Child’s Play

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Hutch still had his shield, so it wasn’t difficult for him to get close to the bank. His “radar” was going crazy and he knew Starsky was close. How he knew, he didn’t even want to speculate, but there had been a few times in their partnership when he and his friend had seemed to literally share one mind. Starsky talked a lot about ESP and sometimes Hutch just had to buy the “blue-seven-mystic” routine.

He forced his way up to the front lines and demanded to talk to whoever was in charge. He was referred to a Detective Sgt. Bill Murphy, who didn’t look happy to be pulled away from his work. Hutch showed him his shield, but the man was unimpressed.

“So, what’s a hot shot cop from LA doing in our neck of the woods and what’s it got to do with this case, anyway?” he asked.

“I’m down here looking for my partner and I think he might be in that bank!”

“What makes you think that?” the detective questioned.

Hutch told the man the truth, that he and his partner had a fair amount of “mind-melding” going on most of the time and that it was simply a strong feeling he had.

“Well, it sounds pretty bizarre, but you are from LA. You can hang around if you want to. We can use all the experience we can get with this one, we’re just a small town and this doesn’t happen around here. As far as your friend’s concerned, he’s probably sitting over at Tom’s Tavern enjoying a beer. At least I hope he is.”

Hutch pressed the man. “Do you know the names of any of the hostages yet?”

The detective answered him. “We’ve made contact with one person who says he’s a hostage, but who knows?” He looked at the notebook he was carrying around with him. “Let’s see, his name’s Starsky, David Starsky. Whoa, you all right?” he asked as Hutch’s legs threatened to buckle. “Don’t tell me that’s your friend.”

“I wish I didn’t have to, Sgt., but he always seems to be right in the thick of things everywhere he goes.”

“You mean we’ve got a cop in there? That could be a good thing. If he can manage to draw his gun on them, we might get out of this with no hostages killed.”

“He left his gun and shield behind when he came down here. My partner’ll do anything he can do to defuse this situation, but his resources are limited to say the least. There’s another problem. He thinks he’s going to die soon, so he’ll resort to heroic measures, thinking he has nothing to lose. That’s not true, but I can’t tell him that because he may have already given them that information to get them to trust him.”

Hutch sat down on the concrete steps of the bank and sighed heavily. “How’re we going to get you out of this one, Starsk?”

*********

Starsky had convinced the gunmen to send out at least ten of the hostages. He’d bargained for more, but they wanted to keep all the clout they could.

When the phone rang, Charlie picked it up and snarled, “You’re late! You trying to get these people killed or do you want to work this out? We’ve already got one dead hostage and we’re planning on killing one every fifteen minutes unless our demands are met. We want a pilot and a helicopter big enough for twenty people here as soon as possible and we want an escort to the border, where we’ll release the last of the hostages. Have two men come in, no guns, no tricks, we’ll be checking. We’re releasing ten people, so get ’em out of here! Any funny business and a lot of good people die right now!”

*********

Detective Murphy agreed to that and the connection was broken. Hutch was standing close enough to hear and his heart plunged when he heard that one of the hostages was dead. He begged Bill to let him be one of the two men who went in. Maybe he could catch sight of Starsky and at least assure him that he was there.

The Sgt. had no objection and sent one of his officers with him. Hutch was thankful to see that the dead hostage was an elderly woman. His relief made him feel crummy, but at least it wasn’t Starsky. They sent mostly women and children out, although there were a couple of women left. Some of the hostages broke and begged to be let go, concerning Hutch for a few minutes until they could back out of there.

He finally located his partner, but it did no good. He was lying very still next to a young woman. She had his head in her lap and was holding a piece of cloth to the back of his skull. The rag was blood-soaked. Hutch figured his partner had tried something that had gone very wrong. Why they hadn’t just killed him wasn’t evident, but they had his wrists tied so he couldn’t make another move on them. He evidently was out cold, so Hutch had to be happy with getting the few hostages they’d allowed them to safety. He and the deputy picked up the body of the dead hostage and backed out of the building.

*********

The gunmen, with the exception of Charlie, had been milling around trying to chose which of the hostages to send out, when Starsky had decided to make his ill-fated move. He grabbed the gun of one of the men, startling him so badly that he let it go. Starsky quickly backed up and trained the gun on the two, unaware that Charlie had moved from his place and come around behind him. He saw a sudden burst of light and then everything faded to black. Charlie punched the gunman who’d been so careless and told him to tie the detective up so he couldn’t cause anymore trouble.

“Why don’t we just pop ‘im, Charlie? We’ve got enough hostages. We don’t need any troublemakers.”

