The Light of Recognition

As the verdict for Grossman comes in, Starsky and Hutch spend the evening together with questions about Gillian and everything that has happened since she entered their lives.

Originally published in the zine Turned to Fire in 1994.

This story is a sequel to Ken’s Friend.

Hutch stood still for a moment, absorbing what he’d just heard. Deliberately, he replaced the receiver. So… a verdict. Finally. Grossman’s guilt recorded, established. Sentencing tomorrow, Dobey had said. Hutch picked up his half-empty beer can and returned to the haven of the greenhouse plants.

Guilty. It had been a long time coming. The trial proceedings had come to feel like an unending limbo. More than a month had gone by after Gillian Ingram’s death before a time was set for a hearing, and then two more before the High Court’s schedule allowed a trial date to be fixed. Then still more waiting before today’s outcome. The dragging process had seemed to dominate everything, contaminating every plan or prospect, bringing a roller-coaster of highs and lows, hopes and miseries.

“Has to end some time,” Starsky had tried to cheer him. “It’s moving…”

Hutch had conceded that the time-scale wasn’t unusual—fast even, compared to some cases. But it still felt long and the pretrial investigations with all their probing questions had added their own built-in quota of stress. The routines of a job didn’t stay on hold because of a Court’s schedule, but for the past months Grossman’s trial for murder and for the attempted murder of two police officers had been the inescapable background of each day and, often, of the nights. Like Starsky, he had tried to keep the subject at bay only to have it return, like some weed pushing through fissures in concrete, infiltrating all their days.

As he continued the unremitting check for aphids, Hutch recalled wryly how he and Starsky had once made plans, had anticipated the celebratory dinner once the trial was over as a fitting way of marking the news which had just been relayed in Dobey’s call. But “over” now had a hollow sound. One thing was sure: Grossman’s lawyers were going to fasten on every loophole and delaying tactic to keep things going. Suddenly, Hutch didn’t feel like celebrating anything. And an evening’s bowling, with or without the role of popcorn custodian, held no special appeal.

The telephone’s ring broke in again on his thoughts. “You heard?” came Starsky’s question.

“I heard.”

For a beat there was silence. They had so often envisioned this moment and now found no comment which did not feel trite or obvious.

“You didn’t make it to the Court House?” Hutch asked. “Still at the station?”

“Best way to avoid the cameras, huh? They didn’t follow you home?”

“The jury was still out… I escaped. Early. Dobey fixed things… He tell you?”

“Yeah… I’ve been talking to him.”

They were silent again, remembering all the past publicity, all the headlines featuring the ‘cop and the call-girl’ storyline, the pictures splashed across front pages and on the TV screen. All the speculation…

“You coming on here?” Hutch asked.

“Sure. Just hang in there. Be with you in no time.”

All the speculation… Some of that had found its way even to the squadroom bulletin board. The vivid memory-flash hit again and he was back to that morning when the little group surveying the notices had melted away as he and Starsky entered. The glamorous shot of Gillian Ingram occupied a central place with, scrawled across the newsprint: “Hutchinson’s High-Priced Hooker.” He remembered how it had taken Starsky only a couple of seconds to detach and crumple the item, hardly pausing on his way to their desk. He remembered how Starsky’s words were loud enough to be heard in the suddenly silent room: ‘Some folks have a lousy sense of humor.’ It was a memory which was refusing to grow fainter with the lapse of time, yet, as the line now went dead, Hutch was conscious of a lightened mood. Starsky, in mundane conversation, could do that for him.

He relaxed in the lifting of spirit which his partner’s voice could bring. Strength in need: for years, Starsky had been that for him, long before Gillian and never more so than during the protracted stages of bringing Grossman to justice.

There had been the health-food dinners, the bowling alley evenings… Once, even, some very special concert tickets which had made Hutch smile, not only at the prospect of the music but also in contemplation of the caring which it represented.

‘You needn’t try so hard, you know,’ he had said more than once, but he had been thankful for the caring—sustained, solaced, strengthened. And he could understand what prompted it all, remembering the time when he himself had made the call to New York and carefully noted instructions for the creation of a very special ‘Paul Muni’ dinner.

Hutch didn’t care to think too much about how the past months might have been without Starsky there at those bleakest times, bringing some sort of perspective to desolate days. But there had been the respite of the hours spent together, talking or not talking; it hadn’t mattered beyond the all-sufficient fact of being together.

