Handicapped Access

261

Starsky and Hutch travel to Florida for Starsky’s mom’s funeral, and, as usual, Nicky doesn’t make things easy for them.

 

Originally published in Venice Place Chronicles V.

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February 2004

Starsky sat at his mom’s kitchen table, cradling the juice glass in his hands. It was very late and he was very tired, but he was too wound up from the day’s events to sleep.

Oh, Ma, he thought with a sad smile. It’s just like you to make me drink -whiskey out of a juice glass.

Just thinking of his mother made his heart hurt. There was a dull ache in his stomach that he couldn’t attribute to the few sips of alcohol he’d indulged in. He thought about the past couple of days, half-listening to the distant sound of the surf floating through the open patio door.

In the back of his mind, Starsky had expected the call, naturally, but expecting it and getting it were always two different things. Yesterday, the phone had rung at his office with the news that his mother had slipped away in her sleep earlier that afternoon.

She’d been well cared for here in South Florida, and that time he’d been able to visit her, she’d seemed happy.

Well… maybe not happy, but at least content—pleased to be living near her younger son, but missing the old neighborhood in New York terribly.

Why do I feel so damn guilty? Starsky asked himself, not for the first time that day. Perhaps there wasn’t really an answer to that.

The funeral had been that afternoon. It was Jewish custom to bury the dead before sundown, but with families scattered as they were these days, it wasn’t universally practiced. Starsky and Hutch had flown out to Fort Lauderdale in the morning, and the funeral had taken place a mere twenty-five hours after Rachel had died.

However, his mother’s body was still at Levitt-Weinstein, the funeral home, as she was going to be laid to rest back home in Brooklyn.

I’m an orphan now, Starsky thought, indulging in a moment of macabre reflection. It was dumb to feel this bereft at sixty years of age. But he did.

“Hey,” came the sound of a voice from the doorway.

Starsky looked up with a smile forming on his face. “Hey.”

Hutch looked sleepy as he rolled his wheelchair into the small kitchen. “What’cha doing?” Starsky saluted him with his glass. “Looks good,” Hutch said. “Where’s mine?”

Starsky hopped up and fetched a glass from the cabinet. The upscale oceanfront condo Nick had bought his mother last year had several features designed to aid the elderly—from rigid safety bars in the bathtub, to a governor on the hot water heater—but it wasn’t specifically designed for people confined to wheelchairs. The kitchen cabinets were too high for Hutch to reach.

“Here,” Starsky offered, pouring a couple of fingers of liquid into the glass.

“Thanks.”

Starsky hooked the nearest kitchen chair with his foot, moving it so Hutch could come completely into the room and take a place next to him at the marble-topped table. The tile flooring, common to South Florida and used throughout the condo, made it especially easy for Hutch to navigate his chair.

“What are you doin’ up this late?” Starsky asked, sipping his drink.

Hutch raised his glass in a semi-toast before taking his first drink.” I could ask you the same thing.”

“Can’t sleep.”

“I can’t either, without you in bed with me.” Simply stated.

Starsky had to nod in agreement. After all these years as lovers, he slept far, far better when Hutch was in bed with him.

“I’ll be in shortly,” he promised. “Just thinking.”

“That’s allowed,” Hutch responded mildly. “Me, too.”

Starsky nodded again, then changed the subject. “How ya doin’ with the transfers? ”

Hutch frowned. “I’m so used to things at home,” he admitted. “But I’m managing, I guess.”

“Well, you got out of bed without help,” Starsky pointed out.

“Yeah.”

They drank in silence for a minute. The kitchen clock Starsky and Nick had grown up with had made the trip down from the Northeast last year with Rachel. Its familiar ticking sound marked the seconds as 2:00 a.m. approached.

“We’d better hit the hay, Starsk.”

“Yeah. Nicky’ll be here in the morning to ‘discuss things.'” Starsky was decidedly unenthusiastic. “I can’t wait.”

Together, they moved. Starsky grabbed both glasses, washing them out in the sink as Hutch pushed himself toward the doorway. He reached up to douse the kitchen lights, just as Starsky took his accustomed place at the wheelchair handles, carefully navigating them to the guest bedroom. As they headed toward the room, Starsky bent over and kissed Hutch on the top of his head.

Hutch reached up past his shoulder to pat Starsky on the hand. “I love you,” Hutch stated, his voice matter-of-fact. “I’m sorry you’re going through this.”

“Love you, too, babe.”

And I’m sorry I’m going through this, too. Starsky thanked God and Delta Airlines for the ability to bring Hutch with him on this trip. I sure couldn’t handle this alone.

They were in the guest room now, and Starsky shut the door firmly behind them. It was late, and they did have a long day ahead of them. They needed to get to bed.

***

Even to a casual observer, it was obvious that David and Nicholas Starsky were brothers. They shared the same dark curly hair, although oddly enough, the younger brother was showing more gray. Their features were clearly Semitic, and even though David’s eyes were blue and Nick’s brown, their faces looked very much alike. David was a bit stockier, perhaps more muscular, while Nick was lean and wiry. But they both moved through life with the same grace and confidence.

They were arguing.

“I’m not going to New York without you!” Nick exclaimed again. He was leaning against the back of the couch, looking past Starsky, out through the glass doors and over the beach, toward the panoramic view of the Atlantic Ocean.

“I can’t go with you,” Starsky repeated testily. He appealed for support from his partner, but Hutch sat there, off to the side of the balcony doors, not saying a word.

The diamond stud in Nick’s ear flashed in the early sunlight as he turned to face his brother, who was in turn backed up by Hutch’s steady presence near him.

“Why?”

“Because.”

“That’s not an answer, Davey.”

“This was all your idea!” Starsky exploded, gesturing at the living room, the black leather couch, the widescreen TV, the bar—unstocked, but still a bar. “This looks like a bordello, not a place for Ma to live!”

Hutch reached for Starsky, but he neatly moved just enough to avoid the touch.

“Not this again!” Nick was thoroughly incensed. “You’re just upset because you couldn’t provide for—”

“Provide for? She never wanted to come down—”

“She couldn’t stay in New York anymore. What the hell did you expect me to do?”

“Take care of her there. What’s so damn great about Florida, anyway? Why the hell did you have to—?”

“What’s so damn great about California?”

“That’s my home. I’ve been there since—”

“And this is my home. I’ve made it here, and—”

“Made it? Made it! How d’ya figure? You’re nothing but a—”

Hutch made his move. With a short angry movement of his chair, he instantly caught the attention of the brothers.

“Stop it,” Hutch instructed, his voice deep and even. “This isn’t getting us anywhere.” Both men turned to look at him, both pairs of eyes angry.

“It’s—” Starsky attempted.

Hutch did touch Starsky that time, a gentle caress of his hand that didn’t seem overly familiar but silenced Starsky at once.

“Have a seat, Nick,” Hutch said quietly. “You, too, Starsk. I get tired of looking up at both of you.”

Nick sat down on the couch, petulantly crossing his arms across his chest. His satin-silver shirt rustled as he sank into the cushions.

Starsky was dressed much more simply—in jeans and a black cotton pullover. If anything, he seated himself faster than his brother did, in a nearby easy chair. Sorry, his eyes broadcast to his partner. Hutch smiled at him.

“Let’s not revisit the move down here anymore,” Hutch decreed, once they were paying attention to him. “It’s done, it’s over, it’s history. Now, we have to worry about getting her home today.”

“And I have tickets for that,” Nick reminded him at once. “It’s all setup. But I’m not doin’ it alone.”

Hutch nodded. “No, you’re not. David will go with you.”

Starsky was shaking his head. “I can’t, Hutch. I can’t leave you here alone. I mean, you can’t even get a plate down in this place.”

“I know,” Hutch acknowledged calmly. “We’ll have to—”

“You can use the concierge for things like that,” Nick informed him. “She can arrange a home health aide to come in. I already thought’a that.”

Hutchnoddedagain.”It’llworkout.TheimportantthingnowistotakecareofRachel.Youoweherthat.”

With one accord, the two Starskys looked sorrowful.

“It’s easier to stand here and yell at each other, I know,” Hutch said bluntly. “But it doesn’t solve anything, and it doesn’t change the fact that she’s gone. You both need to escort her back to New York and take care of things up there.” With a gesture, he forestalled Starsky’s argument. “I’ll be fine. Really.”

“Okay,” Nick agreed, looking immensely relieved. “We have to get to the airport by eleven. It’s almost nine now. Go pack an overnight bag and we’ll head over there.”

Starsky looked doubtful, but with the two men against him, he knew he had no chance of prevailing. And he really did need to do this. With heavy, slow feet, he headed off to throw a few things in his carry-on.

***

“Boarding by zones?” Starsky asked, bewildered. He hadn’t remembered this from flying out yesterday from LAX. “What’s that mean?”

Nick was sprawled out on the adjacent seat in the gate area, restlessly tapping his feet. “Look at your ticket. It’s under your seat number.”

“Oh.”

“Travel a lot, I see.” Nick’s voice was vaguely sarcastic.

“Not by air,” Starsky snapped back. “It’s hard for us now. Even you should be able to figure that out.” He and Hutch always used the van when traveling, or they just didn’t go.

Nick looked somewhat abashed. “Yeah, I guess.”

That was the last conversation between the brothers until their zone—Zone 1—was called.

“Mr. Starsky,” the young gate attendant said pleasantly, swiping Starsky’s ticket under the reader as she looked between his California driver’s license and his face. “Enjoy your trip to the Big Apple.”

Starsky nodded his thanks as Nick went through the same procedure. “And, Mr. Starsky, you enjoy your trip as well!”

Nick grinned at her, bringing strongly to Starsky’s mind the extremely unflattering image of an older man on the make. “Come on, Nicky.”

He reached for his brother’s arm, but Nick avoided him with practiced ease as they trooped down the sloping entrance ramp to the plane.

“Are you sure everything’s okay with the arrangements for Ma?”

“You mean the shipping?” Nick asked.

“Yes.”

“Yeah, it’s all taken care of. Ma wasn’t the first New Yorker to die down here and hafta get hauled back up north to get buried at home.”

“Nicky,” Starsky remonstrated. “That’s disrespectful.”

“Don’t lecture me about—”

They were at the plane, though, and Starsky moved quickly through the doorway, cutting off Nick’s comment.

Out of habit, he presented his boarding pass to the flight attendant on board. “Second row of seats on the left, sir.”

That was first class. “Nicky, do we have first class—?”

“Of course,” the younger man confirmed, breezing in behind him. “I’m not flying with the cattle.”

Starsky shook his head as he looked at the pass and the seat numbers.

“I get the window,” Nick exclaimed, as Starsky moved into his seat.

Actually, according to the boarding pass, Starsky had the window, and he reminded his brother of that.

“I paid for the tickets!” Nick argued.

“Oh, shit,” Starsky muttered. “If it’s that important to you—”

Nick pushed past him and lowered himself into the seat. He grinned triumphantly. As Starsky was seating himself, pushing his bag under the seat in front of him and fastening his seatbelt, Nick called out, restlessly drumming his fingers on the armrest. “Miss? Can we get some drinks here?”

“Nick!” Starsky hissed. “They’ll come around after everyone’s boarded. Hold your horses.”

But a flight attendant had materialized at Starsky’s elbow. “Certainly, sir. What can I get you?”

“How about a martini? Not too much vermouth.”

Starsky rested his head back against the scat. He was never going to survive a two-day trip to anywhere with his brother, never mind one to bury their mother. He dug out his cell phone, eyeing the boarding door to make sure he could still use it with impunity.

“And you. sir?”

Starsky looked up at the dark-skinned woman. “Nothing for me, thanks,” he muttered.

