Table of Contents
Evolution
Book One
by Dana Austin Marsh
Illustrated by Lorraine Brevig
A Venice Place Press Production
Editor and Publisher Keri T.
A Starsky and Hutch Slash Zine
©- October, 2004. Evolution, Book One, is an amateur publication of Venice Place Press and does not intend to infringe on any copyrights held by those associated with the television show or movie entitled Starsky and Hutch.
This zine will not be knowingly sold to anyone under the age of eighteen.
VPP
Gilroy, California
Email Rosiered2000@aol.com
And now, a few thank yous from Dana and Keri:
The last time I gained twenty-five pounds in nine months, I was pregnant. I guess that’s what happens when you spend all your time sitting on your butt scribbling furiously, or in front of a PC trying to decipher those scribbles. At least Evolution is never going to grow up to be a teenager.
I am still somewhat in awe of the fact that I actually completed Evolution. I’ m a great starter, but not so great at making it to the finish line. It’s been an incredible experience. Incredibly exciting when the guys were talking in my ear so fast I could barely keep up, and just as incredibly frustrating when they would suddenly shut up.
My thank yous for their contributions to Evolution’s birth are numerous.
First, to Starsky and Hutch. For coming back into my life at a time when I needed them most, and for the incredible love they shared that leapt off the screen, captured my imagination, and refuses to let go.
To Janie, who read eight pages in September, 2003, and assured me that she would pay good money to know what was going on in Starsky’s head. You said it would be an interesting writing exercise, and I fell for it. So how does it feel to be responsible for an obsession?
To Karen-Leigh, who asked: “What happens next?” and refused to take “Nothing.” for an answer. Instead, you came to my house and badgered me until I finally agreed to explore the possibilities. You have done a pretty good job of hand holding or butt kicking ever since. You seem to have a talent for inspiring obsession in writers, so you’re probably used to it by now.
To my family, who put up with my single-minded obsession. Sorry about the gift certificates, guys. I’ll make it up to you all next Christmas.
To Lorraine. I am awed by your talent. I’m still not entirely convinced that, not only are you an amazing artist, but I think you might also have the ability to read minds–long distance no less. You saw what I saw when I wrote the scenes you illustrated, and then you brought them to life for me.
And last, but certainly not least, to Keri. You and Paula published my first Starsky and Hutch story, and when I began to realize just where Evolution might be headed, I knew immediately that I wanted you to edit it. I handed you seventy-five pages at ZCon, you plugged into my vision, and have been an absolute rock through every page since. You listened to me moan and groan and babble, and reassured me every time that there was a tape to break and that I would break it. If not for you, I’d still be wondering if I really could write Evolution into the aired series. I never expect to repeat this unique experience again in my life–unless, of course, you decide you like the first fifty pages of Haven.<g> Buddy, it ain’t been a slice, it’s been the whole pie!
Dana
Like Dana, my own thank yous are numerous and heartfelt. First to my family and friends outside of fandom, who don’t quite get what I do, but know I love to do it, and show infinite patience when I disappear for a few months at a time. This period has been a year, and they still seem to be talking to me.
When Dana handed me those first pages at ZCon, I had a head cold and was fighting off the blues with a whip and a chair. I remember starting to read it at my table, and the tingly feeling I got–I knew immediately I was holding something very unique and special in my hands. That feeling has only grown by leaps and bounds over this incredible year. I was stunned and honored that Dana picked me to work with her on this piece, and I think we formed not only an amazing working relationship, but an amazing friendship, too. So you can see I have a whole lot to thank Dana for. Not the least of which is the commitment and talent and vision she gave to every paragraph she wrote, and the way she put up with me asking for just “a touch more” here and there.
I have to say again to both Dana and Lorraine, that your talent leaves me breathless and humbled, and speaking of Lorraine…you went above and beyond the call of everything I asked you for, and as Dana said, so plugged into her vision, and made her words part of your art. Thank you so much for the time and commitment you gave to this project. Thank you for creating something so beautiful, and then being willing to tweak it even more–like for a forehead touch–because you captured the mood better than I could have dreamed.
And now it’s time to let go and give Evolution into the reader’s hands. I think I’m having a little separation anxiety, but it’s time, and I hear Dana might have a few more pages for me to read at SHareCon… and so begins another year.
Comments to this work are gratefully received and can be sent to the following addresses:
Dana can be reached at sdmartin@rogers.com
Lorraine can be reached at hisstah@aol.com
I can be reached at rosiered2000@aol.com
The three of us thank you, the reader, for purchasing this zine, and we hope you enjoy it as much as we’ve enjoyed bringing it to you.
Keri
The sequel to this is Evolution Book II.
The Friday Before — Ken
It was one of those nights. The kind when you knew you were certifiable because you were the only person in Southern California who didn’t own an air conditioner. The kind when you didn’t want to be skin to skin with yourself, let alone anyone else. So what was he doing here, cruising the bars, checking out the meat rack? Ken told himself he was only looking for someone with the sense to own about 5,000 BTUs, but knew he was practicing self-delusion. He was looking for someone to heat him up, not cool him down.
And he knew when he found it. Five minutes after paying his ten bucks at the door. Four minutes after ordering his first beer. Three minutes after taking that first cold sip. Two minutes after hitching his butt up onto a high stool. One minute after checking out the action on the dance floor. There it was. Moving like silk, flowing like satin. Dancing fleetingly with a dozen partners, but really only for himself. A ballet of sensuality that fed the ache in Ken’s groin. In comparison, he would look like a giraffe on stilts. When his partners were kind, Ken “lacked spatial awareness.” Most of the time, they just called him clumsy.
“Forget it,” the bartender advised above the all-pervasive bass.
Ken looked away long enough to mouth, “Why?” No sense in trying to shout above the music that throbbed in his temples.
“Strictly cockteaser,” the bartender pronounced gravely. “Comes in here Friday night, flashes it around. Goes home alone. Probably hits the straight bars on Saturday.”
Bitter disappointment was washed away by a second mouthful of cold beer. Ken had no time for regrets. On Monday, he would commit himself to a life that would forever preclude this. Cops weren’t queer, and Ken wanted to be a cop. Wanted it badly enough to give up his family and his wife. Wanted it badly enough to deny half of his nature. Tomorrow. Tonight, he sought a memory, one experience to quiet the yearnings for flesh like his own, or, more likely, to fuel his fantasies in the years to come. He would have it all tonight, from the first taste of a man’s lips, to the solid thrust of a hard cock inside him. And he would have it with someone he would remember.
His head turned as he scanned the crowded bar, seeing beautiful and not-so-beautiful men trying desperately to get laid everywhere he looked. An abundance of tight jeans, unbuttoned shirts, rounded asses, and packed crotches begged for attention. Still, Ken’s gaze wandered again and again to the dance floor, like a moth to a flame, to the poetry in motion wearing washed-out denim and silk.
Cataloging imperfections made no difference. Ken didn’t care that the sturdy legs, spread for balance, were as bowed as a long-time saddle tramp’s. He cared less that between folds of red material was far too much hair. Hardly even noticed that the brunet curls were unfashionably short. All Ken truly saw was the way the smooth arch and thrust of the dancer seemed to invade his eyes the way the music invaded his ears.
Their eyes met as the dancer changed partners. Endlessly deep blue looking over the shoulder of another man who tried desperately to keep up with the quicksilver thrust and sway. Eyes met, then locked, and the dancer missed a step, allowing his current partner the chance to reach out a steadying hand. The dancer evaded it and spun away, but when the pirouette ended, blue sought out blue once more. Thin red lips tipped into a smile and the long face lit, and Ken knew that, if the bartender was right, he would be living without his memory after all. It was going to be this man or none at all.
The music ended and before the next song could begin, the dancer left the floor, a bouncing, arrogant strut carrying him toward Ken like a man on a mission. Panic surged for a moment, but Ken suppressed it, adrenaline seeming to pump into his veins in time with each step the dancer took. The lapis gaze shifted, and as the man bellied up to the bar and leaned over it to shout his order to the bartender, Ken’s hungry gaze slipped to worn soft denim that hugged rounded curves like a second skin. Then his view abruptly altered as the man flipped around to prop his elbows on the bar, back braced against the edge and pelvis tilted to highlight the denim-wrapped package between his legs.
Ken’s mouth watered and his cock pulsed, vainly seeking room to grow in its corduroy prison.
“Buy ya a drink?” Dancer offered in a casual tone belied by his probing gaze. The eyes dropped to the half-full glass Ken still held, darkening in challenge.
Pointedly, Ken tilted back his head and poured the remaining alcohol down, feeling that hypnotic gaze on his throat as he swallowed deeply, over and over. He placed the empty glass on the bar, meeting the challenge with one of his own. “Sure.”
The beer arrived and he took a sip. “Thanks. My name’s Ken Hutchinson.”
Dancer glanced around the bar, disinterested gaze wandering over the variety of fare on offer. Like a disdainful gourmand in a cafeteria, he returned his attention to Ken, the blue eyes making a seven-course meal out of him.
“Dave,” he mumbled an abbreviated introduction, making Ken realize he had probably given more information than this man wanted and, considering the new life he had chosen, certainly more than was good for him.
“Wanna dance?” Dave invited, tilting his head toward the gyrating bodies under the flashing lights.
Ken froze, an image of himself on the floor making him queasy. All his awkward self-consciousness beside this epitome of grace? Not if he could help it. He dropped his gaze, feeling the hot flush tingling in his cheeks, praying the lighting was too unreliable for Dave to see.
While he was still scrambling for a way to refuse and yet not reject, he felt strong fingers curl around his chin, drawing his head up.
“You’ re blushing,” Dave observed, as if he had never encountered the phenomenon before, his thumb brushing one warm cheek. His voice dropped so low Ken could barely hear the next words above the music. “You’re beautiful.”
If he said one word, Ken knew he was going to stutter. Make a fool of himself, and this perfection would move on to someone else.
“Dance with me,” Dave coaxed and, without his conscious volition, Ken slipped from the bar stool, followed where the other man led him by the hand until they stood in the middle of the dance floor and arms slid around his waist. Only then did Ken realize the music had changed, become a slow, sensual rhythm that matched the lights that had faded to an intimate glow, and the easy sway of the pelvis moving against him. As if he had been imbued with the same magical grace as the man who held him, Ken began to move. Held within the steady embrace, coaxed by the press and slide and arch of the restless body he held, Ken found himself feeling the rhythm and matching it with an ease he had never known before.
The dark head lifted from his shoulder after a time. A rough cheek brushed against his, as moist breath sighed into his ear with Dave’s words.
“Do you want me?”
Ken swallowed hard, remembering the bartender’s warning. What did Dave want from him? Nothing more than to know he was desired? An hour in the basement rooms made available for those who had no place else to go, or a need to be seen while they took their pleasure? Experience or innocence?
“Yes,” he finally answered simply. There could be no denials when surely Dave could feel the pounding of his heart and the hard arc of his cock between them.
“Come home with me?” sighed into his ear. “Wanna do it with you all night long.”
It was as if Dave had read his mind, his heart. As if he knew the nebulous fantasy that Ken dreamed tonight would be. His hands tightened, crushing the moist, silken fabric of Dave’s shirt, and he inhaled deeply of the heady scents of sweat and musk and faded cologne.
“Yes.” It was a hiss this time. A desperate acceptance and a plea to whoever might be listening that Dave was not playing some cruel game.
“Now?” Dave coaxed as if he truly expected refusal, didn’t already know, had to know, that Ken was ready to follow him anywhere. A small voice of caution tried to be heard, warning him he played a dangerous game, but Ken silenced it.
“Now,” he confirmed, grieving for the loss when Dave pulled out of his arms; anticipation running high as he was taken by the hand once again and led into the hot, humid night that seemed to close in around them.
Dave led him down an alley whose shadows were filled with shifting bodies, flashes of white flesh revealed by the neon lights that filtered from the street, groans and moans and the occasional cry of pain painting their own story in the deep rich tones of male passion.
Once past the shifting shadows, deep into the darkness where even the headlights of passing cars could not reach, Ken felt himself pressed into the wall, the sturdy, solid weight of the dancer trapping him between the brick and the hardness of an aroused cock. Warm lips brushed his chin, seeking his mouth, and, despite his own desires, he turned his face away.
“Don’t change your mind, baby blue,” Dave coaxed him gently, strong hands slipping up to frame Ken’s face in a tender embrace.
“Not here. Not like this,” Ken pleaded, managing somehow to force his tongue to form the words. Would Dave mock him? Reject him? Seek easier game?
He was released, his hand found once again in the darkness, and he was led along until they emerged at the other end of the alley.
“Just wanted a taste,” Dave offered in reassurance when there was enough light for Ken to see the desire in his face. “Gonna seem like a long way to my place when I wanna kiss that beautiful mouth so bad.”
Ken followed helplessly as Dave moved a few steps down the sidewalk to a blue car that had seen better days. Appearances could be deceiving, he discovered, when Dave twisted the key in the ignition and the car fired to life with a rumble that throbbed in his chest like a bass guitar.
“Don’t look like much, but she’ll outrun anything on the road. Savin’ up for the body work next,” Dave explained as he pulled onto the deserted street and headed for the glare and congestion of the main drag.
Ken, who knew little about cars and cared less, groped for something to say, found nothing, so settled for silence. He contented himself with watching the man drive as he wove them in and out of heavy traffic with an ease that spoke of many hours spent behind the wheel.
“Do you drive for a living?” he asked, taking in the smooth coordination of muscular leg to clutch, and capable hand to shift, when Dave geared down for a light.
“For the sheer joy of it,” Dave replied in a husky growl, the face turned toward Ken revealing the truth of the statement.
Lust grabbed Ken by the throat, trapping whatever inane comment he might have blurted. If they had far to go, he wouldn’t make it. His cock throbbed a warning, and he pressed the heel of his hand into it, trying to stem the tide. Dave’s gaze following every move made the gesture a futile one. The smaller hand left the shift and brushed his aside, but never connected before the blare of a horn jolted them both.
“Two minutes,” Dave promised, throwing the car into gear and hitting the gas. “Can you hold on?”
Ken slid down in his seat, spreading his legs a little to ease the pressure. Gasping in humid air that seemed completely devoid of oxygen, he nodded a lie. If Dave had touched him, he would have gone off like a roman candle. He closed his eyes and tried to think cool thoughts until, the promised two minutes later, the car slowed and then stopped.
When he opened his eyes, Ken found darkness almost as complete as had throbbed behind his lids. His eyes sought out the dancer and found him close, leaning awkwardly over the gearshift.
“Coming?” Dave asked softly, one fingertip gliding over the sweat that sheened Ken’s upper lip.
“Almost,” Ken managed, his voice an embarrassing croak.
“Can you make it up the stairs?” Dave’s tone was teasing, but beneath it Ken heard a strain equal to his own.
“Can you?” Ken countered, for the first time feeling as if some of the power rested in his hands and not quite sure how he had wrested it from Dave.
“Do I have to?” Dave murmured, sweet supplication in his tone that revealed power had not been taken but yielded willingly. ‘Do it all night long with you’ echoed in Ken’s memory. Dave had already stated his desires, now it was Ken’s turn.
“Just a taste,” he decided and slid his hand up to cup the back of the dark head, his fingers becoming lost in springy curls that enwrapped his hand with a life of their own.
For one more humid moment, he let the anticipation build, then brought their mouths together. Making his lips soft and welcoming, he yielded control once again to the more experienced man, allowing a delicate probe to coax his lips apart and admit a tongue that sought his own.
The kiss lasted only a heartbeat or two. It was all either of them could stand. Dave eased away, came back for one more fleeting touch, then groaned as he settled back in his own seat.
“Let’s go,” he demanded.
~*~*~
Ken had only a fleeting impression of a small space, crowded with too much furniture, but scrupulously clean and eerily empty of personal possessions. It was as if the apartment was abandoned, or about to be. But that was for remembering later. For now, there was only the man who backed slowly away from him, his face an open invitation to rape, his fingers easing loose the few buttons that had been fastened on his shirt, while the lapis gaze fixed demandingly on Ken’s shirt.
One step, one button. A second step, another button, while Ken stood mesmerized.
“You’re fallin’ behind,” Dave challenged as he took another step, his fingers grasping the damp silk and teasing it free of his waistband.
In reply, Ken grabbed the open collar of his shirt and tugged, freeing the snaps from throat to belt in a string of tiny explosions. His longer legs ate up the distance between them in a stride, and he wrapped both big hands in the red folds of silk.
“All night long?” he asked.
“Oh, yeah,” Dave growled.
Restraint surrendered then along with delicacy and hesitancy, leaving behind only need and lust that saw the cloth barriers between them strewn around the once tidy room and forgotten before they hit the floor. They sank onto the bed, skin to skin, hands grasping a muscular globe, a hard shoulder and smooth skin in a restless dance of abandon.
The grace that had suddenly been his on the dance floor returned to Ken as their bodies once more moved together to a rhythm only the two of them could feel. His cock sliding slickly against Dave’s, the soft-harsh rasp of the hairy groin on his exposed glans dragging a gasp from his throat with each thrust, Ken strained for release. That one, too-short moment when all the pleasure in the world gathered in his belly and demanded he surrender to it.
A hand in his hair, a hungry mouth sealed to his, and the impudent demand of a probing tongue tipped the balance. With a shout, swallowed then echoed, Ken toppled over the edge, feeling the hard pulse and sudden warmth of his semen spread between them, immediately echoed, doubled by the rush of Dave’s.
They held on, writhing lazily until the last weak pulse was only a memory, then stilled. Slowly, grasping fingers relaxed and they eased onto their backs, hearts slowing, breath calming, and the sensory memory of pleasure still tingling in their nerves.
Awareness of the world outside his own skin came slowly to Ken. When it did, it was the feel of his own sweat drying in a cool breeze that roused him. He turned his head and saw the air conditioner in the window and realized he had been aware of the hum all along. He laughed softly.
“Somethin’ funny?” Dave asked.
Ken felt the bed move, then jostle, then still and guessed that his companion had tried to roll to face him and then abandoned the attempt. “You have an air conditioner,” he said.
“‘Course I have an air conditioner,” Dave muttered. “Only an idiot tries to live in Southern California in the summer without an air conditioner.”
Ken grinned toward the ceiling, reached across his body to offer his hand. “Hello. My name is Idiot. Pleased to meet you.”
Dave grasped the offered hand, used it to haul himself up until he loomed over Ken. He planted an elbow on the mattress and his head on his hand. “Ain’t been out here long, have ya, farm boy?”
“What makes you think I’m a farm boy?” Ken asked curiously.
“Can tell a Midwest accent when I hear one,” Dave insisted. “And what else do they have in the Midwest but farms?”
Ken pursed his lips as if considering his reply, not terribly surprised when Dave leaned closer and pressed a kiss to them. The kiss didn’t last long enough to be a distraction.
“Sounds to me as if you grew up a whole lot closer to the Statue of Liberty than the Golden Gate Bridge, yourself.”
“Guilty as charged,” Dave admitted. He reached out and dabbled a finger in their combined semen where it was drying stickily on Ken’s belly. He brought the finger to his mouth, licked it and then offered it to Ken.
Ken accepted the offer, pulling the digit into his mouth as desire began to curl in his belly again, making his cock stir lazily. Teasingly, Dave began slowly thrusting his finger in and out of his mouth as Ken curled his tongue around the gentle invader.
“Been out here long?” Dave asked, the heat beginning to light his eyes giving the lie to the cool tone.
Grasping Dave’s hand, Ken slowly withdrew the finger from his mouth, licking and sucking until the tip finally popped free. “Just since November.”
“You got any plans to do that for real?” Dave asked, rubbing the wet finger over Ken’s bottom lip.
“All night long,” Ken reminded him. “Whatever you want.”
“Now?” Dave asked, sounding more curious than passionate.
“The spirit’s willing, but…” Ken demurred, leaving the sentence hanging.
“You want somethin’ to drink? I’m not sure what’s left in the fridge. Juice maybe,” Dave offered.
“Whatever you’ve got. Except root beer. Can’t stand the stuff,” Ken said, watching appreciatively as Dave climbed out of bed and padded across the room.
“My favorite,” Dave said as he brought a robe out of the closet.
“Don’t!” Ken commanded, stopping the other man who was about to conceal his body. “Please,” he added, smiling.
Dave hesitated, the material bunched between his hands, then tossed it to the foot of the bed. “What the hell,” he muttered and left the room in all his naked glory.
“Hope my neighbors are all asleep,” he quipped when he returned with two glasses of orange juice. “Not that it’ll matter after tomorrow.” He passed one glass to Ken, then waved a hand toward the television. “You mind if I turn that on for a minute? Wanna see how the Lakers made out tonight.”
Ken shrugged his indifference as he sipped the juice. Sex was thirsty business and the tart cold felt like heaven sliding down his throat. Basketball was another topic that failed to hold his attention, especially tonight. He had no trouble ignoring the sportscaster in favor of an appreciative appraisal of the man who stood so casually naked before him.
After a few minutes, Dave switched off the set and climbed back into bed.
“Cars, basketball, root beer,” Ken cataloged. “Do you think we have anything in common?” he asked with an ironic twist of his lips.
Dave slid closer, still holding his almost empty glass. “Lust?” he suggested.
Ken felt his body respond to the gaze that traveled over him with such blatant approval. He set aside his glass and reached for the other man, but his hands were brushed aside. Bemused, he watched Dave swallow the last of his juice, then bit back a protest as the glass was upended over his belly and the last few drops dripped coldly into his navel. A warm mouth and probing tongue followed, lapping and licking until he squirmed.
The dark head lifted then, white teeth flashing in a challenging grin.
“Yeah, lust,” Ken agreed, dipping his finger into his own glass and letting the slow drip, drip, drip bathe his nipple. Obligingly, the tart fluid was cleaned away with great attention to detail. His fingers caught in short curls when the moist lips began tasting their way to his neglected pap.
”No juice over there,” he mock protested.
“Can never be too sure. Sneaky stuff, that juice. Can get just everywhere,” Dave warned.
Arching his back, Ken gave himself up to the talented lips, making no effort to stifle the moans that each lick and every nibble forced out of him.
“That’s it,” Dave encouraged, replacing his mouth with the rough caress of a just-beginning-to stubble cheek. “Let me hear ya purr.”
The electric shock of the slight pain dragged a gasp from Ken’s lips.
“Oh, yeah. A symphony of lust,” Dave murmured. “Sing it for me, babe,” he commanded as he began kissing and lapping his way down Ken’s body.
Unable to help himself, Ken obliged, a steady litany of his delight vibrating in his throat as the hot lips bathed his belly, seeking out every trace of the seed they had already spilled between them. A tiny sparkle of inhibition remained, however, for when Dave finally reached his cock, an eternity of sensation later, and the wet tongue circled the swollen head, Ken stuffed his fist in his mouth to stifle his cry.
And was immediately abandoned.
Opening eyes he hadn’t realized he had closed, he blinked stupidly at his tormentor.
“Give it to me, babe. Don’t hold back. Wanna hear what I make you feel. Wanna feel it in my balls,” Dave demanded.
There was a reason for some small measure of decorum. Ken was sure of it. But he would be damned if he could remember what it was. Now was for the pleasure promised by the mouth poised above his cock, so close that the hot, moist breath was a caress all its own. His fingers found curls and pressed, forcing the promise onto his flesh as he found one more word and voiced it.
“Please!”
And he was given his wish. Several of his longest-held, dearest wishes as lips parted around the center of his need and went down, down impossibly far, engulfing him in sucking, rippling heat that gripped and eased in perfect rhythm with the lightning that flashed before his tightly closed eyes. He moaned, he groaned, he begged and he cursed, and every sound he made seemed to spur his tormentor to further extravagant delights.
It was going to happen again. He could feel it churning in his balls, where they were held fast in a grip that was alternately so sweet and so terrible that he had to cry out or implode. He held out one more unimaginably perfect moment longer, then he was arching up on heels and shoulders, both hands clamped tight on the source of his pleasure, and he was coming. Great straining pulses that threatened to turn him inside out and leave every pleasure-raw nerve exposed.
Reality returned so slowly it might have been stalking his sensation-drenched brain long before he became aware of the concerned blue eyes that hovered above him. He wanted to reach up, offer a touch of reassurance, but felt as if command of even so simple a gesture was beyond him. He must have communicated his well-being somehow, because the concern soon melted away into an expression of awe.
“Wow,” Dave exclaimed hoarsely. “You really get into it.”
Muscles once again minimally under his control, Ken lifted a shaky hand to caress red chafed lips.
“Cocksucker,” he whispered, but it wasn’t a curse. Instead, it was offered in reverence, a blessing in exchange for the pleasure he had been given.
“Damn right,” Dave agreed. His lips caught Ken’s fingertip, his tongue swirling a moment before he released it.
Ken’s arm dropped back to the bed as Dave moved in close to his side. He felt the hard heat of the thick cock being rubbed slowly against his hip and found the wherewithal to press back.
“Easy. Easy,” Dave crooned. “Nowhere near morning yet.”
All night long, echoed in Ken’s mind. A few minutes to rest then. Just a moment or two to close his eyes, gather his strength, let himself luxuriate in the smooth caresses that eased the last lingering tremors from his body.
He came awake with a jolt, shot bolt upright by the certainty he had slept away precious hours, but was immediately reassured by the sudden strong grip of the arms that held him.
“I fell asleep!” he exclaimed, horrified by the waste.
“Just a few minutes,” Dave reassured, his hands gentle but firm and Ken allowed himself to be coaxed back into the soothing embrace. “Must’ve needed it,” he added with a grin that stated how proud he was to have caused that need.
“I…I thought. I…I was afff…” Stuttering helplessly, Ken clamped his jaws tight.
“Want you, beautiful man.”
It wasn’t a demand, or a plea. It was a statement of fact, accompanied by a hand that swept between Ken’s legs, sought behind the soft hanging emptiness of his satiated balls where a bold thumb caressed the very center of him. Instinctively, his body tightened, rejecting, and the hand was immediately withdrawn.
“No,” Ken protested, grabbing the retreating hand and leading it back where it had so fleetingly explored. “I mean, yes. Anything. Everything.”
Try as he might, Ken could not suppress the spasm that rocked him as his anus was probed again. Immediately, the insistent demand for entry became a caress that lingered long enough for him to begin to enjoy, and then retreated for a second time.
He opened his eyes with an inarticulate murmur of regret and found Dave propped beside him again, the long face and probing gaze filling his field of vision. It was as if nothing else existed in the entire world except this man and the relentless, exhausted energy within his own body.
“Cherry.” Once again, it wasn’t a question but a statement.
Ken nodded hesitantly.
“Maybe we better leave ya something,” Dave suggested, the slow sweep of his hand up Ken’s sweat-slick torso gentling the jangling of over-wrought nerves that sang within him.
“No!” Ken protested.
The blue eyes blinked at the vehemence then loomed closer as Dave leaned down, possessed his lips in a kiss that coaxed Ken to offer whatever was asked. As little or as much, no matter his own desires.
“Let me have this?” Dave coaxed, moving away so slightly that each movement of his lips brushed a moist caress into Ken’s mouth. A firm tongue tip circled his lips, then probed between, thrusting and withdrawing ever so slightly in illustration. He opened wider, inviting the opportunist inside, catching it between his teeth and sucking hard.
“Yes,” he said unnecessarily after releasing his captive. “Anything….”
“Everything,” Dave completed their personal mantra.
Laying both hands on the muscular shoulders, Ken pushed, but the sturdy body refused to be budged. He subsided, waiting, knowing his offer had been accepted, unconcerned with the mechanics of it. Whatever, however, became part of the agreement between them.
Rewarded for his patience with a deep kiss, Ken felt the shift and sway of the mattress as Dave maneuvered his body up and over. Their lips parted and Ken found himself being bracketed, thick, muscular thighs hemming him in on either side while the long body loomed above him.
Slowly, Dave leaned over, both hands catching at the headboard, and Ken’s world narrowed down to the blood engorged cock and heavy balls demanding he fulfill his promise. As he watched, one hand wrapped around the thick shaft, bringing the naked crown to bear on his mouth. Slick salt was painted questioningly onto his lips, and he heard a gasp from above him as his tongue slipped out to taste, skating over the weeping slit as he licked his lips.
“Take it,” Dave coaxed and Ken canted his chin, saw the demand in the dark face above him, and opened his mouth, waiting for Dave to feed him.
Thought rushed out and instinct took over. For so long, too long, Ken had ached for this. For the hot, hard length of another man’s cock filling his mouth, rubbing at the soft pad of his tongue, forcing his jaw wide as the smooth tip sought the back of his throat. He felt foolish pride for just a moment when his throat obligingly opened. No virgin struggle with a gag reflex that had never before been asked to accept such a daunting bulk. He swallowed, savored the shout of surprised pleasure that echoed in his ears.
He gripped the restless hips, the breadth of his hands allowing him to dig his fingers into the pliant muscles of the dancer’s magnificent ass. The flesh flexed as he wrested control once again, doling out pleasure with each flick of his tongue, ripple of his throat, and gentle threat of his teeth. He heard a sobbing gasp and felt the warning throb in the flesh filling his mouth, and backed off until only the wide head remained within, offering the warm haven of his big hands in compensation. Between his lips each pulse was accepted, savored and then swallowed, taken deep into himself along with the memory.
Exhaustion won out as the first fingers of dawn crept into the night, but not before Ken climbed the heights again and again, the very last time while buried deep in his dancer’s beautiful ass. Finally, they fell apart, but Ken didn’t sleep. Instead, he lay on his side, studying the sleeping features of the man he had chosen to share his fantasies for the rest of his life. He committed to memory the perfections, the imperfections, then, silent and heartsore, he slipped from the bed, gathered his scattered clothing, and crept away like a thief in the night. The loot he had gathered within the dancer’s arms were the sweet, aching memories that he was already tucking away, hiding inside a part of his mind that would soon be buried deep by the rules and regulations, the demands and the propriety of the life he had chosen.
Out on the street, he turned to commit to memory the place where he had, for too few hours, set free the most secret part of himself within the arms of a stranger. The contours of brick and mortar, metal and glass taking their place with other, dearer memories, Ken turned away to begin the long walk into the future.
The Friday Before — Dave
It was one of those Southern California nights. The kind when you knew you were certifiable because you were pushing your way into a crowded bar when you ought to be sprawled naked in front of your air conditioner. Dave told himself he was looking for someone to share the cool haven of his bed with him, but knew he was practicing self-delusion. If a year of Friday nights hadn’t given him what he wanted, tonight, his last night, wasn’t likely to.
But he craved it desperately. Just as he craved the envy, the approval, the lust of the men who watched him dance. If they were lucky, he let them partner him briefly. If not, they watched—from their tables, from the shadows, from within the arms of some other man—and wanted him. Tonight, he desperately wanted to find the one man who could stir within him the same longing he had tasted in the jungle. He sought a memory that would banish all others. A final experience to quiet the yearnings for flesh like his own, or, more likely, to fuel his fantasies in the years to come.
On Monday, he would commit himself to a life that would forever preclude this. Cops weren’t queer, and Dave wanted to be a cop. Like his father and his grandfather before him. Wanted it badly enough to forever deny himself the taste of a man’s lips, the solid thrust of a hard cock inside him. Tomorrow.
Tonight, he gave himself up to the music, cobalt gaze scanning the meat rack. Seeing beautiful and not-so-beautiful men as desperate as himself. An abundance of tight jeans, unbuttoned shirts, rounded asses, and packed crotches begged for attention, but none held his attention longer than it took to catalog imperfections and then move on. He sought a memory, and he would have it only with someone he would remember.
And he knew when he found it. Their eyes met as he changed partners. Baby blue scorched their desire for him onto his soul as the jungle roared in his ears. He missed a step, barely recovering in time to evade the steadying hand of his current partner. He spun away, but when the pirouette ended, blue sought out blue once more. Vulnerable lips tipped into a smile and the angel face lit, and Dave knew his long wait was over. It was going to be this man or none at all.
The music ended and before the next song could begin, Dave left the floor. The other men seemed to melt away, leaving him with eyes for this angel from heaven alone. As he neared, he saw something flash across the beautiful face—panic? Fear? His angel looked as out of place as Gabriel at the gates of Hell. Fearing a panicked flight, Dave slowed his pace, letting his gaze shift, and looked past to the mirrored profile behind the bar. He bellied up to the mahogany expanse and leaned over it to shout his order to the bartender, seeing his angel’s hungry gaze slip down, feeling the heat of it caress his ass. Drink in hand, he flipped around to prop his elbows on the bar, back braced against the edge, praying the angel would want the highlighted denim-wrapped package between his legs.
Want it as much as he wanted the corn-silk hair, the broad shoulders, and the endlessly long legs.
Beneath his probing gaze, he saw the other man’s cock swell, vainly seeking room to grow in its own corduroy prison. He smiled. He was wanted as much as he wanted.
“Buy ya a drink?” he offered. His eyes fell to the half-full glass the angel still held. It was the first step, and he waited anxiously to know if there would be a second.
The angel tilted back his head and poured the remaining alcohol down, and Dave felt as if it swirled into his own bloodstream as he watched the long throat swallow deeply, over and over.
“Sure.” A musical voice, lighter than Dave’s, took up the challenge as the empty glass was placed on the bar.
The beer arrived and Dave watched the angel drink, envying the cold glass as it was brought to half-smiling lips.
“Thanks. My name’s Ken Hutchinson.”
Dave glanced around the bar while his mind whirled. Ken Hutchinson was either a fool or a virgin. The latter, Dave was sure, but still he couldn’t reciprocate. Nor could he lie. If by some miracle this angel chose him tonight, it was his own name he wanted to hear on those pink lips as he did everything in his power to show him Heaven on Earth.
“Dave,” he mumbled his own abbreviated introduction and saw Ken realize the mistake he had made. He wanted to reach out, smooth away the sheepish frown that marred the smooth brow, but kept his hands to himself.
“Wanna dance?” he asked instead, tilting his head toward the gyrating bodies under the flashing lights. The second step. He wanted to feel this angel in his arms so badly it was like the deepest sort of hunger tormenting him.
Beneath his hopeful gaze, Dave saw the bright head drop, the high cheekbones suffuse with a delicate stain of red, and felt something shift within him. Lust stepped aside to make room for wonder. Unable to resist so great a temptation, he curled his fingers around the strong chin and lifted.
“You’re blushing,” he said, feeling as if he had never observed the phenomenon before. His thumb brushed a cheekbone, felt the heat of it tighten his throat until he could barely speak. “You’re beautiful.”
Impossibly white teeth caught the full bottom lip, and panic darkened the pale blue eyes. Dreading refusal, Dave caught one of the angel’s hands, feeling his own become lost in its desperate grip.
“Dance with me,” he coaxed, drawing Ken from the stool, holding his gaze until they stood amid the swaying bodies of other men. He slid his arms around the slim waist, staking his claim with the never before offered gesture of laying his head upon the broad shoulder. Many men had danced with him, but no other man had held him.
He tightened his grip, letting the arch and sway of his restless body lead them into a shared rhythm of glide and thrust that flowed with the sensual grace of the music and the intimate glow of the faded lights, creating a charmed circle in which only the two of them existed.
“Do you want me?” Dave dared to breathe into the shell of the ear so tantalizingly close to his lips. Even with the angel within his arms, the pounding of Ken’s heart echoing in his own chest, and the hard arc of his cock between them, Dave feared rejection.
“Yes.”
“Come home with me?” he begged, daring to let his lips brush the smooth warmth of Ken’s throat. “Wanna do it with you all night long.”
“Yes.”
The repetition was a hiss in which Dave could hear a hunger to match his own.
“Now?” Dave coaxed, knowing he was taking a frightening risk, but unable to release this fantasy and walk away.
“Now.”
Anticipation running high, Dave pulled out of Ken’s arms and led him by the hand into the hot, humid night that seemed to close in around them.
Dave led Ken down an alley where the shadows were filled with shifting bodies, flashes of white flesh revealed by the neon lights that filtered from the street, groans and moans and the occasional cry of pain painting their own story in the deep rich tones of male passion.
Once past the shifting shadows, deep into the darkness where even the headlights of passing cars could not reach, Dave pressed the taller man into the wall, trapping him between the brick and the hardness of his aroused cock. He sought the vulnerable lips, his gut clenching as Ken turned his face away.
“Don’t change your mind, baby blue,” he coaxed, slipping both hands up to frame Ken’s face in a tender embrace, while he prayed to a god he wasn’t even sure he believed in that he hadn’t made a fatal mistake.
“Not here. Not like this,” Ken pleaded.
Within the inky darkness, Dave had only his words with which to reassure, and that just wasn’t enough. Not for this man. Finding Ken’s hand, he led the way until they emerged at the other end of the alley.
“Just wanted a taste,” Dave reassured his skittish would-be lover, when there was enough light for Ken to see the desire in his face. “Gonna seem like a long way to my place when I wanna kiss that beautiful mouth so bad.”
Seeing the taut muscles relax, Dave moved a few steps along the sidewalk to his car, letting Ken into the passenger side before orbiting the blue hood and slipping in behind the wheel.
“Don’t look like much, but she’ll outrun anything on the road. Savin’ up for the body work next,” Dave explained as he pulled onto the deserted street and headed for the glare and congestion of the main drag.
His passenger remained silent, and Dave shifted his focus to his driving, immersing himself in the practiced skill of weaving them in and out of heavy traffic. And all the while he could feel the intent gaze upon him, revving up his engines.
“Do you drive for a living?” Ken asked.
“For the sheer joy of it,” Dave replied, knowing the deep pleasure he took in being master of a powerful machine could be heard in his voice, seen in the face he turned to his companion. Someday, he was going to own a machine that could really eat up the road.
But that was the future. This was now, and the only thing that mattered was the man who sat beside him, an expression of yearning twisting his handsome features. As Dave watched, the heel of one big hand pressed into the bulge at the juncture of the long thighs. Mesmerized, Dave reached out and brushed the hand aside, but his own fingers were denied this first touch when the blare of a horn jolted them both.
“Two minutes,” Dave promised, silently swearing they would make it if he had to break every traffic law ever written. “Can you make it?” he asked, knowing he would turn down the first blind alley they came to and give this man anything he needed, no matter the risk.
Ken slid down in his seat, spreading his legs a little to ease the pressure. Gasping, he nodded and Dave knew it was a lie. He pressed down harder on the accelerator, determined that when that big cock gave up its load, it was going to be in his possession. In his hands, his mouth or buried deep in his ass mattered not at all. For tonight, it was his.
The promised two minutes later, he pulled the car up in front of his building and killed the engine, before twisting to lean awkwardly over the gearshift.
“Coming?” he asked softly, gliding one finger tip over the sweat that sheened Ken’s upper lip.
“Almost,” Ken said, the hoarse tone as endearing as the eyes that pleaded for relief.
“Can you make it up the stairs?” Dave asked, wondering if he had any hope of making it himself. Just the pressure of the tight, well-worn denim on his cock made him want to squirm. Never in his life had he been with someone who could inflame him so with no more than a look.
“Can you?” Ken countered, a seductive timbre to his voice that sent a thrill of anticipation down Dave’s spine. As much as he loved Ken’s choirboy looks and naïve manner, it was a man he wanted to take to his bed, not an innocent child. A man whose strength and desire matched his own.
“Do I have to?” he asked, hoping Ken would understand and take up the lead, if only for a few moments. Would understand that he wanted to give as well as take.
“Just a taste,” came Ken’s decision, as his fingers slid up to cup the back of Dave’s head.
For one more humid moment, Ken denied them, heightening the tension until Dave thought he might black out. Then the grip on his skull tightened, and he was drawn across to lips that were soft and welcoming, yielding control to Dave in what promised to be a delicate balance that would last the whole night through. The willingness with which the lips parted to his probing tongue told Dave that Ken would follow where he led. The strong hand that held him captive promised that Ken would also guide.
Dave eased away, came back for one more fleeting touch, then groaned and settled back into his own seat. It took him a moment to gather his shattered wits, then he reached for the door handle.
“Let’s go,” he demanded.
~*~*~
Dave let them into his small apartment, watching as Ken’s gaze scanned the room perfunctorily, and wondering if the other man saw the place as he saw it—stripped of personal possessions and awaiting its next occupant. But the contents of his apartment weren’t what Dave wanted Ken to remember of their encounter. Backing slowly away from him, Dave began to strip, his fingers easing loose the few buttons still fastened on his shirt, while he fixed his demanding gaze on the cotton fabric that concealed the slim musculature of Ken’s body from him.
“You’re falling behind,” he taunted the man who seemed mesmerized. He grasped the damp silk and pulled it free of his waistband as he took another step back.
As if suddenly awakening from a trance, Ken grabbed the open collar of his shirt and tugged, freeing the snaps from throat to belt in a series of tiny explosions that seemed to echo throughout Dave’s body. The space that had taken Dave several steps to create was obliterated by one stride of the longer legs, and the big hands wrapped themselves in the folds of red silk.
“All night long?” Ken asked, and Dave felt the balance between them shift yet again.
“Oh, yeah,” he growled.
Restraint surrendered then, along with delicacy and hesitancy, leaving behind only need and lust that saw the cloth barriers between them strewn around the once tidy room and forgotten before they hit the floor. They sank onto the bed, skin to skin, hands grasping a muscular globe, a hard shoulder and smooth skin in a restless dance of abandon.
The grace they had shared on the dance floor returned as their bodies once more moved together to a rhythm only the two of them could feel. Dave surrendered to the other man’s strength, reveling in it, straining to give as good as he got as their cocks slid slickly against each other. Demanding an equal surrender, he grabbed at blond silk and dragged the hungry mouth down to his, ravaging it with his tongue. Dave strained to match Ken in his galloping race for completion, his victorious cry sounding only a moment after his lover’s; the heated rush of his semen boiling out of him to mingle with the silken seed Ken had already spilled.
They held on, writhing lazily until the last weak pulse was only a memory, then stilled. Slowly, grasping fingers relaxed and they eased onto their backs, hearts slowing, breath calming, and the sensory memory of pleasure still tingling in their nerves.
Regaining his own equilibrium, Dave was content to lie in the sweet afterglow, allowing a wash of cool air to dry the sex sweat that soaked him, until the sound of a soft chuckle roused him.
“Somethin’ funny?” he asked. He tried to roll over to face his new lover, but abandoned the attempt when his enervated muscles refused to cooperate.
“You have an air conditioner,” Ken said.
“‘Course I have an air conditioner,” Dave muttered. “Only an idiot tries to live in Southern California in the summer without an air conditioner.”
“Hello. My name is Idiot. Pleased to meet you.”
The self-mocking introduction was accompanied by a hand suddenly appearing in front of Dave’s face. He made use of the convenient appendage to pull himself up until he loomed over Ken. He planted an elbow on the mattress and propped his head on his hand. “Ain’t been out here long, have ya, farm boy?” he asked.
“What makes you think I’m a farm boy?” Ken asked curiously.
“I can tell a Midwest accent when I hear one,” Dave insisted. “And what else do they have in the Midwest but farms?”
Ken pursed his lips while considering his reply, and Dave made no effort to resist the temptation to lean over and taste the soft pucker. He didn’t let the kiss last long enough to be a distraction.
“Sounds to me as if you grew up a whole lot closer to the Statue of Liberty than the Golden Gate Bridge, yourself.”
Dave laughed, not terribly surprised by Ken’s assessment of his origins. His accent was pretty distinctive, and it was the rare American who couldn’t peg him as a native of the Big Apple as soon as he opened his mouth.
But where they were from or where they were going wasn’t really any of the other’s concern, he reminded himself. What they had was right here and now in the pleasure they could give each other. A pleasure he hadn’t known for so long, and never before in the light. What a joy it was to see the man he desired; to have the freedom to let his gaze wander the delightful expanse of golden flesh. He let his eyes confirm what his fingers had already discovered—Ken was uncut—before reaching out and dabbling a finger in their combined semen where it was drying stickily on Ken’s belly. He brought the finger to his mouth, licked it and then offered it to Ken, grinning when Ken sucked the digit into his mouth to the last knuckle. Teasingly, he thrust his finger in and out between the pink lips, while Ken curled his tongue around the gentle invader.
“Been out here long?” Dave asked, knowing the glow of rekindling desire in his eyes was giving the lie to the cool tone he tried to maintain.
Ken slowly withdrew the finger from his mouth, licking and sucking until the tip finally popped free. “Just since November,” was the belated reply.
“You got any plans to do that for real?” Dave asked, as he rubbed the wet finger over Ken’s full bottom lip.
“All night long,” Ken reminded him. “Whatever you want.”
“Now?” Dave asked, but despite the lazy stirring of his cock, at this moment, he was more curious than passionate. He wanted more of this beautiful man, but he wanted to enjoy him slow, savor each touch the way a wise gourmand savored each bite of a seven-course meal.
“The spirit’s willing, but….”
Dave smiled his agreement. “You want something to drink?” he offered, trying to recall if there was anything left in the fridge at all. He had been pretty thorough when he cleaned it out this afternoon. “I’m not sure what’s left in the fridge. Juice maybe.”
“Whatever you’ve got. Except root beer. Can’t stand the stuff,” Ken said.
“My favorite,” Dave said, as he climbed out of bed and went to the closet. He reached for his robe and nearly dropped it at the vehement exclamation from the bed.
“Don’t!” A coaxing smile was offered. “Please.”
Dave hesitated, the soft material bunched between his hands. He had never been particularly modest. He was proud of his body and liked to flaunt it. Strutting the beach in tiny trunks or leaving his shirt undone to his navel was one thing; sauntering around buck-naked was quite another. It was the appreciation in Ken’s eyes that convinced him, as the blue gaze roamed him from curls to soles. Ken liked to look as much as he did, it seemed. With a mental shrug for his misgivings, Dave tossed the robe over the foot of the bed.
“What the hell,” he murmured, as he went to the kitchen and opened the fridge. There was just enough juice left in the carton for two glasses, but first he had to retrieve the glasses themselves from a half-packed box.
“Hope my neighbors are all asleep,” he quipped, when he returned to the bedroom. But in actual fact, he had sort of liked the feeling of strolling through his house completely naked. He wondered if he should plan to buy full blinds for his next place so he could do so whenever he wanted. The blatant appreciation on Ken’s face tipped the scales in favor of such a plan, until Dave remembered that the other man wouldn’t be around to watch.
The thought put an abrupt damper on his mood. He handed a glass to Ken and then waved toward the silent television standing in one corner. “You mind if I turn that on for a minute? Wanna see how the Lakers made out tonight.”
However, though he was usually an avid sports enthusiast, Dave found himself barely interested in what the sportscaster had to report. He was so aware of Ken’s approving gaze on his body, it was almost as if he could feel the heated touch on his skin, tracing each and every visible hill and valley of his body. It was all he could do to maintain a casual stance and pretend he had any interest whatsoever in the announcer’s chatter. Giving it up, he switched off the set before the man even got to the basketball scores, and climbed back onto the bed.
“Cars, basketball, root beer,” Ken said with an ironic twist of his lips. “Do you think we have anything in common?”
Dave slid closer, still holding his almost empty glass. “Lust?” he suggested, drinking in Ken’s response as he let his gaze travel the golden flesh displayed for his pleasure. He laughed and evaded the other man’s arms, when Ken set aside his empty glass and reached for him.
Holding the quizzical gaze, Dave swallowed down the last of his juice and then upended the glass over Ken’s smooth belly, letting the last few drops drip coldly into his navel. He saw the protest bitten back by white teeth, and grinned his approval before slowly bending over and sipping the quickly warming liquid from the shallow cup. Lapping and licking, he kept at it until every trace of the sweet juice was gone and the body under him squirmed.
He lifted his head to flash a challenging grin.
“Yeah, lust,” Ken agreed.
To Dave’s delight, Ken readily joined in the game, dipping his finger into the remaining juice in his own glass and letting the slow drip, drip, drip bathe his tiny copper pap. Obligingly, Dave bent to lap away the tart fluid with all the skill and attention to detail he could muster. The erect bud in his mouth only whetting his appetite for more, he let his mouth travel the curve of the pectoral muscle to the neglected nipple on the other side of Ken’s chest. Strong fingers in his hair pulled him away, denying him his tasty treat.
“No juice over there,” Ken protested, but Dave could tell that he really had no objections.
“Can never be too sure. Sneaky stuff, that juice. Can get just about everywhere,” Dave warned.
Ken arched his back, and Dave gladly returned to his task, feeling the vibration of every moan and groan beneath his lips travel the synapses of his own nerve endings to his groin. He redoubled his efforts as every nibble and lick forced more vocal appreciation from the man he caressed.
“That’s it. Let me hear ya purr,” he encouraged, replacing his mouth with the rough scrape of his beginning-to-stubble cheek, knowing the slight pain would become pleasure to already aroused flesh. Ken rewarded him for his efforts with a startled gasp.
“Oh, yeah. A symphony of lust,” Dave murmured. “Sing it for me, babe,” he demanded as he began kissing and lapping his way down Ken’s body.
Dave drank in the vocal response, greedily feeding on the litany of delight vibrating in the smooth throat, as his lips sought out the bitter salt of the semen they had already spilled between them. When every trace had been found and savored, he finally moved on to the needful flesh standing hard and quivering between widespread thighs.
Teasingly, he swirled his tongue around the swollen tip of Ken’s cock, anticipating the cry of pleasure Ken wouldn’t be able to hold back. He heard a muffled shout above him and pulled away abruptly to find Ken with his fist shoved in his mouth.
“Give it to me, babe,” he begged his bewildered victim. “Don’t hold back. Wanna hear what I make you feel. Wanna feel it in my balls,” he demanded.
He hovered over the other man, as Ken struggled with whatever inhibitions he still harbored. Knowing even the warm caress of his breath as he hovered, demanding acquiescence, was near torture all on its own, he moved closer until his lips almost, but not quite, brushed the weeping tip.
“Please!” Ken begged, his struggle obviously ending as he pushed Dave’s head down, both hands threaded into his short curls in a death grip that would tolerate no more teasing.
Hungrily, Dave opened his mouth, sinking down onto the long cock, swallowing it into his throat and drinking in the moans and groans and curses that were the rewards he received for each new extravagant torment he devised and visited upon the thick bulk within his mouth. Reaching between the widespread thighs, he gathered up the soft weight of Ken’s balls in a grip he knew from experience was so sweet and yet so terrible that Ken had to cry out or implode. He drank in the sound, feeling the warning throb and riding with it as Ken arched up off the bed on shoulders and heels, accepting the desperate grip that, even if he so desired, he had no hope of escaping. Escape the last thing on his mind, Dave sucked harder, swallowing as the spasms rocked his lover, drinking in every drop until the big body suddenly collapsed back onto the bed.
Releasing the spent cock, Dave crawled up the bed, settling beside his exhausted lover, becoming concerned when the big blond continued to labor for each breath and the heart beneath the tanned chest to pound under his palm. He brushed sweat-soaked strands gently away from the tall forehead, relieved when the blue eyes finally opened and gazed at him with sated sanity.
“Wow. You really get into it,” Dave murmured. God, he loved a vocal lover. Loved to hear the pleasure he could give another person, and had never before been able to share that pleasure with a man. The encounters he had shared in the jungle had been furtive, joinings devoid of privacy and silent for fear of being discovered by either friend or foe.
Slowly, Ken’s hand lifted, shaking fingers caressing his chafed lips. “Cocksucker,” he whispered, but it wasn’t a curse. Instead, the reverent tone of his voice made it a blessing in exchange for the pleasure Dave had given him.
“Damn right,” he agreed softly. He caught the tip of a caressing finger between his lips, his tongue swirling a moment before he released it. He moved in closer to the warm body, slowly rubbing his throbbing cock against the tender skin of Ken’s hip.
“Easy. Easy,” he crooned as he felt Ken press back, trying to provide him with the stimulation he needed. “Nowhere near morning yet.”
He cradled the big body close to him, smoothing caresses over the still trembling muscles, until the weight within his arms grew heavier. He couldn’t say the exact moment Ken fell asleep, but there was no mistaking the moment consciousness returned. He tightened his grip around the lean hips as Ken shot bolt upright beside him.
“I fell asleep!” Ken exclaimed.
“Just a few minutes,” Dave reassured him, gently but firmly coaxing Ken back into his embrace. “Must’ve needed it,” he added, making no effort to hide how proud he was to have caused that need.
“I…I thought. I…I was afff….”
Feeling panic still racing through the man he held, Dave swept a hand down between the long legs. “Want you, beautiful man.” Boldly, he sought behind the soft hanging emptiness of Ken’s balls, his thumb seeking out the soft, secret center of him. He withdrew immediately when he felt the muscle tighten against his intrusion. Perhaps anything didn’t mean everything after all.
“No,” Ken protested, and Dave allowed his hand to be drawn back to where he had so fleetingly explored. “I mean, yes. Anything. Everything.”
The second time his probing touch was rejected, Dave eased it, no longer pressing for entry, simply smoothing over the tightly guarded entrance until he felt it ease beneath his fingers, and then withdrew for a second time. He studied the closed eyes, the taut features, and knew Ken was forcing himself, for whatever reasons he might harbor, to accept—even encourage—a joining he wasn’t ready for.
“Cherry,” he murmured when Ken finally opened his eyes, and received a hesitant nod. “Maybe we better leave ya something,” he suggested. As much as he wanted to sink into this man, feel the tight, virgin channel enclose his needful cock, his conscience convinced him otherwise.
“No!” Ken protested, and Dave could hear the sincerity in it. Nonetheless, he leaned down and took the soft lips in a kiss that coaxed Ken to offer whatever he asked. As much or as little.
“Let me have this?” he murmured, moving away so slightly that each movement of his lips brushed a moist caress onto Ken’s mouth. He circled the parted lips with his tongue tip, probing between, thrusting and withdrawing ever so slightly in illustration. After a moment, the mouth blossomed beneath his, and when his tongue slid in deeper, it was caught between sharp teeth and sucked hard.
“Yes,” Ken whispered when Dave broke the kiss. “Anything….”
“Everything,” Dave completed their personal mantra.
Dave resisted when Ken tried to push him over onto his back, smiling his approval when Ken subsided, waiting quietly to be shown what was wanted of him. Whatever, however, became part of the agreement as Dave leaned down to reward him with a deep kiss.
Without withdrawing from the kiss, Dave swung his body up and over, planting a knee on either side of the broad shoulders. Breaking the kiss and moving slowly so that Ken could protest if he chose to, Dave leaned over the prone man, catching both hands on the headboard. He reached down and gripped his own cock, bringing the naked crown to bear on Ken’s lips. He painted slick salt onto the smooth pads, gasping when the pink tongue slipped out, skating over his weeping slit as Ken licked his lips.
“Take it,” he coaxed.
Ken canted his chin, opened his mouth, and Dave fed him his flesh. He felt the edges of the sharp teeth scrape his sensitive shaft, slipped over the pad of Ken’s tongue, and knowingly forced the other man’s jaw wide as the smooth tip of his cock sought the back of Ken’s throat. It opened for him, and he eased forward, a shout of surprised pleasure torn from him as Ken swallowed and swallowed again.
Now it was his turn to offer a symphony of lust as Ken took control of his pleasure. The big hands gripped his hips, the long fingers digging into the flexing muscles of his ass, as Ken doled out pleasure with each flick of his tongue, ripple of his throat, and the gentle threat of his teeth. He tried to shout a warning, a sobbing gasp heaving out of his lungs and felt the warm haven retreat until only the head of his cock remained encased. Back arched, muscles straining, he gave himself up to that one too-short moment when all the pleasure in the world gathered in his belly and gushed out into the willing receptacle of his lover’s mouth.
Exhaustion won out as the first fingers of dawn crept into the night, but not before Dave climbed the heights again and again, the very last time while his angel’s beautiful cock was buried deep inside him. They fell apart, and Dave floated in and out of sleep, knowing Ken’s eyes were upon him as he drifted. He felt the warm weight ease away from him, suppressed a shiver as the air conditioner’s cool wash touched his sweaty skin, and watched through slitted lids as Ken rose, dressed, and crept away into the newborn day.
Sighing sadly, Dave rolled to his back and stared at the ceiling as he committed to memory the perfections and the imperfections of the night and the man who had given him his fantasy. What they had shared tonight, he would never know again. Tomorrow, he would move into the Police Academy dormitory and begin his new life. But he knew that, no matter what he made of that life, or the man he might become in the future, Dave Starsky was never going to forget Ken Hutchinson.
There’s Got To Be a Morning After
Dave Starsky lay relaxing on his bed in the Police Academy dormitory. It wasn’t the most comfortable bed in the world, possessing a particularly contrary spring that seemed to like to lay in wait for the unwary, but he had certainly slept in worse. A cot in a tent in a hot, humid jungle was worse. And a muddy hole in the ground during the rainy season could certainly take the prize for the height of misery. He figured he could live with the spring if all it did was offer him an occasional poke in the ass.
Ankles crossed, arms tucked under his head to supplement the skinny excuse for a pillow, he let his eyes close as he followed the announcer’s voice on the radio. The 49ers were losing again, and Starsky was congratulating himself for betting on his hometown Jets. He could use the money to help cover expenses until he graduated six months from now. Although he had given up his apartment, and his Uncle Al and Aunt Rosie were storing his things, he still needed money in his pocket.
The announcer’s voice droning, even the muted roar of the crowd, was becoming little more than a soothing white noise as Starsky drifted toward sleep. He roused slightly when he heard his door open, not quite curious enough about the identity of his roommate to open his eyes. The sudden crash of several heavy sounding items to the floor yanked him out of his twilight world and straight into one of Murphy’s lousy jokes.
“Oh, shit.”
They said it together, and Starsky could only wonder if his face mirrored the shock on the features of his Friday night angel, the sick dread in the pale blue eyes that couldn’t look away from his.
“This can’t be,” Ken Hutchinson, standing slack-jawed and with his luggage scattered around his feet, murmured incredulously.
Swallowing the insane urge to laugh hysterically, Starsky rolled off the bed, feeling at less of a disadvantage with his feet under him, although there certainly wasn’t any place to run for either of them.
“Geez, there really must be a God, and he’s got a fuckin’ warped sense of humor,” he quipped to disguise the fact that he was as close to panic as his angel looked to be. He wondered frantically how hard it would be to get a new room assignment.
Hutchinson was fumbling in his jacket pocket, finally extracting a folded piece of paper that Starsky recognized. He had one just like it—a pink room assignment slip. The blue eyes left his to read the paper, darting to the door that stood open beside him and then back to the paper.
“Room six,” the musical voice that Starsky had only expected to hear again in his dreams, murmured hopelessly.
Sighing in relief, Starsky crossed the room, seeing Hutchinson draw back instinctively as he approached. He reached out and flipped up the number on the door. “Screw’s missing. Room nine,” he said.
“Thank God.”
For a second time they spoke in perfectly synchronized harmony.
The concordance eased the tension, if only a little, and Starsky was able to give voice to the small chuckle his initial hysteria had become. He stuck out his hand.
“Dave Starsky,” he said with a grin that tried to coax Hutchinson into sharing in this cosmic joke. “Guess we got somethin’ else in common after all.”
Starsky had to hand it to the angel. Even with wariness sticking out all over him, Hutchinson managed to accept the hand offered to him and give it a firm shake. He looked surprised, then relieved, as if he had expected the simple touch to ignite a firestorm of lust that would consume them on the spot.
“Ken Hutchinson,” he said.
The introduction was unnecessary. Starsky hadn’t forgotten his angel’s name and never expected to. He pointed at the wall over Hutchinson’s shoulder. “Room six is probably that way. Nice to meet you, Hutchinson. See ya around campus, maybe.”
It was an abrupt dismissal, rude even, but it was also an offer—I’ll ignore you if you ignore me, he was promising. He saw understanding bloom on the blond’s face, followed by a grateful smile.
“Yeah,” Hutchinson said as he bent to gather up the belongings that had fallen from his shock-numbed fingers. “Thanks,” he added, and blue eyes met blue as Starsky handed over the last fallen bag and acknowledged the double meaning with a wry smile of his own.
“Don’t mention it,” he said, wondering if he was going to spend the next six months looking for possible innuendo in everything he said to this man. On second thought, if he were smart, he wouldn’t be talking to him any more than he had to. Starsky had already read the cadet regulation handbook and nowhere in there, that he could remember, did it say cadets had to be friends.
Hutchinson left without further comment, and Starsky closed the door behind him and leaned back against it. The excited voice of the announcer on the radio drew his attention.
“A touchdown, ladies and gentlemen. And what a touchdown it was. Miraculously, the 49ers have snatched victory from the jaws of defeat. With only two minutes left on the clock, there is no way the Jets will–“
Starsky stalked across the room and snapped off the radio. “Wonderful,” he growled at the innocent appliance. “Just fucking wonderful.”
~*~*~
Hutchinson sat rigidly in the front row of the auditorium, his roommate, John Colby, beside him. He wished the officials gathering on the stage would get on with it. He was anxious to begin this new life he had chosen, more anxious still for the official speakers to put an end to the conversations of the two dozen cadets waiting. Every once in a while he caught a snippet of conversation in Starsky’s deep voice, and it ratcheted his tension up even higher. He jerked hard when Colby laid a hand on his arm to get his attention.
“Hey. What’s the matter?” Colby asked.
“Hate waiting,” Hutchinson muttered, which was no lie. He was a lousy waiter.
“That’s Anderson,” Colby said, pointing out the tall, distinguished-looking head of the Academy who had just arrived. “Now we can get this show on the road.”
As Colby had predicted, Anderson stepped up to the podium and silence settled around the hall.
“Gentlemen, I am Commander Anderson, and I’m here to welcome you….”
Anderson droned on for a few minutes before introducing each of the instructors in turn, and then turning the podium over to the head instructor, Sergeant Wilkinson.
“This is the guy that really runs the show. Rumor has it he eats cadets for breakfast. Used to be a drill sergeant in the Marines,” Colby whispered.
Hutchinson shushed him, wishing Colby had sat somewhere else. He had only met his roomie a few hours ago and hadn’t really decided whether he liked him or not. The guy talked a lot and didn’t seem to be taking his enrollment at the Academy very seriously. He was articulate to the point of being glib, which put Hutchinson immediately on guard. However, since they were going to be living together for the next six months, Hutchinson was doing his best to keep an open mind.
Wilkinson made no attempt to welcome them. He did make it clear he wasn’t looking to win any popularity contests, but to take the eager, and/or less than eager, faces looking up at him and turn them into the kind of men who would defend the innocent and uphold the law.
“Anyone out there who thinks this is going to be a cakewalk, I advise you to get out now. No matter who you are, where you came from, or what you were doing up to now, my job is to turn you into police officers worthy of the uniform you’ll someday wear. And you’d better be prepared to work hard, gentlemen, because only the best of you is going to wear the uniform of the force I’ve been proud to serve for twenty years.”
“Blowhard,” was Colby’s whispered opinion when Wilkinson yielded the podium to Lieutenant Tracker, who, Wilkinson informed them, would be splitting them up into four groups of six.
“For God’s sake, Colby, shut up,” Hutchinson hissed back at him.
Colby laughed softly, but kept any further opinions to himself.
“Cadets, when I call your name, I want you to move to your assigned area. Group One; Abbot, Dalton, Hill, Lewis, Prolanski, Simmons. Front right with Lieutenant Williams,” Tracker ordered. “No talking,” he added as the cadets began making their way toward the instructor.
“Brocker, Forester, Jaba…” Tracker trailed off.
“Jabavortowitz, sir,” piped a voice from the audience helpfully.
“You know who you are,” Tracker said. “Milwaukee–”
“Like the beer,” interrupted a second voice, and the cadets knew they had found their designated class clown.
“There’s one in every crowd,” Tracker acknowledged to the amusement of the cadets. “Peters and Talbot. You’re Group Two, and I see Lieutenant Black is waiting for you at the back of the room. Good luck, Lieutenant.”
“Colby, DiAmato, Hutchinson, Nobel….”
Colby nudged Hutchinson in the side, grinning his pleasure, and Hutchinson shrugged, accepting his fate with good grace as he started to climb to his feet.
“Starsky….”
Hutchinson froze, half out of his seat. No, it just couldn’t be, he thought frantically. Whatever stupid system the powers that be were using to make up these groups, they couldn’t possibly be saddling him with both the roomie he was afraid was going to be a royal pain in the ass, and the only man in the entire state that he definitely did not want to work with. Fleetingly, he considered whether he really wanted to be a cop that badly, then straightened up as he decided he did.
“And West. Front left. That’s Lieutenant Cannon, our armaments instructor, eagerly waiting to pass on his store of knowledge.”
At least he didn’t have far to go from his front row seat, a fact for which Hutchinson was grateful. He tried and failed to resist the temptation to look at Starsky as, moving with the athletic grace that had first attracted Ken’s attention on the dance floor, he joined the group. Their eyes met and Starsky gave a fatalistic shrug. Deciding to take a page from the other man’s book and try to accept whatever came his way, Hutchinson made a conscious effort to relax and focus his attention.
“The rest of you. You’re Group Four, and you will find Lieutenant Buchanan lurking in the back there.”
Lieutenant Cannon was a man of medium height and build, perhaps thirty-five years of age. He was a little on the young side for an instructor, but Hutchinson knew that sometimes officers disabled out of active service became instructors at the Academy.
“I’m Lieutenant Cannon, and, like the man said, I’m the armaments instructor,” the man introduced himself to his charges. “If there’re any wits among you who feel they have to make a smartass comment about my name, I invite you to do it now and get it out of your system.” When no one seemed inclined to take him up on the offer, he continued. “I’m also your den mother. If you’ve got a problem, you come to me. If I can’t take care of it, then you get bumped up the line. If you get in trouble, I’m the guy who’ll be kicking your ass with my size elevens. Understood?”
There was a chorus of “yes sirs.”
“Good.” Cannon looked down at his clipboard. “Starsky?”
“Yes, sir,” Starsky replied.
“Says here you’re ex-army. Did a tour in ‘Nam?” Cannon’s tone made it a question.
“Yes, sir,” Starsky repeated.
Hutchinson found himself wondering if it was while serving in Vietnam, fighting a war he couldn’t win, that Starsky had discovered his desire for other men, or if he had known about it all his life.
“What was your rating?” Cannon asked.
“Marksman,” Starsky admitted, but he definitely wasn’t bragging. In fact, he seemed reluctant to impart the information at all.
Cannon made a note and then scanned the rest of the faces around him. “What about the rest of you? Anybody think he can hit the broad side of a barn?”
“I’ve been hunting since I was a kid,” Colby said proudly. “By the time I was twelve, I could outshoot my father and my grandfather.”
Another note was jotted on the paper attached to the clipboard. “Anybody else?”
“I can use a rifle,” Hutchinson admitted. “A hand gun as well, but I haven’t had as much experience with one.” He had also gone hunting with his father and his business cronies on their annual trek to the country property in Minnesota. Although he had deliberately avoided killing anything, he had enjoyed the dedication it had taken to acquire the skill to be able to miss what he was aiming at by such a narrow margin, that his father had never guessed he had done it on purpose.
Perhaps someday having to turn his weapon on a human being had been the only thing that had given Hutchinson second thoughts about becoming a policeman. He knew he was relying heavily on the testimonials of many veteran cops who claimed they had never bad to draw their guns, because he wasn’t sure, when push came to shove, whether he would be able to kill another human being. Not even in defense of his own life.
The other three cadets were shaking their heads.
“All right. I expect you three,” Cannon’s eyes picked out Colby, Hutchinson and Starsky, “to help your fellow group members.”
“What about the Peabody?” Colby asked.
Hutchinson knew the Peabody Award was for the cadet with the best shooting scores in his intake. Each intake could easily be over a hundred students, broken up into classes of twenty-four that were further broken down to groups of six.
Cannon eyed Colby as if he was a bug that had just crawled out from under a rock. “In six months, these men are going to be your brother officers,” he said slowly. “One of them might even end up your partner somewhere down the line. Wouldn’t it be nice to know he’s got the skill to protect your back? If you can’t do it out of the goodness of your heart, Colby, do it for self-interest.”
Colby had the grace to look embarrassed.
“All right. Let’s go over to the armory and get started.”
~*~*~
The last time Dave Starsky had cursed fate was when his father was gunned down in the street by a panicking, would-be bank robber. Being shipped out west by a mother who couldn’t handle his teenage angst alone, even receiving his draft notice, hadn’t tempted him to shake his fist at the heavens the way hearing his name called after Hutchinson’s had. The impulse was momentary, and he had been back in control of himself by the time be had met Hutchinson’s eyes. Still, the lapse bothered him. He firmly believed that when life threw lemons at you, you made lemonade. It had been that belief that had helped him sort himself out after he returned from Vietnam, and put his feet firmly back on the path he had planned to travel for as long as he could remember.
He was determined not to let the current situation make him take out his discomfort on Hutchinson. It was apparent the tall blond was uncomfortable around him, and Starsky didn’t want that to continue. However inconvenient his presence, Starsky bore his angel no malice. How could he? The man had given him the best sexual experiences he had ever had, a memory he planned to cherish for the rest of his career. How to communicate all this to Hutchinson, along with the fact that sodium pentathol wouldn’t drag the secret from him, was the problem. Everything he said to the poor guy seemed to come out echoing with a double meaning, and it was apparent that Hutchinson didn’t want to talk to him in any case, leading Starsky to decide that the kindest thing he could do was leave him the hell alone.
“You three. The three Corsican Brothers. Yeah, you three,” Cannon said, pointing to Colby, Hutchinson and Starsky. “I want you to pick a weapon.”
Group Three was in the armory, in the small-arms room, and Cannon was indicating the bins of handguns.
Starsky went over to the first bin and opened the lid. Most of his actual fighting experience had been with a rifle, although he had worn a sidearm and been taught how to use it. Perfecting his skill with the handgun, learning to make it an extension of his hand, had filled many lonely, boring hours between patrols, and Starsky had learned to prefer it. But it wasn’t so much the gun as the targets. With the pistol, cans, bottles, even bull’s eyes drawn on trees had perfected the coordination between hand and eye. When he brought the long gun up to his shoulder, it had been other human beings that had come under his sights.
Starsky had killed, and he didn’t like it. He prayed he was going to be one of those cops who never unsnapped his holster while on duty. Hoping to never have to use his gun didn’t mean he wouldn’t keep up his skills. When push came to shove, he knew he would pull the trigger. He didn’t plan to end up lying in the street, choking on his own blood, or to allow that to happen to his partner or some innocent bystander he was sworn to protect.
With that thought in mind, Starsky scanned the contents of the bin. He knew, because he had slightly smaller hands than most men, a gun like a Magnum wasn’t for him. A .357 might be able to stop a charging bull in its tracks, but if you couldn’t control it, you couldn’t hit anything. The recoil would probably sprain his wrist. The small cannon was more suited to someone like Hutchinson, and Starsky wasn’t surprised to see the other cadet choose one. What he needed was the standard issue .38, or, if he could get one, a Beretta.
Starsky moved on to the second bin and was pleased to find his first choice there. He picked up the gun, hefting it and checking the sights, holding it out at arm’s length and letting it hang from his finger by the trigger guard. Not perfectly balanced, but close enough, he decided. He thought it might have a tendency to pull to the right, but he wouldn’t know for sure until after he fired the first clip.
“Now I want you to help your new friends choose a weapon,” Cannon instructed. “Colby, you’ve got DiAmato. Hutchinson, you can help Nobel, and Starsky, you’ve got West.”
Starsky signaled the red-haired, freckle-faced West closer. “Hold out your hands,” he instructed him. When the cadet complied, Starsky saw that the equally freckled hands weren’t much bigger than his. “Right handed or left?” he asked.
“Right,” West replied. If he wondered what the hell Starsky was up to, he didn’t protest.
Starsky held up his hand, palm out toward the other cadet. “Put your hand up against mine and push. No, really push. Hard.”
“Playing patty cake, are we?” Colby asked sweetly.
Starsky looked up, dropping his hand. He saw that DiAmato already had a gun in his hand, but that Hutchinson and Nobel had not yet made a choice, had, in fact, been watching him and West. He knew men like Colby and refused to allow himself to be baited.
“The gun’s gotta match the hand that’s holding it,” he said, choosing to direct his comments to Hutchinson and Nobel. The two men nodded their understanding, and Starsky smiled when he saw DiAmato put his choice back and look at Colby expectantly.
“That’s right,” Cannon agreed. “And you’re better off with a too-small weapon than one that’s too powerful for you to control.”
This time, Colby didn’t take the implied criticism as well, his face flushing, and a glare arrowing its way to Starsky before he returned his attention to DiAmato.
“You’ll do fine with a .38,” Starsky told West, selected one from the bin, and handed it over. “That’s it. Wrap your hand around the grip. Hold it firmly.” He closed his fingers around the other man’s hand to encourage him to tighten his tentative grip. “It’s the other end of this thing ya gotta worry about,” he joked, hoping to ease his student’s fear.
“Perhaps I should just let you teach the class, Mr. Starsky,” Cannon said.
Starsky stepped away from West, unconsciously coming to attention. “Sorry, sir.”
“I didn’t mean that as a criticism, Cadet,” Cannon assured him. “All right, Group Three, let’s go see how much we have to learn.”
~*~*~
“What do you think of Starsky?” Hutchinson asked Colby, who was seated with him at one of the tables in the cafeteria. Lunch break was already half over. The morning had seen them shooting up the indoor range like a bunch of drunken cowboys on a Saturday night, followed by an introduction to what promised to be a tough police procedures course.
Despite the fact that he was supposed to be ignoring Starsky, Hutchinson just couldn’t seem to manage it. Even if he hadn’t had a head full of intimate memories of his dancer, Starsky wasn’t a man who was easily ignored. He had an intensity about him, a drive that seemed to cause a crackling of energy in the air wherever he happened to be. Hutchinson couldn’t help but wonder if other men, men who had no memories of the pleasures to be had in Starsky’s arms, had the same reaction as he did.
“The man’s a peasant,” Colby dismissed their group mate.
“You’re just pissed off because he beat your scores,” Hutchinson laughed, knowing he was right on the mark when Colby flushed, and that, if he had really wanted an unbiased opinion, he should have asked someone else.
Hutchinson himself had done everything in his power not to be impressed. So, the man could shoot the hell out a target the rest of them could hardly even see. He knew, however, that it wasn’t Starsky’s shooting that had impressed him. It had been the care he had taken when helping West choose a weapon, and, more so, the way he had assisted the younger man on the range before Cannon had even ordered it. Overhearing a conversation wherein Starsky told Cannon he wanted to be excluded from competition for the Peabody Award because of his previous experience, had only made matters worse. His dancer was supposed to be a one-night stand. A delicious memory he would carry with him for years to come. He was not supposed to be a man that could be admired for his humor, compassion, generosity or sense of fair play. And Hutchinson wasn’t supposed to be sitting here daydreaming about him.
“All I need is a little practice. If that little kike thinks he’s going to walk away with the Peabody, he’s got another think coming,” Colby growled.
He was glaring past Hutchinson, and the cadet knew that the visual daggers were aimed at Starsky, who sat with West several tables away. He wondered if Colby was a bigot, or if it was Starsky personally who was bringing out the worst in him. Despite what Cannon had said, Hutchinson knew the Academy encouraged competition between the cadets. It would only make each of them dig deeper and strive to do the best they could.
“What do you think of Black?” he asked to change the subject. Black was their police procedures instructor.
“Well,” Colby said around the bite of tuna-salad sandwich he had just taken. “He oughta know police procedures. I bet he was around when the regs were drafted.”
Hutchinson laughed, tending toward agreement. If Black wasn’t as old as Methuselah, he was certainly pushing retirement age, but he also seemed to know what he was talking about. Hutchinson had filled two pages of his notebook during the hour Black had spent introducing them to the subject.
As far as age went, Hutchinson didn’t feel he was in any position to talk. It was apparent that he, Colby and Starsky were the oldest cadets in this particular intake, with the rest, he estimated, to be lucky if they were out of their teens. West, he thought for sure to be barely the minimum acceptance age of eighteen. Hutchinson had spent three years in college, and a while after dropping out deciding exactly what he wanted to do with his life. Starsky, it seemed, had been in the army. Why Colby hadn’t pursued this career choice sooner, Hutchinson really wasn’t interested enough to ask.
“He seems to know his stuff,” Hutchinson continued the conversation. “I don’t care if he takes cat naps between classes as long as he’s a good teacher,” he said, pushing away his empty plate and pulling out his notebook.
“I don’t know why you even bothered taking notes,” Colby said. “It’s all in the textbook anyway.”
Hutchinson shrugged. If Colby wanted to take a half-assed attitude toward their classes, that was up to him. Hutchinson intended to graduate as close to the top of his intake as he could. In fact, what he really wanted was to come out of the Academy with the best scores ever achieved. He had something to prove to his parents, and acing the courses would be his first step. He bent his head over his notes, not looking up again until Colby gave a nearly soundless wolf whistle.
“Will you look at that,” Colby invited with a leer.
Hutchinson turned his head and saw the object of Colby’s lust—a cadet named Gloria Dishton, who had, he understood, quickly acquired the nickname among her male classmates of Glorious Dish. New intakes of cadets occurred once every two months and since Dishton was in her last month of training, that made her the top of the heap, the end of the food chain around here. She was also the only female cadet currently enrolled in the Academy, and, Hutchinson had to admit, one damned beautiful woman.
“I have got to get me some of that,” Colby growled.
“You’re a plebe,” Hutchinson reminded him, offended by Colby’s attitude on principal alone. “I’d lower my sights if I were you.”
“Aim for the sun, and you’ll get the earth and the moon thrown in. Aim for the earth, and you’ll get nothing at all,” Colby quoted.
“Buddha?” Hutchinson ventured a guess.
“Men’s room wall at Union Station,” Colby admitted, getting to his feet.
“I can’t watch this,” Hutchinson decided. He gathered up his books and left the cafeteria. He might as well go to the gym and get changed. Their next class—Hutchinson checked his watch—started in fifteen minutes.
~*~*~
Despite the fact that Ken Hutchinson stripping down to change into his gym clothes ought to be more temptation than the law allowed, Starsky kept his back turned. He shed his own cadet uniform as quickly as he could, blessing the presence of West and Nobel that helped him resist the urge to sneak just a peek, and hurriedly climbed into t-shirt and shorts. Picking up his Adidas, he padded in stocking feet into the gym, laid the shoes down near a bench, and went to the mat to warm up. The course description said simply Physical Education, but Starsky was assuming that over the next six months, the instructor would not only drive them into physical fitness, but would also be teaching hand-to-hand combat, and perhaps even the basics of some of the martial arts.
“Eager beaver?”
Starsky came up out of the full sitting stretch and looked up. And looked up. And looked up a little farther until he finally came to the top of a big, black mountain of a man. “Lieutenant Williams?” he asked, although he had seen the man in the auditorium and recognized him now.
“You must be Starsky,” Williams said, and Starsky let his expression ask how he knew. “Your warm up is GI. We’ve only got one ex-army in this intake. Process of elimination, Soldier.”
Starsky curled one leg behind him and stretched out along the other until his forehead touched his knee. “Not a soldier anymore,” he grumbled.
“Sorry about that,” Williams apologized as he also dropped down to the mat. “Toes toward the ceiling,” he reminded Starsky. “It’ll increase the stretch.”
There was a short silence as Starsky did as he was told, feeling the extra burn up the back of his leg before he relaxed and sat up.
“So, you weren’t impressed with Vietnam, huh?” Williams asked, reaching for his own toes, which, to Starsky, looked a whole lot farther away than his own.
