to conceal themselves quite well. Hutch sure isn’t suspicious of them-obviously he thinks they’re ordinary plants, that need a bit of unusual food from time to time-he never sees them look at me as if they know me, never hears the little noises of interest they make when I walk close.

I was kinda suspicious from the beginning; it’s not as if all this came as a surprise. What was I supposed to think about plants that had zebra striped leaves and ‘slept’ all day. They’d cross their leaves like little hands and lean their heads-I guess it was really their seed pods, or whatever that’s called-and stay that way till the sun goes down. Then they’d stretch (no kidding) and lift their heads and take an interest in whatever was going on. So, you know, most of the time I was at Hutch’s was at night-their active time-so I guess I noticed them more than I usually would have. I mean, Hutch usually sees them in the morning when they’re sleeping, so he doesn’t really see them in all their nightly glory, because he’s not really interested in plants that time of the day.

I have to admit, I go days at a time never seeing the little suckers, but they’re always in the back of my mind, and they don’t have to do much to remind me of their presence. Like the other night, for instance. It was probably about midnight, a little after, maybe, and I was wandering around the apartment ’cause I couldn’t sleep. You know how it is-bed’s too hard, pillow feels like a lump of cement under your head, and the covers are too hot, except you’re freezing when you throw them off. Of course, Hutch was sleeping like an alligator, you know, a lumpy log. I finally pulled on some sweats and went out on the enclosed porch. I usually don’t like it much out there ’cause of the plant smell, all earthy and…green-sort of like the great outdoors, another of my unfavorite places.

Anyway, like I said, I was on the porch that Hutch sort of uses as a greenhouse, when I remembered those freaky plants. Sure enough, as soon as I looked, one of them stretched out a leaf toward me and murmured something. I couldn’t tell you what it said, but the fact that it said anything freaked me out. How many plants do you know that talk to you? Let’s just say I screamed like a little girl, jumped a good three feet in the air and at least that many back, collided with a post and fell on my ass. Jesus Christ! I was still tryin’ to catch my breath and get farther away from that too-friendly plant, when the door to the porch was slammed open and Hutch came barreling through.

“What’s wrong? What happened?”

He kept looking back and forth between me and his plants, probably not sure who he should be concerned about. Hutch all fired up and in the nude was an awesome sight, and I did appreciate it, but I was too rattled to tell him so.

“Th…that plant t…talked to me!” I managed to stutter out. Hutch is the stutterer of this duo, but I gave him a run for his money.

“What? The plant…? Goddamnit, Starsky! You scared the shit out of me for a stupid joke? Get up from there and come back to bed, or better yet, just stay there tonight.”

He left as abruptly as he’d arrived-abruptly. Not only did he yell at me louder than usual, but he didn’t believe me, either. I waited a few moments, hoping Hutch would come back and help me figure out what the hell was going on. He didn’t, of course. Hutch is one of those ‘show me’ types; doesn’t believe anything he doesn’t witness himself, and even then, would believe anything weird that happened was just a trick of his mind, or mine, more like it. Guess a plant talking to me would be just as unbelievable as a plant reaching out to me-I hadn’t told him that part.

What was I supposed to do now? No way was I going back to bed-I was gonna keep my eye on the little sucker and his friends. You’ve got to understand that the plants were pretty small and I thought I could probably take them, but I didn’t trust the sneaky fuckers. I managed to regain my feet, but I kept them under strict surveillance, almost afraid to blink in case they changed into something else. I’d seen movies where mutant plants were the bad guys, and I wasn’t taking any chances. I mean, I wasn’t the only one in danger here-if I were a hungry plant, Hutch’s the one I’d go for. So you could say I was protecting him.

Of course, now that I needed to stay awake to watch the plants, I got sleepy. I kept waking myself up with little pinches and a few jumping jacks, but I lost that battle, waking up about six when the sun pried my eyelids apart with bothersome little fingers of light. My fuzzy waking mind only lasted a little while-I remembered the plants and stared hard at the shelf where they sat…only…the shelf was empty! Hutch! I ran for the bedroom, skidding to a stop when I got there-the bed was also empty!

“Huuutch!!” I bellowed, repeating myself again and again. I was supposed to be watching out for him, not falling asleep. Turning in place a couple of times, panicking like crazy, I ran into the living room, looking everywhere for some clue as to what had happened to Hutch. Then I heard the shower running, and almost collapsed with relief. “Hutch,” I sighed, throwing open the bathroom door. I leaned against the doorjamb, closing my eyes, trying to get my breathing under control, and just stayed there.