“This one’s stickin’ with us to the end, stupid, maybe they’ll bargain better for one of their own. When we get over the border, we’ll have fun with him before we put him out of his misery. I’m kinda partial to tall, dark and curly, myself.”

Melanie pulled Starsky’s head into a more comfortable position, tore another piece of the injured man’s shirt and bunched it up to make a new compress. The wound was bleeding pretty badly and she didn’t know if she could staunch the flow, but was damn well going to try. She was rather smitten with this guy, even though she hadn’t had a chance to have a real conversation with him yet. She looked down at his face, pale and pasty now, remembering the color of his eyes, those beautiful eyes, the color of cerulean, sapphire, azure all rolled up into one. She stroked the scar on his temple that ran up into his hairline, admiring his dark lashes, wishing his eyes would open. He seemed to be the only one in the room who had any answers or the guts to try and get them out of here. She’d heard him say he’d been a cop, so maybe he still could do something to help them all.

Realistically, she knew the men had no plans to let them all go. There was no way they could. She’d seen enough movies to know the few that had just left were probably all that were going home. She had nothing to go home to anyway. If she had to be here, she’d take her chances with David. He’d whispered his name to her when he’d grabbed her hand earlier.

*********

Arrangements were being made for a helicopter to be flown from a nearby army base. The gunmen were called and told when it could be expected. They weren’t happy, but the small town had no airfield, so there wasn’t much they could do. Hutch knew the only chance he had was to get Starsky before they got on the helicopter, but how and would he still be alive by then. He’d already made a foolish move, probably thinking he had nothing to lose, and was injured. Hutch could do nothing but wait and hope he’d get a break that would let him get his stubborn partner out of this so he could inflict some damage of his own on him.

*********

Inside the bank, everyone was quiet. The victims were resigned to whatever was going to happen. Occasionally, one of the older hostages would moan a little from being restricted to lying on the hard floor.

Starsky was still unconscious, but the bleeding had subsided and he was making little groaning sounds that Melanie tried to stifle for fear of drawing unwanted attention. When his eyes came open, there was confusion as well as pain in them. He tried to put his hands up to his head, but was frustrated when he found that he couldn’t move them.

Melanie put her hand over his mouth to keep him from complaining, hoping he’d become coherent in a few minutes. He stilled and another look in his eyes revealed that he now knew where he was and what was going down. She took her hand away and smiled an apology. He nodded his head, then winced as pain stabbed through the back of his skull.

The phone rang. Charlie grabbed it and grunted into it. Whatever he heard on the other end made him angry and he started yelling.

“We had a deal, you told me that helicopter would be here by now! I think you’re just stalling. Now you’ve lost another one of your hostages!” He yanked the nearest person, who happened to be a middle-aged man, up from the floor. He dragged him back to the phone, said, “Listen, pig!” and shot the man in the head. “Are you ready for another one?” he asked. “We’ll do a lady this time, a young, pretty one or how about your cop friend in here? You want to see him get wasted? You get that helicopter here in fifteen minutes or everybody’s dead! Do you read me?” He slammed the phone down.

Starsky shut his eyes when the man went down. The threat against a young, pretty lady made him cringe, because Melanie was the only one left who fit that description and he was getting a little used to having her around. He looked into her jade-green eyes and tried to will her to be strong. She seemed to get the message. There was a connection there. If they got out of this one, he’d like to get to know her a whole lot better, but would that be fair, considering he didn’t have a lot of time left?

The phone rang again, Charlie answered it and was assured the helicopter would be there and could they come in and get the other body. He assented, but told them again no tricks.

*********

Starsky had been doing a good job of lulling the gunmen into false security, acting like he was drifting in and out of consciousness, but he was alert and waiting for any chance he could get to make another move. He looked up briefly to see the two men enter the bank and submit to being patted down for weapons. He saw that one of them had hair that corn-silk color that he associated with his partner, than was shocked to see that it WAS Hutch. The blond’s eyes found him immediately and bored into him with a look that contained elements of anger, worry, pain and frustration. Starsky couldn’t stand it and looked down at the floor. He knew he’d been stupid and now he was endangering his partner’s life, too. This wasn’t the way he’d wanted to go out.

The detective willed him to look back up. He did and Hutch hoped the ESP, or whatever it was that made them the best detectives on the BCPD force, was working. Starsky realized he needed to cause a distraction, so his partner could make some kind of move. While the two gunmen were watching Hutch and the deputy, Starsky whispered to Melanie to try and untie him. She was able to without being noticed, then he looked around for something close that he could make some noise with. There was a big, brass floor lamp right behind them, so he got his fingers under it and got ready to tip it over when Hutch got into position. He knew his partner couldn’t have gotten in the door with his Magnum, so thought he must be wearing his ankle holster with the .38 in it, which meant he would have to bend down to lift the body, in order to reach the gun.