“Didn’t know I was supposed to be,” Starsky answered, stretching out again and wishing the instructor would drop the subject. He had hated almost everything about his service to his country and just wanted to forget it.
“I felt the same way about Korea,” Williams admitted.
Somewhat mollified, Starsky switched legs and continued his warm up, then heard voices from the locker room and knew the rest of the group would be joining them soon.
“I don’t suppose I have to tell you that I don’t want anyone hurt in my class,” Williams rumbled.
“Not what I’m here for,” Starsky grunted, pulling down a bit harder, using the resulting pain to blunt his sudden anger.
“Didn’t think so,” Williams grunted back. “It’s my job to be sure.”
The other five men that completed Group Three filed in then and Williams signaled them all down to the floor.
“Might as well warm up while I talk,” he advised.
For Starsky, who had kept up his physical fitness since his release from the army, the routine Williams put them through for the first hour of the class was a cakewalk, and, he noticed that Hutchinson also seemed to take the demands in stride. Having intimate knowledge of the strength and musculature of that deceptively slim body, Starsky wasn’t surprised. Colby also kept up easily, but it was obvious that he was bored. West and Nobel were sweating, but only the somewhat chubby DiAmato was really suffering.
After an hour, Williams called a halt and told them to sit around the edges of the mats. When they were settled, he pointed at Starsky and motioned him up. Reluctantly, Starsky climbed to his feet. He didn’t really want to be used as an example, but knew better than to argue.
“Anybody else know any martial arts? Judo, Karate, Tae Kwon Do?” Williams asked.
“I’ve had a few classes,” Hutchinson admitted, and Starsky’s heart sank. Hutchinson didn’t look any happier, but Starsky had to admire him for his honesty.
“Come on up here then,” Williams ordered, and Hutchinson reluctantly joined them in the center of the mats.
Williams ran an assessing gaze over the two of them. “Not exactly an even match, but you’ll do for now.”
Fifteen minutes later, Starsky had a whole new description for hell, and a new appreciation for his jock strap. Although it was exerting a torturous pressure on his cock, the supporter hid a multitude of sins as Williams directed him and Hutchinson through a series of body entangling aggressive and defensive moves. By the time Williams called a halt to the demonstration and got the rest of the class on their feet, Starsky was soaked with sweat, and reminding himself that it would be twenty-plus years before he would ever know the pleasure of male-to-male sex again.
“Hutchinson, you and West. Starsky, you take on Colby. That leaves DiAmato and Nobel to square off,” Williams instructed. “Nice and easy, gentlemen. I just want to see if you’ve got the moves.”
Relieved to be out of the close body contact with Hutchinson, Starsky faced Colby as he approached, smiled and opened his arms, asking silently whether Colby wanted the aggressive or defensive role. A half-second later, the room swirled around him and Starsky landed on his back on the mat with a jolt that rammed his teeth together. The air rushed out of his lungs in an audible whoosh, leaving him without the wherewithal to even groan.
There was the sharp, high blast of a whistle and, a moment later, Williams was kneeling over him.
“Are you all right, Starsky?” the instructor asked, his broad face creased with concern.
Starsky nodded, managed to grab a breath, and held up a hand. Williams gripped it and hauled him to his feet. The instructor released him and rounded on Colby.
“Colby, what the hell—”
“Lieutenant,” Starsky interrupted, laying a hand on the big man’s forearm. “Maybe we should work this out right here and now,” he suggested softly. His eyes met and held Colby’s where his challenge was made and accepted.
Williams looked between the two antagonists for a minute, and then stepped back, waving the rest of the group back off the mats. “If I see blood, it’s over.”
Starsky nodded acceptance and when he saw Colby do the same, he dropped into a crouch, hands out as he and his opponent began to circle each other. Starsky figured that Colby was carrying a grudge from the shooting range and that, if he didn’t sort the problem out right now, the other cadet would make the next six months a living hell. The constant temptation of Hutchinson was enough distraction; he didn’t need to be watching out for Colby every minute as well. Whether a win, loss or draw would serve his purpose best, he had yet to decide.
In any case, it proved to be academic. In size, weight and skill, they appeared to be evenly matched. Every time he managed to put Colby down, the bastard got back up. And every time Colby dumped Starsky to the mats, he somehow found the strength to get his feet back under him. After half an hour of it, they were both battered, bruised and soaked in sweat.
Locked into a violent parody of an embrace, Starsky decided he had had enough. “If we keep this up, we’re both gonna have heart attacks,” he muttered only loud enough for Colby to hear.
“Say uncle,” Colby demanded at the same volume.
“Uncle, aunt and brother Nicky, too. Give it up, you dumb son of a bitch. We’re too evenly matched,” Starsky panted, hoping Colby would see reason before they both dropped.
“Draw?” Colby panted in his turn.
“Draw,” Starsky agreed aloud, releasing his grip and stepping back when Colby did the same.
They stood with a yard of mat between them, both bent over, hands braced on thighs, and gasping for breath.
After a minute, Colby bridged the gap and threw his arm around Starsky’s shoulders. “You know what, Starsky? You’re okay.”
Starsky offered a grimacing smile in response.
“So whatever that was, it’s over?” Williams asked from the sidelines.
Both Starsky and Colby agreed with as vigorous nods as they could manage.
“Then you all better get your butts in gear. Your next class starts in fifteen minutes.”
Starsky let himself be led by Colby until he realized the other man was walking him straight up to Hutchinson. It was too late to put the brakes on now, so he tried to put a bland face on it.
“Ken Hutchinson, want you to meet Dave Starsky, one helluva fighter,” Colby said, obviously in good spirits, perhaps even a little high on his own adrenaline. “What was that Cannon called us?”
“The Corsican Brothers,” Hutchinson said.
“Yeah,” Colby agreed, throwing his other arm around the blond’s broad shoulders and towing both of his friends toward the locker room. “That’s going to be us. The Corsican Brothers. The best damned team this Academy ever saw.”
~*~*~
Hutchinson had discovered that when John Colby made up his mind, he was a force to be reckoned with. And Colby had made up his mind that the Corsican Brothers were going to be inseparable friends. Where Colby went, Starsky and Hutchinson were expected to follow. Bars, singles joints, parties. If there was something going on around town, Colby always seemed to know about it. Starsky and Hutchinson each took two weeks of it, and then, as if by mutual agreement, they both dug their heels in.
The three of them were seated at what had become “their” table in the cafeteria, with the remains of their lunches between them, and Hutchinson was shaking his head before Colby even completed his invitation. He wasn’t really surprised to see Starsky mirroring the motion. The more Hutchinson saw of Starsky, the better he liked him. But the memory of the night they had shared, a memory reinforced with every accidental touch and every communal shower, just wouldn’t let him relax in the other man’s presence, and he knew Starsky wasn’t any more comfortable than he was.
“No way, Colby. I am not going out to some bar with you again tonight and have to try to sneak in after curfew,” Hutchinson told him. He was adamant that the fun and games, that seemed to be a drug Colby constantly craved, were about to end. At least for him.
“Me, neither,” Starsky agreed.
Hutchinson knew that Starsky was having trouble with the law course, which, because of his college studies, he knew he was already acing. Starsky had no such advantage, and he needed to put in more time with the tutor the Academy provided three nights a week. He had also noticed that Starsky was coaching West on the shooting range, and devoting at least an hour a night to helping DiAmato improve his fitness level. It was one of the many things he had learned that made him like Starsky—when the man saw a need, he helped when he could.
“If I don’t spend tonight with the tutor and cracking the books, I’m gonna be flunking out on the law test tomorrow,” Starsky said.
“Come on, Stars, this place has got dancing, and you know how much you love to dance,” Colby wheedled.
“You just want me to come so I’ll drive,” Starsky accused, accurately in Hutchinson’s opinion.
Usually, when the three of them went out, Colby dumped them at the door of the establishment and went in search of more curvaceous company. Hutchinson and Starsky just weren’t comfortable enough with each other, to spend that much time together without the buffer of Colby between them. The sexual tension was always strung taut whenever they were together, despite their budding friendship.
“Loan me the car then?” Colby asked hopefully.
Hutchinson snorted at the ludicrousness of that. Colby really ought to know by now that the only way he would ever get to borrow Starsky’s car would be to shoot him and pry the keys out of his dead fingers.
“Fat chance,” Starsky growled predictably.
“Okay, how about Friday night?” Colby asked in what, Hutchinson was sure, the man thought was a reasonable compromise.
“We’ll see.”
Starsky and Hutchinson said it together, looked at each other across the table and couldn’t help but grin.
“You’re a little off on your harmony there, boys,” Colby grumbled. He glanced around the cafeteria as he climbed to his feet, rubbing his hands together. “Now, let me see. Who has a car?”
Hutchinson watched him go, shaking his head. Colby was such a completely self-centered, egotistical bastard that Hutchinson really didn’t know why they were friends. Sort of. If he had been inclined to choose companions, Colby definitely wouldn’t have been one of them. However, since Colby seemed to have chosen him, and Hutchinson was far more concerned about his studies than his social life, it was just easier to go along.
“Do you really like him?” Starsky asked, as if he had picked the thought right out of his head.
Startled, Hutchinson turned his attention back to Starsky. He saw genuine curiosity and sensed that whatever he said, it would never get back to Colby. Nevertheless, he remained non-committal. “He’s okay. A little wild, I guess. Just needs to settle down maybe.”
“He’s older than both of us,” Starsky pointed out. “You’d think he’d be getting his shit together by now.”
Hutchinson shrugged, uncomfortable with the subject.
“None of my business, I guess,” Starsky conceded. “But if he doesn’t quit calling me Stars, I’m gonna belt him one.”
“You don’t like your new nickname?” Hutchinson asked. He had noticed Starsky doing a slow burn every time Colby said it. “It’s better than Curly.” That nickname hadn’t lasted past the first utterance, when Starsky invited Colby back to the gym, declaring that this time they would fight to the death.
“It’s only a matter of time before he gives you one, you know,” Starsky pointed out. “Then you’ll be grinning out of the other side of your face. Hutchinson is a hell of a mouthful for somebody who’s drunk as often as he is, and ya gotta admit that something along the lines of Rabbit would be worse than Stars. Hell, I wouldn’t put it past the crazy bastard to start calling you Harvey. You know, like the giant rabbit in that Jimmy Stewart movie.”
Hutchinson hadn’t thought of that. Given Colby’s twisted sense of humor, it was certainly a possibility.
“He does and I’ll start calling him Ralph. God, I don’t know why anyone would want to drink like that until they puke.” It made sharing their room damned uncomfortable at times.
“Puking can give you a rush, you know? Sometimes, I think he’s addicted to his own adrenaline,” Starsky observed.
Knowing he wasn’t exactly guiltless in that department, Hutchinson let that one slide.
“So, you need a nickname before Colby can hang one on you.” Starsky studied him for a minute. “How about Hutch?”
The newly dubbed Hutch shrugged. “I could live with that better than I could Harvey.”
“Then Hutch it is,” Starsky concluded with a smile.
Hutch didn’t even realize they were staring at each other until Starsky suddenly broke the laser lock of their gazes.
“That took a whole fifteen minutes,” Starsky mumbled as he gathered up his books. “We’ re getting better. I’m gonna go warm up.”
Starsky paused beside the table, but it was apparent he didn’t want Hutch to join him any more than Hutch thought it a good idea to do so. So far, they had managed to spend absolutely no time alone together.
“I think I’ll have some more coffee first,” Hutch gave the expected, and desired, response.
“See ya in class,” Starsky said and sauntered away.
Hutch tried very hard not to watch him go and was almost successful.
~*~*~
John Colby wasn’t the only one who seemed determined to bring together the two men who wanted to avoid each other like the plague. The instructors, from Cannon in armory to Buchanan in law, all seemed to have decided that Starsky and Hutch made a great team. Black, the sage of police procedures, had gone so far as to declare he had never seen a more natural set of partners.
Unfortunately, it was true, Hutch conceded. A thought that had only half-formed in his mind would be coming out of Starsky’s mouth, even as he was parting his lips to finish the sentence. After two months of being constantly paired off by first one instructor and then another, they had become amazingly synchronized. Given the fact, of course, that they could hardly stand to be in the same room together. And it really was a shame because Hutch had discovered that he genuinely liked the man who had so briefly been his lover. In fact, if not for that night, he was sure they would be best friends and inseparable companions by now. Hutch didn’t make friends easily, and it seemed like such a waste to avoid someone with whom he seemed to mesh so well. However, he couldn’t put that night out of his mind, nor really regret it.
As it stood, Hutch wasn’t sure if it was the food, the coffee or the ever-present sexual tension, but he feared one of them was definitely growing him an ulcer. All of which could well explain why, when he and Starsky once again found themselves abandoned just inside the door of a club Colby had talked them into going to, their eyes had met for only the briefest of moments before they both turned on their heels and walked out.
Twenty feet from the door on the way back to Starsky’s car, the awkwardness began to grow between them again. This was ridiculous, Hutch decided, as they climbed into opposite sides of the car.
“We’ve got to talk, Starsk.” Hutch had come up with his own shortened version of the surname, but Starsky didn’t seem to mind at all.
“Yeah,” Starsky agreed, a mixture of reluctance and resignation in the deep voice. “Could go some place and grab a pizza,” he suggested.
“You think we should do this in public?” Hutch wondered.
“You think we should do it in private?” Starsky shot right back.
Neither one was a very good option, but the risk of being overheard tipped the scales in favor of privacy as far as Hutch was concerned. He wasn’t surprised when, though he hadn’t said a word, Starsky made the turn that would take them back to the Academy.
They remained silent for the rest of the trip, including the walk to Hutch’s room, which was chosen, again without discussion, because they both knew that Colby would be gone at least until curfew. That silent communication still operating when they were behind the closed door, Starsky shrugged out of his sport jacket and then sat in the straight backed chair at the desk, while Hutch retrieved two sodas from the small refrigerator in the corner. After hanging his jacket in the closet, he chose the old, half-sprung easy chair to try to relax in. It didn’t escape his notice that there was as much of the width of the room between them as possible.
Starsky, who had never ventured beyond the threshold of this room despite Colby’s many invitations, was looking around curiously. “There’s a football game on. Did you wanna…Oh, you don’t like sports.”
“I like football,” Hutch corrected him. “It’s basketball I don’t like. Watching it, I mean. I like to play.” He realized he was babbling and shut up.
“Oh,” Starsky said, and fiddled with the bottle of soda between his hands.
“Besides, I thought we were going to talk,” Hutch reminded him, still not certain this was a good idea. It was so easy to forget where they were and what they wanted to do with their lives. Especially, Hutch realized as he let himself really look at his visitor, when Starsky was wearing the exact same outfit as he had been wearing that night. He couldn’t be sure about the jeans. Starsky must own a hundred pairs of the damned things, all of them equally well-worn and faded, but Hutch would know that red silk shirt anywhere. He remembered the feel of its moist folds between his fingers as he and Dave had….
“So talk,” Starsky invited.
Hutch crash-landed back in the creaking chair in his room at the Police Academy. It took a moment for his mind to catch up with the abrupt transference.
“Can I ask you a question?” he asked.
Starsky shrugged. “Yeah. Guess so. I don’t promise to answer.”
Hutch felt his mouth tighten in annoyance and saw Starsky read it.
“Sorry,” Starsky apologized. “Yeah, you can ask anything you want. We gotta try to clear the air between us since everybody but Anderson’s dog seems to have decided we’d make a great team.”
“Don’t we?” Hutch asked, truly curious to see if Starsky was really oblivious to the incredible way they seemed to mesh.
“Yeah, I gotta admit we do,” Starsky conceded. He made a ‘gimme’ motion with his hands. “So ask.”
It took Hutch a couple of minutes and a couple of pulls at his Coke before he worked up the courage. “That night,” he began, knowing he didn’t have to specify what night. It was never far from either of their minds whenever they were together. “I got the impression from the bartender that you’d been going there a long time.”
Starsky sighed long and hard, focused his gaze on the bottle of soda and slid down a little in his seat. “Okay, I guess you deserve the history,” he decided. “I didn’t know before I went to ‘Nam that I was bi. Girls started revving my engines by the time I was thirteen, and other guys were either competition or somebody I bragged about my conquests to.”
Hutch watched as Starsky pulled a hand back through the dark curls that were once again in need of a trimming. Starsky’s hair seemed to grow faster than anyone else’s. He could look like he was in need of a haircut shortly after getting one, and it often earned him a reprimand from Wilkinson during the weekly review.
“Christ,” Starsky cursed. “I don’t know how to tell you what it was like over there. I was just twenty-years-old, and there I was up to my ass in mud and mold and bugs, killing people and watching the guy I’d just shared a cigarette with get blown away.”
“You smoked?” Hutch asked curiously. He had seen Starsky run and found it hard to believe that anyone who could sprint as fast as he could had ever polluted his lungs.
“When I had ’em. Smoked dope too,” Starsky admitted defiantly. “It took the edge off.”
Starsky tipped his head back, resting it against the hard back of the wooden chair. Hutch thought the position must be painful, but Starsky didn’t seem to notice.
“I was so fuckin’ scared. I was walkin’ around with a boner half the time from sheer terror, but never really felt any…” One hand was lifted and waved vaguely around. “Couldn’t even be bothered to jerk off. All I wanted to do was live long enough to go home. I didn’t even think about sex. You know what I mean?”
Hutch had absolutely no idea what Starsky meant. Yes, he had seen news reports on the television and in the newspapers, but that didn’t bring him any closer to personal understanding than reading the history books gave him insight into what the American soldiers had suffered at Valley Forge. And certainly he had never experienced the lack of sexual heat that Starsky described. At twenty, he had been married, living in a small but comfortable apartment off campus, and he and Vanessa hadn’t been able to keep their hands off each other. He and Starsky really did have so little in common, and yet they sometimes seemed like twins who had been separated at birth. He realized that Starsky had taken up his monologue again.
“The first time one of the guys followed me into the bushes when I went to take a leak and he grabbed my dick, shit, I almost decked him. But he grabbed my fist before I could land a punch, and jerked me off. For maybe a couple of minutes, I wasn’t afraid anymore. I wasn’t even on the same planet as the VC when he wrapped his arm around me, put my hand on his dick, and asked me to return the favor. The jungle was roaring in my ears and I’d never felt so alive as I did when he came in my hand.”
Enthralled by the confession, only peripherally aware of the erection stretching the front of his dress pants, Hutchinson asked, “What was his name?”
Starsky straightened up, the blue eyes opening and, Hutch was sure, taking in his condition. “I don’t know. Don’t remember the name of the first guy I sucked either, or the first that sucked me, or the first guy I fucked.” The thin lips twisted into a wry smile. “I wasn’t very discriminating over there. But I remember the name of the only guy I let fuck me.”
Hutch waited, wanting to know, aching to know the name of the man who had known the privilege that he had also known. The man who had taught Starsky to love it and had, therefore, been instrumental in placing Starsky in his hands when he had needed him so.
“Lieutenant Benjamin.” Starsky shook his head. “Never knew his first name. Caught a frag in the belly two hours after he fucked me, and died screaming. Probably didn’t even have a cock anymore, he was so torn up.”
Hutch realized that at some point in the past few minutes, his erection had deflated, and he saw that Starsky had seen that too. For him, the smell of faded sandalwood cologne, the taste of orange juice or the sound of a deep-voiced groan, could evoke the memory of the pleasure of his first and only experience with another man. Could make him ache with the desire to know it all again. How, he wondered, could Starsky, for whom male-to-male sex meant fear and blood and death, ever want to experience it again?
“I wondered about that myself,” Starsky admitted, and whether he had been reading Hutch’s mind or only his face, didn’t really matter.
They were so in tune at the moment that even their breathing had synchronized. As if he couldn’t stand the pressure, Starsky pushed up out of his chair and went to stand in front of the tiny window, his back to the room and to Hutch. Hutch felt the bond that had formed between them stretching, urging him to close the gap, but he stayed where he was.
“My dad was a cop, and I wanted to be one as long as I could remember. But when I got home from ‘Nam, I didn’t even know who I was anymore,” Starsky confessed, turning back to face Hutch. “Knew I’d had enough of killing. Didn’t think I’d ever want to pick up a gun again for the rest of my life. I didn’t even know any more if I was straight or gay. I looked at guys, and I fucked women.”
“The bartender said he thought you went to the straight bars on Saturday,” Hutch dropped into Starsky’s pause, remembering how the bartender had branded Starsky a cockteaser, implying he got a charge out of the lust he could stir in other men, but saved his own passion for women.
Starsky laughed bitterly. “Called me a cockteaser, didn’t he? And I was. I liked dancing and knowing other men wanted me. But I never saw one I wanted. Not until I turned around and saw you sitting at the bar like some angel with a lousy sense of direction.”
“Angel?” Hutch echoed with a nervous little laugh.
“Yeah.” Starsky winked at him saucily. “You’re lucky I didn’t hang that one on you.”
“God forbid,” Hutch agreed. “Just stick with Hutch. Okay?”
Hutch realized that all through the painful recital, Starsky hadn’t really been in the room with him. Back in that miserable jungle, Hutch supposed. But he was back now and looking at Hutch as if, as his grandmother used to say, he had hung the moon.
“I used to have nightmares about sex with another guy; now I have dreams,” Starsky said with a look of such gratitude on his face that Hutch was embarrassed. “Those guys in ‘Nam, they taught me to crave gay sex, like a junkie craves the needle. You, you taught me to love it.”
Their eyes met for what could have been a short eternity for all that Hutch noticed the passage of time. Then Starsky ran both hands over his face and back through his hair, shook himself a little as if to consign the memories back where they belonged, and glided over to the chair.
“Shit, I hate soapy scenes,” he declared as he parked himself back on the hard seat. “So, is that your twenty questions? Do I get to ask some now, too?” he wondered.
“Only fair, I guess,” Hutch agreed. He was a very private man, and opening up was difficult for him. The same way, he sensed, that it was for Starsky. Something told him the things Starsky had just confessed to him had never before been spoken aloud. He owed the same honesty. It was only fair. More importantly, he knew that whatever secrets he might share would be held safe.
“So, what were you doing there?” Starsky asked his first question. “You stuck out like a sore thumb it was so obvious you didn’t belong.”
“It was my last chance,” Hutch admitted. It had taken all the nerve he had to walk into that bar that night, and, though it hadn’t seemed so when he had opened the door of room nine and seen Starsky, he knew now he had been damned lucky in his choice of the man he had shared his living fantasy with.
“Yeah, me, too,” Starsky said and, of course, Hutch knew now that their last chances had been for the same reason.
“I’d been aware of wanting other guys before. I mean, I had some good friends at school, and I can remember wishing we could be more than friends, but I never had the nerve to do anything about it. Then Van and I got married….”
“You’re married?” Starsky asked, his surprise obvious.
“Divorced,” Hutch amended.
“You must have married young?” Starsky asked, but it wasn’t really a question. Hutch knew that Starsky was aware of his age—twenty-four—just a few months younger than Starsky himself.
“Right out of high school,” Hutch agreed nonetheless. “My parents didn’t like her much, which is probably the reason I married her. Everything was fine while I was in college—”
“College, too? You have been a busy boy,” Starsky interjected.
“You already knew I was in college,” Hutch scolded. Colby liked to tease him about it, too. “Pre-law.”
“True,” Starsky conceded. “Go on.”
“When I dropped out and decided I wanted to be a cop, well, that didn’t sit well with Van. When she married me, she assumed she’d be living my family’s life.”
“Rich?” Starsky interrupted yet again. He seemed determined to actually ask his twenty questions.
“Comfortable,” Hutch amended. “Anyway, things got bad between us, and then they got worse, and, well, the papers came through a few months ago. I’d already decided I wanted to be a cop, applied here and was accepted. I knew being a cop and being gay were never going to go together, but…that night, I just had to….”
“Have it once?” Starsky completed the sentence for him.
“Yeah,” Hutch agreed. He brought the soda bottle to his lips and, finding it empty, stood to get another. He lifted his empty bottle in Starsky’s direction in a silent question.
“No, thanks. I’m good,” Starsky declined the offer.
Hutch felt the deep blue eyes on him as he retrieved the soda, opened it and came back to his chair. The discomfort they usually suffered in each other’s presence had disappeared while they talked, but now it was beginning to come back.
“So,” Starsky began, pointing a finger at his own chest. “Last chance.” He reversed his hand until the index finger zeroed in on Hutch. “Only chance.”
Hutch nodded hesitantly.
“And it didn’t make the need go away, did it?” Starsky asked. It didn’t necessarily make him braver, or even the more daring of the two of them to make the admission first. Hutch had learned that it was simply Starsky’s nature to cut to the chase.
Hutch again nodded silent agreement.
“Know I want it again,” Starsky went on. “Want that feeling, that intensity, that’s never happened with a woman.”
Hutch waited for the rest of it, but Starsky wouldn’t give it to him until he lifted his head, let the other man have possession of his thoughts through the hungry expression on his face.
“And I want it with you.”
“Oh, God. Yes,” Hutch hissed just as he had that night when Starsky invited him home with him.
If Starsky had made a move on him then, even just stood up, anything, any movement whatsoever, they would have been on the bed in a second, tearing at each other’s clothes, oblivious to the unlocked door and uncaring of the mutual dream they could be shattering. But Starsky didn’t move. He just sat in that torturously uncomfortable chair, his white-knuckled grip on the arms of it making the old wood creak. Hutch thought he might not even be breathing. The stillness returned a measure of sanity to him.
“You wanna be Bay City’s first gay cops, Starsk?” he whispered.
The breath Starsky had been holding left him in an explosive rush. “Hell, no.”
“So what do you want?”
“You. Sex with you.”
“That isn’t being gay?” Hutch wondered.
“Once in a while,” Starsky elaborated.
“What about the rest of it? Being partners someday, friends now?” Hutch asked. He wasn’t sure himself, if he put the two needs on a scale, just which way it might tip.
“Right now, I want you in bed more than anything else in the world,” Starsky said. “Tomorrow, when I start a sentence and you finish it, the answer might be different.”
Hutch had to admit that if it had been Starsky asking the questions, he probably would have been giving the same answers. But did the two things necessarily have to be mutually exclusive?
“So what’s occasionally?” he asked cautiously, and saw Starsky swallow hard, realizing only then that Starsky had been counting on him to break the spell. Except he didn’t want to break it. It was all he could do to hold on to any sense of caution at all.
“Play it by ear?” Starsky suggested, but he didn’t sound as if he thought it was a good idea any more than Hutch did.
“We’d be fucking like bunnies every chance we get.” Hutch saw the crudity hit Starsky right between the eyes and shudder through him. “We’d have to agree to a schedule. Plan a certain time when we do it. No exceptions. ”
“You mean like you plan a vacation? Once a year, you and me’ll get together at the Golden Gate Bridge?” Starsky asked doubtfully, obviously not liking this suggestion any better.
“Don’t think I could wait a year,” Hutch admitted ruefully. He thought about it for a minute. “Maybe once a month?” he suggested, feeling a teasing smile trying to break out. “Maybe the last Friday of every month?”
“And, in the meantime, we anticipate and try to be friends?” Starsky’s doubts were still pretty obvious.
“We’ve been doing a pretty good job of becoming friends the last two months. With a little help from our friends,” Hutch acknowledged. “Think anticipating a time when we will be together is going to be harder than thinking we never will be again?”
“You shoulda stuck with the law, Hutch. You’d make a helluva district attorney,” Starsky growled. “Nah, scratch that, I’d have flunked out by now if you weren’t helping me. And, yeah, you’re right.” He leaned forward in his chair, hands gripped together as if he were forcing them not to reach out. “So, when do we start?”
“We have to be careful. One rumor and we’ll be partners in a used car lot or something,” Hutch cautioned and collected an agreeing, if begrudging, nod from Starsky. He bit his lip. “I don’t think it would be safe until after graduation.”
Starsky winced. “That’s an awful lot of anticipating,” he complained, but then waved his own words aside. “But you’re right. We can’t do it here and neither one of us has a place. Going to a hotel would be goddamned stupid. If we start taking risks right from the start, it would be too easy to fall into being careless.”
“We’ll have to decide about some other things,” Hutch pointed out. “Like, if we find ourselves in a serious relationship with a woman, what do we do about us?”
“Seems to me you’re more interested in figuring out when we can’t do it than when we can,” Starsky accused, the slightest edge of temper to his voice.
Hutch dropped his eyes, concentrating on the half-empty Coke bottle and wishing he had kept his big mouth shut. They had four months to iron out the ground rules; it wouldn’t have mattered if he had allowed both himself and Starsky to just enjoy the moment.
“I’m…I’m sorry. I just….”
“Hey,” Starsky interrupted, the edge gone from his voice now, his tone the most gentle that Hutch had ever heard it. “I’m the one who’s sorry. All you’re doin’ is tryin’ to look out for the both of us, and I’m giving you a hard time. I don’t really care if we end up with a rule book as thick as the regs if it means you still want me.”
Hutch looked up again to find Starsky leaning forward in the chair, one hand reaching out toward him. He saw the genuine apology that tempered the desire that still heated Starsky’s blue gaze. “I want you,” he whispered. “But I want us both to be safe.”
“And it’s a damned good thing one of us is thinking with the big head, babe,” Starsky acknowledged. He took a deep breath, returned his hands to the arms of the chair and made a show of holding on tight. “Okay, so what do we do if we fall in love with somebody else? There really is only one thing we can do, isn’t there? Infidelity isn’t my scene.”
“Mine, either,” Hutch agreed. He had been on the sharp end of that particular emotional dagger and knew it could tear the heart out of you to have your faith betrayed, to realize that all the promises meant no more than the breath it had taken to speak them.
“So, the last Friday of the month goes by just like any other day of the month if either one of us has a ladylove,” Starsky spelled it out.
Hutch nodded agreement. There was a part of him, the part that was always most comfortable when he knew the boundaries of any situation, that felt a certain sense of security as the rules were being defined between them. The other side, the one hanging on to the arms of his chair to keep them from reaching out and taking what he knew he had to wait four months to claim, wasn’t so pleased.
“Anything else we need to talk about right now?” Starsky asked, his voice revealing the strain he was feeling. “‘Cause if I don’t get outta here now, I’m gonna do something really stupid like kiss you. And if I do that….”
Knowing he was teetering on the very edge of giving in to a similar impulse, Hutch stayed where he was. “We have four months to work out the details,” he conceded.
“Four months,” Starsky groaned as he stood up, the outline of his hard-on looking like an iron bar beneath the soft, faded material of his jeans. “What day of the week is graduation?”
Hutch thought for a minute. “It’s a Wednesday. Why?”
“Good. Means we can get drunk Wednesday night, nurse our hangovers all day Thursday, and be ready and raring to go on Friday.” The grin was back on Starsky’s face, if a bit strained. He picked up his jacket and hung it over his arm so that it covered his groin. “I’ll see you in the morning, Hutch. As for Ken, you let him know that Dave will see him the first Friday after graduation.”
~*~*~
Starsky felt the warning pulse and brought his right hand, already bearing a wad of Kleenex, to cover the head of his cock, catching his semen as it spurted out of him. When he was sure he was done, he balled up the damp, sticky tissues and dropped them over the side of the bed. That was the third bundle he would have to get rid of when he got around to getting out of bed today.
Half rolling onto his side, Starsky reached out and flipped on the radio. Rocking Around the Christmas Tree filled the room and, with a groan, Starsky flopped over onto his back. One of these years, Starsky was going to have to give Christmas a try, just to see what all the fuss was about. In the meantime, he was grateful to the season for, if nothing else, taking his roommate off to visit his family for the week-long break. The fact that it had also taken away most of the cadets—Starsky thought there might be three of them in the whole dormitory—wasn’t such a good thing.
Starsky was lonely and bored and had the room to himself, which was why he was indulging in a marathon jerk-off. If there was any truth to the old wives’ tales, he would be shaving his palm and wearing glasses by the time the rest of the cadets returned. Starsky didn’t care. It was such a luxury, after weeks of jerking off in the bathroom, to stretch out on his own bed and indulge himself until he couldn’t get it up anymore.
He had been dating some, even got lucky a few times, but most girls were reluctant to put out on the first date. With the workload the instructors had been handing out, plus coaching West on the firing range, plus helping DiAmato try to raise his fitness rating, Starsky didn’t find himself with a lot of spare hours on his hands. Those he did have, he tried to spend with Hutch. After they had made their deal, they had both calmed down a little. It was just like Hutch had said; knowing they were going to get it eventually had let them relax around each other, somewhat, and just let their friendship grow.
Things had gotten a little tense there when Colby had left so abruptly. Starsky privately thought it had been a case of quitting before he was thrown out, but had kept the opinion to himself. It wasn’t so much that Colby was the glue that had held him and Hutch together. It was more like he was the buffer between them, preventing them from getting too close, and throwing off sparks that could start a fire that would consume them.
But it wasn’t just because every instructor seemed to have decided they were the greatest combination since ketchup and mayonnaise, that Starsky had found himself seeking out Hutch’s company more and more often. It was because he genuinely liked the man. Although rather shy, Hutch was generous and kind-spirited, and so intelligent just being around him challenged Starsky to keep his own brain engaged. So it hadn’t taken long for Starsky to learn to relax and simply enjoy the blond’s company. They were definitely opposites, but they seemed to attract on every level there was. Familiarity didn’t become contempt in their case, but comfort.
There were still moments when the lust could flare between them unexpectedly. Like the last PE class before Hutch had flown off to Minnesota. He was spending Christmas with his grandfather, since his parents weren’t talking to him. They had been wrestling, and, predictably because of his greater experience, Hutch quickly pinned Starsky on his face and then stretched out along his back to hold him there. Even through the athletic supporter, Starsky knew Hutch had thrown a rod. How he wished that all he had to do to get that hot, hard cock sliding up his ass was spread his legs and arch his back. Fortunately, sanity had prevailed and Hutch had let him up before he had done something really stupid like begged, “fuck me” instead of yelling “uncle.”
Starsky returned from his musings to find that his memories had given him another hard-on. Not surprising since Hutch seemed to be the one and only star of all his fantasies lately. He wrapped his hand around his cock, wincing at the soreness. Maybe three days was enough self-abuse. He really should get up and at least eat something. Besides, he was supposed to go over to his Aunt Rosie and Uncle Al’s tonight. Until he got around to Christmas, Hanukkah would have to do him.
But first, he decided, moving his hand in a gentle rhythm that his cock welcomed, he would just fuck his angel one more time on the softly lit stage of his imagination.
~*~*~
Hutch jumped when the doorbell rang despite the fact he had been anxiously checking the clock every minute and a half for the past hour. This was the first Friday after graduation, and that was Starsky ringing his chimes.
No, not Starsky—Dave. Although Starsky had helped him move into this little cottage by the canal only a week ago, their pattern was already set. So it had to be Dave ringing the bell because Starsky would have simply opened the door, walked in, and made himself at home. Dave, on the other hand, was waiting, anxiously as well, Hutch hoped, for him to open the door.
Eagerly, Hutch got his long legs under him and crossed the room to open the door. Despite the well-remembered and cherished memories evoked by tight faded jeans and the red silk shirt, however, it was still Starsky standing on his doorstep.
“I didn’t think that was gonna work,” Starsky said, and shouldered past him, going straight to the refrigerator.
“I bought wine,” Hutch mentioned without much hope that it wouldn’t be a bottle of beer Starsky would be holding when he retreated from the refrigerator.
If he was disappointed, it was his own fault, because it was Hutch who had suggested the plan that had just fallen on its face before it even had a chance to fly. It had seemed like a good idea a week ago while they were putting his bed together—that it would be Ken and Dave who shared the big mattress, not Hutch and Starsky. But he wasn’t really disappointed. They had already had their anonymous one-night stand; now it was time to discover what the last Friday of every month would be.
While he stood watching Starsky, but still lost in thought, his friend had found the bottle of wine, snagged two glasses and the corkscrew and was already a comfortable sprawl on the couch. Definitely Starsky. He just happened to be Starsky with a hard-on. But that, too, wasn’t exactly an unfamiliar sight.
With a soft sigh for best-laid plans gone awry, Hutch joined his friend on the couch, lifting the wine bottle out of the busy fingers as he sat. “Give me that. You’ll have us drinking chunks of cork.”
“The best-laid plans…” Starsky quoted with a grin as if he had pulled the thought out of Hutch’s mind.
Hutch was tempted to swat him one, just to mess up the perfectly ordered curls. Instead, realizing that his desire for this man, whether unknown dancer or well-known friend, were unchanged, he leaned over and brushed a quick kiss over the grin, rejoicing in the freedom to finally be able to do so. When he drew back, the grin was gone, and the blue eyes were half obscured by heavy lids.
“…are adaptable,” Starsky finished.
Hutch released the unopened bottle of wine to him, hearing it thud to the carpet as Starsky’s fingers slid into his hair, drawing him down until their lips met again.
Consigning stupid ideas to the devil, Hutch opened his mouth to Starsky’s probing tongue, feeling the slick caresses travel through his body to his cock like lightning through a grounding rod. Starsky tugged and he went with the pull, sprawling awkwardly all over the body that surged up to meet him. His hands scrabbling for any part of Starsky he could find, he rode the bucking bronco beneath him until Starsky suddenly moved both hands to his shoulders and stiff-armed him away.
“Don’t wanna come in my pants,” Starsky gasped, his busy fingers finding the edges of Hutch’s shirt and yanking, freeing the snaps to his belt.
Hutch had to hold himself up then as both of Starsky’s hands plunged into the gap. He groaned as busy fingers found his nipples and pinched, then echoed himself as the fingers moved lower to fumble at his cords. He was falling behind, Hutch realized, and shifted his weight, balancing precariously on one hand while he worked the snap and zipper of Starsky’s tight jeans. Starsky had his cords open now and was pushing them down over his hips, both hands latching on to the cheeks of his ass. Eagerness, and the comparative tightness of Starsky’s jeans were threatening to put Hutch out of the running completely. He dragged his mouth away from the red lips that tried to follow.
“Unfair,” he panted, trying to work his fingers into the tight denim that refused to yield.
Starsky’s hands left him then, and, in a practiced combination of push and wriggle, dragged the reluctant material down as far as his thighs, abandoning it there and returning to Hutch to bring him down. Hard cock to hard cock drew a shout from both of them and, even though this frenzied coupling on a couch too small to comfortably accommodate one of them, let alone two, had had no place in his fantasies, Hutch gladly gave himself up to it. In one minute, they were both slick with pre-come. A minute later, six months of anticipation delivered them both into the fastest orgasms of their lives.
Even if he had had the wit, the fact of the matter was, Hutch just didn’t have the strength to hold himself above Starsky as the aftershocks shuddered through his body. It took several moments before the dim awareness, reinforced by the gasping beneath him, filtered through that he might just be crushing his friend with his dead weight. With a heroic effort, he worked his hands under him and pushed feebly, realizing his mistake as he started to tumble. He was saved from a painful encounter with the coffee table by Starsky grabbing a handful of his shirt and hauling him back.
“Don’t sweat it,” Starsky advised as his hands encouraged Hutch to settle back onto him. “I’m stronger than I look.”
Hutch brushed his lips against the smoothly shaven cheek. “After six months of daily PE classes, you look pretty strong.”
Starsky gave a little undulation beneath Hutch, making muscles that were just beginning to reclaim their strength contract.
“Like my muscles, do ya?” he asked. He said it with a hard ‘c,’ like Popeye.
“Yeah,” Hutch admitted. “But I’ve still gotta be crushing you.” He nuzzled into Starsky’s neck, licking up the salty sweat gathered in an unfamiliar crease. “Gotta admit, I don’t wanna let go yet.”
Starsky seemed to be of a similar mind, but Hutch’s guilt eventually overcame his baser instincts and he tried to part them again. Starsky held on, refusing the withdrawal and beginning to wriggle. It took a moment for Hutch to catch on, and then he joined in the cautious maneuvering until they had shifted over onto their sides. His ass might be hanging precariously over the edge of the cushions, but Hutch knew he was in no danger of falling. Not with Starsky’s arm locked securely around his waist and their legs entwined like an intricate Chinese puzzle.
“I guess it was a dumb idea,” he admitted.
“Nah. Just misguided,” Starsky allowed generously. One finger traced the outline of Hutch’s lips. “The problem is we’re still Ken and Dave, we’re just not only Ken and Dave anymore.”
Starsky logic, Hutch had learned, could be both utterly simple and horribly convoluted. Sometimes at the same time. “Stop, you’re giving me a headache,” he complained, kissing the finger that caressed his mouth. The complaint was familiar, the freedom to offer the kiss something he had been yearning for.
“Besides,” Starsky began, and then seemed to think better of what he was going to say. His expression was a confusing mixture of defiance and chagrin that immediately aroused Hutch’s curiosity.
“Come on, you can’t say something like that and then shut up,” Hutch complained.
“Okay, but it’s probably going to piss you off,” Starsky warned. “It’s just that, well, I never think of you as Ken anyway. When I’m not supposed to be thinking about you and this…” He ran a hand down the length of Hutch’s back and over the curve of his ass in illustration. “…I think of you as Hutch. When I am thinking about how much I want to take you to bed then, well, I always think of you as Angel.” He finished the confession with a grimace as if he expected Hutch to take offense—very vocal offense.
“Angel, huh?” Hutch murmured, remembering Starsky’s confession of how the image had been born in his mind, even if Hutch did think he was stretching the idea a little. And Hutch had his own little confession to make.
“What’s that look for?” Starsky asked suspiciously.
“Don’t think of you as Dave very often either,” Hutch admitted. “You’re either Starsky or…” He hesitated a moment. Starsky, he knew, wasn’t going to be the least bit offended. Hutch just wondered whether he really wanted to inflate the guy’s ego, then decided that a little excess ego between friends wouldn’t hurt either one of them. “…Dancer.”
“Dancer, huh?” Starsky echoed, pretending to give it far more consideration than it deserved. “Yeah, I like it. The dancer and the angel. Has a real ring to it, doesn’t it.”
Hutch kissed him to shut him up and allowed the kiss to go on so long he forgot its original purpose.
“We gonna hump on the couch all night long?” Starsky wondered a little breathlessly when the kiss finally ended. “Or are we gonna use that bed you conned me into helping you move?” He traced a meandering path from Hutch’s throat, down over his chest and began drawing intricate patterns around his nipple.
Hutch grabbed the wandering digit and placed it firmly on target. Obligingly, the fingers pinched the sensitive flesh into a hard little peak. “Would save the sheets,” he murmured, yelping when teasing became revenge and shaper pain pierced his chest.
Starsky’s lips came to nuzzle in apology. Hutch let it continue, carding his fingers through the disordered curls, until a pleasant sensation began to edge over into arousal. He felt his cock begin to stir where it was nested against Starsky’s groin, and tugged until Starsky lifted his head.
“Bed?” he asked.
“Your wish….”
“Yeah?” he asked. He had a wish that this man had already denied once.
“Anything. Everything,” Starsky reminded him that part of what Ken and Dave, or Angel and Dancer, had been together could carry over into what Starsky and Hutch were creating.
“Gonna fuck me this time?”
Starsky didn’t seem startled, but the question did chase away the smile that had been teasing his mouth. His probing gaze searched Hutch’s face, and then he nodded. “Yeah,” he finally allowed.
Hutch wasn’t usually a slave to his own curiosity, but this question had plagued him for six months. “Why wouldn’t you fuck me that night?”
“Cause you were virgin, babe,” Starsky explained. “I felt bad when you showed up at the Academy and I realized I’d probably taken away your only chance. But at the time…” He shrugged as well as he could crammed up against the back of the couch. “…I didn’t think ya should give your cherry to a stranger.”
“You did.”
“Uh, huh. That’s how I knew,” Starsky admitted.
Now it was Hutch’s turn to delicately skim features that had become almost as well-known to him as his own. “What about a friend, Starsk? Can I give it to a friend?”
“We’ll see,” Starsky hedged.
“What do you mean, ‘we’ll see’? You just said yes. Besides, who put you in charge?” Hutch demanded, only part of his outrage an act. Although in his inexperience he had left most of the running up to Starsky that night, he hadn’t been completely passive. The friendship that had formed between them had been pretty balanced, and he wanted that equality to continue, in bed and out of it.
“I’m not gonna fuck you tonight if you’re not ready,” Starsky insisted with the stubbornness that Hutch had come to respect. “Your body’ll let me know.”
That seemed acceptable to Hutch. He knew he was ready to take this man into himself the way he hadn’t been the first time they had shared a bed. He had fantasized that joining for months, but was content to let it happen in its own good time. It wasn’t like there weren’t plenty of other ways they could give each other pleasure. But not on this damned couch.
“It’s time we moved this to the bed,” he decided, and started the struggle to gain his feet without falling on his ass.
“Hold it,” Starsky commanded, reached down and grabbed the waistband of Hutch’s cords, where it was still digging into his thighs. “Lift,” he added, and when Hutch complied, the material was tugged laboriously up over his damp flesh.
With the impediment removed, Hutch was able to make the uneventful, if less than graceful, scramble off the couch. He watched as Starsky wriggled his half-mast jeans up where they belonged, then offered a hand to lever him to his feet. Now that the edge had been taken off their need for one another, they were able to separate long enough to shuck their clothes into a couple of messy piles on the floor, and climb into the bed from opposite sides.
As they settled facing each other in the middle of the bed, Hutch was glad that it was a new one and not the one he and Vanessa had shared. That big brass antique was still in storage, and Hutch was content to leave it there for now. Whatever other joinings this bed might see, Hutch was happy that he and Starsky would be the ones to christen it.
“So ya wanna get fucked, do ya, big boy?” Starsky asked him, sweeping his hand from Hutch’s shoulder to the back of his knees, pausing lingeringly over his ass.
Sex with the dark, brooding stranger Starsky had been months ago had been a dangerous thrill, but this was better, Hutch realized. There was no danger here in the arms of his friend, unless it was the danger of becoming addicted to the humor and comfort they now shared.
“You do a really lousy Bogie, Starsk, and your Mae West is worse,” Hutch said, laying a kiss on the pout his comment produced. “But, yes, I want to get fucked.”
“And fuck?” Starsky asked. “Suck and be sucked?” The humor and teasing had left the familiar face now, replaced by renewed arousal that started Hutch’s blood pumping faster.
Starsky’s hand reached down and gathered up his just beginning to swell cock, then moved closer until he could encompass Hutch’s in the same grip. “Gonna sing for me again, babe?”
Obligingly, Hutch moaned, remembering that Starsky’s ears were one of his most sensitive erogenous zones. Every moan, every gasp he gave this man would give him the same pleasure as every touch of his hands or mouth. And he wanted to give this man pleasure, cram every scrap of it into the willing body that he could before the dawn or exhaustion called a halt to it.
The second time they came together took longer, arriving only after they had thoroughly relearned the feel and taste of flesh that had been too briefly known. They took their time about it, falling apart to scramble back from the edge a couple of times, only to come back together, ending up at last with their heads resting on the muscular pillows of each other’s thighs, their mouths filled with the hard bulk of each other’s cocks. Sucking hard, feeling the suction mirrored, Hutch finally let orgasm wash over him, accepting the flood of Starsky’s semen as they reached the peak together.
It took Hutch a few minutes to realize he was the one who had ended up turned around in the bed and to accept that, if he wanted the kisses and cuddling in the afterglow that he craved, he was going to have to find the strength to crawl around into Starsky’s arms. Placing a last kiss on the tip of the still-puffy cock, he slowly righted himself and was welcomed for his efforts by an affectionate embrace and nuzzling kisses.
“Been practicing, have ya?” Starsky murmured between kisses.
“Only in my dreams,” Hutch reassured him, although there had been no jealous edge to Starsky’s question, only lazy appreciation. “And my fantasies.”
“Mmmmm. Me, too,” Starsky offered his reciprocal reassurances of fidelity.
With men, Hutch knew. They had both dated women in the little spare time they had. He had even slept with one or two and, if the gossip was true, so had Starsky.
Starsky gave up his detailed exploration of Hutch’s mouth to ease back and fix him with an accusing eye. “At least you had your room to yourself since John left. Most of the time, I had to jerk off in the bathroom listening to Vanwhateverhisnameis snore. That guy has a real sinus problem.”
Hutch laughed, acknowledging his advantage. Even before Colby had quit, he had been away often enough that Hutch could indulge in his self-pleasuring in the comfort of his own bed.
“Nearly rubbed myself raw over Christmas break while I had the room to myself,” Starsky confessed.
“Poor baby,” Hutch murmured. He gathered up Starsky’s moist genitals in his hand, able, now that Starsky had come, to cradle both the spent cock and large testicles in his palm. He squeezed gently, drinking in Starsky’s soft hiss at the pressure on his too-sensitive flesh. He was learning to feed on the pleasure he could give as well.
“You think that wine is still cold?” Starsky asked.
“Cold enough,” Hutch said. It felt like only minutes had passed since Starsky had arrived.
“You gonna let me go so I can go find out?” Starsky wondered, although he didn’t seem in any great hurry to leave the sanctuary of their embrace.
Hutch gave a farewell squeeze and started to get up. “I’ll get it.”
“Hey,” Starsky said, pulling him down and then sitting up himself. “You know you like watching me strut my stuff.”
Since that was nothing but the truth, and Hutch had had to deny himself the pleasure in the locker room all this time, he happily leaned back, arms crossed under his head as he watched Starsky climb out of bed. He knew the saucy little wriggle Starsky put on was for his benefit, but it didn’t distract him from the pleasure of watching the muscular body glide across the room to the couch. His breath caught in his throat as, back to him, Starsky bent from the waist to retrieve the bottle of wine from the floor. It wasn’t until Starsky had come back to the bed with the bottle and glasses that Hutch realized his actions had been deliberate.
“It isn’t going to work, Starsk,” he declared, familiar by now with Starsky’s law of distraction. The display he had just witnessed had been Starsky’s attempt to make him forget all about being fucked. And it had very nearly worked. The guessed-at pleasure of being claimed by that hard, cut cock had been featured in his fantasies only a little more often than the remembered pleasure of sliding into that luscious ass. He, however, could be just as stubborn as Starsky when he needed to be.
Starsky handed over the bottle and corkscrew. “You were easier to handle when you didn’t know me so well.”
Hutch worked with the corkscrew until the cork popped free, tossing it onto the bedside table before pouring wine into the glasses Starsky held. He sat back against the headboard, enjoying the view of Starsky sitting cross-legged, naked and natural in it, as he sipped the wine. He knew he wasn’t quite as comfortable as Starsky was with his own body, but here, with only his friend’s appreciative gaze to see, he felt at ease.
“Got your mind made up do you, beautiful man?” Starsky asked.
He was putting back the wine pretty quickly, Hutch noticed, but couldn’t tell whether it was thirst or Dutch courage that prompted him.
“If you don’t want me—”
“Oh, I want you, Angel,” Starsky interrupted and, just for a moment, he was Dave, the seductive dancer that could coax Ken into offering only what he wanted. The hand that gripped Hutch’s calf and ran up past his knee to his thigh, however, was the hand of a friend, caring rather than coercing. “Just don’t ever want to hurt you.”
Supremely confident that was never going to happen, Hutch sipped his wine and let his confidence show in his eyes. He licked his lips after every sip, loving the way Starsky watched every motion of his mouth, the way they were mirrored on the red lips of his lover. He loved seeing how he was getting to the other man, loved the security of it.
“Okay. You win,” Starsky said, reaching over Hutch to set his glass on the table. “Get rid of that,” he commanded, pointing at Hutch’s glass.
Hutch did as he was ordered and then waited.
“Lie down and spread your legs.”
Again, Hutch complied, watching Starsky’s face, trying to decide if his friend was once more attempting to put him off, to make the experience frightening, abrupt, and convince him he didn’t want it after all. If that was Starsky’s plan, he was shooting way wide of the mark. Hutch knew this man now, knew his gentleness, and knew his sense of fair play. He felt his cock stir as Starsky settled between his thighs.
“You’re a cocky bastard, Hutchinson,” Starsky accused, obviously having seen that his ploy wasn’t working.
“Look at the pot,” Hutch laughed, accepting the weight gladly as Starsky settled on top of him.
They kissed. And kissed. And kissed. Long, deep, languorous kisses that explored every crevice of their mouths, counted teeth, and tangled tongues. Brief, butterfly kisses that barely brushed moist flesh to moist flesh. Hungry, frantic kisses that bruised lips against teeth and threatened to draw blood. And all the time, Starsky’s fingers were in Hutch’s hair, cherishing him.
By the time Starsky slid downward, leaving him with lips that tingled and stung, Hutch was growing hard for the third impossible time, and he could feel Starsky’s erection pressing into his thigh. There was definitely something to be said for the power of anticipation. Lips found his throat, sucking hard, but not hard enough or long enough to mark him, not here where it would show. Lower, below his clavicle where he could keep it a secret between the two of them, hungry lips and sharp teeth latched on, the slight pain singing in his nerves and pumping his need higher.
Nipples, already erect, were tormented in their turn before Starsky eased away, coming to rest on his side. The capable left hand took over then, sweeping down Hutch’s torso, caressing firm pleasure into him. Hutch arched into the hand, looking down to find Starsky watching the movements of his own hand. Mesmerized as well, Hutch watched as one fingertip approached his cock, barely brushing the exposed glans before sliding down the length of the shaft to his balls and then back up. He arched again, grunting in protest, wanting Starsky to grab him, hold him tight and pump.
“Don’t wanna come before I fuck you,” Starsky admonished, and Hutch’s view of tangled curls disappeared, replaced by Starsky’s face.
The lapis gaze held his as the hand swept further back, and Hutch wanted to cry out when his body immediately tightened at the first touch of a searching finger.
“Damnit….”
“Hush,” Starsky commanded and, instead of withdrawing, as Hutch had feared, the finger circled, pressing the sensitive ring of his anus until the stubborn muscle yielded.
“You got any lube?” Starsky whispered without pausing the motion of his hand.
“B-Bedside drawer,” Hutch stuttered, surprised he could even think with the amazing sensations swirling around in his brain.
Starsky withdrew his hand, heaved himself up and over Hutch, slid open the drawer and burst out laughing. “Oh, my God. Don’t tell me you were a boy scout.”
Hutch felt the blood rushing to his face while he sheepishly met Starsky’s laughing eyes.
“KY, Vaseline, and baby oil?” Starsky cataloged the embarrassment of riches Hutch had stashed in the drawer. “What, no Crisco?”
“I d-didn’t know which one we used last time, so…” Hutch explained.
“Which did you think?” Starsky asked curiously.
Hutch had absolutely no idea. Noticing which lubricant they were using hadn’t exactly been at the top of his priority list at the time. That, in his opinion, was sufficient explanation for his multiple purchases. “Spit?” he ventured, remembering that Starsky’s apartment had already been packed up that night.
“Oh, yeah, babe,” Starsky said sarcastically. “You really got that monster up my ass on spit. I wouldn’t have walked for a week.” He selected the blue and white tube and held it up for Hutch to see. “It was KY and I put it on you.” He shook his head. “I knew you weren’t payin’ attention.”
Hutch reached for the tube, but Starsky held it away from him.
“Uh, uh,” Starsky grunted, easing back down to his side. “You need to roll over now.”
Still feeling agreeably compliant, despite, or perhaps because of the gentle teasing, Hutch started to roll onto his stomach, stopping when Starsky’s restraining hand held him on his side.
“No, babe. Like this,” Starsky crooned. “That’s it, just relax.”
Hutch felt the hand slide down to the back of his leg and press.
“Bend your knee up. Yeah, just like that. Put the pillow under your leg if you want.”
Again, Hutch did as instructed. The hand left him and he knew Starsky was opening the tube.
“You tried this out, huh?” Starsky whispered next to his ear, catching the lobe between his teeth and nibbling gently.
“Tried ’em all,” Hutch admitted. Starsky sounded distracted and Hutch thought he must have been trying to get the tiny cap back onto the tube. He wanted to tell him to forget the damned cap and get on with it, but he had turned control of this joining over to Starsky and so remained silent.
“Which one you like best?” Starsky asked.
Hutch jerked as something cold and wet touched his anus. “They’re all cold,” he complained.
“That’s just ’cause you’ re so hot, beautiful man,” Starsky crooned.
The moist lips were on Hutch’s nape, the bold finger was probing slickly at his anus, and Starsky was pressed securely all along his back. Hutch didn’t think it could get much better than this. And then it did when one of Starsky’s fingers suddenly slid all the way into him. Then the probe found a spot inside and Hutch nearly convulsed, a shout torn out of his throat, as fire seemed to shoot from that inner button into his cock.
“Ya got a real charge outta rammin’ my prostate with that big cock of yours every time you went up me, didn’t ya?” Starsky murmured.
The probe withdrew slightly and then returned and Hutch jolted again. He was going to come. If Starsky did it one more time, he was going to shoot his load. When the finger withdrew for a second time, however, it returned with a friend, and now all the sensations were at the opening instead of deep inside as it was stretched to accommodate the intruders. A third retreat and more cold gel and then he was filled again.
“You sure, babe?”
There it was, his last chance to retreat. Starsky would let him, Hutch knew. They could suck each other off again or he could fuck Starsky. Hutch hadn’t known. How could he? How impossibly good this would be, and he was suddenly terrified that, once done, he would crave it forever. Once a month would never be enough.
“Hutch? Sweetheart?” Starsky was saying, doubt in his voice and the sweet, stretching probes of his fingers withdrawing, leaving Hutch feeling impossibly empty.
“Oh, God, Starsk. Fuck me.” He had meant to shout it. Command it. But he didn’t have the breath. It was a pitiful whimper, but it was obeyed nonetheless.
Hutch felt slippery fingers wrap around his fist, leading his hand to his own groin.
“Hold yourself. Squeeze tight as I come into you,” Starsky encouraged him.
Then it was happening. The wide, blunt head of Starsky’s cock pressed for entrance, gained it and slid into him. Hutch remembered to squeeze his cock as his gut spasmed, panted through it while the two pains battled for dominance. Miraculously, they destroyed each other and he felt himself open, while a hand brushed his aside and offered a gentler caress. His body relaxed into the solid security of Starsky’s embrace.
“Made for this, weren’t you?” Starsky crooned, moving his hips so that the cock deep inside Hutch slid out and in, taking up the rhythm with his hand.
“Please, please, please,” Hutch chanted, not even knowing what he begged for as he matched the demanding cadence Starsky set. But Starsky knew and gave it to him, withdrawing and thrusting back up into him until fireworks exploded in Hutch’s brain. Even as he felt his cock spew in the tight grip and his ass spasm, blackness engulfed him.
When the darkness retreated, Hutch was cradled against a chest whose fur was plastered wetly to the skin, and a throbbing, empty ache echoed inside him. He didn’t realize he was sobbing until Starsky had soothed away his distress with caring hands and nonsense words.
“Star…” he tried to say and his raw throat spasmed.
Raw and dry. He must have been mouth breathing and…screaming? It was over? Vaguely he remembered his climax hitting him. Had Starsky come or had he stopped when Hutch passed out? Starsky shifted against him, and he felt the soft penis against his thigh. A few minutes ago, that lax organ had shown him he didn’t know the first thing about his own body; threatened to shake the foundation of every assumption he had ever made about himself. He had known he could want a man, had discovered the pleasure to be had in this same man’s arms. He had never expected to be shown that he could surrender himself so completely.
“It goes away, you know,” Starsky reassured him, prompting Hutch to find the coordination to lean back and look into the familiar face.
He didn’t understand. Starsky never told him lies. Why would he start now? The questions must have shown in his face because Starsky smiled, then pressed a finger to his lips as if Hutch had protested aloud.
“Honest, babe. It doesn’t stay that bright and sharp. Tomorrow, Miss 36-24-36, blonde-hair-down-to-her-butt will walk on by, and you’ll remember all the other stuff you can do that feels good.”
“You mean I’m never going to feel like that again?” Hutch asked. How could he bear it? How could he live without it?
“Do you remember the first time you ever had sex? It’s like that. It’s not just the way you felt, it’s the…the not knowing before what to expect.”
“And I think, maybe, it was the man doing it,” Hutch whispered, surprised when Starsky blushed.
“We aim to please,” Starsky tried to make light of it.
Hutch didn’t feel like making light of anything, especially this. He tried to move up face to face with Starsky and his ass gave a warning throb. He still made the move, but he did it more carefully. Starsky leaned in and kissed him, and Hutch realized that his mouth was almost as sore as his ass. By tomorrow, he was going to be one great big ache.
“I’m jealous of Benjamin,” Hutch admitted.
“Who?” Starsky asked curiously.
“Lieutenant Benjamin,” Hutch clarified.
“Oh.” Starsky snuggled down into Hutch’s arms, and Hutch felt a yawn against his throat. “Don’t be. I don’t even remember his face.”
“You’re not going to sleep, are you?”
“Uh, uh. Know I gotta go.”
Hutch wished he had kept his big mouth shut. Not just now, but two months ago when they had agreed, after he had instigated the discussion, that they couldn’t sleep together. They had already agreed by that time that their once a month Friday nights would be no-holds-barred sexathons. They would do anything and everything one of them wanted and the other was inclined to go along with. Except sleep in each other’s arms. Except wake up in the morning, and take the risk that to start all over again would be a temptation too great to resist. They were having sex, not making love. That they had become friends and liked each other was a bonus for the sex, they had discovered tonight. But to let the sex bleed over into their friendship would be a disaster.
Like the idea that it should be Ken and Dave who met here tonight, not sleeping together after what they had just shared now sounded like rank idiocy to Hutch.
“‘M awake. Goin’ inna minute,” Starsky mumbled, but Hutch could feel him growing heavier.
The temptation to just let Starsky slip into dreams, to follow him there was nearly irresistible, but Hutch knew he wanted this again. And again, and again, for as far into the future as he could see. If they started breaking the rules the very first night, they were sentencing themselves to eventual ruin.
In any case, it didn’t end up being his decision. After a few minutes, Starsky roused and rolled away. He sat on the edge of the bed for a minute, his face in his hands, and then found his clothes and started climbing into them.
“You can take a shower if you want,” Hutch offered. It would delay the inevitable, if only for a few minutes. For the first time since one and a half minutes before 8:00 p.m., Hutch looked at the clock. It was nearly 4:00 a.m. How had all those hours slipped away without him even noticing?
Starsky sat down on the side of the bed to pull on his short boots and then turned to face him. Hutch wanted to offer one last embrace, share a few more kisses, but remained passive beneath the affectionate gaze that studied him.
“You gonna call me Monday night?” Starsky asked.
“Of course,” Hutch answered immediately. After six months of almost constant companionship, it was going to seem very strange not to see Starsky in the morning.
“Good. Wanna hear all about your new partner.”
“Yeah. Me, too,” Hutch agreed.
Hutch had drawn Rampart for his rookie year under Iron Mike Ferguson, but Starsky had been assigned to the much more dangerous, in Hutch’s opinion, Metro division where he would work under his mentor, John Blaine.
Starsky got to his feet, leaned over Hutch and patted him on his flat, sheet-draped tummy. “I’ll lock up on my way out,” he promised. A teasing smile lit his tired face. “‘Night, Angel.”
“Damnit, Starsky, if you ever let that slip…” Hutch blustered, but left the threat unspoken because Starsky was already gone. He heard the front door close and felt more alone than he ever had in his life.
Snagging the pillow Starsky had laid his head on, Hutch wrapped his arms around it, buried his face in the softness and inhaled sandalwood. He wasn’t going to be an idiot. His friend was going to call him Monday and they would meet to play pool, talk, go to the movies, and a dozen other things when time allowed. Besides, tomorrow was the first day of February, the shortest month of the year. That meant the last Friday would come that much sooner.
Hutch fell asleep with a smile on his face.
Keeping the Faith
“You still hang around with that character from the Academy? What’s his name?”
“Dave Starsky,” Hutch replied evenly enough, although he could feel the telltale blush climbing up his neck. Luke Huntley, his partner, had made it clear he didn’t like Starsky even though they had met only once. Hutch didn’t think Huntley was giving Starsky a fair chance, but he had learned not to mention his friend’s name or talk about anything they did together. Now, here it was Huntley who was bringing him up. Perhaps Hutch was just a bit extra sensitive today. It was the last Saturday of May and Hutch knew that, after last night with Starsky, he must look like he had been pulled through a knothole backwards. Huntley had certainly teased him about giving the ladies a break when he had shown up for work this afternoon. Hutch could just imagine what his reaction would be if he knew the truth.
“So, do you still hang out with him?” Huntley prodded.
It was Hutch’s turn to drive the patrol car tonight, and he put all his attention into making a left-hand turn. “Yeah,” he admitted, trying to get the message across to Huntley with his tone that this was a no-go area.
Huntley, as usual, didn’t take the hint. “So, I guess you know all about him being up for a commendation?”
Hutch knew, all right. He had spent the better part of half an hour last night going up one side of Starsky and down the other about it, until Starsky had finally shut his mouth by simply filling it full of his tongue. Somehow, after that, the subject just hadn’t come up again throughout the long night.
“How would I know what’s going on at Metro?” Hutch asked. He slowed the car as they cruised by a street full of closed shops. It was 10:00 p.m. Almost the end of his shift, and Hutch was so tired he was counting the minutes until he could curl back up on the sheets still stained with his and Starsky’s enthusiasm. “How do you know, for that matter?”
“I keep telling you, Ken, the force grapevine. Better than jungle drums. You really need to start socializing more with the other guys. They all think you’re some kind of college boy prima donna.”
Hutch ground his teeth together, but refrained from comment. Huntley took being the senior partner very seriously. In fact, he was a goddamned pain in the ass about it. Always telling Hutch what to do, on duty and off, and treating him like he couldn’t wipe his own ass, let alone enforce the law.
“Got to hand it to your friend, he must be fast to pull off that snatch and run.” Huntley tried to tempt Hutch into asking for details. When Hutch remained stubbornly incurious, Huntley, as Hutch knew he would, told the story anyway.
“Way I heard it, some kind of wild dog got into a schoolyard and had a couple of kids cornered. Word is they’d have been hamburger if it weren’t for your friend and his partner. Hmm, can’t remember his name either.” Huntley paused again, and, for a second time, Hutch refused to offer the prompting he was obviously waiting for.
“Anyway, the partner starts jumping around, making a lot of noise….”
Huntley’s voice faded into the background, replaced by the memory of Starsky trying to make light of the danger, not from undue modesty, but because he knew he was in deep shit with Hutch.
“Really, Hutch. Tom had that mutt’s attention. All I did was run in and snatch up the kids that couldn’ta weighed more ‘n ten pounds each and ran back outta the way. Straight in and out. Wasn’t even broken field running,” Starsky insisted.
Looking at him now, sprawled out gloriously naked in the middle of his bed, Hutch could almost believe the lying s.o.b. Almost, but not quite.
“Why didn’t you just shoot it?” Hutch growled, trying to hang on to his fury, trying not to be proud of his future partner.
“I ain’t that good,” Starsky insisted.
“You’re a marksman, for Christ’s sake. You can put a bullet where you want it the length of a football field,” Hutch countered. A hundred yards was an exaggeration, of course, but he allowed himself a little leeway to make his point.
“Not when there’s a couple of little kids on the other side of what I’m shooting at. I’m a cop, not a cowboy.” Starsky stretched lazily and, despite his resolve, Hutch couldn’t help but follow the play of rippling muscles from toes to nose, even though he knew that was exactly what Starsky wanted.
“Besides,” Starsky continued defending his heroics. “You know I’m fast.” He grinned. “And getting faster all the time, runnin’ away from all the marriage-minded ladies I keep findin‘.”
“I still say it was a damned fool stunt.”
That was when Starsky had kissed him and put an end to the discussion. Hutch wished there was some way he could shut Huntley up as effectively. A quick glance at his watch showed him it was 10:30 p.m. and he altered their patrol route to bring them to the station by quitting time.
“Wild, fool stunt if you ask me,” Huntley concluded.
Hutch let out a surprised snort. “You’re a fine one to talk.”
Luke Huntley was Hutch’s partner because of a fool stunt of his own. The older man had been only a couple of months away from detective, first class, when he had pulled a boner that had seen him back in uniform, patrolling a beat and nursing a rookie for good measure. He had seven more months to serve on his demotion, but to Hutch’s way of thinking, he had been lucky not to end up in traffic after the way he had fouled up a two-year major crimes investigation. Hutch suspected Huntley was taking out some of his frustration on him with the constant mother-henning.
Huntley let that one pass without comment. “Still, it looks like the guy’s got guts. Maybe I ought to give him the benefit of the doubt. Why don’t you invite me along the next time you’re going out for a beer?”
Under cover of the darkness within the car, Hutch rolled his eyes. Starsky would not love that, but he would understand. Starsky often included Tom Bright in their evenings out. The difference was, of course, that Hutch and Bright got along just fine.
“Sure,” Hutch agreed nevertheless.
Huntley stretched and yawned, and Hutch saw him look at his watch. “Come on, Baby Blue Knight, it’s time we put this pony back in the barn.”
Hutch figured that by the time Huntley went back into plainclothes and they gave him a new partner, he would be lucky if he hadn’t ground his molars down to nubs.
~*~*~
Starsky and his partner, Tom Bright, made a run into the station with the eighteen-year-old shoplifter an over-zealous proprietor had insisted they charge. They had spent twenty useless minutes trying to talk the guy into giving the kid a break, but the mid-August heat must have soured any milk of human kindness the old man possessed, and he had remained adamant.
Since they were only halfway through their shift, they separated as they entered the building. Starsky offered to do the paperwork on their hardened criminal, while Bright went to the cafeteria for coffee. Although able to keep abreast of most major events around Bay City through the chatter on their police scanner, Starsky liked to be as well informed as possible. The best way to do that was through the force grapevine, and the best places to plug into it were the locker room at shift change and the cafeteria at just about any time of the day or night.
After ensuring that his shoplifter was introduced to the indignity of being arrested, Starsky went looking for his partner of nearly a year, and found him just outside the squadroom.
“Come on, partner. You ready to roll?”
“Hang on, Dave,” Bright said. He hooked a thumb over his shoulder, indicating the men’s room door behind him. “We gotta talk.”
Reluctantly, Starsky followed Bright into the men’s room. They were supposed to be back on the road by now. “What’s the hold up?”
“Listen, Dave, I just heard some bad news,” Bright interrupted.
When his partner hesitated, looking grimmer by the second, Starsky started worrying. “We in some kind of trouble?”
“No. No trouble. Dave.” Bright hesitated again. “It’s about Ken.”
In a heartbeat, Starsky had Bright by the front of the shirt, as if he could shake the information out of him. And, even though his partner was older, bigger, heavier and stronger, Starsky had no trouble backing him up against the row of cubicles.
“He was involved in a shooting,” Bright hurried to explain, his tone soft, as if he were talking to some sort of wild animal.
Starsky turned ice-cold and then hot, his grip on Bright tightening and then just as suddenly relaxing. He turned on his heel, and had his hand on the door handle when Bright grabbed his arms and hauled him back.
“Lemme go. I gotta…” Starsky fumed, trying to work a hand free to rid himself of the annoyance holding him back.
Bright gave him a hard shake. “You gotta settle down. We have to go back out on patrol.”
“Like fuck,” Starsky growled, succeeded in breaking Bright’s grip on one hand, and took a wild swing.
Bright ducked, caught the hand and held on. “For God’s sake, Dave, get hold of yourself. Do you want the whole fucking precinct to know?”
Starsky went still as death, the blood seeming to freeze in his veins while a lump formed in his belly that threatened to double him over. “Let go,” he commanded, low and deadly, the voice he had been perfecting for the streets.
Bright let go. “That’s better. Now, nobody around here knows exactly what happened or who’s hurt, but they’re gonna find out and let us know.”
Starsky was shaking now, but when he looked down at his hands, they were as steady as a rock, as sure as Bright’s grip on his shoulder. All of the shaking must be on the inside, he realized dimly.
“We’re going out on patrol, and as soon as Bryerman finds out anything that isn’t unsubstantiated rumor, he’s going to call. Okay? Can you get out there and do your job?” Bright asked.
In Vietnam, Starsky had seen a man who had just fucked him torn apart by a grenade, and had held it together long enough to help bring the injured man and the rest of his patrol back to the safe zone. He had learned how to compartmentalize while serving his country, and he used that skill now. He bundled up the raw terror, shoved it to the back of his mind, and threw a mental padlock on it.
“Yeah.” He gave his partner a hard look. “How’d you know?”
Bright looked around, as if he expected to see half of their brother officers lurking in the stalls. “Not here,” he cautioned.
Starsky pulled free of Bright’s grip. “Okay. Let’s roll.”
Fortunately, the hour it took for Bryerman to call was nothing but routine patrol. Bright took the wheel, and Starsky refused to think the worst or hope for the best, forcing his attention to remain on the people they passed. It was one of the hardest things he had ever done, but he knew his partner was right. He had to carry on, complete his patrol. If not for Bright, he might well have made a spectacle of himself. That wouldn’t have been discreet, and the future he and Hutch had planned for themselves depended on discretion.
When the call came, Starsky picked up the receiver and handed it, without comment, to Bright. The conversation was brief. “Thanks, Ray,” Bright said and handed the receiver back.
Starsky didn’t prompt him. He had already read his partner’s expression and knew his friend and sometime lover was still alive. In this first moment of profound relief, none of the rest of it mattered.
“Ken’s okay,” Bright said. He made a right turn into a coffee shop parking lot and slid the patrol car into a spot. “There was a shootout. His partner, Huntley, was hit. Ken took down the perp.”
“Goddamnit,” Starsky cursed softly. If he knew Hutch, the blond rookie would be racked by guilt no matter how it had gone down. He glanced at his watch, saw he had another hour left of his shift, and pushed the thoughts to the back of his mind.
“They’re at Memorial. Huntley’s in surgery. Ken’s giving his statement,” Bright added the sparse details that were available.
Starsky felt his partner’s green gaze on him and met it.
“You going to be able to finish the shift?” Bright asked.
“‘Course,” Starsky replied, and knew it was true, although he wouldn’t be willing to take any bets on that if it had turned out to be Hutch going under the knife in Memorial’s OR. “What kinda cop would I be if I couldn’t?”
“Okay,” Bright said and cracked his door. “You want coffee?”
“Sure,” Starsky accepted and watched his partner walk away.
He couldn’t afford to think about Hutch and what he must be going through. Not yet. He would think about that later when he could do something about it. Right now, he was thinking about his partner and the knowledge that lived under the thatch of brown hair. What the hell had he and Hutch done wrong? There was only one way to find out, so when Bright climbed back into the car and handed him his coffee, Starsky wasted no time getting to the point.
“How’d you know?” he asked bluntly.
“Know what?”
Bright’s tone was so completely expressionless that it took Starsky a moment to catch on. Whether Bright was bi, gay or straight but not narrow, he wasn’t about to make an issue out of how Starsky chose to live his life. Starsky sank back into his seat with a near soundless sigh. Unfortunately, he couldn’t accept the offer. Men on the force with Bright’s attitude were few and far between, and Starsky needed to know how he and Hutch had given themselves away.
“How’d you know?” he repeated.
Bright propped his cup on the dash, put the car in gear and drove back out onto the street. “Don’t know,” he admitted. “Didn’t matter to me, so I never thought about it.”
A distinctly unsatisfying and unhelpful answer. “So think about it now.”
Bright was silent for so long that Starsky decided he wasn’t going to answer. The minutes were ticking away. Another half-hour and they would be able to head back to the station for shift report and change over.
Starsky prayed nothing would happen in the next thirty minutes to force them to work overtime. He was going straight to the hospital… He realized he didn’t even know when the shooting had occurred.
“When’d it happen? Did Bryerman say?” he asked his silent partner.
“Just after seven,” Bright replied, proving he did still have a voice. “And I just figured out that I didn’t know. Not before you freaked out in the john. I guess that’s why I never thought anything of it. I thought you and Ken were just good friends.”
“We are,” Starsky said firmly. It was the truth. Once a month, they fucked each other’s brains out. The rest of the time, they were the best of friends. Actually, they were pretty damned good friends in bed as well, but so far the sex hadn’t bled over into the friendship.
“Anything else is none of my business,” Bright agreed.
It was too bad the rest of the world didn’t think that way. Although, to be honest, Starsky wasn’t sure he would change the arrangement he had with Hutch. He liked the ladies, even if he wasn’t particularly interested in settling down with any of them. Neither did he want a permanent sexual relationship with Hutch. He cherished their friendship, and Hutch could charge him up the way no one else could, but he was just as content at the moment with the status quo.
Bright pulled the patrol car into the station parking garage, stopping when they came abreast of Starsky’s car. “You go on. I’ll sign us out and file the shift report,” he offered.
Starsky accepted gratefully. Three minutes after climbing out of the patrol car, he was on the road and headed for Memorial. Pushing the speed limit only a little, thinking ahead to the day when he would have a mars light and siren for situations like this, he made it to Memorial and left his car in the visitor’s parking lot. He didn’t know for sure if Hutch was even still here, but decided it was the best place to start looking.
His uniform bought him a little professional courtesy, and, within a few minutes, Starsky was on the way up to the surgical ward where Hutch was waiting for his partner to come out of the OR. He stepped off the elevator, looked left and then right and spotted Hutch. Seated on one of the plastic couches that every hospital in America seemed to be furnished with, his head in both hands and elbows propped on his knees, the blue-clad figure looked like somebody’s discarded toy. Starsky didn’t even need to see his face to know how woebegone his expression would be; he could read it in every defeated line of the familiar body.
Starsky slowed as he approached his friend, not wanting to startle him, and sat down beside him on the worn cushion that had molded to thousands of other butts.
“How ya doin’, Blintz?” he asked softly.
“Luke’s gonna be okay. The doctor just came out and told me. Not even a lot of damage to the shoulder,” Hutch mumbled without looking up. He sounded like one of those dolls that, when you pulled its string, obediently spouted a message from its limited vocabulary.
“I didn’t ask about Luke. I asked about you,” Starsky said, still speaking softly, barely resisting the need to wrap his arm around the slumped shoulders.
He stopped resisting when Hutch lifted his head, revealing eyes in which all of the pain in the world had come to dwell. Anybody who didn’t like it could go fuck themselves, Starsky decided, as he wrapped both arms around Hutch and brought the weary man into his comforting embrace. Even the sound of a throat being deliberately cleared couldn’t make him let go, but he did look for the source of the intrusion. Lieutenant Mike Ferguson, Hutch’s immediate superior, stood looking down at them with an indecipherable expression on his face.
“You Starsky?” Ferguson asked, not revealing by look, word or gesture what he thought of one of his subordinates being wrapped up in the arms of another uniformed cop.
“Yeah,” Starsky confirmed, unable to keep the belligerence out of his tone, not even for Iron Mike.
“I think IA, in their infinite wisdom, is going to call it a clean shoot,” Ferguson informed him. He indicated Hutch with a wave of his hand. “You need to take him home and get him drunk. I’ll call late tomorrow to let him know when he’s back on duty.”
“Yes, sir,” Starsky replied automatically, but let Hutch stay where he was until Ferguson had walked away. He didn’t think Hutch was crying, but, if he was, Starsky intended to keep it just between the two of them. But Hutch was dry-eyed, Starsky saw when they were alone again, and he eased back from the desperate grip Hutch had on him. The face was still expressionless and the blue eyes were getting there, too. Before he could help his friend, Starsky knew, he had to get him out of this alien environment that, unfortunately, could become all too familiar in the future.
“Come on, buddy. Let’s go home,” Starsky coaxed, easing the taller man to his feet, but holding on until he knew if Hutch could stay there on his own.
Hutch waved a hand vaguely. “Luke,” he muttered.