“The drinks are free,” Nick offered. “You can afford them.”

“Shut up.” Starsky growled. He hit the speed-dial button that would dial Hutch’s cell phone, hoping he would pick up. Hutch didn’t always carry his cell phone.

The phone rang several times before a mechanical voice asked if he wanted to record a message. “Shit,” the disappointed man murmured. He’d really wanted to say goodbye again. He settled for leaving a brief greeting.

“Hey, Hutch, it’s me. We’re on the plane and about to take off. I guess you don’t have your phone with you. I’ll call ya as soon as we land, okay? Take it easy, and I’ll talk to you real soon.” Starsky closed the phone, after remembering to turn it completely off.

“How long you two been together?” Nick asked with a faint smirk, sipping his drink. “You’re like newlyweds.”

“I met him in 1968. When we started at the Academy,” Starsky revealed, his face relaxing into a smile despite his annoyance. Thinking about Hutch gave him some patience. Only two days. He could do this. Really. He could.

Nick merely shook his head.

In short order, the safety briefing had been given and the plane was taxiing up the runway. In a few more minutes they were airborne.

“That long, huh?” Nick commented suddenly.

“What?”

“You guys been tripping the light fantastic since 1968?”

“You wanna keep your voice down? And, no, you know the deal. It was after I was hurt.”

Nick’s face changed expression slightly. “Yeah, I remember. Ma, she was a basket case.”

“So was Hutch,” Starsky recalled with feeling. “Don’t want him to go through that again.”

“Looks to me that it’s happening to you, now, with him.” Nick was serious.

“How do you figure?”

“Well, gettin’ hurt like he did.”

“It’s not the same. He wasn’t shot. He was just in the wrong place at the wrong time.”

“Ma said it was a drunk driver.” Nick’s tone was just this side of inquisitive.

Starsky nodded. “Yeah. He was jogging pretty late because he had an early court appearance the next morning and he wasn’t going to be able to get his morning run in. So he went out, to make up for that next morning, and…” His voice trailed off.

“He got clipped by a car?”

Starsky nodded again, his face long and serious. “That’s about the size of it.”

Both men fell silent as the pilot announced that they had reached cruising altitude.

“You know, Ma never liked him.” The martini was almost gone.

”That’s just great,” Starsky retorted. “Ya know, Nicky, you have a gift. In one short sentence you’ve insulted both my mother and my partner.”

“Just telling you the score, bro.”

“I already knew that,” Starsky snapped quietly. “D’ya think I’m an idiot? She liked Hutch just fine. It was us, us together she didn’t like.”

“That’s because it’s unnatural, that’s what Ma said.”

“Yeah, and so what? She didn’t know everything. I don’t think she liked how you earned your living, either.”

“She didn’t know what the deal was.” Nick’s voice was wary now.

“What is the deal, Nicky?”

Nick merely shook his head, turning to look out the small oval window. “South Florida s been good to me.”

“Yeah.”

“Really. There’s a lot happening down here, if you have the drive and smarts to capitalize on it.”

“That happening scene wouldn’t happen to involve anything illegal, would it?”

“You don’t need to know. All you need to know is that I was able to take care of Ma in ways you could only dream of.”

Starsky shifted in his seat. “I did my part. For a lotta years that you didn’t.”

“I was there when she really needed me.”

“So was I. Just because we couldn’t buy her some fancy upper-story waterfront condo in Boca Raton doesn’t mean we didn’t help, that we didn’t do our part.”

Nick was quick with his response. “Don’t forget the ’round-the-clock home health aides, too. In any case, she didn’t want Hutch’s money.”

Starsky moved in for the kill. “I doubt she was wild about laundered drug money either.”

Nick’s face hardened. “You don’t know what you’re talking about.”

Starsky’s voice was very soft. “I think I’m close. Real close.”

Nick frowned and stared out the window again. “Why don’t you mind your own business?”

Starsky spoke mockingly, hardly sounding like himself. “Why, Nicky, I do. I’ve never arrested you, have I?”

His brother expelled his breath—a short snort void of any amusement.

“Would you like another drink, sir?” It was the flight attendant again.

This time, Starsky felt like he needed a drink. Two days without Hutch. Two days with Nicky. For a brief instant, Starsky slipped back into feeling that he really couldn’t do this. “I’d like a beer,” Starsky interjected, before Nick could say anything. “Please.”

“Certainly!” The flight attendant acted as if Starsky’s request for a beer had made her day. “Domestic or imported? We have Budweiser and Coors, for domestic, and imported—”

“Coors,” Starsky said hastily. He didn’t want the whole list.

Nick ordered another martini, and the two brothers sullenly drank for several minutes. “You know, I’ve never understood you, Dave.”

That makes two of us, kid. I’ve definitely never understood you, Starsky thought, then said, “How’s that?”

Nick sipped his drink and then spoke. “You have the looks, and I guess you make enough bread to survive out there in the land of fruit and nuts. You’re pretty smart and you’ve always been okay with the ladies I can’t believe you wasted your life. With him.”

“Wasted?” Starsky didn’t bother being angry. He was merely questioning. “How do you figure?”

“How long has he been in that wheelchair?”

Starsky took a deep breath. “A while.”

“How long is a while?”

He studied the beer can in his hands. “It’s about two years now. Well, three in June.”

“Three years? And you’ve been there like a faithful mutt the entire time.”

“Yeah, of course.” Just like he would be for me, moron. Starsky avoided the fact that his brother was basically comparing him to a dog.

“You can’t be getting anything anymore,” Nick stated.

“Anything, what?”

“You know… anything.”

Starsky had no idea what his brother was talking about. His mind didn’t run in those trains of thought. “What anything?”

“The only anything. You know, what all guys need.”

Starsky twisted his face in disgust. “That’s ridiculous.”

“Says you,” Nick told him, bluntly. “I know what I need as a man, and you aren’t getting it, not even by the back door.”

After a pause, Starsky managed to rein in his fury. “Do me a favor, Nick,” he stated evenly, turning to look him full in the face. “Shut the hell up.”

He looked around for the overly friendly flight attendant. He needed another beer. He badly needed another beer.

Nick had really hit some sore points. He didn’t know how wrong he was, though. Starsky had learned long ago that sex wasn’t the be-all and end-all of his life. But that didn’t mean he and Hutch didn’t make love.

It didn’t happen often anymore, but that just made each time all the more precious. It had been a few weeks ago—well, maybe more like six weeks—but Starsky could remember every detail, effortlessly.

“I love ya, ” Starsky said, turning on his side, his head on the pillow. Their bedroom was dimly lit by the small lamp on Starsky’s nightstand. Their house was quiet, the neighborhood silent and asleep for the night. It was cool enough that they didn’t have the central air on. The bedroom window was cracked open to let in the California evening’s pleasant winter breeze.

“That’s good, ” Hutch answered, softly. “Works out good for us, since I’m kind of fond of you, too.”

Starsky smiled. “How you feelin’?”

“Pretty good, ” Hutch stated, seeming to know exactly what Starsky was talking about. “How’re you feeling? “

“I’m feeling like I wanna make love with my partner.” Just saying the words was prompting a stirring in his body.

Hutch stretched a bit. “Sounds good to me. Really good.”

They’d gotten to bed late that night, and Hutch was all clean and ready to sleep, the foam cushions positioning his lower body properly for the first three hours of the night. The sensible thing would be to go to sleep. Just go to sleep and try to hit the next day fresh and rested. It was Thursday night and they had to work the next day.

But since when had either of them been sensible? Starsky thought, as he leaned over and took Hutch’s mouth with his.

“Mmmm. ” Hutch sounded like he was in Heaven and all they had done was kiss. But as he’d admitted before, he loved that all the more now, with so many other options permanently removed.

With one hand, Starsky tugged up Hutch’s soft white t-shirt, rubbing his left hand on Hutch’s warm skin. Hutch reciprocated by reaching up with both hands and cradling Starsky’s head, running his hands through the dark curls.

“You have altogether too many clothes on, ” Hutch opined, as soon as they broke for air.

“Just these things,” Starsky returned with a smile, indicating his pajama bottoms.

“Well, get ’em off.”

“Yes, sir,” Starsky answered, tipping his head in obedience. “Your every wish is my command.”

With grace of movement advancing age would never totally eliminate, Starsky pulled down and kicked off his loose black sleep pants. He was naked now, and as he moved himself up on the bed, closer to the head of the bed and to Hutch, Hutch didn’t waste any time.

“We don’t do this enough,” Hutch murmured, starting out by stroking Starsky everywhere: his chest, his waist, his back.

Hutch said that every time they made love, and Starsky smiled inwardly. “No argument there, babe.”

Hutch reached around to Starsky’s rear, pulling Starsky’s growing erection against him as he urged the other man on top of him.

“What d’ya want?” Starsky asked, breathlessly, “I can rub off, or….”

“I’m going to suck you off,” Hutch informed him. “Get up here.”

Starsky wasn’t going to complain. It was the closest thing to fucking they could do anymore, as Starsky was absolutely opposed to taking Hutch now, after the accident. Hutch had no feeling below his waist, and there was no reliable way to tell if he was being hurt in the process.

Hutch was willing to take the risk, but Starsky was adamant. There was no way he was ever going to do that again. It was just one of the things—maybe one of the things they regretted more than some of the others—that Hutch’s disability had forever ended.

On his hands and knees, over Hutch, Starsky took a few moments to join Hutch’s mouth with his, and each man enthusiastically explored his partner’s mouth with his tongue. Then Starsky was on his knees, bracing himself with the headboard, feeling Hutch guide his erection into the recumbent man’s willing mouth.

“I’m gonna do you, do you good,” Hutch whispered, just before his mouth was filled with Starsky.

Starsky almost shuttered as Hutch worked on him, drawing pleasure from him with his strong, warm mouth. He fought to not come too quickly. This was heaven and he wanted it to last.

Hutch was a master at this. The work of his mouth and his tongue, as all the while he was stroking Starsky’s muscular thighs, his rear, his waist, was combining to send Starsky right over the edge.

Starsky, for his part, did his best to return the favor. As Hutch loved him with his mouth, Starsky used his hands to caress Hutch’s hair, his face, his neck. Starsky was touching everywhere he could reach on his lover, using every ability he had to return the love he was getting, back to Hutch.

Starsky always tried to warn Hutch when he was about to come, but frequently didn’t make it. It didn’t really matter. Hutch was attuned to him in ways that seemed to transcend the mere formality that they occupied different bodies. In the moment before Starsky felt the gathering storm actually let loose, Hutch tightened his grip on his body, urging Starsky to thrust into his mouth harder, and faster.

Starsky groaned long and low as he came. Hutch was still sucking, and Starsky felt like every drop of come he’d ever produced or would ever produce was being expertly pulled from him. His hands fell away from Hutch’s hair, and he concentrated on staying upright as his essence was pulled from him.

As Hutch relaxed his mouth and released him, Starsky came down from his position and hastily pulled his body next to Hutch’s. This was the part Starsky knew Hutch liked.

Starsky took his partner’s mouth in a deep, open kiss. Hutch used his tongue to reach deeply into Starsky. They were sharing what they just did, as they always did. Starsky tasted himself on Hutch’s tongue, in Hutch’s mouth. What Hutch had not swallowed, Starsky tasted in his mouth and on his tongue. Starsky petted Hutch’s chest, toying with his lover’s nipples and doing his best to give some satisfaction back to Hutch.

There wasn’t much need for conversation after that. It didn’t seem possible that they could feel closer to each other than they did normally, simply living their lives from day to day. But after sex, they always did feel more connected, and as Starsky attended to them, fetching a glass of water from the bathroom for Hutch and cleaning himself off with the washcloth, they didn’t need to overcome the barrier of words to communicate.