‘I love you,’ Gillian had told him. Did she? Hutch had asked himself the question a hundred times. Love. It had become a word which made him think not of Gillian but of a partner who had agonized over ways to handle a devastating situation without more hurt than there had to be, and who would not tell him lies.

In all the past days, the knowledge that Starsky was there for him, a shoulder to lean on, arms to hold fast, had become the central fact of each difficult day. In itself the physical closeness was nothing new; for a long time that had been the spontaneous expression of many things shared. But the closeness had taken on a new quality, a new need and urgency. It was as if they had crossed a border inward which they had been moving for a long time. Some points of reference were new and yet also unsurprising—familiar even—as if waiting only to be acknowledged, recognized. Values and priorities, tacit until now, had become explicit, clear.

The sleepless nights which had followed Gillian’s murder had been banished when Starsky shared them, driving away loneliness, guilt, regrets, fears, in times which never failed to help and to restore. In all the mood swings, his partner had been the one still, steady center of Hutch’s universe, and, he believed, himself of Starsky’s.

Sharing off-duty time had long felt routine, natural, unquestioned, and the trial days had often deepened the need not to be apart. Sure, between them they had two· apartments, but recently had seemed to inhabit only one. It didn’t matter which one—either was fine. It was a life-style which had brought a new charge and purpose to confront the stresses. Trust, affection, shared fun and friendship they had known in full measure for a long time. But the Grossman case had proved a catalyst, or rather—Hutch corrected that diagnosis—it had been the advent of Gillian Ingram into their lives to which ‘catalyst’ more accurately belonged.

In retrospect, he could pinpoint the very moment of realization… That morning in the alley behind the theater… When I might have gotten him killed. The inevitable reminder which always came with that particular memory.

He and Starsky could look back over years of a working partnership, decreed originally by factors as commonplace as the constraints of departmental rotas, but developing into involvement both personal and professional—the reciprocal caring, the emotional support, often unverbalized but always there, solid foundations of a solid, gold friendship in the bonding which the years had brought.

He had come to know this partner in unique ways. Experience had brought awareness of the basic, unfailing qualities: the quick intelligence, the integrity, the honesty. There were the surface spats which went with the job and with membership of the human race, but differences of that sort were swallowed up in the deep affinities. He recognized in Starsky a directness which he himself found less than easy to achieve. Always knew where you are with my partner. Starsky would never punish by silence.

Starsky represented strength in need. What else was new? But now, in these past weeks, new facets of an enduring relationship had brought gifts which they were still learning to know. Hutch knew that they had both felt surprise at first at the simplicity of it, that there had been nothing complicated or alien in lying down together, discovering the healing power of touching with no demands or expectations beyond the comforts of closeness… and then following where love and need were leading. Strange? Yet not strange at all. A natural progression as compassion was transmuted into passion.

Starsky: friend, partner… and lover. The word felt like a treasure as Hutch held it fast in his thoughts.

He was smiling to himself as he decided that it was time for action rather than reverie. The evening and the night lay ahead of them. One thing he knew right now: the refrigerator’s stocks would never furnish a Paul Muni rerun. He began investigations and surveyed with a resigned shrug—the half-pizza, remains of Starsky’s breakfast that morning. There were the makings of bean sprout salad, cheese, eggs, milk, bread, beer. No festive excitement there. Well, they wouldn’t starve. And maybe Starsky would arrive with imaginative replenishments. By this time, he’d probably be on his way to Venice.

Feeling better about life-in-general, Hutch set up the coffee maker and opted for a shower.

* * * *

Inching toward Venice through the slow-moving traffic of late afternoon, Starsky was also thinking of the ways in which the advent of Gillian Ingram had changed and shaped his life and Hutch’s. He could never think of her without remembering how she had seemed to perceive certain facts immediately, how her first words to him had been, ‘He talks about you all the time.’ This from a woman allegedly important in his partner’s life. Looking back on it, was some significance obvious? And later, explicitly, there had been that direct, compelling question: ‘You love him too, don’t you?’ Right. Gillian had not lacked understanding.