“Luke’s okay,” Starsky reassured him. He decided Hutch seemed to be steady enough, but he kept his grip on one arm, using it to lead him toward the elevator. “Doc came and told ya he’s gonna be fine. Remember, Hutch?”
Hutch remained passive on the elevator, but when the doors opened onto the busy ER, he pulled away. Starsky let him make it under his own steam, staying close, and grasping his arm once again on the other side of the glass doors when Hutch turned the wrong way. They made the trip to the car without incident, but Starsky had to help Hutch fold his length into the passenger seat.
When he had him settled, Starsky made his way around to the driver’s side via the trunk. He retrieved the blanket that Hutch always teased him for carrying and, once inside the car, spread it over his silent passenger. It might be a hot August night in California, but Hutch was shivering as if he were standing barefoot in a Minnesota December. Mentally, Starsky ran through the recommended procedures for emotional shock victims as he guided them onto the road and headed toward the little cottage on the canal. The new apartment he had found was closer, but Starsky sensed that Hutch needed to be on his own home ground.
Starsky kept up a running monologue as he pushed the speed limit harder than he had on the way to the hospital. He wasn’t sure if Hutch even heard him or not, but every once in a while, he caught the flicker of an expression in the glow as they passed a streetlight, so he kept talking. He couldn’t have said later what all he talked about, but thought it didn’t matter anyway. All he wanted to do was give Hutch something to hang on to until he could get him home and chase away the shock with a little tender loving care. If he knew Hutch, and he did pretty well after more than a year, when the dam broke, there was going to be one hell of a flood.
Inside the cottage, Starsky parked his non-responsive but obedient friend on the couch, found a couple of blankets in the closet and wrapped him up like a butterfly’s cocoon. It was nearly sweltering in the cottage that had been closed up since Hutch left for work, but Starsky left the windows closed as he put the kettle on. Sweating himself, he discarded his holster and unbuttoned his uniform shirt to his belt. He thought he might have a pair of shorts and a t-shirt here from the last time they had played basketball, but didn’t know if they were even clean yet. He would worry about that later.
When the kettle boiled, he made tea, hunting around in the cupboard until he found the sugar and spooned in a generous helping. Hot and sweet was what Hutch needed now whether he liked it or not.
And he didn’t. When Starsky put the mug into his hands and ordered him to drink, Hutch obediently brought the cup to his lips. The blank expression gave way to a grimace as he swallowed and tried to give the cup back.
Starsky pushed it back at him. “Yeah, I know, nature boy. You only keep refined sugar in the house for slobs like me. Drink it,” he commanded in his best cop’s voice, and when that didn’t bring the cup to Hutch’s lips, he tried again, but softer this time. “You’re in shock, sweetheart. Drink it.”
Hutch drank, but made it clear he wasn’t as far gone as Starsky thought. “Don’t call me sweetheart. It isn’t Friday,” he protested.
Starsky laughed and ruffled the blond hair affectionately. “My mistake,” he allowed. “You feelin’ warmer now?”
Hutch nodded and shrugged out of the nest of blankets. “I’m okay.”
“Sure you are,” Starsky agreed amiably as he sat down on the couch beside his friend. “You’re always this kind of sickly gray color under your golden tan.” He reached out a hand and laid it on Hutch’s arm, felt that the trembling had abated and took his hand back. “I can’t believe those numbskulls in the ER couldn’t figure out you’re in shock. Knowing you, though, you put a brave face on it.”
“I’m all right,” Hutch repeated. He set the cup down on the coffee table. “And I’m not drinking any more of that polluted tea. I want a drink. In fact, I want lots of drinks.” He slanted a glare at Starsky. “You aren’t going to stop me.”
Starsky held up his hands as if to ward off an attack. “Hey. I’m not here to fight with you, babe. If you wanna drink yourself into a stupor, then I’ll be right here to hold your head while you puke.” Cautiously, he put his hand back on Hutch’s arm. “But will ya listen to the voice of experience here for a minute? I can tell you for a fact there ain’t enough booze in Bay City to make it go away. It’ll still be here in the morning and you’ll have to deal with it. And the hangover, too.”
“I want a drink,” Hutch insisted.
“Okay,” Starsky agreed, climbing to his feet. He thought it was a bad idea, but he also believed in a man’s right to make his own mistakes. “You want beer or the hard stuff?”
Now that he could have his own way, Hutch didn’t seem to want it. He picked his cup up off the table and handed it to Starsky. “Tea,” he said resignedly. “Just no more sugar. Please?”
Starsky poured more tea, excluding the sugar this time. He was surprised, but pleased at how quickly Hutch was recovering. The past year, however, had shown him the iron strength that lived beneath the beautiful face that others often let fool them into thinking Hutch was weak. While he was at it, Starsky made himself some coffee and carried both mugs back to the couch. Hutch, who had been sitting with his head against the back of the couch with his eyes closed, roused to take the tea.
“You gonna tell me what went down?” Starsky asked before he sat down. He was expecting a refusal, knowing Hutch would have to stew on it a while before he let it out. “Or d’ya want me to get out the Monopoly?”
Hutch sighed, sounding exasperated. “You’re so bad at that game. Why do you want to play it all the time?”
“To get better, of course,” Starsky lied. He wanted to play it all the time because Hutch loved it. “Whatsamatter, you don’t like to win?”
Hutch shrugged, and Starsky went and found the game. He dragged the coffee table closer to the couch and set the game up on it before settling on the floor. “You go first,” he invited.
While they played, Starsky kept a close eye on Hutch. The blond was making an admirable effort, but Starsky didn’t miss the moments of painful introspection or the fact that, more than once, Hutch started to say something and then shut up abruptly. It was boiling under there, but Hutch wasn’t going to give it a fissure to spew from on his own. Starsky would have to be the one to poke around until he created one for him. He filled the silence with inconsequential chatter, but when it became apparent he was going to win his first game ever, Starsky tossed the dice into the box and pushed the table out of the way. He climbed back up on the couch.
“‘Nother thing I can tell ya for free is there’s no place inside of you deep enough to bury it that it won’t come back,” Starsky said. “Ya gotta talk to me, babe.”
Hutch bowed his head, refusing to give Starsky the windows into his tormented soul. “I…I don’t know what…how….”
Ah, Starsky thought, Hutch was tongue-tied. Hutch stuttered occasionally, but usually it was only a matter of his brain getting ahead of his mouth. The guy was pretty damned articulate as a rule and hated it when he stuttered.
“Just tell it like it went down, buddy,” Starsky invited. “I’m not marking you on your public speaking abilities here.”
“We…we got a 2-11 at a liquor store. We were first on the scene.” Hutch shuddered and Starsky simply waited. It was just a trickle, but now that it had begun, Starsky was expecting the flood to start any time.
“We could hear a man ranting and raving inside and somebody told Luke there were hostages. We heard a woman scream. As usual, Luke wouldn’t wait for back up. He wants back in plainclothes real bad, you know.” Hutch looked up then, as if that might be the most important part of his tale.
Starsky nodded his understanding, but let his expression prod Hutch along the road to catharsis.
“As usual, too, he told me to go in the back,” Hutch continued. “By the time I got around and into the storeroom in back, and then got around all the cases of booze to the door into the store, Luke had already gone in the front.”
Hutch shuddered again, and Starsky slid a little way along the couch, laying his arm across the back of it and letting his fingers settle on Hutch’s nape. He rubbed at the tense muscles gently, not really expecting the massage to ease him, just wanting to give Hutch a physical lifeline while he groped back through the memory that clearly terrified him.
“I heard a woman scream, heard Luke ordering the perp to drop it.” Hutch swallowed hard. “I eased the door open a crack to see where everyone was, but, I don’t know. Maybe the guy saw the door move or something. I don’t know. I just don’t know.”
Starsky squeezed hard. “Just keep goin’, Hutch. Keep sayin’ the words. You’re doin’ fine,” he encouraged.
Hutch sighed, the exhalation sounding as if it came up from the soles of his regulation shoes. “The guy panicked. I don’t know if Luke hadn’t drawn his gun or what, but the guy just shot him. Luke sorta flew back and down, blood spraying everywhere. I pushed the door open. It hit the wall. I remember thinking how much like another gunshot it sounded.”
The recital trailed off, and Starsky slid his hand up into the silky blond hair. He didn’t prompt Hutch again, just waited silently for him to give up the rest of it.
“The perp was bringing his gun around on me,” Hutch finally continued his report. “Grabbing for a woman close to him at the same time, and I…I… I think Luke said ‘shoot him’ or something, and I…I did. I just pulled the trigger. I don’t even know how I got the gun in my hand. The guy flew into a rack of bottles and it went flying, too. Bottles smashed and he just laid there in all the glass and booze with this big red mess on his shirt that kept getting bigger. And his eyes were open, and… and… and I couldn’t move….”
Starsky grabbed at the gasping blond and pulled him into his arms, holding on for all he was worth as great, tearing sobs shuddered through the slim body, all mixed up with the babble of disbelieving horror.
“I killed a man. I…I…shot a man down, and…I…I watched him bleed. Couldn’t…couldn’t move. Couldn’t even help Luke….”
“Ahh, baby,” Starsky crooned, rocking a little, but saying nothing more. There wasn’t really anything he could say. It wasn’t going to be all right, not for a long time, and, for a man like Hutch, maybe never. His friend wasn’t the kind of man for whom taking a life would ever be a casual thing. If he was going to remain a cop, however, tonight was going to have to be the first step on the long road to acceptance that sometimes you had to kill. You didn’t do it lightly, and every single one of those deaths would take their toll, but sometimes there was just no other way to do the job you swore to do.
Hutch babbled and sobbed for a time that Starsky didn’t try to keep track of. Eventually, the flood began to ease into a trickle, and the shivering tapered off into the occasional hitch in the breath that sighed against Starsky’s neck. Before releasing him, Starsky groped around behind him for the Kleenex box, pulled a handful of the tissues, and then eased Hutch back into a boneless sprawl in the corner of the couch. He pushed the wad into Hutch’s hand and waited patiently while the other man blew and wiped.
Angels shouldn’t cry, Starsky decided when Hutch discarded the tissue shield. It made their eyes bloodshot and their faces red and puffy and messed up their hair. Gently, he reached out and tucked a disordered blond strand back into place. “Aren’t you glad now you aren’t drunk and puking, too?”
“Yeah,” Hutch admitted with a juicy sniff that prompted Starsky to snag the Kleenex box and hand it over. He blew and wiped and tossed another soggy wad onto the table.
“I thought…I hoped I was gonna be one of those cops that never had to pull his gun,” Hutch admitted, leaning his head back and closing his eyes.
“Yeah,” Starsky agreed. “Me, too.”
That brought the tired head back up and opened the bloodshot eyes. “You? But….”
“I’ve killed before?” Starsky finished the question for him. “Believe me, it doesn’t get any easier. I guess if it did, we shouldn’t be wearing these uniforms in the first place.”
Hutch brought up both hands and rubbed at his puffy face. “Didn’t even make it to a year and I’ve already killed a man. I don’t even know his name. He won’t wake up tomorrow morning. Won’t ever enjoy a cup of coffee again. I took that away. I killed him.”
Grief and shock were one thing, unwarranted guilt was another. Starsky needed to nip this in the bud. If he could. Given Hutch’s tendency toward self-chastisement, he didn’t know how much hope he had. Still, Hutch was worth the effort now and, Starsky knew from experience, in the days to come when he would need to talk about it over and over again.
“You didn’t kill him, Hutch. You might’ve finished the job, but it was that first guy who put a little packet of white powder in his hands, taught him to cook it and shoot it into his veins, who killed him.”
“How do you know he was a junkie?” Hutch asked curiously.
Starsky shrugged. “Don’t. But in that area of Rampart, what’re the odds he wasn’t?”
Hutch didn’t seem inclined to argue that one. “They were congratulating me. Calling me a hero for killing a man.”
“Wait a minute, Hutch. Even you don’t believe that one,” Starsky challenged. “If Iron Mike or one of the other guys said ‘good job’ it was for saving your partner’s life. Or for that woman your perp was making a grab for. You want me to get Doris Huntley on the phone and see what she thinks of the choice you made? As for me, I’ve got no doubts at all. If one of you had to end up on a slab down at the morgue tonight, I can’t tell you how happy I am it’s him and not you.”
Hutch rolled his head back and forth, but whether he was denying Starsky’s argument or simply trying to loosen up his neck, Starsky wasn’t sure.
“Don’t know if I can go out there ever again,” he admitted.
Starsky knew which way he would vote if it ever came to a ballot, but it wasn’t his decision to make. “That’ll be up to you. I guess it comes down to why you became a cop.”
“To make a difference,” Hutch replied promptly.
“If you don’t think you made one today, babe, then maybe you do need to quit,” Starsky shot right back and saw Hutch wince.
“I just don’t know if I can ever pull that gun again, no matter what,” Hutch confessed, softly, as if he wasn’t quite sure whether he believed it or not.
That was just about where Starsky had to draw the line. Self-pity was fine with him, but Hutch talking self-destruction, or at the very least, not protecting himself, was a whole other story. He grabbed a couple of handfuls of Hutch’s creased and damp uniform shirt, and hauled him up until they were almost nose-to-nose.
“Don’t you think like that,” he growled into his friend’s surprised face. “If you’re gonna stay, Hutch, then ya gotta accept it could happen again. You can’t hit the streets ready to let some juiced up piece of shit off you. I Won’t Let You.” The last four words were accompanied by a little shake for each one as if to provide punctuation.
Hutch reached up and gently broke the hold. “If I feel that way, I won’t go back,” he promised. “I’m not suicidal.”
Starsky looked away, nodded once, and then looked back. “Okay. I’ll take your word for that. I think Iron Mike is gonna give you a couple of days to think about it anyway.”
“Iron Mike?” Hutch asked curiously, trying hard to suppress a yawn.
“Nice seta tonsils ya got there, babe,” Starsky laughed. He climbed to his feet, caught Hutch’s hands and hauled him up as well. “Said he’d call ya tomorrow.” He glanced over his shoulder at the clock. “Today, now. Come on, Blintz, it’s time for tired angels to get some sleep.”
Starsky knew there was no sense going on with this tonight. He felt Hutch had purged the worst of it, and there would be many more conversations in the days ahead for Hutch to work through all his doubts. Whether Hutch really could quit, leave behind the life he had chosen and worked so hard for, and the partnership they had planned, could only be Hutch’s decision. Right now, his angel was too drained to undress himself, let alone make life-altering decisions.
Hutch followed along willingly enough as Starsky towed him toward the bed, stood docilely while Starsky stripped him down to his boxers, and even slid between the sheets without protest. When Starsky tried to move away, however, the passivity ended. He sat up and grabbed for one of Starsky’s hands.
“Hey. Come on. You need sleep more than you need more talk,” Starsky tried to persuade his exhausted friend to give in to the inevitable.
“Just…just…I wish you didn’t have to leave,” Hutch said wistfully.
Starsky reached over him and grabbed the second pillow. “I’m not goin’ anywhere, Hutch,” he promised. “I guess it’s about time I found out what that couch is like for sleeping on.”
Starsky had settled on the couch before Hutch spoke again.
“You know, Starsk. That’s the first time we’ve ever held each other that wasn’t…that we weren’t….”
“We’ve come a long way, huh, baby?” Starsky said. “Now go to sleep.”
~*~*~
“Am I glad to see you,” Luke Huntley exclaimed when Hutch walked into his hospital room.
Starsky, however, didn’t miss the slight flicker in the older man’s eyes when he saw Hutch wasn’t alone. Too bad, he thought at Hutch’s partner, but offered a friendly greeting.
“Ready to get sprung, are you?” Hutch asked.
“More than ready,” Huntley agreed. He was fully dressed and, now that escape was in sight, made the effort to struggle to the side of the bed.
Starsky watched Hutch offer a helping hand to his handicapped partner. Huntley’s left arm was in a sling and likely to remain there for some time to come.
“I’ll go get a wheelchair,” Starsky offered.
“Uh, Ken,” Huntley said before Starsky could leave the room. “I don’t exactly have my walking papers yet. Think you could go down to the desk and convince that pretty little day nurse that your partner is hale and hardy enough to go home?”
“Sure,” Hutch agreed, getting up from where he had just stretched out in the visitor’s chair. “She’ll probably be so glad to get rid of you, she’ll give me her telephone number.”
“See if she’s got a friend,” Starsky called after him. When the door closed, Starsky stuffed his hands in his jacket pockets and shifted from one foot to the other. He wasn’t very comfortable being left alone with a man who didn’t like him much, especially when it was so obvious that Huntley had arranged the situation.
“Sit down, Starsky,” Huntley invited.
Reluctantly, Starsky accepted. He forced himself to take up his usual relaxed sprawl, rather than just perching on the edge of the chair as if braced for flight. He managed not to squirm under Huntley’s assessing gaze, but it was a near thing by the time the older man dropped his gaze to his bandaged arm.
“I want to thank you,” Huntley said without looking up from the seemingly fascinating sight of his still swollen fingers.
Of all the things Starsky thought might come out of Huntley’s mouth, this was about the last. He managed an interrogative grunt, but could think of nothing to say.
“Surprised you, huh?” Huntley acknowledged with a nervous laugh. “But I mean it.”
“What for?” Starsky wondered. He couldn’t think of anything he had done that might prompt Hutch’s partner to thank him. It wasn’t like he had sent the guy flowers or anything.
“For being there for Ken,” Huntley elaborated.
“I’m always gonna be there for Hutch. Same as he’s always gonna be there when I need him,” Starsky replied simply.
“I know that now,” Huntley admitted. “Listen, Starsky, I misjudged you, or jumped to the wrong conclusions or something. I just want to tell you now that I’m sorry.”
Gratitude and an apology within the same few minutes from a man who normally resented giving him the time of day? Starsky didn’t know if he could stand the strain. Nor did he particularly care what Huntley thought of him as long as he treated Hutch right.
“I made up my mind about you the first time Hutch introduced us. He had been telling me all about this friend of his who was going to be his partner. To me, you were brash and ambitious and I didn’t think you were the brightest thing on two legs either. I realize now it’s a front you put up sometimes. Why, is none of my business. At the time, I just thought you’d latched onto Ken because you thought, with his brains, he could help you get where you wanted to go.”
Again Starsky refrained from comment, although he had to admit that Huntley was right about the mask he sometimes wore. He usually climbed into his obnoxious persona when he felt threatened, and meeting Huntley had threatened him. Huntley had the position that Starsky wanted. He was Hutch’s partner, and Starsky resented the hell out of him for it. It wasn’t until Hutch began complaining about his partner smothering him that the feeling had gone away, and it was only in its absence that Starsky recognized it for what it was. He was jealous, pure and simple.
“I was jealous,” Huntley admitted, and that did give Starsky a jolt. It was all well and good for Hutch to read his mind, but he didn’t like it when anyone else dipped behind his façade, even though he knew it was only the fact that their minds had been following similar tracks that gave him the eerie feeling.
“You had Ken’s loyalty, and I think you realize what a precious commodity that is. Better than I did until a few days ago. I’ve known guys partnered for ten years who don’t have what you two have and you haven’t even hit the streets together yet. I have the feeling that when you do, the BCPD may never be the same.”
Starsky had to grin. Huntley was right on the money there. He and Hutch already had a list a mile long of just what they were going to do when they finally cruised a beat together.
Huntley shifted around on the mattress, wincing and cradling his arm.
“Why don’t you lie down until Hutch gets back,” Starsky suggested.
Huntley shook his head. “He won’t be long. The papers are all signed. I just asked the nurse to hold onto them. Ken said last night he thought you were coming with him to pick me up, and if you did, then I wanted a chance to talk to you.”
Starsky had to admit he wasn’t exactly unhappy with the opportunity to clear the air a little. As a matter of fact, while he had the chance, maybe he could give Huntley the short course in Hutchinson potential as he saw it.
“Can’t say I’m sorry we’re having this little chat myself,” Starsky allowed. “There’s been a couple or three things I’ve been wanting to tell you, too.”
“Uh, oh,” Huntley said, pointing to his injured arm. “You will remember I’m wounded, won’t you?”
Starsky chuckled in acknowledgement of the dramatics. “Nothing like that. I just want to make sure you know I didn’t do all that much for Hutch. Just listened when he wanted to talk, talked when he wanted to listen. The thing is, Huntley, I don’t know if you see Hutch like he really is. Underneath the way he looks, he’s got steel. He’s got what it takes to do the job and live with it after.”
Starsky wanted to think he figured that out back at the Academy, and, on some levels he did, especially that deep, instinctive, gut level way by which he had lived most of his life. But it had only been the past ten days, watching Hutch pull himself back together, seeing him come to terms with what he had done, and get back into the uniform he had worked so hard for, that had banished any lingering doubts Starsky might have still harbored. Neither one of them could be one hundred percent sure of the other, not until they actually worked together, put their lives in the hands of the other and had that trust validated, but Starsky was now even more certain than ever before that Hutch would never fail him. He could only hope the reverse would also be true.
“It wasn’t really the angel face,” Huntley countered. “It wasn’t even his age. It’s his damned ideals. He’s going to save the world, and it can come as a pretty rude shock that not everybody can be saved. Hell, that there’s a big chunk of the population that wouldn’t thank you for saving them. Sometimes I call him Baby Blue Knight just to watch him grind his teeth,” he admitted with only a hint of shame. “But what he really is, is a white knight. White knights get burned out in this business. They become cynical. They stop caring. Some of them end up eating their guns.”
“Hutch isn’t like that,” Starsky insisted, and he truly believed it. Had to, because Starsky had only a few ideals left himself, and fewer heroes. John Blaine was one of them, but he was the man who had helped shape Starsky’s past. It was on Hutch that Starsky pinned all his hopes for the future.
“I know that now,” Huntley agreed. “There’s plenty of steel underneath that pretty exterior.” He fixed Starsky with an expression that demanded the younger man listen and learn, now, while he still had the chance. “But if the two of you end up partners like you plan, then it’s going to be up to you to make sure that steel never rusts no matter what shit the job throws at him. Don’t let him give so much of himself away, not even to you, until there’s not enough left for him when he needs it.”
“You care about him, too,” Starsky said, genuinely surprised. He had believed Luke Huntley to be far too wrapped up in his own concerns to really appreciate the man he was supposed to be shepherding through those first few months on the mean streets. To hear Hutch talk, Huntley thought him only slightly more competent than a nursery school graduate.
“I don’t have kids and never will,” Huntley explained. “And Ken’s too old to be my son anyway, but….”
The older man trailed off and Starsky didn’t prompt him to continue. He got the message.
Whether either man would have given voice to their silent agreement to watch out for Ken Hutchinson would never be known because that was the moment Hutch chose to breeze into the room pushing a wheelchair. He stopped cold two steps into the room.
“I miss something?” he asked, looking from his partner to his friend as if trying to decide which one of them was most likely to give up the goods.
“Not a thing,” Starsky reassured him. He got up and hooked a hand under Huntley’s good arm, helping him to transfer from bed to chair. “Luke and I were just wondering, did you get her number, and does she have a friend?”
~*~*~
“I can’t wait for you to meet her.”
Hutch smiled indulgently, although he did wish Starsky would keep just a little more of his attention on the road, and a little less on the upcoming meeting between his best friend and his girlfriend. “You can hold out for five more minutes, Starsk. That is, if you can keep your eyes on the road.”
“You’re gonna love her, Hutch. The two of you are gonna get along like…like the gears of a brand new trany,” Starsky enthused. “You’ve got everything in common, you know. Diane likes the opera and classical music and art and—”
“The ballet, and my pre-law goes along just great with her bar admission studies,” Hutch interjected.
“Oh,” Starsky said with a sheepish grin. “Guess I musta mentioned all that, huh?”
“Once or twice,” Hutch agreed, reaching across the front seat to secure a grip on his friend’s shoulder and giving it a squeeze. Starsky had been talking pretty well non-stop about his new girlfriend, Diane Parente, for the past couple of weeks. Her name had even come up once during their last Friday night. But only once, Hutch thought with a self-satisfied smile of his own.
“What I can’t figure out is if she’s got so much in common with me, what has she got in common with you?” Hutch teased.
Starsky took his eyes off the road yet again to give Hutch the benefit of his best leer. “Ya gotta be kidding.”
This time, Hutch laughed out loud. “Come on, Starsk. You’ve gotta have something more going for you than that. Even you have to come up for air once in a while,” he pointed out.
“Once in a while,” Starsky conceded. “That’s when she’s been teaching me to appreciate the finer things in life. She took me to one of those fancy-pants concerts just the other night and I didn’t even fall asleep once.”
“How many times did she have to pinch you?” Hutch asked, earning himself a quick poke in the ribs before Starsky needed both hands to steer and gear down the car for a right-hand turn.
“Oh. That was supposed to be funny, right? Ha, ha,” Starsky shot right back. “Really, babe, she can’t wait to meet you. I know you two are gonna get along great.”
Hutch didn’t need to hear the slight edge in Starsky’s voice or even see the pleading in the eyes that suddenly seemed to find the quiet side street utterly fascinating. This meant a lot to Starsky, and, therefore, to Hutch. He slid his hand up to the back of Starsky’s neck, tightened his grip on the tense muscles and gave him a gentle shake.
“Of course we are, Starsk,” Hutch reassured his nervous friend and felt the taut flesh beneath his fingers relax a little.
“Thanks, Hutch. You’re my pal,” Starsky said softly as they pulled up in front of an apartment building populated by mostly upper-middle class professionals.
The trip up to the ninth floor in the elevator took only a few moments, but Hutch could see it must have felt like an eternity to Starsky. His friend shifted from foot to foot in a restless parody of his usual dancing enthusiasm, while his fingers drummed a rhythm on the shiny metal wall totally out of synch with his movements.
Hutch caught Starsky’s forearm when the doors opened and held him back for a last moment of reassurance. He groped for some mechanical analogy to make that would appeal to Starsky, and maybe even tickle his funny bone. “Me and Diane are going to be just like gasoline and…and…Quaker State,” he finished lamely, unable to think of the name of the popular fuel additive. He should have stuck with something he knew about.
It got him the desired result, however, when Starsky laughed and slung an arm around his shoulder. “STP, Hutch. It’s gasoline and STP.”
Starsky’s spirits were still pretty high when Diane opened the door, but Hutch’s began to plummet almost immediately. Diane Parente was everything Starsky claimed. Slim, classically featured and sophisticated, there was no doubt she was a beautiful woman. And Hutch had seen warmer eyes in the lizard house at the zoo.
“Diane, honey, this is Ken Hutchinson,” Starsky introduced them, leaving Hutch’s side to slip his arm around Diane’s trim waist. “Hutch, this is Diane Parente.”
Despite the case of frostbite being inflicted on him by dark brown eyes, Hutch held out his hand and offered a smile with enough wattage behind it to light up a night game. “I’m pleased to finally meet you, Diane. Starsky has told me so much about you.” He kept his voice open and enthusiastic, even though he felt as if he had just been analyzed down to his molecular level and been found wanting.
With obvious reluctance, Diane offered a limp hand. “Charmed, I’m sure,” she pronounced with all the sincerity of a hooker’s orgasm.
Gasoline and STP, Hutch thought? More like gasoline and flame. All he could do was try his best and hope it wouldn’t take long for Starsky’s lust-induced myopia to clear up.
~*~*~
Hutch knew that tonight was going to be the night. After weeks of seeing Starsky only sporadically, he had finally agreed to start double dating with him. Two uncomfortable evenings with Diane Parente had made the situation even clearer to him than the night they had met. He hated the way she treated him, but the way she treated Starsky made him burn, and Hutch had a much harder time concealing that. But he missed his friend’s company enough to continue to make the effort. That explained why he had just suffered through another miserable evening, one he knew was about to get worse when Starsky insisted they drop Diane and Hutch’s date off first.
When Starsky pulled in beside Hutch’s car and shut down the engine, Hutch felt his gut clench. He forced himself to take deep, calming breaths, but couldn’t seem to convince his lips to make any comment.
“You have anything to drink in that refrigerator of yours that isn’t good for you?” Starsky asked, his casual tone belied by the way his fingers were drumming a repetitive tattoo on the steering wheel. It was a dead giveaway that Starsky was facing a situation he would just as soon avoid.
“There’s a couple of beers left,” Hutch said, wondering why he didn’t just tell Starsky he had already figured it out, and escape into his house with his disappointment and a little dignity.
“So, are you inviting me in or what?” Starsky asked.
“Since when do you need an invitation?” Hutch answered the question with a question. With the exception of the last Friday night of each month, they both made pretty free with each other’s places, coming and going as they pleased and never waiting for, or even considering they might need, an invitation.
Hutch cracked the passenger door and climbed out of the car, hearing Starsky’s boots crunching on the gravel driveway right behind him. Boots, for pity’s sake. Hutch couldn’t remember the last time he had seen Starsky in his familiar sneakers. A month ago, maybe? The last time they had found the time to shoot a few hoops together.
Some of the oddity briefly left the atmosphere when Starsky breezed by him to retrieve the previously offered beer from the refrigerator, bringing along a second bottle for Hutch. Hutch took it even though he didn’t want it, and parked himself in the middle of the couch. He saw Starsky eye the space on either side of him warily. Usually, they each laid claim to a corner—Hutch to the left and Starsky to the right. Except on those Friday nights, of course, when they would start out mashed together in the space Hutch was now taking up on his own.
Hutch felt a little twinge of petty triumph when, after looking around rather helplessly for a minute, Starsky perched on the edge of the chair at right angles to the couch. He banished the unworthy emotion, but that only left more room for resentment.
“Why don’t you just tell me you’ve had a good time, but, and get it over with, Starsky?” he said, suddenly deciding he had had enough of the pussyfooting around.
Starsky looked up from the bottle he had been turning in his hands, his blue eyes wide with surprise.
Hutch wanted to growl or take a swing at him, but he settled for being pissy. “How stupid do you think I am, huh? I suggested the rule—no fucking each other if we’re in a serious relationship. I can see Diane’s got a ring through your nose.”
“That’s a miserable thing to say,” Starsky protested.
Of course it was, and so it fit right in with Hutch’s mood. He shrugged. “I know you’re trying to tell me no more Friday nights, so why don’t you just say it?”
“We agreed…” Starsky tried to remind him.
“Yeah, we did,” Hutch interrupted.
“And when you and Marcy…” Starsky tried again to interject a voice of reason.
Since he wasn’t feeling very reasonable, Hutch cut him off again. “You were a real gentleman about it. Took it like a man.”
Just about thirteen months after their graduation from the Academy, Hutch had fallen in love. Or thought he had. Marcy was a lovely woman. Lots of fun, shared many of his interests, and was damned good in bed. It was the first serious relationship, with the exception of his friendship with Starsky, that Hutch had opened himself up to since his divorce. Starsky had been happy for him even though he hadn’t had the opportunity to meet the woman. In fact, he had been so understanding, when Hutch had told him that he thought maybe they would have to forego their last Friday of the month, that Hutch had been almost piqued about it. As it turned out, less than a week into the new month, Marcy had decided that the life of a cop’s girlfriend wasn’t for her and dumped him. Starsky had commiserated, spent most of his free time with Hutch, but adamantly refused to make up for the Friday they had missed. A decision that, Hutch had eventually had to agree, was a wise one. If they deviated outside the boundaries they had set, it would be far too easy to find exceptions to every rule that kept their sexual encounters separate from the rest of their lives.
“I tried to,” Starsky said softly.
“Almost made me wonder if you’d found some other guy to fuck,” Hutch accused, although he had really thought no such thing. Neither one of them had, so far, felt any interest in taking the risk sleeping with any other man posed. Why should they when they had each other?
“Geez, Hutch, the damned rule was your idea. If either one of us has a serious relationship with someone else, then we cool it. So how come you’re being such a bastard now?” Starsky protested. His voice had become a little louder, and Hutch could see he was having trouble staying put.
When any strong emotion threatened, Starsky never could sit still. Hutch knew that as well as he knew his own tendency to grow a bladed tongue when he felt himself threatened. Diane Parente threatened him.
“I guess I’m just not as generous a person as you are,” Hutch growled, defensive and ready to use whatever weapons he had to protect his soft center. Except, where Starsky was concerned, there weren’t many weapons left that weren’t double-edged.
Starsky seemed about to object again but closed his mouth and jumped to his feet. He paced around for a few minutes and then came to stand in front of Hutch with the coffee table between them.
“That’s the thing, ya see, Hutch. Usually you’re a whole lot more generous than me. I guess that’s why I’m havin’ a little trouble figuring out what’s goin’ down here. You trying to pick a fight?” Starsky wondered.
As a matter of fact, that was exactly what Hutch was trying to do. He was pushing away before he was pushed. It wasn’t the sex. He would miss it, but he could live without it. It was the way Diane Parente threatened his friendship with her devoted boyfriend that had him falling back on tactics he had never before used against Starsky. He really was trying to pick their very first fight.
Hutch ran a hand over his mouth, pressed his fist against it until his lips ached. “I’m sorry,” he finally apologized.
Starsky climbed over the coffee table and sat down on it, facing Hutch. “You gonna talk to me now, babe, or do I hafta get out the rubber hose?”
“Diane doesn’t like me,” Hutch mumbled, hoping he didn’t sound as dumb as he felt.
“You two didn’t hit if off the way I hoped you would,” Starsky conceded. “I told her all about you and she said she really wanted to meet you. Told you all about her and you said the same.”
“You didn’t tell me when she said jump you asked how high.” Hutch was trying very hard to suppress his cruel streak, but it wasn’t easy.
“Thought we were gonna talk here,” Starsky reminded him.
Hutch sighed. No one could see through him like Starsky, and no one could make him look at his own motivations quite the way Starsky could either.
“I don’t like the way she treats you, Starsk,” Hutch admitted reluctantly. “She treats you like you’re stupid or something.” Personally, Hutch couldn’t see what Starsky saw in her. Diane Parente was a damned beautiful woman, but she was also ruthlessly ambitious. A social snob who seemed determined to make Starsky into the trophy she wanted him to be, rather than loving him for the unique man he already was.
But Starsky didn’t see it. Hutch could tell by the look on his face. That skeptical little smile appeared that made Hutch want to punch him one.
“You just don’t know her very well yet,” Starsky tried to soothe him.
“And I never will if she has her way. And she’ll do everything she can to split us up. Mark my words, Starsky. Next time you suggest we double date, she’s going to tell you she wants you all to herself. Or if you tell her you and I are going to do something, she’ll lay a guilt trip on you until you cancel our plans.” Diane, Hutch suddenly realized, reminded him of Vanessa. Small wonder he wanted no part of her.
“Hutch, you’re my best friend. Five months from now, if our luck holds, we’re gonna be detectives, and we’re gonna be partners,” Starsky reminded him of all the plans they had made. “But I really think I’m fallin’ in love with Diane. I’m not ready to talk wedding bells and little white cottages and picket fences yet, but it just might be heading that way.”
There it was, like it or lump it, and Hutch knew he really didn’t have any choice. Some of Starsky was better than no Starsky at all. Hutch wondered how the hell he had let himself become so dependent on another person. He had sworn after Vanessa that from then on he was always going to hold back something of himself. He knew, however, there had never been any holding back for him with Starsky. But that was for later consideration. Now was for reassuring Starsky that he could have his cake and eat it too. Even if Hutch knew it was improbable, if not downright impossible.
“And I’ll be your best man,” he said, nearly choking on the words but knowing they weren’t a lie. He might have to get falling down drunk to hand over his best friend to a woman Hutch truly thought was going to make him miserable, but he would do it if that was what Starsky decided he wanted.
“Who else?” Starsky agreed with a relieved smile. “So what are you doin’ on Monday night? I’ve got Lakers tickets.”
Hutch didn’t have to hide his disgust this time. Starsky knew damned well how he hated watching basketball. “I guess I’m going to see the Lakers get beat.”
“Fat chance,” Starsky countered. He handed his half-empty beer to Hutch and pushed himself up from the table. “I gotta go. Need my beauty sleep.”
“I’ll tell the world,” Hutch quipped, but his good humor was forced. He walked Starsky to the door, holding him back a moment when his friend started to go through it. “I really do wish you the very best, Starsk. You know that, don’t you?”
Starsky’s grin could have lit up Yankee Stadium for a night game. ”’Course I do. You’re my pal, Hutch.”
Hutch didn’t complete his thought aloud until after he closed the door between them and laid his head wearily against the wood. “I just don’t think you’ve got a snowball’s chance of getting it with her.”
~*~*~
Starsky was on top of the world. The detective promotions list had come out and both his and Hutch’s names were on it. He had been confident they would be with their clean records and five commendations between them—two for Hutch and three for himself—but counting your chickens before they hatch was a good way to end up eating scrambled eggs. What he had been far less sure of was whether they had a hope in hell of being posted together. They had applied for the same three precincts, but Starsky wouldn’t have been surprised to see the powers that be give him his second choice while Hutch got his third. That their names both appeared on the roster for Metro was more than Starsky had dared hope for. John Blaine had been promoted to Lieutenant and Hutch was coming to Metro. As far as his job went, Starsky couldn’t have been happier.
Bounding down the stairs to the parking garage, too excited to take the elevator, Starsky couldn’t wait to get home and call Hutch. He glanced at his watch. Except, he had promised Diane he would pick her up after work. He should have called Hutch before he left the squadroom, but he knew they would be doing a lot of hooting and hollering, and had thought that might not be too dignified. Diane was a big one on dignity. She was such a classy lady, and Starsky couldn’t figure out what she saw in him. He lived in fear that, someday, she would begin to wonder, too.
If Starsky’s professional life was coming up sevens, then he had to admit, if only to himself, that his personal life was crapping out. He was desperately in love with a woman who loved him back. Only she loved the David Starsky she was trying to create, not the man he was.
If he stopped to call Hutch, then Diane was sure to make his life miserable for the rest of the evening for making her wait. It wasn’t worth it when he could just as easily call Hutch later. Hutch would understand. He had been a real prince about Diane, backing off when she made it hard for Starsky to see him, but making himself available any time Starsky could manage to get together with him. Starsky made his decision and hung a quick right, heading for downtown.
Ten minutes later, he pulled up in front of the building that housed the law firm of Luchak and Partners and saw Diane waiting on the sidewalk outside the big glass doors. He winced when he noticed she was tapping her foot impatiently, but when she let herself into the car and kissed him hello, Starsky forgot to be worried. Her kiss was warm and welcoming, and when she pulled away, her smile held a passionate promise.
Starsky put the car in gear and pulled back into traffic. “Home?” he asked. They were supposed to go out to dinner, and Starsky assumed she would want to change. Diane had definite ideas about work clothes and date clothes, although Starsky thought she looked just fine in her tailored suit and soft, silk blouse. He was anxious to get to his place and change, too. He would be glad to remove the uniform that he would only have to wear for two more months, but wished he would be climbing into a pair of his comfortable jeans rather than the less casual clothes Diane liked him to wear when they went out.
“Oh, yes, definitely home,” Diane purred.
Starsky felt his cock stir. He knew that tone. He lived for that tone, for that look in her chocolate brown eyes. He just hadn’t expected her to be so charged up from one brief, hello kiss. Then he reminded himself not to be too swollen-headed about it. Diane could get charged up just as easily over a challenging corporate merger as she could over the prospect of hitting the sheets with him.
“You’re in a good mood,” he ventured, knowing it wouldn’t take much more than that to prompt her into deflating his ego if it was something besides his, all modesty aside, not inconsiderable charms that was stoking her fire.
“Oh, David, I most certainly am. Mr. Luchak just offered me a position when I pass the bar,” Diane revealed. She made it sound as if the mayor had offered her the keys to the city.
Starsky gave her the benefit of the doubt. Hadn’t he felt the same way when he had seen the promotions and posting lists today? “That’s great, darlin’. I got good news today, too.”
“That’s nice. Where did you make reservations for tonight?” Diane wanted to know.
“Bruno’s,” Starsky said. He wasn’t going to resent her off-handed dismissal of his announcement. She was just wrapped up in her own news. In a few minutes, she would ask him about his.
“But, David, we should be celebrating tonight. I want to go to Chez Pierre,” Diane insisted.
If Starsky hadn’t been driving in heavy traffic, he would have closed his eyes and counted to ten. Diane knew he couldn’t afford to blow a hundred bucks or more on one meal. Not on his salary. But she seemed totally oblivious to the reality of his budget. At this rate, he would never save enough to buy the new car he was going to need when he no longer had a black and white available to him and had to use his own transportation.
“You said you have something to celebrate, too,” Diane cooed.
Whether she had noticed his change of mood or was simply intent on getting her way, Starsky didn’t know. When she slid over on the bench seat, pressed her lips to the side of his face and let her finger trail up his leg from his knee to the crease where thigh met groin, he stopped caring. He also forgot to be miffed as his erection swelled inside his uniform pants. Forgot he even had a reason to be when Diane moved her caressing fingers to it, squeezing him lightly.
“Ya want I should drive us up a lamp post?” he teased.
“Oh, David,” Diane exclaimed in exasperation, taking back her hand. “Don’t talk like that. You sound like a blue-collar bum.”
“I am a blue-collar bum,” Starsky protested. He was tempted to flip on the radio just to try to put an end to this conversation. His grip tightened on the wheel as Diane flounced over to her own side of the car.
They both let the uncomfortable silence stretch between them, Starsky concentrating fiercely on his driving while Diane stared out the window.
“You said you had good news,” Diane finally prompted. She was using the contrite little voice that usually melted Starsky’s anger on the spot.
“Got a promotion,” Starsky mumbled grudgingly, only partially mollified by her belated interest. “Two more months in uniform, then I’ll be Detective Starsky, second class.” He couldn’t keep the pride out of his voice.
“Oh, darling, that’s wonderful,” Diane said, and Starsky wanted to believe that she sounded sincere. “We’re going to have to go out shopping. Buy you some new clothes.”
“I’ve got plenty of clothes,” Starsky protested. He shot her a leer. “You trying to tell me you don’t like my jeans?”
Diane slid back along the seat and re-established her teasing grip. “I love your jeans,” she purred. “Especially when they’re crumpled up on my bedroom floor and this big, beautiful cock is fucking my cunt.”
Starsky went from zero to sixty in a nanosecond. He loved it when his sophisticated, prim and proper almost-lawyer, parted her sweet red lips and a foul-mouthed hooker came out. It was so damned unexpected, even after all these months. He groaned softly as Diane massaged his stiff cock through his pants.
“Want you to fuck me over the back of the couch when we get home,” she purred close to his ear. “No condom. It’ll be such a turn on. Eating my lobster Thermador at Chez Pierre and feeling your come oozing out of my twat. I’ll be so hot; I won’t be able to wait for dessert. I’ll have to suck your hard cock all the way home.”
And she’d do it, Starsky knew. When Diane was in the mood, she didn’t just talk like a cheap whore, she fucked liked one, too. Sex with Diane was the hottest he had ever had with a woman. Only Hutch… Starsky cut that thought off, pushed it away and refused to look at it. He was in love with Diane. And if she fell a little short at satisfying his emotional needs, he certainly had no complaints about the way she treated him in bed. Once they got there. He pressed down on the gas. Mrs. Starsky hadn’t raised a stupid son. He knew to get what he could while he could get it. With Diane, he never knew for sure just when he might get it again.
Diane squeezed again. “I hope this promotion means you can finally buy a decent car.”
~*~*~
Hutch had watched the demise of Starsky’s serious relationship from the sidelines, one step removed, whenever Diane could manage it, from his friend and the man who, next Monday morning, he was hoping against all logic would be given to him as his partner. He was proud of himself. He had kept his mouth shut even as his heart bled for Starsky. He was proud of Starsky, too. No matter how bad it became, and it must have been awful toward the end judging by the look of Starsky when they could manage to meet for an evening, or even just coffee, Starsky never bad-mouthed his ladylove. Starsky’s loyalty, once given, was as good as money in the bank, and Hutch blessed the fact that that loyalty had been given to him. Despite the hell he knew Diane gave him, Starsky had steadfastly refused to give up their friendship.
The inevitable blow up had finally come a week ago, and Hutch had spent every night since with his friend. They had played Monopoly, they went bowling, and they saw movies. Sometimes, they just sat silently together. They didn’t talk about Diane. The first night, Starsky declared himself a prize winning fool for sticking it out so long and then made it clear that was his last word on the subject.
Hutch respected his decision, but wondered what was going to happen tonight. Starsky had called him earlier and they had agreed to meet here at the cottage by the canal after their last shifts as uniformed officers. It was January twenty-ninth, and Hutch didn’t know who would be coming to his door. Would it be Starsky, his friend, or Dave, his sexy dancer? Hutch wasn’t even sure which one he wanted it to be.
In the months since Diane had come into their lives, their friendship had grown stronger. It had to. You didn’t fight to hold onto something that hard that wasn’t worth it, that didn’t become more precious simply because it had to be. He had been chasing the questions around, on the little hamster wheel his thoughts sometimes ran, all day. Did he want them to take up their buddy-fuck relationship where it had left off? Did he still want Starsky? Did Starsky still want him? Were they better off with just the wealth of their friendship between them? He was no closer to a decision. The doorbell rang and Hutch knew the time for tail chasing was over. All he could do was follow Starsky’s lead, unless where he led turned out to be somewhere Hutch didn’t want to go. It looked like Hutch himself wouldn’t know until he got there.
When he opened the door, Hutch still wasn’t sure who his visitor was. Starsky probably wouldn’t have rung the bell, but Dave certainly wouldn’t have arrived carrying a pizza and still dressed in his blues.
“I hope I’ve got something to wear here,” Starsky said as he slipped by Hutch and went to lay the pizza box on the coffee table. “Johnny Blaine kept me talkin’ after shift for hours. I’m so hungry I could eat the cardboard box, never mind the pizza. Didn’t wanna be late.”
“You’ve got jeans and a couple of t-shirts in the closet,” Hutch assured him. He watched as Starsky went off to retrieve the clothes and change. Okay, so it was his friend who was visiting tonight, Hutch concluded. His dancer didn’t ask about clothes and go off to another room to change; he would start stripping at the door and be gloriously naked by the time he reached the bed.
“So what did Johnny have to say?” Hutch raised his voice so Starsky could hear him wherever he had disappeared to. He grabbed some napkins and a couple of beers and carried them over to the couch. Cautiously, he lifted the lid on the box. He had learned to be wary of a Starsky bearing gifts of food. They often proved lethal to the peace of his gastrointestinal tract. He was pleasantly surprised to discover that the box contained a fairly innocuous pie without so much as a trace of hot peppers. He selected a slice and began to eat.
“That’s better,” Starsky announced when he returned in faded jeans and threadbare t-shirt. Hutch had to agree as he watched the hungry man dig into the pizza with gusto.
“Remember when we couldn’t wait to wear that uniform?” Hutch asked rather wistfully. It was hard to believe that they had been police officers for two years already.
“Didn’t know what we were getting into, did we?” Starsky agreed. “It sure was a hot bitch in the summer.”
“If you think it’s going to be any better in plainclothes, babe, think again,” Hutch warned him with an evil smile. “We’ll have to wear jackets all the time to cover up our guns.”
“Shit. Forgot about that,” Starsky admitted. “I’m going to have to find a new deodorant.”
Hutch leaned over the cushion that separated them and sniffed loudly. “You smell okay to me,” he managed to say even though he feared he had just made a big mistake. Starsky didn’t smell okay; he smelled wonderful. Faded shampoo, soap and cologne, spiced up with a hint of sweat and overlaid by the clean scent of Hutch’s laundry soap on his clothes. It was a strange combination to turn a man on, but it was the same one that Hutch inhaled when they lay together in his bed.
“This is only January,” Starsky cautioned. “Wait’ll July and you have to sit in a car with me all day long. Which, by the way, John says isn’t likely to happen for a while.”
That kicked Hutch off the lusty paths his mind had been wandering. “Why not?” he protested even though they had been expecting just such a situation.
Starsky shrugged. If he was disappointed, he wasn’t letting it show. “John says they’ll probably pair us off with more experienced guys. He figures it’ll probably be at least a year before they’ll let us be together.”
Starsky seemed to have eaten his fill. He wiped his greasy fingers, threw the napkin in the box, and flipped the lid closed. Only then did he give Hutch his eyes. Hutch couldn’t help but smile at the disappointment in the blue depths that matched his own.
“What are you smilin’ about?” Starsky growled.
Hutch wiped the expression off his face. “Just thought maybe you were just as glad,” he explained.
Starsky’s expression became sheepish. “I had my temper tantrum in John’s office,” he admitted.
“Oh, I’ll bet that impressed him,” Hutch laughed.
“John’s seen me lose my cool before,” Starsky reminded him. “I’ve known him since I was a kid and moved out here.”
Hutch knew that. He knew all about Starsky’s past now. Or at least he thought he did. Starsky could still surprise him with a new story every once in a while. He loved the security of knowing someone so well, but, more, he loved having someone to trust with the truest parts of himself.
Silence fell between them and Hutch didn’t realize what an awkward one it was until he found himself groping for something to talk about. It had been a long time since he and Starsky had needed to have words, however inane, to fill up the space between them. It was his fault. He had been seesawing back and forth between wanting the status quo and wanting his lover back in his bed and, probably, sending out conflicting signals. The way he was heating up, however, he was beginning to think his body was trying to make the decision for him.
“Did you decide if you’re going to buy a new car or not?” Hutch finally found a topic that should keep Starsky talking for at least an hour.
“No. I’m gonna hafta hang on for a while yet,” Starsky admitted. “I found a new mechanic. Merle’s a good body and paint man, and he says he’ll let me do some of my own work to keep the bills down.”
Three sentences does not an hour-long conversation make. Hutch watched Starsky pick up the TV guide and thumb through it to tonight’s listings. The date was right there on the page, so there was no question that Starsky knew what it was. It was pretty obvious to Hutch that Starsky wasn’t interested in picking up their Friday night encounters. Hutch tried to tell himself that it was for the best, but knew now that he couldn’t sell that turkey at five cents a pound. Since it seemed he had suddenly made up his own mind about the issue after all, maybe it would be wise if they went out tonight before he did something stupid.
“You want to catch a movie?” he suggested, hoping he didn’t sound like a kid who had been promised ice cream and given broccoli instead. There was nothing wrong with broccoli, he reminded himself. It was good for you, the way Starsky’s friendship was good for him. He had lived without the sex for five months, but wouldn’t want to live without the friendship for five minutes. It had only taken him a little over two years to get to the point where he thought that, if he put the two things on his mental scale, it just might tip in companionship’s favor.
Starsky tossed the magazine back on the table. “We’ve seen everything worth seeing this week.”
“Babe, you know what today is, don’t you?” Hutch almost slapped his hand over his mouth in surprise. He honestly hadn’t known he was going to ask the question before it was already out and he was watching Starsky react.
Surprise, delight and doubt chased each other on and off the familiar face before Starsky answered. “Yeah, I know. Just seemed kinda…crude to bring it up.”
Hutch waited, sensing that Starsky had more to say and was looking for the words to say it.
“And maybe kinda…dangerous?” Starsky’s tone made a question out of what could have been a statement. “I mean, ya don’t want me fallin’ in love with you on the rebound. Right?”
A bark of laughter was surprised out of Hutch. “You think that’s likely to happen after two years? I mean, really, Starsk. It’s not like you don’t already know all my secrets.”
He meant it as a joke, but Starsky wasn’t laughing. Instead, the lapis gaze was searching his face for something and Hutch had no idea what. If he did, he would gladly give it.
“I don’t want you to feel like I’m usin’ you, Hutch,” Starsky finally confessed.
Hutch shrugged. “When it comes to sex, let’s face it, we use each other.”
“I cut you off,” Starsky said, as if he was trying to give Hutch a reason to boot him out the door.
“My rule,” Hutch reminded him. He didn’t want a reason to kick Starsky out; he wanted a reason to kiss him breathless. Since when, on the last Friday of the month, did he need a reason? If Starsky was truly opposed to resuming their encounters, Hutch had no doubt the other man would let him know it.
Deciding more words weren’t going to get them anywhere, Hutch leaned over and planted his mouth, hard and hungry, on Starsky’s. The lips beneath his bloomed, opening to his tongue like a flower to the sun, and Hutch plundered happily until Starsky struggled free.
“I gotta warn ya, Hutch, I’m feelin’ kinda wild tonight,” Starsky panted.
Wild, warm and willing. Hutch couldn’t imagine a better combination after five long months without this man in his bed. When Starsky parted his lips to add yet more words to the too many that had already been spoken tonight, Hutch put a finger over them.
“Shut up. Get naked. Get into bed,” he demanded, and then complied with the instructions himself, his eyes on Starsky as they hurriedly cast off their clothes.
They met in the middle of the bed, and Hutch thought he might come there and then if it wasn’t for Starsky’s fist wrapping around his cock and squeezing painfully tight.
“Need ya to fuck me,” Starsky whispered into his ear as the cruel fist tortured him and he hung on the edge of climax. “Need it from you, sweetheart. Need it so bad.”
And Hutch accepted that he needed it, too. The past week had given him back the satisfying company of his friend, now he needed his lover. Needed to reclaim what he had been denied. Needed to give Starsky what no woman ever could.
“Now, Hutch. Right now,” Starsky insisted. He rolled onto his back, trying to use his grip to put Hutch’s cock where he wanted it.
Starsky wasn’t just wild, he was frantic. It was as if he expected to be denied what he needed. No words, no foreplay, were going to satisfy him. Hutch leaned over and pulled open the bedside drawer, groping blindly until he found the KY tube.
“Hurry,” Starsky urged him when Hutch settled back with the lube in his hand.
“Turn over,” Hutch murmured seductively. “I’ve got what you want, and I’ll give it to you, babe,” he promised.
Starsky shook his head violently against the pillow. “Uh, uh. This way,” he insisted, spreading his legs wide.
Hutch hesitated. They had never done it in this position before. Was now, when they were both so out of control, any time to start experimenting? Starsky’s fingers scrabbled at his shoulders and arms, trying to pull him down. “Wanna see your face, Hutch. Want you so far inside me I choke on your cock,” Starsky begged.
Hutch had to kiss him then to shut him up. One more sentence and Starsky would have to wait for his fucking because Hutch was going to lose it. Without breaking the frantic kiss, he maneuvered until he knelt between the splayed thighs and fumbled the cap off the well-used tube one handed. Barely supporting his trembling body on one arm, he brought the tube down and squeezed the cold gel directly into the crevice between the lush cheeks of Starsky’s ass, then tossed it away. Infected by the same urgency, inflamed further when Starsky pulled his widespread knees back to his chest, Hutch thrust his finger unerringly up into the opening that was revealed.
Starsky grunted at the abrupt invasion, but it only seemed to make him more needful. “Hurry. Now. Do it now,” he chanted.
Unable to resist even had he wanted to, Hutch grabbed his own cock, squeezed hard once in a vain effort to brake the runaway passion within him, and snubbed the tip against the slick anus. He meant to go slow, wouldn’t hurt his lover for the world, but Starsky took the choice from him. At the first touch of his cock, Starsky swung his legs over Hutch’s shoulders and used the leverage to surge up, burying Hutch’s length all the way into him in one exquisite slide.
Starsky cried out and Hutch echoed it, so far gone he couldn’t even pause long enough to see if the sound had been one of pain or pleasure. If he needed reassurance, Starsky’s body gave it to him, arms and legs locked around his hard-thrusting body, and the sweet, slick tunnel he plundered open and eager to him.
“Not worth it. Not worth it,” Starsky gasped over and over as he thrashed frantically beneath Hutch.
There was no slowing this down, but Hutch tried, propping himself up on both arms so that he could look into his lover’s face. The sight only stoked the fire inside. Never before had he seen Starsky so consumed by need, his face a hard-edged mask and his eyes wide, barely focused. When an unrelenting grip found his hair and dragged him down, Hutch went with it, riding Starsky’s heaving body, hanging on hard to keep his cock firmly imbedded in its hot sheath.
Climax hit Starsky, convulsing him in Hutch’s grip, turning his ass into a fist that spasmed and clenched and milked an answering climax from Hutch. When he collapsed suddenly, arms and legs falling away from the demanding grip they had had on Hutch, the abrupt change of position dragged Hutch’s still pumping cock from the slick ass and a gasp from his raw throat. He buried his face in Starsky’s neck and whimpered at the loss, then was shoved violently off the man he had just tried to fuck through the mattress.
For a stunned moment, he stared at the broad naked back turned to him, realizing only gradually that it couldn’t be just the aftermath of wild sex that made it heave convulsively for breath. If he didn’t know better, Hutch would swear Starsky was sobbing. Only Starsky never cried. It was Hutch who could be brought to tears by depth of emotion. The way he was even now.
“Babe?” Hutch whispered. He put out a hand and laid it flat-palmed against Starsky’s back, feeling the catch and hiccup as breath was forced in and out of overworked lungs.
“She wasn’t worth it.”
There were no tears in the husky voice, prompting Hutch to claw at a hunched shoulder until he could bring Starsky around and into his arms. He didn’t like having Starsky’s back to him. It made him feel cold and bereft after what they had just shared. Starsky buried his face in Hutch’s neck, wrapped him in arms that were sweetly possessive.
“She wasn’t worth missin’ this,” Starsky said again. “How could I have been such an asshole?”
Hutch stroked the soaked curls and let the self-condemnation flow until Starsky ran out of steam.
“Maybe you just wanted to be in love, Starsk. Wanted someone to love you back. Everyone wants to be loved,” Hutch murmured.
Starsky shook his head, face still pressed into Hutch’s neck, and Hutch decided that maybe it was time to lighten things up a little.
“You’re not wiping your nose on me, are you?”
There was a stunned silence, then, “I gave you Kleenex. Remember?”
“I was crying; you’re not,” Hutch said, quite sure of that now himself.
Starsky eased away onto his back with a groan and a grimace. “Christ. Now I really do wish you were gonna be my partner on Monday.”
“Now?” Hutch asked, pretending offense, but spoiling it by wrapping himself comfortably around Starsky’s sprawl.
“Before, too,” Starsky amended. “But, hell, how am I gonna explain to my partner on Monday that I gotta sit on a pillow?”
Hutch tried unsuccessfully to smother a snicker in the pillow, earning himself a poke in the ribs when he failed.
“You can always tell him you’ve taken up horseback riding,” Hutch suggested.
“Don’t know about horseback riding,” Starsky mused, and Hutch felt a hand fumble at his hip before sliding around to grip the cheek of his ass. “Plan to take up bareback riding though.”
Despite a climax that had left him wondering if he even had a cock left, if the damned thing might not have exploded with the force of his coming, Hutch felt a shiver of desire trace ghostly fingers down his spine.
“When?” he asked, half-teasing, half-anxious.
Starsky yawned hugely before replying. “Lemme grab a few minutes shut-eye. Then we’ll see if we can’t just get you sitting on a pillow, too.”
A restorative nap sounded like a good idea to Hutch, too. They had hours and hours yet before Starsky would have to climb out of his bed and venture out into the chilly dawn. And on Monday, they would drive in to work together for the first time. The police force might not be ready to make them partners yet, but Hutch was willing to bide his time. Someday, soon he hoped, even the bureaucrats would have to accept what a perfect team they were. Meantime….
“Starsk?”
“Uh, huh.”
“Glad you’re back.”
“Glad to be back, sweetheart.”
Same Shop, Different Duos
The first time Starsky called him sweetheart in the middle of a squadroom full of other officers, Hutch swallowed his gum. It wasn’t until Les Baxter, Starsky’s partner, offered a comeback that Hutch realized Starsky had actually called him “schweetheart.”
“That’s Bogie, right?” Baxter asked his young partner.
Starsky beamed. “That’s right.”
“Don’t give up your day job,” Baxter deadpanned, and went back to sifting through the scraps of paper Starsky had produced when prompted to hand over his week’s expense receipts.
Hutch grinned his relief, but let Starsky know the scare he had given him when their eyes met. Starsky shrugged and offered a silent apology, before Baxter drew his attention away by demanding to know what the hell one of his illegible scrawls on a cocktail napkin was supposed to mean.
Hutch returned his attention to the expense report he and his partner, Rick Mark, also had to file before they could end their last shift of the week. It was late Saturday afternoon, and he wasn’t anxious to hang around here any longer than he had to.
In actual fact, Hutch had come to love this place. It had become a third home to him, coming in the running only after the comfort to be found in his own little cottage, or in Starsky’s apartment. He considered himself one of the luckiest men in Bay City. In fact, he and Starsky were both damned lucky.
As expected, when they had arrived for their first day as plainclothes detectives, they had been assigned to more senior officers. They had both been dreading being paired off with men with whom they did not mesh at all. Starsky had drawn the much older Les Baxter, already a lieutenant and within a year of retirement, while Hutch had found himself partnered with one of the few black detective-sergeants in the division. After an initial period of adjustment, of testing to find out each other’s foibles, the two sets of partners had settled into fairly comfortable working relationships. Fortunately, the four men also got along well personally. Not that Starsky and Hutch gave the other two much choice.
“Here, you do it,” Baxter ordered, thrusting the mess into Starsky’s hands. “I’m not going to get an ulcer this close to retirement over your expenses.”
Hutch handed over his completed sheet to Mark, and wandered over to prop a hip on the desk where Starsky labored and Baxter kept a wary eye on him. The older man didn’t appear anxious to lose his pension because Starsky fiddled their expense reports either. Idly, Hutch thumbed through the stack of case files on their desk.
“Hey. Why do you two always end up with the most interesting cases?” he complained. He suspected he already knew why, and it really burned him.
“Shoulda got yourself a lieutenant like I did. Rank has its privileges, you know,” Starsky said as if he had personally selected his partner, and as if Baxter and Mark weren’t well aware of the fact they were only filling the empty spaces at the young cops’ sides until they were allowed to be together. He peered at a scrap of paper, turned it over, and then crumpled it into a ball and tossed it into the wastebasket.
Mark joined them at the desk, but it was apparent it wasn’t an idle wander. He looked around the squadroom, his dark eyes taking note of the identity of each officer present. He lowered his deep voice as he leaned in closer to his three friends.
“You all know damned well why Ken and I get stuck with every piddly little piss-ass case that comes through here. It’s because I’m black,” he growled so that only the men he trusted could hear. He glanced around again, this time glaring pointedly at the closed door of their captain’s office.
“But, my white brothers, the times they are about to change,” he hinted mysteriously.
“Come on, Rick, give,” Starsky prompted him.
“Grapevine says Forrester is going to be announcing his retirement in a few days,” Mark continued. “And, unless the drums are really beating out of tune, my sources say once his replacement is here, it’ll be Ken and me working the best cases while you two pale-faces chase the penny ante crooks.”
“Okay, Rick, you’ve got us all salivating in our crappy coffee,” Baxter grumbled. “So tell us already, who’s going to be giving the orders around here after Forrester departs to his ill-deserved rest?”
“Only the first ever black Captain of Police in the BCPD, Harold Dobey,” Mark announced.
Starsky whistled, attracting the attention of a few of the officers who had not yet signed out or started their patrols, but they lost interest immediately. Starsky had a flair for the dramatic, and seeing the four of them in a huddle was hardly unusual.
Hutch felt a leap of excitement; adrenaline pumping into him and making him want to move—now. His eyes met Starsky’s, and he was sure that even Baxter and Mark could read the thoughts that flashed back and forth between them.
Hutch knew the history. Harold Dobey was a proud black man who had joined the force back in the fifties when black officers were few and far between. A man who had had to claw his way up through the ranks, fighting for every promotion and was reputed to be so damned clean he squeaked. An officer who had spent long years on the street, and, therefore, understood what it took to get the job done.
“This requires a celebration,” Starsky announced. “What say we all mosey on down to Monahan’s and toast our new captain’s health? I’ll buy the first round.” He poked Mark in the chest. “You buy the second and then you better get home and start studying for the lieutenant’s exam.”
Hutch nodded in agreement along with Baxter. They all knew that Mark was overdue for a shot at promotion, but had been stonewalled by his superior’s refusal to put him up for the chance at it. Mark, in a moment of candid frustration, had revealed to them that he had been tempted to have “maybe next time” tattooed on his ass.
“I can’t tonight,” Baxter demurred. “Chrissie and I are going to the in-laws. If I beg off one more time, she’ll divorce me, and I can’t afford another ex-wife. Speaking of which, I better get moving or I’ll be late.”
“I’m not celebrating anything until I see Harold Dobey’s name on that plaque.” Mark nodded toward the nameplate beside Forrester’s door. “I didn’t get to be a detective-sergeant by counting my chickens before the hen even laid her eggs.”
That left Starsky and Hutch to create their own celebration. Not an unusual occurrence in the least. Although the four men got along well, the differences in their ages and marital status didn’t lend itself to much social interaction. Neither was the situation a hardship. Hutch was almost always most content in Starsky’s company, and he knew the reverse was also true.
“Why don’t we go to the new place over on Moyer? I feel like dancing,” Starsky suggested as they rode the elevator down to the parking garage.
Although their next Friday night was still a couple of weeks in the future, Hutch wasn’t at all opposed to spending the evening watching his friend dance. He nodded in agreement, stepping out when the doors parted, then led the way to their cars.
“Maybe see if we can find a couple of lovely ladies,” Starsky added.
The evening was sounding better all the time. Neither of them had anything approaching a serious girlfriend at the moment. Starsky, even eight months after the break up with Diane, was still gun shy, and Hutch had discovered he rather liked playing the field. For the first time in his life, he had a grudging appreciation for the way he looked. Blond men must definitely be in this year because, wherever they went, Hutch didn’t seem to have any trouble attracting attention.
“Meet you there?” Starsky suggested. They stood next to their side-by-side cars.
Hutch shrugged. “Guess so. Around eight?”
Starsky agreed, climbed in his car and took off. Hutch stood for a moment listening to the sound of the retreating engine. He was no mechanical expert, but he had certainly owned enough beat up wrecks to know that, like it or not, Starsky would soon be looking for a new car.
~*~*~
They met outside the dance club as pre-arranged and went in together. It was still fairly quiet, but, especially when trying out a new place, both of them liked to arrive ahead of the crowd. They liked to learn the layout and be in a position to assess the other patrons as they arrived.
“Two beers,” Hutch gave their order to the waitress who was barely dressed in hot pants and halter-top. The female patrons were going to have to go some to attract the male attention away from the bevy of pretty waitresses showing off acres of tanned young skin.
“Add a couple of bags of pretzels to that, will ya, honey,” Starsky added before the waitress wriggled away.
“Didn’t you eat?” Hutch wondered, although he doubted Starsky would begin an evening of drinking on an empty stomach. Both of them were fully aware that, though technically off-duty, to a certain extent they could never completely cast aside the mantle of responsibility their jobs imposed. If they wanted to get falling down drunk and make fools of themselves, they did it in the privacy of their own homes.
“Yeah,” Starsky reassured him. “Grabbed a burger at Willie’s, but I wanted to get a haircut.”
“You’re out of uniform now, Starsk,” Hutch reminded him. “Nobody’s going to put you on report if your hair grows past your collar.” Hutch himself had started going to a unisex stylist instead of a barber and had grown rather fond of the compliments his longer, less regimented style gained him.
“All well and good for you, Mr. Trust Fund From His Grandfather,” Starsky replied. “Barber costs me five bucks. No way am I forking over twenty so some fancy stylist can make me look like an explosion in a brillo pad factory.”
Starsky wasn’t cheap. He always bought his share of rounds and paid whenever it was his turn, but Hutch knew he was saving for the car of his dreams. If there was anything Starsky knew how to do, it was prioritize.
Aware of this, Hutch nonetheless solicited their waitress’ opinion when she returned with their drinks. He always enjoyed teasing Starsky because his friend could easily give back as good as he got. When engaging in a battle of wits with Starsky, Hutch never had to feel he was taking advantage of an unarmed man. “What do you think…” he paused to read the name on the little tag pinned to her not so little bosom. “…Donna? Shouldn’t my friend leave the dark ages behind and let his hair grow?”
Heavily made up eyes gave Starsky the once over, twice, lingering over his skin-tight jeans and the breadth of hairy chest revealed by the open buttons of his shirt. “Oh!” she exclaimed when she finally reached his head, flirting with him from her eyes all the way down to her toes. “Didn’t even notice you have short hair.”
Starsky roared as she took the bill he handed her and went back to work. “If ya got it, flaunt it,” he advised Hutch, tipping back his chair against the wall behind him. His gaze ran over the group of a half-dozen women who had just come in. It appeared that none of them met his exacting standards, however, because he returned his attention to Hutch. He leaned forward to pick up his glass and raised it.
“To Captain Harold Dobey,” he proposed. “Soon may he make Metro Division his home.”
Hutch clinked glasses with him and sipped the cold brew. “To Dobey,” he agreed, and then offered his own counter proposal. “And soon may he realize that Starsky and Hutch are meant to be partners.”
“Has a nice ring to it, doesn’t it?” Starsky agreed. “Les only has a few months left and Rick, Dobey willing, will be going for lieutenant. That’ll leave the both of us partnerless. Only logical to put us together.”
“Let’s hope he buys into Starsky logic,” Hutch cautioned.
“We’ll just have to dazzle him with our fancy footwork,” Starsky dismissed the nay-saying. “Les and Rick’ll give us a chance to impress the boss. You know that.”
“True,” Hutch conceded. In the months since he had come into Metro, Hutch and Mark had often worked with Baxter and Starsky. So often, in fact, their respective partners had learned to hang on for the ride when Starsky and Hutch got the bit between their teeth and started to run. There was just no denying the fact that, given the chance—and they took every opportunity that came their way—he and Starsky performed together with the precision of a Swiss watch.
Hutch saw that Starsky’s attention had once again wandered away from him. The place was beginning to fill up, and soon the music would be pumped up to drown out any hope of meaningful conversation.
“So what are you in the mood for tonight?” he asked, taking in the restlessness that possessed his friend. Starsky’s fingers were keeping time with the percussion, and his whole body was almost, but not quite, dancing in his chair.
“Wanna dance,” Starsky said unnecessarily. “Been stuck in the fuckin’ car all week.”
Hutch didn’t normally love to dance the way Starsky did, but he was in the mood tonight, too. When the dance floor became crowded, it really didn’t matter how good you were. Nobody noticed if you were Fred Astaire or Gerry the Giraffe amid the bump and grind of tightly pressed bodies. He had discovered that if he could stay off his partner’s feet, the ladies weren’t likely to complain about his lack of rhythm.
“With who?” he wondered.
Starsky shrugged. “Don’t know yet,” he admitted.
They both scanned the prospects. In this, too, they had proven to be remarkably similar. When looking for a girlfriend, Hutch knew he and Starsky had very different tastes. Hutch tended toward the more cerebral types, while Starsky, especially post-Diane, seemed to prefer girls who thought a night of bowling was a great date. On the prowl, however, as they were tonight, they usually zeroed in on the same type of women who were interested in little more than following the Beach Boys’ advice to have fun, fun, fun.
Hutch knew they spotted the woman at the same time. Dressed in tight white pants and a frilly white shirt, the woman with the long brunette hair was dancing, seemingly oblivious to her lack of partner. Hutch half-rose and so did Starsky, and then they both sank back down into their chairs. They grinned at each other.
It wasn’t the first time for this either, and their pattern was already established. When their interest was piqued by the same woman, they would compete, in a friendly manner, until the lady indicated a clear preference. The loser would then withdraw, without rancor, to seek other game
Hutch waved toward the dance floor. “Take your best shot,” he invited. The floor was still way too empty for his taste. Starsky had tried to teach him, but he just couldn’t seem to pick up that graceful dazzle that made Starsky so successful.
Starsky’s grin, as he climbed to his feet and shrugged out of his jacket, made it apparent that he knew the reason behind the generosity. “Lucky thing we came separately,” he said, the confidence he had in his abilities an aura of crackling energy around him.
“Yeah,” Hutch agreed. “Wouldn’t want to have to drop you off before I took the lady home.”
Starsky’s grunt of disdain was lost in the music. Hutch watched him as he moved out onto the dance floor, already moving in perfect time with the beat as soon as his feet touched the hardwood. Within moments, Starsky moved into their quarry’s personal space without asking permission, and was accepted as if she had been waiting all along just for him. His friend definitely had the moves to impress, but Hutch had learned not to give up without a fight. The honors were about even in their friendly competitions, and neither of them had yet to figure out just what made any particular woman choose one of them over the other.
The disc jockey either didn’t know his business or had orders from the owners to make sure there was plenty of opportunity for the patrons to buy drinks. After playing four songs in a row that had couple after couple joining the fast growing crowd on the dance floor, he suddenly spun a tune that was nearly impossible to dance to. The migration went the other way until even the die-hards, Starsky and his partner included, had to give up. Hutch watched them swing by the lady’s table to collect her drink before they joined him. Hutch rose to his feet.
Starsky introduced them. “Kathy Marshall, I want you to meet my friend, Ken Hutchinson.”
Kathy put her drink down and offered her hand. Hutch accepted the damp, cold grip, smiling winningly as Starsky held her chair for her.
“I hope my clumsy friend didn’t step all over your feet,” he said.
An admiring smile was turned Starsky’s way. “I don’t think his feet ever touched the floor.”
Perhaps his chances weren’t great after all, Hutch thought, but noticed that Starsky left his chair where it was rather than sliding it closer to Kathy as if staking his claim. It seemed that Starsky himself was up for the game as well tonight, and not yet concerned with the eventual outcome.
“Kathy’s a stewardess. She’s based here at LAX and has a twenty-four hour layover,” Starsky shouted above the music.
Hutch wondered idly how he had come by the information. It didn’t appear to him that there was much talking going on, on the dance floor. And, in any case, who could hear that close to the mammoth speakers?
Starsky signaled the waitress and ordered another round, but Hutch made sure he paid this time.
They chatted, as well as they could above the music, and Hutch was delighted that Kathy directed her comments as often to him as she did to Starsky. Neither of them seemed to be gaining a clear advantage over the other, but it was early yet. Still plenty of time to compete.
When their glasses were empty, it was Kathy who caught the waitress’ attention, ordered and paid for the next round. Clearly a lady who had no intention of finding herself in a position of debt, however imaginary.
“This is the seventies, right?” she said as she handed over the bills.
Hutch could see that Starsky was having a bit harder time with it than he was, but, eventually, he came around. To Hutch’s way of thinking, if the lady wanted to flex her independence by buying him a beer, who was he to argue?
Hutch’s opportunity to perhaps gain an edge on his friend came a few minutes later when Starsky excused himself to seek out the men’s room. Beer went through Starsky like a sieve, and it wasn’t the first time his full bladder had given Hutch the opportunity to launch a pre-emptive strike.
Starsky was probably cursing his luck, Hutch thought as, when he was only a few feet away from their table, the lights went down and a slow song began to ooze from the speakers. Starsky’s bad luck was Hutch’s good. This he could do. His parents had paid out hundreds of dollars to make sure that, at the debutante balls he was expected to attend and never did, he could take a woman into his arms and make her think her feet never touched the floor.
One look at Kathy, and he knew he didn’t even have to ask. He led her onto the floor, took her into his arms, and concentrated on trying to banish Starsky’s expertise from her mind. She cuddled up to him, and Hutch decided that maybe the lady was beginning to see the light.
An hour later, Hutch was still wondering. Kathy couldn’t seem to make up her mind, dancing with one of them and then the other. Always choosing Hutch for the slow songs and Starsky for the fast.
“Hey, I like to dance slow, too, you know,” Starsky had complained during one of her exchanges of partner.
“Uh, huh,” Kathy had agreed. “But Ken doesn’t like to dance fast,” she pointed out as she tugged Hutch onto the floor.
Hutch had expected Starsky to be pissed off at that, but when the music changed, he appeared to reclaim her. Hutch returned to the table, ordered another round—they had all switched to Coke by now—and tried to decide if it was time he and Starsky had a strategy meeting in the john. Unless one of them wanted to go home alone, it was time to end the game.
At this point, if Starsky wanted, Hutch was still willing to yield the field. He had enjoyed the feeling of Kathy’s slim body in his arms. He had even become half-erect as her pelvis moved against his. But he had also noticed that she wasn’t the only woman in the place who seemed to be interested in him.
He never had a chance to put his nebulous plans into action. When Starsky and Kathy returned to the table after their latest session of vertical foreplay, the lady laid it on the line.
“I have to tell you, gentlemen, that I just can’t seem to pick between you,” she announced over watered down Coke.
Starsky and Hutch exchanged glances. More feminism, they telegraphed between them? Or was she trying to tell them it was up to them to duke it out? Kathy made it clear she wasn’t looking to have them fight over her by laying one hand over each of theirs where they rested on the table.
“What I’m trying to say is, I’m greedy. I want you both.”
The suggestion—or maybe it was an ultimatum—hit Hutch in the gut like danger sometimes did on the street. When the adrenaline rush made your insides clench and your heart pound and everything suddenly became very bright and clear-edged. And your cock got hard. He shifted in his seat to ease the sudden pressure; daring a glance at his friend and seeing it had hit Starsky the exact same way. They turned to Kathy and nodded in unison. If Hutch had been harboring any thoughts that the lady might be bluffing, her delighted smile banished them. It looked like Kathy really did know what she wanted.
The mundane logistics were worked out quickly. None of them wanted to leave their cars behind at the club, so they decided to each take their own vehicles to the address Kathy provided. In the parking lot, watching Kathy and then his friend drive away as he started his car, Hutch wondered if their pretty stewardess was playing her own game. Maybe he and Starsky would discover the joke was on them when they found a vacant lot at the address she had provided. He wouldn’t find out sitting here, he decided, and followed the retreating taillights out into the street.
~*~*~
It wasn’t until the three of them were stretched out naked on Kathy’s queen-size bed that Starsky stopped letting his hormones do his thinking for him. Maybe this hadn’t been such a bright idea, he thought, watching Hutch kiss Kathy into a breathless sprawl between them. It wasn’t his first experience with three eager bodies in a bed. He had already lived out the male fantasy of crawling between the sheets with two women eager to share his manly charms. He also thought that sharing an obviously adventurous woman like Kathy with any other man wouldn’t have him laying here thinking, when he ought to be claiming some portion of her lovely form for himself.
But with Hutch? He knew that long, golden body so well. Knew just where to touch, how to kiss, when to suck, to turn it into his willing slave. What if, when things went from warm to hot, it was Hutch he wanted to do the deed with rather than the lady?
Kathy pulled away from Hutch, her head turning Starsky’s way, and her long fingers slipping into his hair to bring him to her. He forgot about Hutch. Forgot to wonder what his friend might be doing, when she claimed his mouth. Then, remembered again that he and the lady weren’t alone when he felt a large hand come between them and tug Kathy over onto her back. He let the kiss be broken; watching as Hutch spread her legs and settled between them. A pang of envy pierced him as he saw the blond head burrow between her thighs, but whether he envied Hutch the dark, wet place he feasted upon or the woman, the talented tongue, he couldn’t say.
Kathy moaned and Starsky leaned over to kiss her again, gathering up a handful of her firm young breast and squeezing, making her groan. After a few pleasurable moments, he slipped away from her lips, following the line of her jaw to her neck, shifting to crouch over her as he took her full, flushed nipple into his mouth. Beneath the dual stimulation of two experienced mouths, Kathy began thrashing, groaning and panting, begging to be filled.
Starsky felt the bed shift as Hutch sat up, released the captured nipple and sat back on his heels. Kathy was clearly far gone, knowing what she wanted and uncaring of which one of them gave it to her.
He locked eyes with Hutch. A second ago, he had been eager to sink his cock into Kathy’s slick woman flesh. Seeing Hutch’s aroused face, watching him lick away the woman’s glistening juices from lips Starsky knew so well, changed his mind. What he wanted, craved even, was to watch Hutch do it. The pale blue, half-stunned eyes accepted his decision and left the mechanics of it up to him.