He jumped when he saw me there as he pulled the shower curtain back. After searching my face for a moment, he grabbed a towel and stepped out of the tub, drying himself. He still looked edible, but I had other things on my mind.

“Did you sleep all right?” I asked as casually as I could.

“What do you think?” He shot me a none-too-friendly look and took his shaving stuff out of the medicine cupboard and set to work lathering his face and changing the blade in his razor.

“Still mad?” I asked, remembering the way he’d stormed in and out of the porch/greenhouse last night.

“Nah, I was just tired and sleepy.” He reached out and ruffled my hair. “You really didn’t have to stay out there, you know.”

“Well, yeah, I did. I had to keep an eye on those plants-”

“Knock it off, Starsk. A joke’s a joke, but that’s enough.”

“But, Hutch, they really did talk, or sort of, and they moved their leaves, too.”

He turned at that and gave me one of his looks and raised a finger. But I didn’t care; I knew what I’d seen and heard.

“Starsky….”

“Look, I know it sounds crazy, but it happened, and this morning they’re gone-just disappeared. So, where did they go? Out for a morning stroll? I tell you, there’s somethin’ spooky about those plants, and they look funny, too.”

Hutch sighed and looked pained. I know he wanted for me just to shut up, but he needed to take this seriously, right now. I didn’t know where those plants had got to, and I didn’t know what they had planned, but I was certain it was going to be something not-so-good for us.

“Starsky, I know plants aren’t your thing, but why are you telling this ridiculous story about them talking and moving- What do you mean they’re gone?”

He looked a little surprised, like he’d just now taken in the meaning of what I’d said.

“Gone, as in not there, nor anywhere else I can see. Come look for yourself.”

One good thing about Hutch, he always wants to verify what is told to him. He wiped the unused shaving cream off his face, wrapped a towel around his waist, and strode out of the bathroom toward the little greenhouse/porch. He started speaking to me before he even opened the door. I ignored his condescending words and pushed in front of him. With a ‘tah-dah’ gesture, I indicated the vacant spots where the weird plants had been. “See? Nothin’. You’ve got to admit that’s strange.”

He looked around the entire porch, under every table and seat and behind all the other plants. I could of told him he was wasting his time; I’d already done that-more than once, but Hutch had to do it himself, ’cause I might of missed something-as if.

He finally stood absolutely still, and shifted his head around to stare at me. “You know, if this is some elaborate joke of yours, I will kill you.”

“Yeah, I know,” I sighed and sank down on a bench. “So why would I tell you this?”

Hutch looked as if he was going to tell me why, but he must’ve changed his mind, ’cause he closed his mouth and stayed quiet, looking around again.

“Well, if they’re gone you don’t have to worry about them,” he finally said, going back inside to finish getting ready for work. But I saw that he gave a cursory glance to the kitchen and living room as he passed. It sort of helped that my skeptic was a little on edge, too.

***^^^***

Most of the time I really like being a cop. It’s seldom boring or the same from one day to the next. Oh, I’ll admit that stakeouts are sort of mind numbing and the petty hoods get on my nerves with their total lack of creativity in the things they get up to, but for the most part I like being a cop. Solving the puzzles is the best; figuring out who did what to whom for what reason. And Hutch and me are pretty good at solving those puzzles, even though, or maybe because we see things from a different point of view. He works through things methodically, spotting the things that don’t fit; I see connections in weird things.

But today I was making no connections, concentrating instead on the scary plants at Hutch’s house-or the lack thereof. What in the world were they? How had they managed to disappear like that-and take the pots with them? I kept buzzing round and round these questions while we patrolled our beat. I hope Hutch was paying attention to the street, ’cause I sure as hell wasn’t.

It felt like the day lasted about forty-eight hours, but we finally logged out and went to Huggy’s to eat. I should’ve been starving, but I’d lost my appetite when I’d remembered we had to go back to Venice Place for the night. See, there was no way I was gonna let Hutch go back there alone, and the only sure way to guarantee that was to start out there in the first place. That way he couldn’t slip out in the middle of the night to go home for whatever. But the thought of going back there wasn’t exactly what I needed to make me hungry. I guess I looked a bit weird, ’cause when Huggy brought our beers, he gave me a once over and shook his head.

