Caught in the Undertow

518

Starsky wins an all-expense trip to Hawaii–should be a vacation in paradise with Hutch, except for the nightmare memories of his tour of duty in Viet Nam.

 

Sequel to The Day the Universe Changed.

---

Spring/summer 1977

For Sergeant David Starsky, landing stateside in Hawaii in 1967 after a tour in Viet Nam wasn’t arriving home. Hell, it wasn’t even part of the fucking continental forty-eight. He’d stood on the tarmac of the base airport feeling like he’d been snatched from one surreal world and transplanted into another, equally as bizarre.

Honolulu sort of looked like Bay City, California, where he’d enlisted. There were palm trees and beaches, but it was too fucking bright. The sun shone relentlessly on an overly cheerful landscape of beaches and vivid flowers. There was no grittiness, no dark recesses to crawl into. He could still smell the rotting vegetation and stupefying heat of Phan Rang; it clung to his nostrils even as he schlepped past a yellow and white Plumeria bush to the VA hospital.

That he had arrived on Yom Kippur, the day of atonement, was not lost on Starsky. A cosmic joke from God himself.

This was his personal atonement–in front of a board of army psychologists sent to judge his failures–of which there were many. He felt his failures deeply ingrained in his soul, like a wound that would never heal.

Ten years later, Starsky still hated Hawaii. He followed Hutch into his hillside house, letting most of the mail, bills, and circulars drop to the floor with a feeling that God had once again played a supreme practical joke. Starsky stared at the official, notarized letter from Ainsley, Thompson, and Duberry:

“Dear David Starsky,

Your name was selected from the thousands of entrees in the “Fantastic Films Fantasy Contest” as the winner of the “From Here to Eternity” Grand Prize. You and a guest will enjoy an all-expense paid flight to Honolulu, Hawaii, to stay at the Honolulu Grand Resort for six days and five nights. Enjoy a complimentary breakfast every morning plus four additional vouchers for world class meals to be used for either lunch or dinner. You also receive a rental car from Avis and a sunset catamaran cruise.”

“But I wanted the motorcycle!” Starsky said aloud, sounding peevish, even to his own ears.

He remembered filling out the contest form. There had been a photo of a bright red Yamaha ‘cycle at the top of the page, and he hadn’t seen anything else. The smaller pictures of a Hawaiian beach scene and whatever were the second and third prizes hadn’t registered in the least. He’d filled out the movie trivia questions eagerly, knowing the answer to who starred with Peter Fonda in Easy Rider without looking it up in a movie facts book. Just because he could, he’d answered the questions for who was in a clench with Deborah Kerr in From Here to Eternity, as well who played Grandpa Joad in The Grapes of Wrath, and which actress had cuddled with the outlaws in Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid.

He’d wanted to win a motorcycle. Something to tear down Pacific Coast Highway late at night above the speed limit to blow the nastiness of his job out of his head. He felt all his failures, piling there in the dark places deep inside–the fetid scent of vegetation coming out of nowhere to wrap around his shoulders.

“How much of this do you want?” Hutch called from Starsky’s kitchen.

“Huh?” He’d almost totally forgotten that Hutch had brought over Chinese to eat before their late-night shift.

“Lemon Chicken or just spring rolls?” Hutch said with exaggerated enunciation, holding up a traditional Chinese food container.

“Both?” Starsky said distractedly. Was it possible to simply refuse the trip to Hawaii? Maybe the prize company would give a cash equivalent instead?

He flipped over the official letter, scanning the small print. In a font so tiny he had to squint were the words ‘vacation package valid for one year, with the exception of Christmas and Easter weeks, and may not be exchanged for cash’.

“What have you got there?” Hutch asked, putting two plates on the table. He’d poured himself a glass of orange juice and took a long drink.

Starsky looked up in time to see Hutch’s Adam’s apple ripple as he swallowed. Shaking his head, Starsky sat down, dropping the prize letter onto Hutch’s placemat.

“I won a trip to Hawaii,” he mumbled around a mouthful of crunchy spring roll.

“That’s great!” Hutch read over the letter quickly. “I’ve never won anything. When are you going?”

“Never.” Starsky shoveled in lemon chicken to avoid having to see Hutch’s confusion.

“You’re not going?” Hutch asked, “to Hawaii?”

So, he’d been wrong; it wasn’t confusion on Hutch’s face, it was astonishment. Starsky lingered too long on the masculine lines of Hutch’s classic features and those indescribable eyes, wondering exactly when he’d allowed himself to stray from being Hutch’s platonic partner to falling in love. Not that he’d ever admit that: it was one of those things they’d agreed on long ago. They were simply partners, nothing more.

“You wanna go?” Starsky felt the cartoon light bulb go on above his head. There was the solution, gift the entire package to Hutch.

“Sure, Hawaii is fantastic!” Hutch said enthusiastically, crunching his spring roll. “The warm water, stunning sunsets. I went there between high school and college, with a bunch of friends.”

“Rich kids’ graduation present?” Starsky asked a tad too sarcastically.

Hutch peered down his nose at him, pointing his half-eaten spring roll instead of his forefinger. “I earned the plane ticket by lifeguarding.”

“I stand corrected,” Starsky retorted.

He chuckled. “You know, when I moved here, I figured one beach on the Pacific Ocean was like another. The water in Hawaii is like bath water, so I waded into the water off Santa Monica on the first day after Van and I arrived in California. Mind you, this was early February.”

Starsky had to laugh. “Froze your balls off?”

Hutch nodded, smirking, and raised his cup to finish the orange juice. “How was I supposed to know the water here is barely sixty degrees?”

“It’s a secret the tourist bureau doesn’t want to get out to the rest of the world,” Starsky said, eating some chicken. It really was good. He glanced at the clock and sighed inwardly. Nearly time to leave for their stake-out. Twelve hours stuck in a drafty apartment watching Buddy T. Moore’s locked front gates on the off chance that the drug kingpin Jasper Vogelson arrived to make a sale.

So far, in more than a week of round-the-clock surveillance by teams of Bay City cops, they hadn’t come any closer to linking the two criminals. They’d gotten evidence on a slew of other cases, but not the one Captain Ryan and Captain Dobey were both salivating over.

“So, which begs the question, why don’t you want to go to Hawaii?” Hutch asked.

“I’m allergic to hibiscus,” Starsky threw over his shoulder, standing up to buckle on his holster. “Come on, Don Ho, we’re going to be late.”

“Tiny bubbles…” Hutch warbled on the way out, leaving the dirty plates and the prize letter behind.

~*~

Naturally, Hutch wouldn’t leave well enough alone. Starsky knew his partner: there was a reason Hutch was one of the best interrogators at Metro. He waited patiently, biding his time until Starsky was dull-witted and sleepy after sitting for six hours and then struck.

“Have you, ever been to Hawaii?” Hutch asked suddenly in the dark apartment.

“Huh?” Nearly asleep, Starsky sat up so quickly he banged his shin on the tripod holding the binoculars. “Fuck!”

“Hurt yourself?” Hutch grabbed at the tripod before the whole assembly toppled over.

“Yes, I just about fucking broke my leg!” Starsky rubbed his calf furiously, trying to come up with an answer to Hutch’s original question that wouldn’t generate even more questions. “Yes,” seemed the simplest response.

He didn’t look at Hutch, training his eyes on the floodlights over Moore’s gates. The lights were so bright he could see a guard looking just as bored as he had been, leaning on his arm in the gatehouse.

“Wait!” Hutch said, smacking Starsky’s arm. “That’s right, when we first met, you’d just been discharged. I think you said you came through Hawaii?”

“Yes.” Starsky clenched his jaw, prepared to resist as long as possible. Hutch was perilously close to a border Starsky did not want him to cross.

“So?” Hutch asked, sounding positively guileless. He peered through the binoculars as if he wasn’t all that interested.

Starsky knew better. “I was there, I came back to California. Honestly, there wasn’t any time to lie on a beach.”

Hutch turned, his blue eyes bright even in the dim light. “Then you didn’t get the full effect of a Hawaiian vacation. Barbecue–a pig roasted right in a pit, hula dancers, swaying palms, long hot days with nothing to do but float in the water and then a sunset cruise on a catamaran…” He sighed, obviously on Oahu in his mind. “C’mon, Starsk, what do you say? We need a vacation.”

“It’s summer in Southern California!” Starsky retorted, although Hutch was amazingly persuasive when he wanted to be. “This is where more’n half the U.S. wants to come–we can have a barbecue under palm trees and then go for a swim off Santa Monica, not far from your place, any time we want.”

“Yeah, and get called into work any time there’s a murder, which is every other day.” Hutch shrugged elaborately, holding up his hands in disgust. “I really don’t understand you. An all-expense vacation to the place the other half of the U. S. dreams about going to, and you’re giving it all up.”

“Listen, could you just drop it?” Starsky was beyond irritated. He grabbed the binoculars off the tripod to barricade himself from Hutch’s pretty blues and stared out across the street. “You take the prize. I’m giving you the whole thing.”

“Really?” Hutch grinned, eyebrows high and excited. A second later those brows dropped, bunching in toward his nose. “You mean without you?”

“You’re the one who wants to go!” Starsky would have shouted in frustration at any other time. There was a car approaching Moore’s gates that looked familiar. His heart sped up. “What’s the license plate of Vogelson’s car?”

Hutch rifled through a pile of papers, coming up with a sheet printed with Vogelson’s particulars. “569–”

“DDR,” Starsky finished, reading the blue and gold plates on the BMW waiting for the guard to open Moore’s gates. “The ball’s in play.” He wanted to rush downstairs and arrest the drug-dealing bastards but he had to bide his time.

Hutch was already on the walkie-talkie calling to the two unmarked cars waiting for his signal. “Vogelson’s car is here, I repeat…”

A black sedan pulled up behind the BMW before Hutch had finished speaking, disgorging two men. Moments later, a siren blared from down the street as local patrols were alerted. Pressing his eye sockets into the binoculars, Starsky waited until he positively identified the two officers from Vice and then turned on his heel, dashing for the door. No more of this sitting around on his duff waiting for something to happen. It was going down now, and he needed to be in the middle of things.

“Starsky!” Hutch yelled.

Starsky barreled down the staircase, shoved through the front door of the ornate apartment building they were using as for the stake-out and charged across the street. The second unmarked had pulled up, the sound of sirens blaring louder as cruisers arrived to block off the street.

Vogelson had gotten the BMW past the gates, but not all the way into the driveway. The hinges on the electronic gates whined ceaselessly, unable to close with a car in the way. With the plainclothes officers closing in, Vogelson and another man erupted from the car, guns blazing.

The officer in the lead was hit immediately. He dropped with a cry Starsky barely heard over the raucous blare of sirens and grating hinges. The floodlights illuminated the chaotic setting like a scene from a Hollywood movie, the downed officer’s blood glistening like thick tomato soup. Around Starsky, the uniforms and plainclothes cops ducked behind cars.

Raising his pistol, Starsky took aim at Vogelson just as a gangster he vaguely recognized–Budgie? Bujold?–pulled off another shot. Several uniformed police scattered to corral the neighbors peering out of their front gardens.

“Put down your weapon!” Starsky shouted. “You are under arrest!”

Both Vogelson and Budgie swung their guns toward him, firing over the top of the BMW’s open doors at the same time.

“Damn you!” Hutch hissed from somewhere behind Starsky.

Focusing tightly on his target, Starsky went inwardly still and exhaled to empty his lungs. Just as he’d been taught in the Army, he filtered out the noise, the odors of gunpowder and exhaust, and squeezed the trigger. Through a hazy mist, Starsky saw Vogelson grab his shoulder, crying out. Starsky grimaced, the pandemonium of cops running, shouting, grabbing their suspects, pounding painfully in his skull. Somehow, it no longer mattered that he arrest Vogelson and his compatriot, not to mention Buddy Moore, who was probably even now trying to escape out the alley behind his home. Good thing Captain Ryan had assigned a team for the backside of the house.

“Starsk?” Hutch asked and there was a strange caution in his voice as if he were scared.

Starsky turned, his feet suddenly uncoordinated, making him stumble. “Wha…?” He’d really like to get back to the squadroom, type up the minimum of a report that he could get away with, and then go to bed. He felt like shit.

“You’re bleeding,” Hutch said succinctly, taking Starsky’s gun from his lax fingers.

“Where?” Starsky reached up to touch his forehead and felt something warm and sticky. In that weird way where a wound hurt only when he was aware of it, his temple throbbed like a son of a bitch.

“Sit down!” Hutch growled, both impatient and concerned. “You need a doctor.”

Taking a deep breath, Starsky ignored him and fingered the edges of the wound. “It’s a graze at best–and I didn’t even feel it!” It hurt, though, a lot. “Can’t we skip the ER?”

He glanced across the street. Vogelson and Budgie-whatever-his-name-was were in cuffs, and there were police at the front door of Moore’s home talking to what appeared to be a terrified older Mexican woman. She probably didn’t speak English.

Hutch stared moodily at him, his eyes shifting rapidly to the arrests happening opposite them, and then back to Starsky. “You know what Dobey would say.”

“Get a doctor’s report–in triplicate.” Starsky groaned, staring at the blood on his fingers. He didn’t want to wipe it on his best broken-in jeans. “And I bet you won’t let me drive, huh?”

Hutch smiled, his eyes gentle and a little sad. “You’d win that one, bucko.” He cupped Starsky’s cheek for a moment. “Get in the car. I’ll rendezvous with Lt. Slate over there and tell him that I’m taking you in to get checked out.”

“Brown-noser,” Starsky said without rancor and started down to the garage under the apartment building where they had parked.

~*~

As Starsky had hoped, the doctor taped a couple of butterfly bandages over the divot on the side of his head. The overworked intern gave him a tetanus shot and the usual spiel about keeping it clean, and sent Starsky on his way. The tetanus shot hurt almost as much as his head wound did.

Hutch had been strangely silent and brooding the entire time. He unlocked Starsky’s front door and waited for him to walk past without a word.

Starsky didn’t have the strength to wonder what was up with Hutch. He collapsed onto the sofa, leaning his head back. He hadn’t gotten any narcotics for the wound, figuring it wasn’t much to write home about, but now he was reconsidering that decision. His whole cranium thudded like a ball on the basketball court floor. He closed his eyes.

“I wouldn’t go without you,” Hutch said very, very softly.

Starsky might not normally have heard him, but with his eyes shut, somehow, Hutch’s voice carried. Or maybe he had been waiting for Hutch to speak.

“What?” Starsky opened his eyes.

Hutch was standing by the table beside the remains of their Chinese dinner, one hand on the prize notification letter. “I guess neither one of us is going to Hawaii,” Hutch said with a shrug. “Because I have no reason to go alone.” He started to rip the paper in half.

“Wait!” Starsky was as surprised as Hutch to hear himself. The last place he wanted to go was Oahu, but inexplicably, his brain began to throw up persuasive arguments on why it wouldn’t be so bad. First off, there was no reason whatsoever to go anywhere near the VA hospital outside of Honolulu. Second, he never had taken a dip in the apparently warmer-than-Southern-California Pacific Ocean. Then there were those hula dancers, pretty dark eyed girls wearing only a grass skirt and coconut shells.

That last one wasn’t really of interest to him. Now Hutch in the sunset, the gilded rays of the sun reflecting on his blond hair–that Starsky would have paid to see. And this trip would be free.

“You’ve changed your mind?” Hutch sat down on the couch next to him, his brow furrowed in confusion.

“Maybe.” Starsky banished all thoughts of anything incendiary, of Viet Cong waiting in the trees as he walked underneath, sodden with rain. That hadn’t been Hawaii, he told himself. That hadn’t been the end of his life. He’d moved on.

“I…” It was Starsky’s turn to shrug. How did he explain anything? “You’re right,” he choked out. “I didn’t really spend any time–at all–to see Honolulu, or the…” He waved his hands aimlessly, trying to conjure up something he wanted to do there–something very different than sitting in a psychiatrist’s office avoiding what he was supposed to talk about. “Take a catamaran ride.”

“Yeah?” Hutch was clearly delighted. He glanced at the bandage on Starsky’s head. “Yeah,” he said gently, as if trying not to spook Starsky. “You’ll see, it’s a magical place.”

“I’ve watched Hawaii Five-0,” Starsky said stiffly. “Honolulu looks like any city with tall buildings, except most of ‘em are on the beach.” Truthfully, he’d only watched McGarrett and Danno a few times, because the opening credits used to clench his belly into a tense knot. He’d almost forgotten that. How the hell was he going to fly into a place that made him want to curl up in a ball and puke?

“Then we can get away from the big city, spend some time up in the mountains, where it’s quiet, primitive.”

“You can.” Starsky snorted, falling back on an old familiar disagreement. “There are probably snakes out there.”

“No snakes in Hawaii.” Hutch rolled his eyes and tapped his finger on the letter. “Look at it this way, it’s a free trip, free food, and a beautiful place–what could go wrong?”

“I really wanted a motorcycle,” Starsky muttered, closing his eyes again. His head throbbed in time with his heart, like angry waves pounding against a storm tossed shore.

~*~

Galvanized by Starsky’s acquiescence, Hutch plowed ahead with the logistics, mailing Starsky’s notarized acceptance back to the prize company so that they could leave on their tropical vacation as soon as possible. He never questioned why Starsky had such reservations about Oahu, even though the answer seemed to be taunting him, tucked in the back of his brain, along with half forgotten law school lectures, and the recipes he’d once tried to get Vanessa to cook in their little kitchen.

Next door to the post office was a bookstore. On an impulse, Hutch ducked inside, scanning the selection. There, towards the back, was a travel section. He made a beeline to the guidebooks, selecting two on Hawaii. One gave a general overview of all the islands, and the second focused on Oahu.

Leaning against the shelves, Hutch flipped through the pages, recalling his own trip as a teen. This one would be different. Not just because of Starsky’s strange reticence for what could be a transformative experience. No, it was their closeness. What Hutch wanted to explore. He wanted Starsky–as a lover. Had always wanted to woo him into having something more than a friendship.

So many years ago, they’d fallen into bed together, drawn not by love but desperation. Starsky, fresh out of ‘Nam. Hutch, unhappy in a difficult marriage.

He froze, staring at a classic picture of Hawaii, all azure sky and waving palms. Could have been Bay City but was not.