“Kathy, honey, com’ere,” he murmured, stretching out on the mattress. He cupped her shoulder in one hand and drew her toward him, feeling her knees brush his thighs as Hutch, behind her, encouraged her to bend her legs forward and let him at her. Pulling her closer, Starsky pressed her bottom leg straight. He caught the top one behind her knee and drew her closer until he could prop it on his hip. His eyes met Hutch’s again as the blond settled behind her back.
“That’s it, sweetie. Come on. Put your arms around me. Gonna need to hang on when he gives it to ya,” he murmured.
Starsky kissed away the soft little whimper she gave as Hutch slid into her, pushing his hand down between them and finding her clitoris with the tip of one finger, scrupulously avoiding the big cock that stretched the opening just below.
“Oh, yeah. Feels so good, doesn’t it, baby?” he crooned. He matched the stroking of his finger with the rhythm of hard thrust and withdrawal Hutch was setting.
He felt Hutch’s hand between them, the fingers seeking Cathy’s breast and the back of it brushing against the tight little nub on his chest. Heat jolted through him and he pulled back, biting his lip. Hutch also faltered at the touch, thrown off his stroke and seemingly unable to reclaim it until Kathy voiced an inarticulate cry of need. Starsky moved closer, pressing his cock into her soft belly as Hutch took up the rhythm again, each thrust giving the woman what she needed, and Starsky the pressure he craved.
Hutch was getting close. Starsky knew it. Knew the way his breathing changed; knew the wild bucking that was only a moment away. It should have inflamed him, dragged him to the edge of his own climax. Instead, it yanked him out of the moment, turned him into an automaton that was only peripherally aware of the pleasure his body was receiving. It was wrong. All wrong, Starsky knew, as Hutch hit the peak and toppled over, bringing Kathy with him. Kathy’s fingers wrapped around his cock and pulled, and Starsky’s body obediently gave up his seed, but even as the spasms shook him, Starsky knew that by then, it was only hydraulics.
~*~*~
When Starsky woke, for a minute or two he couldn’t remember where he was or how he had come to be there. It was the smell of sex and the warm solid weight of Hutch against him that brought it all back. Roughly, he pushed Hutch away and scrambled to the edge of the bed. He couldn’t believe he had fallen asleep. He glanced around for a clock and then remembered the watch he still wore. They had been asleep for less than an hour.
“Whatsamatter?” Hutch asked from where he had been so rudely shoved. He looked sleepy and dopey and so damned fuckable that Starsky jumped up off the bed and started searching for his scattered clothes.
“This was a fuckin’ stupid idea,” he growled, keeping his voice low for fear of being overheard by the absent Kathy, wherever she had disappeared to. “I’m getting outta here.”
“Starsk? What the hell?” Hutch was trying to struggle up, becoming entangled in the sheet that Kathy must have pulled over them before she left.
It was fucking July, Starsky thought inanely. Who needs a sheet? He struggled into his briefs, missing the leg hole and having to sit down abruptly on the side of the bed or fall on his ass.
“Don’t do it,” he warned as he felt the bed shift and knew Hutch was reaching out to touch him. Fighting panic, he fumbled with his recalcitrant underwear until he could pull it up as far as his thighs. He stood up and slid the scrap of material into place.
“Where are you going?” Hutch asked.
Starsky could clearly hear the puzzlement in his friend’s voice, and it only increased his desperate need to run. He snagged his jeans and, this time using the footboard for balance, worked both feet into them without incident and dragged them up.
“Home,” he announced uncompromisingly. When the snap on his jeans refused to close, he gave up on it and just yanked at the zipper.
“Why…?”
“We’re not talking about this here,” Starsky growled. His unbuttoned shirt hung from his shoulders and he was busy stuffing his bare feet into his shoes, mentally consigning his socks to Hell. It wasn’t the first pair he had left behind in a lady’s bedroom and it wouldn’t be the last.
Starsky was hooking his jacket off the back of the chair, Hutch a silent question mark behind him, when Kathy re-appeared bearing a tray and three glasses.
Orange juice? That tears it, Starsky thought. It was the look of pained bewilderment on her pretty face, however, that prevented him from simply pushing past Kathy and bolting as he intended.
“Dave, what’s wrong?” Kathy asked. Her gaze traveled between the two men, seeking answers.
“Starsky’s on early shift tomorrow, honey. He’s gotta go,” Hutch lied glibly.
It was a talent Starsky had not yet perfected, although he was working on it, so he just dropped his head and mumbled something unintelligible about seven o’clock coming early.
“Are you staying?” Kathy asked Hutch, and Starsky waited with just as much interest as Kathy for the answer. It was pretty clear to him that Hutch wasn’t at all uncomfortable in this menage-a-trois situation. Starsky wished with all his heart he could say the same.
“You did specify both of us,” Hutch reminded her. “But I’d like to stay if you’d settle just for me.”
Kathy looked at Starsky as if asking permission and he shrugged. “Why break up the party just ’cause I’ve gotta split?” he muttered.
Kathy slid the tray she carried onto the dresser and glided over to Starsky. “Not even a good-bye kiss?” she pouted.
Starsky obliged her briefly. Then, remembering that this lovely woman wasn’t to blame for his current state of panic, he slipped his arms around her and gave her a proper kiss.
“You sure you couldn’t call in sick,” Kathy coaxed when Starsky released her.
“I never get sick,” Starsky said, tempting fate.
“Can I call you next time I’m here? My home base is moving to Nashville, so I’m giving up this place, but I’ll have layovers,” she said.
Starsky touched the tip of her nose with his finger. “You can get the number from Ken.” He glanced over his shoulder at Hutch. “I’ll see you at work.”
As he let himself out of the apartment and clattered down the stairs, Starsky wondered if Hutch had understood the message. They weren’t actually scheduled to work again until Monday morning, but Starsky really hoped Hutch would take the hint and leave him alone for the rest of the weekend. He wasn’t counting on it, but he could dream. He needed a little space to figure out just what it was that had him running so scared.
~*~*~
Hutch held out until Sunday evening. After he delivered Kathy to the airport for her afternoon flight out, he drove back to his place, showered and changed. He had received Starsky’s message loud and clear and was willing to give him some space. Whatever was going on, however, he knew they sure as hell couldn’t take it into Metro with them. Therefore, instead of heading straight back into the city and to Starsky’s apartment, he played his guitar for a while, took a long walk on the beach, and generally killed time until the sun began to sink into the ocean.
Twilight found him knocking on his friend’s door and being greeted by an exasperated Starsky.
“Can’t you take a hint,” Starsky complained, and stalked off into the back of the apartment.
Hutch stood just inside the doorway for a moment, trying to decide if Starsky was as unhappy to see him as he tried to let on. Deciding he didn’t have enough information, he followed until he found Starsky attacking the toilet bowl with a bristly brush. The air was thick with the smell of cleaning fluids, and Hutch had to smile at the predictability of it.
Starsky was, generally, a more conscientious housekeeper than Hutch, who wasn’t the least bit ashamed of hiring a cleaning lady. But, when Starsky had a problem to work out, there were only two likely things he would do to keep his body occupied while his mind worried away at it. Since his car was becoming more of a lost cause every day, it was logical that he was cleaning the hell out of his house.
“I dropped Kathy off at noon,” Hutch told his industrious friend. He made a production out of checking his watch. “It’s after nine now.”
Starsky flushed the toilet, watched the sudsy water swirl and retreat, then dropped the lid and turned around and sat on it. He still held the dripping brush in his hand.
Hutch propped his butt on the vanity and crossed his arms over his chest. Starsky looked ridiculous sitting there on the john in his baggy shorts and torn t-shirt, holding the toilet brush between them like it was some kind of magic charm that would hold Hutch at bay. If Hutch was tempted to laugh, however, the inclination was banished by the serious expression on Starsky’s face.
“If you really don’t want to talk to me, Starsk, I’ll go,” he offered. “I just thought it might be better to sort this, whatever it is, out here rather than in the squadroom.” He waited a minute, and then added, “Did I do something to piss you off?”
Starsky sighed quietly, left the throne and put away the brush. “Come on. I don’t think the john is the most comfortable place to talk either.”
Amiably, Hutch followed his friend to the living room where they took up their respective corners of the couch.
“I’m sorry I acted like such an asshole,” Starsky began with an apology. “I hope I didn’t hurt Kathy’s feelings.”
“Don’t think so. She asked for your number,” Hutch reassured him. “She’s a stewardess. She told me it sometimes takes her until after her first cup of coffee in the morning before she even remembers what city she’s in. She’s used to grabbing her fun where she can get it, and flying away once she’s done.”
“Wonder if she’ll call,” Starsky said. “I liked her.”
“Yeah, me, too,” Hutch admitted. He leaned forward and rubbed his hands together. “What if she calls us both?”
“Then I’ll call a lady and we’ll take separate cars,” Starsky said. It was a statement and Hutch could hear by the tone of his voice that there were absolutely no negotiations allowed. Since Starsky obviously felt so strongly about it, Hutch was willing, in this case, to accept such a unilateral declaration. However, he did want to understand the reasons behind it.
“You going to tell me what spooked you?” he asked. “Did I do something? Did Kathy?”
Starsky shook his head firmly. “None of us did anything that I hadn’t already figured was gonna happen,” he said. “It’s just…” He paused, giving Hutch the look that told him Starsky was about to say something he thought was out of line. “Hutch, I don’t want you to take this the wrong way, but I don’t want any part of what you and me do gettin’ mixed up in my head when I’m makin’ love with a lady.”
Hutch’s immediate reaction was to be hurt and offended, but he stepped on it firmly. He knew Starsky wouldn’t hurt him intentionally, so he waited for his friend to reveal what had brought him to such a decision.
“It isn’t fair to you or me, and it’s certainly no way to treat a lady,” Starsky continued. He had also assumed the elbows on knees posture that mirrored Hutch’s, but where Hutch’s hands were clasped quietly in front of him, Starsky’s fingers twisted against each other as if he could wring the words he needed out of them.
“A couple of Fridays from now, I don’t wanna look into your face and remember how you looked fucking Kathy, or think about some other woman I’ve slept with. Same as I don’t want you in bed with me and some girl, if only in my mind.”
“In all the time we’ve been having sex, you’ve never thought about me when you were with someone else?” Hutch asked curiously.
“Christ, no. What we do is…separate. We work real hard to keep it that way, Hutch. Don’t we? I mean, we never even talk about it usually. We both know what it would cost us if it ever got out.”
That was certainly nothing but the unvarnished truth. If a black cop had to struggle to hold onto whatever position he could manage to obtain on the force, then a gay one might as well just shoot himself and get it over with.
For the first time, Starsky sought Hutch’s eyes, gave him the earnestness living in his own. “Do you understand?”
Hutch did, in a way. He couldn’t say he feared the same overlapping that seemed to have Starsky running scared, but he was just as happy to know that, when they were in bed together, Starsky wasn’t thinking of anyone but him.
“Yeah, Starsk. I understand,” he reassured his friend.
“You’re not mad?” Starsky asked.
“Hell, no,” Hutch laughed.
“Good. Then go home,” Starsky commanded. “I’ve got half a bathroom still to clean, and you’re not sitting here guzzling my beer and watching my TV while I do it.”
“Not going to try to con me into helping you?” Hutch asked, already sure of the answer. He had taken enough law courses to know that you never asked a question like that unless you already knew the answer.
“I wouldn’t hire you to polish the furniture. Now get out of here.”
That was one order Hutch was more than willing to follow.
~*~*~
Starsky discovered about 4:00 a.m. Monday morning that he had tempted fate once too often when he told Kathy he never got sick. He woke up because he couldn’t breathe and discovered that not only did his head feel like it weighed twenty pounds, but he was burning up as well. An experimental swallow felt like he had been snacking on ground glass. An attempt at a deep breath convinced him there was a sumo wrestler sitting on his chest. He needed to cough, but knew if he did, he would regret it for the rest of his short life. A summer cold. If fate were kind, he would be dead by dawn.
Knowing there was nothing in his medicine cabinet but a bottle of aspirin that was likely outdated, Starsky didn’t even bother to go looking for some relief for his misery. Instead, he forced himself out of bed. He stood swaying with a death grip on the headboard until the room stopped spinning and his vision cleared, then trudged into the kitchen. A search of the refrigerator revealed two science experiments and three bottles of beer. Starsky shut the door. The light hurt his eyes, anyway. He groped to the sink. When he couldn’t find a glass in the dark, he bent over and drank a couple of swallows of cold water directly from the tap. His raw throat screamed at him, but some dim voice of reason was jabbering that the fever was probably dehydrating him, so he forced down a little more before stumbling back to the bedroom.
He curled up on the bed under the sheet and lay there shivering. He had forgotten to turn off the air conditioner, but getting up again just didn’t sound worth the effort. He would do it in a couple of minutes. Get the quilt his Aunt Rosie had given him out of the closet. Call the precinct, too, and tell them he was dying. Had to call Hutch. He fell into an uneasy doze.
~*~*~
Hutch pressed the buzzer for the third time and when there was still no response, he pounded on the door. Once in a while, not often, just enough to present the possibility now, Starsky shut off the alarm when it was Hutch’s tum to drive, rolled over and copped a few more winks until Hutch came pounding on his door.
When even the thunder didn’t bring a bleary-eyed Starsky to the door, Hutch used his key. He wasn’t particularly worried. He had left Starsky less than ten hours ago. He figured his friend had scrubbed his little fingers to the bone and then sacked out in front of the late, late show. Hutch didn’t envy Baxter his cranky partner today.
But the couch was empty, and so was the kitchen. Sticking his head in the bedroom door, the first thing Hutch noticed was that it was freezing in there. The second thing was his friend curled up in the middle of the bed in only his skimpy briefs.
“Hey, lazy bones,” Hutch called as he strolled over to the bed. “We’re both going to be late if you don’t get your ass….”
By this time, Hutch had sat down on the side of the bed and reached out to shake his friend awake. Despite the temperature of the room, the flesh beneath his hand was hot and unnaturally dry. Panic threatened, but he forced it down.
“Starsk? Babe? Come on, wake up,” he coaxed, using his grip on the hot shoulder to try to turn Starsky over onto his back.
The tucked chin lifted a little and Starsky turned his face toward him, revealing flushed cheeks and glassy eyes that squinted against the light.
“Jesus, Starsk. You look like shit. What’s wrong?” Hutch asked.
”’M dyin’.” The mumble provoked a dry cough that, even with Hutch’s restraining hand on his arm, doubled Starsky up as it racked him.
Although his major had been pre-law, Hutch had taken enough pre-med classes in college to recognize a sick man when he saw, felt, and heard one. How sick, he didn’t think he had the knowledge to determine.
“I’m getting you to a doctor,” he stated, but no amount of tugging on his part could move the violently shivering man.
Realizing belatedly that even dressed in his light jacket, he, himself, was cold, Hutch jumped up and turned off the air conditioner. Because the unit was propped in the window opening, he couldn’t do anything to let in the warm summer morning air, so he went to the closet and found a quilt. He returned to the bed to tuck it securely around his friend. When he put his wrist to Starsky’s forehead and found it even hotter than his shoulder, Hutch went in search of a thermometer.
Hutch’s hunt through the medicine cabinet revealed deodorant, cologne, a bottle of aspirin that had expired while they were still at the Academy, and two brand new toothbrushes. Closing the door in disgust, he returned to the bedroom and sat back down on the bed.
“Starsk? I have to get you to a doctor,” he repeated.
“Fug off,” Starsky mumbled.
It sounded to Hutch as if Starsky’s sinuses must be stuffed with cotton. The symptom took some of the edge off his fear. Young, normally healthy men didn’t die of colds. He tried not to think about what Starsky’s diet had done to his immune system.
“I god a cod,” Starsky continued as if to confirm Hutch’s tentative diagnosis. He coughed again, curling up tighter and wrapping both arms around his middle.
“You’re burning up. You don’t get a fever with a cold,” Hutch pointed out.
“I do,” Starsky groaned. “So fug off.”
“You don’t even have an aspirin in the house, mushbrain,” Hutch exclaimed, feeling helpless and totally exasperated with his ill-prepared friend. Since the day he had met Starsky, he had never known him to have so much as a sniffle. That didn’t mean he should go around thinking there wasn’t a virus in the world intrepid enough to dare attack him. “Don’t you ever get a headache?”
“Jus’ you,” Starsky accused, uncurled and rolled over, pulling the pillow over his head. After a moment, he pushed it aside and sucked in air through his mouth, which only made him cough again. “Go ‘way and led me sleep.”
Giving up on the stubborn sickie for the moment, Hutch went into the kitchen. It probably was just a cold, in which case, Starsky would need plenty of fluids. He glanced at his watch and wondered if Starsky had called in, decided it wasn’t likely, and went to the wall phone.
When the operator answered, Hutch asked for Lieutenant Baxter. While he waited, he opened the refrigerator and sighed. Beer wasn’t going to cut it, he thought, and closed the door.
“Les?” he said into the phone. “I’m at Starsky’s place. Yeah, my turn to drive. Listen, Les, he’s sick. No, not hung over. Think it’s a cold. Book him off sick, will you? And could you let Rick know I’m going to be late? The idiot doesn’t even have an aspirin that wasn’t made a decade ago, and his cupboards look like Old Mother Hubbard lives here. I’m going to get him some essentials, stuff some aspirin down his throat, and then I’ll be in. Give me an hour. Thanks, Les.”
After checking on his friend, Hutch went out and found a corner grocery store that was open that early in the morning, paid double for some chicken soup, orange juice, and aspirin and raced back to Starsky’s apartment. The sick man was as Hutch had left him. Starsky was still buried beneath the quilt, even though the temperature in the bedroom had risen considerably.
Through an effort of strength worthy of Hercules, and the application of patience that Job would have been proud of, Hutch made his ailing and uncomfortable friend swallow two aspirins and a glass of orange juice. He then tucked him back under the quilt after forcing him to lie back against the pillows Hutch stacked up at the headboard.
“Can sleep lig dis,” Starsky complained, trying to wriggle back down into his hamster imitation.
Hutch held him in place firmly. “You’ll breathe easier propped up. Believe me, I know.” Hutch suffered from allergies. He spent at least two months of the year sleeping sitting up in bed at night while California’s various flora let loose their pollens.
He glanced at his watch. “I have to go, Starsk. There’s juice in the fridge, and I put a can of soup in a pot in there, too. All you have to do is put it on the stove. Eat something and keep drinking, okay? I’ll be back after shift. Okay?”
Starsky turned his head away and coughed.
Reluctantly, Hutch left him like that and hurried into work. Baxter and Mark were both understanding, but Forrester gave him a ten-minute lecture questioning his priorities, pointing out that Starsky was a grown man and could take care of himself. Only knowing that his superior would soon be spending his time fishing and checking his own pulse to make sure he was still alive, kept Hutch from protesting. It wasn’t like either he or Starsky had missed a day of work. One time he had even come back to work straight from the hospital after wrenching his knee chasing a suspect. Nevertheless, Hutch kept his mouth shut and hurried out onto patrol as soon as he could.
The shift passed with agonizing slowness while Hutch fretted over the fate of his sick friend. He called at lunch, but there was no answer. That only made the last three hours of his day-shift drag even more as he imagined Starsky all alone and too weak to pick up the phone. By the time he let himself into the apartment at 3:30, he expected to find Starsky at death’s door. What he found was a thoroughly miserable three-year-old who thought he was dying.
“Ah, Hutch, I feel so awful,” Starsky whined as soon as Hutch appeared in his doorway.
Compassion nearly overwhelming him, Hutch couldn’t resist the urge to take the woebegone sickie into his arms. Starsky promptly sneezed all over him. Hutch hastily laid him back on the pillow and handed over the Kleenex box. There were already wads of soggy tissue all over the floor.
“Did you eat the soup I left you?” he asked, trying not to smile at the bewhiskered picture of woe Starsky presented. Maybe it was a good thing his friend still favored short hair. As it was, his curls were matted on one side and sticking out from his head every which way on the other.
“Couldn’t get up, Hutch,” Starsky whined. “Nearly fell takin’ a piss. Coulda hit my head, you know.”
Hutch patted him reassuringly, noting Starsky was still warm, but not as hot as this morning. He took himself off to the kitchen to warm up the soup.
While retrieving the soup, Hutch discovered that the orange juice hadn’t been touched either and shook his head. It was amazing that Starsky wasn’t so totally dehydrated he was delirious. He put the pot on the stove, poured a glass of juice and took it back into the bedroom.
“Did you take any more aspirin?” he asked as he sat down on the bed.
Starsky just shook his head and blew his nose mightily.
“Don’t blow so hard. You’ll break a blood vessel,” Hutch advised him. He shook two aspirins out of the bottle he had left by the bed.
“Might as well bleed to death. Be faster,” Starsky declared dramatically.
Still filled with sweet sympathy, Hutch patted his hand. “It’s just a cold, sweetheart. Here, take these.” He offered the tablets.
Starsky half-lifted his hand. It dropped back to the bed limply.
“Come here. Let me help you,” Hutch said, slipped an arm behind Starsky’s shoulders and lifted. He popped the aspirin in the mouth that opened obediently and held the glass for him to drink. Hutch laid him back when he was sure the pills had gone down.
“My poor buddy,” Hutch crooned, stroking the warm forehead. “You’re feelin’ pretty rough, huh?”
Starsky mewled softly and coughed. It was pretty pitiful, but Hutch took heart that at least the cough sounded looser.
”I’m going to get you that soup now. Be right back,” he promised.
The soup had warmed a little too much so Hutch dropped an ice cube into the cup before he poured it. He had intended to use a bowl, but then remembered how weak Starsky was and decided the cup would be easier. As expected, he had to help his friend with the soup, holding the cup to his lips after running out to the kitchen for another ice cube when Starsky complained it was too hot after the first sip.
By the time he had his friend settled back comfortably against the pillow and returned to the kitchen to see if he could rustle himself up some dinner, Hutch had come to the conclusion that it was fortunate that Starsky didn’t get sick very often. It sure seemed to wipe him out.
There was nothing that looked faintly edible in the fridge, so Hutch settled for re-warming the leftover soup. He had just poured it into a bowl when he heard Starsky croak his name. Dropping the pan into the sink with a clatter, he hurried into the bedroom.
“What’s the matter, babe?”
“Where were you? I’m thirsty,” Starsky snuffled.
Hutch sat on the side of the bed. “I was just getting something to eat. Can’t look after you if I don’t keep my strength up.”
Starsky pouted. “I’m thirsty,” he repeated.
“Your juice is right here,” Hutch pointed out. He picked the glass up from the bedside table and offered it.
Starsky made the feeble little motion with his hand again, and Hutch obligingly held the glass to his lips. Starsky drained it.
“Your throat must be feeling better. That seemed to go down easier.”
“Still hurts,” Starsky insisted. “Where ya goin ‘?” he protested when Hutch stood up.
“I’m just going to eat. I’ll be in the kitchen if you need me,” Hutch reassured him.
The soup had cooled by the time Hutch returned to the kitchen. He poured it back in the pot and put it back on the stove, drumming his fingers on the counter as he waited for it to heat. He didn’t even get it into the bowl this time before Starsky called him again, sounding urgent.
“You okay?” he asked as he skidded to a stop in the bedroom doorway.
“Gotta pee,” Starsky sniffed.
Hutch bit his lip. What did the guy want, a bedpan? “Can’t go for you, babe,” he pointed out.
“What if I fall down? I’m so dizzy,” Starsky whined.
Hutch had to concede the point. Starsky’s fever, though much reduced, could still be enough to cause dizziness. Even the clogged sinuses could throw off his equilibrium. He helped his friend to his feet. He had never before realized how heavy Starsky was as the other man let him do all the hard work. Through dint of determination alone, he shuffled his friend to the bathroom, accomplished their mission, and returned to the bed without, he hoped, doing any major damage to his back.
“You gonna be okay, now?” he asked hopefully. “I really need to eat something before I fall down.”
Starsky sighed, sniffed, coughed, and waved him away. He seemed to have a whole lot more energy in that arm now, Hutch noted as he returned yet again to the kitchen. Sweet sympathy was beginning to sour just a little by the time he reheated the soup for the third time and sat down at the kitchen table with his bowl, spoon, and some stale crackers he had found in the cupboard. Starsky might know how to keep a house clean, but he couldn’t grocery shop worth beans.
Hutch picked up the spoon and shook out the morning paper.
“Hutch?”
A little more vinegar slipped into his compassion. “What is it, Starsk?” he asked, fighting hard to keep the impatience out of his voice. His stomach growled loudly enough for Starsky to hear it in the bedroom.
“Aren’t you done yet? I’m lonely.”
Hutch waited until the elephant trumpeting of nose blowing ended before he answered.
“I’ll be there as soon as I eat,” he promised. The only reply was a sulky silence, so Hutch took the opportunity to quickly spoon the soup into his mouth and munch through the soggy crackers until his stomach became a little happier with him. After putting the bowl in the sink, he scooped up the sports section and returned to the sick room.
Starsky was sulking. Lying on his stack of pillows, staring at his quilt-covered toes with his bottom lip stuck out about two inches. Combined with the uncombed hair and two-day stubble, it wasn’t an attractive look.
“I brought you the sports section.” Hutch offered the paper.
Again with the hand. Hutch suppressed a sigh and laid the paper on Starsky’s thighs. “I have to go out,” he announced.
“Don’t leave me,” Starsky begged piteously. “I might need you.”
“You have no food in your cupboards,” Hutch told him patiently. “If I know your appetite, chicken soup isn’t going to hold you for long.”
“I’ll probably never wanna eat again,” Starsky declared dramatically.
Considering the way he had put away the soup, Hutch doubted that. “It’s a cold, Starsk. You’ll be hungry ten minutes from now.”
The bottom lip stuck out further. Any further, in fact, and he would start drooling. Hutch pushed the uncharitable image aside. “I’ll bring you a treat,” he offered.
That returned the lip to where it belonged and brightened the unshaven countenance considerably.
“Ice cream?” Starsky pleaded.
“Thought you were never going to be hungry again?” Hutch reminded him.
The previously incapable hand rose to rub at his bristly neck. “For my throat.”
“We’ll see,” Hutch hedged and made his escape while he could.
Pushing the cart around the grocery store, Hutch tried not to think uncharitable thoughts, but it wasn’t easy. He couldn’t understand how a simple cold virus could turn an energetic, capable man like Starsky into a whiny, dependent, mucus-leaking mess. Remembering the wads of used tissues he still had to collect, he added rubber gloves and two boxes of Kleenex to the cart. Also remembering his promise, he detoured over to the freezer section before checking out. He debated only a minute before selecting a tub of raspberry sherbet instead of the ice cream Starsky had begged for. He wasn’t being petty, he reassured himself. Starsky liked sherbet just as well and, as mucus-filled as he already was, he didn’t need the cream clogging his throat up even more. Telling himself he was only thinking of Starsky’s best interests, Hutch got into the checkout line.
By eleven o’clock, Hutch had served three plates of toast, six glasses of juice, four bowls of sherbet, and two cups of soup. He had also hauled his friend’s dead weight to the bathroom twice, read him the sports section, and given him a back rub. Florence Nightingale he wasn’t, Hutch admitted, as he dragged his jacket on over his drooping shoulders.
“Where you goin’?” Starsky asked fearfully.
“Home. I’m on early shift tomorrow. Remember? I have to get some sleep.” He put a hand to the small of his back and arched, trying to relieve the nagging ache.
“You’re gonna leave me? All Alone? All night?” Starsky whined.
Hutch looked away from the puppy dog eyes.
“Will you at least check on me in the morning? Make sure I didn’t die in the night?” Starsky coughed for punctuation.
“It’s a cold, Starsky, not bubonic plague.”
Absolutely refusing to feel guilty for leaving his much-improved friend, Hutch went home, hoping Starsky hadn’t infected him, too.
~*~*~
Starsky managed to drag out his sick time to Thursday morning. Hutch showed up as promised on Tuesday morning before he went into work and found the patient much better. Even if Starsky was unwilling to admit it. Having realized that his friend would milk this for all it was worth, Hutch made only a brief visit to the apartment on Tuesday after his shift to make sure Starsky had supplies and then left him to his own devices. On Wednesday, he arranged to work late and called Starsky, securing a promise, after some arguing, that he would be returning to work on Thursday.
When Hutch picked him up on Thursday morning, Starsky still looked somewhat the worse for wear with his reddened nose and chapped lips, but he sounded much better. Hutch had felt guilty for abandoning his best friend in his time of need, but watching Starsky bound down the stairs and saunter to the car, helped ease any lingering pangs. He never would have expected it from an independent s.o.b. like Starsky, but when the man was sick, he wanted a mother. A full-time mother, with boundless energy and nothing else to do but tend to her one ailing chick. He hated to think of what Starsky would be like if he ever really got sick or injured seriously in the line of duty.
But those were tomorrow’s concerns. If Starsky ever became sick again, Hutch reminded himself, there was always the call of duty to which to escape once he knew Starsky would really be all right.
Today’s concern, or rather, yesterday’s, had been Forrester’s expected announcement of his retirement. No date had been given, not that any of his subordinates wanted to throw him a surprise party. Nor had the miserable bastard revealed the identity of his replacement. Rumors were rife, of course. Everyone from A to Z had been proposed for the job. Other than whatever source Rick Mark had tapped into, however, no one was mentioning Harold Dobey’s name.
“Called Les last night,” Starsky said as Hutch pulled away from the curb.
“Yeah?” Hutch prompted.
“Forewarned is forearmed,” Starsky quoted wisely. “Wanted to know what kind of mess I’d be walking into today.”
“Same one you left behind on Saturday night,” Hutch assured him. “Same shit, just different names.”
“Ain’t it the truth,” Starsky agreed. He pulled out a tissue and wiped his nose, then made as if to throw the wad over his shoulder into the rest of the junk in Hutch’s back seat.
“Don’t,” Hutch warned him in his street voice.
Starsky balled up the tissue and shoved it in his pocket. “Les says nobody’s mentioning Dobey for the new head of our department.”
Hutch shrugged and swung the car into a space in front of the precinct. He would be driving the patrol today, so there was little sense in going into the station parking lot.
“Rick is pretty adamant his sources are good,” Hutch insisted.
Starsky yawned widely enough to dislocate his jaw as he left the car. “Doesn’t matter to me as long as we don’t get another old fogy like Forrester.”
“He sure blasted me Monday morning when I was late,” Hutch revealed.
They climbed up the front steps into the station and joined the small crowd waiting for the elevator.
“Said you were old enough to take care of yourself,” Hutch added.
The floor indicator lit up and the warning ping sounded. Hutch moved back a couple of steps, assuming there would be departing passengers and, therefore, almost missed Starsky’s disgruntled response.
“Helluva time you picked to start following that prick’s advice.”
Hutch grabbed Starsky’s arm and held him back when he would have stepped into the car. “We’re takin’ the stairs, thanks,” he told the assembled riders, as if they cared, and dragged Starsky along with him. Once inside the stairwell and assured of semi-privacy, Hutch rounded on his friend. “What the hell do you mean by that?” he growled.
“Well, you haven’t exactly been acting like a doting nurse,” Starsky shot back. He started up the first flight of stairs, leaving Hutch with no option but to follow.
“I took care of you,” Hutch complained to the flexing rear in front of him. For once, he didn’t even notice the view.
“Yeah,” Starsky said back over his shoulder. “One lousy night.”
“And I checked on you twice the next day,” Hutch defended himself. “I called yesterday.”
“Five minutes and a telephone call. Hope I didn’t put you out too much there, buddy.”
Hutch took two steps at a time, coming abreast of Starsky as they continued the climb. “You had a cold, Starsk. What did you want me to do, hang around and wipe your nose?”
“It could’ve been pneumonia for all you knew. Or cared.”
The last bit was mumbled under Starsky’s breath, prompting Hutch to grab the door onto their floor before Starsky could pull it open. “You’re just put out that I caught onto your act and wouldn’t wait on you hand and foot,” he accused.
“I was sick.”
“Not that sick. You were just being a big baby.”
“Was not,” Starsky insisted, wrenched open the door and stalked out into the surprisingly empty corridor.
“Were, too,” Hutch shot right back, on his heels all the way to the squadroom door.
“Was not,” Starsky repeated, yanking open this second door and almost running into the squadroom.
“Were, too,” Hutch also repeated and rammed into Starsky who had stopped dead, sending him off-balance and stumbling into the broad back of the man who stood in front of their assembled colleagues.
The man slowly turned around as Starsky regained his balance, revealing a black, and very stern, countenance.
“I assume you two are Starsky and Hutchinson,” the bear of a man growled. “You’re late.”
Hutch’s heart sank. This absolutely, positively had to be Harold Dobey. And he and Starsky had almost knocked their new captain on his ass.
Starsky was snapping to attention and Hutch did his best to imitate the rigid stance.
“Yes, sir,” Starsky barked out in his best Academy plebe manner.
“Y-yes, s-sir,” Hutch stammered, wishing he could kick Starsky in his prominent derriere.
Eyes so dark they were almost black gave them the once over, apparently found them wanting, and then Dobey turned back to finish the speech they had obviously interrupted.
“As I was saying, I am now in charge of this department. I’m not asking any of you to like me. That’s not what I’m here for. But you can be damned sure of one thing, I will tolerate no disrespect. If you have a problem working with me because I’m black, then you better get your transfer requests on my desk ASAP, because, gentlemen…” Dobey paused to catch the eye of every man in the room, even turning slightly to pin Starsky and Hutch with his penetrating glare. “…I am not going anywhere.”
With that, the new captain of Metro’s plainclothes division lumbered into his office and closed the door firmly behind him.
“Way to impress the new boss,” Mark quipped as Hutch joined him at their desk. He was so excited the air almost crackled around him.
“I’d say Starsky definitely made an impression,” Baxter added. “With his nose, right in the middle of Dobey’s back.”
“Gimme one of those transfer forms,” Ed Roberts, a ten-year veteran demanded of a passing clerk. “I’ll be damned if I’m going to take orders from that nigger.”
Every eye in the room turned to Mark. Hutch laid a hand on his partner’s arm and, out of the corner of his eye, saw Starsky and Baxter move into position in case he couldn’t hold the big man back on his own.
“You want to make somethin’ out of it, Mark?” Roberts challenged.
Hutch wanted to laugh, and was almost tempted to step aside and let Mark have a go at the bastard. Like many cops, once out of the Academy, Roberts had let his fitness go to hell. Mark, who worked out daily, would clean up the floor with the bigoted asshole.
“Why should he?” Hutch replied to the challenge, holding Mark’s eyes and trying to remind him how much he had to lose. “Tomorrow morning, you’ll be gone.”
Roberts must have decided that four against one weren’t such good odds because he kept his mouth shut, sat down and rolled the form the clerk handed him into his typewriter.
Hutch wasn’t all that certain the odds would have been that uneven. It was an assumption confirmed when he saw three other men accept the blue form from the clerk. To his way of thinking, their loss would be good riddance to bad rubbish. He didn’t think there was any place for bigots on the police force—although he knew there were plenty of them—especially in a precinct like Metro where so much of the population was non-white. He had been in situations where just one look at his ultra-white blondness had nearly sparked a riot, and only fast and sincere talking had prevented it.
“Come on, partner,” he said to Mark, collecting Starsky and Baxter with a look. “As the man pointed out, we’re late. Let’s hit the road.”
~*~*~
If Dobey’s bark was worse than his bite, there wasn’t a man in the department who, so far, had been willing to volunteer to find out. The man sure could bellow, Starsky thought, as he hunched over the typewriter at an unfamiliar desk. He was grateful that, so far, he had managed to escape being on the receiving end of one of Dobey’s thunderous lectures. He didn’t think his luck could hold forever, especially with the amount of extra time he was spending on duty. The loss of the four bigots had created plenty of overtime. Unfortunately, they had each left behind a partner. So, even though both he and Hutch were volunteering regularly to fill the holes in the schedule, often working doubles, and having only one day off in the month since Dobey’s take-over of command, they had had no opportunity to work together.
At least the overtime pay was doing his bank account good. Starsky accepted his pay envelope from the clerk, checked the amount and then stuffed it, envelope and all, into his back pocket. If this went on much longer, he would be able to buy that new car sooner than he had hoped. Provided, of course, that Dobey didn’t catch him asleep on duty and kick him right off the force. He and Hutch had even had to cancel their once-a-month Friday. Hutch had been working afternoons, and Starsky had to admit that he was probably too tired to get it up anyway.
At least tonight he had been delegated to desk duty. Not that he expected it to be quiet. Friday night at Metro was never quiet. At the moment it was, however, and Starsky was trying to sort out the reports the afternoon shift had left behind. His partner de jour had taken the opportunity to slip down to the cafeteria, leaving him, Starsky realized, completely alone in the squadroom.
Not quite alone, Starsky saw when Dobey’s door opened and the big man lumbered out. He dropped a file on Hutch and Mark’s desk and was about to return to his office when he seemed to notice how empty the place was.
“Are you the only officer on duty?” he asked, moving slowly to where Starsky sat two desks away.
“Yes, sir. Briggs just went to get something to eat while it’s quiet,” Starsky explained. He had had his interview with Dobey and had been impressed by the man’s knowledge of his record. But he had been unable to read anything of what the captain might think of him from the bland expression the man presented.
“First time I’ve seen it quiet around here,” Dobey said.
Starsky suppressed a wince as the substantial buttocks were leaned against the edge of his desk, wondering if the cheap wood could stand the strain.
“Me, too,” he agreed.
Dobey’s brow furrowed. “You came to Metro right out of the Academy, didn’t you?”
“Yes, sir. Two years in uniform. Then me and Hutch were lucky enough to be assigned here plainclothes as well.” Starsky said, but knew he wasn’t telling Dobey anything he didn’t already know.
“Hutch?” Dobey echoed. “That’s Hutchinson?”
“Yes,” Starsky confirmed. “We went through the Academy together.” He hesitated and then thought, what the hell, he might as well go for broke while Dobey seemed to be in a receptive mood. “We want to be partners.”
Dobey grunted, but offered no comment on the possibility or impossibility of their dream. “Weren’t you here for the afternoon shift as well?” he asked instead.
“Yeah,” Starsky confirmed. He smothered a yawn.
“And isn’t this your third double this week?”
Starsky shrugged.
“What are you trying to do? Kill yourself?” Dobey growled.
“Seems to me every time I’ve been here, I’ve seen you burnin’ the midnight oil, too,” Starsky reminded him.
“You sound like my wife,” Dobey complained. “You think she’d be used to it after all these years.”
“I guess wives are like that.” Starsky shrugged again. “That’s why me and Hutch and some of the other single guys are tryin’ to fill some of the holes.” He rubbed his tired face and decided, since Dobey still seemed inclined to be friendly, that he might as well see if there was any relief in sight. Nobody could ever accuse him of having too much respect for authority. “Don’t suppose we’re gonna be lucky enough to fill up the roster any time soon?” he asked hopefully.
Dobey eased off the desk. “Monday morning, if all goes well,” he revealed. He took a couple of steps toward his office, then turned back, fixing Starsky with that penetrating stare that made the younger man feel like all his secrets must be written across his forehead.
“You and Hutchinson, huh?” he asked.
“Yes, sir,” Starsky confirmed.
Dobey grunted, turned and plodded tiredly back to his office.
~*~*~
“Christ, Starsk. Where the hell have you been?” Hutch pounced on his friend as soon as he stepped through the door of the squadroom.
“Car broke down,” Starsky spat. He stalked over to the coffee pot and poured himself a cup of sludge.
“Never mind the coffee, Dobey wants… Geez, Starsky, look at you,” Hutch complained. He had grabbed Starsky’s arm, intending to drag him to Dobey’s door until he caught sight of his friend’s condition. Hands and clothes streaked with grease, oil and sweat, Starsky looked more like a mechanic than one of Bay City’s finest.
“Told ya. My car broke down,” Starsky bitched, pulling his arm free. “I’ve got clean clothes in my locker. I’ll change in a minute.” He looked down at himself. “Will you look at that? My best jeans, too.”
“You don’t own any ‘best’ jeans. They’re all equally crummy.” Hutch grabbed the mug out of Starsky’s stained fingers and started pushing him back toward the door. “Go get changed. Dobey wants to see us, and I think—”
“Starsky! Hutchinson!”
Hutch froze in mid-step and jumped away from Starsky at the bellow from Dobey’s doorway. Shit, from that angle, he thought, it must have looked like he was embracing the other man.
“I thought I told you I wanted to see you when Starsky finally got his butt in here,” Dobey growled.
Hutch stepped aside so Dobey could see the condition Starsky was in.
Starsky stretched his hands out and tried a scapegrace grin. “Car broke down,” he repeated.
“Get in here now,” Dobey ordered. “I can’t wait around all day for you.”
They followed the captain into the office, stopping in front of the desk as he continued around behind it.
“Don’t sit down,” Dobey warned Starsky who shot back upright.
Dobey turned a jaundiced eye from one to the other. “Les Baxter is taking retirement the first of next month, and Rick Mark is going on leave to take the lieutenant’s exams just about the same time.” The gimlet glance swiveled again. “I know I’m going to regret this, but I’m going to put you two together once your partners leave.” He held up a hand to delay the excited exclamations. “On probation,” he qualified.
Hutch didn’t care if he spent the rest of his career on probation if it meant he and Starsky were partners. One look at his friend’s face made it clear that Starsky felt the same way. Partners. They were going to be partners. Hutch wanted to dance with joy, but restrained himself.
“Yes, sir,” Starsky said, making Hutch realize he had missed whatever Dobey had added.
“Yes, sir,” Hutch echoed.
“Get out of here,” Dobey ordered. “And Starsky,” he added. “Don’t you dare hit the streets looking like that.”
“No, sir,” Starsky promised.
“What did I just agree to?” Hutch asked when they were safely on the other side of the door.
“To give him your first born son,” Starsky teased. “Nah. He was just saying he expected us to follow the rules.”
“When pigs fly,” Baxter said as he joined them, giving each of them a swat on the back. “So, partners at last, huh?”
Hutch looked at Starsky, still almost unable to believe that in just a few weeks’ time, Starsky would be his partner.
“For Christ’s sake, Ken,” Mark advised as he also joined them. “Hug him before one of you explodes. You’ve been waiting long enough for this.”
Hutch hesitated only a moment, then grabbed his equally ecstatic friend and pulled him into his arms, squeezing for all he was worth. Starsky returned the hug with interest.
When they finally pulled apart, their respective, soon to be ex-partners started to laugh, both of them pointing at Hutch. He looked down at himself and found that their fierce embrace had transferred Starsky’s grease stains all over the front of him.
“Damnit, Starsky,” he fumed.
“Now, now, Ken,” Mark chided, leading him by the shoulder to their desk. “Is that any way to start a partnership?”
~*~*~
“Dave, are you ready to roll?”
Reluctantly, Starsky straightened up from where he had been bent over the sink, splashing water in his face in the hope it would cool him off a little and maybe even back down the nausea that had been plaguing him off and on for days now. He looked at his face in the mirror, and decided that he really didn’t hold out much hope for either one.
“Yeah. Sure thing,” he replied to his partner who stood in the open men’s room doorway. He grabbed a handful of paper towels and buried his face in them.
“Don’t tell me you had breakfast at the taco stand again.” Baxter complained. He entered the room and walked over to the urinal. “Me and Ken and Rick and everybody else in the department keep telling you, you can’t expect to eat at places like Rosa’s and get away with it forever.”
“I’ve got a cast iron stomach,” Starsky reminded both the queasy organ in his middle and his partner. He was feeling a bit better now. Not as hot, and his stomach seemed to be a little more content to hold onto its contents. Now, if only the ache in his side would go away, and stay away, he would be a happy man. Maybe he was wearing his jeans too tight.
Baxter joined him at the sink, flipped on the taps and began washing his hands. “Well, you look like you’re sick or something,” he insisted. “Maybe you’re coming down with the flu.”
“No way. I never—” Starsky cut himself off, remembering what had happened the last time he had boasted about his health. He absolutely was not going to tempt fate now. Tomorrow was the last Friday of the month and he had a much delayed date with an angel. And Monday would see the official beginning of the partnership he and Hutch had waited so long for. No damned flu bug was going to rob him of either one of those special events. Besides, he wasn’t going to give Hutch another opportunity to call him a big baby. That had stung, all the more because he knew he had deserved it.
“What do you think, germs respect your badge, or what?” Baxter asked. He pulled paper towels from the dispenser and turned toward Starsky.
“I’m fine,” Starsky insisted, turning away from his partner’s critical eye to stuff his soggy handful of paper into the garbage.
“Is that why you’re holding onto your belly like you’re trying to hold your guts in?” Baxter wondered.
“Put it out to pasture, will you, Les. I said I’m fine,” Starsky repeated, temper flaring a little because, much as he didn’t want to admit it, right now, he was anything but. “I’ve already got a mother, you know.”
Baxter also deposited his used towels in the garbage and held up his hands as if Starsky’ s temper was holding him at gunpoint. “Whatever you say, Dave. Let’s roll.”
Starsky followed his partner out the door, hoping that, as they had for the past week or so, his symptoms would disappear as the day went on.
~*~*~
“Ken, can I talk to you?” Baxter asked.
Hutch broke off his conversation with Randy Briggs and let Baxter lead him a little way down the corridor outside the squadroom.
“What’s up?” he asked. He was anxious to be on his way. It was Friday night, the Friday night, and his shift had ended ten minutes ago. The next time he walked through that squadroom door, Starsky would be his partner.
“It’s Dave,” Baxter said.
“What about him?” Hutch asked. He had seen Starsky board the elevator not five minutes ago and, therefore, knew his soon-to-be-partner was all right.
“I’m worried about him. He won’t admit it, but I think something’s wrong,” Baxter confessed.
“How do you mean, wrong? Is he mad or something?”
Baxter’s lips tightened. “No. I think he’s sick, Ken, but he insists he’s fine.”
Hutch laughed. “Believe me, Les, he can’t be sick then. Starsky does not believe in suffering in silence. If he was sick, you, me and the whole precinct would know about it.”
“No, really, Ken,” Baxter insisted. “He hasn’t been himself all week.”
Hutch clapped a hand on the retiring cop’s shoulder. “You’re not supposed to be worrying about Starsky anymore. That’s my headache now. I’m going to see him tonight anyway, but I’m sure he’s fine.”
Baxter still looked doubtful, but he let Hutch escape.
Hutch had forgotten the conversation before he even reached his car. He was planning a very quick trip home, the fastest shower on record, and an equally quick trip back to Starsky’s where the dancer would be waiting for him. Overtime had robbed them of the last Fridays of August and September, and Hutch knew that Starsky was every bit as eager to make up for lost time tonight as he was.
Hutch pulled into a parking space outside Starsky’s apartment less than an hour later and took the stairs two at a time. He was so excited he could barely stand still waiting for Starsky to answer the door. He had a glorious night of too often delayed man-to-man sex with Starsky in front of him, and, on Monday, they would hit the streets together for the first time as partners. Life had never been quite so rosy for Kenneth Richard Hutchinson.
When Starsky opened the door, it was obvious that he was freshly showered and every bit as eager as Hutch. Hutch waited until the door was decently closed behind him, then sank his fingers into the still damp curls and dragged Starsky to him for the first taste of his lips he had had in three months. Starsky seemed to melt against him as he secured a grip on Hutch’s shoulders and returned the kiss as if he were just as starved for the taste of Hutch’s mouth.
They stumbled back against the door, jolted apart when Hutch’s back hit the wood with a thump.
“Over eager,” Hutch teased, swooping back in to lick around the edges of Starsky’s parted lips.
“Three fucking months,” Starsky growled before capturing Hutch’s tongue and sucking it into his mouth.
Hutch ran his hands up under the untucked tails of Starsky’s shirt, gliding over the smooth skin, glorying in the play of muscles beneath his fingers. God, how he loved this man’s strength.
“You’re really ready,” he husked when Starsky finally released his mouth. “All hot and sweaty already.”
“Hada hot shower,” Starsky mumbled, but the way his hands were burrowing into the back of Hutch’s jeans gave the lie to his reasoning. “Gonna be the fastest fuck on record.”
“Always is the first time,” Hutch reminded him. He dipped his head, nuzzling into Starsky’s freshly shaven throat, lapping at the hot, moist flesh. His teeth caught a fold of skin and worried it delicately until Starsky pulled away.
“No marks,” Starsky reminded him.
Hutch rubbed gentle fingers over the slightly reddened area. It took a whole lot more pressure than he had been using to mar Starsky’s dark skin, whereas Starsky could redden his fairer skin with just the brush of his stubbled cheek. His fingers wandered to the smooth jaw, knowing Starsky would have been especially diligent with his razor tonight. Starsky’s skin was so unnaturally hot beneath his fingers that it brought back Baxter’s warning words. Hutch slid his hand up to Starsky’s forehead and found it even hotter than his cheek.
“Babe, are you all right?” he asked. They had been working so damned hard the last couple of months, and Starsky’s diet was so awful, maybe another bug had slipped past his defenses.
“No, I’m not all right,” Starsky growled. He grabbed Hutch’s hand and pulled it down to the bulge straining the zipper of his jeans. “I’m stranglin’ in my pants here, and you’re playin’ with my face.”
Hutch squeezed the throbbing, denim-trapped erection, drinking in the resulting moan and the desire on Starsky’s face. “Been thinking about sucking you dry all day,” he confessed.
“Uh, uh, uh,” Starsky chided, moving backward toward the bedroom, forcing Hutch to follow or give up his prize. “Not supposed to be thinking about my cock on duty.”
They had reached the bed now and Hutch pushed his lover onto it, leaning down to unsnap and unzip the worn jeans hurriedly. No underwear again, he noted vaguely, gathering up the rigid pole as it popped free.
“Next time, don’t keep me waiting three fucking months,” he commanded, bent further and sucked Starsky’s cock into his mouth.
Starsky let out a moan and Hutch drank it in, opening wider, bending lower, wanting his mouth and throat stuffed full of his partner’s demanding male flesh. He had been so hungry for this, aching for the taste and eager to feed on the deep-voiced appreciation Starsky gave him in return for his expertise. His hand burrowed into the gaping denim, finding the full balls and gathering them up, squeezing just the way he knew Starsky loved it best. He was rewarded by Starsky’s loud groan and the eager flesh in his mouth suddenly going soft. Going soft? He was so aroused himself that it took Hutch a moment to realize that flaccid was the wrong reaction for what he was doing, and that Starsky’s groans and gasps were pain-filled rather than the uninhibited sounds of pleasure.
He released the limp penis from his mouth and straightened, looking down at his partner, puzzlement morphing into fear as he took in the agony on Starsky’s face. The sturdy body rolled onto its side and Hutch saw the muscular legs start to pull up and then straighten abruptly. Hands clamped to his lower abdomen, Starsky let out a yelp that was almost a scream.
“Starsk?” Hutch said uncertainly, remembering the way Starsky had overplayed his cold. Surely, Starsky was in no mood to play stupid games tonight. He sank down onto the bed, eliciting another groan as his weight jostled Starsky. He laid a hand on his partner’s back. The thin cotton shirt was soaked with sweat and, even through the material, Hutch could feel that Starsky was burning up.
“Babe?” he tried again to capture Starsky’s attention.
But Starsky was focused inward, panting with the pain; eyes squeezed shut and jaws clenched. Hutch wasn’t even sure if he could hear him and knew for a fact he couldn’t respond. And there was no way Hutch was going to be able to get him into the car. Fumbling for the phone on the bedside table, he dialed the emergency number that had been drilled into him so relentlessly he would never forget it no matter the circumstances. He demanded an ambulance on the double and gave Starsky’s address.
Turning back to Starsky, he rubbed at the rigid back turned to him, gaining no response as Starsky fought to retain consciousness.
“Easy, baby, easy,” he crooned. “Help’s on the way, sweetheart. Just hang on. Just a few minutes more.” He didn’t know if Starsky could even hear him, but he remembered a night when he was the one who suffered, if only within his mind, from the shock of seeing his partner gunned down and from being the instrument that sent another human being to his final reward. Starsky’s voice had been his lifeline then. Hutch prayed that his was giving Starsky the same anchor to reality now.
“Hurts,” Starsky ground out between clenched teeth. “Not…bein’…a baby.”
Hutch cringed, wishing he dared move Starsky so that he could wrap his suffering friend up in the security of his loving embrace. The angel had disappeared completely, and, in his place, the friend longed to comfort the man who meant more to him than a brother.
He heard the sirens as they screamed onto Starsky’s block and, reluctant to leave Starsky for even a moment but knowing he had to, Hutch rushed out into the living room and threw open the apartment door. He raced back to find Starsky gripped by another wave of fierce pain.
There was the sound of booted feet as the paramedics pounded up the stairs, and then Hutch was being pushed out of the way as the two men swarmed his partner. Backing up until his shoulders pressed into the wall, Hutch dug his fingers into the plaster and tried to remain calm. Now that help was here and he was no longer responsible, he feared that his veneer of calm would crack, letting the gibbering idiot inside him leak out.
“What’s his name?” one of the attendants asked. Hutch had been dimly aware of the man shouting the question at Starsky.
“Starsky. Dave Starsky,” Hutch replied. “He…he just…just started hurting. His stomach,” Hutch stammered unnecessarily.
“Dave? Dave, can you hear me?” the attendant asked Starsky and received only a groan in response. “We’re going to take you to the hospital now, Dave. The doctors will help you there.”
Hutch watched helplessly as the two men prepared Starsky for transfer. He almost shot out of his corner when Starsky screamed when they transferred him to the stretcher, but dug his fingers in harder. He felt the plaster give.
“You’re going to have to come with us,” the second attendant told Hutch. “The doctors will need some answers that he isn’t going to be able to give them.”
Of course he was going, Hutch thought as he pushed away from the wall. If these two idiots thought they were going to get away with taking Starsky away from him….
“Get his wallet and let’s roll.”
Thanking God that Starsky was such a creature of habit and that Hutch knew those habits so well, he grabbed the worn leather folder off the bedside table and bolted after them.
The ride to the hospital was a surrealistic nightmare of tiny, filtered voices and screaming sirens, all overlaid by the sounds of pain torn from Starsky with each rock and sway of the speeding ambulance. As terrible as it was, however, the nightmare only worsened when they arrived at the brightly lit emergency entrance and a bevy of strangers whisked Starsky away while still more strange hands held Hutch back.
“You can’t help him now,” a diminutive nurse insisted, blocking his way.
If it hadn’t been so deeply ingrained in Hutch almost from infancy that a man never hit a woman, he would have decked her and walked right over her body. Perhaps the burly attendants knew that somehow, because they stood back and let her handle him.
“This way,” the nurse insisted, leading Hutch away from the doors through which Starsky had disappeared toward the admitting desk. She left him there where another woman commanded his attention.
“What’s your friend’s name?” the brunette behind the counter asked.
Hutch remembered the wallet he carried and handed it over. He turned a little to watch as white clad bodies scurried in and out of the door behind which his partner suffered. He sternly reminded himself that Starsky needed them more than he did his partner right now. Repeating the mantra over and over held him in place right up to the moment when the door opened and he heard Starsky shrieking.
Hutch bolted, bowling over the bodies, whether male or female, that tried to get in his way and burst through the swinging doors. He could hardly see Starsky for the people that crowded around the gurney he lay on, but Hutch could hear him whimpering in pain.
A nurse broke away and tried to push him out of the room, but Hutch had turned to granite, transfixed by the sight of his partner through the gap the nurse’s departure had made in the screen of bodies. Starsky writhed, suffering the tortures of the damned.
“Help him,” Hutch whispered hopelessly.
“We are,” an older man reassured him. He handed the syringe that he had just extracted from one of the tubes leading into Starsky’s arm to a nurse. “Prep him,” he ordered his team, and then came and took Hutch by the arm. Despite the state he was in, Hutch responded to the man’s natural authority.
“I’m Dr. Franklin,” the man introduced himself once they were on the other side of the doors. “And you are?”
“Hutchinson,” Hutch responded, feeling an amazing sense of calm settle over him. This was Starsky’s doctor, and, if he could be calm, then so could Hutch. “I’m his partner. We’re police officers.”
“So I understand. I need to know if your partner has eaten in the last eight hours.”
“Of course he has,” Hutch replied, watching as a nurse, pushing a cart, hurried by them. “We were at work all day. I don’t know what he ate, but he must have.” The significance of the question dawned on Hutch. “Do you think he has food poisoning?”
Franklin ignored the question. “Has he been complaining about pain in the abdomen or a fever? Experiencing excessive sweating, say, in the last ten days to two weeks?”
“I…I don’t know. I’m not with him all the time.” Hutch remembered what Baxter had told him. “His partner said he thought something was wrong, but Starsky insisted he was fine.”
“I thought you said you were his partner,” Franklin said. “I’m sorry, Officer, but I’m going to have to go prepare for surgery.”
Hutch grabbed at the white-coated arm. “Surgery? On Starsky?”
“Yes. Your friend isn’t suffering from food poisoning. His appendix ruptured within minutes of his arrival here,” Franklin explained.
“Ruptured?” Hutch echoed. “But…he’s going to be okay?”
Franklin removed his arm from Hutch’s grip. “I’m sorry. I can’t tell you any more until after I’ve operated, but his odds aren’t improving while I stand here talking to you.” He signaled a hovering nurse. “Go with Miss Stanton. She’ll show you where to wait. I’ll come and tell you what I can as soon as I can.”
~*~*~
There was no end to this nightmare, Hutch was sure of it. He had been pacing up and down this corridor for what seemed like hours, racked by worry for his friend and nearly overcome by the memory of sitting in this same dim corridor two years ago waiting to hear if Luke Huntley was going to survive. What he had felt then was such a pitiful emotion compared to those that tormented him now, Hutch could barely remember it. Not for the first time since he had met Starsky, he wondered how he had allowed himself to become so intertwined with another person that a situation like this could rob him of the ability to keep a cool head.
What if Starsky died? The devastation even the thought provoked made it an urgent necessity that he sit down. Hutch made it to the ugly plastic couch and fell onto it. Sometime since he had been sentenced to eternal waiting in this empty place, someone had brought him a cup of coffee. It roiled in acidic protest in his belly now, threatening imminent ejection. He swallowed hard, refusing to give in to the distraction. If he focused hard enough, he knew Starsky would be all right. He had to be.
“Are you all right, Hutchinson?”
Hutch hadn’t heard the elevator, nor the heavy footsteps, nor even felt the sudden shifting of weight as Dobey sat down beside him. But he heard the base rumble and felt the strong grip of Dobey’s meaty hand on his shoulder. Dobey?
“What are you doing here? How did you know?” Hutch asked, his superior’s presence having much the same effect as Franklin’s had, if for very different reasons. Over the past few months, Hutch had learned to look to this man for guidance, for command, for direction when, between them, he and Mark couldn’t seem to see the forest for the trees on a case.
“I’m here because one of my men is here,” Dobey explained. “I know because Randy Briggs was in the emergency when you arrived with Starsky. He had just finished taking a victim’s statement, saw you, and called it in.”
It seemed as if every word Dobey spoke in his deep, calm voice returned a thread of sanity to Hutch, placing his reason once again within his control.
“He’s still… No one has come….”
“I know,” Dobey reassured him, patting his shoulder firmly. “I talked to a nurse. Starsky’s still in surgery, but everything is going fine.” He paused, his dark gaze studying Hutch as if he could read the thoughts behind his eyes. “He’s going to be just fine.”
Hutch wanted to believe that with all his heart. Wanted it to be true just because a man of such sterling character and strength as Dobey said it. He just wasn’t that trusting. The only man whose word he could accept as gospel was Starsky’s.
“How do you know?”
“Because Starsky’s not the kind of man who would give up without a fight,” Dobey said promptly, and Hutch marveled that there could be such certainty based on so short an acquaintance. “When the angel Gabriel comes for that man, he’ll have to drag him through the gates of Heaven.”
Hutch felt an impossible grin stretch his lips. “You really think Starsky’ll end up going that way?” He pointed his finger toward the ceiling.
Dobey laughed softly. “Oh, yes. I’m very sure of that.”
“Are you a religious man, Captain?” Hutch wondered. The subject of religion seldom came up in the squadroom. In any case, under normal circumstances, it wouldn’t be his place to probe so rudely into his superior’s personal life and beliefs.
“Yes, I am. My faith has seen me through some of the darkest times in my life,” Dobey confessed.
Hutch studied his hands then rubbed them against each other, remembering that only a few hours ago these same hands had caressed his partner’s body. He wondered what Dobey would think if he knew. The captain was being so sympathetic, seemed to hold Starsky, at least, in such high regard. How would that regard be altered if he knew about the secret Hutch and Starsky guarded so carefully? Hutch hoped he never had to find out.
“I’m not sure if Starsky believes in God,” he said, tucking his secret back into the corner of his mind where it usually lived from last Friday to last Friday, lest this perceptive man somehow ferret it out.
“I think you’re wrong about that, Hutch,” Dobey argued. “He may not believe in religion, but I truly believe he believes in God. Why else would he struggle so hard to make sure the good God has put in this world has a fighting chance to survive?” Dobey hesitated as if debating sharing his thoughts with his subordinate, and Hutch waited, holding his breath, Dobey’s considered opinion suddenly taking on all the weight of the judgment of the Almighty himself.
“There are hundreds of cops in this city doing a damned fine job of enforcing the law. They’re good men, all of them. But there aren’t that many, here or anywhere else, that believe in what they do the way you and Starsky do.” A pudgy hand waved toward the doors leading to the operating room where Starsky fought for his life. “Starsky isn’t idealistic the way you are. His past, losing his father so young, the army, didn’t leave him with rose-colored glasses through which to view the world. But you both believe in good and you both despise evil. You’ll never give in to it, never compromise with it, and never stop fighting it. That’s why I put you together. You’re both so busy making the world a better place to live in, you shouldn’t have to worry about what’s going on in the mind and heart of the man who’s watching your back.”
Dobey pressed his lips firmly together after the last word and looked away as if he were embarrassed by the passion with which he had spoken.
Hutch couldn’t think of one blessed thing to say. What the hell could he say when a man he respected as much as Dobey revealed that the regard was mutual? He was ashamed, feeling he hadn’t yet earned it, but vowing there and then that he would.
He was saved from having to find some response by the appearance of the anxiously awaited doctor through the OR doors. Franklin moved tiredly toward them, dragging the green scrubs cap from his head. Hutch scrambled to his feet, desperately trying to read the man’s expression, and felt Dobey haul himself up beside him.
“Well?” Dobey demanded before Hutch could bring a coherent sentence from his brain to his tongue.
“He’s doing fine,” Franklin assured them. “The appendix had ruptured so he’s going to be in for some post-op infection, but he’s young and otherwise healthy and very fit. He’ll fight it off with the help of antibiotics.”
Something that had been wound so tight inside Hutch that it had been twanging since the moment he had first realized Starsky was hurting, let go, and he had to sit back down abruptly before he fell down. The sudden weakness, however, couldn’t keep his second most important question off his tongue. “When can I—we—see him?”
“He’ll be moved to ICU in about an hour. You can have a few minutes with him then, but he isn’t likely to be awake,” Franklin cautioned them.
“Doesn’t matter,” Hutch muttered, and dropped his head into his hands, completely overcome by relief. He heard Dobey thank the doctor, but didn’t lift his head again until Dobey laid a hand on his shoulder.
“Are you going to wait?” the captain asked.
“Yes,” Hutch replied, trying not to let it show in his eyes or his voice that he would be willing to wait until doomsday for a chance to see with his own eyes that his friend lived.
“And are you going to be all right?”
Only then did Hutch realize that Dobey hadn’t shown up for Starsky’s sake, he was there for Hutch’s. He wondered if it was the manner in which Dobey had had to struggle for every foot of ground he gained in the white world that made him so perceptive, or if he and Starsky had somehow revealed the double life they led.
“Elmo Jackson was my partner for twelve years, son,” Dobey said and Hutch tried desperately to believe that he was only responding to the question in his eyes. “I know what it’s like to sit waiting in places like this.”
“But Starsky and I aren’t even partners until Monday,” Hutch protested automatically, while common sense kicked him in the ass and told him to shut the fuck up.
“Do you think I made the decision to make you partners on a whim? I’ve watched the two of you, and I’ve talked to your instructors at the Academy. I only made it official, Hutchinson. You and Starsky have been partners since the day you met.” With a final pat, Dobey took his hand away. “Now, I’m going to go home before my wife puts out an APB on me. Tell Starsky I’ll be around to see him, and, you, you go home and get some sleep.”
~*~*~
When Starsky woke the first time, he wouldn’t have noticed if the President had been sitting beside his bed. There was only one thing his drug-soaked brain cells were capable of recognizing—Pain. His guts were on fire, hot coals buried deep in his entrails. He opened his mouth to scream, saw the blessed darkness before him, and plunged willingly back into it.
The second time consciousness returned, he, unfortunately, remembered the first. He couldn’t breathe as he waited for agony’s claws to rip into him again. When he could hold out no longer, he let out a gasp and gulped in a quick breath, hoping to fool Pain into thinking he was still unaware.
“Starsk? It’s okay to wake up now.”
That was Hutch’s voice. Starsky would know it if he were dead. And Hutch never lied to him. Maybe he was safe. But what if Pain was holding Hutch hostage and making him lie? It was a measure of the unwavering trust Starsky had in his friend when he opened one eye. Yes, that was definitely Hutch, though he looked a little the worse for wear. In fact, he looked like Pain had been putting the claws to him, too. Starsky opened the other eye and forgot all about Pain as he remembered that he had something urgent to tell Hutch.
“Wasn’t…bein’… a baby,” he managed to get out despite the fact that a whole truckload of sand had been dumped into his throat.
He couldn’t figure out why Hutch’s face crumbled then and blinked his eyes to try to put it back to rights. When he looked again, the face was gone. He could see only messy blond hair. It took him a minute to figure out that he was looking at the top of Hutch’s head, and that his friend’s face was buried in the space beside him. It took even longer to realize that Hutch was weeping.
Instinctively, he tried to turn toward his partner, and that was when Pain launched its sneak attack. This time he didn’t even have time to scream before he slid into the blessedly senseless blackness.
~*~*~
“Starsk? It’s okay to wake up now.”
He had heard that one before. Just before somebody tried to rip out his guts.
“Come on, babe. Wake up. Just don’t try to move.”
Okay. Maybe he had missed that part before. Cautiously, Starsky lifted his eyelids and found Hutch leaning over him. He tried to say his partner’s name, but someone had stolen his voice. Something touched his lips.
“Suck, Starsk.”
He had definitely heard that one before and he was positive he was in no shape for fun and games now. He tried to turn his face away.
“Come on, Starsk. It’s just water. It’ll help your throat.”
Since his throat was threatening to go over to Pain’s side, Starsky thought that might be a good idea. He sucked and a flood of wonderfully cool water rushed into his mouth. He swallowed.
“One more,” Hutch encouraged, so Starsky sucked again with the same miraculous results.
Hutch was still hovering over him like he might be suspended from the ceiling or something.
“You look like shit,” he whispered the first thought that came into his head. What the hell had happened to his meticulously groomed friend?
“You aren’t exactly a beauty contestant yourself right now,” was Hutch’s laughing response.
That was better. The grin on Hutch’s face made him look more like Starsky’s angel.
And that’s when Starsky remembered it all. Somebody had shot him, or stabbed him, or something. Except, it was their Friday night and he had been alone with Hutch. Hutch wouldn’t shoot him. Still… Starsky looked around the room. He was definitely in a hospital. He had been fortunate enough to never be a tenant before, but he had visited often enough to recognize the drab colors and spartan furnishings.
“Your appendix burst,” Hutch informed him.
It was a lucky thing Hutch could pick the thoughts right out of his head, because Starsky sure didn’t have the strength to voice them all himself.
“Starsky, why didn’t you tell me you were hurting?” Hutch asked. “The doc says it had to be pretty bad for at least a week or two before.”
Starsky knew why he had tried to ignore the signals his body had sent him, but he also had a vague memory of Hutch not taking it well when he told him. Did Hutch really cry or had that just been a product of his drug-addled imagination? He didn’t think he wanted to take the gamble.
“How long?” he asked instead of answering the question.
“Five days,” Hutch said. “You developed an infection. Even with the antibiotics, you were delirious. Your fever broke last night and you’ve been sleeping like a baby ever since.”
Five days? Delirious? Oh, God, what had he said? What secrets had he raved?
“Hutch.” It still hurt to talk and it was still only a whisper, but Starsky had to know. “What’d I say?”
“You yelled and screamed and said ‘fuck’ a lot,” Hutch reassured him. “Called everybody in sight ‘angel.'”
“Not just you?”
“No, babe, you were an equal opportunity Casanova. No worries.”
Along with the comforting words, Hutch was gently stroking his cheek. Starsky relaxed. Five days, he thought. That meant it was Wednesday.
“I missed our first day!” Starsky exclaimed, and tried to sit up.
Big mistake. Hutch caught him and eased him back down onto the pillow.
“Want the nurse?” Hutch asked, already reaching for the call bell.
Starsky shook his head and panted while his insides settled back where they belonged. Pain had become just pain once again, and he could deal with it.
“Yeah, you really know how to kick off a partnership. I have to say that for you, Starsk,” Hutch teased.
Starsky couldn’t believe he had been robbed of the moment he had been dreaming of for so long. It just wasn’t fair.
“Don’t pout, Starsk,” Hutch advised him. “Doc says you’ll be back to work in about six weeks. Just in time for the Christmas crazies.”
Starsky forgot to be disappointed. Hutch had promised to show him Christmas this year.
“Seems appropriate to me,” Hutch said, a smile chasing away the tired lines on his face. “Being partners with you is the best Christmas present I ever expect to get.”
“Presents?” Starsky echoed.
Hutch laughed until he fell asleep with his head resting on the pillow beside Starsky’s.
Be Careful What You Wish For
Starsky laid a reverent hand on the passenger door of Hutch’s beat up wreck of a car, and paused to savor the moment.
“For Pete’s sake, Starsky, you’ve parked your butt in that seat a thousand times. Would you just get in the car,” Hutch demanded.
They were in the parking garage at Metro station, ready to hit the streets as partners for the very first time, and already Hutch was wondering if he should have been more careful what he wished for. For more than three years, he had been looking forward to today, but only one hour into their partnership and he was ready to strangle Starsky.
Finally, Starsky cracked the door and slid onto the worn seat. “You just don’t have any heart, partner,” he accused. “Three years is a long time to wait. We gotta savor the moment. Remember this date forever. December 15, 1972.”
Hutch sighed and started the car, then guided it out of its slot and onto the street.
Starsky sighed, too, as the front tires hit the tarmac, but this sound was one of pleasure, and Hutch knew he was savoring again.
“Just how much savoring are we supposed to be doing today?” Hutch groused. “You’ve already savored our first drive in to work together as partners, the first time you made me stop for donuts and I told you I don’t eat donuts for breakfast, the first time we sat down at our desk, the first cup of coffee we poured, and the first time Dobey bellowed at us to get into his office. Just how many first times are you planning on savoring today?”
Starsky smiled, making it clear that his good humor was not diminished one bit by Hutch’s pissy attitude. “Every single one of them, partner. This is a day I don’t plan on ever forgetting.”
“I’m surprised you’re not taking pictures,” Hutch grumbled.
“Forgot to buy film or I would’ve been,” Starsky admitted.
Hutch rolled his eyes, glanced over at his partner and saw that savoring look on his face again. There was also a grin of a certain quality that usually meant the joke was on him. “What are you savoring now?” he demanded, although not entirely sure he wanted to know.
“Nothin’ much,” Starsky said, and though Hutch would have believed it impossible, his grin got wider still. In fact, Starsky looked like he was smiling with every molecule of his body. “Just the first time my partner ever ran a red light.”
Hutch’s eyes flew to the rearview mirror. Sure enough, the light at the intersection behind them was red. But had it been when he went through it? He slanted a quick, suspicious glance at Starsky.
“Nah,” Starsky admitted, laughing. “It was yellow. But if you’re not sure, partner, maybe I better drive from now on.”
“Any time, Starsk. Any time you can get your car started, that is,” Hutch agreed, enjoying yet another opportunity to tease Starsky about his unreliable car. “You talk about my car, at least it goes.”
“I’m lookin’,” Starsky protested.
“You’ve been looking for two years, now, Starsk. I think maybe it’s time you did more than just look, since your car only runs three days out of seven. We can’t patrol the streets on a bus,” Hutch pointed out.
He made a left turn for a cruise down porno row, which, predictably at this time of the morning, was nearly deserted. A drunken wino curled up in a massage parlor doorway was the only sign of life.
“Look, Starsk,” Hutch couldn’t resist pointing out. “Our first bum. Wanna stop and roust him?” he asked facetiously.
Starsky peered out of the window as they cruised by. ”Nah. That’s just Eddie. He’s harmless,” he dismissed the regular sight. “Besides, I want our first collar to be somethin’ really good.”
Hutch sighed again. He had the feeling he was going to be doing a lot of that today. “I’ll see if I can come up with a nice million dollar pusher for you.”
“That would be nice,” Starsky agreed.
Hutch liked Starsky’s smile. In fact, if he was forced to admit it, he might even say he loved it. It lit up his partner’s face like the Fourth of July when Starsky was really happy. But the grin he had been sporting since Hutch picked him up this morning had to be hurting by now. Hutch was certainly tired of looking at it.
“So, when are you going to do something about that damned car?” he asked.
That took the voltage out of Starsky’s grin. “I’m lookin’,” he repeated. “Just haven’t seen anything yet I want.”
“The Big Three turnout thousands of cars every year. Surely there is one to suit your discerning eye,” Hutch said. “Just what the hell are you looking for anyway?”
“I’ll know it when I see it, partner,” Starsky insisted. “Think I might wait until the new ones come out. I should have the cash by then.”
“You should have had the cash years ago,” Hutch protested. “As long as I’ve known you, you’ve been saving for a car.”
Starsky’s expression became sheepish. “Keepin’ mine on the road keeps dippin’ into the kitty,” he admitted.
“All the more reason to get one now. Quit throwing good money after bad,” Hutch advised wisely.
They had left the X-rated row behind them now, cruising into the shopping district that was just beginning to come to life. Metro division was an uneasy mixture of the businesses of the richest of the rich in the high rises and fancy stores on one hand, and the poorest of the poor in the ramshackle housing and crammed together shops on the other. Personally, Hutch preferred their beat where ethnic businesses struggled for survival, interspersed with rundown apartments and dingy bars. There were just as many criminals in either camp, but Hutch preferred their own brand. It sounded contradictory to say they were more honest in their dishonesty, but that was the way Hutch saw it.
“I’ll know it when I see it,” Starsky repeated.
Hutch dropped the subject. For now, it was just as easy for him to drive, even though Starsky enjoyed being behind the wheel more. It was certainly easier for him to pick Starsky up on the way in from Venice, since Starsky’s apartment was located so close to the station. For a while anyway. Starsky’s place had been broken into three times and he was talking about moving into an apartment in a better neighborhood. Hutch wondered what it said about the BCPD’s effectiveness when a cop couldn’t live in the area he patrolled.
“Did you put everything into the book last night?” Hutch asked.
“Of course,” Starsky replied. He picked up the small binder from the seat between them and flipped through the pages, many of them as yet unused.
The book had been Hutch’s idea. Although both he and Starsky had excellent memories, he knew that, especially as time went on, they wouldn’t be able to remember every fact and figure of the criminals they arrested. So the idea of the book had been born. It was nothing more than a quick reference of pictures and condensed rap sheet facts, and the present whereabouts—such as in jail, newly paroled, or on the lam—of the many criminals they came in contact with.
“I’ve been thinking it might not be a bad idea to have a checklist, too,” Hutch suggested. He was a great one for organization, especially when he could con his partner into doing the work. Starsky liked bright ideas, so that was seldom a problem. “You know, a list we could check off before we start our patrol.”
“Like the pre-flight check pilots do?” Starsky asked eagerly.
Hutch smothered a grin. Starsky loved a new project, and he could be so damned predictable sometimes. “Exactly,” he agreed. He wouldn’t be the least bit surprised to find Starsky carrying a clip-boarded list tomorrow, detailing every last piece of equipment they carried, right down to the spare ammunition for their guns. He wondered, suddenly, if maybe he had been a little too smart for his own good. Given his partner’s boundless enthusiasm, he might just have created a monster. “Just the basics, Starsk,” he added in hopes of not spending the first half hour of every shift checking off Starsky’s list.
Hutch looked around as they drove, hoping for a distraction. Unfortunately, there were only the expected sights of shopkeepers opening up for the day, and people peacefully going about their own business. He saw a red-suited Santa Claus setting up his little stand with its black kettle, and groaned silently. Christmas. He really didn’t like Christmas, but in a moment of idiocy, had agreed to introduce Starsky to the season. All the bells and whistles, as Starsky had insisted. His friend’s intense focus on getting well and back into shape after his appendix surgery had delayed the inevitable, but Hutch knew his grace period was running out. Only the momentous event of this first day of partnership had delayed the badgering Starsky would, Hutch was sure, soon be bringing to bear.
While Hutch was regretting his promises, however, Starsky had found a distraction of his own.
“Where are we gonna have lunch?” he asked, swiveling his head to keep in sight the hot dog vendor on the corner they had just passed.
“It’s not even nine o’clock in the morning yet,” Hutch pointed out. Their diametrically opposed ideas of appropriate cuisine was one of the things they loved to argue about the most. Starsky often accused him of thinking of his body as a temple; while Hutch always countered that Starsky must think of his as a garbage disposal. Hutch found it comforting to imagine them, on the twentieth anniversary of their partnership, still indulging in this favored argument.
“But this is important, partner,” Starsky said. He had that earnest expression on his face that Hutch had learned to be wary of. “It’ll be our first lunch together as partners, and it’s gotta be something we’ll remember. I think Jose’s Mexican Eatery is the perfect choice.”
Hutch groaned and rolled his eyes. “Oh, yeah. That’ll be memorable. I’ll have heartburn until next Tuesday.”
“It’s gotta be in our own beat,” Starsky protested, and Hutch knew he was making the stipulation on purpose. There wasn’t a health food restaurant in the entire area they were designated to patrol, and Starsky knew it. “Come on, partner,” he wheedled.
“Are you going to call me that all damned day?” Hutch bitched, but resigned himself to the inevitable. Some things weren’t worth the argument, he decided, but made a mental note to invest some of his trust fund in an antacid company. He might as well get out a little of the money he would be putting into them.
Zebra Three. Zebra Three.
Hutch jumped a little, and even he had to admit to a surge of excitement at hearing their new call sign for the first time. He watched Starsky unhook the mike with a reverence usually reserved for the devout handling of a holy relic.
“Zebra Three,” Starsky acknowledged, as if the words were a mouthful of twenty-year-old brandy, that sappy, savoring expression back on his face.
Silent alarm. See the man at Longshore Warehouse. 116 Brigham Road.
“Zebra Three, we are responding. 10-4,” Starsky acknowledged and hung up the mike. “Come on, partner. Let’s go,” he encouraged Hutch. “Looks like we got us our first burglar.”
“Pretty stupid one. It’s broad daylight,” Hutch pointed out, but nonetheless put his foot down as Starsky slapped the mars light onto the roof and hit the siren.