Starsky got back into bed and pulled Hutch into his arms. They kissed again but after a minute, Starsky turned over to let Hutch take him into his hips, perfectly molding his front to Starsky’s back. One final check to ensure the foam supports were back in place, and then they fell asleep cradled together.

As Starsky reminisced, the stress within him relaxed its grip. He rested his head back against the seat. Resolutely, he kept his eyes closed. Maybe if he ignored his brother, Nick would take the hint and leave him alone.

They didn’t speak for the balance of the flight. Starsky didn’t open his eyes again until the flight attendant was welcoming them to New York’s John F. Kennedy Airport.

As soon as the boarding door was cracked open, Starsky reached for his phone.

“Can that wait?” Nick asked. “We have an appointment at the funeral home in less than an hour.” He was pushing against Starsky, trying to get out into the aisle.

“Stop it,” Starsky demanded, holding his ground. “I can’t get out, either.” The aisle was crowded with passengers eager to escape the aircraft, and the boarding door wasn’t even fully open yet.

It was too much to juggle the cell phone and his baggage and deal with his brother. With a sigh, Starsky returned the phone to his pocket.

I’ll call you as soon as I can, babe, he promised Hutch in his mind. I miss you.

As they deplaned, Starsky was not surprised to see his surname inscribed in black marker on a placard just outside security. It was a limo driver.

“How did I know you were goin’ to hire a car service?” Starsky inquired of his brother, wearily.

“I don’t do the subway.”

“No, I bet you don’t.”

“You’re a fine one to talk,” Nick shot back. “When was the last time you were on the subway?”

“We don’t have one in LA,” Starsky remarked, feigning patience. “But when I’m here, we use it all the time.”

Well, we did, he thought, ruefully. He and Hutch hadn’t been back to New York since the accident, and with a shock of regret, Starsky realized he might never be back there. With Ma gone and Hutch in the chair… He resolved to look around, take his time, really see the City on this trip.

The limo driver was deferential and taciturn, but Starsky realized at once that was because the man barely spoke English. But they got to the Bay Ridge Funeral Home promptly and safely.

Steeling himself against a resurgence of grief, Starsky trailed his brother into the funeral home.

***

Hutch wheeled himself around the apartment, restless and unhappy.

“Well, you wanted him to go to New York,” he reminded himself aloud. “So get a grip, would ya? He’ll be home tomorrow.”

That seemed light-years away to the lonely man. Rachel’s condo was very nice, and there were no doorjambs he had to deal with. He did appreciate the tile and wood flooring that was perfect for getting around in a wheelchair, but it wasn’t home and it simply wasn’t set up for a paraplegic.

And Starsky wasn’t there.

Starsky had done his level best to get everything arranged for him so he could make it until tomorrow evening without help, but Hutch still felt trapped. He knew he’d be okay but… “Wish I were home,” he groused. “I could get out, do something.” He guessed—other than Starsky himself—it was the van he missed the most. He could get in, drive, and get out with absolutely no help from anyone, and that had been his salvation after the accident and the ensuing, ultimately futile physical therapy.

In a life full of ironies, Hutch had to smile in particular at this one—that he adored his van. He’d never “loved” a car in his life but had had one as a younger man, entirely because Los Angeles was no place to live without an automobile. Now his van was almost an extension of himself.

Hutch went over to the balcony and, with some effort, slid open the glass doors. The Atlantic Ocean sparkled in the mid-afternoon sun, with a cool breeze coming off it and bathing him, refreshing and clean. He paused for a moment, taking the time to shift his position in the chair as he was supposed to do, but rarely did, every fifteen minutes. He had to, because the occasional spasms of pain his legs experienced had become disturbingly pronounced during this trip.

“This is ridiculous,” Hutch muttered angrily. “Legs are utterly useless, but still hurting, still keeping me up at night.” I ought to cut ’em off. That was a pointless sentiment, as Hutch well knew—not to mention, Starsky would kill him for saying that—and he distracted himself immediately.

“I’m going down there,” he vowed suddenly, still talking out loud. He was going crazy, stuck in this gilded prison. He backed up and refastened the doors. He had to get outside.

He headed into the guest room to get a hat and his book, conveniently ignoring the American Bar Association journal he’d brought with him. He wasn’t in the mood for articles about proposed changes in bankruptcy law or the latest on the estate tax phase-out and how it would affect his firm’s high-net-worth clients. I need a break from work, he rationalized. And even if can’t get out on the sand, maybe there’s a boardwalk or something.

Carefully locking the front door behind him, Hutch pushed himself toward the elevator. I’ll sit in the parking lot if I have to.

***

It was three calls now, and Hutch hadn’t answered yet. And this time, Starsky had tried his mother’s house phone as well, not just Hutch’s cell.

Answer the damn phone, babe, Starsky worried to himself as he closed his cell phone again.

“I’m sure he’s fine,” Nick offered lackadaisically, leaning his head against the leather of the car seat. “You’re a worrywart.”

Starsky ignored him. They were both a bit off-balance from the events of the afternoon, and by now the constant low-grade bickering was driving him certifiably crazy.

The graveside service had been fairly brief but poignant. Starsky closed his eyes, hearing the rabbi’s words again. Even after all these years, Starsky could still remember the English translation of the Hebrew from that awful day in July 1953 when he’d first heard Kaddish said. That time it’d been for his father. Now it had been said for his mom as well.

“Yeetgadal v/ yeetkadash sh’mey rabbah— May His great Name grow exalted and sanctified.”

The guttural sounds had continued, words entreating God to bless his mother, with Starsky picking up much of the meaning, and his brother clearly not.

There was a library list of differences between the men, and how their father’s death had affected each boy was chief among them. Starsky had been ten and already in shul to prepare for his Bar Mitzvah when it happened. Nick had been two and hadn’t even understood the English of Joseph’s funeral, never mind the Hebrew.

The Kaddish was ending. “He Who makes peace in His heights, may He make peace, upon us and upon all Israel. Amen. ”

Thankfully the rabbi, who hadn’t known them from Adam, took the time to speak to both sons as Rachel’s service concluded. Nick had already stuffed his yarmulke into his pocket and was looking at his watch. Starsky hadn’t been in quite so much of a hurry.

He wasn’t an observant Jew by any measure, but he was a Jew, and in the back of his mind he harbored the idea, the hope, the semi-belief that he’d see his mother and father again someday.

What he hoped for with far more desperation was the ability to spend eternity with Hutch when that time came.

After the service, they’d ended up using the limousine one last time in order to get to Nick’s apartment. Wealthy as he was, it seemed he could easily afford his home on Las Olas Boulevard—one of the ritziest sections of Fort Lauderdale—and a modest apartment in Midtown, near Columbus Circle.

When Rachel was still alive and living down in the Bensonhurst section of Brooklyn, in the same apartment she’d lived in since 1940, Starsky and Hutch had never had occasion to spend much time with Nick during their annual visits to New York. Actually, they’d never spent any time with Nick, so Starsky had never set foot in his apartment.

After they were dropped off and Nick ensured his credit card receipt was correct, they rode up the elevator to Nick’s floor. Starsky was clutching his overnight bag.

It’s only eight o ‘clock. Bet I could get a flight out tonight. I could grab the subway over to Howard Beach, and… Even as half of Starsky’s mind was thinking about it, the rational part was telling him it was a stupid idea. It’s just overnight. In twelve hours, we’ll be heading back to JFK. Get it together, Starsky.

Dismissing Florida and Hutch from his mind for a moment, he slipped into cop mode as he walked into the apartment.

He noticed several things right away. First of all was the artwork. Apparently, Nick had never lost his love of the Beatles. There were framed album covers on the black-trimmed and cream-colored walls, a couple of photos that from Starsky’s vantage point looked to be autographed, and what Nick clearly felt was the pièce de résistance—a huge poster of the four men, long before fame’s burden had begun to tear them apart, displayed prominently over the bar.

The bar and its collection of bottles, however, was what brought Starsky up short. “Oh,” he uttered lamely. He felt, all at once and all over again, that sinking feeling in his gut.

“Great, isn’t it?” Nick said, looking up at the poster. “I got it down in the Village. Look how it’s got the same artwork as Yellow Submarine. It’s really cool. It set me back a few hundred, but it was worth it!”

“No—”

“Admit it; the whole place is great, isn’t it?” Nick crowed, looking over at Starsky and clearly and totally misconstruing his brother’s subdued reactions. “I’ve made it, big brother—Upper West Side, no less.”

“This is just Midtown, Nicky,” Starsky snapped. “Not the Upper West.” Starsky was right, but his heart wasn’t in it. Nick really had completely misunderstood him. It wasn’t the Beatles’ poster that Starsky was looking at, or the apartment in general. It was the bottle on the bar. “Chivas,” Starsky pronounced, his voice empty.

Nick followed his gaze to the bottle, one of many, on the bar. He was obviously puzzled and far more interested in either his poster or the apartment than the wet bar. “Yeah, of course. It’s the best scotch—”

“Yeah, I know.”

“What’s the deal, Dave?” Nick seized upon what Starsky knew to be the odd note in his voice.

Starsky walked over to the bar, his eyes never leaving the bottle, and ran his hand over the thick glass containing the amber liquid. “Nothing.”

Just then, Starsky missed Hutch with a physical pain that wrapped itself around his heart. And squeezed.

The Chivas was an unwelcome sight. The reason was simple: he and Hutch had an unopened bottle of Chivas Regal at home. He’d bought it after the accident, when Hutch had been in rehab and was feeling especially low about his chances of ever getting better.

Starsky had totally empathized with that feeling. In the summer of 1979, he’d felt exactly the same way. And it had been Hutch—Hutch’s belief in him and his ability to recover—that had pulled him through. It hadn’t been the therapist, not Dobey, not his mother, not Huggy, not the doctors, not God, not anybody—it had been Hutch.

Starsky had tried his level best, twenty-two years later, to return his partner’s favor. That day after Hutch’s breakdown in physical therapy, Starsky had walked into Hutch’s hospital room with his best smile firmly on his face, pulling the bottle out of its dark blue velvet bag as he spoke.

“This is for you, babe,” he’d announced, saluting his partner with the small heavy bottle. We’ll have a drink when you walk again.”

Hutch had looked up and, after a moment, smiled. Starsky had noted, uneasily, that it was his best smile, too. “Okay,” Hutch had acknowledged. “Sounds good.”

When you walk again.

After a few more fruitless weeks of PT, it had become abundantly clear to everyone that the doctors hadn’t been kidding—one of the many things Hutch was never going to do again was walk. The bottle that had sat so proudly on the kitchen table at their home was quietly put away and never mentioned again. It was still unopened. Starsky knew exactly where it was in the cupboard and invariably avoided going into that particular section of the kitchen cabinets.

At this moment, standing in his brother’s garish bachelor-pad Manhattan apartment at 8:00 p.m. on a cold February night, Starsky was sure of only one thing. He simply had to talk to his partner. Now.

“I’m going to bed,” he told his brother. “Keep it down.”

“At eight o’clock?” Nick laughed, already flipping through the TV stations as he flopped down on the black leather couch. “Yes, sir,” he appended, waving him toward the guest room. “You keep it quiet, too.”

Starsky escaped into the guest room immediately, reaching one more time for his cell phone as he shut the bedroom door behind him.

“If you don’t answer this time,” Starsky vowed aloud as he punched the speed-dial whose one digit would ring his partner’s cell phone, “I’m calling out the National Guard.”

“Hello?”

Thank. God.

“Hutch!”