The day they’d met; Starsky, fresh out of ‘Nam.

That was the key. Hutch had to find a way to open Starsky’s memories, unpack the trauma that often lurked behind his eyes. Get those fears out in the open so they could deal with the fallout.

Walking to the front of the store, he paused in front of the New In Print display. Featured right in the middle was a retrospective of the Viet Nam war called In Country and Then Out. The chapters were arranged historically, from the precursors of the conflict through the major and minor battles. Although he had protested the war and certainly watched Walter Cronkite’s nightly news reports, Hutch realized he didn’t know much about the actual place or what went on with the soldiers deployed there. Scooping it up, Hutch plunked Hawaii: the Fiftieth State and the book on ‘Nam down on the cash desk.

“I’d love to go to Hawaii,” the salesgirl said. “When’s the trip?”

“In about a month,” Hutch answered, handing over her cash. “I went once before, in ’63.” And now he knew exactly how to start prying Starsky open.

At home, on the top shelf of his closet was a shoebox crammed with snapshots. Riffling through the lot, he dug out old photos of himself in swim trunks beside an impossibly blue sea, posing self-consciously with a surfboard stuck upright in the sand.

~*~

Starsky sucked in a swift breath. He could still remember how radiant Hutch had been the day they met in the first weeks of 1968, as if he were made of sunlight. In comparison, Starsky had felt dirty, consisting mainly of exposed nerve endings. Even touch had hurt.

The Hutch in the photo, circa 1963, was brilliant–all glowing health, shining hair, truly one of the most beautiful people Starsky had ever seen. He had to force himself to find something inane to say to prove he wasn’t a complete and utter fool.

“You were eighteen?” Starsky asked, trying to go for casual. If he’d had any misgivings about their current role reversal: Hutch the enthusiastic one and he the guarded, introspective partner, the photos completely smashed his last wall of resistance.

“Nineteen sixty-three, Starsk, so were you,” Hutch said with a sarcastic lilt. “That was on the beach you see in all the movies, like on Hawaii Five-0, near the hotels.” He flipped through a pile of other photos: two girls with stiff, flipped hairstyles in Gidget style bikinis, nowhere near as revealing as what the beach bunnies wore now. There was a picture of a boy Starsky recognized as a very young Jack Mitchell, Hutch’s old friend who had died not quite a whole year ago. Hutch paused briefly over a snap of he and Jack arm wrestling on a picnic table, mischievous glee glittering in their eyes.

Frowning, Hutch turned the picture down, searching for something else. “There it is!” he said triumphantly.

Green. There was no other word for it. Impossibly green. Trees, growing things, a mountainside out of a fantasy world.

“That’s Diamond Head. It’s peaceful, beautiful–might help you clear your head of some of what’s…” Hutch shrugged, supportive but unwilling to push. “Easy trails, Starsk, not like a ten mile run in the Army.”

Felt like he’d been punched in the belly. Starsky hunched protectively, trying to figure out what he had just heard. “What–?” He shook his head. “How did you know?”

“You never talk about that time, ever.” Hutch looked at him without touching as if he could tell that Starsky needed the armor of distance to keep himself whole. “I remember that day, in the bar–what was it called?”

“Sam’s.” Starsky shivered, memories flooding back. Hutch, his anti-war convictions worn like a badge of honor, his naiveté so pure it had soothed Starsky’s Viet Nam bruised soul. An unlikely coupling, and then a friendship.

The early days had been rocky–Hutch was in law school, Starsky rootless and angry. Hutch’s wife, Vanessa, had not approved of Starsky and forbidden them from meeting in the small Hutchinson cottage. Yet, with all that, they’d forged something deep that transcended their first sexual explosion. Never again, Starsky had vowed. Hutch had been married at the time and Starsky had desperately needed to feel normal, one of the guys. That meant casual hook-ups with girls. Getting a job, and later, starting at the police academy. Passing for a human being.

“You were–” Hutch’s eyes went soft and introspective for a moment, seeing into their past. “Made of jagged edges, skinny. Strung so tight I thought you’d shatter the first time I touched you. Smoking a cig and drinking rye like some of my father’s friends used to at the veteran’s hall. Still half in-country.”

He finally did touch Starsky, just fingertips resting lightly on his forearm, giving Starsky time to adjust. Starsky turned his hand over, sliding his arm until their palms met and he squeezed, holding on tightly. “I think you kept me sane, Hutch.”

“Took me a while to remember,” Hutch said softly, staring down at the beautiful landscape of Diamond Head. “That you’d been in the Veterans’ Hospital in Hawaii–a psych hold?”

There were almost tears in his voice, but Starsky couldn’t handle looking at Hutch right then. He had to breathe very carefully, sure that his skin was absolutely transparent; that Hutch could see into his heart and brain. See the blood coursing through his veins, and the fears, the terrors of Viet Nam laid bare.

“I’ve forced this trip on you and now, it’s two weeks until we leave.” Hutch gave Starsky’s hand a firm clasp and let go, piling the pictures from 1963 into a tidy stack. “We’ve got reservations and plane tickets, but if you don’t want to go, I understand.”

Starsky swallowed, watching Hutch’s long, masculine fingers tapping the small squares into alignment. “I want to go,” he said.

Hutch walked into the kitchen to get beers. It felt so much safer to speak the words into the air with Hutch standing more or less behind him–watching his back. He could hear the clink of the bottles and imagined the first cold burst of hops. “I need to stare down the…” he laughed, short and bitter, “enemy.”

As if an island paradise compared to Viet Cong shooting from the trees.

Tipping his head back to look straight up at Hutch, Starsky accepted the beer bottle. “I want to be…” Wrong word, his mind conjuring up all sorts of overly intimate scenes. “Go with you,” he amended.

“Good,” Hutch said softly, no triumph in his voice, more a sweet hope.

~*~

Starsky walked vigilantly, testing every footfall, eyes straining for nearly invisible tripwires.

It was the dream. Even asleep, he knew that. He was aware of every second of what would unfold, had experienced the events countless times in the last ten years and had absolutely no way to stop or alter the outcome.

He was in full gear; steel helmet shoved down over the hair his platoon sergeant had ordered him to cut, puke-green fatigues with the sleeves rolled back to his elbows in deference to the moist heat. The rucksack on his back was dammit-all, A-one, fucking heavy, and he was further weighed down by the canteens, pistol holster, bayonet, and assorted other crap the Army made him haul around on a daily basis.

He flexed his fingers, palms wet against the stock of his M-1 rifle, and looked around. The four guys behind him stood still, rain dripping ceaselessly on their metal helmets, the sound both ominous and ubiquitous. Starsky couldn’t remember when he hadn’t filtered his thoughts through a drone of rain.

He didn’t see the danger. Didn’t see the enemy. Just felt the oppressive, malevolent presence on all sides. Like a bomb counting down the seconds until detonation. This menace had settled in the day he arrived in country, and ramped up a full notch higher when his platoon relocated in Phan Rang months later. There was no tranquility. In this jungle, it was all nasty shit.

Starsky never saw the barrels of the VC’s guns until the bullets hit.

He would hear the screams of his men, clear and full of terror, for the rest of his life.

~*~

Kicking off the confining sheets, Starsky sat bolt upright, his heart pounding so hard he couldn’t hear the tick of the clock on the nightstand. He had to grab it in a tight grip and hold it up in front of his eyes to read the time. His hand shook, the face on the clock jiggling like something out of a Bugs Bunny cartoon.

Inhaling three times slowly, Starsky focused his eyes. Four a.m. He’d lived without the nightmare, once his constant companion, for as long as six or more months at a time until recently. In the last couple weeks, it had reared its ugly head with such conviction that sleep was a rare commodity. There was no way he was going back to sleep at this rate, and Hutch would be in front of the house in just over two and a half hours to drive him to work anyway.

Tomorrow, they were flying to Oahu for sun, fun, and hula girls.

Starsky smacked his own forehead, admonishing his weaknesses. There was no reason, none whatsoever to fear this. It’s a vacation, you dumb shit.

He hadn’t packed. Hadn’t even thought about it, since he’d been holding the trip at arm’s length for so long. Starsky got resolutely out of bed, showered and dressed without thinking much about what he was doing, trying to organize his brain into one determined to have a great time in Hawaii. Hutch would be there. They’d swim, sleep in the sunbaked sand, and score some chicks at a bar in the evening, plying them with exotic drinks like Blue Hawaiians and Mai-Tais.

Any other thoughts that scrabbled to gain purchase in his brain–Hutch laid bare on clean sheets, his cock begging for Starsky’s hand, and phantoms of long ago psychiatrists probing his intentional amnesia like ham-handed butchers cutting away good meat along with the bad–were all deported to the gulag he’d erected in the dark recesses of his mind.

With renewed purpose, Starsky hauled out his suitcase and piled in jeans, t-shirts, his good corduroy jacket and black knit tie, and a pair of swim trunks. He tucked red socks into his spare pair of Adidas and tossed a handful of other necessities on top. He hadn’t used the condoms in months, not since the snide blond fashion writer back in March. What a disaster that had been: a badly sprained ankle and active bed sports don’t actually mix well. Not to mention that Hutch had invited Paco over while Starsky went off with Laura. He’d been mildly disturbed by the thought of the two of them together all evening long.

Dawn was pushing golden shafts of sunlight through the curtains when Starsky brewed coffee and ate toast with heaps of cinnamon sugar on top. There would be no more nightmares, no more rage against a single moment in time almost ten years before, and no more regrets about what might have been. He and Hutch were All-American guys, ready to take on the Honolulu nightlife and grab the gusto while they could.

One more shift, luckily in the daylight hours where there were far fewer loonies and creeps to deal with, and then flying off on a jumbo jet to the islands.

He perched on the steps in front of his house, his eyes gritty with lack of sleep, and saw Hutch’s beater driving up the winding road at 6:43. Hutch was a man of habit, could set a watch by him. Up at 6:15, a swallow of coffee, and a quick mile around his neighborhood. A shower to wash away the sweat, one banana-wheat germ shake for breakfast, and then strap on badge and gun. He was at Starsky’s place invariably by 6:45 in the a.m. Traffic must have been light today, to account for being two minutes early.

Starsky never managed such reliability on his best days. Probably why he couldn’t entirely shake the sense that stepping back into his old footsteps was a colossal mistake.

“You’re bright-eyed this morning,” Hutch hollered from the car window when Starsky walked down to the car and yanked the car door open.

“Good morning to you, ossi-ffer,” Starsky snarked, playing the fool to convince himself he was awake and alert enough to patrol their beat.

“We’ll actually make it into the morning briefing without coming up with another excuse.” Hutch nodded happily. He swung the steering wheel in a tight turn around the cul-de-sac at the end of Starsky’s road.

Hutch had on big, brown-tinted aviator sunglasses. Damn, Starsky wanted to see those blue eyes. Sink into the cerulean depths and just live for a couple centuries. He shook his head; careless thoughts like that could get him into trouble faster than meeting up with a gang member in a dark alley unarmed. “Hey, I gotta give you your little victories once in a while, huh?”

Hutch glanced at him with a lazy smile. “You’ve got circles under your eyes. Trouble sleeping?”

“Nah,” Starsky lied and wished he didn’t feel the need to do so. “Watched a horror movie.” Well, that was true enough.

“Tomorrow you can sleep on the plane,” Hutch said, navigating around a lumbering bus.

“And miss the in-flight flick?” Starsky laughed. “Perish the thought!” He leaned back in his seat, glad to let Hutch do the driving for once. He was too tired for the attentiveness necessary to their job today. He just hoped there was nothing too strenuous to attend to–he’d even be happy for a day of paperwork or having to give a deposition. Rotten luck that he wasn’t required for any court cases any time soon.

~*~

Dobey gave a quick nod when Hutch slipped into the briefing room after Starsky, a whole two minutes before the start of morning announcements.

Starsky claimed one of the sweet rolls on a tray by the coffee pot and a space behind the scraggly line of chairs, leaning back to let the solid wall hold him up.

Hutch put one shoulder against the wall, standing so that he faced Starsky more than Dobey at the podium, with an overwhelming need to protect his partner. This vacation couldn’t come soon enough. They needed time alone to open whatever can of worms had pulled Starsky so deep inside. Hutch forced himself to listen to Dobey instead of watching Starsky’s every move for clues to his pain.

Dark eyes connecting with each Metro cop, man or woman, Dobey cleared his throat. “First, good job to Simmons and Babcock on bringing in the East side rapist. That was solid detective work. The D.A. says there is enough evidence to charge Eddie Wilcox with four counts of rape and two of assault.”

Uniforms and plainclothes joined in a round of applause, a few piercing whistles punctuating the congratulations. Ben Simmons stood up with a smirk of pride. “Nothing more than the shit was due,” he said.

“He means, thanks for the help from the rest of you schmucks,” Dan Babcock finished, pushing his partner back into his chair.

“Couldn’t find your own belly to contemplate your navel!” Starsky called out, chuckling.

Hutch grinned. Had to give Starsky credit–he could hide his own inner demons under a fast wit and disarming smile. The whole squad celebrated when two of their own brought down a nasty piece like Wilcox. Simmons and Babcock deserved the praise, but teasing them was de rigueur.

“Fuc…” Simmons started, and a quickly amended, “funny, Starsky,” after a glower from Dobey.

Hutch snickered from behind his sunglasses and raised his eyebrows at Starsky.

“Moving on,” Dobey said with just the right amount of stern reproach. “We have a lot of other open cases, particularly the man attacking and mutilating the ladies who hang out on Maddox Street.” He held up an Identi-kit rendering of a man with dark hair and deep-set eyes. “Two women have provided the description for this drawing, and Minnie will distribute copies. This is a high priority. I am aware that some of you think women who ply the trade deserve the attacks.” He eyed the group solemnly.

One or two of the older cops actually squirmed under Dobey’s gaze, and the few women in the room shook their heads with dismay. It was an alarmingly common fact that certain cops–as well as members of the general society–felt hookers were no better than any other criminals.

Finally feeling like he could face his coworkers without revealing his concerns, Hutch took off his shades and stowed them in his shirt pocket. Starsky glanced at him with a soft smile. Better than a jolt of coffee, that was for sure. He tuned in Dobey with renewed energy.

Minnie stood to pass out the likeness, winking saucily at Starsky when she made it to the back row. Hutch put out an arm to take the picture, trying to imagine the stiff, unrealistic mock-up as an actual man on the street.

“These women need a break, and this man needs to be brought to justice before he cuts up another unfortunate working girl,” Dobey said, banging his fist on the podium. “I hate to put one of our own in the line of danger, but Baylor and Lassiter, you’ll be back working with Vice again on this one.”

“Least she’s got the legs for those short shorts.” Katie Lassiter laughed, shaking her chest in a barely-there bandeau top. She had glossy black hair and a slight tilt to her black eyes, a mixture of Asian and Caucasian genetics.

“Gotta flaunt my assets, baby,” red-headed Linda Baylor snarked, cocking one hip. She was already wearing tiny silver shorts and scarlet platform shoes.

“And,” Dobey continued, “because Starsky and Hutchinson have only one more day before they’re on vacation, they will fill in for Hobart for one shift. He’s out for the week with pneumonia.”

Damn.

Hutch flicked his eyes at Starsky and saw the understanding there. Starsky’s emotions were so unsteady. This was the absolute last case he wanted to be involved with. Still, there was no way they could argue with Dobey without making a scene. Better to go along with the assignment and pray that the Maddox Street Mutilator didn’t show his face.

“He looks kinda familiar,” Starsky examined the blocky rendering with a troubled frown.

“He kinda looks like you,” Hutch replied, mostly because he was supposed to. Starsky would have been suspicious if he hadn’t ragged on him. “Those pictures never look much like the perpetrator.”

“Dismissed!” Dobey called out as people began to file toward the door.

“Good thing we drove my car this morning, huh?” Hutch bumped Starsky intentionally with his elbow simply for the physical contact. His arm seemed warmer immediately.

Starsky opened his mouth, and Hutch expected some snarky comment about the rattle-trap heap he called a car, when the women walked over.

“Well, gentlemen,” Linda Baylor said, swinging a tiny purse on a chain. “How’re we going to work this?”

“What was Hobert doing?” Starsky countered. “Don’t want to change anything mid-stream.”

“A whole lotta coughing,” Katie sighed. “Poor guy. I feel for him, but I think he scared anybody off the whole block we were covering. He sounded like he had TB.”

“He was our ‘pimp’,” Linda added. “But y’know, Hobie didn’t exactly look the part. Maybe we should change things up? Hutch, you want to be a customer first? Then Starsky later.”

“Fine by me,” Hutch agreed, leading the way out to the main parking lot. Except he really didn’t want to be that far away from Starsky. His inner warning system tingled. This close to their departure for Hawaii, something was sure to go wrong. “Which corner are you working?”

“Milner and Twenty-second, near the water,” Katie said. “Been there since yesterday. Another couple girls from Vice, Lizzie Thorpe and Mara Callahan, were trolling the area before us.”

“See anybody suspicious?” Starsky asked, with a slight raise of one eyebrow as if he knew how stupid that sounded.

“Just about everybody?” Linda gave a saucy smile. “Honey, it ain’t exactly the Ritz Carlton. Lots of homeless and ex-GIs just trying to get by down there.”

The “ex-GIs” got Hutch in the gut. That so easily could have been Starsky. He’d been living in a pay-by-the week hotel when they first met, dressed in dull green fatigues half the time.

“But two of the hookers sliced up were right in that block, weird as it seems. In broad daylight, so the bastard has to working that area,” Katie finished. “We’ll set up housekeeping on the corner, and expect you two soon.” She opened up a leather purse tooled with squash blossoms. “Here are the walkie-talkies. I’ve only got one set.”

“I’ve just got a tracker in my purse.” Linda held up her small red bag.

“Thanks.” Starsky took the walkie-talkie from Katie and waved them into a blue Honda before following Hutch to his Ford.

“You up for this?” Hutch leaned into Starsky, one hand on his shoulder. The sun beat on the back of his head like a hammer.

“Yeah, why shouldn’t I be?” Starsky bristled.

“Not a thing, Starsk.” Hutch raised his palm in resignation and slid into the driver’s seat. They always worried about each other, but he couldn’t let Starsky think he was concerned for his mental state. That was potential suicide in a crisis.