Hutch felt his excitement growing as they sped through the streets toward the warehouse district. It wasn’t the first time he had raced to the scene of a crime with siren screaming and lights flashing. It wasn’t even the first time he had done it with Starsky, as they and their former partners had often worked together. But it was the first time he had ever done so with Starsky as the man who would be solely responsible for watching his back, and vice versa. Donuts, coffee and Dobey’s bellows, he had no interest in savoring; it was this he wanted imprinted on his memory until the day he died.
When they were within two blocks of the address, Starsky killed the siren and they made the rest of the trip in silence. Hutch rolled to a stop in front of the building where an obviously excited man waited for them, dancing from foot to foot.
Starsky was out of the car before it even stopped rolling, and Hutch had to hurriedly shut it down before he could join him.
“I’m the owner, Bill Bartlett. Pleased to meet you. There’s somebody in there,” their excited contact babbled. “The alarm went off at home just as I was getting ready to leave, so I came right down and this,” he pointed to the control beside the door, “says someone’s in there.”
Hutch peered at the display, hoping it would show them the point of entry, but it was all just one mass of flashing red lights. “Where?”
“Don’t know,” Bartlett admitted. “Couldn’t afford that type of alarm. Cost would have run me out of business. Aren’t you going to do something?”
“Of course we are,” Starsky assured him in his calm-the-citizen voice. “But first we want you to get in your car and drive down the block. If there’s any shooting going on, we don’t want you in the line of fire.”
“Smooth, Starsk,” Hutch muttered as Bartlett scurried away.
“Did you want him on your heels?” Starsky asked. He looked left and right. “Point of entry?” he added.
“Yeah,” Hutch agreed. He scanned the street in both directions. There was an alley on either side of Longshore Warehouse separating it from its neighbors, and there was likely one running behind it as well. “Going to have to split up,” he added reluctantly.
Without comment, Starsky returned to the car and retrieved the radios from the glove compartment. “You go left, I’ll take the right,” he said as he handed over one of the units. Despite the even timbre of his voice, Hutch could feel the excitement crackling around his partner like static electricity.
“Stay in touch, and keep your head down,” Hutch instructed sternly. Sometimes, Starsky took risks that scared the hell out of Hutch, counting on his fast reflexes and his excellent physical condition to keep him from harm. But this was his first day back after the surgery, and Hutch couldn’t help but fret.
“Yes, mother,” Starsky reassured him, then, with a grin, he was gone.
Hutch put his own expertise to work then, flattening himself against the front of the building and moving along it until he could peek around the corner into the alley before venturing inside. Moving quickly, but cautiously, he moved down the litter-strewn space, checking windows as he went and finding them locked. A visual check of the upper windows looked as if they were also secure, although a smart burglar would have likely closed it behind him anyway.
His radio crackled, and he moved his thumb from receive to send. “Starsky?”
“Think I’ve got the POE,” Starsky’s filtered voice crackled through the tiny speaker. “Halfway down. Come back around the front in case there’s anyone out back.”
Hutch hurried to join his partner, arriving just as Starsky finished yanking a piece of torn canvas back from a window opening. “Do you believe this?” he whispered. “That idiot not only won’t buy a decent alarm system, he’s got canvas stapled over a broken window.”
Hutch clipped the radio to his belt and drew his gun as Starsky mirrored his actions.
Starsky lifted his foot. “Gimme a boost?” he requested.
Hutch holstered his gun, squatted and cupped his hands, but offered a complaint nonetheless. “Why do you get to go first?”
“‘Cause you got longer legs than me,” Starsky explained before grabbing the frame and, with Hutch’s boost, disappearing inside.
Hutch climbed in beside him, and they both looked around the dim interior.
“Split up again?” Starsky asked doubtfully.
“No way,” Hutch insisted. “We stay together.”
Starsky seemed to agree, and they moved cautiously together, Starsky slightly behind and to the left of Hutch, their guns gripped in both hands and aimed toward the ceiling. They searched the entire first floor and found nothing. The loading doors in the back were secure and a visual check of the open space behind the warehouse revealed it to be deserted. They were halfway up the stairs to the second floor, Starsky leading this time, when they heard something crash to the floor above them.
Hutch grabbed for the tail of Starsky’s jacket as his partner surged up two steps. “Easy,” he hissed.
They resumed their cautious climb until Starsky could peek into the big, open, nearly empty second floor.
“Nothing,” he reported. “Can see pretty well everywhere. Just a desk and some filing cabinets to the right. There’s a box on its side near the desk. Could be what we heard.”
“Let’s go,” Hutch decided.
When their appearance didn’t result in a hail of bullets, they moved over to the desk. Hutch lowered his arms, letting the heavy Magnum hang from his right hand and trying to make his alert muscles relax just a little.
“False alarm?” Starsky wondered and stepped around the edge of the desk just as a blur of white shot out from underneath it, streaked past his feet and disappeared into the space between the wall and the filing cabinets.
Both men reacted to the sudden threat as they had been trained to; bringing their guns to bear, ready to blow the fast moving target to hell. Hutch dropped his gun to his side as visual input caught up with instinct.
“Did you see what I saw?” Starsky asked uncertainly.
“A cat?” Hutch suggested, not sure he believed his own eyes.
They moved together to peer into the gloom behind the cabinet. Two glowing green eyes in a very unhappy feline face peered back at them. Behind her, amid a bundle of rags moved several smaller bodies. The cat hissed, warning them off.
“And kittens,” Hutch added, dissipating adrenaline making him feel a little shaky. He holstered his gun, and then started to laugh.
“What’s so damned funny?” Starsky growled. It was obvious he was also coming down off his adrenaline high. He shoved his gun into his holster angrily.
By this time, Hutch was laughing so hard he could hardly talk. “You wanna read her her rights, or shall I?” he managed to gasp.
Starsky grabbed his arm and started hauling him toward the stairs.
“What’s the matter, Starsk? Don’t wanna savor the moment?” Hutch teased, allowing himself to be dragged along.
They were back down on the main floor before Starsky emitted a grudging chuckle. “I guess it is kinda funny,” he admitted. “The guys are gonna give us an awful ribbing.”
Hutch threw his arm around his partner’s shoulders as they walked out into the December sunshine. “We’ll survive it,” he reassured him. “Let’s go and have a talk with Mr. Bartlett about his security.”
~*~*~
After a brief discussion with Mr. Bartlett, they called in their availability to control and began patrolling their beat again. They had only been in the car a couple of minutes when their second call came in.
Zebra Three. Zebra Three.
Starsky caught up the mike with much less reverence. This was their second call, and, therefore, obviously not worth savoring. “Zebra Three,” he confirmed.
“Code 484. See the man at Gruber’s Corner Convenience.
“We are responding,” Starsky confirmed and re-hooked the mike. “Are we going to spend all day getting nothing but piss-ass calls?”
“Welcome to my world,” Hutch said as he swung the car around in a wide u-turn. “Before Dobey, Rick and I spent day after day handling calls just like this. The only time we’d get a decent case was when we happened to be in the vicinity when an all units call went out. Or when we were involved in a case with you and Les.”
“Yeah, I know,” Starsky agreed. “Why do you think Les was always in Forrester’s office explaining how we just had to have another team?”
Juvenile shoplifters wasn’t exactly an emergency call, and both Starsky and Hutch had dealt with Gruber often enough to know he wouldn’t let the pint-size perpetrators loose until they arrived, so they didn’t hurry. When they entered the small store, as they expected, the short, dark proprietor was holding two boys, who appeared to be about ten years old, by the scruffs of their necks.
“About time you showed up. I called in at least fifteen minutes ago,” Gruber complained as soon as the partners came through the door.
“What’s the problem, Mr. Gruber?” Hutch asked.
Meantime, Starsky took hold of the boys and walked them to the back of the shop. On the cases they had worked together in the past with their former partners, Hutch almost always suggested that Starsky deal with any kids involved. Starsky suspected it was because his partner firmly believed that, in some ways, he had never entirely grown up. Taking the boys to a corner of the store as far from the exit as possible, Starsky swung them around to face him. “Names?” he demanded shortly.
“Jimmy,” replied the tow-headed, shorter of the pair, attitude bristling out of his blue-jeans and t-shirt clad form.
“Shane,” answered the second, darker boy, who appeared to be far more subdued.
“You oughta be ashamed,” Starsky said, making a play on the boy’s name that made him flinch. “And you, how many times have I hauled you back to your mother?” he asked the future leader of the pack, to which he received a sneer in reply.
“Starsk?” Hutch called from the front of the store. “Come on, he insists we take them in.”
Starsky caught an arm each and marched the boys toward the door. Gruber always insisted they prosecute, but because the shoplifters were almost inevitably well under age, and the amount involved minor, they were at liberty to use their own judgment. Their own judgment usually meant putting them in the back of the car, and since they were driving Hutch’s car that was a punishment in itself, and taking them home to their parents. Only if no parent was home, a situation happening more and more often in this neighborhood, did they have to take them to the station. Even then, they seldom, if ever, booked them, simply holding them until a parent could be contacted to pick them up.
“I’m not getting in there,” Mr. Attitude protested when Starsky opened the back door of the car.
Starsky couldn’t really blame him, but gave him a little shove nonetheless. “Get in,” he commanded.
When Hutch joined them in the car and started the engine, Starsky hooked a thumb over the back seat toward Jimmy. “We’ll take Mr. James Dean, rebel without a cause, home first. I know his mom is home during the day. I’ve hauled him home from Gruber’s so many times we’re getting to be friends.”
Hutch grunted in agreement and pulled out into traffic.
“So, what was it they were trying to lift? Candy bars?” Starsky asked. He was half-turned in the seat so he could keep an eye on the boys, amused by their differing reactions to finding themselves in custody. Jimmy Smith continued to radiate attitude, which, Starsky knew, would hold up right up to the moment that Mama Smith landed the first swat on his backside. Shane, on the other hand, looked scared to death, and, Starsky was willing to bet it was his first attempt at crossing the law.
“The little dark one, yeah,” Hutch replied, and Starsky saw him adjust his posture slightly so he could fix the blond with his cool, pale eyes in the rearview mirror. “Jimmy there is branching out it seems. Tried to smuggle a Playboy out under his t-shirt.”
“Playboy?!” Starsky exclaimed in genuine surprise, turning more so that he too could lay an accusatory glare on the boy. “What do you want that for?”
“What are ya, queer?” Jimmy snarled back. “Wanna look at the tits and asses.”
Starsky turned back around so that the little bastard couldn’t see his blush. “Geez, Hutch. What are kids coming to? When I was ten, I was still playing with toy trains.”
“You still play with toy trains,” Hutch reminded him with a wink.
Starsky just shook his head. “What about Mr. Shame there?”
“Baby Ruth,” Hutch replied.
The rest of the trip was made in as intimidating a silence as the partners could manage. Starsky turned up the volume of the scanner and watched Shane’s cheeks pale even further. It wasn’t natural for him to play tough with a kid, but if it convinced the boy to leave a life of crime behind him, then it was worth the effort.
“Officer Starsky,” Mrs. Smith greeted when Starsky had marched Jimmy up the three flights of stairs and down the dingy corridor to the battered door of his apartment. He had been bringing Jimmy home since he was in uniform and, as he told Hutch, he and the mother were almost on a first name basis.
“Candy bars, again?” she asked with a tolerant smile.
Starsky hoped his blush wouldn’t show in the poor light. “Not this time, Mrs. Smith. Playboy magazine.”
The tolerance disappeared as Mrs. Smith laid an uncompromising hand on the seat of her offspring’s pants, and gave him a swat to hurry his reluctant passage into the apartment. “Get to your room. I’ll be there in a minute,” she threatened.
“Gruber’s again?” Mrs. Smith asked, and when Starsky nodded, went on. “I appreciate you bringing him home and not down to the station.”
“I don’t know how much longer I can keep doing it,” Starsky said seriously. “He’s getting older, and pretty soon Mr. Gruber or one of the other merchants will insist I charge him.”
“If only his father was still around,” Mrs. Smith sighed wistfully.
Starsky knew that Mrs. Smith had four children, and that each one of them had been fathered by a different man who had remained on the scene only briefly. He didn’t even know for sure if Mrs. Smith was married at all, but offered her the courtesy of the title nonetheless. She tried hard, but coming from a similar home, was almost doomed to failure before she started.
“Did you register him with the Big Brothers like I suggested?” Starsky asked gently.
“Yes. We’re on a waiting list.” There was a crash from within the apartment and Mrs. Smith glanced over her shoulder. “I guess I better go….”
“Yeah,” Starsky agreed. He was glad he wasn’t Jimmy Smith at this moment. He remembered what it was like to eat his meals standing up after his mom was done with him.
Starsky threw a glance at their remaining passenger as he got back into the car. “Address?” he demanded.
Now that he was on his own, Shane was getting closer to tears by the moment. “Couldn’t you just take me to jail?” he asked in a trembling voice.
For a second time, Starsky had to turn abruptly to face the front of the car, but not because of an imminent blush. He bit his lip to keep from laughing, letting a glance at Hutch from the corner of his eye pass the gauntlet to him.
“Your parents would still have to come and get you,” Hutch explained the facts of life in a gentle tone.
“But not for a couple of years, right?” Shane asked hopefully.
If this kept up, Starsky was afraid he was going to hurt himself trying not to laugh.
“No, son,” Hutch explained. “It would probably just be worse if they had to come down to the station to get you.”
Amid a flood of tears and sniffles, Shane reluctantly gave them the address and they drove the boy home. This time, Starsky let Hutch take the budding juvenile delinquent to the front door of a small and shabby bungalow in a neighborhood not much better than Jimmy Smith’s. It was evident, however, that though rundown and somewhat neglected, some efforts had been made to keep the homes on this street tidy and neat. Watching out of the passenger window, Starsky saw Hutch hand the boy over and engage in a few minutes of earnest conversation with the visibly distraught mother. He was probably explaining the situation and, hopefully, pointing out that Jimmy Smith might not be the best companion for her boy.
Starsky reached for the mike and called in their availability as soon as Hutch started back down the walk.
“Christ, I hate doing things like that,” Hutch complained as he climbed into the car and pulled them back out onto the road. “There are so many wasted lives down here. Although I don’t think Shane will be showing up on our call sheets again any time soon.”
“One out of two isn’t bad, I guess,” Starsky said. “Jimmy’s mom said she signed him up with the Big Brother program, but there’s a waiting list.”
“I’ve been thinking about that,” Hutch admitted.
“Yeah?” Starsky asked. If he was surprised at all, it was that Hutch hadn’t done something like this earlier. Being a Big Brother certainly fit in with his desire to save the world.
“Maybe I’ll look into it our next day off,” Hutch decided.
Starsky looked at his watch. “It’s ten o’clock already. Is nothing exciting going to happen today?” he complained, yawning and stretching as well as he could in the cramped space.
“I hate to tell you this, partner, but while you were delivering Jimmy Smith to his well-deserved punishment, there was an armed robbery over on Main Street. All units call.”
Starsky thumped the dashboard. “Damn!” he exclaimed and turned an accusing glare on Hutch. “If you’ve jinxed me, partner, I just might start being sorry I got my wish.”
~*~*~
Once again they had only been available for a few minutes when their radio crackled.
Zebra Three. Zebra Three.
“Well, we can’t complain we aren’t popular,” Hutch quipped.
Starsky snorted and unhooked the mike. “Zebra Three,” he acknowledged, and Hutch noticed that in place of the earlier savoring, there was now a decidedly put-upon tone to the deep voice.
Code 415F. See the woman. 261 Eldrid Street.
Starsky grimaced before thumbing the send button. “Zebra Three. We are responding,” he growled and rehooked the mike.
“Goddamnit!” he cursed.
Hutch bit his lip to hold back his smile. “Don’t worry, partner, I’ll protect you,” he reassured him. He pulled into the center lane to make a left turn.
“You better,” Starsky snapped and slumped back into the seat to pout.
Hutch let his smile loose, although he could sympathize with his disgruntled friend. Most cops hated domestic disturbance calls. Not only did they usually result in a great waste of time; more than one officer had found himself on the receiving end of the victim’s wrath when they tried to arrest the perpetrator. Starsky had been one of those officers during his uniform days, when he and his partner responded to a woman’s desperate cry for help. Starsky had come out of the fracas with a black eye and mild concussion; both inflicted by the victim when Starsky had tried to arrest her battering boyfriend.
Their contact was waiting outside a four-story building when they arrived.
“What do you want to bet they’re on the fourth floor,” Starsky predicted.
“Murphy’s law,” Hutch agreed, as they climbed out of the car. He could hear the raised voices as soon as he shut down the engine.
Their contact gave them a suspicious look as they approached, that only softened slightly when they flashed their badges. “What can you expect from normal people when the cops look like you two?” she grumbled.
“I’m Detective Starsky, and this is Detective Hutchinson,” Starsky introduced them with his most charming smile, which, Hutch saw, wasn’t melting the icy attitude of this old broad one little bit.
“Marg Harper,” the woman grudgingly introduced herself. “It’s about time you got here. It’s the Simons up on the fourth floor. One of ’em is gonna kill the other if you don’t do something. They been battlin’ like that for an hour now.”
Hutch took the lead as they climbed the stairs, wincing when they reached the fourth floor and a long string of foul language was screeched through the open door at the end of the corridor.
“Don’t have to guess where the noise is coming from, anyway,” he said.
“Just watch out for flying irons,” Starsky cautioned him.
“Is that what she got you with?” Hutch asked, once again having to battle down a smile. Starsky never would talk about that particular incident, and Hutch had always been curious. He hadn’t even been able to pry the facts out of Tom Bright. He suspected that Starsky had used some sort of effective threat or bribe to convince his former partner to keep his mouth shut.
“Never mind,” Starsky mumbled and pushed by Hutch as they approached the open door.
“I told you to get out you lying, cheating, son of a bitch, no good, lazy, lying, bastard,” screamed through the doorway.
“She’s repeating herself,” Starsky muttered. “I forget. Is that a good sign or a bad sign?”
“And I told you that I pay the rent here, and if anybody’s—”
Starsky interrupted the baritone rejoinder with a sharp rap on the doorframe. “Police,” he called through the open door.
Hutch could see the couple where they stood in the middle of their surprisingly neat living room. It looked like they hadn’t yet passed the shouting stage. They were an older couple, perhaps fifty or so, neatly dressed and both they and their apartment seemed to be clean and tidy. There was no hard and fast rule for any situation, Hutch knew, but so far, the visual evidence didn’t lead to a conclusion of possible violent interaction.
Mr. Simon, taking what Hutch wondered might be a great risk, turned his back on his wife and came to the open doorway. Hutch held out his badge as Starsky did the same. “Who called you?” the man demanded.
“Neighbor,” Hutch replied vaguely. Of course, they never gave a complainant’s name.
“I’ll bet it was that old bitch, Marg Harper,” Mrs. Simon accused as she joined them at the door.
“Perhaps we could take this inside and close the door. Be a bit more private,” Hutch suggested. “Maybe we can help you work out the problem. We don’t really want to haul you both in for disturbing the peace.”
The Simons backed into their apartment with obvious reluctance, and Hutch saw that Starsky wasn’t any more enthusiastic about following, but he did. Something told him, the rest of their morning was about to go in the toilet.
~*~*~
“I guess it’s about time I introduced you to the Bear,” Starsky suggested.
As Hutch had feared, it had taken them the rest of the morning to convince the battling Simons to give each other another chance. They had left them making up on the sofa, and both he and Starsky had been happy to depart before the couple got to the kissing stage. Upon discovering it was past noon, Starsky had insisted on lunch and, reluctantly, Hutch had given in to his choice of restaurant—if Jose’s Mexican Eatery could be graced with such a grand title—but only after securing a promise that the choice would be his the next day.
Now, with lunch burning a hole in his belly, Hutch was more than ready for a little diversion.
“Huggy Bear? Your snitch? ‘Bout time you got around to introducing me to him,” Hutch complained. “Baxter said you wouldn’t introduce him either, but insisted this mysterious Huggy Bear was your secret weapon.”
If the morning had diminished Starsky’s enthusiasm at all, the three tacos he had for lunch seemed to have restored it. “He is my secret weapon,” he agreed with his usual eagerness. “That’s why I’ve been savin’ him for today. Now that you’re my partner, you need to know all my secrets.”
Since they were stopped at a red light, Hutch took the opportunity to run an appreciative glance over his partner where he sprawled against the car door.
“I thought I already knew all your secrets,” he purred.
Starsky straightened abruptly, righting himself in the seat. “None of that, Hutch. You know we gotta follow the rules.”
“Sorry,” Hutch apologized, and he meant it. There were less than half a dozen rules governing their sexual relationship they couldn’t afford to break. No flirting, especially while on duty, was one of them. If they had any hope of keeping within the boundaries they had set themselves, they couldn’t spend half their time teasing each other. Not when, as of today, they could count on being together for at least seventy-five percent of their time. Now more than ever, for the sake of the precious bond of friendship that had grown between them, as well as their brand new partnership, they had to strictly enforce the rules.
“It’s okay,” Starsky accepted the apology. “Won’t be the last time one of us forgets.”
“Or the other one calls him on it,” Hutch agreed. “So, what about the mysterious Huggy Bear? Les said he’s a pimp,” he added, and although he tried hard, he couldn’t quite keep the censure out of his voice. As far as Hutch and many other police officers were concerned, pimps were just about the lowest form of life there was, along with rapists and people who hurt children.
Starsky’s face screwed up in disapproval. “Now, don’t be like that, Hutch. Yeah, sometimes, maybe even a lot of the time, Huggy just barely hangs around the outskirts of the law. But he’s been a damned good friend to me when I needed him.”
“How long have you known him?” Hutch wondered.
“Shit, long time. Before I went to ‘Nam.”
“And after? Is that when he was such a good friend?” Hutch asked, realizing with some astonishment that he was jealous. What he couldn’t decide was whether it was the possibility, slim though it might be, that this Huggy Bear might have slept with Starsky, or if it was the precious commodity of Starsky’s friendship he resented sharing.
Starsky hadn’t missed the tone of his voice. “I never slept with him,” he said quietly. “Never slept with any guy before or after ‘Nam except you.”
“Sorry,” Hutch repeated. “None of my business,” he added, but he had noted that Starsky didn’t attempt to qualify the friendship he had with the mysterious snitch. “Is he really a pimp?”
“Sometimes,” Starsky admitted. “Though I guess that’s like saying a girl’s a little bit pregnant. Huggy’s got his skinny fingers in all kinds of pies, and like I said, not all of them are strictly legal. But none of what he does ever hurts anybody—no drugs or enforcement. A little gambling, maybe, and he’ll give his protection to a working girl if she wants it.” Starsky paused and turned a hard look on Hutch. “And, yes, I turn a blind eye to it.”
“Why, Starsk?” Hutch asked curiously. It wasn’t really like his partner to go easy on a known criminal.
“Because there isn’t anything worth knowing in Bay City that he doesn’t already know or can’t find out. What he tells me keeps a lot of hurt from happening,” Starsky explained earnestly.
“He rats out his friends?” Hutch said, now deliberately playing devil’s advocate, trying to keep his personal feelings out of it.
“Sometimes,” Starsky admitted. “He’s got his own code of conduct, and there’ve been times when he’s clammed up on me ’cause a friend of his was involved. But he doesn’t usually call the type of people we want to collar friends.”
“Okay. So where do we find this paragon of virtue?”
Starsky checked his watch. “Right now, he should be waiting for us in the balcony at the Galway on Main Street.”
“The porno movie house?” Hutch exclaimed.
“None other.”
“And you had this all planned out ahead of time, didn’t you?” Hutch accused.
“Of course.” Starsky was so smug that, had he been a cat, he would have been burping feathers.
Hutch pulled the car over to the curb.
“Hey. Why you stopping? We gotta meet Huggy,” Starsky protested.
Hutch climbed out of the car and came around to Starsky’s side. “Because, partner mine,” he said through the open window. “That lousy lunch has given me my first, but I’m sure not the last, case of heart burn of our partnership. So, I’m going in there…” he paused to wave toward the drug store across the street. “… to buy my first package of Rolaids.” He grinned evilly. “Then I’m gonna savor a couple.”
~*~*~
Starsky had made a point of concealing his informant from his former partners. His efforts were made on Huggy Bear’s behalf. First and foremost, Huggy was Starsky’s friend, and had been since his teens. Most of the assistance Huggy gave him was for the sake of that friendship. Starsky paid him, but more because he knew Huggy needed the money than because Huggy demanded it. He had always intended that, when Hutch became his official partner, he would introduce the two men.
It had taken him several months to convince Huggy to agree to the meeting. Living the life he did, cops weren’t, as a rule, Huggy’s favorite people. He overlooked that particular flaw in Starsky, but his general rule of thumb was to avoid the enforcers of the laws he bent with regularity. Starsky had begun introducing Huggy to the idea of expanding his cop-amnesty to Hutch the very day Dobey promised to make them partners. Huggy had only agreed a week ago, mostly, Starsky was sure, to finally shut him up.
Still, Starsky had waffled about it for a while, but then, as was typical of him, decided he had to face it head on. If he and Hutch were going to make their partnership work, he couldn’t keep secrets. Not about Huggy, and certainly not about himself. He knew Hutch wasn’t narrow-minded, but he was pretty literal when it came to the law. An idealist, Hutch loved the white, hated the black, and was still learning that there was a whole lot more of the gray than either of the other two. There was also the fact that Starsky knew exchanging a little leniency for information said as much about him as it did about Huggy, and Hutch’s high regard was as important to Starsky as the air he breathed.
Hutch had taken his confession better than Starsky expected, so his hopes had risen that just maybe the coming meeting wouldn’t be a disaster. His choice of meeting place wasn’t the greatest, he had to admit. Hutch wasn’t a prude. Hell, if anyone knew that, it was the man who screwed his brains out the last Friday of every month. But the sordidness of a place like this really bothered him. Still, there was nothing he could do about it now, Starsky acknowledged, as he led the way up the rickety, poorly illuminated back stairs to the balcony of the Galway theatre.
He ignored the action on the screen, and the even noisier action in certain areas, until he had them settled in just about the middle of the bank of seats.
“Jesus. Are they…?” Hutch sputtered.
Starsky looked up at the screen. “Yeah, they are,” he confirmed, determined not to show he was every bit as shocked as his friend.
“I didn’t think that was even physically possible,” Hutch breathed in awe.
Starsky watched the action unfold on the screen a little while longer. “Maybe I should take notes. We can try it out on the thirtieth,” he suggested softly.
Hutch choked on the sip of soda he had just taken. “You can’t be serious?” he sputtered.
“Wouldn’t want you to get bored with me,” Starsky whispered. He didn’t think there was much chance of that. Despite the fact that their agreement was three years old, they had actually had less than a month’s worth of encounters when he remembered the many missed Fridays caused by serious girlfriends, illness, and conflicting shift schedules. They hadn’t had time yet to grow complacent with each other sexually.
But Hutch had obviously seen enough of the bedroom gymnastics, his blond head swiveling and his blue eyes narrowing to pierce the smoky gloom.
“So where is the mysterious Mr. Bear?” he asked.
Starsky settled down in his seat, propping his feet on the back of the seat in front of him and digging into his bag of popcorn. “He’ll be along in a minute,” he reassured his edgy partner, then stuffed a handful of the greasy, salty snack into his mouth. “Can I have a drink of your soda?”
“You should have bought one,” Hutch complained, but handed the cup over. “It’s watered down.”
“Whaddya expect?” Starsky asked before sucking on the paper straw.
“That’s a good way to catch whatever he’s got,” came a voice out of the darkness directly behind them.
Hutch jumped, but Starsky, who was familiar with his informant’s tactics, had been waiting for just such an unheralded appearance.
“Suppose he ain’t got nothin’?” Starsky quipped back, automatically dropping into a jargon even less formal than his normal speech patterns.
“Then I would say your blond brother leads a very uneventful life.”
Starsky laughed. “Huggy Bear, meet my new partner, Ken Hutchinson. Hutch to his friends.”
A thin black hand was extended into the space between Starsky and Hutch’s shoulders. Starsky turned a little in his seat so he could watch Hutch accept the offer and take in his first sight of Huggy Bear, knowing it had to come as a bit of a shock. Huggy was certainly a colorful character, whose only sense of style was for the outlandish. The handshake was brief.
“Pleased to meet you,” Hutch offered uncertainly.
“Charmed, I’m sure.” The snitch’s deep voice was sarcastic and, even in the gloom, Starsky could see the wariness on his mobile face.
“Ignore his clothes,” he said, not making it clear which one of them he was talking to. “His taste is all in his mouth.”
“You’re a fine one to talk.”
“Look at the pot callin’ this kettle black.”
Huggy and Hutch had spoken in unison and Starsky grinned, content to have broken the ice and started them off on the right foot.
Hutch turned a little more in his seat and offered his hand again. “Pleased to meet you,” he said far more seriously this time. “Call me Hutch, Mr. Bear.”
They shook hands a second time.
“And I’m Huggy,” the snitch returned the courtesy. “So you’re the famous Hutch, huh?” Huggy’s dark gaze tracked over as much as he could see of Hutch in the gloom. “Somehow, I thought you’d be bigger. The way my man here has talked about you, I was expectin’, I dunno, maybe Thor, the God of Thunder, or somethin’.”
“You’ve read Norse mythology?” Hutch asked in such obvious surprise that it was almost comical. It was certainly insultingly out of character. Starsky knew that only betrayed Hutch’s nervousness, but let Huggy draw his own conclusions. It wouldn’t hurt Hutch to be taken down a peg or two and, hopefully, learn some other way to handle his unease with a situation besides turning to the arrogance he was taught in his youth.
“I watch Saturday morning cartoons with the rest of the unwashed masses,” Huggy growled, the brief openness disappearing from his face.
“I’m sorry,” Hutch apologized sincerely, and Starsky knew Huggy didn’t have a hope of holding onto his outrage. When Hutch decided to be contrite, even Dobey, who ought to know better by now, couldn’t resist him.
“De nada,” Huggy replied, although Starsky thought his forgiving generosity had as much to do with their long personal history as Hutch’s change of attitude.
Huggy gave Starsky a poke in the shoulder. “So, were you lookin’ for some words with me or did you just disturb my important business to introduce me to tall, blond, and beautiful here?”
Starsky wished it wasn’t so dark in here so that he would be able to see Hutch blushing furiously. The poor man just couldn’t seem to get used to the idea that he was a walking wet dream, although Starsky really didn’t blame him. His pretty boy looks too often meant he had to work twice as hard to be taken seriously. That was another reason, Starsky also knew, that Hutch sometimes came on a little too strong.
“Nope. Not lookin’ to tap your pipeline today. Just wanted you to meet my new partner,” he assured Huggy.
“Too bad,” Huggy said. “Coulda used the bread. The ponies were not too kind to this brother last evenin’.”
Starsky dropped his feet to the floor and dug into his front pocket. He handed a couple of twenties back to Huggy. “Call it an advance for future services.”
The bills were taken from his fingers. “I got a new shoeshine stand over on Third. Come on over some time. On the house,” Huggy offered.
“I wear sneakers, Hug,” Starsky reminded him.
“Hutch, then,” Huggy said. “Later.”
And as silently as he had come, Huggy disappeared.
“So what do you think?” Starsky prompted his quiet friend.
“He’s a colorful character,” Hutch allowed. “You have any more friends like him I don’t know about?”
“There isn’t anybody quite like Huggy,” Starsky said. He finished off the last handful of his popcorn, balled up the bag and tossed it on the floor.
“Slob,” Hutch accused, climbing to his feet amid a chorus of ‘down-in-fronts.’
Starsky followed him. “Geez, Hutch. Have you looked in the back seat of your car recently?”
~*~*~
They returned to the car and cruised back out into the business district. It was past two o’clock already. In less than an hour, their first shift as partners would be over. It looked like, Hutch admitted as they drove slowly along the streets, eyes scanning the crowds of Christmas shoppers, that Starsky wasn’t going to get his first collar, either big or small, today.
“Just about out of time for first times to savor today,” he told his partner.
Starsky sighed. “Yeah. Just first sign off, first daily reports, maybe first chewing out from Dobey for wasting so much time on that cat,” he said wistfully. He brooded pensively for a moment, but Hutch didn’t expect that to last. Starsky wasn’t the pensive type. “Look at Fred’s front window, will you? You think he’d be too cheap to use that much electricity. Sure waters his booze down enough.”
Hutch took his eyes off the road long enough to have a look at Fred’s Bar and Poolroom, seeing there was hardly an inch of his grimy front window that wasn’t crowded in multi-colored Christmas lights.
“Hey, that reminds me, you—”
“Help! Police! Help!”
The frantic cry cut Starsky off in mid-sentence and both cops searched for the source of it. They found it on the sidewalk up ahead, where a red-suited, cotton-bearded Santa Claus struggled to hold onto the black kettle that a tall, longhaired young man was trying to wrench away from him. In the time it took Hutch to bring the car up level with the altercation, and the two cops to get out, the thief had let go with one hand long enough to punch dear old Santa in the face. Santa’s hands flew to his face and the victorious thief, realizing that two young and able-bodied men were bearing down on him, turned to make good his escape.
Hutch took off after him, shouting for him to stop. He knew that Starsky, who was the faster sprinter and knew these streets better than Hutch, would first stop to ensure that the victim was all right. He might then join in Hutch’s direct pursuit or might choose a short cut if he thought he could out guess his quarry.
Hutch continued to shout his warning as he ran, if for no other reason than to try to clear his path of stunned pedestrians. Stretching out his long legs, he made a leap over a bicycle and its rider that had been knocked to the ground by the suspect and kept on going.
The suspect rounded a corner into an alley, and Hutch pushed himself harder. This particular alley, he knew, opened onto the next street, but there were numerous doors into buildings on both sides. If the fleeing felon planned on ducking into any of them, Hutch wanted to be there to see which one. No way was he going to let this creep cheat Starsky out of the collar he wanted so badly.
The thief must have heard Hutch skid into the alley, because he gave up trying to open the door he was yanking on and took off again, the black kettle swinging wildly.
“Got you now,” Hutch panted. There was no way the little bastard could outrun him from a standing start when Hutch was already moving at full speed. Gaining with every stride, Hutch was close enough by the time they reached the mouth of the alley to launch himself in a flying tackle that took the Santa robber down and sent the black kettle tumbling, bills and change spewing in every direction.
Hutch rolled around with the struggling thief, finding himself at a sudden disadvantage when a wild swing caught him on the temple. Instinctively, his arms tightened as his head swam, but he held on grimly, determined not to let the Santa-bashing bastard escape. Suddenly, the thief was torn out of his arms and he blinked up to find a grinning Starsky holding the squirming man by the back of his collar, his left hand securing the skinny arm well up the man’s back.
“Ow! You’re hurting me. Police brutality!” the suspect screeched.
Starsky gave him a little shake. “Shut up, you. You wanna talk brutality. You gave Santa a black eye.” He returned his attention to Hutch. “You okay, partner?”
Hutch climbed to his feet and dusted himself off. “Yeah,” he reassured him. It wasn’t by accident that the thief had taken the worst of their encounter with the concrete; Hutch had planned his take-down that way.
“Geez. Would you look at that,” Starsky breathed.
Hutch followed his line of sight just in time to see the last of the scrambling pedestrians scurry away. While he and Starsky had been busy apprehending the criminal, the good citizens they were sworn to protect had gathered up the fallen money from the kettle and made good their escape. Hutch walked over to where the dented kettle lay on its side and picked it up. Inside one lonely nickel remained. By the time he returned to his partner and the now handcuffed suspect, Starsky was shaking his head in disbelief.
“Do you believe that? Everybody knows what those pots are for,” Starsky protested.
Hutch handed him the kettle and took control of their prisoner. “Welcome to the season of brotherly love, partner,” he said as he pushed the man back into the alley through which he had tried to escape.
“That reminds me…” Starsky said as he followed. Hutch cringed.
~*~*~
Hutch really wasn’t trying to get out of his promise. He truly did believe that someone who felt about Christmas the way he did, really shouldn’t be trying to explain the season to someone who had only limited contact with it, but Starsky had insisted. Starsky had been raised within the Jewish faith, and, although he no longer seemed to follow its teachings and, as far as Hutch knew, had had plenty of gentile friends, Starsky knew little besides the outward trappings of the season, and understood less of the meanings behind them. Hutch wasn’t all that certain he understood it himself. Nevertheless, a promise was a promise, and he was finally ready to give in to his friend’s incessant badgering.
It was the Tuesday before Christmas, December 21, 1972, and Hutch was digging through his closet trying to find the Christmas decorations he and Vanessa had used during their marriage. He knew his ex-wife hadn’t taken them with her, so they had to be somewhere. Coming to the closet floor—a sight he hadn’t seen since he had moved into the cottage—Hutch backed out, wincing as he straightened his back, and then nearly falling on his ass when his foot landed on a baseball bat.
Starsky would be here in less than twenty minutes, expecting to be shown not only the spirit and the substance of Christmas, but that Hutch would have an explanation for each tradition. Hutch didn’t have any explanations, nor, it appeared, did he even have so much as a crumpled string of tinsel. What he did have, he saw as he looked around at what had previously been the contents of his closet, was one hell of a mess. It took him ten minutes to stuff the assortment of sports equipment, cleaning appliances, and extra linen back into the closet and hold it there long enough to push the door closed. He sagged back against it and heard something hit the door beside his head. The next person who opened this closet was in for a big surprise, he thought.
While cleaning up, he had decided the Christmas decorations must still be in storage along with most of the furniture he and Van had used. Since Starsky wasn’t likely to forget the promise of a Christmas tree, that meant they were going to have to go out to the storage place before they could even start. Hutch wasn’t even sure where the key was.
Hutch was in the process of emptying out the bedside drawer in search of the elusive locker key when Starsky arrived. A long, low whistle straightened him from where he had been bending over the bed to find Starsky lounging in the alcove doorway.
“For a minute there, I thought this must be Friday,” Starsky said with a lecherous grin, a nod of his head and wriggling eyebrows indicating the tubes, jars, and bottles of lubricants scattered over the bedspread.
“Very funny,” Hutch growled and went back to his search. “I’m looking for my… ah, there it is,” he exclaimed, holding up the bit of metal. He shoveled everything back into the drawer with the same care he had used with the closet, and forced it closed.
“Ready to go look for a Christmas tree?” Starsky asked eagerly, rubbing his hands together.
“We’ll have to go out to the storage place first,” Hutch said, watching his friend’s face fall. “I haven’t decorated since Van and I split, so everything must be out there.”
“Oh. Well, we can swing by there, and then go for the tree. We’ve got all day. And tomorrow, too,” Starsky pointed out.
That was true. Neither one of them had plans for these last two days off before Christmas. Like the rest of the single men, he and Starsky would work straight through the Christmas season, giving the married men a chance to be with their families. The favor would be returned the next week when the married men would cover the shifts of their single brethren, leaving them free to bring in the New Year in drunken celebration.
Starsky and Hutch had their plans set. The thirtieth fell on a Friday, the last Friday, and they planned to spend every minute of the long night together. For the thirty-first, however, they each had dates, but, though they planned on starting out at the same house party, who knew where they might be when 1973 made its first appearance at midnight.
“I don’t know why you want to bother with all this bullshit,” Hutch complained as they left the house and climbed into Starsky’s car. The old blue bomb was fresh from the shop, so it should be good for a day or two. “You saw how those people acted when we took down that thief who robbed the Santa. And, God knows, we haven’t seen much of the spirit of brotherhood on the streets since.”
Starsky shrugged as he navigated them out onto the street. “Where’s your storage place?”
Hutch told him and they headed out that way.
“I dunno, Hutch,” Starsky admitted after a while. “Maybe ’cause I’ve never done it.” He shrugged. “Had lots of gentile friends, but Mom, and then Aunt Rosie, were pretty strict about me not joining in the fun. Guess I just want to give it a try. Find out what all the fuss is about.”
“I can tell you what all the fuss is about in one sentence, Starsk—millions of dollars in retail sales. Rampant commercialism fueled by euphoric sentimentalism,” Hutch grumbled. He could feel himself sinking into one of his contrary moods and knew that was going to make the next few hours, or days, a truly miserable experience for both him and Starsky. He just couldn’t help it. He didn’t like Christmas. The only good thing about Christmas when he was a kid was that his Grandfather Daneborg had come to visit. Now that his mother’s father was dead, Hutch could care less if Christmas never came again.
“You know, Hutch, if you don’t wanna do this, you don’t have to,” Starsky offered to let him off the hook.
The offer of reprieve was so tempting that Hutch almost pounced on it, until he noticed the way Starsky’s mouth had pulled into a grim line. “A promise is a promise,” he said. “I don’t have to love the season to explain it to you.”
“So start explaining,” Starsky prompted him as they turned into the parking lot and parked in front of the sprawling, one story, gray brick building. “Why are these places always so ugly?”
Not wanting to become involved in a discussion regarding the architectural aesthetics of storage buildings, Hutch chose instead to plunge into the task he had been dreading. “So, what do you know about Christmas? The religious part, I mean.”
“The birth of Christ?” Starsky asked, as he followed Hutch into the building and they stopped to check in with the clerk.
“Well,” Starsky continued after the bored woman at the desk had checked Hutch’s identification, wished them a grudging Merry Christmas, and waved them on. “I know Christ was born in a barn with a bunch of animals because there was no room in the motel. His mother was a virgin—that part I can’t figure out. And, for some reason, a bunch of shepherds and wise men showed up to help her have the baby. Sorta like Neil Strong helped the cab driver deliver that baby down on Canal Street last week. Oh, and the wise men brought presents. What I really can’t figure out is where Santa Claus fits in. Was he one of the wise men?”
Hutch was laughing so hard even before Starsky finished his explanation, he had to lean against the door of his locker to hold himself up.
“What’s so damned funny?” Starsky asked in offended outrage.
Hutch was laughing way too hard to say.
~*~*~
By the time Hutch calmed down enough to work the key into the padlock on the slatted door of his storage space, Starsky was pleased to see his friend’s dark mood had been completely banished by his laughter. As a rule, Starsky really hated being laughed at, even by Hutch. But as he had watched the hilarity he had deliberately provoked with his speech chase away Hutch’s unhappy mood, he was satisfied that he had not made a fool of himself in vain. Although he certainly had more information than his deliberately humorous explanation had indicated, he really was interested in learning more about the holiday that threw most of the western world into such a tizzy. More importantly, he wanted to know what it was about it that Hutch hated so much. In other words, while he had harbored a general curiosity about Christmas for most of his life, he hadn’t really been inclined to exert himself enough to find out about it until he realized that Hutch hated it. He didn’t like that there was something about his friend he didn’t understand.
He followed Hutch into the tiny, crowded space of the storage locker after the other man had propped the door open and turned on the overhead light. The single, unshielded bulb revealed a collection of boxes and dust covered furniture and odds and ends of items that Hutch obviously no longer had a use for.
Starsky’s attention was captured immediately by one item propped in a corner, while Hutch wandered over to a stack of boxes and started trying to decipher the faded ink on their labels. Starsky squatted down beside the brass headboard that still gleamed dully in the poor light, and ran his fingers over the smooth, cold metal.
“Starsk, can you help me…?”
Starsky looked away from the object of his fascination when Hutch didn’t continue his request, to find his friend watching him with a guarded expression on his face.
“Jesus, Hutch, how come you’ve got this thing stored away in here? It’s beautiful,” Starsky said. He ran his fingers once again over a tarnished rail. “It’s solid brass, isn’t it?”
“Yes,” Hutch admitted, his voice warning Starsky that this was a no-go area. “Come over here and help me move this stuff. I think the Christmas decorations are in that box on the bottom. Doesn’t it figure?”
Obediently, Starsky rose from his crouch and went to help Hutch shift the boxes. Despite his fascination with the bed, he thought he better drop the subject or take the risk of putting Hutch back into his miserable mood. When the sought after box was unearthed from the bottom of the stack, Hutch lifted the lid to make sure the box hadn’t been mislabeled and they weren’t going to go to the trouble of hauling home a bunch of useless knickknacks.
Starsky was enchanted by the jumbled mixture of strings of lights, figurines, and delicate glass balls that filled the box.
“Oh. I forgot I had this,” Hutch said, so softly that, Starsky almost didn’t hear him, despite the fact they were squatting so close together to peer into the box that their thighs touched.
He watched as Hutch lifted a small cardboard box out of the jumble, opened it, and carefully pealed back layers of yellowed tissue paper to reveal a glass ball so fragile looking that Starsky would be afraid to touch it for fear of it shattering in his hands.
“What is it?” he asked, his voice as soft and reverent as his partner’s.
“My Grandfather Daneborg bought this for my grandmother the first year they were married. They took their honeymoon in Switzerland, and he bought it there and somehow managed to hide it from her until Christmas,” Hutch explained as he lifted the delicate globe from the box.
Inside the glass, Starsky could see tiny houses and a church. There were even miniature people dressed in period costume; all of it covered in a sprinkling of white. Hutch stroked the rounded curve carefully.
“Every year after my grandmother died, my grandfather spent Christmas with us and he would hang this on our tree. Even the year Mother had a designer come in to create the perfect tree. He said he could feel she was still with him when he looked at it.” Abruptly, Hutch put the ornament back in its nest of tissue and closed the lid. “He gave it to me when Van and I got married. I thought she broke it that last fight we had before she moved out.”
Hutch’s voice had changed, the reverence disappearing beneath the bitterness with which he spoke of his ex-wife. But, if Hutch was hoping to disguise his depth of emotion, it was too late. Starsky had seen and heard that Hutch definitely did know what the true spirit of Christmas meant. Even though Starsky was a little fuzzy on the details, he had managed to grasp over the years that beneath the trappings of presents and food, love was what Christmas was all about. Whatever had made Hutch forget that, he had known it once, and Starsky decided that, somehow, maybe not for years and years, he needed to give that back to his friend. But first, he needed to understand it all himself.
And it was time to change the subject, even though the topic Starsky had in mind might result in the same mood reversal he had been trying to avoid. Starsky pushed up to his feet and went back to scrutinizing the brass headboard, while Hutch made sure that everything they were looking for was packed in the one box.
“If you aren’t going to use this thing, why don’t you sell it? I bet it’s worth a small fortune, and it seems a shame to have it sit here like this,” Starsky said.
“I can’t sell it,” Hutch replied, his tone clipped and cold. “It belonged to my grandparents.”
“Daneborg or Hutchinson?” Starsky asked. He didn’t really understand this family heirloom business. His grandparents had come to America after the First World War had devastated Europe with little more than the clothes on their backs.
“For Christ’s sake, quit being a blockhead,” Hutch growled. “I fucked Vanessa in that bed. Do you think I want to make it with a woman…” he paused to give Starsky a leer from his curls all the way down to his new Adidas. “…or you, with her memory hovering around? I wouldn’t be able to get it up.”
Starsky crossed his arms and leaned back against the headboard, feeling the hard bars press against his butt, reminding him of how it felt to be spooned up with Hutch with the hard length of his cock pressed demandingly into his cheeks.
“Hutch, are you still in love with Vanessa?” he asked, bracing himself for an explosion.
It looked for a moment as if he just might get it, as Hutch opened his mouth and the right index finger, that Starsky had long ago learned meant business, came up and zeroed in on him. Abruptly, the hand dropped and Hutch closed his mouth. After a moment, he too crossed his arms over his chest and leaned back against the less stable support of the stack of boxes behind him.
“No,” he finally replied with a certain conviction and lack of heat that made Starsky believe the one word. “But I’m not sure I’m finished hating her yet.”
Starsky pushed away from the bed and picked up the box they had unearthed. “Then maybe it’s about time you put her ghost to rest. I’m gonna go put this in the car.”
And even though he knew for a fact that, however beautiful, those pale blue eyes couldn’t see through mortar and brick, Starsky felt their touch all the way to the car.
~*~*~
Nervously, Hutch smoothed the last crease out of the bedspread and stood back to check his handiwork. He reached out and picked at a non-existent bit of lint, then chided himself for his uncertainty. He left the alcove and went out into his blessedly unadorned living room, wrinkling his nose at the strong pine smell that still lingered in the air even though the dismantled Christmas tree was even now lying on its side out back, waiting to be tossed away on garbage day.
Hutch had hated living with the trappings of Christmas that he had only consented to putting up as part of his Christmas lessons for Starsky. His friend, on the other hand, had taken to it all like a duck to water, despite Hutch’s efforts, both conscious and unconscious, to present the season in its worst possible light. Starsky, as Hutch had always suspected, was just a big kid at heart and had taken to Christmas like any five-year-old.
Starsky had even gone out and bought an armload of presents that Hutch had been more than a little embarrassed to receive on Christmas night after work. They weren’t expensive presents—a paperback, a couple of candles, and a box of picks for his guitar among other small things that had obviously been chosen just for him. Still, Hutch had almost refused to accept the offerings until he had realized that Starsky was receiving just as much enjoyment from giving, as he would have had Hutch presented him with a mountain of gaily wrapped packages full of expensive presents. Hutch wasn’t exactly sure how it had happened, but somehow, despite his imperfect and biased teachings, Starsky had picked up the true meaning of Christmas.
Not that Hutch was ready to buy into it himself. Christmas, as celebrated in North America, as far as Hutch was concerned, was still one big, corporate-driven fraud. That was why he had decided that, though he was going to give Starsky a gift after all, it was going to be a New Year’s gift. He was damned if he was going to join the mewling herd of brainwashed consumers.
But now, five minutes before his friend and lover was supposed to arrive for their last Friday night of 1972, Hutch was second-guessing himself. He was feeling more nervous than he had since the night he had walked into a gay bar intending this to be his one and only chance to set free a side of himself that, after that night, would have to be locked away for a very long time.
The doorbell rang and Hutch knew it was too late now to change his mind. He forgot he even wanted to when he opened the door and Starsky sauntered in wearing the new brown leather bomber jacket that showed off his trim waist and rounded ass to such perfection, kicked the door shut, and pulled Hutch into his arms for a deep, hello kiss.
“You’re ready tonight,” Hutch teased when Starsky finally gave him back his ravaged mouth. “Or should I say randy, like the English do?”
Starsky ground his pelvis against him and Hutch could feel the hot hard length of his cock seeking its mate.
“Ready, willing and able,” Starsky growled in agreement. “Bed, Angel. We’ve only got ten hours to dawn, and the way I’m feelin’ tonight, we’re gonna need every last minute,” he declared while trying to drag Hutch toward the alcove.
Hutch dug his heels in, laughing and delighted as always by his lover’s desire for him. “Wait a minute, Starsk. I have to tell you something first.”
“Fuck now, talk later,” Starsky insisted, doing a fair imitation of Tarzan of the Jungle. Better than his Bogie impression in any case.
“Okay, but don’t say I didn’t warn you,” Hutch agreed and let himself be towed to the alcove where Starsky stopped dead in his tracks. He watched his friend’s face; uncertain of his reaction as the deep blue eyes took in the gleaming brass it had taken him nearly all of last night to polish. “Happy New Year, babe,” he said uncertainly.
Starsky opened his mouth, closed it and swallowed a few times before he turned to Hutch. “Jesus, Hutch, you really know how to throw a guy off his stride,” he complained, but Hutch could see the delight in his face that threatened to outshine the polished brass of his new/old bed.
“I started thinking about what you said about laying Vanessa’s ghost to rest and decided maybe you were right,” he explained. “I figured, if I do have any trouble getting it up, at least, being another guy, you’d understand.”
Starsky melted into his arms then, making of his slim, muscular body one long caress from Hutch’s shoulders to his knees.
“Ah, sweetheart,” Starsky crooned. “I don’t think that’s going to be any problem at all.”
His sex a throbbing demand against Starsky’s, Hutch felt his fears slip away. He didn’t know about laying Vanessa’s ghost to rest tonight, all he could think of now was laying the exciting man in his arms.
One Red Hot Tomato
“Are you absolutely positive this thing is going to last out the day?” Hutch asked.
They were sitting in Starsky’s old blue bomb in the station garage, and, although the ancient engine had turned over obediently enough when Starsky turned the key, the symphony of bangs, wheezes, and rattles emanating from various parts of the car weren’t promising. Hutch squinted through the windshield, trying to decide if that really was a wisp of steam curling out from beneath the hood.
“What choice do we have?” Starsky pointed out, cautiously easing the gearshift into first and pulling out of the slot. “Yours is still in the shop. If you’d taken it to Merle like I told you, we’d have it back by now.”
Hutch’s latest new-to-him car, a Ford LTD, was presently in the shop, through no fault of its own. Just at the end of their shift on Monday, the back end of the LTD had been plowed into by a distracted driver, who didn’t see the red light and went right through it. Neither he nor Starsky had been hurt, suffering only the minor inconvenience of having to take cabs home. Because they had still been on duty at the time, the cost of the repairs would even be covered by the department, and the insurance hassles handled by the department’s lawyers. Hutch’s body and paint man had assured him that by the time they were back on duty on Thursday, his car would be good as new. He had lied.
“What do you mean ‘we,'” Hutch bitched, just for the sake of bitching. There was very little either one of them owned that they both didn’t have a what’s-yours-is-mine attitude toward.
“Ah, come on, Hutch. It’s too damned hot to fight with you and this fucking car,” Starsky whined.
“You told me months ago you had the money in the bank for a new one,” Hutch reminded him. “Now what are you waiting for?”
“Just a little longer,” Starsky assured him. “I’ve had my eye on a couple, but now the ’74 models are starting to come out, I want to see if anything really grabs me. This is the first brand new car I’ve ever owned, and I’ll be damned if you, this hunk of junk…” He gave the steering wheel a thump with the heel of his hand. “…or the BCPD is gonna rush me into buying the wrong car.”
“Easy, Starsk,” Hutch cautioned. “Better treat this old girl real nice or we’ll end up walking.”
Starsky flashed a scapegrace grin and patted the battered and scarred dash affectionately. “She knows I don’t mean nothin’ by it.”
Hutch eased back onto the worn seat and rubbed a hand over his sweaty throat, and down into the open vee created by his half-unbuttoned shirt. Damn, it was hot. Already in the nineties at 8:00 a.m. on this August California morning, and he was sweating like a pig under his light jacket.
“Ah, Hutch, would you mind not doing that?” Starsky requested, his voice just a little husky.
Hutch dropped his hand and looked over at his partner. Starsky’s gaze was fixed steadfastly out the windshield, but, Hutch realized, all of the sweat on his upper lip wasn’t caused by the weather.
“Sorry,” he muttered.
“Friday’s still more than a week away,” Starsky said, as if he felt the need to explain his request.
In actual fact, Hutch was flattered. Neither one of them slipped often, and when they did, it was usually him. He was pretty good at keeping the sexual relationship he and Starsky shared in a little box in his mind that had nothing to do with the other days of the month. Once in a while, however, Starsky would look a certain way, move just right, or say something in a certain tone of voice, and Hutch would find himself suddenly flushed with a sexual heat that was totally inappropriate to the time and place. It felt a lot like when he was a teenager and had absolutely no control over the once familiar appendage between his legs that suddenly seemed to have a mind of its own.
“If there really is a God, it’ll be quiet today,” Starsky prayed.
The car shuddered as they pulled up to a red light, and both men held their breath waiting for it to stall. When the shudder backed down to a shimmy, they both relaxed warily.
“It’s supposed to be over a hundred and ten today, Starsk. It isn’t going to be quiet,” Hutch voiced what experience had already taught them—tempers flared when the mercury rose.
“Maybe everybody’ll go to the beach, and Venice and Bayside divisions can deal with them.”
Hutch didn’t even bother to reply to that bit of wishful thinking.
“I can dream, can’t I?”
Zebra Three. Zebra Three.
“Guess not,” Hutch said as he picked up the mike and spoke into it. “Zebra Three.”
Code 484. See the man at Gruber’s Corner Convenience. 1—
Hutch cut the dispatcher off and pressed the transmit control. “We know the address, Central. We are responding,” he confirmed and replaced the radio. “What is it with Gruber, anyway?”
Starsky made the turn to head them toward Gruber’s, a route, Hutch was sure, he could drive on automatic pilot.
“He’s a miserable old bastard, and he likes to see his tax dollars at work,” was Starsky’s considered, and likely accurate, opinion.
“Well, you’d think the kids would catch on that he doesn’t just let them off with a warning,” Hutch said. “He always calls us and we have to take them home, and then they must catch all kinds of hell.”
“Because he’s a miserable old bastard,” Starsky repeated. “I’ll bet for every kid he nabs, five more go outta there with their pockets stuffed. They probably figure it’s worth the risk to get back at him for being so rotten.”
They were within half a block of their destination and Hutch had opened his mouth to agree with Starsky’s assessment when, at the same moment, they heard the alarm and their radio crackled.
All units in the vicinity of 23rd and Main. 2-11 in progress. Bank of America.
“We can see it from here,” Starsky said as Hutch grabbed the mike.
“Zebra Three. We are in the vicinity of 2-11 in progress and responding,” he rapped out.
Starsky put his foot down and the car shuddered and coughed. He pounded the steering wheel. “Not now, you old bitch,” he cursed, and the car suddenly surged ahead.
Even so slight a delay had cost them, however, giving the bank robbers a chance to exit the building and scramble into their getaway car. Starsky sloughed the car around to follow as the speeding car went past them in the opposite direction.
“Zebra Three. We are in pursuit of 2-11 suspects driving north on 23rd in a late model, dark brown Buick.” Hutch lifted his thumb off the transmit button. “For Christ’s sake, Starsky, can’t you get close enough to read the plate?”
“I’m tryin’, I’m tryin’,” Starsky growled, his foot trying to coax more juice out of the gas pedal while his hand nursed the shift. They gained a few yards.
“Plate number JVA 261. That’s John Victor Able 261,” Hutch read into the speaker.
They could hear other sirens now, even above the screaming of their own. Hutch grabbed the dash as Starsky did a quick brake-and-avoid at an intersection where someone, who must be totally deaf, couldn’t seem to hear the sirens and tried to take his green right of way. Hutch kept his eyes on the vehicle they were pursuing, knowing that Starsky would be too busy watching for traffic and nursing the car.
“He’s going right,” Hutch shouted to Starsky, then, appalled, “My God. He just hit a pedestrian. Didn’t even try to swerve.” That part was said into the mike. “Suspect is now heading east on Farrell.”
Zebra Three, this is Zebra Six. I am westbound on Brocker. Will attempt to intercept at Farrell and Sunset, one mile east of your location.
“Understood, Zebra Six. We’ll try to herd him your way,” Hutch confirmed. “Proceed with caution. This bastard doesn’t seem to care who he hits.”
All units in pursuit of 2-11 suspects. Confirm proceed with caution. Suspects are armed and dangerous. Confirmed fatality of bank security guard.
“Son of a bitch,” Starsky growled.
Hutch saw that, thanks mostly to Starsky’s driving skills, they had managed to pull up directly behind the fleeing Buick, and his partner was trying to bring the car up alongside to prevent the suspects from making a left, and perhaps doubling back the way they had come. There were two black and whites behind them now, and Zebra Six should be screaming into the intersection only four blocks ahead. All they had to do was keep the bastard on the straight and narrow for a hundred more yards and he would be out of options.
That was when something under the blue hood let go, and a billowing cloud of steam suddenly obscured their view. Abruptly, their speed dropped and Hutch could tell by the way Starsky was fighting the wheel that he must have lost control of the steering as well.
“Get us out of the way,” Hutch shouted as if Starsky didn’t know what to do, wasn’t already trying to do it. “Let the black and whites take over.” He thumbed the mike. “Zebra Three, we are dropping out of pursuit.”
Starsky managed to get the car over far enough to the right to let the black and whites scream past, and then braked hard to bring the car to a stop right where they were. Hutch knew he dared not take the chance of driving any farther when he couldn’t see past the cloud of steam that still belched from under the hood.
Hutch stepped out of the car, still holding the mike, and surveyed the situation. He heard Starsky’s door open and slam closed.
“Goddamnit to hell!” Starsky bellowed.
Hutch glanced around at the gawking pedestrians. “Language, partner,” he reminded him and then grinned as he watched Starsky try to control his fury. “I wouldn’t do that if I were you,” he warned when he saw Starsky draw back his foot to kick the car. “You’re gonna need them feet for walkin’.”
When he was sure his partner could keep his mouth shut, Hutch opened the line to headquarters. “Central, this is Zebra Three. We require road assistance,” he said and, without even waiting for a response, tossed the unit in through the open window.
~*~*~
By the time the tow truck arrived for the car, and they had arranged for a ride with a black and white back to the station, Starsky had himself under outward control. He was still so flaming furious with himself as well as his car, however, that he told the tow truck driver to take it straight to the wreckers to hold on to until he could clean it out. On the way back to the station, he sulked in the back seat, rebuffing all of Hutch’s feeble attempts to start a conversation, and fumed. It wasn’t often that he misjudged a situation, especially a mechanical one, but he had really expected his car to last just a little while longer.
Starsky hated an unreliable car, but as he had told Hutch, this would be his first, and possibly last, brand new car, and he had been waiting for one to jump out at him and say, “buy me.” He would know the car when he saw it, and despite the hours he had spent touring dealers’ lots and poring over glossy handouts, he hadn’t seen it yet.
Both he and Hutch reached for the phone as soon as they sat down at their desk.
“I should see if Bob has my car ready,” Hutch tried to claim priority.
“Forget it,” Starsky commanded. “I’m in no mood to climb into a heap right now. I’m gonna rent a car until our next day off.”
“That’s not until Monday. It’ll cost you a fortune,” Hutch protested.
“I don’t care,” Starsky insisted.
Hutch spread his hands in surrender and eased back onto his chair. Starsky made his call, arranging to pick up a rental in an hour, then called supply and arranged to have them issued a portable radio unit they could use.
He was just hanging up when a bull moose let loose from Dobey’s office.
“Starsky! Hutchinson! Get in here.”
Starsky felt like a naughty boy making his way to the principal’s office as Hutch opened Dobey’s door and he followed his partner inside.
“Close the door,” Dobey ordered.
Starsky obliged, though he didn’t know what good it would do. Everyone out in the squadroom, and maybe in the whole building, was going to hear what Dobey had to say to them now. He was braced for a royal chewing out, and was, therefore, surprised when Dobey zeroed in on Hutch first. He didn’t let it fool him. Dobey was probably just whetting his appetite on Hutch before giving Starsky’s ass a good chewing over.
“Hutchinson,” Dobey growled.
“Yes, sir,” Hutch replied simply and wisely.
“I’ve had a complaint from dispatch about the language you used over the air during your pursuit of the bank robbery suspects.”
Dobey, as both Starsky and Hutch knew, was a bit of a stickler about foul language. He didn’t mind a “damn” or a “hell,” even used them himself occasionally, but anything stronger on the air or even in the squadroom, could earn the foulmouthed officer his superior’s wrath. Starsky supposed he was lucky no citizen had called to complain about his lapse. He was in enough trouble as it was.
“Heat of the moment, Captain,” Hutch defended himself, but mildly.
Dobey grunted.
“Especially after I saw him hit the pedestrian. Is there any word on that?” Hutch asked, making Starsky want to kick him one for sucking up, until he wondered if Hutch had a sneakier motive in mind.
“In surgery the last I heard,” Dobey informed them. But if Hutch had been hoping to distract him, it didn’t work.
The dark gaze turned to Starsky and he braced himself as if he expected a blow. Dobey’s bellow could have the same effect, especially when you knew you had it coming. But Dobey surprised him again by including Hutch in the reprimand.
“You two have been damned lucky so far driving those junk heaps you call cars. Today, if other units hadn’t been in pursuit, you would have let two murdering criminals get away. As it stands right now, neither one of you even has a vehicle in which to do your jobs.”
Starsky started to object, saw Hutch do the same and decided that, since Hutch had a slightly stronger case than he did, he would let him take his best shot first.
“There’s nothing wrong with my car,” Hutch protested. “It was damaged in the line of duty and the force recommended mechanic hasn’t finished the work yet. He promised to have it ready this morning, and it wasn’t.”
Once again Hutch’s excuses didn’t appear to impress the captain. “I’ve seen your car, Hutchinson,” he growled. He pointed an index finger at Starsky, and Starsky prudently chose to shut his mouth.
“I’m telling you right now that if one of you isn’t willing to own a decent, dependable car, I am going to split you up and put you with partners who don’t drive rolling scrap yards that couldn’t catch a little old lady out for a Sunday drive.”
Starsky was mesmerized, whether by the threat or that Dobey had managed to get it all out in one breath, he couldn’t say, but he was a little alarmed by the way the captain’s eyes were bulging.
“Yes, sir. I’ve rented a car, sir, and I am going to go and buy a brand new car my next day off,” he said hurriedly, hoping to lower Dobey’s blood pressure before he had a stroke.
“Then get out of here,” Dobey commanded.
“Yes, sir,” Hutch agreed and made a beeline for the door.
Starsky wasn’t so smart. “Ah, Cap’n, do you think we could get a black and white to take us… uhm, never mind, we’ll take a cab,” he amended and scrambled after Hutch.
“You always have to push your luck, don’t you? He hadn’t even yelled at us much,” Hutch said when they were safely on the other side of the door.
Starsky shrugged. He always had believed in nothing ventured, nothing gained.
Hutch grabbed his arm. “Come on, mushbrain, let’s go get that damned rental and see if we can do something to get off Dobey’s shit list.”
“Language, Hutch,” Starsky couldn’t help saying as he allowed himself to be dragged out of the squadroom.
~*~*~
Starsky never thought he would live to see the day when he would be sick and tired of the sight of shiny, brand new cars. There were almost thirty new car dealerships in Bay City and Starsky had already visited ten of them just this morning. Under normal circumstances, he would love to idle away a morning looking at cars, debating their various options and standard equipment with eager salesmen, and kicking a few tires. In fact, in the last year, he had spent many hours exactly that way. But that was when he had been looking for a car; now he was looking for a car, with his partner, Captain Dobey, and the BCPD breathing down his neck. It just wasn’t fun any more.
In a lousy frame of mind to buy a car, Starsky nevertheless turned his rental into the eleventh dealership—this one representing Ford—and parked it amid the polished-’til-they-gleamed merchandise.
He knew better than to go into the showroom where eager salesmen would swarm him like bees on rotten fruit, so Starsky just started wandering the lot. Green cars, yellow cars, red cars, and blue cars. It sounded like something from Dr. Seuss as it chanted in Starsky’s mind. He shook his head. How did he expect to hear any of the cars telling him to take them home if his head was filled with such nonsense?
He was allowed to wander on his own for nearly fifteen minutes, during which time none of the vehicles so much as whispered “psst, wanna buy a car,” before a salesman casually strolled up to him.
“Just looking?” the middle aged man offered by way of greeting.
Starsky looked around the lot vaguely and then at the salesman. He knew he was getting desperate when he decided the man had an honest face. But he was trapped between a rock and a hard place and beginning to feel as if all the blood was rushing to his feet.
“No. Buy,” he admitted and watched the man brighten.
“This one?” The salesman was practically beaming as he laid his hand on the roof of the car they were standing beside.
Starsky looked at the baby blue Lincoln Continental and snorted. “Hell, no. I’m not looking for a pimpmobile.”
“Oh.” The salesman offered his hand. “Bill Green,” he introduced himself. “And you are?”
“Dave Starsky,” Starsky said and shook the hand. At least the guy had a firm handshake. If Green had been one of those wet noodle guys, Starsky reassured himself, he would have been out of there.
“All right, then, Mr. Starsky. If you tell me what you do want in a car, maybe I can match you up with something. New or used?”
“New,” Starsky answered immediately. He had considered buying one of the ’73’s that would be going on sale now that the ’74’s were coming out, but had decided if he was going to do this, he was going to do it up right. “A ’74, I mean.”
“Want one hot off the presses, do you?” Green asked with a knowing wink.
“Yeah,” Starsky admitted. He couldn’t help it, knew it was a stupid thing to do, but he was beginning to trust Bill Green not to steer him wrong.
“So.” Green rubbed his hands together. “Family car?” he ventured.
“No,” Starsky denied, lifting his left hand to show his naked ring finger. He kept the hand up to stop Green from speaking while he marshaled his thoughts.
“Okay. What I’m looking for is a car with style. I want it to look good, but it’s gotta have a lotta guts too. I’m gonna be using it for work, and when I put my foot down, it has got to go, eat up the road like nothing else on four wheels. Do you know what I mean?”
Green became thoughtful, and Starsky hoped he wasn’t considering how much he could jack up the price because he had sounded too eager.
“When you say style, do you mean businessman classy, or do you mean showy?” Green asked.
“Showy,” Starsky admitted, feeling a bit embarrassed, but also willing to excuse himself. He had worked hard for the money to buy this car, had waited a long time and it was his first new car, et cetera.
Green was looking at him speculatively and Starsky wondered what the older man made of his faded jeans, sneakers and t-shirt. Probably thought he couldn’t afford a bumper, let alone the whole car. The salesman seemed to come to a decision.
“All right, Mr. Starsky. We do have a car that just might fit the bill. It just arrived from San Francisco. Haven’t even put it on the lot yet. But I have to warn you, it’s a little on the high end because it’s been customized and if you wanted it put back to standard, it would cost even more.”
Okay, Starsky decided, at least the guy was being up front about it. “You might as well show me and see if it talks to me.”
“This way.” Green led the way through the rows of cars. “What do you do for a living, Mr. Starsky? You said you’d be using the car for work.”
“I’m a police officer,” Starsky admitted and nearly ran into Green as the salesman stopped dead in front of him. “What’s the matter, you don’t like cops?”
“Well, I was just wondering if the car I have in mind is….”
Starsky gave him a poke in the shoulder to get him moving. “You’re gonna have to show me now. I’m curious.”
Green shrugged and started walking again, and Starsky followed until they came to the end of the building that housed the showroom. Green stepped clear and waved a hand toward the back lot.
And the earth stood still as Starsky came around that squat, white brick building, took one look, and fell head over heels in love. The Gran Torino seemed to be screaming at him, “take me, I’m yours.” Starsky’s breathing got short and his cock got hard, and he didn’t care if it took every penny he had or could beg, borrow, or steal, this low-nosed, high-assed, white-striped, red beauty was going to be his.
“I’ll take it,” he whispered in awe.
~*~*~
As it turned out, Starsky didn’t have to beg or steal, but he did have to borrow. He had never taken out a loan in his life, but the fact that he already had the cash for three-quarters of the price of the car meant his loan was considered a minor one and the paperwork done in an hour. The money he needed was transferred to his account, and he was free to go pick up the car of his dreams. Green had assured him that everything that needed to be done would be so that he could drive his Torino away as soon as he handed over a certified check.
The check was burning a hole in his wallet, and Starsky was on his way to pick up Hutch. Not only did he want his best friend to share this historic moment with him, he also needed him to drive the rental back to the agency. He really hoped Hutch was home and not out doing whatever he did during the twenty-five percent of their time they didn’t spend together.
Hutch was lounging on the couch playing his guitar when Starsky breezed into the cottage. “Come on, partner. I found a car.”
“Hello to you, too,” Hutch drawled, laying the guitar aside.
“Don’t be funny, Hutch. Please,” Starsky begged. “I found a car and I arranged a loan….”
“Loan? But—”
“…and she’s waiting for me to pick her up,” Starsky just ran right over Hutch’s attempted interruption. He was so wound up it was all he could do not to dance in place. It was bad enough that he could hear the change in his pocket rattle as he bounced on his toes.
“Please, babe. Don’t fuck me around. Okay? Not now. Just come with me now and I’ll owe you. Okay?” he pleaded.
“Can I at least put my shoes on?” Hutch asked.
“Okay, but make it snappy. I’ll wait in the car,” Starsky said, spun on his heel, and bolted back out the open door.
~*~*~
“So, you finally found a car, huh?” Hutch asked as he climbed into the rental. He grabbed the dash as Starsky spun gravel out of his driveway taking off.
“Oh, yeah,” Starsky growled in a voice Hutch had only heard before in the bedroom. “Wait’ll you see her, Hutch. I got a hard-on just lookin’ at her the first time.”
“Geez, Starsky, slow down,” Hutch chided, the tires of the rental squealing as they went around a corner.
“Sorry,” Starsky apologized, and Hutch felt the car slow down slightly.
“You better tell me about this dream car before you blow a gasket,” Hutch advised. He had never seen his partner quite this wound up before and, considering that Starsky usually functioned at an energy level that would exhaust most people, that was saying something.
“Uh, uh,” Starsky grunted, shaking his head. “I want you to see her the way I saw her the first time. But I can tell you this, Hutch, my new car is one be-oo-ti-ful piece of machinery.”
“Have it your way,” Hutch conceded, grabbing for the dash again. “But if you don’t slow down, you’re going to get a ticket. We’re not on duty now.”
For a second time, Starsky eased off the gas, but Hutch could see it was nearly killing him. If they had very far to go, Starsky just might blow a blood vessel in his brain before they arrived.
“A Ford, huh?” Hutch said as they pulled into the dealership lot, and Starsky parked the car. “Fix Or Repair Daily,” he quoted Starsky’s own words about his Ford back at him.
“They may have come from the same hometown, but, believe me, Hutch, my sweetheart is in a whole other bloodline from that heap of yours,” Starsky insisted. “Come on. Let’s go.”
Hutch followed his excited partner. “Hey, aren’t you going to see the salesman, get the keys and everything?”
“In a minute,” Starsky said as he danced his way along the side of the office. “Want you to see her just the way I did, Hutch. Bet you’re gonna be sorry I saw her first.”
Hutch came around the side of the building, took one look at the Torino sitting in all its solitary glory, and, for the first time, began to seriously doubt his best friend’s sanity.
“What have you been drinking?” was the first thought that came into his head and he let it come out of his mouth, complete with all his baffled outrage.
“Isn’t she a beauty?” There was a pause while Starsky’s excited brain processed Hutch’s words, then, “What do you mean, drinking? I haven’t been drinking.”
“Then your little caboose has finally fallen off the track,” Hutch accused. He waved a hand toward the Torino. “You can’t possibly be thinking about buying this… this… eyesore!”
“I already bought it. Just gotta hand over the check.” Starsky’s eyes narrowed. “Eyesore? Are you blind? This is the most beautiful car that ever rolled off the line in Detroit.”
Hutch could see that Starsky was getting angry and if he let his partner work up a full head of steam, there would be no hope of making him see reason. “Yes, Starsk, she’s beautiful,” Hutch agreed.
Starsky smiled, appearing somewhat mollified. “And she’ll tear up the road like nothin’ you’ve ever seen.”
“I’m sure she will. Probably pass anything on the road except a gas station,” Hutch muttered, not sure, since Starsky had walked away from him to stand beside the car, whether he had been heard or not. Hutch joined him, not any more impressed close up than he had been from twenty feet away.
Starsky patted the roof affectionately. “Just let any stupid bank robbers try and get away from us when I put the pedal to the metal in this baby. They’ll think they’re standin’ still.”
Hutch knew Starsky like this. He wasn’t about to see reason unless Hutch sat on him until hunger, thirst, or a full bladder forced him to give in. Since Hutch couldn’t do that here, he decided he might as well speak his mind. “You can’t be serious about buying this car,” he repeated.
“I already told ya, Hutch, I already bought it,” Starsky reminded him. “What the hell’s your problem anyway? What’s wrong with it?”
“There’s nothing wrong with it if you’re a seventeen-year-old looking to impress your buddies. But a cop, pushin’ thirty….”
“You sayin’ I’m old?” Starsky growled.
“Too old and in the wrong profession for a car whose only purpose is to pick up chicks and show everybody who has the biggest balls,” Hutch exclaimed. “We couldn’t take this thing on a stakeout. You might as well just put a big sign on it, ‘Cops On Stakeout.’ No, make that ‘Stupid Cops On Stakeout.'”
“Shut up, Hutch,” Starsky warned.
“We’re supposed to have cars that blend in, not big red tomatoes that stand out like sore thumbs,” Hutch insisted.
“Shut the fuck up, Hutch,” Starsky growled again.
But Hutch wasn’t listening or even really looking at his friend. “Dobey is going to take one look at this, this tomato, and have you committed.”
“Shut up or I’m gonna belt ya.”
That finally got Hutch’s attention. He had seen Starsky ready to fight many times before; he had just never seen him ready to fight him before.
Starsky’s voice when he spoke again was surprisingly soft as he handed over the keys to the rental car. “Would you please take the rental back?” he asked politely. “‘Cause I’m gonna go in there,” he pointed to the building, “and when I come out, I’m gonna be drivin’ my brand new car.”
Sweet reason left his face as he moved in on Hutch, crowding him against the side of the Torino. “We can take your car on stakeout. Fuck knows, it blends in. But the next time some son of a bitch kills a security guard and thinks he can run away from me, he’s gonna have another think coming,” he snarled and poked Hutch in the chest. “Got that, partner.”
Hutch watched him walk away, shaken more than he had believed possible as he realized that he and Starsky had just had their first real fight—over a goddamned tomato.
~*~*~
They met in the station parking garage the next morning. At least, they would have met had Hutch been able to get anywhere near his partner. But Starsky and the monstrosity were surrounded by a crowd of admiring officers, both plainclothes and uniforms, none of whom, Hutch was sure, was over twenty-one years old. Mentally, Hutch qualified, when he saw Chris Bradbury, a gray-haired veteran from Vice, who ought to know better, patting the Torino’s red trunk as if it were a hooker’s bottom. Throwing up his hands in disgust, Hutch retreated to the stairs.
Climbing up the stairs two at a time, double-time, didn’t help. It just meant that when he came out of the stairwell and came face to face with Starsky, who had just stepped off the elevator, all he could do was pant and sputter. Starsky grinned at him without a trace of remorse and preceded him into the squadroom before Hutch could pull together the breath to comment.
Well, if Starsky thought there was safety in numbers, he was sadly mistaken, Hutch decided, as he followed. They had barely settled on their opposite sides of the desk when Hutch leaned over and hissed, “I can’t believe you bought that goddamned car.”
“Said I was,” Starsky replied in a tone that said he didn’t have a care in the world, and that if Hutch did, it was his problem.
“Dobey is going to have you committed when he sees it,” Hutch insisted, forgetting to keep his voice down. He firmly believed that serious partnership differences should be dealt with privately, not aired in front of the whole squadroom. However, that Torino provoked him way beyond seriously.
“Dobey said buy a reliable car,” Starsky reminded him, still the epitome of sweet reason. “I had her out to the Academy practice course last night. She goes like the wind, handles like a dream, and she’ll stop on a dime and give you nine cents change. Can’t get more reliable than that.”
“It’ll stick out like a boil on the buttocks of a third class stripper,” Hutch shouted.
Sweet reason disappeared from Starsky’s face, replaced by the fury of an offended father whose precious offspring has just been insulted. He never got a chance to air it.
“Uh, oh,” Bailey, who was seated two desks away, said in the tone of an actor making an aside to the audience. “Is there trouble in paradise? Do I hear a rumbling in the clear blue skies of the perfect partnership?”
“Is the honeymoon over?” asked Richards, his partner, in the same dramatic tone of voice.
Randy Briggs, who considered himself the squadroom wit, grabbed up one of the small microphones used for interrogations and began to circle the room.
“This is Billy-Bob Reporter, from station KXYZ. I’m here live at Metro division today to report on the shocking news that one of the great partnerships of our time, more famous than peanut butter and jelly, more infamous than pickles and ice cream, may be headed for splitsville.”
He stuck the microphone under the nose of a uniformed clerk who had the bad timing to walk into the squadroom at that moment with an armload of mail. “Do you have any comments on the tragic news, sir?”
Brown eyes took in the grins on the faces of the supposedly superior officers. The man shook his head and walked away.