“You’re not lookin’ too hot, my man. You comin’ down with somethin’? Not catchin’ is it?”

Hutch thought he was being cute when he smirked and answered for me. “Nope, Huggy, just a bit of plant phobia. Some of them are pretty scary, you know.”

Huggy looked a bit puzzled, but the place was too busy for him to worry about it. He hurried off to grab an order for another table.

“It’s not funny. You don’t know what those plants are. Where’d you get them, anyway?” Now, there was a pertinent question. I sipped nervously at my beer, waiting for Hutch’s answer.

“Well, I guess that depends on which plants you’re talking about, buddy.”

“What d’ya mean, which plants? I showed them to you last night-the ones that were talkin’ to me.”

You can understand why this was upsetting to me-surely he knew which plants! They don’t look like anything else.

“I just saw plants; I don’t remember which ones.”

“How could you not remember?” I almost yelled at him.

“Starsky, will you lower your voice? Geez, you want everyone to know you think we’re being invaded by mutant plants?”

Did I ever tell you how annoying Hutch can be? He thinks he’s being ‘logical’, you know? But he’s really just finding a way to deny what’s happening. He didn’t want to think mutant plants were possible, so they were just something I believed in. Well, he wasn’t going to get away with that, not this time. No way. “They were green and purple with white stripes. Those plants. Remember them, now? Huh?” I made sure my voice was a whisper. I could tell by the look on his face that he did remember, and wasn’t too happy about it. I sat back and would have gloated, but this whole situation was too scary to waste time gloating. I mean, this could be the start of a world wide disaster.

Hutch stood up abruptly and pulled out his wallet, throwing a couple of bucks on the table, grabbed me by the arm, and marched us out to the car. “Let’s go find ’em,” he said with focus and determination. “No plants of mine are gonna take over the world.”

***^^***

The back fire escape at Hutch’s was cluttered with assorted pots and plants, but none of them were the right size or the right plants. He couldn’t stop looking under and behind them, as if the plants were suddenly going to appear. With a little prodding, he remembered that the plants were bought at a little florist shop somewhere downtown-you know, Skid Row.

In fact, the shop turned out to be Mushnik’s Skid Row Florist Shop. Don’t ask me why blondie stopped there to buy plants-he just did, okay? Anyway, he had bought three odd looking plants that were supposed to grow up and look like the gigantic plant in the window. Of course, the plant in the window was gone by the time we got there-eight at night-and so was the florist. With no probable cause, we couldn’t just bust in, tempted though we might be.

“That was a humongous plant, Starsk. You should’ve seen it-it was something else.” Hutch sounded a bit awe struck. “The little ones I bought sort of looked like small versions of that one.”

“You think the big one’s with them? Do you?” Now, that I found frightening. Not only were our little friends out there, but their big brother was showing them the ropes. What were we supposed to do? I was about to break in anyway, when this weird little guy wearing a knit cap came running up, breathing too hard to talk. All he could do was wave a hand in the air and make these little squeaky sounds. He reminded me of the plants, for some reason.

“How long…have you been…here?” he managed to get out through the wheezes.

“About five minutes,” Hutch told him, looked at me and pantomimed ‘He’s the guy.’

“Did you see…anything strange? A huge plant hanging around?” He looked back and forth between us, a very worried expression on his face.

So, the big guy was missing. “Actually, we had a few questions to ask you-” I started, but Hutch interrupted.

“Remember me? I bought three little plants like the big one from you-”

“Oh, God, they’re gone, too, aren’t they?” The poor guy grabbed his head and started pulling on his hair. “I knew it. I knew it. What am I going to do? I should never have let Audrey II talk me into this! No. No. No. I knew better; I did! But I had to listen to him and feed him. Now, look at the mess I’m in. What am I going to do? And ma worried I’d never meet a nice girl. What’s she going to say when I end up in prison?”

Hutch and I stood back and watched the guy pace, his words dropping into an incoherent mutter, but I’m pretty sure they were along the same lines as the ones we had heard. “Now what?” I asked Hutch, but his only answer was a shrug. Big help that was.