~*~

The morning dragged, Starsky taking turns with Hutch watching the girls from the car parked across the street. One time Hutch went and propositioned Katie. Another time, Starsky took Linda around the corner for a pretend assignation, but there was no sense of danger in any of the other men who tried to hit on the women. No arrests made, no significant breaks in the case.

Starsky slouched in the car, his eyes so gritty it felt like diamonds were scratching hash marks on the inside of his eyelids. He wanted a nap in the worst way.

Linda Baylor swung her little red purse on the end of the chain like a pendulum, snapping her gum as she chatted with a hooker Starsky didn’t know. Katie stood a few feet away, hipshot, the toe of her purple stiletto heel propped against the brick wall behind her. Starsky couldn’t imagine standing all day in shoes like that. He scratched his chin, watching Hutch saunter out of a sandwich shop juggling two cups of coffee and a bag of food. Something to eat would definitely boost his energy.

A large delivery van rumbled down the street, parking directly opposite the car, blocking Starsky’s view. He groaned. Unless the truck moved in the next few seconds, he would have to get out because he couldn’t see Hutch, Baylor or Lassiter.

Waiting a beat to see what the trucker was going to do, Starsky was surprised that Hutch had never arrived with the food. That, more than anything, sent a sudden infusion of adrenaline through his system. Where the hell was Hutch? It should have taken less than a minute to cross the street, even with the busy noonday traffic.

Tension building under his sternum like a physical thing, Starsky sprang from the Ford, seeing the deliveryman unload four cartons of beer onto a dolly. He raced across the road, dodging a taxi and a mail truck. He wanted to scream his partner’s name, but didn’t; could be nothing going on. It could simply be where the delivery truck parked every week.

Except something felt off, a malevolent force encroaching suddenly on their everyday lives.

Starsky swung around the truck, centering immediately on Hutch. He was surrounded by a cluster of prostitutes; the brunette Starsky had seen with talking to Linda and two other girls; one brown-skinned wearing a barely there pink halter, the other was a platinum blonde dressed entirely in silver lame. Starsky’s relief was tempered seconds later with the realization that Katie Lassiter wasn’t in the group.

Linda Baylor turned around abruptly, honing in on Starsky. “You have the walkie-talkie!” she exclaimed. “Have you heard anything?”

“What happened?” he asked. Linda’s face was pale and she was breathing fast. Something had changed in the few moments after the truck blocked his view. “I haven’t heard a thing.” He pulled the walkie-talkie out of his jacket pocket.

Linda snatched it from him, thumbing the button to receive. At first there was the usual scratchy white noise and then an anguished scream of pain. Starsky stiffened and oriented toward the sound. That hadn’t come from the w/t. It had been close by.

“The alley!” Hutch called, pointing his long finger to the left. He took off, scattering the hookers like petals on the sidewalk.

“The Mutilator must have got her!” the brown-skinned girl cried.

Starsky charged past the girls, following his partner into a dimly lit alley between a bar and a mission for the homeless. He strained his ears to hear anything, but the cars and buses going by, and the usual hustle and bustle of the nearby port, drowned out small sounds.

“Put the knife down!” Hutch yelled from up ahead.

Starsky dashed around a corner, skirting clumps of trashcans. In the lee of a dumpster, a man wearing tattered Army fatigues had Lassiter pinned to the ground. He’d sliced her cheek, the blood shockingly red against her wan skin.

“Keep away, fucker!” the man raised the knife, slashing at Hutch, his eyes feral and crazy below a thatch of tangled, dirty hair.

“Put down the knife,” Hutch said more calmly, using the tactics they’d been taught when dealing with a mentally deranged person.

Sidling slowly alongside his partner, Starsky kept his eyes on the man. There was something about him–

“Charlie gets these whores to ply their trade with the GIs, then the hookers gut our guys with a knife…” the man raved, one hand fisted in Katie’s hair. He jerked her back against him, putting a thin gash on her exposed neck.

Katie moaned, wetting her lips. “Listen, I can–”

“Shut up!” he raged. “You don’t talk, ever. You learned English good, gook, but doesn’t fool me…” He bared his teeth at Hutch, glancing at Starsky for a second. His eyes widening, the man caught his breath. “Sergeant!”

Time stood still, the past colliding with the present so forcefully, Starsky felt like he’d been slugged. It was not possible, and yet standing before him was irrevocable proof. The voice was raspy from years of cigarettes, whiskey, and poor living, the face ravaged by weather, but Starsky knew him like he knew his own brother. Gil Hager. The guy he’d known in ‘Nam had been young, prone to anger but fun on a Saturday night with a bottle of rye and a deck of cards. Starsky thought he’d died in Phan Rang

“Private,” Starsky managed, shoving aside all the questions and memories assaulting him. He had to contain the situation and get Katie to safety, first and foremost. “This woman isn’t…” How did he explain that she wasn’t the enemy to someone who’d gone so far around the bend? What the hell had happened in ten years? “She’s one of us, Hager. On our side. Put down the knife so that the–” He finally let himself look at Hutch, saw the confusion on Hutch’s face that no one else would have recognized. “Medic here can take her to get bandaged.”

Katie squeaked nervously, turning slightly toward Hager, her eyes on the knife pressed against her chin. Starsky knew what she wanted to do: her fingers twitched as if anticipating wresting the knife away from her attacker.

Hutch didn’t make a sound, easing back a step to give Starsky room.

“Sarge!” Hager protested. “She’s one of them, a gook! Can’t let ‘em live!”

Starsky felt like he was treading in thick, unyielding cement, but could see a multitude of futures all too clearly. Katie laid out, her neck cut. Hutch sliced to ribbons with Hager’s sharp M6 bayonet. He couldn’t have any more blood on his conscience.

“Japanese!” Starsky said with as much confidence as he could muster, taking two steps forward because Hager was getting distracted. His hand wavered, the blade no longer creating a thin line of perfect red beads, like rubies on a chain, along the base of Katie’s neck. “Her mother was Japanese, but her father’s red-blooded American.”

“How can I believe anything you sa…?” Hager growled, raising the knife to stab directly at Starsky.

Katie erupted, shoving Hager’s arm at the same time she kicked back, digging one of her purple stiletto heels into his groin. The knife clattered to the pavement.

Hager screamed, high-pitched and eerie, a ghoul on Halloween. Hutch was there in an instant to drag Katie away as Starsky swooped in to knock Hager’s knife out of range.

“Fucking traitors!” Hager cried. “Sarge, you’re siding with them? Who got to you? Charlie? You–”

“It’s okay.” Starsky was on his knees without knowing he’d moved, hovering over his former patrol mate, uncertain what to do. It was plain that Hager didn’t see 1977 Bay City. He was lost in the jungles of Viet Nam a decade earlier. “G-gil, you’re safe. We’ll get you help.”

Hager raised his head, hatred pouring off him in waves. Starsky barely ducked the man’s wild swing and grabbed Hager’s wrist, twisting it behind his back. Reaching for his handcuffs, he let training take over, numbly arresting his old friend. He couldn’t think, couldn’t do anything past a rote Miranda recitation.

Blue uniforms swarmed around, paramedics trundling Katie onto a gurney. Suddenly, Hager was in a police cruiser and the alleyway was swathed in yellow caution tape. Starsky felt like he’d lost several minutes, maybe a whole chunk of time, even though he’d been involved in every step of the capture and rescue.

“Starsky?” Hutch said cautiously, his fingers gently brushing Starsky’s belly. “You back?”

“What?” Starsky clenched his fists, suppressing the shudder that had his insides quaking.

“You knew him?” Hutch cupped his palm under Starsky’s elbow, steering him toward the sidewalk. “In the Army?”

“I thought I did.” Starsky was shaken to the core, all the recent dreams, the fears about Hawaii coming to a head. He wondered if he was having a mental breakdown, and how he could hide it from Hutch. On the other hand, if he suspected he was coming unglued, didn’t that mean he was more sane than he thought? “He was–I thought he was dead.”

“Dead?” Hutch repeated.

“His other victims,” Starsky interjected quickly so Hutch wouldn’t crash down Starsky’s poorly erected walls and open old wounds. “We came in so late to this case. Who were his other victims?”

“I don’t know.” Hutch looked at him strangely. “Baylor’s gone with Katie to the hospital. When she gets back to Metro, we can ask her there.”

~*~

“Too many cooks.” Dobey shook his head. “Nobody sat down and analyzed Hager’s pattern.”

Linda Baylor bit her lip, uncharacteristically sober. “Damn, four women.” She lined the pictures of the victims across Starsky and Hutch’s desks. “You can see the resemblances when they’re side by side, but with Hobart getting sick and–” She shrugged miserably. “We screwed up and now Katie has stitches in her pretty face.” Her eyes filled with tears.

“Hey, she’s a gutsy gal.” Feeling detached, but knowing what he should do, Starsky put a comforting arm around her, staring down at the quartet of dark-haired beauties. All four had the same general description as Lassiter–black hair and almond shaped eyes.

“Amazing resemblances,” Dobey murmured, clasping his hands over his round belly. “Not one of them Vietnamese, but…”

“They all look Asian.” Hutch poked a finger at the first picture, reading the information in the report. “Yesenia Martinez was from Mexico, but she has that Indian-Asian look that ancestors of the Mayans and Incans all have.”

“Katie’s father is Chinese,” Linda said, drying her eyes.

It took Starsky a moment to realize that Linda hadn’t been there when he’d rashly guessed that Katie’s mother was Japanese to appease Hager. She was stating fact.

“Lorna Saeteurn, only arrived from Cambodia a little over a year ago,” Hutch read, pointing to the second photo. “Esther Leigh, mother Chinese, father is Native American, and lastly, Victoria Panyang, Filipino.”

Starsky couldn’t fathom how someone he’d once trusted with his life, considered a comrade, nearly a brother, could have done something like this. What had turned him into this vindictive, crazed man? Had it been the war? If their places had been switched, would he have gone nuts and started hacking up innocent women?

On the other hand, he should have felt some relief from the relentless guilt he’d lived with for so long. He wasn’t responsible for Hager’s death. What about the others? Michaels, Slovack, and Giannessi? Had he been wrong all these years?

No, he’d seen their bodies. Could still feel the helicopter’s blades buffet his body as the medics choppered them away, leaving him for the rear guard to collect. It had happened. So why… how had Hager survived?

“Battle fatigue, we used to call it,” Dobey said soberly, looking down at the array of photographs. “I knew a few good men who were never the same after Korea.”

“I want to be so angry.” Linda crossed her arms over the stretchy top that emphasized her breasts. She’d never changed from her hooker outfit. “I want to hate him, but he’s damaged, isn’t he?”

“H-he was injured in ‘Nam. That I know,” Starsky started, trying to sort truth from fiction. What exactly did he know anymore? He’d thought Hager was dead. “I want to talk to him.”

Hutch started to say something but stopped himself, looking down at his own hands and then shrugging with a nod.

Good to know Hutch felt as confused as he did.

 “We’ll have to wait for a psychiatric evaluation before he can be formally questioned,” Dobey commented. “Nothing he says will be admissible until we get clearance that he comprehends his rights and if–” he emphasized with a pause, “he understands the consequences of his actions.”

“Cap.” Starsky sighed, struggling with so many emotions he couldn’t even begin to untangle them. “Hutch and me, we’re leaving tomorrow, and I didn’t even want to be involved with this damn case.”

Hutch raised his eyebrows in acknowledgment of the sentiment and the use of foul language in front of Dobey.

“I used to know Hager.” He shook his head. “I just want to know what happened to him. Where he was all this time?”

“Hutchinson, go with him,” Dobey said gruffly. “Make sure the jail attendant is close at hand.”

“He wouldn’t do anything to me!” Starsky said a little too loudly. Linda recoiled; her eyes wary. “Sorry.” Starsky rubbed the back of his head. Felt like he’d been hit with a mallet. “I–”

“He did respond to Starsky, Captain.” Hutch stood up, giving Linda a quick hug. “Called Starsky ‘Sarge’.”

“Ask him why,” Linda said with tears in her eyes.

~*~

Starsky had never liked the subterranean level with the holding cells. It seemed humid, the fetid air stinking of urine and sweat. He could feel Hutch’s support behind him like a blanket buffeting him from the world at large. He only had to deal with this single interrogation, for–what was that word the department shrink liked to toss around? Closure. That was it, he wanted closure for the events in ‘Nam. Then he and Hutch were off for their island vacation.

If he closed his eyes, could he block out all the flashbacks that seeing Hager had churned up? Not to mention what the thought of Honolulu did to him.

“Hager’s in cell four.” The jail attendant pointed down the row of holding cells.

Most were drunks and hypes sleeping off their intoxicated stupors until court in the morning. Then they’d be let out on bail or remanded into the county facility for the remainder of their terms. Hager was in solitary because he was an accused murderer with possible suicidal tendencies.

As if there’d be a psych eval any time soon. Starsky knew how backlogged the system was. He stared down the aisle of cells to Hager’s. The ex-GI was perched on the edge of a bench, hunched over with his hands dangling between his knees as if he couldn’t support the weight of his body. Whatever savage strength he’d displayed in the alley was completely gone.

“Thanks,” Hutch said to the jail attendant before glancing at Starsky with a question in his eyes. Can you handle this?

Starsky couldn’t lie to Hutch, not now–in honest truth, not ever–so he simply ignored the concern. “I got this,” he said confidently despite the hammers pounding on his skull. “Just wait for me.”

Hutch silently raised a blond eyebrow and crossed his arms, leaning against the cinderblock wall.

Signaling for the guard to open the cell door, Starsky slipped inside. He listened to the soul chilling snick of the lock behind him. He’d only be inside with a potential serial murderer for a short time, and he wasn’t anything like Hager’s usual targets. Besides, he had known this man; fought, laughed, and eaten with this man. How had Starsky come out of that hellhole with only night terrors and a carefully maintained amnesia, while Hager had what appeared to be full-on insanity? How had he even survived that chaotic, horrific last day in the jungle?

Starsky wasn’t even sure exactly who he meant by he–even in his own thoughts.

“Gil,” he greeted quietly. “It’s me, Dave Starsky, Sergeant Starsky.”

“Gilbert John Hager,” he recited by rote in an eerie voice. “69 374 92…”

“You’re not being interrogated by the Viet Cong, Gil,” Starsky explained patiently. He had an almost overwhelming need to gather the man into his arms, provide comfort, except for the fact that Hager had killed four women and sliced a fifth. BCPD detectives didn’t coddle serial murderers. Hager wouldn’t have accepted the reassurance anyway.

Starsky superimposed his mental picture of Hager onto the man in front of him. Once upon a time, Gil had had the standard military buzz cut, his metal helmet pushed onto the back of his head with a pack of cigarettes tucked into the elastic band holding the camouflage liner in place. His brown eyes had sparkled with wit and intelligence, and his smile had revealed crooked front teeth. He’d been nineteen in 1967, two years younger than Starsky.

Hager peered up through a tangle of hair, going on the defensive. He stiffened, still hunched over but oozing malevolent fury. “Traitor,” he muttered, spitting on the stained concrete.

“The war’s over, buddy.” Starsky crouched just out of spitting range. At least, he hoped. “It was a long time ago.” So why had he dreamt about being in country just last night? “Can you tell me what happened in Phan Rang? You were shot.”

Squinting warily, Hager pushed back a hank of greasy hair. He chewed on his bottom lip until Starsky caught a glimpse of blood. “I got shot,” he confirmed as if not quite sure.

“The chopper picked you up?” Starsky prompted. “Doc Doolittle maybe? Or Merchant?” They had been the two most common medical personnel in Starsky’s little corner of hell. Doolittle had been a good doctor, someone they’d all trusted. Merchant, a crummy medic, had maintained a lucrative black market in any and all illegal pharmaceuticals.

“China Beach.”

“The hospital?”

“Went to China Beach,” Hager said with more conviction. He pressed a forefinger into his left shoulder. “Got shot and shipped stateside. To the VA at Fort Ord.” He bared his teeth, panting, like a wild beast. “Not telling a traitor like you anything else. Giannessi, Slovack, and Michaels died cause ‘a you.” Rising, Hager took an aggressive step.

Starsky was smacking the door of the cell with no memory of crossing the short space. He could hear Hutch yelling at the guard to hurry up as Hager advanced on him.

The door swung open and Starsky squeezed out, the blood roaring in his ears so loudly he couldn’t hear what Hutch was trying to say.

That had been a huge mistake.

 Whatever answers Hager might have provided had been lost in the haze of his own damaged mind long ago.

“Starsk?”

Hutch’s fingers were painfully tight around Starsky’s left arm. He focused on the only thing anchoring him to the here and now. Even still, he could smell the rotting vegetation of Phan Rang, hear the thunka-thunka whack of the Medevac chopper, and feel the wind from its rotors whipping the denuded tree branches and swirling up dirt. He coughed, his head throbbing in time with roar of the helicopters.

Starsky let Hutch drag him out of the jail wing and down the corridor to an uninhabited room. Hutch dumped him in a chair before dashing out.

Gripping the sides of the chair, Starsky forced himself to sit up straight and stare at the portion of hallway he could see through the half open door. This was Bay City, 1977. Not the outpatient psyche unit in Honolulu, no matter how much the utilitarian table and chairs, not to mention the scuffed linoleum, reminded him of his old haunt.

Hutch plunked a paper cup of water down on the tabletop, his eyes lasers boring into Starsky. “I need answers, now. How fucked up are you?”

“What?” That jerked him back to the present really quick. “Whadda ya mean by that? You’ve worked beside me for years, ain’t nothing wrong with me.”

“Drink the damn water and we’ll go to my place for something stronger.” Hutch crossed his arms, in full interrogation mode. “But first I need to hear the truth.”

Starsky gulped half the water but simply tilting his head back made the screws dig deeper into his temples. “You have any aspirin?”

As if that question alone gave Hutch satisfaction, he held out two white pills he’d been clutching in his fist.

Taking the painkillers and hoping for a miracle, Starsky toyed with the cup to avoid Hutch’s penetrating gaze. “I told you, Hager was in my squad. I was the sergeant.”

“He mentioned three other guys.”