“Starsky.” Hutch’s response was quieter, but the pleasure in his voice was plain to hear.

“Where’ve you been all day?” Starsky was aware he was whining a little. “I’ve been trying to get you forever.”

“Oh, I didn’t have the phone on, and then I went down to the beach, didn’t take the phone. I’m sorry.” Hutch sounded regretful.

“No problem,” Starsky responded, kicking off his shoes and dropping down on the heavy velvet bedspread. He really couldn’t care less anymore about the missed phone calls. All that mattered now was talking to Hutch.

“How’s it going?”

“Yuck,” Starsky returned flatly.

As he was talking to his lover, he was looking around the bedroom for the first time. The guest room was expensively over-decorated and verged on tasteless: dark red velvet-trimmed wallpaper and elaborate sculptures of naked men and women on the dresser. There were expensive-looking paintings on the walls, abstract art that Starsky instantly hated.

He averted his eyes. Still trying to prove what a big man you are, aren’t you, Nick? he thought.

“Yuck?”

“Yeah, Nicky’s driving me out of my mind. I really can’t believe we’re related.”

Hutch’s laugh was sibilant and Starsky reveled in the sound.

“Tell me about it! That’s how I feel each and every time I think about each and everyone of my relatives.”

Starsky had to agree. Hutch’s parents and sister had little in common with him except their fair coloring. “That’s true.”

After a pause, Hutch zeroed in on the heart of the conversation. “But how did it go at the cemetery? Someone said Kaddish, right?”

“Yeah.” Starsky smiled inwardly. Of course, his Christian lover would remember the name of the Jewish prayer. He sucked in a deep breath. “Overall, it wasn’t bad. I’m glad I came up here. I’m glad she’s where she belongs. It was important.”

“Yes, it was. I’m glad you’re okay.”

“I’m not okay,” Starsky answered glumly. “Won’t be until I’m back with you.”

“Just a few more hours.”

“A few nighttime hours,” Starsky countered. “You know we belong together at night. And during the day, too. We figured that out a long time ago.”

“I know.”

There wasn’t much else to say about that. “You doin’ okay there alone?”

“Yes. No problems.” Hutch’s voice sounded flat.

“I can’t believe you got to the beach! I’m impressed.” Starsky was pleased Hutch had been able to get down to the ocean, knowing how much he loved the water.

“Don’t be. I never made it off the sidewalk. But at least I was down there.”

“You couldn’t get off the concrete? Down by the water?”

“Nope. No way for my chariot to handle the sand.”

Starsky sighed. That condo was certainly not friendly to the disabled. “You’d think a place like that would be more accommodating for people in chairs.”

“You’d think,” Hutch agreed.

“Well, I’ll be there tomorrow,” Starsky reminded him unnecessarily. “Maybe we can get you out on the beach itself.”

“No big deal,” Hutch replied quickly, yet sounding to Starsky a bit bitter. “What was it your mom said all the time? This should be the worst thing that happens to me?”

Starsky had to smile. “Yeah. She was full of those sayings.”

“Wise woman.”

“Yeah, she was.”

Now Starsky could hear the bitterness slide into sadness in Hutch’s voice. Nick was right. Their mother had never liked Hutch that much, but Starsky knew that Hutch would mourn for her, in his own way, if for no other reason than Starsky was mourning.

Not for the first time did he wish his father had lived. Pop would’ve liked Hutch a lot, Starsky told himself for what had to be the thousandth time. He wouldn’t have been so hung up on me not having kids. He would’ve liked Hutch for who he is, what he does, the kind of man he is. Great cop, honest lawyer. A good man, no matter how you look at it. He wouldn’t’ve cared so much about us being gay. I know he wouldn’t’ve.

Starsky was aware that a silence had developed while he’d been daydreaming about his dad. He spoke up. “Well, I guess I’ll turn in now.”

“Me, too. I’m exhausted. Don’t have my personal attendant here.”

“Your personal attendant wishes he were there.”

“Me, too.” Lightly now, “I’ll have to make it worth your while to come back down here.”

“You don’t need to,” Starsky told him, dropping the banter. “And don’t start. You know how I feel about leaving things up to my left hand.”

Hutch’s chuckle was soft. “Sorry, babe. Tomorrow.”

“Tomorrow.”

There was a brief silence, and Hutch started to conclude the call. “Hang in there, okay. The worst is over with Nick, and you’ll be back here tomorrow, and we’ll be back in LA the day after that. Hang in there.”

“I will. You, too.”

“I love you,” Hutch said plainly. “Never forget that.”

“I love you, too,” Starsky answered at once. “You know, when the rabbi was talking to us today—”

“After the service, you mean?”

“Yeah. He was okay, especially since he didn’t know us. He really tried to make it mean something.”

“That’s good.” Hutch’s tone was sincere.

“Yeah, and he was talking about how the good qualities of those we love who die can live on in us, and that way the person is never really gone. They live on in us.”

“Beautiful. I like that.”

“Me, too. Nicky was bored silly, of course, but me and the rabbi, we talked for about five minutes, and it helped. I was feeling pretty crappy between this and Nick and everything.”

“Good.”

“But you know, Hutch, that ‘good qualities living on’ idea? It happened to me, but not because of Ma, or my dad. It’s because of you. You brought all the good out in me. Before I met you—”

Hutch was firm. “Before you met me, you were already a great guy.”

“No, I wasn’t.” Starsky was accurate and unreservedly honest. “I got into a lotta trouble, and I did a lotta things I’m sure not proud of now. You know that. You helped me. I guess you found what little good I had and helped it come out.”

“Starsk—”

“I mean it, Hutch. You’re everything to me.”

Hutch was quiet for a moment, and Starsky sensed he was searching for the right words for what he wanted to say. “It’s more; we’re everything to each other.”

“Yes!”

“Yes.”

Starsky was enthusiastic now. “I can’t wait ’til tomorrow.”

“Tomorrow. Sounds good to me, too.”

“Okay,” Starsky said, striving to end the call on a lighter note. “I really am gonna let you go now .Sleep tight.”

“You, too. Take it easy, Starsk. Love you.”

“Yeah. You, too. Me, too.”

With a click, Starsky closed the phone. I wish Hutch were here with me.

He looked around at the room’s décor again. Actually, I wish I weren’t here at all.

With a sigh, he dug through his bag for the toiletries’ kit and headed into the adjacent bathroom to wash up for the evening. Thank goodness he didn’t need to deal with Nick any more tonight.

I’ve had it with him. Just help me keep it together until we get back down to Florida.

***

With an annoyed snort, Nick punched the remote to jack up the volume on the TV. “For all I pay for this dump, you’d think they’d have walls not made out of cardboard.”

While he couldn’t make out exactly what his brother was saying, he could hear his low murmur as he talked on the phone, and one thing Nick never wanted to overhear was his brother talking to Hutch. The two of them together was simply too much for him to stomach, especially High Horse Hutch who seemed to get off on running other people’s lives.

“What a putz… Ma was so right about him,” Nick muttered to himself. “Can’t wait ’til I tell her—”

With a lurch down in his belly and a tightness that instantly grabbed his heart, Nick remembered anew that his mother was gone.

It was so odd. His head was perfectly cognizant of the fact that his mother was dead, and yet at any given moment, it was as if the rest of his body didn’t know it—like his stomach or his heart. Rachel had been part of his life for so long, and had been loyally in his corner for so long, he couldn’t seem to absorb the fact that she wasn’t there any longer.

He glanced at the TV screen as he stood up, hoping for something amusing and mindless to distract him. But the channel seemed to be showing some sort of reality show, and he turned the sound back down. He couldn’t hear anything from the guest room now.

“I should see if anyone’s around,” Nick told himself as he fixed a brandy nightcap. “Too early for this boy to be turning in.”

The thing was, though, he was exhausted. Even as he was thinking of calling his ex-girlfriend, he was registering that he was utterly weary to the bone.

Maria was problematic, anyway. She’d told him a few months ago to leave her alone—on a permanent basis. The fight had been long and loud, and Nick could recall it vividly.

“Ma always liked Maria, though, and she liked Ma. I wish—”

Nick sank back down on the couch. The one thing he wished for, he wasn’t going to get.

“Oh, Ma. I miss you.”

He muted the TV, although its sound had already been quite low, and reached up to douse the lamp. As he let the room settle into darkness, he noticed light seeping from under the guest room door.

As Nick sipped his drink and worked on drowning his pain, one distinct fact kept surfacing through the haze: other than himself, his brother was the last person alive in his family.

***

Even asleep, Hutch was annoyed with himself. He knew what was coming, knew he wasn’t emotionally up to handling it, and still was too stupid, too far asleep, to wake himself up. He was heading for “the dream,” and he sure as heck wasn’t in the mood for that, not with Starsky gone, and not when they were both so far from home.

Well, none of that mattered. Here it came.

Starsky was bent over, his hands on his knees, sweat streaming off his forehead. The long tube socks he wore had two red stripes around the top, and his running shorts were dark blue. Trim and fit, he looked decades younger than now, his curly hair long and solid brunet in color.

Hutch clapped him on the back. “Hang in there, old man. “

Starsky turned his head to look up at his partner. “Hey. Not all of us are fuckin ‘ gazelles, you know.”

“You ‘re doing fine… Gordo.”

“Easy for you to say. How long you been here, a month?”

Hutch had to laugh at that. He’d reached the fountain only a few moments before his partner. “No, babe. But you gotta face facts. Your legs just can’t keep up with mine. I don’t care how fast you set your pace—which was too fast today, by the way.”

“Yeah,” Starsky agreed, finally standing up but holding his side. “Those long legs of yours. They can run forever.”

“So, you admit I’m the better runner?

Starsky looked appraisingly at his partner. “In the long-distance runs, yeah. But I can beat ya hands down in short runs.”

“Oh. you can, can you?” Hutch replied. “Care to make a wager on that?”

“Sure,” Starsky said. “You wash the Torino for a month when you lose.”

“And we’ll use my car for a month when I win!”

“That’s low,” Starsky protested.

“You can’t do the time, don’t do the crime,” Hutch teased.

“Okay,” Starsky agreed resolutely. “You ‘re on!” Without another word, Starsky took off, running as fast as he could.

“Oh, boy,” Hutch sang out. “You’re gonna get it now!” He sprinted off, hitting his top speed as well, easily catching up to Starsky almost at once.

He could hear Starsky cursing at him, good-naturedly, as Hutch overtook him, heading for the slides and swing sets on the west side of the park. Starsky was right behind him, but Hutch ran on, easily, effortlessly. He was definitely going to win this foot race. Again.

“We ‘re going to have to pick bigger stakes, Starsk, ” he called back. “You ‘re making this too easy. You ‘ll never beat me!”

In his dream, as usually happened, Hutch ran on, ran like a man possessed. He ran as if his life depended on it, reveling in the perfect feel of his runner’s stride, the regular, even breathing of the athlete he was, the steady, opposing pump of his arms. Tonight, like every night, he was the star. He won all the races.

***

“Now, I really am bored,” Hutch announced to Regis. The talkative morning host, gesturing away in a TV studio at the other end of the Atlantic seaboard didn’t hear him, of course, and never stopped talking.

“I can’t believe I’m watching morning TV,” Hutch chastised himself. “It’s pathetic.”

It was only three hours until Starsky’s plane was scheduled to land, though, and all Hutch felt like doing was waiting for his lover to come back to him. The unread ABA journal he’d brought still didn’t interest him at all.

Turning off the remote, Hutch tossed it on the couch and wheeled himself into the kitchen. He stared at the refrigerator door.

“Why don’t you eat some more, Hutchinson?” he asked himself sarcastically. “That’s just what you need.”