Starsky had found no way to answer her then but his look had held hers, tacitly accepting what she so clearly saw. But he had said no more and was gone; he’d already been away too long. ‘Back in no time,’ he’d assured his unsuspecting partner. The recollection of that last meeting with her was sharp still, the time when he’d concentrated on getting that essential message through to her—’He’s gotta know.’ Did she really imagine that there was any way it could be otherwise? And he had ended on a warning note—had she heard it as a threat?—’or I’ll tell him in the morning.’ Had she sensed the unspoken plea? ‘Don’t make me the one who has to do that.’ But the words were not empty; he would do it if he must, and as matters turned out he’d had no choice.

He braked as the lights showed red. Again. Hutch had sounded drained of emotion. Well, he hadn’t exactly expected exuberance. Elation, somehow, didn’t fit recent events and today’s verdict was hardly a surprise. The evidence was incontrovertible. True, in their line of work, one learned to take nothing for granted, and experience had taught that the case, even now, might not be concluded. They would have to be prepared for some ongoing moves to defer a final wrap. Grossman could afford to hire expensive advice, skilled in appropriate techniques, even though the prospects of doing more than add to legal fees were slight.

But they’d come through, he and Hutch. And the partnership. Starsky hugged that thought as the cars ahead moved on again. The strains and the tensions lingered and Hutch’s apparently downbeat mood wasn’t hard to account for. The case had left its legacies in a multitude of questions: maybe they would never know the truth about Gillian. But it had bestowed another legacy, too, in the unlooked-for bonus of some profound truths and insights which their partnership had gained. .

Nearing Venice now, he recalled Olga Grossman, voluble and malevolent on the witness stand. The newspapers and the television had given her star billing. Starsky had read every word and he knew that Hutch had done the same. The malicious distortions made compulsive reading; he’d hated what he read, yet had been unable to stay away from it.

Olga had given every sign of enjoying her day in the limelight. Her answers were venomous. ‘That Ingram woman! She was a taker and she took plenty from us—the money, the car, all those clothes, the apartment.’ It chimed with her son’s version, with Al Grossman trying to plead provocation and defense of his elderly, fragile mother. Al Grossman saying, ‘Force? We didn’t force her into anything. She came to us; we never went looking for her. We picked her up out of the gutter. She had nothing, not a dime…’

And there had been Olga in plaintive, self-pitying mode. ‘She liked the money and she liked her own way. And if things didn’t go the way she wanted, she could be aggressive. You know she attacked me? Hit me… And she was young, strong…’ Pause for a few tears there, Starsky remembered. ‘I didn’t have a chance. And my Al wanted to protect his mother, anyone would understand that. That’s natural, isn’t it? He’s a good son.’

A real honey, Starsky reflected bitterly. And a real sob story. There had been no witnesses to any such assault, no scars, no permanent injury; but the allegations were on record, publicized, talked about.

‘Detective Hutchinson has told the Court that the deceased was a writer.’ The prosecuting attorney’s reference had prompted a short laugh from the witness.

‘Yeah? And I’m the Queen of England. Anyone know anything she’s written?’

Another pause. ‘Believe it: she didn’t have the time. She already had a job that took up all her time—and paid well. She was good at it—you could say a natural talent. And she got a lot of practice. The detective…? She told him lies.’

Did she? Starsky guessed it was just one more thing they’d never know about her. To support Olga’s picture of Gillian Ingram as someone who didn’t care what she did to bring in the dollars, there was the existence of the movie reel, retrieved by the investigating team from the theater, and of other such ‘Gillian’ goodies stacked in the ‘special collection’ on the Venus shelves. Admissible, material evidence. ‘We know, don’t we Hutch?’ Grossman’s mocking question echoed in Starsky’s memory.

But it sparked a reminder of another exchange during the trial when it had been Hutch answering the questions. How could it be possible, or professionally sound, the defense attorney had asked, for an experienced police officer to take on Grossman and an unknown number of assistants the way he did, to walk into a trap. The reply had attracted full news coverage: ‘It wasn’t like that. Grossman? He made a big mistake there—didn’t take my partner into account.’ Coming upon the words for the first time in the press report, Starsky had felt a lifting of the guilt which he had never been entirely able to shake off. Should I have told him what I’d just seen? Gone straight out to the car and dragged him back inside Venus Massage? At the time, he’d tried for a chance to think, to absorb the shock. He could remember their ride back to the station, amazed that nothing showed of the turmoil of his thoughts. He had driven as if on auto-pilot with his happy partner beside him, engrossed in his own illusions.