Starsky remembered not to nod, balancing his aching skull on his neck very carefully. “We were stationed in Phan Rang, a charming vacation spot a few miles in from the China Sea.” If he gave Hutch some of the safe facts, would Hutch leave him be? “We’d only been there a couple weeks, had come from further inland where there was more intense fighting. We thought we’d get some fun in the sun, on the beach, ‘cept it rained. All the time.” He ripped the cup into tiny pieces. “In ‘Nam, there was no rear echelon, the whole country was a battlefield.”

Hutch sat quietly in a chair without saying a word, but he was listening instead of demanding answers. That was a start.

“One night, we were ordered to go on reconnaissance–there were VC in the area.” Starsky paused and glanced at Hutch. He was very still–like that damned Abraham Lincoln statue in Washington D.C., sitting straight, legs bent at the knee, hands resting on the arms of the chair. Waiting.

“Y’know, Viet Cong,” Starsky supplied, feeling like words were completely insignificant for the task. How could he explain what happened when he had never understood himself? If three months of seeing a military shrink hadn’t fixed the mess of his memories, how could he possibly convey the fear, bravery, fucked up chaos, and disenchantment that had been Phan Rang? Especially now that it was obvious that Starsky’s version of–could he call it the truth when it clearly wasn’t–was inaccurate.

Hager was alive. Were the others?

“I know what VC stands for.” Hutch nodded, encouraging Starsky to continue. He leaned forward, placing his hands on his knees, no longer judging but searching for what to do.

That was Hutch. He needed to fix things–to help. He handed out twenties to homeless guys. Doled out that gentle smile on hookers and jittery addicts. None of that could mend the hole in Starsky’s brain.

“It was fucking wet,” Starsky recalled, touching his springy curls. “My hair was long–longer than regulation ‘cause we didn’t the hell care about the Army’s version of a haircut.”

“I remember seeing you in that bar,” Hutch said softly, “after you got back. Hair down to your shoulders.”

Starsky could picture Hutch, too. Two weeks after he’d returned from Hawaii, nowhere to go, living in a fleabag hotel with such residual anger burning in his chest. Then there was this beautiful blond war protester, his hair brushing the collar of his shirt.

Hutch had inadvertently turned his life around in one afternoon. Maybe he did have a cure for what ailed Starsky.

“I shoulda been watching out for my buddies, my squad,” Starsky said, barely above a whisper. “But all I could think about was that my hair was dripping in my eyes and down the back of my neck. And I wanted to be anywhere but there–” His voice broke, the pain roaring back like a lion on the prowl, ready to take him down.

Hutch stood abruptly. Starsky was so startled he scrabbled out of his chair, crouching defensively before his mind caught up with his fight-or flight. This isn’t ‘Nam.

Or Hawaii.

Why couldn’t he tell the difference anymore?

“I g-gotta go home,” Starsky said over the raucous pounding of his own heartbeat. “Don’t we have a plane to catch?”

“You think you can run that fast, the way you look?” Hutch quirked a smile, hauling him to his feet.

Starsky laughed out loud, an image of himself dashing after a plane as it took off from LAX playing across his mindscape like a Chaplin movie. He leaned against his partner’s solid bulk, the only place on earth he was truly safe.

“The plane takes off at 7:30 am.” Hutch twisted Starsky’s left wrist so he could look at his watch. “Which is in fifteen hours. Just long enough for us to get drunk enough for you to sleep a while. How about it?”

~*~

Starsky didn’t end up sleeping.

Hutch bought a bottle of Jack Daniels at a liquor store two blocks from Metro and drove them to Starsky’s place. Traffic on the 405 turned a twenty-minute drive into a mind-numbing hour.

Starsky would have loved to switch off his brain while staring at the beat-up Pinto in front of them. Hutch had the radio on, KBCK, Sixties music all the time, and the lyrics kept invading Starsky’s dark thoughts. “There’s nothing you ain’t tried to fill the emptiness inside…”

Hutch was half-singing along to Paul Revere and the Raiders, but Starsky kept seeing Gil Hager, blood spurting from his left arm, the rotors of the Medevac chopper whipping Starsky’s wet hair into his eyes. He’d heard one word in ten with the noise, but the comment, “hit an artery, bleeding out,” had stayed with him since. People didn’t survive that–but Gil had. How badly had the others been hit, and why hadn’t he ever tried to find out?

Once they got to Starsky’s place, Hutch lined up the bottle and two glasses on the dining room table while Starsky rooted around in the closet for a box. Even though he knew exactly what he was looking for, when he found it, he almost couldn’t take it down from the shelf. Too many emotions were packed into the shoebox sized container. If he took off the lid after all these years, would everything fly out like the plague, pestilence, and horror Pandora had released in the fable?

Dumbshit, take it down and let Hutch open it. If he was obeying the voices in his head, did that prove he was crazy or just obedient?

Starsky plunked the box into Hutch’s lap and grabbed a shot of whiskey, drinking it down like medicine. It gashed his throat, sending fire through his chest. He wanted a lot more where that came from.

“Can I open this?” Hutch asked, voice poised between cautious and soothing.

“I ain’t going to.” Starsky tried very hard to let the sarcasm show and not the fear.

He watched as Hutch removed the top as if he were defusing a bomb.

“These from ‘Nam?” Hutch pulled out a handful of photos, black and white, the kind with the image in the center surrounded by a white scalloped border. A bygone era. Not the seventies style picture that covered the whole surface of the photo paper. Starsky swallowed more whiskey before he could look straight at himself, circa 1967.

Five guys, several holding rifles, all kitted out for patrol. There was Gil, the pack of cigs stuck in the elastic band around his helmet. Little Dougie Slovack, the shortest, arms crossed over his chest and a shit-eating grin. Joe Michaels, tall and angular, skin so dark the black and white film had turned him to a shadow. Luca Gianessi, inevitably nicknamed Lucky–but he never had been, had he? Starsky could see the Band-Aids on his fingers where he was always cutting himself on whatever sharp object everyone else could manage to avoid.

Then himself, standing on the left of the group. Hair curling under the edge of his helmet, skinny as a snake, something hard and withheld in the angle of his jaw.

Starsky hissed on exhale, tossing back his second glass of rye in under five minutes. “That was about a month before–”

Hutch nodded, shuffling through the rest. Starsky posing like a muscleman on the edge of the China Sea, except he didn’t have the ab definition he had now. The whole gang of them crowded around a table in some unnamed Vietnamese bar. A shot of a football game, and a blurry picture of Bob Hope on a stage–taken from so far away it was impossible to tell the figure was really him.

“This one is Hager?” Hutch asked when he’d come back to the original picture.

Starsky nodded, leaning against Hutch’s shoulder in the process. It felt good to be there, to transfer some of this–what did he call it? Weight? Grief? to his partner.

“I thought they had all died,” Starsky said wearily. “That I was the only one who survived. After I was checked out at China Beach, I was sent back to base and debriefed. I sorta…” He shifted so that he wasn’t touching Hutch anymore. “I guess I fell apart. I tried, really tried to keep doing what they expected of me but when I slugged my looey ‘cause he kept ragging on me to get my hair cut, they put me on a psych hold and shipped me to Honolulu.”

“Were you dishonorably discharged?”

“No, but it wasn’t for lack’a trying.” Starsky almost smiled. He and the guys used to think of ways to get thrown out on a psych discharge after they heard about a GI who dressed like a woman for years.

“You never checked the hospital? Found out if–what were the names of the other guys?”

“Slovack, Gianessi, and Michaels.” Starsky tapped the air above the air over the photo with each name. “I guess I was messed up enough that I didn’t think it through–never asked. I was sure somebody told me they died.”

“Maybe,” Hutch said softly, “when we get to Hawaii, we can contact the Army? If you came through there, at least Hager must have, too? Possibly the others?”

Should that give him hope? Or despair that he’d so misread the entire situation? Drained, Starsky sat forward, arms braced on his knees. He could feel that Hutch wanted something more, and flashes of their hugs, full bodied and strong, flitted through his brain. He couldn’t bear the emotional fallout on his own and yet couldn’t turn to Hutch right then. The last thing he’d meant to do was drag Hutch into the maelstrom of his fucked-up aftermath from Viet Nam.

“No.” Starsky moved his head so he couldn’t see photograph and read the resentment and accusations on the faces of his old buddies.

“Starsk.” Hutch placed his hand on Starsky’s knee.

Starsky jerked. He didn’t mean to; his reactions were hair-triggered. He gasped, weirdly and irrationally turned on. What the hell? Why now, of all times? He crossed his left leg over the right to hide the evidence of his sudden erection.

Hutch had clearly felt the rejection. He flexed his long fingers, removing his hand, but Starsky could feel the shape of his hand, the warmth, like a five-armed star on his leg.

His hand held steadily in the air, Hutch didn’t point, but there was no denying he would have under other circumstances. “I’m just going to say this,” he commented, setting down the tumbler of JD he’d only sipped from. “You do a great job of hiding this from everyone except yourself. You’re strong, brave, and like to play the fool so no one gets too close, but that’s all going to change.”

“Hutch–”

“I’ve still got the floor,” Hutch continued, the compassionate but empowered cop who patrolled the streets. “I know why you tried to bury this part of your life, but I think now is the time to dig up the past and vanquish the ghosts. We have time, it’ll be like a busman’s holiday.” He smiled slightly as if bolstering Starsky’s courage.

 Didn’t work. The last thing Starsky wanted to do was fight demons. “Let’s just lay on the sand until we’re browner’n Hug, pick up beach bunnies, and drink–what’s that blue one?”

“Blue Hawaiian?” Hutch chuckled but there was a troubled quality to his laugh. “I’d stick with Kona beer and pretzels.”

“Got yourself a date, sailor.” Starsky nodded, looking at his sneakers. He should get up, he should say something. It felt like too much work. He hadn’t been this bad since–no, lock all that away again. What’s done was done. And hey, he had more answers about that fated day than he’d had before. The others were dead; it was his fault. Nothing more to be said.

They watched The Sands of Iwo Jima on TV because it was one of Starsky’s old familiars–he could almost quote the dialogue. Hutch fell asleep when John Wayne’s character was on leave in Honolulu, hanging out with bargirl Julie Bishop. Starsky flicked off the set, settling on the couch beside Hutch to watch him sleep. Even though he’d been up since four in the morning, he couldn’t have slept if he tried. It wasn’t because of the nightmares. It wasn’t for lack of trying–he closed his eyes, one hand on Hutch’s arm, willing the release. Hutch could turn it off. Oh, yeah, there were days when Hutch ranted over the world’s injustice, or the cruelty of society for the downtrodden and homeless. Yet, tonight, he could sleep, secure in the knowledge that he and his were safe.

Starsky wanted some of that peace–one of the reasons he’d been attracted to Hutch in the first place, way back when. He looked clean, good. Starsky’d learned, after they were already connected at the hip, that Hutch had his demons, too. They both hid their darkest fears far too well, even from each other.

Starsky finished off the bottle of Jack Daniels without using a glass.

~*~

With a stop at Hutch’s to grab his suitcase, they made it to LAX with only minutes to spare. Still mostly drunk, Starsky let Hutch tow him through the airport and onto the plane, his head throbbing like a kettle drum. He nodded off during the flight attendant’s lecture on buckling seatbelts.

Easiest flight he’d ever taken. No dreams, nothing. Like a big black hole.

~*~

Hutch stretched out his long legs, amazed at what the upgrade in status afforded. Not only did they have first class seats, courtesy of the prize package, but they’d been seated on the bulkhead, in the very first row. Starsky had barely made it onto the plane before falling asleep.

Rubbing the nascent headache at his temple, Hutch glanced at Starsky in the window seat. He had exactly five hours of luxury to figure out how to guide Starsky back from the hell of Viet Nam. If the Army shrinks hadn’t accomplished it in three months, what kind of hubris made him think he could do better?

Because he knew Starsky.

Knew him a hell of a lot better than they would have from a couple hourly sessions a week. Starsky liked to talk–he could talk your ear off if you let him, and on a stake-out or a boring afternoon finishing arrest reports, Hutch often did. Thing was, Starsky used all those stories, the antics of his endless supply of uncles–fictitious or otherwise–as camouflage for his actual emotions. Hutch had ample evidence of that. Starsky was adept at disguising his own pain in favor of being the tough but compassionate street cop.

Hutch was also not blind. He’d seen the boner Starsky threw the night before. It had confirmed his suspicions and hopes. Starsky felt the same way he did, but was hiding it out of some misguided idea that ignoring their mutual attraction was better for all.

Bullshit.

 Yes, the first time around had been desperation on both their parts. On the whole, one night stands often were. Sex to soothe the inner demons for a short time. Unfortunately, the resulting self-recriminations could be worse than the original pain. Hutch had been dealing with the collapse of his marriage, Starsky with the invisible wounds from Phan Rang. Improbably, they had found one another and forged a lasting friendship, which Hutch cherished above all else.

All these years hence, they had never had sex again, despite seeing one another naked quite regularly in the police department showers, occasionally sharing a bed for expediency after a late night finishing a case–or drinking too much at The Pits. Hutch had wanted to. Had looked at Starsky when they were romancing women on double dates, and wondered what it would be like to kiss him, there in the booth at a dimly lit restaurant.

Hawaii was their chance to wipe the slate clean and start fresh.

The pilot’s voice was almost unintelligible, announcing the plane’s cruising altitude. Hutch watched Starsky sleeping sitting up, his neck bent at an awkward angle against the headrest.

“May I bring you a beverage?” a pretty woman dressed in the purple and blue flight attendant uniform asked. Her badge had Angela written in ornate script. “Wine, beer or spirits?”

She was leaning so far forward, Hutch had the distinct impression she would have given him a hand job if he’d requested one.

He’d put away enough booze the night before. Today was his opportunity to think. “No thanks.” He gestured at Starsky’s somnolent sprawl. “A blanket and pillow for my friend?”

“Right here!” Angela produced the items from a pouch on the top of each seat, flipping out the blanket as if doing a magic act. “May I tuck you in?” she offered coquettishly.

“It’s for him.” Hutch took the pillow and placed it against Starsky’s neck, swirling the blanket around him. “And maybe a glass of–” This was first class, he could get the finer stuff. “Perrier?”

“Certainly.” Angela gave him a seductive smile. “Give me a call when you want something more.”

Her come-on was getting on his last nerve, and at this point, Hutch didn’t have many to spare. Coaxing Starsky into this trip and basically pouring him into the car after their talk the night before had used up the lion’s share of Hutch’s calm. He wasn’t used to being the cheerleader in their partnership–that was Starsky’s role–and this headache was threatening to derail any equilibrium he’d maintained thus far.

What he needed was leverage. Or was it a fulcrum? Any means to root out Starsky’s memories and examine events from a different angle. Digging into the carry-on bag they’d brought, Hutch found the book he’d bought weeks before.

In Country and Then Out featured a picture on the cover remarkably similar to the one Starsky had shown him that Hutch’s heart tripped a double beat. On second look, no–this was a completely different grouping of five soldiers, yet so alike. Same shit-eating grins, same insolent poses as if they could take on the worst and emerge victorious. One guy had a pack of cigs banded against his tin pot helmet. There were two black guys, one tall, one really short, arms around each another. The fourth and fifth boys were brandishing their rifles like models trying to make a sale in American weaponry.

Flipping through the book he’d never had time to read, Hutch pored over the photos. This was his history–yet not. He’d been safe in the US, newly married, going to law school, watching the Vietnamese war on the nightly news. He paused over a picture of a war protester with shoulder length blond hair standing in front of a barricade of armed cops, Hutch’s own views contrasted with his current situation. He still had the same basic principles, but they had shifted to include the police force’s rhetoric. Could he contain both and still remain himself?

Far headier stuff than he’d expected to have to deal with flying over the Pacific Ocean.

He’d been so caught up in the book that he was stunned to realize not only had Angela delivered a small bottle of the French fizzy water, but she and another stewardess were preparing food in the tiny galley inches from his feet. He could smell chocolate chip cookies baking. Even that treat did not wake Starsky.

Sipping the nose-tingling water, Hutch ordered the chicken masala lunch. It was tastier than he expected for airplane food. That, plus a cookie, forestalled his exploration of the book for more than twenty minutes. The announcement for the in-flight movie over the loudspeaker revived his interest. There’d only be a few minutes of light before the plane’s interior went dark for the film.

Taking up the book, Hutch turned another page and froze, the food roiling sickeningly in his belly. A full-page photo showed a man sitting in the dirt, slumped against a wall. His knees braced on the ground, he had his rifle balanced between belly and thighs, one hand gripping the stock with such force, the strain over his knuckles was evident. He was bareheaded, shaggy curls dripping water, his face and fatigues covered in dark stains.

Blood. The photo was black and white, but Hutch knew deep in his bones that it was not mud.

And it wasn’t his imagination, as he’d first hoped. That was Starsky.

There was a generic caption underneath: Soldier awaiting word of fallen comrades, but it could have simply been a dictionary definition for utter despair.

The lights dimmed and a movie started on the screen in front of him, but Hutch didn’t watch. He placed a hand over Starsky’s blanket covered one and closed his eyes, his heart breaking.

~*~

Hutch prodded Starsky awake. “We’ve landed, sandman. Shake a leg, we’re in sunny Hawaii.”

Starsky rubbed the grit out of his eyes, surprisingly shaky when he stood to totter down the aisle. It occurred to him that he had watched Hutch sleep all night and Hutch had watched him sleep today.

There was no jetway like in LAX. Here in Honolulu, arriving passengers descended a wheeled staircase.

Stepping off the plane, the heat and humidity hit Starsky like a wall he had to shove through. The sun was far too bright, the cruel lamp of a Nazi interrogator forcing him to vomit up his secrets. If he turned his eyes right or left, shadows of horror lurked, surrounding him with memories of Slovak, Giannessi, Michaels, and Hager. He walked across the tarmac, gaze straight ahead at the door to the terminal. Behind him, Hutch put one hand on Starsky’s shoulder as if aware of potential landmines and guiding him to safety.

Dark eyed beauties with long black hair dashed forward, slinging pink and purple leis around the necks of every traveler.

Crushed by the crowd, Starsky pressed back against Hutch’s chest, glancing over his shoulder to catch his eye. Hutch was worried about him, that much was clear. If Starsky didn’t start acting like his usual confident self, he was going to have Hutch’s concern dogging his steps for the next six days and five nights.