Confined as he was to a wheelchair, Hutch had to be doubly careful about his weight. Plus, he couldn’t easily cook anything here—the stove was slightly too high for comfort, and the microwave was above that and therefore impractical for Hutch to reach.

He settled for a glass of water, then restlessly headed over to the patio door and pulled it open. He pulled in a deep breath of ocean air and exhaled slowly, making a point to use his yoga breathing. “I could get used to living this close to the ocean.”

Not this ocean, though. He’d take the Pacific any day of the week. His home was in California. More importantly, that home was perfectly set up for an active, energetic sixty-year-old man who just happened to get around now on two wheels. “If I were home,” he announced aloud. “I could at least get out of the house.”

Hutch stared out at the ocean, getting angrier by the moment. So much for the yoga breathing.

“I’ve got to get out of here,” he exclaimed, rolling back slightly and slamming the glass door closed. Without a backwards glance, he headed for the front door. He could wait for Starsky in the lobby and at least be around people.

***

“David?”

Starsky opened his eyes and looked over, annoyed. I slept not worth shit last night; why can’t ya leave me alone?

“Sorry.”

He suppressed a sigh, fighting the urge to look at his watch. “It’s okay. What’s up?”

Starsky and his brother were on a plane again—first class again—traveling the Eastern seaboard again.

They were on their way back to South Florida, and Starsky was truly exhausted. He hadn’t slept much the night before, and the car service had called very early for the trip to JFK. A side-trip drive down to Brooklyn to look at the apartment the two men had grown up in was instantly vetoed as too far out of the way, and now all Starsky wanted was his partner.

“Just wanted to thank you for coming up with me. I know you didn’t want to.”

Starsky’s eyes widened. Nicky, thanking me for something? Thanking me for something without having an ulterior motive?

Wait. There has to be an ulterior motive. After all, this is Nicky.

“It’s okay. No problem,” Starsky assured him warily.

“Yeah, but I know you didn’t want to come.”

“It’s done now. Forget it.”

“Yeah.”

A brief silence, but Starsky didn’t try to go back to sleep. Airplanes are too noisy to sleep on, anyway.

“How’s Hutch?” Apparently, Nick wasn’t done talking.

“I didn’t talk to him today,” Starsky answered immediately, feeling the customary stress he lived under abate when talking about his partner. “But last night he was okay. I didn’t want to wake him, as early as we left.”

“Good,” Nick said, his voice seemingly sincere. “That’s great. I was hopin’ he was gonna be okay.”

Who are you and what did you do with my brother?

“Yes.” Starsky was still cautious. “Well, he’s bored silly, I can tell that much. He even tried to go to the beach yesterday.”

“The beach?”

With a few words, Starsky outlined Hutch’s problems in actually getting to the beach. “Oh. Yeah, I can see where that would be a problem.”

“Yeah.” A longer silence now, and Starsky, thoughtful, adjusted the tiny pillow the flight attendant had given him, and closed his eyes again. He immediately stopped wondering about his brother’s unusual solicitude; his mind was simply too tired to puzzle over it.

It was three—four, tops—hours until he was back with Hutch.

***

Nick watched his brother drift back to sleep. His mind was awhirl. It hadn’t really hit him when his mother had died, or during the memorial service. Not even at the grave. But it had started last evening and really hit hard last night about 3:00 a.m. Normally a sound sleeper, he’d awakened for some reason and lain quietly in the dark.

Nick hadn’t been able to get back to sleep for over an hour. The same refrain from earlier that evening had run through his mind: Davey’s all I have left!

His parents were both dead now, fifty years apart, yes, but both dead. He was alone. He had no other siblings, no living grandparents or aunts or uncles… no wife. No kids. He was the last, well, second-to-last, living Starsky that he knew about.

Davey’s the last member of my family. The very last.

He didn’t really know what to make of that. But he did what he always did when faced with something. He reached to make the situation turn to his advantage.

I have to get on his good side. Make him want to be around me. I can’t afford to lose him.

If he did lose him, he’d really be alone.

***

“Hutch.” Starsky said the name in a normal tone of voice, still several feet from the waiting figure, but Nick instantly noticed that Hutch had heard him.

“Starsk.”

In no time at all, Starsky had covered the distance across the lobby from the door to where the seated man was waiting. Hutch reached up his hand, and Starsky grasped it firmly. “How you doing?”

“Fine, now,” Hutch offered, his smile lighting up his face. They didn’t let go right away.

Well, getting on Dave’s good side means getting on Hutch’s good side, as well. Nick frowned inwardly. He’d never liked Hutch much. Never had seen what his brother thought was so great about him.

One of his old girlfriends—come to think of it, it was Maria—had claimed he was jealous of Hutch, but Nick knew that was ridiculous. Hutch was just a typical California boy-toy, aging now and losing his hair. Nothing there to be jealous of.

And if it hadn’t been for Hutch, he knew Dave would have never become gay. Hutch corrupted him. He knew that for a fact, and his mother had agreed with him.

No, he didn’t like Hutch at all. “Yeah, hiya, Hutch,” Nick offered awkwardly. “We’re back.”

Hutch turned his smile up to the other man. “I see that.”

Nick was supremely uncomfortable. “Yeah.” But he wanted to build onto the tenuous peace he and Davey had achieved on the plane.

“How about we get some lunch?” he blurted out.

Twin eyes of blue turned to him—one, the darker blue he remembered from his childhood; the other, a paler, washed-out blue that seemed almost alien to Nick.

His brother started stammering. “Uh, wow, that would be great, Nick, but I… I… I need to unpack and all and…”

Starsky’s voice trailed off as Hutch glanced down at his hands, looking rather self-satisfied. All of a sudden it dawned on Nick.

Shit, they want… they want to have sex! They want me to get lost! Just looking at Hutch’s small smile was roiling his stomach.

“Maybe an early dinner?” Starsky was suggesting. “I’m sure, bein’ gone two days, you have things you have to do, too, right?”

Nick stuffed down his reaction and the faint nausea he had. I’ll never understand this, he thought. Gay sex so wasn’t his bag.

He looked again at his brother and his brother’s lover. They were no longer touching, but Starsky was standing very close to Hutch, and the sense of peace and love that surrounded them suddenly made Nick miss something. He wasn’t sure what it was he was missing, but just then, he felt the loss.

“Okay.” Nick consented, forcing a smile on his face. “You guys get situated, unpack, take it easy, and I’ll be back around four. That way we can get to the Cheesecake Factory before it gets crazy.”

“Sounds good.” Starsky was relieved. “Let’s get going, Hutch, and—”

“We’ll see you this afternoon,” Hutch told Nick candidly. “Looking forward to it.”

Not like they were looking forward to each other, Nick knew, gritting his teeth. With a nod at both men, he moved toward the lobby’s glass doors and the Florida sunshine already blazingly bright at 10:30 in the morning. He paused at the entrance, looking back at the elevators. Standing at the handles of the wheelchair, Starsky had his head down, to better hear what Hutch was saying back over his shoulder. It was obvious they were completely in their own world. Even from this distance, it was clear to Nick that his brother was more relaxed and content than he’d been on the entire trip north.

Nick pressed his lips together. The hell with them, especially Hutch. He had things he needed to do, too. One of his routes in Dania Beach wasn’t going well. He needed to check on that, and then press the flesh at Hernando’s and see when that shipment is coming in… He’d let things go since his mother had died.

Yes, he had things to do! The hell with Davey and Hutch.

***

“You need some help there?” Starsky asked, but he didn’t move from his side of the bed. He was still dressed in his dark blue jeans and white button-down shirt, but he’d dumped the shoes and socks. He was reclining on the pillows, watching his lover.

Hutch grimly shook his head. “I’m not completely helpless, you know.” Starsky watched Hutch transfer himself from the wheelchair to the bed with a giant effort. The bed was too high for Hutch to do it comfortably, as he could at home. At home, they’d made the mattress level with the chair.

Never said you were helpless, Starsky thought, but didn’t say it. “You’re ready to go home, aren’t ya?”

Hutch looked over sharply then smiled, a smile that had not dimmed over the years. “Not as ready as I am for you.”

Starsky smiled back, feeling his body and his soul opening up to Hutch. What a great, familiar feeling it was. “Let me see what I can do about that. You wanna help me off—”

“Get off?”

Starsky laughed. “No… off with my shirt!”

“Yeah.” Hutch’s voice was soft. “I do.”

Starsky twisted around on the bed, kneeling next to Hutch. He leaned down just enough that Hutch’s long arms could reach his buttons. As Hutch started undressing him, Starsky was working on pulling Hutch’s shirt from his waistband. “Be gentle with me.”

“Never,” Hutch teased back. “I’ve missed you too much.”

Starsky’s shirt was hanging open now. “Me, too.”

“The next time you need to travel to New York, Starsk, I’m going with you,” Hutch vowed.

Starsky winced inwardly. It hadn’t been quite what he wanted to hear, and he felt his facial expression twist slightly.

Hutch took a deep breath, his eyes intent on Starsky. “It’s time, Starsk. Let it go.”

That quickly, Starsky moved from being ready to make love with his partner, to missing his mother with a pain that was almost physical and had to be expressed. He felt like someone was kicking him in the gut.

“Lie down,” Hutch directed. He helped Starsky lie down, loosening his belt and waistband button and zipper as Starsky stretched out.

“Hutch,” Starsky attempted, a lone tear streaking down the side of his face.

“Hush, babe,” Hutch urged him. “Let it out now; it’s eating you up.”

“Hutch,” Starsky said again. “I—”

Hutch easily pulled Starsky into his arms and kissed his cheek gently as the other man wept. He wasn’t crying, not exactly, but he was putting out a fair amount of water. Hutch worked on kissing and loving away the tears, while all the while allowing Starsky to grieve for his mom and all that losing her meant.

“Sorry,” Starsky managed, trying to pull himself out of Hutch’s arms.

“Stay put.”

“I know you wanted to—”

“There’s time for that, Starsk,” Hutch assured him gently. “We have plenty of time. Just relax for now.”

“I’m sorry,” Starsky told him quietly, settling into Hutch’s embrace. “I knew she wasn’t going to live forever, but—”

“It hurts, I know. You’re gonna be okay. I have you.” Hutch concentrated on shifting his position as best he could to let Starsky doze in his arms. Starsky was clearly exhausted, his eyes downcast and rimmed with dark shadows of fatigue.

“You’re going to be okay, Starsk,” Hutch murmured. “First thing you need is some sleep.”

***

Nick Starsky had lived in South Florida for almost five years. He knew the area extremely well. He knew that most restaurants were more than accommodating for wheelchair-bound patrons, but that The Cheesecake Factory at Town Center, the mall in Boca Raton, was especially easy to navigate, with a long, gentle ramp up to the front door, and sloping tile floors inside that made it very easy to maneuver a wheelchair.

“This is great,” Starsky was saying enthusiastically, looking as they passed the display case full of cheesecakes conveniently situated right by the maître d’s station.

“Let me guess,” Hutch commented. “You’re skipping dinner and going straight to dessert.”

“Nothing wrong with that!”

Nick nodded at the young girl who’d shown them to their table, pausing a moment to wait for his brother to get Hutch pushed up at the table before sitting down himself.

“If you do go straight to the cheesecake, Davey, you’ll be in good company.”

Starsky looked quizzical.

“That’s what I usually do.”

“Oh, no,” Hutch moaned, theatrically. “I’m surrounded. Now I know why you picked this place, Nick.”

“You bet,” Nick responded, forcing a smile on his face, forcing himself to look Hutch in the eye.

Starsky already had his menu open.

“The desserts are on the back page,” Nick pointed out.