“The strong, silent type, I see,” Briggs said into the mike. “You, sir, what about you?” he asked, shoving the mike into his partner’s face, who, everyone knew, indulged him in his idiocy in the hope that he would someday grow up.
“I couldn’t be more shocked,” Conner went along. “Everyone was certain this was a match made in heaven. Tete-a-tete over their case files, victorious hugs when the bad guy took a fall, the perfectly synchronized struts as they set out for a grueling day on the streets watching each other’s butts, I mean backs. It was a marriage we were all sure was meant to last.”
At first, simply annoyed by Briggs’ buffoonery over a subject that to him was damned serious, Hutch felt his stomach drop at the turn the teasing had taken. He flashed a quick glance at Starsky and saw that his partner had not yet caught on. Starsky was laughing along with their colleagues, while all Hutch wanted to do was get out of there as fast as he could. Couldn’t Starsky hear what was really being said about them?
“Yes, gentle readers, I mean viewers,” Briggs took the mike back and began circulating again. “Never before in the history of Metro division had two men been so perfectly matched. But, today, it looks like trouble is brewing in paradise, and it seems it just might have something to do with Detective Starsky’s purchase of a new car. Could it be that his partner is jealous?”
Starsky was grinning like an idiot now, and Hutch kicked him under the desk, earning himself a startled look of bafflement from his lame-brained partner.
“Of course, the question on the minds of their colleagues here at the station and, I’m sure, all of Bay City today is: Can this marriage be saved?”
Briggs pushed the microphone into Hutch’s face and Hutch batted it aside. “Why don’t you grow up, Briggs,” he growled.
Dobey’s door opened. The captain would like everyone to believe he had a sixth sense that told him when his men were goofing off. The truth of the matter, however, was that the walls were paper thin and, especially when the officers got a little boisterous as they were now in their teasing, he could hear every word they said.
Dobey stood in his open doorway, surveying the room and giving each one of his rambunctious officers the benefit of his displeased glare. “Did somebody forget to tell me that crime was taking a holiday today?” he asked mildly.
A half-dozen men beat a hasty retreat out into the corridor.
“Briggs, that’s department equipment, not a toy. Quit playing with it and, if it isn’t too much trouble, Go Get Some Work Done.”
Briggs and his partner scampered. Dobey’s bellow could clear a room faster than a hot chili fart.
By the time the dark gaze made its way around to their desk, Starsky and Hutch were already on their feet. Dobey leveled a finger at Starsky.
“You. Did you buy a car?” he growled.
“Yes, sir,” Starsky replied, and even though he might have been trying to suppress his grin, Hutch could see it lurking in his eyes and leaking out around the corners of his lips.
“Does it run?” Dobey pressed.
“Like Man o’ War,” Starsky assured him proudly.
“Good. Then you and your partner get in it and get your butts out on the street where you belong.” It was the bellow again.
Someday, that sound was going to decalcify his spine, Hutch thought, but he obediently grabbed his jacket and bolted for the door, determinedly ignoring the grin of triumph on Starsky’s face, hearing his partner scurrying to keep up with him.
“Hey. What about the elevator?” Starsky said plaintively.
Hutch just kept going toward the stairwell. He avoided the hand that tried to grab his arm as he heaved the door back and barreled into the stairway. “For Christ’s sake, Starsky, keep your hands to yourself, will you?”
Starsky leapt down three steps to catch up to Hutch and Hutch nearly tripped over his own feet trying to avoid the hand that was once again attempting to hold him back. He stumbled down to the landing, catching the rail and spinning on his own momentum until he faced Starsky who had stopped two steps up.
“What the fuck is the matter with you? And don’t try telling me this is because of my new car. You’re runnin’ so scared, you’re white around the eyes,” Starsky pointed out.
“Fuck your stupid tomato!” Hutch bellowed, remembered where he was and made a conscious effort to lower his voice. “Didn’t you hear what they were saying in there? No, obviously you didn’t. ‘Marriage made in heaven.’ ‘Tete-a-tete.’ ‘Watching each other’s butts,'” Hutch quoted, snarling the words up at his partner. “We’ve been careless, Starsky, and now we’re the butt of the jokes of morons like Briggs.”
Hutch turned and flew down the rest of the stairs. He could hear Starsky behind him, but his partner just couldn’t keep up. He burst through the door and started to go to his car, then remembered that Dobey had practically ordered them to take Starsky’s new ride. He knew he didn’t dare insist on his car today. If it broke down for any reason whatsoever, Dobey would bust him so low he wouldn’t even have the authority to issue a parking ticket.
Stalking over to that gawdawful eyesore, Hutch yanked on the door handle. Locked! Starsky had never locked his car as long as Hutch had known him. He wanted to give the door a good swift kick on principle alone, but knew he would be pushing his luck. He could curse it, swear at it, and hate its mechanical guts, but if he laid one finger on it that wasn’t respectful, he feared Starsky might go for his throat.
“Since when do you lock your car?” he growled.
“Since I’ve got a car worth stealing,” Starsky replied evenly as he came around to open the door.
Hutch deliberately stepped back so that even the sleeves of their jackets wouldn’t touch by accident. Starsky gave him a questioning look, but Hutch refused to meet his eyes. God only knew, he worried, what their colleagues had made of the way they communicated with a glance or a lifted eyebrow. It was pretty damned obvious they had noticed all the other non-verbal ways that he and Starsky had been careless enough to fall into the use of.
“Whatever I’ve got, Hutch, it’s probably too late to avoid catching it,” Starsky said, and Hutch, though Starsky tried very hard to bury it so deep in his voice it was undetectable, heard the hurt.
“Just get in the car, Starsk,” Hutch commanded. “You and I are in some deep shit, partner, and I don’t know if we have a snowball’s chance of salvaging it.”
Starsky held his peace until he had them out on the road and on their usual patrol route. “You gonna tell me what’s up, Hutch? I know it isn’t the car. You’ve had your say, and I know you’re not petty enough to tell me not to touch you just because you think I’ve got lousy taste in cars.”
Hutch turned in his seat, pressed his back up against the door and felt, after all the years in Starsky’s old blue bomb, how uncomfortable this was. The door handle dug into his kidneys, the edge of the door caught him higher across his back, and the bench seat seemed to stretch for a mile between him and his partner. That last, he decided, wasn’t necessarily a bad thing.
“Starsky, are you trying to tell me you honestly didn’t hear the innuendo in what Randy and Mike were saying? Okay, the crap about the perfect partnership was just a dig. But, Starsk, what about all that other stuff?” Hutch was calming down now, calm enough at least to stop running, turnaround and face his fear. “They were insinuating we’re gay. They picked up on everything we do.”
“Wait a minute, Hutch. This is what had you running out of the squadroom like someone set your tail on fire?” Starsky asked, clearly bewildered by his partner’s panic. “They were joking.”
Hutch shook his head emphatically. “No way. That went on too long. Conner was too damned specific. We’ve been careless, Starsk. Too much touching each other, too much reading each other’s minds through a look or a touch or half a word.”
“You can’t be serious, babe….”
“Or a fucking endearment,” Hutch yelled.
“Hutch, calm down, will you. You nearly made me run off the road,” Starsky complained. “Listen, I really do think you’re way off the mark here. Seriously. Conner is a homophobic asshole, and he figures the best way to get to any other guy is to imply he’s queer. He figures it’ll get a rise out of you, me, or any other guy, ’cause it would sure as hell get a rise out of him. But…” He held up a hand when Hutch tried to interrupt. “… if he really thought for one minute that we were gay, he wouldn’t be teasin’ us about it in the squadroom. He’d be beatin’ a path to IA’s door.”
“But, Starsk…” Hutch tried a second time to interrupt, but Starsky ran right over him.
“You think for one minute he would have even shown up as back up last week when we cornered that supplier in the warehouse, let alone arrived in record time and come in with guns blazing if he thought we were fucking each other?” Starsky shook his head decisively. “No way, partner. I’m not buying that one if you’re givin’ it away free.”
Sometime during Starsky’s emphatic but reasonable speech, the ice-cold knot in Hutch’s belly had begun to thaw. “But they have noticed, even if they haven’t drawn the wrong, or should I say the right, conclusions yet.” He sighed and ran a hand back through his hair. “We’ve been careless.”
“We have not,” Starsky accused. “We act like best friends, Hutch.”
“You always pat your friends on the ass? Always tell them what’s on your mind just by looking into their eyes? Always know what’s on their minds by how tense their muscles are when you rub their shoulders in the middle of the fucking squadroom!?”
Right up to that moment, Hutch had forgotten that particular incident. He had had a killer headache from his allergies, and Starsky had stood behind him kneading the knots out of his neck and shoulders while Hutch had typed their daily report.
“Jesus, Starsk, it’s amazing IA hasn’t already been after us.”
“So. What?” Starsky asked, ever practical. “You want to split up the partnership? No more Friday nights? What?”
Both of Starsky’s suggestions put a fire in Hutch’s belly that melted away the last of the fear-induced ice. ”No. For Christ’s sake, Starsky, we waited long enough and look at our record. And, no, I don’t want to stop our Friday nights. Don’t know if I could anyway. But we’re going to have to be more careful. No more touching. No more fucking backrubs!”
“Okay. Okay. I can do that.”
They were sitting at a red light now, and Starsky took his eyes off the road. Hutch could see the panic there that Starsky hadn’t let show in his face or his voice. “You had me running scared for a minute there, babe. Really thought you wanted to call it quits.”
“No, Starsk. Be more careful, yes; give up my partner or my…” Hutch paused and grinned. “…dancer, no.” He turned his attention deliberately to the interior of the new car. These long, lingering, speaking looks had to stop. “As for this red hot tomato, yeah, that might break us up.”
~*~*~
When Starsky told Hutch “I can do that,” he really thought he could. He had had no idea just how much or how often he and Hutch communicated on non-verbal levels. Now that he was trying to stop it, he found it had not only become second nature, but almost an addiction.
He was a toucher by nature. Personal space was a concept that didn’t so much baffle him as it was beyond his grasp to understand the need for it. Why struggle through the, for him, trauma of speaking his emotions aloud when a look or a touch, especially with Hutch, could serve the purpose as well, if not better?
But if Hutch felt they needed to cool it, then he would cool it. Except, he was beginning to think he needed to sit on his hands and maybe wear blackout shades or something. Even the pure joy of driving the Torino wasn’t enough to distract him. It was a relief, therefore, when their radio crackled after only an hour of silent and awkward, but uneventful, patrol.
Zebra Three. Zebra Three.
Hutch picked up the mike. “Zebra Three,” he said into the speaker.
Starsky automatically glanced Hutch’s way for the anticipatory eye contact he and Hutch always shared just before hearing the details of a new call. Hutch was looking out the passenger window, and Starsky remembered they weren’t supposed to be communicating that way anymore. He pulled his sunglasses out of his jacket pocket and slipped them on one handed.
Message for Detective Starsky. Fast Eddie requests you meet him, usual place, 9:30 a.m.
Starsky glanced at his watch, calculated travel time and nodded, then remembered that Hutch wasn’t looking at him. “Yeah. We can make it,” he said.
“10-4,” Hutch said into the mike and rehooked it to the dash. “What’s that all about?”
Again, Starsky had to force himself to keep his eyes on the road and not look at Hutch. The effort was already giving him a literal pain in the neck. Maybe Hutch was right and they did spend too much time looking at each other if it was so damned hard to stop it now.
“Had a word with him last night about those break-ins,” he told his partner.
One of their cases was a series of, so far, six late night break and enter thefts that had them stumped. The crimes had been committed at night, at mid-level stores and only portable and easily fenced merchandise had been taken. Whoever the burglars were, they were smart enough to circumvent relatively sophisticated alarm systems and leave not so much as a smudged partial print behind them. Although the first break-in had occurred more than a month ago, none of the merchandise had surfaced at any of the fences Starsky and Hutch were familiar with.
“I thought Fast Eddie got out of the fencing business,” Hutch said, and Starsky had to wonder if his neck was getting just as stiff from looking out the passenger window so devotedly.
“You know how it goes, Hutch. They never leave all their connections behind.” Starsky made a left turn down an alley and drove along it, shaving a few minutes off their travel time. “He’s bussing over at Mama Rita’s cafe and I figured he might be willing to nose around a little for a little extra green.”
When they pulled into the small parking area behind the cafe, the snitch was already waiting for them. Fast Eddie was an unimposing figure of a man who had spent a lifetime abusing his body. His nickname, in fact, derived not from any physical or mental ability, but from his propensity for consuming any drugs he might manage to score at a rate that should have killed him long ago.
Starsky and Hutch left the car and joined the snitch where he sat on a crate outside the open back door of Mama Rita’s. They automatically fell into position on either side of Eddie as he slowly climbed to his feet. Normally, their eyes would have met over the snitch’s head, but, with their new rules in mind, Starsky focused his attention on Eddie.
“Hey ya, Starsky, Hutch,” Eddie greeted them, his scrawny neck nearly twisting off his skinny shoulders as he tried to look at both officers at once.
It took Starsky about five seconds to see the man was hurting and desperate, and to conclude that, therefore, any information he would be willing to pass on would be suspect.
“What did you want us for?” Hutch asked.
Starsky did look at his partner then but couldn’t catch Hutch’s eye. What was Hutch doing? Fast Eddie was one of his snitches, and Hutch always stood back, silent and stern, while Starsky handled him, just as Starsky remained in the background when they dealt with Hutch’s contacts. Starsky shrugged. If Hutch had something specific in mind, he wasn’t about to interfere.
Fast Eddie shot Starsky a nervous look, and then turned his fractured attention to Hutch. “Got some words for you on that merchandise been ghosting outta them stores the past coupla weeks.”
“So give,” Hutch demanded.
“Starsky, you said twenty,” Eddie appealed. “But what I got is worth more than that.”
“How much more?” Hutch asked.
Starsky knew that whatever information Eddie had managed to scrape together might contain a kernel of truth somewhere in there. But the way the man was twitching, he was hurting bad and far more likely to be planning to sell them a highly embellished bill of goods for the sake of feeding his arm. Hutch, however, had begun the negotiations, so Starsky kept his mouth shut, only shaking his head slightly so Hutch would know not to go any higher.
“Forty at least,” Eddie whined.
To Starsky’s surprise, Hutch dug into his pocket and produced two twenties. He had to bite his tongue as Hutch handed over the bills, and Eddie secreted them away somewhere beneath his stained apron.
“Give,” Hutch demanded again.
“Yeah. Sure. Okay. Checked with my sources and the word is that the merchandise is being fast tracked outta town.”
Starsky rolled his eyes. They had already figured out that much.
“Rico said he heard old Ezra on Third is takin’ in the stuff and shippin’ it out to Denver maybe. Maybe Vegas,” Eddie elaborated.
“Eddie!” a voice screeched through the open door, making the snitch jump. “Ya got tables to bus. Get your skinny ass in here.”
“No local sales,” Eddie mumbled hurriedly and disappeared through the open door. “I’ll let you know if I hear anything else.”
Starsky shook his head in disgust as they returned to the car. “Geez, Hutch. Whaddya do that for?” he asked, sliding in behind the wheel and turning the key. He was distracted for a moment by the sweet roar of the engine as it caught.
“Do what?” Hutch asked, his head bent over his notebook as he scribbled down the information Eddie had sold them.
“I told him twenty ’cause I knew he’d never get his hands on anything worth more than that.”
“He’s your snitch,” Hutch complained. “Why didn’t you say something?”
“I did,” Starsky defended himself. “I shook my head. I couldn’t figure out what you were doing anyway. Eddie’s my snitch. Why’d ya jump in like that?”
Hutch sighed, closed his notebook and tucked it away. Starsky, who was watching him, saw him almost turn his head, catch himself and then look out through the windshield.
“Shit,” the blond muttered.
“Yeah,” Starsky agreed, knowing that was about as close as Hutch was likely to come to admitting he had blown it. And it wasn’t all Hutch’s fault in any case. They had never miscued like this since the first day of their partnership. They always knew what the other had in mind and what he would do next.
“We might as well check it out anyway,” Hutch insisted.
Starsky put the Torino in drive and let it roll to the end of the alley. “How the hell are we gonna work like this?” he asked plaintively.
“We’ll adjust,” Hutch mumbled, but Starsky could tell he didn’t believe it himself.
“Hope the department can afford it ’til we do,” Starsky muttered under his breath. He saw a break in traffic and stomped on the gas to slide into it, earning the protest of a couple of horns. “Guess we might as well go check out your red herrings.”
~*~*~
Hutch was just about as disgusted with himself, especially when, as Starsky predicted, Fast Eddie’s information turned out to be third hand gossip. The only kernel of truth being that Rico had indeed started the rumor that Ezra was fencing the B&E goods. Under questioning, however, Rico had admitted that he had started the rumor as part of an ongoing feud between the two competing criminals. Hutch had fumbled, but wasn’t yet willing to admit to Starsky that it was the enforced lack of communication between them that had thrown him off his stride. They would adjust, he was sure. If they wanted to keep their secret, and therefore their jobs, they would have to.
He was, however, relieved when Starsky suggested tracking down Huggy Bear to see if this more reliable source of information had any leads. They made a few requests of the right people on the street and soon the call came that the flamboyant snitch would meet them at a familiar fast food joint.
“Might as well call us in code seven,” Starsky suggested. “Kill two birds with one stone.”
Hutch grimaced but agreed, and they cruised over to the Beachside Restaurant, which, incidentally was neither a restaurant nor anywhere within sight, sound, or smell of the beach. Starsky parked the Torino out front.
“Lock it,” he reminded Hutch.
Hutch waved toward the table where Huggy waited for them not twenty feet away.
“Lock it,” Starsky insisted.
They joined Huggy at the table, both of them almost sitting in the side by side chairs across from the informer, hesitating and then moving the chairs to opposite ends of the table before settling down.
Huggy gave them both a questioning look, but didn’t comment on the mutual avoidance ballet. He looked at Starsky and grinned. “Woo wee. I heard you had flashy new wheels, but the gossip on the street just don’t do it justice.”
Hutch knew Starsky was giving him the ‘I-told-you-so’ grin, and for the first time that morning was glad of their new no-looking rule. It gave him a good excuse to pretend great interest in the menu he already knew far too well. This was one of Starsky’s favorite places when it was his turn to select a place for one of their hurried meals.
“Glad to hear somebody’s got good taste around here,” Starsky said. “She’s got—”
“We’re looking for some information,” Hutch cut in before Starsky could begin extolling the virtues of his new love. “The B&Es going down the last month or so. Slick operators. Any word on the street who might be handling the goods?”
Huggy’s face creased in thought. “Not a whisper except that the stuff is moving outta town. I can ask around a little if you want.”
“Do that, will ya, Hug?” Starsky asked. “I’m tired of chasing my tail on this one.” He stood up. “I’m gettin’ something to eat,” he said. He seemed about to say something else, decided against it and walked over to the window to place his order.
Huggy’s eyebrows were halfway up his forehead. “Curly got a problem?” he asked.
“No,” Hutch replied shortly. The truth of the matter was that they both did. Neither one of them could figure out how to act since he had decreed that so many of their usual forms of give and take were now verboten.
Huggy shrugged as if to say it was none of his business, but Hutch could feel the curious gaze. He wished Starsky would hurry up. When Starsky did return, he surprised Hutch by sliding a hamburger and takeout glass of milk in front of him. He lifted the bun and saw that the burger was made up exactly the way he liked it. Damn, they really did know each other inside and out.
“Thanks,” he mumbled as he picked up the burger.
“Don’t mention it,” Starsky said before biting into his lethally-loaded hot dog.
“What the hell is wrong with you two?” Huggy exclaimed.
Hutch looked up from his meal, but was careful to look only at Huggy and saw, out of the corner of his eye, that Starsky did the same. He also saw that Starsky was wearing the same innocently inquiring expression that he was struggling to keep on his own face.
“Whatcha mean, Hug?” Starsky asked.
Huggy held up his hands. “Okay. Okay. I know when to butt out, but man…” He shook his head again. “…this is too weird to watch.” He pushed up out of his chair. “Later,” he said and walked away.
His departure left Starsky and Hutch with nothing to look at except their lunches, and Hutch had learned long ago that when eating at one of Starsky’s favorite places, it was better not to pay too close attention to what he was putting in his mouth. If it didn’t taste too bad, it probably wasn’t lethal, he had concluded.
“How long do you think this adjusting is going to take?” Starsky asked. He had put his hot dog down, and was picking the bits of onion off it, making a little pile of them on the spread out wrapper. “I mean, how long before we stop weirding people out?”
Hutch put down his burger and looked up. “I thought you were hungry?”
Starsky slid the sunglasses off and Hutch could see the relief in his face as their eyes met. “This shit is giving me a pain in the gut,” he complained.
“I’ve been trying to tell you it would for years,” Hutch quipped, feeling as if a giant knot had just let go in his stomach.
It was only as he said it that Hutch realized he had hesitated all morning to fill the awkward silences with their usual banter. He wondered if Starsky, too, had felt constrained from engaging in their usual good-natured insults while unable to offer the physical and visual reassurances that no true offense was meant.
“Hutch, I know I said I could do this, and we haven’t really given it long, but…” Starsky trailed off with a helpless little shrug.
“Yeah, me, too,” Hutch agreed. “So maybe we do need to look at each other.” He glanced around to be sure no one was close enough to overhear. “But we have to keep our hands to ourselves.”
“I can do that,” Starsky agreed happily.
Hutch picked up his burger. “I think I’ve heard that somewhere before.”
~*~*~
Starsky pulled into a slot in the station garage and shut down the Torino’s engine. He was so tired, he felt like he had just done a double shift. Keeping a constant watch on himself, curbing his natural inclination to reach out and touch Hutch, whether to catch his attention or communicate a thought, and remembering to stay out of Hutch’s personal space had been more exhausting than Starsky had believed possible. He hoped he would adjust soon, but wondered just how long it took to break a habit that had had years to become ingrained. By the time the last Friday night of the month came, he was going to be so starved for the casual and friendly contact with Hutch that, he admitted, helped him keep his desire in check all month long, he was just as likely to tear Hutch’s clothes off and ravish him before he had the door to the cottage decently closed.
“Damn, I hate this,” he admitted wearily. “Didn’t even get to really enjoy drivin’ my new car.”
“What’s to enjoy?” Hutch asked as he climbed out of the car and made a production out of locking the door. “It rides like a tank.”
That was an invitation to a little roughhousing if Starsky had ever heard one. He had to stick his balled up fists into his pockets to keep himself from attacking Hutch and tussling with him all the way to the elevator. He followed the broad back, wishing he knew someone who could put a curse on Briggs and Conner for starting all this.
“It does not,” he countered belatedly as they stood, a careful two feet between them, waiting for the elevator.
“Cheer up. It’ll only take a couple of days to adjust,” Hutch reassured him as the doors of the elevator opened.
Both of them stepped back to let the subject of Starsky’s miserable mental curses step out. Briggs and Conner had their arms around each other’s shoulders and were both grinning from ear to ear.
“Hail the conquering heroes,” Briggs crowed as the two men stepped far enough out of the elevator to let the doors close, but stood in Starsky and Hutch’s way.
“Now what did we do?” Hutch asked.
“Not you, us,” Conner corrected. His free hand patted his partner on the chest. “While you two have been chasing your own tails all around town in Starsky’s new baby, we have been solving crimes. The Blenkhorn murder to be specific. Got a hot lead, followed it up, and now the perp is cooling his heels in a well deserved cell.” A second pat to Briggs’ chest drew their attention. “And it’s all due to my partner’s amazing powers of observation.”
“How much has he had?” Starsky asked Briggs.
“Not a drop. Yet,” Conner denied the allegation. “High on success and admiration for my brilliant partner,” he added. He finally let Briggs go and tried to grab Hutch’s arm. “Come on along. We’re gonna celebrate.”
Hutch sidestepped the grab. “Have to take a rain check,” he declined.
“Your loss. Might even have learned a thing or two,” Conner said.
Starsky and Hutch moved aside to let them pass, turning to watch their colleagues proceed arm in arm toward their cars. Starsky saw Conner give Briggs’ ass a slap as they parted company.
“Hey, that ain’t fair,” Starsky protested, as Hutch punched the button to recall the elevator.
“They’ve been working for months on that case. I’m glad they finally got a break,” Hutch said.
“I’m not talkin’ about the case,” Starsky said, waving a hand to indicate the entire scene they had just witnessed. “Didn’t you see…?”
The doors of the elevator parted and they again had to stand back while other riders hurried out. They stepped inside the empty car and Starsky punched the button for the third floor.
“I saw,” Hutch said as the car started to lift. “So, maybe I overreacted a bit.”
“A bit?”
“Okay, so maybe a lot,” Hutch conceded.
“So does this mean…?” Starsky began, trailing off when the doors parted. He felt Hutch’s hand settle in the small of his back to guide him through the doors. “I guess it does,” he concluded happily. “Now all I gotta do is get you to admit that you love the Torino.”
Hutch gave him a shove that sent him stumbling into the squad room. “Don’t push your luck,” he growled.
~*~*~
The call that Starsky had been hoping and praying for didn’t come until near the end of their shift on Friday afternoon.
All units in the vicinity of 3rd and Washburn. 2-11 in progress at Washburn Liquor Store. Confirm shots have been fired and suspects have fled the scene. No description of escape vehicle available, tags are JCY 096.
Hutch grabbed the mike in his left hand and braced himself with the right as Starsky put his foot down and shifted into overdrive. For a moment, it felt as if the Torino might just try to bury her low nose into the tarmac, but then, with a squeal of tires to rival the screaming of their siren, the wheels dug in and shot them forward.
“Zebra Three. We are responding,” Hutch said into the mike, struggling to resist the force of the acceleration that felt strong enough to push him into the back seat. He released his grip on the dash long enough to slap the mars light on the roof, nearly sliding across the seat into his partner as Starsky threw the car into a left hand turn onto Washburn.
A quick glance at Starsky showed Hutch a man who felt himself to be finally in his true element. The sturdy body was taut with excitement, and the blue eyes shone, while a grin of manic pleasure threatened to split his face in two. With the small part of his mind not occupied with searching for the getaway car, Hutch began to feel a grudging admiration for Starsky’s new car. It almost felt as if they were airborne.
“There it is,” Starsky shouted, and took one hand off the wheel long enough to point at the fast moving Chevy two blocks ahead. He swerved around a car that had failed to yield to the siren, sloughing into the oncoming lane for a moment before side slipping back into their own space. Two other cars hurriedly moved out of their way and the Torino screamed past them.
They were gaining fast, and in a moment, Hutch was able to read the plate to confirm that they had the right vehicle. Not that there was much doubt after it shot through the red light up ahead and dodged around the car in front of it.
“Control, this is Zebra Three. We are in pursuit of a white Chevy sedan with plates matching the 2-11 call. We are headed east on Washburn, approaching the intersection of 8th Avenue.”
Hutch’s grip tightened on the dash as Starsky swerved around the same car the suspects had dodged. They were within half a block now, close enough for Hutch to see there were three people in the car, two in front and one in the back. He reported the information to control, then threw the mike onto the floor and drew his gun as the muzzle of a shotgun appeared out of the side window.
“Starsky! Look out!” he shouted as, simultaneously, Starsky threw the car to the left and both barrels of the shotgun spat fire. The Torino sloughed back in behind the Chevy.
“Try to shoot up my new car, will ya?” Starsky growled as, with the precision of a concert pianist, he brought the Torino up close enough to just barely lay her bumper against the one in front of it.
“Christ, Starsk, if he brakes….”
But Starsky was ready, his foot shifting from gas to brake before the sedan’s red taillights even flashed. He kept up enough pressure to force the car in front to continue accelerating while Hutch sweated in the passenger seat. It was a deadly game of chicken now, fueled by adrenaline and determination. This was the purpose for which Starsky had said he had bought the Torino, and Hutch knew he wouldn’t back off now no matter what. If Hutch had harbored any fears that Starsky might hesitate to risk his new pride and joy in such a situation, they flew out the open window as, balancing precariously, Hutch leaned out the window and aimed as carefully as he could for the Chevy’s rear tire.
“Ready?” he shouted to Starsky.
“Ready,” Starsky confirmed.
Hutch squeezed the trigger of the Magnum at the same moment Starsky hit the brakes, backing the Torino off so when the .357 slug hit the tire and the Chevy went into a spin, they were well clear of it. The white car spun twice before the back end jumped the curb and plowed, side on, into a telephone pole. The Torino screeched to a slip-sliding stop behind it and Hutch jumped out, vaulting up onto the trunk and crossing it in two long strides while Starsky bolted out of the driver’s side. They yanked open the doors and pulled the stunned suspects into untidy sprawls on the pavement.
“Just stay right there,” Hutch warned one of the men, as he tried to get up onto his hands and knees.
Hutch held his Magnum on the two on his side as Starsky dragged the driver around, tossed him to the asphalt with the others, and then patted down all three suspects. Retrieving a handgun from one of the men, Starsky threw it back in through the open window of the damaged car, rolled up the windows and locked the car. Hutch could see that Starsky was barely containing his excitement as he stalked around the car and their prisoners while they waited for back up to arrive.
“Did ya feel that, Hutch? These stupid bastards might as well have been standing still,” Starsky exclaimed as he prowled. “We were doin’ a hundred and twenty and I know she still had plenty more if I needed it.”
During the chase, Hutch had kept his eyes off the speedometer, not even wanting to know how fast they were going, especially when he was hanging out the window playing sharpshooter. He had teased Starsky that the Torino rode like a tank, but knew, at some point, his partner was going to make him eat his words. There was no way, had his accusation been true, that even Starsky would have been able to make that shot.
“She handled like a fucking dream, and brake… Geez, Hutch, did you feel the brakes grab? The tires dug in like nobody’s business,” Starsky was still babbling as two black and whites arrived and the uniformed officers exited their cars with guns drawn.
Hutch holstered his gun, grabbed his circling partner as he passed, and dragged him back to the Torino. Starsky planted both hands on the hood and, for a minute, Hutch feared he was going to lay a big wet one on the shiny red paint.
“Easy, buddy,” Hutch cautioned. “The public is watching.”
He left his partner to his silent communion with his car and went over to fill in the uniforms. By the time the three suspects were cuffed and loaded in the back seats, a tow truck called, and Hutch was free to return to Starsky, he found that his partner’s euphoria had evaporated.
Starsky was leaning over the trunk of the car, his fingers delicately skimming the surface of the shiny paint where Hutch had walked on it.
Starsky spun around as Hutch approached. “I don’t believe you did that!” he exclaimed.
“Did what?” Hutch asked, truly bewildered.
“You walked on my car!”
Hutch blinked. Was this the same man who had swerved in and out of traffic at 120 mph? The same, grim-faced driver who had laid the bumper of this same precious automobile right on the bumper of the speeding car they were pursuing?
“What did you want me to do, stroll around your precious car and let one of them get the drop on you?” Hutch countered.
“Ya coulda scratched the paint. Ya coulda dented it with your big feet,” Starsky accused, laying a protective hand on the Torino’s roof.
“I don’t believe this,” Hutch complained. “Any dents I made would only improve it anyway. Give it some character.”
“Character?” Starsky echoed. “This car has got plenty of character.”
“I said character, Starsk, not ego,” Hutch said and climbed into the passenger seat.
“You’re just jealous,” Starsky accused as he slid in behind the wheel and pulled the door closed behind him. “I just proved what a great car this is and now you’re gonna hafta tell me you love it.”
Hutch let loose one bark of unamused laughter. “Neither one of us is going to live that long, Starsky,” he challenged, realizing only as he watched the temper leave Starsky’s face that he had just made a big mistake.
“You think so, huh, partner?” Starsky muttered. “Well, we’ll just see about that.”
~*~*~
Sprawled comfortably on his belly, Starsky concentrated all his attention on catching just the barest fold of the tender skin at the edge of Hutch’s pubic hair between his teeth. He pulled gently, licking at the bit of flesh, and drinking in the hoarse moan forced past Hutch’s lips. Slowly, he released the pressure of his teeth, kept licking, long and wet and languorous, all along the edge of soft blond curls.
“Ah, yeah, babe. Ah, yeah,” Hutch moaned, well beyond the point where he was capable of producing multi-syllable words.
It was Friday night and they had already shared their first, frantic orgasm. Now they had time and patience to take it slow, enjoy each other and their own responses. And Starsky was a man with a mission.
“Open your legs for me, just a little more,” he whispered seductively, and Hutch complied.
“That’s it, beautiful man, let me at you,” Starsky crooned, burrowing his lips into the newly exposed area just where Hutch’s testicles met his body. He nosed aside the heavy, swollen sac and lavished hungry kisses on the tiny spot. The resulting moan wasn’t quite a groan, so Starsky added just a little probing of his tongue. The moan this time was breathless, but still only a moan, still trapped in Hutch’s throat, not the deep-chested sound Starsky was looking for.
Without warning, Starsky turned his head and sucked one of the hard testicles into his mouth. That earned him a groan, but it wasn’t quite deep enough, not quite uninhibited enough for Starsky’s purposes. Pressing his lips as close together as he could with the soft bulk in his mouth, he drew back, compressing the hardened center until it popped free of his mouth. That gained him the sound he wanted, the thunder that rumbled around in Hutch’s chest until it finally burst from his lips.
Starsky raised his head, looked up the long, long stretch of golden flesh to his partner’s face. Uh, huh. He had Hutch just where he wanted him.
“Tell me you love my car,” he murmured seductively.
Hutch’s kiss-reddened lips parted and then compressed stubbornly.
Starsky lowered his head and engulfed the other testicle in the sweet, sucking vacuum of his mouth. Hutch dug his heels into the mattress and tried to arch off the bed. Starsky clamped adamant fingers on his hip bones and held him down while he once again retreated with compressed lips.
“Ah, God. I….”
Starsky didn’t bother to look up this time, but nuzzled instead into the base of the angry red cock. He kissed his way up the long shaft, and then abandoned the needful flesh.
“You love my car, babe,” he crooned. “You know you do.”
A grunt and a hand that latched onto his curls tried to force him back. Starsky allowed himself to be led, engulfing the flared tip of Hutch’s cock between his lips, swirling his tongue around the tender flesh and then drawing away again.
“Come on. Tell me you love my car,” he repeated.
“Fuck the Torino,” Hutch growled.
Starsky sacrificed a few hairs to escape Hutch’s frantic grip. “Whaddya say?” He was sitting up between Hutch’s spread thighs now, both hands still pressing the restless hips into the mattress.
Hutch opened his eyes and Starsky could see the struggle between lust and principle warring within the glazed blue behind the heavy lids.
“Principle isn’t gonna suck your dick for you,” Starsky reminded him, deliberately circling his tender lips with the tip of his tongue.
“Fuck the Torino,” Hutch repeated stubbornly.
Starsky sighed. His partner always had been too mule-headed for his own good. He released Hutch’s hips, bringing his hands to stroke sensuously up and down his own thighs, each stroke bringing him just a little closer to his own balls.
“Ya think I couldn’t?” he asked, knowing he had captured just the right tone of challenge when Hutch’s eyes came wide open and focused, sharp and clear, on his face. He grinned.
“You wouldn’t?” Hutch gasped.
Of course he wouldn’t, but Hutch didn’t need to know that yet. “Wasn’t talkin’ about wouldn’t. Was talkin’ about couldn’t.” Starsky purred. He let his left hand cup his heavy sac while the right crept up his chest to pinch his nipples, grinning as he watched Hutch’s eyes tracking, trying to watch both hands at once.
“She can make me almost as hard as you do, babe,” Starsky continued. “Think about it? Where’s the gas go? Huh?”
He saw appalled fascination bloom in Hutch’s face while the uncut cock leaked a steady trickle of pearly pre-come.
“Yeah. Just the right height, isn’t it? All I’d hafta do is flip the cover open, tease open the gas cap.” His voice had dropped into a husky growl as Starsky stroked his penis upward, pressing it comfortingly against his belly.
“That’s sick,” Hutch managed to whisper.
“Yeah?” Starsky released his nipple and reached out to run a delicate caress into Hutch’s slit, spreading the cream around the tip before retreating. “So, how come you’re leakin’ like the LTD’s oil pan? Idea turn you on, does it?” He licked his lips. “Or are you just missing my mouth?”
Stubbornly, Hutch gathered up his own cock in his big fist and began to stroke it. “Can manage on my own,” he challenged.
His arousal doubled as Starsky watched his partner stroke pleasure into his own flesh. He almost forgot his purpose as, instinctively, he matched the hard, demanding rhythm on his own cock. Hutch’s triumphant smile reminded him. He slowed his stroke then, gentled the touch to feather light brushes of his fingertips.
“Can, huh?” Starsky asked. “Show me. Show me how you make it better than I do.”
“Couldn’t fuck the Torino,” Hutch denied the possibility again, but his hands had stopped moving and his gaze was once again fascinated by Starsky’s self-pleasuring.
”’Course,” Starsky husked. “I’d hafta wear a condom. Wouldn’t want my come foulin’ up the gas lines.” With his hand still wrapped around his cock, he leaned over Hutch, pressed a kiss to the smooth expanse between pebble hard nipples. “But ya know how much I hate condoms,” he murmured against the smooth flesh.
Hutch’s hand threaded into Starsky’s curls again, a gentler grip this time, a supplication rather than a demand. “Suck me, Starsk. Can’t make it better than you do. Nobody makes it better than you do.”
For a second time, Starsky allowed himself to be led to Hutch’s cock, resisting the pressure only when he hovered barely a breath away. He parted his lips, letting each exhalation and inhalation wash hot and then cold over Hutch’s groin. He pressed one warm, wet kiss onto the tip. “Wanna watch me fuck my car?” he asked, his lips brushing velvet skin.
Hutch groaned, arched, and Starsky gave him what he needed, the hard, demanding sucking of his hungry mouth, while he squeezed his own aching flesh. The steady symphony vibrating in Hutch’s throat had robbed Starsky of his ability to focus on any purpose but his lover’s pleasure and his own. He sucked hard, his left hand a demanding blur on his cock. Silently, he begged Hutch to feed him the warm, bitter flood of semen. The warning pulses throbbed against the encircling fingers of both his hands before the first warm splashes bathed first his tongue and then his belly, echoing each other, driving the sweetest of ecstasy into his brain.
When there was no more to give or take, Starsky let his boneless body ooze down onto the bed, sprawling between Hutch’s splayed thighs and resting his spinning head on the smooth, heaving pillow of Hutch’s belly.
After minutes that crept by like hours, Starsky felt the lax fingers in his hair stroking gratitude and promise into him.
“That was sick,” Hutch complained, his tone so languorous the words could only be taken as a compliment. “Fucking the Torino.”
“I noticed how it turned you off,” Starsky countered, lazy afterglow making him uncaring if his stubborn lover refused to yield. If at first he didn’t succeed, he would just have to try, try again.
“I surrender,” Hutch suddenly capitulated. “The Torino is one red hot tomato,” he admitted, and then tugged, and Starsky went with the pull, allowing himself to be drawn up the sweat slick torso until he could look into the sweet lassitude on Hutch’s face. “And so are you.”
Two Steps Forward and One Step Back
“How long did Wart Man say he was gonna be?” Starsky asked. He hated waiting and only made the play on the assistant district attorney’s name for the brief diversion of watching his partner rise to the bait.
Right on cue, Hutch gave a long-suffering sigh and rolled his eyes. “It’s Vortmann. And he didn’t say anything. It was his secretary. Wart… Now, look what you’ve done!”
Starsky tried to hold it in, but his laughter at Hutch’s outrage just refused to be caged.
“Damnit, Starsky. If I call him that when we meet him…” Hutch left the threat dangling, but Starsky got the message and tried, with questionable success, to wipe the smile off his face.
“Hey, Laurel and Hardy,” Bailey paged from where he sat at his desk a few feet away. “When are you two going to take your comedy routine on the road and let the rest of us get some work done?”
“As soon as Wart….”
Starsky started sputtering as Hutch slipped up on the name yet again. He could tell from the sparkle in the laughing blue eyes, however, that Hutch was now doing it on purpose to try to turn the tables. The multiple repetitions had ensured that there was a fifty-fifty chance it would just as easily be Starsky who slipped up when the district attorney was finally ready to meet with them. Or, maybe, more like sixty-forty, Starsky admitted, since Hutch usually gave more thought to what he said before he said it.
“What’s the hold up anyway?” Starsky asked. “The guy wanted us back here at noon. So where is he? I’m hungry.”
“You’re always hungry,” Hutch reminded him. “Judge Wallace wanted to see Vortmann in chambers.”
“Shit,” Starsky muttered in disgust. “Wallace’s an old wind bag. Afternoon session will have started before he winds down.” He gave Hutch a disgruntled stare. “And, for your information, I am not always hungry. I get hungry like normal people do. You know, breakfast, lunch and dinner times. I’m beginning to think there’s a missing link between your stomach and your brain.”
“The only missing link around here, Ollie, is you,” Bailey accused as he went by their desk to the coffee machine.
Starsky met his partner’s eyes, saw the grin lighting Hutch’s face that he could feel on his own. He pointed at Hutch. “No, no. He’s Hardy, I’m Laurel.”
The few officers present in the squadroom joined in the resulting laughter. It was common knowledge that, for reasons no one had yet been able to fathom, many people confused their names. Personally, Starsky didn’t see how that was even possible. How anyone could look at Hutch and think he might be a Starsky, made no sense at all. A Thor or an Odin, maybe. But then, Starsky had to admit, not everyone saw Hutch as a Nordic prince the way he did.
Oops. That was a path his mind wasn’t supposed to be wandering at this time of the month. Starsky pushed up out of his chair. “I’m going down to the cafe and get something to eat. You want anything?” he asked, fully expecting a refusal. In his opinion, Hutch didn’t eat enough real food to keep body and soul together.
“Bring me a carton of milk,” Hutch requested.
“Milk,” Starsky repeated. “Milk is not food.” Hearing the echo of his mother’s voice in his own, he bit off any further protests. Wonderful. Hutch’s eating habits were turning him into a Jewish mother. Besides, there was more than one way to stuff this particular cat.
“Actually, Starsk, it is,” Hutch corrected him. “Don’t be down there all day. Just in case Wallace runs out of hot air and Vortmann wants to see us.”
“Somebody alert Ripley’s,” Starsky said and left the squadroom, wondering what the cafeteria might have today that Hutch would share.
~*~*~
Name. Address. Telephone Number. Marital status.
Hutch filled in each section neatly, pausing only briefly before writing in divorced. He wondered how many years were required before a divorced person became single again, or if the ghost of a plain gold band remained on your finger forever. It certainly hung around in your heart and your mind, he admitted. It had been five years since he had last laid eyes on his ex-wife, but he knew that Vanessa’s shade was still lurking in his heart. The damage their turbulent marriage and bitter break-up inflicted had healed to a certain extent, but the scars remained to make him cautious of risking that organ again.
Place of birth.
He filled that in as well. Duluth, Minnesota. Home. He hadn’t been back there since his grandfather died. Hadn’t even called. He didn’t miss it. He picked up the carton of milk and sucked hard on the paper straw. Cold and white, like Minnesota winters. Sometimes he missed the snow. Maybe he could talk Starsky into going skiing in Colorado, Hutch mused wistfully. Probably about as easily as he could talk his partner into trading in the Torino. Starsky didn’t like the cold. He even scheduled his trips back east to see his mother for the dog days of August, when New York would be a stinking, sweltering, humid mass of miserable humanity.
Hutch picked up a carrot stick and crunched his way through it. Put out his hand a second time and found a celery stalk.
Occupation.
Police Officer? Detective, Second Class, Metro Division, Homicide? Cop? Law Enforcement Officer? Two more carrot sticks disappeared while he debated which job description would make his application more or less attractive to the person reviewing it. Keep it simple, he decided, as he finished the last carrot and filled in ‘Police Officer.’ Surely, there would be an interview and he could elaborate then.
State your reason for becoming a Big Brother.
Hutch put the pen down before he gave in to the temptation to write something asinine. He picked up the sandwich in front of him, bit into it and chewed methodically, absently noting that both the tuna and the mayo tasted fresh today, while he wrestled with how to convey his reasons on the five lines the application form provided.
Picking up the pen in his right hand and the depleted carton of milk in his left, Hutch wrote: I wish to become a Big Brother because, and put the pen down when the rest of the sentence refused to line up in his brain.
“What ya doin’ there, Blintz?” Starsky asked.
His partner’s voice broke into his preoccupation, and Hutch looked up, noting the mess of empty paper plates on the desk. “Damnit, Starsky. Do you have to spread your lunch…?” The taste of tuna lingered in his mouth. If Starsky had been wearing an expression of triumph, Hutch might have made an issue out of it. But his partner just looked… content. So, maybe he had been a little hungry after all.
“If that’s for the suggestion box, tell ’em we need a bigger choice in the candy machine. I’m tired of Baby Ruths and Eatmores,” Starsky said as he gathered up the debris and deposited it in the trash.
Silently, Hutch handed over the incomplete application form, watching his partner’s eyes track over the information.
“So, you’re finally gonna do it, huh?” Starsky commented, handing the form back.
“What do you mean ‘finally’? I didn’t know I was on a deadline,” Hutch complained.
Starsky shrugged. “No deadline. It’s just you’ve been talking about it a while now. Since we became partners anyway. Couple of years.”
“Eighteen months,” Hutch corrected automatically. “If you count from Halloween instead of Christmas.”
Starsky didn’t seem interested in debating details. “So, what comes after ‘because’?” he asked, indicating the sentence Hutch had left dangling.
“Damned if I know,” Hutch admitted. “What makes me think I’ve got what it takes to take the place of some poor kid’s father?”
“Maybe ’cause ya got a heart about the size of Yankee Stadium,” Starsky suggested softly.
Hutch felt a blush creeping up into his cheeks and ducked his head to try to hide it.
“‘I want to become a Big Brother because,'” Starsky quoted, his voice dropping even lower. “Because every day you see the need and you’re the kind of person who can’t just go home and pretend it doesn’t exist. The brotherhood of man couldn’t have hit it luckier than when you joined.”
Hutch was both warmed and chilled by Starsky’s words. No one thought more of him than Starsky, and no one’s opinion mattered more. Hutch, however, feared that someday Starsky would see that he was every bit as flawed as the rest of the human race. What would happen then? How would he live without the moments, like right now, when Starsky looked at him as if he were Sir Lancelot, Zorro, and the Lone Ranger all rolled into one?
Starsky, however, had an excellent sense of when he had backed Hutch into an uncomfortable place, how long to hold him there, and when to let him out. He winked at Hutch, leaned back in his chair and lifted his chin before soliciting their fellow officers’ opinions.
“Hutch would make a great Big Brother, wouldn’t he, guys?” he asked.
“He’s certainly had plenty of experience watching over a juvenile,” Briggs quipped.
“You walked into that one with your eyes wide open, partner.” Hutch laughed, picked up the pen and quickly filled in the last few lines of the application. He scribbled his signature, folded the form and tucked it in its envelope, feeling Starsky’s approving gaze on him all the way.
“We can mail it on the way home tonight,” Hutch declared, feeling more confident of his decision.
“If we’re not stuck here all day waiting for—” The ringing of the telephone interrupted Starsky’s complaint. He snatched up the receiver. “Starsky,” he said, frowned at whatever was being said, then protested. “But it’s our day off tomorrow. Yeah. Okay. We’ll be there,” he agreed and hung up the phone. “Wart Man,” he explained shortly. “Can’t see us until tomorrow at nine.”
Hutch started to protest, realized Starsky already had and gave it up as a lost cause. Far be it from him to suggest the exalted assistant district attorney should accommodate a couple of lowly cops. “Let’s see if we can accomplish something today.”
“I already did my good deed for the day,” Starsky insisted as he pulled his jacket off the back of the chair. “You ate, didn’t you?”
Recognizing another lost cause when he saw one, Hutch held his peace as he followed his partner out the door.
~*~*~
“Starsk, pull over at Pryor Drugs, will you?” Hutch requested. They were on their way back to the station, their shift having ended exactly one minute ago, and Hutch had just remembered that he had a date tonight.
“Milk and a tuna-fish sandwich, and you got heartburn?” Starsky protested, though he pulled over in front of the drugstore as requested. “Maybe you need to see a doctor.”
“I don’t have heartburn,” Hutch corrected him. “I have a date tonight, and I’m out of rubbers.”
“Oh. Sorry,” Starsky said as he shut down the engine and opened the door on his side of the car.
Hutch led the way into the small store, heading directly for the back where there was a discreet display of condoms, while Starsky wandered at will.
“Afternoon, Phil. Slow day?” Hutch greeted the pharmacist where the older man stood behind the raised dispensing counter.
There were no other customers in the store at the moment, perhaps hadn’t been many today at all, since Pryor left what he was doing and wandered down to where Hutch was studying the display.
“Out of condoms again, Hutch? Maybe you ought to start buying them by the gross the way your partner does,” Pryor suggested.
Hutch felt a slight warmth in his cheeks. “Just being a responsible adult,” he replied. He picked up a box of Trojans. In actual fact, he hated using condoms. So did Starsky. As his partner so crudely put it—if it was wrapped in plastic, it ought to be in the refrigerator. Yes, it was the responsible thing to do. It was also the smart thing if you weren’t in a serious relationship and were unwilling to deal with any accidental consequences of a casual roll in the sack. Most importantly, however, it had occurred to Hutch, after the first couple of last Fridays, that if some woman he slept with gave him the clap and then he passed it on to Starsky, he would never hear the end of it.
“Hey, Phil,” Starsky called from closer to the front of the store than Hutch had expected him to be. Usually, Starsky went straight for the magazine rack to check out the latest issue of Playboy. By this late in the month, however, he had probably already added it to his collection.
Hutch turned toward Starsky and saw that his partner was standing in front of what looked to be a display of perfume bottles.
“What’s with all the cheap stuff? Tryin’ to lower the birth rate in the neighborhood?” Starsky picked up one of the small navy blue bottles, screwed off the cap and sniffed. “Whew!” he exclaimed, holding the bottle at arm’s length while he twisted the cap back on. “Evening in the gutters of Paris. Every bit as bad as I remember.”
Hutch and the druggist began walking along their opposite sides of the dispensing counter toward the register.
“Don’t tell me some girl you—”
With his attention on Starsky as his partner returned the bottle to its place in the display rack, Hutch was just a heartbeat slow to react to the sound of the curtain behind the counter suddenly rattling back, and the druggist’s truncated sentence. He pivoted, taking in the scruffy, greasy-haired punk who had appeared beside Pryor, caught a grip on the collar of the older man’s white lab coat, and was flashing a very large knife around. Automatically, Hutch’s hand started for his gun, but hesitated as the knife was brought up under Pryor’s chin.
The pharmacist, however, had owned this place for over twenty years and was no stranger to the threats of the neighborhood. With a practiced little twist, he removed his throat from the threat of the knife, raised his arms and slid down to the floor, leaving the bewildered thief holding an empty lab coat.
Hutch completed his draw, zeroing the sight in on the thief, thumbing off the safety and cocking the big Magnum all in one smooth motion that he had rehearsed for hundreds of hours to be prepared for just such a situation as this.
“Police. Drop it,” he ordered.
With more wisdom than Hutch had expected, the would-be robber dropped the knife. It clattered to the tile behind the counter and Hutch heard Pryor scrambling around back there to retrieve it.
“Got it,” the druggist exclaimed at the same moment Hutch realized his new prisoner hadn’t been acting alone.
“You, too, Junior.”
The sound of his partner’s voice made Hutch turn his head just long enough to see that Starsky hadn’t moved far from where Hutch had last seen him, but he now had his gun in hand as well, aiming at a kid who stood just a step or two in from the door. This equally reprehensible looking sample of humanity also had a knife and was holding it between thumb and fingertips, arm pulled back.
“Unless you think you’re Jim Bowie, I wouldn’t try it if I were you,” Starsky advised in the street-deep growl Hutch had seen make many a criminal give some foolish impulse a second thought.
Junior seemed to know when he was beaten and let the weapon slip out of his hand.
“That’s better. Now just come on in here and turn around slow,” Starsky commanded.
Seeing that his partner had the situation under control, Hutch moved up behind the dispensing counter to secure his prisoner. The man offered no resistance as Hutch pushed him down over the edge of the counter.
“Hutch!”
For a second time, the sound of his partner’s voice, this time with an urgent, warning edge to it, yanked Hutch from stand down to full alert. He looked up, and saw that, less subdued than he had thought, the kid was making a break. Not out the door, but directly toward his partner. In the seconds it took for the kid to complete his wild charge, Hutch saw Starsky’s hands go up, gun gripped tightly between them and pointed at the ceiling. The perp hit Starsky in the chest with his shoulder, as if he were running interference for the quarterback, knocked Starsky flying into the rack of bottles behind him, and then pivoted for the door.
Planting an elbow into the middle of the back of his own prisoner, Hutch sighted down the long barrel of the Magnum and pulled the trigger. The roar of the big gun was echoed by the smack of the bullet into the door frame above the fleeing suspect’s head and froze him in place.
“You all right, Starsky?” Hutch called toward his partner without taking his eyes off the kid.
“Yeah,” Starsky confirmed and Hutch heard the tinkling of glass and a grunt as Starsky rolled to his feet. “Just keep that cannon on him in case Joe Namath here gets any more bright ideas.”
~*~*~
Starsky didn’t miss the way his partner was careful to keep a good fifteen feet or so between them as they handed over the prisoners, and briefed the uniform officers who responded to their call. Not that Starsky blamed him. If he could, he would be more than happy to keep a safe distance from himself as well.
“Stand still, damn it, Hutch. It ain’t that bad,” he complained as he approached his partner and Hutch backed off a couple of steps.
“Wanna bet,” Hutch countered. “I don’t want you to take this the wrong way, partner, but you stink.”
Starsky stopped, dug his keys out of his pocket and tossed them at his grinning friend. “Take the Torino back to the station for me, will ya, Hutch?”
Hutch caught the keys and immediately lobbed them back. “No way, Starsk. I am not driving that tomato. It’s bad enough I have to sit in the passenger seat when you drive. I don’t want anyone thinking I’d actually own it.”
“Ah, come on, Hutch. Be a pal,” Starsky whined. “For Pete’s sake, I smell like Nikki’s parlor. You think I wanna get in my car smellin’ like this,” he complained, and tried to close the distance between him and Hutch, the keys held out in front of him.
“Tell me about it,” Hutch agreed, stepping back again.
Starsky stopped his advance. “Come on, Hutch,” he repeated. “If it gets in the leather, I’ll never get it out. You wanna drive around for the next six months in a car that smells like a rolling bordello? There aren’t enough of those little Christmas tree air fresheners in the whole city to cover this up. Besides, that pine smell makes you sneeze.”
Hutch stopped his retreat, eyed his partner and then seemed to accept the logic of his appeal. He held out his hand. “All right. Give me the keys. But stay downwind, will you?”
Starsky handed over the keys and started to turn away.
“Hey. What are you going to do? Walk back to the station?” Hutch asked.
“Nah.” Starsky waved toward the remaining patrol car that had answered their call. “I’ll catch a ride with Johnson.”
Hutch laughed. “Oh, I’m sure they’ll appreciate that!”
Starsky echoed the laughter. “You’ve been out of uniform too long, babe,” he accused. “Anything’s gotta be better than wino puke.”
“I’ve already heard all the wisecracks from my partner,” Starsky warned the two patrolmen as he climbed into the back of the black and white. “So you two can just keep your questionable humor to yourselves.”
“Hey, you don’t smell any worse than my mother-in-law,” Jerry Johnson, a ten-year veteran who had never seemed interested in leaving the uniform behind, reassured him.
“And you smell a whole lot better than the bum we just delivered to detox,” his partner, a rookie barely six months out of the Academy, added. Starsky couldn’t remember the kid’s name, but had seen his shiny face around the station a few times.
Starsky noticed that both officers quietly, but quickly, rolled down their windows. He didn’t blame them. If the windows in the back rolled down, he would be cranking the handles, too. The scent of a woman’s perfume could be a real turn on, or, when it lingered on his clothes, a pleasant reminder. However, after rolling around amid the broken bottles of cheap perfume, there was nothing pleasant about the way he smelled, and he couldn’t wait to get back to the locker room to shower.
“Come on, Jerry. Just put your foot down, will you? If I don’t get a shower soon, my appreciation for a beautiful, sweet-smelling lady might be ruined for life,” Starsky complained.
“Hmmm. Maybe that wouldn’t be such a bad thing,” Johnson mused. “Leave one or two for—”
All units. All units. Silent alarm. Bronman ‘s Jewelry Store. 278 Main Street.
“That’s just down the street,” the rookie pointed out.
Starsky straightened up in the seat. “Pull over, Jerry. If it’s a silent alarm, just a glimpse of a cruiser might spook ’em.”
Obediently, Johnson pulled over and the rookie hopped out to let Starsky out of the back. Starsky scrambled clear and leaned back into the front to grab the receiver. “Control, this is Detective Starsky, Zebra Three. I’m with patrol…” A raised eyebrow asked the senior partner for their designation.
“Adam Four,” Johnson provided the information.
“…Adam Four,” Starsky repeated into the mike. “We are on location of silent alarm on Main. Please advise availability of other units and known information.”
“Zebra Three, situational is unavailable. Ocean Seven and Adam Nine are en route. Ocean Seven will take command. ”
“Understood, Central. We will remain clear of the scene at…” Starsky paused, glanced at the store beside them. “…266 Main Street. Please advise Ocean Seven of our location.” He re-hooked the mike and signaled Johnson and his partner to follow him into the convenient cigar store. He hoped the relief he felt hadn’t shown in his face when he had heard his mentor’s call sign over the radio. The idea of going into any kind of action without Hutch tensed him up, but, if he couldn’t have Hutch, then Johnny Blaine would be his second choice.
Starsky had barely had time to inform the owner of the store of the situation and encourage the customers to stay away from the windows, when Blaine’s dark green Buick pulled up behind the cruiser, followed by a second black and white. If whoever was trying to rip off Bronman for his over-priced diamonds had a lookout posted, Starsky thought, watching Blaine climb from the car and use hand signals to command the second team of uniforms up the alley, the jig was probably already up. Starsky wasn’t counting on running into two sets of stupid thieves in one day, but you never knew your luck.
“Hey, kid,” Blaine greeted as he came through the door. “Where’s your…” He stopped two feet away from Starsky, waved a hand in front of his face and backed off a few steps. “Whew! What’s that smell?”
“It’s me,” Starsky admitted, having forgotten in the heat of the moment, how badly he reeked. No wonder the store’s customers had been so willing to move to the back of the store. The air was probably a whole lot fresher back there.
“I’d go a little easier on the cologne, if I were you, kid. I’ve heard of knocking them dead, but that’s ridiculous,” Blaine quipped, drawing a little closer.
“Ha, ha. You think you could can the comedy and maybe earn your pay check for the day?” Starsky countered.
“So, what have we got here?” Blaine asked, humor forgotten as the business at hand took precedence.
“Just got here myself,” Starsky said. “No situational. Haven’t seen anyone or heard any shots.”
Blaine turned to Johnson and the rookie. “You two, go down the alley behind the store and back up into the street a couple of doors down. Clear the sidewalk. Make the customers closest stay inside or send them the other way.”
Johnson and his partner took off as the pair Blaine had sent down the alley came through the door.
“No lookout in the alley that we could spot. Back door’s locked,” the older of the two reported.
Blaine cocked an eyebrow at Starsky. “Still remember how to pick a lock?”
Starsky grinned. Getting into places that somebody might want to keep you out of, along with self-defense, self-confidence, and a few lessons in knowing his place in the scheme of things, were only a few of the things Blaine had taught him. “Ya got a hairpin on ya?”
Blaine dug in his pocket and handed over the picklock Starsky knew he had carried since his uniform days. “Feel like doing a little reconnaissance?”
“Better than directing pedestrian traffic,” Starsky agreed. “Somebody give me a radio. Gimme a few minutes to get inside, then I’ll let you know what’s goin’ down.”
The dash through the alley, that was much cleaner than those he usually found himself negotiating, took Starsky only a minute, and the lock on the door yielded to his expertise even quicker.
Discarding his perfume-soaked jacket, hoping that would cut the stench enough not to reveal his presence to anyone inside, Starsky hooked the radio on his belt, drew his gun and cautiously turned the handle. Thanking whatever deity was responsible for the soundless hinges, Starsky pushed the door inward just enough to slip through. He pushed it closed behind him after allowing himself a quick glance around the empty passageway he was in. He closed his eyes after the door snicked shut to let them adjust to the gloom, ears alert for any sound. He counted to ten, opened his eyes and glanced around again.
There were two doors, one facing him that was closed tight, and one at right angles that was slightly ajar. Moving over to the second door, Starsky eased it open and discovered a small bathroom for, he assumed, the employees’ use. He unhooked the mike from his belt and brought it close to his lips.
“Johnny, I’m in. No lookout so far. Can’t see into the store from here. I’m going in,” he whispered.
“With caution, kid,” Blaine’s filtered voice warned. “I sent Miller around behind you, but remember he isn’t Hutch. Can’t read your mind. No heroics.”
Starsky grinned despite the seriousness of his position. His and Hutch’s ability to anticipate each other was already becoming legend. “Aye, aye, mon Capitaine,” he whispered and slid the unit back onto his belt.
One deep breath and then he moved up to the second door. He wished Blaine hadn’t reminded him that Hutch wasn’t here, but Starsky forced that thought to the back of his mind. His partner was there in spirit if not in flesh, he thought, almost hearing the big blond’s voice in his head reminding him to get down.
Crouching obediently, Starsky turned the handle slowly and even more cautiously eased the door open. The sound of flesh meeting flesh in a blow and the choked off cry of a woman’s pain nearly propelled him through the door, but he held himself back.
The door led into what appeared to be a storeroom of sorts. Locked cabinets with glass fronts lined the right, while shelves of boxes filled the other. No people, but Starsky could hear the rumble of a male voice from beyond the curtain of beads directly in front of him. Half a dozen steps separated him from the opening to where the action was. Six steps that could make that curtain clatter louder than a disturbed rattler. Goddamn, he thought viciously, why couldn’t people stick to plain old soundless cotton?
Moving as soft-footed as he could, Starsky made it to the wall beside the damning curtain. Listening a moment to try to place the male voice he could hear inside the store, Starsky then pivoted to peek through the strings of plastic beads, giving himself five seconds to take in the scene before he withdrew.
He brought the mike to his lips and whispered his observations into it. “Seven bodies on the floor. One with blood. No shots fired, so probably clubbed. One perp that I can see. Armed-automatic. Right now he’s behind the counters on the extreme left. Lady’s loading a bag. My guess is she’s a customer and not an accomplice. He’s roughed her up, but she’s handling it.”
“Do you have a clear line of fire?” Blaine’s voice whispered from the radio.
“Not yet. He’s gotta know he’s running out of time.”
As if to confirm his guess, Starsky heard a commotion from beyond the curtain and peeked around the edge again. The thief had dragged his unwilling accomplice to the window display. He must have noticed something, the lack of traffic, something, because he suddenly released his hold on her arm, grabbed her around the neck and flipped her around in front of him. The woman screamed once, then fell silent as the man dragged her backward toward Starsky’s position.
“John, he’s gettin’ ready to split,” Starsky whispered urgently into the radio. “Back way.”
Starsky shoved the unit onto his belt and brought up his gun in a two-handed grip. He had a clear shot at the man’s back, but, with the barrel of the automatic pushed into the hostage’s side, Starsky dare not take it. Even if he put a slug right into the man’s heart, reflexes would pull the trigger, and a dead hostage was not the name of the game Starsky had signed on for.
Silently, he retreated the way he had come, hoping John had thought to call back the uniform waiting in the alley, or, at least, that no one out there had an itchy trigger finger. He heard the curtain rattle as he turned the handle on the back door and knew he couldn’t open it now. The flood of daylight from the opening door would give away his presence.
Ducking into the small bathroom he had discovered earlier and pulling the door almost closed behind him, Starsky crouched in the darkness, eye and weapon pressed to the crack, and waited. He heard the crash of the front door as the troops burst in that way, saw the thief freeze as Johnson and his partner came through the curtain behind him.
“Back off, pigs. I’ll kill her,” the man threatened, and Starsky believed him. Believed him so thoroughly, in fact, that he knew he couldn’t let the bastard go out the door with her. All he had was the advantage of surprise, but, if he used it, would he only be robbing the hostage of a few more minutes of life?
Johnson and his partner were frozen in the doorway, strings of beads draped comically over their shoulders, and the perp and hostage were backed up against the door to the alley. Starsky sighted his Beretta through the crack in the door, waiting with his breath held in his chest and his pulse pounding in his ears, for that one tiny change in the tableau before him that would give him the momentary edge he needed. Then he saw it. Not in the perp’s face, but the hostage’s. For one brief moment, terror metamorphosed to shame and then fury. Starsky squeezed the trigger in the same heartbeat that the enraged woman brought her elbow into the thief’s belly.
The roar of the Beretta filled the room, startled brown eyes met Starsky’s through the crack in the door as the last electrical impulses in the dying body emptied the automatic’s clip harmlessly into the floor.
~*~*~
Hutch couldn’t believe his luck when, by some unexplainable miracle, there wasn’t a single officer he worked with present when he slid the Torino into an empty slot in the station garage. There were officers around, of course, coming on or off duty, but no one that Hutch knew well enough for them to make a comment about him driving the Torino. The story would get around, but, hopefully, by then, so would the tale of Starsky’s eau de cologne dousing. Of the two situations, Hutch was willing to bet that Starsky’s would generate more ribbing.
He poured himself a cup of coffee before settling at their desk and rolling an occurrence report form into the typewriter. If he didn’t know better, he would swear Starsky had arranged the situation just to avoid writing the report. Starsky wouldn’t be far behind him, but Hutch expected his partner would head straight for the locker room and a shower. So, although he was no fonder of paper work than Starsky, Hutch decided he might as well complete the report so they could punch out as soon as Starsky showed his face.
Hutch was pulling the report out of the machine when Dobey burst out of his office.
“Hutchinson. Come with me,” Dobey commanded in a tone of voice that had Hutch reaching for his jacket and scrambling to his feet before he even thought of asking why.
“Starsky’s been involved in a shooting,” Dobey explained as they boarded the elevator.
For a moment, Hutch couldn’t have spoken if his own life had depended on it, fear clenching icy fingers around his vitals and closing his throat.
That moment was all Dobey needed to put his worst fears to rest. “He isn’t hurt. He was the shooter.”
“What happened?” Hutch demanded as they exited the elevator and hurried to Dobey’s car. “He was supposed to be right behind me.”
“There was an all units to a silent alarm at a jewelry store on Main,” Dobey explained, unlocking the car and sliding in behind the wheel.
Hutch waited impatiently for Dobey to open his door and then climbed in as the captain started the engine.
“What I want to know is what he was doing with the cruiser while you were sitting in the squadroom? And both of you past the end of your shift.”
Hutch explained the situation in a few brief sentences, silently urging Dobey to put his foot down. Even with his superior’s reassurances, he wouldn’t believe Starsky was safe until he saw him with his own eyes. “Is there something wrong? Why are you going out?”
“Settle down, Hutchinson. Blaine was in command and, from what he said, it was a clean shoot,” Dobey explained. “And you should know by now why I want to be on the scene.”
Hutch forced himself to lean back in the seat, throw a lasso around his impatience and corral his imagination. What Dobey said was true. When one of his officers was involved in a fatal shooting, Dobey always went to the scene himself to make sure of the facts.
When they pulled up, there were already three cruisers, two ambulances, and an unmarked car parked and double parked in front of Bronman’s Jewelry Store. Starsky was standing on the sidewalk, half-sitting on the trunk of one of the cruisers, back to the street, while bodies in various uniforms milled around. Dobey had barely parked the car before Hutch was out the door, long strides eating up the distance between him and his partner.
Starsky saw him coming and smiled in reassurance, but Hutch couldn’t banish the lingering fear until he actually gripped his friend’s shoulder. Starsky’s lips quirked and his eyes acknowledged the mutual need.
“Can’t leave you alone for five minutes, can I?” Hutch accused gently, squeezing hard at the flesh beneath his hand. He should take his hand away, he knew, but couldn’t quite force himself to do it yet. “You okay?”
“Yeah,” Starsky said, glancing around. “What are you doing here?”
“You’ve gotta ask?” Hutch replied.
Starsky shrugged. “Wrong question. How did you get here? Where’s my car?”
Hutch accepted the diversion. Starsky was strung pretty tight, despite the casual stance. He could feel it in the muscles under his hand and see it in the eyes that belied the relaxed expression. He squeezed again, digging his fingers into taut muscles and felt them give just a little beneath the pressure.
“Came with Dobey,” he explained.
Starsky glanced around again, looking, Hutch assumed, for their superior, and then turned back to Hutch. “Am I in more trouble than I thought? John seemed to think I was okay. Said if anybody fucked up it was him, sending Johnson through the front.”
“Don’t sweat it, buddy. You know Dobey never lets one of his men hang in the breeze. He’s here for your sake, not the department’s,” Hutch reminded him. If Starsky needed reminding of that fact, then he was even more rattled than Hutch had been able to read.
Starsky took a deep breath, let it out slowly, and Hutch released him as he felt the tension drain away. He stayed close, however, hovering protectively, while they waited for Dobey to collect the reports from Blaine and the other officers on the scene and then join them.
“You all right, Starsky?” Dobey asked immediately.
Starsky’s shoulders lifted and then dropped. “Guess that depends on what you’ve got to say, Captain.”
“From what I’ve heard so far, ‘good work’ is what I have to say. Do you have anything to tell me to make me change my mind about that?” Dobey asked.
“Gave my report to John already,” Starsky said and shrugged. “Did what I had to do.”
“That’s the way I see it, too,” Dobey agreed. “IA will investigate, of course. That’s S.O.P.”
Starsky nodded his acceptance, but it took Hutch a moment longer to swallow his protest. It was a fact of life that when a cop used his gun, IA would investigate. That didn’t mean he had to like it.
“You want me to go back to the station?” Starsky offered, even though it was apparent to Hutch, and had to be to Dobey as well, that the offer was only made from a sense of obligation.
Dobey shook his head. “Both of you are well past the end of your shift. You’ve given your statement. Go home. Morning is soon enough to clear this up. Besides…” The captain grimaced and waved a hand in front of his face.
“We were supposed to be off tomorrow,” Hutch protested.
“Comin’ in to see Vortmann anyway,” Starsky reminded him.
“Quit looking a gift horse in the mouth and get your tails out of here before I change my mind,” Dobey encouraged them.
“Sounds like good advice,” Starsky agreed. “Except neither one of us has a ride.”
“I’ll get one of the cruisers to give you a lift,” Dobey offered.
“No thanks, Captain,” Hutch refused, catching Starsky by the arm and pulling him along. “We’ll grab a cab. It’s going to be a long time before I let him get into a black and white again.”
~*~*~
“I’m okay, Hutch. You don’t have to hang around,” Starsky protested as he unlocked the door to his apartment.
“I notice you didn’t mention that until after the cab took off,” Hutch pointed out.
What could he say when Hutch’s gentle accusation was nothing but the truth? Starsky allowed himself to be prodded through his front door. “What about your date?”
“Let me worry about my date,” Hutch insisted, slipping past him and, Starsky noticed, giving him as wide a berth as possible on the way to the kitchen. “Just go shower, will you. God, you stink. If you had to roll around in a gallon of cheap perfume, did it have to be Evening in Paris?”
The last part of Hutch’s complaint was muffled by the refrigerator door. If Hutch was looking for sustenance, he was in for a disappointment, Starsky reflected.
“Next time some NFL hopeful decides to take out the quarterback, I’ll make sure I’m standin’ in front of a rack of the good stuff,” he grumbled, shrugging out of his jacket and then his holster. Laying the Beretta on the coffee table, he sniffed at the holster but couldn’t tell if it stank as bad as the rest of him. At least he hadn’t been wearing a leather jacket. Dry cleaning leather cost a fortune.
“What was that?” Hutch asked, emerging from the refrigerator with a box of leftover pizza in hand.
“Wouldn’t if I were you,” Starsky warned. “That’s at least a week old. And, I said, my grandmother wore Evening in Paris.”
“Then I have a whole new respect for your grandfather,” Hutch quipped. “Go on, shower, will ya, Starsk. I’ll order us a fresh pizza.”
Obediently, Starsky went into the bathroom. He didn’t close the door. It wasn’t as if there was any reason for modesty around Hutch, and, besides, the bathroom was way too small for him to be closed in with his own stench. He started the shower and stripped off, discovering that the removal of his clothes didn’t result in much lessening of the pungency. He must have it in his hair and, by now, his pores had probably trapped the cheap chemicals. He was going to have to scrub himself raw to get it off.
Leaving his clothes in a heap on the floor, Starsky stepped into the shower, discovering only as he turned his back to the spray that he was already raw. It felt like dozens of stinging mosquito bites all up and down his back. He hadn’t noticed any blood on his shirt, so, likely, none of the glass from the broken bottles had penetrated deeply enough to really injure him, just enough to let him know they were there, now that the water was sliding down his back.
Starsky washed himself twice and his hair three times, determinedly keeping his thoughts focused on the acts of cleansing. He wasn’t going to think about the rest of it. Wasn’t going to remember the light going out in desperate… Starsky leaned against the wall and squeezed his eyes tight until sparkling pressure-stars replaced the memory of startled brown eyes.
The rattle of the shower curtain broke into the nightmare, released its hold on him and let Starsky open his eyes to find Hutch standing in the opening, concern all over his face.
“You okay?” Hutch asked softly.
“Got shampoo in my eyes,” Starsky lied, knowing Hutch would see through it, knowing, after a moment’s struggle, that he would also accept it. For now.
“Water’s going cold. Time to get out,” Hutch told him. “Come on, babe. Let it wash down the drain.”
Starsky struggled to bring a smile to his lips. He felt a weak imitation light on his face for a second and then flit away. “Yeah. Be out in a minute.”
Hutch retreated, closing the curtain, and Starsky stuck his head back under the spray one last time. When he emerged from the shower, his reeking clothes were gone and a fresh towel was waiting on the sink. He was okay. This wasn’t the first time he had killed, and it probably wouldn’t be the last. But, God, he was glad Hutch was here.
When he was dry, Starsky wandered into the bedroom and pulled on a comfortable pair of running shorts and a loose, threadbare shirt. He looked at the man in the mirror as he ran his fingers through his soaked curls. He should do something with his hair or he would be a hell of a mess in the morning. At the moment, however, he was more concerned with making it through the night. That guy in the glass looked like nine miles of bad road.
It was the strong, but far more acceptable, aroma of anchovies that pulled Starsky away from his reflection and into the living room. There was a pizza box on the table and the closer he came to it, the more his discerning nose detected. Onions. Garlic—probably sausage. And, if he wasn’t mistaken, there was even a whiff of hot peppers.
“You’re gonna have heartburn for a week,” he warned his partner.
Hutch patted his shirt pocked as he approached. “Plenty of Tums,” he reassured him and offered a bottle of root beer.
Starsky accepted the sweet soda, but questioned the choice of beverage with raised eyebrows.
“You’re out of beer. You don’t like tea. And wine doesn’t go with a lethal pizza,” Hutch explained. He drew a circle in the air with his finger. “Turn around. There was blood on your shirt.”
“I didn’t see any,” Starsky protested, but, nevertheless, turned his back and shrugged the unbuttoned shirt off his shoulders. He felt Hutch’s fingers, cold and damp from the soda bottle, lightly brush the skin of his back. It went on for a minute, two minutes. Too many minutes.
“Ah, Hutch,” Starsky said. That was usually all it took to remind Hutch to tuck the angel back into his box, but the fingertips, warm now, didn’t retreat. “April 21st, babe. And not even Friday,” he added. He felt Hutch’s hand curl into a fist, the knuckles pressing hard into his spine for a moment, then the warmth finally withdrew.
“There are a couple of little cuts. Nothing bad,” Hutch said, his voice huskier than normal, and Starsky could tell by the sound of it that his partner had moved away, probably retreating to his neutral corner of the couch. “Sorry.”
Starsky lifted the root beer to his lips, swallowed down a couple of mouthfuls before he joined Hutch on the couch. He had, of course, had to call Hutch on his lapse, but he wished his partner hadn’t apologized. Not for giving Starsky exactly what he needed right now, if maybe just a tad more than was good for either one of them.
Chasing regret out of his mind, Starsky moved into his corner of the couch and leaned forward to flip open the top of the pizza box. Hutch was really being a prince, and Starsky hated to disappoint him, but the sight of the pie, loaded just the way he liked it, turned his stomach.
He dropped the lid and nudged the box toward Hutch. “Sorry. Not real hungry right now.”
Without comment, Hutch picked up the box. Starsky leaned his head back, closed his eyes, heard Hutch shutting the pizza away in the refrigerator and sent him his silent thanks. Now, if only the smell would disappear, too. He lifted the root beer again, let more of the sweet cold slide down his throat, hoping it would banish the nausea. He felt the cushions shift as Hutch sat down again, but didn’t open his eyes.
“You call…?” Starsky trailed off when he realized he couldn’t remember the name of the woman Hutch was currently dating. Had he ever known it, he wondered? “Who is it this week?”
“Same as last week, and the week before, and the week before that,” Hutch replied, his tone just slightly chiding. “Cindy.”
Hmmm. Guess he was supposed to know. Cindy did sound familiar. Was she the same one from further back than Hutch had chanted? The thought started a whole new wave of butterflies flitting around his unsettled belly. But Starsky didn’t have to avoid this issue. “You gettin’ serious, partner?” he asked bluntly.
“She’s on the pill and I’m still using condoms,” Hutch replied softly.
Not taking any chances then, Starsky guessed, although they both tended to use condoms except with each other. It was mean spirited to feel relieved that Hutch hadn’t found someone to love, and tomorrow, he would be sure to give himself a good talking to. For tonight, Starsky held on tight to the feeling of security it gave him.
“Not gettin’ ready to cut me off, huh?” It was a question, but then again, maybe it wasn’t. Starsky knew that this time he was the one who was out of line, his dancer trying to peek out of the box. That sensual side of himself, just at the moment, seemed like a whole lot more appealing man than the one who killed people.
“Oh, no,” Hutch reassured him, voice low.
Starsky could feel the warmth of Hutch’s gaze as it touched his chest through the gaping shirt, brushed his bare thighs where his shorts ended, lingered over the soft material drawn taut across his groin. He also knew the exact moment that Hutch’s eyes left him. It felt almost as if his skin temperature dropped five degrees. He kept his eyes closed while he counted to ten, continued to twenty, until the dancer retired from the field, leaving behind the cop and the killer and the needy friend.
“I’m okay, you know, Hutch,” he still tried to deny. “Not like it’s the first time I’ve had to pull the trigger. Killed lotsa guys in ‘Nam. Not even the first time on the job. There was that pusher me and Les…” He trailed off. It didn’t sound any better out loud than it had in his head in the bathroom.
Starsky let his friend pull him out of his corner, offered no resistance as Hutch’s arms wrapped around him, pressed his face into the rough caress of Hutch’s cotton shirt. He inhaled. Smelled Hutch. Familiar laundry soap, a trace of gun oil, sunshine on grass, and even a whiff of Evening in Paris.
“If it got any easier, you wouldn’t be the man for the job,” Hutch murmured.
Starsky’s lips quirked. His own words, paraphrased, coming back to haunt him from the night when Hutch came face to face with the killer inside himself for the first time. “Pretty smart guy musta told you that,” he mumbled.
“Pretty smart guy did,” Hutch agreed.