From that point on, Starsky had not been able to fix his mind on anything beyond the morning’s shattering revelations. In what he had witnessed then, Olga’s words seemed wholly accurate: he had seen no sign of resistance or reluctance in Gillian’s role in that scenario. Initiative seemed to be all hers, a skilled and smooth operator. Incredulity had given way to stronger reaction as he’d watched Hutch go about the day’s business, plainly pleased with life, pleased with after-work plans, a smile for everyone.

It couldn’t last. Starsky had made a somewhat half-hearted attempt to talk in that evening telephone call but had found Hutch in a hurry and himself unable to find the words he needed. Confrontation would have to come—and soon. The bottom line was the impossibility of doing nothing with this knowledge so unwillingly acquired, but the need to protect—immediate, unanalyzed, driving out all other considerations—was the powerful priority. He must find some way.

Maybe, as he’d afterwards wondered, it was that urgency which had been at the root of any misjudgments in his next moves: how could he have hoped to shield Hutch from all life’s griefs and hazards? What was the motivation there?

He could accept that the responsibility for Gillian’s murder belonged with Grossman and that her own choices, from way back, had also played their part. All of that he could understand on a rational level. But from a human, emotional standpoint some things felt less simple. The choices at the time had been complex and the time-scale limited. Hutch needed to know now, not at some indeterminate future date.

There was the memory of Hutch saying, later, ‘You were right; we both know that. I had to know,’ adding as Starsky didn’t answer, ‘You think I don’t know what that cost you?’ It was a reassurance which Starsky still clung to. It helped to assuage the suspicion which had haunted him: had he played some game of his own, interfered too much, made decisions which were not his to make? Game-playing? With Hutch involved, that wasn’t a concept easy to take.

In the aftermath of the theater shootout, he’d been suddenly diffident, unsure, as the self-questioning set in. Had he somehow forfeited the old assumptions about closeness and comfort? The instinct to be near Hutch was strong but so were the intuitive conviction that his partner needed time alone and the overriding imperative of respecting that need. That much, at least, he could give Hutch then.

For once, the paperwork had been welcome, offering an escape route from the real preoccupations. He’d returned to the station, started in on the report, talked to Dobey, thankful not to be asked too many questions right then. ‘Your mind was elsewhere,’ he’d said to Hutch only hours earlier. With his thoughts fixed on his partner, his own comment aptly summed up his own mental state.

The doubts had proved fleeting, any distancing transitory. The need to be close was a given and there had never been any possibility that Hutch would handle the Grossman crisis alone.

There had been the day when Starsky had planned his health-food dinner party with his partner as guest of honor—a party just for the pair of them. It was on that day—and the succeeding nights and days—that closeness had assumed its new meaning. It had begun routinely with Hutch’s practiced hands competently removing the lingering strains of an over-energetic evening’s bowling. The self-discovery which had happened for both of them then was far beyond the comforts of some therapeutic expedient.

Starsky knew that it was the greatest thing that had happened in his entire life—to know Hutch as a lover as well as friend. There had been an inevitable quality in the shared tenderness and passion of that first time—not strange at all, nothing requiring analysis or explanation. ‘Life enhancing,‘ Hutch had called it. Always a way with words, that’s my partner. With the trial at an end, Starsky knew they would not lose this new kind of partnership, this richness now lighting all their days.

Strength in need, comfort in sorrow… The evening promised both – and more. Terrific… He was smiling as he made the turn for Venice.

* * * *

The coffee-making was about completed when Hutch heard the familiar engine sound as the Torino pulled in in the street below. From the window he watched Starsky’s emergence from the driver’s seat, and turned toward the unlocked door, waiting.

Starsky halted on the threshold and they stood for a moment regarding one another until Starsky set down the package he was holding and pushed the door shut. He closed the distance between them and wok Hutch in an enfolding hug, his movements deliberate, gentle—no tight, breath-crushing clasp, yet communicating a jubilant quality.

“We made it,” Starsky said softly. For a further minute they stood there before he asked quietly, “How you doin’?” An old question, totally serious—no casual inquiry.

“Okay,” Hutch said. “You…?” He absorbed the strength that Starsky was offering. Collecting coffee en route, they moved to the sofa, to sit for a while in companionable silence, letting the relaxation gather and build. No need of words.

“You want to go out for dinner?” Hutch asked eventually.