I reached out and snagged the guy’s arm, pulling him to a stop. I tried to get him to look me in the face, but I had to be satisfied that he was standing still. “When did you last see the plant? Where was it?” He just looked at me blankly. “We- What’s your name?” Guess I needed to start there. I shook him a little when he just kept opening and closing his mouth and making no sound.

“Seymour Krelboyne,” he finally said.

“Well, Seymour, we need you to talk to us…us, me and him.” I gestured at Hutch who was hovering close. “If we’re gonna find these…these…flora, we need to know where they might possibly be. You understand?” I took his nod for agreement and patted him on the shoulder. “Good. Now let’s start over. You had a big plant and sold Hutch three little babies like it.”

“Cuttings,” Hutch said.

He always has to use the right word. Babies, cuttings, what difference did it make? “Cuttings. When did you notice the big guy was gone?”

“Today, this afternoon. I’ve been looking for him everywhere, for hours. He’s gone, gone, just gone.”

“Seymour, Seymour!” a girl’s voice cut through the deserted street. Heels clattering, red coat flying, she ran up and dragged the guy away from me and threw her arms around him. “Oh, Seymour, I’ve been so worried. Are you okay?” She looked at me and Hutch with fire in her eyes. “You’d better not have hurt him!”

I quickly shook my head and stepped back a bit. I think Hutch tried to hide behind me. “Uh, no. We just want to help…to uh…find some missing plants.”

“Oh, that awful plant!” she wailed. “We should have thrown it out weeks ago. It…it’s a monster!” Her eyes were as big as saucers, and it was easy to believe she knew what she was talking about. “You didn’t find it, did you, Seymour. I think we’d better call the police.”

“But, Audrey-” Seymour began, but was cut off by the girl’s sad shake of the head.

“No, Seymour, enough is enough. We’re good people. I’ll go in the shop and call.”

As she turned away, Seymour caught her arm. “No, Audrey, I’ll call. After all, I’m the one who brought Audrey II into the shop.”

“Oh, my wonderful Seymour, I do love you so!” Tears slipped down her face.

This little emotional scene wasn’t finding the plants. Time to break it up. I cleared my throat, but it was Hutch who said, “We’re policemen. Consider your call taken.” They both looked at us as if we’d just appeared out of thin air.

“Police? I guess you’ll be arresting us, then. Come along, Seymour,” the girl said, holding up her hands.

“We really just want to find the plants before it’s too late. Do you have any idea where they might have gone?”

“But what about Dr. Farb? He is dead.”

“That was all me. Audrey had nothing to do with it,” Seymour admitted.

“We don’t know any Dr. Farb, but you can tell us about him, later.” I didn’t want them to get sidetracked by odd confessions. “The plants? Where did the big one come from? Could he have gone back to wherever that is?”

“No, no, I crossbred him,” Seymour said. “He started out tiny, but….”

“But what?” Hutch jumped in. “What did you give it to make it grow so big?”

I could see that fanatic light in Hutch’s eyes that only appears when he’s discussing plants and their care and feeding. Maybe it’s something florists see a lot of, ’cause Seymour and Audrey looked really scared. “Never mind,” I put in quickly, nudging Hutch with my elbow. “Just tell us where to start looking.”

“I’ve already looked everywhere-Audrey II has disappeared into the city. I don’t know where he is!”

Seymour shook his head and looked ready to cry or throw himself off the nearest roof.

“Hold it together, Seymour. He has to be somewhere. Now, think.”

Seymour just kept shaking his head. Hutch walked over and took one of Audrey’s hands between his. I know that maneuver of his-look into my eyes, see my smile, feel my touch, relax and tell me what I want to know. He spoke really softly, so I couldn’t hear what he said, but I’d have told him anything if it’d been me. Sigh. I turned to face away, keeping the distraction at a minimum. “Listen, Seymour, you and your girl need our help. I take it the big guy hasn’t been behaving himself, and you sold three of his little pieces to Hutch without telling him what they’d become. That’s a bit dishonest, you know? But I’m sure he’ll be willing to let that slide if you make an effort to help us locate the plants now. So why don’t you and Audrey get in the back of my car and we’ll take a look for them. Okay?”

Poor guy, he was really rattled, but he nodded and let me guide him over to the car. I opened the door and helped him get in, then turned and signaled to Hutch to bring Audrey and come on. She was nodding at something Hutch said and didn’t argue when he walked her to the other side of the car and helped her in to sit beside Seymour. You could tell he felt better with his girl there.