One more minute. He was going to sit here and soak up the comfort Hutch offered for just one more minute, Starsky assured himself. Well, maybe two, he decided, as he felt Hutch’s hand move to the back of his neck, the long fingers kneading taut muscles, making it feel as if the tension pain was draining right into the magic fingers. Three. Maybe four. Five at the outside. Didn’t want to hang in here too long and start tempting the angel and the dancer back out more than a week ahead of schedule. It was going to be up to Hutch to push him away, Starsky finally accepted, because he was ready to just stay here all night and let the minutes tick away unnoticed.
“So, what’s it going to be?” Hutch asked, voice low but firm. “TV or Monopoly?”
Another crucible of fire passed through. Singed perhaps, but nothing that couldn’t be healed by the balm of Hutch’s caring.
“Will you let me win?” Starsky asked wistfully.
~*~*~
It just happened that, when he and Starsky dropped into the squadroom after their meeting with Vortmann, Hutch was in the lead. He, therefore, saw their desk first, started chuckling, and was approaching belly laughs before they were as far as the coffee machine. On Starsky’s side of the desk, crowded together on the blotter, were a dozen, maybe more, little bottles of perfume. Cheap perfume, Hutch amended as they came closer and he saw that at least five of the little bottles were the distinctive navy blue of Evening in Paris.
“You’re a riot, Alice,” Starsky grumbled as he pushed past Hutch and plunked down onto his chair.
“Not me,” Hutch denied the accusation, barely able to contain his hilarity long enough to choke out the two words.
”Nine. Ten.” Starsky was counting the bottles. Tapping each one with his index finger, occasionally pausing long enough to read a label. “Twelve. Thirteen. Okay,” he said to the laughing men around him without taking his eyes off the embarrassment of riches on his desk. “Which one of you guys, besides my partner, is too cheap to spend a buck on a good joke?”
Hutch had to hand it to him, Starsky knew how to take a good-natured ribbing.
“Hey, how was I supposed to explain to my wife why I was buying perfume for one of the guys?” Bailey protested. “She already thinks I spend half my time on the job strip searching hookers.”
“You mean you don’t?” Starsky asked in comic surprise.
His partner also knew how to turn it around, Hutch thought with pride. He was relieved to note that, as expected, Starsky’s predicament had definitely outshone the minor news of his brief stint behind the wheel of the Torino. There were no little Matchbox Torinos or ripe tomatoes sitting on his desk this morning. He also noticed that Starsky was very careful not to knock over any of the bottles as he pushed them aside and began digging through their inbox.
“Damn it. Where the hell are those reports?” Starsky grumbled. “I don’t want to hang around here all day.”
“Dobey’s probably-” Hutch began, but was interrupted by the captain’s door opening.
“Starsky. Would you come in here, please,” Dobey requested. “Just Starsky.”
Hutch didn’t even hesitate, just continued the push that brought him to his feet and came around the desk to stand shoulder to shoulder with his partner. He stared down Dobey’s glare. “Sorry, Captain. Joined at the hip, you know.”
Dobey gave an exasperated sigh, and then waved them into his office. Hutch paused only a second when he saw the two dark-suited men waiting for them, then continued on into the room, taking up station behind the visitor’s chair after Starsky sank into it.
“Starsky, Hutchinson, these men are Whitman and Gagne from the department’s Internal Affairs. Gentlemen, Detective Starsky, and his partner, Detective Hutchinson.”
Hutch followed Starsky’s lead, nodding cautiously to acknowledge the introductions. Though neither of them had had any particularly unhappy dealings with the department’s internal watchdog up to now, Hutch felt instinctively protective. He wrapped his hands around the back of the chair and felt Starsky press into them.
“Is there something in my report that isn’t clear?” Starsky asked, delivering belligerency in a tone of such polite inquiry that it was hard for anyone to take exception.
“No, Detective Starsky,” Whitman, the one who, Hutch had noticed, hadn’t met either his or Starsky’s eyes as they were introduced, reassured him. “The reports from Lieutenant Blaine and Officers Johnson and Barrett all seem to—”
“Seem?” Hutch objected, not doing as good a job as his partner at disguising the belligerence in his voice.
“Settle down, Hutchinson,” Dobey commanded aloud, while Hutch felt Starsky leaning back hard onto his hands and mentally, Hutch was sure, sending him the same message. He couldn’t help it. He had spent the whole night watching, helping where he could, as Starsky struggled to come to terms with the actions that had taken another human life. He wasn’t about to stand, un-protesting, while a desk-bound, paper pusher who had probably never spent a day of his career on the streets, picked at the barely congealed emotional scab.
“Excuse my partner,” Gagne stepped in smoothly, and Hutch recognized that the pair were playing good cop/bad cop with them. Whether the act had a purpose or was their S.O.P., Hutch had no way of knowing, but it made him realize he needed to bring himself under control as Dobey advised. IA might be way out of line if they thought something was fishy about this shooting, but the fact of the matter was that he and Starsky did have something to hide.
“I’m afraid we’re both more used to dealing with cases less clear cut than this one,” Gagne continued. “All the officers’ reports agree, and the statement of the hostage concurs. As of this moment, I see no reason that our report won’t reflect that and confirm Detective Starsky is innocent of any wrong doing.”
Hutch looked questioningly at Dobey and received a very unsatisfactory shrug in reply. If there wasn’t a problem, what were they doing here? Hutch, however, felt he had already opened his mouth enough and hoped either Dobey or his partner would make these guys come to the point.
“So, is there some reason I’m sitting here instead of enjoying my day off?” Starsky asked, proving that their telepathy was going strong.
“There were a couple of questions we wanted to ask,” Gagne said, holding up a hand as if he expected Hutch to protest yet again. “Strictly curiosity on my part, gentlemen. I assure you.”
The son of a bitch had missed his calling becoming a cop, Hutch thought sourly. He should have been a lawyer.
“Perhaps you could ask them then,” Dobey growled. “I don’t have all morning for this.”
“Certainly, Captain,” Gagne said, and turned his attention back to Starsky. “There was nothing in your report explaining why you chose that particular moment to open fire, Detective Starsky. I’m just curious, you understand.”
Hutch felt Starsky tense against his hands and knew, if he could see his partner’s face, he would see the telltale little signs that Starsky was about to lie. It wasn’t anything outsiders like these two from IA would notice, but he and Starsky had been together too long for Hutch not to know what the subtle tightening of Starsky’s mouth and the slight narrowing of the blue eyes meant. Now his curiosity was piqued, but he would have to wait until they were alone to try to satisfy it.
“The lady gave me the opening and I took it,” Starsky explained and then seemed to realize that some elaboration was required. “I was waiting for it. Johnson or Barrett might have seen it, too, if they hadn’t just busted in from outside. My eyes were adjusted, their’s weren’t.”
“I see,” Gagne murmured, making a notation in the book he held.
“If that’s all, gentlemen—” Dobey began.
“Just one other thing,” Whitman cut in. “I was just wondering where you were, Detective Hutchinson, while your partner was involved in this potentially dangerous situation?”
Hutch felt his face flush hot even as he went cold inside. The question, whether by accident or design, prodded him on a conscience he had barely been keeping quiet since Dobey had burst out of his office the day before. Logic assured him that he couldn’t have foreseen the situation, while his heart insisted he should have been there to guard his partner’s back. It was, possibly, part of the reason he was feeling so over-protective now.
“They were involved in a robbery attempt a half hour before the incident,” Dobey fielded the question. “During the arrest, Detective Starsky, ah… ran afoul of some… malodorous chemicals and asked Hutchinson to bring his car back to the station to avoid… contamination. Johnson was bringing Starsky back in his cruiser when the all units call went out.”
“Malodorous chemicals?” Whitman echoed.
If he wasn’t feeling so guarded, Hutch might have been tempted to laugh watching the way Starsky shifted uncomfortably in his chair, before he finally admitted. “Perfume. I fell into a rack of cheap perfume during the Pryor Pharmacy arrest and I didn’t want it getting into the leather seats of my car.”
“I take it Officer Johnson had no objections to it ‘getting into’ the seats of his cruiser?” Gagne asked, the amusement clear in his eyes even if he managed to keep it away from his face.
Hutch gave Starsky a poke in the back with his knuckles, hoping Starsky would refrain from voicing the same comment he had made to Hutch yesterday.
“I take it you haven’t spent much time in a black and white,” Dobey commented. He was, of course, senior enough to get away with such a remark.
“True enough, Captain.” The IA officer rose to his feet. “I think that’s all we need to know for now. We should have our official report to you in a couple of days. I would appreciate it, Captain, if you would have a copy of the Pryor arrest report sent to me. Just for the sake of efficiency,” he added when Dobey glared suspiciously. “To explain Detective Hutchinson’s absence.”
“I’ll make sure you have a copy today,” Dobey relented, and Whitman and Gagne departed.
“Where does that leave me, Captain?” Starsky asked. “Suspended or—?”
“No,” Dobey interrupted firmly. “I’m satisfied you did what you had to do, and I’m not about to suspend you or pull you off the streets without a direct order from the Chief.” He turned a jaundiced eye toward his subordinate and Hutch nearly laughed as he realized what was going through Dobey’s head. The captain thought Starsky was angling for a few days off with pay, but Hutch knew nothing could be farther from the truth. Starsky knew he needed to get back in the saddle, so to speak, and not let the shooting affect the way they worked.
“Thanks, Cap,” Starsky said and climbed to his feet. “Then, if you don’t mind, me and Hutch are gonna go enjoy what’s left of our day off. See you tomorrow.”
“Are you all right?” Hutch asked before the door of the stairwell had fully closed behind them. Starsky was already a step ahead of him, so Hutch dropped down two at a time to come abreast of him, his attention divided equally between negotiating the stairs and his partner’s face.
“Better than you, I think,” Starsky said, and leaned toward him, bumped him with his shoulder to Hutch’s upper arm. Not hard enough to knock him off balance, just enough to call it contact. “Thought Whitman was gonna choke the way you jumped down his throat.”
“Sorry,” Hutch muttered. “Guess I was a little—”
“Hey,” Starsky cut in. “Do I sound like I’m complaining? I’ve been a couple of rounds with IA over that shooting when I was partnered with Les. You think I mind knowing you’re in my comer?”
Hutch knew Starsky wasn’t talking about only the just completed interview but was, in his own way, thanking him for the support he had given last night. The hours of Monopoly, the conversation and the silences, and the arms that had been there when Starsky needed them. They seldom said the words of gratitude, not that they didn’t appreciate each other’s support, more that the words themselves were superfluous between them.
Hutch pushed open the door into the parking garage and they walked toward where the Torino and the LTD were parked a few spaces apart. He looked around to make sure no one was close enough to overhear before he spoke. “You planning on telling me what you were lying about back there?”
To Hutch’s surprise, he saw a slow flush creep into Starsky’s face. They reached the Torino before Starsky answered him, speaking so softly that even standing so close, Hutch could hardly hear him.
“It was the lady, like I said,” Starsky said. “But I knew she was gonna do something before she did it.”
“How? I thought you could only read my mind,” Hutch teased gently.
Starsky gave him a nudge with his elbow. “Not her mind, her face. She was holding up pretty good until Johnson and the kid busted in, then I saw her look… ashamed, then mad. Knew she was gonna do somethin’ stupid and just took advantage of it.”
“But why couldn’t you tell Whitman and Gagne that?” Hutch wondered, puzzled as much by the chagrined expression on Starsky’s face now as the secrecy.
“Damn it, Hutch. She was so scared she wet herself,” Starsky hissed. “It made her mad. I didn’t want that on the record, okay. She held up pretty good, and I didn’t see why that should be in a report where anyone who wants to can see it.”
Hutch laid a calming hand on his partner’s arm. “Easy, Starsk. I’m not disagreeing with you.”
Starsky looked away, shrugged and then turned back so Hutch could read the resignation in his face. “Happened to me the first time I was under fire in ‘Nam, but it was raining so hard nobody ever knew,” he confessed.
Hutch squeezed the muscle under his hand and then let go. “So, what are you going to do with all those little bottles of Evening in Paris?” he asked as he moved to the passenger side of the Torino. Non-comment, he sensed, would be better than all the reassurances in the world to let Starsky know that this secret, along with all the others he had ever shared, was safely stored away in Hutch’s heart.
“Thought I’d put’ em in the men’s room,” Starsky said. “You ever gone in there after Conner? I keep tellin’ the guy, if he’s sick, he oughta go to the hospital. Hey, where you goin’? Your heap is two doors down.”
Hutch paused with the passenger door of Starsky’s car half-opened. “Uhm,” he offered with less than sparkling intelligence. He hadn’t even thought about it, just automatically assumed he was going with Starsky, hadn’t even recognized that he was still in protective mode.
“Don’t you have a picnic date this afternoon?” Starsky reminded him.
“I can—”
“You break another date with Cindy-rella,” Starsky cut in, “and she’s gonna start lookin’ for a new Prince Charming.”
“But….”
“I’m okay, babe. Honest,” Starsky reassured him.
Their eyes met over the roof of the car and Hutch felt the subtle click between them as they settled back into their usual level of protectiveness. It was hard sometimes, to take the step back they needed to when the crisis was past, but they always managed it eventually. It would be too hard, if not impossible, to function if they couldn’t.
“So, what are you going to do all day long?” Hutch asked nevertheless.
“Sleep,” Starsky stated succinctly as he pulled open the car door. “Found out winning at Monopoly all night makes you even more tired than losing.”
~*~*~
Never a believer in borrowing trouble, Starsky tucked the question of IA’s investigation away in a corner of his mind and concentrated on doing his job, enjoying his time off, and, as the week passed, anticipating Friday, April 30th. Keeping his desire for Hutch caged was something Starsky had learned to do almost automatically. Occasionally, the little devil crept out unexpectedly and tried to tempt Hutch’s angel into playing little flirtatious games, but Starsky could usually rein it in himself. And when he couldn’t, he could count on Hutch to do it for him. And vice versa, as the night of the shooting proved. Within hours of being able to let the dancer loose, however, his control was always a little shakier.
“I wish we were off tomorrow,” Hutch sighed as they pulled into the station garage.
Starsky found a peach of a parking spot only steps away from the elevator and nabbed it right from under the nose of a cruiser. The uniformed driver gave him the evil eye, but Starsky ignored it. He shut down the engine and twisted in his seat to leer at his partner. “Whatsamatter, stud? Gettin’ too old to pull an all-nighter, then work the next day?”
“Whew! Don’t let him out yet, Starsk. We still have end of shift report to do,” Hutch complained, but his blue eyes were warm and inventorying Starsky as well.
Starsky laughed and opened his door. “At least we’re on afternoons tomorrow,” he consoled as they both climbed out of the car.
They weren’t alone in the elevator and so had no more opportunity for verbal foreplay. He shouldn’t have started it in the first place, Starsky acknowledged. Too damned dangerous, especially right here at the station. Still, anticipation was running high as they settled at their desk and their final report of the day was probably one of the fastest they had ever filled out. A little sparse on details, perhaps, but then Dobey was big on facts without frivolity.
“Have you heard from the Big Brothers yet?” Starsky asked Hutch as he signed his name to the report with a flourish and floated it into their out box. He heard Dobey’s door open behind him and cringed.
“Starsky. Hutchinson. Come in here,” Dobey commanded.
Thirty seconds, Starsky thought. All they had needed was thirty seconds more and they could have been safely out the door. He should have known the parking spot was a bad omen.
Exchanging a glance with Hutch as disgruntled as his own, Starsky followed the captain into his office, prepared to argue for his evening off. He forgot all about his plans when Dobey settled behind the desk and he saw the grim look on the broad face.
Sinking into the visitor’s chair, pretending a nonchalance he didn’t feel, Starsky wasn’t surprised when Hutch saw right through him. His partner moved to stand behind the chair he sprawled in, planted as firmly at his back as if he had dug a hole and set down roots. The capable hands that, only a few minutes before, Starsky had been looking forward to feeling all over his body, were curled into fists on the back of the chair. Starsky tried to force himself to relax and transmit the same message to his partner as he was trying to reinforce in his mind—Dobey wasn’t the enemy. Never had been, and, as long as they stayed honest and kept their insubordination within reasonable bounds, probably never would be.
“I received IA’s report today,” Dobey began, picking up a folder on his desk and offering it.
Starsky ignored the buff file. “And?” he prompted.
“They’ve cleared you,” Dobey revealed.
“I don’t know about you, partner,” Starsky drawled casually, trying to ignore the adrenaline rush racing into his veins, “but I hear a ‘but’ at the end of that sentence as big as the back end of a bus.”
Hutch moved in closer to his back, one hand leaving the chair to settle on Starsky’s shoulder as if he thought he might have to hold him back.
“But nothing. On the Bronman case. They’ve declared it a clean shoot,” Dobey paraphrased and again offered the file. “It’s the Pryor robbery.”
Starsky leaned forward then to take the file, but Hutch beat him to it. He swiveled in the chair as Hutch flipped open the cover, watching the blue eyes narrow as they tracked down the report, the handsome features hardening.
“What the fuck?” Hutch growled.
“Hutchinson!” Dobey snapped warningly.
“Excuse me, Captain,” Hutch continued in the same outraged tone, gesturing angrily with the folder. “But this is bullshit.”
Starsky snatched the file as it passed by his nose, scanned the single sheet of paper it contained quickly and bit his tongue before he offered worse than Dobey had already taken umbrage to.
“It’s no use glowering at me, Hutchinson. I don’t agree with it any more than you do,” Dobey reminded them.
“‘Failure to use necessary force,'” Starsky read from the report. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“It means they wanted you to put a bullet between that kid’s eyes when he charged you, Starsk. And if you had, then they probably would have raked you over the coals for unnecessary use of force,” Hutch snarled and, despite the situation, Starsky couldn’t help but admire the cutting edge of sarcasm. If either of the authors of this report had been in the room, his partner’s tongue would have sliced them to ribbons.
“Settle down, Hutchinson,” Dobey commanded in an echo of the IA meeting the week before. “It isn’t an official reprimand.”
“But it’s gonna be in my file? The file that’ll be in front of the promotion board next month?” Starsky asked quietly and caught the look Hutch threw him. Oh, yes, Hutch knew him like no one else did. Knew that when he became quiet, it was time to start worrying about what he might say or do.
“You can appeal this,” Dobey reminded him.
“Yeah,” Starsky cut in on his superior. The anger beginning to get the best of him, and, though he was trying hard to hold onto it, it was slipping through his fisted hands. “And six months from now, some other puke in IA’s office upstairs might decide that maybe I was right after all not to blow away a scared sixteen-year-old kid who…” Starsky bit his lip, thrust up out of the chair. He had to get out of here. Now. “Fuck it!” he ground out and stalked through the door before he blew his career completely.
~*~*~
Hutch found his partner bent over the Torino’s trunk, both hands planted on the shiny red paint, breathing as hard as if he had just run the four-minute mile. Running down the stairs might have contributed to it, but Hutch knew the hyperventilating had more to do with emotion than exertion.
Hutch had remained in Dobey’s office only long enough to make sure the captain was aware of his opinion of the report and IA in general, and to secure Dobey’s promise to launch an immediate appeal on Starsky’s behalf. Then he followed his partner. He came up beside Starsky now, but didn’t touch him, just leaned against the fender and crossed his arms over his chest. While he waited for Starsky to speak, he concentrated on getting his outrage under control. His friend needed him calm now, not wallowing in righteous indignation.
“Fuck it,” Starsky grunted. The hands on the trunk curled into fists, and, Hutch knew that if Starsky wasn’t so attached to the Torino, he would be pounding dents into the blameless metal. He could hear tears in his partner’s voice, but understood they were tears of rage rather than any lesser emotion. “Are they really tryin’ to tell me I shoulda blown that kid away?”
There was more than anger in Starsky’s voice now. Doubt and bewilderment had crept into the rough tone.
“Is that the kind of cop I’m supposed to be? Not think? Not use my judgment? Just pull the trigger and murder some scared kid?”
Hutch reached out then, ran his hand across the hunched shoulders with enough pressure to let Starsky feel it, but not so much that it might be interpreted as an attempt to cage him.
“‘No greater use of force than necessary,'” Hutch quoted softly from the manual they had both done their best to memorize back in the Academy. They didn’t agree with everything written in it, and neither one of them accepted it as some sort of bible. They certainly flaunted some of its strictures regularly. But, like the rules that governed the sexual side of their relationship, there were good rules to be found in the regulations, and those neither he nor Starsky fucked with.
“Dobey knows that and he’ll make damn sure the appeal panel does, too,” he added.
“They didn’t even talk to me, Hutch. Just read the report and played God with my career.”
Hutch took his hand away when he noticed a couple of officers giving them odd looks as they walked past to their car. Starsky’s peach of a parking spot was a little too public for a situation this potentially explosive. “Come on, babe. This isn’t the place for this.”
Obediently, Starsky straightened up, started to dig into his pocket for his keys and hesitated. The blue eyes went from Hutch to the car and then back again.
Resigned, Hutch held out his hand. “You’re right. You’re in no condition to drive. Probably run us off the road,” he said as Starsky handed him the keys.
Hutch let silence reign as he negotiated the streets in the unfamiliar car. Starsky was certainly right about one thing—the Torino could go like the wind. And it had a gas pedal so sensitive that Hutch had to concentrate on keeping the lead out of his foot or end up explaining to some zealous traffic cop why he was racing through Bay City’s streets while off duty.
With the part of his mind not occupied with holding the Torino to the speed limit, Hutch tried to decide how best to help his partner. The way Starsky’s jaw bulged over clenched teeth was a broad hint that reason probably wasn’t a good route to take at the moment. Might, in fact, be several hours down the road. He could commiserate, which he did. Cajole was also a possibility. Seduction, he accepted with resignation, was even farther down the road than reason.
In the end, it was Starsky himself who made the decision for him when he roused enough to complain about the way Hutch was treating his baby.
“Either fast or slow, Hutch,” Starsky groused. “Pick one and stick to it, or you’re gonna overheat my engine.”
Humor? It was worth a shot, Hutch decided. If Starsky growled at him, there was always silent sympathy to fall back on.
“I can’t believe you’ve got me behind the wheel of this tomato again,” Hutch groused right back at him. “When we go in tomorrow, there’ll be a whole bushel of ripe tomatoes on my desk.”
He was rewarded by one unwilling chuckle. It was only one, but a quick glance revealed that Starsky had also settled back a little in his seat.
Hutch took the entrance onto the highway, reserving further discussion until he had merged them into the heavy afternoon traffic, discovering that the Torino was a lot easier to manage on the highway. The horsepower that rumbled under that red hood had never been intended for city driving.
“Drop her into overdrive, babe,” Starsky advised. “Highway’s what that’s for.”
Hutch manipulated the gearshift as ordered, and even he could hear the difference in the sound of the engine. More important, however, he could see the effect that sound, and likely the vibration of the car, was having on Starsky. Taking his eyes off the road long enough for a brief assessment, Hutch saw that Starsky was now relaxed in the seat, head back against the rest and eyes closed, some of the tension easing out of his face. He ought to be a little miffed, Hutch supposed, that this hunk of machinery could do more to calm his partner than he could. But, if you were trapped in a cage with an angry tiger without even the meager protection of a whip and a chair, you didn’t argue when the music of a well-tuned engine soothed the savage beast.
“Fuck IA,” Starsky finally declared as they were approaching the Venice cut off.
More humor, Hutch wondered? When something worked, you stuck with it.
“Disgusting thought,” he muttered as he took the exit, remembering to shift out of overdrive as he braked down.
“Huh?” Starsky grunted.
“Fucking IA—disgusting thought,” Hutch elaborated.
Starsky gave him a second chuckle for this bit of wit. A less reluctant one, this time, Hutch noted.
“Probably end up with gonorrhea,” Starsky, much to Hutch’s relief, continued the joke.
“Syphilis,” Hutch countered.
They were only five minutes from home now. When they arrived, he knew Starsky was planning on taking over the wheel and taking off. Hutch wasn’t about to let that happen. Starsky needed him now. Whether he needed the friend, the partner, or the angel—or some combination of the three—only the evening would reveal. But Starsky wasn’t always willing to accept what he needed, even from Hutch.
“Maybe I better see the doc for a shot of penicillin on Monday. Fuck knows they sure screwed me over today,” Starsky said bitterly.
Still madder than he looked, Hutch accepted. That meant he might have to fight to get him to stay now, and Hutch didn’t want to fight Starsky. He would like to take a round or two out of a couple of two-faced IA officers, but that had to wait. Once in a great while, Hutch needed to tap dance around Starsky, but not often. Usually, he was better off just to face any issue head on.
“Starsk, I think you need to hang around now,” he said as he pulled into the driveway beside the cottage. He twisted the key in the ignition, but left them hanging there. If Starsky was really determined to leave, Hutch wasn’t going to try to hold him back. He didn’t like the thought of his partner holed up alone in his apartment licking his wounds, but had to acknowledge that Starsky had the right to make that decision.
Hutch shifted in his seat so he could watch Starsky’s face, but the blue eyes seemed to be focused on the uninspiring view of the dented bumper of Hutch’s Galaxy parked in front of them, leaving Hutch with the imperfect slate of only the familiar profile to read.
“Don’t think that’s such a good idea,” Starsky finally said. “Ya made me laugh,” he added, slowly turning his head and letting Hutch take in the anger that still smoldered in his eyes. “Doesn’t mean I’m not still mad.”
“I’m not afraid of you, Starsk,” Hutch said softly.
“You oughta be,” Starsky snarled, then immediately lifted a hand to cut the negation of his threat through the air between them. “Sorry. Not what I mean. I….”
Hutch waited through the pause, accepted the hand that reached out, slid along his jaw and then settled briefly on his shoulder.
“What I feel now isn’t anything I ever want to bring into the bedroom with us,” Starsky whispered.
“So, we won’t go to bed,” Hutch said, meaning it. Neither one of them would go off the deep end if a last Friday had to pass without their usual indulgence in their passion for each other. “Starsk, trust me. Okay?” he asked, because he had just had what he hoped might be a brilliant idea.
Starsky sighed, turned away and opened the door, but Hutch didn’t miss the doubtful expression on his face. He smiled a little as he opened his own door. Instead of following Starsky to the cottage, however, he headed for his car, digging the keys out of his pocket as he walked.
“Hey,” Starsky protested from the doorstep.
“Come on, Starsk. I have an idea,” Hutch called as he unlocked the driver’s door. He watched Starsky approach, saw his lips moving and heard an indecipherable mumble. From the tone of it, he decided he didn’t want to know, so didn’t ask for a repetition.
Halfway to their destination, Hutch made a sudden right into the parking lot of a convenience store and parked the car. “Be right back,” he promised and hurried into the store. Inside, he purchased a package of gum, handed over a ten and requested his change in quarters. Better than nine bucks ought to see his partner’s anger purged and, if not, he could always get more.
Starsky gave him a questioning look when they pulled into the amusement park, but didn’t protest. Hutch could see the brittle edge of his anger had been blunted, but he intended to make sure Starsky didn’t internalize it. His partner could usually roll with whatever hard knocks life threw his way, but an undeserved sucker punch could knock the wind out of anybody.
Threading through the thin dinner time crowd, Hutch led his partner purposefully past bumper cars, mini golf and giant slides.
“You plannin’ on tellin’ me some time soon what the hell you’ve got planned?” Starsky asked, his head swiveling to take in the familiar activities. He sounded as if he were doubting Hutch’s sanity a little more with each step and regretting his decision to just go along.
Hutch dropped a hand on his partner’s shoulder to encourage him to keep up. There was nothing he could do about Starsky’s situation. That was up to Dobey. But he could offer his support and, if nothing else, distraction. He was pleased to see there was no line-up as they approached their destination.
Releasing Starsky when the other man hesitated, Hutch walked directly up to the rack, chose a bat, gave it a few experimental swings, and then returned to his partner. He offered Starsky the bat he had chosen, put his hand in his pocket and rattled the quarters weighing down the right side of his jacket.
“Batter up!” he said softly and saw the idea catch Starsky’s fancy.
“Who says I’m the brains of this outfit,” Starsky said, accepted the bat and let himself into the practice cage.
“Ready?” Hutch called.
“Ready,” Starsky confirmed, both feet firmly planted, bat at the ready.
Hutch dropped the first coin into the slot. At twenty balls per quarter, Hutch figured the change in his pocket should outlast his friend’s strength and, hopefully, his anger as well.
~*~*~
His arms were dead. His shoulders thought he had lost his mind. As for his back, it felt like the Walls of Jericho. If Hutch had had to blow the horn on the way home, his vertebra would have collapsed. It was lucky he had been in pretty good shape to start with. If he hadn’t, Hutch would now be searching for a new partner instead of rummaging around in his kitchen looking for something to feed this one.
But he felt better. Just like Hutch knew he would. Standing in that cage, swinging on balls that, in his mind’s eye, wore the faces of Whitman and Gagne, had purged him. There was something about a mindless activity that let your brain do what it needed to. Perspective was relative, and Starsky had found his. The promotion board might or might not agree with him, but Starsky knew he had done the right thing. At the end of the day, this one or any other, all that mattered was that he could live with himself.
More important even than that, Starsky acknowledged, as he accepted a plate heaped with sandwiches and a cold beer, was that Hutch could live with him, too.
“Better?” Hutch asked as he sank into his corner of the couch, holding a similar plate and identical bottle.
“I’ll let you know tomorrow morning. Probably take a crane to get me outta bed,” Starsky mumbled around a mouthful of sandwich. He wasn’t sure what the filling was, but was really too hungry to care. If it came from Hutch’s refrigerator, he was probably better off not knowing anyway. He flashed Hutch a smile to take any sting out of his grumbling. “I gotta admit, once in a while, you get a good idea.”
“Good?” Hutch echoed. “Brilliant. Admit it, Starsk. Locking you up in a cage right about then was a service to humanity.”
Starsky swallowed a half-chewed bite so he could laugh without choking. “Whitman and Gagne anyway. Woulda liked to—”
“Hey. Don’t get riled up again. I’m out of quarters,” Hutch warned.
“Couldn’t swing that bat again anyway,” Starsky admitted. He grimaced as he lifted the bottle to his lips, overworked muscles protesting both the movement and the chill of his sweat-damp clothes.
“Have a shower when you’re done eating,” Hutch advised.
“Ah, Hutch. I still don’t think…” Starsky ran out of words, not entirely sure what he wanted to say. He was no longer mad, but neither was he was in exactly the best shape to do a night with Hutch justice. Even knowing it would be a long month to wait before the next last Friday, twelve hours of sleep was sounding almost more inviting than twelve hours of sex. Almost.
“Don’t think, Starsk,” Hutch counseled. “Night’ll bring what it brings. I’m easy.”
“But not cheap,” Starsky supplied the expected rejoinder, adding a groan when he leaned forward to slide his crumb-covered plate onto the coffee table. He echoed himself as he leaned back with the beer bottle cradled in his hands and closed his eyes.
He listened to the silence, or, more accurately, he listened to Hutch. The rustle of clothing, soft, almost imperceptible sounds of chewing, the occasional clink of the bottle against those white teeth. But it was the breathing that soothed him. Slow. Even. Just the sound of it bringing to mind the security of knowing that deceptively slim chest, rising and falling rhythmically, meant Hutch lived. That pieces of that life were devoted to him exclusively. The same way parts of his, most of the better parts, Starsky wanted fiercely to believe, were devoted to Hutch.
“You never answered my question,” he said, when he felt the couch shift and heard Hutch’s plate slide onto the coffee table as well.
“What question was that?” Hutch asked.
“Back at the station, before Dobey started dropping depth charges on me. I asked if you’d heard from the Big Brothers yet,” Starsky reminded him.
“No. Nothing yet,” Hutch admitted. “Maybe they don’t want a cop.”
Starsky roused from his stupor. It was his turn to support Hutch now. He liked that. All of it. The easy way they had of propping each other up, but most of all, of knowing when to do it. He wondered sometimes what would have happened if he had taken even just one month longer to decide to enter the Academy. The vision of the bleak emptiness of his life if he had never met Hutch always made him push the thoughts away. There had been a wildness in him then. Hutch had gentled that. Without Hutch, Starsky suspected that ‘less force than necessary’ wouldn’t have been IA’s complaint.
“Yeah,” he drawled now. “They’d probably rather have guys like Ben Forest or Frank Tolman shaping the next generation than cops with clean records and good morals and more heart than is probably good for them.”
Starsky cracked one eye open to see the little bit of pink bloom on Hutch’s cheeks. In his opinion, Hutch was just about the best sort of person there was. But, he admitted, sometimes he laid it on a little thick just to see the blush that had so enchanted him that very first night. He hoped, fought hard every day, to keep alive that part of Hutch that could still blush at a compliment. To Starsky, it meant that, as Luke Huntley had charged him, he was helping to keep Hutch’s shining armor bright.
“Are you going to sleep?” Hutch asked.
“Could be,” Starsky confessed, drifting on the edge. Tired, lulled and comfortable, sleep sounded like a gold-plated plan. He jumped a little when Hutch’s finger poked into his belly.
“Shower, Starsk. You’ll regret it if you don’t,” Hutch reminded him.
“Stink again, do I?” Starsky asked, tipping his head back to follow the movement as Hutch stood up and towered over him. A long stretch of golden man, his for the taking tonight, and he didn’t even have the energy to lift his arms. It was a crying shame. Whitman and Gagne weren’t just bastards; their timing stank, too.
“Oh, I wouldn’t say that,” Hutch purred, leaning over, one hand braced on the back of the couch beside Starsky’s head. “Evening in Paris I can live without, but the way you smell now….”
There was a pause while Hutch closed his eyes, inhaled deeply, then let it out in a slow sigh. When he opened them, those pale blue windows were warmer, reflecting stirring desire.
“But the way you smell now,” Hutch repeated, continuing to mesmerize Starsky despite his fatigue. “Sweat and musk. Oh, no, babe. This I like.”
“Ah, Hutch,” Starsky whispered.
The warmth disappeared behind a blind of fine lashes, failed to reappear as Hutch straightened. “But I like to be responsible for it,” he confessed, then turned to collect their dishes and walked away.
Hutch’s hot water heater was neither very large nor very efficient. For Starsky, tonight, that meant five minutes to wash and ten minutes to let the spray pound down on his shoulders and back before the water began to cool. At home, he could have counted on thirty minutes at least. But, at home, he would still be angry, hungry and lonely. A fair trade any way he looked at it.
Starsky toed at the sodden pile of his clothes as he dried off, glad he had long ago made it a habit to keep at least two changes of clothes here. Dumping the damp heap in Hutch’s hamper, and he made a mental note to help Hutch with the laundry next time, then wrapped a towel around his waist and went looking for his friend. Found him in the alcove, the bed turned down, lights low.
“Ah, Hutch.”
Hutch straightened from where he had been spreading a towel out on the fresh sheet. “Would you quit ‘Ah, Hutching’ me. I’m not thinking with my dick, I’m offering to give you a back rub. So lie down before I decide to quit being a nice guy and let you suffer.”
Hutch did exasperation really well, especially with him, Starsky thought affectionately, as he stretched out on the bed and closed his eyes. His body rocked with the shift of the mattress as Hutch climbed on the other side, stilled abruptly when Hutch straddled him and settled firmly on his ass. A towel, the loose shorts Hutch had changed into, maybe a pair of briefs. Two, maybe three thin layers of cloth between his ass and Hutch’s cock, and Starsky didn’t feel a twitch. He was disappointed in himself. It should take more than ten bucks worth of batting practice to so thoroughly TKO his libido.
Starsky forgot what he was worrying about when something warm and slippery started drizzling on his back. Baby oil, his nose informed him. Ah, so that was what the steaming pot on the bedside table was for. Hutch never ever did anything half-assed.
“Ah, Hutch. You’re a prince,” Starsky purred.
“I haven’t even started yet,” Hutch reminded him.
“A king,” Starsky amended when, big hands splayed to encompass almost every aching muscle, thumbs firmly locked into the channel of his spine, Hutch made that first long, slow sweep from his waist to his shoulders.
Within minutes, Starsky felt as if he were melting into the bed, the rhythm of the sure, certain strokes of Hutch’s hands rocking him, the press and release of Hutch’s thighs cradling him.
“A god, maybe,” he murmured when Hutch pressed the heels of both hands into his shoulder blades and bore down, freeing the abused muscles in a flash of star-bursting pain and then instant relief.
Hutch chuckled. “And you’re going to be the winner of this year’s Academy Award if you don’t stop emoting.”
“You’ve been holding out on me,” Starsky accused, but softly, just in case Hutch took offense and stopped.
“Cindy,” Hutch replied.
Starsky lost the thread of the conversation as ten perfectly timed digits began playing a tune on the keyboard of his ribs. It ought to tickle. It definitely didn’t. Next to coming with Hutch, this was the most pleasure Starsky had ever known. It didn’t escape his sensation-soaked brain that Hutch was responsible for both states.
“She’s a masseuse.”
“Mmmmmm. Sounds like a keeper, buddy,” Starsky advised. Almost asleep. Trying to fight it because this was too good to miss. Almost….
It was brighter when Starsky opened his eyes. Daylight? No, lamplight. He hoped. Hutch’s weight was still on him. Back on him? But the magic hands weren’t massaging him anymore. He could see one of them planted on the bed in front of his face. While he was still blinking sleepy confusion out of his brain, he watched a forearm appear, then an elbow, the weight shifting, spreading out all along his back, followed by the cool wash of breath on the nape of his neck.
Warm dry kisses, damp nibbles, a wet lick or two. The shift and rub and stroke of Hutch’s body all along the length of his. However long he had slept, it had been long enough to return his manhood to him. Starsky’s cock sought room to grow between the bed and his belly.
With more insight than he was usually capable of once hormones began flooding his brain, Starsky realized that his earlier lack of interest had nothing to do with either fatigue or diminished desire for his Friday night angel. He had needed Hutch then. Friend, partner, companion, even caregiver. And that was exactly what Hutch had given him. With all of his emotional needs provided for, the dancer was now free to demand his own share of attention.
“Please, tell me it isn’t morning yet,” he pleaded. If it was, he would apply a little unnecessary force to kick his own butt all the way home.
“Midnight,” Hutch murmured into his ear. “Still time for once or twice. Unless you want me to stop.”
“Oh, yeah,” Starsky said, stirring a little, feeling muscles that had been stolen from him by magic fingers returned by desire. “I want you to stop. Stop and get off. And let me at some part of your beautiful body.”
“Some part?” Hutch teased, still nuzzling, still nipping.
Starsky worked his hands under him, pushed up and felt Hutch topple off his back onto the mattress. Not from any superior force he had been able to muster, but, Starsky knew, because he wanted to. Hutch had been ministering to him for hours now, he guessed. He felt too good for the massage to have ended when he fell asleep. Besides, his towel was gone and he was oily from his nape to his knees. And Hutch’s cock was very, very hard.
“You been warmin’ up while I’ve been sleeping?” he asked, wrapping his hand around the deep red erection, stroking it gently to soothe.
“You mind?” Hutch asked, suddenly doubtful. His face clouded with fear that, despite all he had given, he had taken too much.
Starsky took his turn to nuzzle, feasting on the tendon that arced between the broad shoulder and Hutch’s long neck, trying to be careful that his unshaven stubble didn’t mar the golden skin.
“Coulda fucked me if ya wanted, sweetheart. Wouldn’t have minded wakin’ up with you hard and strong inside me,” Starsky reassured him, the idea of it making him as hard as Hutch. “Remember when we started?” He lifted up, catching Hutch’s eyes with his own. “Anything. Everything. Still the way I feel.”
Hutch’s hand cupped his cheek, his thumb brushing the wiry stubble. “Not into necrophilia, babe. Want you awake and with me.”
Starsky turned his head, caught the stroking thumb between his lips and sucked it into his mouth. His cheeks hollowed as he sucked hard, bit the calloused tip, and then, as abruptly, released it.
“Suck me.”
It was a command and a plea, and they both streamed through Starsky from his ears to his groin. But his body was confused. By this time of night, the urgency of the month-long wait should have been blunted by several hours of sensual sharing and at least a climax or two. Instead, he was an uneasy mixture of demanding need and sated sensuality from the massage and the prolonged body contact with Hutch. He wondered if Hutch felt the same way, despite the evidence of his hard cock and the ‘suck me’ command, and lifted up to try to interpret his partner’s expression. He found the same confusion of needs on Hutch’s face. Time for once or twice, Hutch had said, and Starsky suddenly knew that, despite the press of time, he didn’t want their sex play to be hurried.
“Want me to return the favor?” he asked innocently, as if he hadn’t heard Hutch’s demand. “Rub your back for you?”
“Back’s fine, Starsk,” Hutch assured him, but there was a willingness there, in his voice and his eyes, to indulge his partner and himself in the playful seduction that served them so well, if that was what Starsky wanted.
Starsky wanted. His urgency had taken a backseat to his desire to play, to return the tender loving care that Hutch had lavished upon him tonight. He dropped his head, laid a gentle kiss on the point of Hutch’s shoulder. “Warm?” he asked innocently.
“Oh, no. Cool, babe. Almost cold,” Hutch murmured, his body relaxing beneath Starsky’s, sending the message that he understood the game and was happy to play.
Apologizing for the rasp and scrape of stubble with the caress of lips and tongue, Starsky made slow, cherishing progress along the hard arc of Hutch’s clavicle to nuzzle into his neck. “Warmer?” he mumbled with his lips pressed into the smoothly shaven skin.
“So cool.” Hutch encouraged him to explore further afield.
Only a few inches of lingering kisses away, Starsky paused again at the hollow at the base of Hutch’s throat, lapping at the salty sweat that had accumulated there, pressing hard and soft with his tongue in a rhythm he knew would simulate the pressure Hutch felt when Starsky’s cock was moving in and out of his throat.
“Love this spot,” he confessed. “Sometimes, think I love it best of all.”
“My throat?” Hutch asked, the rumble of the two words vibrating against Starsky’s lips and nearly derailing his cherishing best intentions.
“Right here,” Starsky clarified, licking once more at the tender, vulnerable spot before easing back so he could watch Hutch’s face. “Turns me on so fucking much, Hutch, ’cause I can have it all the time. All the rest of you is covered up most of the time, but this,” once again he bowed his head and licked, feeling a shudder chase through Hutch from the caress and the confession, “this I can have all the time. Every day. Most days. Why do you think I hate it so much when you wear a tie or a turtleneck?”
Hutch lifted his hand and Starsky leaned into the fingers that tangled into his hair. “Warmer, babe. Definitely warmer,” he whispered, voice husky with emotion.
Starsky returned his attention to the tender skin, made a meal out of it before working his way over the swell of the pectoral muscle to the anxious little bud. He engulfed it, worked at the hard flesh with his lips while Hutch moved restlessly beneath him.
“Warmer, warmer, warmer,” Hutch chanted, his back arching to stroke his hard cock into Starsky’s belly.
Obligingly, Starsky pushed down, firming the contact to give Hutch a moment or two of the heated friction he craved. He wondered if it was time to end the game now, slide down and give the weeping cock his mouth and throat to play in. But Hutch was still intoning ‘warm’ and Starsky accepted that as a desire to continue, if only for a few more minutes. Wriggling lower still, stretching out between the thighs Hutch had thrown wide in wanton abandon, Starsky turned his attention to the shallow cup of Hutch’s navel. He didn’t lick. He didn’t suck. He didn’t kiss. That was what Hutch was expecting, and the name of this game was to give him what he least expected. Starsky bit, catching at the rim with his teeth in a series of nips that pulled first a yelp of surprise and then gasping moans from his lover.
“Damn it, Starsk. ‘Nuf. Suck me!” Hutch demanded.
One more delicious moment of teasing, Starsky decided, and slithered down one more time until he could latch onto the tender flesh just above the soft curls of Hutch’s pubic patch. He sucked there, while stroking carefully with his stubbled cheek against the length of the hard cock beside his face, then tilted his head back. “I am,” he pointed out.
“Hot. Need it hotter,” Hutch begged, his fingers in Starsky’s hair an insistent demand so at odds with the plea on his face.
Hutch was almost there. They both were. Starsky knew he wouldn’t even need his cock to be touched, aroused to the edge of climax himself by the freedom to feast Hutch allowed him and by his lover’s enjoyment of it.
“Hottest,” he agreed and let Hutch lead him where he most wanted and needed to be. Play time was over now, and Starsky allowed the hard cock to fill his mouth and then his throat, delight his tongue for a few brief moments before it gave him a small part of what he craved. A teaspoon or two of Hutch pumped into his mouth, sliding down his throat as he swallowed greedily, absorbed into his gut and made a part of him that no one and nothing could ever take away.
~*~*~
Hutch hadn’t thought about his alarm. Not until it went off at 6:15 a.m. What he thought then was a particularly filthy curse. When his fumbling hand found the noisy contraption, he heaved it across the room, groaned, rolled over and buried his face in the pillow.
Starsky had left around 4:30. In the hours between midnight and then, Hutch hadn’t had a moment for even a catnap. Twenty winks were out of the question. Forty, unthinkable. He might have missed something, and he counted the sleep well lost in the cause of the pleasure his revitalized partner had lavished upon him.
Starsky had demanded ‘some part’ of his body, and then had spent hours following through. There wasn’t a part of Hutch that hadn’t come under Starsky’s caress. Even his feet had been massaged during one of the breaks while both he and Starsky recovered wit and strength and the ability to rise one more time before the sun did.
Hutch knew that part of Starsky’ s fervor had been an effort to repay him. Neither of them kept a balance sheet in their heads, jotting down a mental little debit or credit each time support was offered or received. In the final tally, they would come out even in any case. Balance. That was what every layer of their relationship was about.
Nevertheless, Hutch had tried to give back as much pleasure as he received, and his sheets were streaked with his success. But their sex play had been different tonight. Never before had they come together for sex quite so soon after an emotional crisis. Even a day’s grace would have made a difference. But what they had shared this time, if Hutch were honest, had been far closer to making love than any of their previous encounters. And that way lurked disaster.
But Hutch felt too good and was far too tired to worry about that now. They would settle down again, he was sure. Slip back into their respective roles. For now, he was going to reset his alarm and get some more sleep.
Hutch lifted his face out of the pillow, squinted at the clock-less bedside table. Oh, yes. He had thrown it to shut it up. He dropped his face back into the pillow, smelled his own soap and shampoo, but under there somewhere, his partner’s distinctive scent.
They didn’t have to be in until three. He would wake up by noon on his own. Run. Shower. Lock the angel away in his box. Be ready, when Starsky picked him up, to take up the satisfying position of Starsky’s partner and friend again.
~*~*~
Starsky stepped on Hutch’s mail when he let himself into the cottage at 2:00 p.m. Two white envelopes, a gray one—utility bill, probably—and a bunch of junk mail. He scooped it all up and dropped it on the kitchen table on his way to find Hutch.
“Hey, lazy bones, what you doin’ still in bed?” he chastised, leaning casually against the wall, watching Hutch slowly stirring. The starfished limbs drew in and then stretched back out into a lazy sprawl. Light golden skin over long, flat muscles that ran into each other so….
Starsky pivoted on his heel and retreated to the kitchen. “Come on, Hutch. We’re gonna be late,” he called to the slug-a-bed. He pulled open the refrigerator door, not because he expected to find something edible, but because he desperately needed the distraction. The sudden wash of cold air didn’t hurt, either, in the cause of reminding himself that Friday night was over.
By the time Hutch appeared, bleary-eyed, belted haphazardly into his ratty old robe, Starsky had taken a step back from that mental abyss. “You forget to set your alarm?” he asked, busy putting together a pot of coffee.
“Forgot to reset it,” Hutch admitted around a yawn. He scratched at his disordered hair. “Went off at six. Think I broke it.”
Starsky pointed a relentless finger toward the bathroom. “You have twenty-five minutes to shower, shave, drink coffee and eat breakfast. Divide it up any way you like, Blintz, but at two-thirty, the Torino express will be leavin’ the Venice station.”
Hutch grumbled to himself as he wandered in the general direction of the bathroom. He wasn’t saying anything Starsky could understand, and, after a moment’s consideration, Starsky decided that was probably a good thing.
“Hey. You want me to make you toast or something?” he called after the retreating orange back.
More unintelligible mumbles. Eating, Starsky sensed, was probably way down the list of Hutch’s priorities at the moment. His partner was out of luck in any case, a search of the cupboards revealed. No bread, bagels, Danish, or other portable possibilities.
When the coffee was brewed, Starsky poured two mugs full and carried them into the bathroom. He could see Hutch’s shadowy form through the frosted glass, where he leaned up against the wall. Holding one cup by the rim, he reached over the door and waited for Hutch to notice the offering, while he sipped at the steaming liquid in his own mug.
“Fifteen minutes,” he reminded his partner as the mug was lifted out of his hand. “You’ll have to eat after we clock in unless you want to share my jelly donut.”
“Do I ever?” Hutch grumbled.
Starsky didn’t bother to reply. Hutch sounded more alert, intelligible at any rate, and would, Starsky was sure, be ready to roll at the designated time. Starsky settled down at the kitchen table with his coffee, donut, and the sports section of Hutch’s newspaper. He glanced up when the orange eyesore went past, noting it was moving a whole lot more smartly on the return trip to the alcove. He had time to finish reading the latest basketball standings before Hutch, fully clothed except for his jacket, shaved, and with every blond hair in place, re-emerged.
Starsky closed the paper and pushed up to his feet. He scooped up the mail he had left on the table and offered it to Hutch. “You wanna take this with you? You can read it on the way in.”
“You can read it to me,” Hutch corrected him. He was busy collecting wallet and keys, tucking them away and securing his holster to his belt. “We have to take my car today.”
“But…” Starsky protested automatically.
“Williston stakeout tonight. Remember?” Hutch was standing at the door now, jacket over his shoulder, hand on the knob. “Come on, Starsk. We’re going to be late.”
Starsky snorted and followed his partner, noting the spring in his step as he crossed the porch and rounded his car to the driver’s side. Starsky tried not to feel any smug satisfaction that he was the cause of that morning after joie de vie, but failed miserably. At least he managed to keep the smirk off his face.
“So, what do you want me to read you first?” Starsky asked after Hutch pulled out onto the street. “The advertisement from your local pet food store or the one from Goodness Me? Oh, look, Hutch, they’ve got wheat germ and rose hip tea on sale.”
“If it’s all junk mail, you could have left it behind,” Hutch complained.
Starsky separated the two ads from the envelopes and flipped them back over his shoulder into the rest of the mess. Which reminded him. “Speaking of junk, when are you going to clean out the back of this heap? You won’t be able to see out the back window soon.”
“I’ll get to it,” Hutch dismissed the complaint, as usual. “Was that all the mail?”
“Nope. You’ve got… now, let me see. A love letter from Bay City Power and Light. Want me to open it?”
Hutch held out his hand and Starsky laid the envelope in it, watching as Hutch tucked it into the sun visor. “I know what that one is.”
“It’ll be a past due notice next month if you stick it up there,” Starsky warned him. It wouldn’t be the first time Hutch had forgotten about bills secreted away in that visor. Checks that were supposed to be mailed sometimes ended up there, too.
When Hutch ignored him, Starsky turned his attention back to the remaining envelopes. “Robertson and Smythe. Attorneys-at-Law,” he read off the return address. “You in some kind of trouble, Hutch?”
“That’s my lawyers, Starsk,” Hutch said. They were on the highway now, which, at this time of day, was far less busy than when they worked day shift. “Probably just a statement on the trust my grandfather left me.”
The hand came out again and Starsky laid the envelope, unopened, onto the palm. It disappeared above the visor as well.
“And last but not least… holy shit! Hutch, look at this!” Starsky exclaimed as he read the address. “It’s from the Big Brothers. See. I told ya they’d snap you up.”
“It might be a rejection letter, too, you know,” Hutch said.
But Starsky could hear the suppressed excitement in his partner’s voice. “You want to do the honors yourself, or…?” Starsky asked strictly for the sake of politeness. He had no intention of waiting until they reached the station to see what was inside.
“Open it,” Hutch commanded.
Eagerly, Starsky tore into the envelope, pulled out the single sheet of paper, unfolded it and scanned it quickly.
“Well?” Hutch demanded.
“‘Dear Mr. Hutchinson—'”
“Would you get to the point,” Hutch cut in.
“‘Please attend an interview, if convenient, on Monday, May 3, 1974, at 11 a.m.’ You’re in, babe. Told ya,” Starsky crowed.
“An interview, Starsk,” Hutch cautioned. “Just an interview.”
“Bet ya got yourself a little brother by the end of the week,” Starsky predicted.
“Bet what?” Hutch pounced.
Starsky paused to consider an acceptable prize. “Dinner at the restaurant of my choice if I’m right. Yours if you are. Loser pays.”
“You’re on.”
~*~*~
“Chez Pierre, here I come.”
Hutch was too euphoric to take exception to Starsky’s choice of the most expensive restaurant in town. Nor was he the least bit surprised that, after one look at his face as he walked into the squadroom following his interview with the Big Brother Association, his partner knew who had won their bet. Just as Starsky had predicted, the lady interviewing him had been enthusiastic about his application, and eager to set him up with a little brother.
“So when’s the big day?” Starsky asked as if Hutch was announcing a forthcoming marriage or the birth of a child.
Hutch had to admit that the occasion was just as momentous and certainly similar to the second. Becoming a Big Brother was, in his mind, a commitment as serious as marriage, and he would be taking on the role of a father figure.
“Saturday,” Hutch informed his grinning partner. “Have to meet him and his mom at his place after lunch and then we have the afternoon.”
“Told ya they’d snap you up,” Starsky reminded him. “But I’m not going to make you take me to Chez Pierre’s. Chez Huggy’s is good enough. Save your bucks and take the kid to a ball game or something.” Some of the wattage suddenly went out of Starsky’s smile. “Hey, they didn’t saddle you with the Smith kid, did they?”
“No,” Hutch reassured him as he slid into his chair behind the desk. He pulled the information sheet the interviewer had given him from his inside pocket and handed it to his partner. “His name is Kiko Ramos. Hispanic boy living in Venice. He’s ten and likes—”
“I can read, partner,” Starsky interrupted affectionately.
Dobey’s door opened and the captain stood filling the frame. “Well, Hutchinson?”
Because Hutch needed to take an hour off work for the interview, he had had to tell Dobey about his application. “Meet him on Saturday,” he informed his boss.
“Huh,” Dobey grunted. “Good thing you’re doing, Hutch,” he added in a mumble and retreated to his office as if embarrassed. He turned and leaned back out the door, pointed a finger at Starsky. “Did you clean up all the paperwork while your partner was busy showing his community spirit?”
“Yes, sir,” Starsky rapped out in his best parade ground voice. “In triplicate! Sir!”
“Then both of you get your tails back out on the street and earn your keep!” Dobey bellowed and slammed his door.
“He has the sweetest way of letting you know he’s pleased, doesn’t he?” Starsky quipped.
Hutch reached over and plucked the information sheet out of Starsky’s lax grip. He folded it, tucked it back into his jacket pocket. “You ready to roll?”
“Sure thing,” Starsky agreed and led the way out of the squadroom. “So, what are you gonna do with the kid?”
“Don’t know yet, Starsk,” Hutch admitted, continuing to follow his partner as they clattered down the stairs. “I don’t want to start throwing money at him. Don’t want him to think I’m just some WASP playing at being goodie-two-shoes.”
“Yeah,” Starsky said. He sounded serious enough, but Hutch could read devilment in everything from the set of his shoulders to the quirk of his lips. He didn’t even need to see the laughing blue eyes to know Starsky was about to say something outrageous.
“Maybe we better dye your hair and get you some plastic surgery. God knows what the kid’ll think when he opens his door and sees this blond vision of loveliness standin’ there,” Starsky teased, jumped down the last four stairs and hit the door into the garage running.
Hutch caught up with his laughing friend as Starsky reached the Galaxy, grabbed him around the waist, and they mock-wrestled, staggering a couple of steps further along the side of the car. “You….”
“Don’t worry about it, babe,” Starsky choked out around his laughter, pointing through the dusty window at the back seat. “One look at the heap and he’ll have your number. He’ll know you’re just a slob with a fancy haircut.”
Hutch growled playfully and gave Starsky a gentle shove toward the rear of the car. “Get in before I make you walk,” he threatened.
Obediently, Starsky circled the car, but didn’t immediately get in. He leaned folded arms on the roof of the car as he spoke. “Seriously, Hutch. Ya gotta clean out that back seat. You wanna make a good impression on the kid at the start, don’t you?”
“All right,” Hutch relented. “But since it’s your bright idea, you can help me after work tomorrow,” he added. He had had every intention of cleaning the car out before Saturday, but Starsky didn’t need to know that. “But I’m not washing it,” he added, just in case Starsky thought he had given in too easily.
“Just as well,” Starsky conceded with a resigned shake of his head. “It’d probably fall apart in the driveway if you did.”
~*~*~
Contorted into a human pretzel in the back seat of the Galaxy on Wednesday morning—they had ended up working late Tuesday—Starsky dug under the front seat and lifted out another armload of junk. He had dragged the tin garbage can into the driveway and had already discarded an assortment of takeout containers, old newspapers, and a few unidentifiable articles into it. Between him and Hutch, who labored from the other side of the back seat, they were beginning to make a dent in the mountain of trash.
Feeling around under the seat, Starsky encountered something soft and pulled out what turned out to be a pair of his partner’s boxer shorts. He held them up. “Geez, Hutch. Don’t tell me you had the nerve to make out with some lady in here. No wonder you never get a second date.”
“Very funny,” Hutch snapped, snatching the shorts away and tossing them into the front seat where anything deemed salvageable was being reserved for later sorting. “They probably fell out of the laundry bag.”
“Going to or coming from?” Starsky wondered.
“This was your idea, Starsk,” Hutch reminded him.
Starsky held up his hands in surrender. “Okay. Okay. Don’t get testy.” He went back to his excavations, shaking his head in wonder. Hutch was so damned meticulous about his personal hygiene; Starsky just couldn’t fathom how he could be such a slob about his car. Although, Starsky reminded himself, if his friend didn’t have a cleaning lady, the cottage would probably be in the same shape. It must be Hutch’s artistic nature, Starsky decided as he continued to sort through the debris.
Coming across a heavy square parcel wrapped in Christmas paper, Starsky lifted it up and dropped it onto the seat between them. It didn’t even bounce. “Either you’ve been Christmas shopping early or you forgot one last year.”
Hutch straightened up from where he had been rummaging under the driver’s seat. A deep crease appeared between his fair eyebrows as he studied the parcel, then disappeared. “That’s the Christmas cake Minnie gave me.”
“Last Christmas?” Starsky asked. He thought he recognized the heft of it. Minnie had given him one, too, but he had had the good sense to feed it to the yappy Pomeranian next door. Come to think of it, he hadn’t heard the dog lately.
“No. Christmas before,” Hutch deadpanned and leaned back down.
Distracted from his worries that he might have inadvertently committed canine-icide, Starsky grimaced and carefully transferred the parcel to the trash. After nearly two years to ferment….
“I wondered where I put these.”
Starsky looked at his partner and found him holding a handful of papers. Peering closer, Starsky saw they were sheet music and deftly plucked them from Hutch’s hand. “No getting side tracked and leaving me to do all the work,” he admonished and dropped the pages onto the front seat.
Uncurling his twisted limbs, Starsky backed out of the open door. He reached back in for the last stack of newspapers and a few crumpled tissues, then gave his side a visual inspection. It still needed a good vacuuming, but at least the junkyard was cleared. He checked on his partner’s progress and found that Hutch had also left the car and was gathering up the final take out carton.
“Pass inspection?” Hutch asked.
“With a shove,” Starsky conceded. “Front seat,” he commanded when they had both closed the back doors.
“Slave driver,” Hutch mumbled, but opened the driver’s door and climbed into the car.
Starsky slid in the other side and they began sorting and stacking the salvageables for transfer to trunk or cottage. He didn’t even want to think what might be lying in wait in the trunk and decided to leave that for another day. It wasn’t as if the boy would be seeing that, and, besides, he didn’t want to send the heap into shock or anything.
“Registration in your wallet or the glove compartment?” he asked when he unearthed the pink slip from under the sheet music. This must have been on Hutch’s side of the back seat because Starsky couldn’t remember tossing it up here.
“Glove…” Hutch started to say and then held out his hand. “I think that might be for the LTD.”
“Sheesh,” Starsky complained and took a closer look at the registration. “You’re right. It’s for the wreck before this one,” he confirmed as he handed it over.
“I think I’ll just keep this as a sou—”
As Hutch was speaking, he had reached for the sun visor, but as he pulled it down, two envelopes dropped into his lap.
“Ah, huh!” Starsky exclaimed. “I knew you’d forget about these.” He picked up the power bill from his partner’s lap and started to tear it open, hearing the rip as his partner opened the other letter.
“I told you this would be….”
Starsky looked up as Hutch fell silent, watched his partner’s face blanch white and then flush red.
“Fuck!” Hutch growled, low and vicious, before he thrust out of the open car door.
Hutch was already on the phone by the time Starsky had scrambled out of the car and hurried into the cottage. From across the room, he could see that his friend was shaking with anger, the receiver gripped in one white-knuckled hand, while the other crunched the stiff white paper of the letter into a tight ball.
“Hutch?” Starsky asked, approaching warily. Never before had he seen his partner this absolutely furious. Not on the job, and definitely not outside of it. Never. Not even when his white knight indignation had been aroused by some blatant injustice. Whatever had been in that letter had touched Hutch like a live wire.
“You can’t be serious,” Hutch snarled into the phone. “But that’s outrageous! Ah, fu—”
Starsky saw Hutch bite off the expletive, his eyes squeezing shut. After a moment, they opened and arctic ice looked into Starsky’s as the big left first uncurled and the balled up letter fell to the floor.
“Yes. Three o’clock. I’ll be there.”
Hutch put the phone down gently in its cradle, but that only worried Starsky more. He would have been happier if Hutch had slammed it down. He wasn’t too pleased by the silence or the bleak inner focus on Hutch’s face either. He knew that look. Too many emotions were crowding in on Hutch and he was instinctively locking down.
“What’s wrong, babe?” Starsky asked quietly, hoping to halt the instinctive retreat.
Hutch held out his hand, seemed to realize there was nothing in it, and looked around the floor vaguely. “Vanessa. She….”
The ex-wife. Hutch didn’t talk about her much. An occasional comment. And sometimes he called her Vanessa, other times, Nancy. It had taken Starsky a while to notice that, and longer still to sort out the distinction. When Hutch mentioned something from before or during the first year or their marriage, she was Nancy. After that, it was always Vanessa. He had seen Hutch’s divorce certificate once, and knew both names were correct. Nancy Vanessa Hutchinson. His partner never explained when or why the switch in names had occurred, and Starsky had never asked.
“She what, Hutch?” Starsky prompted.
“She found out about the trust from my grandfather. She wants it included in the community property settlement or she’ll take me to court.” Hutch dropped his head. “Fuck. I thought that bitch was….”
Starsky approached, reached out, but dropped his hand when Hutch flinched.
“My lawyer’s going to set up a meeting with her and her lawyer this afternoon. I have to be there at three. I have to get ready.”
“Hutch?” Starsky stopped his partner as he started to turn away. “Can I help?”
Hutch essayed up a smile that wouldn’t have fooled a blind man. “I can handle it, Starsk. We’ll finish the car later. I’ll…I’ll call when I get home.”
Starsky let Hutch go then, went back outside and collected the salvageables off the front seat. He heard the shower running when he carried the armload into the cottage and dumped it onto the couch. Bending to retrieve the balled up letter from the floor, Starsky smoothed it out and memorized the address before he added it to the pile.
After quietly closing the door on the way out, Starsky hurried to the Torino. He had to get cleaned up, too. If Hutch thought he was going into the arena alone with the she-cat who had already torn his heart to ribbons once, then Hutch didn’t know his best friend as well as he thought he did.
~*~*~
Hutch didn’t look up when the waiting room door opened. He kept his eyes on his shoes, noting inanely that the toe of his left shoe had a smudge on it. He wasn’t ready to look at his ex-wife. See the beauty that had captivated him when he was only a teenager. Feel the desire that, even as they were verbally tearing into each other, had never failed to be aroused by her sensuality. Experience, once again, the hatred he thought Starsky had helped him purge. Let her speak first. Let the icy tones remind him of the true nature that hid behind the pretty face. Let it reinforce the barricade around his heart.
“Can I help you?” his lawyer’s receptionist asked the newcomer politely.
“No thanks. I’m with him.”
Hutch’s head came up then, snapped upright on the column of his neck as if a particularly vicious puppet master had pulled his strings.
“What are you doing here?” he blurted as Starsky sauntered toward him. Yes, it was definitely Starsky, but as Hutch seldom saw him. Sport coat, neatly creased dress pants, shiny shoes, buttoned down shirt. God in heaven, Starsky was even wearing a tie.
“Where else would I be when my partner’s back needs watching?” Starsky asked, sitting down next to him, left hand giving his right arm a very brief pat.
“Think that’s my lawyer’s job this time, Starsk,” Hutch pointed out. He didn’t want Starsky to meet Vanessa. See the evil Hutch had been fool enough to overlook, or be beguiled by her beauty. At the same time, he knew that if Starsky tried to get up and leave now, he would probably wrestle him to the floor to prevent it.
The arrival of Sidney Robertson, senior partner, prevented Starsky from voicing the exasperated reply Hutch could see in his eyes.
The lawyer came forward, hand outstretched. “Ken, I’m glad to see you again. Wish the circumstances were better.”
Hutch stood up and accepted the handshake. Robertson was the father of a student Hutch had known in college. They had taken pre-law together, the younger Robertson going on to Yale while Hutch had made the choices that had led him to Metro Division. He had hired Robertson to handle his divorce, and, even though the lawyer hadn’t been able to prevent Vanessa from practically cleaning him out, had retained him again to oversee his trust after his grandfather’s death.
“Come in, Ken. We’ll have a little chat before Mrs. Hutchinson and her counsel arrive, shall we?” Robertson invited.
Hutch felt Starsky brush against him as he also rose to his feet. “Sidney, this is my partner, Dave Starsky,” he introduced the two men.
“Feel in need of a little back up, do you, Ken?” Robertson asked as he led the way into his plush office. “Can’t say I blame you,” he added as he circled to his chair and waved his visitors to the two leather chairs in front of his desk.
“What does she want?” Hutch asked bluntly.
Robertson opened a file, lifted out a letter and offered it.
Hutch waved the offer aside. “Without the legalese,” he requested.
Robertson let the paper fall back onto the open folder. “The trust your grandfather left you,” he replied just as bluntly.
“Can she get it?”
Leaning back in his chair, Robertson brought his hands up, palm-to-palm, paired index fingers tapping at his lips. “Half, at least. And it’ll cost you the other half to fight it in court.”
It would be worth it, Hutch thought, just for the satisfaction of not knuckling under without a fight. Again. He had been too heart-sore and weary to fight her the last time. He had let her walk away with anything she wanted then so long as she gave him his freedom and disappeared. But now she was back.
“And, even though I’m planning on putting in a pool this summer, in all good conscience, I have to advise you not to throw good money after bad,” Robertson added.
Before Hutch could firmly refuse that advice, the intercom buzzed. Robertson leaned forward to press the button. “Ye?”
“Mr. Murray and Mrs. Hutchinson are here.”
Robertson looked a question at Hutch, and, even though he still wasn’t ready, probably never would be, Hutch nodded.
“Send them in,” Robertson instructed.
Instinctively, Hutch stood up, unwilling to come face to face with his painful past at a disadvantage, and he felt Starsky’s warmth at his back as he turned toward the door. Then, Vanessa was there. As beautiful as he remembered. Her icy eyes cutting into all the soft, vulnerable places inside him, and reminding him that he was a failure. Just as his father had told him for most of his life. The echo of hundreds of other times he hadn’t measured up to that cold man’s exacting standards rang in his ears, blocking out the sound of her voice as the perfectly painted lips shaped themselves around his name.
“Hutch.”
Starsky’s voice wasn’t loud, and the grip of his hand on Hutch’s shoulder was both brief and light. But it cut through the ringing, banished the confusion and settled him back into the confidence that years of success in his career and his thriving friendship with Starsky had given him. And he saw it register on Vanessa’s face. Did she feel the reins of the power she had held over him finally, at long last, slip through her fingers? He hoped so, and decided then and there that she could have the money. He would argue long enough to ensure this would be the last time she could waltz back into his life and lay claim to any part of it, but only because you couldn’t let a woman like Vanessa sense weakness, whether it existed or not, or she would be back for more until she bled you dry. However, if it bought him peace, he knew his grandfather would consider the money well spent.
“Nancy,” he acknowledged her by the name of the woman he had fallen in love with rather than the name she had later chosen to use because it sounded so much classier. He used it not for the sake of any lingering, embattled love, but because he knew she would hate it.
~*~*~
Starsky was sorting his laundry in the bedroom when he heard his front door open. Automatically, he made a move toward the Beretta laying on the bedside table, aborted it when he heard his partner calling his name. Starsky looked at his watch as he moved to the doorway. Hutch was supposed to meet his new little brother in Venice at one. What was he doing in Starsky’s living room when it was almost noon?
“You have my yellow t-shirt,” Hutch accused before Starsky had a chance to question his presence.
Starsky hooked a thumb back over his shoulder. “If I do, it’s dirty.”
“I know I left it here last week,” Hutch continued as if Starsky hadn’t spoken.
“If you did, it’s dirty,” Starsky repeated.
“Dirty?” Hutch echoed.
He was getting slow on the uptake, Starsky realized. A missing yellow t-shirt had nothing to do with why Hutch had driven all the way into the city when he had to be back in Venice in just a little over an hour. “Hutch. You okay?”
Hutch wasn’t listening. He was pacing, shoving one hand repeatedly through hair that, Starsky was willing to bet, he had just paid a stylist twenty bucks to arrange just so. His other hand was in his jacket pocket, playing keys and loose change against each other in an off-key harmony.
Starsky sighed. Someday he was going to line up the Hutchinson clan, Nancy-Vanessa included, and give each one of them a good solid kick in the ass. He looked at his watch again. He had thirty-seven minutes to get Hutch on the road back to Venice. He estimated he could give his friend five minutes to just pace and rant. Hopefully, that would be long enough to vent the head of steam Hutch had built up. Starsky moved to the couch, pulled his feet up under him so his distracted partner wouldn’t trip over them as the long legs charted and re-charted the space between door and kitchen.
The five minutes passed, but Hutch was only winding himself up tighter. Time to see if he could release the spring, Starsky decided. “Hutch?”
The blond ignored him. “I must have been out of my mind to get myself into this.”
“Babe?”
More oblivious pacing. “The kid will hate me. Why wouldn’t he?”
Starsky stood up directly in his partner’s path, grabbed Hutch by the arms and halted the frenetic momentum. He shook him a little. “Sweetheart, would you cut it out.”
Hutch opened his mouth, closed it and sank down onto the couch.
Starsky snapped his fingers in front of the worried eyes to bring them up from his belt buckle. “Hey. Up here,” he commanded, and when he had a fairly good lock on the blue gaze, continued. “Okay. Now, what is the problem? You wanted a little brother, and today you’re gonna get one.”
“What if he doesn’t like me?” Hutch asked plaintively.
Starsky wanted to hug him, but resisted. In his opinion, the self-doubting state Hutch was in was one more sin to be laid at that cold woman’s door. But the minutes were ticking away and there was no time to worry about laying blame. His job now was to help Hutch reconnect with his confidence. “What’s not to like?” he asked.
Hutch rolled his eyes at him.
“Come on, Hutch. You know you’re a great guy. Don’t let the rest of the week get in your way. You’re doing a good thing,” Starsky reminded him. “Besides, this kid wants to like you. If all else fails, just take him for ice cream. There isn’t a kid in the world that doesn’t like ice cream.”
“But… but I don’t know what to do with him,” Hutch lamented, which, Starsky knew, was bullshit. From Monday afternoon until Hutch had opened the letter from his lawyer on Wednesday, he had been full of plans for this momentous Saturday afternoon.
“Sure you do. You were ten years old once,” Starsky reminded him. “What did you do with your dad?”
Even before Hutch’s eyes narrowed into a glare that should have knocked him off his feet, Starsky was adding his own butt to that mental ass-kicking line up.
“Sorry,” he apologized before Hutch could speak. “Gimme a second to get my foot outta my mouth.” He allowed himself one precious minute from the dwindling supply to think. “Okay. What did you do with your grandfather?”
Impatience was getting the better of Hutch now. He had to be equally aware of the passage of time. “He had a farm, Starsk. In case you hadn’t noticed, there aren’t a lot of cows to milk, or tractors to fix or…” There was a pause while Hutch’s eyes took on a far away look. “It didn’t matter what we did,” he whispered finally. “It was just being with him.”
Starsky knew Hutch would get there eventually. Sometimes he just needed a road sign or two along the way, he thought, watching the taut feature smooth out into a sheepish grin.
Starsky matched the smile, released his partner and stepped back out of the way. “Go get ‘im, tiger. And don’t forget about the ice cream.”
~*~*~
Hutch glanced over at the cinnamon face beneath the mop of black hair as they pulled up at the stoplight just three blocks from his new little brother’s home.
“You’ve gone pretty quiet on me, Kiko. Is something wrong?” he asked.
The afternoon had gone better than Hutch had allowed himself to hope. He and Kiko hadn’t done anything in particular after they met at his house and his mother had given Hutch permission to take him out for the afternoon, but Hutch thought the first steps had been taken toward a lasting friendship. A game of catch in a nearby park and a walk along the canal as they talked had eaten up most of the afternoon. It was almost five o’clock now, the time Hutch had promised Mrs. Ramos he would return her son to her, and his passenger’s mood had seemed to darken with every block they drew closer to home.
Slim, young shoulders rose and fell beneath a clean, but worn, t-shirt, and the boy’s dark eyes remained focused out the windshield. “Did I pass the test?” he asked softly in his slightly accented English.
“What test is that?” Hutch asked, realizing only then that the anticipation of this first meeting might have been just as difficult for Kiko as it had been for him. He felt an ache in his chest and hoped it wouldn’t spread to his throat before he had a chance to answer.
“Wasn’t that what today was for?” Kiko asked, his eyes slipping to Hutch briefly and then darting away again, this time all the way to the passenger window. “To find out if you wanted to waste your time with me?”
Hutch spotted an open parking space up ahead and pulled the car into it. He dropped the shift into park, but left the engine running. He twisted in his seat a little, studied the back of the dark head, the shoulders that were held so taut, the arm that rested, in sharp contrast, in pretended nonchalance in the open window of the car door.
“What do you think I did today before I came over to meet you and your mom?” Hutch asked.
Again the boy shrugged. “I don’t know. Ate lunch, I guess,” he mumbled.
“No. I went to see my partner. I told you about Starsky.”
“I remember,” Kiko said in the tone universal to children when they believe an adult was insulting their intelligence.
“Starsky isn’t just my partner, Kiko. He’s my best friend,” Hutch confessed. “I went to see him because I was very nervous that I wouldn’t pass your test.”
Overly long hair flared out as Kiko’s head whipped around, the eyes that had, up to now, been eager and accepting, narrowed in suspicion.
“Were you testing me, Kiko?” Hutch asked softly.
“No!” It was said so quickly, so emphatically, that Hutch knew the thought had never entered the young mind. Starsky had been right all along; Hutch’s new little brother had been ready and willing to like him. As ready as Hutch had been to instantly connect with this boy who stood so close to the edge of entering, unguided, the turbulent years leading to manhood.
“I wasn’t testing you either,” Hutch reassured him.
“Then… then I’ll get to see you again?” Kiko asked eagerly in sudden animation that was subdued just as quickly as it appeared. “Sometime?” he added doubtfully.
Hutch reached out and ruffled the boy’s thick hair, remembering how much he had liked that when his grandfather had done it to him. Up until he was about thirteen, he reminded himself and made a mental note for the future. “How about Wednesday after school? I heard one of the Tall Ships is supposed to be coming in that morning. Maybe we could go and have a look at it.”
“Cool!” Kiko agreed immediately.
“If your mother agrees,” Hutch added hastily.
“She’ll say yes if I promise to do a report for school,” Kiko revealed.
“Then it’s a date,” Hutch said, putting the car in gear and pulling out of the space. He would have to make sure that his shift didn’t run into overtime on Wednesday. He drove the block and a half further to the small house Kiko and his mother lived in and again pulled the Galaxy into the curb.
“By the way, there was one important question I forgot to ask you,” he said before his new, young friend opened the door.
“What?” Kiko asked.
“Do you like ice cream?”
“Doesn’t everybody?” Kiko replied, that pre-teen tone of adult-related caution coloring his voice just a little. “Why?”
“Because I know this great place Starsky showed me that has about a hundred flavors.”
~*~*~
“Starsky! Get out here!”
Hutch had disappeared back through the squadroom door into the corridor before Starsky even looked up. His partner’s voice had sounded so urgent, however, that Starsky dropped what he was doing, and scrambled to follow, half-formed thoughts of some axe-murdering criminal gone berserk in the corridor flitting through his mind. When all the open door revealed was the usual comings and goings of their fellow officers, Starsky stopped his head-long charge. The closing door bumping him in the butt sent him forward an extra step into the corridor as he looked around for his partner.
Starsky spotted Hutch, nearly dancing from foot to foot, in front of the bulletin board. Oh, right. It was June 8th. Promotion lists went up today. Starsky had accepted that, thanks to IA and the snail-like turning of the wheels of the appeal process, his name wouldn’t be up there somewhere beneath Hutch’s, but that didn’t stop him from feeling a sudden surge of excitement on his partner’s behalf. He hurried to join Hutch, his eyes scanning the First Class list almost before he was close enough to read it. Hawkins. Horner. There it was! Hutchinson, Kenneth R.
Starsky thumped his partner on the back, nearly knocking the beaming blond off his feet. “Way to go, Blintz,” he congratulated him. “We gotta celebrate. And, since you’re gonna get a nice fat raise outta this, the drinks are on you.”
“That’s what you think, buddy,” Hutch crowed. “Look at this.”
Starsky’s eyes followed to where Hutch’s finger pointed further down the list. Holy…! Starsky, David M.
“Jesus Christ,” Starsky breathed in shock.
“I sincerely hope that is a prayer of thanksgiving and not a blasphemy,” Dobey’s bass rumbled into the space between Starsky and Hutch.
Starsky took his eyes off what, he knew, just had to be a clerical error of some sort, long enough to meet his superior’s smug gaze.
“But, Cap,” he sputtered. “What about…?”
“I’d say the promotion board agreed with you about what constitutes necessary force,” Dobey said.
Starsky felt his eyes narrow as suspicion took over from shock. “You knew about this,” he accused.
With an ‘I’ll-never-tell grin,’ Dobey turned away and lumbered back into his office.
Still unable to believe, Starsky checked the list again. His name was still there, hadn’t disappeared as if its appearance had only been some sort of cruel joke.
“Dutch,” Hutch said in a tone that sounded very pleased with itself.
“Huh?” Starsky echoed.
“Looks like we’ll be goin’ dutch to celebrate,” Hutch elaborated, eyes still shining, expression tolerant.
Starsky collected himself, shook his head ‘no’ and threw an arm over his partner’s shoulders. “No way, babe. We’re gonna paint the town red tonight, and it’s on me.”
Hutch matched him grin for grin. “Candy apple red?” he teased.
“Damned right, schweetheart!”
Fixing the Fix
“Wanna drive my car?” Starsky asked hopefully.