“Have a salad at least,” Hutch was telling his partner. “Between the coffee and the sugar, you’ll be bouncing off the walls tonight if you don’t get something else in your stomach.”

“Yes, dear,” Starsky replied absently. It was clearly an automatic response; the man was utterly absorbed in the listing of cheesecakes available. Nick had to smile at that, and this time it was genuine.

“Maybe you can find a strawberry one,” Hutch said, resigned.

“No,” Starsky responded. “You’re right. I’ll have a small salad, some bread maybe, and then dessert.”

Hutch looked over at Nick, a large smile gracing his face. “I do have hope for him. He’s growing up.”

“Yeah.” Nick was still smiling, despite himself.

The waiter walked up then, announcing his name and asking for their drink order.

Starsky had coffee, Hutch iced tea.

Nick had wanted a beer at least, but didn’t want to be the only one drinking. “A Coke would be great,” he requested.

“Hey,” Starsky interjected. “You ready? Let’s order now. I’m starved.”

“Okay,” the waiter said patiently. “What can I get you?”

All three men ordered, and Starsky got the salad he’d promised Hutch he’d eat.

The waiter collected their menus and disappeared. For a moment Nick panicked. He hardly knew how to talk to his brother without arguing, and he’d never had anything to talk to Hutch about.

He needn’t have worried. Hutch immediately began to speak.

“I want to thank you, Nick,” he was saying.

Thank me? “Uh, sure.”

“We appreciate all that you did to arrange things, ‘specially when it involved handling things down here and up in New York, too.”

It was very presumptuous, Nick thought, that Hutch was thanking him for arranging for his and Davey’s mother’s funeral. It should have come from Davey, not Hutch. But as Nick glanced over at his brother, he could see that Starsky was nodding.

That’s just like him, Nick thought disparagingly. Letting Hutch do all his talking. Guess he needs to save his mouth for other things.

But Nick was self-centered enough to relish the appreciation, enjoy being the man of the family instead of David, so he smiled and nodded. “It was nothing.”

Hutch shook his head. “No. It wasn’t nothing. It was a lot, and it was something we couldn’t have managed, being in California and with my disability.”

The casual mention of Hutch’s paraplegia thankfully gave Nick a chance to change the subject.

Initially he’d thought he handled his mother’s death amazingly well. He hadn’t been that upset when she had died, but as the hours and days marched on, he was having more and more trouble dealing with it. He still felt like all he had to do was dial her phone number and she would still be there, still willing to listen, to support him, to encourage him. He clamped down hard on that train of thought.

“How’d you do with us gone?” Nick asked, surprised to find he really cared about the answer.

“Just great.” But Hutch’s tone was too even, too calm.

“Hutch,” Starsky spoke up. “We’ll be home soon.”

Nick realized that Hutch was upset about something, and that something must have to do with his disability. He dove in, recklessly, with a suggestion. “You know if you want to travel more than you do, you could hire someone to assist you.”

That’s what he’d done a few years ago when he and his mother had traveled to Canada for a vacation. He’d hired a guy to handle the luggage, meals, and accommodations for his mother. It had made the trip very smooth. He’d had a great time, and Rachel’s need for the walker and non-challenging excursions had been easy to deal with, when someone else with dealing with them.

“Using what for money?” Starsky’s voice was bitter.

Nick was nonplussed. “I thought the accident—that it was the guy’s fault. The guy driving the car.”

Hutch nodded. “Yes. It was.”

“He was a nineteen-year-old kid with no insurance,” Starsky informed him.

“Oh.”

“Yeah.”

Hutch sounded nonchalant. Almost too nonchalant. “Actually, if I’d moved quicker—”

Nick was fascinated by how quickly Starsky lost his temper. It was instantaneous. Starsky exploded a breath. “You could’ve hit your head and not just your back, dummy. How many times do we have to go over this?”

Hutch nodded. “Yeah, I know. I just wish—”

“You wish you woulda been somewhere else.”

“A second later, and I would have—”

“A second later, and something else even worse could’ve happened.” Starsky spoke as if this were the final word on the subject.

A silence fell over the three men.

“Why don’t you sue the guy?” Nick asked. It would have been the first thing he would have done, insurance or no insurance.

“He’s dead!” Hutch’s voice sounded surprised. “After he got me, he went straight into the wall of the 7-Eleven. It was just by the grace of God that no one else was hurt.”

“You were hurt bad enough,” Starsky said grimly. “A T5 is nothing to laugh about.”

“T5?”

“It refers to the level of the fracture. The fifth thoracic vertebrae,” Hutch explained with the briefest possible commentary. “But I’m okay now.”

Nick was left with the feeling that Hutch was trying to smooth over the moment.

“You do great,” Nick jumped in. “Really great.”

“Even better at home,” Hutch told him, his eyes lighting up a bit. “It was hideously expensive—”

“We wiped out the money market account,” Starsky explained, but he didn’t seem particularly upset about it. “And most of what we had in the Schwab account, too. But it was so worth it.”

“Yeah,” Hutch was agreeing. “We have the house set up perfectly for me. I don’t need any help to get around.”

You sound pathetic, Nick thought uncharitably.

“It was worth every penny we spent,” Starsky added. “We can build our savings up again, if we need to. The important thing was for us to get Hutch where he could function again.”

Hutch nodded.

“Oh.” Nick was reduced to monosyllabic silence.

Mercifully, their dinners arrived just then. That was one thing about The Cheesecake Factory, at least this one. They liked to turn their tables over, and the best way to do that was to serve everyone quickly.

After dinner and Nick having snagged and paid the bill, he couldn’t stop thinking about Hutch. How limited he was now, and how well he and his brother had handled it. He wasn’t so self-absorbed, though, that he couldn’t see it still ate at both of them a little.

As the two Starskys walked out to the car, pushing Hutch in front of them, Nick had an idea. It would definitely help advance his cause to get on Dave’s good side.

He turned to the two other men, ensuring for a change that he looked down and met Hutch’s gaze as well as his brother’s. “You in a hurry to get home?”

Starsky glanced down at his partner, shaking his head. “No. Why?”

“Gonna take a little drive,” Nick proposed. “Down to Deerfield Beach.”

“Deerfield Beach?” The query was very nearly in unison and Nick grinned to himself.

“Yeah.” He reached for the passenger door. His Mazda convertible was low to the ground and nearly impossible for Hutch to get in and out of. He and his brother braced Hutch as he half-sat, half-fell into the passenger bucket seat.

“What’s a Deerfield Beach?”

Nick pulled the driver’s seat forward so Dave could squeeze into the small back seat.

“It’s just south of here, a nice beach that has more public access than these do around here. Bein’ here at the mall, we’re already halfway there.”

Nick, adjusting the rearview mirror again for the added weight in the car, saw his brother glance up to catch Hutch’s backwards look.

“Okay,” Starsky said uncertainly.

It was February but it was South Florida—perfect weather for rolling back the top of the convertible. They sped along, hair and everything else swirling around in the wind, and in a few minutes, Nick was jockeying for a parking space.

“Keep your eyes peeled,” Nick requested. “Gotta move fast here.”

But as he was saying that, he spotted a Lincoln Town Car with New York tags pulling out of the on-street parking. In a flash, the car was parked and he was pulling the wheelchair out of the trunk.

“You know, we’d fit in perfectly here,” Starsky was saying to him as he looked down the stone walkway. “We’re old, like everyone else here.”

Nick laughed. “Old? In your sixties? No way. You’re still in the prime of your life. You’re not old in South Florida until you hit eighty!”

Starsky laughed as well and then was there to help him. “This car is tiny,” he complained. “Thank goodness we brought Hutch’s smaller chair, or it would’ve never fit in here.”

Starsky was setting up the chair by then, ensuring that it was fully open.

“Well,” Nick stated. “If it hadn’t fit in here, I would’ve just rented a car.”

Next time I will, he thought. His car was really unsuitable for Hutch.

“Okay, babe,” Starsky was saying to his partner. Hutch had opened the passenger door and was, with difficulty, maneuvering around. He had both arms snaked under his thighs and was manually moving his useless legs. Even though he was wearing a short-sleeved shirt, the sleeves had been pushed up, and all at once Nick was struck with just how massively strong Hutch’s arms were. The forearms and biceps were corded with muscle.

Nick knew that Hutch, even crippled, would be a bad person to get on the wrong side of. In that moment, letting Starsky handle the transfer from the car to the wheelchair with no help from him, Nick remembered Hutch telling him:

Frankly, I don’t give a damn what happens to you, but I do care what happens to your brother!

He shook his head, not wanting to remember that time in his life and that awful trip to California. He’d been so young, so dumb, so ignorant in the ways of the Business. Having to be untied in that printing shop by his brother was the most humiliating thing he’d ever experienced.

Can’t believe that I didn’t see then where these two were heading.

Well, he’d never been accused by any of his girlfriends of being overly attuned to the nuances of human relationships. In fact, that had been a drawback several of them had cited. Especially Maria.

“Okay,” Starsky announced, his voice triumphant. He had his hand on Hutch’s shoulder. “We’re all set. Now, what are we doin’?”

Nick directed his attention back to the two men. “Okay! Follow me.”

He had planned well. The sidewalk hugging the beach was concrete and relatively smooth. The boardwalk of the pier was constructed with well-maintained regular lengths of wood. After paying the dollar-per-person fee, he was pushing Hutch out to the end of a long beautiful pier.

“My God,” Hutch was saying, and they weren’t even all the way to the end yet. “This is beautiful.”

Starsky was nodding, looking all around him. It was like being out in the water, without actually being out in the water.

Nick reflected on the fact that this pier was one of the most popular attractions in that corner of Broward County. It was living up to that reputation tonight. Popular meant lots of people—snowbirds and tourists ambling up and down the pier. Long-time residents like Nick had better sense than to come down here during the Season. But even in an area with many seniors, the wheelchair bound still had some respect accorded to them. Everyone was careful to give Nick a clear path to push the chair along.

“Almost there,” Nick announced, his voice determinedly cheerful. Maybe this will make up for his attempt to go to the beach.

“This makes up for the beach, don’t you think?” Starsky asked his partner.

“Yeah,” Hutch agreed, his voice low and sincere. “And then some.”

They were at the end of the pier now. Toward the east was a panorama of bluish-green waters that extended to the horizon.

Hutch looked up at Starsky.  “It’s almost like we’re in the middle of the ocean.”

“Yeah. It’s like bein’ on a sailboat, maybe, right?” Starsky’s voice was hopeful.

Hutch nodded, clearly trying to please. “Maybe a little.”

Starsky turned to his brother and mouthed the words: “Thank you.”

***

Hutch looked down at his hands and then turned his wrist slightly to look at his watch. It was 11:15, and their flight home to Los Angeles was at 10:45 the next morning. He cleared his throat. This was the second time he’d done so in the last few minutes. This time, he made the sound loud and pointed.

No effect. The two Starsky men talked on.

Hutch sighed. Hate to break this up, but….

The thing was, Starsky was having a great time. Hutch hadn’t seen him this relaxed in quite a while. Between Hutch’s disability and the stress of his job—never mind Rachel’s death—Starsky had been under a lot of pressure for a long time.

After arriving back at the condo, Starsky and Nick had been downing beer and talking up the memories. The night was slipping away. They were chattering on—a long, detailed walk down Memory Lane that Hutch had given up trying to follow about two hours ago. He knew a fair amount about Bensonhurst, the corner of Brooklyn where Starsky and his brother had grown up, but this was too much for him. He knew the Brooklyn of today, at least slightly. The Starskys were reliving the Brooklyn of the 1950s.

Hutch reflected on the fact that shared memories of a long-ago, vanished Italian-Jewish neighborhood seemed to be the only thing the two brothers had in common.