I’d have felt a lot better if we knew where the damn plants were. I mean, how far could they have got with pots attached and no legs? I turned to look at Hutch when he sat down. “Any ideas?”

He shrugged and said, “Audrey said we could try Dr. Farb’s office. Dentistry-or at least dentists-seem to interest it. The office is two blocks over on Los Angeles Street.”

I started the car and pulled away from the curb.

A low voiced conversation had broken out in the back seat. Seymour sounded kind of frantic, but Audrey was trying to calm him.

“Is this the same Dr. Farb who’s dead?” The backseat occupants fell very quiet, so I guessed it was.

“I take it Audrey II ate him,” Hutch said quietly.

“Oh, great! Now we have a murdering plant on our hands. What are we gonna tell Dobey, huh?” I slammed my hand against the steering wheel, feeling my whole arm go numb for a minute. “Ow.” Then a cold chill ran down my spine. “You mean those of yours really could’ve attacked us last night?”

Hutch just shrugged again and gave my shoulder a reassuring couple of pats, then added, “They’re probably too small yet to do much damage.”

That made me feel so much better-just nibbles instead of bites. “Where’d they come from? I’ve never heard of man-eating plants except in the movies. I’m never sleeping at your house again, and you can take back all those plants you’ve infested my place with. Yuck!” I shuddered from head to toe, as we pulled to the curb at the building Hutch pointed out.

Hutch told the two in the back to stay put. He walked over and pulled open the street door and ushered me in. We both pulled our guns and went up the stairs slowly and quietly-for all the good it did. The hallway at the top of the stairs was a wreck; leaves and stems were scattered everywhere with streaks of dirt smeared on every surface, the door to the office was shattered, the waiting room was a shambles, the glass fronted receptionist desk was broken, file drawers were open and spilling files on the floor.

The door to the examining room had suffered the same treatment as the hall door. We cautiously looked in, but nothing was there. Strangely enough, the other two doors that we could see were completely untouched. Of course, we couldn’t leave good enough alone-we can’t-so we approached the first door which, when we threw it open, turned out to lead to a closet, bit of a relief and a disappointment. The other door led to another hallway, which had other closed doors. By the time those were cleared-nothing-we heard the piping tones of Audrey and the nasally ones of Seymour.

“What are you doing? I told you to stay put,” Hutch said as they stepped into the inner hallway. Harder souls than they had quailed before that tone, accompanied by the ever present finger.

“You were gone so long, we thought you might be in trouble,” Audrey gulped in fright.

“And what were you going to do about it if we had been?” I asked, a bit sarcastically, I’ll admit. “We’re the ones with the guns.”

“I thought maybe I….” Seymour lost his nerve, and looked down at the floor. I almost expected him to start scuffing his shoes.

“It’s all right,” I said reluctantly. “Even though it looks like it was here, the place is empty now. Got any other ideas?”

“What’s this?” Hutch asked, holding up a piece of paper with a cartoon drawn on it, very neat and specific.

It depicted a large plant with a gaping mouth at the center, devouring a human figure. There was a large, black X across the picture and an arrow drawn to three little plants, looking menacing. “Where’d you find this?” I asked Hutch.

“On the side of the receptionist’s desk. There.” He pointed to a piece of wood propped against the shattered glass.

“You think it was left for us?” I asked. “Maybe our little guys were trying to tell us they took care of the problem. Hey! Maybe they’re plant cops.” I liked that idea.

Hutch looked a bit skeptical, but the more I thought about it, the more it seemed like the logical conclusion. Seymour and Audrey looked hopeful. “Sure,” I said. “That’s got to be it. They got rid of the bad guy.”

“There’s not enough plant mass here to account for the whole thing,” Hutch pointed out.

“So? They took him to plant jail. You got a better idea?” I knew he didn’t, which is why he kept quiet, but he did give me a funny look. I took the drawing and looked at it some more. Yep, that had to be the answer.

***^^^***

You can understand why I’m still not a big fan of green growing things-they belong out where they’re no harm to anyone. Chances are you’ll never meet one like Audrey II, but if you do, don’t under any circumstances feed it, or let anyone, dentist or not, get near it. Hutch sweet talked me into coming back to Venice Place, as you can see. He even talked me into sleeping there again, not that I took too much persuading, as long as he promised not to leave me alone. He doesn’t.