Starsky considered the proposition, then turned his head to consider his partner too. “No,” he decided as he got up from the sofa and headed for the kitchen, while Hutch took time to finish his coffee before following along.

He found Starsky inspecting food supplies. “You won’t find a lot there,” Hutch warned. “Look, if you’d like to get something, we could—”

“No, we couldn’t. Quiet night in, huh?”

“Sounds good,” Hutch admitted.

“Right. And I’ll throw in your favorite.” He pushed a few items across the table in Hutch’s direction. “Wanna make scrambled eggs while I grab a quick shower?”

“Sounds good, too,” Hutch agreed as he set to work.

Ten minutes later the eggs were scrambled and ready, just as Starsky reappeared. Hutch recognized the white sweater which seemed these days to alternate between them. They had found themselves dividing clothes between the two apartments; it was just something which simplified daily life. Shared clothes seemed just an extension of shared apartments.

Starsky set down his package on the kitchen table.

“Champagne?” Hutch studied the unwrapped bottle.

“With scrambled eggs?”

“There’s no law. Of course, champagne. C’mon…” He paused, a quizzical eyebrow raised. “Special day, huh?” The grin was infectious and Hutch filled their glasses. Starsky was right; there were things to be celebrated.

“Bean sprout salad to go,” Starsky noticed as they took their places at the kitchen table. “Work fast,, don’t you?”

“Try it,” Hutch recommended. “You know you like it really. I can remember one time… You showed real flair.”

Starsky was remembering, too. He looked pleased. “Impressed you, didn’t I? Guess you never believed I could do it.”

“Versatile, huh?”

Their glances met, recalling that evening a few months back, so soon after Gillian’s death. That occasion, complete with Starsky’s own bean sprout banquet, had also registered its own celebration of a partnership which recent events might have put in jeopardy. But for both of them, the partnership in all its aspects was the priority and Starsky’s first attempt at a health food dinner was a recognition of that truth. .

“It was a good time,” Hutch said, thinking of the memories which that time held.

“So is this.” Starsky raised the champagne glass in salutation.

It was that earlier time which had turned into a milestone in their relationship, a first time in all the times that followed. Relationship, partnership—the two had become simply different aspects of the same thing… interchangeable, merging into one another. The ‘what-ifs’ and the coincidences had played their part, as so often. Maybe if Starsky’s aching shoulder muscles had not highlighted the practical advantages on offer at Venus Massage Parlor, he would not have been precipitated into that revelation of Gillian’s double lifestyle. And a lot of things could have worked out differently.

The dinner party had featured Hutch’s own skilled hands in those massage techniques which could induce relief for aches and tensions. Afterwards, sharing Starsky’s bed, it had been clear that extra blankets for a night on the sofa were an irrelevance. Since that time, they had gone onto explore and enjoy the gifts of a new kind of relationship. It was a voyage of discovery, yet somehow of familiar territory, an affirmation of something so right.

There had followed the times of passionate intensity, excitement, fulfillment, exorcising old hurts and pointing the radiant, renewing way ahead. And there had been the quieter times of solace and restoration in the tried and tested panacea of just being together. The loving, sexual expression had felt like the most natural development of so much that had gone before. All such times had played their benign and creative part in the liberating consummation which was their gift to one another.

Hutch refilled their glasses. “Better than dining out, right?”

“Really. Must be your magic touch with bean sprouts.” Starsky nodded approval. “You had a chance to talk to Dobey?”

“Not for long, but there’ll be time later.” Hutch took another sip of champagne. “You know, we’ve been lucky to have him around.”

“Can say that again,” Starsky agreed. His own last meeting with Gillian had not made the headlines; its details were known only to himself and to Hutch. But Dobey knew the rest, knew of the personal background to the Grossman case where Hutch was concerned.

From the outset, their captain had been supportive as far as lay in his power. To some extent, he was able to deflect certain lines of questioning, supplying correct, official statements which could help to head off discursive inquiry. He could reassure that there had been nothing criminal or illicit in Hutch’s association with the victim. He could confirm that his officers had been working the area for some time and had consequently already aroused the ill-will and suspicion of certain local characters including the Grossmans. He could point out that there was no mystery in their being first on the scene after the murder: they relied on informants in the same way as any others in the Department. All plain statements which either of those officers could have made themselves—but, coming from the captain, they took on the stamp of authority. Some personal publicity had been unavoidable but, lacking Dobey’s guidance in some quarters, it could have reached much more harassing proportions. They would always be grateful for this understanding.