“Remember that Polack—?”

“Pole,” Starsky corrected instantly.

“We’re Polish,” Nick reminded him with exaggerated tipsy precision. “So I can say Polack. But that Polish guy, the one who was always sellin’ apples on Sundays that he said were from—”

“The best orchard this side of Heaven,” Starsky finished. “Yeah, I remember.”

“Whatever happened to him?” Nick wondered. “Just one day, he was gone.”

Starsky shook his head. “Maybe he took one too many trips to the orchard.”

Hutch winced at that comment. It was terrible. But the other two men were laughing boisterously.

“Yeah, I bet!”

Hutch cleared his throat a third time. “Guys,” he said. “Guys?”

“And then there was the Italian bakery. La DoL- La Dolce something. Remember? It was down by—”

“Oh, yeah,” Starsky spoke with feeling. “Wasn’t kosher, but it was great.”

“The cookies. The broken cookies you could get for free?”

“Those people were so nice,” Starsky opined. “If we went and there were no broken ones, the old lady, the one that always wore black? She’d give us a whole one.”

“Guys.” Hutch increased the volume of his voice. “Guys, it’s almost eleven-thirty.”

Nick looked annoyed but cleared his expression instantly. “So?”

“So, David and I have to get to bed. We’ll have to be up early for our flight home.”

In a split second, Hutch watched Nick’s face fall. In that one instant it hit him. He doesn’t want us to go! It only took the next heartbeat for Hutch to amend that thought. He doesn’t want Starsky to go.

“Can’t you guys catch a later flight?” Nick asked, plaintively. “You didn’t stay very long.”

Starsky arched his eyebrows. “Not unless we want to buy another set of tickets.”

“Oh, it won’t be that much. I’ll cover them. Why don’t you stay an extra day?”

Hutch carefully held his peace, watching Starsky process all this. “Well, we do have jobs…”

“Tell ’em you had to take care of some things here. Your mom died; they’ll understand.”

The Department probably would, Hutch knew, but not his law firm. The senior partners there had never bought into the relationship he and Starsky had, and, as far as the firm was concerned, there’d been no need for him to fly back east for a funeral for the mother of one of his friends. They’d never accepted the fact that Hutch was in a relationship with another man that went far beyond “just friends.” He couldn’t afford to push for another day off.

“Nah,” Starsky was saying. “We need to get back.”

“When do you get vacation? Maybe you could—”

“Nick.”

Nick stopped talking. “What?”

“You’ve never wanted to spend any extra time with me. Not since you turned sixteen, anyway. What’s the deal?”

“What deal?” Nick restlessly ran his hand back through his graying hair.

”Why’re you tryin’ to get us to stay?”

“There’s so much to do here, and I know you, I bet you never take a vacation. May as well take advantage of being here.”

“We take lots of vacations,” Starsky countered, setting down his beer can. “Hutch still likes to go camping, so we’re out in the wilds of LA County a lot. We get our time off.”

“This is not LA.”

“Nicky, you’re not answering my question. Why the push for us to stay?”

“We never see each other, that’s all.”

“We haven’t seen each other for years now, never heard you complaining.”

“Well, things are different now.”

“With Ma gone.”

“Yeah, of course, with Ma gone.”

Starsky paused and looked over at Hutch. Hutch didn’t respond. Somehow, he had a bad feeling about this. It was late and both the brothers had been drinking. Nick was an argumentative sort to begin with, and Starsky wasn’t known for keeping his opinions to himself.

“Guys?” Both men ignored him.

“Nicky—” Starsky started.

“Okay, okay. Listen, I know you have to get back. What about this spring? When do you plan to take some time off again?”

That was an easy question, Hutch knew, and Starsky answered honestly. “The end of next month. We always take a long weekend the end of March.” He finished with a smile. “Of course.”

“Always? What’s so special about then?” Nick seemed clueless.

Starsky got a rather sad look on his face, and Hutch couldn’t quite bite back his disappointment. Brilliant, Nick. You idiot.

“The same special thing you celebrate every November fourteenth.”

“Oh.” Nick’s face was crestfallen. “Your birthday. Yeah, I remember now. I wasn’t thinking.”

“Yeah.”

“Okay, what about your birthday? That’s a great idea. I’ll fly out then!”

“The last time you were in LA it didn’t go well, remember?”

“Oh, that wasn’t the last time.”

“It wasn’t?”

“No.” Nick clamped his mouth shut and Hutch watched him close down. Maybe he felt he’d said too much. In any case, he wasn’t going to say why he’d been in LA, that much was clear. And Hutch knew Starsky saw it, too.

And Starsky, being Starsky, picked up on it right away and spoke. “Yeah, well that’s the problem, Nicky.”

“What?”

“LA.”

“You can’t be pissed just because I’ve gone to LA a few times and not told you.”

“No, that’s not why I’m pissed,” Starsky started to explain, his tone annoyed.

“Then why—?”

“It’s the reason you go to LA,” Hutch stated quite firmly. He was one hundred percent behind Starsky on this. But then again, when wasn’t he one hundred percent behind his partner?

“What d’ya mean?”

“He means the drugs, Nick,” Starsky told him, his voice infinitely weary.

“Drugs?”

“Yeah, drugs,” Hutch snapped. How long are you going to play dumb?

Starsky picked up the comment. “The ones you sell to finance your playboy lifestyle? You know? Remember now?”

“I don’t sell anymore.”

“Sure, you don’t.” Starsky’s sarcasm was obvious.

“I don’t. Yeah, I got people working for me—”

“Nick, I know you live in your own little world, but did you happen to hear about 9/11? The terrorist attacks on New York and Washington?”

“Of course!” Nick sounded outraged.

”You know, bin Laden and his merry band of murderers? Al-Qaeda? The poppy fields in Afghanistan? The way they fund terrorism?”

“What’s your point?”

“My point is they fund all their evil with the drug trade, the profit they make. The illegal, impure drugs you so blithely sell to school kids.” Starsky’s voice wasn’t as sarcastic now. Hutch easily sensed the growing anger.

“Oh, that’s total BS. Prove it.”

“I’m a cop, Nick. Remember? I’m a captain in the Special Ops division. I hear about terrorism all the time—24/7. From Chief Bratton on down. Believe me when I tell you, the bad guys are using you. The money you’re funneling back up the supply chain is ending up in their pockets. Not to mention the oldie but goodie—organized crime.”

“Yeah, sure.”

“Well, it is.”

Nick pressed his lips together. “I’m not doing anything wrong. I’m just filling the needs of the free market. If my people weren’t selling it, someone else would be. I may as well benefit.” He waved his arm. “Capitalism at work!”

“That’s got to be the theme of your life.”

“Yeah, I agree,” Hutch added darkly.

Nick whirled on Hutch. “Why don’t you mind your own business? Just this once.”

“His business is my business,” Starsky stated instantly. He had jumped to his feet.

“I’m so tired of this!” Nick burst out. “You and him. I never get to see you, when he’s not hanging around, telling me what to do.”

Hutch modulated his tone of voice with difficulty. “Nick, you’re all grown up now. In your fifties. No one is telling you what to do. Least of all me.”

“It’s got nothing to do with Hutch,” Starsky argued, totally irritated. “It’s all got to do with you. The way you live your life is just never gonna mesh with the way we live our lives.”

“We! Our!”

“Okay, I, my, then! I’m not going to invite a drug—”

“The hell with you! The hell with both of you!”

“Nick—” Belatedly, Hutch tried to cool the discussion down.

“Just shut the fuck up,” Nick shouted. “I’ve had it with you, from the first time I met you!”

Hutch inclined his head in agreement. “That’s your right.”

Nick whirled toward his brother. “Davey, I’m askin’ you. Which one of us is more important to you? G’head. Tell me!”

“You know the answer to that,” Starsky replied firmly, sadly. “Don’t ask me to choose. It’s not the same, any way—”

“I want to know!”

“Can you stop shouting?”

Nick sucked in a deep breath. “David, I’m asking you. Tell me now. It’s not the drugs, I know that. It’s him.”

“I am telling you: it’s the drugs. It’s not him. I love you, Nicky; you’re my brother. Nothing will ever change that.”

Starsky’s voice became impassioned and he was stressing every word. “But Hutch is my partner. He’s everything. What we have is precious. You don’t have any idea how many times we came close to losing it, or how damn grateful we are to have it still.”

Quieter now, Starsky said, “I want to see you. I want to spend time with you, yeah, but I can’t forget: you’re a criminal. That’s the bottom line for you. And I’m a cop. That’s my bottom line. That’s the most important thing to me in the world, other than Hutch. My job, my oath, my responsibilities.”

Nick just stared at him. “That’s it?”

“That’s it for me. That’s it for him,” Starsky said, jerking a finger toward his lover. “I can’t thank you enough for handling everything here, with Ma. You did good. But I can’t support you coming to LA and hanging out with us. I know you. You’ll get something going there, and I can’t tolerate that. I can’t let anyone—even you—make the drug scene there any worse than it already is. And I know where that money’s going, and that’s damn sure something I can’t support.”

“You’re crazy,” Nick muttered, but there was no force left in his voice.

“I know you’re not real religious, Nick, but you and I are Jewish, and that’s one of the top goals of these terrorists—to get rid of all the Jews. They’re like supercharged Hitlers with better weapons, and they think God is on their side. I’m too old… I’m not going back into the Army to get shipped off over there, but I’m gonna do what I can to stop them here in the States, and the number one way I can do that is to stop the drugs.”

Starsky swallowed hard and moved over to stand next to Hutch. “Your whole life has been getting around the system. You moved from fencing to pushing to running a couple of counties here—”

Nick’s face altered visibly.

“Yeah, I know the make-up out here. I kept my eye on it, ever since you broke off from Danny and moved down here. Near as I can tell, you have Palm Beach, Broward, and a corner of Miami-Dade. Very impressive. You could’ve gone far, legit, if you’d ever wised up and realized that you can’t get something for nothing.”

“Davey… how? I…”

“I love you, Nicky. And Hutch does, too, if for no other reason than ’cause you’re my brother. You’re my family now, with everyone else gone. But you don’t live your life in a way I can tolerate.”

“Listen to me! How I make my living has nothing to do with me. Who I am.” Nick’s tone sounded desperate.

Starsky shook his head. “How you make your living has everything to do with you. With who you are.”

Silence descended on the three men. At last, Starsky spoke up again. “You said once that we were on opposite sides of the fence, that we’d never be able to see eye to eye. Something like that. I didn’t agree with you then, but I do now.”

“That’s it? Ma’s dead, you and Pretty Boy are going to head back to LA, and we—you and me—never see each other again?”

Starsky paused, looking down to meet Hutch’s eyes but addressing his brother. “What would you have me say, Nick?”

Nick walked over to stand directly in front of his brother. Hutch tensed, wanting to spring from the chair and damning his inability to do so, but all the fight was gone from Nick. “I love you, Davey. I always will.” Taking Starsky’s face in his hands, Nick kissed him on the cheek. “Take care.”

Without a glance at Hutch, Nick deliberately walked to the front door of the condo, opened it, walked through the doorway, and closed the door behind him—hard.

***

March 2004

The phone was ringing, a shrill sound Starsky had always found more than a little aggravating. Since the noise was what had woken him up, he was that much more annoyed.

Precisely because Starsky hated the phone, it was located on Hutch’s side of the bed, and Hutch snaked his hand over to grab the receiver. “Hello?”

Starsky blinked a couple of times, trying to come awake. He looked over Hutch’s shoulder to see their clock radio. It read 6:30 a.m.

Six-thirty! What the hell happened?