As both men started to bend over, Starsky gave the lamp a shove, sending it crashing through a glass partition. The gunmen immediately wheeled to see what the noise was and Hutch and the deputy both had weapons in their hands when they came back up.

Charlie recovered first and got off a shot, but it went wild and Hutch dropped him immediately. The other two let their guns fall without resistance. The men were cuffed and Charlie was loaded into an ambulance. Another ambulance was provided for Starsky, but he refused to go to the hospital, allowing the paramedics to clean, stitch and dress the wound on the site, however.

He kept waiting for Hutch to come over and see how he was, but it looked like the only one in his corner was Melanie. She was very concerned, hovering over him, thanking him for all he’d done. She seemed to be a really nice lady and he was enjoying all the attention, but couldn’t help looking for his friend.

“Guess that hard head of yours took another knock and survived, huh, meathead?” finally came the voice he was waiting to hear.

“Yeah, I guess it’s like my stomach, made out of cast iron. Uh, thanks, Hutch, for getting us out of this mess. This is my friend Melanie.” He found he didn’t know what to say to Hutch. The silence between them was very uncomfortable.

“Hi, Melanie, you really should watch who you hang out with, you know. This guy’s always getting into trouble, wherever he goes. Starsky, OLD PAL, could I talk to you for a minute?” Without waiting for an answer, he grabbed Starsky’s arm in a vice-grip and dragged him away.

“I guess you’re pretty pissed off at me, huh, Hutch? How’d you find me? Not that I’m sorry you did, but I thought I covered my tracks pretty well. We did a good job in there, didn’t we? Where’re you staying, we’ll get together for supper, maybe Melanie could come?” Realizing Hutch wasn’t answering any of his questions and was staring at him like he’d landed in a flying saucer, Starsky decided to shut up and take the lecture he was sure was forthcoming.

“I just came to deliver a message, Stark. The doctor says your tumor’s not malignant. I’m leaving to go back in the morning. I’m glad you’re all right.” Hutch turned his back and started to walk away.

“Geez, Hutch, don’t do this to me! Deck me, kick me in the butt, beat the tar out of me, but don’t just turn and walk away like I’m nothing.”

The blond whirled around with his fists clenched. “Why not? That’s what you did to me, PARTNER! Just left me like I didn’t matter in the least, like you couldn’t have talked to me about your fears. Just marched out of my life like you promised me you’d never do. How can I trust you to be there for me again? How can we go back to what we were? You might as well stay here, I don’t need a partner I can’t trust.” Hutch walked the rest of the way to his car and took off.

Starsky leaned against the wall of the building and slid down. Somehow he’d always known that in the end he’d be the one who sabotaged the relationship and now he’d done a good job of it. Hindsight was better than foresight, now that he knew he wasn’t dying, he felt like the biggest sucker on the face of the earth. There was no way he could face his friend, his pride wouldn’t let him.

Melanie came over and sat next to him. She didn’t know the whole story, but she felt bad for him.

*********

Monday morning came and Hutch crawled into work after having consumed the contents of his liquor supply and more. Dobey didn’t say a word to him, he could tell at a glance how bad he felt and assumed he’d had no success finding Starsky. He was starting to consider who he could partner the man with, when the detective in question sheepishly entered the squad room and sat down by Hutch.

“Buddy, I’m so sorry,” he said in a quiet voice. “I didn’t know what to do, either way I was going to hurt you. I made a major mistake. I took the coward’s way out. I understand that you don’t trust me and don’t want me as a partner anymore and I don’t blame you, but if I’m going to live, I don’t want to live where I can never catch a glimpse of you or know how you’re doing for the rest of my life. I just wanted you to have this. I wrote it when I was feeling really bad and I wanted you to know how I felt then.”

He handed Hutch a folded-up piece of paper, then ducked out of there before Dobey could catch him.

Hutch carefully spread-out the limp, stained piece of paper and started reading. By the time he came to the end, “comfort for my friend,” he was out the door and caught up with Starsky in the parking garage. It seemed a fitting place for a new start and they held each other and tried to say everything that needed to be said in a moment’s time. Then they noticed they were getting stares and headed back to the squad room with arm’s around each other’s shoulders.

“Will you have me back as a partner, Hutch? I promise I won’t make the same mistake again. I’ll stick so close, you’ll have to ditch me to get to the ‘little boy’s room.'”

“You’ve got my vote. The way I see it, there’s only one problem.” He pointed to the door of Dobey’s office and the voice came right on cue…

“DETECTIVE SGT. STARSKY, GET YOUR SORRY BUTT IN HERE! NOW!”

Hutch had to laugh. He’d never seen his friend look terrified before.

THE END