“Aloha!” a beautiful Island girl greeted, enveloping Starsky in purple orchids.

“Aloha, sweetheart,” Starsky responded, dredging up his best smile for public viewing. If he were lucky, it would get Hutch off his back for the rest of the afternoon, at the very least. “This’d look better on you than me, though.” He looped the lei off his neck, handing it back to her.

“Oh, but–” she started, throwing one over Hutch’s head.

“Starsk,” Hutch cajoled, adjusting the lei so that the strap of his carryon bag didn’t crush the delicate blooms. “It’s her job. Keep it on.”

“I hope you have a wonderful stay!” she gushed, holding Starsky’s flowers as if not sure what to do with it. The exiting passengers pushed around them on both sides, other lei girls bedecking them with orchids.

“Manola,” Starsky said, reading her nametag. “Give two to that little girl.” He pointed to a pint-sized child dragging a huge Mickey Mouse into the airport. “I got allergies.”

“Certainly,” she said uncertainly, moving aside to greet someone else.

“You have allergies.” Hutch gave him the stink-eye, heading to baggage.

“Those don’t make you sneeze?” Starsky countered. Hutch sneezed when he was near just about every flower there was, from roses to daisies.

“Orchids,” he said simply, as if that made all the difference.

~*~

Starsky really hadn’t paid much attention to the perks included in his winning ticket. Two plane tickets to Hawaii, a place to sleep, and some food had impinged on his brain. He was dumbstruck when Hutch stopped the rental in front of a luxurious hotel lined with palm trees swaying in an island breeze.

“You sure this is the place?” Starsky marveled, startled out of his funk.

“I followed the directions the guy at the Avis counter wrote,” Hutch said with a smirk. “Besides, read the sign.” He pointed to large gold letters perched on top of the roof.

Hutch grinned widely when the parking valet came up to take their car into the garage. Dazzled, Starsky yearned to see Hutch like that every single minute of their vacation. Relaxed and joyful, full of life. Did that shore up the blackened, angry parts of him? He almost wished Hutch still had the long, pale hair of 1967 so that he could stroke the golden strands as he’d wanted to the afternoon they’d met.

The Honolulu Grand Resort was an amazing hotel. The lobby was open to the elements, a tropical breeze blowing through the wide space. Huge shutters had been pushed back on each side, with arriving cars and taxis emitting guests on the east and hotel employees ushering people to their ocean-view rooms on the west.

Enormous blue and white vases, nearly as tall as Hutch, bracketed the wide portals. All Starsky had to do was plunk the prize itinerary down in front of the desk clerk and suddenly he and Hutch were practically celebrities. Armed with vouchers for six breakfasts, and four lunch or dinner coupons, four complimentary drink coupons, tickets for a sunset catamaran ride, and two-for-one coupons for a luau, Starsky and Hutch were ushered up to a luxury suite, complete with a–

“Jacuzzi!” Starsky peered into the vast bathroom. “Plus, a regular bathtub and a shower.”

“A family of five could live in this one room,” Hutch said, crowding in behind him.

“An entire Vietnamese village could live in this suite–” Starsky said, stopping abruptly when he heard what had come out of his mouth.

Hutch had turned to stare at him as if unsure whether to continue the joke or tiptoe away from the minefield.

Felt odd, but good, even such a tiny attempt at banter about Viet Nam seemed like some kind of victory. Despite the lingering headache from too much alcohol, no food, a dehydrating plane ride, and humidity that would rightly be precipitation anywhere else, he felt slightly giddy. Was it the sight of Hutch, hair all tousled, still wearing the ridiculous lei? Something about his partner lodged inside his chest, making him want to reach out and hug the stuffing out of him.

Was that weird? Was that attraction–like the odd sexual attraction he’d been experiencing? Or just gratefulness that Hutch had insisted on taking this vacation?

“Hey,” Starsky said softly, running the tips of his fingers down Hutch’s arm. Must have been the cranked-up-too-high air conditioning that left goosebumps along Hutch’s skin.

As if waking from a dream, Hutch gazed at him with eyes such a glorious blue that the Pacific Ocean visible through the sliding glass doors paled in comparison.

“I’ve been an ass lately. Can we just ignore that guy I left in California?” Starsky said.

Hutch nodded, with a slight bow. “I’m Ken Hutchinson, nice to meet you. Been in Hawaii long?”

“Nah. Name’s Dave Starsky.” New vistas, new memories, that was the solution. It would be a shame to waste this opportunity to start fresh. He’d stash the old memories into a solid steel mind vault and start over. That was the only way forward. What about this renewed attraction to Hutch? In a place like this, where they had nothing but time and no crime, no violence to distract them, was it possible he could reintroduce something they’d toyed with one time a decade ago? His groin twitched.

Starsky waved a hand at the vouchers and coupons on the coffee table in front of the plush forest green couch “What’d you say we sample one of these Hawaiian lunches. What time is it anyway?” He literally couldn’t remember when the flight was supposed to have left LAX, much less when it should have arrived in the fiftieth state.

Hutch grasped Starsky’s wrist, turning the Yamamoto watch up to the light. “Change your watch. It’s eleven forty-five here. Remember, Hawaii is two hours behind us.”

Starsky’s belly growled right on cue.

Hutch patted Starsky’s flat abdomen. “Have you lost weight? When was the last time you ate?”

Good question. “I could say I remember something about sandwiches you grabbed in the Metro cafeteria yesterday, but we’ve never met each other, so–” Starsky shrugged, looking down at himself. He’d never even changed from the red Henley and jeans he’d worn on stake-out yesterday. If he looked too closely at the brownish stain on the denim above his right knee, he’d recognize Katie’s blood. Nope–not going to happen, not when there was a wide beach inches from the hotel and drinks with fruit and little umbrellas.

“I’d like a shower–wash off some of that stale airplane air,” Hutch said quickly, clearly not going to point out that Starsky must smell pretty rank. “A good Californian shower–less’n five minutes.”

Like the Army, Strasky’s treacherous brain reminded. “What if we–” He tipped his head, staring straight into Hutch’s eyes. “Do what the bumper stickers say?”

“Save water, shower with a friend?” Hutch’s voice was neutral, almost as if he was assessing the situation for danger. “Without contact?”

“Doesn’t sound like any fun.” Starsky stuck out his hip, hand low to frame his wares, like one of the hookers they’d monitored the day before. God, it seemed like a million years ago. He needed something that felt good, in the worst way.

His face soft as a Vermeer, Hutch ran the back of his hand over Starsky’s red shirt, his fingers just brushing the open placket exposing a wedge shaped section of his chest. “I’m…”

“Don’t say you’re afraid of that, scaredy cat,” Starsky growled, the temperature sky rocketing between them in an instant. He grabbed Hutch’s wrist, closing his fingers until he felt the bones shift.

Hutch kissed him first, with all the finesse of a pile driver. Starsky locked lips with his partner, frantically trying to rip Hutch’s soft green shirt from his body, but they were too tightly entwined for him to kiss and undress Hutch at the same time. Hutch’s hands were in his hair, cupping the back of his head, as if he wouldn’t ever let go.

It was fierce and fine. There was no place here for lighthearted foreplay or gentle caresses. They had ten years of pent-up lust to release. It seemed to extract every molecule of air, setting the atmosphere on fire.

Scrabbling for the upper hand, both panting, they lumbered into the bathroom.

“Starsk,” Hutch gasped.

Starsky ignored him, sucking as much of that good Hutchinson essence from his partner’s tongue as he could. If his mouth was this fantastic, what would his cock taste like? He wanted to know, pawing Hutch’s slacks for the zipper pull.

“Starsky!” Hutch roared, breaking away, forefinger held like a pistol barrel. “We need–” He seemed to search for a word for half an hour, while frantically shucking his clothes. “Decorum.”

His arms tangled in his Henley, Starsky was momentarily panicky without any reason. Hutch yanked the shirt off him, swiping hair out of Starsky’s eyes.

“What?” Starsky demanded irritably, so turned on his cock was aching, but he was weirded out. Now was not the time to have some damned existential crisis.

“Uh–” Hutch spread both hands, eyes wide.

Starsky could see where his bottom lip was reddened from their combined force. His own felt raw, swollen,

“I want this, I do, but–hey, we just met. Aren’t there rules?” Hutch stepped out of his pants, completely naked, his penis erect against his belly.

“Like a condom?” Starsky snarked, back on solid ground. He almost put his fingers around the tempting muscle between Hutch’s legs. Unzipped his own fly instead, shoving his jeans down. “Turn on the damned shower.”

Hutch did so, without taking his eyes off Starsky removing his underpants. “It’s been too long,” he said, sounding sad.

Starsky hadn’t expected to feel anything but prurient lust, but his heart had other ideas. The shower was going full blast, splashing out of the wide stall, drenching the floor but neither of them stepped in. It wasn’t just his lip that was raw, his entire being felt rent asunder.

“That first time I saw you–” Starsky began, fingertips against the flat of Hutch’s belly, above his cock, “in Sam’s, I wanted you like nothing I ever wanted before. I was only doin’ to you what had been done to me in ‘Nam, and I shouldn’t have–” Tears threatened the back of his throat and the corners of his eyes, burning, but he refused to let them fall. “But you saved me from myself, and I couldn’t let you get away.”

“And here I thought you saved me,” Hutch smiled wistfully, closing his arms around Starsky. “You gave me a reason to leave Van.”

“Mutual ulterior motives?” Starsky whispered against Hutch’s mouth.

“Found love,” Hutch responded, kissing him. He maneuvered them both into the shower, water sluicing down over their heads.

Held against Hutch’s chest, Starsky used the downpour to disguise his tears and let his partner wash both of them.

~*~

Hutch crunched lettuce and tomatoes, feeling a mite guilty to be eating a second “lunch” in the same day. As it was, he’d eaten the first hours ago, earlier than he’d usually take a midday meal. When exactly was the right time to eat when you were going backward in time? He hadn’t had anything for breakfast and Starsky hadn’t eaten in going on twenty-four hours.

Starsky had selected the Seafarers’ plate, which came with a huge pile of shrimp, scallops, mussels, and ahi tuna. It was accompanied by mounds of French fries, and a bowl of pineapple garnished with coconut and garish red cherries.

The hotel’s restaurant was open on two sides, blurring the lines between indoors and outdoors. A canal linking the Olympic swimming pool on the right with a kiddie pool, waterpark, and hot tub complex on the left curved around the entire patio. Ocean breezes wafted through palms dotting the perimeter of the tables, lifting the white table clothes and blowing the occasional napkin onto the tile floor. The wait staff seemed well used to this problem, cheerfully providing additional napkins, even when a family of small children gleefully dumped all of theirs into the stream inches from where they sat.

“This is terrific!” Wearing Wayfarer sunglasses against the glare, Starsky shoveled in seafood enthusiastically as if he hadn’t had an emotional breakdown less than sixty minutes ago.

His ability to sublimate what was bothering him, hiding behind exuberant man-child was legendary. In the past, it might have deceived Hutch into thinking he hadn’t a care in the world, but he could see under Starsky’s mask so much better now.

“What do you want to do first?” Starsky asked, dribbling ketchup on his fries. “We’ve got all those free coupons…”

Going for the frontal approach always worked best despite the fact that what Hutch really wanted to do was drag Starsky upstairs to their double beds and make love to him. He could still feel Starsky’s lips pressing hard on his, the thickness of his cock nestled between Hutch’s legs when they were wrapped around each other in the shower.

He was aware Starsky had cried. He’d shed a few tears himself under the pouring water. It was not something they would talk about, particularly over lunch.

“I made a list,” Hutch declared. “And a few phone calls while you were getting dressed just now.”

“Who’d you call?” Starsky asked suspiciously.

Hutch speared a cucumber from his salad to avoid looking at Starsky. He didn’t want his partner to think he was being forced into anything. But really, he was. This was Hutch’s firm line. “Schofield Barracks Army Base, military records, to be exact.”

He could sense Starsky’s shock and raised his eyes to gaze at him. “You didn’t want to come here, and I get why. So, let’s deal with this–rip off the damned scab and drain the wound, Starsk. It’s festered long enough.”

Starsky’s face was pasty white, only his cheeks overly red as if he’d sunburned in seconds. He slammed down the spoon he’d used to scoop up pineapple. “You think you can just take over my life without my say so?” Without raising his voice above normal discussion level, he radiated anger.

His belly threatening to dispel the just-eaten lettuce, Hutch took a hasty drink of water. “This has tied you in knots ever since I’ve known you,” he said as reasonably as he could.

A quick scan of the restaurant proved that their suddenly heated conversation had not raised interest from the other diners. A waitress toting an entire lobster on a platter passed their table without a glance.

“If you really don’t want to know about your three…platoon mates, then give me their ID numbers and I will go. The base is about seventeen miles from here, according to the map.”

“I know where it is,” Starsky growled, his jaw tight. “Been there.”

The best way to get Starsky to take on something he didn’t want to do was challenge him. Hutch inhaled, pretending he needed one of the complimentary corn muffins. He buttered it slowly, spreading the knife over the entire surface. Far too much butter than he would ever eat.

Starsky snatched it out of his hand, taking a huge bite.

It was as if a weight had been lifted off Hutch’s chest, but he knew not to gloat. This was far too fragile a moment to celebrate getting his own way. He truly felt that if Starsky didn’t come to terms with what had happened and learn the truth, that their own future might be forever jeopardized.

Starsky had never needed Hutch to push him into moving forward in his life. Ten years ago, they’d planned out their lives over beers and pool, pushing their boundaries and limitations. They’d joined the police academy and found a calling. Yet, Starsky’s demons came out when he least expected. Those late nights when they were on stake-out, or collapsing in front of the TV after a brutal arrest, Hutch had seen him cringe and cry out in his sleep, fighting battles he never spoke of during the day. Learning the details of the horrible attack gave Hutch the tools to help Starsky forgive himself and assuage his survivor’s guilt.

“Wanna go to a beach,” Starsky mumbled around his mouthful of corn muffin.

“It’s an island, there are beaches every ten feet–Oahu is made of shoreline,” Hutch said, mostly because Starsky expected him to be argumentative. It was part of their banter.

Starsky gave him a hard glare over the edge of his mimosa glass. “You could be a comedian,” he said. “Bet they’d hire you to entertain the afterhours barflies. The base is inland.”

“You going to eat all that pineapple?” Hutch asked, picking up the dish before Starsky could answer. He pushed aside the canned cherries, biting into the juicy yellow fruit. It was like sunshine bursting in his mouth, and he thought about Starsky’s tongue curled around his.

“I want shave ice.” Starsky looked around the restaurant as if expecting to spy a cart immediately. “And a t-shirt that says Hawaiians do it on the beach.” He swirled the straw around the bottom of his glass, before slurping the last of the juice and champagne. “I want this to be a vacation, not a wake.”

~*~

Starsky insisted on driving, despite the rental being a fucking white Ford LTD. It was, in point of fact, a much nicer version of the beater Hutch drove around Bay City. Starsky would have picked something sleeker and sportier but he’d been too disoriented directly after the flight. Maybe he could go back to Avis and trade it in on a nicer model?

Another day, maybe. The quicker they got the trip to Schofield over with, the better. Now that they were actually in Honolulu, Starsky was as determined to forget the past as Hutch was to recreate it. The problem was, every single damned street brought up memories.

He hadn’t spent that much time in the tourist area, back then. He’d been confined to the VA hospital for the first month, then to Schofield for the next. Even after his restrictions were loosened toward the end of his stay, just before he was given his discharge papers, he’d hung around the bars closer to the base.

Still, the look of Oahu, Diamond Head crowning above them from almost every angle, and the intense sun unlocked half-recalled events that didn’t provide comfort. He’d been hanging onto his humanity by his fingernails then, unable to relax, living on booze and cigarettes. At the sight of a corner store advertising Pall Malls, he could smell and taste the dry, burning flavor of tobacco in the back of his throat. Made him want to cough, spit out the bitterness.

“Bum a cig, Sarge?” He could hear Hager’s voice so clearly that when Hutch spoke, Starsky barely made out his words.

“We could stop on the way back,” Hutch repeated, shaking out the map provided by Avis. “Have drinks at a bar?”

“T-that’d be good,” Starsky muttered, scanning the street. Nervous tension crawled up his neck, the humidity and oppressive heat like a hammer nailing his memory back in country. He was parched, thirsty, expecting to hear the drone of helicopter blades and the gale-force of their passing whipping the palm fronds overhead. “Want a shave ice, now.”

Hutch pointed across the road at the perfect Hawaiian shave ice truck painted in bright rainbow colors. There was a short queue of excited customers waiting for their treat. Starsky pulled into the paved parking lot, his chest tight and hot.

Fucking flashbacks. Fucking Hawaii, pressing in on him like a nightmare.

 It shouldn’t be this way. It shouldn’t hurt so bad to remember his friends–in a place they’d never even been together.

“My treat?” Hutch said very gently, as if afraid of intruding. “You want blue, pink or the entire rainbow?”

That wasn’t right either. This was the man he wanted to screw–and here he was doing exactly that, only in every wrong way.

“Not guava,” Starsky managed in a nearly normal tone of voice. It took effort. “Too sweet. Rainbow is good.”

“Rainbow it is.” Hutch nodded, molding his big palm to the hand Starsky still had clamped on the steering wheel.

That felt real, grounding him to the here and now. His own palm was sweating when he rotated his wrist so they were holding hands there in the parking lot beside Tiny Kono’s Authentic Shave Ice. Nobody walking by pointed at them or shouted that two men were sitting in utter silence, holding hands.

At some point, Starsky realized he’d almost melted into the pleather car seat, his shoulders no longer up under his ears, his teeth no longer clenched together around an imaginary cigarette butt. All because of Hutch’s hand in his.

“You ever had shave ice?” Starsky went for conversational nonsense. So much easier than an explanation of his walking nightmares.

“Snow cones. My sister had one of those little plastic machines that pushed the ice out of Frosty’s hat.” Hutch chuckled, with a sweet, wistful smile, gazing at Starsky like he wanted to make everything better.

“Not even in the same ballpark, pal,” Starsky sneered, love for his partner padding his chest to keep out the Viet Cong. He could do this–with Hutch. “Just wait until you taste it. You mean to tell me when you were surfing back then, you didn’t buy shave ice?”