“Well,” Hutch said with satisfaction as they finished off the last of the scrambled eggs, “that was more than okay. Always said we wouldn’t let that verdict go by.”

Starsky poured the last of the wine and, glasses in hand, they moved across to the greenhouse for the tour which seemed to be developing into a regular evening ritual.

“Looks like this one’s about to take over the place,” Starsky commented. The philodendron made a leafy canopy of green shade above the small table which Hutch had moved into the area.

Hutch picked up the twine to shape the vine’s abundance. “Could you hold this.

Starsky took the proffered glass and paced it with his own on the table top. “And this…” Hutch indicated the trailing leaves. Starsky obliged, supporting the proliferating tendrils as Hutch restored order to half a dozen fragile trails. Task completed, he reached for the hand that had been holding them.

“Tell you something…” Hutch paused on the edge of verbalizing something so long subconsciously remembered. “You know…” He traced the line of each finger. “This was one of the first things that made me start thinking of us as a permanent team.”

Starsky waited, faint inquiry showing in his expression. “Yeah?”

Hutch went on. “Was your hands. That surprise you? Used to watch them all those years ago. Always liked to be the one doing the driving, didn’t you?”

“We took turns,” Starsky put in. “I didn’t actually cheat. Not often, anyway. Besides you had that really nice way of responding to a call.”

“Oh, sure. Just happened to be at the wheel. Even before you got that car…”

“You weren’t very nice about that car,” Starsky reminded. “But you have to admit it was a great choice. So was I for driver. Right?”

“Okay. But long before that, I’d be watching your hands. And you know what I’d be thinking?”

“Know what you said. Bitch, bitch, bitch, every time we took a fast comer.” Hutch had not loosed the hand he held. “So go on,” Starsky prompted. “You know how I like bedtime stories.”

“What I remember,” Hutch said, “is that when the shifts began, your fingernails were usually clean.”

Starsky raised puzzled brows. “That’s it? That’s weird.”

“Not really. Remember who I worked with before they teamed us? Remember Costa? Was a slob if ever I saw one.” He encountered Starsky’s curious look and continued. “You work with someone like that and—believe it— you notice differences.”

Starsky considered these revelations. “Always thought you were the Mister Clean of this outfit.” He grinned. “Never knew I was in line for some departmental citation for elegance.”

“They didn’t recognize potential, Starsk.”

“When do they? But this is something else.”

“What I saw,” Hutch said slowly as they turned back toward the living room, “was you always seemed to start the day with a clean shirt and without a ton of dirt under your nails. Guess it made a change. Surprise you, huh?”

They both laughed. “So what else have you been keeping from me?” Starsky wondered. The quiet evening stretched ahead. A while ago, at this point in any day which ended with them both in the same apartment, they had stopped asking, “You staying?” The question had become superfluous. They could look back on years of caring, centered on compatibility of shared values which canceled superficial differences. The bonding had long ago become the central factor; it was an enabling recognition.

Starsky glanced round the shadowy, green oasis. “Looking good,” he observed.

“I’ve been working on it,” Hutch said. “Started adding the furniture too. It’s going to be the ideal spot for when I start on your chess instruction.”

“So,” Starsky said as they re-entered the living room, “you didn’t forget. Chess, huh?”

“How would I forget a promise like that? Chess. We can take it slowly until you’re past the elementary stages.”

“Can’t wait.” Starsky’s expression showed happy anticipation. “Now?”

“Soon. It’s just that it could have been a little hard to, uh, concentrate before now. With chess, the thing you don’t need is a load of… of preoccupations.”

“But okay now?”

Hutch met the very direct look. “Oh, yes. Okay now. You have to ask?”

“So c’mere… Wanna hug?” The familiar spontaneous solace wrapped Hutch around, enfolding them both. The old line sang through his head… ‘Eine feste Burg’… My safe stronghold … Nothing illusory here, only their own most valid reality.

“Hey, we did get lucky, you know,” Starsky murmured.

“I know.” Hutch met the candid gaze. The mouth restored him, the hands comforted, as he reflected yet again how Starsky could so often deliver this jump-start to his life and mood.

They sat together as the evening settled to stillness. Starsky inspected the half-dozen books lying on the coffee tale.