Hutch’s brain was still a little fuzzy, so it took a few moments for Starsky’s offer to make any sense to him. He knew his partner was worried about him, hell, had been half out of his mind while Hutch was missing and then going through withdrawal. The scene that had just ended with Jeanie must have looked to Starsky like the big farewell of star-crossed lovers, and he must be assuming that Hutch’s heart was broken. In actual fact, Hutch was relieved, guilty because of it, but relieved nonetheless. Starsky was offering his most prized possession to Hutch, and it made Hutch, who had felt ice cold for days now, feel warm all over.
He almost responded from within that bubble of warmth, but took an extra second; just long enough to remember that Starsky knew damned well what he thought of the Torino. Another second to interpret the hopeful expression on Starsky’s face, and Hutch had it figured out. Yes, Starsky wanted to cheer him up, but he was doing it in his own unique style. Reverse psychology had nothing on Starsky logic.
“Get in and drive, mushbrain,” Hutch said, and gave Starsky the small smile he was so desperate for. It hurt his face, but it was worth it to see the answering grin on Starsky’s face. “I’d drive us off a cliff.”
“Just hang on a minute, buddy,” Starsky requested, opening the passenger door and hauling Forest out by his arm. “Let me get rid of this garbage. I’ll be right back,” he promised, and, pulling Forest along with him, moved to the cruiser that had just arrived and handed over their prisoner.
“Now we can roll,” Starsky said when he returned after a brief discussion with the uniformed officers that Hutch hadn’t bothered to try to overhear.
Hutch settled into the familiar seat, put his head back and closed his eyes for the trip into Metro. He wasn’t looking forward to walking into the squadroom. He hurt all over, knew he looked like the dog’s breakfast, and was scared to death that he wasn’t up to keeping this secret. Not now, not yet, with the feathery tentacles of craving still stroking his nerves with the occasional stab of raw, unreasoning need. When the curious glances started cutting his way, when the questions began, he didn’t know if he would be strong enough to lie the way he must. But it wasn’t only his career on the line, he reminded himself, it would be Starsky’s and Dobey’s as well. He knew he could be an excellent actor when he needed to be, but his upcoming performance was going to be the most important of his life. It needed to be Oscar worthy, at the very least, and he just didn’t know if he was up to it.
He resisted the need to sleep. It was only around three in the afternoon, but he was so desperately tired, he was afraid that once he did close his eyes, he would sleep the clock around twice. He opened his eyes for fear of giving in and saw that somewhere along the line, Starsky had taken a wrong turn. Painfully, he straightened in his seat, recognizing where he was.
“Lose your sense of direction somewhere?” he asked.
Starsky shook his head, his eyes on the road despite the nearly total lack of fellow travelers. “Takin’ you home,” he said in a tone that invited Hutch to take the high road and not argue.
It was damned tempting, Hutch had to admit, to just let Starsky continue to look after him, to allow the broad shoulders to continue to bear the weight of the mess he himself had made. He just hadn’t been able to resist playing the white knight to Jeanie’s damsel in distress.
“Dobey plans on handling Forest himself,” Starsky added. “I’m gonna go in and take care of the paperwork, then it’s the captain’s show. We’ve been after that bastard for a long time.”
“And he’s afraid I’ll screw up? Afraid I’ll start begging Forest for a fix?” Hutch protested bitterly, his confidence in himself in tatters and waving in the gale of his own imagination.
“‘Cause that slimy son of a bitch had the gall to kidnap a cop,” Starsky growled and Hutch, for a moment, was able to think outside his own narrow fears. “‘Cause he beat on a cop. ‘Cause if that cop had been anybody but you, he’d have killed a cop. Dobey’ll do his best to make sure that Forest, and any other creep like him, knows just what it costs to go after one of his boys.”
Hutch thought he ought to offer another protest, but the simple truth of the matter was, he just didn’t have the energy. He was maybe five minutes from home, and home suddenly seemed like the only safe place in the universe.
“I’m takin’ you home, Hutch,” Starsky repeated, as if he had picked the thought directly out of Hutch’s brain. “‘Cause that’s where ya need to be right now.”
Hutch gave up even trying to think of any more arguments, just tilted his head back, closed his eyes, and let the load he carried slip back onto Starsky’s willing shoulders. He knew his partner would carry it for him, and gladly, but, more importantly, he also knew that Starsky would give it back to him when he once again had the strength to carry it.
Starsky opened the car door for him when they arrived at the cottage, but made no attempt to help Hutch get out or negotiate the path to his own front door. Hutch was grateful for the space, for the acknowledgement of what he could still do for himself, however little that might be.
After he had opened the door, Hutch stood for a moment, fingering the key he had retrieved from the lintel, feeling the bit of metal growing warm as it leeched the heat from his hand. “How did they get in?” he asked the question that, until that very moment, hadn’t even occurred to him.
Starsky encouraged him to step out of the way so he could close the door, then picked the key out of his fingers and laid it on the table beside the door. “Broke a window in the back,” he explained as casually as if this was some minor B&E they were investigating. “I asked Huggy to have one of his five-thousand cousins fix it yesterday.”
Yesterday, Hutch thought, while he had still been shaking and puking and ready to sell his soul or his ass for a fix. He wondered if he had, during the forty-eight hours that Starsky had been both his nurse and his jailer, offered his friend sex for heroin. Mercifully, his memory of those tortured hours was one huge blur of pain and the litany of the verbal lifeline Starsky had thrown him. He didn’t remember the words Starsky had spoken, just that he had spoken, the steady sound of the deep voice holding him close to the shore of sanity, while the current of need had tried to tear him away.
“You wanna go straight to bed, or you want me to get you something to eat first?” Starsky asked, shrugging off his jacket and tossing it onto the couch as he passed.
Hutch’s belly cramped at the mere mention of food, and it seemed like so many years since he had felt it, that it took a moment to recognize the pain was his hungry, empty stomach’s plea for food.
“Hungry,” he admitted, and saw his own surprise mirrored on Starsky’s face.
“Best news I’ve heard all week,” Starsky declared. “Siddown and I’ll see what I can rustle up.”
Obediently, Hutch sank down on the couch, only a little fearful, since they were at his place, of just what Starsky might deem acceptable fare for his still delicate stomach. He listened to the rummaging and clanking in the kitchen, but long before Starsky appeared, Hutch could tell by the smells that his friend had opted for simple and gentle. Unless his nose was way wrong, Starsky was about to present him with chicken noodle soup and toast. When the tray with cup and plate was plunked down onto the table in front of him, Hutch smiled at how almost accurate he had been. Chicken with stars in place of chicken noodle. He lifted the cup immediately.
“Careful. Hot,” Starsky warned as he sat down beside him.
Hutch heeded the caution, sipping carefully, wincing as the heat and salt found the cuts on the inside of his mouth. The soup felt like heaven going down, however, and he ignored the pain in favor of the nourishment. It was only one small ache, in any case, among the multitude of much larger pains clamoring for his attention.
Starsky lifted the plate of toast and offered it. “This, too,” he encouraged. “Your teeth’ll be forgetting what they’re for.”
Hutch accepted a buttery slice. “I thought you were going to the station.”
“I will. No hurry,” Starsky said, sliding the plate back onto the table. “It’ll take a while to book Forest, and you know first thing he’ll be doing is screaming for his lawyer.”
“But you have to make out the arrest report,” Hutch insisted, suspicion that he prayed was unworthy growing in his still shocky brain. How long, he wondered, would it take for his basically honest friend to run out of smokescreen and be forced to admit the truth?
“So let the fucker cool his heels in the holding cells until I get there,” Starsky growled.
“I’m not buying it, Starsky,” Hutch said, too tired and too battered to play games of ‘let’s pretend we both don’t know what’s going on.’ “I know why you’re hanging around. What? Did you call Huggy? Ask him to come nursemaid the junkie?” he accused, the rage at what had been done to him coming to a sudden and startling boil inside him, each tiny bubble eroding more of his self-worth as it surfaced. Starsky attempted to interrupt, but Hutch rode right over him. “I know what you think, Starsky. You think five minutes alone and I’ll be running out the door, looking for the closest pusher. Looking to score.”
Despite the pain and weakness, Hutch thrust to his feet, feeling almost as agitated as he had while the craving had ridden his back in that little room that Huggy called home. He wanted to run, but there was nowhere to run from the self-doubt and fear that lived within his own skin. Instead, he paced, muttering angrily to himself. “Don’t have the works, of course, so I’ll have to score that, too. Don’t know if I have enough money, and the banks are closed by now.”
He felt Starsky’s hand brush his back and spun around to face his friend, who had also jumped to his feet and looked ready to try to restrain a rampaging rhino. Flashback struck, and Hutch was once again a prisoner in that stuffy, ugly room with his best friend guarding the door. “Let me out!” he demanded as he had demanded then.
This time, Starsky calmly stepped aside and waved a casual hand toward the door. “All yours, babe.”
Hutch charged for freedom, stopping only a step short of the door. He stood there with his head down, trembling all over, trying to force reason to rescue him from his own demons. After a few minutes, he felt Starsky’s hand on his arm. This time he allowed the touch, followed where he was led back to the couch and gratefully sank down onto the cushions.
Starsky secured a grip on his other arm before he spoke. Where a moment before the strength securing him would have been the terrifying bonds of his own fear, now they were an anchor holding him in the safe, calm harbor of his friend’s caring concern.
“The last thing I’m worried about is you hitting the streets lookin’ to score,” Starsky reassured him in the softest, most gentle tone Hutch had ever heard him use. “Mr. My-body-is-a-temple—”
“Temple’s desecrated,” Hutch interrupted, nearly sobbing the words, mourning for the loss of his innocence. He would never ever be able to look at the lost souls they so often dealt with the same way again, never hold himself aloof from the suffering of a hype frantic to sell his soul for the money to feed his craving. Never again would he be able to claim ignorance of the demons that drove these desperate souls. Whether it would make him a better man, a better cop, only time would tell. Right now, Hutch only knew that he feared it would destroy him.
“That’s what I’m worried about, partner. Who knows you better than me?” Starsky asked rhetorically. ”Nobody, that’s who. Not even you. You think I don’t know what’s goin’ on in that head of yours? Think I don’t know you’re twistin’ it all around until it’s all your own fault?”
The grip on his arms tightened, and Starsky shook him a little, not enough to hurt him, just enough to punctuate his words.
“You remember Jane Dickinson?” Starsky demanded.
The question forced Hutch to retreat from the horrors that peopled his mind and focus. He searched for the name in the untidy jumble exhaustion and fear had made of his thoughts. “Last month,” he said slowly. “She was raped.”
“Yeah. Remember how she kept sayin’ it was all her fault, and we kept tryin’ to tell her it wasn’t?” Starsky pleaded earnestly. “Same thing, babe. If your temple’s been desecrated, then it’s Forest who’s guilty of the sin, Hutch. Not you. Never you.”
Hutch wanted to believe his partner, was desperate to take Starsky’s words into himself and make them the only truth he ever needed to know.
“Yeah, Hutch, I’m worried about leavin’ you alone,” Starsky admitted, still earnest, still pleading as if his own life depended upon his glib tongue. “Worried the minute I’m outta sight, you’ll be out there runnin’ five miles. Provin’ to me and Forest and the world, but mostly to yourself, that you’re still the same man you were before Forest got his slimy hands on you.”
Starsky’s grip changed then, moving from Hutch’s arms and Hutch felt them settle, feather light, around the cuts and bruises that marred his face.
“Forest’ll never believe it, baby blue, and the world doesn’t really give a fuck. That just leaves me and thee, as always, Hutch. And me, I ain’t got no doubts about thee.”
That was when Hutch knew he was going to be all right. It might take a while for the battered core of his confidence to mend, but that didn’t matter at all because Starsky had more than enough confidence in him for the both of them. If it took a lifetime for him to completely banish the specter of need Forest had forced upon him, Starsky would be there to support him when he faltered, kick his ass when he needed it, and celebrate his eventual and inevitable success.
Gently, Hutch pulled free of Starsky’s embrace. “Go nail that lousy creep to the wall for me, babe.”
~*~*~
Starsky went straight to Metro division where, for once in his career, he typed up an arrest report in triplicate without bitching once. When he was sure he had dotted every ‘i’ and crossed every ‘t,’ he carried the report into Dobey’s office and laid it before his superior, who looked almost as tired as he felt.
Dobey waved him to a seat, scanned the report, and then rubbed both hands over his puffy face. “How’s Hutch?” he asked.
“He’ll make it,” Starsky replied simply, and then stood up under Dobey’s probing gaze.
When it seemed that Dobey had found what he was looking for in Starsky’s face, the captain nodded once and slipped the report into a folder.
“You still planning on handling this yourself?” Starsky asked, ready to apply whatever pressure or persuasion necessary to make Dobey see things his way.
“Damned right,” Dobey growled. “The Chief tried to warn me off since it was one of my men. I just reminded him that Hutch is one of our men.” Dobey looked away and then with a visible effort forced himself to meet Starsky’s eyes. “You know I want to nail Forest’s hide to the wall….”
Starsky didn’t need to hear the ‘but’ at the end of that sentence, nor even be as familiar with his superior’s body language as he had become over the years, to know he didn’t want to hear the rest. Nevertheless, he prompted Dobey. “But?”
“You know as well as I do how this is going to go down. Forest has already refused to say a word until his lawyer gets here,” Dobey said.
Starsky laughed hollowly. “What do you call ninety-nine lawyers at the bottom of the ocean? A good start,” he joked with the gallows humor he knew sometimes drove Dobey crazy.
But the captain was nodding his dark head in agreement this evening. “He’ll plea bargain,” he told Starsky. “Threaten to reveal Hutch’s addiction. Maybe even say Hutch was hooked long ago and on the take.”
Starsky forced himself not to lash out at Dobey for speaking the truth that Starsky had already divined for himself. He was saving his fury for Forest, tamping it down inside himself where it could grow cold and lend an edge of clarity to the plans he knew he must make and execute to protect Hutch. Whatever it cost Starsky personally, Hutch had to be protected.
“So you’ll have to deal,” Starsky replied calmly, smiling slightly when he saw how surprised Dobey was by his lack of passionate protest. “How far are you planning on letting his scumball lawyer whittle you down?”
“With his stooges dead, and the girl flying off just as far and as fast as she can since there is nothing we can hold her on, the only witness is Hutch. If the DA puts him on the stand, Hutch’ll have to answer whatever questions the defense asks,” Dobey reminded him.
“That’ll bring it down to Hutch’s word against Forest’s,” Starsky growled in disgust. Normally, any decent jury would likely choose to believe an officer of the law with an unblemished reputation and enough commendations to make any mother proud. But if Hutch had to testify, it wouldn’t be long before he would have to admit his addiction, have to show the twelve good and true citizens of the jury the track marks that branded him a junkie. It was a lousy fucked up system, but it was the only one they had. Starsky didn’t intend to let it hurt Hutch, even if it meant dealing with Forest himself.
“With a dozen possible charges against his client, I’m assuming Forest’s lawyer will advise him to cop a plea to the kidnapping and maybe the aggravated assault, in exchange for the DA dropping the attempted murder and the other lesser charges,” Dobey speculated. “I’ve already talked to Paquette and told him we won’t settle for less.”
“So maybe ten to fifteen, parole in seven, maybe eight, and even at that, with his money, it’ll be the same as if he was shacked up at the Hilton,” Starsky spat. He was well past disgust at this point. It wasn’t the first time he had run flat out into the brick wall of the reality of the justice system; it was just the most bitter. He took both disgust and bitterness and tamped them down into the core of his fury; let their cooling mixture harden his resolve.
Dobey spread his hands in helpless defeat. “We both know I can do some damage control during the interrogation itself, especially if the DA has already ironed out a deal with Forest’s lawyer, but without physical evidence and with no witnesses we’re willing to put on the stand….”
“Even if you get him to talk the way you want him to during the interrogation, there’s no guarantee that Forest will keep his mouth shut after the deal is signed, sealed, and delivered. He doesn’t even have to open his mouth in court, a whisper in the right ear, even in prison, could have IA breathin’ down Hutch’s neck until he retires,” Starsky concluded. It needed to be said, even though he could see that Dobey didn’t want to hear it any more than he wanted to say it.
“Goddamnit,” Dobey let loose with an uncharacteristic blasphemy, and brought his meaty hand down on his desk with all the force of his solid body behind it.
“Easy, Captain. No sense bustin’ up the furniture over scum like Forest,” Starsky advised mildly. He had himself well in hand now. In fact, he had never been quite so calm in all his life. He climbed to his feet. “‘Night, Captain,” he said with the same eerie calm that must be scaring the hell out of Dobey.
Dobey let him get as far as the door before he stopped him. “Starsky?”
Starsky didn’t turn around, just waited with his hand on the knob for Dobey to make his decision. Two years ago, maybe even a year ago, Dobey would have been demanding explanations and bellowing orders. It was a measure of the success of Starsky and Hutch’s partnership and the gradual maturing of their relationship with their superior that, in the end, Dobey had only one question for him.
“Do I want to know?” he asked quietly.
“Better for you if you don’t,” Starsky replied. He kept his voice just as soft as Dobey’s, ensuring that, though only flimsy wood and frosted glass separated him from his fellow officers in the squadroom, no other ears would bear witness to the mutual, if silent, compromise of their high ideals they were both willing to make for one man’s sake.
When the silence was broken only by one of Dobey’s gusty sighs, Starsky took that as dismissal and quietly left the office to do what needed to be done.
~*~*~
Every cop who ever worked a beat had access to the kind of men to whom human life was possibly the least valuable of commodities that money could buy. Men who, for the right price, would snuff out an unwanted life without ever suffering a trace of remorse. And, although it was usually their goal to cage or eliminate such killers for hire, there had been more than one case where the frustrated upholders of the law had employed such men instead.
Starsky wondered if that was exactly what Dobey expected him to do. To slip into the dark underbelly of the city and commission the murder of Benjamin Forest before he ever had a chance to open his mouth. Starsky, however, had weighed the risks of such an option, and found them too high. For now. Forest had likely already told his lawyer the story, and the lawyer was sure to spill the beans should Forest turn up dead while still in police custody.
No. What Starsky planned was somewhat subtler and depended upon obtaining the cooperation of at least three other parties. He wasn’t ruling out eliminating Forest at some point should it become necessary to protect Hutch, but Starsky knew it would be safer to do so after he was already safely tucked away in prison. With his fees already paid, his shyster lawyer was less likely to care by then what happened to Ben Forest. He might not even remember the name.
It was such logic that had Starsky on the road now, heading for Memorial Hospital. The first thing he had to ensure was that if the shit ever did hit IA’s headhunting fan, he would have irrefutable evidence to blow it right back at them.
Starsky parked in visitor parking and entered the hospital through the emergency entrance. He went straight to the check-in desk and offered the nurse on duty his most charming smile. He had been assured by more than one woman that he had drop dead, gorgeous eyes, and he didn’t hesitate to use them to his advantage now.
“Can I help you?” the blushing woman asked in far friendlier tones than Starsky suspected she normally offered to the sick and injured.
Starsky held out his badge. “My name is Dave Starsky. I’m a detective with the Bay City Police Department.” He flipped the folder closed. “I was wondering if it might be possible to see Dr. Franklin if he’s on duty. And if he’s not too busy, of course,” he added sweetly, giving her his ‘if only I was good enough for you,’ puppy dog eyes. It worked like a charm in singles bars, so why not under the ugly florescent glare of an emergency waiting room?
“I’m…I’m sure he could spare you a few minutes,” the charge nurse reassured him. “If you’ll just sit over there…” She pointed to a single remaining seat in a row already filled with the walking wounded, despite the presence of the empty row that ran at right angles to it. It didn’t escape Starsky’s notice, however, that the seat she designated was within her line of sight. “…and I’ll see if I can locate him for you.”
Starsky hid his smirk beneath another high voltage smile, turned his back and sauntered to the empty chair. Now he knew how a hooker felt, deliberately using his or her body to entice a stranger to hand over what he or she wanted.
But the results were worth it. The nurse picked up the telephone and, without taking her eyes off Starsky, made a series of calls that resulted, less than five minutes later, in Dr. Franklin’s appearance. Starsky recognized the homely features immediately. He wasn’t ever likely to forget the face of the man who had saved his life when his appendix burst, and, as luck would have it, Franklin had also been on call when both he and Hutch had come in for various other work related injuries since.
Starsky could see that Franklin recognized him as well, and they met in the middle of the waiting room and shook hands.
“Detective Starsky,” Franklin greeted him with the familiarity of multiple meetings. “You don’t look like you’re in need of my services. What can I do for you tonight?”
“I need about fifteen minutes of your time and a completely private place,” Starsky said. He knew he sounded as if he was being deliberately mysterious, but he had no intention of mentioning even so much as a word of his purpose in this room full of curious ears.
Franklin seemed to debate privately, for a moment, the ethics of seeing an obviously healthy man when there were suffering patients who needed him. Starsky could only assume there was something about his manner tonight that piqued the doctor’s curiosity.
“I have an office,” Franklin agreed. “This way.”
The man had obviously been suffering delusions of grandeur when he claimed to have an office, Starsky thought, as Franklin lead him along the corridor, opened the door and stood back to let him enter first. It was more like a broom closet, crowded with cast off furniture even older than the usual relics to be found in the waiting room. Starsky wouldn’t have cared if it had been a toilet, as long as it had a door he could close behind them.
When Franklin made a move to clear a lone visitor’s chair piled high with books, Starsky waved him away. “Don’t bother.”
Franklin looked at his watch as he settled into the chair behind his cluttered desk. From the expression on his face, Starsky surmised he was glad for the chance to get off his feet, and wondered how much that had had to do with Franklin’s decision to hear him out.
“You said fifteen minutes,” the doctor prompted.
Starsky knew if he wanted this man’s cooperation, he was going to have to be up front and completely honest with him. Still, it was hard, trusting anyone this much with Hutch’s future. Nevertheless, he spent seven precious minutes giving Franklin the condensed version of the hell he and Hutch had lived for the past five days. It proved to be cathartic, and by the time he was done, the calm that Starsky had been forcing upon himself had become a reality.
“What is it you want from me?” Franklin asked, wary and yet seeming openly sympathetic to Hutch’s plight.
“For you to put your ass on the line,” Starsky admitted frankly.
“I see,” Franklin murmured.
Starsky watched a second internal debate wage itself across the doctor’s face.
“How?” Franklin finally asked.
A small measure of Starsky’s tension eased out of him then and he let himself lean against the edge of the desk and crossed his arms over his chest. “I want to bring Hutch in here tomorrow morning, or whenever you go on shift. I want you to examine him and write down every single scratch and bruise and how you think they were most likely inflicted. I want everything that bastard did to Hutch in your report.” Starsky paused, not for dramatic effect, but to emphasize the importance of this last stipulation. “Except….”
“Except the track marks,” Franklin finished for him.
“Except the track marks,” Starsky agreed. Franklin was certainly living up to Starsky’s expectations for intelligence, but he still couldn’t tell whether the doctor was willing to go along with him. He forced himself to be patient.
“That won’t really refute any claims this Forest might make. You’d need a clear blood sample at the very least,” Franklin pointed out.
This, Starsky knew, was where he would find out whether his plan was going to sink or swim. Boldly, he stuck out his arm. “Me and Hutch have the same blood type, Doc,” he said calmly.
Starsky saw rejection in the doctor’s face and tried not to let it discourage him. Starsky had accepted a long time ago that there was nothing in the world he wasn’t willing to risk for Hutch’s sake, but reminded himself that Franklin had no such prior commitment. There was only the fragile link to a life he had once saved, coupled with a certain undertone that Starsky had sensed that for Franklin, medicine wasn’t so much a career as it was a vocation.
It took Franklin almost all of the five remaining minutes to make up his mind, during which Starsky cursed the profession that had given him a poker face better than his own. Starsky suspected that Franklin had developed it over the years of being the bearer of bad news. It had certainly been one of the first talents Starsky had honed to perfection once he had hit the streets.
“I’ll do it,” Franklin finally agreed.
Starsky wasn’t sure whether his surprise or his relief was greater. Whatever, he wasn’t about to look a gift horse in the mouth. “What time should I have him here?” he asked.
“I go on at three. The only way I can guarantee I’ll be available to see him when you arrive is if I come in early, say two o’clock, and you be here then. Otherwise, if we’re swamped, you’d have to wait.”
“We’ll be here,” Starsky assured him. He pushed away from the desk and held out his hand.
“Don’t you want to know why I agreed?” Franklin asked curiously as they shook hands.
Starsky took his hand back and stuffed both of them into his jacket pockets, hunching his shoulders a little. “If I was guessing, I’d say it’s ’cause you’ve seen far too many of Ben Forest’s customers come through here. Shattered lives and broken bodies.” He met the doctor’s tired eyes. “But honestly, doc, I don’t care. All I care about is my partner.”
“Then I would say your partner must be an exceptional man to inspire such devotion,” Frank concluded.
“He is,” Starsky replied simply.
Climbing back into the Torino a few minutes later, Starsky didn’t try to fool himself that the hardest part of this phase of his plan was over. The worst was yet to come—he still had to convince Hutch.
~*~*~
Starsky had understood very early on in his friendship with Hutch that, in any future partnership they might share, it was going to be up to him to maintain the social interaction with their fellow officers that could prove vital to both their success and their safety. It wasn’t that Hutch was anti-social exactly, more that, besides Starsky, he just didn’t seem to need anyone else. Starsky, on the other hand, found the shallow give and take of casual social interaction as natural as breathing. For him, it was the far greater intimacy he shared with Hutch so easily that came hard with anyone else.
The long and the short of it was that, now, when he needed the shared history he had begun to build in the Academy and carried right through his career, it was there at his fingertips. He hardly had to give it much thought to know where he would find Bernie Arbor, at seven o’clock on a Friday night. He would be at Monahan’s, the nearby bar owned by a retired cop and patronized by uniform and plainclothes officers alike.
Starsky spotted his quarry as soon as he walked in, one officer in a group of somewhat rowdy colleagues. Starsky didn’t approach the other men, simply chose an empty booth at the back, ordered a beer and watched Bernie silently. It didn’t take long for the experienced street cop to sense the eyes upon him and start looking around for the source of the tingles that had to be running up the back of his neck. Starsky waited until their eyes met and then nodded decisively toward the empty bench across from him.
“Dave,” Arbor acknowledged as he slid onto the bench and set his half-empty glass on the table.
“Bernie,” Starsky returned the greeting through lips that moved hardly at all, his eyes scanning the other faces in the crowded bar.
“How’s your partner?” Arbor asked with what appeared to be genuine concern.
“He’ll make it,” Starsky gave the same answer he had given Dobey. “Can I buy you a beer?”
The older man lifted his half-full glass. “I’ll have to take a rain check,” he declined. “Have to get home as soon as I finish this.” He took a sip. “It’s been a while since you’ve showed your face around here.”
And that, Starsky knew, was nothing but the truth. He had been letting his social responsibilities slide in favor of spending more and more time with Hutch. He was going to have to fix that. Maybe he would join the bowling team. He could, reluctantly, give up one evening to remain one of the boys. Hutch was a pretty fair bowler himself. If Starsky presented it right, maybe he could even talk his partner into joining, too. But that was for later. Now, he was just damned glad that his connection with Bernie Arbor had been cemented long ago over pitchers of shared brew and mutual bitching sessions while he was still in uniform.
“I looked up his record,” Arbor revealed. “Hutchinson’s, I mean. Good cop.”
Starsky gave him the benefit of his most mean and moody glare. “The best,” he amended shortly.
Arbor accepted the correction with a shrug of his shoulders and took another sip from his glass. “I haven’t said a word about what I saw in the alley,” he offered.
Starsky tried to force himself to relax, but gave it up as useless. The tension that was holding him together now wasn’t going to dissipate completely until he was sure he had done everything in his power to protect Hutch’s future. He leaned forward, placing both hands on the table, trying to keep the aggression at bay, but knowing he had only been partially successful when he saw the older man instinctively begin to shrink away from him.
“That’s what I wanted to talk to you about,” he said, deliberately keeping his voice low despite the wall of multiple conversations that surrounded them. The tone had the desired result when Arbor leaned forward across the table.
“If you checked Hutch’s record, then you know how important this is, Bernie. You can’t tell anyone what you saw in that alley. Not your partner. Not your wife. Not even God. Just in case some IA puke in a fancy suit, who never has and never will know what it means to put your ass on the line, catches even a whisper.”
“Grapevine says Forest was going to kill him,” Arbor said, and Starsky knew he was looking for confirmation, for the reason an honest cop needed to justify any sort of dishonesty to himself.
Starsky couldn’t completely suppress the shudder that claimed his body at the reminder of how close he had come to losing his partner. He brought his hands together on the table’s scarred and pitted surface as if the tight interlacing of his fingers around empty air could help him hold onto the life that was so precious to him that losing it was absolutely unthinkable.
“That’s right,” he finally confirmed when he could trust himself not to unleash his renewed fury on the man across from him. “And you saw the shape he was in. Hutch got away on his own. Nobody rescued him. He had the balls to save himself,” Starsky reminded the older cop, then gave him a minute or two to let that fact sink in before continuing. “But, if the whole story ever gets out, Forest might as well have killed him, and you know it. Then, even sitting on his fat ass in a jail cell, Forest will have the last laugh on the whole fucking BCPD.”
“Nobody’ll be hearing it from me,” Arbor said it with the same conviction that Starsky was willing to bet the older cop had sworn to protect and serve when he had first donned the uniform.
Starsky got up, leaving his untouched and rapidly flattening beer on the table. “I owe you one.”
“We hang together,” Arbor dismissed any real or imagined obligation.
Starsky smiled tightly. “Ain’t it the truth.” He rapped the table with his knuckles. “See you around,” he said and walked away. He had only one more mission to accomplish tonight, then he could be where he most wanted to be—with Hutch.
~*~*~
Starsky made sure he caught Diane’s eye as he stood at the bottom of the stairs leading up to the room where Hutch had suffered the tortures of the damned. He tilted his chin upward, received an understanding nod, and climbed the stairs. He paused at the door, bracing himself to enter the place he wished he had never known, then pushed open the door. He was relieved to see that Huggy had already had the room put to rights, not a trace of the ordeal the three of them had suffered together within its four walls remained to torment him. He didn’t need reminders; the memories were indelibly etched upon the very fibers of his brain.
Fortunately, it took only a few moments for Huggy to arrive, and Starsky was able to chase the horrific images back into the darker corners of his mind where, he was sure, they would continue to haunt his dreams for a very long time.
“How’s Hutch?” Huggy asked before the door was even firmly closed behind him.
With Huggy, who he trusted almost as much as he trusted Hutch, Starsky was willing to be a little more honest. “Won’t admit it, but I can tell he’s still pretty punchy. I’m gonna try and get him to the doc tomorrow.”
Huggy’s face creased with doubt. “Isn’t that a little risky?”
“Already had a talk with the man. He isn’t going to see anything he shouldn’t, and…” Starsky tapped the inside of his elbow. “…neither will the lab.”
The doubt in Huggy’s face became more pronounced. “I don’t want you to misunderstand me here, and I sure as hell don’t want you takin’ a swing at me, but have you stopped long enough to think this through? I mean, man, if that ever comes out, you’ll be lookin’ to go into partnership with me in this dump.”
Although Starsky appreciated the sentiment that caused Huggy to question his actions, he couldn’t help but bristle. “Hutch is worth it,” he growled.
Huggy threw up his hands as if to ward off an attack. “I never said he wasn’t, Starsky. All I’m sayin’ is it ain’t like you to play fast and loose with the letter of the law like this.”
Starsky knew his chin must be hanging down nearly to his chest, but he was so truly surprised that Huggy, of all people, would say something like that to him, that he couldn’t seem to bring it back up where it belonged.
“Okay. I know you’ve become a regular one-eyed Jack turnin’ a blind eye to some of my less… upstanding business dealings, but that ain’t the same thing at all. Anybody finds out you went a little easy on me in exchange for the word on the street…” Huggy shrugged his skinny shoulders. “…none of your brother officers are gonna bat an eye. But this….”
“My brother officers understand you don’t mess with a man’s partner, Huggy,” Starsky said even though he didn’t believe it himself. He could see that Huggy wasn’t exactly sold on the notion either. “Doesn’t matter. Nobody is hanging Hutch out to dry if I can stop ’em.” He could still see the doubt in his old friend’s face and tried one last time to make him understand. “If this was a mess Hutch had got himself into. I mean, if he’d gotten hooked because he suddenly developed terminal stupidity and started shooting up, I might be willing to let him face the consequences. But he didn’t ask for what Forest did to him. Cutting him loose to sink or swim would be like blamin’ the victim because some sick, sadistic son of a bitch raped her.”
For a second time, Huggy raised his hands as if to defend himself from Starsky’s verbal attack. “Just wanted to be sure you knew what you were doin’. What’re friends for, anyway?”
Starsky closed his eyes and took a deep, deep breath, holding it until he saw black specks, and then letting it out very slowly. It was nearly nine o’clock, and Starsky had been running on snatched naps, coffee, and sheer adrenaline for five days. He knew he was wound tight enough to snap any moment. He opened his eyes when he felt Huggy’s fingers digging into his shoulder.
“You don’t look any better than you did this morning, and I told you then you were enough to scare any self-respecting bear,” Huggy reminded him. “So if you got words for me, my man, why don’t you just give ’em to me and go home and cop a few well earned zees.”
During the course of their conversation, Starsky had begun to rethink the request he had intended to make of Huggy. It hadn’t escaped his notice that, over the past year, his friend had been moving more and more toward a more lawful, if still flamboyant, lifestyle.
“And if that look on your face is there because of my sincere concern that you have your eyes wide open, rest assured that this brother has never been afflicted with myopia.”
“If you don’t lay off the Reader’s Digest, Huggy, pretty soon I’m gonna hafta have Hutch interpret for me,” Starsky quipped to give himself just a moment to regroup and to put them back on their usual footing with each other.
“Okay, Huggy, down and dirty,” Starsky said. “What I need from you is to use any and every contact you can reach to get to Forest, however well protected he might be in his cell right now, and make it very clear to him that if he even thinks about trying to drag Hutch down into the gutter with him, there won’t be a rock anywhere big enough for him to crawl under that’s gonna protect him from me.”
Huggy whistled softly and looked away.
“If you can’t do it, all you gotta do is say so, Hug. I know what you been tryin’ to do with your life the past year or so and if you don’t want to…” Starsky trailed off as Huggy raised a hand for silence and pinned him with a glare.
“You ain’t the only one who don’t always count the cost when a friend’s in need,” Huggy reminded him. “I know a heavy dude or two who should be able to get your point across. I assume that Forest is lookin’ to do some time?”
Starsky nodded, aware that Huggy knew the facts of the punishment not necessarily fitting the crime as well as he did.
“And we all know that there is hard time and there is easy time,” Huggy said. “And that anything at all can happen when a whole bunch of bad-assed dudes are all caged up together.”
“Exactly,” Starsky agreed, and for the first time since they had arrested Forest, he allowed himself to feel how truly exhausted he was. If he didn’t get out to Hutch’s soon, he would fall asleep behind the wheel and run the Torino right off one of those canyon roads.
“You need to get some serious sleep, my man,” Huggy said. “You just leave your little problem in the Bear’s capable hands. I’ll make sure Mr. Benjamin Forest has been introduced to the facts of life by mornin’.”
“I owe you one, Hug,” Starsky said as they moved toward the door.
“You owe me a hundred by now, but who’s counting. Now get outta here and be sure you give tall, blond and beautiful my regards.”
Feeling as if the weight he had been carrying around since Hutch’s disappearance had been halved, Starsky followed his friend out of the room that, someday, given enough time and distance, might just become an ugly, spartan space once more.
~*~*~
Hutch nearly jumped out of his freshly showered skin when he heard the key turn in his lock and his door opened. His Magnum, that hadn’t been more than a foot away from his hand since Starsky had left him alone, was pointed directly at his friend’s chest when Starsky stepped across the threshold. Trembling, blessing the trained reflexes that had stopped his fear from squeezing the trigger, he thumbed on the safety and let the weapon drop into his lap.
“Oh, Christ, babe. I’m sorry. I thought you’d be sleeping. I was just gonna put this…” Starsky indicated the takeout bag he carried in his left hand, “…in the fridge for ya and make sure you were okay.”
Hutch nodded mutely, fearing if he tried to speak, his voice would shake just as hard as the rest of him. Even with a solid six hours of sleep and a long, soothing shower to his credit, his nerves were still strung tight. As tight as Starsky’s must be, he acknowledged, as he began to calm down and really looked at his friend. Whatever Starsky had been doing while Hutch had been seeking forgetfulness in sleep, and pain relief in the stinging spray, had not been designed to repair any of the wear and tear Starsky had suffered on his account.
“I’m sorry,” Starsky repeated while approaching the couch where Hutch sat as if he expected Hutch to either bolt or belt him one.
“Sit down before you fall down. You look like shit,” Hutch commanded, noting that, as he sagged onto the cushion beside him, it almost looked like Starsky’s knees gave out. Feeling a little less shaky, he picked up his gun from his lap and laid it on the end table beside him.
“Nice thing to say to a guy who went miles out of his way just to find you something you might eat without bitching,” Starsky said, shoving the brown bag toward him. “Don’t ask me what it is. I just went to the place on Brewster. The Rarefied Carrot, or whatever it’s called, and told ’em to give me somethin’…” Starsky’s face creased up as if he had tasted something particularly foul. “…healthy.”
Hutch closed his eyes, hoping his lids would hold back the salt flood suddenly burning his eyes. The little bit of insulting banter had been like a balm to his battered soul, and he couldn’t bear to spoil it with tears that would only embarrass them both. Under normal circumstances, it took a lot to turn on his waterworks. He had learned as a child not to allow such weakness to show. At the moment, however, stripped of most of his defenses and still tired to his bones, he couldn’t seem to help himself.
Starsky, bless him, ignored the lapse. “You look a hell of a lot better. Got some sleep, did you? Geez, Hutch, I thought you were gonna get rid of that ratty robe years ago.”
Hutch pulled the edges of his orange terry eyesore closer together over his chest. “It’s comfortable,” he defended his relic.
“You gonna eat that or just sit there holding it?” Starsky asked, referring to the dinner he had brought.
“I’m not real hungry right now,” Hutch demurred. He had managed a plate of eggs after he woke up, but his stomach was still touchy enough that he didn’t want to take the chance of displeasing it now.
“Give it here then,” Starsky took the bag back and jumped to his feet. “Don’t want the seaweed, or whatever it is, going bad.”
Hutch watched as Starsky stowed the bag in the refrigerator and retrieved himself a root beer, noting the frenetic energy, even greater than what usually crackled around his friend, in every frantic movement. Starsky must be holding himself together on sheer nerves alone.
“If you’re determined to fall on your face,” he complained, “would you please go home and do it. I don’t want blood all over my carpet.”
Starsky came and slumped back down beside him, bringing the bottle to his lips and tilting back his head, literally pouring the sweet soda down his throat as fast as he could swallow.
“You looking for a sugar high at this time of night?” Hutch asked, tempted to snatch the bottle away before Starsky made himself sick.
“Gonna need it to drive home,” Starsky admitted. He leaned his head back and closed his eyes.
For a second time in less than five minutes, Hutch found himself swallowing tears as he took in the lines of exhaustion on the familiar face. Gently, he removed the bottle from Starsky’s hand and started to get up.
“I’m going to get you a pillow and a blanket. You’re too…” Hutch began, but Starsky’s hand on his sank him back to the cushions.
“Gotta talk to you before I crash and burn,” Starsky insisted, and Hutch, judging just by the look on his face, braced himself for bad news.
“Forest?” he whispered.
Starsky shrugged. “He’s looking at ten-to-fifteen at least, but Dobey’s worried he’ll open his big mouth just for spite.”
Hutch felt the trembling that had subsided beneath Starsky’s presence and their usual banter repossess its claim on his body.
“Dobey’s gonna make it clear to the bastard that any deal he hopes to make will depend on him keeping his trap shut, and get as much on record as he can. Insist on having a transcript of the interview included in the trial records.” Starsky leaned forward, the earnestness of his expression banishing some of the unfamiliar lines fatigue had placed on his face. “But I figured we needed a back-up plan or two or three in place just in case. Erring on the side of covering our butts, so to speak.”
“My butt,” Hutch corrected bitterly.
“Ours,” Starsky insisted.
It took Hutch a minute to accept, but he knew that if their positions were reversed, they would be having the exact same conversation.
“Okay, ours,” he conceded. “So what’s the plan?”
“First thing is I wanna take you to see Dr. Franklin at Memorial tomorrow,” Starsky admitted.
Hutch was so shocked, his body instinctively tried to shrink back into the cushions. “Are you out of your mind?” He yanked at the sleeve of his robe, baring the ugly puncture wounds that, looking exactly like the testament to sin that they were, marched up his arm. “You think the man’s gone blind?”
“No,” Starsky said. “But I already talked to him, and he’s agreed to develop a case of convenient blindness for as long as it takes to examine you and give us a detailed report of each and every injury Forest inflicted on you.” His fingers lightly brushed the puncture marks. “Except these.”
“Why? Why?” Hutch stuttered, appalled and outraged and horribly relieved all at the same time by the lies that others were willing to tell for his sake.
“I didn’t ask him, Hutch. And I don’t intend to. It doesn’t matter why he’ll do it, only that he will.” Starsky paused and Hutch could see he had more yet to say, and knew he wasn’t going to like it when Starsky wouldn’t meet his eyes. “And he’s gonna take a sample of my blood for the drug screen.”
Hutch was well beyond appalled now. Even horrified couldn’t begin to describe the emotion that was trying to crowd out every last trace of the selfish little devil that was jabbering in relieved delight in his brain. “My God, Starsk. I can’t let you do that. If anyone ever found out….”
“Then we’ll move to Minnesota and grow corn or whatever it is they grow there,” Starsky insisted.
“Iowa,” Hutch murmured inanely. “They grow corn in Iowa.”
“I don’t care if they plant Cheerios and raise donuts,” Starsky snapped. “You aren’t goin’ down without a fight. Not if I can help it, and I damned well can, whether you like it or not.”
Starsky was shouting and had gotten practically right into Hutch’s face, close enough for Hutch to see that the dark smudges beneath his eyes weren’t really shiners to match the ones he had seen in his own mirror. Hutch lifted a hand and, palm flat against Starsky’s racing heart, pushed his encroaching friend gently back into his own space. Starsky allowed himself to be pushed, but the defiant expression on his face made it clear he wasn’t ashamed of his passion.
“Where the hell’d I be without my partner?” Starsky asked rather lamely.
“Same place I’d be without mine,” Hutch said and knew that, whatever Starsky had planned, and he was pretty sure Starsky hadn’t been completely forthcoming with all the details, he was going to go along with it. If not for his own sake, then for Starsky’s, the man who had rescued him from the hubs of Hell.
It seemed to take Starsky a minute to realize that Hutch had agreed, but when he did, a smile that almost successfully eradicated the ravages of the past five days bloomed on his face and in his eyes. Unfortunately, he spoiled it by then yawning so wide that Hutch was surprised he didn’t have a view of his friend’s last three meals.
“You’re not driving home.” It was an order, and in Starsky’s present mood, Hutch wasn’t entirely sure whether Starsky would accept it meekly, or if his machismo was so thoroughly engaged that he would feel compelled to argue for the sake of argument alone.
Whether it was respect for his own safety or his undiminished love for the Torino that made Starsky accept his demand, Hutch neither knew nor cared to hazard a guess. All that mattered was that he agreed.
“Okay,” Starsky conceded. “Your house, so you take the bathroom first. I’ll make up the couch.”
~*~*~
By the time Starsky exited the bathroom after taking a quick shower, the lights, with the exception of the lamp beside the couch where he would be sleeping, were off, and Hutch was stretched out on the big brass bed. Realizing that when he had been making up the couch he had forgotten to retrieve the extra pillow, he detoured to the bed to get it.
Starsky sat down on the side of the bed when he saw that Hutch was still awake. Unable to resist the need for some kind of contact, he reached out and carefully tucked a stray wisp of soft blond hair back into place.
“Do you think you can sleep?” he asked, his voice automatically dropping to match the near darkness around them. “We can talk a while if you want,” he offered, struggling valiantly to suppress a yawn.
“If you don’t sleep soon, you’ll be a walking zombie in the morning. That’s no way to face Forest. He may be a bastard, but he’s a smart bastard,” Hutch reminded him.
Starsky shrugged his shoulders so tight they felt more like concrete than flesh. “Dobey figures it’ll be afternoon shift before his lawyer lets us get a crack at him anyway. So I’m plannin’ on sleepin’ in.”
“I’m okay, Starsk,” Hutch insisted, but couldn’t seem to prevent himself from seeking contact either, his fingers finding Starsky’s knee and pressing into the bone. “I am glad you’re here,” he admitted.
Starsky covered the restless fingers with his own and squeezed hard. “Where else’d I be?”
“Sleeping in your own bed instead of on my lumpy sofa?” Hutch suggested.
“Hey. You know me. I can sleep on a rock if I have to,” Starsky said. Which was nothing but the gospel truth. He had had more than one opportunity to bless his ability to drop off just about any time and any place he would give his body the chance. His time in the army hadn’t been a total waste.
“So how come you’re still sitting here when a blind man can see you need all the beauty sleep you can get?” Hutch quipped.
“Fine one to talk,” Starsky mumbled as he leaned over his tired friend.
His intentions at the moment he began to move, were the purest. A joking kiss on Hutch’s forehead before he crashed on the couch. Somewhere in the small distance that separated them, however, purity was overtaken by a need so great that Starsky had no hope of resisting. Still, his lips were gentle when they brushed the bruised, swollen tenderness of Hutch’s. But when that abused mouth parted beneath his and Hutch’s big, desperate hands found his shoulders and dragged him close, the hunger burst in Starsky’s brain and rushed through his body. He fell into Hutch’s embrace, his mouth a demanding brand and his hands hungry for any silken bit of tender flesh he could find. Every one of his yearning senses cried out for the taste, touch, smell, and feel of this precious man who had so nearly been stolen from him. Their bodies heaved together in a dance of need that was at once achingly familiar and, at the same time, frighteningly new in the raw emotional need that drove it. In two brains burned out by fear and anguish, the need for mental boxes and rules that defined the distinctly separate parts of their lives blurred and then vanished.
And they might have carried on to the inevitable conclusion if Starsky’s savage kisses hadn’t reopened Hutch’s split lip. The unexpected burst of iron salt upon Starsky’s probing tongue brought back a measure of sanity. Not much, only enough to remind him that he was no ravening animal, in heat and conscienceless of the consequences of his actions. Enough to rip his mouth from Hutch’s and send him scrambling out of Hutch’s clinging arms to crouch like a cornered animal at the edge of the bed.
Starsky pressed the back of his hand against his mouth, his belly threatening rebellion when he saw the smear of bright blood on Hutch’s lips.
“Jesus fucking Christ,” he swore against his own skin.
Hutch’s eyes were as big as silver dollars and he panted as if he had run for days without rest. He half sat up, one big hand reaching out and making Starsky draw back further until he teetered on the very edge of the mattress.
“Please,” Hutch whispered.
Starsky had to force himself to look away then, knowing he couldn’t resist his own need and Hutch’s at the same time. From somewhere so deep inside him he doubted it had ever been tapped before, Starsky found the strength to bundle up the terrible desire that possessed him and force it back into its box.
“No,” he denied himself and the man who needed him so much. “We can’t do this,” he pleaded, forcing himself to meet the eyes that begged him.
Now it was Hutch’s turn to deny Starsky his eyes, to visibly call upon his own inner strength to gather together the frayed strands of his sanity. “No,” he husked, then, stronger, repeated, “No.” It took several more lifetimes, but finally he gave Starsky back his eyes, letting him see the returning control there. “I guess we need another rule.” His tone tried for light and managed something less than forlorn.
“We’ve got a rule, Hutch. We just gotta enforce it,” Starsky replied, fierce and angry and nearly desperate to run. He reached out and almost, but not quite touched the blood that stained Hutch’s lips. “This ain’t even about what I’m feelin’ for you right now,” he insisted. It was the truth, but it was also the bitterest lie he had ever spoken.
Abruptly, Starsky left the bed, not trusting himself to be close, to be anywhere that he could touch, see, or even smell Hutch. “I gotta go,” he growled, grabbed up his jacket as he passed the chair where he had flung it, forgetting completely that he was barefoot until his foot touched the cool, night damp wood of the doorstep. He was running scared and knew it, carrying the demon with him and uncaring of it. As long as he kept this man who had already suffered so much safe from the conscienceless dancer within him, he was willing to pay the cost.
Something, whether a half-heard, inarticulate protest from Hutch or the deep need to shield his friend from harm that had been fully engaged for days now, stopped him from bolting out into the darkness. He hung in the open doorway, both hands braced on the frame as he breathed deeply of the cool night air. The sweet-rotten aroma of the canal invaded his brain, sweeping the last tendrils of the runaway lust back where it belonged.
Completely sane once more, Starsky looked back over his shoulder and saw Hutch curled up on the bed, tucked hard around his own belly as if to shield his vulnerable center. With a soft sigh, Starsky stepped back into the cottage then closed and locked the door. He put out the single lamp on the table as he passed, then climbed onto the bed where he had known such pleasure. Hutch tried to resist him when he manhandled the big bruised body around into his arms, but he persisted, letting his passionless grip convey its own message.
“Shhh,” he soothed, pressing hard on the back of the blond head until Hutch relented and settled against his shoulder. “‘S’okay, Hutch. Dancer’s gone. It’s just me now.”
Continuing to murmur a mindless litany of comfort, Starsky held sleep at bay until he felt the man in his arms grow heavy, then he, too, closed his eyes and plunged headlong into the dreamless dark that beckoned.
~*~*~
Hutch hesitated at the door leading to Memorial’s emergency department. Every instinct screamed at him to run and hide. It was only his faith in Starsky that had carried him this far, but that trust was wavering beneath the burden of shame he carried. He almost resisted when Starsky’s hand settled on his arm, until he realized that rather than trying to guide him through the doors, Starsky was drawing him off to the side. Clearing the entrance for the people waiting behind them.
“If you don’t want to do this, Hutch, I’m not going to make you,” Starsky said softly. “It’s your decision.”
Free choice. Who would have thought that it would take almost a week of having it stolen from him to make Hutch understand how often he took that precious commodity for granted? To choose his own fate. To chart his own course. Even decisions so simple as what shirt to wear, what or when to eat, whether or not to shower, were suddenly priceless rights to never be willingly forfeited to anyone.
He looked at his partner, expecting to find Starsky impatient, acutely aware of the passage of time. But Starsky wasn’t fidgeting or checking his watch. His partner was waiting, eyes on the parking lot, but gaze lost somewhere in the middle distance. No pressure. Starsky had called him Hutch. An endearment, ‘babe’ or the more powerful ‘sweetheart,’ would have propelled him through the door despite his fears. But Starsky called him Hutch.
“Let’s go,” Hutch decided, and turned back toward the door. He demanded his feet keep moving, forced his hand to reach out, grasp the handle in a determined grip, and drag the glass panel toward him. The antiseptic smell almost defeated him when it hit him in the face, but force of will carried him the few steps necessary to make easy escape less possible.
Franklin was waiting for them, his homely face creased in a small smile of recognition. Hutch could feel the dark eyes on his face, cataloging his visible injuries. The hidden puncture wounds in his arm throbbed.
“Detective Hutchinson,” Franklin greeted him, and then led the way down a long corridor.
Impossibly long, it felt to Hutch, as each step took him farther from the door. He heard the jangling of Starsky’s keys in his jacket pocket and realized his partner was right behind him. Terror backed off a yard or two.
The doctor pulled back the curtain on the very last cubicle and motioned them inside “I’ll be back in a moment,” he promised and left them alone.
If he thought of this as a dream, Hutch knew he could get through it. Starsky wouldn’t let it go on too long. Like last night, when the nightmare rode him too hard, his friend would be there to wake him. Hutch knew he could do this.
Hutch started to shrug out of his jacket, but Starsky’s hand prevented the material from falling down his arm.
“You don’t have to do this,” Starsky repeated.
Hutch brushed the fingers away, caught the collar of his jacket as it slid past his hand. “Yes, I do,” he corrected. He unsnapped his holster, dragged it off his shoulders, and handed it to Starsky.
Shoes were toed off and nudged under the sheet-draped gurney. Shirt next, pulled over his head, accompanied by the pang of abused ribs and Starsky’s startled gasp. Hutch looked down at his side and remembered that the blue bruising hadn’t come out until after the last time Starsky had seen him shirtless.
“You ain’t seen nothin’ yet,” he quipped morbidly. One of Forest’s men had been a real sadist, going for his balls again and again. The bastard had connected only once. The memory of the pain of that one solid kick still had the power to turn Hutch’s stomach. But his thighs were decorated with the result of the many times he had been lucid enough to block the blows.
“I’m going to kill that son of a bitch.”
Hutch put his hand on his friend’s shoulder, felt the trembling fury as he stepped clear of the puddle of cords and briefs around his ankles. He met Starsky’s eyes, let the murderous rage burn away his shame. “No, you’re not, buddy. You’re going to put the animal in a cage where he belongs,” he advised and saw Starsky take the double meaning.
The dark head nodded once in acceptance, before Starsky handed him the blue gown, then bent to retrieve his clothes and lay them on the single chair the cubicle contained.
“You’re supposed to wear that the other way around. Ties in the back,” Starsky reminded him.
The sleeve of the gown wasn’t long enough to cover his arm. Hutch resisted the urge to shield the ugly track marks with his hand, forcing a nonchalance he didn’t feel as he hoisted himself up on the gurney and lie down. Starsky came to hover over him, gentle fingers bringing the edges of the gown together over his chest, drawing up the skimpy sheet.
“Starsk!” Hutch cried out in alarm when his partner moved toward the curtained doorway.
But Starsky was only circling the gurney, coming to stand like the Rock of Gibraltar on his left. One hand slid under the sheet, wrapping around the crook of his elbow.
“Not goin’ anywhere,” Starsky reassured him.
Hutch kept his eyes on Starsky’s face when Franklin returned and the examination began. The doctor was incredibly gentle as he cataloged the visible injuries and probed for the invisible ones, but Hutch saw each wince he was unable to control reflected on his partner’s long face. It was almost more painful to watch Starsky react and yet, every time the expression in those eyes went from fury to compassion, Hutch felt another measure of calm settle upon him.
By the time the doctor pulled the sheet back up and stepped away to complete his notes, Hutch had his emotional feet back under him.
“I’d like an x-ray of those ribs, if you’re agreeable,” Franklin said.
Hutch started to object, then reconsidered. He had broken a rib once and remembered that pain well enough to know the ache in his side now meant a lesser injury. However, each scribbling of Franklin’s pen hadn’t really had anything to do with his health. They were the nails in the coffin of Forest’s freedom.
“Whatever you say, Doc,” he agreed.
A few more scribbles, then Franklin laid the clipboard on the cart and picked up a needle. “Sergeant Starsky?” he prompted.
Hutch had to smile as he felt the fingers that had remained protectively shielding the puncture wounds in his arm tense and then relax. Starsky hated needles. His amusement faded quickly as he remembered that this particular needle should be sliding into his vein, and the reason it wasn’t. His blood was polluted. But Starsky’s unconvincing grin as he freed his arm from his jacket and held it out to Franklin wouldn’t let undeserved guilt possess him. Now it was Hutch’s turn to wince in sympathy as the dark red rushed into the tube.
“Hell of a risk you’re taking,” Hutch reminded his partner after Franklin departed with his clipboard and falsely labeled blood sample, leaving behind a promise that a porter would be along to take him to x-ray.
Starsky didn’t reply right away, remaining silent until he had slid his arm back into the sleeve of his jacket and collected Hutch’s clothes from the chair.
“Starsk?” Hutch prompted, sitting up and accepting the clothes, trying to catch eyes that eluded him. “Regrets?”
Starsky gave him his eyes then, and his hands. The painful grip of his fingers on Hutch’s arms only a little less compelling than the determination in his eyes.
“Never,” Starsky promised. “You’re worth it.”
Each word was a distinct and separate vow, touching Hutch so deeply that he knew, whatever the final outcome of this nightmare might be, he must not doubt what Starsky believed so fiercely.
~*~*~
It was second shift before Dobey heard Starsky’s voice in the squadroom. The interrogation, such as it would be with a high powered lawyer present, of Benjamin Forest wasn’t set to begin until four, so Dobey gave Starsky a chance to pour himself some coffee and check his in box before he called him in. In the meantime, he plodded through the acres of paperwork that always seemed to be clogging his desk. What he wouldn’t give, every now and then, to be back out on the street. He tried not to think too often of how success had actually robbed him of the job he had loved and had fought so hard for the right to do. If he were honest, however, he would have to admit that much of the heart for the mean streets had gone out of him the day he had found his partner, Elmo Jackson, hanging on a meat hook.
At 3:30, Dobey put the file he was reading aside, lifted his head and bellowed for Starsky. The young cop appeared in the doorway so quickly, it was apparent he had been waiting for the summons. Starsky didn’t wait for Dobey to invite him in or for instructions to close the door behind him.
“How’s Hutch?” Dobey asked when Starsky had taken a seat in front of his desk. He noted that at least this half of the partnership appeared to have found time for some sleep since yesterday afternoon. What else he might have been doing, the captain knew he had already tacitly agreed to ignore.
“Better. Slept good and he’s eating,” Starsky replied. “Give him a couple of days, and he’ll be ready to come back on duty,” he added pointedly.
Dobey let his expression prompt Starsky into revealing the reason behind his veiled request.
“Want the guys he works with to see what Forest did to him. See the way that bastard, sorry, Captain, messed up his face. Watch the way Hutch is nursin’ his ribs. I figure that any whispers that do come up, the guys are gonna remember the evidence of their eyes before they start believing anything Forest might have to say,” Starsky explained his logic.
“Good thinking,” Dobey agreed. “If he’s up to it.”
Starsky leaned forward in his chair, his expression earnest and yet vaguely threatening. “He’ll be up to it, Captain. You’re not going to see a damned bit of difference in him.”
Dobey intended to make his own judgment on that. He was fully aware that since he had made these two men partners, the balance of power between them and him had been constantly altering, shifting, until now, three years later, he held only the lightest of reins upon them. He could still pull them up out of a full gallop when he absolutely had to, but he knew he was walking a very fine line. Someday, he might tug on the reins only to discover they had rotted through and he had a couple of mavericks running free. It wasn’t a situation he had allowed to develop accidentally. As the two young cops had settled into their partnership and their expertise had grown along with their experience, Dobey had gradually given them their head more and more often. Though sometimes they aggravated him enough to nearly drive him to drink, he had yet to regret his course of action.
But he would still be watching them closely when Hutch returned. One of the most important elements in their partnership, Dobey had observed, was the way they could maintain a delicate balance of equality between them. Watching Starsky sink deeper and deeper into protective mode since they had first discovered that Hutch was missing had Dobey wondering now if the more openly passionate of the duo would be able to abandon his role of protector when it was no longer needed. Or, if he couldn’t, whether Hutch would be able to put him in his place and restore the balance between them. Sometimes, the very best partnerships evolved to the point where the partner became more important than the job. If that happened, then the two officers would be useless to him, and Dobey knew he would have to split them up. If it ever came down to such a decision, the captain was almost certain he would lose them both.
But that was tomorrow’s worry, and if administration had taught Dobey nothing else, he had learned to let tomorrow’s problems take care of themselves until tomorrow came.
“I assume you want to watch Forest’s interrogation?” he asked his subordinate, by not responding to Starsky’s demand, hoping he was making his position clear.
“Don’t wanna be on the other side of the glass,” Starsky stipulated. “Wanna be face to face with the fu… with him.”
Dobey ignored the almost lapse. He knew that his men could be a foul-mouthed bunch and had decided to accept it as a mark of respect that they attempted to curb their wayward tongues around him.
“I’ve heard better ideas, Starsky,” Dobey said. “I don’t know if I trust you to hang on to that temper of yours if Forest starts baiting you. The case we have is flimsy enough. Having you going off half-cocked isn’t going to help.”
“Temper? I don’t have a temper,” Starsky echoed, trying and failing to look as innocent as a newborn baby. No baby Dobey ever saw could pin a guilty man to his chair with little more than a glare.
“You’ll be heading for Hell if you keep telling lies like that,” Dobey observed mildly and gathered a scapegrace grin from his subordinate.
“All right,” he relented. “You sit in, but…” Dobey leveled a speaking look and a rigid finger on Starsky. “…first time you open your mouth, I’ll personally escort you right out of the building. Clear?”
“As crystal,” Starsky agreed, and the grin was gone now. “And thanks. I need that bastard to see me.”
“Why?” Dobey asked, then shook his head to dismiss his own question when he read the guarded expression on Starsky’s face.
They had already covered this ground last night, and, for the time being at least, Dobey was willing to remain ignorant. He had no doubt that whatever plans Starsky had spent last evening setting into motion were more than a little illegal, but he had pegged Starsky long ago. Even angry and protective as he was, Dobey still believed there was a line that Starsky would refuse to cross. Every man had that line, himself included. His own participation in covering up for Hutch was already enough to get him reprimanded at the very least, possibly even demoted, but, Dobey still felt himself to be well within his own code of moral ethics. His contacts were still pretty good, and if he heard one whisper that Starsky had crossed the line, Dobey knew he wouldn’t hesitate to cut him off at the knees. He wouldn’t enjoy it, but he would do it.
Starsky rose to his feet. “Let’s not keep the gentlemen waiting, Captain.”
~*~*~
Starsky and Dobey were already seated when Forest and his lawyer, Paul Mazza, were escorted into the interrogation room. Starsky had chosen his seat carefully, away from the table, nearly tucked into a corner, as if he were an after-thought. He had also asked Dobey to arrange the rest of the participants just as carefully. Normally, Dobey would have taken the head of the table with the suspect and his lawyer seated on one hand and the team from the DA’s office on the other. Starsky needed a slightly different arrangement and was pleased as he watched Dobey direct Forest to the head of the table with his lawyer on his left where Mazza, in order to keep his eye on his client, would have to keep his back to the lurking officer. Even the DA’s representatives, seated beside Dobey on the opposite side of the table would, presumably, have their attention on Forest as long as Starsky remained silent.
Starsky was hoping he wouldn’t have to say a word. If he had to bite his tongue raw, he was determined that he wasn’t going to give Forest the satisfaction of getting a rise out of him. His face and his body language would be all he had to get his message, which would be no more than a reinforcement of that already delivered by Huggy’s contacts, across to Forest. If the man was half as smart as he thought he was, Starsky hoped he would have the sense to keep his filthy mouth off Hutch.
Tilting back the chair on two legs, bracing it between the wall and his feet propped out of sight on the leg hidden beneath the table top, Starsky crossed his arms over his chest and fixed barely blinking eyes on Forest. He let his peripheral vision keep track of the other players, focusing his attention fiercely on Forest, smiling grimly as he watched the criminal notice his silent presence and recognition dawn.
Dobey droned out the preliminaries, stating time, date, and those present for the interview before detailing the charges. There were an even dozen in all, ranging from simple breaking and entering to attempted murder of a police officer. Each and every charge was of the “cause to be” nature, but, fortunately, the letter of the law did not differentiate between commissioning a criminal act and committing one.
After that, Dobey sat back and let Mazza and the assistant DA, Dean Paquette, go at each other, politely, of course. It was all for the record, Starsky knew. Mazza and Paquette would have already had their heads together working out the details before Forest was even charged. Starsky took it in, but didn’t let anything distract him from Forest. He was having more trouble than he expected with his temper watching Forest, who, even stripped of his fancy suit and clad in rough cotton jailhouse blues, appeared supremely confident. His lawyer would have already told him that the evidence against him was flimsy, and Starsky was a little surprised that Forest was willing to deal at all. However, you never knew what a jury of upstanding citizens, each of them perhaps harboring their own jealousy for the ill-gotten gains Forest flaunted and they were too scared to reach for themselves, might do.
Forest, Starsky noted, was doing his best to avoid locking gazes with him, but Starsky persevered, knowing that sooner or later, Forest would slip and Starsky would have his moment.
Eventually, the details were ironed out between the lawyers. When all was said and done and the case went before a judge, Forest would be sentenced to ten-to-fifteen years in prison for crimes that he could blame on nothing and no one but his own vanity. If he had been smart enough to let Jeanie Waldon run away, he would be a free man today.
The amicability of the lawyers was cut short by Dobey who, Starsky knew, had his own agenda.
“That’s not quite all, gentlemen,” Dobey interrupted Mazza’s attempt to end the interview. “I have some questions I want answered. On the record.”
“This is totally unnecessary…” Mazza began, but Dobey quelled him with a glare.
“Captain Dobey…” Paquette took his turn at becoming the object of his supposed ally’s displeasure.
“As both of you gentlemen know, each one of these charges is the result of crimes committed against a police officer. When this case goes before a judge, I want that fact made crystal clear. I will not endorse the plea bargain you gentlemen have just agreed to unless Mr. Forest answers my questions here and now. Kid gloves off, gentlemen, Mr. Forest is or was the head of a drug empire and, should we continue to investigate beyond the charges that have sprung from this single incident, I am sure the prisoner will be facing several lifetimes in jail. Therefore, I would suggest, Mr. Mazza, that you advise your client to answer my questions.”
Although both lawyers knew that Dobey was technically overstepping his bounds, they also knew that he could bring to bear a great deal of pressure if he had to. As he had pointed out, Forest’s drug empire stretched wide and if the police chose to, their continued investigations could put him away for a long, long time. Dobey, also, could, if he wished, bring a certain amount of political pressure to bear. Maybe not on this particular case, but it was undeniable that the first black captain of police could exercise more power in the growing climate of racial dissatisfaction than he could have wielded even five years ago. Mazza and Paquette both closed their mouths and folded their hands on the table in front of them.
Starsky had to work hard to suppress a smile as, for the first time, some of the confident veneer slipped off Forest’s face, making him seem for the first time, what he was—a petty man whose delusions of godhood had led to his downfall.
Dobey referred to his notes, unnecessarily, Starsky was sure, then fixed Forest with his accusing black eyes. “I want Mr. Forest to state on record why he kidnapped Detective Sergeant Kenneth Hutchinson,” Dobey said, a silencing finger closing Mazza’s mouth before he could make a sound. “The suspect has already agreed to plead guilty to the charges. He will not be incriminating or prejudicing himself further.”
Starsky watched as fury was born, and with great effort, subdued on Forest’s face. “That pretty boy pig stole something that belonged to me.”
“You’re referring to Miss Jean Waldon, a young woman to whom Detective Hutchinson had offered his protection,” Dobey clarified.
Forest snorted.
“You need to answer for the record,” Dobey prodded him.
Forest’s jaw bulged a moment, then relaxed. “Yes.”
“And in order to attempt to force Detective Hutchinson to reveal her location, you had him kidnapped and beaten repeatedly,” Dobey said, and Starsky didn’t miss the emphasis placed on the two crucial words.
Once Forest agreed, on the record, to his actions, then he would not then be able to, officially, add further details without further incriminating himself and, thereby, negating his own plea bargained deal. He could spread all the rumors he wanted to, but would never be able to recant his official statement made in the presence of his lawyer without bringing further consequences on himself.
Starsky saw the former drug lord hesitate and knew that for a man of such ego, the temptation must be great to drag his nemesis down with him. At that moment, Forest made the mistake of looking into Starsky’s eyes and Starsky let the cold, determined fury he felt show there before, investing it with all the evil he knew himself capable of, he smiled.
“Yes,” Forest replied belatedly.
“And when he had been beaten to the point where he gave up the information you sought, you then ordered that Detective Hutchinson, a serving officer with the Bay City Police Department, be murdered and his body disposed of.”
“Yes,” Forest hissed. “He took what was mine.”
“The last time I heard, Lincoln freed the slaves, Forest,” Dobey said with great dignity.
“And this country’s been going to hell ever since,” Forest countered while his lawyer tried in vain to make him shut up.
Starsky expected an explosion, but, to his surprise, Dobey let the insult roll off his back without so much as a flinch. “Perhaps we should add white slavery to the charges,” he suggested mildly to the DA.
“That little bitch would never testify,” Forest snarled.
“You thought she’d never leave you either,” Starsky spoke for the first time, and it brought Forest’s reluctant gaze to his. “There’s just no predicting the future, is there, Forest?” he said and saw in the black eyes that his message had been received.
Dobey punched the off button on the recorder, ejected the tape and handed it to each of the lawyers in turn who initialed the label. “I’ll have this transcribed and copies delivered to both of you and included in the trial brief. Good day, gentlemen,” he said pointedly and the lawyers left the room while Forest was escorted away by the uniformed officer.
Starsky stayed where he was until everyone else had left the room, only then righting his chair and climbing to his feet. He reached for the ceiling and stood up on his toes, trying to stretch loose muscles that screamed with tension. He was almost certain his message had been received. Whether Forest would be wise enough to heed the warning, was yet to be seen. He would give it a few days and then talk to Huggy. Until the trial, there was no hurry. Whatever it took to protect Hutch, however, Starsky had already decided he was going to do.
~*~*~
Hutch was just about as close to heaven as it was possible for mortal man to be. Starsky had had him stretched out on the bed for over an hour and Hutch was coming to the conclusion that his friend had a photographic memory that he had never before revealed. That was the only way to explain that, though every bruise, cut, and scrape on his body had faded and healed without a trace, Starsky’s mouth had found each one, cherishing every tiny spot as if to drive even the last lingering memory of pain from the cells themselves.
The ugly track marks remained, of course. Like the occasional flash of remembered craving, they would linger far into the future. A badge of shame to be hidden beneath long sleeves no matter what climatic extremes Southern California might aspire to. Someday, they, too, would be gone, Hutch knew, and in the meantime, Starsky had tended them with the dedication of a grooming cat, until even the only half imagined itch of healing veins no longer teased his senses.
Two weeks. Fourteen days. It wasn’t a long time, but for Hutch, it might as well have been a lifetime since he felt so far removed from the shambling, confused wreck who had stumbled through the streets looking for his safe haven. Once again returned to health, re-immersed in the job he loved, and acutely aware of his partner’s supportive presence, Hutch felt like a man given a new lease on life.
With a soft murmur, Starsky left off the tender kisses he had been raining upon the very last remembered bruise on Hutch’s inner thigh and moved up until he hovered, smiling, over Hutch.
Hutch brushed a light caress over the lips that had banished even the memory of harm. “Magic man,” he murmured, and drew Starsky down into a lingering kiss. He was ready for passion now, his tongue tapping against Starsky’s teeth while his hips lifted, pressing his hard cock into the soft-scratchy caress of Starsky’s groin.
But Starsky’s cherishing mood refused to be banished, his lips slipping away from Hutch’s to travel down his neck, lingering at his collarbone, and tasting leisurely over the swell of his pectoral muscle. Hutch arched his back, his fingers fumbling for a grip in the curls he had finally convinced Starsky to let grow longer, trying to force the loving lips to his nipple that was already hard and ready for the sweet, demanding suction only this man ever gave him just the way he needed it most.
Again Starsky denied him, his mouth a soft supplication that sought to coax a response that was already being given.
“Come on, babe. Suck it,” Hutch encouraged. “Bite it. Only you know what I like best.”
And still Starsky refused to give him what he needed, leaving him hanging frustrated, aching for his wild lover. He brushed Starsky’s mouth aside and pinched the sensitive bud, hoping actions would incite where words had failed to, but Starsky ignored him, slipping over to the other nipple, still treating him like glass.
Hutch struggled through several more minutes of crossed purposes where, especially in bed, they were always of one mind, before he realized what was going on. Starsky was making love to him. The terrible trauma of his abduction and enforced addiction and withdrawal had resulted in yet more, even stronger, layers growing within the deep bond of their friendship, binding them so closely that they were more entwined than ever before. Whether consciously or unconsciously, Starsky was trying to draw that love into this bed where it had no place at all.
Hutch’s first reaction was to reject the tenderness Starsky offered out of hand, to push away the lover and demand that Starsky become the lusty bedmate who should have strutted through his door tonight. But Hutch didn’t want to fight, he wanted to fuck. Ached for the hard, no holds barred, man-to-man sex that made him feel so alive. Rejection wasn’t the way to get it, he knew, but it was time he took the running into his own hands.
With a heave that caught Starsky by surprise, Hutch threw the solid body off him, flipping Starsky over onto his back and then scrambled to follow. He stretched out full length upon the sprawled form and latched on with demanding lips and ungentle teeth to the pulse that suddenly throbbed visibly in Starsky’s throat. He bit down hard, earning himself a startled yelp as his fingers sought, found, and claimed with firm pinches, the dark nipples hidden in the soft pelt of Starsky’s chest hair. This time, the yelp ended in a moan and a hard cock pressed firmly into his belly.
“That’s better,” he murmured against the tiny bruise his teeth had inflicted. “Want to hear you sing it for me, babe. Symphony of lust,” he growled, just as Starsky had demanded of him that very first time so long ago.
This was a craving that Hutch never wanted to fade. Lust, not love. Love Starsky gave him every day. Every time he watched his back, covered his ass, or argued with him just for the joy of it. Lust he could claim only for one brief night in thirty, and he wanted every moment of it he could steal.
Drinking in each sigh, moan, and gasp that fell from Starsky’s lips, Hutch worked his way downward, biting and nipping, then soothing each small hurt he inflicted with the tender wash of his tongue, then biting again, harder. By the time he settled between the widely spread thighs, Starsky was writhing, jumbled phrases and demands mixed with entreaties falling over each other as his hands tried to force Hutch’s teasing mouth to his cock.
Offering no quarter to himself or Starsky, Hutch gobbled down the hard length, forcing it into his throat and sucking hard while his fingers did beautiful and terrible things, things Starsky himself had taught him, to the vulnerable sac below.
Starsky was cursing him now, and Hutch let the deep-voiced obscenities stoke his own arousal higher. Then, when he had his partner hanging on the very edge of climax, he withdrew, taking away his hands and his mouth so abruptly that Starsky almost came anyway.
“Gonna fuck you, Dancer.” It was both a promise and a threat as Hutch manipulated Starsky as he wanted him.
“On your knees, baby,” he demanded, flipping the willing body and leading Starsky’s hands to the cold brass bars of the headboard. “Hang on. Gonna need to know where earth is when I start making you fly. Gonna ram into you so far even the jaws of life won’t pry us apart.”
The slim hips were drawn up next, the sturdy legs wedged apart by Hutch’s knees. “That’s it. Let me at you.”
Hutch grabbed up the tube of lubricant and fumbled off the cap, squeezing a slick blob onto his fingers, then seeking out the tiny tight opening between Starsky’s lush ass cheeks. He shoved his fingers past the guarding muscle and rode out the internal and external thrash of protest at the abrupt invasion.
“Jesus. Jesus. Fuck me,” Starsky begged.
“No Jesus here,” Hutch taunted, pulling his fingers out and grasping his cock, spreading a hasty coating of gel on his hot flesh. “Nobody here but us angels,” he said, centered himself and drove half his length into the wet heat of his partner’s ass.
Their cries mingled this time, each of them feeding on the other’s pleasure as Hutch leaned into it, easing the rest of his cock into the spasming tunnel that gripped him with the sweet, rippling pleasure he would never tire of.
“Ah, Hutch, fuck me,” Starsky chanted, his white knuckled grip almost enough to dent the sturdy brass bars while his hips rose and fell to the demanding rhythm Hutch set.
Hutch leaned over the wide back, forcing Starsky’s strength to bear both their weights as he sought the perfect angle, knowing he found it when Starsky convulsed beneath him. He drew back, then drove forward again, plowing into Starsky’s prostate with all the strength in his young, healthy body.
“Hutch!” Starsky screamed.
“Call me Angel,” Hutch demanded, his lips pressed hard against Starsky’s ear. He caught the soft curve between his teeth even as his hips pulled back and rammed forward again.
“Angel. Angel,” Starsky sobbed and came, taking Hutch helplessly with him into that too short moment of pleasure so intense a man could pray for his heart to stop beating there and then, wish to never again leave this place where only the hard clench and strain of pulsing cocks and gushing semen existed.
Mundane reality, however, always followed closely on the heels of such moments of godhood when drained muscles, no longer sustained by passion, collapsed.
Starsky went down onto the mattress and Hutch didn’t have the strength not to follow him, sprawling bonelessly on his partner as he fought to get one deep breath into his lungs. After a moment, the body beneath him heaved with purpose as Starsky’s face fought free of the pillow it was buried in.
“Move! You’re fuckin’ heavy,” Starsky gasped.
Hutch found the strength from somewhere to roll clear of his partner, flopping like a discarded rag doll onto his back beside him.
“Jesus. Jesus,” Starsky moaned, and Hutch turned his head to find his partner trying to wriggle around onto his side. Reluctant to leave the lassitude behind, Hutch nevertheless found a grip on the sweat slick skin and pulled until Starsky was wrapped around him like a human comforter.
“If it gets any better than that, babe,” Starsky murmured, his voice husky and strained, “I don’t wanna know about it.”
Hutch tightened the arm that had somehow become trapped beneath Starsky’s weight. He smoothed a hand down the sweet, warm curve of Starsky’s ass, already wishing he could be inside this man again. “Couldn’t possibly,” he denied.
A comfortable silence of satisfied sighs and sweet, lingering caresses settled around them, cradling them as the afterglow slowly faded.
“Sorry,” Starsky finally murmured, his face still pressed into Hutch’s neck. “I crossed the line.”
“Won’t be the last time one of us does,” Hutch replied. Knowing it was true, wondering how much longer there would even be a line they could see. Wondering, too, if they should stop this now before there was no more hope of stopping.
“Think we could think of a rule for this?” Starsky asked, yawning, stretching and wincing. “Geez, my ass feels like it’s been through the paper shredder.”
Hutch lifted his head, trying to see his partner’s face. “You okay?”
Starsky snuggled in closer. “Nothing a hot bath won’t cure,” he said. “You avoiding the issue?”
“What issue?” Hutch asked. “You slipped. I called you on it. You telling me you want to stop?”
The grip around Hutch’s chest tightened, forcing the breath from his lungs in a grunt.
“I’ll take that as a no,” he laughed softly. His fingers lifted to tangle in the dark curls. “We love each other, Starsk. There’s bound to be times when some of that is going to get mixed up with this. But I still don’t want to try to be Bay City’s first gay cops, and I don’t want to give up our Fridays. They aren’t just a romp in the sack anymore. I need them,” he admitted.
“All the more reason to quit, I guess,” Starsky observed, though his tight grip was still branding him a liar.
“We just have to watch out for each other like I did for you tonight,” Hutch said.
“Just like on the streets?” Starsky asked. “I watch your back….”
“…and I’ll watch yours,” Hutch agreed.
“Sounds like a plan with possibilities,” Starsky murmured.
Hutch held the warm body close, guarding his friend’s sleep. In a few minutes, Starsky would waken and they would begin again, and after that Starsky would leave. They would come together again tomorrow, the lust tucked away inside the neat little boxes each of them had created in their minds. It wouldn’t work for everyone, but it worked for them.
For now.
End Book One. This series is continued in Evolution Book Two.
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2 comments
I loved this story and can’t wait to read Part 2. It was so true to the characters of Starsky and Hutch and provided a beautiful, sensual, and entirely plausible backstory to the evolution of their love. Thank you for the story and for giving us the opportunity to read it!
Just wanted to say I have really enjoyed this story since reading it as a zine many moons ago, and it was nice to reread it once again! It is definitely one of those classic stories to read over and over again.