“Bought rum and coke,” Hutch said with a smirky lift of one eyebrow. “And added ice.”

“That would make a good flavor. We should ask Tiny Kono there if he has any,” Starsky proposed.

“Tiny Kono is the size of a tank.” Hutch got out of the car.

A big guy with a massive grin, shoulder length black hair and a huge red shirt patterned with hibiscus flowers, beckoned them over after a short wait in line. “Aloha, friends, what can I get for you?”

“Two rainbows, ” Hutch ordered, handing over the cash.

“Going somewhere over the rainbow?” Kono sing-songed. “Must be your first day on the island.” He scooped and molded, pouring six colors of fruit syrup over the mound of shave ice.

“How’d you know?” Hutch asked, taking the paper cups and passing one to Starsky.

Starsky guffawed, amazed that he’d moved so completely out of fear into a fizzy sort of joy, all because of Hutch. “Cause you’re a pasty white boy?” He slurped up some of the freezing cold juice with his straw.

“He said it, haole.” Kono beamed. “Welcome to my home. May your stay be…” He pointed to the pineapples, melons, and bananas painted on the side of his truck. “Fruitful.”

“You wouldn’t have a cousin named Huggy Bear?” Hutch asked suspiciously.

“I might.” Kono nodded confidently, waving good-bye. “All are my bruddahs.”

“Thanks, Kono. We’ll be back,” Starsky promised, walking to the car. The ice was shockingly cold against his palate, brightening his spirits. Learning the fate of his friends shouldn’t be hard–he was ninety percent sure they were dead. Had been dead for ten years.

~*~

How did that help in the long run? That was the question.

The woman at Military records couldn’t have been more kind or helpful. Despite what had to be thousands of names of deceased soldiers, she located those of Joe Michaels, Doug Slovak, and Luca Gianessi in less than half an hour. They’d all three died after the assault at Phan Rang, just as Starsky had always believed.

It was oddly anticlimactic. Now what?

Hands jammed in his pockets, Hutch bumped Starsky’s shoulder as they sauntered to the car. “Slovak is buried here in Honolulu,” Hutch repeated what the woman had told them. “You want to visit his grave?”

Starsky looked up at the blue, blue sky, tracking the menacing clouds blowing in from the east. It would rain soon, a common occurrence in Hawaii. His eyes felt gritty like he’d been crying and his chest ached again. Had he really only been in Hawaii for half a day? He’d discovered Hager had survived just yesterday. The arrest in Bay City felt like a billion years earlier. The dinosaurs had lived and become extinct in that span of time.

“I want to get drunk,” he said wearily, even though it wasn’t exactly true. He’d tried to drown his terrors in alcohol and that had bombed spectacularly. “I want to forget.”

Hutch had gotten behind the wheel and drove carefully out of the base onto the narrow, two laned highway. “Forget Phan Rang?”

“Forget the whole damned war, and all the rain–” Starsky tipped his head against the headrest, watching the clouds open up into a tropical shower. It wouldn’t last long. He remembered those cloud bursts from ten years ago, when the world seemed to be taking a breather. Nature would emerge shiny clean and smelling earthy in a half an hour. Only he still sensed the fetid scent of rot and decay echoing from the past.

Hutch drove quietly, passing a small grove of pineapple plants before pulling into a strip mall with a liquor store, a drycleaner, and a bar at the far end. It wasn’t authentically Hawaiian or trendy. It didn’t have teens hanging out trying to look cool or housewives taking an afternoon white wine spritzer before the kids got out of school. It was dim with an air of seedy neglect, a neon sign advertising Schlitz beer flickering red, the ‘z’ no longer completely visible.

It was perfect.

~*~

Walking inside, Starsky inhaled the stale cigarette smoke and stink of spilled beer soaked into the scuffed wooden floorboards with relief. There were only one or two patrons drinking midafternoon.

He held up two fingers to the bald guy behind the bar. “Whatever local brew you got.”

“Two Waikiki’s coming up,” the bartender said around a cocktail stirrer poking out one side of his mouth. He retrieved a couple of long necks from under the bar.

“Reminds me of Sam’s.” Hutch’s breath huffed against Starsky’s ear. “You reminiscing?”

“Trying to–” Starsky grabbed the bottles from the bar and carried them to a booth near the back. “Flush away the crap.”

Hutch tapped his beer against Starsky’s before taking a long pull, his Adam’s apple moving up and down, exactly the way it would if he’d been sucking cock.

Starsky’s groin ached with longing. He couldn’t take his eyes off his partner. In the murky room, Hutch was luminous, as if glowing from within. He knew exactly why he’d jumped Hutch’s bones at Sam’s minutes after they’d met. To cling to that beauty and purify his own filth, if only for a second.

Hutch met his gaze, something tender and pure in his blue eyes.

Starsky drank beer. Like the shave ice, it helped diminish the dark places inside and buoyed up the best parts of him. He’d always been able to roll with the punches and emerge battered but not broken. It was just that single point in time; covered in other men’s blood, the jungle closing in on him, and rifle fire reverberating in his ears, that held him captive.

He’d latched onto Hutch that first day and never wanted to let go. They’d leaned on one another right from the start. Hutch helped Starsky get better accommodations and a job as a cab driver, and Starsky had given him an excuse to get out of the house most nights. They’d sit at Sam’s, and later at one of Huggy’s first bars, talking for hours. Sex had been a solo event, not to be repeated. But they became friends in spite of it.

Very quickly, he’d learned Hutch had his demons, too. The most notable had been Nancy, or Vanessa, the name she’d taken on when she started on the catwalk. Hutch’s entanglement with his wife lasted through dropping out of law school and joining the police academy with Starsky. She’d dumped him for an up-and-comer in the modeling industry, which was just as well. They’d never needed her. Somehow, Starsky and Hutch clicked into two halves of a whole, one incomplete without the other.

The sex had orbited their world, held at bay by the conventions of modern life. They were two macho guys, bedding women and proving their masculinity with guns.

Such a crock of shit. A feint to hide the truth. Starsky wasn’t even sure if the ache for Hutch had ever turned off, only been redirected when he was with a gorgeous woman.

There’d been numerous women. Some very special, like Helen and Terry. Others simply a crutch to get through the night. Once in a while, he and Hutch had shared–and he’d watch Hutch get laid, mesmerized by the expression on his face. Which he’d seen once before and memorized for all eternity.

“You ever wade in the ocean and feel the pull of the tide–like it’s moving sideways?” Starsky spoke slowly, not quite sure exactly what he was trying to say, only that he had to unburden. Now that Hutch knew the truth about the attack, he could release all the anguish that had built up for so long. Except, it was like tar, stuck to him, blackening his soul. “The sand sucking from under your feet and the water clutching you to drag you down…”

“Rip tide.”

Nodding, Starsky picked at the label on the bottle. A surfer, arms around his board and a buxom babe, decorated the front. Tearing the girl off the label, the guy could have been Hutch circa 1963, blond locks swept off his forehead. “That’s how this…is. The past pulling me out to sea and I can’t swim.”

Hutch moved his leg under the table until they were touching from knee to ankle. “You know I’d never let you drown. What–” He shrugged, stroking his own collarbone.

Starsky could feel a phantom touch against his throat, as if Hutch’s fingers brushed his skin, too.

“What holds you there, in Phan Rang? Have you ever figured that out?”

What a question. Starsky tipped his bottle to his lips, holding the beer on his tongue before letting it trickle down his throat. “That they died and I didn’t?”

“Only you find out that Hager didn’t die. You weren’t the only survivor, but he’s screwed up permanently and you overcame your–” Hutch paused, obviously unsure how to phrase it.

“Breakdown.” Starsky clenched his teeth. Sweat traced the length of his spine, his shirt sticking to his skin. “Had a fucking nervous breakdown because four guys I woulda given my life for flipped that around and died cause’a me.”

“I know how that feels,” Hutch said, almost to himself, his hands trembling around his bottle.

“When?” Starsky stared at him, stricken.

“Giovanni’s Restaurant.”

Eleven pm, midweek, December 17th, not quite two years ago. Starsky rubbed his left shoulder reflexively. “You wished you were shot instead of me?” he asked incredulously.

“Of course.” Hutch spread both hands in hopeless gesture. “I couldn’t let you die. And if you had, it would have been my fault.”

“But you didn’t even want to go there,” Starsky said stubbornly. “You wanted scrambled eggs.”

Hutch nodded, his eyes a million miles away: probably in that restaurant, keeping Starsky alive and fending off the assassins until midnight. An impossible task he’d managed single-handedly.

“So how was it your fault?” Starsky persisted, no longer interested in the beer.

“So how was what happened to your buddies your fault?” Hutch turned the question around.

Opening his mouth to rebuke him, Starsky froze, the humid, stinking jungle in his nose, the whirring helicopter blades whipping the rain into a mini-tornado. “Because I was there,” he whispered.

“You didn’t cause the war, the battle.” Hutch placed his hand squarely over Starsky’s gripping the edge of the table. “You were a sergeant, told what to do and where to go. Did you follow orders?”

“Skirted insubordination a couple of time on the base, but never on patrol,”
Starsky said, almost by rote, suddenly recalling the Army psychiatrist telling him good people died, that was war, and he had to get over it. Damn the old man. “Never on patrol. That could get you k-killed.”

“And people did get killed,” Hutch repeated gently. “So you decided you must have done something wrong?”

Starsky fisted the fingers Hutch still held, needing to punch, to fight, but he felt limp as a noodle.

“Then what did Hager do wrong?” Hutch continued, rubbing his thumb rhythmically against Starsky’s. “He was only following orders, too.”

“Yeah.” Starsky conceded the point. What did that prove? “Why? Why him and not me?”

“At the risk of sounding like a minister, I’ll paraphrase my grandfather. Life works in mysterious ways,” Hutch said softly. “We’ll probably never know the answer to who lives and who dies. How’d you get out of that hellhole?”

Starsky’s throat constricted when he tried to take another swallow of beer, his eyes pricking with unshed tears. He’d cried once today. “I was last–‘cause nobody knew I was…”

“They didn’t know you were there?” Hutch broke in, obviously horrified.

“I was last, because the others were hurt bad.” He closed his eyes, seeing the locale as if it were directly in front of him. The huge crater where a bomb had hit sometime in the past. Splintered tree limbs hanging like skeletons, and bodies scattered on the terrain. Four were his buddies. Others were the Vietnamese who’d hidden in and around the trees, rising out of the earth like unnatural wraiths to surround them. And as the shooting had started, as Starsky and his men hit the ground, scuttling for meager cover, aircover choppered in, seeding the rain with gunfire.

The enemy, what Starsky could see, had been vanquished. Dead. The army claiming a little parcel of land for the good ol’ US of A at the expense of human life. Ours and theirs. Such a cost for what?

Nuthin’.

In the meantime, all five of Starsky’s team had been shot. Four casualties. Well, actually only three, and two wounded. “I got it in the right shoulder–”

“The one that aches…” Hutch said with dawning comprehension. Running his hand up the back of Starsky’s arm to cup his shoulder, unerringly covering the vaguely Viet Nam shaped scar there.

“I was covered in their–” Starsky heaved in a breath, nose full of the foul odor, the present bar smells somehow less real. “Blood. And so wired, I didn’t even feel the pain. I helped load up Gianessi. Knew he was d-dead right off.” He’d never talked this much about that day all at one time, even to those lobotomized psychiatrists at the VA.

He wiped a shaky hand over his forehead, drenched in sweat. He’d had a background headache all day, no doubt the result of his bender the night before, but too much emotion, jetlag, and whatever else, was threatening to wipe him out completely. “I guess–” He looked straight into Hutch’s eyes, felt the strength that Hutch provided, and wanted to curl up in his lap, just for a few hours. “I guess I never saw Michaels after they pulled him outta the ditch. Hager…was bad. Arterial bleeding, like a fountain–” He bit his bottom lip, afraid to go on, afraid to stop.

He’d left part of himself back there in that dripping hellhole, a piece he would never get back. Could he bury the guilt?

“Starsk.” Hutch tightened his grip on Starsky’s shoulder. “You don’t have to do this all at once.”

Starsky shook his head. He had to. It was now or never–Hawaii was his chance to yank out the tumor. “Slovak called out to me. Holding onto my hand. The medic…” He saw/felt the stuttering pulse against his palm as Slovak was lifted into the rescue chopper, the Huey overhead laying a ratatat-tat of ground cover so the bugs could fly away. Saw Slovak’s eyes roll back as he was strapped into a stretcher, life draining away as the chopper rose.

“How long were you there by yourself?” Hutch asked.

“A lifetime.” Starsky shrugged, spent. “Let’s get outta here. Take me home.”

~*~

The Honolulu Grand Resort represented temporary shelter, if not exactly home. Hutch trundled Starsky across the ornate lobby and into the elegant lift, unable to avoid seeing their reflections in the mirrored interior of the car. The humidity and rain had laid waste to the smooth combing he’d done after their shower earlier; blond hair disheveled as if he’d been in one of those helicopters himself. The images Starsky had described had haunted him on the drive from the bar, superimposed over the picture he’d seen from In Country and Out Again, of Starsky alone, wounded, but still on guard.

He tightened his grip around Starsky’s shoulders, honored that he’d been trusted enough to receive such awful memories.

Starsky huddled against him, all but asleep on his feet. The Hawaiian weather had puffed Starsky’s abundant curls into a soft corona of dark hair. The contrast between that and his washed-out complexion was stark.

“Third floor,” Hutch said, going for perky but sure he was failing miserably. “Ladies lingerie.”

“Trust you to get lost in an elevator.” Starsky’s voice cracked, but at least he was giving it his best.

“You want room service and a movie on the TV?” Hutch was willing to cosset Starsky in any way possible. This was his prize vacation. They might as well be as lazy as a couple of slugs if that was what it took to give him respite after the ordeal.

“I–” Starsky shrugged, his expression bleak, enhancing the resemblance to the soldier in the book. He inhaled shakily, fumbling in his pockets for the room key as the elevator opened.

“Hi!” A tiny girl wearing a pink bathing suit, matching pink flip-flops, and inflated pink floaties around her upper arms stood directly in front of the doors. “I goin’ swimmin’.” She grinned, missing her front lower teeth.

“Hi.” Every ounce of Starsky’s desolation completely evaporated in the face of utter adorableness. He straightened, a crooked smile brightening his whole demeanor. “You look ready for the Olympics.”

If Hutch hadn’t seen it with his own eyes, he never would have believed the transformation. Starsky was a chameleon, masking his true feelings to fit in with the audience.

“I can float on my back!” she declared importantly.

“Willow Wren!” A harried woman toting a baby boy in a front holder, a beach bag stuffed with toys, and a large floppy hat, hurried over. “Stay with mommy!”

“I’ll hold the door for you,” Hutch offered as she grabbed Willow Wren’s hand, towing her into the lift.

“Thank you so much!”

“Have fun, Willow Wren!” Starsky waved.

“I ate poi.” She made a face as her mother attempted to shush her chatty daughter. “Don’t. Don’t eat it.”

The elevator doors slid together, cutting off anything more Willow Wren was about to say. Hutch chuckled, looking over at Starsky. “No poi?”

“What is it?” Starsky asked.

“Some kind of root. Traditional Hawaiian food.” Hutch had his key out faster than Starsky and led them into their room. There was a new addition to the décor–an enormous gift basket topped with a giant red bow.

“Wow. S’from the prize committee.” Starsky poked a finger at the crinkly cellophane wrapped around the wicker basket filled with goodies. “Too bad we can’t give some of this to Willow Wren.”

Hutch stood watching Starsky untie the bow and reveal the contents, still marveling at Starsky’s ability to shake off his pain. He’d been aware of this talent over the years, way back even to shortly after they met. A few good meals under Starsky’s belt courtesy of Hutch’s family money, not to mention a couple items of clothing not provided by the US Army, and he’d brightened enough to get a job. That and a haircut had turned him into a totally different man than the shell-shocked soldier Hutch had met on a hot afternoon.

It wasn’t too much longer after that, the two of them decided to attend the police academy together. The rest was their shared history. There were still parts Starsky had never quite disclosed, just as Hutch had a few incidents he didn’t talk about with Starsky.

He accepted fully that he loved Starsky and Starsky loved him. That resuming a sexual relationship with his partner was something he wanted very much, while cognizant that both of them yearned for a traditional marriage. That elusive wife and two or more little ones was the American dream–and as remote as Mars, at the same time.

“You ever thought about having kids, a daughter?” Hutch said, sitting beside his friend to investigate the booty. He lifted out a bottle of Perrier and then a bottle of champagne, pretending he wasn’t all but interrogating Starsky.

“Like her?” Starsky unwrapped a chunk of creamy cheese. “She’d run the household in a day. I couldn’t…” The grief seemed to weigh down on him again, as if Willow Wren’s influence only lasted so long. “When I met you, Hutch, I thought–there’s Mr. Perfect. That you were so–” He shifted to look over at Hutch with an audible intake of breath. “Pure. I was dirty and people…hurt.”

“Hurt?” Hutch whispered.

“I couldn’t.” Starsky took a savage bite of the cheese, chewing as if determined to pulverize it into dust. “Wouldn’t let anyone near enough to touch me. It hurt.”

He shook his head, gazing at Hutch with such wonder that Hutch’s heart tripped a beat.

“Then there was a damned war protest in front of my bar. You walked up t’me and put your hand on my arm ‘cause I was in your way.” He half grinned, sad but somehow the memory was a good one. “First time anybody’d touched me in a long, long time.” Starsky deliberately selected another foil wrapped triangle of cheese and placed it in Hutch’s hand. “I was blown away. What was that? I mean, how’d that happen? After months, of all the people, in Nam, and then Hawaii–there you were.”

Hutch wet his lips, incredibly moved. “Love at first sight.”

“You think?”

“If it can happen to a man and a woman, and no one blinks an eye, why not?” Hutch touched his lips lightly to Starsky’s, more of a blessing than a true kiss. “We’ve been taught that men don’t, and yet the instant connection was there.”

“Sure was.” Starsky stroked Hutch’s cheek before returning the kiss far more passionately. “Scared the fuck outta me.”

“I seem to remember there was fucking involved.” Hutch raised an eyebrow, the kiss tingling on his lips.

