Leaving it to the Last Moment

101

Hutch must save Starsky during a hostage situation.

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In the abrupt silence, the gun cocking sounded like a bomb blast.

Hutch had to forcibly prevent himself from shuddering. He gripped his own pistol all the tighter, peering out from behind the shelter of a large wooden packing crate. “Bentley, let Detective Starsky go!” he yelled, never taking his eyes off the gun pressed against the thin skin near Starsky’s left cheek.

How had it gotten this bad?

They’d responded to a call at a warehouse and realized it was a man they’d dealt with before. Bentley was into every shady game in town—he’d worked as a runner when barely into his teens, graduated to drug dealing, robbery, extortion and now, sadly, murder. His girlfriend, a hooker he and Starsky knew as Darlin’, lay on the cement floor a few feet away. Someone in the building next door—Hutch suspected an enclave of homeless families living in a condemned building—had called police when the gun blast went off.

Presumably killing Darlin’.

When he and Starsky arrived, they’d split, as usual. He’d gone around the back with Starsky going in through the unlocked front door. By the time he arrived inside, Bentley already had Starsky captive.

“Can’t pin this on me, Hutchinson!” Bentley shouted, his voice loaded with panic.

And drugs, Hutch thought. The man hadn’t dabbled in the drug trade in years, but maybe it’d come back to bite him in the butt?

“Darlin’ shot herself.”

Hutch didn’t care about her, sad to say. He stared directly at Starsky, trying to read whatever was going on from Starsky’s point of view. For once, those blue eyes weren’t giving anything away, their fabled connection with each other, their ability to communicate without words broken.

Starsky shifted very slightly, turning more towards Bentley so that they formed two thirds of a triangle.

“Fuck off, Starsky,” Bentley growled into his face, showing the gun even more forcefully into Starsky’s temple.

Hutch despaired, unable to see his partner’s face now. What the hell was Starsky doing? He was going to get himself shot.

“Okay, Bentley!” Hutch called. “I believe you, Darlin’ killed herself.” Outside the building, he could hear cars approaching but whomever was responding was wise enough not to roar up code three, sirens and lights blazing. “Then we can get her to the morgue, maybe start funeral arraignments, but not until you let—”

Starsky took matters into his own hands. Never one to remain still, he moved slightly again, jamming his fist into Bentley’s unprotected balls and ducked. The gun went off when Bentley screamed.

Hutch nearly had a heart attack, sure he’d find Starsky with his head blown off.

He ran across the swath of cement between them in time to see Starsky wrench the gun away from his captor.

“Fuck yourself, Bentley!” he shouted, a trickle of blood dripping down his cheek where the bullet had grazed him. “You’re under arrest.”

With police barreling in through the door, Hutch had to wait hours to kiss his love—in the car outside the ER.

FIN