“Been catching up on basics, huh?” he observed. “Okay if I borrow this one?”

Hutch watched him flick through the pages of A Thousand Ways to Win at Chess. As on past evenings, he was conscious of the way this was the time of day when the questions and the doubts tended to crowd in, questions half-discussed, some answers undefined. Maybe the answers didn’t exist. It was unrealistic to suppose that every loose end could be neatly tied. The Gillian puzzle surfaced yet again. A ghost from the past might sound like a cliched concept but, like many cliches, it held its core of truth.

Starsky looked up from his book, closed it and returned it to the table, immediately aware of the unvoiced. questions. Attention focused now on his partner, he watched Hutch mutely for a few minutes.

“This day was going to be difficult, huh?”

“A real mixture… Guess we knew it would be this way.”

“Only answer is us, babe.” Starsky was picking up on the unspoken guilt. “That’s real. That’s not going to go away.”

Hutch nodded. “Right. We won’t lose that. Me and Thee, remember?”

“So what’s on your mind?”

Hutch’s response was between a sigh and a smile. “Same thing, I guess. That’ll go away some time. Maybe.”

Starsky thought about it. “You’re still brooding over that morning…”

There was a long pause before Hutch said, “You know it’s true. I could’ve gotten you killed.”

“And you didn’t,” Starsky broke in.

“Starsk… There was too much happening suddenly. Why hadn’t I seen some things earlier? You know it was like waking up from some dream… Oh, a beautiful dream—no nightmare. Not at that time, anyway.” He sighed. “Excuses?”

Starsky waited for him to go on.

“But a fantasy? And when that shooting started, it was as if it woke me up—woke me to a few realities.”

“We could’ve gone on,” Starsky said. “Still worked together.”

“But not the way we were, right?” He thought again of the difference between the dream shadow and the day-to-day substance.

“I guess. Bound to be some changes. Those go with being alive.”

“True. But I knew there were things I didn’t want to change. Moment of truth?”

“Know something?” Starsky said. “Sometimes I can’t help wondering, wishing we’d known more about her. Don’t you?”

“Maybe,” Hutch said slowly. “Maybe… Sometimes. I’ve thought about it. But I’m not sure. You couldn’t know what you might find. You can’t be sure you’d want to know.”

“Mystery lady,” Starsky commented.

“I thought I knew her. I know what she told me but what did that amount to?” He shrugged. “There must be ways to find out more. Start by calling Cleveland? But I don’t want to do any of that.”

“She was smart, though,” Starsky reminded.

“Can say that again.” There was bitterness in Hutch’s tone.

“I mean she could see a lot of things—maybe clearer than we did at one time.”

“One time?” Hutch queried.

Starsky was silent and Hutch asked again, “One particular time?”

“It’s something I’ve wanted to tell you,” Starsky began. “I hardly knew her—you know that. Met her that evening when we were bowling and then…”

“And then the next morning,” Hutch supplied.

“Yeah. The next morning. And—last time—the next morning after that. And I wasn’t with her then for more than just a few minutes.”

He came to a stop and Hutch waited.

“I never told you the last thing she said to me. You know how I’d had this idea—crazy, maybe—of convincing her to move back to Cleveland, leaving her those dollars to do that…”

Hutch nodded. Starsky had long ago told him of that last meeting with Gillian. The ‘bribery and interference’ angle, as Starsky had called it, they had talked out and resolved already, and Hutch had acknowledged and been thankful for the concerned caring which he knew had lain behind Starsky’s action.

“So what did she say to you?” Hutch asked now.

“She said that you had two people to love you. She didn’t miss that. Like I said, she was smart.”

They contemplated what they had known of the Ingram enigma. Writer? Boutique owner? Possibilities? Or devious inventions? Plus, the full-time career which Olga Grossman had enjoyed describing and of which a collection of movie reels were graphic illustration. In many ways, she would probably remain a mystery. But for both of them, the memories were not unrelievedly sour. The silence lengthened until Hutch asked, “You have questions too?”

Starsky hesitated for a moment. “Questions? One, maybe. Nothing earth-shaking.”

“Like…?”

“Something ‘ve never got around to asking you.” There was another moment’s hesitation. “Why’d you say that? Why did you say I never liked her? Wasn’t true, you know. Hutch, I hardly knew her.”

“I know. It was dumb.”

“C’mon, it’s nothing to worry about now. I was just curious.”