“Potato, po-tah-toe,” Starsky groused. “I didn’t want to lose all that golden sunshine coming out your–”

“You say ass and I’m dumping you on yours.”

Starsky started to laugh, but ended up hiccupping, tears glistening in his eyes. “God, Hutch, I’m so tired of treading water, their bodies pulling me under the surf until I…”

“Told you, I’ll never let you drown.” Hutch promised, entwining their fingers. “You’re strong, resilient. You’ve made it this long without admitting how much damage those memories caused. Winning the trip to Hawaii brought it all up to the surface. Has talking about what happened put things into perspective? Did you dream about Phan Rang on the plane?”

Starsky stared at Hutch, his mouth half open as if he planned to speak but stopped himself. “No.” He frowned, taking the wedge of cheese to peel away the silver paper.

“Talkin’ about the trip dug up the nightmare big time, but after we got drunk and looked at the pictures…no.” He leaned into Hutch again, as if a weight had shifted, giving him room. “Talking to you never hurts. It’s always better.”

“Then I have something to show you,” Hutch said, watching Starsky indulgently. He was almost asleep there on the couch, the emotions of the day–hell, the last couple, for that matter, depleting his stamina. He reached for the carryon bag that he’d stowed at the end of the couch when they first walked in–was it only this morning?

“Whatcha got?” Starsky asked, trying without success to stifle a yawn.

His awkward mouth contortions made Hutch want to kiss him again and feel that lithe, sleepy body curl against him like a giant cat. “A book I bought the same day I got the Hawaiian guide book.” He placed In Country and Then Out in Starsky’s lap.

Starsky reared back as if putting distance between himself and the subject matter would help make it more palatable. The grouping of five GIs on the cover stared up at them, specters from the past. “Damn–” he murmured, eyes unnaturally wide, all signs of fatigue gone. “I thought–”

“Me, too, after you showed me the shot of you with your buddies,” Hutch said sympathetically. “There is one picture–”

Curious, as always, Starsky had already started to turn the pages. The early chapters were mostly photos of Vietnamese from the mid-1950s when the colonizing French were thrown out of the country.

“Seems like Nam was at war for decades,” Starsky said sadly, turning to another chapter. The picture on the front page showed Walter Cronkite reporting from Viet Nam. He noticed the airplane cocktail napkin Hutch had used to mark Starsky’s picture. “What’d you leave here?”

“Since you didn’t get a drink on the plane.” Hutch tried to keep things light, at least for the moment, and passed Starsky the bottle of Perrier to wash down his cheese. “I saw this picture while you were asleep.” He inserted his finger into the book to turn to the marked page.

The napkin hid most of the picture. Starsky had taken a long drink from the bottle and grabbed the square printed with Hawaiian Airlines to wipe his mouth, revealing the image of himself.

He sat still as though carved from stone; only the movement of his chest proving he was still alive.

“Starsk?” Hutch said, very afraid he’d abruptly sent his lover into some kind of catatonic state. “Babe?” Taking the bottle of fizzy water from his unresisting hand, Hutch kissed him gently.

Gasping, Starsky looked directly at Hutch, tears filming his blue eyes. “I never knew…I never…saw a photographer.” He covered his mouth, retching, and dashed for the bathroom, the book clattering to the striped carpet.

~*~

How could someone have so callously taken his photo, without his damned permission, when he had been in such grief? It was deplorable.

And to put it into a book for all to see his most vulnerable moment. The worst time of his entire life up to the age of twenty-two. Even his father’s murder, as heinous as that had been, hadn’t ripped him apart like that hellhole in Viet Nam.

He felt violated, as if someone he didn’t even know, had stolen something private from him when he was unaware of what he’d lost. He vomited into the toilet, sure his guts were shredding, and collapsed onto the blue tiled floor.

“Starsk?” Hutch stood in the doorway, hesitating before walking inside.

Hutch, who had seen Starsky at his worst many times. Hutch, the only man who saw past his defenses to his inner soul. Hutch, whose touch had healed him ten years before.

“Talk about over dramatic,” Starsky apologized, his entire body trembling.

“I am so sorry.” Hutch gathered him into his arms, holding him tightly.

Starsky soaked in the strength and solace Hutch provided simply by being himself. His heart beat in time with Starsky’s, connecting them in love.

“I never meant to add pain. Shouldn’t have shown you that picture,” Hutch whispered against his temple, kissing him sweetly. “Just wanted to…show I understand. That picture is pure despair, it’s obvious to all. Proves what we all have to learn over and over; war is hell.”

“I was so out of it–” Starsky coughed, licking his lips. His mouth tasted like reused cheese.

Hutch’s lips turned up at the corners and he handed over the bottle of Perrier he’d brought with him.

Drinking about half the contents, Starsky scrubbed the end of his nose, not sure whether to sneeze or sniff. He did both which vastly improved matters. “I still wasn’t aware I was bleeding–” Starsky climbed wearily to his feet. He’d never have made it without Hutch’s assistance. They were wedged between the toilet and bathtub, a far too narrow space for two grown men.

He had to look at that picture again. Accept its reality and examine the whole situation from an outsider’s perspective. “Where’s that book?”

Hutch’s grip on his arm tightened. “Are you sure?”

“Yeah. Like tearing a Band-Aid off.” Starsky didn’t fess up to the fact that his stomach was churning. The water went down all right but he wasn’t sure he wanted anything more for a while.

Starsky retrieved the book, setting it on the coffee table with the picture visible. He sat down, with Hutch so close they were touching, and tried to look at it dispassionately. Pretend it wasn’t him.

It was a heartbreaking shot. Should have won the photographer some kind of award. Starsky had always enjoyed playing around with a camera, experimenting with shutter speed, F-stops, and angles. This one was so simple, a child could have clicked their little Brownie and gotten the photo. A man slumped against a wall, totally oblivious to the world around him, but still a soldier, so accustomed to being prepared for attack that he gripped his rifle like a shield.

“There.” Starsky touched the picture, wishing he had some memory of that moment. Why hadn’t the photographer spoken to him, or done something other than record his utter misery? “Blood all over my shoulder and arm.”

“Babe, you were covered in blood,” Hutch said with such sadness, gently rubbing his shoulder, directly over the spot where Starsky had a pockmarked series of scars vaguely in the shape of Viet Nam. “How long before you were seen by a doctor?”

Starsky shrugged, gazing at his twenty-two-year-old self.

“Who helped you into the hospital?”

Starsky frowned, trying to piece through his memories to that moment. “The chopper took me to China Beach. I know that for a fact.” He shrugged, the whole period of time completely blank in his brain. “It’s like I wasn’t there at all.”

“Wonder if the photographer got you to a doctor?” Hutch suggested.

Starsky lifted his arms in a silent ‘who knows?’, lost in the what-ifs. At least the guy may have provided support instead of getting his shot and walking away. That gave him hope. “I just want to sleep for a million years, but I’m afraid I’ll have that dream. Fucks with me for days.”

“You said it’s been less frequent?” Hutch deliberately bumped his knee against Starsky’s.

“Yeah.” He yawned, leaning against Hutch’s comfortable bulk. “You’re my hope, Hutch, and my strength.”

“Right back at you, buddy.”

~*~

Hawaiian sun flooded the hotel room with incandescent light. Starsky opened his eyes, squinting at the sliding glass doors a few feet from the bed. They’d forgotten to pull the curtains when they stumbled into bed the night before, but he could tell from the slant of the rays that it was way past seven or eight am. The sunshine hadn’t woken him or Hutch, the naturally early riser of the two of them. More likely, his stomach had. He was hungry.

Outside, the cerulean sky was studded with long feathers of white clouds, and from below, Starsky could hear the shouts of children playing in the extensive waterpark area. Although he hadn’t taken any time to explore or even go out on their balcony to look over the property, he knew from the hotel map in the lobby they were near the tall water slide. There was an audible shwoop and splash every few minutes, followed by shrieks of laughter. Rather than disturbing him, Starsky liked the sound of happiness so nearby.

He’d had a good sleep without a single disturbing dream. Certainly not the nightmare. Spooned against Hutch’s long, warm body, Starsky had barely moved. Now, naked under the mound of blankets, even with the air conditioner going full blast, he was overly hot cuddled into Hutch. He stuck one foot out from under the covers, the blast of AC tickling his sole.

Starsky smiled languidly, not yet ready to face the world. This was…nice.

Lazy and relaxed. What a vacation was supposed to be.

Pressing his ear to Hutch’s upper back, he listened to that reliable, steady heartbeat.

Where would he be without Hutch? Certainly not here. And that was not simply because Hutch had coerced him into taking the vacation he’d feared would throw him back into hell. No, rewinding further–where would he be if Hutch hadn’t confronted him ten years ago in front of Sam’s and upended his life? Would he be Hager? With visions of VC on every street corner?

Would he be a cop?

That was possible. If he’d managed to pull himself together on his own, the police academy valued the skills he’d acquired in ‘Nam, such as proficiency with firearms. But he would not have been the same man, as a cop or as a person, without Hutch. Hutch completed him in all ways.

Shoving all rambling thoughts as far back into his memory bank as possible, Starsky focused on Hutch. On how it felt to be lying next to him, relaxed and, if not at peace with what happened so long ago, then beginning to accept his own part. He was moving on but a piece of him would be stuck there on that rainy battlefield forever.

He fisted his hands, pulling them out of the covers to open his fingers. Something immaterial floated into the air as he let go of the firefight and the deaths of his squad. Gave them a silent memorial. It had never been his fault.

He would go find Slovak’s grave at the military cemetery. Maybe leave him a bottle of Waikiki. He would have liked that. Guy used to collect the empties of every new brew he drank.

Hutch shifted, the whole bed dipping as he moved on the mattress. Starsky placed a hand on Hutch’s hip to steady him as his backside ground into Starsky’s groin. Felt incredible. Truly one of the best alarm clocks Starsky had ever encountered. Sure got his cock up and alert.

“What’s that back there?” Hutch mumbled, amused.

“Nuthin’,” Starsky lied, grasping his growing erection. He kept his touch feather light, unwilling to come before he had a chance to indulge in some playtime.

“Feels like something to me.” Hutch rolled onto his back so he could peer at Starsky over the edge of the pillow. “You packed your old nightstick from your patrol days to Hawaii?”

“This old thing?” Starsky kicked off the covers to reveal the cock straining up between his legs. The cold air did nothing to diminish his erection. “He’s happy to see you.”

“Haven’t seen him in a long time.” Hutch caught his gaze, love overflowing. “I missed him.”

“Missed this.” Starsky arched into a kiss, their cocks caught between layers of bedding.

Hutch laughed against his lips, the joy vibrating through the bones of Starsky’s face. They both scrabbled with the sheets and blankets, all the while locked into a passionate kiss. It had been a decade since he’d done it with another man. Starsky had forgotten the sheer bliss of being with Hutch, pulling that pure heart into his wounded one, aware of the strength and muscle Hutch brought to the game.

When the comforter was banished, Hutch swung his knee around Starsky’s hip, reeling him in. Heated cocks collided in a most spectacular way.

Starsky sucked in air, caught between Frenching Hutch’s slippery tongue and wanting to grab his penis, too.

“Nope.” Hutch evaded Starsky’s questing hand, locking his knees on either side of Starsky. He rolled them so that he was on top, their cocks perfectly aligned. He set up a rocking motion, stropping their groins, flesh against flesh.

Starsky felt like he was learning the fine art of starting a fire with two sticks at a Boy Scout camp he’d never attended. “Always knew you had talent, blintz, but man…” he moaned, his balls drawing up in a wonderful, expectant way.

“Whatever makes you feel good,” Hutch whispered, increasing the frottage. He inhaled, going stiff, his eyes locking on Starsky’s.

“Yeah, babe,” Starsky murmured, drunk from the expression of agonized bliss on Hutch’s face. His own petit mort came seconds later, gathering up his love and flooding his entire body.

Hutch sighed with a boozy grin and curled on his side, surrounding Starsky. “Best way to wake up.”

“I’d agree, but my belly has other ideas.” Starsky snickered, leaving a gentle kiss on the closest part of Hutch he could reach. “Hungry.”

“I can tell.” Hutch chuckled, ducking his head against Starsky’s shoulder. “This strange rumbling could be your stomach or else Diamond Head is erupting.”

“You named your dick Diamond Head?” Starsky patted his partner’s cock, jumping out of bed before Hutch could smack him. He padded across the carpet to the partially dismantled gift basket. “What else is in here?” Felt like he was seeing the spread for the first time. The couple of pieces of cheese, which had gone in and come out again, were not even a memory at this point. He hefted the pineapple, poking about for a knife to slice it open.

“Don’t cut yourself.” Hutch had thrown on a pair of shorts and a t-shirt, glancing pointedly at Starsky’s nakedness. “The knife is tucked in back.”

“Ah.” Starsky held it up, tapping Hutch on each shoulder with the sheathed blade as if knighting him. “Sir Kenneth.” Now that he was up, much of the peace that had permeated was leaching away, leaving behind an overwhelming sadness. He pushed aside the crinkled cellophane to line up the rest of the foodstuff and saw In Country and Then Out. The old pain was less virulent, but still there. He sat heavily on the couch.

~*~

Trying to decide where he could cut the pineapple and make the least mess, Hutch saw Starsky’s eyes slide past the book, some of the glimmer from their early activities dimming.

“How are you doing?” Hutch asked gently, taking a seat next to him.

Starsky exhaled noisily, raising his open hands. “A work in progress.”

“And it will be.” Hutch nodded, wanting to wipe away the whole incident, but that wasn’t possible or logical. “Work is the right word.”

“And, we’re on vacation–so no work here, right?” He inclined his head with a winsome smile. “Relaxation all the time.”

“You bet your sweet bippy.”

“Groovy,” Starsky said laconically, bumping Hutch with his elbow. “You know that expression is outta fashion. Laugh-In went off the air years ago.”

“Far out.” Hutch raised his eyebrow, reassured. Starsky’s joke could disguise his pain but proved he wasn’t dwelling on the worst. Hutch carried the fruit into the kitchen, laying out a workspace on the marble counter next to the small coffee pot.

“Take a shower and I’ll cut up this pineapple, make some coffee. We can see what’s on TV at this time of the morning.”

“Now that’s a vacation.” Starsky turned the basket upside down, dumping the lot on the table. He fished out a bag of chocolate espresso beans. “Terrific.” Popping a few into his mouth, he munched while gathering towels.

Setting to work, Hutch sliced off the heavy top and the spiky outer skin of the pineapple. The inner fruit was juicy and aromatic, filling the room with a sweet scent. The coffee pot was easy enough to plug in. There were packets of coffee and white china mugs but no plates. Hutch layered several pieces of Kleenex on the small tray the mugs had been sitting on and piled the sliced fruit on top.

Starsky showered quickly and stepped out, completely naked and dripping wet.

“What happened to all the towels you had?” Hutch asked, rolling his eyes in exasperation.

“On the tank.” Starsky shivered in the cooler air, grabbing two from the top of the toilet. He somehow managed to dry off and eat a slice of pineapple at one time, while Hutch sipped his cup of coffee.

The show was fantastic. Hutch could have watched Starsky’s gymnastic gyrations as he skimmed into a pair of tight jeans all day, but his own habit of a morning jog was reasserting itself.

He needed to run. Dealing with Starsky’s emotional issues would take an even greater toll on him unless he took care of himself.

“I’m going for a jog,” Hutch said, putting down his coffee half drunk.

Bare chested, Starsky immediately picked it up to finish the rest. “One mile around, less than ten minutes?” He grinned over the edge of the cup.

“You going to time me?” Hutch jogged in place to get his heart pumping and then dashed into the living area. He grabbed the binder with all the relevant hotel info between the covers and opened to the map of the resort. A quick glance confirmed that three times around the waterpark and pool complex would probably be about a mile.

“I’ll watch,” Starsky said, chuckling. “From the balcony. Cheer you on.”

“Wave when I go past.” Hutch located his sneakers from the untidy pile of their opened suitcases, slipping on the socks from yesterday. He’d clean up when he got back.

“I’ll order lunch, just to be on the safe side.” Starsky tapped on the room service menu. “So you don’t pass out while we watch a movie.”

“You just ate pineapple and chocolate.” Hutch groaned, opening the door.

“You didn’t,” Starsky reminded. “And you’re exercising. You want a burger or go all healthy on me and get this Caesar salad with chicken on top?”

“A burger,” Hutch conceded. He was on vacation. “See you in a few.”

He took the stairs for the added cardio and sprinted out the back door, skirting the kiddy pool. He caught a glimpse of Willow Wren splashing her heels in the water and waved.

She grinned, throwing him a kiss as he dashed past going left on the winding path. He blew out a gusty exhale. He’d needed this outlet. Running had kept him sane much of his life. He’d used the 440 runs in high school to try and flush his own furtive looks at Jack Mitchell out of his system. Later, after he was married, but fighting with Nancy, runs through Griffith Park were the only thing that had kept him focused on the tedious Intro to Corporate Law.

Wrinkling his nose at the pungent smell of chlorine coming from the swimming pools, Hutch jogged around the perimeter. Despite the chemical odor, the tropical breeze was sweet, the sounds of happy swimmers combining with the calls of birds swooping in and out of the palm trees, creating a Hawaiian soundtrack.

Running took him out of himself, letting him smooth the rough patches and tolerate the bad stuff. He could see how his chance meeting with Starsky so long ago had set in motion events that had strengthened both of them for the better. He and Starsky were meant to be a couple, it was as plain as…

A teen in a teensy bikini darted from between two bushes, chased by a laughing dark-skinned boy. Hutch had to skid to a stop to avoid smashing into the lovebirds. The boy grabbed the curvy blonde by the arm, swinging her into a kiss without acknowledging Hutch at all.

Bemused, Hutch looked up to the third floor balconies and spotted Starsky leaning against the rail. He waved, joy flooding his veins like intoxicating wine. Hutch gestured that he was going to run the course again and Starsky laughed, nodding. Starsky held up a thumb and sat back in a lounge chair to watch.

Preening for his adoring audience, Hutch all but pranced around the pools a second and a third time. He couldn’t wait to get back to his lover when he had finished, and they’d only been separated for approximately twenty minutes.

~*~

Starsky spread himself full length along the couch that faced the hotel room door so that he would be the first thing Hutch saw. He arranged one arm over his head a la a damsel who’d fainted in some old fashioned novel, although the huge boner tenting his jeans proved he was no woman.