“What’s wrong?” he asked, flipping on his side to face Hutch.

Hutch was still on his back. He waved him off.

“Hutch?” Starsky tugged at his partner’s arm.

Hutch was listening closely to whoever was on the other end of the line. “Okay, thanks. Let me get him.”

“Who is it?”

Hutch mouthed the name.

“Nicky! What the hell—?” So much for sleeping in.

Hutch waved him to be quiet again.

“Yeah, we were, but that’s okay. We had to get up, anyway…don’t worry about it.”

Hutch listened for a moment longer. “Sure. Here he is.”

Expressionlessly, Hutch offered the phone to Starsky.

Feeling perverse for the moment, Starsky debated about whether or not to take it. If the truth were to be told, he was pretty surprised Nick was calling.

It’s my birthday, and he’s just calling to wish me a happy birthday. Certainly, he couldn’t forget the date after last month. Hutch was gesturing at him to take the phone.

Oh, what the hell. May as well talk to him. “Nick.”

His brother’s voice was high and nervous. “Davey. Happy birthday, bro.”

“Thanks.”

There was a long pause. Yep, Starsky thought sardonically. We still have so much to say to each other.

“Well, what’re you gonna do to celebrate?” Nick sounded out of breath.

Starsky shrugged. “Don’t know. We aren’t even outta bed yet. You never figured out the time difference, either, have ya? You think the whole world is on the East Coast. “What do you want?”

“Hey, can’t I call just to wish my only brother a happy birthday?”

Starsky’s voice was flat. “Sure, you can. You just never do. And we didn’t part on that good’a terms in Florida.”

“Well, I haven’t heard much from you on my birthday over the years. It’s okay, right?”

You care what I think? Probably not. Starsky had to swallow his irritation. “If you say so.”

“Yeah…” Nick’s voice trailed off and there was another long silence.

“If that’s it…”

“I want to tell you something, David.”

He probably needs something. What am I saying? Of course, he needs something. And Ma’s not around anymore to listen to him babble on. “Yeah? What?”

“I’ve made a decision. About things, the things you were talking about.”

Things? A decision about “things?” That’s nice and specific. Starsky was silent.

“And I’m quitting. Quitting the business. I got enough put away, if I juggle my investments and sell the place in the City… I should be fine.” Nick abruptly stopped talking, and there was an expectant pause.

Starsky was quiet a moment longer. The words were welcome but… This is Nicky. Gotta look for the scam.

“D’ya hear me?” Nick was querulous.

“Yeah, I heard you, Nicky.” Just not sure I believe you.

“Well, it’s the real deal. I’ll show you.”

Starsky pulled himself up in the bed; his side was starting to ache. “Well, good luck, then.”

“Good luck? That’s all you can say?”

“What d’ya want me to say?” Why do you have to do this to me today, of all days? Can’t you leave me alone on my birthday?

“I want…” Nick’s voice trailed off. “I want you to be proud of me! You don’t know how hard this is gonna be.”

Starsky shot back at him. “Going to be, I think, is the key. You haven’t done anything yet.” And when have you ever cared about whether I’m proud of you?

“You’ll see. I’ll show you!”

“Like all the times you’ve promised things in the past, Nicky?” I promise, Davey, I’ll change, I’ll take care of it, I’ll do what you said, I’ll be a better son. And nothing ever got done; nothing ever changed.

“Well, things are different now. I’m going to make a new start.”

Starsky softened his tone. “Just so I’ll be proud of you?”

“No. I just heard some of the things you said.”

Give him a chance, Starsky. “Well, give me a call when you’ve got it all taken care of.”

“I will! You’ll see.”

“Okay, Nicky. Okay. I’ll be here.”

“Yeah, well, I hope you have a nice day.”

Starsky nodded, even though he knew his brother couldn’t see him. “Thanks a lot. Bye, Nick.”

“Bye.”

With a sigh, Starsky handed the phone back to Hutch so he could hang it up.

“I guess you heard the spiel, too,” Hutch inquired. “The new and improved Nick Starsky?”

“Yes… it’s entertaining, listening to a leopard trying to change his spots.”

Hutch smiled a little, twisting back toward his partner. “Stranger things have happened.”

“Yeah, I guess so.” Starsky could feel his face pulling down into a frown.

“What’s wrong, babe?” Hutch asked, tenderly.

“Nothing. Just hearing from him always wrecks my day.”

“Then it’s good we don’t hear from him often.” Hutch was practical, reasonable in tone.

“Real good,” Starsky said. “Real good.”

“I wish things were different for you. Especially today.” Hutch straightened the covers slightly over himself. Starsky had already thrown the sheets off him.

“Yeah, I wish I could get a call from my own brother and not wonder what the game is.”

“It’s Nick, Starsk. That’s just the way he is.”

Starsky pulled his legs cross-legged on the bed, glad he had worn his pajamas to bed. Outside of the covers and away from Hutch’s body heat, the room was chilly. “How can two men—two boys—be born and raised by the same parents, grow up in the same bedroom, do all the same things, and yet end up so damn different?”

Hutch replied quickly, as if he’d been thinking about it for a while.

“It’s the ‘nature versus nurture’ argument, I guess. You see that enough at work. People that should have turned out rotten are the best people you could know, and kids that got all the breaks mugging old men for the change from their social security checks. In any case, you and he didn’t really grow up together.”

“I know. I wonder if things had been different…”

“But they weren’t. They were what they were, and he made the decisions he made, and you made the decisions you made.”

“Still, I wonder.”

“I don’t.” Hutch was decisive.

“I do. But not just about Nick. I wonder what I’d be like if I’d never met you.”

“Me?”

“Yeah, you. I wonder if I even woulda made it out of the Academy.”

“As good as you were at just about everything they threw at us? I never wondered if you were going to make it. I wondered about me, but not you.”

Starsky reached for Hutch’s hand, which was there even before Starsky realized it. “I was wild, though. You always reined me in.”

“Or tried to, anyway.” Hutch grinned.

“Well, you just being there. It made such a difference.”

“We weren’t all that close in the Academy, Starsk,” Hutch stated.

Starsky didn’t agree in the least. “Sure we were! The Three Corsicans and all that. And then John left…”

Hutch had to concede that, with a smile. “Yeah, you’re right. We were. But even so, it was nothing like later; when we were in Homicide, when we became partners.”

“I guess.” Starsky sounded doubtful. “But you know, I’m sixty-one today, and I’ve known you for, what, thirty-five years? I can hardly remember my life without you, and I sure can’t imagine my life now without you.”

“Me, too,” Hutch stated, simply. “We’ve been lucky.”

“We’ve been blessed,” Starsky corrected, remembering what the rabbi had said at his mother’s funeral. “I guess that makes it easy to forgive Nicky.”

“How’s that?”

“Well, he never had anyone like you. So I guess he didn’t stand a chance.”

“I doubt he’d consider me any kind of prize.” Hutch gestured at the wheelchair waiting by the side of the bed, without looking at it. “Especially now.”

“I consider you a prize,” Starsky countered, seriously. “Especially now.”

They were silent for a moment. “Didn’t I promise you pancakes this morning?” Hutch asked lightly. “Happy birthday, by the way.”

“You did at that,” Starsky confirmed. “And thanks.”

He leaned over and touched his forehead to Hutch’s. “I love you.” Smiling, he added, “And I’m ready to celebrate my birthday!”

Hutch looked a little uncertain at that statement.

Starsky was truly surprised. “Hey. What’s wrong?”

“Nothing.”

“Don’t ‘nothing’ me, kid. I know you too well. Really, really well, I might add.”

Hutch sighed and reached over to the nightstand drawer. As with the phone, it was situated where he could easily reach it. “Got something for you.”

“Of course you do. It’s my birthday.” Starsky smiled broadly.

Hutch nodded, but not smiling himself. “This is something different.”

“Different? Hutch, after several decades together with birthdays and holidays, what could be different?”

Hutch didn’t answer. He handed over the smallish package, which was neatly wrapped in a patterned green paper with a simple silver bow.

“Want me to open it?” Starsky was already working on getting the ribbon off.

“I guess so. Today’s the day, after all.”

“Wow!” Starsky exclaimed, his hands pausing in their task. “You sound like you really dropped the ball here, present-wise.” He was kidding, and so continued, “This must be another tree. Maybe an entire tree farm.”

“Nope, not this time.”

“Then why the long face?”

“You’ll see. Hopefully…”

What is with you, Blondie? Starsky thought affectionately as he returned his attention to his task. As he opened the package, he saw it. “Hutch!” he burst out. He was more startled than anything else, but there was a good dose of shock in there as well.

Hutch’s cheeks reddened. “Yeah, I know. These things were never our deal.”

”Well, no, but, you know, maybe…” I can’t believe this!

Hutch was relentlessly blunt. “What do you think?”

“I think I like it, if it’s for me. I mean, for me but for you to use.” That was fairly obvious, but Starsky articulated it nonetheless. His face felt warm.

“It is.”

Holding up the present, Starsky examined it: a fairly run-of-the-mill, average-looking, innocuous-in ­appearance-dildo.

“I want to be able to fuck you again. Like we used to, sometimes. Remember?”

“Oh, yeah.” Starsky nodded, his mind swirling back in time. He laughed a little, still slightly abashed at the memory. “Remember the first time you made love to me?” His expression was rueful.

Hutch nodded, hiding a smile that Starsky pretended not to see. “You were a little… what’s the word?”

“Terrified.”

Hutch shook his head, smiling openly now. “I was thinking more along the lines of skittish.”

“Skittish? Okay, skittish. So skittish you almost had to tie me to the bed to keep me still.”

Hutch laughed aloud. “I’m not sure we were ready for anything kinky, that early on.”

“I wasn’t thinking kinky that day, Hutch,” Starsky freely admitted. “I was thinking I’d never manage to handle you, in me.”

“And I was thinking there was nothing more I wanted than to be in you.”

The two men sat there quietly for a moment.

“Can’t wait to try it,” Starsky murmured, honestly, fighting back the butterflies of anticipation, perhaps even fear, he felt in his stomach.

“No time like the present,” Hutch offered. “But it’s up to you.”

“I know… I need a little time, Hutch. It’s been a while.” It’s been years!

“No hurry,” Hutch hastened to say. “No hurry a tall.”

“How about after the pancakes?”

Hutch nodded. “That’s perfect, if that’s what you want.”

Starsky nodded. “I do.” With one swift move, he ended the discussion. Agilely, he pulled himself out of their bed and shoved his feet into his slippers. “Hand me that thing,” he directed, gesturing at the narrow plastic bottle Hutch had used during the night to relieve himself.

“Thanks,” Hutch said, exactly as he did every morning when Starsky rinsed it out for him. “I’ll start on breakfast if you want to hit the shower first.”

Starsky was already on his way to the bathroom. He paused and looked back at his partner.

“Come here,” he said, reaching his arm around the bathroom doorjamb and resting the bottle on the sink.

Hutch obeyed at once, using his arms to push his legs off the side of the bed. They swung down uselessly, but using his arms again, Hutch immediately pivoted himself from the edge of the mattress into the chair.

Starsky waited as Hutch wheeled himself over to him.

“I love you, Hutch,” Starsky declared, very quietly, reaching down to take Hutch’s face into his hands. “Very, very much. Thanks for my present.” Our present.

Hutch turned his face up to kiss Starsky. “Happy birthday, David.”

Starsky knelt down in front of his partner so they were eye to eye. “Let’s shower together.” That was something they rarely did anymore. “Breakfast can wait.”

Hutch looked at him appraisingly, then reached back to fetch the dildo from their bed before rolling himself into the bathroom, right behind Starsky.

The End