“I don’t have any logical answer,” Hutch told him. “I knew it wasn’t true. Heard myself saying it, knowing it wasn’t true. So how d’you explain something like that?”

“How about it came out wrong? Happens. And you weren’t exactly thinking straight at the time? How could you be?”

Starsky abandoned his chair and crossed over in the sofa. He put an arm around the bowed shoulders. “Forget it, huh?” He set a light kiss and then another on Hutch’s mouth. The response took mounting charge in the familiar patterns of touching as the respite of the evening wrapped them around.

They stirred at last. “How about tomorrow…” Hutch murmured.

“Tomorrow? You’re thinking of the sentencing? Going to draw the crowds.”

“You want to be there?”

“If we can. Dobey might be. It does concern his department. Maybe one of us could make it.”

Starsky detached himself from Hutch’s clasp and stood up. “But tomorrow’s hours away, babe. For now…” He headed out of the room.

Hut.ch prepared to follow. From the bathroom came the vigorous sounds of Starsky engaged in brushing bis teeth. Domesticity, Hutch thought. He guessed that domesticity carried its own brand of healing. He remembered all the mornings when they’d made a hurried breakfast, shared the bathroom, the sweet start propitiating the coming day.

Later, lying relaxed together, Hutch urged his lover over on to his side so that he could trace the contours of back and shoulders, his hands riding gently across his partner’s body, coming purposefully down to caress the muscled line of ass and thigh.

Starsky purred his satisfaction. “Cover me, huh?” He turned to face Hutch. “Give me your mouth, love. Now, wanna share?”

“Sure. Wanna drive?” Hutch offered.

Starsky knelt between his flexed thighs and Hutch saw the tender mouth smiling down on him. Starsky’s brilliant eyes were holding his… dark, bright, blue… Splendor everywhere, each point of light seeming to touch a hundred others, while the hands that knew him so well caressed and cradled his throbbing cock, fingertips tracing its length before Starsky’s loving mouth descended.

Hutch was aware, incredibly, of tempo slowing. Starsky’s wish? His own will? Starsky was possessing him, making him whole and alive, the ardent worship working its phoenix magic. Starsky was taking time for them both, letting them learn again the vital center of their own truth. Strange that anything so immediate should take on this almost leisured, conversational pace, as lips and tongue paid their authoritative homage across the thrusting head.

The rhythm altered and Hutch felt himself drawn deep into the cherishing adoration of his lover’s mouth as the demanding imperatives took pride of place in the cresting triumph. His own hands on Starsky’s head were insistent. Over and over he was saying his lover’s name, whether aloud or not he couldn’t be sure, until Starsky, responding to his prompting, came to lie within his arms.

“There’s more,” Hutch said a while later, sliding down the bed to confront his partner’s urgent need.

Starsky laughed with the pleasure of the moment but then coherent conversation became superfluous, as Hutch’s fingertips traced their course, again and again, in ways familiar yet never routine, bringing to his lover the fulfillment which had been Starsky’s gift to him. Starsky cried out under his touch, meeting it and seeking more. Hutch slid a hand beneath his partner’s ass to hold him ever closer as his tongue continued its caress and Starsky cried out again in wonder and in wanting. Lips and tongue prolonged the moments, on and on, out of time. They were flying together beyond all barriers of time and place, taking their own time in this process of recognition.

Afterwards, they lay for uncalculated time, letting the world in again. “Having fun?” Hutch asked eventually.

“You guessed…”

“Evidence was convincing…”

“You bet …”

“Starsk… David… I’m glad it is…”

“Fun, huh? As well as all the rest.”

Some time in the night Hutch was briefly awake. But wakefulness had ceased to matter. He had come to feel at these times, with Starsky asleep close beside him, that his lover, his partner, could in some way be sleeping for both of them, as if they still communicated in sleep, the rapport unbroken. Maybe that was why, these days, he so often woke to this new sense of happiness.

This new kind of loving had begun almost as a sanctuary, a safe haven in a time of need, but now the deserts of guilt and grief had been reclaimed, flooded by this life-giving tide. Strength in need. Comfort in sorrow.

And companion in joy.

At sunset
Only to his true love
The Bird of Paradise opened wide his wings
Displaying emerald plumage shot with gold,
Unguessed even by him.
What did we do to wake
THIS GLORY?
–Robert Graves