“Hey, they’re starting…” Hutch swung open the door with a bang, whatever he was about to announce abruptly silenced.

The look on his face was priceless. Starsky would have given anything for that damned book photographer to pop up and snap the proof of Hutch’s rampant lust.

“C’mere,” he growled, standing to coax Hutch into his arms.

“Starsk…” Hutch slammed the door without taking his eyes off his partner. “I’m all sweaty…”

“Not a problem from my end.” Starsky grabbed both his hands, leaning in to take a big sniff of eau de Hutchinson. He was musty with the scent that reminded Starsky of many long days on the job when they were weary from the streets, stumbling against one another, but still required to write up and file reports. He pressed a kiss against Hutch’s carotid, feeling his lover shiver in response.

“That’s how it is? Shall we adjourn to the bedroom?” Hutch asked in his plumiest accent, giving a mock bow and kissing Starsky’s hand.

“Love it when you talk dirty, Ossi-ffer Hutch’son.” Starsky smirked. This was fun. Melancholy thoughts of Slovak, Gianessi, and the rest kept intruding, but he ruthlessly quashed them, giving himself the freedom to have fun.

Wasn’t so much that he’d earned that right, but that he needed the fun. The love.

“Wait’ll you see my feet,” Hutch snickered, taking Starsky in his arms. “Stepped in some dirt the gardener was preparing for new plants.”

“Then respect the code–keep your feet off the bed!” Starsky jumped onto the large mattress with a whoop of glee.

“Your mom’s code?” Hutch went knees down beside him, snaking his hands under Starsky’s t-shirt to tickle his ribs.

“Hays Code.” Starsky giggled and rolled away from his wiggling fingers. “In every movie we watched as kids?”

“Oh, yeah.” Hutch sat back as if chagrined. “No drug use.”

“Smart. We’re cops.”

“No swearing.” Hutch bent sideways to snag one of the towels Starsky had left on the floor after his shower.

“Fuck, can’t say shit in this film.” Starsky tugged off one of Hutch’s sneakers and tossed it across to the bathroom tile.

“And no openmouthed kissing–” Hutch held up a warning finger, chucking his remaining sneaker after the first one, then adding his socks to the pile. “Or sex.”

“Well, if you put it that way…” Starsky waited the half-second while Hutch wiped off his lower legs before he pounced, mouth wide.

Hutch received like a pro, slipping his tongue in place, their lips meeting, breath mingling as if they’d merged into one being.

It was transcendent, and they weren’t even undressed yet. Starsky straddled his partner, crossing his legs behind Hutch’s back and pulling them over into the rumpled mound of pillows from their night’s sleep.

He didn’t even remember there was anything else planned for a goodly long time. Whoever had termed what they were doing ‘foreplay’ was a fool. It didn’t whet his appetite for sex; it practically was sex, just a lazier, cuddlier version.

At one point, when Hutch had gone down on his erect cock, twirling that talented index finger around and around the tip until Starsky was sure he’d have to commit some sort of mayhem to get any other action, there was a distinct knock at the door.

“Did you say you were going to order room service?” Hutch glanced over his shoulder into the living room of the suite.

“Told ‘em to leave it at the door.” Starsky waved a hand at his aching cock. “You gonna finish?”

“Thought we ought to finish together,” Hutch said with a fiendish grin. “Top to bottom?”

“Knew you were a genius.” That was a perfect idea. Starsky scrabbled around so that he could center in on Hutch’s neglected phallus, cupping his hands around the base.

Hutch exhaled lustily, nodding as if he couldn’t quite put into words his appreciation.

Starsky certainly appreciated it when Hutch licked the length of his cock and then engulfed most of it in his mouth. Warmth, slick, and terrific. Gasping, Starsky took a long suck on the throbbing thickness he held. He could feel Hutch’s life’s pulse against his lips and reveled that he could do so.

Could he hold him this way forever? He pursed his lips, sliding up and down in a steady rhythm, humming under his breath. That created a weirdly wonderful feedback loop–Hutch’s cock quivering with the vibrations from Starsky’s throat.

Hutch made a strangled attempt at saying, “Stars–” his voice going jagged and hoarse mid-word as his whole body spasmed. He tightened his grip on Starsky’s penis, fisting it deliciously as he orgasmed.

Starsky went off like one of the Roman candles he used to light on July Fourth. Brilliant colors exploded behind his eyelids, reverberating through his chest. He sleepily crawled up beside Hutch, napping in the cradle of his lover’s arms, only to be awakened when Hutch got out of the bed. “Wh’re ya goin?” Starsky slurred, burrowing into the warm space.

“Shower.” Hutch kissed him lightly. “And you’d better rescue the food from the hallway.”

“Oh, yeah!” Food was important after all that exercise.

The silver domes over each plate of burgers had kept them nicely warm, although the fries were a bit limp. Starsky didn’t mind in the slightest. He snuggled against Hutch on the couch, plates in their laps, and checked what movies might be playing midmorning.

“Father Goose?” Hutch asked dubiously, chewing on a fry.

“Cary Grant, Leslie Caron…” Starsky gestured at the screen as the credits ran. “It’s historical, about coast watchers during World War Two.”

“It’s got little girls…” Hutch groused with a sappy grin, munching his burger.

“And the Hays Code. Guess we’ll have to supplement the sexy parts.” Starsky moved his feet from the edge of the coffee table to Hutch’s crossed ankles, taking a big bite of his cheeseburger. This is what he called a vacation.

~*~

Hutch wasn’t really surprised after twenty-four hours of sex, movies, and room service, perpetually hyper Starsky was bouncing off the walls and needed to get out of the hotel room. Where he wanted to go was somewhat of a surprise, although, in retrospect, completely in line with Starsky’s healing soul.

They stopped at a flower shop to get a lei. Or two. After perusing the florist’s beautiful selection, Starsky acquiesced to try one on. He picked a sedate weaving of nuts and green vines for himself and white flowers for the deceased. Wearing the purple orchids he’d gotten at the airport, Hutch felt like they’d finally adjusted to island life.

Punchbowl Cemetery was a serene expanse of green with a tree-lined promenade that swept from the flagpole to a white marble memorial chapel. A popular tourist destination, there were several clusters of people in the parking lot, tour groups and families gathering to visit a loved one’s last resting place.

Climbing out of the rental, Starsky stared up at the acres of green studded with small, white, rectangular markers set into the grass. A bottle of beer under his arm, he clutched the simple ginger lei so tightly, Hutch was sure he’d crushed some of the blooms.

Slovak would have understood.

 Inhaling the spicy scent of grass churned up by a gardener mowing a nearby patch of lawn, Hutch pointed to the small visitor’s building. “I’ll get directions?”

“Yeah,” Starsky said distractedly as if he couldn’t quite comprehend the magnitude of the cemetery. “So many graves.”

Hutch cupped Starsky’s elbow in his left hand, his right against Starsky’s lower back. Support without holding him up. “How you doing?”

Starsky’s eyes were haunted, wary, but he gave one of his kick-ass grins that didn’t quite convince Hutch. “‘M okay.” He bobbed his head, swallowing hard so that his Adam’s apple seemed to mimic his head movement. “Go find out the coordinates ‘cause I don’t wanna end up hiking to another island.”

“Not much danger of that.” Hutch gave him a lazy mock salute, wishing he could erase the pain.

At least Starsky was no longer resisting. In a strange way, the picture in the book–solid proof that Starsky had survived that day–had turned his attitude around. Grateful that he’d given into his impulse and purchased In Country and Then Out, Hutch put down more money for the souvenir guidebook of the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific. That and the docent’s patient instructions on the location of soldiers buried in 1967 set them on their way.

Took nearly ten minutes to locate the small marker, identical to thousands of others.

Douglas Wiktor Slovak 1946-1967

 “Think any of his family ever came to Hawaii to see this?” Hutch asked softly. Around them, he could see various graves sporting bouquets, leis, and other tributes for the dead. Even a Purple Heart in a small black case on a grave to the left. Most of the markers were, like Slovak’s, untouched, reminders to all future generations of the cost of war.

Without answering, Starsky knelt, brushing leaves off the marble stone. He set the bottle of Waikiki at twelve o’clock and arranged the white lei around Slovak’s name, muttering something Hutch couldn’t quite make out.

He waited respectfully, the breeze ruffling his hair. This felt right. He only hoped it eased Starsky’s inner turmoil.

Starsky stood slowly, taking the hand Hutch held out to help him rise. “I used to wish that…” He separated the air with his hands as if unable to express his thoughts.

“That you’d died too?” Hutch finished, his chest hot and tight with grief.

“I don’t know any more. Just that I felt so–” Starsky gazed out over the spread of grass dotted with white stones. “Guilty,” he whispered, clenching both fists. “That I made it out of there alive.”

“Survivor’s guilt is a real thing, Starsk.” Hutch bumped him gently with the side of his hip, like he’d stumbled instead of doing it intentionally.

Gracing him with a sweet smile full of remorse, Starsky kicked at a tuft of slightly longer grass. Clearly the lawn mower hadn’t made it this far up yet. “Heard that before,” he said with a shrug. “Ironically, from the shrinks here, ten years ago. I think I wasn’t ready to…accept it then.”

“And now?”

“Seeds are planted,” Starsky replied, pushing the fingers of his right hand through a circle formed by his left thumb and forefinger: sign language for a growing flower.

They’d both learned the rudiments from a deaf man over a year ago and continued to acquire new signs whenever they could.

Hand flat on his chin, Hutch moved it forward, answering Good. Sign language was useful in a variety of situations, particularly when he didn’t want to be overheard. He held up his thumb and first finger in the shape of an L with his pinky extended. The sign for I love you.

 “I know,” Starsky answered a la Princess Leia, closing his hand over Hutch’s. “Ain’t a bad place to spend eternity, huh?” he said after a few minutes.

“Not bad at all.”

“When we get back home, I think…” He stared at the grave for a long minute with a nod. “I’m gonna visit with Hager.”

“You sure that’s a good idea?”

“Going to tell him about this place, talk about Slovak, and the rest of the patrol.” Starsky shoved his hands into his jeans pockets. “Talk about ‘Nam, and show him a book a friend of mine bought.”

“That sounds nice.” Hutch gave him a one-sided hug, wishing they could curl up in their big hotel bed and share a slice of pineapple.

“I want to get shave ice,” Starsky said decisively, turning around to walk to the parking lot. “And then stick my toes in the Pacific.”

“That you could do at home.” Hutch took an extra step to easily catch up to him.

“But the water is so much warmer here.” Starsky watched birds floating on the thermals above them, pensive. He shook off whatever lingering sorrow remained, jutting out his chin as if proving he was determined to have a great time. “Nobody’s gonna believe we were here if we don’t have tans…Hey, and Hawaiian shirts.”

“I’ve got a Hawaiian shirt,” Hutch reminded.

“Hardly ever wear it.” Starsky glanced over at him. “Didja bring it with you?”

“Now why would I bring one to Hawaii?”

~*~

Day three and day four were spent alternating between the beach that fronted the hotel, buying souvenirs for their mothers and friends, and lazy sex in their hotel room when it rained.

The sex was out of this world, but Hutch had to admit, his second favorite thing they did in Honolulu was a bus ride up to Diamond Head. Climbing above the tourists and city life to an idyllic landscape of what the island of Oahu must have looked like before the white man invaded. Despite the fifteen others on the mountain tour, there was space to breathe and gaze out over the vast expanse of ocean. It literally took his breath away–that and the strong wind.

“Didn’t realize it could be cold.” Starsky hunched his shoulders, peering down at the volcano crater. “This thing erupt very often?”

Flipping through the pages of the guidebook, Hutch shook his head. “Been dormant for 150,000 years,” he read. “Scientists believe it may never erupt again. On the other hand, the volcano on the Big Island spews lava regularly.”

“Let’s not go there.” He grinned lasciviously, jutting out his chest to display his new t-shirt with the slogan ‘Hawaiians do it on the beach’. “Made you erupt this morning, didn’t I?”

“You’re a regular Old Faithful.” Hutch snorted, hoping any of their fellow travelers seeing his face would attribute the sudden blush to the bright sun and gusty wind.

Starsky chuckled, leaning against Hutch as if the breeze had blown them together. They stood that way, the whole of the island and the everchanging waters spread out below. “We got one more full day here. Can’t believe I didn’t want to come. Now I don’t wanna leave.”

“Isn’t there a cruise in the prize package?” He was connected to Starsky along his entire left side. If only it could be like this always, but he was well aware that outside forces could change their perspectives once they were in Bay City. That they couldn’t publicly reveal their relationship to even their closest friends and that any hint of a sexual relationship with his male partner could not only cost him his job, but possibly his life.

It wouldn’t be the first time he’d existed on the blade of a knife. And it wouldn’t be the last.

“Got a surprise for you.” Starsky cocked an ear at the announcement from the tour guide calling them back to the bus. “Called the catamaran company this morning when you were out at the pool doing your laps.”

“You’ve developed a sneaky side.”

“Heck, except for what the prize package provided, you planned most of this trip.” Starsky glanced over his shoulder when he joined the queue to board the large blue coach emblazoned with the words ‘Ascend Diamond Head’. “Had to do my part. We’re on a private boat ride around the island, with dinner and music.”

“Brought out your romantic side?” Hutch teased. The loud buzz of a tourist helicopter flying low over the crater drowned him out, but from Starsky’s sly grin, it was clear his partner heard him.

He gave Starsky a boost up the bus step from behind just to put both hands on his luscious derriere.

~*~

Hawaiian sunsets can only be seen to be believed. Wasn’t something he’d really taken much notice of during the visit in 1963, but when Hutch left Minnesota for California, he’d been mesmerized by the sun dipping below the horizon as if going for a swim in the Pacific.

Here, the view was even more spectacular, particularly from a boat on the open sea. The golden orb blazed fire, seeming to ignite the water into molten lava, the sky streaked yellow and orange with accenting pink clouds as blue/black night descended from above.

“Wow.” Starsky’s champagne flute hovered a millimeter from his lower lip as he stared across the stern of the vessel. “That’s–”

“Gorgeous,” Hutch whispered, looking not at the sunset but at his partner. He risked a momentary kiss, nudging the wineglass out of the way. Dangerous when there were waiters and sailing staff not far away but worth the thrill.

The glass shattered on the teak deck, splattering fermented grape down their pants legs. It effectively terminated any more spontaneous kissing as waitstaff came running with towels.

“Oops.” Starsky plopped onto the bench seat, laughing.

“Not even a whole sip of bubbly and he’s snockered,” Hutch apologized to the impossibly young man wearing a white jacket over a green and pink aloha shirt who wiped the deck and cleared away the glass.

A girl in a matching uniform with the brown skin and glossy black hair of a true Hawaiian set the small table with a hibachi and an array of tempting treats. “Gentlemen, your pupu platter. We have fried egg rolls, crab Rangoon, spicy Korean style ribs, shrimp, ahi-ahi, and some other delicacies.”

“Looks terrific!” Starsky began to load his plate. “Why the hibachi?”

“That’s to reheat whatever you want,” Hutch said, selecting chicken on a skewer dripping with peanut sauce. “We had this when I was here before.”

“A Blue Hawaiian for Mr. Starsky.” The young man, now balancing a drinks tray, placed the sapphire colored cocktail in front of Hutch.

“I’m Hutchinson,” Hutch corrected with a smirk, watching Starsky struggle not to giggle around his mouthful of crab Rangoon. “That’s Starsky.”

“I’m Makana and this is my twin sister Makani,” the waiter said with a little bow. “You ordered the rum punch.” He put the pinkish orange drink garnished with cherries and a slice of orange beside Hutch.

Starsky snagged his own beverage, glancing between the siblings. “You do look alike. How’d you get this gig?”

“Our father owns the boat,” Makani replied, pointing to the wide shouldered captain steering the catamaran. “Call us if you want anything, but we’ll leave you alone until we need to clear the table.” Her expression merry as she and her brother went over to the tiny galley.

“She knows.” Starsky took a fortifying swig of alcohol.

“You think?” Hutch raised his glass, waiting until Starsky clinked his in a toast. “I think it’s nice.”

“That she suspects we’re a couple?” Starsky glanced over at the twins suspiciously.

“Starsk.” Hutch waggled his hand between them and the laden table. “Intimate setting, drinks, and a romantic sunset cruise–doesn’t take a detective to put the pieces together.”

“Guess I coulda been more discreet?” Starsky rolled his eyes at his own folly.

“I like that you wanted this–for me.” Hutch lightly touched Starsky’s fingers before taking a coconut-fried shrimp off the plate. “For us.”

“You–” Starsky looked directly at Hutch, his eyes the same color as the drink he held in his hand. “Pulled me outta the water. Saved me. You’re my anchor, Hutch, and my–”

“Everything,” Hutch finished, sure his heart was shining like one of the stars above them.

“You can kiss me again in the hotel,” Starsky said suggestively.

“Count on that.”

Eating the pupus until there was nothing left but shrimp tails and discarded chicken skewers, Hutch sipped his rum. A perfect ending to their trip. Maybe they couldn’t cuddle like regular couples out in public, but behind a closed door, there was no one to see them.

“Thanks, Starsk. You still wish you’d won the motorcycle instead?” he asked, taking in Starsky’s beauty. The curls, blue eyes, and masculine physique, all for him. Why would he ever go out with women again?

“Nah. I do want one, though.” Starsky swirled the watery dregs of his Blue Hawaiian pensively. “When we get back to California, it’ll be different.” He sounded sad. “This is like some kinda movie. Got the Viet Nam war action, and then the happy, soapy ending.”

“It’ll be different,” Hutch agreed, looking past Starsky to the darkening waters beyond them. It was scary to think that they’d be buffeted by societal pressures and the demands of conventional coupling. “But we just have to…juggle what we’ve had with what gets thrown at us in the future.”

“I’m game if you are.” Starsky grabbed an empty chicken skewer off his plate, holding it like a fencing foil. “Ready to take me on?”

“En garde,” Hutch said, brandishing his own. “Partners for life.”

FIN

Don’t dream too far
Don’t lose sight of who you are
Don’t remember that rush of joy
He could be that boy

  –I’m Not that Girl, Stephan Schwartz